"Says he, who doesn't have that problem."
"What Ernie and I have is something special," McCoy said coldly.
"Hell, I realized that the first time I saw you two looking at each other in San Diego," Moore said. "My reaction then, and now, is profound admiration, coupled with enormous jealousy."
"Your lady really did a job on you, huh?"
"When I got her letter, in Melbourne, I was fantasizing about getting to be an officer and marching into the Bellvue Stratford in my officer's uniform with her on my arm.... `Dear John,' the letter said."
"Hell, your name is John," McCoy said. "And you have your officer's uniform, three sets of khakis, anyway...
And thank you for that, too. I wouldn't have known where to go to buy them."
"Horstmann Uniform has been selling uniforms to The Corps since Christ was a corporal," McCoy said. "And as I was saying, your Dear John letter lady is not the only female in the world."
"So I keep telling myself," Moore said.
"Well, there's the club, and it looks like it's still open. Would you like a drink?"
"I'll pass, thank you," Moore said. "But go ahead if you want to." "I've got a couple of pints in my bag," McCoy said. "I didn't really want to go in there anyway." A moment later he said, "That must be it." Moore looked up and saw a two-story frame building.
McCoy drove around behind it and parked the car. Since he'd packed Moore's two spare khaki uniforms in his own bag, there was only one to carry.
A corporal was on duty in the lobby of the Bachelor Officer's Quarters.
McCoy told him they were transients and needed rooms; and the corporal gave them a register to sign, then handed each of them a key.
"End of the corridor to the right, Sir. Number twelve."
"Thank you," McCoy said and walked up the stairs.
Halfway down the corridor he swore bitterly: "Shit! Sonofabitch! " Moore saw the source of his anger. A neatly lettered sign was thumbtacked to one of the doors. It read, RESERVED FOR KILLER McCoy.
He walked quickly to the sign and ripped it down. He started to put his key to the lock in the door, but it opened before he could reach it.
"Well, if it isn't Lieutenant McCoy," a man wearing the three stripes up, three lozenges down insignia of a sergeant major said, standing at rigid attention. "May the sergeant major say, Sir, the Lieutenant looks just fine?"
"That fucking sign isn't funny, goddamn you!" McCoy flared. "What the hell is the matter with you, anyway?" The sergeant major was not as taken aback as Moore expected him to be. He seemed more hurt and disappointed than alarmed by McCoy's intense and genuine anger.
"Aw, come on, Ken," he said.
McCoy glowered at him for a moment and finally said, "I don't know why the hell I'm surprised. You never did have the brains to pour piss out of a boot. How the hell are you, you old bastard?"
"No complaints, Ken," the sergeant major said with obvious affection in his voice, taking McCoy's hand.
And then he saw Moore, and a moment after that, there was recognition in his eyes.
"I believe I know this gentleman, too, don't I?"
"I don't think so," McCoy said. "Moore, this is Sergeant Major Teddy Osgood. We were in the Fourth Marines together."
"Yeah, sure," Moore said. "I remember you now, Sergeant Major. When I left here-"
"Oh?" McCoy asked, curious.
"Captain Sessions came down here and pulled me out of boot camp," Moore explained. "The sergeant major... how do I say it?"
"Handled the administrative details," the sergeant major furnished.
"I remember you telling Captain Sessions that you had known the Killer-OooPs!-Lieutenant McCoy in China."
"If you think that was funny, you asshole, it wasn't," McCoy said.
But he was not, Moore saw, furious anymore.
"I see neither one of you paid attention when you went through here. Is that three Purple Hearts, Ken?"
"Two of them are bullshit," McCoy said. "Moore took some mortar shrapnel on Guadalcanal. He needs to lie down."
"This is a field-grade officer's suite, all kinds of places to lay down," Osgood said. "Would you like a drink, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, thank you, I would," Moore said.
"Get in bed, I'll make the drinks," McCoy said.
"That Captain said you was with the 2nd Raider Battalion," Osgood said to McCoy.
"I was."
"You were on the Makin Island raid?" McCoy nodded.
"And now?"
"I'm doing more or less what Captain Sessions does," McCoy said.
"Yeah, I figured that. When the TWX came in saying you was coming, the G-2 shit a brick. What the hell do you people do, anyway?" McCoy didn't immediately reply. He dug in his bag, fished out a pint of scotch, poured some in a glass, and handed it to Moore, who by then had crawled onto one of the beds.
"The name is the Office of Management Analysis," he said finally. "We're sort of in the supply business."
"Yeah, sure you are. That's why every time we get some boot who speaks Japanese, who has civilian experience as a radio operator, or who's lived over there, we notify you, right? So they can pass out rations, right?"
"Right," McCoy said.
"Well, I got a dozen, thirteen people, lined up for you to talk to tomorrow, three who speak Japanese... what do you call them?"
"Linguists," McCoy said.