“Sir?”
“Your orders are in,” McGuire said, and, taking them from the lower right pocket of his field jacket, handed Pelosi a quarter-inch-thick stack of mimeograph paper.
* * *
HEADQUARTERS
82nd Airborne Division
Fort Bragg, N.C.
5 October 1942
SPECIAL ORDERS:
NUMBER 207:
EXTRACT
56. 2nd Lt PELOSI, Anthony J 0-459967, CE, USAR, is relieved from Co “A” 76th Para Eng Bn, 82nd A/B Div this sta, and transferred to WP 4201st Army Detachment, National Institutes of Health Building, Washington D.C. AUTH: TWX Hq War Department, Subj: “Transfer of Officer” dtd 10 Oct 42. Off auth US Govt Rail Tvl. No Delay En Route Leave Is Auth. Off is not auth shipment of household goods or personal automobile, and is not authorized to be accompanied by dependents. Approp: S99-99999910.
BY COMMAND OF MAJOR GENERAL RIDGWAY:
OFFICIAL:
Charles M. Scott, Jr.,
1st Lieutenant, AGC
Acting Adjutant
* * *
“The National Institutes of Health?” Lieutenant Pelosi asked wonderingly.
“Well, I told you it was going to turn out to be something like that,” McGuire said. “But maybe, Pelosi, just maybe, I could go to the Colonel and see if he could get you out of this.”
“You think he could?” Lieutenant Pelosi asked.
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to ask. I’ll have the company clerk type up a letter for you, saying that you’ve changed your mind.”
Lieutenant Pelosi looked at Captain McGuire but said nothing.
They were approaching the small rise. A network of wires leading from the chimney, the buildings, and the tanks came together at a waist-high wall of sandbags. Two noncoms were behind it, guarding a canvas-cased detonator.
“You mean you want to go to the Army detachment at the National Institutes of Health?” McGuire asked incredulously.
“What I want to do now, Sir, is take down that chimney,” Pelosi said, walking toward the firing pit. “I don’t like leaving primed charges laying around any longer than I have to.”
If I don’t get him to change his mind now, that’s the end of it. He’ll be so humiliated that he’ll be willing to go to the National Institutes of Health as a ward boy.
The two noncoms came to attention.
“You two join the company on the hill,” McGuire ordered, and waited until they had gone.
“You didn’t need them anymore, did you, Pelosi?”
“I just wanted to know where the detonator was, Sir. I didn’t want one of the men to start doing this himself.”