"Sir, I'm all right. All I was doing was sitting around reading three-month-old copies of the Saturday Evening Post. "
"In case this has not yet come to your attention, Captain, the Naval Service, in its wisdom, has certain designated specialists, called doctors, who determine if people are fit, or not fit, to return to duty. What makes you think your judgment is superior to theirs?" Galloway opened his mouth to reply, but Dawkins went on before he could. "How the hell did you get back here, anyway?"
"I caught a ride, Sir."
"And did you really think you could get away with just getting on a plane and coming back here?" Galloway made no reply.
"They want you court-martialed for breaking into some supply room. What the hell is that all about? What did you steal, anyway?" Galloway waved his hand, indicating his uniform.
"They wouldn't give me my uniform back, Sir." Dawkins glowered at him for a full thirty seconds, and then said, "If I wasn't so glad to see you, you sonofabitch, I'd personally kick your ass all over this airfield, and then send you back there in irons."
"I thought I should be here, Sir," Galloway said.
"Are you really all right, Charley?"
"I looked like a corpse when they fished me out of the water, and I never want to get that thirsty again, but yes Sir, I'm all right."
"What do you mean, you looked like a corpse?"
"My skin was all puckered up."
"You realize how lucky you were?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Jiggs and Hawthorne weren't lucky," Dawkins said.
"Yes, Sir, Oblensky told me."
"And you know about Ward and Schneider?"
"Yes, Sir. I just saw them. Ward's unhappy about being evacuated."
"Well, following the sterling example of his squadron commander, he'll probably go AWOL and come right back."
"I didn't have the chance to ask Big Steve about aircraft," Galloway said, hoping to change the subject.
"You have eight left. Christ only knows when we'll get more.
I think the Air Corps is down to about six of their P-400s. Have you seen Dunn?"
"No, Sir. I came right here."
"He is now officially an ace. I put him in for a DSC," a Distinguished Service Cross. "They bumped it down to a DFC," a Distinguished Flying Cross.
"You should have known they would," Galloway said.
Dawkins nodded. "That's why I put him in for the DSC. If I'd have put him in for a DFC, they would have bumped it down to a Good Conduct Medal." Galloway chuckled.
"You're credited with three and a half," Dawkins said.
"Anything unusual I should know?" Dawkins shook his head.
"Same drill. We generally get thirty minutes' notice from the Coastwatcher people, via either Pearl Harbor or Townsville.
That gives us enough time to get off the ground and to altitude.
By then the radar can usually give us a vector. We shoot them down or they shoot us down. That will go on until one side or the other runs out of airplanes. Right now, unless we get some help from the Navy, that looks like us."
"There was a bunch of F4F pilots on Espiritu. Right out of Pensacola." "That's academic. We don't have airplanes for them to fly." Their eyes met for a moment, and then Galloway said, "I suppose I better go see Dunn and let him know I'm back." As the next senior officer present for duty, First Lieutenant William Charles Dunn, USMCR, assumed command of VMF229 after Galloway was shot down and presumed dead. Bill Dunn was twenty-one years old; he stood five feet six, weighed no more than 135 pounds, and looked to Dawkins like a college cheerleader. He became an ace the day he took over VMF-229.
Dawkins nodded, and then stood up and offered his hand.
"I'm glad you came through, Charley. God knows how, but I'll deal with the people you've pissed off."
"Thank you, Sir." Galloway had gone no farther than two hundred yards from Dawkins' tent when a siren began to wail. He looked at the control tower. A black flag-signifying air base under attack was being hoisted on the flagpole.
He started to trot toward the area where the aircraft of VMF-229 were parked in sandbagged revetments. Then, realizing that he really had no reason to rush to his airplane, he slowed to a walk: The F4F with CAPT C. GALLOWAY USMCR painted below the canopy track was now at the bottom of the sea.
Soon he heard the peculiar sound of Wildcat engines starting, and then the different sound of R4D engines being run up to takeoff power. He looked down the runway in time to see the R4D he'd flown in to Guadalcanal begin its takeoff roll. A moment later it flashed over his head.
No more than sixty seconds later, the first F4F with MARINES painted on its fuselage bounced down the runway and staggered into the air, followed almost immediately by half a dozen others.
From his position, he could not see into their cockpits and identify their pilots.
He kept walking toward the squadron area.
The next time the Japanese come, I will bump one of my eager young lieutenants out of his seat. Will I be doing that because I really think that a squadron commander's place is in the air with his men? Or was that doctor on Espiritu right, that anyone who does such things when he hasn't been ordered to is by definitional out of his mind?
Chapter Two
[One]
U.S. MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT
PARRIS ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA
31 AUGUST 1942
Prior to his enlistment in The Marine Corps, George F. Hart, USMCR, was employed by the Saint Louis, Missouri, Police Department. Specifically, the twenty-four-year-old fifth son and eighth child of Captain (of the Saint Louis police) and Mrs. Karl J. Hart was the youngest (ever) detective on that organization I s Vice Squad. Law enforcement was something of a family tradition.
After immigrating to the United States from Silesia, George's paternal grandfather, Anton Hartzberger, joined the force a month after he became an American citizen. He retired as a sergeant.
Two of Anton's sons, George's father and his Uncle Fred (legally Friedrich), went on the cops, as did two of George's brothers and a pair of cousins. Uncle Fred was a harness bull sergeant and happy to be where he was... though he thought it would be nice if he made lieutenant later, because of the pension. George's father, Karl, was promoted to Captain shortly after he was placed in charge of the Homicide Bureau; and he had ambitions for higher rank. But he believed his ambitions were damaged all along by the perception that he was one more stupid Kraut-of which, it must be admitted, the Saint Louis police had a more than adequate supply.
When Georg Friedrich Hartzberger was in the eighth grade, Sergeant Karl Hartzberger took his wife and his children to a judge's chambers. They emerged the Hart family, with all their given names Anglicized.
After he graduated from high school, George found employment as a truck driver's helper for a well-known Saint Louis brewery-despite misgivings that he wasn't big or strong enough to handle it.
Legally, he should have been over twenty-one before taking employment in the alcohol industry. But that provision of law was enforced by the police department, none of whose members saw reason to inquire just how old Captain Hart's kid was.
And so for close to three years, he manhandled beer kegs and cases of bottled beer from loading dock to truck, and from truck to saloon or store basements, or to wherever those in the business of slaking the thirst of their fellow citizens chose to keep their supplies of brew.