The Corp - Counterattack Part 28

Steve nodded his understanding.

He thought of Dianne Marshall Norman's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and how their nipples stood up.

The light turned green.

Somebody pushed him out of the way and dove out the door. Steve saw that the little airplane was really close, and that the man in the backseat had what looked like a movie camera in his hands. The jumpmaster shouted "Go!" in his ear and pushed him out the door.

It all happened pretty quickly, maybe in two seconds, no more. As Steve went out the door he saw that something was bent around what he thought of as "the little wing on the back" of the R4D.

And then, as he fell beneath it to the end of the static line and he could hear the main 'chute slither out, and as he steeled himself for the opening shock, he realized that what he had seen wrapped around the little wing on the back of the R4D was a man. And then, as his canopy filled and the harness knocked the breath out of him, he realized that the man must be Lieutenant Colonel Neville.

And then he looked below him.

And saw a man's body falling, just falling, toward the earth. There was no main 'chute, and no emergency chest 'chute. The body just fell to the ground and seemed to bounce a little, and then just lay there.

PFC Stephen M. Koffler, USMC, lost control of his bowels.

And then the ground was there, and he prepared to land as he had been taught; and he landed, and rolled as he had been taught. And then he got to his feet. He was immediately knocked onto his face as the canopy filled with a gust of wind and dragged him across the hard, snow-encrusted earth.

He had been taught how to deal with the situation, and dealt with it. He spilled the air from the canopy by manipulating the risers, and then he slipped out of the harness.

He stood up and rather numbly began to gather the parachute to him. He knew the truck would appear to pick it up.

And then he saw the body of Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville, not fifteen feet away. It looked distorted, like a half-melted wax doll.

He was drawn to it. Still clutching his parachute harness to his chest, he walked over to it and looked down at it.

A photographer, one of the civilians, came running up, and a flashbulb went off.

Oh, s.h.i.t! PFC Steve Koffler thought. What are they going to do to me when they find out I've s.h.i.t my pants?

Another flashbulb went off, and Steve gave the photographer a dirty look. It didn't seem to bother him.

"What's your name, kid?" he asked.

"f.u.c.k you," Steve said.

"That's PFC Koffler, Stephen M.," a familiar voice said. Steve turned his head and saw that it was Lieutenant Macklin. "He is, understandably I think, a little upset."

"I wonder why," the photographer said, and took Steve's picture again.

(Four) Lakehurst Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey 1425 Hours 14 February 1942 Major Jake Dillon had returned to active duty with the U.S. Marine Corps sixty days previously. The last time he had worn a Marine uniform was in Shanghai, China, with the 4th Marines in 1934. Major Dillon had then been a sergeant.

In 1933, while watching an adapted-from-a-novel adventure motion picture in Shanghai, it had occurred to Sergeant Dillon that it was a bulls.h.i.t story and that he could easily write a better one. Blissfully unaware of the difficulties facing a first-time novelist, he set out to do so. It was a melodrama; its hero, a Marine sergeant, rescued a lovely Chinese maiden from a fate worse than death in a Shanghai brothel. Dillon had no trouble calling forth from memory the description of that establishment.

Next, Dillon's hero slaughtered Chinese evildoers left and right; there was a chase sequence on horseback; and the book ended with the sergeant turning the girl back over to her grateful family and then returning to his Marine duties. Dillon wrote the novel at night on the company clerk's typewriter. It took him two months. He mailed it off, and was not at all surprised two months after that when a contract, offering an advance of five hundred dollars, arrived in Shanghai.

The book was published, and it sold less than two thousand copies. But it was optioned, and then purchased, by a major motion-picture studio in Los Angeles. The studio saw in it a vehicle for a very handsome but none-too-bright actor they had under contract. With all the fight and chase scenes, plus a lot of attention devoted to the Chinese girl having her clothing ripped off, it was believed they could get the handsome actor through the production without him appearing to be as dull-witted as he was.

It was necessary to find a suitable vehicle for the handsome young man because he was a very close friend of a very successful producer. More precisely, he was sharing the producer's bed in an antebellum-style mansion in Holmby Hills.

Sergeant Dillon was paid five thousand dollars for the motion-picture rights to his novel, an enormous sum in 1934. And he had, he thought, discovered the goose that laid the golden eggs. If he could write one novel in two months, he could write six novels a year. And at $5,500 per, that was as much money as the Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps made.

He did not ship over when his enlistment ran out. Instead, he was returned to the United States aboard the naval transport USS Chaumont, and honorably discharged in San Diego.

Since he was so close to Los Angeles, and his film was in production there, he went to Hollywood.

When he visited the set, the Handsome Young Actor greeted him warmly, expressed great admiration for his literary talent, and invited him for dinner at his little place in Malibu.

That night, in the beachfront cottage, as Dillon was wondering if he could gracefully reject the pansy's advances (and if he could not, how that might affect his literary career), the Producer appeared.

Words were exchanged between the Producer and the Handsome Young Actor, primarily allegations of infidelity. The exchange quickly accelerated out of control, ending when the Producer slapped the Handsome Young Actor and the Handsome Young Actor shoved the Producer through a plate-gla.s.s door opening on a balcony over the beach.

A shard of heavy plate gla.s.s fell from the top of the doorframe, severely cutting the Producer's right arm. Dillon noted with horror the pulsing flow of arterial blood. And then he saw the Handsome Young Actor, his face contorted with rage, advancing on the fallen, bleeding Producer with a fireplace poker in his hand, showing every intention of finishing him off with it.

Without really thinking about it, Dillon took the Handsome Young Actor out of action, by kicking him repeatedly in the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. (The story, when it later, inevitably, made the rounds in Hollywood, was that ex-Marine Dillon had floored him with a single, well-placed blow of his fist.) Then he put a tourniquet on the Producer's arm and announced that they needed an ambulance.

The Producer told him they couldn't do that. The police would become involved. The story would get out. He would lose his job.

Dillon was even then not unaccustomed to developing credible story lines to explain awkward or even illegal circ.u.mstances on short notice, prior to the imminent arrival of the authorities.

"We were fixing the door. It was out of the track, and it slipped," he said.

"But what was I doing here, with him?" the Producer asked somewhat hysterically, obviously more concerned with his public image than with losing his arm, or even his life.

"You brought me out here to introduce me to the star of my movie," Dillon replied, reaching for the telephone. "Where do I tell the cops we are?"

Two days later, at the Producer's request, Dillon called upon him at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital.

The Producer was no longer hysterical. And he was grateful. His doctor had told him that if Dillon hadn't applied the tourniquet when he did, he would almost certainly have bled to death before the police arrived.

"I am very grateful to you, Mr. Dillon," the Producer said.

"Call me Jake," Dillon said. "That's my middle name. Jacob."

"Jake, then. And I want to repay you in some small way ..."

"Forget it."

"Please hear me out."

"Shoot."

"What are your plans, now that you've left the Marine Corps? Do you mind my asking?"

"Well, I thought I'd do another couple of quick novels, put a little money in the bank for a rainy day . . ."

"And if you can't sell your next novel?"

The Producer had had a copy of Malloy and the Maiden, by H. J. Dillon, sent to his hospital room. It was arguably the worst novel he had ever read, and as a major film producer, he had more experience with really bad novels than most people. He couldn't imagine why a publisher had ever acquired it, except possibly that it had been bought by an editor who knew he was about to be fired and wanted to stick it to his employers.

Dillon had not considered that possibility. But looking at the Producer now, he saw that it was not just possible but probable.

"I don't know."

"Are you open to suggestion?"

"Shoot."

"You obviously have a way with words, and you have proven your ability to deal with potentially awkward situations. In my mind, that adds up to public relations."

"Excuse me?"

"Public relations," the Producer explained. "Making the studio, and our actors, and our films, look as good to the public as they possibly can."

"Oh."

"The man who runs our studio public relations is a friend of mine. I'm sure that he would be interested in having someone of your demonstrated talents."

Dillon thought it over for a moment.

"How much would something like that pay?"

"About five hundred to start, I'd say. And there would be time, I'm sure, for you to continue with your writing."

"Everything seems so expensive here. After China, I mean. Can you make do around here on five hundred a month?"

"You can, but I'm talking about five hundred a week, Jake."

Jake Dillon then looked at the Producer very carefully.

"No strings?"

The Producer, after a moment, caught Jake's meaning. "No, Jake, no strings. I would really much rather have you as a friend than a lover."

Jake Dillon found his natural home in motion-picture public relations. He quickly became known as the only man who was ever able to get "the world's most famous actor" out of the teen-aged Mexican girls on his sailboat, and then off the sailboat and back to Hollywood sober-and to get him there on time to start shooting-and in a relatively cooperative mood. A half-dozen of his more experienced peers had tried to do all of that, and had failed to pull him off even one of the chiquitas.

Actresses trusted him. If Jake showed up at some party and told you there was an early call tomorrow and it was time to drink up and tuck it in, you knew he had your interests at heart and not just the f.u.c.king studio's. So you went home. Sometimes with Jake.

And the Producer, who found that Jake offered a comforting shoulder to weep on when his romances went sour, made it known among those of similar persuasion, a powerful group in Hollywood, that Jake was his best "straight" friend.

And he gradually came to be known as a man with a rare insight into how a motion picture or an actor should be publicized. In other words, his nerve endings told him what he could get printed in newspapers, or broadcast over the radio, and what would be thrown away.

Within two years, his pay tripled. And he began to run around not only with stuntmen and grips but also with a small group of the big-time actors. He fished with Duke Wayne, hunted with Clark Gable, played poker with David Niven, and with all three of them he drank and jumped on the bones of an astonishing number of ladies.

And he could often be found-puffing on his cigar and sipping at a cool beer-in screening rooms when daily rushes and rough cuts were screened. The stars of these opera invited him there. And they solicited his opinions, and he gave them. Sometimes his judgments were not flattering.

But, as the head of the studio said, "Jake is a walking public-opinion poll. He knows what the ticket buyers will like, and what they won't."

Jake Dillon's opinions of a story, a treatment, a screenplay, rushes, rough cuts, and final cuts were solicited and respected.

The only thing he failed to do, because he refused to do it, was talk some sense to David Niven. Niven was clearly on the way to superstardom. Which meant that very few people in Hollywood could understand why he was about to throw his career down the toilet. He was returning to England and again putting on the uniform of an officer of His Britannic Majesty's Royal Army.

"You guys don't understand," Dillon told the head of Niven's studio. "David went to Sandhurst-that's like our West Point. He's an old soldier, and somebody blew the f.u.c.king bugle. He had to go."

With Europe at war, Hollywood's attention turned to making war movies. One of them dealt with the United States Marine Corps, specifically with Marine fighter pilots. Headquarters USMC sent a full colonel to Los Angeles to serve as technical adviser. Ex-Marine Dillon was charged with keeping the Colonel happy.

Their relationship was a little awkward at first, for both of them were aware that the last time they'd met, Jake Dillon had been in Shanghai wearing sergeant's stripes and standing at attention for the Colonel's inspection. But the relationship quickly grew into a genuine friendship. This was based in large part on the Colonel's realization that Jake was as determined as he was that the motion picture would reflect well on the Corps.

There was an element of masculine camaraderie in it, too. The Colonel took aboard a load one night at Jake's house in Malibu and confessed that he couldn't get it up anymore-not after his wife of twenty-two years had left him for a doctor at Johns Hopkins. Dillon was more than sympathetic; he arranged for the Colonel to meet a lady the Colonel had previously seen only on the Silver Screen. The lady owed Jake Dillon a great big favor, and she was more than happy to discharge it the way Dillon had in mind. She did wonders vis-a-vis restoring the Colonel's lost virility.

And Jake took a load aboard and confessed to the Colonel that he'd felt like a feather merchant when he'd put David Niven on the Broadway Limited on his way to England. He was as much a Marine as Niven was a soldier. And Niven had gone back in. And here he was, sitting with his thumb up his a.s.s in Malibu, with the country about to go to war.

When the Colonel returned to Washington, he wrote a Memorandum for the Record to the Director of Personnel, stating his belief that in the event of war, the Corps was going to require the services of highly qualified public-relations officers; that he had recently, in the course of his duties, encountered a man who more than met the highest criteria for such service; that he could be induced to accept a reserve commission as a captain; and that he believed a commission as a reserve captain should be offered to him, notwithstanding the fact that the man did not meet the standard educational and other criteria for such a commission.

The Colonel was two weeks later summoned to the office of the Deputy Commandant, USMC, who tossed his Memorandum for the Record at him.

"I know you and Colonel Limell don't get along," the Deputy Commandant said. "I think that's why he sent this to me-to make you look like a fool. Can you really justify giving this ex-sergeant a captain's commission, or did you lose your marbles out in Hollywood?"

The Colonel made his points. Though he wasn't sure how well they were being received, he did see the Deputy Commandant's eyes widen when he told him how much money Jake Dillon was paid (it was more than twice as much as the Major General Commandant got); and he took some small comfort that he was neither interrupted nor dismissed.

When he was finished, the Deputy Commandant looked at the Colonel thoughtfully for a very long thirty seconds. Then he grunted and reached for his telephone.

"Colonel Limell, about this Hollywood press agent, the one who was a sergeant with the 4th Marines? Offer him a majority."

Then, surprising the Colonel yet again, Jake Dillon was not overwhelmed with grat.i.tude when he was offered a Marine Majority.

"I'm not qualified to be a major. Jesus Christ! I was thinking about maybe a staff sergeant. Maybe even a gunnery sergeant. But a major? No way."

The Colonel argued unsuccessfully for thirty minutes that the greatest contribution Jake Dillon could make to the Corps was as a public-relations officer, and that to do that well, he had to carry the rank of a field-grade officer on his collar points. The best he was able to do was to get Jake to agree to come to Washington and talk it over.

"I'll put you up, Jake."

"That's nice, but we keep a suite in the Willard," Jake said. "I'll stay there. I'll catch a plane this afternoon, and call you when I get there."

Jake called two days later, at three in the afternoon, as soon as he got into the studio's suite in the Willard. The Colonel, who had a certain sense of public relations himself, immediately called the Deputy Commandant.

"Sir, Mr. Dillon is in Washington."

"That's the press-agent sergeant?"

"Yes, Sir."

"I want to talk to him."

"Yes, Sir, I thought you might want to. Sir, I understand you're taking the retreat ceremony at Eighth and Eye today?"