As soon as the cases were off-loaded from the cargo holds of the ships onto Aotea Quay and stacked neatly so they could be sorted, the rain started falling on them. Soon the cheap glue which held the corrugated paper cartons together dissolved. That caused the cartons to come apart. Not long after that, instead of neatly stacked cartons of tomato cans, there were piles of tomato cans mingled with a sludge of waterlogged corrugated paper that had once been cartons.
And then the rain saturated the paper labels and dissolved the cheap glue that held them on the cans...
The people in charge of the operation had put a good deal of thought and effort into finding a solution to the problem. But the best they had come up with so far was to cover some of the stacks of cartons with tarpaulins; and when the supply of tarpaulins ran out, with canvas tentage; and when the tent-age ran out, with individual shelter-halves. (Each Marine was issued a small piece of tentage. When buttoned to an identical piece, it formed a small, two-man tent. Hence, "individual shelter-half")
As he walked down the Quay, Jake Dillon saw this wasn't going to work: There were gaps around the bases of the tarpaulin-covered stacks. The wind blew the rain through the gaps, and then the natural capillary action of the paper in the corrugated paper cartons soaked it up like a blotter. Moisture reached the glue, and the glue dissolved. The cartons collapsed, and then the stacks of cartons.
Major Jake Dillon found Major Jack NMI Stecker standing behind the serving line in a mess fly tent-essentially a wall-less tent erected over field stoves. A line of Marines was passing through the fly tent, their mess kits in their hands. As soon as they left the fly tent, rain fell on their pork chops and mashed potatoes and green beans.
It was the first time in Dillon's memory that he had ever seen Jack Stecker looking like something the cat had dragged in. He looked as bedraggled as any of his men. In China with the 4th Marines, Master Gunnery Sergeant Jack Stecker used to come off a thirty-mile hike through the mud of the Chinese countryside looking as if he was prepared to stand a formal honor guard.
He walked up and stood beside him.
"Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?" Dillon said.
"There's coffee, if you want some," Stecker replied, and then walked a few feet away; he returned with a canteen cup and gave it to Dillon.
Dillon walked to the coffee pot at the end of the serving line and waited until the KP ladling out coffee sensed someone standing behind him, looked, and then offered his ladle.
The coffee was near boiling; Dillon could feel the heat even in the handle of the cup. If he tried to take a sip, he would give his lip a painful burn. This was not the first time he had stood in a rain-soaked uniform drinking burning-hot coffee from a canteen cup.
But the last time, he thought, was a long goddamned time ago.
"What brings a feather merchant like you out with the real Marines?" Stecker asked.
"I'm making a movie, what else?"
Stecker looked at him.
"Really? Of this?"
"What I need, Jack, is film that will inspire the red-blooded youth of America to rush to the recruiting station," Dillon said. "You think this might do it?"
Stecker laughed.
"Seriously, what are your people doing?"
Dillon told him about the movie he had in mind.
"I suppose it's necessary," Stecker said.
"I'd rather be one of your staff sergeants, Jack," Dillon said. "I was a pretty good staff sergeant. But that's not the way things turned out."
"You were probably the worst staff sergeant in the 4th Marines," Stecker said, smiling, "to set the record straight. I let you keep your stripes only so I could take your pay away at poker."
"Well, fuck you!"
They smiled at each other, then Stecker said bitterly: "I'd like to make the bastards who sent us this mess, packed this way, see your movie."
"They will. What my guys are shooting-or a copy of it, a rough cut-will leave here for Washington on tomorrow's courier plane."
"No kidding?"
"Personal from Vandergrift to the Commandant," Dillon said.
"Somehow I don't think that was the General's own idea."
"No. But Lucky Lew Harris thought it was fine when I suggested it."
Stecker chuckled. "I guess that explains it."
"Explains what?"
"I saw General Harris for a moment this morning," Stecker said. "I asked him how things went when you took Goettge to Australia. He said, 'very well. I'm beginning to think that maybe your pal Dillon might be useful after all. He's really not as dumb as he looks.' "
"Christ, I better go buy a bigger hat," Dillon said. "How much did he tell you about what's going on?"
"You mean about the airfield the Japs are building?"
Dillon nodded.
"That we better go try to stop them, whether we're ready or not."
"And we're not ready, right?"
Stecker waved his hand up and down the Quay.
"What do you think?"
"Well, there'll at least be the rehearsal in the Fiji Islands."
"And because we're not even prepared for a rehearsal, that will be fucked up. And we'll go nevertheless."
"What's going to happen, Jack?"
"You know what the Coast Guard motto is?"
" 'Semper Paratus'?" Dillon asked, confused.
"No. Not that one, anyhow. What the Coast Guard says when a ship is in trouble. They have to go out. Nothing's said about having to come back."
"You think it's that bad?"
"Even after Wake Island and what happened to the 4th Marines in the Philippines, half the people in the Division think the Japs are all five foot two, wear thick glasses, and will turn tail and run once they see a real Marine. Not only the kids. A lot of the officers, who should know better, think this is going to be Nicaragua all over again."
"Jesus, you really mean that?"
"Yeah, but for Christ's sake, don't tell anybody I said so."
"Of course not," Dillon said.
"Are you going to go?"
"Sure, of course."
"You're not going to inspire... what did you say, 'red-blooded American youth'?... to rush to the recruiting station with movies of dead Marines floating around in the surf."
Dillon didn't reply for a moment. Then he said, "Straight answer, Jack: I'm not going to show them movies of dead Marines. I'm going to find me a couple, maybe three, four, good-looking Marines who get themselves lightly wounded, like in the movies, a shoulder wound..."
"A shoulder wound is one of the worst kinds, nearly as bad as the belly, you know that."
"I know that, you know that, civilians don't know that," Dillon replied. "... and maybe have a medal to go with it" he went on, taking the thought forward. "Then I'm going to bring them to the States and send them on a tour with movie stars. People will be inspired to buy War Bonds. Red-blooded American youth will rush to Marine recruiting stations."