BEACH RED
GUADALCANAL, SOLOMON ISLANDS
1830 HOURS 9 AUGUST 1942
Division Sergeants Major have far more important things to do than escort individual replacements to their assigned place of duty. But in the Marine Corps, as elsewhere, there is an exception to every rule, and this was an exceptional circumstance.
For one thing, Major General A.A. Vandergrift had personally told his sergeant major to "take this gentleman down to Colonel Goettge and tell him I sent him."
The gentleman in question was more than a little out of the ordinary, too. He was in his forties, silver-haired, tall, erect, and with a certain aura of authority about him that the sergeant major's long military service had taught him came to men only after a lifetime of giving orders in the absolute expectation that they would be obeyed.
The gentleman was wearing Marine utilities, loosely fitting cotton twill jacket, and trousers already sweat stained. The outline of a Colt.45 automatic pistol and two spare magazines for it pressed against one of the baggy pockets of the utilities. The outlines of two "Grenades, Hand, Fragmentation" bulged the other trousers pocket. A Springfield Model 1903A3.30-06 caliber rifle hung with practiced ease from his shoulder on a leather strap. And the outline of a half dozen five-round stripper clips of rifle cartridges pressed against the material of the right breast pocket of his utility jacket.
There was a small silver eagle pinned to each of the utility jacket's collar points. Fleming Pickering looked for all the world like a Marine Colonel engaged in ground combat against the enemy. Considering his age and rank and his casual familiarity with the Springfield, other Marines would probably guess that he was a regimental commander, rather than a staff officer.
But the Sergeant Major had learned that he was not a Marine. The silver eagles on his collar points were intended to identify him as a Navy Captain. And the Sergeant Major had also heard that Captain Fleming Pickering was the only man in the United States Naval Service on Guadalcanal, sailor or Marine, who had not been ordered there. He was on Guadalcanal because he wanted to be. According to the General's orderly, who overheard a great deal, and who was a reliable source of information for the Sergeant Major, no one-not General Vandergrift, not even Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the overall Pacific Ocean Areas (POA) Commander-in-Chief back in Pearl Harbor-could order him off, or for that matter, order him to do anything.
The Sergeant Major was just about convinced that he liked this Navy VIP. This was unusual for him. His normal reaction to Naval officers generally, and to Naval VIPs specifically, was to avoid the sonsofbitches as much as possible.
One reason he sort of liked this one was because he was here on the beach, in Utilities, carrying a Springfield over his shoulder, and a couple of grenades in his pocket. The rest of the fucking Navy was already over the horizon and headed for Noumea... after leaving Marines on the beach, less their heavy artillery and most of their rations and ammunition.
But the primary reason that the Sergeant Major decided that this Navy captain was the exception to the general rule that Navy captains are bad fucking news was that this captain enjoyed the friendship and respect of one of the sergeant major's few heroes, Major Jack NMI (for "No Middle Initial") Stecker.
Major Stecker, who had commanded the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, in the invasion of Tulagi the day before, came into the Division Command Post on Guadalcanal a few minutes after Captain Pickering showed up on the island.
There is, of course, by both regulation and custom, a certain formality required in conversation between Sergeants Major and Majors, but the Sergeant Major and Jack NMI Stecker had been Sergeants Major together longer than Jack Stecker had been an officer. When the Sergeant Major inquired of Major Stecker vis-…-vis Captain Fleming W. Pickering, he was perhaps less formal than Marine regulations and custom required.
"Jack," the Sergeant Major inquired, "just who the fuck is that swabbie trying to pass himself off as a Marine?"
Stecker's voice and eyes were icy: "He's someone an asshole like you, Sergeant, better not let me hear calling a swabbie."
"Sorry, Sir," the Sergeant Major replied, coming to attention. Stecker's temper was a legend. It was always spectacular when aroused, and it usually lasted a long time.
This time it began to pass almost immediately.
"Captain Pickering, Steve," Major Stecker went on, "won the Croix de Guerre at Belleau Wood. Everybody in his squad was dead, and he had an 8mm round through each leg when we got to him, and twenty-four German Grenadiers needing burying."
"He was a Marine?" the Sergeant Major asked, so surprised that there was a perceptible pause before he remembered to append, "Sir?"
Stecker nodded. "You ever hear what they say, Steve, 'Once a Marine, always a Marine'?" he asked, now conversationally.
"Yes, Sir."
"Captain Pickering is one of the good guys, Steve. Don't forget that."
"I won't, Sir."
"If you had taken a commission when they offered you one, you stupid sonofabitch, you wouldn't have to call me 'Sir.' "
"Calling you 'Sir' doesn't bother me, Major."
"Do what you can for Captain Pickering, Steve," Stecker said. "Like I said, he's one of the good guys."
The G-2 (Intelligence) General Staff Section of Headquarters, 1st Marine Division was set up in its own tent fifty yards from the Division Command Post, which had been established in a frame building that had survived both the pre-landing bombardment and the invasion itself.
A labor detail, bare chested, sweat soaked, looking exhausted, had just about completed a sandbag wall around the tent. In Captain Pickering's opinion, the wall would provide some protection from small arms fire, and from shrapnel from incoming mortar or artillery rounds landing nearby, but that was about all. A direct hit from an artillery shell would be devastating. What was needed, he thought, based on his World War I experience, was a hole in the ground, timbered over, and with a four- or five-foot-thick layer of sandbags on top.
Colonel Frank B. Goettge, the G-2, was standing before a large, celluloid covered map mounted on a sheet of plywood. He was watching one of his sergeants mark on it with a grease pencil, when the Sergeant Major and Captain Pickering came in.
"The General, Sir," the Sergeant Major said when Goettge looked at him, "asked me to bring this gentleman to you. Captain Pickering, this is Colonel..."
"I have the pleasure of Captain Pickering's acquaintance," Goettge said, walking to Pickering, smiling, and offering his hand. "Good to see you, Sir. And a little surprised."
"I'm a little surprised myself," Pickering said, shifting his shoulder to indicate the Springfield. "I would have given odds I'd never carry one of these things again."
"I don't mean to sound facetious, Sir," Goettge said, "but what did you do, miss the boat?"
"Something like that," Pickering said. "I just couldn't bring myself to sail off into the sunset with the goddamned Navy."
"Is there anything I can do for you, Sir?" Goettge asked, in some confusion.
"Tell me how I can make myself useful to you," Fleming Pickering said, "and stop calling me 'Sir.'"
"I don't understand..."
"I asked General Vandergrift where he thought I could be helpful, and he sent me to you," Pickering said.
"For 'duty,' so to speak?"
"Anywhere where I can earn my rations-I understand, by the way, there are goddamn few of those. I'm a little long in the tooth to go on patrol, but if that's all you've got for me..."
Colonel Goettge looked at Pickering intently. He had not had time to digest the presence of Captain Fleming Pickering, much less the reason for his presence, whatever that may be. He knew Pickering was wrapped in the mantle of the Secretary of the Navy and that he personally owned the Pacific and Far East Shipping Corporation. And yet, here he was in Goettge's bunker with a rifle slung over his shoulder.
I'll be damned, he's dead serious about going out into the boondocks of this goddamned island with that rifle, as if he was still an eighteen-year-old Marine corporal.
"Even if I couldn't think of half a dozen ways where you can really be of help around here, Captain," Goettge said, "I think we're both a little too long in the teeth to go running around in the boondocks."
Pickering nodded.
"Thank you, Sergeant Major," Goettge went on. "Please tell the General 'thank you* for Captain Pickering."
"Aye, aye, Sir," the sergeant major said, and then he added: "If I can help in any way, Captain, you just tell me what and how."
Chapter Fifteen
(One)