Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 09 - Under Fire

"Still up, Pop, huh?" Pick asked.

"No, what you see is an illusion," Pickering said, getting out of an armchair and walking to the bar. He picked up a bottle of Famous Grouse. "Nightcap?"

"Why not? Just a little water, no ice," Pick said, and walked toward his father.

Pickering handed him a drink.

"Ida M. Tarbell turned you down, huh?" Pickering asked.

"What? Who?"

"Ida M. Tarbell, the first of the lady muckrakers," his fa-ther explained.

"Her name is Jeanette Priestly," Pick said. "And yes, since you asked, she turned me down."

"I can't imagine why," Pickering said.

"She said I was good-looking, charming, intelligent, dashing, and rich, and under those circumstances, she ob-viously could not take the risk of getting involved."

Pickering smiled.

"She really said that?"

"That's almost a direct quote."

"Well, I knew from the moment I saw her that she was an intelligent female," Pickering said. "Sometimes, as I suppose you know, that's a ploy. Telling someone who is good-looking, charming, et cetera, `no' may in fact be step one in a hastily organized plan to get you to the altar."

"I don't think so," Pick replied, seriously. "I don't think she wants someone in her life."

"But you are planning to see her again?"

"I don't know, Pop," Pick said, still seriously, his atti-tude telling his father that the Priestly girl, either intention-ally or not, had gotten more of his son's attention than most young women ever did.

"What are you going to do about the Killer?" Pick asked.

"I've been sitting here thinking about that."

"And?"

"There's really two problems," Pickering said. "Ken get-ting reduced to the ranks..."

"Sonofabitch, that makes me mad!"

"... and his report. Whatever the Killer is, he's not a fool. If he thinks the North Koreans are going to start a war, the odds are that they will."

"So?"

"I just sent Dick Fowler a radiogram, telling him I have to see him the minute I get to the States, and asking him to call the office and let Mrs. Florian know where he is."

Senator Richardson K. Fowler (R., Cal.) a somewhat portly, silver-haired, regal-looking 67-year-old, once de-scribed by Time magazine as "one of the three most power-ful members of the World's Most Exclusive Club," was one of Fleming Pickering's closest friends.

"I was sort of hoping you could get to MacArthur at din-ner," Pick said.

"So was I," his father replied. "But it... just wouldn't have worked. He would have backed Willoughby, and been pissed with me. Not that that would bother me, but it would certainly have made the Killer's situation worse."

"I had-just now, as I headed home, with my masculine ego dragging on the ground-what may be a disloyal thought."

"What?"

"Fuck the Marine Corps. If they don't recognize what they've got in the Killer, don't appreciate what he's done, and want to bust him down to sergeant, then fuck the Ma-rine Corps."

Pickering looked at his son for a moment before replying.

"I had a somewhat similar thought," Pickering said. "Ken doesn't need the Marine Corps to make a living."

"He doesn't want to live on Ernie's money," Pick said.

"Ken is a very capable fellow. He would do well at what-ever he put his mind to. And I think they've come to some sort of understanding about her money. The furniture in their house-did you notice?-didn't come from the Sal-vation Army."

"And what did the guy say? `Money may not be every-thing, but it's way ahead of whatever's in second place'?"

Pickering chuckled.

"Have you got a place for him in Trans-Global?"

"I thought about that, too. Yeah. Sure. There's half a dozen places where he really could do a job. The problem is that he would think it was charity." He paused. "God damn the Marine Corps!"

"It's not the Corps, Pick," Pickering said. "It's some chair-warmer in the Corps who has caved in to whoever here decided McCoy was a thorn under MacArthur's sad-dle blanket, and for the good of the Corps has to go." He paused. "If General Vandegrift was Commandant, I could-I would-go to him. But I don't even know who the present Commandant is."

"Cates," Pick furnished. "You didn't know?"

"Cliff Cates?" Pickering asked. Pick nodded. "I didn't know, but I do know him. He commanded the 1st Marines when we landed at Guadalcanal. And didn't make much of a secret he thought Vandegrift could have done a hell of a lot better in picking a replacement for the Division G-2 than your old man." He paused. "But he's a good Marine. A good officer. I think he'd see me-more important, listen to me. I'll ask Dick Fowler what he thinks."

Pick nodded.

"I didn't ask Ken when they're actually going home," Pickering thought aloud.

"The day after tomorrow, with us," Pick furnished.

Pickering looked at him in surprise.

"It sort of came up at dinner," Pick explained. "The Killer excused himself, and came back in a couple of min-utes and said his boss-some Navy captain-had given him permission to return to the States on commercial transportation, which means us. I guess the sonofabitch figures the sooner he gets the Killer out of Japan, the better for him."

"And when are we going home?"

"Day after tomorrow. Trans-Global Airways, as you should know, Mr. Chairman of the Board, operates a thrice-weekly luxury service flight schedule in both direc-tions between San Francisco and Tokyo."

"And is this thrice-weekly luxury service making us any money?"

"Yeah. A lot more money than we thought it would, at first."

"Don't say anything to Ken about this conversation," Pickering said.

"No. Of course not. I'm going out there tomorrow to help them pack."

"I'll go with you," Pickering said.

"What if he asks you what you're going to do?"

"He won't," Pickering said. "He trusts me to do what-ever I think is appropriate, even if it's nothing. He didn't come to me about his getting busted back to the ranks- that's not his style. But he thinks there's going to be a war, and that somebody should give the Corps a heads-up."

"Pop, do you think he's stupid enough to take the bust? To be Staff Sergeant-or Gunnery Sergeant-McCoy?"

"I don't think he thinks there's anything for a gunnery sergeant to be ashamed of."

"Either do I, but the Killer should be a colonel, not a fucking sergeant."

"If he gets out, it will be because he thinks Ernie would be uncomfortable as a gunnery sergeant's wife. Not that she wouldn't try to make it work..."

"God damn the Marine Corps!" Pick said, bitterly.

"Let's see what happens, Pick, after I talk with Dick Fowler."

Chapter Three

[ONE]

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY CHIEF FOR OFFICER RECORDS

OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-l

HEADQUARTERS, CAMP PENDLETON, CALIFORNIA

0705 7 JUNE 1950

Major Robert B. Macklin, USMC, parked his dark green 1949 Buick Roadmaster sedan in the parking place re-served for the Deputy Chief of Officer Records, walked around to the front of the frame building, and entered.

Major Macklin knew that people sometimes said, not unkindly, that he looked like an actor sent by Central Cast-ing to a Hollywood motion picture set in response to a re-quest for an extra to play a Marine officer. Major Macklin was not at all unhappy to have people think he looked like what a Marine Corps officer should look like.

He was a tall and well-built, thirty-five-year-old, not quite handsome, fine-featured man who wore his brown hair in a crew cut. There was a ring signifying his gradua-tion from the United States Naval Academy on his finger, and the breast of his well-tailored, short-sleeved, summer-undress tropical worsted shirt bore a rather impressive dis-play of ribbons attesting to his service.

They were topped with the Purple Heart medal, testify-ing that he had shed blood for his country and the Corps in combat. His Asiatic-Pacific service ribbon bore stars indi-cating that he had participated in every World War II cam-paign in the Pacific.