I don't know if you've heard or not, but Lt Colonel Jack NMI Stecker is here in Brisbane. He went to Staff Sergeant Koffler's wedding with me, as a matter of fact, and is at this moment moving his stuff from the Army BOQ into my house.
He's here to set up facilities for the First Mardiv when they are relieved from Guadalcanal and brought here for rehabilitation and refitting. According to Stecker, they are in really bad physical shape; almost everybody has malaria.
Stecker was relieved of his command of Second Battalion, Fifth Marines, and is now officially assigned to SWPOA in some sort of vaguely defined billet. I am unable to believe he was relieved for cause, and strongly suspect that it is the professional officer corps' pushing a reservist/up-from-the-ranks Mustang to give the command to one of their own. I can't imagine why General Vandegrift permitted this to happen. But it has happened, and it may be a blessing in disguise for us.
I had a talk with Stecker after the wedding, and it came out that he had extensive experience with guerrilla operations in the Banana Republics, especially Nicaragua, between the wars. It seems to me that if you know how to fight against guerrillas, it would follow that you know how to fight as a guerrilla.... and certainly to knowledgeably evaluate how someone else is set up, and equipped, to fight as guerrillas.
I haven't said anything to him yet, but I know him well enough to know that he would rather be doing something either with or for this fellow Fertig on Mindanao than arranging tours of picturesque Australia or USO shows, which is what The Corps wants him to do now. So I want him transferred to us, with a caveat: He has already suffered enough humiliation as it is (goddamn it; he has the Medal of Honor; how could they do this to him?), so I want you to take every precaution to make sure there is no scuttlebutt circulating that he has been further demoted by his assignment to us.
Do it as quickly as you can, and I think you had better send McCoy over here too, as quickly as that can be arranged. I think the sooner we get somebody with Captain/General Fertig, the better.
Regards,
Fleming Pickering, Brigadier General, USMCR
=TOP SECRET=
[FIVE]
The Main Ballroom
The Hotel Portland
Portland, Oregon
1930 Hours 10 November 1942
Veronica Wood excused herself politely from the knot of local dignitaries gathered around her and walked across the crowded floor to First Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering, USMCR. She was wearing a silver lame cocktail dress and, he was convinced, absolutely nothing else.
"Hi, Marine!" she said. "Looking for a good time?"
"Some other time, perhaps, Madam. I am just returned from learning more about the manufacture of truck windows than I really care to know. I have booze, and not lust, on my mind."
He offered his glass to her. She shook her head "no," so he took a healthy swallow.
"I was at the local theater group," Veronica said. "You get no sympathy at all from me."
"Not even if I tell you I have just examined the banquet program, and right after where it says 'baked chicken breast Portland,' it says, 'remarks by yours truly.' "
She chuckled and then kissed him on the cheek.
"You're good at it, Pick," Veronica said. "You really are. You have them in the palm of your hand."
"Did Jake send you over to stroke my feathers? He promised to get me out of making after-dinner speeches."
"No," she said. "But if he thought of it, he probably would have. I came over to tell you Bobby said he was sorry he missed you, and good-bye."
" 'Good-bye?' What happened to him?"
"The first group of... what do you call them, 'Marine war correspondents'?"
"Combat correspondents," Pick furnished.
"Combat correspondents... are in Los Angeles. Jake put him on the train at half past four. Bobby's supposed to teach them how to do it. At Metro-Magnum."
"I must be getting old," Pick said. "I think making him an officer was idiotic. He's a nice kid, but the word is kid."
"You and Jake," Veronica said. "But Jake said he'll probably do OK."
"Jake's whistling in the dark. Would you, if you were a man, take orders from Bobby?"
"I think you underestimate him, Pick."
"I hope so. Still, for the sake of the combat correspondents, better Bobby than Macklin."
"Ooooh, that's an interesting observation! What have you got against him?"
"Forget it," Pick said. "I was thinking out loud. I shouldn't have."
"Speaking of the devil..."
First Lieutenant R. B. Macklin, USMC, walked up to them.
"I wondered where you were, Pickering," he said.
"I was out inspiring the workers to make more and better truck windows," Pick said. "Was that idle curiosity that sent you in my direction? Or did you have something on your mind?"
"Washington has asked for a transcript of your remarks..."
"Washington?"
"General Stewart's office. Since this tour is going so well, I think they intend to use it as sort of a model for the East Coast and Midwest war bond tours. They're next, you know."
"I just stand up and open my mouth," Pick said. "I never wrote anything down."
"Well, that's what I'm asking, Pickering, that you write it down, so I can send it to General Stewart."
Pickering motioned with his index finger for Macklin to put his head close to his. When he did, he whispered a few words into his ear.
Macklin colored, glared at him, and then said, "Well, we'll see what Major Dillon has to say about that! Excuse me, Miss Wood."
Veronica watched him go. "What was that all about, Pick? Did you whisper sweet obscenities in his ear?"
"And now he's going to tell Daddy that I have been a bad boy," Pick said.
"Tell me something, Pick," Veronica said. "Did Bobby ever say anything to you about Dawn Morris?"
"About Dawn Morris?" Pick answered, thought a moment, and then replied, "No, what do you mean?"
"Well, he was hanging around with you and Dunn. I thought maybe he said something."
"No. He hung around with us because we protected him from Macklin. Macklin likes to prove he's a Marine officer by ordering Bobby around and making him call him 'Sir.'... And I think maybe Bobby was hoping he could latch on to one of Little Billy's rejects."
"And did he?"
"You act like his mother. No, Mother, Bobby has been a good boy. I think-I know-that a couple of Billy's rejects would have been perfectly happy to play house with him... with anyone wearing a Marine uniform. But I don't think he could work up the courage to make a pass."
"Maybe you should have found the courage for him," Veronica said. "Where is Billy Dunn, by the way?"
"The last time I saw him was at the... what the hell were they making at that factory? Before lunch?"
"Before lunch was the place that used to make thermostats and is now making artillery fuzes."
"Lieutenant Dunn was last seen entering a Buick owned by the wife of a well-known thermostat manufacturer," Pick said, in a credible mimicry of Walter Winchell. Winchell was a radio news broadcaster who specialized in celebrity gossip. His trademarks were the sound of a telegraph key and an intense, staccato speaking voice. "The word going around is that they were going to test each other's temperatures."