"McCoy's still there?"
"McCoy, two other Marines, some guy from the OSS, and Admiral Wagam's aide."
"Admiral Wagam's aide?" Galloway asked incredulously.
"He went along to make sure the sub did what was necessary. And then he apparently had to see for himself how the other half lives, went ashore, and stayed. Another exception to the rule, apparently, that if a sailor can't get three square meals a day and a bed with sheets, it's somebody else's war."
"Maybe this guy was lucky," Galloway said. "Most of the Buffalo pilots I knew went down at Midway."
"Yeah," Mclnerney said softly, and then changed the subject again. "You having trouble with the squadron, Charley? Anything I can do to help?"
"Trouble? Oh, yeah. The basic problem is that most of them are hotshot pilots. They're good, they know they're good, but they don't like it when somebody tells them they're not quite as good as they think they are."
"That's a problem."
"Are we still out of school?" Galloway asked, and when General Mclner-ney nodded, went on. "The trouble I had with Stevenson was that he showed up on the flight line with lipstick all over him, and obviously half in the bag. I don't think he'd been to bed. Correction, I don't think he had any sleep."
Mclnerney chuckled.
"I had to call him on it," Galloway went on. "There were a half-dozen other hotshots watching. So I restricted him to quarters for a week. That's when he called me a chickenshit hotshot hiding behind my bars. I could have brought charges against him-that would have probably meant a little loss of pay-or reported him to Colonel Dawkins as incorrigible-which would have meant the Colonel would take him off flight status and ship his ass to the First Division, which would have meant the loss of a pretty good pilot and screwed up the First Division. So I took him into the hangar."
"The only thing wrong with your solution was that he might have whipped your ass," Mclnerney said. "Did you think about that?"
"I thought about that, and so did Big Steve. He came in the hangar with us."
"Did you need him?"
"No. But it was touch and go for a couple of minutes."
"Are you letting Big Steve fly, Charley?"
"No, Sir."
"Why not?"
"Because if I got caught, Colonel Dawkins would transfer him, and he's the only friend I've got in the squadron."
"Does he understand that? Why you can't look the other way and let him fly?"
"No, Sir."
"I'll have a word with him. We go back a long way. At one time, he and I were the entire corps of Marine Aviators in Nicaragua."
"Be careful. He's a very persuasive guy. He's liable to talk you into put-ting him back on flight status."
"Not with his heart. He shouldn't even be in uniform. Should I have a word with him?"
"I'd be grateful, Sir."
"Just between us, Charley, you're doing a much better job with your squadron than a lot of people thought you could."
"Including you, General?"
"Don't fish for compliments, Captain. It's unbecoming to a Marine offi-cer," Mclnerney said, and then, very softly, "I wonder why I suspect that Weston's call home was something less than a joyful occasion?"
Galloway followed his eyes. Weston was coming back toward them with a thoughtful, unhappy look on his face.
"Where the hell is Charley?" Mclnerney asked rhetorically. As if waiting for the cue, his aide appeared pushing a wheeled cart on which were an array of bottles, glasses, and a bowl of ice.
"You have a perfect sense of timing, Captain Weston," Mclnerney said.
Weston looked at him in confusion.
"Sir?"
"How'd the call go?"
"Aunt Margaret wanted me to understand that she's not in a position to give the government its money back."
"What money?"
"My death benefits," Weston said. "I was reported KIA and the govern-ment paid off."
"Did she have anything else to say?" Mclnerney asked.
"Not much," Weston said.
"Well, fuck her!" Galloway said indignantly.
Weston looked at him and smiled.
"Well, whatever happens about that," Mclnerney said, "I'm sure they won't take it out of your pay."
"You know what really bothers me?" Weston asked. "All the time I was on Mindanao-even before Mindanao-all I could think of was getting back to the States. And now that I'm actually going, I don't want to."
"Why not?"
"I don't have anyplace to go. I don't know anybody anywhere in the States, and I certainly don't want to go to Iowa."
"You mean that?" Mclnerney asked.
"Yes, Sir."
"Then stay here. Recuperative Leave orders state to any destination of your choice in the United States. I'm sure that would include Hawaii."
"Where here?" Weston said, obviously interested.
"Here, here at Muku-Muku," Mclnerney said. "General Pickering would insist on that. And you could keep Charley company, and if you listen with proper awe to his tales of aerial derring-do, he just might teach you how to fly a Corsair. It is your intention, I presume, to go back on flying status?"
"You have a Corsair squadron?" Weston asked Galloway, awe in his voice.
Galloway nodded.
"It's one hell of an airplane," he said.
"The only ones I've ever seen were the ones they sent to fly cover when the Coronado took me off the submarine. Christ, they were beautiful!"
Well, that answers my question about whether or not he wants to go back on flying status, Mclnerney thought. And I just might be able to arrange it so that Charley has more than one friend in his squadron.
"Take your time and think it over," General Mclnerney said. "I don't want to talk you into doing anything you really don't want to do."
"General," Weston said. "There's nothing to think over. I'd kill to get in the cockpit of a Corsair."
[TWO]
Flag Officers' Quarters
U.S. Navy Base
Espiritu Santo
1655 Hours 11 January 1943
"Well, look what the tide washed up," Brigadier Fleming W. Pickering said as the screen door to his luxurious-by comparison-Quonset hut temporary quarters opened and Rear Admiral Daniel J. Wagam walked in. "What brings you to this tropical paradise?" (Quonset huts are prefabricated portable build-ings constructed of corrugated metal that curves down to form walls.)
Pickering was lying on a narrow cot, wearing only his underwear. Wagam crossed over to him and shook his hand.
"You're not going to like this, Fleming," Wagam said.
"Not like what?"
Wagam reached into his briefcase and took out a manila folder stamped TOP SECRET and handed it to Pickering.
T O P S E C R E T
THE SECRETAHY OF THE NAVY
WASHINGTON
VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL
COMMANDER IN CHIEF, PACIFIC
PEARL HARBOR
0816 9 JANUARY 1943
FOLLOWING PERSONAL FROM SECNAV FOR ADMIRAL NIMITZ