Stecker remembered the first time he met McCoy. Before the war. He was then Sergeant Major Stecker of the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia. McCoy was a corporal, a China Marine just back from the 4th Marines in Shanghai. He was reporting in to the Officer Candidate School.
Almost all officer candidates were nice young men just out of college. But as a test-for which few Marines, including Sergeant Major Stecker, had high hopes-a small number of really outstanding enlisted Marines were to be given a chance for a commission. It was a bright opportunity for these young men. So Stecker was surprised, when he first met him, that McCoy was not wildly eager to become an officer and a gentleman.
Soon after that, he found out that McCoy was in OCS largely because the Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence, of the Marine Corps had let it be known that The Corps should put bars on McCoy's twenty-one-year-old shoulders as soon as possible.
McCoy had an unusual flair for languages: He was fluent in several kinds of Chinese and Japanese and several European languages.
That wasn't all he had a flair for.
While his sources didn't have all the details, Stecker learned that McCoy was known in China as "Killer" McCoy-not for his success with the ladies, but because of two incidents where men had died. In one, three Italian Marines of the International Garrison attacked him; he killed two with his Fairbairn knife and seriously injured the third. In the second, he was in the interior of China on an intelligence-gathering mission, when "bandits" attacked his convoy (the "bandits" were actually in the employ of the Japanese secret police, the Kempe Tai). Firing Thompson submachine guns, McCoy and another Marine killed twenty-two of the "bandits."
At Quantico, the lieutenants-to-be were trained on the Garand. When it came to Sergeant Major Stecker's attention that Officer Candidate McCoy had not qualified when firing for record, he went down to have a look; for McCoy should have qualified. And so there had to be a reason why he didn't. And Stecker found it: him. He was an officer who knew McCoy in China.... What was that sonofabitch's name? Macklin. Lieutenant R. B. Macklin.... Macklin had something against Candidate McCoy; and it was more than just the generally held belief that commissioning enlisted men without college degrees would be the ruination of the officer corps.
Macklin actively disliked McCoy... more than that, he despised him. A small measure of his hostility could be gleaned at the bar of the officers' club, where from time to time he passed the word that "Killer" McCoy was so called with good reason. He did not belong at Quantico about to be officially decreed an officer and a gentleman; he belonged in the Portsmouth Naval Prison.
Sergeant Major Stecker had no trouble finding two ex-China Marines who told him more about Lieutenant Macklin than he would like to know:
In China, in order to cover his own responsibility for a failed operation, Macklin tried to lay the blame on Corporal McCoy. The 4th Marines' Intelligence Officer, Captain Ed Banning (Stecker remembered him as a good officer and a good Marine), investigated, found Macklin to be a liar, and wrote an efficiency report on him that would have seen him booted out of The Corps had it not been for the war. Instead, he wound up at Quantico.
... where the sonofabitch was determined to get McCoy kicked out of OCS. One of his first steps was to see that McCoy didn't qualify on the range. And if that wasn't enough, he was also writing McCoy up for inefficiency, for a bad attitude, and for violations of regulations he hadn't committed.
And he actually went into the pits to personally score McCoy's bull's-eyes as Maggie's drawers. Then I got in the act, and refired McCoy for record. The second time, with me calling his shots through a spotter scope, he scored High Expert. And that night all those disqualifying reports mysteriously vanished from his file.
Candidate McCoy graduated with his class and was commissioned. And then he dropped out of sight. Stecker heard that he was working for G-2 in Washington; but later he heard that McCoy had been with the 2nd Raider Battalion on the Makin Island raid.
I wonder whatever happened to that sonofabitch Macklin?
"Congratulations on your promotion," Colonel," McCoy said, without responding to the apology for being called "Killer."
"I'm still in shock," Stecker confessed. "It just happened. How did you find out?"
"General Vandegrift told me," McCoy said. "He also told me what happened to your son. I was sorry to hear that."
"What were you doing with the General?" Stecker wondered aloud. Lieutenants seldom hold conversations with general officers, much less obtain personal data from them about field-grade officers.
"I'm on my way to the States," McCoy said. "I was told to see if my boss can do anything for him in the States."
"Your boss is?"
"General Pickering."
"What have you been doing here?"
"We replaced the Coastwatcher detachment on Buka," McCoy said matter-of-factly.
Stecker had heard about that operation; and he was not surprised to hear that McCoy was involved, or that he was working for Fleming Pickering. "It went off all right, I guess?" Colonel Stecker asked.
"It went so smoothly, it scared me. Colonel-"
"I'm going to have trouble getting used to that title," Stecker interrupted.
"It took a while, but I'm now used to being called 'lieutenant,' " McCoy said. "I never thought that would happen. They wouldn't have promoted you if they didn't think you could handle it."
"Or unless they've reached the bottom of the barrel so far as officers are concerned. One or the other."
"What I started to say was that I'm going home via Pearl. Pick Pickering asked me to go by the Naval Hospital to see your son. I thought maybe you'd want me to tell him something, or..."
"I expect they're doing all they can for him," Stecker said. "You could tell him... Tell him you saw me, and that I'm proud of him."
"Yes, Sir."
Colonel Stecker was aware that he had just done something he rarely did, let his emotions show.
"What can I do for you, McCoy?" he asked.
"That's my question, Sir. General Pickering told me to look you up and see what he could do for you. Or what I could."
"That's very kind of the General..." Stecker said, and then paused. "We were in France together, in the last war, did you know that?"
"Yes, Sir."
"I was a buck sergeant, and he was a corporal. We were as close as Pick and my son Dick are."
"Yes, Sir. He told me."
"So please tell him, McCoy, that I appreciate the gesture, but I can't think of a damned thing I need."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"When are you going to Pearl?"
"We were supposed to go today, but when the R4D pilots came in from Espiritu Santo, they found something wrong with the airplane. They're fixing it now, so I guess in the morning."
Stecker put out his hand.
"It was good to see you, McCoy. And thank you. But now I have to get back to my battalion."
"Could I tag along with you, Sir?"
"Why would you want to do that?"
"I feel like a feather merchant just hanging around waiting to be flown out of here," McCoy said simply. "Maybe I could be useful."
"I don't think anyone thinks of you as a feather merchant, McCoy," Stecker said. "But come along, if you like."