Stecker, smiling, shook his head.
(Three)
Office of the Chief of Nursing Services
United States Naval Hospital
San Diego, California
27 February 1942
"You wanted to see me, Commander?" Ensign Barbara Cotter, NC, USNR, asked, sticking her head into the office of Lieutenant Commander Jane P. Marwood, NC, USN.
"Come in, Cotter," Commander Marwood said. Commander Marwood, whom Barbara Cotter thought of as "that skinny old bitch," was in blues. She was a very small woman, and thin. With the three and a half gold stripes of a lieutenant commander on her jacket cuffs, and several ribbons over her breast, Barbara Cotter thought she looked like a caricature of a Naval officer, almost like a woman dressed up for a costume party.
Barbara saw that Lieutenant Commander Hazel Gower, NC, USN, her newly promoted immediate supervisor, was also in the office, standing up and looking out the window.
I’m in some kind of trouble, otherwise good ol’ Hazel wouldn‘t be here. I wonder what I’m supposed to have done?
And then she had an even more discomfitting thought: I wonder how long this is going to take?
She was supposed to meet Joe Howard in forty-five minutes. She would be pressed for time as it was, going through the controlled-drug inventory with the nurse who would come on duty, and then getting out of her whites, grabbing a quick shower, dressing, and then meeting him at the main entrance.
She had been thinking about Joe-and about herself and Joe-when she’d been summoned to Commander Marwood’s office. She had come to the conclusion that she was in love with him. In love, as opposed to infatuated with, sexually or otherwise. The emotion was new to her. She had been infatuated before. This was different.
Viewed clinically, of course, Barbara Cotter knew it was probably just sex alone, and nothing more than that. He was a healthy young male, and she was a healthy young female. There was nothing Mother Nature liked better than to turn on the chemical transmitters and receptors of a well-matched pair. She had a way of convincing both parties that the other was a perfect specimen, in all respects, of the opposite sex, and of turning off that portion of the brain that might question the notion that the two of them were experiencing an emotion never felt by anyone before.
What Mother Nature was after was propagation of the species, and Mother was totally unconcerned with the problems that might cause. Such as her family’s reaction to someone like Joe, and that there was a war on, and that she was in the United States Naval Service.
But none of that really mattered to Barbara. The only thing that mattered was that when she was with Joe, in bed or out of it, she felt complete and content, and that when they were separated, she felt incomplete and miserable.
She had felt incomplete and miserable all week. Joe had gone somewhere in northern California with an officer and a sergeant from the 2ndRaider Battalion at Camp Elliott. They’d gone to some Army depot to get weapons for the Raiders.
She had been unpatriotically overjoyed with the realization that Joe was what he called an "armchair commando," a Marine officer who commanded only a desk, and was not about to be sent off to fight the Japanese. And that when he was in San Diego, he was free just about every night and every weekend, and not running around in the boondocks day and night, practicing war.
And in forty minutes he would meet her at the main entrance, and they would get in her car and drive over to the Coronado Beach Hotel, and because the bar looked so crowded, they would go upstairs and have a drink before dinner in the Pacific and Far Eastern Suite, which translated to mean that half an hour after she met Joe, forty-five minutes from now, they would be in one of the wide and comfortable beds in their birthday suits.
And now this, whatever the hell this is all about!
Barbara walked over and stood before Commander Mar-wood’s desk.
I don’t care what she thinks I’ve done, what good ol’ Hazel has told her I’ve done. I will plead guilty, swear I will never do it again, and beg forgiveness. Just so I can meet Joe!
"Yes, Ma’am?"
"Apparently, Cotter," Commander Marwood said, "the Navy has decided there is a slot where you may practice your special skills."
What the hell is she talking about?
"Ma’am?"
"There has been a TWX from the Surgeon General’s office," Marwood said. "Actually, two of them. The first of them requested a list of the nurses in San Diego with experience, or special training, in psychiatric service. I provided your name. The second TWX put you on orders."
"Excuse me?"
"This is your formal notification, Miss Cotter, of your selection for overseas service. Do you understand what I’m telling you?"
"No, Ma’am."
"I didn’t think you would," Marwood said. "When a member of the Naval Service is officially notified that he, or she, is about to be sent to sea, or overseas, as I have just notified you, the officer making the notification is required to advise the person being sent overseas that failure to make the shipment-missing the ship or the airplane, or failing to report to the departure point as scheduled-is a more serious offense than simple absence without leave. Specifically, that offense is called ‘absence without leave for the purpose of avoiding hazardous service.’ Severe court-martial penalties are provided."
Barbara felt rage flow through her; Joe Howard was immediately forgotten.
"Are you implying that I would go AWOL?" she flared.
"Not at all," Commander Marwood replied.
"It sounded like it!"
"I don’t like your tone of voice, Ensign Cotter," Commander Marwood said, angrily.
Barbara glared at Commander Marwood, but said nothing. Commander Marwood glared back.
Finally, Commander Marwood said, "Cotter, there was nothing personal in this. Regulations require that an individual being sent overseas be informed of the penalties provided for AWOL with the intent of avoiding hazardous service."
"Then I’m sorry," Barbara said.
"I’m really getting sick and tired of telling you, Cotter," Lieutenant Commander Hazel Gower said, "that a junior appends ‘Ma’am’ to whatever she says to a superior officer."
"I’m sorry, Ma’am," Barbara said.
Commander Marwood waved her hand in a sign that meant, OK, forget it.
"Where am I going?" Barbara asked, remembering just in time to append "Ma’am."
"I don’t know," Commander Marwood said. "Possibly to Hawaii. Possibly elsewhere. If they were going to station you aboard one of the hospital ships, I think your orders would have spelled that out. All your orders say is that you are to report to the Personnel Center, San Diego Navy Yard, for overseas service."
"When?" Barbara asked.
"There’s some processing to go through. A physical. Shots, that sort of thing. Getting your pay up to date. Getting your personal affairs in order. Making sure you have the necessary uniforms and equipment. That’ll take a couple of days. Then you will be given a delay en route leave, up to fourteen days, which should give you time to go home. So, as a specific answer to your question, you will report to the Navy Yard two weeks from the day your processing is over and you begin your leave. When you will leave there depends on the availability of shipping."
"I see."
"Now, regulations also require that I ask you if there is any reason you wish to apply for relief from your orders on humanitarian grounds."