(One)
Lakehurst Naval Air Station
Lakehurst, New Jersey
0515 Hours 14 February 1942
Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville had driven up from Washington in his Auto-Union roadster the day before. He would have preferred to take the train, which was quicker and more comfortable, but he might need the car at Lakehurst because of the press people. It even entered his mind that the press people might want a photograph of him in his Auto-Union. Fast sports cars and parachutists, that sort of thing.
Actually he had hoped to travel to Lakehurst in the R4D from Quantico; it had even occurred to him that he might arrive at Lakehurst by jumping from the R4D just before it landed, to give the press people a sample of what they could expect. But when he’d asked Hershberger whether the R4D could pick him up at Anacostia, Hershberger told him it was already en route to Lakehurst.
When he got to Lakehurst, of course, the airplane wasn’t there. And it was only after frantic telephone calls to Colonel Hershberger and Willow Grove that he was able to put his worries about that to rest. Hershberger told him the plane had made a precautionary landing at Willow Grove. And then Willow Grove told him there was nothing wrong with the airplane, and that it was on The Board for an 0430 takeoff.
It was vital for the R4D to arrive. It had to be a Marine airplane doing the dropping for the press people’s cameras—not a Navy airplane. Neville would not lie about it, but he had no intention of volunteering the information to the press people that Navy pilots, flying Navy R4Ds, actually had done all the dropping of Marine parachutists at Lakehurst so far.
Colonel Neville was convinced that if things went well today, their future would be secure—presuming, of course, that it all resulted in Life magazine doing one of their spreads on Marine parachutists, and that the spread showed Marine parachutists in a good light. On the other hand, if things did not go well, it could be a fatal blow to Vertical Envelopment within the Marine Corps.
Consequently, a lot of thought and planning and effort had gone into preparing everything and everybody for the visit of the Life photojournalists to Lakehurst. The public-relations people at Marine Corps headquarters had been enthusiastic and cooperative, which was more than could be said for some other people in the head shed.
The Deputy Chief of Public Relations, Headquarters USMC, a full colonel named Lenihan, had told him that he had assigned the task of publicizing the demonstration jump to Major Jake Dillon, who would head a team of nine public-relations specialists.
“You’ve heard of Dillon, of course, haven’t you, Neville?” Colonel Lenihan asked.
Neville searched his mind, but could come up with no recollection of a major or a captain named Dillon.
“No, Sir, I don’t think so.”
“Metro-Magnum Pictures,” Colonel Lenihan said, significantly.
Metro-Magnum Pictures was a major Hollywood studio.
“Sir?”
“Dillon was Chief of Publicity for Metro-Magnum,” Colonel Lenihan said. “He just came on active duty. Amazing fellow. Knows all the movie stars. He introduced me to Bette Davis at the Willard Hotel last night.”
“Is that so?” Neville replied. He wondered if this Major Dillon could arrange for a movie star to be present at Lakehurst. Bringing somebody like Bette Davis there, or even Lana Turner or Betty Grable, would get his Para-Marines in the newsreels.
Major Dillon’s public relations team had come to Lakehurst two days before. The team had two staff cars, two station wagons, and a jeep. The tiny vehicle, officially called a “Truck, ¼ Ton 4X4,” had just entered the service. Neville had seen one in the newsreels—it was actually flying through the air—but this was the first one he had ever seen in person. The team also included four photographers, two still and two motion-picture.
When Colonel Neville mentioned his notion of asking some beauty like Lana Turner to the demonstration, Major Dillon, a stocky, crewcut man in his middle thirties, explained that he didn’t think that publicizing the Marine parachutists was the sort of job that required teats and thighs to get good coverage.
“I really don’t want to sound as if I’m trying to tell you your job—” Colonel Neville began, convinced that the presence of a gorgeous star would insure a public-relations coup.
“Then don’t,” Dillon interrupted.
“I’m not sure I like your tone of voice, Major.”
“Colonel, I think you’re going to have to trust me to do my job. If you don’t like the way I’m doing things, you get on the horn and tell Colonel Lenihan. He’s the only one I take orders from.”
Franklin G. Neville considered the situation quickly, and forced a smile.
“No offense, Major. I was just trying to be helpful.”
Later, Major Dillon explained to Neville that the still photographers would back up the Life photographers; they’d make the pictures they took available to the magazine in case it missed something. After a seven-day “embargo,” the pictures Life didn’t want would be made available to the press generally.
The motion-picture film would be taken to Washington, processed, reviewed, and after the same seven-day embargo to preserve Life’s exclusivity, it would be made available to the various newsreel companies.
Dillon brought with him three Marine “correspondents,” two corporals and a sergeant, supervised by a lieutenant. They had prepared a “press background packet,” which included a history of parachuting generally, and of Marine parachuting in some detail. There were short biographies of Lieutenant Colonel Neville and Lieutenant Macklin, together with eight-by-ten-inch official glossy photographs of them.
All of this served to impress Colonel Neville with Major Dillon’s expertise. It even caused Neville to realize that he would best forget the little flare-up he’d had with the Major over inviting a Hollywood star to the demonstration.
Besides, Colonel Neville was feeling pretty pleased with himself in general. Everything was going well. And everything at the school itself was shipshape. In a remarkably short time, the ex-Parris Island drill instructors had done marvels in establishing standards of discipline and dress that were appropriate for the men Neville considered “the elite of the elite.” In Neville’s view, if Marines were by definition disciplined military men, Marine parachutists had to strive to reach even higher standards.
The Major, of course, wanted to go a bit further in helping the press than Major Dillon was prepared to go; and the Major had to caution him that in his experience, it was possible to “direct” the attention of the press, especially high-class places like Life, only so far.
“If they begin to feel they’re getting a snow job,” Major Dillon said, “they start looking for what’s hidden under the rocks. The best way to deal with them is to make yourself useful but not pushy, and to somehow convince them that what you want publicized is something they discovered themselves.”
Major Dillon, his lieutenant, and Lieutenant Macklin were going to meet the press people at the Lakehurst gate when they drove over from New York City. Colonel Neville decided that it would be beneath his dignity as Director of Marine Corps Parachuting to be at the gate himself.
The press people would then be taken to his office, where coffee and doughnuts would be served. Following that, Lieutenant Macklin would brief them. Neville attended a rehearsal briefing, made a few small suggestions, and then approved it.
The press would then be taken on a tour of the school’s facilities. The tour would demonstrate how the school was turning Marines into Para-Marines. Neville intended to use that term, even though he had specific directions not to do so. He thought it was honestly descriptive and had a certain flair to it—and he was convinced that once it had appeared in Life, it would become part of the language.
Then there would be luncheon in the enlisted men’s mess. Neville would have preferred to feed the press people in the officers’ club, but Major Jake Dillon argued that the press liked to eat with the troops. In the event, that really posed no problems. Lieutenant Macklin directed the mess sergeant to move up the stuffed-pork chop, mashed-potato, and apple-cobbler supper to the noon meal. The troops could eat the bologna sandwiches originally scheduled for the noon meal at supper, after the press people had gone.
At 1245 hours, the press would be taken to the far side of the airfield to witness their first parachute drop. Chairs, a table, and a coffee thermos would be set up for their convenience. The Marine R4D from Quantico would have been dropping parachutists, four times, during the morning. It would probably have been better to show the press people a jump before they toured the school facilities, so that then they’d know the object of the whole thing; but Neville had insisted on scheduling the demonstration drop for 1245, so that the R4D crew would have a chance to practice.
The drop was all-important. If that didn’t go well, nothing else would matter.
Actually, there was to be more than one drop for the press. At 1245, the first drop would show them how it was done. Then the R4D would land, taxi up to the press people, and take on another load of parachutists there. That would give the press people the opportunity to see how quickly and efficiently that was done.
Then the plane would take off, wait for the press people to move over to the actual drop zone, and then drop the second load of parachutists. This would give the press people a chance to see the parachutists landing.
Neville had earlier persuaded the Commanding Officer of Willow Grove Naval Air Station to let him have a pair of SJ6 Texans, which were low-winged, single-engined, two-seat trainers. While the R4D landed to take on still another load of parachutists, one of the two Texans would have taxied to where it could take aboard a Life photographer. The second Texan, carrying a Marine photographer equipped with a motion-picture camera, would by then already be in the air.
He would capture on film the Para-Marines exiting the door of the R4D. Individual prints made from that motion-picture film would be offered to Life, if they wanted them. After that the film would be made available to the newsreel companies.
So far as Lieutenant Colonel Neville could see, he and Lieutenant Macklin had covered all the bases.
When, as he asked them to, the Lakehurst Control Tower telephoned to report that a Marine R4D out of Willow Grove had just requested landing permission, he felt the situation was well in hand.
And then things, of course, promptly began to go wrong.
He went out to watch the R4D land. He liked the sight of it, gleaming in the sun of the crisp winter day, with MARINES lettered along the fuselage. He wondered, for the future—it was too late to do anything about it now, of course—if he could arrange to have an aircraft lettered PARA-MARINES. But then, as the aircraft turned off the runway and started to taxi toward the dirigible hangar, he saw that the port engine nacelle and the wing behind it were filthy. Absolutely filthy!
He started walking toward the spot where Lieutenant Macklin had marked out the parking space for the aircraft. He reached it moments after the airplane arrived, and he waited while the pilot turned it around. In order to do that, the pilot had to gun the starboard engine; when he did so, the prop blast caught some snow in its path and blew it all over Neville.
It wasn’t clean snow; it was mixed with dirt and parking-area debris, and it soiled Lieutenant Colonel Neville’s fresh green uniform. He was not in a very good mood when he stood by the door of the aircraft, waiting for the door to open.
A sergeant in coveralls looked at him curiously, and then dropped a ladder from holes in the bottom of the doorframe. Only then did he finally remember rudimentary military courtesy. Still not wearing suitable headgear, he saluted and said, “Good morning, Colonel.”
“Inform the pilot that I would like to see him. I’m Colonel Neville.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” the crew chief said, and disappeared inside the aircraft.
In a moment, a good-looking young man appeared; he was wearing a fur-collared jacket with Naval Aviator’s wings. Hatless. But he at least looked like a Marine, Neville thought, and acted like one.
“Good morning, Sir,” he said, saluting crisply; he held it until Neville returned it. Only then did he start climbing down the ladder. “Are you Colonel Neville, Sir?” Neville nodded. “I was told to report to you, Sir.”
“Your airplane is dirty,” Colonel Neville said.
“Sir?”
“The port engine nacelle and wing. They’re filthy!”
The pilot looked surprised and went to look.
“Don’t you have a uniform cap?” Neville called after him.
“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir,” the pilot said. He took a fore-and-aft cap from the pocket of his leather jacket and put it on.
An enlisted man’s cap! That goddamned Hershberger knows how important a mission this is to me and to the Para-Marines, and he’s sent me a goddamned Flying Sergeant!
Neville walked to the wing.
“Sir, they drained the oil at Willow Grove. I guess they spilled a little, and it picked up crud from the taxiway and runway,” Charley Galloway said.
“Well, have it cleaned up,” Neville said. “We don’t want Life’s readers to think the Marine Corps tolerates filthy aircraft, do we?”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
“Tell me, Sergeant, does Colonel Hershberger routinely send noncoms on missions of this importance?”
“I don’t think, Sir, that the Colonel had any qualified officer pilots to send.”
That’s so much bullshit and we both know it. Goddamn Hershberger!
“Colonel, I have two lieutenants on board,” Galloway said, adding, “pilots, I mean.”
“Then where are they? I told your crew chief I wanted to speak to the pilot.”
“Sir, I’m pilot-in-command.”
“How can that be, Sergeant?” Neville said, making what he recognized to be a valiant effort not to jump all over the sergeant. He was a sergeant; he was just doing what he was told. “With officer pilots, how can you be in command?”
“Colonel Hershberger set it up that way, Sir.”
“Would you tell the officers I would like a word with them, Sergeant, please?”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Lieutenants Ward and Schneider were standing on the ground beside the rear door when Charley Galloway went to fetch them.
“Colonel Neville would like to see you, gentlemen,” he said loudly, and added softly, “Watch yourselves. He’s got his balls in an uproar about something.”
Lieutenant Schneider gave Galloway a withering look, and then saluted Colonel Neville as he appeared.
“Which of you is senior?” Neville asked.
“I believe I am, Sir,” Jim Ward said.
“Jack,” Galloway said to the crew chief, “will you get the crud off the port nacelle and wing?”
“What the hell for?” the crew chief replied. “The minute we start to taxi through this shit, it’ll get dirty again.”
“Do me a favor, Jack,” Galloway said, nodding his head toward Neville. “Do what you can to clean it up.”
Neville felt his temper rise. An order had been given. Instead of carrying it out, the recipient had replied “What the hell for?” And instead of immediately correcting the man on the spot, the response was “Do me a favor.” And all of this with two commissioned officers watching and doing or saying nothing.
These people, none of them, are Marines. They’re goddamned civilians wearing Marine uniforms!
“Then, Lieutenant, may I presume you’re in charge of this aircraft?”
“No, Sir.”
“‘No, Sir’?” Neville echoed incredulously. “Are you qualified to fly this aircraft or not?”
“I’m checked out in the R4D, Sir. Yes, Sir.”
“Then, according to the Customs of the Service, since you are the senior officer present,” Neville pursued icily, “doesn’t it then follow that you are in charge of this aircraft?”
“Sir, Colonel Hershberger, the Chief of Staff, 1st Marine Air Wing—”
“I know who Colonel Hershberger is, Mr. Ward,” Neville interrupted him.
“Sir, Colonel Hershberger appointed Sergeant Galloway as pilot-in-command,” Ward said uncomfortably.
“I never heard of such a thing!” Neville exploded.
“Sir,” Galloway said, “I’ve got more experience in the R4D than either of these officers. I believe, considering the importance of this mission, that that’s what Colonel Hershberger had in mind.”
“Are you in the habit of offering your opinions before they’re solicited, Sergeant?” Neville flared.
“No, Sir, sorry, Sir.”
There was the sound of aircraft engines. Charley Galloway’s eyes rose involuntarily toward the sky and confirmed what his ears had told him: Pratt & Whitney Wasp, probably the six-hundred-horse R1340–49. More than one.
There were two North American Texans in the landing pattern.
“There are my other aircraft,” Colonel Neville announced. “Mr. Ward, will you give my compliments to their pilots, and ask them to join me in my office as soon as possible? And bring this officer and the sergeant with you.”
(Two)
The shit, thought Technical Sergeant Charles Galloway, is about to hit the fan.
He rose, very reluctantly, to his feet.
“You have a question, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Richard B. Macklin asked. He had just finished explaining, with the help of a blackboard and a pointer, where the Texans would fly relative to the R4D, so that the still and motion-picture photographers could capture the Para-Marines jumping from the R4D’s door.
“Sir, that would be dangerous,” Charley said.
“Would it, now?” Macklin asked, smiling but sarcastic.
“Sir, one aircraft flying close to the R4D is dangerous enough. Two are too dangerous.”
“Would you care to explain your position?”
“Yes, Sir. I’ll be flying the R4D—”
“That hasn’t been decided yet,” Lieutenant Colonel Neville said.
“Sir, whoever is flying the R4D will have enough trouble keeping his eye on one Texan. It would impossible to keep an eye on both of them, if they were flying close enough to take pictures.”
“And?” Macklin asked, now clearly sarcastic. “Are you suggesting that they would fly into you, Sergeant?” He looked at the two Texan pilots, both lieutenants junior grade, and smiled at them. “I’m sure these officers are skilled enough not to do that.”
“I’m more concerned about dropping the paratroops—”
“Para-Marines,” Colonel Neville said.
“—into the flight path of one of the Texans,” Charley finished.
“That’s our concern, Sergeant, isn’t it?”
“No, Sir, with respect, it’s mine,” Charley said.
“Galloway,” one of the Naval Aviators said, “believe me, I intend to stay as far away from you as I can.”
Galloway smiled at him, but didn’t reply.
“I presume your concerns have been put to rest, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Macklin said.
“No, Sir,” Charley said. “With respect, they haven’t.”
“What exactly are you saying, Sergeant?” Colonel Neville asked.
“Sir…Sir, if you put two Texans near my aircraft at the same time, I won’t drop your paratroops.”
“Then we won’t burden you with that responsibility, Sergeant. Lieutenant Schneider will pilot the R4D. I can see no necessity for you even to be aboard.”
“Sir, Lieutenant Schneider is not qualified to drop parachutists. I won’t authorize him to do so.”
“Well, we’ll just see about that, Sergeant,” Neville flared. “We’ll see who’s authorized to give—or refuse—orders around here. Will you all wait outside, please? Macklin, get Colonel Hershberger on the telephone. Make it a priority call.”
Four minutes later, Lieutenant Macklin appeared in the door to Lieutenant Colonel Neville’s office and beckoned for Galloway to come inside.
“Colonel Hershberger wishes to speak with you, Sergeant,” he said.
Galloway picked up the telephone that was lying on its side on Neville’s desk. As he did so, he saw Neville pick up an extension and cover the mouthpiece with his hand.
“Sergeant Galloway, Sir.”
“You didn’t waste any time stirring things up, did you, Charley?”
“I’m sorry about this, Sir.”
“Tell me about the filthy airplane.”
“They drained the oil from the port engine at Willow Grove, Sir. They spilled some. It got on the nacelle and wing and picked up crud when I moved the aircraft.”
“Tell me about Willow Grove,” Hershberger said. “Was that necessary?”
“I was attempting to avoid a storm I had reason to think might be in the Lakehurst area, Sir,” Charley said. He stole a quick look at Neville, and saw that he hadn’t picked up on that.
“OK,” Colonel Hershberger said, after a barely perceptible pause which told Charley that Hershberger had correctly interpreted his reply. “So tell me about the Texans.”
“I don’t want two of them off my tail when I’m dropping parachutists, Colonel.”
“Neville says you refused to fly with any Texans around you.”
“No, Sir. I can keep my eye on one of them. Two are too dangerous.”
“Anything else you want to say?”
“No, Sir.”
“Get Colonel Neville back on the line, please, Charley.”
“Sir,” Charley heard his mouth run away with him, “the Colonel has been on an extension all the time.”
“Hang your phone up, then, Charley,” Colonel Hershberger said, pleasantly enough, after a moment. “I want a private word with Colonel Neville.”
Charley put the telephone back in its cradle and started to leave the office. But Lieutenant Macklin hissed at him that he had not been dismissed. So Charley assumed the at-ease position facing Lieutenant Colonel Neville’s desk, and was thus witness to the conversation between Hershberger and Neville. Both sides were audible, because Colonel Hershberger seemed to be talking considerably louder to Colonel Neville than he had to Charley.
Both Lieutenant Macklin and Sergeant Galloway pretended, however, not to hear what Colonel Hershberger said. They both knew that it was an embarrassment for a senior officer to be referred to as a “pompous asshole” by an even more senior officer in the hearing of his subordinates. And it got worse: Colonel Hershberger went on to say—actually shout—that Neville was not only unfit to wear a lieutenant colonel’s silver leaf, but the Marine uniform, period. Any officer who calculatedly lied in order to get in trouble a good Marine sergeant who was just obeying his orders was worse than contemptible.
Lieutenant Colonel Neville’s replies to Colonel Hershberger were a number of brief and muted “Yes, Sirs.”
When Lieutenant Colonel Neville finally hung up, Charley shifted from “at ease” to “parade rest” (head erect, eyes looking six inches above Colonel Neville, hands folded smartly together in the small of the back), and stayed that way for a very long sixty seconds.
Finally, Lieutenant Colonel Neville said, “That will be all, Sergeant. Thank you.”
Charley Galloway popped to attention, did a smart about-face, and marched out of Neville’s office.
(Three)
PFC Stephen M. Koffler, USMC, participated in three parachute jumps on the day everybody involved was to remember for a very long time as “the day it happened.”
They were his eighth, ninth, and tenth parachute jumps. His first five jumps had been performed as a student. Four of these had been during daylight, and the fifth at night, all onto what Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville had named Drop Zone Wake, in memory of the heroic Marine defense of Wake Island.
Drop Zone Wake was in fact an area between the runways in the center of the Lakehurst airfield. It was marked out with white tape and little flags on stakes.
According to what he had been told when he began the course, he would be rated as a Marine Parachutist after he had successfully completed his fifth jump, a night drop. That hadn’t happened. Lieutenant R. B. Macklin, who was the Deputy Commandant of the Marine Parachute School, had announced that Colonel Neville had decided to postpone the ceremony during which Parachutists’ wings would be awarded until 14 February. On that day, a team of civilian (from Life magazine) and Marine Corps journalists would be at Lakehurst, Lieutenant Macklin told them; Colonel Neville thought the journalists might want to photograph the ceremony.
Meanwhile, PFC Steve Koffler had changed his mind about wanting to be a Para-Marine. He was now convinced that volunteering for parachute duty was about the dumbest thing he had ever done in his life. Really dumb: there was a very good chance that he was going to get killed long before he got near a Japanese soldier.
He had begun to form that opinion long before he made his first jump. For starters, the physical training the trainees had gone through made the physical training at Parris Island look like a walk through a park.
Beginning right after reveille, the trainees had been led on a run around the airfield fence. Somebody said that the distance was 5.2 miles, and he believed it. And they made you run until you literally dropped. As often as Steve Koffler had run around the fence, he had never made it all the way without collapsing, and usually throwing up, too.
The running, he had been told, was to develop the muscles of the lower body. The muscles of the upper body were developed in several ways, primarily by doing push-ups. Steve Koffler had come out of Parris Island proud that he could do forty push-ups. During parachute training, he had once made it to eighty-six before his arms gave out and he collapsed on his face onto the frozen ground.
But there were other upper-body conditioning exercises. Ten trainees at once picked up a log, about ten inches in diameter, and performed various exercises with it. Most of these involved holding the log at arm’s length above the head. And there was a device that consisted of pipes inserted through large pieces of wood, sort of a ladder mounted parallel to the ground. One moved along this like Tarzan, swinging by hand from one end to the other. The difference being that all Tarzan wore was sort of a little skirt over sort of a jockstrap; but the Para-Marine trainees wore all their field gear, including helmets, full canteens, and Springfield rifles.
There had also been a lot of classroom work. Steve and the others had a good deal of trouble staying awake in classes. Not only were they pretty worn out from all the upper- and lower-body-developing exercises, but the lesson material was pretty dull, too.
When you fell asleep, the penalty was for one of the sergeants to kick the folding chair out from under you; then you had to run around the building with your Springfield held at arm’s length over your head and shout at the top of your lungs, “I will not sleep in class.” You did that until the sergeant finally decided you had enough—or you crashed to the frozen earth, unconscious or nauseated.
Steve Koffler would thus remember for the rest of his life a large amount of esoteric military data. For example, he now knew that his parachutes were manufactured by the Switlick Company of the finest silk that money could buy; that his main ’chute was thirty-five feet in diameter and had twenty-eight panels (each of which was made up of a number of smaller pieces, so that if a rip developed, it would spread no farther than the piece where it started); and that his main ’chute would cause him to fall through the air at a speed of approximately twenty feet per second. This meant he would strike the ground at approximately 13.5 miles per hour.
The main ’chute was worn on the back. It was opened upon exiting the airplane by a static line connected to the airplane. This pulled the canopy from its container, and then ripped free. The canopy would then fill with air, with the parachutist suspended beneath it.
If something happened, and the main ’chute did not deploy, there was a second parachute, worn on the chest. This ’chute, which had twenty-four panels of the best silk money could buy, was approximately twenty-four feet in diameter. It would slow the descent of a falling body to approximately twenty-five feet per second, which worked out to approximately seventeen miles per hour. This emergency chute was deployed by pulling a D-ring on the front of the emergency ’chute pack.
If both ’chutes failed, the sergeants told them, there was no problem. Just bring them to the supply sergeant, and he would exchange them for new ’chutes.
Since the human body was not designed to encounter the earth in a sudden stop at thirteen and a half miles per hour (or seventeen, if the emergency ’chute was utilized), the Marine Corps, ever mindful of the welfare of its men, had developed special techniques which permitted the human body to survive under such circumstances.
These were demonstrated; and then, until the correct procedures were automatic, the trainees were permitted to practice them: first they jumped from the back of a moving truck, and later from tall towers, from which they were permitted to leap wearing a parachute harness connected to a cable.
A parachutist’s troubles didn’t stop once he touched the ground.
Once he touched down, he might encounter another hazard. The parachute canopy, which had safely floated him onto the earth at 13.5—or seventeen—miles per hour, had an unhappy tendency to fill up again if a sudden gust of wind took hold of it. The ’chute would then drag the parachutist along the ground, often on his face, until the gust died down—or the parachutist encountered an immovable object, such as a truck, or possibly a tree.
Because of that hazard, the techniques of “spilling the air from the canopy” had been demonstrated to the trainees, who were then permitted to practice them. This was accomplished by placing the trainee on his back behind the engine of a Navy R4D aircraft. He was strapped into a parachute harness with the parachute canopy stretched out on the ground behind him. The engine of the R4D was then revved up so that prop blast could fill the canopy (held up by an obliging sergeant to facilitate filling). The prop blast dragged the canopy and the Para-Marine trainee across the ground, until he managed to spill the air from it by pulling on the “risers” that connected the harness to the canopy.
Inasmuch as every Para-Marine trainee was a volunteer, it was theoretically possible to un-volunteer—to quit. But PFC Steve Koffler believed that option had been taken away from him as a result of the “extended three-day pass” that had already gotten him in so much trouble with Lieutenant Macklin. If he quit, he would be brought before a court-martial and sentenced to the Naval Prison at Portsmouth.
Several times during his training, he’d actually wondered if Portsmouth—as bad as everybody said it was—could really be worse than Jump School. In fact, on several occasions he’d come close to standing up and screaming at one instructor or another, “Fuck it! I quit! Send me to Portsmouth!”
But for several reasons he had not done that: he believed, for instance, all the horrible things he’d heard about Portsmouth. It was logical that Portsmouth had to be worse than Parris Island and the Jump School; otherwise it would be full of refugees from both places.
The most important reason, however, was Mrs. Dianne Marshall Norman. He went to bed every night thinking of Dianne and all they had done to each other in his bed and on the living room couch, and even on the kitchen table. And he woke up thinking of very much the same thing.
He even called her to mind in the R4D just before he made his first jump. He credited thinking about Dianne not only with keeping him from getting sick to his stomach but from quitting the Para-Marines right there.
He was in love with Dianne. He could not bear the thought of having her learn that he was a craven coward who had not only quit Jump School but had been sentenced to the Naval Prison at Portsmouth. He would rather die—say, from a “cigarette roll.” That was what they called it when your ’chute canopy failed to fill with air, and instead twisted around itself until it looked like a cigarette instead of a big mushroom. When that happened, the parachute hardly slowed you down at all, and you went down like a rock, ultimately hitting the ground at something like 125 miles per hour.
And furthermore, once he had won his wings as a Para-Marine, that AWOL business would be forgotten (if he could believe Lieutenant Macklin), and he would have a clean slate. When that happened, he would be eligible for another pass—and maybe even the leave he never got when he graduated from Parris Island. And he could go and be with her.
He had managed to establish communication with her only once since he had started Jump School. On his fourth attempt to call her, he’d gotten her on the phone. The first three times, Bernice or her mother had answered the phone, and he’d just hung up. Dianne seemed glad enough to hear from him, but she told him that her parents and Bernice would not understand his calling her—her having her Leonard and being older and everything—so it would be better if he waited until he got home again, and then maybe they could get together and talk or something, if it could be arranged without making anybody suspicious.
He didn’t want to say it on the telephone, but in addition to all those things that went through his mind the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, he did want to just talk to her. He would tell her that he wasn’t just an ordinary PFC anymore but a Para-Marine, which meant that with his jump pay he was making almost twice as much money as a regular PFC. And it also meant that he stood a better chance of making corporal, and maybe even sergeant. And then there was an allowance, called an allotment or something, that he could get if he was married. And he intended to tell her that he would be honored to raise little Joey just as if he was really his kid.
So a great deal hinged on his getting through Jump School, and having his slate wiped clean, and getting at least a pass so that he could go see her.
But then they didn’t hold the graduation ceremony because of the people coming from Life magazine. And when he went to the First Sergeant and reminded him about what Lieutenant Macklin had said about getting the slate wiped clean if he kept his nose clean and got through Jump School, the First Sergeant told him that so far as he was concerned, his slate was wiped clean. But when Steve asked about a pass, the First Sergeant said that would have to wait until the Life magazine people had come and gone. In the meantime there would be no free time.
Over the days before they arrived, there were several preinspections; and then the last inspection itself, conducted by Lieutenant Macklin, to make sure everything would be shipshape.
On the morning of 14 February, they were marched out to a Marine R4D. It was the first one Steve had ever seen; he didn’t even know the Marines had R4Ds. Then they ’chuted up and took off just as usual. But this time, instead of just making a swing around the field and then dropping the parachutists, the pilot flew the airplane out to the ocean, and then over the beach from Asbury Park down to Point Pleasant, and then back and forth several times, until he apparently got the word on the radio and flew back to Lakehurst. Then they jumped.
That was Jump Six.
The Marine R4D landed while Steve was still folding up his parachute; and he watched it take on another load of Para-Marines while he was walking back to the staging area after the truck had come and taken up the ’chutes.
As he and the others were ’chuting up again, he saw that stick of Para-Marines jump. The R4D landed immediately, and they loaded aboard and jumped almost immediately.
Steve decided that what they were doing was showing the people from Life magazine how it was done.
That was Jump Seven. It was just like Jump Six, except that the guy leading the stick, a corporal, sprained his ankle because he landed on the concrete runway instead of on the grassy area. So he was not going to be able to jump again for a while.
That made Steve lead man in the stick for Jump Eight. He wasn’t sure if he would have the balls to jump first. If you were anywhere but lead man in the stick, it was automatic, and you didn’t have to think about it. But in the end he decided that if he hesitated, the jumpmaster would just shove him out the door.
Another trainee was added to the stick at the end. He would jump last.
And then, after the pilot had already restarted the left-hand engine on the R4D, something very unusual happened. A face in a helmet appeared at the door and ordered the crew chief to put the ladder down. And then Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville himself climbed into the airplane, wearing a set of coveralls. And his parachutes. And all of his field gear—except that he had a Thompson submachine gun instead of a Springfield rifle.
And then they took off.
Colonel Neville pulled Steve’s head close to him and shouted in his ear.
“I’m going to jump with you,” he said. “You just carry on as usual.”
“Aye, aye, Sir!” Steve shouted back.
This time, instead of just circling the field and jumping the Para-Marines, the R4D flew south. From where Steve was sitting, he couldn’t see much, but he became aware that there was a little airplane out there, too, flying close to the R4D.
During one of the brief glimpses he got of it, he saw that there was a man in the backseat with a camera.
Colonel Neville apparently knew all about it. He was standing in the door, hanging onto the jamb, making what looked like “come closer” signs to the pilot.
And then they were making their approach to Landing Zone Wake.
The commands now came quickly.
“Stand up.”
“Hook up.”
“Check your equipment.”
“Stand in the door.”
There were two little lights mounted on the aircraft bulkhead by the door. One was red and the other was green. The red one came on when you started getting ready to jump. The green one came on when the pilot told the jumpmaster to start the jumping.
Steve stood by the door, watching the red light.
“One minute!” the jumpmaster shouted in his ear.
Steve nodded his understanding.
He thought of Dianne Marshall Norman’s breasts, 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, shit! PFC Steve Koffler thought. What are they going to do to me when they find out I’ve shit 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.
“Fuck 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 bullshit 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-glass door opening on a balcony over the beach.
A shard of heavy plate glass 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 testicles. (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 circumstances 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 teenaged 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 Hop kins. 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-à-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 ass 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 gratitude 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?”
“Splendid,” the Deputy Commandant said, taking the Colonel’s meaning. “I’ll have my aide arrange two seats for you in the reviewing stand.”
The Formal Retreat Ceremony (the lowering of the colors at sunset) is held at the Marine Barracks at Eighth and Eye Streets, Southeast, in the District of Columbia. The Marine Band, in dress blues, plays the Marine Hymn, while impeccably uniformed Marines march with incredible precision past the reviewing stand. The ceremony has brought tears to the eyes of thousands of pacifists and cynics.
Its effect on a former 4th Marines sergeant was predictable: When the Color Guard marched past, Jake Dillon was standing at attention with his hand on his heart. And tears formed in his eyes.
When the ceremony was over, and the Marine Band was marching off the field to the tic-tic of drum sticks on drum rims, a first lieutenant in dress blues walked up to him.
“Sir, the Deputy Commandant would like a word with you.”
“Dillon?” the Deputy Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, in his dress blues, said to former Sergeant Dillon, offering him his hand.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Once a Marine, always a Marine. Welcome back aboard, Major.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“When you get settled, call my aide. I want a long talk with you.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Jake Dillon never again raised the question of his lack of qualifications to be a major. If the Deputy Commandant of the Corps thought he could hack it, who was he to ask questions?
In the Corps, you say, “Aye, aye, Sir,” and do what you’re told to the best of your ability.
When Major Dillon reported two weeks later for duty at Headquarters USMC, he was assigned as Officer-in-Charge, Special Projects, Public Affairs Office.
The visit of the team of Life photojournalists to the Parachute School at Lakehurst Naval Air Station was a Special Project. And from the moment Major Jake Dillon met Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville, he knew in his bones that something or someone was going to fuck it up.
He couldn’t understand the feeling, but he trusted it. He anticipated no trouble with the people from Life. He knew a couple of them; and more important, he knew their bosses. And the story itself looked like a natural. Marines were always good copy, and parachutists were always good copy, and here he had both. The confirmation of that came when he called a guy he knew at Life and learned that unless something else came along of greater importance, and providing that the pictures worked out, they were scheduling the Para-Marines as the cover story, two issues down the pike.
“Bill, do me a favor, forget you ever heard the phrase ‘Para-Marines.’ I don’t know why, but it pisses off a lot of the important brass.”
The Managing Editor of Life chuckled.
“OK. So what do I call them?”
“Marine Parachutists, please.”
“Marine Parachutists it is. You going to be at Lakehurst?”
“Sure.”
“What I sort of have in mind, Jake, is a nice clean-cut kid hanging from a parachute. For the cover, I mean.”
“You got him. I’ll have a dozen for you to choose from.”
“Excuse me, Major,” Lieutenant R. B. Macklin said to Major Homer J. Dillon, “may I have a word with you, Sir?”
Jake Dillon gave Lieutenant Macklin an impatient look, shrugged his shoulders, and jerked his thumb toward the door.
God only knows what this horse’s ass wants.
“This is far enough,” Major Jake Dillon said to Lieutenant R. B. Macklin, once they were out of earshot of the people from Life. “What’s on your mind?”
“Sir, I thought I had best bring you up to date on PFC Koffler.”
“OK. What about him?”
“I have confined him to barracks. My adjutant is drawing up the court-martial charges. He believes that ‘conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline’ is the appropriate charge.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Major is aware that Koffler…that Koffler said ‘Fuck you’ to the gentleman from Life when he asked him what his name was?”
“I wasn’t, but so what?”
“Right there on the Landing Zone, as he stood over Colonel Neville’s body. I was there, Sir.”
“I repeat, so what?”
“Well, Sir, we just can’t let something like that pass.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Jake Dillon flared. “Now listen to me, Macklin. What you’re going to do, Lieutenant, is tell your adjutant to take his goddamned court-martial charges out of his goddamned typewriter and put in a fresh sheet of paper. And on that sheet of paper, backdated to day before yesterday, he will type out an order promoting PFC Koffler to corporal.”
“Sir, I don’t understand.”
“That doesn’t surprise me at all, Lieutenant. Just do it. I want to see that kid here in thirty minutes. Showered and shaved, in a fresh uniform, with his parachute wings on his chest and corporal’s stripes on his sleeves. Those parachutists’ boots, too. I just talked to AP. They saw the picture of him that Life took, and they’re coming down here to interview him. And that Flying Sergeant who was flying the airplane. If AP’s coming, UP and INS won’t be far behind. Get the picture?”
“Sir, technically,” Macklin said, uneasily but doggedly, “he’s not entitled to wear either boots or wings. We haven’t had the graduation ceremony. Colonel Neville delayed it for the Life people, and after…what happened…I postponed it indefinitely.”
“Parachute boots, wings, and corporal’s stripes, Lieutenant,” Jake Dillon said icily. “Here. In thirty minutes.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Lieutenant Macklin said.
(Five)
“I think that’s about enough, fellas,” Major Jake Dillon said, rising to his feet. “Sergeant Galloway and Corporal Koffler have had a rough day. I think we ought to let them go.”
There were the expected mumbles of discontent from the press, but they started to fold up their notebooks and get to their feet. The interview was over.
Jake Dillon was pleased that he had thought about putting Sergeant Galloway in the press conference. Galloway had handled himself well, even better than Dillon had hoped for. And Corporal Koffler, bless his little heart, was dumber than dog shit; if Galloway hadn’t been there, that would have come out.
And the press seemed to have bought the story line that it was a tragic accident, something that just happened to a fine officer who was undergoing training with his men.
But Jake Dillon knew that when two or three are gathered together in the name of honest journalism, one of them will be a sonofabitch determined to find the maggots under the rock, even if he has to put them there himself. In this case, he wouldn’t have to look far.
Jake Dillon had formed his own unvarnished version of the truth vis-à-vis the tragic death of Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville, USMC, based on what he had heard from the jumpmaster, from Corporal Steve Koffler, and on his own previous observations of Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville.
Neville had been bitten by the publicity bug. When the guys from Life had shown very little interest in Neville himself, preferring instead to devote their attention to young enlisted men, it had really gotten to him. The whole thing was his idea, and nobody gave a damn.
And so he flipped. He was determined to have his picture in Life, and that meant he had to put himself in a position where the photographers could not ignore him. And he figured out that would be when they were shooting the parachutists exiting the aircraft. If he was first man out the door, they would have to take his picture, and they couldn’t edit him out.
So he pushed out of the way the kid Koffler, who was supposed to be first man out, and jumped. And something went wrong. Instead of being in center frame, he found himself wrapped around the horizontal stabilizer. That either killed him straight off, or it left him unconscious. Either way, he couldn’t pull the D-ring on his emergency ’chute.
Jake Dillon didn’t want that story to come out. It would hurt the widow, and would hurt the Corps.
“I would like a word with you, Sergeant, please,” Jake Dillon called after Galloway as Galloway and Koffler left the room. “You and Corporal Koffler.”
When he had them alone and out of earshot, he said, “OK. Where are you two headed?”
“Sir,” Sergeant Galloway said, “I understand that General McInerney’s coming up here in the morning. I’ve been told to make myself available to him for that.”
“I mean now, tonight. I know about the General.”
“Well, Sir, I thought I would like to get off the base. Find a room somewhere.”
“Good. Go now, and take Corporal Koffler with you. The one thing I don’t want you to do is talk to the press. Period. Under any circumstances. Consider that an order.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Charley Galloway said. A split second later, Steve parroted him.
“I’ve talked to General McInerney,” Major Dillon went on. “Here’s what’s happening. Colonel Neville’s body is to be taken to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for an autopsy. Then it will be put in a casket and brought back here. After the inquiry tomorrow morning, you and Koffler will take it to Washington. You will travel with General McInerney and an honor guard of the parachutists. Colonel Neville will be buried in Arlington. You and Koffler will be pallbearers.”
“Yes, Sir,” Sergeant Galloway said.
Jake Dillon thought he could bleed the story for a little more, with pictures of the honor guard and the flag-draped casket. And if they were still burying people in Arlington with the horse-drawn artillery caisson, maybe a shot of that and the firing squad, too. With a little bit of luck, he could get a two-, three-minute film sequence tied together for the newsreels. But that was none of Galloway’s or Koffler’s business, so he didn’t mention it.
“I don’t care where you guys go, or what you do. But I will have your ass if you either talk to the press or get shit-faced and make asses of yourselves. Do I have to make it plainer than that?”
“No, Sir,” they said, together.
Jake Dillon put his hand in his pocket.
“You need some money, either of you?”
“No, Sir,” they replied.
“OK. I want you back here at seven in the morning.”
“Get in the backseat,” Technical Sergeant Charles Galloway ordered Corporal Stephen Koffler as they approached the Mercury station wagon.
Galloway got in the front beside Mrs. Caroline Ward McNamara.
“Now what?” Aunt Caroline said, touching Charley’s hand.
“I’m sorry you had to wait like this,” Charley said. “Caroline, this is Corporal Steve Koffler. Koffler, this is Mrs. McNamara.”
“Hello,” Aunt Caroline said, looking at Steve. “I repeat, now what?”
“I have been ordered to keep an eye on Corporal Koffler overnight, and to bring him back here at 0700 in the morning.”
“Oh,” Aunt Caroline said.
“We are going to find a hotel room—rooms—someplace,” Charley said. “I wondered how that would fit in with your plans.”
“Well, it’s already dark, and I hate to drive at night, with the snow and all. Maybe I should think about getting a hotel room myself. Where’s Jim and the other lieutenant?”
“I understand Major Dillon sent for them. Maybe it would be better if we got off the base before he’s finished with them. I’m a little afraid that Major Dillon will tell one of them to keep an eye on me and Koffler.”
“Oh, I see what you mean,” Aunt Caroline said. She started the engine and headed for the gate.
“Just how close an eye do you have to keep on the corporal?” Aunt Caroline asked.
“I think an adjacent room would be close enough.”
“Adjacent but not adjoining, you mean?” Aunt Caroline said.
“Exactly.”
“Excuse me, Sergeant?” Corporal Koffler said.
“What, Koffler?”
“Sergeant, I live in East Orange. Do you suppose it would be all right if I went home?”
“You live where?”
“East Orange. It’s right next to Newark.”
“Oh, really?” Aunt Caroline said. “Maybe you could find a hotel in Newark for yourself, and Corporal Koffler could spend the night with his family.”
“The Essex House Hotel’s in Newark,” Steve offered helpfully. “I never stayed there, but I hear it’s real nice. You both probably could get rooms there.”
“Now there’s a thought,” Aunt Caroline said innocently.
“But I’m supposed to keep an eye on him,” Charley Galloway said. “If he went home alone, and Major Dillon or Lieutenant Ward or Lieutenant Schneider ever heard about it, we’d all be in trouble.”
“Well, we don’t have to tell them, do we?” Steve asked shrewdly.
“No, I guess we wouldn’t really have to,” Charley Galloway said. “Could I trust you to stay out of trouble, Koffler, and be waiting for me at, say, 0530, outside your house in the morning?”
“It’s an apartment house,” Steve said. “Sure, you could trust me, Sergeant. I’d really like to see my girl, Sergeant.”
“You’d better be careful about that, Koffler. Women have been known to suffer uncontrollable sexual frenzies at the mere sight of a Marine in uniform. That could lead to trouble.”
Aunt Caroline giggled, and Charley Galloway yelped in pain, as if someone had dug fingernails into the soft flesh of his upper thigh.
“My girl won’t get me in trouble, Sergeant,” Steve said.
“OK. Then we’ll do it. You give Mrs. McNamara directions to your house.”
On the outskirts of Newark, Aunt Caroline pulled into a gasoline station. As the attendant filled the tank and she visited the rest room, Charley Galloway saw a rack of newspapers.
“I’ll be damned,” he said, and went to the rack and bought two copies of the Newark Evening News.
He walked back to the station wagon and handed one to Steve Koffler.
“You’re a famous man now, Koffler,” he said. “Try not to let it go to your head.”
There was a three-column picture in the center of the front page. It showed Steve Koffler holding the risers and shroud lines of his parachute against his chest; he was looking down at the body of Lieutenant Colonel Franklin G. Neville. Tears were visible on his cheeks.
Over the picture was a headline, EVEN THE TOUGH CAN WEEP, and below it was a caption: “Cpl. Stephen Koffler, of East Orange, a member of the elite U.S. Marine Corps Parachute Force, weeps as he looks at the body of his commanding officer, Lt. Col. F. G. Neville, who fell to his death moments before when his parachute failed to open during training exercises at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station this morning. Koffler was second man in the ‘stick’ jumping from the Marine airplane, behind Col. Neville. [Associated Press Photograph from Life]”
On the way from the gasoline station to 121 Park Avenue, East Orange, Corporal Stephen Koffler of the “elite U.S. Marine Corps Parachute Force” (Jesus Christ, that sounds great!) ran over several times in his mind the sequence of events that would occur once he got home.
Dianne would have seen the Newark Evening News. Everybody read it. She would see his picture. She would wonder, naturally, when she would see him again. And she would more than likely realize that the reason he had been unable to come to see her was that he was busy with his duties with the Elite Marine Corps Parachute Force.
He would appear at her door. She would answer it. Her family would be gone somewhere. She would look into his eyes. They would embrace. Her tongue would slip into his mouth. She would break away.
“I saw your picture in the paper,” she would say. “Was it just awful?”
And he would say, “No. Not really. You have to expect that sort of thing.”
And they would kiss again, and she would slip her tongue in his mouth again. And this time he would put his hand up under her sweater, or maybe down the back of her skirt.
And she would say, “Not here,” but she wouldn’t mean it, and he would take her into her living room and do it to her on the couch. Or maybe even into her bedroom—and do it to her in her own bed.
Just by way of saying hello.
“Let’s get out of here,” he would say. “Where we can really be alone.”
“But where could we go?” she would ask.
“How about the Essex House?”
And she would say, “The Essex House? Could we get a room in the Essex House?”
And he would say, “Sure, we can. I’m a corporal on jump pay.”
He wasn’t born yesterday. Sergeant Galloway and the blond lady in the station wagon were going to shack up in the Essex House. That was just so much bullshit about getting two rooms. And if Sergeant Galloway was going to screw this blond lady in the Essex House, why shouldn’t he screw Dianne there?
And Dianne would say, “But what about Leonard?”
And he would say “Fuck Leonard. You’re through with that candy-ass civilian.”
No. He didn’t want to talk like that around Dianne. He would say, “To hell with Leonard. You’re through with that civilian.”
And once he got her into the Essex House and they’d done it a couple of times more, he would tell her that it didn’t matter that she was a couple of years older than he was, he was psychologically older than the age on his birth certificate. He was a Marine, for Christ’s sake, a member of the Elite Marine Corps Parachute Force. What he had done, and what he had seen, made him at least as old as Leonard, psychologically speaking.
It did not work out quite the way Steve envisioned it.
The first thing that went wrong was that his mother was not only home but looking out the window when Sergeant Galloway stopped to let him out of the blond lady’s station wagon.
By the time he got to the foyer, she had run downstairs and was waiting for him. She threw her arms around him and started crying, for Christ’s sake.
Steve hadn’t even thought of his mother. As she gave him the weepy bear hug, he was conscious that if she hadn’t been looking out the window, he could have gone straight to Dianne’s and started things off the way he planned.
But he was caught now. He was only too aware that he would have to spend a little time with her before going to see Dianne.
His mother’s husband appeared and shook his hand and, for the first time ever, seemed glad to see him. The sonofabitch even worked up a smile and said, “Come on up, I’ll make us a little Seven-and-Seven.”
As they were going up the stairs, Dianne came down them. Dianne and Leonard.
“Hi!” Steve said.
“Hey, kid,” Leonard said. “I saw your picture in the paper.”
“Hello, Steve,” Dianne said. “Nice to see you.”
“Great to see you.”
That was it. The next second, Dianne and Leonard were down the stairs and gone.
The phone was ringing when they got in the apartment. It was Mrs. Danielli. She had probably seen his picture in the Newark Evening News, because his mother said to her, “Yeah, sure, we seen it. He’s here, Anna, he just this minute walked in the door.”
And then Mrs. Danielli must have told Vinny that he was home, because his mother handed him the telephone and said, “Say hello to Vinny, Stevie.”
“Ask them if they want to go out with us and get some spaghetti or something, why don’t you?” Steve’s mother’s husband chimed in. Steve pretended not to hear him. If he got involved with the Daniellis, he would never get loose to go look for Dianne.
His mother jerked the phone out of his hand.
“Vinny, tell your mother Stanley asked do you and your mother and father want to go out with us and get some spaghetti.”
It was agreed they would meet the Daniellis at the Naples Restaurant on Orange Street by Branch Brook Park in half an hour.
His mother hung up the telephone and turned to him.
“What were you so nice to that tramp about?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Dianne Marshall whatever-her-married-name-is, is what tramp I’m talking about—the one whose husband threw her out because she was fooling around.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Don’t you ever dare talk to me like that!”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Ma!”
She slapped him.
“Don’t think you’re a big shot, Mr. Big Shot, who can swear at his mother!”
“What the hell is going on out there?” his mother’s husband called from the kitchen.
“Nothing, dear.”
They had to wait for a table at the Naples Restaurant. The Daniellis—Mr. and Mrs., and Maria and Beryl, Vinny’s little sisters, and Vinny—showed up just before they finally got one.
When they got inside, Dianne and Leonard were there, sitting at a table for two with a candle in a Chianti bottle. The table was over against the wall-sized mural of what was supposed to be, Steve guessed, Naples and some volcano with smoke coming out of it.
They were just finishing up their meal. Leonard hadn’t seen them, and Steve wasn’t sure whether Dianne had or not. She wasn’t looking in their direction, anyhow. And then she got up to go to the john.
She saw me. She pretended she didn’t see me. She must know what my mother thinks about her, so she wanted to avoid trouble. And she doesn’t really have to go to the toilet; she knows I’ll see her go in there and will meet her outside, in that little corridor or whatever the hell it is.
“Excuse me, please, I have to visit the little boys’ room.”
“Again?” his mother said. “You just went before we left the apartment!”
He prayed his mother had not seen Dianne.
He had to wait a long time in the little corridor between the door that said REST ROOMS and the doors to the men’s and ladies’ johns, but finally Dianne came out.
“Hi!”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.”
“You crazy, or what? Christ!”
Steve tried to kiss her. She averted her face. When he tried harder, and started putting his arms around her, she kneed him in the balls.
“Jesus Christ,” Dianne said, as he leaned against the wall, faint and in agony. “Can’t you take the hint? Stay the hell away from me. You come near me again, I’ll tell my father, and he’ll beat the shit out of you!”