"Is he going to have to call you two 'Sir' all night?" Ernie Sage asked.
"Whatever he's comfortable with," McCoy said.
"I think we can dispense with the customs of the service, tonight," Lieutenant Burnes said to Moore.
"Yes, Sir."
"Hell, he's as bad as Zimmerman," Ernie laughed. "You better not start calling me 'Miss Ernie,' John."
"No, Ma'am," Moore said, but he said it as a joke, and they all laughed.
"I filled the car with gas, Ken," Marty Burnes said.
"You didn't have to do that," McCoy replied.
"Well, hell,-we used it."
"Otherwise I would probably have had Little Martin, or Little Mary," Dorothy said, patting her swollen belly, "on the bus on the way to the Maternity Clinic."
"What did the doctor say?" Ernie Sage asked.
"Three weeks," Dorothy said.
"Your mother called," Ernie said. "I told her where you were. You better go call her. She's concerned."
Dorothy heaved herself with effort to her feet and went to a telephone at the far end of the cabin.
"Ken and Ernie took us in," Burnes said to John Moore. "We couldn't find a place to stay, and Dorothy wanted to have the baby here. If it wasn't for Ken and Ernie, Dorothy would have had to go back to Kansas City."
"Ernie took you in," McCoy corrected him. "This is her boat."
"Go to hell!" Ernie said, and then looked at Moore. "The boat belongs to a friend of a friend of my mother's. And since we're being such a stickler about the facts, my mother pretends that I am not living in sin with Ken. But, romantic fool that I am, I pretend that this is our first home, Ken's and mine, our barnacle-covered little boat by the side of the bay."
Moore smiled at her.
"Tell him about the Raiders," McCoy said.
Burnes looked at him in surprise.
"He's going to meet a friend of mine where he's going," McCoy explained. "He'll be curious."
"Then why don't you tell him about the Raiders?" Ernie challenged.
"Because I am only a second lieutenant. Everybody knows that second lieutenants can't find their ass with both hands. Isn't that so, Sergeant Moore?"
"Yes, Sir. We were taught that at Parris Island," Moore said.
"I'm almost glad you're not staying here longer," Ernie Sage said. "I think you and Ken would be dangerous if you had time to get your act together."
"Give the sergeant a beer, Dear," McCoy said, sweetly, "while Lieutenant Burnes tells him all about the Raiders."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Ernie Sage said. "Right away, Sir."
(Two)
U.S. NAVY BASE
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
0815 HOURS 25 JUNE 1942
Sergeant John Marston Moore, USMCR, was the fifth person to board the seaplane, a U.S. Navy Martin PBM-1. Boarding was supposed to be in order of priority, in which case Moore would have been first. But among those ordered to proceed via air to Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, by government air transport were a Vice Admiral of the U.S. Navy and a Brigadier General, USMC, whose priorities guaranteed them a seat.
Rank hath its privileges and the admiral and the general and their aides-de-camp were boarded first. Moore stepped inside the fuselage of what had been designed as a Patrol Bomber. A sailor in undress blues, with the insignia of an Aviation Motor Machinist's Mate First Class sewn to his sleeve, showed him where to stow his bag and where to strap himself in for the take-off. He found himself seated next to the admiral.
"Good morning, Son," the admiral said.
"Good morning, Sir," Moore replied.
"First flight?"
"No, Sir."
"Then you can reassure me," the admiral said. "I am not wholly convinced that something this big is really meant to fly."
I will be damned. He really went out of his way to be nice to me.
The sailor, a red-haired man in his late twenties who was obviously the crew chief, waited until all the passengers had come aboard and then passed out yellow, inflatable life preservers, first giving simple instructions about using them, and then checking the passengers to see that they had each put them on correctly.
Then he climbed a ladder in the front of the fuselage. A moment later, the airplane shuddered as first one and then the second of its engines started. The plane immediately began to move, but with a curious motion that made Moore wonder for a moment if he was going to get seasick.
Next, one at a time, the engines roared and then slowed to idle. Then they both revved together, and the seaplane began to pick up speed. The noise of the engines was deafening, and the noise was compounded by a series of metallic crashes as the hull encountered swells. Then suddenly there was only the sound of the engines, and the crashing of the hull against the water was gone.
Through the window on the far side of the cabin, Moore saw that the float-there was one on each side-which had kept the wing from dipping into the water was retractable. As he watched, it moved upward and outward until it formed the tip of the wing.
He turned in his seat and looked through the window behind him. They were already out over the Pacific. Some ships were visible, and the wakes of small boats; and then, suddenly, there was nothing outside the window but an impenetrable gray haze.
"I am solemnly assured by my Naval Aviator friends," the admiral said, "that the young men who drive these things are extensively trained in navigation."
They looked at each other and smiled.
Moore put his head back against the metal wall of the fuselage.
He had really had a good time the night before, he thought. And not only because Ernie Sage and Lieutenant McCoy had gone really out of their way to make him comfortable. More than that, they had made it sort of a party for him.
And what he'd heard about the Marine Raiders had been fascinating. With obvious pride in what he was doing, Lieutenant Burnes had explained that they were sort of American Commandos whose mission it was to make surprise landings-raids, hence the name-on Japanese-held islands. The idea was not to capture the islands, but to blow up enemy installations and supplies, and then leave. That, Burnes said, would force the Japanese to station troops wherever they had supply depots or airfields so they could protect them from the Raiders, troops that otherwise could have been used to invade New Guinea or even Australia.