O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [65]
“Oh, stew of barking dog. Two!”
“Two.”
“What happened?”
“What always happens. We haven’t got the money.”
“This is some fucking Marine Corps, can’t promote eight men to officers,” Tobias growled.
“It ain’t like in China, where the emperor just goes out and takes it from the peasants. We have a Congress.”
“Boy, do we have a Congress!”
“Anyhow, Senator Davenport is putting an amendment on an appropriations bill. It might happen by the end of the year. But for now, we have to choose a pair.”
“Platoon Sergeants Kirkendahl and Maynard,” Tobias said. “Both of them have put in nearly three hitches.”
“Kirkendahl, Maynard,” Ben thought aloud, “they’ll make fine officers.”
The mood was leading to a binge. Two new officers out of such a brilliant class was pathetic. Tobias stared hard at Ben, who had gone rather inarticulate.
“What’s up?” Tobias demanded.
“You know all that shit I’ve been collecting since I’ve been in the Corps,” Ben said.
“Your amphibious-warfare mania?”
“Yeah, that shit. I’ve got a half-dozen trunks loaded with material dating back to prebiblical history. I’ve never been able to give them the proper time, and maybe time is running out for me. The commandant agrees that this material has to be collated, condensed, and put into a paper. I petitioned Colonel Ballard to let me take a full-time assistant to Newport for just that purpose.”
“And what did Uncle Tom Ballard say?”
“It could well mean our future.”
“Ballard say that or did you say that?” Storm pressed.
“What do you say, Tobias?”
“I say you’re trying to draw me in.”
“All right. There were three commissions, not two. The third man is coming to Newport with me if you sign off on him.”
“And who do you have in mind?” Tobias asked with feigned innocence.
“You know fucking A who I have in mind. Is he as good as I think he is?”
“Better,” Storm answered without hesitation.
“Does Zachary O’Hara suffer from any kind of long-term problems?”
“You mean Paddy’s ghost?”
“I mean Paddy’s ghost,” Ben said.
“Who can compare with Paddy O’Hara, much less his own son. Zach and his da went through some things we’ll never know about, but he’s emerged as his own man. In many aspects, Paddy couldn’t touch him.”
“I wonder, sometimes, what went on between them,” Ben said.
“It won’t interfere with the work you have planned for him. I think I’d be a little more worried about Zach being a maverick,” Tobias said.
“Well,” Ben ventured, “is he going to be a fine upstanding maverick like me or a pain-in-the-ass maverick like you?”
Tobias shrugged. “He’ll get his ass in a sling same as we do.”
“Is he going to have a shit hemorrhage about not being given his sea duty? He’s got the right to petition the commandant for it.”
“He’ll piss and moan a little, but he’s a Marine,” Tobias said, realizing that Ben Boone was oozing around the heart of the matter.
Ben fidgeted and stormed one-handed through his pockets, his routine for loading and lighting his pipe. Tobias twisted the ends of his mustache.
“Hmm,” Ben said, shaking out his match vigorously and deploying it in an ashtray.
“What are you fiddle-farting around for?” Tobias finally asked.
“Okay, okay, okay, Zachary O’Hara cuts a pretty dandy figure and you know how Newport can be. As a commissioned officer, he’s going to be invited to a lot of high-stakes functions. Lots of girls are going to be coming with a brass ring to put through his nose.”
“Terrible problem,” Tobias said. “He had the same terrible problem in Washington and he was only a PFC. Main thing is, can he do the job for you?”
“Tobias, every tinhorn robber baron in America keeps a thirty-room summer shack in Newport. The lawns are festooned with peppermint-striped party tents for their pre-debutante, debutante, and post-debutante girl-childs, all scratching, hounding down some innocent lad for a summer romance.”
“While,” Tobias interrupted, “de black folk in de peppermint tents all have their hands chopped up shucking oysters for de white folk!”
“I don’t want him to waste his life crewing