The Corp - Counterattack Part 54

(Seven) U.S. Navy Element U.S. Army General Hospital Melbourne, Australia 1705 Hours 6 June 1942 Soon after they met, Commander Charles E. Whaley, M.D., USNR, told Ensign Barbara T. Cotter, NC, USNR, that he had given up a lucrative practice of psychiatry in Grosse Point Hills, Michigan, and entered the Naval Service in order to treat the mental disorders of servicemen who had been unable to cope with the stress of the battlefield. He was happy to do so.

But he had not entered the Naval Service, he went on to tell Ensign Cotter, to administer to the minor aches and pains of the Naval bra.s.s gathered around the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, Southwest Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur, and especially not to cater to their grossly overdeveloped sense of medical self-protection. And he had absolutely no intention of doing so.

He specifically told Ensign Cotter, who was in his eyes an unusually nice and bright kid, that he had no intention of making a G.o.dd.a.m.ned house call to the "residence" of some Navy bra.s.s hat named Pickering. This guy had apparently heard somewhere of a battery of rare tropical diseases. Since, for some half-a.s.sed reason, he felt threatened by those diseases, he wanted himself immunized against them. At his quarters.

"I think I know where this G.o.dd.a.m.n thing started, Barbara," Dr. Whaley said. "I have never even seen a case of any of these things-and I interned and did my residency in Los Angeles, where you see all sorts of strange things-but this morning there was a Marine officer in here, armed with a buck slip from an admiral on MacArthur's staff, ordering that he be immediately immunized against them. They had to get the stuff from the Australians to give it to him.

"Then I get a message-if I'd been here to take the call, I would have told him what I thought-from this Captain Pickering, ordering me to come to his residence prepared to give the same series of shots to at least one other person. What I think happened is that this sonofab.i.t.c.h Pickering heard about the Marine and decided he wasn't going to take the risk of coming down with something like this himself. No, Sir. I mean, why should he? I mean, after all, here he is, far from the Army-Navy Club in Washington, risking his life as a member of MacArthur's palace guard."

Barbara chuckled.

"What would you like me to do, Doctor?"

"If I go over there, Barbara, I'm liable to forget that I'm an officer and a gentleman and tell this Pickering character what I think of him specifically and the Naval Service generally. So, by the power vested in me by the Naval Service, Ensign Cotter, I order you to proceed forthwith to"-he handed her an interoffice memorandum-"the address hereon, and immunize this officer by injection. See if you can find a dull needle. A large one. And it is my professional medical judgment that you should inject the patient in his gluteus maximus."

"Aye, aye, Sir," Ensign Cotter replied.

"And go by ambulance," Commander Charles E. Whaley, M.D., USNR, added.

"Ambulance?"

"With a little bit of luck, Captain Pickering will inquire about the ambulance. Then you will tell him that the immunizations sometimes produce terrible side effects," Dr. Whaley said, pleased with himself. "And that the ambulance is just a precaution."

"You're serious?" Barbara chuckled.

"You bet your a.s.s I am," Commander Whaley said.

(Eight) The Elms Dandenong, Victoria, Australia 1755 Hours 6 June 1942 When Barbara Cotter saw The Elms, she was glad that Dr. Whaley had sent her and not come himself. This Captain Pickering, whoever he was, seemed one more proof that Karl Marx might have been on to something when he denounced the over-acc.u.mulation of capital in the hands of the privileged few. Navy captains, for rank hath its privileges, lived well. But not this well. Dr. Whaley could have gotten himself in deep trouble, letting his Irish temper loose at this Navy bra.s.s hat.

A middle-aged woman opened the door.

"h.e.l.lo," Mrs. Hortense Cavendish said with a smile. "May I help you?"

"I'm Ensign Cotter, to see Captain Pickering. I'm from the hospital."

"Are you a doctor?"

"I'm a nurse," Barbara said.

"I think he was expecting a doctor," Mrs. Cavendish said. "But please come in, I'll tell him you're here."

She left Barbara waiting in the foyer and disappeared down a corridor. A moment later a man appeared and walked up to her. He was in his shirtsleeves and wearing suspenders. And his collar was open and his tie pulled down. He held a drink in his hand.

Barbara was prepared to despise him as a palace-guard bra.s.s hat with an exaggerated opinion of his own importance-and with what Dr. Whaley had so cleverly described as "an overdeveloped sense of medical self-protection."

"h.e.l.lo," Pickering said. "I'm Fleming Pickering. I was rather expecting Commander Whaley, but you're much prettier."

"Sir, I'm Ensign Cotter."

"I'm very pleased to meet you," he said. "We saw the ambulance. What's that all about? Is the Navy again suffering from crossed signals?"

"Sir, I'm here to administer certain injections," Barbara said. "There is a chance of a reaction to them. The ambulance is a precaution."

"Well, the first stickee seems to be doing fine," Pickering said. "We're hoping that your intended target will show up momentarily. I'm afraid you're going to have to wait until he does."

"Sir?"

"You're here to immunize Corporal Koffler," Pickering said. "At the moment, we don't know where he is. You'll have to wait until he shows up. If that's going to pose a problem for you at the hospital, I'll call and explain the situation. This is rather important."

"I was under the impression the immunizations were intended for you, Captain."

"Oh, no," Pickering said, and smiled. "I suspected crossed signals. Shall I call the hospital and straighten things out?"

"If I'm going to have to stay, I'd better call, Sir," Barbara said.

"The phone's right over there," Pickering said, pointing to a narrow table against the foyer wall. "If you run into any trouble, let me know. Sometimes the Regular Navy is a bit dense between the ears."

She looked at him in shock.

"Between us amateurs, of course," Pickering smiled. "I presume you're a fellow amateur?"

"I'm a reservist, Sir, if that's what you mean."

"I was sure of it," Pickering said. "When you're through on the phone, please come in the sitting room." He pointed to it.

"Yes, Sir," Barbara said.

"Oh, Barbara," Dr. Whaley said when she called him at his quarters. "I hope you're calling because you're lost."

"Excuse me?"

"You found The Elms without any trouble?"

"Yes, Sir. I'm here now. I've just met Captain Pickering."

"How did that go?"

"It's not what you thought, Doctor."

"I already found that out. The men to be immunized, the Marine officer who was here at the hospital, and the one you're there to see, are about to go on some hush-hush mission behind the lines. High-level stuff. And I learned five minutes after you left that Pickering is not what I led you to believe he was."

"He's really nice," Barbara said.

"He's also General MacArthur's personal pal," Dr. Whaley said. "And Frank Knox's personal representative over here. Not the sort of man to jab with a dull needle."

"No, Sir," Barbara chuckled. "The other man to be immunized isn't here yet. Captain Pickering said I'll have to stay here until he shows up. That's why I'm calling."

"You stay as long as you're needed," Dr. Whaley said, "and be as charming as possible, knowing that you have our Naval careers in your hands."

"Yes, Sir."

"You better send the ambulance back, Barbara. When you're finished, I'll send a staff car for you."

"Yes, Sir."

Barbara hung up, walked out of The Elms, sent the ambulance back to the hospital, and then reentered the house.

"Everything go all right?" Captain Pickering asked her when she reached the room he'd directed her to. "Come in."

"Everything's fine, Sir," Barbara said.

"Gentlemen, this is Ensign Cotter," Pickering said. "Ensign Cotter, this is Major Ed Banning, Lieutenant Vince Donnelly, and Lieutenant Joe Howard."

Lieutenant Joe Howard, who had been mixing a drink at the bar, turned, looked at Barbara, dropped the gla.s.s, and said, "Oh, my G.o.d!"

"Joe!" Barbara wailed.

"Why do I suspect that these two splendid young junior officers have met?" Banning asked dryly.

"Lieutenant Howard," Captain Pickering said, "Ensign Cotter was just telling me that sometimes these shots have adverse effects. Why don't you take her someplace where she can examine you?"

He hardly had time to congratulate himself on having produced-s.n.a.t.c.hing it from out of the blue-a Solomon-like solution to the problem of how to handle two young lovers who were embarra.s.sed to manifest a display of affection before senior officers. For, unfortunately, his brilliance was wasted; Ensign Cotter, forgetting that she was an officer and a gentlewoman, ran to Howard and threw herself in his arms, and cried, "Oh, my darling!"

After a moment, Captain Pickering spoke again.

"Joe, why don't you take your girl and show her the grounds?"

Howard, not trusting his voice, nodded his thanks and, with his arms around Barbara, led her out of the sitting room and started down the corridor.

All of a sudden, she stopped, spun out of his arms, and faced him.

"You're on this mission, aren't you?" she challenged.

He nodded.

"Oh, my G.o.d!"

"It'll be all right," he said.

"They don't send people on missions like that unless they volunteer," she said, adding angrily, "You volunteered, didn't you?"

He nodded.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n you!"

He didn't reply.

"Why? Can you tell me why?"

"It's important," he said.

"When do you go?"

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" she wailed. He nodded.

"What are we going to do now?" she asked.

He shrugged helplessly.

"We could go to my room," Joe blurted.

She met his eyes.

"They'd know," she said.

"Do you care?" he asked.

She reached out and touched his face and shook her head.

He took her hand from his face and held it as he led her the rest of the way down the stairs and then up the broad staircase to his room.

Chapter Thirteen.

(One) The Elms Dandenong, Victoria, Australia 2105 Hours 6 June 1942 As Corporal Stephen M. Koffler and Petty Officer Daphne Farnsworth approached Melbourne, they came up to a road sign indicating a turnoff to Dandenong. It occurred to Corporal Koffler then that he'd better check in before he took Petty Officer Farnsworth home.

"Would you mind sitting in the car for a minute while I tell Mrs. Cavendish I'm back?" Steve asked as he made the turn. "Maybe there's a message for me, or something."

"Of course not."

He drove down the long line of ancient elms that lined the driveway. When they reached the house, there were two cars parked in front of it. One was a drop-head Jaguar coupe and the other a Morris with Royal Australian Navy plates. After a moment, to her surprise, Daphne recognized it as Lieutenant Donnelly's car.

She wondered what he was doing out here, and then she wondered what he was going to think when he saw her with Corporal Steve Koffler of the United States Marines; she was supposed to be still at home, grief-stricken.

"Oh, s.h.i.t!" Steve Koffler said, when he saw the cars.

When Major Edward J. Banning, USMC, noticed the glow of the headlights flash across the front of The Elms, he rose to his feet and went to one of the French windows in the library. As he pushed the curtain aside, the Studebaker pulled up beside the Jaguar and the Morris.