"You did know, didn't you, Gunny, what Lieutenant McCoy was doing, really doing, when he was assigned here?" Zimmerman's face flushed.
"I had a pretty good idea, Sir," he said uncomfortably.
"Lieutenant McCoy is a fine officer," Carlson said, "defined first as one who carries out whatever orders he is given to the best of his ability, and second as a gentleman who is made uncomfortable by deception. You know what I'm talking about, Gunny?"
"Yes, Sir. I think so, Sir."
"I saw Lieutenant McCoy in the hospital just before they flew him home. He told me then what he'd really been doing with the Raiders. I then told him I had been aware of his situation almost from the day he joined the Raiders." Zimmerman looked even more uncomfortable.
"I told him I bore him no hard feelings. Quite the contrary. That I admired him for carrying out a difficult order to the best of his ability. If certain senior officers of The Corps felt it necessary to send in an officer to determine whether or not the commanding officer of the 2nd Raider Battalion was a communist, then it was clearly the duty of that officer to comply with his orders."
"The Killer never thought for a minute you was a communist, Sir," Zimmerman blurted.
Carlson smiled.
"So I understand," he said. "And I hope you have come to the same conclusion, Gunny."
"Jesus, Colonel!"
"I also told Lieutenant McCoy that whatever his primary mission was, he had carried out his duties with the Raiders in a more than exemplary manner, and that I considered it a privilege to have had him under my command."
"Yes, Sir."
"The same applies to you, Gunny. I wanted to tell you that before you ship out."
"Colonel," Zimmerman said, the floodgates open now, "the Killer told me he arranged for me to be assigned to the Raiders in case he needed me for something he was doing. He didn't tell me what he was doing, and the only thing I ever did was take some telephone messages for him. I didn't even know what the fuck they meant."
"Hence my curiosity about your transfer," Colonel Carlson said. "You said, didn't you, a moment ago, that you thought you knew what was behind the transfer?"
"Yes, Sir. I mean, I don't know for sure, but what I think is... when they were forming VMF-229 at Ewa, they was having trouble with their aircraft-version Browning.50s. A tech sergeant named Oblensky, an old China Marine, was. He come to me and McCoy-Sergeant McCoy-and me went over there and took care of it for him."
"And you think Sergeant-Oblensky, you said?"
"Yes, Sir. Big Steve Oblensky."
"-was behind this transfer?"
"Yes, Sir. He goes way back. He's too old now, but he used to be a Flying Sergeant. He was in Nicaragua, places like that, flying with General McInerney. He knows a lot of people in The Corps, Sir." Brigadier General D. G. McInerney was not the most senior Marine Aviator, but he was arguably the most influential.
"And you think that based on Sergeant Oblensky's recommendation, General McInerney, or someone at that level, convinced Fleet Marine Force Pacific that MAG-21 needs you and Sergeant McCoy more than the 2nd Raider Battalion does?"
"Yes, Sir. That's the way I see it."
"I think you're probably right, Gunny," Colonel Carlson said, standing up and offering his hand to Zimmerman. "We'll miss the two of you around here, but I'm sure you'll do a good job for MAG-21." Zimmerman got quickly to his feet and took Carlson's hand.
"I don't suppose I got anything to say about this transfer, do I, Sir?"
"Yes, of course you, do. You've been given an order, and when a good gunny gets an order, he says, `Aye, aye, Sir."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Good luck, Gunny. And pass that on to Sergeant McCoy, please, "
"Aye, aye, Sir." Zimmerman did an about-face and marched to the office door. As he passed through it, he suddenly remembered that Sergeant McCoy was at the moment behind bars in Honolulu charged with drunkenness, resisting arrest, and Christ only knows what else.
(Two)
ARMED FORCES MILITARY POLICE DETENTION FACILITY
HONOLULU, OAHU, TERRITORY OF HAWAII
31 AUGUST 1942
Sergeant Thomas M. McCoy, USMCR, had not been provided with a pillow or any other bedclothes for his bunk, a sheet of steel welded firmly to the wall of his cell.
He had remedied the situation by making a pillow of his shoes; he'd wrapped them in his trousers. And his uniform jacket was now more or less a blanket, He was very hung over, and in addition he suffered from a number of bruises and contusions. The combined force of Navy and Marine Corps Shore Patrolmen, augmented by two Army Military Policemen, had been more than a little annoyed with Sergeant McCoy at the time of his arrest.
They had used, with a certain enthusiasm, somewhat more than the absolute minimum force required to restrain an arrestee. Sergeant McCoy's back, hips, buttocks, thighs, and calves would carry for at least two weeks long thin black bruises from nightsticks, and both eyes would suggest they had encountered something hard, such as a fist or elbow.
When the door of his cell, a barred section on wheels, opened with an unpleasant clanking noise, Sergeant McCoy had been awake long enough to reconstruct as much as he could of the previous evening's events and to consider how they were most likely going to affect his immediate future in The Marine Corps.
Even the most optimistic assessment was not pleasant: He would certainly get busted. Depending on how much damage he'd done to the Shore Patrol-the bloody gashes on the fingers of his right hand suggested he'd punched at least one of the bastards in the teeth-there was a good chance he would find himself standing in front of a court-martial, and would probably catch at least thirty days in the brig, maybe more.
On the premise that the damage was already done and that nothing else could happen to him, he ignored whoever it was who had stepped into his cell. When whoever it was pushed on his shoulder to wake him, he ignored that, too.
"Wake up, McCoy," the familiar voice of Gunnery Sergeant Zimmerman said as his shoulder was shaken a little harder.
The doesn't sound all that pissed, McCoy decided. And then there was another glimmer of hope: Zimmerman ain't all that bad compared to most gunnies. Maybe I can talk myself out of this.
He straightened his legs. That hurt.
Those bastards really did a job on me with their fucking nightsticks.
He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked at Zimmerman, a slight smile on his face.
He saw that Zimmerman had a seabag with him and that Zimmerman was in greens, not utilities.
That's probably my bag. He looked and saw his name stenciled on the side.
"You look like shit," Zimmerman said.
"You ought to see the other guy, Gunny."
"Anything broke?"
"Nah," McCoy said.
"I got your gear," Zimmerman said, kicking the seabag.
"Shave and get into clean greens. I'll be back in five minutes.
It stinks in here."
"How the hell am I supposed to shave? There's no water or nothing in here."
"Big, tough guy like you don't need any water or shaving cream." Zimmerman turned around and struck one of the vertical cell bars with the heel of his balled fist. It clanked open. The moment Zimmerman was outside the cell, it clanked shut again.