“Day after tomorrow. Trans-Global Airways, as you should know, Mr. Chairman of the Board, operates a thrice-weekly luxury service flight schedule in both directions between San Francisco and Tokyo.”
“And is this thrice-weekly luxury service making us any money?”
“Yeah. A lot more money than we thought it would, at first.”
“Don’t say anything to Ken about this conversation,” Pickering said.
“No. Of course not. I’m going out there tomorrow to help them pack.”
“I’ll go with you,” Pickering said.
“What if he asks you what you’re going to do?”
“He won’t,” Pickering said. “He trusts me to do whatever I think is appropriate, even if it’s nothing. He didn’t come to me about his getting busted back to the ranks— that’s not his style. But he thinks there’s going to be a war, and that somebody should give the Corps a heads-up.”
“Pop, do you think he’s stupid enough to take the bust? To be Staff Sergeant—or Gunnery Sergeant—McCoy?”
“I don’t think he thinks there’s anything for a gunnery sergeant to be ashamed of.”
“Either do I, but the Killer should be a colonel, not a fucking sergeant.”
“If he gets out, it will be because he thinks Ernie would be uncomfortable as a gunnery sergeant’s wife. Not that she wouldn’t try to make it work . . .”
“God damn the Marine Corps!” Pick said, bitterly.
"Let’s see what happens, Pick, after I talk with Dick Fowler.”
III
[ONE]
OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY CHIEF FOR OFFICER RECORDS OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT CHIEF OF STAFF, G-1 HEADQUARTERS, CAMP PENDLETON, CALIFORNIA 0705 7 JUNE 1950
Major Robert B. Macklin, USMC, parked his dark green 1949 Buick Roadmaster sedan in the parking place reserved for the Deputy Chief of Officer Records, walked around to the front of the frame building, and entered.
Major Macklin knew that people sometimes said, not unkindly, that he looked like an actor sent by Central Casting to a Hollywood motion picture set in response to a request for an extra to play a Marine officer. Major Macklin was not at all unhappy to have people think he looked like what a Marine Corps officer should look like.
He was a tall and well-built, thirty-five-year-old, not quite handsome, fine-featured man who wore his brown hair in a crew cut. There was a ring signifying his graduation from the United States Naval Academy on his finger, and the breast of his well-tailored, short-sleeved, summer-undress tropical worsted shirt bore a rather impressive display of ribbons attesting to his service.
They were topped with the Purple Heart medal, testifying that he had shed blood for his country and the Corps in combat. His Asiatic-Pacific service ribbon bore stars indicating that he had participated in every World War II campaign in the Pacific.
There were two enlisted men just inside the door. One was Staff Sergeant John B. Adair, USMC, who had had the overnight duty NCO, and the other was PFC Wilson J. Coughlin, USMC, who had had the overnight duty as driver of the 1949 Chevrolet staff car, should that vehicle be required in the discharge of Staff Sergeant Adair’s duty.
When Staff Sergeant Adair—who was short, squat, starting to bald, and did not look as if he had been sent over from Central Casting to play a Marine sergeant—saw Major Macklin, he popped to attention and bellowed, “Attention on deck!”
PFC Coughlin popped to attention.
There were only two ribbons on PFC Coughlin’s shirt, but Staff Sergeant Adair’s display was even more impressive than Major Macklin’s. His was topped by the ribbon signifying that he had been awarded the Silver Star Medal. Adair also had the Purple Heart, but with two clusters, indicating he had been wounded three times.
Very privately—although he knew his opinion was shared by most of his peers—Staff Sergeant Adair thought Major Robert B. Macklin was a chickenshit prick.
“As you were,” Major Macklin said, and marched through the outer office of the G-1’s office into the Officer Personnel Section, and between the desks of that section to his office, which was at the end of the room.
He put his fore-and-aft cap on a clothes tree and sat down at his desk. The desk was nearly bare. Macklin liked to keep things shipshape. There was an elaborately carved nameplate he’d had made for a package of cigarettes in Tientsin, China, after the war. There was a telephone and a desk pad of artificial leather holding a sheet of green blotter paper. There was a wooden In box on the left corner of the desk and an Out box on the right corner of the desk. The Out box was empty.