"I hate people who are always right," Ernie said.
"He's a Marine. Marines always know what's important."
"God!" Ernie replied.
"Speaking of Marines," Moore said. "General Pickering. What's that all about?"
"He told me he called you," McCoy said.
"He called, but all he did was ask how I was, and if he could do anything for me. He didn't even tell me he was a general. I saw that in the newspaper. And he didn't tell me you were coming, either."
"Well, he's now a brigadier general; he's our boss; and just as soon as we finish the paperwork, he will have an aide-decamp named Lieutenant Moore." Moore didn't seem especially surprised.
"I wondered what they were going to do with me," he said.
"Now you know," McCoy said. "As soon as you get out of here, you go to Washington."
"I can leave here today," Moore said.
"You're entitled to thirty days' recuperative leave," McCoy said. "You want to tell me about that?"
"What do you mean, tell you about it?"
"Why aren't you out chasing skirts, getting drunk?"
"I can't chase too well using a cane. And when I get drunk, I fall down a lot."
"I mean, what the hell are you doing here making model airplanes?" McCoy pursued.
"Ken, that's none of your business!" Ernie snapped.
Moore looked at McCoy for a full thirty seconds, and then shrugged his shoulders.
"Going home was a disaster," he said. "For reasons I'd rather not get into. Before I went over there, I was... involved with a woman.
Unfortunately she was a married woman. More unfortunately, she went back to her husband. So that leaves what? There's a couple of bars outside the gate here where you can go and have a couple of drinks without being treated like a freak-"
"What do you mean, a freak?" Ernie asked.
"Wounded guys are still a novelty," Moore said. "I am uncomfortable in the role of wounded hero... because I know goddamn well I'm no hero."
"You got the Bronze Star," McCoy said evenly.
`Not for doing anything heroic," Moore said, and then closed off further discussion of the subject by going on, "so I drink in local bars at night and make model airplanes during the day. Or is that against Marine Regulations?"
"I have to make him wear his ribbons, too," Ernie said. "I'll tell you what you're going to do today, John. You're going to put on your uniform and spend the day with us. I don't care if either one of you like it or not, I want to be the girl who has two wounded heroes on her arm." McCoy saw Moore's eyes light up at the suggestion.
"You're going to be here all day?" Moore asked.
"Ken has to go to Parris Island tomorrow," Ernie said.
`I don't suppose I could go with you, could I?" Moore asked.
The door burst open.
Commander Elizabeth H. Jensen, NNC, a short, plump woman in her thirties, marched into the room. She folded her arms across her amply filled stiff white uniform bosom, glowered at McCoy, and announced, "I would like to know exactly what you think you are doing in here!"
"We are about to have a drink to begin the day, Commander," McCoy said, taking his credentials from his pocket and holding them up before Commander Jensen's eyes, "but aside from that, what else we're doing in here is none of your business. If I need you, however, I'll send for you."
[Four]
UNITED STATES ARMY 4TH GENERAL HOSPITAL
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
7 SEPTEMBER 1942
Now shorn, shaved, and dressed in a splendidly tailored officer's green elastique uniform, Major Jake Dillon sat with his hand wrapped around a glass of scotch at a small table in the Officer's Club. Two young and quite attractive members of the Navy Nurse Corps sat on either side of him.
He had flown in this morning from Townsville on a Royal Australian Air Force airplane that Commander Feldt arranged.
One of the nurses was Lieutenant (J.G.) Joanne Miller, NNCR, a tall, slim nurse-anesthesiologist who wore her fine blond hair in a bun. The other was Lieutenant (J.G.) Barbara T. Cotter, NNCR, a psychiatric nurse. She was also a blonde, but her hair was shorter. She was also not quite as tall as Lieutenant Miller, and a bit heavier-but by no means unpleasantly so. The two were part of a very small group of Navy nurses-with-special-training temporarily assigned to the Army Hospital. They were roommates and had become friends.
The U.S. Army 4th General Hospital was one of the very few facilities in Australia that had never been a major logistical problem. The Royal Melbourne Hospital was originally completed in late 1940. It was an enormous, fully equipped medical establishment that had simply been turned over to the United States Army for the duration of the war. The only thing it lacked was officer's billeting and an officer's club; but it was no problem to convert facilities originally intended for use by the medical school to those purposes. That was where Dillon and the two nurses were now sitting.
"There's a pretty one, Jake," Lieutenant Miller said, nodding toward a tall, good-looking Marine first lieutenant coming into the room, walking with a cane. He wore parachutist's wings pinned on his tunic.
"You stay away from that guy, honey," Dillon said, recognizing the officer.
"Why do you say that, Jake?" Lieutenant (J.G.) Barbara T. Cotter, NNCR, asked, surprised.
After a moment Jake Dillon said, "I don't know. There's something about that guy I don't like."
"You know him?"
Dillon nodded. "I met him once in the States. I just remembered where."
"I thought your criterion was `handsome hero,' " Joanne Miller said.
"Handsome, wounded hero,"' Jake corrected her and then looked at Barbara Cotter. "Handsome, honey, not pretty."
"Sorry. It's just that I've never been out with a man when he was looking for handsome men," Barbara said, and both women laughed.
"Thanks a lot, girls," Jake said. "Buy your own booze."
"I guess the one at the end of the bar won't qualify, huh, Jake?"