CaptHaggard
Posts: 191
Joined: 3/8/2016 From: Sonoma, CA Status: offline
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**Forward from CINC Haggard Group** As Lt. Bloomquist-Rose’s commanding officer, I am compelled to issue a formal apology for this officer’s lamentable communiques which, I assure you, I forward only at the insistence of CINCPAC, so that the official record be preserved. Were I a seer, my discretion would have spared us these salacious ramblings the very moment the author took a flyer off the landing-craft during the invasion of Amoy. He cracked his skull or fell into amnesia—whatever cover-story would have been necessary to get him back to Guam—so that he might fulfill his true calling, and charge the red-lead boys in the repair unit. Alas, such just desserts thus far evade us. As such, I have ordered men from the USS Tern to attempt to round him up and bundle him off in their hold, if possible. Wave Billingsley—her fingers tapping the head-rest of the chair across my desk, her tact undermined by Sunset & Vine spectacles—tells me Bloomquist-Rose must have lost his senses due to his head injury. Such touching sentiments only prove the insidious appeal of this wastrel at a range of 10,000 miles. R.R. Haggard Commander, Haggard Group ******* Special Communique Foochow, China October 19, 1943 “ROSY!” roars Colonel Puller, swatting his thigh with a folded map, “—where the devil have you been hiding?” As they recognize me, derogatory murmurs of “Tiger Hunter” sweep his roadside entourage, but nobody corrects my nickname to Colonel Puller. Bella is still in the jeep, a few yards behind me. In affairs of the heart, I am not a man who claims to have eyes in the back of his head—but in this case I can see her as clearly as if she stands before me, simply by observing Colonel Puller’s transformed expression— For I can see she reveals to him, by a bawdy smirk alone, the sordid nature of my recent seclusion— “I see,” says Colonel Puller, with a wry chuckle. A whole roadside contingent of Marines catches the contagion of wry chuckle. It is hard to describe the creature these men behold in Bella. If she possesses a flaw in their eyes, it is in keeping my company. Their doberman-like attentions seem to sniff out my haunting memory of her eyes—eyes that mock my pretense of restraint—the tip of her tongue languidly caresses her own shoulder— I have not returned to Puller and his crew to observe the conquest of Foochow, and anyway I’m late— No. The real reason I am in Foochow is that Bella knew an admirer here before the Japanese occupation (Bella turned 22 in August, but I refuse to do the math). The proximate age, nationality and occupation of this admirer remains pointedly unrevealed, but whoever he is—or was—his existence is now distilled to a promise he once made her: a case of 1937 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti. A case now within her grasp, thanks to the Marines... The old shopping district is buttoned up with wood sidings, upon which the reflection of the late afternoon light glints of polished amber; I imagine her Baedeker man might pronounce the place a tourist mecca—until, that is, they slide back the sidings. The apartment of her wine benefactor is located in the old foreign section, which features stone patios terraced over the manicured canal. Here the street is littered with shell casings and, sure enough, approaching his corner unit Bella stops dead in her tracks: a high-caliber round from the conquering Marines appears to have put paid to that particular domicile. Peering at the smoldering rubble at her feet, Bella swipes her dainty combat boots (yes—such a contradiction is possible)... Could she be looking for evidence—glass shards of her booty? Or else no broken bottles at all, meaning betrayal by a former lover... My boots absurdly move rubble to and fro. Meanwhile, the Marines close in on Hengyang. Someday I must face the fact there is a war happening all around me. Submitted, F.W. Bloomquist-Rose, Lt., USNR SPECOP, Haggard Group
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