The Return of the Marines Trilogy Page 13

  She gasped and sniffled, then pulled herself together. “Gunny Mac, joining the night owls here tonight?” she asked, rubbing her sleeve across her eyes.

  Gunny looked down at her, feeling a lump form in his throat. He put his back to the wall and slid down until he was sitting alongside of her, their legs touching.

  “I haven’t said anything to you yet, Loralee, because I don’t know what to say. And you seem so strong. But I am very, very sorry for your husband. He seemed like a real good man.”

  She was quiet for a moment, head back, staring up at the dim reaches of the passage. Suddenly, she put her head down in her arms, and Gunny could hear her quiet sobs. Not knowing what else to do, he put his arm around her shoulders. She tensed for a moment, then relaxed into his embrace, letting him support her while she finally let out the tears. They sat like that for several minutes, alone in the dark passage, her quietly crying and him just supporting her by being there. Finally, the sobs slowed, then stilled. She sniffed and rubbed her nose on her forearm.

  “Yes, he was a good man, and I’m sure going to miss him.” She paused for a few moments. “He was my second husband, you know? I married for the first time when I was 17, way, way too young. And when we lost our little girl, well, we were just kids ourselves, and we couldn’t handle it. John, my ex, left me, and I just puttered along through life, not really caring about anything else. Then I met Stan, and he was so, well, so mature, so rock solid. I can be a little crazy sometimes, if you haven’t noticed . . .”

  “Oh no, never, not me ma’am,” he responded with mock sincerity, and they both chuckled softly.

  “Thanks for that, Gunny. You know how to sweet talk an old lady. But Stan, he was my governor, he kept me on an even keel. He was good for me, and I loved him for that. He wasn’t the best looking man, the most exciting man, but he was right for me. And now, I am going to miss that man so much.”

  “You know, Loralee, it is OK to show your emotions. When we dragged you through the door today, well, I thought I must have heard wrong, that your husband wasn’t even out there. You seemed so calm and collected.”

  “Oh, I am not one for much emotion. And I have to keep control now, do you understand? I can break down later, after we are out of here. But if I break down now, well, I’m not sure I can come back from that. And you don’t need a hysterical old woman dragging everyone down. So, help me keep it together, OK? Help me keep strong. I will mourn my Stan later, when I can afford to do it right.”

  “Sure thing, but I kind of doubt that you really need me for that. You’re an iron lady, Ms. Howard, if I may be so bold as to say that.”

  “Ah, once again, my dear Gunny, you sure know how to sweet talk a lady.”

  They sat like that in silence for several more minutes. Slowly, Loralee took a hold of Gunny’s hand and removed his arm from around his shoulders and struggled to her feet.

  “No more copping a free feel for you, and I think you have kept me from my beauty sleep long enough.” She turned to stand over him, looking down.

  “Thank you, Gunny Mac.”

  She leaned over, taking his face in her hands, and kissed his forehead, then turned and walked back into the Admin office. Gunny Mac sat there and watched her disappear inside the doors.

  With a sigh, he stood up and walked down to down to Post 1. Sgt Chen was at the post along with PFC Van Slyke.

  “Anything?”

  “No Gunny. Quieter than a witch’s tit out there.”

  “A what? And just how quiet is a witch’s tit?”

  “I don’t know Gunny. Pretty quiet, I guess. I mean, who wants to go and grab a witch’s tit. All ugly like that?” Van Slyke said.

  Listening in, Van Slyke laughed, then groaned and put his hand up to his face as the pain hit him.

  “You OK?” He looked closely at the bandages on Van Slyke’s face.

  “Sure Gunny. It only hurts when I laugh.”

  “Well then—”

  Both Chen and Van Slyke chorused in before Gunny Mac could finish, “DON’T LAUGH!”

  Gunny Mac smiled and turned back, going to the Cultural Affairs office where Steptoe and the USAID guy, Drayton, were posted. Gunny had a problem with putting Drayton there, but the guy insisted, and he knew he should get his Marines as much rest as possible. There was no telling what was coming down the pike, and he wanted everyone in the best condition possible.

  Drayton spun around nervously, weapon in hand, as Gunny Mac entered. He saw it was the Gunny, and he sheepishly lowered his M18. Gunny Mac almost said something about him having a weapon, then decided to ignore it.

  “Anything at all out there? Any movement?” he asked instead.

  “No Gunny,” answered Steptoe. “It’s been real quiet. After the Indian soldiers went back over the wall, there hasn’t been much. We’ve seen a couple heads poke over the wall to take a look, and we can see people peering in through the gate, but nothing else.”

  “Well, OK. Let me know if you see anything. You’ve got another hour and Ramon and Kramer will relieve you. Try to get some sleep then.”

  “Aye-aye, Gunny,” they both replied in unison. For a civilian, Drayton was picking up the Corps lingo pretty quickly.

  Gunny Mac walked back to the Admin office and laid down on the newspapers with which he had staked out his claim on the floor. He tried to get some sleep, but it kept eluding him as his mind filled with thoughts on what he was missing, what he should be doing. He heard the ongoing watch get up and leave, then the off-going watch come back and lie down. Soon, snores were emanating from LCpl Steptoe, but Gunny Mac could not drift off himself. Finally, he gave up and went to join Ramon and Kramer where he watched the dawn slowly lighten up the embassy courtyard. He wondered what the day would bring.

  Chapter 24

  Wednesday Morning, U-Tapao Air Base, Thailand

  LT Littlehawk stood anxiously in the old hangar at U-Tapao. He had flown up the night before with the rest of the Reagan stay-behinds aboard one of the four Ospreys, but now they were just in hurry-up-and-wait mode. He knew that with each passing moment, the Reagan was getting further and further away, and he wasn’t sure about the legs on the Ospreys. The Indonesian crews had landed the birds, taxied them into the hangar, then drove away in two waiting vans, leaving them alone except for two Thai airmen guards who didn’t seem to speak any English.

  He stared across the runway to the nondescript terminal and the one commuter-sized plane parked there. The terminal seemed to shimmer through the heat waves radiating off the runway. The airport was obviously dual-purpose with both civilian and military aircraft, but the civilian side seemed a little light. A few old F16s with Thai markings were parked further down from the terminal near a couple of somewhat newer-looking buildings, and a number of helos were out on the aprons. On this side of the runway, however, there wasn’t much. Three old hangars and a beat-up one-story building seemed to make up the bulk of the facilities. The sailors and Ospreys were obviously being kept as out-of-sight as possible.

  The heat was getting a little oppressive as the sun beat down on the tarmac and radiated inside the hangar. Littlehawk looked back into the hangar where most of the sailors were sleeping wherever they could find a free space on the concrete deck. Another group was playing spades. No matter the situation, probably since time immemorial, sailor always seemed to find the will and the way for a game of spades.

  An approaching van, coming from out of the dense jungle in back of the small facility, pulled in front of the hangar, and eight Marines in cammies and full battle gear got out. One, a staff sergeant, Littlehawk thought, came up to him.

  “Can you tell me who is senior here?” the Marine asked.

  “I am Lieutenant Littlehawk. I guess it might be me.”

  The Marine snapped off a salute, which Littlehawk instinctively returned despite not being in uniform. “Sir, Staff Sergeant Montrose here. I’m afraid there has been some mistake. We’re from the embassy in Bangkok, and these Ospreys are for an inco
ming group of Marines. Someone doing the air schedules thought it would be perfect to get you back out to your ship, but he didn’t know these birds will be full. So, I’m going to have to ask you to let your people know you’re going to have to stay here until the JUSMAG can figure out what to do with you.”

  Littlehawk’s heart dropped. He had thought he was going to get back onboard the Reagan, but now it looked like this was getting snatched away from him.

  “What do you mean these birds are going to be full? Who’s getting on them?”

  “Sir, I am not at liberty to tell you that. Please, just inform your people and move them back out of the way. We’ll be using the front of this hangar as an assembly point. Someone from the JUSMAG will get here soon and figure out what to do with you all.”

  He started to protest but realized this Marine was not in the position to change anything. He would wait until someone from the Joint US Military Assistance Group arrived, or whoever arrived to fly in these birds showed up. By hook or by crook, he was going to get onboard.

  Chapter 25

  Wednesday Morning, US Embassy, New Delhi

  The president was antsy. He had barely eaten any of the somewhat smashed reception food or the fruit and crackers Mr. Dravid had gleaned from the ambassador’s refrigerator. Now he was pacing while methodically cleaning each fingernail with the nail from the opposite hand’s forefinger. He had just been briefed on the Reagan’s movement and the progress (or lack thereof) on the diplomatic scene. Now the PDA had been turned back off, and the president had commenced pacing.

  Gunny Mac understood the feeling. He knew he should be doing something, but he really could not determine exactly what he should be doing. Twenty-four hours ago, he was in his element, getting ready for a pain-in-the-ass presidential visit. He understood that. Pain-in-the-ass VIP visits were part of the Marine Corps’ stock in trade. Now, he had dead Marines, Marines in his charge. And he had the President of the United States sitting in an office in a hostile, life-threatening situation. But it was jarringly quiet now. In fact, nothing much had happened since early in the morning when some Indian police had entered the courtyard and removed the bodies there. Gunny thought someone in the Indian government finally must have realized that the CNN satellite could easily see them, and those images were perhaps not in India’s best interest. Still, no one had attempted to contact them in the embassy building itself, not even to ask as to the president’s condition, which seemed more than strange.

  He heard a quiet laugh and looked over to see PFC Ramon sitting alongside MAJ Defilice, while he grabbed her arm and tried to say something more. PFC Ramon threw her head back and laughed louder. Gunny felt a little pang of, of, well he wasn’t sure what it was. It couldn’t be jealousy, right? There was no reason for that. But it was a pang of something, never-the-less.

  He heard steps and looked up to see LCpl Steptoe with Mr. Dravid in tandem approach him.

  “Um Gunny? Mr. Dravid has been in the ambassador’s office, and well, Cpl Crocker and Cpl Ashley, well, they aren’t doing that well in the heat. Mr. Dravid wonders if we should put them in the reefer in the ambassador’s pantry. We can take out the shelves, and they should fit. There’s still ice in there, so it should stay cooler in there than out in the office.”

  Mr. Dravid stood behind Steptoe, looking over his shoulder at Gunny anxiously.

  He felt the eyes of the others swing to him.

  “Yes, I think that is a good idea. Go do it.”

  He felt a little guilty watching the two of them move off, but frankly, he didn’t want to help move them, to see their dead bodies. The office returned to quiet.

  “Sergeant, when do you think something is going to happen?” Gunny Mac looked over to see the president watching him expectantly.

  “I don’t know sir. It’s been pretty quiet, but you know people are working on this.”

  “I know they are. I just got off the PDA with the vice-president. We’ve got the Reagan on the way, but it won’t get offshore near Calcutta for another 14 or 16 hours. But what do you think? What does your gut tell you?”

  The president was speaking normally to him, man-to-man, perhaps for the first time since his arrival. Gunny couldn’t be sure, but the look in the president’s eyes might have even been a little hopeful.

  “Well sir, I don’t know. I think this is going to break one way or the other before the Reagan gets offshore. Marines have been through this before. Tehran. Beirut. Nairobi. Caracas. Lima.”

  He gestured to SSgt Child, still prone on the desk, chest slowly rising and falling.

  “I am surprised, to be honest, that the crowd didn’t storm the place immediately, when they were riled up like that. I don’t know why they didn’t. Maybe it was Sgt Niimoto taking out those guys. Maybe they were as surprised as everyone else things escalated. What you told us about the government participation in all of this might mean the mob out there isn’t really wired into all of this.”

  He paused for a moment before continuing, “But the fact that it has been so long, almost 24 hours now, well, that could be a good sign. That means if the government is involved, that they don’t want something drastic to happen, or that our diplomatic efforts are doing some good. The longer this drags on the better, but that crowd out there, I don’t think it’s going to wait. Sgt Niimoto says there are guys with bullhorns taking turns speaking to them, and the crowd is agitated. Either they are going to get bored and go home, or they’re going to come into the grounds.”

  The president walked over and sat down on an office chair, slowly rotating it back and forth. “If they come, can we do anything about it? Can we protect ourselves?”

  “Well sir, to be honest, no. We can delay them, and we’ll get you into the vault. But if they are here, given enough time, they can cut into even that. But I promise you sir, if they do that, it’s going to cost those bastards.”

  The president leaned back, looked up at the overhead, and locked his hands behind his neck. He was quiet for a few moments.

  “How long have you been a Marine?” he asked.

  “I came in during Iraq, sir, before the drawdown. I was here for the Diss . . . for the reduction of the Corps mission.”

  “Why did you stay in the Marines? The Army still needed good soldiers,” the president asked him in a curious tone..

  Gunny paused, then said, “With no disrespect to the Army, sir,” he glanced over to where MAJ Defilice was still chatting up PFC Ramon, “the Army is a job. I mean, they’re patriotic and everything, and they’re good people. Their infantry is top-notch. But being a soldier is doing a job, like truck mechanic, cook, office clerk—you know, like that. The Corps, well the Corps is a lifestyle. It is what we are. You can’t change that. I’d just as soon cut off my balls and become a fucking eunuch before—” He stopped, face reddening after realizing what he has just said in front of his Commander-in-Chief.

  The president seemed non-plussed. “So you’d rather work as a member of a glorified security guard rather than be a member of the US Army? Or Navy or Air Force, for that matter?”

  “Yes sir, I would. No ‘bout a-doubt’ it,’” he said forcefully.

  His fervent feelings were undermining his normal this-is-how-you-speak-with-officers-and-bigwigs speech patterns.

  The president took a longer pause, then asked, “Since it seems like it may certainly be a possibility, would you die for your country?”

  Gunny hesitated, took a deep breath, and replied “Don’t take this wrong, sir, but I don’t think I would willingly die for my country, as much as I love it. But I would die for my mission if that was necessary. I would die for Loralee over there, for Drayton, and for you.” He seemed to consider that for a moment. “Yes, I’d die to protect you. But most of all, I would die for my fellow Marines. Without question, without hesitation.” He gestured to Ramon. “I’d give my life for PFC Ramon, and you know what sir? I know she’d do the same for me. Maybe that’s what it means to be a Marine. Whatever your background,
whatever your situation, you are part of something bigger, something far greater than yourself. And so yes, I’d die for the Corps and my brother Marines.”

  The president looked down at his fingers splayed before them, absent-mindedly checking the nails.

  “I’ve read my history. I know Marines have fought and bled for this country, and I know about Marines dying in combat. But so has the Army. When I was a kid, we were taught a song about a soldier named Roger Young, a nearsighted young soldier who willingly went to his death in the Solomons to take out a Japanese machine gun nest. Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Well sir, I don’t know this Roger Young guy, but there are plenty of brave men in the Army. Look at all the Army Air Corps bomber crews who died in that war. Hell, look at all the Navy sailors who died when their ships were kamikaze’d. The Army, the Navy, the Air Force, well, they all have good people, brave people. Even a Coastie was awarded the Medal of Honor, for getting Marines off a beach on Guadalcanal. And I respect all of them. But for most of them, especially now in peacetime, it seems to me that it’s a job for most of them. It gives them a skill or money for college. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But Marines? This is our life. Other Marines are our family. Marines are warriors, not people just looking for a way to pay for school.”

  “But there we go back to one of my original questions. The Marines are pretty much now glorified security guards. If you were a ‘warrior,’ why not join the Rangers, the SEALS? They fight, even now in this so-called peacetime?”

  “Sir, you may have made our jobs into being guards,” he replied, with a slight emphasis on the “you,” “but every Marine in a rifleman. We are warriors, by a long tradition earned in blood. And I’m sorry, but with all due respect, no politician can change that.”