"When you have your emotions under control, Colonel, let me know," the captain said coldly.
Dunn looked at him for a long moment.
"My apologies, sir," he said finally.
"What are you going to do?" the captain asked. "You have been ordered by the Chief of Naval Operations to immediately prepare a suitable citation.' "
"I'm unable to comply with that order, sir."
The captain said nothing.
"A lot of good men have earned the Navy Cross—" Dunn began.
"Including you, Colonel," the captain interrupted. "Is that what this is about?"
"—and giving Major Pickering the decoration for having done nothing beyond what he was expected to do," Dunn went on, "would be an insult to every one of them."
"Be that as it may, the Commander-in-Chief 'desires' that Pickering be awarded the Navy Cross. You can't fight that, Colonel. You have an order. You have no choice but to obey it."
"I am unable to do that, sir," Dunn said.
Thirty minutes later, a message went out from the Badoeng Strait.
SECRET
URGENT
BADOENG STRAIT 1405 17 OCTOBER 1950
FROM: COMMANDING OFFICER MAG 33
TO: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS ATTN: CHIEF, AWARDS BRANCH
REFERENCE PARA 2. MSG CNO SUBJ: CITATION FOR DECORATION FOR MAJOR M.S. PICKERING, USMCR
DATED 16 OCTI1950
2. THE UNDERSIGNED IS UNABLE TO COMPLY.
WILLIAM C. DUNN
LIEUTENANT COLONEL,
USMC COMMANDING
SECRET
[TWO]
U.S. Naval Hospital
U.S. Navy Base, Sasebo
Sasebo, Japan
1625 18 October 19SO
Lieutenant (j.g.) Rosemary Hills, Nurse Corps, USNR—a five-three, one-hundred-fifteen-pound twenty-three-year-old from Chicago—had the duty, which placed her at a desk in the nurses' station of Ward 4-G between 1600 and 2400 hours.
There were six Corpsmen always on duty in Ward 4-G, and usually two or three of them could be found at the nurses' station. They dealt with the routine operations of Ward 4-G, and turned to Lieutenant Hills only when something required the attention of the ward nurse on duty, a registered nurse, or a commissioned officer, or any combination thereof.
She was a little uncomfortable when she glanced up from her desk and saw a Marine standing on the other side of the counter, obviously wanting something, and saw there was no Corpsman behind the counter—or anywhere in sight—to deal with him.
Lieutenant Hills had not been in the Navy very long, and was not completely familiar with all the subtleties of Navy rank and protocol, and was even less familiar with those of the Marine Corps.
She knew from the rank insignia on his collar points and shoulders that the man standing before her was a master gunner, which was the equivalent of a Navy warrant officer, which meant that he ranked between the senior enlisted Marine and the junior Marine officer.
She remembered, too, from orientation at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, that Marine master gunners were special, as lieutenants—Marine and Navy—were ordinary. There were very few master gunners, and they were all ex-senior enlisted Marines with all sorts of experience that qualified them to be master gunners.
The ribbons and other decorations on this one's tunic—she recognized only a few of them—seemed to attest to that. Judging by just the number of them, this master gunner had been in every war since the American Revolution, and wounded in all of them.
One of the medals on his chest she did recognize was the Purple Heart, awarded for having been wounded in action. She had seen enough of them pinned on hospital gowns here in the ward to know what that was. The master gunner's Purple Heart medal was just about covered with little things—Lieutenant Hills had forgotten what they called the little things—pinned to it. But she knew that each one of the little things meant a different award of the Purple Heart for getting wounded in action.
Lieutenant Hills saw that he was carrying a small canvas bag in his left hand, as a woman carries a bag. She wondered what was in it.
Then she realized that she had no idea how master gunners were addressed.
Do you call them "Master Gunner," as you would call a major "Major"? If not, then what?
"May I help you, sir?" Lieutenant Hills finally asked, even though she knew that as a lieutenant j.g. she outranked the master gunner and therefore he was no; entitled to be called "sir."
"Major Pickering," the master gunner said.
"What about Major Pickering?" she asked.
"Where is he?"
I think he was supposed to say, "Where is he, ma'am?"
"He's in 404," Lieutenant Hill said. "But he's on Restricted Visitors. If you want to visit him, you'll have to go to ..."
The master gunner nodded at her, then turned and marched down the corridor toward room 404.
"Just a minute, please," Lieutenant Hills called after him as firmly as she could manage. "Didn't you hear me? Major Pickering is on Restricted Visitors. You have to have permission of the medical officer of the day—"
When she realized she was being totally ignored, she stopped in mid-sentence.
She came from behind the nurses' station counter and looked down the corridor in time to see the gunner enter room 404.
Master Gunner Ernest Zimmerman, USMC, marched to the foot of the cranked-up hospital bed in which Major Malcolm S. Pickering was sitting and looked at him without speaking.
"Look what the goddamn tide washed up!" Pick cried happily. "I'll be goddamned, Ernie, it's good to see you!"
"You won't think so in a minute, Pick," Zimmerman said. "Can you handle some really shitty news?"
There was a just-perceptible pause, long enough for his bright smile to vanish before Pickering asked, "Jesus Christ, not the Killer?"
"Not the Killer," Zimmerman said.
"Dad? Has something happened to my father?"
Zimmerman opened the straps on his canvas bag and extended it to Pickering.
"What's this?" Pick asked, but looked, and then reached inside without waiting for an answer.
He came out with a fire-blackened object that only after a moment he recognized as a camera.
"Jeanette's camera," Zimmerman said, and then when Pick looked at him curiously, went on: "I picked it up yesterday near where the plane went in."
"Jeanette's?" Pick asked. "What plane?"
"An Air Force Gooney Bird headed for Wonsan," Zimmerman said. "It clipped a mountain and blew up. Nobody got out."
"Jeanette was on the Gooney Bird?"
"Yeah."
"You're sure?" Pick asked softly.
"Yeah."
"How can you be sure? How did you get involved?"
"From the top?"
"From the fucking top, Ernie," Pickering said, struggling to keep his voice from breaking as a tear slipped down his cheek. "Every fucking tiny little fucking detail."
Lieutenant Hills went back behind the nurses' station aware that she had two choices. She could ignore what had happened, or she could report it. She had just decided to ignore the breach of orders—
What harm was really being done? It wasn't, after all, as if Major Pickering was at death's door. What they were trying to do for him was fatten him up, and making sure the dysentery wouldn't recur. And having a visitor might make him feel better. He looked so unhappy, which was sort of funny because he was just back from escaping from the enemy, and you'd think that would make someone happy.