The small officer, meanwhile, looked like a goddamned wandering gypsy. In one hand he was carrying a cigarette; in the other, an even more disreputable-looking issue equipment bag. Both lower bellows pockets of his blouse were bulging. The left held a newspaper, and the right almost certainly contained a whiskey bottle in a brown paper bag. And God alone knows what else; the pocket’s seams are straining.
“Afternoon, Colonel,” the little one greeted him, smiling. He had a Rebel twang that was almost a parody of a southern accent. It came out, ‘Aft’noon, Cunnel.”
“A word, gentlemen, if you please,” Colonel Porter said. The two stopped. Colonel Porter stepped close enough to confirm some of his suspicions: Neither had been close to a razor for at least twenty-four hours. And they both reeked of gin.
“What can we do for you, Colonel?” the small one continued. It came out, “Whut kin we do foah you, Cunnel?”
“You can follow me inside, if you will, please, gentlemen.”
“I’ll be damned, it’s Captain Mustache,” the tall one said, more than a little thickly.
“What did you say, Lieutenant?” Colonel Porter snapped.
“This officer is known to me, Sir,” Captain Carstairs said; he wore a perfectly trimmed pencil-line mustache. “The last name is Carstairs, Lieutenant… as you might have recalled under more favorable circumstances. You are apparently confusing me with Captain Mistacher.”
“Whatever you say. How have you been?”
Captain Carstairs gave the tall Lieutenant a tight, sharp-edged smile. And Colonel Porter took that as a sign of disapproval.
They were now inside the lobby of the Officers’ Club. A large, oblong table was in the center of the room.
“Step up to the table, please, Lieutenant,” Colonel Porter said. “As you unload the contents of your pockets, Captain Carstairs will record exactly what you have jammed in there.”
“Little Billy,” the tall one said. “I think we are on the Colonel’s shit list.”
“You are an officer, presumably-” Colonel Porter said icily, only to be interrupted by the smaller, younger one.
“I was getting that feeling myself, Pick,” he agreed solemnly, in his slurred Southern drawl.
“-and I don’t like your language.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Lieutenant Malcolm S. Pickering said, and saluted. Officers of the Naval Service do not salute indoors.
“You are drunk, Lieutenant!”
“I would judge that an accurate assessment of my condition,” Pick said, carefully and slowly pronouncing each syllable.
“Close your mouth! You will speak only when spoken to!”
“Excuse me. I thought you were talking to me.”
“You unload your pockets,” Colonel Porter said to Lieutenant Dunn.
The brown bag turned out to contain gin, not whiskey.
“What is your unit, Lieutenant?” Colonel Porter asked as Dunn put his hand back in his pocket.
“Suh, ah have the distinct honah and priv’lidge of serving with VMF-229, Suh,” Dunn said, trying his best to stand to attention.
Dunn laid an oblong, four-by-six-inch blue box on the table; then two more identical boxes. And then he reached for other items.
No wonder he was about to burst the seams on that pocket. Holy God, they look like medal boxes!
Colonel Porter picked one of them up and opened it. It was the Distinguished Flying Cross.
“Is this yours, Lieutenant?”
“No, Suh. That one belongs to Lieutenant Pickering. He left it on the airplane, and I picked it up for him.”
Porter opened another of the boxes. It held another DFC. He opened the third box, which contained the Navy Cross.
“Is this yours or his?” Colonel Porter asked softly.
“Those two are mine, Suh,” Dunn said. “Mr. Frank Knox, hisself, gave them to me yesterday.”
“What are you two doing here?” Porter asked.
“Just passin’ through, Cunnel,” Dunn said. “We came in on the courier flight. And just as soon as I kin find a telephone, ah’m going to call mah Daddy and have him come fetch us. Ah live over on Mobile Bay.”
“Captain Carstairs,” Colonel Porter said, “you will assist these gentlemen in any way you can. I suggest that you offer them coffee and something to eat. You will stay with them until they have transportation. If that turns into a problem, you will arrange transportation and accompany them to their destination.”