The Corps 03 - Counterattack Read online

  "Why, Corporal Pickering," he said. "My, how you’ve aged!"

  "Hello, you baldheaded old bastard," Pickering replied. "How the hell are you?"

  General Mclnemey’s intended handshake degenerated into an affectionate hug. The two men, who had become friends in their teens, beamed happily at each other.

  "It’s a little early, but what the hell," General Mclnerney said. "Charlie, get a bottle of the good booze and a couple of glasses."

  "Aye, aye, Sir," his aide-de-camp replied. Although he was a little taken aback by the unaccustomed display of affection, and it was the first time he had ever heard anyone refer to General Mclnerney as a "baldheaded old bastard," he was not totally surprised. Until a week ago, General Mclnerney’s "temporary junior aide" had been a second lieutenant fresh from Quantico, whom General Mclnerney had arranged to get in the flight-training program at Pensacola.

  His name was Malcolm Pickering, and this was obviously his father. The General had told him that they had served together in France in the First World War.

  "Pick’s a nice boy, Flem," General Mclnerney said, as he waved Pickering into one end of a rather- battered couch and sat down on the other end. "I was tempted to keep him."

  "I’m grateful to you for all you did for him, Doc," Pickering said.

  "Hell," Mclnerney said, depreciatingly, "the Corps needs pilots more than it needs club officers, and that’s what those paper pushers in personnel were going to do with him."

  "Well, I’m grateful nonetheless," Pickering said.

  "I got one for you," Mclnerney said. "I called down there to make sure they weren’t going to make him a club officer down there, and you know who his roommate is? Jack Stecker’s boy. He just graduated from West Point."

  Fleming Pickering had no idea what Mclnerney was talking about, and it showed on his face.

  "Jack Stecker?" Mclnerney went on. "Buck sergeant? Got the Medal at Belleau Wood?"

  The Medal was the Medal of Honor, often erroneously called the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor in action.

  "Oh, yeah, the skinny guy. Pennsylvania Dutchman. No middle name," Pickering remembered.

  "Right," Mclnerney chuckled, "Jack NMI Stecker."

  "I always wondered what had happened to him," Pickering said. "He was one hard-nosed sonofabitch."

  The description was a compliment.

  The aide handed each of them a glass of whiskey.

  "Mud in your eye," Mclnerney said, raising his glass and then draining it.

  "Belleau Wood," Pickering said dryly, before he emptied his glass.

  "Jack stayed in the Corps," Mclnerney went on. "They wanted to send him to Annapolis. Christ, he wasn’t any older than we were, he could have graduated with a regular commission when he was twenty-three or twenty-four, but he wanted to get married, so he turned it down. Until last summer he was a master gunnery sergeant at Quantico."

  "Was?"

  "They made him a captain; he’s at Diego."

  "And now our kids are second lieutenants! Christ, we’re getting old, Doc."

  "Jack had two boys. The older one went to Annapolis. He was an ensign on the Arizona. He was KIA on December 7."

  "Oh, Christ!"

  The two men looked at each other a moment, eyes locked, and then Mclnerney shrugged and Pickering threw up his hands helplessly.

  "So what brings you to Washington, Flem?" Mclnerney asked, changing the subject. "I thought you hated the place."

  "I do. And with rare exceptions, everyone in it. I’m looking for a job."

  "Oh?"

  "I just saw Colonel William J. Donovan," Pickering said. "He sent for me."

  "Then I guess you know what he’s up to."

  "I’ve got a pretty good idea."

  "Out of school, he’s giving the Commandant a fit."

  "Oh? How so?"

  "The scuttlebutt going around is that Roosevelt wants to commission Donovan a brigadier general in the Corps."

  "But he was in the Army," Pickering protested.

  "Yeah, I know. The President is very impressed, or so I hear, with the British commandos. You know, hit-and-run raids. He wants American commandos, and he thinks they belong in the Corps. I hope to hell it’s not true."

  "It sounds idiotic to me," Pickering said.

  "Tell your important friends. Senator Fowler, for example."

  "I will."

  "Just don’t quote me."

  "Don’t be silly, Doc."

  "You were about to tell me, I think, what you’re going to do for Donovan."

  "Nothing. I decided I didn’t want to work for him. Or maybe vice versa. Anyway, I’m not going to work for him."

  "Won’t you have enough to do running your company? Hell, transportation is going to win-or lose-this war."

  "I sold the passenger ships, at least the larger ones, to the Navy," Pickering replied. "And the freighters and tankers will probably go on long-term charter to either the Navy or the Maritime Administration-the ones that aren’t already, that is. There’s not a hell of a lot for me to do."

  "So what are you going to do?"

  "Strange, General, that you should ask that question," Pickering said.

  "What’s on your mind, Flem?" Mclnerney asked, a hint of suspicion in his voice.

  "How about ‘Once a Marine, always a Marine’?"

  Mclnerney looked at him with disbelief and uneasiness in his eyes.

  "Flem, you’re not talking about you coming back in the Corps, are you? Are you serious?"

  "Yes, I am, and yes, I am," Pickering said. "Why is that so- to judge from the look in your eyes and your tone of voice-incredible?"

  "Come on, Flem," Mclnerney said. "You’ve been out of the Corps since 1919-and then, forgive me, you were a corporal."

  "There should be some job where I could be useful," Pickering said. "Christ, I’ve been running eighty-one ships. And their crews. And all the shore facilities."

  "I’m sure the Navy would love to commission someone with your kind of experience. Or, for that matter, the Transportation Corps of the Army."

  "I don’t want to be a goddamn sailor."

  "Think it through," Mclnerney said. "Flem, I’m telling you the way it is."

  "So tell me. I’m apparently a little dense."

  "Your experience, your shipping business experience, is in what I think of as Base Logistics. Moving large amounts of heavy cargo by sea from one place to another. The Navy does that for the Marine Corps."

  "It occurred to me that I could be one hell of a division supply officer, division quartermaster, whatever they call it."

  "That calls for a lieutenant colonel, maybe a full colonel. If there was strong resistance among the palace guard to commissioning people-Marines, like Jack Stecker, a master gunnery sergeant-as captains, what makes you think they’d commission a civilian, a former corporal, as a lieutenant colonel?"

  "I’m willing to start at the bottom. I don’t have to be a lieutenant colonel."

  Mclnerney laughed. "I think you really believe that."

  "Yes, I do."

  "As a major? A captain? That your idea of starting at the bottom?"

  "Why not?"

  "Flem, when was the last time someone told you what to do, gave you an order?"

  "Well, just for the sake of argument, I think I can still take orders, but I have the feeling that I’m just wasting my breath."

  "You want the truth from me, old buddy, or bullshit from some paper pusher?"

  "That would depend on what the bullshit was."

  " ‘Why, we would love to have you, Mr. Pickering,’ followed by an assignment as, say, a major, and deputy assistant maintenance officer for mess-kit rehabilitation at Barstow, or some other supply depot. Where you would do a hell of a job rehabilitating mess kits, and be an all-around pain in the ass the rest of the time. You want to march off to war again, Flem, and that’s just not going to happen. Unless, of course, you go to the Navy. They really would love to have y
ou."

  "Fuck the Navy," Fleming Pickering said.

  He stood up. General Mclnerney eyed him warily.

  "I suppose I’ve made a real fool of myself, haven’t I, Doc?" Pickering said calmly.

  "No, not at all. I’m just sorry things are ... the way things are."

  "Well, I’ve kept my master’s ticket up. And I still own some ships. Taking a ship to sea is better than being ... what did you say, ‘a deputy assistant mess-kit-repair officer’?"

  "Yes, of course it is. But I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, that the Navy would love to have you."

  "And I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, Fuck the Navy.’"

  Mclnerney laughed.

  "Have it your way, Flem. But they are on our side in this war."

  "Well, then, God help us. I was at Pearl Harbor."

  "Is it fair to blame Pearl Harbor on the Navy?"

  "On who, then?" Fleming Pickering said, and put out his hand. "Thank you for seeing me, Doc. And for doing what you did for Pick."

  "If you were twenty-one, I’d get you in flight school, too. No thanks required. Keep in touch, Flem."

  (Four)

  The Foster Lafayette Hotel

  Washington, D.C.

  20 December 1941

  "Thank you very much," Fleming Pickering said politely, then took the receiver from his ear and placed it, with elaborate care, in its base. It was one of two telephones on the coffee table in the sitting room of Senator Richardson Fowler’s suite. Then he said, quite clearly, "Well, I’ll be a sonofabitch!" Transcontinental and Western Airlines had just told him that even though he already had his ticket for a flight between New York and San Francisco, with intermediate stops at Chicago and Denver, he could not be boarded without a priority. He had explained to them that he had come from San Francisco with a priority and was simply trying to get home, and that he had presumed that the priority which had brought him to Washington also applied to his return trip. TWA had told him that was not the case; he would need another priority to do so.

  Fleming Pickering considered his predicament and swore again.

  "That goddamned sonofabitch!"

  He was referring to Colonel William J. Donovan, Coordinator of Information to the President of the United States. This was his fault. Donovan should have arranged for him to get home, gotten him a priority to do so. While he didn’t think it was likely the ambulance-chasing sonofabitch was vindictive enough to have canceled his return-trip priority after their unpleasant encounter that morning, it was possible. And whether he had canceled the priority or simply neglected to arrange for one, what this meant for Fleming Pickering was that unless he wanted to spend four days crossing the country by train-and they probably passed out compartments on the train to people with priorities, which might well mean sitting up in a coach all the way across the country-he was going to have to call the bastard up and politely beg him to get him a priority to go home.

  There was no question in Pickering’s mind that Donovan would get him a priority, and no question either that Donovan would take the opportunity to remind Pickering that priorities were intended for people who were making a contribution to the war effort, not for people who placed their own desires and ambitions above the common good, by, for example, declining to serve with the Office of the Coordinator of Information.

  Then Fleming Pickering had another thought: Richardson Fowler could probably get him a priority. Dick was a politician. Whatever law the politicians wrote, or whatever they authorized some agency of the government to implement-such as setting up an air-travel priority system-those bastards would take care of themselves first.

  The thought passed through his mind, and was quickly dismissed, that perhaps he was being a horse’s ass, that he was not working for the government and therefore had no right to a priority, and that getting one through Fowler’s political influence would deprive of a seat some brave soldier en route to battle the Treacherous Jap. He was not going to California to lie on the beach. He still had a shipping company to run; coming here had taken him away from that.

  There came a knock at the door. Pickering looked at it, and then at his watch. It was probably Dick Fowler. But why would Fowler knock?

  "Come!"

  It was Max Telford.

  "Hello, Max, what’s up?"

  "I have a somewhat delicate matter I thought I should bring to your attention," Telford said.

  "Will it wait until I pour us a drink? I’ve had a bad day and desperately need one."

  "I could use a little taste myself," Telford said. "Thank you."

  "Scotch?"

  "Please."

  When Pickering handed him his drink, Telford handed him a woman’s red leather wallet.

  "What’s this?"

  "It belongs to Miss Ernestine Sage," Telford said.

  Ernestine "Ernie" Sage was the daughter of Patricia Pickering’s college roommate.

  "Where’d you get it?" Pickering asked.

  "Miss Sage left it behind when she left the inn. The wallet and some other things."

  "I don’t quite follow you."

  "She was not registered, Mr. Pickering," Telford said carefully.

  "She was here with Pick?" Fleming Pickering’s eyes lit up. He liked Ernie Sage, and there had been more than a tiny seed of hope in the jokes over the years, as Ernie and Pick had been growing up, that they could be paired off permanently. Still, it was a dumb thing for Pick to do. Ernest Sage, Ernie’s father, was Chairman of the Board of American Personal Pharmaceuticals. And he routinely stayed in the Foster Lafayette. Pick should have known she would be recognized.

  "With Pick’s friend," Telford said. "Lieutenant McCoy."

  "I know him," Pickering said, without thinking. "He’s a nice kid."

  Pick and McCoy had gone through the Officer Candidate School at the Marine base at Quantico together. They had nothing in common. McCoy had been a corporal in the peacetime Marine Corps, and what he had, he had earned himself. But Pickering had not been surprised when he’d met McCoy and seen the affection between him and his son. Doc Mclnerney and Flem Pickering had become lifelong friends in the Corps in France, despite a wide disparity in backgrounds.

  "Then you know he was wounded," Telford said.

  "No. I hadn’t heard about that."

  "I don’t have all the details," Telford said. "I didn’t want to pry, but McCoy is apparently some sort of officer courier. He was in the Pacific when the war started, and Pick got one of those ‘missing and presumed dead’ telegrams. He was pretty shook up about it. And then McCoy called from the West Coast and said he was back. Anyway, Pick came to me and said that McCoy was on his way to Washington, and if there was ever a time a Foster hotel should offer its very best, it was now, to McCoy. And his lady friend. And that all charges should be put on his account."

  "And the lady friend turned out to be Ernestine Sage?"

  "Yes, Sir. I recognized her immediately, but I don’t know if she knows I knew who she is."

  "And they were here for a while? Lots of room service?"

  "Yes. That’s a nice way to put it."

  "Andrew Foster once told me that so far as he’s concerned, he’s prepared to offer accommodations to two female elephants in heat, plus a bull elephant, just as long as they pay the bill and don’t soil the carpets," Pickering said. "So what’s the problem?"

  Telford laughed. "He told me a variant of that philosophy. It was two swans in heat, so long as they paid the bill and didn’t flap their wings and lay eggs in the elevators."

  Pickering chuckled, and then repeated, "So what’s the problem? I’d rather my wife didn’t hear about this, but so far as I’m concerned, whatever Ernie Sage did in here with Lieutenant McCoy is their business and no one else’s."

  "The problem is how to return Miss Sage’s property to her," Telford said. "The only address I have for either of them is the one on her driver’s license. That’s in Bernardsville, New Jersey. Her parents’ home, I think."

  "Telf
ord, your discretion is in keeping with the highest traditions of the innkeeping trade," Pickering said, meaning it. "If Ernest Sage found out-or even suspected-that his only child, his precious little Ernie, was shacked up with a Marine officer in a hotel in Washington, there would be hell to pay. Let me think."