and he let me know that he thought it was a dirty deal to ‘involuntarily separate’ me just because I don’t have a college degree. Anyway, I asked a couple of questions, and the answer to one was that the Navy Department has the right to call someone back into the service in a national emergency up to a hundred and eighty days from the date of their separation.”
“Oh, God!”
“After that, the separation becomes permanent. The thinking is, I suppose, that after six months, you’ve forgotten everything you knew. But for one hundred eighty days, I’d be subject to recall.”
“Maybe they wouldn’t want you back.”
“Because I’m a troublemaker, and got a final fitness report from Captain Edward C. Wilkerson, USN, using words like ‘irresponsible’ and ‘lacking basic good judgment’? Probably not to intelligence duties—I don’t even have a security clearance anymore. Did I tell you that?”
She shook her head, “no.”
“But I would be a former Marine captain, presumed to have the basic skills of any Marine captain. I don’t think they’d give me command of a line company, but the Corps always needs motor officers, supply officers . . .”
“That’s so goddamned unfair!”
“This is the ‘worse’ that priest was talking about when we got married, ‘for better or for worse.’ ”
“Oh, honey!”
“So what we’re looking at, to try to start something new in our life, baby, is 1 December 1950, not the end of this month. Between now and then, we’ll just have to hold our breath.”
“We’ll really be starting something new in our life about then,” Ernie said. “If nothing goes wrong again this time.”
“Nothing will go wrong this time,” McCoy said, with a conviction he didn’t feel. “And with that in mind, what the hell, why not, what’s a measly couple of hundred thousand, why don’t we look for a place on Banning’s Island where we can build a house? We can’t just sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop. And maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Well, maybe not build a house,” Ernie said. “Maybe just buy one, a small one, until we see what happens.”
[THREE]
THE WILLIAM BANNING HOUSE 66 SOUTH BATTERY CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA 1400 24 JUNE 1950
Stanley loaded the basket of fried chicken and “other munchables” Mother Banning had prepared so that Ken and Ernestine—Mother Banning could not force herself to refer to Mrs. McCoy as “Ernie”—would have something to eat on the road, in the middle seat of the Buick station wagon, and then went up the wide staircase to the house to announce that everything was ready.
He had also loaded, in the back of the station wagon, two large, tall, cardboard tubes that The Colonel had prepared. One contained a plat of the Banning property on Hilton Head Island, showing the proposed subdivision, with a triple lot (A-301, A-302, and A-303) marked in red. The triple lot was on a high bluff over the Atlantic Beach— it would be necessary to construct a stairway to the beach, but what the hell, that was better than having the Atlantic Ocean come crashing through your living room in a once-in -a-century hurricane—and when the proposed golf course was built, would have a view of the fairways, far enough away from them to prevent golf balls from crashing into the house’s windows.
The second cardboard tube contained a preliminary plat for the proposed subdivision of Findlay Island, which was south of, one-sixth the size of, and shielded from the Atlantic Ocean by Hilton Head.
The thinking was that the sooner they got things rolling on Hilton Head, the sooner there would be money to put into the development of Findlay Island. Moving cautiously, they would be ready in plenty of time for the wave of military retirees that would start in 1960, and grow for the five years after that.
Colonel Banning had made it clear that he wasn’t trying to sell anything, that it was just something Ken and Ernie should take a close look at, think about.
There would be plenty of time to do that on the way to Camp Pendleton.
Ken and Ernie had originally intended to spend only a day or two with the Bannings. Then they would have driven to Beaufort, South Carolina, outside Parris Island to spend another day—or part of one—with the Zimmermans. From there, they had planned to drive to St. Louis, Missouri, to spend a day—or part of one—with George Hart, and then from there to southern California.
Instead, after two days in Charleston, they’d gone to Beaufort with the Bannings and spent