"Can't be helped," Vandergrift said. "Jack will do the best he can." He turned to the map and used the ruler as a pointer again.
"Price has moved his 105s out of the woods here and into firing positions here south of the Henderson runway. Are your guns laid in, Price?" Since the Division's 155mm cannon had not been off-loaded during the invasion, the 105mm howitzer was the largest artillery piece available.
Colonel Price stood up.
"If they're not, Sir, they will be within minutes."
"OK. As soon as that happens, everybody but the gunners will move back to about here," Vandergrift said, pointing, "where they will form a secondary line in case the Japanese get through the Raiders and the Parachutists. If that happens, gentlemen, the artillery will be lost, and there won't be very much to keep the Japanese from taking Henderson." There was no response.
"Are there any additions, corrections, or observations that anyone wishes to make?" Vandergrift asked politely.
There were none.
"That will be all, gentlemen, thank you," General Vandergrift said.
The Japanese attacked at 1830. They directed their major effort to the right of the Raider defense line at almost exactly the point where they'd attacked the previous night.
[Four]
POLICE HEADQUARTERS
SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI
1405 HOURS 15 SEPTEMBER 1942
When the knock on the frosted glass panel of his office door destroyed his concentration, Captain Karl Hart, commanding officer of the Homicide Bureau, was trying to make sense of a police officer's report of a death the previous evening by gas asphyxiation.
He had just concluded that the reporting officer was not only a functional illiterate, but a genuine goddamn moron to boot.
He ignored the knock and tried to make sense of a sentence that read, so far as he could make out, "body dispozd by coronary's office." Coronary's obviously was supposed to mean Coroner's, but what the hell was dispozd?
There was another knock on the frosted glass panel of his door, this time an impatient knock.
"Wait a goddamned minute!" He reached for his telephone and placed it on his shoulder.
Holding it in place with his chin, he started to dial a number.
The doorknob turned, followed by the faint rattling noise it always made when it was being opened. In fury, he turned to face it.
Goddamn it, I said to wait a goddamned minute!
"Is this where I go to have somebody homicided?" Sergeant George Hart asked innocently.
"George," Captain Hart said.
"Hi, Pop."
"George," Captain Hart repeated, and then got up and walked around the desk and put out his hand.
His son shook it.
"Damn," Captain Hart said. "You could have let us know you were coming."
No, I couldn't. That would have required explanations.
"You been out to the house? Seen your mother?"
"I went there from the airport."
"What did she say?"
"She asked was I here, and had I seen you," George reported truthfully.
"Jesus H. Christ!" Captain Hart said. And then, though it had been a long, long time since he'd done it: What the hell, why not? he asked himself as he put his arms around his son and hugged him. "Damn, it's good to see you!" It's the first time in God knows how long, George realized, since I was a kid, that Pop's hugged me.
He felt his eyes water, and that surprised him.
"How much leave they give you?"
"Five days."
"That's all?"
"That's all they give you."
"Jesus, you can hardly get from down there and back in five days," his father said. Then he saw the chevrons on George's tunic.
"You're a sergeant? Jesus, that was quick."
"The Marines recognize good men when they see one," George said.
"Look," his father said, "I got a report on a citizen stuck his head in the oven that's so bad I don't even believe it."
"Since when do you handle suicides?"
"When the guy's brother's a Monsignor and the Commissioner told me he don't want to hear the word suicide. You know the Catholics, they won't bury a suicide in holy ground-"
"Consecrated, " George corrected him automatically.
"Consecrated, holy, whatever. I got to talk to the cop - I can't believe this guy, he's so dumb-and then talk to the coroner, and then report to the Commissioner."
"Just out of idle curiosity, what are you going to find out really happened?"
"He slipped on a wet kitchen floor as he was about to light the oven," Captain Hart said, "bumped his head and knocked himself out. And then the gas got him."
"Brilliant." George laughed.