"Here's to old friends," Mary Agnes said, raising her glass. "The best kind."
"How about here's to VMF-229?" Galloway said. "And particularly to its pilots, both of whom are here with you?"
"All right," Mary Agnes said agreeably; and then realizing what Charley meant, she added, "Is that right? All the pilots there are is you two?"
"That's right," Galloway said and then added to Dunn, "But there was a radio this afternoon..." He stopped, took a sheet of yellow paper from his hip pocket, handed it to Dunn, and continued, "... with these names on it. They'll be in the next couple of days."
Dunn took the sheet of teletype paper, read it, and handed it back.
"Know any of those people?" Galloway asked.
"I knew a Dave Schneider, went through Advanced with him at Pensacola, but they sent him on to multiengine. Not an F4F pilot." |
"It's probably the same guy," Galloway said. "He was learning to fly R4Ds when I met him."
Galloway had met Lieutenant David Schneider on a very important day in his life. Not only was it the first time he had been permitted to fly since he had landed the Wildcat on Sara's deck, but it was the day he met Mrs. Caroline Ward McNamara.
Headquarters, USMC had laid an important mission on Quantico. They were to furnish an R4D to drop parachutists at the Marine Corps Parachute School at Lakehurst, New Jersey. It was important because Major Jake Dillon, a legendary Hollywood press agent who had come back into the Corps when the war started-he had once been a staff sergeant with the 4th Marines in Shanghai-had arranged for Time-Life to do a major story on what were being called "ParaMarines."
Colonel Robert T. "Bobby" Hershberger, of the 1st Marine Air Wing, decided that he could not entrust flying the plane to the only two pilots he had who were checked out in the R4D. Lieutenants David Schneider and James L. Ward simply didn't have the necessary experience. On the flight line, however, wrench in hand, removed in disgrace from flight status, was a Tech Sergeant named Charley Galloway who not only had several hundred hours in R4Ds but had graduated from the U.S. Army Air Corps School for dropping people and equipment by parachute from R4Ds.
After a somewhat heated telephone conversation with Brigadier General D. G. Mclnerney, during which both officers said things they immediately regretted, it was decided that the situation required Galloway's restoration to flight duty for the Lakehurst mission. It was either that or run the risk of allowing a new R4D with MARINES lettered on the fuselage and a load of parachutists aboard to crash in flames before Time's, Life's, and The March of Time's still and motion picture cameras.
Lieutenants Schneider and Ward were called into Colonel Hershberger's office and told that they would fly the mission with Technical Sergeant Galloway, who would be Pilot-in-Command.
Lieutenant Schneider, who was an Annapolis graduate and a career officer, was very unhappy to find himself under the orders of a Flying Sergeant. And he did nothing to conceal his unhappiness. On the other hand, Lieutenant Ward, who was a reservist, was not knocked out of joint because he had to learn from someone who knew more than he did, whatever his rank. And far more importantly, Ward had a just-divorced aunt named Caroline Ward McNamara, to whom he introduced Technical Sergeant Galloway in Philadelphia.
"Schneider's an absolute asshole," Dunn said. "Annapolis. The reason he hates this war is because they have to let civilians into the Corps to fight it. Civilian savages pissing on the Corps's sacred potted palms, so to speak..."
Then Dunn saw the look on Galloway's face and stopped.
"My mouth ran away with me, Sir, I'm sorry."
The test of a truly intelligent man. Galloway remembered hearing somewhere, is the degree to which he agrees with you.
"The thing about Lieutenant Schneider, Lieutenant Dunn," Galloway said sternly, "is that he not only is a skilled, knowledgeable pilot, but, in my judgment, he is one of those rare people who are natural fliers. With those characteristics in mind, I asked Lieutenant Schneider to join VMF-229, even though he is personally an absolute asshole. Fortunately for you-and for me too-you outrank him."
Dunn's eyes widened, and then for the first time he smiled.
"Yes, Sir, that thought has occurred to me."
We're going to get along, Galloway thought, this Rebel kid is all right.
Mary Agnes swung around on the stool so that she faced Galloway and her knee pressed against his leg.
"Why don't we carry our drinks into the dining room and find a table?" she asked. "They've got a band in there, and I'd like to dance."
"On the table?" Galloway asked.
Her knees pressed harder against his leg, and her hand came down to rest on it.
"No," she said, giving his leg a little squeeze. "With you, silly."
(Three)
THE ELMS
DANDENONG, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA
1730 HOURS 28 JUNE 1942
When the telephone rang, Captain Fleming Pickering, USNR, was in the library of The Elms, sitting in a high-backed red leather armchair, jacketless, his shoes off, his tie pulled down, and his feet on a footstool. He was just about ready to take his first sip of his first drink of the day.
He eyed the instrument with distaste; it was sitting out of reach on a narrow table across the room. It had been a busy day, and it was his considered judgment that anything anyone on the phone wanted could wait until tomorrow morning.
The telephone kept ringing. There was a staff of four at The Elms: a housekeeper, a maid, a cook, and a combination yardman, chauffeur, and husband to the housekeeper. They were all personal employees of Captain Pickering. The house was leased from a Melbourne banker Captain Pickering knew from before the war.
The Vice-chairman of the Board of the Pacific and Far Eastern Shipping Corporation (that is to say, Mrs. Fleming Foster Pickering) had arranged for the salary and expense allowance of Chairman of the Board Fleming Pickering to continue while he was on "military leave" from his duties. After having been assigned quarters (a small, two-room hotel suite to be shared with a portly Army Colonel who snored) Captain Pickering had decided that since he damned well could afford something more comfortable, there was no reason not to leave the colonel to snore alone.
Besides, he rationalized, he needed a place where he could discreetly meet people in connection with his duties. The brass hats of MacArthur's Palace Guard could give lessons in plain and fancy gossiping to any women's group he was familiar with. The gossip was at the least annoying, but it could also spread information that deserved to be sat upon, and at worst it could cost people their lives.
"Christ," Pickering asked rhetorically, vis-…-vis his domestic staff, "where the hell are they all?"
He hauled himself out of the chair and walked across the two-story library in his stocking feet and picked up the telephone.
"Captain Pickering."
"Major Banning, please."
It was an American voice.
"I'm sorry, Major Banning isn't here at the moment. I expect him within the hour. Can I take a message?"
"Am I correct, Captain, that you're an American officer?"
"Yes, I am."
"This is Commander Lentz, Captain, of Melbourne NATS."
It took Pickering a moment to decode the acronym: Naval Air Transport Service. Next it occurred to him-after a moment spent digesting the superior tone of the commander's voice-that the NATS officer had jumped to the wrong conclusion: Lentz thinks I'm a Marine captain, and thus inferior in rank, rather than what I really am, an exalted four striper.
"How may I help you, Commander?"
"We've got an enlisted man down here, Captain, one of your sergeants..."
Bingo, I was right. He thinks I'm a Marine. Actually, I wish to God I was.