Retreat, Hell! Part 72

"Is there?" she asked.

"Is there what?"

"Anything I can do for you? Anything you need?"

Don't even start to think what you started to think. You sonofab.i.t.c.h!

"I'm really in pretty good shape. I really think I should be asking you that question. How are you doing?"

"Well, you tell yourself over and over that you married a Marine pilot, and that sometimes they go away and don't come back. But when it happens, you just don't believe it for a while. It's unreal."

Yeah, I know. When it happens, you just don't believe it for a while.

"I think I understand," Pick said.

She didn't challenge the statement, but he saw in her eyes that she simply thought he was being nice.

She doesn't want to hear your problems. She's got a load of her own.

"The same day I was rescued," he heard himself saying, "my girlfriend-we were talking about getting married- was in an Air Force medical supply Gooney Bird that went down in Korea."

"Oh, how terrible for you!" she said.

"You're right, you just don't believe it for a while," he said.

"She was a nurse?"

"A war correspondent," he said. "Jeanette Priestly. Of the Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune."

"Oh, I saw that in the paper," she said. "I'm so sorry."

"Thank you," he said.

"I didn't believe it when the notification team came," she said. "I guess I didn't believe it until yesterday, when they called up to ask 'what my wishes were with regard to funeral arrangements.' Then it really sank in."

"What were they talking about?" Pick asked.

"Well, they've recovered what they call d.i.c.k's 'remains. ' Why can't they say 'body'?"

"I don't know," Pick confessed.

"And they wanted to know 'my wishes.' "

"What about? Where to . . . bury him?"

"Uh-huh. And when did I want to accept his Distinguished Flying Cross? At the funeral, or separately?"

"What did you decide?"

"Well, he's not going back to Arkansas. He hated Arkansas."

"That's where his family is?"

She nodded. "Mine, too."

"Are you going there? What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. The only thing I know is that I'm not going to go back to Arkansas. I'm going to bury d.i.c.k here. We were happy here."

"You mean in San Diego?"

"At the National Cemetery, on Point Loma?"

"I know it."

"It overlooks the ocean. d.i.c.k loved the ocean. I do, too. Maybe because there's no ocean in Arkansas."

"I grew up on the ocean," Pick said. "And I love it, too."

"Where?"

"San Francisco," Pick said. "My parents have a place on the ocean a little south of San Francisco."

"You're not a regular, are you?" she asked.

He shook his head no.

"Just a weekend warrior," he said.

"What did you do as a civilian?"

"I flew for an airline," he said. "Trans-Global."

"That's what I'd like to do," she said.

"Fly for an airline? I don't think they have lady pilots."

She giggled, and smiled at him.

Jesus Christ, I could fall into those eyes.

"No, silly. I meant see if I could get a job as a stewardess. Maybe I could get a recommendation from you at Trans-Global? Absolutely no experience, but willing to learn. Free to travel. No family ties."

"I thought you said your family was in Arkansas."

"They were annoyed-d.i.c.k's family and mine, both- when I wouldn't go 'home' when d.i.c.k shipped out. There were words then. And when I wouldn't go home . . . after d.i.c.k died, there were more words."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Pick said.

"And I'm sorry I told you," she said, and stood up. "I really am. I came here to see what I could do for you, and here I am, telling you all about my woes."

"Haven't you ever heard 'misery loves company'?"

"Yeah, but I don't think it means what you're suggesting. "

"What do you think it means?"

"It means that people that complain, whine a lot, like to be around people who complain and whine a lot."

"I think people like you and me, Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, who have lost the most important person in our lives, have every right to feel a little sorry for ourselves. This miserable person, Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, hopes that your standing up doesn't mean you're going to leave."

She met his eyes again.

Jesus, she looks right through me!

"I was about to say 'I have to run,' " she said. "That would have implied I have somewhere to go. I don't, really. So if you'd like me to stay awhile, Major Pickering, I'd like to."

"Pick," he said. "My name is Malcolm, but n.o.body calls me that."

She put out her hand.

"Babs," she said. "How do you do?"

"You mean aside from being in the loony bin?"

She giggled and looked at him again and smiled, and Pick realized he was holding on to her hand longer than he should be. He quickly let go. He saw a faint blush on her face, and decided that proved she had picked up on the hand-holding.

You may relax, Mrs. Babs Mitch.e.l.l. The one thing this miserable sonofab.i.t.c.h is not going to do is one f.u.c.king thing that will give you any reason to suspect that I'm even thinking of anything that could resemble a pa.s.s.

[SEVEN].

ROOM 39A, NEURO-PSYCHIATRIC WARD U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA 1305 31 OCTOBER 1950.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up," Major Malcolm S. Pickering said to Lieutenant Patrick McGrory, MC, USN, when McGrory came into the room.

"I'm flattered," McGrory said. "I didn't think you cared. Especially after I saw you and your visitor in the O Club."

"It was lunchtime, I offered to take her to lunch," Pick said. "That's all there was to that. No, that's not true. Tell me how much I have to tell you about my terrible ordeal to get a six-hour pa.s.s the day after tomorrow."

"What the h.e.l.l was it, l.u.s.t at first sight?"

"The lady is burying her husband. She asked me to attend the service and the funeral. Jesus Christ, McGrory!"

"She told me she was a Marine pilot's wife. She didn't say he was dead."

"He flew a Corsair off the Badoeng Strait Badoeng Strait and then into the ground," Pick said. "He was a very nice guy. She doesn't have any family, and I intend to be there with her when she buries him. Don't f.u.c.k with me on this, Doc." and then into the ground," Pick said. "He was a very nice guy. She doesn't have any family, and I intend to be there with her when she buries him. Don't f.u.c.k with me on this, Doc."

"I won't even demand that you describe your ordeal, Pick," McGrory said. "You probably wouldn't tell me the truth anyway. I want you to talk about it with me when you want to, not before."

"I get the pa.s.s?"

McGrory nodded.

"Thank you."

"I don't know if I'm saying this as your friend or your physician, Pick, but either way, I think it has to be said."

"What has to be said?"

"There's what I call the boomerang syndrome in the relations between men and women. Most commonly it's when a divorced guy, after lifting the skirts of every bimbo in town, finds and falls in love with a twin-physically or psychologically, and often both-of his detested ex-wife. When there is a death-in this instance, there are two deaths-the woman, whether she's aware of it or not, hungers for a strong male shoulder to lean on, and the man-although he may hate himself for it-starts looking for a replacement for his lost love."

"It's not like that here, Doc," Pick said.

"You're on G.o.dd.a.m.ned thin ice, Pick, in a situation like this. If you don't want to hurt the woman, keep your distance. If you don't want to get kicked in the b.a.l.l.s again- this widow is not your late girlfriend-keep your distance."

"How did you hear about my late girlfriend?"

"In my first transoceanic telephone call," McGrory said. "Your father told me. They're sending her body back, too, and he thought I should know."

"Were you going to tell me about that, McGrory?"

Dr. McGrory chose to ignore the question.

"If you're going to be going on pa.s.s the day after tomorrow, " Dr. McGrory said as he took his notebook from his shirt pocket, "you'll have to have a uniform. I'll give you an authorization for the officers' sales store, and to prove what a really good guy I am, I'll call the manager- a Jewish boy named Francis Xavier O'Malley-and tell him you're a friend of mine, and really need the uniform tailored by tomorrow at seventeen hundred."

"Were you going to tell me about Jeanette's body, McGrory? "

"That was then, no. This is now, and I just did. They're going to have a formal-what the h.e.l.l is the word?-'reception ceremony' for it at North Island Naval Air Station in three, four days."

"And am I going to get to go to this 'reception ceremony'? "

"That depends on how you behave when you bury the lady's husband," Dr. McGrory said.

He tore a page from his notebook and handed it to Pick.

"Give that to O'Malley," he said. "And don't let them cut the material too much when they take it in. I have every hope that you'll soon be a little heavier."

Pick chuckled. "I didn't think about that," he said. "I guess I'm now a 42-Skeletal, right?"

"Something like that. I also am entertaining boyish hopes that when we're through burying people, you'll understand that I really am trying to be a friend, and that you'll start talking to me."

"Life is funny, McGrory," Pick said. "The one thing you can be sure of is that you can't predict the future."

XVII.