Then Captain Stecker got back in the jeep and had himself carried to the Platoon Leader Course orderly room.

Word had already gotten back that Captain Stecker had been out on the range, and that he had ordered the re-firing for record of one of the candidates. And that the pit officer be in the pits when he did so. The sergeant-major had been sort of a pal before Stecker took a commission, and he knew there was more to it than he had been told.

He came to his feet and stood at attention when Stecker walked in.

"Good morning, sir," he said.

"As you were," Stecker said.

"How may I help the captain, sir?" the sergeant-major said.

"You wouldn't happen to have a cup of coffee, Sergeant-Major?"

"Yes, sir," the sergeant-major said.

"And if you have a minute, Sergeant-Major, I'd like a word with you in private."

"We can use the commanding officer's office, sir," the sergeant-major said. "He went out to check on the range, sir."

A corporal followed the two of them into the commanding officer's office with two china mugs of coffee, and then left, closing the door behind him.

"Tell me about a kid named McCoy, Charley," Stecker said.

"That's the one was a China Marine?" Stecker nodded. "What do you want to know, Jack?"

"How come he's been sanding decks?"

"I don't know," the sergeant-major said. "He fucked up, I guess."

"What do you know about Lieutenant Macklin?"

"Not much, Jack," the sergeant-major said, after thinking it over. "The cooks hate his ass. But that always happens when there's a new broom. And he's an eager sonofabitch. The scuttlebutt is he's got a lousy efficiency report and is trying to make up for it."

"So he volunteered to be pit officer?"

"And he takes Saturday inspections for the officers. That kind of stuff."

"I want a look at McCoy's records," Stecker said.

"Anything in particular?"

"Just say I'm nosy," Stecker said.

The sergeant-major went into the outer office and returned with a handful of manila files.

"He's more of a fuck-up than I thought," the sergeant-major said. "Jesus, he's been on report at every fucking inspection. He's given lip to the DIs. Even Macklin wrote him up twice for failure to salute. He'll be scrubbing decks again over the Thanksgiving liberty. He's right on the edge of getting his ass shipped out of here. He's going before the elimination board (A board of officers charged with determining whether or not a platoon leader candidate has proved himself unfit or unworthy of being commissioned) on Friday."

Stecker grunted.

He took McCoy's records from the sergeant-major and read them carefully.

"Very odd," he said. "His last efficiency report says his 'personal deportment and military bearing serves as an example to the command.' I wonder what turned him into a fuck-up here?"

The sergeant-major raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

"It says here that he's an Expert with the Springfield and the.45, and the light and water-cooled Brownings. I was on the range before…"

"So I heard," the sergeant-major said.

"He could barely get a round on the target, much less in the black," Stecker said. "I found out he had a faulty weapon. He could hit target numbers with it. It was just that he was all over the target when he fired at a bull's-eye."

"Jesus, was he fucking around on the rifle range, too?" the sergeant-major asked.

"He wasn't fucking around on the rifle range, Charley," Stecker said.

"And Macklin was the pit officer, right?" the sergeant-major said, finally putting things together.

"Was he?" Stecker asked, innocently.

"Jesus Christ!" the sergeant-major said.

"I'm sure you know as well as I do, sergeant-major," Stecker said, "that no Marine officer is capable of using his office and authority to settle personal grudges."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant-major said.

"And under the circumstances, Sergeant-Major, I can see no reason for Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy to refire for record. It would be an unnecessary expenditure of time and ammunition. If he had a properly functioning rifle, I'm sure that he would-since he has been drawing Expert marksman's pay since boot camp-qualify with the Garand." "Got you," the sergeant-major said. "Further, it would interfere with his Thanksgiving liberty. Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy is shortly going to be commissioned…"

"He'll have to get past the elimination board," the sergeant-major said. "With this record, he has to go before it."

"What record do you mean,' Sergeant-Major?" Captain Stecker said, as calmly and deliberately he tore from the manila folder all the official records of misbehavior and unsatisfactory performance Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy had acquired since beginning the course. He shredded them and dropped them into the wastebasket.

"What do I tell the old man, Jack?" the sergeant-major asked.

"Three things, Charley," Stecker said. "First, that if there is some reason McCoy can't have Thanksgiving liberty, I want to hear about it. Second, that the colonel has taken two evening meals in the mess and found them unsatisfactory. And third, that I politely and unofficially suggest that maybe the chow would be better if the mess officer stayed where he belongs, in the kitchen."

The sergeant-major nodded.

"I'm sorry about this, Jack," he said. "I feel like a damned fool."

Stecker did not let him off the hook.

"When I was the gunny, Charley," he said, "the colonel expected me to know what was going on in the ranks. I found the best way to do that was get off my ass and have a look at things."

And then he walked out of the office.

(Three)

Inasmuch as ceremonies are an integral part of the life and duties of young officers, and because the Marine Corps Schools believed that "doing is the best means of learning," ceremonies of one kind or another were frequently on the training program of the Platoon Leader's Course.

One such ceremony was scheduled for 1700 hours, 19 November 1941. It was a formal retreat. The platoon leader candidates would be returned from the Known Distance Firing Range in plenty of time to clean their rifles, shave and wash, and change into greens. The training schedule allocated all of thirty-five minutes for this purpose.

Waiting for Corporal Pleasant to blow his whistle, McCoy was pretty well down in the dumps. At first, he had been almost thrilled that Macklin had been caught sticking it to him. He'd thought that luck was finally falling his way. It hadn't taken long for the old-gunny-now-a-captain to figure out that somebody was fucking him in the pits, or even that the sonofabitch sticking it in him was Lieutenant Macklin.

But the good feeling soon dissipated. For one thing, officers took care of one another, and the captain, if he said anything at all to Macklin, wasn't going to jump his ass. Stecker believed that Macklin was either sloppy in the pits, or that he thought what he was doing was funny. Stecker had no reason to think that Macklin was personally doing his best to get him booted out of the Platoon Leader's Course.

All the whole incident had meant was that he was going to get a chance to fire for record again. That was all. And Macklin was being taught not to "fool around" when he was pit officer by having to spend Thanksgiving morning on the range. It was possible that he would pull the same shit all over again. Why not? There would be nobody there to watch him.

When he came off the rifle range, the sand and the bricks would be waiting for him, and he would spend Thanksgiving afternoon on his knees scrubbing the decks. For "disrespectful attitude."

And on Friday morning, he would go before the elimination board. Pleasant had told him about that. He could get out of it, Pleasant said, and probably get the whole Thanksgiving weekend as liberty, if he would just face the fact that they weren't going to make him an officer and resign.