“He wanted credit for shooting up five locomotives; in his mind that would make him a locomotive ace. He’d already checked with the Air Force to see if any Air Force pilot was credited with more locomotives in World War Two.”
The captain looked at him, shook his head, but said nothing.
“It was a joke to him,” Dunn said. “The whole war is a joke to him. And I knew what he was doing and didn’t stop him.”
“I thought you were old pals.”
“He was my wingman at Guadalcanal,” Dunn said. “I love the sonofabitch, but I am not going to go through with this nonsense of giving him the Navy Cross. What he did was cause a lot of good people to put their dicks on the chopping block to save his sorry ass, and I am not going to help him get a medal like that for being a three-star horse’s ass and, for that matter, a lousy Marine officer.”
“Calm down, Colonel,” the captain said.
“I beg your pardon for my language, sir,” Dunn said. “But I am not going to go along with this bullshit.”
The captain raised his hand in a gesture that meant take it easy.
“Jesus!” Dunn said disgustedly.
The captain said nothing.
“There was a standing order at Fighter One on the ’Canal,” Dunn said. “No buzzing the field, period. We couldn’t risk the airplanes. Pick used to do full-emergency-power barrel rolls over the field every time he shot down an airplane,” Dunn said. “And sometimes just whenever the hell he felt like it. That’s when I should have pulled the wiseass bastard up short.”
“When you have your emotions under control, Colonel, let me know,” the captain said coldly.
Dunn looked at him for a long moment.
“My apologies, sir,” he said finally.
“What are you going to do?” the captain asked. “You have been ordered by the Chief of Naval Operations to immediately prepare ‘a suitable citation.’ ”
“I’m unable to comply with that order, sir.”
The captain said nothing.
“A lot of good men have earned the Navy Cross—” Dunn began.
“Including you, Colonel,” the captain interrupted. “Is that what this is about?”
“—and giving Major Pickering the decoration for having done nothing beyond what he was expected to do,” Dunn went on, “would be an insult to every one of them.”
“Be that as it may, the Commander-in-Chief ‘desires’ that Pickering be awarded the Navy Cross. You can’t fight that, Colonel. You have an order. You have no choice but to obey it.”
“I am unable to do that, sir,” Dunn said.
Thirty minutes later, a message went out from the Badoeng Strait.
SECRET
URGENT
BADOENG STRAIT 1405 17 OCTOBER 1950
FROM: COMMANDING OFFICER MAG 33
TO: CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
ATTN: CHIEF, AWARDS BRANCH
1. REFERENCE PARA 2. MSG CNO SUBJ: CITATION FOR DECORATION FOR MAJOR M.S. PICKERING, USMCR DATED 16 OCT 1950
2. THE UNDERSIGNED IS UNABLE TO COMPLY.
WILLIAM C. DUNN
LIEUTENANT COLONEL, USMC
COMMANDING
SECRET
[TWO]
U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL U.S. NAVY BASE, SASEBO SASEBO, JAPAN 1625 18 OCTOBER 1950
Lieutenant (j.g.) Rosemary Hills, Nurse Corps, USNR—a five-three, one-hundred-fifteen-pound twenty-three-year-old from Chicago—had the duty, which placed her at a desk in the nurses’ station of Ward 4-G between 1600 and 2400 hours.
There were six Corpsmen always on duty in Ward 4-G, and usually two or three of them could be found at the nurses’ station. They dealt with the routine operations of Ward 4-G, and turned to Lieutenant Hills only when something required the attention of the ward nurse on duty, a registered nurse, or a commissioned officer, or any combination thereof.
She was a little uncomfortable when she glanced up from her desk and saw a Marine standing on the other side of the counter, obviously wanting something, and saw there was no Corpsman behind the counter—or anywhere in sight—to deal with him.
Lieutenant Hills had not been in the Navy very long, and was not completely familiar with all the subtleties of Navy rank and protocol, and was even less familiar with those of the Marine Corps.
She knew from the rank insignia on his collar points and shoulders that the man standing before her was a master gunner, which was the equivalent of a Navy warrant officer, which meant that he ranked between the senior enlisted Marine and the junior Marine officer.
She remembered, too, from orientation at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, that Marine master gunners were special, as lieutenants—Marine and Navy—were ordinary. There were very few master gunners, and they were all ex-senior enlisted Marines with all sorts of experience that qualified them to be master gunners.
The ribbons and other decorations on this one’s tunic— she