The Corp - Counterattack Part 18

He reached for the telephone, found the number he was looking for on a typewritten sheet of paper under the gla.s.s on his desk, and dialed it quickly.

"Venereal, Lieutenant Gower."

"This is Commander Nettleton, Gower. How are you?"

"No complaints, Sir. How about you?"

"You don't want to hear them, Lieutenant. I need a favor. How are you fixed for favors?"

"If I've got it, Commander, you've got it."

"You got somebody around there who can draw blood for a Wa.s.sermann for me? And then do it in a hurry?"

"Yes, Sir. I'll take it to the lab myself. They owe me a couple of favors up there."

"It has to be official. I need the form and an MD to sign off on it."

"No problem."

"I'm sending a Staff Sergeant Howard to see you. Make him wait. If it comes back negative, send him and the report back to me. If it's positive, put him in a bathrobe and find something unpleasant for him to do. Call me and I'll see that he's admitted."

"Aye, aye, Sir," Lieutenant Gower said.

"Appreciate it, Gower," Commander Nettleton said, hung up, and turned to Staff Sergeant Howard. "You heard that, Sergeant. The Venereal Disease Ward is on the third floor. Report to Lieutenant Gower."

"Aye, aye, Sir," Staff Sergeant Howard said.

Like Commander Nettleton, Lieutenant Gower was a career naval officer, with nearly as much commissioned service as he had. She had entered the Naval Service immediately upon graduation from Nursing School, and, in the fourteen years since, had served at naval hospitals in Philadelphia; Cavite (in the Philippines); Pearl Harbor; and San Diego. She had just learned that she was to be promoted to lieutenant commander, Nurse Corps, USN.

While on the one hand Lieutenant Hazel Gower did not consider herself above the mundane routine of the VD ward, of which she was Nurse-in-Charge, on the other hand, Rank Did Have Its Privileges.

She rapped on the plate-gla.s.s window surrounding the Nurses' Station with her Saint Anthony's High School graduation ring, and caught the attention of Ensign Barbara T. Cotter, NC, USNR. Ensign Cotter had just reported aboard, fresh from the Nurses' Orientation Course at Philadelphia.

Lieutenant Gower gestured to Ensign Cotter to come into the nurses' station.

"Yes?" Ensign Cotter asked.

"The way we do that in the Navy, Miss Cotter," Lieutenant Gower said, "is 'Yes, Ma'am?' "

"Yes, Ma'am," Ensign Cotter said, her face tightening.

"This is not the University of Pennsylvania, you know."

"Yes, Ma'am," Ensign Cotter said, just a little b.i.t.c.hily.

That remark made reference to Ensign Cotter's nursing education. Ensign Cotter, unlike most of her peers, had a college degree. She had graduated with a bachelor of science degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and had earned, from the same inst.i.tution, the right to append "RN" to her name. She'd been trained as a psychiatric nurse. And she had been lied to by the recruiter, who told her the Navy really had need of her special skills. In fact, the Navy used medical doctors with psychiatric training and large male medical corpsmen to deal with its mentally ill.

When Ensign Cotter reported aboard Naval Hospital, San Diego, the Chief of Nursing Services told her that since they had no need for a female psychiatric nurse, she wondered how she would feel about working in obstetrics. An unpleasant scene followed, during which it was pointed out to Ensign Cotter that she was now in the Navy, and that the Navy decided where its people could make the greatest contribution. Following that, Lieutenant Gower in Venereal received a telephone call from the Chief of Nursing Services, a longtime friend, telling her she was getting a new ensign who was an uppity little b.i.t.c.h who thought her college degree made her better than other people. The little b.i.t.c.h needed to be put in her place.

"There's a syphilitic Marine sergeant on his way up here," Lieutenant Gower said to Ensign Cotter. "Draw some blood for a Wa.s.sermann."

"He's not on the ward?"

"I'm getting tired of telling you this, Cotter. When you speak to a superior female officer, you use 'ma'am.' "

Ensign Cotter exhaled audibly.

"He's not on the ward, Ma'am?"

"No."

"Then how, Ma'am, do we know he's syphilitic?"

"The Wa.s.sermann will tell us that, won't it, Miss Cotter?"

"Only if he is syphilitic, Ma'am," Ensign Cotter said.

"Commander Nettleton wouldn't have sent him up here unless he was," Lieutenant Gower flared. And then she remembered that Nettleton had said to send the sergeant back if the Wa.s.sermann was negative. She was going to look like a horse's a.s.s in front of this uppity little b.i.t.c.h if it did come back negative.

"Just do what you're ordered to do, Miss Cotter," she said icily.

"Yes, Ma'am."

Barbara Cotter saw Staff Sergeant Joseph L. Howard the moment she walked out of the gla.s.s-walled nurses' station, and she reacted to him precisely the same way most other men and women did when they first saw him. G.o.d, that fellow looks like what a Marine should look like!

"Excuse me, Ma'am," Joe Howard said, "I'm looking for Lieutenant Gower."

"You're here for a Wa.s.sermann, Sergeant?" Barbara asked, telling herself that she had sounded professionally distant.

This beautiful man has syphilis?

"Yes, Ma'am. I was told to report to Lieutenant Gower."

"I'll take care of you, Sergeant. Come with me, please."

"Yes, Ma'am."

She led him to an examination room.

"Take off your jacket, please, and roll up your s.h.i.+rt sleeve."

When he took his uniform jacket off, Barbara saw that his s.h.i.+rt was tailored; it fit his body like a thin glove, which allowed her to clearly make out the firm muscles of his chest and upper arms inside it.

What's going on with me? He's not only an enlisted man-and there is a regulation against involvement between officers and enlisted men-but he's syphilitic/ She wrapped a length of red rubber tubing around his upper arm, drew it tight, and told him to pump his hand open and closed. He winced when she slipped the needle into his vein.

"Have you had any symptoms?" she heard herself asking, as his blood began to fill the chamber.

"Ma'am?"

"Lesions . . . sores? Anything like that."

"No, Ma'am."

"Then what makes you think you've contracted . . . ?"

"I don't think I've contracted anything," Joe Howard said, unable to take his eyes from Ensign Cotter's white bra.s.siere, which had come into view when she had leaned over his arm to stick him with the needle.

"Then why are we giving you a Wa.s.sermann?" Barbara blurted, looking up at him and noticing that he quickly averted his eyes. G.o.d, he's been looking down my dress! "You know what a Wa.s.sermann is for, don't you?"

"For syphilis," he said. "I just figured that out."

"Why has somebody ordered the test?" she asked. "If you don't think you've-"

"They put me in for a commission," Joe said. "Some a.s.shole-oh, s.h.i.+t! Sorry, Ma'am."

He's going to be an officer? Is that what he means?

"Some a.s.shole what. Sergeant?" Barbara said.

"Somebody forgot to send me for the test," Joe said. "And now that Commander ... he thinks I've got it."

"And you don't?"

"I know I don't," Joe said.

Barbara pulled the needle from his vein, dabbed at the puncture with an alcohol swab, and told him to bend his arm.

"Well, we'll soon know for sure, won't we?" she said.

It will come back negative, she thought. I know it will come back negative. Up yours, Lieutenant Gower, Ma'am!

(Six) Officers' Sales Store U.S. Naval Base San Diego, California 1100 Hours 3 February 1942 To Joe Howard, the Officers' Sales Store looked like a cross between a supply room and a civilian clothing store. There were gla.s.s-topped counters, and shelves loaded with s.h.i.+rts and skivvies, and racks containing jackets and trousers. There were even mannequins showing what the well-dressed Naval or Marine Corps officer should wear. Even two mannequins of Navy nurses, one wearing blues and the other summer whites.

He had a semi-erotic thought: Here there were no female mannequins in underwear, as there were in civilian department stores. That was just as well; those always made him feel a little uncomfortable. It didn't take him long to guess why that thought popped into his mind: the nurse at the hospital yesterday. It would be a long time before the image of her bra.s.siere and the soft, swelling flesh above it faded from his mind.

Jesus, she was a looker!

"Can I help you, Sergeant?"

It was a plump and middle-aged Storekeeper First Cla.s.s, obviously the man in charge. He looked ridiculous in his bell-bottomed pants and blouse, Joe thought. The Navy's enlisted men's uniform was worn by everybody but chief petty officers. It didn't look bad on young guys. But on middle-aged guys like this one, with a paunch and d.a.m.ned little hair, it looked silly.

"I need some uniforms," Joe said, and handed the Storekeeper First a copy of his brand-new orders.

Paragraph One said that Staff Sergeant Joseph L. Howard, USMC, was honorably discharged from the Naval Service for the convenience of the government.

Paragraph Two said that First Lieutenant Joseph L. Howard, USMCR, was ordered to active duty, for the duration of the war plus six months, with duty station 2nd Joint Training Command, San Diego, Cal.

"Well, you came to the right place," the Storekeeper First said. "It's going to cost you."

"I figured," Joe said.

He had a lot of money in his pocket, so it didn't matter. They had brought his pay up to date for his discharge. And they had returned to him the savings money they had been taking out of his pay every month; the government had been paying him three percent on it. He had been saving money since he'd come in the Corps, redepositing it when he s.h.i.+pped over. Now it had all been returned to him. Officers were expected to manage their own money, not have their hands held by the Corps to encourage them to put a little aside.

There was even more. He had been paid for his unused accrued leave, and for what it would have cost him to go to his Home of Record. And Captain Stecker had told him that when he drew his first pay as an officer, he would be paid for what it took to come from Birmingham out here. And finally, there was a one-time payment of three hundred dollars for uniforms.

The Storekeeper First was far more helpful than Joe had expected him to be. And in a remarkably short time, one of the gla.s.s counters was stacked high with the uniforms Joe would need as an officer.

The three-hundred-dollar uniform allowance didn't come close to covering the cost of the uniforms. The officer's brimmed cap alone, for example, with just one cover-and he needed four more covers-came to $19.65. The covers were expensive, because Marine officers' covers-unlike Army and Navy officers' covers-had woven loops sewn to their tops. These were now purely decorative, but they went back to the days of sailing s.h.i.+ps, Joe remembered hearing somewhere. Marine sharpshooters in the rigging could distinguish their officers on deck below because of woven line loops sewn on top of their caps.

Aside from the Sam Browne leather belt ($24.35), there wasn't much outward difference between officers' and enlisted men's greens. Officers' trousers had hip pockets, and enlisted men's trousers did not. The quality of the material was better.

The only alteration Joe required was the hemming of the trousers. The chubby little Storekeeper First said he would have a seamstress hem one pair immediately, and Joe could pick up the rest the next afternoon. Joe suspected he was getting a little better service than most people. The Storekeeper First was probably one of the enlisted men who was pleased when a peer became an officer. A lot of people resented Mustangs.

When the Storekeeper First helped Joe into his blouse, expertly b.u.t.toning the epaulet over the crosspiece of the Sam Browne belt, the reason why he was being so obliging came out.

"I can offer you a little something for your enlisted stuff," he said. "Not much, because it's nowhere near new, but as much as you'd get hocking it off the base."

Joe had not considered getting rid of his old uniforms; still, all of them were in a duffel bag in the trunk of Captain Stecker's Ford, which he had borrowed.

"Make me an offer," he said. "I've got a duffel bag full."

"Here?"

"Outside. In the trunk of a car."

"Let's go look at it, maybe we can do a little business."

"I'm not sure I'm allowed to wear this yet," Joe said, staring at the image of First Lieutenant Joseph Howard, USMCR, in a three-way mirror. He found what he saw very pleasing-yet unreal enough to make him feel uncomfortable.

"Why not?"

"I don't get sworn in until half past two."

"You're supposed to get sworn in in uniform," the Storekeeper First said, "Officer's uniform. n.o.body's going to say anything."

"You're sure?"

"You aren't the first Mustang to come through here."

"OK," Joe said. "When they throw me in the brig, I can quote you, right?"

"Absolutely," the Storekeeper First said. "Pay for this, and then we'll go see what you've got in the car."

The price the Storekeeper First offered for all of Joe's enlisted men's uniforms was insulting. He was being raped, but he could think of nothing to do about it. He could, of course, tell him to go f.u.c.k himself, in which case when he returned to The Officers' Sales Store for the rest of his new uniforms tomorrow, they wouldn't be ready. Or worse.

He managed to get the total price up to $52.50, but beyond that the Storekeeper First not only wouldn't budge, he showed signs of getting nasty.