Griffin W.E.B.: Honor Bound 01 - Honor Bound

Clete dropped the brand-new set of glistening gold wings on the bed, then picked up the telephone.

"Room Service," he ordered when the operator came on the line.

"Room Service," a male voice said.

"This is Lieutenant Frade in nine twenty-one,” he said. “I would like a bottle of sour-mash bourbon, Jack Daniel's if you have it, ice, water, and peanuts or potato chips, something to nibble on."

His voice was soft, yet with something of a nasal twang. Most people he'd met in the Corps thought he was a Southerner, a Johnny Reb, but some with a more discerning ear heard Texas. Both were right. Clete Frade had been raised in New Orleans and in the cattle country (now cattle and oil) around Midland, Texas. He'd spent his first two years of college at Texas AandM, and then, when his grandfather had insisted, finished up (Bachelor of Arts) at Tulane.

"Lieutenant," Room Service said, hesitantly, "you understand that only the room is complimentary?"

"I didn't even know that," Clete said. "But if you're asking if I expect to pay for the bourbon, yes, of course I do."

And I damned sure can afford it. There's four months' pay in Sullivan's boots.

Sullivan was—had been—First Lieutenant Francis Xavier Sullivan, of Cleveland, Ohio, and the 167th Fighter Squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps. The Corps and the Navy had flown Grumman Wildcats off Henderson Field and Fighter One on the 'Canal. The Army Air Corps, those poor bastards, had flown Bell P-39s and P-40s. The story was, and Clete believed it, that the P-39s and P-40s had been offered to, and rejected by, both the English and the Russians before they had been given to the Army Air Corps and sent to the 'Canal. They were both essentially the same airplane, a weird one, with the engine mounted amidships behind the pilot. The one good thing they had was either a 20- or a 30-mm cannon that fired through the propeller hub. But they were not as fast or as maneuverable as the Wildcat, which meant they were not even in the same league as the Japanese Zero. And in a logistical foul-up that surprised Clete not at all, they had been sent to the 'Canal with the wrong oxygen-charging apparatus, so they could not be flown over 12,000 feet.

The pilots flying them fought, in other words, with one hand tied behind them. And one by one they were shot down, Francis Xavier Sullivan among them.

Clete and F.X. made a deal. If Clete didn't come back, F.X. could have Clete's two bottles of Jack Daniel's sour-mash bourbon; and if F.X. didn't come back, Clete could have F.X.'s Half Wellington boots, which, conveniently, fit him perfectly. The second part of the deal was that each had promised the other— presuming, of course, that one of them came through—that he would visit the other's family and tell them a bullshit story about how the fallen hero had died—"quickly, without pain, he really didn't know what hit him."

F.X. went in while supporting the Marine Raiders on Edson's Ridge. He got his P-40 on the ground in more or less one piece, and he was alive when it caught fire. The Raiders heard him screaming until finally, mercifully, the sonofabitch blew up.

Clete went to F.X.'s tent while F.X.'s Executive Officer was inventorying his personal gear. About the only thing that wasn't worn out, or covered with green mold, was the boots. F.X. had spent a lot of time caring for his boots. They would, he claimed, get him laid a lot when they were given a rest leave in Australia. F.X. had heard that from a fellow who'd flown with the Eagle Squadron of the Royal Air Force before the United States had gotten into the war; women liked men who wore boots.

Clete was tempted not to claim the boots, but decided in the end that a deal was a deal. F.X. damned sure would have claimed the Jack Daniel's.

While he waited for the bourbon, he pinned the new insignia to his new shirt and freshly pressed tunic. The new shirt, being new, was not stiff with starch. Before long, he knew, it would look limp and floppy, not shipshape.

Is there a regulation someplace that orders shirts to be washed and starched before wear? I wouldn't be a damned bit surprised.

There was a knock at the door. When he opened it, a different bellman pushed in a tray on wheels; the tray held a bottle of Jack Daniel's, a battered silver bowl full of ice, a silver pitcher that presumably contained water, and two glass bowls, one filled with mixed nuts and the other with pretzels. There was also a newspaper, which Clete thought was a nice touch.

He took the bill from the bellman and signed it. When he turned back to the bellman, he was holding the newspaper open, so that it was ready to read when Clete took it.

"Welcome home, Lieutenant," the bellman said, meaning it.

"Thank you," Clete said. "It's good to be home."

"You're here," the bellman said, pointing at the photograph on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. It showed a dozen Marines standing by the Greyhound bus in front of the hotel. The headline above them read:

Guadalcanal Heroes Receive Key to City From Mayor

Clete looked at his photograph.

My God, I look like a cadaver! Do I really look that bad, or is it just the photograph?

"Thank you," Clete said.

The bullshit begins.

After he joined the other returning pilots back on Espiritu Santo—in the absence of more deserving heroes, he decided, he was apparently a last-minute addition to the roster—and they were waiting for further air transportation, via Pearl Harbor, T.H., to U.S. Navy Base, San Diego, California, there was a lot of talk, naturally, about why they were being sent home.

No one believed that their pleasure, or comfort, or even physical well-being had anything to do with it. The Marine Corps did not act that way. It was certainly not a reward for a job well done, either.

All they'd been told, probably all that anyone knew, was that the orders came as a radio message from Eighth and I.

It wasn't until they were actually given their orders at Espiritu (a twenty-copy stack of mimeographed paper), minutes before they boarded the Martin Mariner, that the words "War Bond Tour" came up. And these gave Clete little more information than Dawkins had already told him:

The following officers,the orders read, are detached from indicated organizations and temporarily attached to the USMC Public Affairs Office, Federal Building, Los Angeles, Cal, for the purpose of participating in a War Bond Tour.

That 1/Lt Frade, C. H., USMCR was detached from VMF-229 was sort of a joke, for little—if anything—of Marine Fighter Squadron Number 229 remained to be detached from. After Clete wrecked his Wildcat, VMF-229 was down to two airplanes and four pilots. There were almost no mechanics, or clerks, or cooks either. As more of VMF-229's Wildcats and their pilots had been shot down, crashed, or simply disappeared than had been replaced, the mechanics and clerks had been transferred to other squadrons.

What, exactly, a baker's dozen of battered fighter pilots who resembled not at all the handsome Marine aviators of the movies and recruiting posters could possibly have to do with a War Bond Tour was something of a mystery, until one of them realized that they all had one thing in common besides membership in the Cactus Air Force and their surprising presence among the living. They each—he polled the jury to make sure—had shot down at least five Japanese aircraft. They were all aces. Two were double aces, and one was working hard on being a triple.

"They're putting us on fucking display, is what they're doing!" one of them announced in disgust.

There were groans. Some of these were genuine, Clete thought—including his own. And some of them were pro forma. There was really nothing wrong with being identified as a hero. For one thing, as one said with a certain fascination in his voice, it would probably get them laid. Clete Frade had absolutely nothing against getting laid, but he was uncomfortable with the notion of considering himself a hero. In his mind, what he'd done was only what he had been ordered to do.