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

In a moment, she followed him, and watched as he made his way to a very large twin-engine transport plane with air transport command painted along its fuselage. One of its engines was already running. Colonel Albright stood at the ladder leading down from the door in the fuselage. He shook McCoy's hand, and then McCoy climbed the ladder. As soon as he was inside, the door closed. The plane immediately began to move, taxiing with just one engine.

Albright walked to her, and they stood in front of the base operations building while the C-46 taxied to the end of the runway, then roared down it, lifting off and heading for the skyscrapers of Manhattan, just visible on the horizon.

«I understand your Captain McCoy is a very capable officer, Miss Sage,» Albright said.

«There has been a change in our status, Colonel,» Ernie said. «Three minutes ago, it went from 'lovers' to 'affianced.' «

«Then let me offer my best wishes.»

«Thank you,» Ernie said.

note 53

The Greenbrier Hotel

White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia

1645 18 March 1943

«Ah, there you are, James,» Commander T. L. Bolemann, MC, USN, said to Captain James B. Weston, USMC, as Weston slid into a chair at his table. «I was afraid I was either going to have to send out the bloodhounds or pay for my own drinks.»

«I was playing pool,» Weston said. «And winning. Never give a sucker an even break, as some wise man once said.»

«This will serve as your final psychological counseling session,» Dr. Bolemann said, «so be advised that I am watching you professionally.»

A waiter appeared and delivered two martinis. Weston signed the chit, then picked up his glass. «To your very good health, Commander,» he said.

«And to yours, my dear Captain Weston,» Bolemann said, and took a very appreciative swallow. «Tell me, James, have you plans for the weekend?»

«I'm not going to Philadelphia, if that's what you were thinking. Janice has the duty. And anyway, I'll be in Philadelphia on Wednesday.»

«Good, then I won't have to tell you to forget going to Philadelphia, or whatever else you had planned to fritter away your time.»

«What I am going to do is spend the weekend here, watching the clock tick as it counts down on my time in your little rest home,» Weston said.

«Tomorrow, at zero nine hundred hours,» Bolemann said, «you will be at the Charleston Municipal Airport, to which destination I have been charged by the management to deliver you sober, shaved, shined, and in the properly appointed uniform.»

«What the hell are you talking about?»

«You will there be met by a Navy aircraft flying what was described to me as the Pensacola-Norfolk-Washington round-robin. I wonder where the hell that term came from?»

«I don't know where it came from and I have no idea what you're talking about.»

«You will be transported on silver wings to the U.S. Naval Air Station, Pensacola. From there you will be transported back to Charleston on Monday next, presumably on a similar pair of round-robin wings, with your estimated time of arrival here fifteen thirty hours.»

«Are you going to tell me what this is all about?»

«The flag officer commanding said Pensacola Naval Air Station, one Rear Admiral Sayre, spoke with our beloved commander, Captain Horace J. Johnson, early this afternoon. The Admiral requested, your schedule here and physical condition permitting, that you be allowed to visit the said Naval Air Station, Pensacola, round-robin transportation to be furnished, over the weekend. Our beloved skipper, who has never been known in thirty years of Naval service, most of it on shore behind a desk, to ever have said no to an admiral, was pleased to grant the Admiral's request.»

«I'll be damned!» Jim said.

«What's this all about?» Bolemann asked.

«I can only guess,» Jim said.

He had a sudden chilling thought.

Jesus, is Martha behind this? That seems unlikely. But on the other hand, what happened in the San Carlos was important to her. It was not a casual roll in the hay. She told me that she had fantasies, after Greg got killed, about me coming home to comfort her, and that she «died all over again» when she heard I was KIA

.

And she is, after all, Daddy's Darling Daughter.

«Daddy, Jim is bored out of his mind at that hotel in West Virginia. Is there any way we could get him here for the weekend?»

«Guess away. Curiosity consumes me,» Bolemann said.

«When I was down there before, he…«

«I gather you are personally acquainted with the Admiral?»

«When his daughter got married, I was the groom's best man,» Weston said. «And General Mclnerney called him about this idiotic pilot retraining. Anyway, he was going to talk to me about what's going to happen when I get to Pensacola when some admiral showed up…«

«It's amazing, isn't it, how these admirals tend to fuck up the best-laid plans of mice and men? Even those of other admirals?»

»… and he couldn't do it. Either he wants to do it this weekend, or he wants my advice on how to teach people how to fly.»

So instead of getting to talk to the Admiral, I took his daughter out, and then to bed, which is probably number one on the List of 100 Really Dumb Things I Have Done Since Turning Twelve.

Jesus, does

Admiral Sayre

see me as a suitable replacement husband for Greg Culhane

?

Oh, my God! Why couldn't you keep your pecker in your pants?

«Sounds logical,» Bolemann said.

«That's all I can think of,» Weston said.

He finished his martini and looked around for the waiter to order another.

note 54

Municipal Airport

Charleston, West Virginia

0855 19 March 1943

Weston was surprised to see a Consolidated Catalina PBY-5A turning on final to land at Charleston. It was a Navy airplane, and therefore very likely the one Admiral Sayre had ordered to pick him up at Charleston. But he would have expected that a Douglas R4D—a transport, not a long-range reconnaissance aircraft—would be used for Pensacola-Norfolk-Washington round-robin administrative flights.

Whoever was flying it, Weston judged professionally, knew what he was doing. The landing was a greaser.

The last Catalina he himself had been in was the one he'd flown from Pearl Harbor to Cavite in December 1941, shortly before he had been «without prejudice» taken off flight status and transferred to the 4th Marines. Then he saw that pensacola nas was painted on the vertical stabilizer, leaving little question that it was «his» airplane.

And then came another surprise. When the plane taxied up to the passenger terminal, he recognized the pilot, Major Avery R. Williamson, USMC.

The last time I saw him, I smelled of booze.

When Major Williamson climbed out of the Catalina, he was saluted with parade-ground crispness by Captain Weston.

«Good morning, sir,» Weston said.

Major Williamson's salute was far less crisp.

«I think I should tell you, Captain,» he said, «that I had planned to spend the day—after rising at a reasonable hour, say 0900—afloat on beautiful Pensacola Bay, alone with the sea, the sky, and my wife, who I see damned little of these days.»

«Yes, sir.»

«Instead of flying—since 0500—that ugly airplane at a hundred and fifty knots to Asshole, West Virginia, if you take my meaning.»

This is not an unscheduled stop on a round-robin; Williamson was sent here especially to pick me up.

«Yes, sir.»

«But on the other hand. Captain, when a lowly major is asked by a rear admiral—one of the good rear admirals—if he is willing to render a service, what is one to do?»