The Corps IV - Battleground Page 18

  "Oh, hell," Charley said. "I can't let you do that."

  "It's the pleasure of the Andrew Foster," the old man said.

  "No," Charley said. "That would be stealing. I mean, we didn't really have a reservation. I don't mind talking you out of a room, but I couldn't cheat you out of any money that way."

  I can't believe, Caroline thought, that he just said that!

  "Your husband, Madam, is obviously an officer and a gentleman," the old man said.

  Charley is really a gentleman, Caroline thought. And touchingly, innocently honest. And not of course, my husband.

  "My husband is on his way to the Pacific," Caroline said. "I wanted to spend our last night, our last two nights, in this hotel. I didn't much care what I had to do to arrange that."

  "The Andrew Foster is honored, Madam. And so you shall. As guests of the inn."

  "We want to pay our way," Charley said.

  "I would be very pleased if you would be guests of the inn," the old man said.

  "Why would you want to do that?" Caroline asked.

  "How could you fix it with the hotel?" Charley asked.

  "I noticed your wings, Captain. I gather you're an aviator?"

  "Yes, Sir, I am."

  "Are you familiar with the F4F Wildcat?"

  "Yes, Sir, I am."

  "Charley's on his way to take command of an F4F squadron," Caroline blurted.

  My God, don't you sound like a proud wife!

  "My grandson, my only grandchild, is training to be an F4F pilot," the old man said. "I don't suppose you've ever run into a second lieutenant named Malcolm Pickering, have you? They call him 'Pick.'"

  "He's a Marine?" Charley asked.

  "Yes. He's at Pensacola right now."

  "No, Sir, I don't know him," Charley said. "Sorry."

  "Nice boy. His father was a Marine in the first war, so of course, he had to go into the Marines, too."

  "Yes, Sir," Charley said. "That's understandable."

  "I don't know anything about the sort of training they give young men like that, or about the F4F," the old man said. "I don't want to know anything I shouldn't know, classified information, I think they call it, but I really would like to know whatever you could tell me."

  "Yes, Sir. I'll be happy to tell you anything you'd like to know."

  "Perhaps at dinner," the old man said. "If you did that, I'd consider it a fair swap for you being guests of the inn so long as you're here."

  "You don't have to do that," Charley said. "And, how the hell could you square that with the hotel?"

  "I can do pretty much what I want to around here, Captain Galloway," the old man said, with a chuckle. "My name is Andrew Foster."

  "I'll be goddamned!" Charley said.

  "I live upstairs," Andrew Foster said. "Just tell the elevator man the penthouse. My daughter, Pick's mother, lives here in San Francisco. I'd like her to join us, if that would be all right with you."

  "Certainly;" Caroline said.

  "Eight o'clock?" Andrew Foster asked.

  "Fine," Caroline said, softly.

  "My daughter, of course, knows as little about what Pick is doing as I do, and my son-in-law hasn't been much help."

  "I'm sorry?" Caroline asked.

  "My son-in-law, who is old enough to know better, and had more than enough to keep him busy here, couldn't wait to rush to the colors."

  "He went back in the Corps?" Charley asked.

  "The Marine Corps wouldn't have him back," Andrew Foster said. "So he went in the Navy. The last we heard, he's in Australia."

  Chapter Seven

  (One)

  UNION STATION

  SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

  1625 HOURS 24 JUNE 1942

  "The Lark," as the train from Los Angeles to San Diego was called, was probably one hell of a money maker, Sergeant John Marston Moore thought; it probably should have been called "The Pigeon Roost."

  There was not an empty seat on it; and the aisles and even the vestibules between the cars were jammed with people standing or, if they could, sitting on their luggage. At least half of the passengers were in uniform; and there was something about most of the civilian women that told Moore they had some kind of a service connection. They were either wives or girlfriends of servicemen.

  He had recently become convinced that air travel was not only the wave of the future, but the only way to travel. Having a good-looking, solicitous stewardess serving your meals and asking if you would like another cup of coffee was far superior to this rolling tenement, where if you were lucky you could sometimes buy a soggy paper cup of coffee and a dry sandwich from a man who made his way with great difficulty down the crowded aisle.

  When nature called, he waited half an hour for his turn in the small, foul-smelling cubicle at the end of the car; and then when he made his way back to his seat, he found a sailor in it, reluctant to give it up.

  The ride wasn't smooth enough, nor his seat comfortable enough, for him to sleep during the trip; but he cushioned his head with his fore-and-aft cap against the window and dozed, floating in memories of the time he and Barbara spent together. Aware that it was ludicrous to dream of his return from the war before he had actually gone overseas, he nevertheless did just that.

  By then, certainly, the temporarily delayed commission would have come through. He would be Lieutenant Moore, possibly even Captain Moore. In any case, an officer. That would certainly tend to diminish the unfortunate differences in their ages. One simply could not treat a Marine lieutenant, or a Marine captain, like a boy. He even considered growing a mustache-once the commission came along, of course.

  But most of the images he dwelt on concerned the scene that would take place once he and Barbara went behind a closed and locked door somewhere, either in the apartment on Rittenhouse Square, or preferably, in some very nice hotel suite.

  The astonishing truth was that physical intimacy-he did not like to think of it simply and crudely as "sex," because all that he and Barbara had done together was much more beautiful than that-between people who were in love with each other was everything-and more-than people said it was.

  Such images were pleasant. But the ride was long, and the seat uncomfortable, and he was glad to hear the conductor announce their imminent arrival in San Diego. Somewhat smugly, he did not join in the frenzied activity to reclaim seabags and luggage and get off The Lark. When all these people left the train, the station was going to be as crowded as the train had been. If he just sat and looked out the window and waited, by the time he got to the station, much of the crowd would be dispersed.

  Finally, he jerked his seabag from the overhead rack, carried it out of the car with his arms wrapped around it, hoisted it to his shoulder in the vestibule, and went down the stairs to the platform.

  A hundred feet down the platform toward the station, he was surprised to see a Marine with corporal's stripes painted on his utility jacket sleeves holding up what looked like the side of a cardboard box. Written on that in grease pencil was, SGT. J. M. MOORE.

  He walked up to him.

  "My name is Moore."

  "I was beginning to think you missed the fucking train," the corporal said. "Come on, the Gunny's outside in the truck."

  He tossed the sign under the train and started down the platform. Outside the main door was a Chevrolet pickup truck, painted in Marine green. A short, muscular Gunnery Sergeant, a cigar butt in his mouth, was sitting on the fender.

  "You Moore?" he asked as he pushed himself off the fender.

  "Right."

  "I was beginning to think you either couldn't read or missed the fucking train," the Gunny said. "My name is Zimmerman. The Lieutenant, Lieutenant McCoy, sent me to meet you. Throw your gear in the back and get in."

  "Right," Moore said. "Where are we going?"

  "Would you believe the San Diego Yacht Club?"

  Moore smiled uneasily. Obviously, he was not supposed to ask where he was going, otherwise he would not have been given a sarcasti
c reply.

  "Sorry," he said.

  Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman grunted and got behind the wheel, Moore got in the other side, and the corporal got in beside him, next to the window.

  As they drove away from the station, Zimmerman said, "I checked out how those fuckers at Outshipment work, the way they handle people like you with priorities like yours."

  "Oh?"

  "What they do when you report in is send you over to the transient barracks, and then get you put on some kind of detail. Then, when they're making up the manifest for the flight, they see who else is on it with rank and no priority, or not so high a priority. If there ain't anybody, then they call you back from the transient barracks and you get on the plane. But if there is some commander or some colonel who's going to give them trouble about being bumped by a sergeant, they 'can't find you' on your detail, you miss the flight, the commander or the colonel gets on it, they don't get no trouble, and everybody's happy."

  "I see."

  "So I told the Lieutenant, and he said 'fuck 'em, stash him until thirty minutes before the plane leaves and then take him right to operations. Then they can't lose him, he'll be there.' "

  "I understand," Moore said, although he wasn't absolutely sure he did.

  "So I asks the Lieutenant where he wants you stashed, and he says take you over to the boat, he'll call Miss Ernie and tell her you're coming."

  "The boat?"

  "I told you, we're going to the Yacht Club," Gunny Zimmerman said, impatiently.

  "How'd you know when I was arriving?"

  "You ask a lot of fucking questions about things that are none of your fucking business, don't you?" ,the Gunny replied.

  "Sorry," Moore said.

  The corporal beside him snorted in amusement.

  "Miss Ernie"? "The Yacht Club"? Am I being a snob because I suspect that the yacht club he's referring to is not what usually pops into my mind when I hear the words "yacht club"? Odds are that this yacht club is going to turn out to be a Marine bar somewhere, with a picture of a naked lady and the standard Marine Corps emblems hanging above the bar, and whose proprietress, Miss Ernie, will bear a strong resemblance to Miss Sadie Thompson?

  And then another question popped into his mind: Lieutenant McCoy? He did say "Lieutenant McCoy," didn't he? He damn sure did! Killer McCoy? Am I really going to get to meet the legendary Killer McCoy?

  Discretion, however, overwhelmed his curiosity. Having just been told by the Gunny that he asked too many fucking questions about things that were none of his fucking business, he decided that it would be best to just ride along in silence.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was more than a little surprised when the Gunny turned the pickup truck off the highway and through two large brick pillars. On each of these was a bronze sign reading, SAN DIEGO YACHT CLUB-PRIVATE- MEMBERS ONLY.

  Three minutes after that, they stopped at the end of a pier.

  "You carry his seabag onto the boat for him," Gunny Zimmerman ordered the corporal, "and you come with me."

  They walked down the pier until they came to the stern of a large yacht, on whose tailboard was lettered in gold leaf, "LAST TIME, San Diego."

  The corporal went up a ladder carrying Moore's bag and went aboard. Gunny Zimmerman touched Moore's arm in a signal to stop.

  What the hell is going on? This thing is at least fifty feet long. Without question, by any definition, a yacht.

  A startlingly beautiful young woman wearing white shorts and a red T-shirt emblazoned with the insignia of the U.S. Marine Corps appeared at the stern rail. She had jet black hair cut in a page boy, and the baggy T-shirt seemed to do more to call attention to a very attractive figure than to conceal it.

  "Hi!" she called down.

  "The Lieutenant call, Miss Ernie?" Gunny Zimmerman asked.

  "Yes, he did. And I told you the next time you called me 'Miss Ernie' I was going to throw you in the harbor," she said. She looked at Moore. "Hi! Come aboard. I've been expecting you."

  "Go aboard. I'll be back for you in the morning," Gunny Zimmerman ordered.

  "You want a beer, Zimmerman?" the girl asked.

  "Got to get back, Miss Ernie," Zimmerman said. "The Lieutenant said he might be a little late."

  "There, you did it again!" she said.

  "Jesus Christ, Miss Ernie," he said uncomfortably, "you're the Lieutenant's lady."

  "Just don't stand close to the edge of the dock, Zimmerman," she said. "You're warned."

  Zimmerman hid his face from the young woman. "You watch yourself with that lady, Moore," he said, with more than a hint of menace.

  And then he marched back up the pier to the truck.

  As Moore walked to the ladder, the corporal came down it.

  "Nice!" he said, as he walked past Moore.

  The black-haired girl was waiting on the deck with her hand held out.

  "I'm Ernie Sage," she said. "As Zimmerman so discreetly put it, I'm Ken McCoy's 'lady.' Welcome aboard."

  "How do you do?" Moore said, taking the offered hand. "I'm Sergeant Moore."

  "Have you got a first name?"

  "John."

  "Would you like a beer, John? Or something stronger?"

  "I'd love a beer. Thank you."

  As he followed her down the deck to the cabin, Moore observed that she was just as good looking from that perspective.

  She opened a refrigerator door and took out a bottle of beer.

  "Mexican," she said. "Ken says it's much better than the kind they make in 'Diego. Would you like a glass?"

  "The bottle's fine, thank you," he said.

  "Where are you from?"

  "Philadelphia," he said.

  "Oh, I'm from Jersey. Bernardsville. I've spent some time in Philly. I used to go with a guy-nothing serious-who was at U.P."

  "I went to the University of Pennsylvania," he said.

  "And then you joined the Corps?"

  He nodded.

  "Ken's from Norristown," she said. "But he's only been back once since he joined the Corps."

  "Oh," Moore said, aware that he was tongue-tied.

  "I told Whatsisname, Zimmerman's driver, the one he won't let drive, to put your bag in a cabin-second door to the right when you go below-so if you'd like, when you finish your beer, you could have a shower."

  "I need one," Moore said. "I've been traveling for forty-eight hours."

  "And you've been on The Lark," she said with a smile. "Anyone who's been on The Lark needs a long, hot shower."

  She smiled at him, and he smiled back. He had no idea who this young woman was, but he liked her.

  Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, came back in the cabin just as Second Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, USMCR, entered it from the deck.

  Lieutenant McCoy, who was in dress green uniform, looked not unlike other second lieutenants Moore had seen. That is, he was young-about my age, Moore thought-and trim, and immaculately shaven and dressed. But there was one significant difference. Above the silver marksmanship medals which all second lieutenants seemed to have- although McCoy seemed to have more of these, all EXPERT -he had five colored ribbons, representing medals. Moore had seen very few second lieutenants with any ribbons at all.

  Moore didn't know what all of them represented, but he did recognize two. One was the Pacific Theater of Operations Campaign Medal. McCoy's had a tiny bronze star, signifying that he had participated in a campaign. And on top was the ribbon representing the Purple Heart. This second lieutenant had already been to the war in the Pacific and had been wounded.

  Miss Ernestine Page kissed Lieutenant McCoy. It was a wifely demonstration of affection, Moore judged, although it had been made clear that whatever her relationship was with Lieutenant McCoy, she was not his legal spouse.

  "I'm Ken McCoy, Moore," he said. "I'm a friend of Captain Sessions. Ernie been taking good care of you?" He put out his hand. His grip was firm, and there was something about his eyes that made Moore decide that this was a good man.

  "
Yes, Sir, she has."

  "Let me get a beer, Baby, and get out of this uniform," McCoy said. "Give Moore another one."

  "Aye, aye, Sir. Right away, Sir."

  McCoy patted her possessively on the buttocks.

  "Be nice," he said.

  "I'm always nice," Ernie Page said.