W E B Griffin – Corp 06 – Close Combat

“I wish you would come with us, Carol,” Flo said.

“Well, all right,” Carol said.

“She didn’t take a hell of a lot of convincing, did she?” Pick asked.

“Steve said you had a big mouth, young man,” Commander Kocharski said. “If you’re smart, you’ll keep it shut around me and my friends.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Lieutenant Pickering said very politely.

[TWO]

Muku Muku

1555 Hours 20 October 1942

“Dawkins,” Lieutenant Colonel Clyde W. Dawkins answered the telephone at Ewa. Galloway thought he sounded very tired.

“Galloway, Sir. We just got in. Dunn, Pickering, and me.”

“Welcome to the Pearl of the Pacific, Charley. What they’re going to do is run you through the hospital, primarily to check for malaria….”

“Sir, we’ve already been through that.”

“OK. I’ll send a car for you. It’ll take thirty minutes. Wait just inside the main entrance to the hospital….”

“Sir, that won’t be necessary.”

“What does that mean?”

“Sir, I decided that the officers of VMF-299 needed a seventy-two-hour liberty, and I granted them one.”

There was a long pause before Dawkins asked, “I gather you’re not at Pearl Harbor, Charley?”

“No, Sir.”

“Where are you?”

“It’s a place called Muku Muku, Sir.”

“What the hell is that, Galloway? A brothel?”

Galloway glanced around the flagstone patio overlooking the crashing surf. Commander Kocharski and Lieutenant Pickering were sitting each to one side of a table entirely occupied by a large silver platter of hors d’oeuvres. A white-jacketed, silver-haired black man stood off nearby. Lieutenant Carol Ursery, Nurse Corps, USN, and First Lieutenant William C. Dunn, USMCR, were dancing (so slowly that Galloway found it pleasantly erotic) to phonograph music.

“No, Sir, it is not,” Galloway said.

“Goddamn it, Galloway, I’m tired. Don’t play with me.”

“It’s a private home, Sir. On the coast. It belongs to Pickering’s family.”

“Charley, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to come out here, and now.”

“Sir, with respect, won’t it wait until the morning? It’s 1600…”

There was another long pause.

“Where is this place, Charley? How do I get there?”

“You want to come here, Sir?”

“Either way, Galloway,” Dawkins said. “I come there, or the three of you come out here.”

“Hold one, Sir,” Charley said, and covered the microphone with his hand. “Pickering, get on the horn and tell the Skipper how to get here from Ewa.”

“Welcome to Muku Muku, Colonel,” the silver-haired black man said as he opened the door of Dawkins’ 1941 Plymouth staff car. “I’m Dennis, the chief steward. Mr. Pickering and his guests are on the patio. If you’ll come with me, please?”

“What the hell is this place?” Dawkins asked as he looked around.

“Officially, Colonel, it is the Pacific & Far East Shipping Corporation’s Guest House for Visiting Masters & Chief Engineers,” Denny said. “But everybody calls it Muku Muku.”

Dawkins followed Denny through the elegantly furnished house to the patio. A very large Polish woman in a gloriously flowered Muumuu saw him first and stood up. When she rose, so did Lieutenant Pickering. Lieutenant Dunn and a nurse a good six inches taller than he was were dancing to Glenn Miller records on a phonograph. They stopped dancing when they saw him, but they did not, Dawkins noticed, let go of each other’s hands.

“Good evening, Sir,” Pickering said. “Welcome to Muku Muku. Can Denny get you something to drink?”

“Where is Captain Galloway?” Dawkins said.

“He just went inside for a moment,” Pickering said. “Excuse me, Sir. May I present Commander Kocharski and Lieutenant Ursery?”

Why am I not surprised? What did I think Commander Kocharski would look like? Lana Turner?

“Commander,” Dawkins said, taking her hand; it was larger than his, he noticed. “I have the odd feeling that you would be interested to hear that I have just learned that the Commandant of The Marine Corps has just approved the promotion of Technical Sergeant Oblensky to master gunner.”

Master gunners, who rank between noncommissioned and commissioned officers, are the Marine Corps equivalent of Warrant Officers in the Army. They are entitled to be saluted by enlisted men, and are afforded other commissioned officers’ privileges.

“Oh, that’s wonderful news!” Flo said.

“You’ve heard, I guess, he’s on his way here?”

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