Always Faithful

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--oOo--

This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or deceased is purely coincidental. Some events are entirely fictional, though I strove for accuracy concerning these events' historical context.

Set in late 1940s America, certain words, behaviors, slang, and attitudes may be offensive to contemporary readers; therefore, reader discretion is advised. Some of the themes and subjects contained in this work are of an adult nature, so unless you're 18 or older, do not read this.

This work is part of a larger project, but as written and edited, it is a standalone story. Everything from 'Aftermath' to the end was summarized from the larger work. I've used a full version of Grammarly. Thanks to my tireless editor, a published and gifted author (she edited the rest of my glowing praise from this paragraph).

While not a classic trench coat detective noir story, it's about a post-war private investigator who is compelled to choose. As always, I appreciate your honest and constructive feedback. It will be especially helpful as we expand this work.

Finally, thanks to the family and friends who were United States Marines of the Greatest Generation, whose accounts enriched my youth. Later, I spent countless hours editing raw audio tapes for a well-known oral history project. Some of what I was told to edit out and clean up were those awful recollections that naturally spilled out, including the raw emotions, tears, and guilt that lingered for decades. I always worked from a dupe tape, so those unedited interviews still exist, many so raw that they're made available to researchers without the interviewee's full name. The expression, 'Hell in the Pacific,' truly described a war without quarter, mercy, or surrender. For many, it never truly ended.

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ALWAYS FAITHFUL

Part 2

Pete's Ice House, Houston, Texas - Late Spring 1947

Just before 10:00 p.m., Pete began closing up, and I asked Smith if he would like to have a late coffee and pie at a small, all-night diner down the block on Shepherd.

"Sure. At Dolly's Diner," he answered.

Not to blow my cover, I had to ask, "How many landings did you make with the division?"

"All four," he said proudly. "Damn few can say that."

"Me too," I responded, in kind.

Smith looked at me with surprise, which melted into a big smile.

I said, "All the way from the Wellington docks to that last encampment at Motobu."

"And two of us standing right here," Smith said quietly. "I went from the Fifth to the Seventh after Peleliu. You stayed in the First?"

"My only change was from Fox to Baker Company after Peleliu," I responded.

Marines constantly shuffled within the division throughout the war, and I also knew that his battlefield commission sent him over to the Seventh.

We introduced ourselves, and I played it like he was a stranger.

"Pleased to make the acquaintance, Paul," I responded. "I'm Douglas Winter, but everybody calls me Doug."

During the short walk, he gave me a well-edited personal bio, leaving out the part about being married to Christine Norton Smith.

We sat in one of several booths opposite the lunch counter and ordered from the menu on the wall. Yards away through the open, screened windows, late-night traffic rumbled along Shepherd, and a radio played lowly behind the counter. A pair of wobbly ceiling fans cranked out slow, uneven rhythms.

As the counterman brought us our coffee and slices of apple pie, Smith asked me, "You from around here?"

I took a sip of the scalding brew and replied, "No. I'm from Haltom City, just outside Fort Worth."

His eyes narrowed in recognition. "Sure, I know it," he replied noncommittedly. "What brings you here?" he asked.

"Business. I'm a manufacturer's rep," I said, deferring to my usual cover story.

He sipped his coffee and blew on it, buying time to think. After another sip, Smith said, "I'm from Gladewater. Grew up dirt poor in the oil patch."

I knew all this but nodded, leaned closer, and kept quiet. People hate silence, so he kept talking.

"Not much more to tell, really," he said nervously. "Like most of us during the Depression, I grew up on the hard side but finished high school. I played some high school and college ball, was pretty good at it, and joined the Corps right after Pearl Harbor."

He slowly stirred his coffee to cool it off and noted with a smile, "We all drink it black, don't we?"

I grinned. "The Corps don't land with cream and sugar." After another tentative sip, I asked, "And after you got home?"

Smith dodged the question. "Well, Doug, I had enough points to get a ride home on a Magic Carpet ship. You, too?" I nodded.

He continued, "I was on a light cruiser whose name I forget." He chuckled. "Those bastards looked huge from the beach when blasting the Japs, but are awful small with a company of Marines jammed aboard. We managed, though, because we were all going home." Smith smiled at the memory.

I recalled, "I came home as part of an ad hoc unit camped out in the hangar deck of an escort carrier. Same deal--we were badly cramped but happy to be alive. The smoking lamp was always lit, and the sea didn't smell like death. Best of all, hot meals and coffee around the clock."

We spent the next hour discussing our time in the First Marine Division. A precious few of us made it through the whole war. Many died, more were wounded and never returned, and some ended up in other divisions as The Corps exploded from a naval landing force that had never deployed a division to six divisions on VJ Day. As the war continued, men from the First Marine Division leavened five new divisions, especially as officers and NCOs. A few of us stayed put.

As we talked, common names, places, and experiences tied us together. We sat in comfortable silence, listening to the radio softly playing Glenn Miller's 'String of Pearls.'

"I was discharged as a staff sergeant," I said. "You?"

"I was a staff sergeant until Peleliu," he stated. "Before leaving Peleliu, the Skipper of the Fifth..."

"Bucky Harris," I interjected, and he nodded.

"...called me into his tent and handed me a set of gold bars. 'Sargeant, it's time for you to stop goldbricking and help us finish this damn war,' he said. Then, after shaking my hand, he told me to 'Go find Captain What's-his-name over at Dog Company, Seventh. He's your new boss, and you're now his most experienced platoon commander.' I finished the war a first lieutenant." Smith sighed loudly, adding, "Thank God we didn't have to invade Japan."

"We wouldn't be sitting here," I replied.

Our conversation overflowed with similar experiences. We backed away from the serious towards the memorable and light-hearted, especially before Guadalcanal. We laughed about working as stevedores for the Guadalcanal landing, which had been moved up by several weeks.

The Wellington longshoremen went on strike, so the men of the First Marine Division unloaded our transports, sorted everything, and reloaded them for an assault landing. This meant weapons, ammunition, rations, vehicles, fuel, and medical supplies went on board last so they could come off first.

Huge piles of gear and equipment covered the wharves, with Marines swarming all over. Tons of supplies were damaged, ruined, or left behind as non-essential. And it rained the whole damn time.

"Cornflakes," Smith snorted. "I still hate the damn things!"

Laughing, I agreed. "When those soggy boxes fell apart, we were knee-deep in that sticky mess, weren't we?"

"What a pain in the ass, but imagine if we'd landed with those ships loaded the way they out came from stateside," Smith observed, and I nodded. "Most of the food, geedunk, and a lot of essentials were still on those transports when the Navy got whipped, and ol' Frank Jack Fletcher cut out on us."

I said acidly, "Bastards left us on Guadalcanal at the mercy of the Japs with half rations and low on ammo. I feared we'd end up like the Army cut off on Corregidor."

He shook his head in disgust. "Oh, did I ever learn to hate rice and canned fish!" Smith recalled.

We both chortled, which caused the other patrons to turn and stare at us. They assumed we were drunk, but it was the shared bittersweet memory of the early days on Guadalcanal when we survived mostly on captured Japanese supplies of rice, canned crab, dried fish, and soybeans. Like all Guadalcanal Marines, we unfairly maligned the Navy, but as the oft-abused junior partner of the U.S. Naval Service, that's as normal as night following day.

"Stinkin' swabbies!" I declared, and Smith lifted his coffee in a mock salute. "No wonder they slapped one on the Cracker Jack box!"

We conveniently forgot about the sacrifices the Navy made to hold off the Jap navy, get the Seventh Marines there, and keep us supplied. A hundred days in hell, a hair's breadth away from being cut off and abandoned, affects you. For a moment, we both forgot why we were sitting in an all-night coffee shop in Houston on a cool spring night. Like two survivors of a shared nightmare, our bond grew stronger.

I said, "Look at us." Smith stared at me expectantly. "We both made it. We were wounded, but we made it through the worst--Peleliu and Okinawa. And we're mostly okay, aren't we?"

We laughed nervously because we knew we weren't okay and maybe never would be, especially in the lonely nighttime hours when there's time to think and remember. There were the loud noises and certain smells that surprised us. Our reactions embarrassed us and frightened others, but we were alive.

My decision made, I said, "I have an older brother I'll never be as close to as I am to you and guys like us. He spent the war at Fort Dix teaching Army radio school." Smith nodded, understanding. "So, with that in mind, hear me out." His eyes narrowed warily.

"I've been looking for you for over three weeks," I confessed.

Smith's knowing smile surprised me. "So, that's why you followed me tonight."

"You knew?"

"Of course," he sniffed. "We learned some things patrolling, especially in the jungle."

I lit two more Luckies and handed him one. Smiling, I said, "I'm too used to dealing with people who are not like us."

"You work for Christine," he stated. His wary eyes probed me as he took my measure as a man.

"Yes." Now, we were jousting. Friendly but aware.

"Hell, I figured as much," he said. Scowling, Smith said, "Okay, what now? But understand this, Doug, I am not going back to Christine! We are finished!" he spat.

With a calmness I didn't feel, I replied, "I almost walked out of the icehouse tonight and called your wife."

"I was on my way out of here, clean," he said testily. "And here you come."

"I make no apologies, Paul. I was doing a job. A well-paying one, too."

"What changed? You had me, and all you had to do was back off and do whatever she sent you to do." His blue eyes hardened.

"Everything changed," I replied. "That idiot kid at the icehouse and how we reacted to him shows me that we are different. I bet we must've crossed paths during our time out there. We shared the same nightmare, the same fears, the same misery, and the same aftermath. We gave thanks to see the same sunrises and cursed the same sunsets."

"Are you letting me go?" he asked warily.

"I am, but there are some things I need to know." Smith frowned warily. "It's part curiosity and part needing to know what

we

are up against."

"We?" he asked, astonished.

I nodded. "I'm changing sides, Paul. Despite everything Christine told me, I now have more questions than when I took the job of finding you. I need some answers."

"Okay, that's fair, and I'll help you all I can," Smith said. "But why here in Houston?" he asked. "From what I hear, she's keeping a couple of detective agencies on the West Coast busy looking for me out there."

"I'm pretty good at finding people," I responded with the same tight smile. "So, how do you know about the detectives working the West Coast?"

"I have my ways, too," he riposted. I imagined he still had an ear in Christine's camp and let it slide.

Changing tack, I asked lightly, "You packing?"

His smile froze as he eyed my lightweight suit jacket for a telltale bulge. After a few seconds, he relaxed and said, "We had enough 'a that overseas."

"For a lifetime," I replied.

"If you're not armed, you're not a cop," he said tentatively.

"I'm not a cop, a hood, a gunsel, or anything else you're wondering about. Plain and simple, I find people."

Smith tilted back his head and looked at me curiously.

I explained, "Like everybody else, I came home jobless. A guy I knew in Fort Worth held a pile of loans people skipped on. You know, they had a defense plant job, easy money, and bought things on time, but the war ended, and they ain't building bombers, bullets, or brogans anymore. They can't make the weekly loan payment, so they blow town and disappear."

Smith pointed at the empty plates and held up two fingers. The counterman delivered two more slices of pie and topped off our coffee. "Bring us a couple of bowls of chili, please." He looked at me and remarked, "Best danged chili I ever ate."

I continued, "Long story short, I went to work as a skip-tracer and was damn good at it. I did that until early last year. That's when I hung out my shingle as a private detective." Smith snorted, and I snickered. "Everybody reacts like that. And I've heard all the jokes.

"To answer your question about 'why here,' Christine remembered you telling her about meeting a girl during the war." I recounted Christine's story about his supposed confession when drunk, and he laughed drily.

Smith frowned as if remembering. "I'm still fuzzy on that night, but she's mostly right."

He paused thoughtfully and wondered, "If they are tearing up the West Coast, Christine thinks I have a doll in California." He slowly shook his head and smiled. "They're way off base."

"Not even in the ballpark," I added.

Smith gave me a hard look. "But you know the straight scoop."

I nodded. "Yes, I do."

"Nobody's that good of a detective, Doug," A trace of tension infused his words. "How did you know to look for me in Houston?"

"I'm great at my job, but you left a trail." He furrowed his brows as his blue eyes bore into me. "While your mother didn't give up a thing, your Aunt Ruby told me about your letters..."

"Aw, son-of-a-bitch," he muttered.

"Your mother turned me away and barely admitted knowing you."

"Good ol' Mom," Smith said warmly. "But Aunt Ruby? That figures." He angrily flicked his ashes, completely missing the ashtray.

I continued, "As I drove off empty-handed, your aunt leaned in the passenger side window and told me that your mom goes to work at eighty-thirty. She told me to show up around nine with some 'some double-digit folding dough,' and she'd show me your letters. And... well, here I am."

"You know all about Ruth," he said lowly.

I nodded. "Ruth lives in Auckland, but her family lives near Richmond on Golden Bay on the South Island of New Zealand." I then explained the other detectives' conclusions about Richmond, California, and the Golden Bay-Golden Gate correlation they made.

Smith stared impassively at me as I continued, "So when I returned to Fort Worth, I went to the library's periodicals room and started checking seaport newspaper 'sailings' lists for ships to New Zealand. In the Houston Post, I discovered that the New Zealand-registered S.S. Wairata sails for Auckland on the 18th--this coming Saturday. I drove down here, handed some bills to the clerk at the ship's agency handling the Wairata, and got your local address at Voepel's Boarding House."

He sighed heavily. "Those are the letters Ruth wrote me during the war," he said wistfully. I didn't have the heart to throw 'em away, so I left them at Mom's."

"Tell me about Ruth," I said. "I mean, you're leaving the country and your family and going all the way to the other side of the world. She must be a heck of a woman."

Smith toyed with his cigarette while pondering his answer. He appeared to be struggling with trust. "Here's the straight dope, okay?" He fixed me with a steady, forthright look. "You know about her, but here's how it all happened.

"When I was hit by that Jap gun, I laid in that mud and filth until the Corpsmen could get us out. I wasn't hit too badly, but some of the shrapnel got me close to the spine. By the morning of day three, infection set in, and they sent me to Efate by R4D."

I recalled watching the DC-3 variants climbing out of Henderson later in the campaign, thinking about the lucky bastards on board. Only then did I realize how badly these Marines were wounded.

"On Efate, they pumped me full of penicillin, sulfa drugs, vitamins, and food." He chuckled and whispered, "After a few days there, I got my first hard-on in months. In another week, my shits weren't watery."

We laughed loud enough to cause a couple of all-night truck drivers and the counterman to look at us, hoping we'd share the humor.

"Sorry, fellas!" Smith apologized with a smile. He took a bite of chili and continued, "Anyway, they dug out all the shrapnel except two slivers, but they were close enough to my spine to require surgery that couldn't be performed on Efate."

"On to New Zealand," I said.

"They loaded me onto the U.S.S. Solace and shipped me to the U.S. Navy Hospital in Auckland. The Navy had its own nurses, but since they were still getting set up and had a lot of wounded, they also used New Zealand nurses and doctors. In fact, the Kiwi surgeon who performed my operation was with the ANZAC at Gallipoli in the last war."

"You met Ruth in that Auckland hospital," I stated.

"Yes, my dear Ruthie," Smith said lightly. His expression softened, and he blinked hard a few times. "Ever hear of love at first sight?"

The cynicism crept into my voice. "Sure, I've

heard

of it." The messy divorce work I did affected me. Every divorce required one of the parties to be guilty of adultery, and this made for a filthy business. I never stepped over the line, but I tight-roped quite often.

Smith looked at me with something close to pity. "Well, it's real. Ruth and I are proof. The first time our eyes met and she touched me, we felt it, almost like an electric shock. It was just routine nurse-patient stuff, but we connected."

Before I could ask the obvious, he beat me to it. "We were both married, and we fought the feelings and lost. We successfully resisted the urge to consummate our love. She calls it 'an affair of the heart,' and trust me, it's real."

I saw the pain flow across his face but knew there was more.

"Who was Ruth married to?" I already knew some from the letters.

"He was a fellow named John Asmus, a carpenter from Auckland. Remember that he and many other men were sent to the Middle East with the Commonwealth Forces to fight the Italians and Afrika Korps. Helping the Empire, and all that crapola, because nobody ever thought the Japs would enter the war." Smith shook his head. "Those poor guys were half a world away, and their country was almost defenseless."