This was written as a writer's group challenge – include a cat in fanfic story. I admit to taking some liberties with it, as the original premise *might* have specified kitten, not cat. Ah, well, such is editorial license. There's strange something afoot - literally - when Sergeant Micklin finds odd things on his flight line. He holds Major Greg Boyington accountable for what he thinks is a college boy prank but it soon becomes apparent there's more to it than that. Associated Press correspondent Kate Cameron joins Greg, Micklin and the Black Sheep on a merry Halloween romp.
THE BLACK CAT'S WHISKERS
October 24, 1943
Vella La Cava
VMF 214 HQ
"Boyington!"
USMC Major Greg Boyington gritted his teeth as he looked up from the sea of paperwork littering his desk.
"Boyington!" The summons came again, bellowed in a tone of outrage that was impossible to ignore. God knows he'd tried often enough.
He shoved back from his desk and looked at the tent's other occupant. A young woman wearing cut-off fatigues and a man's white shirt rolled to the elbows was seated in a chair, her shapely legs and bare feet propped on the edge of his desk. She raised her eyebrows.
"What have you done now?" The humor in her voice hinted at her amusement at seeing him in hot water again.
"No idea."
"BOY-ING-TON!"
There was only one person on this base who dared address him in that tone of voice. Greg grimaced. If Sergeant Andy Micklin wasn't so invaluable as the squadron's line chief, Greg would have pounded him flat for his attitude. As it was, if he wanted his planes to stay in the air, he had to operate with a degree of diplomacy when it came to dealing with the man on the ground.
"Aren't you going to see what he wants?" The girl scooped up a handful of black and white photos and slipped them into an envelope.
"Suppose he'll give up if I don't?"
The look she gave him spoke volumes.
Greg sighed.
"Come with me? He's easier to deal with when you're around."
"You'll owe me." She said it as if negotiating a business transaction but he saw the sparkle in her eye.
"I'll pay." He held her gaze, giving her the full advantage of his smile. "Charge me whatever you want."
She looked up through dark lashes and smiled back, soft color rising in her cheeks. Check that off the list, Greg thought, still smiling in spite of the circumstances. He made it a point to make her blush at least once a day. It took some doing but if he could catch her in an unguarded moment, he could toss in a quiet reminder of how he really felt about her.
"Anything for you, Boyington." Her smile set his mind off in directions that had nothing to do with whatever had Andy Micklin bellowing like an enraged bull. Well, crap, he thought, glad he wasn't prone to blushing himself. That worked both ways.
He took a moment to admire her backside as she knelt to tie the laces on her boots. Kate "K.C." Cameron was an Associated Press correspondent covering the 214. She'd been embedded with the Black Sheep by Colonel Thomas Lard, who through a twist of fate had no idea K.C. stood for Katherine Christine. She'd been with the unit since mid-summer and no one saw any reason to tell Lard otherwise. Since Lard made it a point to stay on Espritos Marcos, it was working out well for everyone involved. Especially for him, Greg thought.
They walked, not touching, through the heat of the afternoon. The sergeant stomped out to meet them at the edge of the flight line.
"What's the problem, Micklin?" Greg dispensed with any pleasantries. He knew they'd be wasted on the tough-as-nails line chief.
Micklin glared at him, then looked at Kate and broke into a smile.
"Miss Kate." He tipped his grease-stained hat. "How you doin'?"
"I'm fine," she returned easily. "How are you, Sarge?"
Greg ground his teeth. Of course Micklin liked Kate. Everyone liked Kate. She could pour oil on the squadron's troubled waters with a skill that rivaled Casey or Anderson, who tended to be the unit's peacemakers. She had a dry sense of humor, legs that wouldn't quit and a take-no-prisoners attitude. She was the best thing that had happened to the 214 since they'd been formed. In the brief time she'd been on this rock, she'd achieved an honorary status that ranked her as some kind of ex-officio executive officer.
And now she was doing it again, talking Micklin down from his ire although the sergeant was still chomping on his cigar like a horse about to take the bit in his teeth and run with it.
Micklin turned from Kate to face him. His eyes narrowed. Greg's jaw clenched automatically. The Black Sheep had delivered a pounding to a Japanese flat top anchored off the coast of Choisuel that morning, achieving the mission goal, but they hadn't escaped unscathed and the trip home had been touch and go. He wasn't in the mood to fight another battle that day.
"Major, yer boys set these planes down after their little frolic this morning and now my boys got 24 hours to put 'em back together before you take 'em back up and beat the hell out of 'em again. If that ain't bad enough, now I gotta deal with this." He jabbed his cigar at the port wing of the nearest plane. "This one of them college boys' idea of a joke?"
Greg and Kate turned as one to follow his line of sight. It became immediately clear what had gotten Micklin's dander up.
"What the hell is that?" Greg took a step closer and blinked in honest confusion. Kate stepped up next to him, her gray eyes gone wide. Her hand flew to her mouth but he wasn't sure if it was in revulsion or to cover a laugh. Kate had an off-beat sense of humor.
A very large, very dead rodent lay just above the aileron. Its head had been neatly severed and blood ran off the wing in a sticky trickle. A few flies buzzed lazily around the body. A set of neat white paw prints lead away from the carcass. They traversed the length of the wing before ending where the wing met the fuselage.
"Go on!" Micklin ordered. "Go look at the other side. There's more tracks over there. Damn thing walked right through the cockpit and down the other wing."
He was still grumbling as Greg rounded the plane's nose and surveyed the deliberate line of paw prints. The fine white coral dust stood out in stark relief against the dark blue of the plane's wing.
Greg wasn't sure what Micklin was more upset about – finding the equivalent of a dead rat on one of his precious planes or having the plane defaced by what looked like cat tracks.
"What you gonna do about this, Major?"
Greg looked at the line chief and wondered at what point in this war, he'd been put in charge of dead rat detail. It appeared to be a jungle rat, one of the big brown ones that hung around the base's dump.
He cast a sideways glance at Kate. She'd had an encounter with one of the beasts shortly after her arrival on La Cava. It hadn't been an accident, having been orchestrated by none other than one of his execs who was suffering from a bruised ego when she'd turned him down for more than dancing after a party. He wondered if she was thinking about the same thing.
The smile she was trying to swallow made him think she was, but the rat Jim Gutterman had placed in her bunk three months ago had been very much alive. Gutterman could be a pain in the ass but he wasn't psychotic. Or stupid. Placing dismembered animals on the wing of his own bird to annoy the 214's irascible line chief fell solidly into both categories.
Greg scratched his head and folded his arms.
"These are your planes, right?"
"Damn right," Micklin said vehemently.
"On your flight line?"
"Damn right." Micklin looked at Greg suspiciously.
"Then this is your problem, not mine." Greg turned on his heel and started to walk away.
"Hey! I ain't done with you yet!"
Greg took a deep breath and turned around.
"What do you want me to do? Send the boys out here to set mouse traps for you?"
"That thing ain't no mouse," Micklin grumbled. "It's one of them big rat things. Don't know what it's doin' on my line in the first place."
"It doesn't look like you need traps, you've got a cat," Kate said cheerfully. Greg had to hand it to her. Micklin's glare could have dropped a Marine at 10 paces but she was undaunted.
"Don't want a cat. A cat don't got no business on a fighter base."
"You should feel honored." Kate slid her arm through Micklin's and drew him back toward the shade of the mechanics' shed. "It's a sign of affection – cats sharing their, um, kills, with people they like."
The line chief took the cigar out of his mouth and studied her.
"You pullin' my leg, Katie?"
"Not at all. Our farm cats used to do it all the time back home. Doesn't make it any less disgusting but I think . . . ," she looked over her shoulder and cast a meaningful glance at Greg. He stepped forward, took the decapitated rodent by the tail and flung it into the jungle.
"I think," she continued, "that you have a cat. You just don't know it yet."
"Maybe it likes Hutch better. Maybe that little gift was meant for him."
"Could be." Kate shrugged. "Either way, there are worse things to have hanging around."
"It left tracks all over my plane," Micklin grumbled. "Next thing you know, it'll be sittin' up there on the nose like a furry hood ornament."
"I'm sure those tracks will wash off when it rains this afternoon." Kate eyed the clouds building in the west. "And a little bitty cat isn't going to hurt your planes any. You really should feel honored it left its kill for you. It's probably lonely out here."
Greg thought she was pouring it on a little thick but Micklin seemed to like it.
"I reckon you're right. I got bigger things to worry about, anyway. You oughta see what them college boys did to my planes this morning."
Greg watched as Kate gave Micklin's arm an affectionate squeeze. The crusty sergeant gave her a smile in return, then turned and marched back toward the nearest plane, bawling orders at an underling.
"How'd you do that?" Greg jerked his head toward Micklin when she rejoined him.
"Do what?"
"Talk him down out of that tree. He was ready to take a swing at me and you had him eating out of your hand in less than a minute."
She smiled. The effect was dazzling, lighting the sparkle in her gray eyes and accentuating the fine bones of her face. Greg returned the smile. He couldn't help it. When she'd walked into the middle of his squadron earlier that summer, he'd been ready to ship her out on the next available transport. A lot had changed since then.
"Micklin's not so bad. Besides, he trusts me. I've never knocked him out cold." When Greg didn't reply, her grin deepened. "It's no wonder the two of you don't get along – you're both cut from the same cloth. Stubborn, hard-headed, always have to be right, know-it-all –"
"Cut from the same cloth, my ass," Greg muttered, putting an end to her litany. She was more perceptive than he wanted to admit.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they walked. She leaned into him briefly and he enjoyed the pressure of her body against his. It was as much of a public display of affection as they allowed each other in the fishbowl that was VMF 214. Even as the base dozed in the mid-day heat, he knew someone had eyes on them. The boys were fascinated by their relationship and it didn't help that they were all living in each other's back pocket.
"We don't have cats out here, do we?"
Greg liked the way she used "we," as if she were a member of the squadron, not just press corps assigned to them by Lard's mistaken assumption that constant press scrutiny would keep them in line. And by now, she really was a member of the squadron, bringing skills and assets to the table in a number of ways that benefited all of them. And lately, especially him. He forced his mind back to the topic at hand.
"I don't think so. At least I've never seen one. Maybe there are some up at the hospital and one wandered down here. Probably just a matter of time until Meatball runs it off." He had a brief vision of the bull terrier racing down the flight line in hot pursuit of a cat, strewing chaos in his wake. Micklin would love that.
Meatball, as the squadron's self-appointed mascot, did a fine job of keeping the local wildlife out of the base. The island was plagued by all manner of bugs, some big enough they should file flight plans before taking off. Monkeys routinely scampered out of the jungle and had a penchant for stealing anything shiny and new. Fortunately, very few things at the 214 fit that description. The island was also home to more birds than you could shake a stick at, and wild pigs wandered out of the jungle interior from time to time. Meatball kept busy on his wildlife patrols.
But a cat? Greg was pretty sure there were no cats on Vella La Cava, never mind the evidence pointed to the contrary.
XXX
Later that afternoon
Kate poked at a typewriter key with a desultory finger. The story she was writing about the Black Sheep's involvement in taking out a top secret Japanese radar installation known as the Cat's Whiskers was a tricky endeavor. The squadron had gone a little rogue on what turned out to be a mission planned and executed without any authorization by Colonel Lard. The Cat's Whiskers mission had ended well enough, though, with the radar station destroyed and Lard unable to raise too much of a stink because he naturally took credit for everything. The whole deal left her struggling to spin the newspaper story to Greg and the boys' advantage.
Writing about the Cat's Whiskers had her thinking about the mysterious cat that had marched up and down Jim's plane and before long, she was doing more thinking than writing.
She had no idea why a cat would be drawn to the chaos of a fighter base, especially the flight line, which was a cacophony of clanking metal and yelling men. Greg was right. It was an atmosphere better suited to a dog. Meatball was never happier than when he was running alongside the Black Sheep when they scrambled for a mission. The air raid siren made him wag his tail even faster and if there was a brawl at the Sheep Pen, the terrier was usually right in the middle of it.
But those had undeniably been cat tracks on the wing of Jim's plane. How would it have gotten here in the first place? Meatball had arrived with Greg under circumstances she still didn't understand but it wasn't like any of the boys had smuggled their pet kitten from home. Maybe families of the top brass stationed in places like Pearl Harbor had family pets in their off-base housing but not out here in the Empire of Japan's back yard. Besides, something about the deliberate arrogance of the placement of the rat carcass made her think they were dealing with more than just a domestic pet from stateside. Kate found herself thinking about the unknown creature in capital letters. Not just the cat. It was The Cat.
In spite of the initial goriness, there wasn't anything particularly menacing about it, either. Just a cat doing what cats had done for centuries - killed rodents and presented them for their masters' approval.
Only in this case, there wasn't any master. At least none that were aware they had been elevated to that status. She should ask Casey what he knew about it. One of Greg's executive officers, Larry Casey knew more about what went on at the 214 than anyone else. Along with Greg and Jim, he was one of the master puppeteers who pulled the strings and choreographed the trade deals that kept the squadron in the air when Lard tightened the purse strings on the unit's supply line.
She made a face at the sheet of paper in her typewriter and abandoned the story in pursuit of fact-gathering of another kind.
XXX
The calendar hanging behind the bar in the Sheep Pen proclaimed it was Oct. 24. It was one week until Halloween, although no one on the Marine base seemed to pay that fact much attention.
It was after 1700 hours and the Black Sheep's equivalent of happy hour was well under way, although as far as Kate could tell, any time they weren't actively on a mission had the potential to be happy hour.
Greg and Casey had their heads bent over something on the table. Bobby Boyle and Don French were throwing darts. Bob Anderson was tending bar. Jim Gutterman was regaling his wingman and bunkmate, TJ Wiley, and Jerry Bragg with tales of his latest conquest with one of the nurses. He hastily ended the story when Kate walked into the Sheep Pen. The boys weren't above detailed replays of their romantic escapades but since Kate had officially become Greg's girl, they teased her endlessly but kept their locker room talk to themselves. More or less.
"What are you drinking, Katherine?" Bob asked.
"Beer's fine, thanks." She took the proffered bottle and leaned back on her elbows against the bar. "What do you know about cats?"
"Cats?" Bob looked at her quizzically. "As in, saucer of milk?"
"As in, leaving dead rodents on airplanes."
Bob furrowed his brow.
"Yeah, I heard about that. What do you want to know?"
"Is there one out here? On the base? And if so, where'd it come from? I don't think cats are exactly native to the Solomons."
Bob shook his head.
"I don't know anything. I've never seen a cat here. You'd better ask the rest of the guys."
She turned to face him.
"Greg wouldn't do something like that on purpose to antagonize Micklin, would he?"
The tall pilot threw his head back, laughing.
"Have you been out in the sun too long? Pappy's done some crazy stuff but he wouldn't poke Micklin on purpose."
Privately, that was what Kate thought, too, but she needed to hear someone say it.
Upon further questioning, the boys unanimously denied any knowledge of the rat. As it turned out, more than half of them confessed to having a phobia about rats and mice and said they wouldn't have touched the thing in the first place, let alone cut its head off and dared to arranged it for Micklin to find.
"What about you, Jim?" Kate fixed Greg's other executive officer with a cool gaze. "I know you don't have a problem catching rats if the need arises."
"Damnit, darlin', when are you gonna let that go?" Jim chuckled. He and Kate had established an easy friendship that didn't reflect their rocky start but she rarely let him forget she wouldn't take his crap.
"No," he continued," I didn't field dress a rat on my own bird to piss off Micklin."
Kate knew the Black Sheep were telling her the truth. They didn't know any more about it than she did. She took her beer and dropped down at the table between Greg and Casey.
"I love watching you work, Cameron." Greg leaned back in his chair.
She snorted.
"You love watching me whether I'm working or not."
His grin was unapologetic and for just a moment Kate let herself get lost in those blue eyes and dimples. That roguish look could get him anything he wanted but Kate would prefer he didn't realize the extent of that power. She wrenched her eyes away and gestured at the paperwork strung across the table.
"What are you two up to?"
"The usual - requisitions and desperation," Casey replied. "Hutch is rebuilding the rebuilt carburetors and Lard acts like we're asking for the moon when we requisition new ones. We're working out a trade with the Army boys on Rendova but it's slow going and we're down to the end of the oil from our last swap, too."
"Didn't you end up getting a lot of really weird stuff in that deal?" Kate tried to remember the details. It had happened barely a month ago, shortly after her relationship with Greg had taken a turn from purely professional to, well, something a lot more complicated.
"Yeah. That transport got rerouted because of weather and bypassed Espritos. It came here straight from Pearl. We helped ourselves, uh, we liberated a few things that weren't really, uh, well, we took advantage of the moment," Casey finished hastily. "We're hoping to trade some of it to the Navy for enough Scotch to trade to the Army for the carbs and oil. There was china for an officers' mess and 1200-threadcount Egyptian cotton sheets and –"
"What do you know about cats?" Kate interrupted.
"Cats?" The tow-headed pilot blinked in surprise. "Like, meowing, purring, catching mice? That kind of cat?"
"Especially catching mice," she confirmed.
"Oh. Micklin's deal. I heard about that."
"Everyone heard about that. I don't know if someone is pulling his leg or what. Those paw prints on Jim's bird looked like the real thing. Is it possible there's a cat out here?"
Casey shot her a look.
"Katie, anything's possible out here."
To be continued . . .