The Corps IV - Battleground Read online

  "A simple statement of facts, Sir," Charley said.

  The admiral took his seat at the head of the table and pointed to the chair where Charley was to sit. Dawkins went to the far end of the table. Greyson sat across from Charley.

  "I'm a little surprised you haven't asked where you're going," Admiral Wagam said.

  "Sir, I thought that would be classified," Charley said.

  "It is, of course," Wagam said. "And I suppose that disqualifies you as a foolish young man. Only a foolish young man would ask, right?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "But let me put you on the spot, Galloway. Where do you think you'll be going? What's the scuttlebutt?"

  Wagam saw Galloway's discomfiture.

  "I will neither confirm nor deny, Galloway. But sometimes it is of value to know what people think, what they are guessing."

  Galloway looked at Dawkins for help. Dawkins shrugged again, barely perceptibly. Galloway interpreted this to mean, "Tell him what you think."

  "Sir, I think that once the 1st Marine Division has secured the airfield on Guadalcanal, we'll be flown off the Long Island onto the island."

  Admiral Wagam audibly sucked in his breath.

  "And when does the scuttlebutt have it that the 1st Marines are going to invade, what did you say, Guadalcanal?"

  "Yes, Sir. Guadalcanal. Shortly after the first of the month, Sir."

  "Goddamn it, I'd love to know where you got that!" Admiral Wagam exclaimed, and then immediately regained control of himself. He held out his hand in a stop gesture. "If you were about to answer me, belay it. We will now change the subject."

  "Yes, Sir," Charley said, and put a fork to the shrimp cocktail the messboy had set in front of him.

  There was no question in his mind now that Big Steve's scuttlebutt, and his own studied guesses, were right on the mark. VMF-229 was going to Guadalcanal to operate off a captured Japanese airfield. Presuming, of course, that the 1st Marine Division could capture it.

  "You're a bachelor, I understand, Galloway," the admiral said.

  "Yes, Sir."

  "In wartime, there are a number of advantages to being a bachelor," the admiral said.

  "And in peacetime, there are a number of advantages to being a bachelor," Dawkins said.

  The admiral gave him a frosty look.

  "Spoken like a longtime married man, Colonel," he said. "I share that opinion, to a degree. But what I had in mind was that a bachelor can devote his full attention to his duties, where a married man is always concerned with the welfare of his family. Wouldn't you agree?"

  "Yes, Sir. I take your point."

  "But what you said just made me think of something else," the admiral said. "My wife would probably kill me if she heard me say this, but I would say-how can I phrase this delicately?-Would you agree, Colonel, that the pain of separation from one's wife is less for people like you and me, who have been married for a long time, than it would be for someone who has recently married and then is almost immediately separated from his bride?"

  "Yes, Sir. I agree. And I think you phrased that very delicately, Admiral."

  "Yes," the admiral agreed.

  The messboys appeared, removed the silver shrimp cocktail bowls, and served the roast beef, roasted potatoes, and broccoli with hollandaise. A bottle of wine was introduced, opened, sipped by the admiral, and then poured.

  The admiral raised his glass.

  "To marriage, gentlemen. A noble institution. But one into which, I don't think, speaking of foolish young men with the best of intentions, Lieutenant David Schneider should enter at this point in his life and career."

  Jesus Christ, what's this?

  "I wasn't aware he was contemplating marriage." Colonel Dawkins said.

  "He is," the admiral said, sawing at his roast beef. "He is now experiencing the ecstasy of what he really believes is true love. True love at first sight, to put a point on it."

  "I'll be damned;" Dawkins said.

  Not Mary Agnes, for Christ's sake!

  "The young lady in question is a Navy Nurse," the admiral said. "Lieutenant (junior grade) Mary Alice O'Malley."

  Holy Christ!

  "Mary Agnes, Sir," Lieutenant Greyson corrected him.

  "Mary Agnes, then," the admiral said, a trifle petulantly. "David came to me last night and told me that he intended to apply for permission to marry. He tells me that he has stolen the affections of this young woman away from your executive officer, Captain Galloway; and for that reason, and others, he fears that his application will be delayed by you. He therefore sought my good offices to overcome your objections." He looked at Galloway. "Was he correct? Would you have, by fair means or foul, put obstacles in his path?"

  "Yes, Sir, I would have."

  "Good. Then we are all on the same wavelength," the admiral said. "What we have to do now is come up with a plan that will both keep him from making a fool of himself and keep both of us out of the line of fire. Just between us, gentlemen, I don't intend to spend the rest of my life explaining to my sister why I stood idly by and watched her precious Davey-boy marry a peroxide blonde floozie who is seven years older than he is, and who has been satisfying the sexual desires of every other junior officer in Pearl Harbor." The admiral paused and looked at Captain Charles M. Galloway, USMCR. "Including some squadron commanders who should have known better, even when they were in enlisted status."

  Chapter Fourteen

  (One)

  MARINE CORPS LIAISON OFFICE

  PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

  PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

  27 JULY 1942

  When his sergeant major loudly bellowed, "telephone for you, Major, Sir," Major George F. Dailey, USMC, a curly haired, slightly plump man six months shy of his thirtieth birthday, was sitting at his desk in shirt-sleeves in surrender to the heat.

  Sergeant Major Martin was more than a little deaf. He was an Old Breed Marine recalled from the Fleet Reserve. He originally retired, after twenty-five years of service, the year before Dailey was commissioned.

  "Thank you, Sergeant Major," Dailey said, and picked up the telephone.

  "Major Dailey speaking."

  "Major George Frederick Dailey?"

  "Yes."

  "What was your mother's maiden name?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I asked what was your mother's maiden name?"

  "Who is this, please?"

  "My name is Rickabee. I'm a lieutenant colonel on the headquarters staff."

  He means, Daily realized, genuinely surprised, Headquarters, United States Marine Corps staff. The Director, Central North East Region, Officer Procurement- Dailey-had never before heard directly from Headquarters, USMC.

  "Cavendish, Sir," Dailey said.

  "OK," his caller said. "I want you to catch a train as soon as you can, Major, and come down here. We're in Temporary Building T-2032 on the Mall. Take a cab from the station. Write that down. T-2032. My name is Rickabee." Rickabee obligingly spelled his name.

  "Sir, would... day after tomorrow be all right?"

  "I'm talking about this afternoon."

  "Sir, that would be difficult. I have a..."

  "Get your ass on a train and get down here this afternoon, Major," Colonel Rickabee said, and then hung up.

  Dailey held the telephone in his hand for a moment before replacing it in the cradle. Then, for another minute, he looked out his window at the Princeton campus. Then he called for Sergeant Major Martin. He had to call three times before the old Marine appeared at his door.

  "They want me to come to Washington," he said. "You'll have to reschedule whatever's on the schedule for this afternoon."

  Major Dailey was himself a Princetonian, and he supposed that had more than a little bit to do with his first assignment in wartime. He understood the importance of officer procurement, of course, and why it made a good deal of sense to have a professional, such as himself, deciding which eager young man had the stuff required of a Marine officer and which did not. Al
l the same, he would have much preferred to be in the Pacific as a fighter pilot, but that was out of the question.

  At one time Major Dailey was a fighter pilot. He had gone from Princeton to Quantico, after which he'd done two years duty with troops. And then, just after he had been promoted to first lieutenant, he was sent to flight school at Pensacola. He flew for not quite four years, and loved every moment of it. But then he was called in after his annual flight physical and told that he had a heart murmur, and he had better give serious thought to what he wanted to do in the Corps now that he was no longer physically fit to fly.

  He seriously considered resigning-he had no interest in the infantry or artillery, which seemed his other options. If he no longer could fly, what good to the Corps could he be? But a full bull colonel he had a lot of respect for told him the Corps needed unusually bright, well-educated officers in procurement, logistics, or intelligence even more than it needed yet one more aviator. So he decided to put off resigning for a couple of years to see what happened.

  The Corps sent him back to college for six months for a crash course in the German language, and then sent him to the U.S. Embassy in Berlin as an Assistant Naval Attache. His promotion to captain came along when it was due, and he was not blind to the fact that a six-room apartment on Onkle Tomallee in Berlin-Zehlendorf was considerably more comfortable than a BOQ in Quantico.

  He came home in 1940 and did an eighteen-month tour in Headquarters, USMC, essentially studying German tactics for review by G-3. And in November, 1941, he was promoted to Major (in the reserve; he was still only a Captain on the numerical list of regular Marine Corps Officers). When war came, he expected to be assigned some sort of duties which would take advantage of his European experience, but that didn't happen.

  They sent him to Princeton to serve as President of the Officer Selection Board for the area, and to modify (that is to say, condense) the Platoon Leader's Training Program at the university. He was led to believe that the decisions he made about what could be cut from the pre-war program would set the pattern for other programs across the country.

  He didn't like the prospect of sitting out the war in Princeton, but he was able to resign himself to it, particularly in the belief that his assignment probably would not last long. The projected growth of the Corps boggled the mind... they were now talking of hundreds of thousands of Marines- divisions of Marines. And certainly, they would need an officer of his rank and experience doing something besides selecting potential officers.

  He expected to be reassigned, in other words. But the suddenness of the event, and the assignment itself, were startling.

  At 1615 that afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Rickabee ushered Major Dailey into the office of Brigadier General Horace W.T. Forrest, USMC, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence. To Dailey's surprise, Rickabee was not only not in uniform, he had a large revolver "concealed" in the small of his back under his seersucker jacket.

  Dailey noticed on General Forrest's desk both his Officer's Service Record and another file, marked SECRET, and DAILEY, GEORGE F.

  He could not remember afterward what questions General Forrest put to him, and thus not his answers, but he remembered clearly how the interview ended:

  "He'll do," General Forrest announced. "You brief him. I'm too busy, and I don't want him contaminated by those bastards in G-l."

  "Aye, aye, Sir," Colonel Rickabee said, smiling, and then signaled for Dailey to leave. When he came out of General Forrest's office, Dailey saw that he was carrying both the files that the General had apparently been reading.

  In the unmarked (but obviously government owned) car they drove back from Eighth and "I" Streets to Rickabee's office on the Mall, Rickabee gave him the first inkling of the billet that General Forrest had now officially given him.

  "You know the good news-bad news routine?" Rickabee asked.

  "Yes, Sir."

  "The good news is that you are, effective today, a lieutenant colonel and on leave. The bad news is that when you come off your leave you will be in San Diego, about to board an airplane for Pearl Harbor. Your ultimate destination is Brisbane, Australia, where you will be the Marine liaison officer between CINCPAC-Admiral Nimitz-and The Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area-General MacArthur."

  "Why is that bad news, Sir?"

  "Haven't you ever heard that primitive cultures always shoot the bearers of bad news?" Rickabee said.

  Despite what General Forrest said about contamination, Lieutenant Colonel Dailey was briefed by a team of officers of the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel. The lieutenant colonel in charge told him (and Dailey believed him, and could not help but be flattered by the statement) that G-l had been looking all along for a suitable assignment for him... God knew the Corps needed experienced officers; but, until the day before, there had been "a G-2 Hold" on his records; and as long as that was there, he could not be reassigned without G-2 concurrence; and that had not been given.

  "We didn't even propose you for this billet, frankly," the lieutenant colonel said. "We thought it would be a waste of time with the G-2 Hold. So, wouldn't you know, G-2 proposed you to us. We're delighted, of course. And I suppose I will have to take back all the unpleasant things I've been saying about G-2."

  The G-l lieutenant colonel went on to describe the bad feeling between General MacArthur's and Admiral Nimitz's headquarters. This was recently brought to a head when SHSWPA (Supreme Headquarters, South West Pacific Area) formally charged that CINCPAC had been denying MacArthur information he was entitled to have; or at least was delaying it until it was too late to act upon.

  "That brought the Secretary of the Navy in on this, Dailey," the lieutenant colonel said. "He sent word down that he didn't want MacArthur to have grounds to even suspect that anything was being kept from him; he ordered that an officer be assigned to Brisbane to do nothing but pass information between CINCPAC and SHSWPA; and he specified a Marine. We thought of you right away, of course, with your diplomatic experience... but with that G-2 Hold?" he shrugged. "Anyway, here you are."

  Lieutenant Colonel Dailey took a seven-day leave, spending it with his mother in Greenwich, Connecticut. And then returned to Washington, where Colonel Rickabee informed him that he would travel at least as far as Pearl Harbor with a briefcase chained to his wrist.

  "Two birds with one stone," Rickabee explained. "And it will free the seat the officer courier would normally occupy."

  At Anacostia Naval Air Station, Dailey asked Rickabee about the G-2 Hold. He did that just before he got on the plane to San Diego, reasoning that it was too late for Rickabee to do anything about it, even if he did make him mad.

  "I presume the G-2 Hold situation has been resolved, Colonel," he said. "May I ask what it was, specifically?"

  "I see that our friends in personnel have diarrhea of the mouth again," Rickabee said.

  "What I'm asking, Colonel, is whether there is some sort of cloud over me."

  "No. I assure you there is not."

  "Then may I ask why there was a hold?"

  "Am I to suspect, Colonel," Rickabee replied, "that your conscience is bothering you vis-…-vis your relationship with Fraulein Ute Schellberger?"

  "I wondered if that was a matter of official record," Dailey confessed. For an instant it all seemed perfectly clear. That's why he was sent to Princeton. If there was anything worse for a young officer on attach‚ duty than getting drunk and pissing in the Embassy's potted palms, it was getting involved with a German blonde.

  "Well, it bothered the FBI some, frankly," Rickabee said. "But then I told them that so far as the Corps was concerned, we would have been worried if a red-blooded young bachelor Marine officer far from home had not been fucking the natives, and that we were convinced you had not become a National Socialist."

  "Christ!" Dailey had said.

  Rickabee smiled at him.

  "I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that," Dailey said.

  "You didn't hear anyth
ing from me, Colonel," Rickabee said. "Understood?"

  "Understood."

  "And now you are wondering, naturally, how come you were given this assignment? And are too polite, or too discreet, to ask?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "There are several things going on over there in which we have an interest. Since you have no need to know what they are..."

  "I understand, Sir."

  "We may need replacements for the incumbents. An ideal replacement would be an officer of appropriate grade, who had already gone through the FBI's screening and been declared ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths percent pure on the morals scale-like Ivory soap. And who was not only over there, but in a position to know more of what's going on than, say, a battalion commander. Or for that matter, a division G-2. A liaison officer, for example."