It was also pretty clear that Burnes was very impressed with the legendary Killer McCoy, who had taken out three Italian Marines with a knife, and then killed the Chinese bandits, and who had been wounded in the Philippines. So, Moore admitted, was he.
Moore could also see that Lieutenant McCoy wasn't quite so boyishly enthusiastic about the Raiders as Burnes was. McCoy never said so directly, and his face was in no way easy to read; but Moore sensed that as far as McCoy was concerned, the Raiders might as well be a gang of ten-year-old boys playing war games. At the same time, it was more than pretty clear to Moore that Burnes had no idea McCoy was involved with Intelligence. He wondered what McCoy was doing that had an Intelligence connection, but obviously he couldn't ask.
In fact there was no sense wondering what kind of Intelligence work McCoy was doing, or what he himself would be doing once he got to Australia. The only thing he knew about Intelligence was what he had learned watching spy movies, and McCoy was certainly not going to tell him what Intelligence was like in the real world.
But it had really made him feel good to see how Lieutenant McCoy and Ernie and Lieutenant Burnes and his wife had behaved to each other.
It would, he thought before he dozed off, be that way with Barbara when he came back. He would be an officer then, and maybe they could all get together and have a welcome home party.
(Three)
HEADQUARTERS
MARINE AIR GROUP TWENTY-ONE (MAG-21)
EWA, OAHU ISLAND, TERRITORY OF HAWAII
1105 HOURS 27 JUNE 1942
"The Colonel will see you now, Sir," the staff sergeant said.
Captain Charles M. Galloway, USMCR, hoisted himself out of a battered, upholstered armchair whose cushions had long ago lost their resiliency, nodded at the sergeant, walked to the commanding officer's door, and rapped on the jamb with his knuckles.
"Come," Lieutenant Colonel Clyde G. Dawkins ordered.
Galloway marched into the office, came to attention eighteen inches from Dawkins's desk, and announced, "Captain Galloway reporting as ordered, Sir."
"Good morning, Captain, welcome aboard."
"Thank you, Sir."
"You get settled all right, Charley?"
"I told the kid in the truck to take me to the NCO billet," Galloway said.
"Did you really?" Dawkins chuckled. "Well, I guess being an officer-a squadron commander-will take some getting used to. But I'm sure you can handle it, Charley. Stand at ease, for Christ's sake. Sit down, as a matter-of-fact."
He pointed to an armchair, and Charley sat down. Its cushions were as exhausted as the cushions on the chair in the outer office.
"Thank you, Sir. That was after he told me he'd never heard of VMF-229."
Dawkins laughed.
"That's because most of VMF-229 resides in Karl Lorenz's desk drawer," he said. "You remember Lorenz, of course?"
"Yes, Sir. Sure."
"Right now VMF-229 consists of you, another officer, and eleven F4Fs on a wharf at Pearl Harbor, covered with all the protective crap they put on them when they ship them as deck cargo."
Galloway's eyebrows rose.
"What about men?"
"Lorenz levied the other squadrons for personnel for you. They came up-after a lot of breast beating-with a list of sixteen enlisted men. Some of them are alleged to be mechanics, and there is an alleged clerk, an alleged truck driver, and an alleged armorer. None of them is more than a buck sergeant. You have authority, of course, to draw whatever equipment and personnel is authorized for a fighter squadron."
"How much of what is authorized is going to be available when I go try to draw it?"
"Not much, Charley," Dawkins said. "Supply is a little better than it was, but not much."
"What about pilots?"
"Right now there's two of you. They dribble in all the time. Sometimes one at a time on a courier plane, sometimes two dozen when a carrier or cruiser from 'Diego or 'Frisco puts into Pearl, sometimes lately, three or four at a time on tin cans and merchantmen. As you get your planes operational, I'll see that you have pilots. They won't have much time, I'm afraid, they'll be right out of Pensacola."
"Ouch," Galloway said. "I've got some pilots, pretty good pilots, coming. General Mclnerney authorized me to steal five from Quantico and Pensacola." "Only five?"
"I sent him nine names. I didn't have to ask for volunteers. When the word got out I was getting a squadron, people came looking for me. Everybody wants to get over here, even if it means being in a squadron commanded by a flying sergeant." "Hold it right there, Captain," Dawkins said sharply. He had just been thinking that Captain Charles M. Galloway looked like everything one expected a Marine captain to look like. He was erect and trim, neatly barbered, in a well-fitting uniform. There was an aura of competence and command about him.
"Sir?"
"That's the last time I ever want to hear you refer to yourself as a 'flying sergeant,' " Dawkins said. "I don't even want you thinking of yourself as a 'flying sergeant.' When you pinned those bars on, you stopped being a flying sergeant. Is that clear enough for you, Captain?"
"Aye, aye, Sir."
Dawkins held Galloway's eyes with his own for a long moment.
"Scuttlebutt going around is that someone interesting personally gave you those bars, Charley. Anything to that story?"
"Yes, Sir. They had me flying a VIP R4D out of Quantico. I'd just come back from a round robin, Pensacola, New River, Philadelphia, and back to Quantico. When I parked the airplane, the Operations Officer told me to report to the VIP quarters. I walked in expecting some congressman or movie star needing a ride, and what I got was the Commandant."
"No crap?"
"Him and General Mclnerney. Five minutes later, I was a captain."
"Just like that?"
"He gave me a little speech, Sir, that I won't forget for a while."
"Oh?"
"He said that, acting on General Mclnerney's recommendation, and against his own better judgment, he was going to give me captain's bars, and that I goddamn well better forget thinking I was Errol Flynn or Ronald Reagan and start acting like a Marine captain."
"Sounds like sound advice," Dawkins chuckled. "Christ, you really had the Navy mad at you. For a while, there was guilt by association."
"Sir?"
"There was talk-serious talk-about court-martialing Lenny Martin for being conveniently absent when you flew that F4F out of here to rendezvous with Task Force XIV. 'Dereliction of Duty' was the way they put it."