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standing with management regarding the role of longshoremen in the scheme of
things only after long hours on the picket line and extensive negotiations over many
years. They had no intention of giving up these hard earned prerequisites for any-
thing as insignificant as a war with the Japanese Empire.
The Americans solved the labor problem by using a cut-the-Gordian-knot ap-
proach: American Marines were unloading the ships around the clock, seven days
a week. At the same time, they let it be known that armed Marines were posted at
various spots around the Quay, with orders to shoot at anyone or anything inter-
fering with unloading and loading of the ships.
Jake hoped the threat would suffice. While it wouldn t have bothered him at all
if half the longshoremen in Wellington got shot between the eyes, the flack in him
was concerned with how  MARINES MASSACRE THIRTY NEW ZEALAND
LONGSHOREMEN IN LABOR DISPUTE headlines would play in the papers in
the States.
Technically, it was not his problem, since he was not the PIO for the 1st Marine
Division. But he was over here to  coordinate public information activities, and
he suspected that if there was lousy publicity, he would get the blame.
While the supplies were being off-loaded for sorting, another major problem had
come up: There was no way to shelter the off-loaded supplies from the dismal New
Zealand July winter weather (the seasons were reversed down under). It was
raining almost constantly.
For openers, the supplies for the First Marine Division not only rations but just
about everything else, too were civilian stuff. The quart-size cans of tomatoes, for
example, had been bought from the Ajax Canned Tomato Company, or somesuch.
These cans had been labelled and packed with the idea in mind that they would
wind up on the shelves of the  Super-Dooper Super-Market in Olathe, Kansas.
They had paper labels with pictures of pretty tomatoes attached to the metal with
a couple of drops of cheap glue. There were six cans to a corrugated paper carton.
The carton was held together with glue; and a can label was glued to the ends.
As soon as the cases were off-loaded from the cargo holds of the ships onto Aotea
Quay and stacked neatly so they could be sorted, the rain started falling on them.
Soon the cheap glue which held the corrugated paper cartons together dissolved.
That caused the cartons to come apart. Not long after that, instead of neatly stacked
cartons of tomato cans, there were piles of tomato cans mingled with a sludge of
waterlogged corrugated paper that had once been cartons.
And then the rain saturated the paper labels and dissolved the cheap glue that
held them on the cans&
The people in charge of the operation had put a good deal of thought and effort
Battleground / 169
into finding a solution to the problem. But the best they had come up with so far
was to cover some of the stacks of cartons with tarpaulins; and when the supply
of tarpaulins ran out, with canvas tentage; and when the tentage ran out, with in-
dividual shelter-halves. (Each Marine was issued a small piece of tentage. When
buttoned to an identical piece, it formed a small, two-man tent. Hence,  individual
shelter-half. )
As he walked down the Quay, Jake Dillon saw this wasn t going to work: There
were gaps around the bases of the tarpaulin-covered stacks. The wind blew the
rain through the gaps, and then the natural capillary action of the paper in the
corrugated paper cartons soaked it up like a blotter. Moisture reached the glue,
and the glue dissolved. The cartons collapsed, and then the stacks of cartons.
Major Jake Dillon found Major Jack NMI Stecker standing behind the serving
line in a mess fly tent essentially a wall-less tent erected over field stoves. A line
of Marines was passing through the fly tent, their mess kits in their hands. As soon
as they left the fly tent, rain fell on their pork chops and mashed potatoes and green
beans.
It was the first time in Dillon s memory that he had ever seen Jack Stecker looking
like something the cat had dragged in. He looked as bedraggled as any of his men.
In China with the 4th Marines, Master Gunnery Sergeant Jack Stecker used to come
off a thirty-mile hike through the mud of the Chinese countryside looking as if he
was prepared to stand a formal honor guard.
He walked up and stood beside him.
 Lovely weather we re having, isn t it? Dillon said.
 There s coffee, if you want some, Stecker replied, and then walked a few feet
away; he returned with a canteen cup and gave it to Dillon.
Dillon walked to the coffee pot at the end of the serving line and waited until the
KP ladling out coffee sensed someone standing behind him, looked, and then offered
his ladle.
The coffee was near boiling; Dillon could feel the heat even in the handle of the
cup. If he tried to take a sip, he would give his lip a painful burn. This was not the
first time he had stood in a rain-soaked uniform drinking burning-hot coffee from
a canteen cup.
But the last time, he thought, was a long goddamned time ago.
 What brings a feather merchant like you out with the real Marines? Stecker
asked.
 I m making a movie, what else?
Stecker looked at him.
 Really? Of this?
 What I need, Jack, is film that will inspire the red-blooded youth of America to
rush to the recruiting station, Dillon said.  You think this might do it?
Stecker laughed.
 Seriously, what are your people doing?
Dillon told him about the movie he had in mind.
 I suppose it s necessary, Stecker said.
 I d rather be one of your staff sergeants, Jack, Dillon said.  I was a pretty good
staff sergeant. But that s not the way things turned out.
 You were probably the worst staff sergeant in the 4th Marines, Stecker said,
smiling,  to set the record straight. I let you keep your stripes only so I could take
your pay away at poker.
 Well, fuck you!
170 / W. E. B. Griffin
They smiled at each other, then Stecker said bitterly:  I d like to make the bastards
who sent us this mess, packed this way, see your movie.
 They will. What my guys are shooting or a copy of it, a rough cut will leave
here for Washington on tomorrow s courier plane.
 No kidding?
 Personal from Vandergrift to the Commandant, Dillon said.
 Somehow I don t think that was the General s own idea.
 No. But Lucky Lew Harris thought it was fine when I suggested it.
Stecker chuckled.  I guess that explains it.
 Explains what?
 I saw General Harris for a moment this morning, Stecker said.  I asked him
how things went when you took Goettge to Australia. He said,  very well. I m be-
ginning to think that maybe your pal Dillon might be useful after all. He s really
not as dumb as he looks. 
 Christ, I better go buy a bigger hat, Dillon said.  How much did he tell you
about what s going on? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]