The Marines sent on Tour II to encourage the civilian population to buy more war bonds and raise civilian morale were Guadalcanal aviation aces, pi-lots who had shot down at least five Japanese aircraft. But Macklin did not find these men impressive. He privately decided that most of them were disgraces to the Marine uniforms they wore-they were undisciplined, regarded military courtesy as a joke, and spent most of the tour making unwanted advances to women and drinking themselves into oblivion-and that aviators themselves were highly overrated.
It was one thing to get out of a clean bed and climb into an airplane and fly for several hours, and then possibly-but only possibly-engage in a minute or two of combat, before flying home to a hot meal and a dry bed. It was quite another to do what he had done-or would have done had he not been wounded in the opening minutes of the assault-to make an assault in a land-ing barge through heavy fire onto an enemy-held beach, to hear the crack of machine-gun fire and the scream of incoming artillery, and then to be called upon to lead men against a determined enemy.
Those introspections had caused him to consider what would happen to him when Tour II was over. Thanks to that damned efficiency report, he was still a first lieutenant. In The Corps, first lieutenants command platoons. While he would of course go where he was sent, and do what he was told to do, the idea of commanding a platoon in the assault of some hostile shore seemed a waste of his professional talents and experience.
He should be a teacher. He had been there. He could make a genuine con-tribution to The Corps, and probably save some lives, as a teacher, preparing men and officers for what they would find when it was their turn to go into combat.
If he just waited for The Corps to order him someplace, it would more than likely be to one of the newly formed divisions, where he would be just one more platoon leader.
He had been trying to think of some way to make the personnel people aware of his unusual talents and experience and the contribution he could thus make-he got so far as drafting several letters-when the memorandum vis-a-vis Special Assignment To Intelligence Duties came to hand.
It seemed to be just what he was looking for. Not only did he have the qualifications and experience-there weren't very many people around who could say they had intelligence-gathering experience in the Orient-but it seemed, with that in mind, that he could be utilized as an instructor. It was clearly a waste of assets to send someone like himself into, so to speak, the lines, when he could make a far greater contribution to the war effort by train-ing others.
When he was so quickly accepted, he thought perhaps his luck was chang-ing. When he learned that his service records had been "misplaced," he felt certain that Lady Luck was finally smiling at him.
[FOUR]
Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff G-l
Headquarters, United States Marine Corps
Eighth and "I" Streets, NW
Washington, D.C.
0945 Hours 2 November 1942
"Good morning, Sir," Master Gunner James L. Hardee, USMC, said to the tall, blond, bespectacled, and lost-looking major. "May I help you?"
"God, I hope so, Gunner," Major James C. Brownlee replied, smiling.
"The difficult takes some time," Gunner Hardee said, "the impossible usually turns out to be impossible."
Brownlee chuckled, and offered his hand.
"My name is Brownlee," he said.
"Hardee, Sir. What can we do for you?"
"I'm trying to get an officer promoted," Brownlee said.
"You and everybody else in The Corps," Hardee said, waving toward a section of his office where two typists, working under the eagle eye of a staff sergeant, were typing mimeograph stencils. "That's just about the end of last week's promotions," he went on. "Tomorrow, we start this week's."
"I'm not in personnel," Brownlee said. "So my ignorance of the process is complete and overwhelming."
"You're not part of our happy family here at Eighth and 'I', Major?"
"No, I'm not," Brownlee said. "Tell me, Gunner, what does it usually take to get a first lieutenant promoted to captain?"
"Well, presuming a first lieutenant can see lightning and hear thunder, isn't under charges, and has twenty-four months in grade-and that's about to drop-it's now nearly automatic."
Hardee gestured again toward the hardworking typists.
"I thought it was probably something like that," Brownlee said. "Gunner, what it is is that I have sort of a responsibility for an officer, a first lieuten-ant..."
"Sort of a responsibility, Sir?" Hardee asked, confused.
"The thing is, Gunner," Brownlee said, a little uncomfortably, "I'm with a rather unconventional unit."
"Which one would that be, Sir?" Hardee asked. He was beginning to sus-pect that he was not going to enjoy this encounter.
"I'm with the OSS, to put a point on it," Brownlee said. "And the chain of command is a little fuzzy in the OSS."
Master Gunner Hardee was not an admirer of the OSS, about which he knew little except that the service records of a couple of hundred officers who had volunteered for it had crossed his desk. Hardee had nearly thirty years in The Corps. So far as he was concerned the officer personnel requirements of The Corps obviously should come first. And with the to-be-expected excep-tions to that rule, like that sea lawyer "hero" Macklin a couple of days ago, here they were sending what looked to him like good officers to the OSS at a time when The Corps was up shit's creek without a paddle trying to find offi-cers to staff a Marine Corps that was growing larger than anyone ever thought it would.
"So I hear," Hardee said. "Exactly how can I help you, Major?"
"I'm the senior Marine officer at the OSS reception center," Brownlee said. "Yesterday, an officer, a first lieutenant Macklin..."
Oh, shit!
"... was transferred in. I generally go over the records of people coming into the OSS-Marines, I mean-to make sure everything is shipshape."
"Yes, Sir?"
"And I went over Lieutenant Macklin's records. That's not exactly true. His records have been misplaced. Or possibly lost. Probably at Guadalcanal."
In fact, Master Gunner Hardee knew, the service record of First Lieutenant Macklin, Robert B., USMC, was thirty feet away, filed under the R's, in a file cabinet devoted to those officers "Absent, Sick In Hospital." The reason he knew this to be true was that he himself had put them there, in a place where he-but no one else-could readily lay his hands on them.
"Is that so?"
"I suppose that happens all the time," Brownlee said.
"Yes, Sir. It's not at all unusual."
"This officer is one hell of a Marine, Gunner."
One hell of an asshole of a Marine, is the way I hear it.
"He was twice wounded at Guadalcanal, storming the beaches, during the invasion."
"Yes, Sir."
"As a matter of fact, he was one of the heroes The Corps sent back from over there for the War Bond Tour."
"Is that so?"
"From what you've told me, Gunner, his promotion to captain should have come along by now, more or less automatically."