TO: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS WASH DC
COMMANDER, SOUTH PACIFIC AREA, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND
SUPREME COMMANDER SWPOA, BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA
INFO: ALL SHIPS AND STATIONS, USNAVY PACIFIC
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, VICE ADMIRAL WILLIAM F. HALSEY, USN, IS ANNOUNCED AS COMMANDER, US NAVY FORCES, SOUTH PACIFIC, VICE ADMIRAL ROBERT L. GHORMLEY, USN, RELIEVED.
CHESTER W. NIMITZ, ADMIRAL, USN, CINCPAC.
"I'll be damned," the Lieutenant Commander said. He handed the sheet of paper back.
Vice Admiral William F Halsey jammed it in his trousers pocket. "I was thinking the same thing," he said.
[TWO]
Personnel Office
Marine Corps Recruit Depot
San Diego, California
1550 Hours 18 October 1942
"Major, there's just nothing I can do for the corporal," the major in charge of the personnel office said to Major Jake Dillon. "If I could, I would, believe me."
"Welcome home, Easterbunny," First Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy said bitterly.
"You said something, Lieutenant?" the Major snapped. He did not like the attitude of the young officer, and wondered just who he was.
"I was just thinking out loud, Major," McCoy said. "So what happens to him now?"
"We'll send him over to the casual barracks until we receive orders on him, locate his service records...."
"I'm prepared to sign a sworn statement that his records were lost in combat," Dillon said. "How about that?"
"In that case, we would begin reconstructing his records."
"How long would that take?" Dillon asked.
"It depends. Perhaps a month, perhaps a little less, perhaps a little longer."
"And in the meantime, Sir," McCoy said, "... until you can reconstruct his records... the corporal would be pulling details in the casual barracks, without any money? Is that about it?"
"That's about it, Lieutenant. And I don't like the tone of your voice."
"With respect, Sir," McCoy said sarcastically, "isn't that a pretty shitty way to treat a kid who's just back from Guadalcanal?"
"That did it, Lieutenant," the Major snapped. "I won't be talked to like that. May I have your identity card, please?"
"What for?" Dillon asked.
"So that I can put him on report to his commanding officer for insolent disrespect."
"I'm his commanding officer," Dillon said. "I heard what he said. I agree with him."
"And who is your commanding officer, Major?"
"I don't think you're cleared to know who my commanding officer is," Dillon said. "Come on, McCoy."
"I asked you who your commanding officer is, Major!"
"Go fuck yourself, Major," Dillon said, and with McCoy on his heels, marched out of the office.
As they walked off the steps of the frame building and turned toward Corporal Robert F. Easterbrook, USMC, who was sitting on his seabag waiting for them, McCoy said softly, "Do you think we'll get arrested now, or as we try to get off the base?"
"Is that sonofabitch in the same Marine Corps as you and me?" Dillon asked bitterly, still angry. "Sonofabitch!"
Easterbrook rose to his feet.
"We ran into a little trouble, Easterbrook," Dillon said.
"Nothing to worry about," McCoy said.
"What happens now?" Easterbrook asked.
"You and I are going to stay here, Corporal, while Lieutenant McCoy goes to the motor pool and gets us some wheels, and then we're all going to Los Angeles."
"I've got to get to Washington," McCoy said.
"They have an airport in Los Angeles," Dillon said. "I'd like to buy you guys a steak."
"Aye, aye, Sir," McCoy said.
Twenty minutes later, they were out of the U.S. Marine Recruit Depot, San Diego, and headed up the Pacific Highway toward Los Angeles in a Marine Corps 1941 Plymouth staff car that was driven by a PFC who looked as old as Major Dillon.
"I didn't ask. How did you get the staff car?" Dillon asked.
"I told them that I was an assistant to Major Dillon of Marine Corps Headquarters Public Relations," McCoy said, "and the Major needed a ride to Hollywood, so that the Major could ask Lana Turner to come to a party at the officers' club."
"I thought maybe you waved that fancy ID card of yours at the motor officer."
"I was saving that for the MPs at the gate when they started to arrest you for telling that feather-merchant major in personnel to go fuck himself."
"I should have let him write you up," Dillon said. "You can be a sarcastic sonofabitch, McCoy, in case nobody ever told you."
"Excuse me, Sir," Corporal Easterbrook said, turning around in the front seat, his voice suddenly weak and shaky, "but I have to go to the head."
"Christ, why didn't you go at 'Diego?" McCoy asked. But then he looked closer at Easterbrook and said, "Oh, shit!"
"Meaning what?" Dillon asked.
"Meaning he's got malaria," McCoy said. "Look at him." He leaned forward and laid his hand on Easterbrook's forehead. "Yeah," he said, "he's burning up. He's got it, all right."
"Goddamn," Dillon said.
"Sir, I got to go right now," Easterbrook said.
"Find someplace," McCoy snapped at the driver. "Pull off the road if you have to."
The driver started to slow the car, but then put his foot to the floor when he saw a roadside restaurant several hundred yards away.
With a squeal of tires, the PFC pulled into the parking lot, stopped in front of the door, then went quickly around the front of the car, pulled the passenger door open, and helped Easterbrook out.
"He's dizzy, Lieutenant," the PFC said. "He's got it, all right."
"Let's get him to the toilet," McCoy said.
"Shit!" Major Dillon said.
"Hey, he's not doing this to piss you off," McCoy said.
Supported by McCoy and the PFC, Easterbrook managed to make it to a stall in the men's room before losing control of his bowels. Then he became nauseous.
"Let me handle him, Lieutenant," the PFC said.
"Sir, I'm sorry to cause all this trouble," Easterbrook said.
"Never apologize for something you can't control," McCoy said. "I'll be outside."
Major Dillon was waiting on the other side of the men's room door.
"Well?"
"He's got malaria. Half the people on the 'Canal have malaria," McCoy replied.
"What do we do with him?"
"He needs a doctor," McCoy said.
"You want to take him back to 'Diego and put him in the hospital?"
"I said a doctor," McCoy said. "General Pickering told me you know everybody in Hollywood. No doctors?"
"You mean treat him ourselves?"
"Why not? All they do for them in a hospital is give them quinine, or that new stuff..."
"Atabrine," Dillon furnished, without thinking.
"... Atabrine," McCoy went on. "And rest. If we put him in the hospital, they'll just lose him. Christ, he probably couldn't get into the hospital.... How's he going to prove he's a Marine without a service record?"
"I'm not at all sure-" Dillon began and then interrupted himself: "I think they'd take my word he's a Marine, even if those personnel feather merchants won't pay him."