In Danger's Path Page 11

  “What’s Five-B?” Weston asked the larger gorilla. “Or is that a military secret?”

  “It’s preliminary evaluation, Captain,” the Corpsmen answered. “Nothing to worry about. They’ll keep you there for a couple of days, and then you’ll get transferred to one of the other wards for treatment.”

  The entrance to Ward Five-B was barred. A Corpsman as large as the two who had escorted him there unlocked and pulled open a barred door.

  “Put him in Four,” he ordered.

  Four was a small room furnished with a small desk and two chairs. The window was covered with a steel mesh.

  Weston looked out the window—it opened on an interior courtyard—and then tried the door. He was not surprised to learn he was locked in. He walked back to the window and half-sat on the windowsill. He took a long, thin, green cigar from a breast pocket on his tunic, looked at it, decided he really didn’t want a smoke right now, and returned the cigar to the pocket.

  Five minutes later, the door opened and a chubby, redheaded man in a white smock walked in, carrying a manila folder.

  “I’m Dr. Kister,” he announced.

  Weston touched his index finger to his temple in a mocking salute.

  Dr. Kister sat down at the desk and laid the manila folder on it. “You gave Lieutenant Hardison a hard time,” Kister said.

  “That’s the nurse?”

  Kister nodded. “Nice girl,” he said.

  “Nice-looking, too.”

  “Then why did you give her a hard time?”

  “I didn’t give her a hard time. I did tell her I didn’t need her wheelchair, and that I had no intention of lying on a stretcher in the back of her ambulance.”

  “That’s standard procedure. She was just obeying orders.”

  “Never let common sense get in the way of standard procedure and obeying orders, right?”

  “You want to tell me why you’re so pissed off, Captain?” Dr. Kister asked.

  “Are you really interested, Doctor?” Weston asked. “Or…?”

  “Will you settle for ‘curious’? I am curious.”

  Weston looked at him for a moment, shrugged, reached into the lower right outer pocket of his tunic, and with some difficulty pulled out a large manila envelope, folded in half. He unfolded it, opened it, rummaged through it, found what he was looking for, and handed it to Dr. Kister.

  It was a long sheet of yellow paper, a carbon copy of a Teletype message. Kister took it and read it. As he did, his eyebrows went up.

  * * *

  HQ USMC

  1705 08 FEB 43

  PRIORITY

  COMMANDING OFFICER

  MAG-21

  EWA MCAS OAHU TERRITORY OF HAWAII

  1. DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR PERSONNEL USMC HAS INFORMED THE UNDERSIGNED:

  A. NO EXCEPTION TO STANDING OPERATING PROCEDURE REGARDING MISSING OR CAPTURED PERSONNEL RETURNING TO USMC CONTROL WILL BE GRANTED IN CASE OF CAPTAIN JAMES B. WESTON, USMCR, USMC SPECIAL DETACHMENT 16, CURRENTLY ON TEMPORARY DUTY VMF 229, MAG 21, EWA MCAS.

  B. IN VIEW STRONG OBJECTIONS VOICED BY US NAVY BUREAU OF AERONAUTICS TO COMMANDANT USMC CONCERNING RETURN TO FLIGHT STATUS OF OFFICER WHO HAS BEEN OFF FLIGHT STATUS FOR TWELVE OR MORE MONTHS WITHOUT SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF PRESCRIBED BUAIR RETRAINING PROGRAM CAPTAIN WESTON’S TRANSITION TRAINING INTO F4U-1 AIRCRAFT AND HIS FLIGHT STATUS WILL BE TERMINATED IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE.

  2. YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY ISSUE ORDERS DIRECTING CAPTAIN WESTON TO PROCEED BY FIRST AVAILABLE AIR TRANSPORTATION TO US NAVY HOSPITAL, PHILADELPHIA, PENNA., REPORTING ON ARRIVAL THEREAT TO COMMANDING OFFICER, TO UNDERGO PHYSICAL AND PYSCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION PRESCRIBED FOR PERSONNEL RETURNING TO USMC CONTROL AFTER ESCAPE FROM ENEMY CONTROLLED TERRITORY.

  3. FOR YOUR INFORMATION, PRESUMING CAPTAIN WESTON’S PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITION IS JUDGED TO BE SUCH THAT HE CAN RETURN TO ACTIVE DUTY, HE WILL BE ORDERED TO THE GREENBRIER HOTEL, WEST VIRGINIA, FOR THIRTY DAYS RECUPERATIVE LEAVE, NOT CHARGEABLE AS ORDINARY LEAVE. HE WILL THEN BE SENT TO US NAVY AIR STATION, PENSACOLA, FLORIDA, TO UNDERGO PRESCRIBED BUAIR PILOT RETRAINING PROGRAM. IF SUCH COURSE OF INSTRUCTION IS SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED, IT IS CONTEMPLATED THAT CAPTAIN WESTON WILL BE ASSIGNED TO VMF-262, US NAVAL AIR STATION, MEMPHIS, TENN., FOR TRANSITION TRAINING INTO F4U-1 AIRCRAFT.

  4. NO REQUESTS FOR RECONSIDERATION OF ABOVE OR COMMENTS CONCERNING THESE DECISIONS ARE DESIRED.

  D.G. MCINERNEY

  BRIG GEN USMC

  DIRECTOR USMC AVIATION

  * * *

  Doctor Kister looked at Weston. “Very interesting,” he said.

  Weston went into the envelope again and came out with a long form, which he handed to Kister. “That’s a flight physical,” Weston said.

  “Would you believe I’ve seen one before?” Kister asked, and read it carefully. Then he looked at Weston. “How’d you get this?”

  “I went to the Navy Hospital in Pearl Harbor. They examined me for several hours and decided I could see lightning and hear thunder well enough to be allowed to fly.”

  “According to this, aside from being a few pounds underweight, you’re in excellent health.”

  “As, indeed, I am,” Weston said. “So what the hell am I doing in a psycho ward?”

  “Interesting question,” Kister said. “This is dated five weeks ago. Have you been flying?”

  “Yes, I have. And four hours after I passed my rating ćheck ride in a Corsair, I got orders to come here.”

  “Anybody who has been a prisoner of war and escapes gets sent here,” Kister said, “to determine what kind of shape he’s in. You were a POW, right?”

  “No.”

  “Your paperwork,” Kister said, tapping the manila folder he had brought with him, “says you escaped from the Philippines.”

  “I was ordered out of the Philippines. You asked if I had been a POW.”

  “What were you doing in the Philippines?”

  “Would you believe it if I told you I was G-2 of U.S. forces in the Philippines?”

  Kister examined him carefully and, Weston thought, with disbelief.

  “With overwhelming immodesty,” Weston said, “I have a Silver Star to prove it. It was personally pinned to my breast by General Douglas MacArthur.”

  Kister opened Weston’s records jacket and went through it carefully. “Your Silver Star somehow didn’t get into your records,” Kister said. “And you’re not wearing it.”

  Weston reached into his manila envelope again, came out with a four-by-five-inch glossy photograph, and handed it to Dr. Kister. “I have six more copies of that, eight-by-tens, in my luggage, wherever the hell my luggage might be.”

  Kister examined the photograph. It showed the Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Ocean Areas, in the act of pinning the Silver Star to Weston’s tunic. Weston was wearing a full beard.

  “I’ll be damned,” Kister said. “Nice beard.”

  “Thank you,” Weston said.

  “Who’s the Marine general?” Kister asked.

  “His name is Pickering.”

  “Maybe he’s the guy who can straighten this out,” Dr. Kister said. “I don’t think I’d have much luck getting General MacArthur on the telephone.”

  Weston chuckled.

  “What I don’t understand is how you went back to flying,” Kister said. “You want to tell me about that?”

  “I got as far as Hawaii when I was given the choice of a thirty-day leave in the States or getting checked out in the Corsair,” Weston said. “I chose the Corsair.”

  “You didn’t want to come home on leave? Why?”

  “I don’t have much of a family here,” Weston said. “Weighed in the balance, an aunt I hardly know and haven’t seen in years came up short when the alternative was getting back to flying fighters.”

  “And then, it would seem reasonable to assume, the bureaucracy caught up with you, and you’re back in the Escaped POW Pipeline.”

  “So it would seem,” Weston said. “If I told you
I’m mightily pissed off, would that certify me as a loony?”

  “No. But getting off on the wrong foot with Lieutenant Hardison does.”

  Weston smiled.

  “So now you’re going to call in the corpsmen with the straitjacket?”

  “No. It’s too late to do anything about this today. So what I suggest is that we get you a bed for the night. Could I give you an off-the-ward pass to visit the O Club for dinner and a couple of drinks with reasonable assurance that you would behave yourself?”

  “In other words, you want my word as an officer and a gentleman that if I encounter Lieutenant Hardison, I will not drag her off into the bushes and ravish her?”

  “Her or any other female you encounter, including those who imply they would like to be dragged into the bushes.”

  “I do solemnly swear,” Weston said, and held up his right hand with the three center fingers extended. “Boy Scout’s Honor.”

  “I’ll take the chance,” Dr. Kister said. “One thing. Go easy on the booze. I’m going to schedule you for a physical first thing in the morning, and I don’t want your blood test coming back reading ‘mostly alcohol.’”

  “Why another physical?”

  “It will allow the physicians, nurses, and Corpsmen involved to feel they are making a contribution to the war effort, okay? And as sure as Christ made little apples, when we start looking into this, the first question somebody is going to ask is, ‘How do we know that Hawaiian physical isn’t somebody else’s?’”

  “Okay. Easy on the booze,” Weston said. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “Welcome home, Captain Weston,” Dr. Kister said, and offered Weston his hand.

  [TWO]

  “I will be damned,” Lieutenant (j.g.) Janice Hardison, NNC, exclaimed as she was driving her 1937 Ford Business Coupe northward on South Broad Street approximately one hour later. The insufferably arrogant patient who had given her all the trouble earlier, and who should by now be mildly sedated, dressed in a bathrobe, and either asleep in his bed or listening to the radio in the day-room of Ward Five-B, was instead marching purposefully down the sidewalk six blocks from the hospital compound in full uniform. He was carrying a brown paper bag.

  She made the next left turn and headed back to the hospital. She would tell the Shore Patrolman on duty at the gate. A Shore Patrol detail would be instantly dispatched, and he would be returned to the hospital, in handcuffs if necessary.

  Janice had a change of heart before she reached the hospital. She admitted to herself that she was being controlled by her personal emotions and was therefore responding to the situation in a nonprofessional manner.

  Marines were, almost by definition, arrogant. But in the arrogance department this one stood head and shoulders over any other Marine she had ever met. She could not recall anyone ever in her entire life having made her so angry in so short a time as had this blond-haired, blue-eyed gyrene sonofabitch. And while it probably would be good for his character, long term, to be subjected to the humiliation of being hauled back to the hospital in handcuffs, she had, as a practitioner of the healing arts, to consider the short term.

  God only knew what horrors he had experienced in a POW camp. The proof of that seemed to be that he denied having been a POW. The memories were simply too horrible for him to accept. That veneer of arrogance was paper-thin, concealing all the effects of severe psychological trauma. She could not, as a nurse, add humiliation to the other psychological burdens he was already carrying.

  She turned the Ford coupe around and turned onto South Broad Street again.

  Before she saw him, she had just about convinced herself that she would not be able to find him.

  She pulled to the curb, leaned across the seat, and opened the door. “Weston!” she called.

  He looked at her and smiled, pretending to be really glad to see her.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Is this how you spend your off-duty hours, cruising the streets and picking up Marines?”

  “Please get in the car, Captain,” Janice said.

  He walked to the car and squatted on the sidewalk so that their faces were on a level.

  “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind and we’re on for dinner?”

  “Please get in the car,” she said. “I’ll take you back to the hospital. With a little luck, the Shore Patrol won’t ask for your pass, and we will just forget this ever happened.”

  “Actually, I have other plans,” he said. “Made, of course, after you so cruelly rejected me. Her name is Caroline, and she is at this moment anxiously awaiting my appearance.”

  He’s lying, she thought. He made that up. There is absolutely no way, in the short time he’s been here, that he could have made a date.

  “But thank you just the same,” Jim Weston went on. “You may consider yourself forgiven for your outrageous behavior at the airport.”

  “My outrageous behavior?” Janice asked incredulously.

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ll just pretend that never happened, and perhaps I can even fit you into my schedule later in the week. But right now, I’m running a little late, so you’ll have to excuse me.” He stood up and resumed walking up South Broad Street.

  She leaned over and with difficulty reached across for the open door and closed it. When she looked out the windshield, she saw him trying and failing to flag down a taxicab.

  Where the hell is he going? If I don’t get him back to the hospital, he’s headed for real trouble.

  She put the Ford in gear and went after him. “Get in, and I’ll give you a ride,” she called to him when she pulled to the curb again.

  “If I get in your car, Florence Nightingale, you’ll try to drive me back to the hospital. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “I’ll take you wherever you want to go,” she said.

  “Girl Scout’s Honor? I don’t have much faith in that officer and gentleman—gentlelady?—word-of-honor business.”

  “Where are you really going?”

  “Will you really take me there?”

  “Yes, I will. I said I would, and I will.”

  He opened the car door and slipped in beside her.

  “Where to?” Janice asked.

  What he’s going to do now is make another pitch to take me to dinner, and I’ll turn him down again and take him back to the hospital.

  Oh, what the hell, I have to eat. Having dinner with him will calm him down—stroke that enormous ego—and then it will be easier to get him back to the hospital.

  She could smell his aftershave lotion.

  He handed her a slip of paper on which was written: “Caroline. 98 Stevens Ave., Jenkintown, PA 19046.”

  I’ll be damned. He really has a woman waiting for him.

  A tramp, more than likely. Maybe even a lady of the evening, who does that sort of thing for money.

  And I have agreed to take him to meet her.

  “Do you know where that is?” Weston asked.

  “The other side of Philadelphia,” she said, “past the other end of Broad Street.”

  “If that’s out of your way, Florence,” he said, “then just drop me where I can catch a cab.”

  “My name is Janice,” she corrected him. “And I said I’d take you and I will,” she added firmly.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Fifteen minutes later, as they headed up North Broad Street, she asked two questions: “What’s in the paper bag?”

  “A pineapple.”

  “A pineapple?”

  “Ananas comosus,” he clarified. “One eats them. You don’t know what a pineapple is?”

  Janice fell silent for ninety seconds, then asked about the second thing that had piqued her curiosity. “How did you get out? If you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I climbed the fence,” he replied matter-of-factly.

  “But there’s barbed wire on top of the fence,” she replied, “and a walking patrol.”

  “I noticed,” he said.

  “And how
did you plan to get back in?”

  “You must be reading my mind,” he said. “I don’t suppose you could stick around awhile? What I have to do won’t take long, and you could drive me back.”

  “What I have to do won’t take long”?

  “On the way we could have dinner,” he added.

  Janice did not reply.

  Ninety-Eight Stevens Avenue in Jenkintown turned out to be a large, brick colonial house set two hundred feet back from the road on a large, tree-studded lot. A Mercury station wagon was parked on the drive.

  Janice parked behind the station wagon.

  “Are you going to wait for me, Florence?” Weston asked.

  “I told you my name was Janice,” she snapped.

  He snapped his fingers, indicating that he now remembered.

  “So you did,” he said. “Well, Janice, are you going to wait for me, or are you going to just leave me here to face the dangers of suburban Philadelphia all by myself?”

  “What are you going to do in there?”

  “God only knows what time will bring,” he said solemnly. He stepped out of the car and walked toward the house.

  When he was halfway to the door, she got out and followed him.

  As he walked up the shallow flight of stairs, the door opened. A tall, good-looking blonde smiled at Weston. An older woman, Janice thought. She must be at least thirty.

  “You have to be Jim,” the woman said.

  “And you have to be Caroline,” Weston said. “Have a pineapple, Caroline.” He handed her the brown paper bag. She opened it and smiled. “Picked by the skipper himself,” Weston added.

  “And I have never seen a more beautiful pineapple,” she said.

  “As splendid an example of Ananas comosus as Charley could find,” Weston said. “It must have taken him as much as ten, fifteen seconds to pick this one.”

  She laughed.

  “Come on in, quickly,” she said. “Our air raid warden takes his duties seriously.”

  She looked at Janice curiously and smiled.

  They stepped into the foyer, and Caroline closed the door.