After dinner, Captain Fleming Pickering, USNR, returned to his suite, took a shower, had a nightcap-a large brandy-and went to bed.
Something happened to him that had not happened to him in years. He had an erotic dream; it was so vivid that he remembered it in the morning. He blamed it then on everything that had happened the day before, plus the Camembert, the wine, and the cognac.
He dreamed that Mrs. Ellen Feller, the missionary’s wife, had come into his bedroom wearing nothing but the black lace underwear she had been wearing the day he met her, and then she had taken that off, and then he had done what men do in such circumstances.
(Two)
Office of the Chief of Staff
Headquarters, 2ndJoint Training Force
San Diego, California
21 February 1942
Captain Jack NMI Stecker, USMCR, knocked at the open door of Colonel Lewis T. "Lucky Lew" Harris’s office and waited for permission to enter.
"Come," Colonel Harris said, throwing a pencil down with disgust on his desk. "Why the hell is it, Jack, that whenever you tell somebody to put some simple idea on paper, he uses every big word he ever heard of? And uses them wrong?"
"I don’t know, Sir," Stecker smiled. "Am I the guilty party?"
"No. This piece of crap comes from our beloved adjutant. They’re worse than anybody, which I suppose is why we make them adjutants." He raised his voice: "Sergeant Major!"
The Sergeant Major, a very thin, very tall, leather-skinned man in his late thirties, quickly appeared at the office door.
"Sir?"
"Sergeant Major, would you please give this to the Adjutant? Tell him I don’t understand half of it and that it needs rewriting. Tell him I said he is forbidden to use words of more than two syllables."
"Aye, aye, Sir," the Sergeant Major said, chuckling, winking at Stecker, and taking the clipped-together sheaf of papers from Colonel Harris’s desk. "Sir, I presume the Colonel knows he’s about to break the Adjutant’s heart? He really is proud of this."
"Good," Harris said. "Better than good. Splendid! Tell him I want it in the morning. Anybody who writes crap like that doesn’t deserve any sleep."
"Aye, aye, Sir," the Sergeant Major said, smiling broadly, and left the office.
"Close the door, Jack," Colonel Harris said. Stecker did so. When he turned around, there was a bottle of Jack Daniel’s bourbon and two glasses on Harris’s desk. "A little something to cut the dust of the trail, Jack?"
"It’s a little early for me, Sir."
"We’re wetting down a promotion," Harris said. "And now that I am about to be a general officer, I will decide whether or not it’s a little early for you."
"In that case, General, I would be honored," Stecker said.
"I said ‘about to be a general.’ Not ‘am.’ You listen about as closely as that goddamned Adjutant. You’re going to have to watch that, Jack, now that you’re a field-grade officer."
"Sir?"
"Now I’ve got your attention, don’t I?" Harris said, pleased with himself. He handed Stecker an ex-Kraft Cheese glass, half-full of whiskey.
"Yes, Sir."
"Mud in your eye, Major Stecker," Colonel Harris said.
"I’m a little confused, Sir," Stecker said, as he raised the glass to his mouth and tossed the whiskey down.
"General Riley was on the horn just now," Harris said. He drained his glass and returned the bottle to the drawer before going on. "He said that my name has gone to the Senate for B.G., and presumably, as soon as they can- ifthey can-gather enough of them, sober enough to vote, for a quorum, the orders will be cut."
"It’s well deserved," Stecker said sincerely.
"I’m glad you think so," Harris said softly. "Thank you, Jack."
Harris touched Stecker’s arm in what was, for him, a gesture of deep affection.
Then the tone of his voice changed.
"But we were talking about your promotion, weren’t we, Major Stecker? You owe me a big one for this, Major."
"I didn’t realize that I was even being considered," Stecker said.
"Let me tell you what happened," Harris said. "You ever know a guy named Neville? Franklin G. Neville?"
"Yeah. The last I heard, he was on a tailgate assignment as a Naval attach? somewhere."
"In Finland. Well, he came back, got involved with parachute troops of all things, and made lieutenant colonel. A couple of days ago, he jumped out of an airplane at Lakehurst without a parachute, or at least with one that didn’t work, and killed himself."
"I’m sorry to hear that."
"Well, they need a replacement for him. I remain to be convinced that paratroops have any place in the Corps, but we have them. I think if the Army came up with an archery corps, some wild-eyed sonofabitch in Headquarters would start buying bows and arrows and claiming it was our idea in the first place."
He looked at Stecker for a little appreciation of his wit, and found instead concern-perhaps even alarm-in his eyes.
"No, Major Stecker," he said, chuckling. "You are not going to the Para-Marines, or whatever the hell they call them. You are going to the 1stDivision at New River, North Carolina, to replace the guy who is going to jump into-pun intended-the shoes of the late Colonel Neville."
"You had me worried for a moment," Stecker confessed.
"I could see that," Harris said. "Here’s what happened: General Riley asked me if I had a major I could recommend to take this guy’s place in the 5thMarines. He’s the Exec of Second Battalion. I told him no, but that I did have a captain I knew for a fact could find his ass with either hand . . ."
"Battalion Exec? Christ, I don’t know . . ."
"Come on, Jack. When I was a battalion commander, I had a master gunnery sergeant who made it pretty clear that he thought he could run the battalion at least as well as I could. His name was Jack Stecker."
"That attitude goes with being a gunny," Stecker said. "I’m not sure how it really works."
"Well, you’re about to find out," Harris said. "The original idea... Riley is one of your admirers, Jack, did you know that?"
Stecker shook his head.
"Well, he is. The original idea was to send you there as a captain. But then, genius that I am, it occurred to me that, A, you’re junior as hell, and that, B, if I had the battalion, I would assign an ex-master gunnery sergeant, now a captain, as a company commander."
"I’d like to have a company," Stecker said. "You know that."
"Yeah, well, we have nice young first lieutenants who can be trained to do that. By a battalion exec who knows what it’s like in a battalion. So I told this to the General, and he said, ‘Well, I guess we’ll have to make him a major before we cut the orders sending him to New River.’ "
"How’s the Battalion Commander, and, for that matter, the Regimental Commander, going to like having somebody shoving Jack Stecker down their throats? They’re bound to have somebody in mind."
"Well, they’ll probably hate it at first, to tell you the truth. But after they are counseled by the Assistant Division Commander, I’m sure they will come to understand the wisdom of the decision."
"Why should he do that? I don’t even know, off the top of my head, who the 1stDivision ADC is."
"As soon as they can sober up enough senators for a quorum, his name will be Brigadier General Lewis T. Harris," Harris said.