There were a lot of radiomen who were good operators, and there were a lot of radiomen who were good technicians, but there weren’t all that many who were both. Since the Navy wasn’t going to send him to sea, the next best thing was to make chief radioman. Nobody would believe that a chief radioman had never been to sea. Or if that came out, people would understand that the Navy had its reasons for keeping him ashore. If he was a chief, it wouldn’t matter that he was a skinny little shit who wore glasses. A chief was a chief, period.
And making radioman first was going to be easier than he had thought it would be. He was going to go back to Mare Island when they were through with him with a letter of commendation from a goddamned Navy captain.
“Makes you sound like John Paul Jones, Garvey,” Chief Ellis had told him.
“I
know, ’cause I wrote it.”
The next time the promotion board sat, he was probably going to be the only radioman second going for first with a letter of commendation like that.
just kept his mouth shut, he was going to make radioman first, and a little later, he would make chief radioman.
But that was no longer good enough. He didn’t want to sit out the war in the commo section at Mare Island. He wanted to get into the war. When somebody asked him, later, what he’d done in the war, he didn’t want to have to tell them he’d been at Mare Island, period.
And he thought he had figured out what to do about it.
“Puck it!” Radioman Second Joe Garvey said aloud, which made the bartender look at him strangely.
Then he got off the bar stool, shrugged his arms into his peacoat, put his hat at a jaunty angle on his head, and walked, somewhat unsteadily, out of the bar of the petty officers’ club.
He didn’t stop to pick up his Liberty Card. He was afraid the master-at-arms would smell the beer on him and not give it to him. He had been given an “any hour in and out” duty card, which would get him past the Marine MP at the gate.
As he went through the gate, a taxicab rolled up and an officer got out. Joe Garvey saluted and got in.
“Q Street, Northwest,” he ordered.
“I’ll show you where.”
On the way, he fell asleep, and the cabdriver had to stop the cab and re in the back and shake him awake when they were on Q Street.
“Further down,” Joe told him, and the cab drove slowly down the street til Joe recognized the brick wall.
“Right there,” he said, and handed the cabdriver a five-dollar bill.
“Keep change.”
He had almost made it to the door in the gate when a large man in a overcoat appeared out of nowhere.
“Hold it right there, sailor!”
“It’s all right,” Garvey said.
“I’m to report to Chief Ellis.”
“You missed him, then,” the man said.
“He left an hour ago.” , Another, equally burly man appeared.
“What have you got, Harry?” he asked.
“I got me a drunken sailor,” the first man said.
“The sonofabitch can ba stand up.”
“Fuck you,” Joe Garvey said. , “I got me a belligerent drunken sailor,” the man said, laughing. He put hand on Garvey’s arm. i “What the hell do we do with him?” ;
“I’ll take him inside and ask the duty officer,” the first man said.
“He he’s supposed to report to Ellis.” ‘ “Kid,” the second man said.
“I think you just fucked up by the numb The first man, firmly gripping Garvey’s arm, propelled him a hundred farther down the street, then through the automobile gate to the prop then up the drive, and finally into the kitchen.
Joe Garvey recognized the two men in shirtsleeves sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. As well as he could, he came to attention and salui “Sir,” he said (it came out “Shir”), “Radioman Second Class Garvey, J.” rep permission to speak to the captain, Sir.” i “What have we here?” 1st It. Horace G. Hammersmith, Signal Corpse Army, asked, smiling.