Semper Fi

Chapter Fifteen

(One)

The Madison Suite

The Lafayette Hotel, Washington, D.C.

1410 Hours, 7 December 1941

Until this week, airplanes for Second Lieutenant Malcolm Pickering, USMCR, had been something like taxi cabs. They were there. When you needed to go somewhere you got in one and it took you.

That changed. The Navy medico (more properly, flight surgeon, which Pickering thought had a nice aeronautical ring to it) told him that he met the physical standards laid down for Naval aviators. General McInemey's senior aide-de-camp, himself a dashing Naval aviator with wings of gold, then explained that while there might officially be, say, fifty would-be birdmen in any course of Primary Flight Instruction at the Pensacola Naval Air Station (Flight training for Marine aviators is conducted by the U.S. Navy. Marine aviators wear the same gold wings as Naval aviators), that was something of a fiction. More than the prescribed number were routinely ordered to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Experience had taught that a number of students would quickly prove themselves incapable of learning how to fly. By sending extras, the Corps wound up with the desired number after the inept had bilged out.

General Mclnerney was in a position to have Pickering sent as a member of the supernumeraries. Pickering knew his mother would have a fit when she heard that he was to become an aviator, which was a problem that would be a bit difficult to handle. On the other hand, there was a positive appeal about the prospect of swapping the slush-filled streets of Washington for the white sandy beaches of Pensacola.

On the way home from Anacostia Naval Air Station in McCoy's LaSalle on Friday evening, he stopped at a bookstore, asked for books on aviation (starting with the theory of flight), and bought half a dozen that looked promising.

He was now reading one of them, one with a lot of drawings. The others, stacked up beside his chair, waited for his attention. A small table beside him held a silver pot of coffee. He was attired for a more primitive means of transportation than he was reading about: A tweed jacket with leather patches over the elbows; a plaid cotton shirt open at the collar; a pair of pink breeches; and a pair of Hailey Smythe riding boots, which rested on a pillow (to preserve the furniture) on the coffee table before him.

He had spent the morning in Virginia aboard a horse. Sort of a fox hunt without either the fox or the ceremony that went with a hunt. Just half a dozen riders riding about the countryside, jumping fences of opportunity.

They were going to sit around in the afternoon and get smashed. Rather nobly, he thought, he had pleaded the press of duty and returned to the hotel to read the airplane books.

The telephone rang, and he looked around for it, a look of annoyance crossing his face as he spotted it, ten feet out of reach. It had taken him some effort to reach his present comfortable position, with his feet just so, and his back just so, and with The Miracle of Flight propped up just so on his belly.

He had just begun to grasp the notion that aircraft are lifted into the air because there is less pressure on the upper (curved, and thus longer) portion of a wing than there is on the bottom (flat, and thus shorter) portion of a wing. As the wing moves through the air, it simply follows the path of least resistance, upward, and hauls the airplane along with it. He wasn't entirely sure he fully understood this. He was sure, however, that he didn't want to chat just now with whomever was on the phone, especially since he had to get up to go answer it.

"Yes?" he snapped impatiently, "what is it?"

Oh, shit! It's probably General Mclnerney. And I was supposed to have answered that, "Lieutenant Pickering speaking."

"Pick?"

It was a female. And a half-second later, he knew which one.

"Hello, Ernie," he said.

"Are you alone? Can you talk?" Ernestine Sage said.

"You have interrupted a splendid orgy, but what's on your mind?"

"I want to talk to you," Ernie Sage said.

"Then talk," he said. "Just make it quick."

"I'll be right up," Ernie Sage said.

"You're here?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "In the hotel?"

"I just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I'd just pop in," she said, and the phone went dead.

Between the time she hung up and the time he answered her knock at the door, he had considered the possibilities: Certainly this had to do with Ken McCoy. But what would bring Ernie all the way to Washington except true love? And the possibility, not as astonishing when there was time to think it over, that Ernie was in the family way. Could she be sure, so soon? To the best of his recollection, it took several months to be sure about that. It hadn't been that long since he had seen Juliet kissing Romeo in the Grand Central Oyster Bar.

"Hi," Ernie said, when he opened the door. "Don't you look horsey?"

For the first time in a long time, Pickering looked at her as a female, and not as part of the woodwork.

Damned good-looking, he judged. Marvelous knockers. They had obviously grown a good deal since (he now remembered with somewhat startling clarity) he had last seen them, looking down her bathing suit in Boca Raton. He and Ernie must have been thirteen or fourteen at the time. "Come into my den, as the spider said to the fly." "You're a hard man to find," she said. "I called your mother, or tried to, and they said she was in Hawaii. So I called your grandfather, and he told me where you were."

"Why do I suspect that you weren't suddenly overcome with an irresistible urge to see me?" Pickering asked. She looked into his face. "Where is he?" she asked.

"Where's who?"

"Come on, Pick," she said.

"Ken, you mean?"

"Where is he?"

"In Hawaii, too, come to think of it," Pick said.

"Oh, hell," she said.

"Not to worry," he said. "He will be back."

She looked at his face.

"That's important to you, isn't it?" Pickering asked.

"Don't be a shit about this, Pick, please," Ernie Sage said.

"Okay," he said. "It will be an effort, obviously."

"Do you have something I could have to drink?"

He gestured to the bar.

"Help yourself," he said.

She walked to the bar and made herself a Scotch.

"You want one?" she asked.

"I want one, but… oh, what the hell. Yes, please."

She made him a drink, handed it to him, and then sat down on a couch and stirred the ice cubes in her glass with her index finger.

"I never imagined myself doing this," she said, without looking at him.

"Doing what?"

"Running after a boy," she said, and corrected herself: "A man."

"I'm not surprised," Pick said.

She looked at him quickly.

"For one thing, McCoy's quite special," Pick said. "And for another, I saw the two of you in the Oyster Bar."

She did not seem at all embarrassed to hear that. Just curious.

"What were you doing there?"

"McCoy had led me safely through the wild jungles of Quantico," Pickering said, "protecting me from unfamiliar savage beasts. I thought it only fair that I return the favor."

"Protect him from me, you mean? Thanks a lot."

"I didn't know who it was until I saw you," Pickering said.

"Where did you meet him?"

"On a train from Boston," Pickering said. "He had just escorted prisoners to the Naval Prison at Portsmouth. And then he showed up, wholly unexpected, at Quantico." "Why unexpected?"

"Because our peers were… our peers. McCoy was a noncom of the regular Marine Corps, just in from years in China."

"He told me about China," she said. "He took me to a tiny little Chinese restaurant off Mott Street, where he talked Chinese to them."

"As I say, he's something special." "Isn't he?" she said. Then she looked up at him. "Four hours after I met him, I took him to bed." "He told me," Pickering said.

"I don't know what you think of me, Pick," Ernie Sage said. "But that's not my style."

"He told me that, too," Pickering said, gently. That surprised her. She looked into his face until she was sure that she had not misunderstood him.

"Pretty close, are you? Or did he proudly report it as another cherry copped?"

"Actually, he was pretty upset about it," Pickering said. "But not too upset to tell you all about it?" "We are pretty close," Pickering said. "I don't know. It's something like having a brother, I guess."

"You heard about his brother? The one who was offered the choice of the Marine Corps or jail?"

"I even know that was the choice they gave him, too," Pickering said. "Like I say, Ernie, we're close."

"Okay, so tell me what happened? I have six letters, all marked 'REFUSED.' "

"He found out you were rich," Pickering said. "Oh, God!" she wailed. Then the accusation: "You told him. Why the hell did you have to do that?"

Pickering shrugged his shoulders helplessly and threw up his hands.

"Now I'm sorry that I did," he said. She turned her face away from him. Then turned back, frowning.

"But I suppose I was thinking that the bad news better come gently, and from me. I didn't want that shocking revelation suddenly thrust upon him."

"If you came from a background like his, it would upset you, too," Ernie Sage said, loyally. "He has pride, for God's sake. I know he's a fool, but-"

"Did he tell you about the lady missionary?"

"What lady missionary?"

"There was a lady missionary in China who apparently gave him a bad time. Strung him along. Hurt him pretty badly."

"I'd like to kill her," Ernie Sage said, matter-of-factly.

"You've really got it pretty bad for him, don't you?"

"As incredible as it sounds," she said, "I'm in love with him. Okay? Can we proceed from that point?"

"Love, as in 'forsaking all others, until death do you part'?"

"I was disappointed when I found out I wasn't pregnant," she said. "How's that?"

"I hope you know what you're getting into," Pickering said.

"It doesn't matter, Pick," she said. "I have absolutely no control over how I feel about him. I thought that only happened in romantic novels. Obviously, it doesn't only happen in fiction."

"I'm jealous," Pickering said.

"What have you got to be jealous about?" Ernie asked, and then she understood. "You should be," she said. "But that's your problem. What do we do about mine?"

"I don't know," Pickering said. "If you're really sure about this, Ernie, Big Brother will think of something."

"I have never been so sure of anything in my life," she said. "It's either him and me, hand in hand, or to hell with it."

"For what it's worth, with the caveat that I am relatively inexperienced in matters of this kind, I would not say it's hopeless."

Ernestine Sage brightened visibly.

"Really?" she asked.

"Really," Pickering said. "For reasons I cannot imagine, Lieutenant McCoy seemed to be more than a little taken with your many charms."

"God, I hope so," she said, and then asked, "what's he doing in Hawaii?"

"They made him an officer courier," Pickering said. "He carries secrets in a briefcase."

"I never heard of that," she said. "How long did you say he'll be gone?"

"He's going to Hawaii. He got there today. Or will get there today. There is something called the International Dateline, and I've never figured it out. And from there, he's going to Manila, and then back to Hawaii, and then back here."

"And what are we going to do when he gets back here?"

"We'll arrange for him to find you in a black negligee in his bed," Pickering said. "As a Marine officer, he would be duty-bound to do his duty. You can play the ball from there."

"If I thought that would work," she said, "I'd do it."

"I think, Ernie," Pick Pickering said seriously, "that all it would take would be for him to find you sitting there, just like you are now."

She looked at him and smiled. Then she got up and walked to him and kissed him on the cheek.

"And I was really afraid that you'd be a shit about this," she said.

"My God! Me? Pick Pickering? Cupid's right-hand man?"

She chuckled and looked at her watch.

"I was so sure of it, that I reserved a compartment on the three-fifteen to New York. I've still got time to make it."

"Maybe," Pickering said, "you should get some practice riding coach."

She looked at him curiously for a moment until she took his meaning.

"If that's what it takes, that's what I'll do," she said. "But the next time. Not today."

He smiled at her and walked with her to the door, where she kissed him impulsively again.

He had just rearranged himself in the chair with his feet on the pillow and The Miracle of Flight propped up on his belly when there was another knock on his door.

"Jesus H. Christ!" he fumed as he went to answer it.

It was Ernie Sage, and he could tell from the look in her eyes that something was terribly wrong.

"A radio," Ernie said. "Have you got a radio?"

"There's one in here," he said. She pushed past him into the sitting room.

She had the radio on by the time he got there.

"Repeating the bulletin," the voice of the radio announcer said, "the White House has just announced that the Navy Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, has been attacked by Japanese aircraft and that there has been substantial loss of life and material."

"Jesus Christ!" Pickering said.

"If he's dead," Ernestine Sage said melodramatically, "I'll kill myself."

"You don't mean that," Pickering said.

"Oh, my God, Pick! Your mother and father are there!"

He hadn't thought of that.

Somehow, he wound up holding her in his arms.

"Everything is going to be all right, Ernie."

"Bullshit!" she said against his chest.

And then it occurred to him that he was a Marine officer and that what he should be doing now was getting into uniform and reporting for duty.

(Two)

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

7 December 1941

The Japanese task force, which had sailed from Hitokappu Bay in the Kurile Islands, began to launch aircraft at 0600 hours. The task force was then approximately 305 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor. In relation to the task force, Pearl Harbor was on the far side of Oahu Island, the second largest island of the Hawaiian Chain.

Japanese Intelligence was aware that the attack could not be entirely as successful as was initially hoped. In the best possible scenario, essentially all of the United States Pacific Fleet would be in Pearl Harbor. The worst possible scenario was that essentially all of the Pacific Fleet would be at sea. The reality turned out to be between these extremes. All the battleships of the Pacific Fleet were in Pearl Harbor, as well as a number of other ships.

But the seven heavy cruisers and the two aircraft carriers the Japanese had also hoped to find at anchor were at sea. The Japanese knew the composition of the at-sea forces, but not their location.

Task Force 8-an aircraft carrier, three cruisers, and nine destroyers and destroyer minesweepers-was approximately 200 nautical miles from Pearl. Task Force 3-one cruiser and five destroyers and destroyer minesweepers-was 40 nautical miles off Johnson Island, about 750 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor. Task force 12-one carrier, three cruisers, and five destroyers-was about as far from Pearl Harbor as Task Force 3, operating approximately 400 nautical miles north of Task Force 3.

The decision was made to attack anyway. There was always the chance of detection; the destruction of harbor facilities and airfields was of high priority, and the destruction of one or more battleships would severely limit the capability of the American fleet.

The code command for the attack was "Climb Mount Niitaka 1208."

Approximately 125 nautical miles from Pearl Harbor, the stream of aircraft from the Japanese task force split into two streams. Fifty miles from Oahu, what was now the left stream began to split again, this time into three streams. The first two turned right and made for Pearl Harbor across the island. The third stream continued on course until it was past the tip of Oahu, and then turned toward the center of the island and made an approach to Pearl Harbor from the sea.

Meanwhile, the right stream had broken into two, with one crossing the coastline and making for Pearl Harbor across the island, and the second continuing on course past the island, then turning back to attack Pearl Harbor from the open sea.

The first wave of Japanese bombers struck at 0755 hours and the second at 0900. By then the task force had changed course and was making for the Japanese Inland Sea, hoping to avoid any encounter with carrier-based aircraft from Task Forces 12 and 8 or with land-based aircraft on Oahu. Intelligence reported that at least one squadron of long-range, four-engine B-17 bomber aircraft was en route from the continental United States. Despite the risk of detection by radio direction finders, shortly after 1030 hours, a priority message from the Japanese task force was radioed to headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Navy in Tokyo: "Tora (Tiger), Tora, Tora." It was the prearranged code for the successful completion of the attack.

(Three)

Although he tried to be very nonchalant about the whole thing, Second Lieutenant K.J. McCoy made his first aerial trip from Anacostia to the West Coast. All in all, once he got used to it, he found it very enjoyable. The airplane was a Navy transport, but so far as he could tell, identical to the Douglas DC-3s used by civilian airlines. The Navy called it an R4-D, yet it even had white napkins on the seats to keep your hair tonic from soiling the upholstery.

It was considerably more plush than the aircraft that carried him from California to Hawaii. As Major Almond had warned, there were a lot of people in California with an AAA priority waiting for air transportation to Hawaii. He could wait, the sergeant told him, until there was a space, but he should understand that when two people had an AAA priority, the one who was senior in rank got the seat. As a second lieutenant, he was liable to wait a long time.

There was another way to get to Hawaii. The Army Air Corps was flying a squadron of B-17 bombers to Hickam Field. They had excess weight capacity because they would not carry bombs, and they were carrying passengers.

"Well, if that's the only way to get there, Sergeant," McCoy said, with feigned reluctance, "I suppose that'll have to be it."

The truth of the matter was that he was a little excited about the idea of flying on a bomber. And the flight started off on an ego-pleasing note, too. When he got to the airbase and presented his orders, a thoroughly pissed-off Air Corps major had to get out of the airplane so that Second Lieutenant McCoy of the Marines with his briefcase and AAA priority could get on.

They were supposed to land at Hickam Field about noon. An hour before that, the radio operator established contact with Hawaii. Moments later the pilot came back in the fuselage and told the crew and the four supercargo passengers (two Air Corps lieutenant colonels, an Army master sergeant, and McCoy) what had happened in Hawaii.

It was all over when the B-17 appeared over Oahu, but some dumb sonsofbitches didn't get the word and shot at the B-17, not just once but twice, the second time as they made their approach to Hickam Field.

The airfield was all shot up. There were burning and burned-out airplanes everywhere, and not one hangar seemed to be intact. An enormous cloud of dense black smoke rose where the Japs had managed to set off an aviation fuel dump.

They had no sooner landed than an Air Corps major appeared in a jeep and told the pilot to take off again for a landing field on a pineapple plantation on one of the other islands. He seemed thoroughly pissed-off when the pilot said he didn't have enough fuel aboard to take off for anywhere.

McCoy very politely asked the Air Corps major about transportation to the Navy Base at Pearl Harbor.

"Good Christ, Lieutenant!" the Air Corps major said, jumping all over his ass. "Are you blind? Pearl Harbor isn't there anymore!"

There was no point arguing with him, so McCoy, the briefcase in one hand and his suitcase in the other, started walking.

There were a lot of other excited types at Hickam running around like chickens with their heads cut off, and even more who seemed to be moving around with strange blank looks in

their eyes.

None of them were any help about getting him from Hickam to Pearl Harbor, even after he showed a couple of them his credentials. So McCoy decided that under the circumstances it would be all right to borrow transportation. He found a Ford pickup with nothing in the back and the keys in the ignition.

The MP at the gate held him at rifle point until an officer showed up. The officer took one look at the credentials and let him go.

As he approached the Navy Base, there was even more smoke than there'd been at Hickam Field. When he got to the gate, the Marine MP on duty wasn't any more impressed with the credentials than the Army MP at Hickam Field had been, and he had to wait for an officer to show up before he would let him inside.

While he was waiting for the officer to come to the gate, McCoy asked the MP if the Marine Barracks had been hit, and if so, how badly. The MP wouldn't tell him. That worried McCoy even more. Tommy was in the Marine Barracks, which meant in the middle of this shit. He didn't like to consider the possibility that Tommy had got himself blown up.

The officer who came to the gate passed him through and told him where he was supposed to go.

The Navy seemed a lot calmer than the Air Corps had been, but not a whole hell of a lot. Still, he found a classified-documents officer, a middle-aged, harassed-looking lieutenant commander, who relieved him of the contents of the briefcase. As McCoy was taking off the handcuff and the.45's shoulder holster so he could put them into the briefcase, he asked the lieutenant commander what he was expected to do now.

"Get yourself a couple of hours of sleep, Lieutenant," the lieutenant commander said. "And then report back here."

"Aye, aye, sir."

The lieutenant commander looked at him strangely.

"You got a wife, anything like that, Lieutenant," he said. "You might want to write a letter."

McCoy's eyebrows rose quizzically.

"You're going on to Cavite," he said. "With a little bit of luck, you might get there before the Japs do."

"The Japs hit Cavite, too?"

"And everything else in the Philippines," the lieutenant commander said. "But what I meant is 'before the Japs land in the Philippines.' "

"Is that what's going to happen?" McCoy asked.

The lieutenant commander nodded. Then he shrugged.

"There was a Secret Operational Immediate [the highest-priority communication] a couple of hours ago," the lieutenant commander said. "A Japanese invasion fleet was spotted headed for the Lingayen Gulf. Why the hell it was classified Secret, I don't know. The Japs must know where they are and where they're headed."

"And you think that once I get there, I'm stuck?" McCoy asked.

"I didn't say that," the lieutenant commander said. "But if I was going to fly into Cavite on a Catalina, I'd write my wife, or whatever, a letter."

"Thank you," McCoy said.

McCoy didn't even consider writing his sister. If anything happened to him, she would find out when they sent the insurance check to her kids. Briefly, the notion of writing Pick entered his mind, but he dismissed it. He wouldn't know what the hell to say. And he thought, for a moment, of writing Ernie. Just for the hell of it, I thought you would like to know I love you.

Then he saw that for what it was, a damned-fool idea, and went looking for Tommy. It wouldn't be exactly what he had had in mind when he'd thought about seeing Tommy at Pearl Harbor. Tommy didn't even know he was an officer. He'd planned to surprise him with that, to see what he did when he saw him with the lieutenant's bars.

He got back in the borrowed pickup and drove to the Marine Barracks.

One of the barracks buildings had been set on fire, but the fire was out. There were bullet marks all over, and in the middle of the drill field was a huge unidentifiable, fire-scarred chunk of metal.

There weren't very many people around. A few noncoms, and some other people. But no troops. Nobody seemed to be running around looking for something to do.

He found the headquarters building and went inside. There was a guard in field gear and steel helmet at the door. He saluted. And there was a first lieutenant and a PFC in the personnel office. The lieutenant spotted him before the PFC, who belatedly jumped to his feet.

"Reporting in, Lieutenant?" the lieutenant asked.

"Passing through, sir," McCoy said. For a moment, he thought about dazzling the lieutenant with his special agent credentials, and then decided that wouldn't be right.

"What can I do for you?"

"My brother's assigned to the First Defense Battalion," McCoy said. "I've been wondering about him."

"No doubt," the lieutenant said. He handed McCoy a yellow lined pad.

"This is the first casualty report," he said. "My clerk's about to type it up. All the names on there are confirmed casualties, or KIA, but that's not saying all the casualties are on the list."

"Thank you, sir," McCoy said. He quickly scanned the names. Tommy's name wasn't on it.

"Well, he's not on it," McCoy said. "He's a private. McCoy, Thomas J."

The lieutenant started to consult a list, and then remembered just seeing that name. He consulted another list at the head of which he had penciled, "Cut orders transferring Wake Island."

One of the names on the list of those to be shipped out (as soon as transport could be found) as reinforcements for the small Marine force under Major James Devereux on Wake Island was McCoy, Thomas J.

"He's in the beach defense force," he said. "I don't know where the hell to tell you to look for him."

"I don't have the time, anyway," McCoy said.

"You said you were passing through?"

"On my way to Manila," McCoy explained.

"To the Fourth Marines?"

McCoy nodded. There was no point in telling this guy he was a courier.

"You're going to have a hell of a time finding transport," the lieutenant said.

"Maybe, with a little bit of luck, I won't be able to," McCoy said.

"I did a hitch with the Second Battalion until '39. As an enlisted man. Good outfit."

"I used to be on a water-cooled.30 in Dog Company, First Battalion," McCoy said.

"Look," the lieutenant said. "They're not going to ship you out of here for a couple of days, at least. The odds are, your brother will be back in here. If he gets in, I'll pass the word you're here and send him over to the transient BOQ."

"Thanks," McCoy said.

"What the hell, a couple of old China Marines have to take care of each other, right?"

"Absolutely," McCoy said. "Thanks again."

When McCoy had gone, the lieutenant looked over the list of names of people to be transferred to Wake Island as soon as possible, erased Private Thomas J. McCoy's name from it, and penciled in another. He had no doubt that Wake Island would fall. And besides, no matter where he was, there would be enough war left for Private McCoy. And for his brother. The Philippines were probably going to go under, too, if what happened this morning was any indication. Christ, Hawaii might fall.

This would give them a chance to say hello. Or good-bye.

When McCoy drove back to COMPACFLEET, he parked the borrowed truck where no one could see him get out of it, and then went in search of something to eat.

The lieutenant commander found him in the cafeteria eating a bologna sandwich.

"I just looked all over the goddamn BOQ for you," he said. "That's where I told you to go."

McCoy, his mouth full, held up the bologna sandwich.

The lieutenant commander handed McCoy a briefcase and a pad of receipt forms. Then he took him to Ford Island, where a Catalina was being fueled by hand.

The airbase was a shambles, and the dense cloud of black smoke rising from Battleship Row was visible for a long time after they had taken off.

(Four)

Headquarters, 4th Regiment, USMC

Cavite Naval Base

Manila Bay, Territory of the Philippines

1300 Hours, 9 December 1941

The 4th Marines was just about clear of the area when McCoy finally found it. They had apparently moved out in haste. There was a large pile of packaging material, rough-cut lumber, cardboard, and wood shavings, on what had been the neatly trimmed lawn in front of Regimental Headquarters.

The buildings were deserted. Completely deserted, McCoy thought, until he was nearly run down by the colonel, trailed by the sergeant-major, as he turned a comer.

They were in khakis, no field scarves, wearing web belts with.45s dangling from them, and tin hats. Both of them had '03 Springfields slung over their shoulders.

McCoy was in greens, with a leather-brimmed cap.

The colonel's eyebrows rose when he saw McCoy.

"I know you. Who are you?" the colonel demanded.

McCoy popped to attention.

"Corporal McCoy, sir!" he barked.

"Shit," the sergeant-major said, and laughed out loud.

"Lieutenant McCoy, sir," McCoy said.

"I'll be damned," the colonel said. "What the hell is going on, McCoy? Lieutenant?'''

"I just graduated from Platoon Leader's Course, sir."

"And they assigned you back here?" the colonel asked, incredulously.

"No, sir," McCoy said. "I'm an officer courier. I just got in. I thought I'd… come by and say hello to Captain Banning."

"Jesus H. Christ!" the colonel said, and shook his head and marched out of the building.

(Five)

Santos Bay, Lingayen Gulf Luzon, Territory of the Philippines 0515 Hours, 10 December 1941

Captain Edward J. Banning lay behind a quickly erected sandbag barrier at the crest of the hill leading down to the beach.

The day was going to be cloudless. Cloudless and probably hot.

It was entirely likely that he would die here today, possibly even this morning. Behind a sandbag barrier on a hot, cloudless day.

The beach was being defended by two companies of Marines. They had not had time (or material) to mine the approaches to the beach. They had four water-cooled.30-caliber Brownings, six air-cooled.30-caliber Brownings, and half a dozen mortars. Somewhere en route, allegedly, were two 75-mm cannon from a Doggie-officered, Philippine Scout Field Artillery Battery.

A mile offshore were two dozen Japanese ships, half merchantmen converted to troop transports, half destroyers.

At first light, they were supposed to have been attacked by Army Air Corps bombers. Banning was not surprised that they had not been. The Japs had wiped out the Air Corps in the Philippines after it had been conveniently lined up on airfields for them. It had occurred to some Air Corps general that since there was a chance of sabotage if the planes were in widely dispersed revetments, they could be more "economically" guarded if they were gathered together in rows.

They had been all lined up for the Japs when they came in.

There would be no bombers to attack the Japanese invasion force, and the Japanese landing force would not be repelled by two companies of Marines and a handful of.30-caliber machine guns.

These two companies of the 4th Marines would die here today, in a futile defense of an indefensible beach.

And the rest of the regiment would die on other indefensible beaches.

He was resigned to it.

That's what he had been drawing all his pay for, for all those years, so he would be available for a situation like this.

He heard movement behind him and turned to see what it was, and had trouble believing what he saw.

It was Corporal "Killer" McCoy, without headgear, wearing a khaki shirt and green trousers, staggering under the load of a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle, Caliber.30-06) and what looked like twenty or more magazines for it.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Banning asked.

With what looked like his last ounce of energy, McCoy set the BAR down carefully on the sandbags and then collapsed on his back, breathing heavily, still festooned with bandoliers of twenty-round magazines for the BAR.

It was only then that Banning saw the small gold bars pinned to McCoy's collar.

"I found the BAR and the Ammo at a checkpoint," McCoy breathed, still flat on his back. "Whoever was manning the checkpoint took off."

"What are you doing here?" Banning asked. "And wearing an officer's shirt?"

"I thought you knew," McCoy said. "I went to the Platoon Leader's Course."

"No, I didn't know," Banning said. "But what the hell are you doing here?"

"I came in as a courier," McCoy said. "Now that I am here, I guess I'm doing what you're doing."

He rolled onto his stomach and raised his head high enough to see over the sandbags.

"Jesus Christ, they're just sitting out there! Isn't there any artillery?"

"There's supposed to be, but there's not," Banning said. "There was also supposed to be bombers."

"Shit, we're going to get clobbered!"

"Did somebody order you up here, McCoy?" Banning asked.

"No," McCoy said simply. "But I figured this is where I belonged."

"Where are you supposed to be?"

"They told me to hang around the Navy Comm Center, in case there was a way to get me out of here. But that's not going to happen."

"You've got orders ordering you out of the Philippines?" Banning asked. McCoy nodded. "You goddamned fool! I'd give my left nut for orders like that."

McCoy looked at him curiously.

Perhaps even contemptuously, Banning thought.

"Get your ass out of here, McCoy," Banning said.

McCoy didn't respond. Instead he picked up Banning's binoculars and peered over the sandbags through them.

"Too late," he said. "They're putting boats over the side."

He handed Banning the binoculars.

Banning was looking through them when the tin cans started firing the preassault barrage. The first rounds were long, landing two, three hundred yards inland. The second rounds were short, setting up plumes of water fifty yards offshore.

The third rounds would be on target, he thought, as he saw the Japanese landing barges start for the beach.

The first rounds of the "fire for effect" barrage landed on the defense positions close to the beach.

The fucking Japs knew what they were doing!

When the first of the landing barges was five hundred yards off shore, maybe six hundred yards from where they were, McCoy brought it under fire.

The noise of the BAR going off so close to Banning's ear was painful as well as startling. He turned to look at McCoy. McCoy was firing, as he was supposed to, short three-, four-, five-round bursts, aimed bursts, giving the piece time to cool a little as he fired.

He's probably hitting what he's shooting at. But it's like trying to stamp out ants. There's just too many of them. And in a minute, some clever Jap is going to call in a couple of rounds on us. And that will be the end of us.

Captain Edward J. Banning's assessment of the tactical situation proved to be correct and precise. Two minutes later, the first round landed on their position, so close to him that the shock of the concussion caused him to lose control of his sphincter muscle. He didn't hear the sound of the round explode, although he heard it whistle on the way in.

It's true, he thought, surprised, just before he passed out, you don't hear the one that gets you.

Banning awoke in great pain, and in the dark, and he couldn't move his right arm. He sensed, rather than saw, that he was no longer on the crest overlooking the beach. Then he felt his body and learned that he was bandaged. He was chilled with panic at the thought that he was blind, but after a moment, he could make out vague shapes.

He lay immobile, wondering where he was and what he was expected to do. And then there was light.

One of the vague shapes moved to him and put a matter-of-fact hand on his neck to feel for a heartbeat.

"McCoy?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where the hell are we?"

"In the basement of some church," McCoy said.

"You brought me here?"

"The sonsofbitches dropped one right on us," McCoy said, without emotion. "I don't know what the hell happened to the BAR, but it was time we got the hell out of there."

"Did you get hit?"

"I took a little shrapnel in the side," he said. "They just pulled it out."

"Where are the Japanese?" Banning asked.

"Christ only knows," McCoy said. "They went by here like shit through a goose."

"We're behind their lines?"

"Yes, sir."

"This may sound like a dumb question, but what kind of shape am I in?"

"We got you pretty well doped up." McCoy said. "The Filipino-she's a nurse, the one that took the shrapnel out of me-says you shouldn't be moved for a couple of days."

"Then what happens?" Banning asked.

"They say we probably can't make it back through the Jap lines. So when you can move, they're going to take us up in the mountains, and maybe off this island onto another one. Mindo something."

"Mindinao," Banning furnished.

"That's right."

"What happened to the Marines on the beach?"

"They were gone before we got hit," McCoy said.

God forgive me, I have absolutely no heroic regrets that I did not die with the regiment. I'm goddamned glad I'm alive, and that's all there is to it.

"Do you think you could make it through the Japanese lines?" Banning said.

"You can't go anywhere for a while," McCoy replied.

"That's not what I asked," Banning said.

"What the hell is the point?" McCoy asked. "I think I'd much rather go in the hills for a while and see how I could fuck them up. If I go back, they'll just give me a platoon, and the same thing will happen to me as happened to those poor bastards on the beach yesterday."

"The point, Lieutenant McCoy, is that you are a Marine officer, and Marine officers obey their orders. You have two that currently affect you. The first is to leave the Philippines."

McCoy chuckled.

"Who's going to enforce that one? They'd have to come get me."

"I am," Banning said. "This is an order. You will make your way through Japanese lines and report to the proper authorities so that you may comply with your basic orders to leave the Philippines."

"You're serious, aren't you?" McCoy asked, genuinely surprised.

"You bet your ass, I'm serious, Lieutenant. You better get it through your head that you'll fight this war the way the Corps tells you to fight it, not the way you think would be nicest."

"And what happens to you?"

"I am in compliance with my orders. I was ordered to resist'the Japanese invasion. I'll continue to do that, as soon as I am physically able."

"This sounds like one of those dumb lectures at Quantico," McCoy said.

"Maybe you should have paid closer attention to those dumb lectures," Banning said.

"Shit," McCoy said.

"Has it ever occurred to you, goddamn you, that you can do a hell of a lot more for mis war as an intelligence officer than you could running around in the boondocks ambushing an odd Jap here and there?"

"So could you, Captain."

"But I can't move, and you can."

McCoy, several minutes later, asked once more: "You really think I should go back and try to get back to the States?"

"Yes, goddamnit, I do."

"Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said. "As soon as it gets dark, I'll go."

(Six)

Quarters 3201

U.S. Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Virginia

14 December 1941

Elly Stecker knew what was happening when she saw Doris Means at her door with her husband, but she pretended she didn't. Even after she saw the staff car parked behind the Means's Lincoln on the street.

"Is Jack home, Elly?" Doris asked.

"Jack!" Elly called brightly. "It's Colonel and Mrs. Means!" Then she turned and said, "Excuse me. Please come in."

Jack came to the door to the living room in his shirt sleeves.

He seemed to know, too, right off, Elly thought. But he didn't say anything out of the ordinary.

"Good evening, sir," he said.

"We've got a telegram, Jack," Colonel Means said.

"Yes, sir?"

Colonel Means took it from the crown of his cap and extended it to Stecker.

"Would you read it, please, sir?"

Means cleared his throat.

"The Secretary of the Navy deeply regrets to inform you that your son, Ensign Jack NMI Stecker, Jr., USN, was killed in action aboard the U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 7 December 1941. Frank Knox, Jr. Secretary of the Navy."

Captain Jack NMI Stecker, USMCR, stood there at attention a moment, rigidly; then his body seemed to tremble, and then the sobs got away from him. Making a noise much like a wail, he fled into his living room.

"Jesus Christ, Elly," Colonel Means said. "I'm sorry."

(Seven)

The Madison Suite, the Lafayette Hotel

Washington, D.C.

2215 Hours, 17 January 1942

McCoy pushed open the door and threw his suitcase in ahead of him.

"Pick? You here?"

There was no response. He went to Pick's bedroom and pushed the door open. The bed was made.

He shrugged and went to the bar and poured two inches of Scotch in a glass and drank it down. And then poured another two inches into the glass. He was so fucking tired he could barely stand, which meant he would not be able to get to sleep. He didn't know why the hell it was, but that's the way it was.

They'd sent him out of the Philippines on a submarine. The sub had gone to Pearl. Stopping only for fuel, he had flown directly from Pearl, via San Francisco, here. His clothes had not come off for sixty hours. And he was so fucking tired he hadn't gone to see Ellen Feller, although he was convinced that was the only way he was going to get Miss Rich Bitch out of his mind.

"Welcome home," Ernie Sage said.

She was standing in the door to his bedroom, wearing a bathrobe.

Jesus Christ, she's beautiful!

"What are you doing here?"

"You can't get a hotel room in Washington," she said. "Pick's letting me stay here."

"Oh," he said.

"When did you come back?"

"About an hour ago," he said. "Is it as bad as they say?" "It's pretty fucking bad, lady, I'll tell you that." "I was worried about you," she said. Then she raised her eyes to his: "Goddamn you, we thought you were dead!" "No," he said. "Why did you think that?" "Because there was a cable that said, 'Missing and presumed dead,' that's why."

"I was behind the lines for a while," he said. "They must have sent another cable when I got to Corregidor."

"And you think that makes it right? Goddamn you, Ken!"

"Why should you give a damn, one way or the other?"

"Because I love you, goddamn you!"

"You don't know what you're saying," he said.

"You'll get used to it in time," she said.

"I said, you don't know what you're saying," McCoy said.

She ignored it. "What happens to you now?" she asked.

"I'll get sent back out there, sooner or later."

"So we have between now and sooner or later," she said. "That's better than nothing."

"Will you knock that off?"

"Meaning 'stop'?"

"You got it."

"You didn't feel a thing? I was just a piece of ass? One more cherry to hang on the wall?"

"Goddamnit, don't talk like that."

"I want to put my arms around you," she said.

"You wouldn't want to do that, I smell like a horse."

"Just as long as you don't smell of perfume," she said. "That I couldn't handle."

"I thought of you," he said. "I couldn't get you out of my mind."

"Me either," she said. "Then what the hell are we waiting for?"

"I don't know," he said. Then he said, "Jesus, when I saw you there I thought I was dreaming!"

She walked to him and took his hand and guided it inside her bathrobe.

"No dream," she said. "Flesh and blood."

After that he forgot that he smelled like a horse. And she didn't mind.