The Corp - Counterattack Part 25

Aunt Caroline spread her arms for him, and Charley stood up.

He put his arms around her and felt the warmth of her back, and then the soft pressure of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his chest; and the smell of her filled his nostrils; and the primary indicator of his gender popped to attention the moment that Aunt Caroline elected to move a little closer to him.

She was startled; but he was literally immobilized with humiliation. They stopped dancing. When he glanced nervously around to see if anyone was watching, he saw that they were alone in a small corner of the game room. He wondered how they had gotten here.

"I'm sorry," Charley said.

"I'm not," Aunt Caroline said matter-of-factly, not withdrawing her midsection at all. "I was beginning to think you were a f.a.ggot."

"Do I look like a f.a.ggot?" Charley asked, shocked, after a moment.

"Not at all, but neither did my husband, and he was-is-as queer as a three-dollar bill," Aunt Caroline said.

"Your husband's queer?"

"My ex-husband is," she said.

Her hand had been brus.h.i.+ng his neck. She dropped it, caught his hand, and led him back to the main area of the game room. She let go of his hand.

"Charley's too polite to say so," Aunt Caroline said. "But he's bushed and wants to go back to the base."

Very quickly, Lieutenant Schneider said, "Galloway, we'll all be leaving shortly. We can leave together."

"Oh, I know how Charley feels," Aunt Caroline said. "Four's company and five is a crowd, right, Charley?"

"Something like that," Charley said.

"And I've got a busy day tomorrow, too," Aunt Caroline said. "And I drive right past Willow Grove, so I'll take Charley back to the base."

"That's very good of you, Caroline," Charley's dad said. "Then I'll take the boys back later."

"Oh, I can drive them, Mr. Ward," Jim Ward's girlfriend said. "You won't have to."

They were almost at the gate to Willow Grove before Aunt Caroline spoke.

"I'm sorry you didn't have a good time tonight."

"I had a good time."

"You were uncomfortable," she argued. "Because Jim and his friends are officers, and you're not?"

"That didn't bother me," Charley said.

"Then it was me," she said. It was not a question. "You don't have to be afraid of me, Charley."

He didn't reply.

"How old are you, Charley?"

"Twenty-five."

"I'm thirty-three," she said. "Is that what's been bothering you? G.o.d, that never happened to me before, the older woman."

"I don't give a d.a.m.n how old you are," Charley blurted. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

Startling him, she pulled the station wagon to the curb and slammed on the brakes. She switched the interior lights on and looked at him intently, into his eyes. After a long moment, her hand came up and lightly stroked his face.

Then she turned from him, switched off the interior lights, and pulled away from the curb. When they reached the gate to the Willow Grove Naval Air Station, she drove right past.

(Five) Willow Grove Naval Air Station Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 0205 Hours 14 February 1942 When Lieutenants Schneider and Ward and their dates returned to Willow Grove Naval Air Station, Dave Schneider asked the MP at the gate how to find the Chief Petty Officer's Quarters. He had the girls drop them off there.

But then he wanted to be absolutely sure that Sergeant Galloway was there and not drunk in some saloon, about to punch out a sh.o.r.e patrolman. After Colonel Hershberger's little speech, Lieutenant Schneider regarded the likelihood of that happenstance as probable.

Technical Sergeant Galloway was not in the Chief Petty Officer's quarters. A chief petty officer, visibly annoyed to be wakened by a pair of d.a.m.ned jarhead lieutenants, gave Schneider directions to the transient enlisted quarters. Technical Sergeant Galloway was not there, either.

The crew chief was. He reported that he had not seen Sergeant Galloway since he had "driven off with you and that knockout blond lady," and that he had no idea where he might be.

"He'll show up," Lieutenant Jim Ward said, without much real conviction. Sergeant Galloway had left the Ward home with Aunt Caroline Ward McNamara at about ten minutes to ten.

"He G.o.ddamed well better!" Dave Schneider replied angrily. "I knew d.a.m.ned well we shouldn't have left him out of our sight!"

When Sergeant Galloway did not appear by half past three, Schneider began preparing to make the flight to Lakehurst without Technical Sergeant Galloway. He checked the aircraft books. The red-line "engine roughness" comment had been written off: "Sparkplug replaced. Running smoothly."

They made up the flight plan, which was pretty simple. Direct, VFR, off the airways. It was about forty miles from Willow Grove to Lakehurst. They got a weather briefing, and made sure that the aircraft had been fueled and that a ground auxiliary power unit and a fire extinguisher would be in place. And then they waited.

"Absence without leave," Lieutenant David Schneider declared five minutes later, "is defined as 'failure to repair at the properly appointed time at the proper place in the properly appointed uniform.' If Galloway's absence does not meet those criteria, I'd like to know why not."

"Come on, Dave," Jim Ward said uncomfortably. "What's the 'properly appointed time'? Did you tell him to be here at any specific time? I didn't."

"I think," Dave Schneider said, "that the courts will hold that 'the properly appointed time' in this case would be when Sergeant Galloway knew he had to be here in time to fly to Lakehurst, in order to arrive there at the scheduled time. In other words, 0600, less the time to prepare to fly there, and make the flight. Zero four-thirty hours. I'm going to give him until 0430, and then we're going, Jim, without him; and I will report him AWOL when we get there. It might also be called 'missing a scheduled military movement.' The Judge Advocate will have to decide that."

There was no reply from Jim Ward. And Dave Schneider, who was nearly as annoyed with Jim Ward as he was with Sergeant Galloway, looked at him angrily.

"Here he comes, I think," Jim Ward said, pointing out the door.

A wooden-sided Mercury station wagon was pulling into the Base Operations parking lot. Technical Sergeant Galloway was driving. It looked to Dave Schneider as if he was driving with his arm around Aunt Caroline, but he couldn't be absolutely sure.

But he was sure that they walked from the station wagon almost to the door of Base Operations with their arms around each other.

And then Sergeant Charley Galloway came through the door, touched his hand to his forehead in a gesture that might just barely be considered a salute, smiled brightly, and said, "Good morning, gentlemen."

"Where have you been, Galloway?" Dave Schneider demanded.

"With me," Aunt Caroline said. "Good morning. Jim, I wanted to talk to you about that."

"About what?"

"Well, on the way here from your house last night, it occurred to me that it was pretty late. And then I got to thinking about all the empty bedrooms in my house, just a few minutes away from here; and then that it hardly made sense for Charley-Sergeant Galloway-to go through the bother of checking into a hotel, or whatever you call it, here on the base. So we went to my house."

"Oh," Jim Ward said lamely.

"So we sat around there for a while, and had a cup of coffee and whatever, and then Charley got a couple of hours' sleep in one of the bedrooms."

"Oh," Jim Ward repeated.

"But then it occurred to me that maybe your mother wouldn't understand," Aunt Caroline went on. "So maybe it would be better if you didn't mention it to her. OK?"

"Sure," Jim Ward said.

While Lieutenant Dave Schneider, in all modesty, did not regard himself as an infallible expert in s.e.xual matters, he did have enough experience to recognize the signs on the female of having just had her bones jumped upon-almost certainly more than once; and the signs of s.e.xual satiation, plus a hickey on the neck, on the male.

Either Jim Ward is too stupid to realize what happened, or he knows that this G.o.dd.a.m.ned sergeant has been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his Aunt Caroline and doesn't give a d.a.m.n.

He realized that whatever he said would be likely to exacerbate the situation, so he said nothing. But at that moment, his fondness for the reserve and enlisted components of the U.S. Marine Corps was at a low ebb.

The crew chief appeared.

"They changed a plug on number-five cylinder," he reported to Galloway, "and she's fueled."

"We filed a flight plan," Jim Ward said, "and weather says nothing significant until tonight, if then."

"Let me see the flight plan," Galloway said, and Schneider handed it to him, aware that by so doing, Galloway had again put on the mantle and authority of pilot-in-command.

Galloway read it carefully.

"OK," he said finally, handing it back to Schneider. "Then let's go. You want to drive, Lieutenant Ward?"

"Yes . . ." Ward replied, thrilled-stopping himself, it was clear to everyone, a split second before adding, "Sir."

"OK. Then you do the preflight," Galloway said. He turned to Aunt Caroline. "Thanks for all the hospitality," he said.

"Oh, don't be silly," she said. "It was my pleasure."

I'll bet it was, Dave Schneider thought bitterly. His s.e.xual status was exactly the opposite of Charley Galloway's. Jim Ward's girlfriend's girlfriend had roused him to exquisite heights of s.e.xual antic.i.p.ation, allowing him, among other things, to explore the soft wonders of her naked bosom. She had then made it clear that she was not the sort of girl who did that on the first date.

His att.i.tude was improved not at all when he noticed that Aunt Caroline was running her fingers between Charley Galloway's legs while she kissed him chastely on the cheek.

"Jimmy," she then said, "if I drove over to Lakehurst, could I watch you drop the paratroopers?"

"I don't know," Jim Ward said. "What about it, Charley?"

"Why not?" Galloway replied. "Just tell the guard at the gate that you're there to meet the plane from Quantico."

He set that up, too, Dave Schneider realized furiously. What has that sonofab.i.t.c.h got planned for tonight?

As they were climbing out of Willow Grove, on a due-east course for Lakehurst, the crew chief, who was wearing a headset, got out of his seat and leaned over Dave Schneider.

"He wants you up forward, Sir," he said.

Schneider walked through the cabin into the c.o.c.kpit. Jim Ward was in the pilot's seat. Galloway mimed for Dave to put on a headset.

"You still plugged in back there, Nesbit?"

"Yes, Sir."

"OK. Now, since the weather isn't going to be a problem, we will discuss what is going to probably be the problem at Lakehurst. His name is Neville. He's a lieutenant colonel. Just made it. Starchy sonofab.i.t.c.h."

Dave Schneider was about to speak, to point out to Galloway that, aircraft commander or not, he was a sergeant, and sergeants did not refer to a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel as a "starchy sonofab.i.t.c.h." But then Galloway went on, "Colonel Hershberger warned me about him and gave me the game plan. If he proposes something idiotic for us to do-this is a public-relations job, and there's no telling what nutty ideas they'll come up with-I will take the heat for refusing to do it. All you have to say to him is that Hershberger told you I'm the aircraft commander, and the only person who can change that is Hershberger himself. Clear?"

"What makes you so sure, Sergeant Galloway," Schneider asked icily, "that Colonel Neville will propose something . . . idiotic, as you put it?"

"Well, for one thing, they call him 'Fearless,'" Galloway said. "What does that tell you? And for another, Colonel Hershberger wouldn't have given me the game plan if he didn't think it would be necessary. He's dealt with this sonofab.i.t.c.h before."

"I am deeply offended, Galloway, by your repeated references to a senior officer as a sonofab.i.t.c.h!" Dave Schneider said icily.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Dave!" Jim Ward said, turning to look at Schneider in disgust.

Galloway met Schneider's eyes.

"Lieutenant," he said politely, "you want to go back in the cabin now and strap yourself in? It's getting a little turbulent, and I wouldn't want you to bang your head on a bulkhead or anything."

"This conversation is not over, Sergeant," Dave Schneider said before he took off the headset and went back in the cabin.

Chapter Seven.

(One) Lakehurst Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey 0515 Hours 14 February 1942 Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville had driven up from Was.h.i.+ngton in his Auto-Union roadster the day before. He would have preferred to take the train, which was quicker and more comfortable, but he might need the car at Lakehurst because of the press people. It even entered his mind that the press people might want a photograph of him in his Auto-Union. Fast sports cars and parachutists, that sort of thing.

Actually he had hoped to travel to Lakehurst in the R4D from Quantico; it had even occurred to him that he might arrive at Lakehurst by jumping from the R4D just before it landed, to give the press people a sample of what they could expect. But when he'd asked Hershberger whether the R4D could pick him up at Anacostia, Hershberger told him it was already en route to Lakehurst.

When he got to Lakehurst, of course, the airplane wasn't there. And it was only after frantic telephone calls to Colonel Hershberger and Willow Grove that he was able to put his worries about that to rest. Hershberger told him the plane had made a precautionary landing at Willow Grove. And then Willow Grove told him there was nothing wrong with the airplane, and that it was on The Board for an 0430 takeoff.

It was vital for the R4D to arrive. It had to be a Marine airplane doing the dropping for the press people's cameras-not a Navy airplane. Neville would not lie about it, but he had no intention of volunteering the information to the press people that Navy pilots, flying Navy R4Ds, actually had done all the dropping of Marine parachutists at Lakehurst so far.

Colonel Neville was convinced that if things went well today, their future would be secure-presuming, of course, that it all resulted in Life magazine doing one of their spreads on Marine parachutists, and that the spread showed Marine parachutists in a good light. On the other hand, if things did not go well, it could be a fatal blow to Vertical Envelopment within the Marine Corps.

Consequently, a lot of thought and planning and effort had gone into preparing everything and everybody for the visit of the Life photojournalists to Lakehurst. The public-relations people at Marine Corps headquarters had been enthusiastic and cooperative, which was more than could be said for some other people in the head shed.

The Deputy Chief of Public Relations, Headquarters USMC, a full colonel named Lenihan, had told him that he had a.s.signed the task of publicizing the demonstration jump to Major Jake Dillon, who would head a team of nine public-relations specialists.