He was not a fan of that other elite-within-the-elite, either: the Marine Raiders. But the parachutists and the Raiders were horses of different colors. For one thing, the order to form the Raiders came directly from President Roosevelt himself; and there was nothing anyone in The Corps could do about it, not even the Commandant. ,
And for another, so far the Raiders had done well. They'd staged a successful raid on Makin Island, and they'd done a splendid job on Guadalcanal.
Viewed coldly and professionally, the parachutists' record was not nearly as impressive: After their very expensive training, there were no aircraft available to transport them (surprising Colonel Wilson not at all), and so they were committed as infantry to the Guadalcanal operation, charged with making an amphibious assault on a tiny island called Gavutu. They fought courageously, if not very efficiently; and the island fell. Later, Wilson heard credible scuttlebutt that their fire discipline was practically nonexistent. And the numbers seemed to confirm this: The parachute battalion was literally decimated in the first twenty-four hours. And after the invasion, they continued to suffer disproportionate losses.
Macklin was with the parachutists in the invasion of Gavutu; but he went in as a supernumerary. Which meant that he was a spare officer; he'd be given a job only after an officer commanding a platoon, or whatever, was killed or wounded.
Macklin never reached the beach. He managed to get himself shot in the calf and face and was evacuated.
Colonel Wilson had been a Marine a long time. He'd been in France in the First War, and he'd passed the "peacetime years" in the Banana Wars in Latin America. He had enough experience with weaponry fired in anger to know that getting shot only meant that you were unlucky; there was no valor or heroism connected with it.
According to his service record, Macklin was in the Army General Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, recovering from his wounds, when he was sent to the States to participate in a war bonds tour of the West Coast. That was where he was now.
Colonel Wilson thought he remembered something about that last business. And a moment later a few details came up from the recesses of his mind: In a move that at the time didn't have Colonel Wilson's full and wholehearted approval, the Assistant Commandant of The Marine Corps arranged to have an ex-4th Marines sergeant commissioned as a major, for duty with Public Affairs. The Assistant Commandant's reasoning was that The Corps was going to need some good publicity, and that the way to do it was to bring in a professional. The man he was thinking of was then Vice President, Publicity, of Metro-Magnum Studios, Hollywood, California (who just happened to earn more money than the Commandant or, for that matter, than the President of the United States). And wasn't it fortuitous that he'd been a China Marine, and-Once a Marine, Always a Marine-was willing to come back into The Corps?
Major Jake Dillon, Colonel Wilson was willing to admit, did not turn out to be the unmitigated disaster he feared. He'd led a crew of photographers and writers in the first wave of the invasion of Tulagi, for instance, and there was no question that they'd done their job well.
Dillon was responsible for having Lieutenant Macklin sent home from Australia for the war bond tour.
Why did Dillon do that? Colonel Wilson wondered.
And then some other strange facts surfaced out of his memory: Dillon was somehow involved with the Office of Management Analysis. Colonel Wilson was not very familiar with that organization. But he knew it had nothing to do with Management Analysis, that it was directly under the Commandant, and that you were not supposed to ask questions about it, or about what it did.
It didn't take a lot of brains to see what it did do.
The Office of Management Analysis, anyhow, had a new commander, another commissioned civilian, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering. Pickering was put in over Lieutenant Colonel F. L. Rickabee, whose Marine career had been almost entirely in intelligence. And it was said that Pickering reported directly to the Secretary of the Navy. Or, depending on which scuttlebutt you heard, to Admiral Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff.
There was surprisingly little scuttlebutt about what Dillon was doing for the Office of Management Analysis.
Meanwhile, Colonel Wilson ran into newly promoted Colonel Rickabee at the Army-Navy Country Club, but carefully tactful questioning about his job and his new boss produced only the information that General Pickering shouldn't really be described as a commissioned civilian. He'd earned the Distinguished Service Cross as a Marine corporal in France about the time Sergeant (now Lieutenant Colonel) Jack (NMI) Stecker had won his Medal of Honor.
At precisely 0830, the intercom box on Colonel Wilson's desk announced the arrival of Brigadier General J. J. Stewart.
"Ask the General to come in, please," Colonel Wilson said, as he slid the Service Record of First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin into a desk drawer and stood up.
He crossed the room and was almost at the door when General Stewart walked in.
"Good morning, General," he said. "May I offer the General the General's regrets for not being able to be here. A previously scheduled conference at which his presence was mandatory..."
"Please tell the General that I understand," General Stewart said. "There are simply not enough hours in the day, are there?"
"No, Sir. There don't seem to be. May I offer the General some coffee? A piece of pastry?"
"Very kind. Coffee. Black. Belay the pastry."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Colonel Wilson said, then stepped to the door and told his sergeant to bring black coffee.
General Stewart arranged himself comfortably on a couch against the wall.
"How may I be of service, General?"
"I've got sort of an unusual personnel request, Colonel," General Stewart said. "I am certainly the last one to try to tell you how I think you should run your shop, or effect personnel allocation decisions, but this is a really unusual circumstance...."
"If the General will give me some specifics, I assure you we'll do our very best to accommodate you."
"The officer in question is a young lieutenant named Macklin, Colonel. He was wounded with the first wave landing at Gavutu."
I wonder who shot him. Our side or theirs?
"Yes, Sir?"
"Parachutist," General Stewart said. "He was evacuated to Australia. Fortunately, his wound-wounds, there were two-were not serious. He was selected-"
General Stewart interrupted himself as the coffee was delivered.
"The General was saying?"
"Oh, yes. Are you familiar, by any chance, with the name-or, for that matter, with the man-Major Homer C. Dillon?"
"By reputation, Sir. I've never actually..."
"Interesting man, Colonel. He was Vice President of Metro-Magnum Studios in Hollywood. I don't like to think of the pay cut he took to come back in The Corps. Anyway, Major Dillon was in Australia, in the hospital, and met Lieutenant Macklin. It didn't take him long to have him shipped home to participate in the war bond tour on the West Coast."
"I see."
"It was a splendid choice. Lieutenant Macklin is a splendid-looking officer. Looks like a recruiting poster. First-class public speaker. Makes The Corps look good, really good, if you understand me."
There is no reason, I suppose, why a lying asshole has to look like a lying asshole.
"I take your point, Sir."