In Danger's Path (82 page)

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Or Major Dillon. I'll talk to him. As a matter of fact, see if you can find Major Dillon.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Dawkins followed Pickering into his office and closed the door after them. “You want to tell me what this is all about, Pickering?”

“Sir, I was given the opportunity to volunteer for this mission, and did so.”

“Why does your nobility strike me as bullshit, pure and simple? Unless, of course, you've lost your mind,” Dawkins said, not unkindly. And then, before Pickering could even begin to frame an answer, he thought of something else.

“Where did you get qualified in a PBY-5A? The last time I looked at your records, you had maybe twenty-five hours in the right seat of a Gooney Bird, all of it when you went off with Charley Galloway on that lunatic mission to Buka. And you had zero hours in a Catalina. Is my memory failing me, Lieutenant Pickering?”

“Just before I came over here, I got a crash course in the Catalina, sir. Thirty hours in four days.”

Dawkins looked at Pickering for a long moment. “Up to you, Pick,” he said finally. “You can tell me what's going on or not. If you're in some kind of jam, I'll go to bat for you, you know that.”

“The truth is, sir, I got in a little trouble in Memphis. I was offered my choice of volunteering for this, or a court-martial. Preceded by grounding.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“There was a lady involved, sir.”

Dawkins raised his eyebrows.

“And there were some minor things, too, sir, to be truthful. Speeding tickets, out of uniform. Things like that.”

“If Billy Dunn offered you the choice between a court-martial and volunteering for this operation, there's more to it than a couple of speeding tickets. Or were you perhaps drunk when they arrested you for speeding?”

“Just once, sir, and I got that downgraded to reckless driving. And it wasn't Billy who gave me the choice, it was the Admiral.”

“What you're saying, in other words, is that Billy—out of misguided loyalty—covered for you while you were showing your ass, but you were such an all around fuckup that it got to the Admiral? What admiral?”

“The Memphis NAS admiral, sir. Who is friend of a friend of the lady's husband.”

“You were fooling around with a married woman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did this admiral know who your father is?”

“Yes, sir. Dad—and General Mclnerney—were at Memphis just before the Admiral…sent for me.”

“You were about to say something other than ‘sent for me'?”

“Placed me under arrest, sir.”

“You're a disgrace to your uniform, Pickering. Do you understand that? There's more to being a Marine officer than flying an airplane.”

“Yes, sir. I've had time to consider that.”

“Worse than that, you let Billy Dunn down. He needed you. The kids you were training needed you.”

“Yes, sir. I've had time to consider that, too.”

“Let me tell you the situation here. For administrative convenience, all the volunteers for this mission—the legitimately noble volunteers and you—will be attached to MAG-21 for rations, quarters, and administration. I command MAG-21.”

“Yes, sir. ‘Will be', sir?”

“You're the first one to show up. Don't interrupt me again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The mission is being run by Major Jake Dillon—”

“My father's involved in this?” Pick blurted.

“Goddamn it, I told you not to interrupt me!”

“Sorry, sir.”

“And the volunteers will be housed at Muku-Muku. Both to give the condemned a hearty meal before they fly off on this idiotic mission, and to keep them from running off at the mouth in the O Club bar about what they're doing. I would really like to order you to draw a pup tent and pitch it behind Hangar Two, but that would draw attention to you. You will proceed to Muku-Muku and there await further orders from Major Dillon.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“While you are at Muku-Muku, you will not confide in anyone—Major Dillon, Captain Galloway, Gunner Oblensky, and especially not the bona fide noble volunteers—what has caused you to be in their midst. Is that clear, Mr. Pickering?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will engage in no activity while you are under my administration that might possibly draw attention to you or the mission. You will not drive a privately owned vehicle. You will not go into Honolulu, and you will not partake of the facilities of any officers' club unless you are accompanied by Major Dillon or Captain Galloway. You get one drink of spirits a day. Do you understand these restrictions, Mr. Pickering?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, because if you violate any one of them, I will ground you and I will court-martial you. Your father and Admiral Wagam—and, I am reliably informed, Admiral Nimitz himself—regard this operation as very important. I am not going to run any chance whatever of having it fouled up by a spoiled child wearing a Marine officer's uniform who doesn't have enough sense to know when to put his whisky glass down and his zipper pulled up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are dismissed, Mr. Pickering,” Colonel Dawkins said. “Ask the sergeant major to arrange for a jeep—a jeep, not a staff car—to transport you to Muku-Muku.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Lieutenant Pickering said, did an about-face movement and marched out of Dawkins's office.

[SIX]
Headquarters, Marine Air Group 21
Ewa Marine Air Station
Oahu, Territory of Hawaii
1530 13 April 1943

Lieutenant Colonel Clyde W. Dawkins's sergeant major put his head into Dawkins's office. “Captain Galloway would like a couple of minutes, sir,” he announced.

“Send him in,” Dawkins ordered.

He's heard Pickering's at Muku-Muku and wants to know what's going on
.

Galloway, in an oil-stained flight suit, came through the door. “Good afternoon, sir.”

“Close the door please, Captain,” Dawkins said.

Galloway turned and did so.

Dawkins took a bottle of scotch from his desk drawer. “You flying, Charley, or can you have one of these?”

“I'm through for the day, sir. Thank you.”

Dawkins poured stiff drinks in Kraft cheese glasses and handed one to Galloway.

“To Marine fighter pilots, goddamn them,” Dawkins said, raising his glass. “If we didn't need the bastards, I'd put a bounty on them.”

“I'll drink to that,” Galloway said. “I just came from ‘counseling' one of the bastards. And I need this.”

He raised his glass, then drank half of it.

“I see no scrapes, bruises, or contusions,” Dawkins said. “This was one of your smaller hooligans?”

“I haven't actually had to…'strongly counsel' anybody in some time,” Galloway said. “All I have to do now is show my fangs and growl.”

Dawkins chuckled. “What's on your mind, Charley, or did you just come in to drink my liquor?”

“Lieutenant Stevenson,” Galloway said.

“A problem?”

“Sort of.”

“What happened? Did somebody teach him how to box?”

“Actually, he's pretty well been on the straight and narrow,” Galloway said. “He wants to fly one of Dillon's Cats.”

“Does he, now? And what does he know about Dillon's Catalinas? Are we about to have another problem with somebody's big mouth?”

“He's figured out they're going to make a long, long flight,” Galloway said. “And he came to me and said he'd heard the pilots were all volunteers for whatever it was, and he'd like to volunteer.”

“Just for the record…Belay that:
Off
the record, Charley, are you volunteering this guy?”

“No, I'm not,” Galloway said. “This was his idea.”

“And what do you think prompted this selfless act on the part of Mr. Stevenson? We are talking about the same Stevenson, right, the one you wiped the hangar floor with when Mclnerney was here?”

“What I was doing was offering a little extra instruction in the manly art of self-defense. Yeah, same guy. He wants to redeem himself.”

“And you believe him?”

“Yeah, I do,” Galloway said. He drank the rest of his drink and looked at Dawkins. “I really do. He's come around. He's a regular, you know. I think he wants to see if he can salvage his career by doing something heroic.”

“Who told him the pilots were going to be volunteers?”

“Probably the Navy pilots who volunteered. He drinks with them.”

“Jesus Christ, what do we have to do to get people to keep their mouths shut?”

“Okay, Skipper,” Galloway said, holding up his hand in a mock gesture of self-protection. “I told him I would ask. I asked. I will now leave without even asking for another taste.”

“I would be ever so honored, Captain Galloway, if you would join me in another libation,” Dawkins said.

“I accept your kind offer with great gratitude, sir,” Galloway said, then walked to where the bottle sat and picked it up.

“How much Catalina time does this guy have?” Dawkins asked.

“About six hundred hours pilot-in-command. He flew antisubmarine patrols on the East Coast.”

“Before or after he got in trouble?”

“When they kicked him out of a fighter squadron, they sent him to the Cats. When he got in trouble there, they sent him to VMF-229, the Alcatraz of Marine Aviation,” Galloway said. “So I guess you could say, while he was getting in trouble.”

“
On
the record, Charley. There's no one in the Corps who could have done what you've done with that collection of misfits and ne'er-do-wells.”

“And
off
the record?” Galloway asked, trying to make a joke of the compliment.

“
Off
the record, Charley,” Dawkins said seriously, “there's no one in the Corps who could have done what you've done with that collection of misfits and ne'er-do-wells.”

Galloway was now visibly embarrassed. He tried to change the subject: “Can I tell him I asked and you're thinking about it?”

“You can tell him to come see me,” Dawkins said, then plunged on. “I got a back channel from Mclnerney, on that special communications system that Dillon has somehow managed to latch on to. There have been damned few volunteers. General Mac is down to volunteering people. He said he wants Marines to fly the Cats. By using the term loosely, your pal Stevenson can be considered to be a Marine.”

“I wouldn't volunteer for something like this, myself,” Galloway said. “I'm not surprised.”

“We do have one volunteer,” Dawkins said. “He came in right after lunch. I sent him over to Muku-Muku.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Another pretty good fighter pilot who couldn't behave and was offered the choice between a court-martial and volunteering to become a legendary Marine hero, flying a Cat in harm's way.”

“I'm surprised they didn't send him to me,” Galloway said. “How did he fuck up?”

“The usual things young fighter pilots do. Drunk driving. Speeding. Out of uniform. And he was sleeping with a lady who is joined in holy matrimony to somebody else, and the somebody else happens to be acquainted with the flag officer commanding Naval Air Station, Memphis.”

“Hell, that's called upholding the reputation of Marine Aviators,” Galloway said.

“This guy was setting a lousy example for the young Marine Aviators he was supposed to be training,” Dawkins said flatly.

“Yeah, I suppose,” Galloway said, and then thought he was changing the subject again. “Young Pickering is at NAS Memphis. He's Billy Dunn's executive officer.”

“Young Pickering is by now at Muku-Muku,” Dawkins said. “Under a direct order not to tell you how come he's no longer in Memphis.”

Galloway looked at Dawkins as if surprised that he would make such a lousy joke. Dawkins nodded, and Galloway realized he wasn't kidding at all. “Give him to me, Skipper,” Galloway said after taking a moment to collect his thoughts. “I can straighten him out.”

“Sorry, Charley, forget it. I don't have the authority to do that, and I don't think I would if I did.”

“Skipper, he doesn't have much time in a Catalina—if any, come to think of it.”

“He's qualified as pilot-in-command,” Dawkins said. “That's all it takes.”

“I was feeling pretty good when I came in here,” Galloway said.

“I was feeling pretty good when I saw Pick get out of the station wagon,” Dawkins said. “Would another drink make you feel any better?”