McCoy had no idea how long the "interviews" were going to go on. At first, he'd hoped they would go on forever. But by the end of the second week, he knew he was just about talked-out. If there was something he knew about China they hadn't gotten out of him, he couldn't think of what it was.
When first call blew that Saturday morning, he got out of bed and took a shower. Standing under the shower, shaving, reminded him of China and made him a little homesick for it. The only time in China he'd had to shave himself was when he was on a convoy. The rest of the time there'd been Chinese boys to do it for him.
After he was dressed, he went down to the mess for breakfast, and then he walked to the gate. When he had tried to bring the LaSalle onto the Yard the night before, the guard at the gate wouldn't let him, because he didn't have either a Yard sticker, license plates, or proof of insurance. But the guard had let him park the LaSalle inside the gate and had explained to McCoy that he could get a sticker on Saturday morning from the provost marshal if he got there before noon with proof of insurance and license plates.
McCoy started the LaSalle and drove to an office of the Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Bureau, where he registered the car and got a cardboard temporary license plate until they mailed him a real one from Harrisburg. Then he went.to an insurance agency and bought insurance. It was still early, and he didn't like the way the wear on the tires looked, so he found a Cadillac dealer. While they were aligning the front end, he went to the parts department and bought a set of points and condensers and a set of spark plugs and a carburetor rebuild kit.
Finally, on the way back to the Navy Yard, he saw a Sears, Roebuck where he bought a small set of tools on sale. Later he got a sticker from the provost marshal and drove to the barracks.
He would spend the weekend rebuilding the carburetor and changing the points and the plugs, and maybe giving it a good shine with Simoniz. Dickie Golden for sure had used some quickie polish, which made it look good but wouldn't last more than a week.
What he was doing, he knew, was not what he should really be doing. Working on the car was a dodge, an escape: He should really be going back to Norristown, even if he had to ride there on the Interurban Rapid Transit.
But he didn't want to go home now or next week or maybe ever. So maybe he would get lucky between now and next weekend. Maybe something would happen that would keep him from going home then. Like a transfer to the West Coast. Or maybe getting run over by a truck.
(Three)
United States Navy Yard Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 0830 Hours 4 August 1941
"Close the door, Ken," Captain Sessions said, "and then help yourself to coffee if you'd like. I want to talk to you."
McCoy expected that Sessions was going to talk to him about the LaSalle. He knew there was scuttlebutt around about it: Where the hell did a corporal come up with enough money to buy a car like that? Scuttlebutt had a way of getting around-and that meant to the officers. So he thought it had finally become official.
He poured black coffee in a china cup. When he turned around, Sessions waved him into a chair.
"Have you given any thought, Ken, about what you'd like to do next?"
That meant that the "interviews," as McCoy suspected, were now over.
"Yes, sir," McCoy said.
Sessions made a "come on" gesture with his hand.
"Captain Banning said that when he gets home, he would try to find a home for me," McCoy said. "He said I should keep my nose clean, and he would either get me to work for him again or send me back to heavy weapons."
"Have you ever considered becoming an officer?" Sessions asked.
McCoy thought that over a moment before answering.
There were a number of officers around the Corps who had been enlisted men. And a number of noncoms had at one time or another been officers. An even larger number of old noncoms had been officers in the Haitian Constabulary, where the troops they'd commanded had been Haitians. McCoy had sometimes imagined that there would probably be a chance somewhere down the road after he had more time in, for him to get to be a warrant officer, and maybe even a commissioned officer. But he sensed that Sessions wasn't talking about some time in the future.
"You're talking about now, sir?" McCoy asked.
Sessions nodded.
"The Corps is about to really expand, McCoy. Even if we don't get in the war, the Corps is going to be five times as big as it is now. We're going to need large numbers of officers. And many of them are going to come from the noncommissioned officer corps. People like yourself, in other words. Are you interested?"
"I don't know," McCoy said, more thinking aloud than a direct reply.
"There are a number of people, myself included, Ken, who believe that you have what it takes."
"I hadn't even thought about now," McCoy said. "Maybe later."
"The process is simple," Sessions said. "You apply. Sergeant Davis has your application all typed up. All you have to do is sign it. Then you appear before a board of officers. The purpose of that is to give them a chance to see how well you can think under pressure. The board then votes on you; and if they approve, you'll be ordered to Marine Corps Schools in Quantico and run through the final phase of the Platoon Leader's Course. If you get through that, you'd be commissioned a second lieutenant."
"I never heard of the Platoon Leader's Course," McCoy said.
"The primary source of officers will be young men who have spent their college summer vacations going through officer training courses. The first summer they go through what amounts to boot camp. And the rest of the time we give them everything from customs of the service to the platoon in the assault. If you went to Quantico, you would be sent through the final phase with a group of them."
"College boys?" McCoy said, thinking of Pick Pickering. That's how Pickering was going to become an officer.
"Going through college is not a disease, McCoy," Sessions said. "You'd be surprised how many people have gone to college. Nice people. Jean went to college. I met her there."
McCoy smiled at him.
"I meant, I'm not sure I could hack it in that kind of company," McCoy said. "All I've got is a high school diploma."
"And four years in the Corps," Sessions said. "Which I think would give you a hell of an advantage at Quantico.''
"You think I could make it through?" McCoy asked.
"I do," Sessions said. "But the only way to find out for sure is for you to apply, pass the board, and go."
"It's worth a shot, I guess," McCoy said, thinking aloud. "What have I got to lose?"
"Sergeant Davis has your application all typed up," Sessions repeated. "I'll approve it, of course."
"Thank you," McCoy said, simply.
(Four)
After he signed his name to the applications Staff Sergeant Davis had typed up for him, he put the whole business from his mind, convinced that like all other paperwork he'd seen in the Corps, it would take forever and a day to work its way through the system. He had more important things on his mind than the possibility that the application might, some months down the pike, be favorably acted upon… or that some further months down the pike he would be facing a board of officers-which probably wouldn't approve him anyway. After a while, in fact, he'd come to the conclusion that the incident at the ferry had a lot more to do with the whole business than Sessions's brilliant insight that he would make an officer. Sessions was being nice to him. The officers he would face on the board, when and if he got to face it, wouldn't think they owed him a thing.
And besides, he had three much more immediate problems to face, all of them connected. The first was what was going to happen to him now that the "interviews" were over. He didn't want to go to the Motor Transport Platoon, but on the other hand that would be a good place to keep his nose clean until Captain Banning came home from Shanghai. And he didn't really want to go to a heavy weapons platoon as a machine-gunner either. Since he'd be transferring in grade, they would try to bust him on general principles; and that would fuck up going back to work for Captain Banning.