Corps 03 - Counterattack by W. E. B. Griffin

Author:W. E. B. Griffin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: War & Military, Fiction
ISBN: 9780515104172
Publisher: Jove
Published: 1990-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

(Two)

Office of the Chief of Staff

Headquarters, 2nd Joint Training Force

San Diego, California

21 February 1942

Captain Jack NMI Stecker, USMCR, knocked at the open door of Colonel Lewis T. “Lucky Lew” Harris’s office and waited for permission to enter.

“Come,” Colonel Harris said, throwing a pencil down with disgust on his desk. “Why the hell is it, Jack, that whenever you tell somebody to put some simple idea on paper, he uses every big word he ever heard of? And uses them wrong?”

“I don’t know, Sir,” Stecker smiled. “Am I the guilty party?”

“No. This piece of crap comes from our beloved adjutant. They’re worse than anybody, which I suppose is why we make them adjutants.” He raised his voice: “Sergeant Major!”

The Sergeant Major, a very thin, very tall, leather-skinned man in his late thirties, quickly appeared at the office door.

“Sir?”

“Sergeant Major, would you please give this to the Adjutant? Tell him I don’t understand half of it and that it needs rewriting. Tell him I said he is forbidden to use words of more than two syllables.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” the Sergeant Major said, chuckling, winking at Stecker, and taking the clipped-together sheaf of papers from Colonel Harris’s desk. “Sir, I presume the Colonel knows he’s about to break the Adjutant’s heart? He really is proud of this.”

“Good,” Harris said. “Better than good. Splendid! Tell him I want it in the morning. Anybody who writes crap like that doesn’t deserve any sleep.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” the Sergeant Major said, smiling broadly, and left the office.

“Close the door, Jack,” Colonel Harris said. Stecker did so. When he turned around, there was a bottle of Jack Daniel’s bourbon and two glasses on Harris’s desk. “A little something to cut the dust of the trail, Jack?”

“It’s a little early for me, Sir.”

“We’re wetting down a promotion,” Harris said. “And now that I am about to be a general officer, I will decide whether or not it’s a little early for you.”

“In that case, General, I would be honored,” Stecker said.

“I said ‘about to be a general.’ Not ‘am.’ You listen about as closely as that goddamned Adjutant. You’re going to have to watch that, Jack, now that you’re a field-grade officer.”

“Sir?”

“Now I’ve got your attention, don’t I?” Harris said, pleased with himself. He handed Stecker an ex-Kraft Cheese glass, half-full of whiskey.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Mud in your eye, Major Stecker,” Colonel Harris said.

“I’m a little confused, Sir,” Stecker said, as he raised the glass to his mouth and tossed the whiskey down.

“General Riley was on the horn just now,” Harris said. He drained his glass and returned the bottle to the drawer before going on. “He said that my name has gone to the Senate for B.G., and presumably, as soon as they can—if they can—gather enough of them, sober enough to vote, for a quorum, the orders will be cut.”

“It’s well deserved,” Stecker said sincerely.

“I’m glad you think so,” Harris said softly. “Thank you, Jack.”

Harris touched Stecker’s arm in what was, for him, a gesture of deep affection.

Then the tone of his voice changed.

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