Call to Arms

GOVERNMENT

THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY REGRETS TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR FRIEND SECOND LIEUTENANT KENNETH J. MCCOY USMCR 2ND RAIDER BATTAUON WAS WOUNDED IN ACTION AGAINST THE JAPANESE ON MAKIN ISLAND 17 AUGUST 1942. HE HAS BEEN REMOVED TO A NAVAL HOSPITAL AND IS EXPECTED TO FULLY RECOVER. FURTHER DETAILS WILL BE FURNISHED AS AVAILABLE, FRANK KNOX JR SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

"There's another word in the lexicon," Captain Carstairs said, "one they did not use. The adjective 'seriously,' as in 'seriously wounded.' And they included the phrase 'fully recover.'"

"Yeah," Pickering said, and then looked at Carstairs. "Thank you."

"My curiosity is aroused," Carstairs said. "Doesn't he have a family?"

"Not one he gives much of a damn about," Pickering said. "He's got a brother, but he's in the Raiders, too."

"He came through it, that's what counts," Carstairs said. "That's all that counts."

"Oh, Christ!" Pickering said, having just then thought of it. "Ernie!"

"Who's Ernie?"

"His girl friend," Pick said. "I'll have to tell her."

"Why?" Carstairs said, practically. "If he's not seriously hurt, he'll write her and tell her. Why worry her?"

"Because she would want to know," Pick flared. "Jesus Christ!"

"Keep your cool, Pickering," Carstairs said. "Think it over. What would be gained?"

"Yeah," Pick said. "This is not the first telegram from the Secretary of the Navy-" He stopped. "I am about to have a drink. Would you like one?"

"I thought you would never ask," Captain Carstairs said.

Pick made drinks, and then told Captain Mustache about the first telegram from the Secretary of the Navy about Ken McCoy when he had been in the Philippines, the one that said he was "missing in action and presumed dead." They made enough noise to raise Dick Stecker and his guest from their bed.

They had another couple of drinks, and then ordered room service breakfast, and in the end Pick decided he would not call Ernie, not now. It made more sense to wait and see what happened. There was no sense getting Ernie all upset when there was nothing at all that she could do.

Captain Mustache stayed with them. He even got a little smashed, and it had all the beginnings of a good party. Now that they were about to be certified as fully qualified brother Naval aviators, it was fitting and proper for him to associate with two lowly second lieutenants as social equals.

Sometime during the evening, Captain Mustache told him that he had just about given up on Martha Sayre Culhane. It had become clear to him that she was just not interested.

Pickering recalled that the next morning (now Sunday) when some other sonofabitch was knocking at the door.

As Pick staggered to open it, he remembered telling Captain Mustache that he knew just how he felt. And then Captain Mustache had said something else: He thought it wasn't absolutely hopeless for Pick, and that it was a shame Pick was about to ship out.

Pick jerked the door open. It was Captain Mustache again.

"Why didn't you just crap out on the couch?" Pick asked, somewhat snappishly.

"I took the brunette in the glasses home, remember?" Captain Mustache said, and then added, demonstrating, "You've got another one," and handed him a yellow Western Union envelope.

"Oh, shit, now what?" Pick asked.

The second telegram, to his relief and confusion, appeared to be identical to the first. He was afraid that it would be one expressing the condolences of the Secretary of the Navy.

"What the hell is this?" he asked. "A duplicate? In case I didn't get the first one?"

"I don't know," Carstairs answered. And then they saw that the two telegrams were not identical. The second said McCoy had been wounded on August 18; the first had said August 17.

"I guess he got shot twice," Carstairs said, "and the paperwork just got caught up."

"I'm going to have to call Ernie," Pick said, firmly. "She has a right to know."

"Can I have a hair of the dog?" Captain Mustache asked.

"Make me one, will you? I think I'm going to need it."

It took Ernie so long to answer her phone that he was afraid she wasn't at her apartment, but finally, she came on the line.

"What is it?" she snapped.

"This is Pick, Ernie," he said.

"What do you want at this time of the morning?" she snapped.

"I've got a little bad news," Pick said, gently.

"About what?" she asked, now with concern in her voice.

"About Ken," Pick said. "Ernie, did you read in the paper or hear on the radio about the Marine Raiders and Makin Island?"

"Yes," she said. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Ken," Pick said.

"Just a minute," Ernie said, and went off the line. And stayed off.

"Hello?" Pick said, finally.

"Hello, yourself," Ken McCoy's voice came over the wire. "You have a lousy sense of timing, asshole. Did I ever tell you that?"

"When did you get back?"

"I got into Washington about ten last night," McCoy said. "And I caught the four A.M. train into New York. I've been here about an hour and a half. Get the picture?"

"Sorry to have bothered you, sir," Pick said, and hung up.

Captain Mustache handed him a drink. Pick looked at it and set it down.

"Our twice-wounded hero is in New York," he said. "I don't know how the hell he worked that, but I'm not really surprised."

"Well, there's our excuse to celebrate again," Carstairs said.

"No," Pick said.

"No?" Carstairs asked.

"Actually, I think I'll go to church," Pick said.

"Well, sure," Carstairs said, uncomfortably, forcing a smile.

(Four)

Navy Air Station Chapel Pensacola, Florida 30 August 1942

Chaplain (Lieutenant Commander) J. Bartwell Kaine, USNR, who until three months before had been rector of the Incarnation Episcopal Church of Baltimore, Maryland, was pleased to see the two Marine second lieutenants at his morning prayer service.

It had been his experience since coming to Pensacola that few, too few, of the officer aviation students attended worship services of any kind, and that those who did went to the nondenominational Protestant services at 1100. He was interested in keeping, so to speak, Episcopalian personnel within the fold, and there was no question in his practiced eye that the two handsome young Marines in the rear pew were Episcopal. They knew the service well enough to recite the prayers and doxology from memory, and they knew when and how to kneel.

Chaplain Kaine made a special effort, when the service was over, to speak to them, to let them know they were more than welcome, and to invite them to participate in the activities of what he referred to as "the air station Episcopal community."

They informed him that while they appreciated the offer of hospitality, they had finished their training and were about to leave Pensacola.

Then Second Lieutenants Pick Pickering and Dick Stecker walked to Pickering's car and got in. As Pickering pushed the starter button and got the Cadillac running, Stecker spoke:

"Even though I'm aware of the scriptural admonition to 'judge not, lest ye be judged,' why is it that I have the feeling that you dragged me over here more in the interests of your sinful lusts of the flesh than to offer thanks for your buddy coming through all right?"

"Fuck you, Dick," Pickering said, cheerfully.

"What made you think she'd be there? And if she had been, what makes you think she would have rushed into your arms?"

"I saw the picture of her father in the base newspaper. He's a vestryman. It was worth a shot."

"You're desperate, aren't you?" Stecker replied, half mockingly, half sympathetically.

"You're goddamn right I am. We're leaving here Tuesday."

"You're nuts, Pick," Stecker said, not unkindly.

"I'm in love, all right? People in love are allowed to be a little crazy."

"What you need is a piece of ass," Stecker said. "It has amazing curative powers for crazy people. Let's go back to the hotel and commit every sin-except worshipping graven images."

"Let's go sailing," Pickering said.

"Let's do what?"

"Sailing. Boats, sails. You have been on a boat?"

"How are we going to do that?"

"Trust me, my son," Pickering said solemnly. "Put thy faith in me, and I will work miracles."

Five minutes after they passed the Marine guard on the Pensacola Navy Air Station, Pickering turned off Navy Boulevard. Five hundred yards beyond he passed between two sandstone pillars.

"You did notice the sign?" Stecker asked, dryly.

"The one that said 'Pensacola Yacht Club'?"

"The one that said 'Members Only.'"

"Oh, ye of little faith," Pickering said.

"You really think she's going to be in here?"

"There was another story about her father," Pickering said, "in the Pensacola newspaper. In addition to being an admiral, he's the vice commodore here."

"Jesus, you are desperate."

"It also said they serve a buffet brunch, starting at ten," Pickering said. "Admirals have to eat, just like human beings. Maybe he brought his daughter with him."

"And what if he did? Presuming we don't get thrown out on our asses, what are you going to do, just walk up and say, 'Hi, there'?"

"Why not?" Pickering said, smiling at Stecker as he parked the car and pulled the emergency brake on.

A portly, suntanned man in a blue blazer with an embroidered patch on the pocket walked up to them as they entered the lobby of the yacht club.

"Good morning, gentlemen," he said. "Meeting someone?"

"Gee," Stecker said, under his breath, "we lasted a whole ten seconds before we got caught."

"No, we thought we'd try the buffet," Pickering said.

The man in the blazer looked uncomfortable, making Stecker think that he disliked throwing servicemen out of his yacht club, even if that was precisely what he was about to do.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I'm afraid this is a private club-"

"But you are affiliated with the American Yachting Association?" Pickering asked, as he took out his wallet.

"Yes, of course," the man said.

Pickering searched through the wallet and came up with a battered card and handed it over.

"Welcome to the Pensacola Yacht Club, Mr. Pickering," the man said, smiling, and handing him the card back. "I won't have to ask, will I, what brings you into our waters?"

"Our Uncle Samuel," Pickering said.

"Well, let me show you to the dining room," the man said. "If you don't think it's too early, the first drink is traditionally on me club."

"How nice," Pickering said.

The corridor from the lobby to the dining room was lined with trophy cases and framed photographs.

"Well, there's a familiar face," Pickering said, pleased, pointing to a photograph of a large sailboat with its crew. They were standing along the port side, hanging on to the rigging, and they were obviously delighted with themselves.

A thin strip of typewritten legend on the photograph said, "FAT CHANCE, 1st Place, Wilson Cup, San Francisco-Hawaii 1939."

"That was the 'thirty-nine Wilson Cup," the man from the yacht club said. "Jack Glenn, one of our members, was on her."

"Fat Jack," Pickering said. "But please note that splendid sailor about to fall off the bowsprit."

Stecker looked. It was Pickering, as obviously drunk as he was delighted with himself, holding on firmly to the bowsprit rigging.

"That's you," Stecker accused.

"Indeed," Pickering said.

From the look on the man from the yacht club, Stecker decided, the Pensacola Yacht Club was theirs.

"God is in his heaven," Pickering said solemnly. "Prayer pays. All is right with the world."

"What the hell?" Stecker asked, and then looked where Pickering was looking.

A rear admiral, a woman obviously his wife, and Martha Sayre Culhane were coming down the corridor.

"Well, hello, there," Mrs. Sayre said, offering her hand to Pickering. "It's nice to see you again, Lieutenant. You're a sailor, too?"

"Quite a sailor, Mrs. Sayre," the man from the yacht club said. He pointed to the photograph. "He was on the Fat Chance with Jack Glenn."

"Good morning, Martha," Pickering said.

"Hello, Pick," Martha said.

She did not seem nearly as glad to see Pickering as Pick was to see her.

"Since no one seems to be about to introduce us, gentlemen," Admiral Sayre said, "I'll introduce myself. I'm Admiral Sayre."

"How do you do, sir?" Pickering said politely.

"Jim, this is Lieutenant Pickering," Mrs. Sayre said. "I'm afraid I don't know this-"

"Stecker, ma'am," Stecker said. "Dick Stecker."

"We're here for the brunch," Mrs. Sayre said. "Why don't you join us?"

"We wouldn't want to intrude," Stecker said.

"That's very kind, thank you very much, we'd love to," Pickering said.

"I'd like to thank you for doing this, Dick," Mrs. Jeanne Sayre said to Stecker. "Ma'am?" Stecker asked. They were in the cabin of the Martha 111, a twenty-eight-foot cruising sailer, now two miles offshore, and heeled twenty degrees from the vertical in nasty choppy seas. Jeanne Sayre had boiled water for tea on a small stove. Stecker had welcomed the opportunity to get out of the spray by helping her. When he had come below, Martha was with her father in the cockpit, and Pick was way up front, just behind what Stecker had earlier learned (looking at the photo in the yacht club) was the "bowsprit."

"I'm sure you and Pick had other plans for this afternoon," Jeanne Sayre said.

"This is fine," he said. "I'm glad to be here."

"Even though you're going to have to have your uniform cleaned, if it's not ruined, not to mention buying shoes, which have already been ruined?" she asked, smiling tolerantly.

"I've never had a chance to do something like this before," Stecker said.

"My husband too rarely gets the chance to do anything like this," Jeanne Sayre said. "He really works too hard, and he's reluctant-he's really a nice guy-to ask his aides to 'volunteer' I saw his eyes light up when he heard Pick was a real sailor. I didn't have the heart to kick him under the table when he asked if anybody would like a little sail."

"Pick's having a fine time," Stecker said, smiling.

He'd be having a much better time, of course, if it wasn't for you, the admiral, and me; and it was just him and your well-stacked daughter sailing off into the sunset on this goddamned little boat.

The boat at the moment started to change direction. Stecker's eyes reflected his concern.

"We're turning," she said. "I guess my husband decided we're far enough offshore."

The Martha III came to a vertical position, and then started heeling in the other direction.

"Man overboard!" a male voice, obviously the admiral's, cried.

For a moment, Stecker thought it was some sort of joke in bad taste, but then he saw the look on Mrs. Sayre's face, and knew it was no joke. Obviously, Pick, playing Viking up front, had lost his footing and gone into the water. There was a quick sense of amusement-serves the bastard right-quickly replaced by a feeling of concern. The water out there was

choppy. People drowned when they fell off boats, particularly into choppy water.

He followed Jeanne Sayre as she went quickly to the cockpit. He looked forward. Pick hadn't gone overboard. He was halfway between the bow and the cockpit. And he had taken his blouse off.

Pick ripped a circular life preserver free and threw it over the side; and then, in almost a continuous motion, he made a quick running dive over the side. He still had his socks on, Stecker saw, but he had removed his shoes.

Stecker looked over the stern. Surprisingly far behind the boat, he saw Martha Sayre Culhane's head bobbing in the water, held up by an orange life preserver.

Mrs. Sayre had taken her husband's position at the wheel, and while she watched both her husband (who was lowering the mainsail) and her daughter behind her in the water, she was trying to start the gasoline auxiliary engine.

The moment it burst into life, Admiral Sayre lowered the sail all the way.

"Bring her around!" he ordered, and then pushed past Stecker to get a boat hook from the cabin.

Stecker felt both useless and absurd.

He searched the water and found first Martha and then Pickering. Pickering was swimming with sure, powerful strokes to Martha, towing the life ring behind him on its line.

It seemed to take a very long time for the Martha III to turn, but once she was through the turn, she seemed to pick up speed. When Stecker saw Martha again, Pick was beside her in the water.

It took three minutes before the Martha III reached them. Mrs. Sayre expertly stopped the boat beside them, and then Stecker and Admiral Sayre hauled them in, first Martha, and then Pickering. They were blue-lipped and shivering.

"Take them below, and get them out of their clothes," Admiral Sayre said. "There's still some blankets aboard?"

"Yes," his wife said.

The admiral looked around the surface of the water, located a channel marker, and pointed it out to Stecker.

"Make for that," he ordered. "I'll relieve you in a minute."

"Aye, aye, sir," Stecker said, obediently. And for the first time in his life he took the conn of a vessel underway.

When he went to the cabin, Admiral Sayre-seeing that his wife had already stripped their daughter of her dress and was working on her slip-faced Pickering aft before he ordered him out of his wet doming. Pick stripped to his underwear, and then Admiral Sayre wrapped a blanket around his shoulders.

"I'll hang your pants and shirt from the rigging. You'll look like hell, but it will at least be dry," the admiral said.

"Thank you, sir," Pick said.

"Why the hell did you go over the side?" the admiral demanded.

"I thought maybe she was hurt," Pick said.

"Well, I'm grateful," the admiral said. He looked down the cabin. "You all right, honey?" he asked.

"A little wet," Martha said.

"I'll do what I can to dry your clothes," her father said. "Jeanne, you go topside and take the helm."

"Aye, aye, Admiral, sir," his wife replied, dryly sarcastic.

Now wrapped, Martha and Pick looked at each other across the cabin.

And then Pick crossed the cabin to her.

"You want to tell me what that was all about?" Martha asked.

"If I had a bicycle, I would have ridden it no hands," Pick said.

She walked past him to the ladder to the cockpit, and turned and walked in the other direction.

"It was a dumb thing to do," Martha said. "You weren't even wearing a life jacket. You could have drowned, you damn fool."

"So could you have," Pick said slowly. "And if you were going to drown, I wanted to drown with you."

"Jesus," she said. And she looked at him. "You're crazy."

"Just in love," he said.

"My God, you are crazy," she said.

"Maybe," Pick said. "But that's the way it is. And this was my last chance. We're leaving Tuesday."

"Jim Carstairs told me," Martha said, and then: "Oh, Pick, what are you doing to me?" she asked, very softly.

"Nothing," he said. "What I would like to do is put my arms around you and never let you go."

Her hand came out from under her blanket and touched his face. His hand came out and touched hers, and then his arms went around her, as he buried his face in her neck.

This served to dislodge the blankets covering the upper portions of their bodies. Martha had removed her brassiere, and was wearing only her underpants. As if with a mind of its own, Pick's hand found her breast and closed over it.

"My God!" she whispered, taking her mouth from his a long, long moment later. "My parents!"

They retrieved their blankets.

When Admiral Sayre came into the cabin no more than a minute later, they were on opposite sides of the cabin, Martha sitting down, Pick leaning against a locker.

But maybe it wasn't necessary. They had color in their faces again. Martha's face, in fact, was so red that she could have been blushing.

"You two all right?"

"Yes," Martha said.

"Couldn't be better, sir," Pick Pickering said.

Postscript

Kwajalein Island 16 October 1942

The following is factual. It is taken from "Record of Proceedings of a Military Commission convened on April 16, 1946, at United States Fleet, Commander Marianas, Guam, Marianas Islands," under the authority of Rear Admiral C. A. Pownall, USN, the Commander, Marianas Area, to deal with the cases of Vice Admiral Koso Abe, Captain Yoshio Obara, and Lieutenant Commander Hisakichi Naiki, all of the Imperial Japanese Navy:

Early in October, a Lieutenant Commander Okada, who was a staff officer of the Central Japanese Headquarters, visited Kwajalein in connection with an inspection of Japanese defense fortifications. While he was there, Vice Admiral Abe, Kwajalein commander, solicited Commander Okada's assistance in securing transportation to Japan of nine prisoners of war, Marine enlisted then who had been captured following the Makin Island operation and brought to Kwajalein. The Imperial Japanese Navy had been unable, or unwilling, so far to divert a vessel to transport the prisoners.

Commander Okada replied to Vice Admiral Abe that "from now on, it would not be necessary to transport prisoners to Japan; from now on, they would be disposed of on the island [Kwajalein]" or words to that effect.

On October 11, 1942, Vice Admiral Abe delegated the responsibility of disposing of the prisoners to the Commanding Officer, 61st Naval Guard Unit, Imperial Japanese Navy, Captain Yoshio Obara, IJN, a career naval officer and a 1915 graduate of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy. The Marine prisoners of war were then being held by the 61st Naval Guard unit.

Vice Admiral Abe's orders to Captain Obara specified that the executioners, as a matter of courtesy to the prisoners of war, hold the grade of warrant officer or above.

There was a pool of approximately forty warrant officers (in addition to officers of senior grade), none of whom was initially willing to volunteer for the duty. When prevailed upon by Captain Obara and Lieutenant Commander Naiki, however, three warrant officers stepped forward, as did an enlisted man, who would serve as "pistoleer."

Lieutenant Commander Naiki proposed to dispose of the Marine prisoners on October 16, which was the Yasakuni Shrine Festival, a Japanese holiday honoring departed heroes. This proposal received the concurrence of Captain Obara and Vice Admiral Abe.

A site was selected and prepared on the southwestern part of the island.

Captain Obara ordered that the evening meal of October IS, 1942 for the prisoners include beer and sweet cakes.

On October 16, the Marine prisoners were blindfolded and had their hands tied behind them. They were moved from their place of confinement to a holding area near the disposal site and held there until Vice Admiral Abe and Captain Obara arrived, in full dress uniform, by car from activities in connection with the Yasakuni Shrine Festival.

The Marine prisoners were then led one at a time to the edge of a pit dug for the purpose, and placed in a kneeling position. Then they were beheaded by one or another of the three warrant officers-using swords, according to Japanese Naval tradition. The services of the pistoleer, who would have fired a bullet into their heads should there not be a complete severance of head from torso, were not required.

A prayer for the souls of the departed was offered, under the direction of Vice Admiral Abe, who then left.

A woven fiber that was placed over the bodies, and the pit filled in. Additional prayers were offered, and then the disposal party was marched off.

On 19 June 1947, Lieutenant Colonel George W. Newton, USMC, Provost Marshal of Guam, reported to the Commandant of the Marine Corps that, in accordance with the sentence handed down by the Military Commission, Vice Admiral Abe, Captain Obara, and Lieutenant Commander Naiki, late of the Imperial Japanese Navy, had that day been, by First Lieutenant Charles C. Rexroad, USA, hanged by the neck until they were dead.