"Twenty-five."
"I’m thirty-three," she said. "Is that what’s been bothering you? God, that never happened to me before, the older woman."
"I don’t give a damn how old you are," Charley blurted. "You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen."
Startling him, she pulled the station wagon to the curb and slammed on the brakes. She switched the interior lights on and looked at him intently, into his eyes. After a long moment, her hand came up and lightly stroked his face.
Then she turned from him, switched off the interior lights, and pulled away from the curb. When they reached the gate to the Willow Grove Naval Air Station, she drove right past.
(Five)
Willow Grove Naval Air Station
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
0205 Hours 14 February 1942
When Lieutenants Schneider and Ward and their dates returned to Willow Grove Naval Air Station, Dave Schneider asked the MP at the gate how to find the Chief Petty Officer’s Quarters. He had the girls drop them off there.
But then he wanted to be absolutely sure that Sergeant Galloway was there and not drunk in some saloon, about to punch out a shore patrolman. After Colonel Hershberger’s little speech, Lieutenant Schneider regarded the likelihood of that happenstance as probable.
Technical Sergeant Galloway was not in the Chief Petty Officer’s quarters. A chief petty officer, visibly annoyed to be wakened by a pair of damned jarhead lieutenants, gave Schneider directions to the transient enlisted quarters. Technical Sergeant Galloway was not there, either.
The crew chief was. He reported that he had not seen Sergeant Galloway since he had "driven off with you and that knockout blond lady," and that he had no idea where he might be.
"He’ll show up," Lieutenant Jim Ward said, without much real conviction. Sergeant Galloway had left the Ward home with Aunt Caroline Ward McNamara at about ten minutes to ten.
"He goddamed well better!" Dave Schneider replied angrily. "I knew damned well we shouldn’t have left him out of our sight!"
When Sergeant Galloway did not appear by half past three, Schneider began preparing to make the flight to Lakehurst without Technical Sergeant Galloway. He checked the aircraft books. The red-line "engine roughness" comment had been written off: "Sparkplug replaced. Running smoothly."
They made up the flight plan, which was pretty simple. Direct, VFR, off the airways. It was about forty miles from Willow Grove to Lakehurst. They got a weather briefing, and made sure that the aircraft had been fueled and that a ground auxiliary power unit and a fire extinguisher would be in place. And then they waited.
"Absence without leave," Lieutenant David Schneider declared five minutes later, "is defined as ‘failure to repair at the properly appointed time at the proper place in the properly appointed uniform.’ If Galloway’s absence does not meet those criteria, I’d like to know why not."
"Come on, Dave," Jim Ward said uncomfortably. "What’s the ‘properly appointed time’? Did you tell him to be here at any specific time? I didn’t."
"I think," Dave Schneider said, "that the courts will hold that ‘the properly appointed time’ in this case would be when Sergeant Galloway knew he had to be here in time to fly to Lakehurst, in order to arrive there at the scheduled time. In other words, 0600, less the time to prepare to fly there, and make the flight. Zero four-thirty hours. I’m going to give him until 0430, and then we’re going, Jim, without him; and I will report him AWOL when we get there. It might also be called ‘missing a scheduled military movement.’ The Judge Advocate will have to decide that."
There was no reply from Jim Ward. And Dave Schneider, who was nearly as annoyed with Jim Ward as he was with Sergeant Galloway, looked at him angrily.
"Here he comes, I think," Jim Ward said, pointing out the door.
A wooden-sided Mercury station wagon was pulling into the Base Operations parking lot. Technical Sergeant Galloway was driving. It looked to Dave Schneider as if he was driving with his arm around Aunt Caroline, but he couldn’t be absolutely sure.
But he was sure that they walked from the station wagon almost to the door of Base Operations with their arms around each other.
And then Sergeant Charley Galloway came through the door, touched his hand to his forehead in a gesture that might just barely be considered a salute, smiled brightly, and said, "Good morning, gentlemen."
"Where have you been, Galloway?" Dave Schneider demanded.
"With me," Aunt Caroline said. "Good morning. Jim, I wanted to talk to you about that."
"About what?"
"Well, on the way here from your house last night, it occurred to me that it was pretty late. And then I got to thinking about all the empty bedrooms in my house, just a few minutes away from here; and then that it hardly made sense for Charley-Sergeant Galloway-to go through the bother of checking into a hotel, or whatever you call it, here on the base. So we went to my house."
"Oh," Jim Ward said lamely.
"So we sat around there for a while, and had a cup of coffee and whatever, and then Charley got a couple of hours’ sleep in one of the bedrooms."
"Oh," Jim Ward repeated.
"But then it occurred to me that maybe your mother wouldn’t understand," Aunt Caroline went on. "So maybe it would be better if you didn’t mention it to her. OK?"
"Sure," Jim Ward said.
While Lieutenant Dave Schneider, in all modesty, did not regard himself as an infallible expert in sexual matters, he did have enough experience to recognize the signs on the female of having just had her bones jumped upon-almost certainly more than once; and the signs of sexual satiation, plus a hickey on the neck, on the male.
Either Jim Ward is too stupid to realize what happened, or he knows that this goddamned sergeant has been screwing his Aunt Caroline and doesn‘t give a damn.
He realized that whatever he said would be likely to exacerbate the situation, so he said nothing. But at that moment, his fondness for the reserve and enlisted components of the U.S. Marine Corps was at a low ebb.
The crew chief appeared.
"They changed a plug on number-five cylinder," he reported to Galloway, "and she’s fueled."
"We filed a flight plan," Jim Ward said, "and weather says nothing significant until tonight, if then."
"Let me see the flight plan," Galloway said, and Schneider handed it to him, aware that by so doing, Galloway had again put on the mantle and authority of pilot-in-command.
Galloway read it carefully.
"OK," he said finally, handing it back to Schneider. "Then let’s go. You want to drive, Lieutenant Ward?"
"Yes . . ." Ward replied, thrilled-stopping himself, it was clear to everyone, a split second before adding, "Sir."
"OK. Then you do the preflight," Galloway said. He turned to Aunt Caroline. "Thanks for all the hospitality," he said.
"Oh, don’t be silly," she said. "It was my pleasure."
I’ll bet it was,Dave Schneider thought bitterly. His sexual status was exactly the opposite of Charley Galloway’s. Jim Ward’s girlfriend’s girlfriend had roused him to exquisite heights of sexual anticipation, allowing him, among other things, to explore the soft wonders of her naked bosom. She had then made it clear that she was not the sort of girl who did that on the first date.
His attitude was improved not at all when he noticed that Aunt Caroline was running her fingers between Charley Galloway’s legs while she kissed him chastely on the cheek.