"Yes, sir!" Colonel Wesley said, loudly.
"Rickabee?"
"Yes, sir."
"Captain Sessions?"
"Yes, sir."
General Lesterby looked at McCoy. "I understand, son," he said, "that you're very unhappy with this assignment. That speaks well for you."
Then he walked out of the room.
(One)
Pensacola, Florida
0500 Hours, 7 January 1942
Pick Pickering pulled the Cadillac convertible up before the San Carlos Hotel in Pensacola at a quarter to five in the morning. The car was filthy, covered with road grime, and Pickering himself was tired, unshaven, dirty, and starved.
From Atlanta, it had been a two-hour drive down U.S. 85 to Columbus, Georgia. Pickering saw a sign reading COLUMBUS, HOME OF THE INFANTRY, which explained why the streets of Columbus were crowded with soldiers; he was close to the Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning.
He crossed a bridge and found himself in Alabama. There he found a small town apparently dedicated to satisfying the lusts of Benning's military population. Its businesses seemed limited to saloons, dance halls, hock shops, and tourist cabins.
The next 250 miles were down a narrow, bumpy macadam road through a series of small Alabama towns and then across the border to Florida. Twenty miles inside Florida he came to U.S. 90 and turned right to Pensacola, a 125-mile, two-and-a-half-hour drive.
He had grown hungry about the time he'd passed through Columbus, Georgia, and had told himself he would stop and get something to eat, if only a hamburger, at the first place that looked even half decent. But he had found nothing open, decent or otherwise, between Columbus and Pensacola. He dined on Cokes and packages of peanut butter crackers bought at widely spaced gas stations where he took on gas.
He was grateful to find the open gas stations, and he filled up every time he came upon one. This was not the place to run out of gas.
When he opened the door of the Cadillac at the hotel, he was surprised at how cold it was. This was supposed to be sunny Florida, but it was foggy and chilly, and the palm trees on the street in front of the San Carlos Hotel looked forlorn.
The desk clerk was a surly young man in a soiled jacket and shirt who said he didn't know nothing about no reservation. When pressed, the desk clerk did discover a note saying the manager was to be notified when a Mr. Pickering showed up.
"I'm here," Pick said. "You want to notify him?"
"Don't come in until eight-thirty, Mr. Davis don't," the desk clerk informed him. "Don't none of the assistant managers come in till seven."
"Is there a restaurant?" Pick asked.
"Coffee shop," the desk clerk said, indicating the direction with a nod of his head.
"Thank you for all your courtesy," Pick said.
"My pleasure," the desk clerk said.
Pickering crossed the lobby and pushed open the door to the coffee shop.
It was crowded, which surprised him, for five o'clock in the morning, until he realized that nearly all the male customers were in uniform-officer's uniforms, Marine and Navy. They are beginning their day, Pick thought, as I am ending mine.
He found a table in a corner and sat down.
A couple of the officers glanced at him-with, he sensed, disapproval.
He needed a shave, he realized. But that was impossible without a room with a wash basin.
He studied the menu until a waitress appeared, and then ordered orange juice, milk, coffee, biscuits, ham, three eggs, and home fries; and a newspaper, if she had one.
The newspaper was delivered by a Marine captain in a crisp uniform.
"Keep your seat, Lieutenant," he said, as Pickering-in a Quantico Pavlovian reaction-started to stand up, "that way as few people as possible will notice a Marine officer in a mussed uniform needing a shave."
"I've been driving all night, Captain," Pick said.
"Then you should have cleaned up, Lieutenant, before you came in here, wouldn't you say?"
"Yes, sir. No excuse, sir," Pickering said.
"Reporting in, are you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then we shall probably have the opportunity to continue this embarrassing conversation in other surroundings," the captain said. Then he walked off.
Pickering, grossly embarrassed, stared at the tableware. As he pretended rapt fascination with the newspaper, he became aware that the people in the coffee shop were leaving. He reasoned out why: Officers gathered here for breakfast before going out to the base. The duty day was about to begin, and they were leaving.
When his breakfast was served, he folded the newspaper. As he did that he glanced around the room. It was indeed nearly empty.
But at a table across the room was an attractive young woman sitting alone over a cup of coffee. She was in a sweater and skirt and wore a band over her blond hair. And she was looking at him, he thought, with mingled amusement, condescension, and maybe even a little pity.
Pick, with annoyance, turned his attention to his breakfast.
A moment later, the blonde was standing by his table. He sensed her first, and then smelted her perfume-or her cologne, or whatever it was-a crisp, clean, feminine aroma; and then as he raised his eyes, he saw there was an engagement ring and a wedding band on her hand.
"That was Captain Jim Carstairs," she said, "and as a friendly word of warning, his bite is even worse than his bark."
Pick stood up. The blonde was gorgeous. He was standing so close to her man he could see the delicate fuzz on her cheeks and chin.
"And you, no doubt, are Mrs. Captain Carstairs?" he said.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Just a friendly Samaritan trying to be helpful. I wouldn't let him catch me needing a shave again."
"The last time he caught you needing a shave, it was rough, huh?" Pick said.
"Go to hell," she said. "I was trying to be helpful."
"And I'm very grateful," Pick said.
She nodded at him, smiled icily, and went back to her table.
What the hell was that all about? Pick wondered. Obviously, she wasn't trying to pick me up. Then what? There was the wedding ring, and she knew the salty captain with the mustache. She was probably some other officer's wife, drunk with his exalted rank. Well, fuck her!
He sat down again and picked up a biscuit and buttered it.
The blonde, whose name was Martha Sayre Culhane, returned to her table wondering what had come over her; wondering why she had gone over to the second lieutenant she had never seen before-much less met-in her life; wondering if she was drunk, or just crazy.
That he was good-looking and attractive never entered her conscious mind. What had entered Martha Sayre Culhane's conscious mind was that the second lieutenant looked very much tike Greg, even walked like him. And that resemblance made her throat catch and her breathing speed up.
Greg was- had been-First Lieutenant Gregory J. Culhane, USMC (Annapolis '38), a tall, lanky, dark-haired young man of twenty-four. A Navy brat, he was born in the Navy hospital in Philadelphia. His father, Lieutenant (later Vice Admiral) Andrew J. Culhane, USN (Annapolis '13), was at the time executive officer of a destroyer engaged in antisubmarine operations off the coast of Ireland. He first saw his son six months later, in December of 1917, after the War to End All Wars had been brought to a successful conclusion, and he had sailed his destroyer home to put it in long-term storage at Norfolk, Virginia.
Admiral Culhane's subsequent routine duty assignments sent him to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; San Diego, California; and to the Navy Yards at Brooklyn and Philadelphia.
Two weeks after his graduation from Philadelphia's Episcopal Academy in June of 1934, Greg Culhane, who had earned letters in track and basketball at Episcopal, traveled by train to
Annapolis, Maryland, where he was sworn into the United States Navy as a midshipman.
On his graduation from Annapolis in June 1938 (sixty-fifth in his class) he was commissioned at his request-and against the advice of his father-as second lieutenant, USMC, and posted to the Marine detachment aboard the battleship USS Pennsylvania, the flagship of the Pacific Fleet, whose home port was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.