Battleground Read online

“Thank you,” Moore said.

  “I checked your papers out pretty carefully,” the staff sergeant said. “Everything’s shipshape. Shots. Overseas qualification. Next of kin. All that crap. Once you get paid, and after The Warning, all you have to do is get on the airplane at Newark airport on Friday morning.”

  “‘The Warning’?” Moore asked.

  “Yeah, The Warning,” the staff sergeant said. “Come on.”

  He gestured with his hand for Moore to follow him. He stopped by the open, frosted glass door to a small office and tapped on the glass with his knuckles.

  A captain looked up, then motioned them inside.

  “Sergeant Moore, Sir, for The Warning.”

  “Sure,” the captain said, and looked at Moore. “Sergeant, you have been alerted for overseas movement. It is my duty to make sure that you understand that any failure on your part to make that movement, by failing to report when and where your orders specify, is a more serious offense than simple absence without leave, can be construed as intention to desert or desertion, and that the penalties provided are greater. Do you understand where and when you are to report, and what I have just said to you?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Sergeant Moore replied.

  “Where’s he going?” the captain asked, curiously.

  The staff sergeant handed the captain a sheaf of papers.

  “Interesting,” the captain said.

  “Ain’t it?” the staff sergeant agreed. “Look at the six-A priority.”

  “I’d love to know what you do for the Corps, Sergeant Moore,” the captain said. “But I know better than to ask.”

  That’s good, Moore thought wryly, because I have no idea what I’m supposed to do for the Corps.

  The captain then surprised him further by standing up and offering Moore his hand.

  “Good luck, Moore,” he said.

  Moore sensed that the good wishes were not merely sincere, but a deviation from a normal issuing of The Warning, which he now understood was some sort of standard routine.

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  The staff sergeant handed the captain a stack of paper, and the captain wrote his signature on a sheet of it.

  That’s a record that I got The Warning, Moore decided.

  The staff sergeant nudged Moore, and Moore followed him out of the office. They went to the Navy Finance Office where Moore was given a partial pay of one hundred dollars.

  The staff sergeant then commandeered an empty desk and went through all the papers, dividing them into two stacks. Moore watched as one stack including, among other things, his service record, went into a stiff manila envelope. The sergeant sealed it twice: He first licked the gummed flap and then he put over that a strip of gummed paper.

  He surprised Moore by then forging an officer’s name on the gummed tape: “Sealed at MBPHILA 18June42 James D. Yesterburg, Capt USMC”

  Yesterburg, Moore decided, was the captain who had given him The Warning and then wished him good luck.

  “Normally, you don’t get to carry your own records,” the staff sergeant said, handing him the envelope. “But if you do, they have to be sealed. There’s nothing in there you haven’t seen, but I wouldn’t open it, if I was you. Or unless you can get your hands on another piece of gummed tape.”

  Moore chuckled.

  “These are your orders,” the staff sergeant said as he stuffed a quarter-inch-thick stack of mimeograph paper into another, ordinary, manila envelope. “And your tickets, railroad from here to Newark; bus from Newark station to the airport; the airplane tickets, Eastern to Saint Louis, Transcontinental & Western to Los Angeles; and a bus ticket in LA from the airport to the train station; and finally your ticket on the train—they call it ”The Lark“—from LA to ‘Diego. In ’Diego, there’ll be an RTO office—that means Rail Transport Office—and they’ll arrange for you to get where you should be. OK?”

  “Got it,” Moore said.

  “There’s also Meal Vouchers,” the staff sergeant said. “I’ll tell you about them. You are supposed to be able to exchange them for a meal in restaurants. The thing is, most restaurants, except bad ones, don’t want to be run over with servicemen eating cheap meals that they don’t get paid for for a month, so they either don’t honor these things, or they give you a cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee and call it dinner. So if I was you, I would save enough from that flying hundred they just gave you to eat whatever and wherever you want. Then in ‘Diego, or Pearl Harbor, or when you get where you’re going, you turn in the meal tickets and say you couldn’t find anyplace that would honor them. They’ll pay you. It’s a buck thirty-five a day. Still with me?”

  “Yeah, thanks for the tip.”

  “OK. Now finally, and this is important. You’ve got a six-A priority. The only way you can be legally beat out of your seat on the airplane is by somebody who also has a six-A priority and outranks you. Since they pass out very few six-As, that’s not going to be a problem. If some colonel happens to do that to you, you get his name and telephone Outshipment in ‘Diego, the number’s on your orders, and tell them what happened, including the name of the officer who bumped you. In that case, no problem.”

  “I understand,” Moore said.

  “But what’s liable to happen,” the staff sergeant went on, “is that you’re going to bump some captain or some major—or maybe even some colonel or important civilian—who doesn’t have a six-A, and he’s not going to like that worth a shit, and will try to pull rank on you. If you let that happen, your ass is in a crack. You understand?”

  “What am I supposed to say to him?”

  “You tell him to call Outshipment in ‘Diego, and get their permission to bump you. Otherwise, ’with respect, Sir, I can’t miss my plane.‘ Got it?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Somebody pretty high up in the Corps wants to get you where you’re going in a hurry, Sergeant, otherwise you wouldn’t have a six-A. And they are going to get very pissed off if you hand the six-A to somebody who didn’t rate it on their own.”

  “OK,” Moore said.

  “Well, that’s it,” the staff sergeant said. “Good luck, Moore.”

  “Thank you,” Moore said, shaking his hand.

  “Oh, shit. I just remembered: You’re entitled to a couple of bus and subway tokens. We’ll have to go back by the office, but what the hell, why pay for a bus if you can get the Corps to pay, right?”

  “I’ve got a car.”

  “Oh, shit! I knew there would be something!”

  “Something wrong?”

  “You want the Corps to store it for you, you’ll be here all goddamned day.”

  “It’s my father’s car.”

  At breakfast, Moore had been surprised at his father’s reaction to his mother’s suggestion—“Dear, couldn’t John use the Buick to drive down there?” He would never have bothered to ask for it himself, for the negative response would have been certain.

  “I suppose,” the Reverend Doctor Moore had said, after a moment’s hesitation, “that would be the thing to do.”

  There was not even the ritual speech about driving slowly and carefully, which always preceded his—rare—sessions behind the wheel of his father’s car. It was a 1940 Buick Limited, which had a new kind of transmission that eliminated the clutch pedal and little switches on the steering wheel that flashed the stop and parking lights in the direction you intended to turn. His father was ordinarily reluctant to entrust such a precision machine into the hands of his rash and reckless—as he considered it—son.

  And yet, to his astonishment, his father hadn’t even put up a ritual show of resistance.

  As he put his mind to that, it occurred to Moore that this was not the first time his father had behaved oddly since he had come home from Parris Island. For instance, there had hardly been any questions about why he was going overseas now as a sergeant, rather than to Quantico for officer training.

  His father was probably concerned that he was going to be killed in
the Orient, Moore decided, and was going out of his way to be kind and obliging. But he sensed there was something else, too; he had no idea what.

  “Jesus, you had me worried for a minute,” the sergeant said, and then offered his hand again, and repeated, “Good luck, Moore.”

  Moore had not been able to get his father’s car onto the base. It was parked just outside.

  And he had to show his orders to the Marine Guard at the gate as he left. He remembered at the last moment that his orders now were the ones the staff sergeant had just given him, not the ones Tech Sergeant Rutterman had given him only a couple of days before.

  He took them from the smaller manila envelope and handed them to the guard, who scanned them quickly.

  “OK, Sergeant,” he said. “If you have to go, that’s the way.”

  Moore smiled at him, but didn’t know what he meant. As he walked to the car, he read the orders for the first time.

  Marine Barracks

  U.S. Naval Station

  Philadelphia, Penna

  16 June 1942

  Letter Orders: To Sergeant John M. Moore, 673456, USMCR1. You are detached this date from Headquarters Company, Marine Barracks, Phila. Pa., and assigned 14th Special Detachment, USMC, FPO 24543, San Francisco, Cal.

  2. You will proceed by government and/or civilian rail, air and sea transportation via USMC Barracks San Diego, Cal., and Pearl Harbor, T.H. Air Transportation is directed where possible, with Priority AAAAAA authorized by TWX Hq USMC dated 15 June 1942, Subject: “Movement of Moore, Sgt John M.” to final destination.

  3. USMC Barracks San Diego, Cal., and Pearl Harbor, T.H., and all other Naval facilities are directed to report via most expeditious means to Hq USMC ATTN: GHV3:12 the date and time of your arrival and departure while en route. Once travel commences, any delay in movement which will exceed 12 (twelve) hours will be reported to Hq USMC ATTN: GHV3:13 by URGENT radio message.

  By Direction:

  Jasper J. Malone

  Lieut. Colonel, USMC

  He realized that he knew nothing more now than he had been told by Captain Sessions at Parris Island. He didn’t know what Special Detachment 14 was; where it was; or what he would be doing there when he got there. The only thing he knew for sure was that the Corps was going to a hell of a lot of trouble to get him there as quickly as possible.

  It was disturbing.

  Disturbing, shit! It’s frightening.

  He looked at his watch. It was quarter to four. All of his business at the Marine Barracks had taken far less time than he had expected, and planned for. It would take him ten minutes to drive down Broad Street to the Union League, where he was to meet Uncle Bill for dinner. That meant he would arrive two hours and five minutes early.

  And two hours and five minutes was not enough time to find a movie and watch through the whole thing. It was enough time to take the car home and ride back downtown on the train. That would make the car available to his father when he returned from the Missions office.

  Alternatively, he could make profitable use of the time ... the Reverend Moore believed that profitable use of one’s time was a virtue and thus the waste of one’s time was a non-virtue, and consequently sinful ... by making a farewell visit to the Franklin Institute or the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art.

  Or he could go to the Trocadero Burlesque Theater, which was within walking distance of the Union League Club. There, while munching caramel-covered popcorn, he could watch an Easy Woman take her clothing off ... perhaps as many as four Easy Women in the nearly two hours he had. That was about as close as he was going to get to a naked woman in the foreseeable future.

  It was also possible—unlikely, but possible—that he might encounter a real Easy Woman in the Tenderloin, as the area was known ... a woman in a short skirt and tight sweater who would leer at him and entice him to a cheap hotel as her contribution to the war effort.

  He parked the Buick behind the First Philadelphia Trust Company and walked down 12th Street to the Trocadero. He encountered no real Easy Women on the street, and the Easy Women on the stage seemed not only a little long in the tooth but bored as well. One of them actually blew a chewing gum bubble as she moved around on the stage.

  And the Easy Women did not appear one after the other. Their performances were separated by comedians and intermissions, during which the audience was offered special deals on wristwatches, fountain pen and pencil sets, and illustrated books portraying life in Wicked Paris—offered today only, by special arrangement to Trocadero Theater patrons.

  An hour after he went into the Trocadero, he got up and walked out. He walked back to Market Street and then up toward Broad Street. Just as he came to John Wanamaker’s Department Store he saw the incredibly beautiful older woman from the train.

  She walked purposefully out of Wanamaker’s and turned toward Broad Street. She glanced at him but he felt sure she made no connection with the train.

  Why should she? My God, she’s beautiful!

  I’m not following her. She’s going in the same direction I am.

  He almost caught up with her as she waited for the traffic light on Broad Street, but he slowed his pace so that he was still behind her when the light changed. He was sure she hadn’t noticed him.

  She turned left, and he followed her, for that was his direction too. He was going to meet Uncle Bill at the Union League Club for dinner.

  I wonder what the hell that’s all about?

  She walked past the Union League, moving in long graceful strides, her smooth flowing musculature exquisitely evident under her straight skirt. Quickly consulting his watch, Sergeant John Marston Moore decided there was no reason he could not walk for a couple of minutes down South Broad before returning to the Union League to meet his Uncle Bill.

  She came to the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. The doorman spun the revolving door for her, and twenty seconds later for Sergeant John Marston Moore.

  She crossed the lobby and went into the cocktail lounge. Sergeant John Marston Moore visited the Gentlemen’s Room, relieved his bladder, and then washed his hands. He examined his reflection in the mirror over the marble wash basin.

  Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing?

  He went into the cocktail lounge and took a seat at the bar.

  “What can we get the Marine Corps?”

  “Rye and ginger,” he said, sweeping the room in the mirror behind the bar.

  She was at a small table away from the lobby, near a door that led directly to the street. A waiter was delivering something in a stemmed glass. She took a cigarette from her purse, lit it with a silver lighter, and exhaled through her nose.

  Like Bette Davis. Except that compared to her, Bette Davis looks like one of those cows in the Trocadero.

  “Seventy-five cents, Sir.”

  He laid a five-dollar bill on the bar. When the waiter brought the change, he pushed the quarter away and put the singles in his pocket. When he found the beautiful older woman in the mirror again, she was looking at him, via the mirror.

  And she was smiling.

  In amusement, he thought, not in encouragement, or enticement.

  He found his pack of Chesterfields and lit one with his Marine insignia decorated Zippo, pretending to be in deep thought. He was unable to keep his eyes away from the mirror. Sometimes he got a profile of her face. Twice his eyes were drawn to her legs; they were crossed beneath the table, ladylike, but they still offered a forbidden glance under her skirt.

  You are not only about to make a flaming ass of yourself, but you are going to embarrass that nice woman.

  He drained his rye and ginger ale.

  I will leave by the side door, so that she can’t help but see me leave and will understand that I am leaving, and not making eyes at her, or anything like that.

  He determinedly kept from looking at her as he walked to the side door. As he reached the door, a half dozen people started to come into the bar from the street. He had to stop and wait for them. He glanc
ed at her. She was no more than five feet away.

  She was looking up at him. She smiled.

  “The Club Car, right?” she asked. “You don’t read very much, right?”

  “I just came in for a drink,” he blurted.

  “I thought it was something like that,” she said.

  Christ, she knows I followed her in here!

  “I have to meet someone for dinner,” Moore said. “Just killing a little time.”

  “So do I, unfortunately,” she said, more than a little bitterly. “Have to meet someone for dinner, I mean.”

  She ground her cigarette out in the ash tray and then looked up at him. Their eyes locked for a moment, and John felt a constriction in his stomach.

  She broke eye contact, fished in her purse, and came up with another cigarette.

  She just put one out. What is she so nervous about?

  He held his Zippo out to her. She steadied his hand with the balls of her fingers. It was an absolutely innocent gesture, yet it gave him immediate indication that he was about to have an erection.

  She raised her eyes to his again.

  “Well, nice to see you again,” she said.

  There was nothing to do now but leave.

  “I’ll remember it a long time,” he heard himself say.

  She laughed softly, deeply.

  “Oddly enough,” she said. “I think I will, too.”

  As if with a mind of its own, his hand went out.

  She caught it, as a man would, and shook it. But of course she wasn’t a man, and the warm softness of her hand made his heart jump.

  “Good-bye,” she said as she took her hand away. “And good luck.”

  He didn’t trust his voice to speak. He nodded at her, and then went through the door onto the street.

  I’m in love.

  No, you’re not, asshole. All it is is that you’re not getting saltpeter in your chow anymore.

  For Christ’s sake, she’s thirty, you never saw her before the train, and you’ll never see her again.

  You are an asshole, Sergeant Moore. There is absolutely no doubt of that.

  He walked up to Broad Street and turned north, back to the Union League Club.