Of the twelve guys who started, six made it through. Three got thrown out, one broke his leg climbing up the side of a barn, and two just quit.
Some Army full-bull colonel, a silver-haired Irishman wearing the blue starred ribbon of the Medal of Honor (the first one Staley had ever seen actually being worn), came to the estate just before they were through with the course and shook their hands; Staley was able to figure out from that that whatever was going on involved more than one service.
Two days before, the cadre had loaded them all in station wagons, taken them to Washington, and handed them $300 and a list of “recommended civilian clothing.” Staley had bought two suits, six shirts, a pair of shoes, and some neckties.
The night before, one at a time, Baker had called everybody in and given them their orders, which they were not to discuss with anyone else. Staley didn’t know what to make of his. He was ordered to report in civilian clothing to the National Institutes of Health, in Washington, D.C.
They had brought him there in one of the station wagons.
There was a receptionist in the lobby, and a couple of cops.
He went to the receptionist, not sure what to do about his orders. They were stamped secret, and you don’t go around showing secret orders to every dame behind a plate-glass window with a hole in it.
“I was told to report here,” Staley said, when she finally looked at him.
“May I have your name, Sir?” she asked.
When he gave it to her, she looked at a typewritten list, then handed him a cardboard badge with visitor printed on it, and an alligator clip on the back of it so that he could pin it to the lapel of his new suit. Then she called one of the cops over.
“Would you take Mr. Staley to Chief Ellis, please?” she said.
The cop smiled and made a come with me gesture with his hand. Staley followed him to an elevator, and they rode up in it and then went down a corridor until they came to a door with a little sign reading “Director.” Inside that door was an office with a couple of women clerks pushing typewriters, an older woman who was obviously in charge, and a door with another sign reading “Director” on it.
“This is Mr. Staley,” the cop said.
“The Chief expects him,” the gray-haired woman said with a smile. Then she looked at Staley.
“Go on in,” she said.
Staley stopped at the door and, conditioned by long habit of the proper way to report to a commanding officer, knocked and waited to be told to enter.
“Come in,” a male voice called.
There was another office beyond that door, furnished with a large, glistening desk, a red leather couch, and two red leather chairs. Sitting at the desk, side wards so he could rest his feet on the open lower drawer of the desk, was a chief boatswain’s mate, USN, smoking a cigar and reading a newspaper.
“Whaddayasay, Staley?” the Chief said.
“Getting any, lately?”
It took a moment before Staley was sure who the Chief was, then he said, “Jesus H. Christ! Ellis!”
Ellis swung around in his high-backed chair and pushed a lever on an intercom box.
“Could somebody bring us some coffee? “he asked. Then he turned to Staley and gestured toward the red leather couch.
“Sit down,” he said.
“Take a load off.”
Chief Boatswain’s Mate J. R. Ellis, USN, was wearing a brand-new uniform.
There were twenty-four years’ worth of hash marks on the sleeve. The uniform was his Christmas present to himself. It was custom-made. He had had custom-made uniforms before, but in China, when he’d been with the Yangtze River Patrol. But he hadn’t been a chief then, and custom-made uniforms cost a hell of a lot less in China than they did in the States. Chief Ellis had figured, what the hell, he had never even expected that he would make chief, why the hell not get a stateside custom-made uniform. He could afford it.
The last time Staley had seen Ellis had been in Shanghai, and Ellis had been right on the edge of getting busted from bosun’s mate first and maybe even getting his ass kicked out of the Navy. Ellis had been on the Panay when the Japs sank it in December 1937. After he’d swum away from the burning Panay, Ellis just hadn’t given much of a damn for anything. Staley understood that: How the hell could you take pride in being a sailor if your government didn’t do a goddamn thing to the goddamn Japs after they sank a U.S. man-of war and killed a lot of sailors while they were at it?