Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 08 - In Dangers Path

«Twenty, sir,» Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman said.

«How about seven shots anywhere in the torso from the Mausers, then?»

«That sounds reasonable,» Banning said. He turned to McCoy. «Captain, you are the range officer. I will relieve you after I have fired.»

«Aye, aye, sir,» McCoy said.

Banning proceeded to the wooden table, examined the pistols until he found the serial number of the one he had signed for, stuck it in his belt, and then charged a magazine from a box of cartridges. «Gunny, would you charge the magazines of the automatic weapons, please?» he said.

«Aye, aye, sir,» Zimmerman said, then went to the wooden table and started loading cartridges into a Thompson fifty-round drum.

Banning walked up to the piece of two-by-four marking the firing line, turned, and looked at McCoy.

«The flag is up,» McCoy ordered. «With one seven-round magazine, lock and load.»

Banning slipped the magazine into the pistol and worked the action.

«The flag is waving,» McCoy said. «Commence firing!»

Everybody but Captain McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman put their fingers in their ears. Colonel Albright looked closely at Zimmerman and saw that he had inserted fired 9mm cartridges in his ears as protection against the noise, then saw that McCoy had done the same thing.

Banning raised the pistol and began to fire. The shots were evenly spaced. When the magazine was empty, he raised the pistol's muzzle.

«Cease fire,» McCoy ordered. «Clear your piece and step back from the firing line.»

Banning turned and walked to the wooden table and laid his pistol on it. Then he followed Colonel Albright to the silhouette target. All seven shots were in John Dillinger's torso.

«I suppose this makes you an expert,» Colonel Albright said.

«Colonel, you ain't seen nothing yet,» Banning said, then turned and raised his voice. «Can I have some target patches, please?»

One of the soldiers trotted out with a roll of black paper adhesive-gummed patches, and covered the holes in Banning's target.

With Colonel Banning serving as range officer, Lieutenant Easterbrook and Master Gunner Rutterman fired next. First they fired their pistols, both of them scattering all seven shots across the torso area of the targets.

When the holes had been patched, they fired the Thompson submachine guns. Colonel Albright was relieved to see that Easterbrook was familiar enough with the weapon not to lose control of it. He emptied the fifty-round magazine in two-and three-shot bursts. But he was actually surprised when he walked forward to count and patch the holes: Easterbrook had put forty-six of his fifty shots into John Dillinger, including three high (into the head) and five low (two in the crotch andthree in the upper leg). master gunner rutterman managed to get only forty-two of his fifty shots into Dillinger, but all but three high and one low were in the torso.

I

will report that splendid marksmanship to General Adamson with more than a little pleasure

.

«Actually sir, when they fired, Lieutenant Easterbrook, the officer who looks so young? He actually shot a little better with the Thompson than Master Gunner Rutterman did'.'

Captain McCoy and Gunny Zimmerman fired last. Both put all seven shots from their pistols into John Dillinger's torso, and when the holes had been patched, went to the wooden table and attached the removable stocks to the Broomhandle Mausers, then loaded the pistols.

Colonel Albright heard Captain McCoy quietly issue an order, in Wu, to Gunny Zimmerman: «Shoot him in the head, Ernie.»

They stepped to the firing line, and Banning went through his range officer's routine. Zimmerman finished firing a second or two before McCoy did.

McCoy checked to see that his Mauser was no longer loaded, then handed the weapon to Zimmerman. Then he walked to the targets, followed by Banning and Albright.

«It would appear that Gunny Zimmerman shot a little high, Colonel,» Banning said. «Most of his rounds seem to have struck John Dillinger in the face.»

He then began to count the holes out loud. There were nineteen. A twentieth hole was a quarter of an inch away from John Dillinger's ear.

«I wonder why he missed?» Captain McCoy asked innocently. «Usually he's a pretty good shot.»

«You have made your point, Captain,» Colonel Albright said, smiling at him.

Banning walked to McCoy's target. The .45 in John Dillinger's hand was no longer visible. Nor was the hand itself. McCoy's twenty shots had obliterated them. There was just one hole in the target, no larger than two balled fists held together.

«Colonel,» Banning said, «in the Marine Corps, that's what we call 'a nice little group.' «

«I'm suitably impressed,» Albright confessed.

«And does that mean we have crossed all your

t's

and dotted all your i's?»

«Yes, I think we can say that,» Albright said.

«If you're going back into Washington, Colonel, I think Captain McCoy would like a ride into Union Station.»

«You're not going?» McCoy asked evenly.

«He's not going where?» Albright blurted. He had naturally presumed that no one would leave the Country Club until, per Paragraph 12(d)(2) of Opplan China Clipper, the two station wagons departed at 0515 hours on Wednesday to drive everybody and their luggage and equipment to Newark Airport.

«I've decided the best thing for me to do, Ken, is stick around here.»

«Where are you going, McCoy?»

«I've decided, Colonel, there being no reason that Captain McCoy has to be here, that he can have a pass until 0900 Wednesday morning, when he will report to base operations at Newark airport. He's going to be in New York City, and I know where to reach him, if necessary.»

There is no reason General Adamson has to know that

, Colonel Albright decided.

«You want me to call somebody for you?» McCoy asked, and Albright understood that the conversation was now not between colonel and captain but between close friends.

«I don't think that would be a good idea, Ken,» Banning said, confirming this. «I may call her from here, but I think everything that has to be said has been said.»

McCoy nodded.

Chapter Fourteen

note 52

U.S. Army Air Corps Staging Area

Newark Airport, New Jersey

0845 17 March 1943

«Just so we understand each other,» Miss Ernestine Sage said, as the silver 1939 LaSalle convertible splashed through the slush of a now mostly melted early-morning snowstorm, «You are

not

just going to get out of the car at the gate and wave goodbye to me. I'm going to see you take off.»

«I'm not sure I can get you inside, Ernie,» McCoy said.

«Wave your goddamned magic wand,» she said. «Either that, or I'll throw an hysterical fit at the gate.»

«I'll try,» he said.

They had spent the night at Rocky Fields Farm. Though he had gone there more than a little reluctantly, Ernie had announced that if they spent the night at her apartment in New York City alone, she would go crazy. And in fact it had turned out better than he thought it would. Ernie's father and mother had not only been very nice, but he finally accepted that they were sorry to see him go. Maybe only because that was going to make Ernie unhappy, but so what?

Her mother had tears in her eyes when they loaded his suitcase—one of two farewell gifts from Ernie: a folding canvas Val-Pak and a leather toilet kit, the nicest he had ever seen, from Abercrombie & Fitch—into the LaSalle; and she had sounded as if she really meant it when she told him to hurry back and to take care of himself.

Her father had been uncomfortable, but McCoy understood that. Ernie hadn't made it easy for him when she ended the evening by announcing, «Ken and I are going to bed now.» No father wants to hear his only daughter announce that she's about to do what married people do with a man she is not married to.