Call to Arms

Chapter Sixteen

(One)

Annex #2, Staff NCO Club Camp Elliott, California 10 March 1942

Gunnery Sergeant Ernst Zimmerman, USMC, sat alone on a wooden folding chair at one of the small, four-man tables of the club. He was freshly showered and shaved, and in freshly washed dungarees. His feet were on a folding chair.

Annex #2 of the staff NCO club was a Quonset building. It was intended to provide a place for the staff noncommissioned officers-the three senior pay grades-to go for a beer when they came off duty tired, hot, and dirty. The wearing of the green uniform was prescribed for the main staff NCO club.

Annex #2 was simple, in fact crude. The bar, for instance, ran a third of the length of the building and was made of plywood. After it was built, someone had gone over the surface with a blow torch, which brought out the grain of the wood. Then it had been varnished. There were fifteen stools at the bar, and a dozen of the small tables. There was a juke box and four slot machines. Two took nickels, one took dimes, and one quarters.

Zimmerman never played the slot machines. He would play acey-deucey for money, or poker, and he had been known to bet on his own skill with the Springfield rifle, but he thought that playing the slots was stupid, fixed as they were to return to the staff NCO club twenty-five percent of the coins fed to them.

And he had never been in the main staff NCO club. He thought it was stupid to get all dressed up in greens, just to sit around with a bunch of other noncoms and tell sea stories. Green uniforms had to be cleaned and pressed, and that cost money. You could get hamburgers and hot dogs and bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches and french fries at the main club, but Zimmerman thought it was stupid to buy your food when the Corps was providing three squares a day.

If you really wanted a good meal, Zimmerman reasoned, take liberty off the base and go to some civilian restaurant and get a steak.

There was a row of whiskey bottles behind the bar, but Zimmerman rarely had a drink. He had nothing against the hard stuff, just against buying it by the drink at thirty cents a shot. For the price of ten drinks, you could get a bottle, and there were a lot more than ten shots in a bottle.

Annex #2 offered a two-quart pitcher of draft beer for forty cents. They also offered little bags of Planter's peanuts for a nickel. Zimmerman liked peanuts, but he didn't like to pay a nickel for half a handful, so he bought them in cans in the PX for twenty-nine cents, two or three cans at a time, when he bought his weekly carton of Camel cigarettes. He kept them in his room. When he was going to Annex #2 for a pitcher of beer, he dumped half a canful of peanuts on a piece of paper, folded it up, and carried it with him. He figured that way he could eat twice as many peanuts with his beer for the same money.

All things considered, Zimmerman was satisfied with his present assignment. He sort of missed being around a motor pool, but you couldn't work in a motor pool if you were a gunnery sergeant, and it was nice being a gunny. He had never expected to become a gunny. Probably a staff sergeant, or maybe even a technical sergeant. But not a gunny. It was either the building of the Corps for the war, or else mere had been a fuck-up at Headquarters, USMC, and some clerk was told to make him a staff sergeant and he hadn't been paying attention and had made a gunny instead. But he wasn't going to ask, or complain, about it. If there was a fuck-up, it would be straightened out.

He had liked being a gunny in the 1st Separate Battalion at Quantico. He had liked it better before they had transferred the company from Quantico to the 2nd Separate Battalion out here, and he had been a little worried when they had renamed the outfit the 2nd Raider Battalion.

It was supposed to be all volunteer. That wasn't so. Nobody had asked him when they'd transferred him from the motor pool at Parris Island whether he wanted to volunteer, and nobody had said anything about volunteering for anything since he'd been out here, either.

They were running the asses off the volunteers, a lot of time at night; but since he had been working for McCoy, he had been relieved from all other duties. That didn't mean it wasn't hard work, but the work McCoy had him doing made more sense than what everybody else was doing, especially the running around in the dark and the "close personal combat" training.

He didn't say anything about it, of course, but there was a lot of bullshit in the Raider training. They all thought they were going to be John Wayne, once they got to the Pacific, cutting Japanese throats. They seemed to have the idea that the Japs were obligingly going to stand still and raise their chins so they could get their throats cut.

Zimmerman knew that aside from McCoy, and maybe Colonel Carlson, he was one of the few people who had even seen a Japanese soldier up close. And the ones he had seen looked like pretty good soldiers to him. Some of the Japs he had seen were as big and heavy as he was. Most of the Raiders, especially the kids (which meant most of the Raiders; Zimmerman had heard that eighty-two percent of the enlisted then were under twenty years old), had the idea that Japs were buck-teethed midgets who wore thick glasses.

Colonel Carlson was trying to make them understand that wasn't so, that the Japs were tough, smart, and well trained. But the kids thought he was just saying that to key them up. They wouldn't change their minds until some Jap started to stick one of those long Jap bayonets in them.

There were some things the Raiders were doing that made sense to Zimmerman. Everybody was getting, or was supposed to get, a.45 in addition to whatever weapon he would be issued. In the Old Corps, that didn't happen. Only people in crew-served weapons, plus some senior noncoms, and officers, got.45s. Most people couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a pistol, but still it made sense to give people one in case something went wrong with their basic weapon.

Except, Zimmerman thought, that the Raiders were going apeshit over Thompsons and carbines, trying to get them issued instead of what they should have, these new eight-shot self-loading.30-06 Garands.

In all his time in the Corps, Zimmerman had known only two people who could handle a Thompson properly. Major Chesty Puller, who was a short, stocky, muscular sonofabitch (in Zimmerman's mind, Puller, not Gunnery Sergeant Lou Diamond, was the Perfect Marine) and could handle the recoil with brute strength; and McCoy. McCoy, compared to Puller, was a little fucker, but he had learned how to control the recoil of a Thompson by controlling the trigger. He got off two-round bursts that went where he pointed them, and he could get off so many two- and three-round bursts that he could empty the magazine, even a fifty-round magazine, just about as fast as Major Puller, who just pulled the trigger and held it back and used muscles to keep ten-, fifteen-, even twenty-round bursts where he wanted them to go.

Aside from McCoy and Puller and, he now remembered, a gunnery sergeant with the Peking Horse Marines, everybody else he had ever seen trying to deliver accurate rapid fire from a Thompson had wound up shooting at the horizon. Or the moon.

But it was classy, salty, to have a Thompson, and everybody was breaking their ass to get one. In the Old Corps, you took what the book said, period. But Colonel Carlson, McCoy had told him, had been given permission to arm the Raiders just about any way he wanted to. If a Raider, officer or enlisted, could come up with almost any half-assed reason why he should have a Thompson, more often than not, they let him have one.

Zimmerman had personally stripped down and inspected ninety-six of the fuckers-half of them brand new, and half of them worn-out junk-that they'd got from the Army and that McCoy had sent him after.

But most of the officers loved the Thompsons. Though if they couldn't talk themselves into one of those, they wanted carbines. Maybe there was something to what McCoy had said, that the carbine was intended to replace the pistol. But he was about the only one that ever said that. Everybody else wanted it because they thought it would be a lot easier to haul around than a Springfield or a Garand.

And then there were the knives. Every sonofabitch and his brother in the Raiders was running around with a knife, like they were all Daniel Boones and they were going to go out and scalp the Japs, for Christ sake.

McCoy was the only Marine Zimmerman ever knew who had ever used a knife on anybody. There had been some guys in Shanghai who'd gotten into it with the Italian Marines during the riots with Springfield bayonets, but that was different. Bayonets weren't sharp, and they had been used almost like clubs, or maybe small, dull swords. And so far as Zimmerman remembered hearing, none of those Italian Marines had died.

Two of the four Italian Marines who had jumped McCoy in Shanghai had died. McCoy had opened them up with his Fairbairn, which was a knife invented by a Limey captain on the Shanghai Municipal Police. It was a sort of dagger, razor sharp on bow edges, and built so that the point wouldn't snap off if it hit a bone. McCoy's wasn't a real Fairbairn, but a smaller copy of one run up by some Chinese out of an old car spring. It was about two-thirds as long as the real one. The real Fairbairn was too big to hide inside your sleeve above your wrist and below your elbow; McCoy's Baby Fairbairn was.

McCoy was now carrying his Fairbairn. When Zimmerman had asked him why, McCoy had first said, "Because Carlson told me to." And then he jumped all over his ass, saying he had a big mouth and that he should have kept it shut about what happened in Shanghai. Zimmerman had told him, truthfully, that he hadn't said a goddamned word about that, but he wasn't sure McCoy believed him.

Well, everybody in the goddamned Raiders knew about it now, and was calling him "Killer," the officers to his face, and the others behind his back. Until they stopped it, a lot of the kids were even trying to go around with their knives strapped to their wrists. That didn't work, but they thought it was salty as hell.

All this salty knife and submachine-gun bullshit was fine in training, Zimmerman thought; but if the Raiders ever got to do what everybody thought they were going to do-sneak ashore in little rubber boats from destroyers-converted-to-transports onto some Jap-held island and start, like John Wayne and Alan Ladd in some bullshit movie, to cut throats and shoot up the place-they were going to find out it was a hell of a lot different from what they thought.

Only once in his life had Gunnery Sergeant Ernst Zimmerman found himself in a situation where armed then were really trying to kill him. Forty or fifty Chinese "bandits," who were working for the Japs, had ambushed him and a Marine officer named Sessions when they had become separated from the rest of a motor supply convoy.

He hadn't shit his pants or tried to hide or run or anything like that. He'd just stood there with a.45 in a hip holster and just absolutely forgot he had a weapon, until McCoy had come charging up like the goddamned cavalry taking Chinese down with a Thompson. Even then he hadn't done anything. McCoy had had to scream at him, "Shoot, for Christ's sake!" before he took the.45 out and started to use it to save his own ass.

Zimmerman didn't think that would happen again-after he had "woken up," he had done what had to be done-but he wondered how these Raiders who were swaggering around Camp Elliott with their knives and carbines and Thompsons were going to react when they found themselves facing some Jap who was as big as they were, and who wasn't wearing thick glasses and didn't have buck teeth and was about to shoot them or run them through with a bayonet.

Baker Company's gunnery sergeant, Danny Esposito, appeared at the table with a pitcher of beer in one hand and a mug in the other. He was a large, heavy, leather-skinned man of thirty (either a Spaniard or an Italian, Zimmerman wasn't sure which), and he was wearing greens.

"You saving this table?" he asked.

"Sit down," Zimmerman said.

"You ready?" Gunnery Sergeant Esposito asked, holding his pitcher of beer over Zimmerman's mug.

"Why not?"

Esposito topped off Zimmerman's mug, and then sat down. Zimmerman pushed the piece of waxed paper with the peanuts over to him. Esposito scooped some up, tossed them in his mouth, and nodded his thanks.

"Scuttlebutt says that if somebody's got a worn-out Thompson and wants one of the new ones," Gunnery Sergeant Esposito said, "you're the man to see."

"You want a Thompson?" Zimmerman asked evenly.

"One of my lieutenants," Esposito said. "I put a hundred rounds through a Garand, and I sort of like it. It ain't no Springfield, of course, but I'm getting two-, two-and-a-half-inch groups."

"The Garand is a pretty good weapon," Zimmerman said. "People don't like it 'cause it's new, that's all."

"What about the Thompson? Can you help me out?"

"I'll see what I can do," Zimmerman said. "That why you come looking for me?"

"What makes you think I come looking for you?"

"You're all dressed up," Zimmerman said.

Esposito shrugged and drained his beer mug and refilled it before he replied.

"I was hoping maybe I'd run into you, Zimmerman," he confessed.

"You did," Zimmerman said.

"Out of school?" Esposito asked.

Zimmerman nodded.

"You're pretty tight with Lieutenant McCoy," Esposito said.

"We was in the Fourth Marines together," Zimmerman said.

"He's all right."

"Scuttlebutt says he had you to dinner," Esposito said. "On some yacht, where he's shacked up."

"That's what the scuttlebutt says?" Zimmerman replied.

"What do you know about his brother?"

"Not much," Zimmerman asked.

"I got an old pal at the Diego brig," Esposito said.

"What'd he do?" Zimmerman said.

"I said 'at,' not 'in,'" Esposito said, before he realized that Zimmerman was pulling his leg. "Shit, Zimmerman!"

"What about your pal at the brig?"

"He says McCoy-PFC McCoy was in there," Esposito said. "You know anything about that?"

Zimmerman shook his head. "No."

"He was supposed to be on his way to Portsmouth to do five-to-ten for belting an officer."

"That's what you heard, huh?" Zimmerman said.

"I also found out when he reported in here, he had just had full issue of new uniforms, and he's got a brand-new service record."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I got the straight poop from my friend at the brig," Esposito said. "If they vacate a general court-martial sentence and turn somebody loose, they give him a new service record. And since general prisoners don't have uniforms, except for dungarees with a 'P' painted on them, they give them a new issue."

"If I was you, Esposito," Zimmerman said, "I wouldn't be running off at the mouth about this."

"Because of Lieutenant McCoy, you mean?"

"Because if the Corps gave him a new service record, it means the Corps wants him to have a clean slate. Don't go turning over some rock."

"How would your friend Lieutenant McCoy react if I kicked the shit out of his little brother?"

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

"For one thing, he's a wisenheimer," Esposito said. "For another, he thinks he's a real tough guy. He beat the shit out of two of my kids. No reason, either, that I can get out of anybody, except that he wanted to show people how tough he is. And he's running off at the mouth, too. About his brother, I mean. What's with the shack job on the yacht? Is that true? And while I'm asking questions, what's the real poop about Lieutenant McCoy?"

Zimmerman lit a Camel with his Zippo, and then took a deep pull at his beer mug.

"What do you mean, real poop?"

"He really kill a bunch of Italian Marines with that little knife of his?"

"Two Italians," Zimmerman said. "He killed two Italians. Stories get bigger and better every time they get told."

"You was there?"

"I was there," Zimmerman said.

"Mean little fucker, isn't he?" Gunnery Sergeant Esposito said, approvingly. "I heard fifteen, twenty Italians. I knew that was bullshit."

"It was twenty Chinamen," Zimmerman said. "Not Italians, Chinamen."

"No shit?"

"Okay, we're out of school, right?" Zimmerman said. He waited for Esposito to nod his agreement and then went on. "McCoy and I were buddies in the Fourth. We had a pretty good rice bowl going. We ran truck supply convoys from Shanghai to Peking. We got pretty close. One time the convoy got ambushed. Chinese bandits, supposed to be. Actually the Japs were behind it. McCoy killed a bunch of them-twenty, anyway, maybe more-with a Thompson." "No shit?" Esposito said, much impressed. "You don't want to get him mad at you, Esposito," Zimmerman said. "You was asking about the boat-"

"Yacht, is what the brother says," Esposito said. "And the rich broad who lets him drive her LaSalle convertible."

"One thing at a time… Christ, what do you guys do, spend all your time gossiping about your officers like a bunch of fucking women?"

Esposito gave Zimmerman a dirty look, but didn't say anything.

"First of all," Zimmerman went on, "the LaSalle is McCoy's. He come home from China with a bunch of money-"

"Where'd he get it?"

"He's a goddamned good poker player," Zimmerman said. "And on top of that, he was lucky, real lucky, a couple of times."

Esposito nodded his acceptance of that. "So he bought the LaSalle; that's his," Zimmerman said. "And so we both wound up here. And like I said, we were buddies. But he's now an officer, so he can't come in here, and I can't go to the officers' club. So he has a girl friend. A real nice girl, Esposito, you understand? I personally don't like it when you say 'shack job.' And she lives on a boat, not a yacht, a boat. And McCoy tells her about me and his kid brother, and she says bring us to dinner. So we go. And that's it. We had dinner and drank some beer, and then McCoy drove us back out here."

"I figured it was probably something like that," Esposito said. "His brother's got a real big mouth." "I saw that myself," Zimmerman agreed. "And he's a mean sonofabitch, too," Esposito said. "I told you; he really beat the shit out of a couple of my kids." "I don't want to put my nose in where it ain't welcome,"

Zimmerman said. "But, maybe, if you would like, I could talk to the brother."

"I don't know," Esposito said, doubtfully. "You think he'd listen to you? He sure as shit don't listen to me when I try to talk to him."

"You start beating up on him, you're liable to lose your stripes," Zimmerman said.

"Well, shit, Zimmerman, if you think you could do any good," Esposito said.

"It couldn't hurt none to try," Zimmerman said.

"What the hell," Esposito said. "Why not? And what about the Thompson?"

"You take the old one to the armory, tomorrow," Zimmerman said. "And tell the armorer I said to swap it for you."

"You want to split another pitcher of beer?'

"Naw, hell, I got to get up in the wee hours. But thanks anyway."

Ten minutes later, Gunnery Sergeant Ernst Zimmerman was outside the enlisted beer hall, known as the Slop Chute.

There was a cedar pole ten feet from the entrance. Seventy-five or so knives were stuck into it. Zimmerman had heard about the cedar pole, but it was the first time he had seen it. There was a regulation that the Raiders could not enter the Slop Chute with their knives. So rather than going to his barrack or tent to leave his knife there, some ferocious Raider had stuck it in the cedar pole and reclaimed it when he left the Slop Chute. The idea had quickly caught on.

"Dodge fucking City," Zimmerman muttered under his breath, disgustedly.

He pushed the door open and walked inside, grimacing at the smell of sour beer, a dense cloud of cigarette smoke, and the acrid fumes of beer-laden urine.

"Hey, Mac, no knives," a voice behind him said. Zimmerman turned and saw there was a corporal on duty at the entrance. Zimmerman didn't reply. Finally, the corporal recognized him. "Sorry, Gunny," the corporal added. "Didn't recognize you at first."

Zimmerman looked around the crowded room until he spotted PFC Thomas McCoy, who was sitting with half a dozen others at a crude table drinking beer out of a canteen cup.

He walked across the room to him.

"Hey, whaddasay, Gunny!" one of the others greeted him, cheerfully. "You want a beer?"

"I want to see McCoy for a minute, thanks anyway," Zimmerman said.

"What the hell for?" PFC McCoy replied. He was a little drunk, Zimmerman saw.

Zimmerman, on the edge of snapping, "Because I said so, asshole! On your feet!", stopped himself in time and smiled. "Colonel Carlson's got a little problem he wants you to solve for him."

The others laughed, and a faint smile appeared on McCoy's face. He got to his feet.

"This going to take long?" he asked.

"I don't think so," Zimmerman said.

He motioned for McCoy to go ahead of him, and then followed him across the room and out of the building. McCoy went to the cedar post, jerked one of the knives from it, and slipped it into the sheath on his belt.

"Where we going?" he asked.

"Right over this way," Zimmerman said, "it's not far."

Behind the Slop Chute building was a mixed collection of other buildings, some frame with tar-paper roofs, some Quonsets, and some tents. Here and there a dim bulb provided a little light.

Zimmerman went to the door of one of the small frame buildings, took off his dungaree jacket and his hat, and hung them on the doorknob.

"What's this, Gunny?" McCoy asked, suspiciously.

"You know what it means, you fucking brig bunny," Zimmerman said. "It means that right now you can call me 'Zimmerman,' 'cause right now, I ain't a gunny. I just hung my chevrons on the doorknob."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" McCoy asked.

"Nothing's wrong with me," Zimmerman said. "What's wrong is wrong with you, asshole."

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, Gunny, but if you think I'm going to get in it with you and wind up back in the brig, you have another think coming."

"You're not going back to the brig," Zimmerman said, moving close to him. "Having his brother in the brig would embarrass Lieutenant McCoy, and you've embarrassed him enough already, brig bunny."

"I wish I believed that," McCoy said. "I would like nothing better than to shove your teeth down your throat."

"Have a shot," Zimmerman said. "Look around, there's nobody here. And your brother's an officer. He wouldn't let them put you in the brig on a bum rap."

"Fuck you," McCoy said.

"I thought that you were supposed to be a tough guy," Zimmerman said. "I guess that's only when you're picking on kids, right?"

McCoy balled his fists, but kept them at his side.

"Come on, tough guy," Zimmerman said. "What's the matter, no balls?"

McCoy threw a punch, a right, with all his weight behind it.

Zimmerman deflected the punch with his left arm and kicked McCoy in the crotch.

McCoy made an animal sound, half scream and half moan, and fell to the ground with his hands at his crotch and his knees pulled up.

"You cocksucker," he said indignantly, a moment later. "You kicked me."

Zimmerman kicked him again, in the stomach.

"That's for calling your brother's lady friend a 'shack job,'" Zimmerman said, conversationally. He kicked him again. "And that's for calling me a 'cocksucker.' You got to learn to watch your mouth, brig bunny."

McCoy was writhing around on the ground, gasping for breath, moaning as he held his scrotum.

Zimmerman, his arms folded on his chest, watched silently. After several minutes, McCoy managed to sit up.

"Are you getting the message, tough guy? Or do you want some more?"

"You don't fight fair," McCoy said, righteously indignant. "You kicked me, for Christ's sake!"

"Get up then, Joe Louis," Zimmerman said. "Try it with your fists."

McCoy took several deep breaths, and then got nimbly to his feet, balled his fists, and took up a crouched fighting posture.

"I must have missed," Zimmerman said, almost wonderingly. "Usually when I kick people, they stay down."

"You cocksucker!" McCoy said, and charged him. He threw a punch. Zimmerman caught the arm, spun around, and threw McCoy over his back. McCoy landed flat on his back. The air was knocked out of him.

Zimmerman walked to him and kicked him in the side.

"I told you," he said. "Don't call me a cocksucker."

With a massive effort, McCoy got his wind back and straggled to his knees. And then he heaved himself upright.

Zimmerman slapped him twice with the back of his left hand across the face, and then with the heel of his right hand across the throat. The first blow was hard enough to make McCoy reel, and the second sent him flying backward, his hands to his throat, gasping for breath. And then he fell heavily onto his backside.

Zimmerman stepped up to him and kicked him in the side again. McCoy bent double and threw up.

"I hit you with my open hand," Zimmerman said, conversationally. "If I had hit you with the side of it,"-he demonstrated with his left hand-"you would have a broken nose, and you wouldn't be able to talk for a week. If I had hit you hard enough, I would have crushed your Adam's apple and you would choke. The only reason I didn't do that is because your brother is a friend of mine, and he might feel bad about it."

"Jesus Christ!" McCoy said, barely audibly.

"The next time, McCoy, that I hear that you said one fucking word out of line, or that you took a poke at anybody, I'm going to be back and give you a real working over. Tough guy, my ass!"

He walked over to McCoy and raised his foot to kick him again.

McCoy scurried away as best as he could.

Zimmerman lowered his foot and laughed.

"Shit!" he said, contemptuously. And then he walked to the small building, put his dungaree jacket back on, and walked off.

PFC Thomas McCoy waited until he was really sure that he was gone, and then he got to his feet. His balls hurt, and his sides, and inside, and it hurt him to breathe.

He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at the vomitus on his jacket and trousers and boots. Then, gagging, he staggered off toward his barrack.

(Two)

The Foster Peachtree Hotel

Atlanta, Georgia

14 March 1942

Second Lieutenant Richard J. Stecker, USMC, stood with a glass of Dickel's 100-proof twelve-year-old Kentucky sour mash bourbon whiskey in his hand, looking out the window of his bedroom in the General J. E. B. Stuart suite. It was raining-it looked as if it couldn't make up its mind to snow or rain-and the wind had blown the rain against the window-pane. Stecker idly traced a raindrop as it slid down.

He was more than a little pissed with his buddy, Second Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, for a number of reasons, all attributable to Pick's infatuation with the female Stecker thought of alternately as "the Admiral's Daughter" and "the Widow."

Stecker was either sorry for the poor sonofabitch-who really had a bad case of puppy love for Martha Sayre Culhane, or unrequited love, or the hots, or whatever the hell it was-or pissed off with him about it.

At the moment, the latter condition prevailed.

From yesterday at noon until fifteen minutes ago, there had come a ray of hope:

At noon yesterday, using a concrete beam foundation of one of the hangars at Saufley Field for a table, they had been having their lunch (a barbecue sandwich and a pint container of milk) when Pick, out of the blue, spoke up. "How would you like to get laid?"

"Are you seeking to increase your general fund of knowledge, Pickering, or do you have some specific course of action in mind?"

"I was thinking we might drive to Atlanta," Pick said, "and take in the historical sights. They have a panorama of the Battle of Atlanta, which should be fascinating to a professional warrior such as yourself. There are also a number of statues of heroes on horseback, which I'm sure you would find inspirational."

"I thought you said something about getting laid?"

"That, too," Pick said.

"You realize, of course, that if we go to Atlanta, you won't be able to hang around the lobby of the San Carlos panting for a glimpse of the fair Martha?"

"Fuck fair Martha," Pick said, just a little bitterly, and then quickly recovered. "Which might be a good idea, come to think of it."

"I heard it takes two," Dick said.

"Do you want to go to Atlanta, or not?"

It was necessary to get permission to travel more than a hundred miles from the Pensacola Navy Air Station. And before they could run down Captain Mustache and obtain his approval, it was after six. As a result they got to the Foster Peachtree Hotel after midnight. The bar wasn't closed, but there were no females dewy-eyed with the thought of consorting with two handsome and dashing young Marine officers.

That didn't seem to bother Pick. He was interested in drinking, and the two of them closed the bar long after everyone else had left. Stecker wondered why the bartender hadn't thrown them out, until he remembered that Pick's grandfather owned the hotel.

And Pick of course waxed drunkenly philosophic about his inability to get together with the Admiral's Daughter. Dick Stecker had heard it all before, and he was bored with it.

"I'll make a deal with you, Pick," he said. "You won't mention Whatshername's name all weekend, and I will not pour lighter fluid on your pubic region and set it on fire while you sleep."

In the morning, Pick slept soundly, snoring loudly, until long after ten.

Then, determinedly bright and cheerful, he went into Stecker's room, ordered an enormous breakfast from room service, and then explained that they really shouldn't eat too much, for they were meeting his Aunt Ramona for lunch at quarter to one.

"Your Aunt Ramona?" Dick asked, disgustedly.

"My Aunt Ramona loves me," Pick said. "And I always try to see her when I am in Atlanta. Only the cynical would suggest I do this because dear Aunt Ramona usually is accompanied by two or more delightful young belles, straight from Gone with the Wind." _

"No shit?"

"You will have to watch your foul mouth, Stecker," Pick said. "There is nothing that will chase away a well-reared South'ren lady quicker than a foul-mouthed Marine. And if you talk dirty, my Aunt Ramona will rap you over the head with her cane."

Aunt Ramona was not what Dick Stecker had been led to expect. She turned out to be a good-looking redhead, wearing a silver fox hat to match her knee-length silver fox coat. She was in her thirties, Stecker judged, as he watched her give her cheek to Pick to kiss.

"Aunt Ramona," Pick said, on his very good manners, "may I present my good friend, Lieutenant Richard Stecker? Dick, this is Mrs. Heath."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Lieutenant," she said, extending a diamond-heavy hand with a gesture that would have done credit to the Queen of England.

"My pleasure, ma'am," Stecker said.

"If I had known you were coming, before ten o'clock this morning, Pick," Aunt Ramona said, "I would have set something up."

"I realize this has inconvenienced you," Pick said politely.

"You have always been an imp," Aunt Ramona said. "But I am glad to see you."

And then the girls appeared.

One was a blonde, and the other was a redhead, and they were gorgeous.

The first thing Dick Stecker thought was that they were not going to get laid. Not the same day they met these gorgeous creatures. Probably not until after they had walked down an aisle with them to be joined together in holy matrimony. Then he thought, That doesn't matter. Just being with them is enough. You just don't often get to meet girls like this.

They had thick Southern accents, which Dick Stecker found absolutely enchanting, and names to match. The blonde's name was Catherine-Anne, and the redhead's Melanie. Melanie had light blue eyes and a most enchanting way of licking at her lips with the tip of her delicate red tongue. And she, even more than Catherine-Anne, seemed to be fascinated to meet a West Point graduate who had gone into the Marines and was learning to be a Naval aviator.

They had lunch in the high-ceilinged main dining room-an elegant, delicious lunch, which Dick Stecker thought was very appropriate for the circumstances. There had even been champagne.

"This is a celebration," Aunt Ramona said. "And-as wicked as this might make me sound-I'd just love to have some champagne."

When the champagne was delivered and poured, and they all touched their glasses, Melanie had met Dick Stecker's eyes over the rim of her glass.

And three times, by accident of course, her knee had brushed against his under the table. The last two times she had pulled it away, of course, but she had also looked into his eyes. Everything had at first gone swimmingly. They had had a second bottle of champagne. There was a string quartet, and they had danced. Both of them danced with Aunt Ramona first, of course, and then with the girls. When he had finally gotten his arms around Melanie, her perfume made him a little dizzy, and she seemed oblivious to her breasts pressing against his abdomen.

Pick seemed interested in Catherine-Anne, and she in him; and that all by itself seemed to be a blessing. All that had to be done now was to ask to take them to dinner. And get rid of Aunt Ramona, of course.

And then Aunt Ramona looked at her diamond-encrusted watch and cried in her ladylike way, "I had absolutely no idea it was so late! Girls, we have to go this minute!"

Pick jumped to his feet, and Dick had been sure that what he was going to do was make his move. He was a smooth sonofabitch, and there was no question that he would say precisely the right thing, and in precisely the right way, and that the result would be that they would get to take Catherine-Anne and Melanie to dinner. Maybe starting with early cocktails.

But he didn't. He kissed his goddamned aunt on the cheek and told her it had been nice to see her. And then he smiled at the girls and told them it had been a pleasure to make their acquaintance and that he hoped sometime to see them again. And that was it. Melanie gave Dick one of those looks, and her hand; but then she was gone, following the other two out of the dining room.

"Jesus Christ, you blew that!" Dick snapped. "Blew what?"

"They're gone! Goddamnit! Didn't you notice?" "As opposed to what?" Pick had asked, innocently.

"I thought we were here to get laid," Dick whispered furiously and a little too loudly. Heads turned.

"You really didn't think… Aunt Ramona's friends?"

"I thought maybe dinner."

"They just met you, Dick," Pick explained. "Things just aren't done that way in Atlanta."

"Why not?"

"Well, if we get back here, maybe the next time I could get Aunt Ramona to give me their phone numbers, and maybe we could get them to meet us somewhere for a drink."

"What about now, for Christ's sake? What's wrong with now?"

"Can I say something to you without offending your feelings?" Pick said.

"I don't know," Dick said. "Right now, you're on pretty thin ice."

"You don't know much about girls like that," Pick said, seriously. "That's not a criticism; it's a simple statement of fact."

"So what? I can learn."

"You sort of liked the redhead, didn't you?" Pick asked.

"Melanie, her name is Melanie," Dick said. "Yeah, I did."

"Well, like I said, the next time we're here, if we come back, maybe I can get Aunt Ramona to put a good word in for you."

"But not now, huh?" Dick said, resignedly.

"Did you really think that something would happen?"

"Ah, hell, I guess not."

"I really feel bad about this," Pick said, as he signed his name to the bill and got up. "I really feel that I gave you the wrong impression about girls like that."

"Forget it," Dick said.

He followed Pickering out of the dining room and to the bank of elevators.

"Where are we going now?"

"Nature calls," Pick said.

"Yeah, me too," Dick said.

When they were in the suite, Pick touched Dick's arm.

"Hey, buddy," he said, "I've got an important phone call to make. Would you mind staying in your room until I yell?"

"You mean we drove seven hours just so we can't get laid and you can call your fucking widow?" Dick exploded.

Pick looked as if he had been about to say something but had changed his mind. Dick Stecker was instantly ashamed of himself.

"I'm a horse's ass," he said. "Good luck when you call her."

"Take the bar with you, why don't you?" Pick said.

"What?"

Pick pointed. There was something in the suite now that hadn't been in it when they had gone downstairs to meet Aunt Ramona, a cart mounted on huge brass wheels and holding an assortment of bottles, an ice bucket, and even two bottles of champagne.

"I'm liable to be some time," Pick said.

"In that case, I will take it," Dick said.

"Gimme one of the champagne bottles," Pick said, and took one from the cooler.

Then he turned his back on Stecker and started to open the champagne.

Stecker pushed the cart into his bedroom. He didn't want any champagne. For one thing, there didn't seem to be any point in drinking something romantic if you were alone in a hotel room. And for another, it tasted to him like carbonated vinegar.

He examined the bottles, selected the bourbon, made himself a drink, and then went to look out the window.

Always look for the bright side, he told himself. At least you're here, in the fanciest hotel room you have ever seen. And you at least met her, and maybe you can come back. And the day, isn't over. There is always hope.

Dick had been looking out the window for perhaps five minutes when there was a knock at his door.

"I'm here by the window," he said, "contemplating jumping."

"Oh, don't do that," a soft Southern female voice said. "There's all sorts of interesting ways to spend a rainy afternoon."

Dick Stecker did not, literally, believe what he saw when he turned from the window to face the door.

Melanie was there. She had a smile on her face, and a champagne glass in her hand, and she was stark naked.

"Holy Christ!" Dick said.

Melanie walked slowly across the room to him. Her boobs, he thought, were absolutely gorgeous. And she was a real redhead.

"Can you handle that all right, Lieutenant?" Pickering called. "Or should I make you up a flight plan?"

Dick's eyes snapped to the open door. Pickering was standing there, one hand holding a bottle of champagne, the other wrapped around Catherine-Anne's waist. Catherine-Anne was wearing nothing but a smile and a garter-belt. She was not a real blonde.

Melanie walked up to Dick and started to unbuckle his Sam Browne belt. When Dick looked at the door again, it was closing. He heard Pickering laugh. And then he turned his attention to Melanie.

On the way back to Pensacola the next day, Pick furnished Dick with an explanation. Ramona Heath was a madam, not his aunt. He had known her for years-since he been a sixteen-year-old bellhop. She had a stable of girls with which she traveled all over the country. Her girls were expensive, because they were the best. Most of her middle-aged clients were perfectly willing to close their eyes to the fact that the fees were paid by the people trying to sell their product and to allow themselves to think their charm and good looks were responsible for their being in bed with beautiful young women.

"I'm surprised," Jack said.

"Surprised? We went to get laid; we got laid."

"I mean, in good hotels," Stecker said. "Does that make me seem naive?"

"My grandfather once said," Pick said, "not to me, of course, but I heard about it, that the only thing he had against a paying guest coupling with an elephant in his room was that it was sometimes hard to clean the carpet."

"What did that little joke of yours cost you?" Stecker asked.

"Nothing. I tried to pay her-we danced, remember?-but she said no. She said I should think of it as her contribution to the war effort."

"Jesus Christ, Pickering, you're amazing."

"Yeah, I am," Pickering said, and there was something rueful in his tone of voice that made Dick Stecker look at him.

"Now what's wrong?'

"Well, I went to get laid. And I got laid. Getting it to stand up took all the skill at the command of the hooker, which I must say was most imaginative and thorough. And when it was

over, I felt like a piece of dog shit. How could 1 be unfaithful to good old Whatshername?"

"Oh Jesus, Pick, I'm sorry," Stecker said.

"What the fuck am I going to do, Dick?" Pick asked plaintively.

Stecker said the only thing he could think of. "Hang in there, buddy," he said. "Just hang in there."