The Corps II - CALL TO ARMS Read online

  "And what's his reason for being in mufti?" Colonel Wesley asked. He was annoyed that Rickabee had, without asking, turned the carbon of Captain James Roosevelt's proposal for Marine Commandos over to Frame to be photographed.

  "He'd look a little strange following a civilian around in uniform, don't you think, Colonel?" Rickabee replied, smiling.

  "And that's necessary? His following you around?"

  "That was the general's idea, Colonel," Rickabee said, and stood up. "Shall we have our lunch? He won't be long, and I've got a busy afternoon."

  From Colonel Wesley's silence during lunch, Lieutenant Colonel Rickabee decided that Wesley was displeased with him. He had probably been a little too flip for the colonel, failed to display the proper respect for a senior member of the Palace Guard. But there was nothing that could be done about that now.

  He was wrong. When Colonel Wesley returned to Headquarters, USMC, and to the office of Major General Lesterby, he told Lesterby that Rickabee might just be the answer to "the Carlson problem."

  "He had a specific suggestion?"

  "Yes, sir, that he arrange to have Carlson run over with a truck."

  "You think he was serious?"

  "Sir, I don't know."

  "It may come down to that, Tom."

  (Three)

  The Brooklyn Navy Yard

  Brooklyn, New York

  0400 Hours, 6 January 1942

  Two noncommissioned officers of the United States Marine Corps, Staff Sergeant C. (for Casimir) J. Koznowski and Sergeant Ernst W. "Ernie" Zimmerman, stood on the cobblestone street before an old brick barracks, shifting their feet and slapping their gloved hands against the cold. Koznowski was twenty-seven, tall, and slim. Zimmerman was stocky, muscular, round faced, and twenty-three. There were two "hash marks"-red embroidered diagonal bars each signifying the satisfactory completion of four years' service-on the sleeve of Koznowski's overcoat, and one hash mark on Zimmerman's.

  Sergeant Zimmerman's face was pale, and his uniform seemed just a hair too large for him. Sergeant Zimmerman had two days before been released from the St. Albans Naval Hospital where he had been treated for malaria. He had been certified as fit for limited service and was being transferred to Parris Island for duty in his military specialty of motor transport sergeant.

  Two corporals came around the corner of the brick barracks building, and when they saw Koznowski and Zimmerman, broke into a trot to join them.

  "Where the fuck have you two been?" Staff Sergeant Koznowski demanded. It was not really a question, but rather an expression of disapproval, and no answer was expected or given.

  "Go get 'em," Staff Sergeant Koznowski said to one of the corporals, and threw a clipboard at the other.

  Both corporals ran into the building. There was the blast of a whistle, and lights were on, and the sound of muffled shouts.

  Less than a minute later, encouraged by curt shouts of "Move it! Move it! Move it!" the first of 106 young then began to pour out of the building. They were in civilian clothing. The day before, or two days before, they had been civilians. They were now recruits of the United States Marine Corps. And they were about to be transported, under the command of Staff Sergeant Koznowski, Sergeant Zimmerman, and the two corporals, to the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina, for basic training.

  One of the corporals stood on the street. He grabbed the first four then to reach him by the shoulders and placed them one behind the other. Then he got the others to form ranks on them, sometimes by pointing, sometimes by shoving them into place.

  Finally, they were all lined up in four ranks.

  "Ah- ten-hut!" the corporal with the clipboard barked.

  One hundred and five of the 106 young then stood as stiff as they knew how. The 106th young man continued to try to tie the laces of his right shoe.

  Staff Sergeant Koznowski walked quickly to him, standing before him until the shoe was tied and the young man stood erect..

  "Got it all tied now?" Koznowski asked.

  "Uh- huh," the young man replied. He was now wearing a nervous smile.

  "When you are in ranks, and someone calls 'ah-ten-hut,' you come to attention right then," Koznowski said. "Not when it's convenient for you. You think you can remember that?"

  "My shoe- "

  "I asked, can you remember that?" Koznowski snapped.

  "Yeah, sure."

  "And you never, never, never say 'yeah, sure' to a sergeant," Koznowski said.

  The young man was clever enough to sense that whatever he said next was going to be the wrong thing, so he said nothing.

  "Take off the shoe," Koznowski said, conversationally.

  The young man looked at him in disbelief.

  "Take off the fucking shoe!" Koznowski shouted, his face two inches from the young man's face, spraying him with spittle.

  The young man did as he was ordered, and finally stood up again, holding the shoe in his hand.

  "Call the roll, Corporal," Staff Sergeant Koznowski ordered.

  "Listen up, you people," the corporal with the clipboard said. "I will call off your last name, and you will respond with your first."

  The roll was called.

  The corporal turned and saluted. "The recruit draft is formed, sir," he reported.

  Koznowski returned the salute, and then barked, "At ease."

  Next he delivered a short speech. He told them that there was clear proof that God did not love him, for he had been assigned the unpleasant task of moving their miserable asses from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to Parris Island, South Carolina, where an attempt would be made to turn their miserable asses into something resembling Marines.

  Before they could leave the Navy Yard, Staff Sergeant Koznowski announced, four things had to be done. First, they would be fed. After which they would run, not walk, back to the barracks. Second, their blankets, sheets, pillow cases, and mattress covers would have to be turned in. Third, the barracks and the head which they had managed to turn into a fucking pig sty in a remarkably short time would have to be returned to the immaculate state in which they had found it. Finally, they would have to wash and shave and do whatever else they could to make themselves as presentable as possible for the walk between the buses at the entrance to Pennsylvania Station and the train itself.

  It was going to be humiliating enough, Staff Sergeant Koznowski said, for himself and Sergeant Zimmerman and Corporals Hayworth and Conn to be seen shepherding so many assholes around without the assholes looking like they had just crawled out of the fucking sewer.

  They had, he informed them, precisely twenty-eight minutes and twenty seconds to accomplish breakfast and get back here.

  "Are there any questions?" Staff Sergeant Koznowski asked.

  A tall, rather thin young man in the rear rank had raised his hand above his shoulders.

  Koznowski looked at him. "Anyone tell you to put your hand up? You want permission to leave the room so you can take a piss?"

  "Sergeant," the tall thin young man said, nervously, "you asked if there were questions."

  "I didn't mean it," Staff Sergeant Koznowski said, pleased with himself. "Sergeant Zimmerman, take over."

  With that, Staff Sergeant Koznowski marched off in the direction of the mess hall, leaving Sergeant Zimmerman in charge.

  Like many-perhaps most-Marines, Zimmerman was ambivalent about the hoary Marine Corps tradition of shitting all over recruits until they had passed through either the Parris Island or San Diego Recruit Depots. He understood the philosophy, which was to break a man down and then rebuild him as a Marine; and he knew that it worked. It had turned him into a Marine. But he was personally uncomfortable with shitting on people; he could not have been a drill instructor himself, and he had been made uncomfortable when he had learned that he would be taking a draft of recruits to Parris Island.

  When Koznowski had turned the corner, Zimmerman said, "Finish buttoning your clothes."

  The young man holding his shoe
in his hand looked at him questioningly. Zimmerman shook his head no.

  When they had time to tuck their trousers in their pants and button their jackets and overcoats, Zimmerman called them to attention and marched them to the mess hall.

  He watched the line until the young man with his shoe tucked under his arm passed through it, and then told him he could now put his shoe on. Then he had his own breakfast.

  Afterward, he walked back to the barracks as the recruits ran past him. And there he supervised the turning in of the bed clothes and the cleaning of the barracks. He did not find it necessary to jump anybody's ass while doing so.

  When Staff Sergeant Koznowski returned from the staff NCO mess he found the draft of recruits lined up on the street before the barracks waiting to be loaded onto the chartered buses for the trip into Manhattan and Pennsylvania Station.

  Chapter Two

  (One)

  Rocky Fields Farm Bernardsville, New Jersey O605 Hours, 6 January 1942

  Second Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, stood in the bay window of the breakfast room, holding a cup and saucer in his hand. Pickering was a tall, erect young man of twenty-two, ruggedly handsome, with sharp features, and eyes that appeared experienced beyond his years. In his superbly tailored uniform, he looked, Elaine (Mrs. Ernest) Sage thought, like an advertisement in Town Country magazine. Or a Marine Corps recruiting poster.

  Elaine Sage was a striking, trim, silver-haired woman in her middle forties. She was wearing a pleated plaid skirt, a simple white blouse, and a pink sweater. There was an antique gold watch hanging from a gold chain around her neck, and a three-carat emerald-cut diamond engagement ring next to her wedding ring. She crossed the room to Pickering, surprising but not startling him, and kissed him on the cheek.

  "Good morning, Pick," she said, and then she put her arm around his waist and leaned her head against his arm.

  It was a motherly gesture. Elaine Sage had known "Pick" Pickering all his life; she had been at Sarah Lawrence with his mother; and she had taken the Twentieth-Century Limited to California and waited in Doctor's Hospital with his father for Patricia Foster Pickering to deliver her first and only child.

  Just over a year later, Patricia Pickering had come to Elaine's room at Presbyterian Hospital and cooed and oohed over precious little Ernestine.

  "Well," Patricia had said then, "the next thing we have to do is get the two of them together." That had been a running joke over the years, but not wholly a joke or a preposterous idea. It would have been nice, but it wasn't going to happen.

  What Pick Pickering had been looking at from the bay window of the breakfast room was Ernestine Sage standing by the duck pond at the far side of the wide lawn. She was standing with another Marine officer, and he had his arm around her. Twice, they had kissed.

  "What rouses you from bed at this obscene hour?" Pick Pickering asked Ernie Sage's mother.

  "You could say I am just being a gracious hostess," she replied.

  Pick Pickering snorted.

  "When I went to bed last night," Elaine Sage said, "I went to Ernie's room. I was going to tell her… following the hoary adage that the best way to get rid of your daughter's undesirable suitor is to praise him to the skies… how much I liked your friend out there." She bent her head in the direction of the Marine who was holding her daughter.

  Pickering looked down at her, his eyebrows raised.

  "She wasn't in her bed," Elaine Sage said.

  "If she wasn't, Aunt Elaine," Pick Pickering said, "it was her idea, not his."

  "Ken McCoy frightens me, Pick," Elaine Sage said. "He's not like us."

  "That may be part of his attraction," Pickering said.

  "I'm not sure he's good for Ernie," Elaine Sage said.

  "/ think he's very good for her," Pickering said. When she looked at him, he added: "Anyway, I think it's a moot point. She thinks he's good for her. She thinks the sun comes up because he wants it to."

  Ernestine Pickering and Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy had turned from the duck pond and were walking back to the house. He had unbuttoned his overcoat and she was half inside it, resting her face on his chest.

  "You will forgive me for not being able to forgive you for introducing them at your party," Elaine Sage said.

  "I didn't introduce them," Pickering said. "Ernie picked him up. She saw in him someone who was as bored with my party as she was. She walked up to him, introduced herself, and shortly thereafter they disappeared. I found out the next morning that he'd taken her to a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Where, apparently, he dazzled her by speaking to the proprietor in Chinese, and then won her heart with his skill with chopsticks."

  Elaine Sage chuckled.

  "For what it's worth, Aunt Elaine," Pickering went on, "he didn't know she had a dime."

  "Love at first sight?" she said. "Don't tell me you believe mat's possible?"

  "Take a look," he said. "You have a choice between love at first sight or irresistible lust. I'm willing to accept love at first sight."

  "They have nothing in common," she protested.

  "I don't have a hell of a lot in common with him, either," Pickering said. "But I realized some time ago he's the best friend I've ever had. If you've come looking for an ally in some Machiavellian plot of yours to separate the two of them, you're out of luck. / think they're good for each other. My basic reaction is jealousy. I wish someone like Ernie would look at me the way she looks at McCoy."

  "I wish Ernie would look at you the way she looks at McCoy," Elaine Sage said.

  There was a rattling sound behind them. They turned and saw a middle-aged, plump woman in a maid's uniform rolling a serving cart into the breakfast room.

  "Do you suppose that she was looking out the window, too, for the return of Romeo and Juliet?" Pickering asked dryly. "Will it be safe for him to eat the scrambled eggs?"

  "I am placing what hope I have left in the 'praise him to the skies' theory," Elaine Sage said. "Poison will be a last desperate resort."

  Ernestine Sage and Second Lieutenant Kenneth J. McCoy, USMCR, walked onto the broad veranda of the house, disappeared from sight, and a moment later came into the breakfast room. Their faces were red from the cold. McCoy was not quite as large as Pickering, nor as heavily built. He had light brown hair, and intelligent eyes.

  Ernie Sage was wearing a sweater and a skirt, and she wore her black hair in a pageboy. She was, both her mother and Pick Pickering thought, a truly beautiful young woman, healthy, and wholesome.

  "Mother," Ernie Sage said, "you didn't have to get up."

  "All I have to do is the and pay taxes," Elaine Sage said. "I'm up because I want to be up. Good morning, Ken. Sleep well?"

  "Just fine, thank you," McCoy said. His intelligent eyes searched her face for a moment, as if seeking a reason behind the "sleep well?" question.

  "I'm starved," Ernie Sage said. "What are we having?"

  "The cold air'll do that to you every time," Pickering said dryly.

  "We'd better start eating," Elaine Sage said. "I asked Tony to have the car ready at half-past six. The roads may be icy."

  Ernestine Sage looked at McCoy.

  "If we're really ahead of time at Newark," she said, "you can ride into Manhattan with us and catch the train there."

  "What time is your plane?" Elaine Sage asked Pickering.

  "Half- past eleven," he said. "I've plenty of time."

  "He said he'll catch the bus at the airlines terminal," Ernie Sage said.

  "Don't be silly," Elaine Sage said. "You might as well use the Bentley."

  "The bus is easier," Pickering said, as he went to the serving cart and started lifting silver covers. "Thanks anyway." He lifted his eyes to Elaine Sage. "Take a look at these scrambled eggs," he said. "Don't they have a funny color?"

  Both mother and daughter went to examine the eggs.

  "There's nothing wrong with the eggs," Elaine Sage said.

  "Well, if you're sure," Pickering said. "There's
supposed to be lot of poisoned eggs around."

  "Honey," Ernie Sage said. "You just sit, and I'll serve you."

  "'Honey'?" her mother parroted. McCoy flushed.

  "It's a sticky substance one spreads on bread," Pickering said.

  "It's also what I call him," Ernie Sage said. "It's what they call a 'term of endearment."'

  "Gee, Aunt Elaine," Pickering said. "Ain't love grand?"

  "Ginger- peachy," Elaine Sage said. "I understand it makes the world go round." She smiled at Ken McCoy. "We get the sausage from a farmer down the road," she said. "I hope you'll try it."

  McCoy looked at her; their eyes met.

  "Thank you," he said.

  Intelligent eyes, she thought. And then she amended that: Intelligent and wary, like an abused dog's.

  (Two)

  Pennsylvania Station

  New York City

  0925 Hours, 6 January 1942

  When the buses from the Navy Yard reached Penn Station, the recruits had been formed into two platoon-sized groups and marched into the station and down to the platform by the corporals. Koznowski and Zimmerman walked to one side. Commuters coming off trains from the suburbs had watched the little procession with interest. Some had smiled. The nation was at war; these were the then who would fight the war.

  Two coach cars had been attached to the Congressional Limited, immediately behind the blue-painted electric locomotive and in front of the baggage car and railway post office, so that they were effectively separated from the rest of the train.

  On the platform there, Staff Sergeant Koznowski had delivered another little lecture, informing the group that under the Regulations for the Governance of the Naval Service, to which they were now subject, anyone who "got lost" between here and Parris Island could expect to be tried by court-martial not for AWOL (Absence Without Leave) but for "missing a troop movement," which was an even more severe offense.

  They were to sit where they were told to sit, Staff Sergeant Koznowski said, and they were not to get out of that seat for any reason without specific permission from one of the corporals. He also said that there had been incidents embarrassing the Marine Corps where recruits had whistled at young civilian women. Any one of them doing that, Staff Sergeant Koznowski said, would answer to him personally.