When it began to move again, and the train caught up with her on the platform, she looked for and found Sergeant John Marston Moore. She smiled and waved.
And smiled again and shook her head when, very shyly, the nice-looking young Marine waved back.
"North Philadelphia," the conductor called, "North Philadelphia, next."
(Two)
U.S. MARINE BARRACKS
U.S. NAVY YARD
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 18 JUNE 1942
While the staff sergeant who dealt with Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, could not honestly be characterized as charming, in comparison to the sergeants who had dealt with Moore at Parris, he seemed to be.
"You're Moore, huh?" he greeted him. "Get yourself a cup of coffee and I'll be with you in a minute."
He gestured toward a coffee machine and turned his attention to a stack of papers on his crowded desk. The machine was next to a window overlooking the Navy Yard. As he drank the coffee, Moore watched with interest an enormous crane lift a five-inch cannon and its mount from a railroad flatcar onto the bow of a freighter.
He found the operation so absorbing that he was somewhat startled when the staff sergeant came up to him and spoke softly into his ear.
"You could have fooled me, Moore," he said. "Even with that haircut, you don't look like somebody who was a private three days ago."
Moore was surprised to see that the staff sergeant was smiling at him.
"Thank you," Moore said.
"I checked your papers out pretty carefully," the staff sergeant said. "Everything's shipshape. Shots. Overseas qualification. Next of kin. All that crap. Once you get paid, and after The Warning, all you have to do is get on the airplane at Newark airport on Friday morning."
" `The Warning'?" Moore asked.
"Yeah, The Warning," the staff sergeant said. "Come on."
He gestured with his hand for Moore to follow him. He stopped by the open, frosted glass door to a small office and tapped on the glass with his knuckles.
A captain looked up, then motioned them inside.
"Sergeant Moore, Sir, for The Warning."
"Sure," the captain said, and looked at Moore. "Sergeant, you have been alerted for overseas movement. It is my duty to make sure that you understand that any failure on your part to make that movement, by failing to report when and where your orders specify, is a more serious offense than simple absence without leave, can be construed as intention to desert or desertion, and that the penalties provided are greater. Do you understand where and when you are to report, and what I have just said to you?"
"Yes, Sir," Sergeant Moore replied.
"Where's he going?" the captain asked, curiously.
The staff sergeant handed the captain a sheaf of papers.
"Interesting," the captain said.
"Ain't it?" the staff sergeant agreed. "Look at the six-A priority."
"I'd love to know what you do for the Corps, Sergeant Moore," the captain said. "But I know better than to ask."
That's good, Moore thought wryly, because I have no idea what I'm supposed to do for the Corps.
The captain then surprised him further by standing up and offering Moore his hand.
"Good luck, Moore," he said.
Moore sensed that the good wishes were not merely sincere, but a deviation from a normal issuing of The Warning, which he now understood was some sort of standard routine.
"Thank you, Sir."
The staff sergeant handed the captain a stack of paper, and the captain wrote his signature on a sheet of it.
That's a record that I got The Warning, Moore decided.
The staff sergeant nudged Moore, and Moore followed him out of the office. They went to the Navy Finance Office where Moore was given a partial pay of one hundred dollars.
The staff sergeant then commandeered an empty desk and went through all the papers, dividing them into two stacks. Moore watched as one stack including, among other things, his service record, went into a stiff manila envelope. The sergeant sealed it twice: He first licked the gummed flap and then he put over that a strip of gummed paper.
He surprised Moore by then forging an officer's name on the gummed tape: "Sealed at MBPHILA 18June42 James D. Yesterburg, Capt USMC"
Yesterburg, Moore decided, was the captain who had given him The Warning and then wished him good luck.
"Normally, you don't get to carry your own records," the staff sergeant said, handing him the envelope. "But if you do, they have to be sealed. There's nothing in there you haven't seen, but I wouldn't open it, if I was you. Or unless you can get your hands on another piece of gummed tape." Moore chuckled.
"These are your orders," the staff sergeant said as he stuffed a quarter-inch-thick stack of mimeograph paper into another, ordinary, manila envelope. "And your tickets, railroad from here to Newark; bus from Newark station to the airport; the airplane tickets, Eastern to Saint Louis, Transcontinental and Western to Los Angeles; and a bus ticket in LA from the airport to the train station; and finally your ticket on the train-they call it "The Lark"-from LA to 'Diego. In 'Diego, there'll be an RTO office-that means Rail Transport Office-and they'll arrange for you to get where you should be. OK?" "Got it," Moore said.
"There's also Meal Vouchers," the staff sergeant said. "I'll tell you about them. You are supposed to be able to exchange them for a meal in restaurants. The thing is, most restaurants, except bad ones, don't want to be run over with servicemen eating cheap meals that they don't get paid for for a month, so they either don't honor these things, or they give you a cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee and call it dinner. So if I was you, I would save enough from that flying hundred they just gave you to eat whatever and wherever you want. Then in 'Diego, or Pearl Harbor, or when you get where you're going, you turn in the meal tickets and say you couldn't find anyplace that would honor them. They'll pay you. It's a buck thirty-five a day. Still with me?"
"Yeah, thanks for the tip."
"OK. Now finally, and this is important. You've got a six-A priority. The only way you can be legally beat out of your seat on the airplane is by somebody who also has a six-A priority and outranks you. Since they pass out very few six-As, that's not going to be a problem. If some colonel happens to do that to you, you get his name and telephone Outshipment in 'Diego, the number's on your orders, and tell them what happened, including the name of the officer who bumped you. In that case, no problem."
"I understand," Moore said.
"But what's liable to happen," the staff sergeant went on, "is that you're going to bump some captain or some major- or maybe even some colonel or important civilian-who doesn't have a six-A, and he's not going to like that worth a shit, and will try to pull rank on you. If you let that happen, your ass is in a crack. You understand?"
"What am I supposed to say to him?"
"You tell him to call Outshipment in 'Diego, and get their permission to bump you. Otherwise, 'with respect, Sir, I can't miss my plane.' Got it?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Somebody pretty high up in the Corps wants to get you where you're going in a hurry, Sergeant, otherwise you wouldn't have a six-A. And they are going to get very pissed off if you hand the six-A to somebody who didn't rate it on their own."