Easterbrook tried to replace the handset in its cradle; he missed by two inches. He turned around.
"Fuck you, McCoy," the Easterbunny said. "You're really an asshole, you know that?"
Two strong hands grasped each of McCoy's arms.
"Lieutenant, why don't you get on the elevator," one of the gunnery sergeants said.
"Because I have just decided to tell this asshole what I really think of him. You're a fucking disgrace to The Marine Corps, McCoy."
"You fucking little feather merchant!"
"I was there, McCoy, when you got that fucking medal. Don't you call me a feather merchant!"
"What do you mean, you were there?"
"I mean I was on Bloody Ridge with the Raiders is what I mean, shit-for-brains. I know what happened. I saw what happened."
"Shit, I didn't know you was there."
"I was there with Lieutenant Donaldson. You remember Lieutenant Donaldson, McCoy? Now, there was one hell of a Marine officer. And you know what he said to me the first time you ignored your orders and stood up with your fucking machine gun?"
"Lieutenant Donaldson got killed," McCoy said.
"He said, 'If the Japs don't kill that sonofabitch, I will,' is what he said."
"Donaldson was wounded," McCoy said, as if to himself.
"Yeah, he was bad wounded. But he saw you get up when you were supposed to stay where the fuck he told you to stay."
"And then some sonofabitch with more balls than brains started to carry him down the hill, and the Japs killed him, too. I seen them go down. That's when I stood up again."
"I wasn't hit, you asshole. The Lieutenant was too heavy for me to carry. I fell down with him on top of me and couldn't get up. But I saw you, you sonofabitch, leave your hole and charge off like it was your own fucking war! Good Marines would have died if you hadn't been so fucking lucky. If I had a weapon then, I'd have killed you myself."
Lieutenant Easterbrook suddenly felt a little woozy. He turned around and supported himself on the telephone table. When he looked at the mirror, he saw McCoy being hustled away by the gunnies. And when he looked at his own reflection he saw that tears were running down his cheeks.
And then he knew he was going to be sick. He ran down the corridor to Dunn's and Pickering's room and hammered on the door until Pickering opened it. And then he ran into one of the bedrooms, and just made it to the toilet in time.
"I hope that the wages of sin caught up with him before Captain Galloway saw him shit-faced," he heard Lieutenant Pickering say.
And then his stomach erupted again.
[ONE]
The John Charles Fremont Suite
The Foster Washingtonian Hotel
Seattle Washington
2145 Hours 13 November 1942
Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, sat at the writing desk in the sitting room. A bottle of scotch was beside him. Several sheets of ornately engraved stationery were before him.
He had started to write a long-overdue letter. When the knock at the door interrupted him, he'd gotten as far as:
Dear Dad,
I feel I have been shamelessly remiss in writing my favorite boy in the overseas service. I hope that you can understand that those of us on the home front are also making our sacrifices for the war effort, too. Would you believe that I've eaten chicken-in one form or another-for the piece de resistance eleven days in a row? And the shortages!..."
He uttered a vulgarism and stood up and went and opened the door. One of "The Gorillas's Gunnies," as he thought of them, was standing there.
Now what? What has that sonofabitch done now?
"What's up, Gunny?"..
"Mr. Pickering, is Mr. Easterbrook in here by any chance?"
Thank God. I was afraid for a moment that I was about to be informed that Gargantua has pulled the arms off his plaything of the evening.
"He is, Gunny. But to put it delicately, he is indisposed at the moment. To put a point on it, he got shit-faced, and he's sleeping it off."
That's an understatement. After throwing up all over himself, and all over the bathroom, he went on a crying jag and announced that he intends to resign his commission and go back to the 'Canal as a corporal. "
"Could I come in, Mr. Pickering?"
"Sure. Come on in. I presume our gorilla has had his evening's rations, she has been sent safely back to the village, and our gorilla is safely in his cage."
The gunny laughed.
"Would you like a drink, Gunny?"
"No, Sir. Thank you, Sir."
"This must be serious. This is only the second time in my Marine Corps experience that a gunny has turned down good booze."
"Well, maybe a little one, Mr. Pickering. I always hate to see good hootch go to waste."
Pickering fixed him a drink and handed it to him.
The gunny raised the glass and said, "The Corps."
Pick was surprised at the toast, and strangely moved by it. He repeated the toast, "The Corps." And then he asked, "What do you want with Mr. Easterbrook, Gunny? Can I help?"
"This is good booze," the gunny said. Then he met Pickering's eyes. "McCoy wants to apologize to Mr. Easterbrook, Sir. I think maybe it would be a good idea."
Lieutenant Pickering quite naturally assumed that Staff Sergeant McCoy had spoken disrespectfully to Lieutenant Easterbrook; that he'd said it in the hearing of one or both of the gunnies; that they had been offended; and that they had subsequently "counseled" Staff Sergeant McCoy by bouncing him off the walls and the floor until he became truly repentant and wished to make any amends that were called for-including an apology.
"What did the gorilla say to him, Gunny?"
"Mr. Easterbrook ate McCoy a new asshole, Mr. Pickering."
"What did you say?"
"Would you believe McCoy crying, Mr. Pickering?"
"No," Pick said. "I would indeed find that very hard to believe." A thought occurred to him, which he turned into a kind of accusation: "Was he drunk? He's supposed to have two beers and two drinks a day, and not a goddamned drop more."
"Stone sober. But he bawled like a baby. He said that he thought Mr. Easterbrook was dead, and that Mr. Easterbrook was the bravest man he's ever seen."
"Easterbrook?" Pick asked incredulously.
"Did you know that Mr. Easterbrook was with the Raiders on Bloody Ridge?"
"I knew he spent a lot of time with the Raiders," Pick replied, remembering the Easterbunny eating in VMF-229's mess-tired, dirty, and scared shitless. And remembering how he'd felt sorry for him and asked where he'd been.
"Well, it looks like he was on Bloody Ridge when McCoy did whatever he did to get the Medal, and McCoy seen him try to carry some wounded officer down the hill. Saw him fall; thought he was killed. McCoy said that when Mr. Easterbrook stood up to carry this officer, he had to know he was going to get his ass killed, the way the Japs were laying in fire. But he did it anyway, trying to get this officer to a Corpsman."
"Jesus H. Christ!"
"And Mr. Easterbrook told McCoy that he seen what McCoy done.... I guess he left his position when he wasn't supposed to when he killed all them Japanese.... And Mr. Easterbrook told him if he'd had a weapon, he would have killed him himself."