In Danger's Path (64 page)

“Yeah, me, too, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Abraham looked at Sweatley, then kicked his little pony and cantered toward the two small wagons below him.

A .45 Colt automatic pistol appeared in an opening of the canvas of the second wagon, aimed at his midsection.

“Mrs. Banning?” Sergeant Abraham asked.

After a pause, in a faint voice, the Countess Maria Catherine Ludmilla Zhivkov replied, “I am Mrs. Edward J. Banning.”

Sergeant Sweatley trotted up on his little pony.

Sergeant Abraham turned to look at him, then turned back to Milla.

He saluted. “Technical Sergeant Abraham, ma'am, United States Marine Corps.”

Sweatley saluted. “Sergeant Sweatley, ma'am. I know the Captain, ma'am.”

The flap opened and Milla was visible. She had the pistol at her side now. She held her baby with her other arm. Tears ran down her cheeks.

I am the daughter of an officer and the wife of an officer. I must not lose control
.

“How do you do?” Milla said formally. “I am pleased to meet you. This is Captain Banning's and my son, Edward Edwardovich.”

“Is he all right, ma'am?” Sergeant Abraham asked.

“He's fine, thank you.”

“What we're going to do now, ma'am, is take you to the caravan. You'll be better off with us, I think, than out here by yourself.”

“Thank you.”

Sergeant Sweatley thought of something else. “There's another Russian lady, ma'am,” he said, and then reconsidered that. “Well, maybe not a lady, she's married to an old Yangtze River patrol sailor. But at least she's Russian.”

“I look forward to meeting her,” Mrs. Edward J. Banning said.

[ONE]
Base Operations
Memphis Naval Air Station
Memphis, Tennessee
0815 28 March 1943

Admiral Jesse Ball's aide-de-camp arrived at the Peabody Hotel at 0715 with instructions to present both the Admiral's compliments and his regrets to Major General D. G. McInerney, USMC, and Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, that he would be unable to join them for breakfast. “The Admiral,” the aide said, “will of course be at base operations for your departure, which we have scheduled for 0815.”

“You don't suppose ol' Jesse is a little hungover, do you, Flem?” General McInerney inquired of General Pickering.

“If he's not, he should be,” Pickering replied. “I feel terrible.”

The new stars on General McInerney's shoulders had been well and truly wet down by his old friends.

Admiral Ball's aide then informed the two generals that the Admiral had sent his staff car to transport them and their aides to the air station, and that he further suggested that Captain Dunn and Lieutenant Pickering travel to base operations in their privately owned vehicles. The night before, since Dunn had been in the apartment he shared with Lieutenant Pickering in the Peabody, he had been able to participate in the wetting down of General McInerney's new stars.

“The Admiral, Captain, expressed the desire that you be there to see the Generals off,” Admiral Ball's aide said.

“Of course,” Captain Billy Dunn said.

In point of fact, Admiral Ball was a little hungover, but that was not the reason he did not take breakfast with his old friends. He had a little ceremony to arrange, and he wanted it to go off without a hitch.

When the Admiral's staff car, followed by Captain Billy Dunn's Oldsmobile and Lieutenant Pickering's Cadillac, pulled up before base operations, a Navy captain in dress uniform, complete to sword, bellowed, “Atten-hut!”

Three squadrons of sailors and three of Marines came from Parade Rest to Attention. The sailors were separated from the Marines by a ten-man Marine flag guard. The national color was in the center, with the flags of the U.S. Navy and the USMC to either side. To the left of the Navy flag was Admiral Bali's two-starred blue flag, and to the right of the Marine Corps flag were the red starred flags to which Generals McInerney and Pickering were entitled.

“Sound off!” the Navy captain bellowed, as General McInerney stepped out of the Admiral's staff car.

The Memphis Naval Air Station band struck up the Navy hymn.

Admiral Ball marched up to Generals McInerney and Pickering, and saluted them with his sword.

“Will the Generals honor me by trooping the line?” he inquired.

“I would be honored,” General McInerney said, and added softly, so that no one but Admiral Ball could hear him, “Goddamn you, Jesse.”

With General McInerney in the place of honor, and Admiral Ball and General Pickering trailing after him, the flag officers marched off to troop the line.

After thinking about it a moment, Captain William Dunn trotted quickly to the formation and took up his position as commanding officer before the assembled Marines of VMF-262.

Smiling broadly, Lieutenant Pickering, who was attired in a leather flight jacket but now wearing a fore-and-aft cap, leaned against the fender of his Cadillac and watched the proceedings.

With the trooping of the line completed, Admiral Ball led Generals McInerney and Pickering into base operations.

The band segued into “Stars and Stripes Forever,” and the Navy captain and his staff marched to a position at the head of the Navy troops.

“Right face!” the Navy captain bellowed, and when the sailors and Marines had turned, bellowed “For-ward, h-arch!”

The parade moved around the base operations building to the parking ramp.

Lieutenant Pickering went into base operations.

It took just a minute or two for General McInerney to put on a flight suit and to have a quick—but thorough—look at the flight plan for his flight to Pensacola. The Memphis NAS pilot who would be the copilot for the R4-D's flight to Chicago also had a flight plan prepared for the approval of Lieutenant Sylvester, who would be the pilot-in-command.

A Corsair and the R4-D were parked right in front of base operations. There was a red flag with a single white star flapping from a small staff beside the pilot's side window of the R4-D.

“Come see us anytime, General,” Admiral Ball said to General McInerney.

“Thanks, Jesse,” General McInerney said. He was obviously touched. He shook Admiral Ball's hand and then General Pickering's. “Take care of yourself, Flem,” he said. “And good luck!”

“You, too, Mac,” Pickering said.

General McInerney offered his hand to Lieutenant Pickering.

“It was good to see you, Pick,” he said. “Keep up the good work.”

Good work, my ass
, Admiral Ball thought, but he smiled.

“Thank you, sir,” Pick said. “It was good to see you, sir.”

General McInerney nodded, then walked toward the Corsair.

The band began to play “The Marines' Hymn,” and kept playing it until General McInerney climbed into the Corsair and fired up its engine, and until General Pickering—who embraced his son quickly before walking to the R4-D—was aboard. Then the band began playing “Auld Lang Syne.”

In the cockpit of the Corsair, General McInerney waited for the needles to move into the green, then looked at Admiral Ball, saluted, and started taxiing. A moment later, the R4-D began moving.

Pick waved at his father.

General McInerney turned onto the active runway and immediately began his takeoff roll. As soon as he had broken ground, the R4-D began to roll. Once airborne, the R4-D took up a course for Chicago. The Corsair, which had made a shallow climbing turn to the left after takeoff, now headed back to the field. It flashed over the field at 250 feet, with its throttles to the firewall, and then pointed its nose skyward. At 5,000 feet, it entered a layer of clouds and disappeared.

Admiral Ball walked over to Lieutenant Pickering.

“I think General McInerney enjoyed all this, don't you, Lieutenant? And your father, too, of course?”

“Yes, sir. I'm sure they did.”

“And what about you, Lieutenant. Did you enjoy it?”

“Very much, sir.”

“And last night? Did you have a good time last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Commit it to memory, your disgrace to the uniform you're wearing. It will be the last thing you'll enjoy for a hell of a long time.”

“Sir?”

Two Marines with Shore Patrol brassards on their sleeves, one of them a technical sergeant, marched up and saluted Admiral Ball.

“This officer is under arrest,” Admiral Ball said. “Escort him to his quarters—his
on-base
quarters—and when he has changed into the prescribed uniform, bring him to my office.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the technical sergeant said. “This way, please, Lieutenant.”

[TWO]
Office of the Base Commander
Memphis Naval Air Station
Memphis, Tennessee
0910 29 March 1943

Three Marines, two of them wearing shore patrol brassards and armed with .45-caliber pistols, marched in a line into the base commander's office.

“Detail, halt,” the Marine technical sergeant ordered, then “Detail, left FACE!” The three were now facing Rear Admiral Jesse Ball, USN. “Sir…” the technical sergeant barked as he saluted.

Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR, started to raise his hand in a reflex action to salute, but catching something in Admiral Ball's eyes—a look of contemptuous surprise—stopped with his arm half up and lowered it.

“…Technical Sergeant Franz reporting to the Admiral with the prisoner as ordered, sir,” the technical sergeant finished.

Admiral Ball returned the salute. “Leave the prisoner and stand by in the outer office,” he ordered.

“Aye, aye, sir!” the technical sergeant barked, then went on. “Guard detail, one step backward, ha-arch! Right, FACE! Forward, ha-arch!”

The two Shore Patrolmen marched out of the room.

Lieutenant Pickering remained at attention, facing Admiral Ball.

“Pickering, prisoners are denied the privilege of saluting,” Admiral Ball said conversationally. “That's something you might wish to keep in mind.”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Pickering said.

“Have you any idea why I have placed you under arrest, Mr. Pickering?”

“No, sir.”

“I have the odd feeling, perhaps naïvely, that you may possess one—one only—of the characteristics required of an officer in the Naval Service,” Admiral Ball said. “You may not be a liar. Are you a liar, Mr. Pickering? Are you capable of answering a question put to you truthfully?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir, which? Yes, you are a liar? Or yes, you will answer a question bearing on your fitness to be an officer truthfully?”

“Sir, I am not a liar. I will answer any question put to me truthfully.”

“Well, then, let's put that to the test. Mr. Pickering, it has been alleged that you have had on several occasions carnal knowledge of a female who is not only not your wife but is married to someone else. Specifically, one Elizabeth-Sue Megham, sometimes known as Mrs. Quincy T. Megham, Jr. Do these allegations have any basis in fact?”

“Sir, I was raised to believe that a gentleman does not discuss—”

“Don't hand me any crap about you being a gentleman, you miserable sonofabitch!” Admiral Ball exploded furiously. “Have you, or have you not, been fucking this banker's wife?”

“Yes, sir,” Pick said.

“Knowing that she was a married woman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The basis of all law in what we think of as the Western world, Mr. Pickering, is generally agreed to be the Old Testament. In the Old Testament it is recorded that Moses came down from Mount Sinai carrying in his arms two stone tablets on which God himself had etched a number of rules by which God-fearing men were to conduct their lives. Are you familiar with that story, Mr. Pickering?”

“Yes, sir.”

“These ten rules, which came to be called the Ten Commandments, provide for God-fearing people a list of some things they are supposed to do and some things they are not supposed to do. Are you familiar with the Ten Commandments, Mr. Pickering?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Two of them have a special meaning for us here today. One of them is ‘thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days,' et cetera, et cetera. Are you familiar with that particular commandment, Mr. Pickering?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I'm told you are an imaginative young man. I believe that. When you told the flight safety officer that you weren't even aware you had barrel-rolled over the control tower because you had an oil-pressure warning light at the time, and were devoting all of your attention to that problem, now, that was imaginative. You were lying through your goddamned teeth, of course, but it was imaginative.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You admit that you lied to the flight safety officer?”

“I didn't think of it as a lie at the time, sir.”

“Goddamn you!” Admiral Ball exploded again. “Did you lie to the flight safety officer or not?”

“Yes, sir. I lied about that.”

“For your general fund of knowledge, Mr. Pickering, the Regulations for the Governance of the Naval Service, to which you are subject, provide that any officer who knowingly and willfully utters any statement he knows to be untrue shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We were talking about your imagination, Mr. Pickering. Can you imagine which of the Ten Commandments in addition to the ‘thou shalt honor thy father' one has an application here today?”

“No, sir.”

“You mean you really don't know? Or, sniveling little smart-ass that you are, you're afraid to say?”

“The one concerned with adultery, sir?”

“‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,'” Admiral Ball said. “Now, that seems a simple enough order to me. ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.' It means you shouldn't screw somebody else's wife. Was that commandment beyond your comprehension, Mr. Pickering?”

“No, sir.”

“But you disobeyed it anyway, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The next real codification of the law as we know it, to the best of my understanding, Mr. Pickering, was the Magna Carta, granted by his Majesty King John of England, Ireland, Scotland, et cetera, et cetera, to his nobles at Runnymede in June in the Year of Our Lord one thousand two hundred and fifteen. Are you familiar with the Magna Carta, Mr. Pickering?”