Banning looked at Sergeant Major Neely and Corporal Wise, and indicated with a nod of his head that they should make themselves absent. When they had left the office, he turned to Hart.
“Okay. Now start at the beginning, George.”
Seven minutes later, Brigadier General Clyde W. Dawkins entered the outer office, a look of annoyance on his face that neither his sergeant major nor the clerk-typist had answered his two pushes of the intercom button, signaling that the deputy commanding general wished coffee.
The look of annoyance on his face changed to one of curiosity when he saw Colonel Banning and Captain Hart.
“What’s going on, Colonel?”
“May I see the general a moment, sir?” Banning asked.
Dawkins considered that a moment, then signaled Banning to follow him into his office. Banning did so, closing the door after him.
“Okay, now what’s going on, Ed?” Dawkins asked.
“General, you have one highly pissed-off captain out there,” Banning said.
“Pissed off about what?”
“He had a reserve infantry company in St. Louis, which they just took away from him and turned over to Major Macklin to make a Richard Widmark movie.”
Speaking very rapidly, General Dawkins replied: “One, breaking up the units was a tough decision. It was the right one. Two, Eighth and Eye ordered that we support that movie. Understand?”
“General, unless some action is taken, there will be a headline in tomorrow’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch reading, ‘Over Bitter Objections of Commanding Officer, St. Louis Marine Reserve Company Broken Up; Men Scattered Through Marine Corps.’ Or words to that effect.”
“Oh, Christ! Is that guy some kind of nut? Doesn’t he know how to take orders?”
“I don’t think that he would obey an order not to talk to the press. It’s the only option he sees to right what he really considers a wrong.”
“Jesus!”
“Will you trust me on this, General?”
“Okay. Why not?”
“May I use your phone, sir?”
Dawkins waved at the telephone on his desk.
Banning dialed the operator.
“Get me the Commandant in Washington, please. Colonel Edward Banning is calling.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dawkins exclaimed.
Someone in Washington answered the telephone.
“No, Major, I don’t wish to tell you what I wish to speak to the Commandant about. Please tell him I’m calling in a matter connected with General Pickering.”
There was another pause.
“Sir, I wouldn’t bother you with this personally, except that I feel it’s necessary.”
Pause.
“Sir, Captain George F. Hart, who was General Pickering’s aide-de-camp—actually bodyguard—in the last war has just reported on active duty. I can think of nowhere else in the Corps where he would be of more use than serving with General Pickering again, and I’d like to get him over there as soon as possible.”
Pause.
“Yes, sir, there is. I’m in General Dawkins’s office. Hold one, sir.”
He handed the telephone to Dawkins.
“General Dawkins, sir.”
Pause.
“Aye, aye, sir. Do you wish to speak to Colonel Banning again, sir?”
The Commandant of the Marine Corps apparently had nothing else to say to Colonel Banning, for General Dawkins put the telephone back in its cradle.
He looked at Banning, and then went to his office door and issued an order.
“Come in here, please, Sergeant Major,” he said. “You, too, Wise. Bring your pad.” He paused and added. “You, too, Captain. You might as well hear this.”
The three trooped into the office.
“Wise, take a memorandum, record of telecon.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“This date, this hour, between the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Deputy Commanding General, Camp Pendleton. The Commandant desires . . .” He paused. “What does the Commandant desire, Colonel Banning? ”
“That appropriate orders be issued immediately detaching Captain George F. Hart from Replacement Battalion (Provisional) Camp Pendleton and attaching subject officer to the Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C., with further detachment to the staff of the Assistant Director of the CIA for Asia, and directing subject officer to proceed by the first available air transportation to Tokyo, Japan. You get all that, Corporal?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any questions, Captain Hart?” Banning asked.
“Who is the . . . What did you say, Assistant Director of the CIA? What am I going to do there?”
“That will be up to General Pickering, Captain. I’m sure that he can find something useful for you to do.”
“I’d like to say goodbye to my men,” Hart said.
“That can be arranged,” Banning said.
“You go with him, Sergeant Major,” General Dawkins ordered. “See if you do a better job of explaining why the Corps has been forced to disband the reserve units than anybody else over there has.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“I’ll go, too,” Banning said.
“I wish I had the time,” General Dawkins said. “But . .