Two weeks later, no one had given a second thought to what they had seen that night as the Black Sheep were kept busy with the morning and evening patrols. Greg had a couple of run-ins with Harachi, although neither of them amounted to anything more than the two of them exchanging insults or promising to send the other one swimming before they got tired of insulting each other and went their separate ways after promising to see, once and for all, who would shoot the other one down another day.
TJ, however, had another string of bad luck when one morning while on patrol over Munda he accidentally shot Greg's plane not once, but twice in the span of an hour, causing moderate damage to the underside of the plane the first time and minor damage to one of the wings and the canopy the second. Although, he had expected to really get it from Greg once they landed. Greg had simply grounded him for 48 hours, which was lucky since Hutch discovered a problem with the firing mechanism on TJ's plane that not only had been the reason for him accidentally shooting Greg's plane, but also could have caused it to explode in midair.
Boyle and Anderson, however had bigger problems to worry about when General Alderton caught them with his daughter Angelette and her cousin, Deidre, who was visiting from New York, engaged in some very intimate activities in the living room of the General's private residence when he arrived home early from a dinner meeting with General Moore. Greg really had to resort to some creative bull slinging to get them out of that one and when it was all said and done both of them wished that they had taken their chances with a military court, since Greg not only chewed them out in his tent for over two hours and then told them that if he found out they'd done anything like that again to forget about him coming to their rescue because he'd leave them to face whatever consequences that General Alderton meted out.
Boyle and Anderson didn't doubt for a minute that he was serious and promised that they wouldn't think of doing anything like that again and Greg was positive they meant it since when he was done with them; they were both so scared they practically crawled out of his tent.
Things eventually calmed down, however due to everyone being confined to camp because of the weather. Rain poured down on the island for four days and as a result almost everyone was staying in the their tents trying to keep as dry as possible, although a few who didn't seem to mind getting drenched had run over to the Sheep Pen for a change of scenery.
"Has anyone seen Pappy?" Casey asked running into the Sheep Pen.
"He's not here, so he's probably in his tent since it's too wet to go anywhere else, why?" French asked.
"He missed mail call this morning, I've got some letters for him and one of them looks important," Casey replied.
"Well, when you see him tell him that Bragg, Anderson, Gutterman, TJ, and I are going to be over here playing cards most of the afternoon so if he feels like he wants to get out in the rain he's welcome to come over and join us."
By the time Casey made it to Greg's tent he looked as if he'd taken a swim with his clothes on, since they were so wet they were clinging to him like a second skin.
"Are you in here, Pappy?" Casey asked sticking his head in the door.
Greg looked up from trying to rearrange the various buckets that he had placed around the tent to catch the water dripping through the roof.
"I'm certainly not out in that downpour," he replied. "Emily, Meatball, and I are trying to stay dry, but if this keeps up it will be a losing battle. I was awakened at 0300 by water dripping in my ear and have been up since then, for most of the night, playing musical buckets with these leaks."
Emily, who was lying on a folded blanket that Greg had placed in one of the few dry places on the floor, looked over at Casey blowing a kiss, which he caught before sending one back to her. Meatball was curled up under Greg's desk chewing on a stick and probably wishing the rain would stop so he could be outside.
"What brings you over here in this mess?" Greg asked.
"You missed mail call this morning, there were several letters for you, and one of them looks important, so I thought I'd bring them over; also French wanted you to know that most of the guys are going to be over in the Sheep Pen playing cards all afternoon and if you were interested in getting out in this mess you're welcome to join them."
Greg took the letters from Casey and told him he'd probably pass on the card game since he really didn't see the need to run across camp and get soaking wet when the way things were looking, he could stay right in his tent and do that just as well. Then he started looking through the mail.
"No, I don't want add to my life insurance,... Yeah right, I'm in the mood to purchase snow tires...Thank you, Mr. Penney, I'll be certain to attend the Bridal Showcase Sale ...Really, well if I'm off this island in the spring I'll be certain to visit my local nursery for landscaping ideas... This is ridiculous," Greg muttered. Then he came to the last piece of mail and he stared at it for several minutes.
"What is it, Pappy?" Casey asked in a slightly worried voice.
"I don't know, but the address is for the Motherhouse of Sister Mary Elizabeth's order," Greg replied.
Casey picked up Emily and held her while Greg opened the envelope and read it, not once, but twice before looking at Casey and Emily.
"What?" Casey asked.
"They've approved TJ's brother and sister-in-law to adopt Emily. They'll sign the papers next week and then if I can arrange it the Mother Superior would like for TJ to accompany Sister Mary Elizabeth and Emily to the States when they officially become her parents."
Casey didn't know what to say, at first.
"Let's not tell TJ," he said finally.
Greg looked at Casey as if he hadn't understood a word he had just said.
"What do you mean, let's not tell TJ? Of course, we have to tell TJ. I thought this was what everyone wanted?"
Greg couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Pappy, listen, we can't just tell TJ, let's do this right and have a celebration in the Sheep Pen and you can make a big announcement to everyone," Casey told him.
"And we keep it from TJ so it's a surprise. That's a great idea," Greg said.
"We could also invite Suzette and the other nurses since they've helped us out with Emily quite a bit," Casey continued.
Greg was beginning to form some ideas of his own in his head.
"What do you think about this?" he asked. "We have a celebratory dinner and at some point, probably after dessert, you slip out with Emily and then when I make the announcement you can come out and give Emily to her new Uncle TJ."
"Well, I guess I could, but why me? You're our commanding officer?" Casey asked thinking it made more sense for Greg to give Emily to TJ after he made the announcement about the adoption being finalized.
"You and TJ were the ones who found her, so it makes sense that you should have the honor of giving her to him," Greg explained.
Casey liked that idea and for the next hour they sat in Greg's tent discussing how they would go about throwing the celebration and more importantly keeping it a surprise from TJ.
"Casey, when you leave can you get me a weather report from Espritos Marcos and see when this deluge is supposed to end?" Greg asked.
"I already did before I came over here and the rain is supposed to end by 1400 and then be sunny, hot, and extremely humid the next few days."
"What else is new," Greg thought. "When this war is over with, I swear I'm going to go someplace where it never gets hot and stay for a long, long time."
"Mother Nature must be one of those women who likes to change her mind," Greg thought as he stood in the doorway of his tent holding Emily and looking out.
The weather report Casey had gotten before he had come over a few hours ago had said the rain was supposed to end by 1400, however 15 minutes after Casey had left the rain, which had been a downpour that would have made Noah nervous for most of the night and into that morning, had slowed to a gentle shower, before finally tapering off to nothing more than sprinkles.
As the rain began to let up everyone began to wander outside. Greg picked up Emily's bottle and went outside with her to join the others. He was standing beside French and TJ's planes talking with Casey, Gutterman, and Anderson when Emily looked up into the trees and began getting excited, making happy little noises, and pointing at something.
"What's got you so wound up?" Greg asked.
Then he and the others looked towards the ocean, spreading out over the water was a bright double rainbow. The colors were so vibrant that they were clearly distinguishable from one another, except where they blended into one another at the edges forming a perfect spectrum of color. Then, as they stood watching, a flock of tropical birds flew across the camp from one grove of palm trees to the other, their colors as bright and vivid as those of the rainbow.
Exclamations of "Look at that," and "Can you believe it," came from the group.
Emily was making sure they were watching, looking at them and pointing out everything she was seeing while making excited baby noises.
They stood watching as the birds flew back and forth between the two groves of palm trees with the rainbows creating a background for the tropical scene, until the rain moved off and the sky was once more a tropical blue.
Greg and Emily walked back to the Sheep Pen with Casey to look over some paperwork that Casey had some questions about. French, Anderson, and Bragg got the baseball and gloves out of the storage bin and started playing catch. TJ got the copy of My World and Welcome To It by James Thurber that his sister-in-law, Janie, had sent him a few months ago and went to sit on one of the fallen trees near his tent and read.
Gutterman didn't have anything else to do so he went to help Hutch work on his plane, which had started leaking oil during the morning patrol.
The sound of an incoming plane made everyone stop what they were doing and look towards the airstrip.
"How much do you want to bet that's Colonel Lard?" Anderson asked.
"Great, just what we need, okay guys think...What have we done to warrant a visit from the esteemed Colonel?" French asked with more than a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
No one could think of anything they had done that would call for Colonel Lard to grace them with his presence.
By now everyone, with the exception of Greg, Casey, and Emily who were still in the Sheep Pen, was standing in a group near the airstrip, wondering if it actually was Colonel Lard, and if so, why was he here.
"I think it might be a good idea to let Pappy know what's going on," TJ suggested.
Anderson ran towards the Sheep Pen to tell him that he and Casey might want to get outside with the rest of them.
By the time Anderson, Casey, Greg, and Emily joined them, the plane had landed and luckily it was not Colonel Lard, but a cargo plane.
"I wasn't expecting any supplies for a few days," Greg remarked.
The pilot of the cargo plane looked at his clipboard.
"This shipment is compliments of the USS Detroit," he replied.
Greg was perplexed.
"What could they be sending us?" he wondered.
"Where do you want them?" the pilot asked interrupting Greg's thoughts.
"Want what?" Greg asked.
"The 50 assorted cuts of steak and 20 cases of assorted liquor, apparently the crew of the USS Detroit promised them to you a little over a month ago, " the pilot answered.
Greg had completely forgotten about that, although the rest of the Black Sheep clearly remembered that their part of the deal in that little exchange had been to physically keep their hands and any other body parts, for that matter, off of the newly arrived nurses for one week. Of course, it hadn't taken them long, once the week was up, for them to introduce themselves and start getting to know them in every way possible. It was no surprise that that had resulted more than a little friction between the Black Sheep and the crew of the USS Detroit and they had seriously doubted that they would receive the promised steaks and liquor.
"What do you want us to do with them now?" French asked once everything was unloaded and the plane had taken off.
Greg was wondering that himself, at least as far as the steaks were concerned.
"You all know what to do with the liquor," he told them.
"Yeah get drunk, go find the nurses, and have some fun with them," Anderson, Boyle, and French replied enthusiastically.
Greg gave them an exasperated look.
"Not at 10 in the morning you morons," he replied slapping Anderson on the head.
"Take it to the Sheep Pen and put it with the rest of our supply."
"Okay," Anderson said dejectedly. "But, I still think it would be more fun for us to get drunk and go find the nurses."
Several of the other Black Sheep agreed with him and Greg just shook his head.
"It's times like this I wonder about you all," he said to himself.
Of course, he had to admit that liquor and women were definitely in the top 10 of things they enjoyed, along with fighting, gambling, and aggravating Colonel Lard, but even Greg knew that there was a time and a place for everything and now was not the time or the place to get drunk and make out with the nurses.
Then after giving it some thought about what to do with the steaks he replied.
"I don't know if it works, but hook the spare generator up to that freezer we got as part of that bet we won a few months ago. If it works and I don't see why it shouldn't, since it's supposedly a brand new freezer, all the steaks should fit in there. I think they'll be okay until the temperature gets cold enough, since they're frozen solid."
Anderson, French, and TJ went to work on that little detail, while Gutterman and Bragg began moving the cases of liquor into the Sheep Pen, even though Anderson's idea sounded much better to them.
Greg motioned for Casey to join him over by his plane.
"I just had a great idea," Greg said.
"Does it involve liquor and nurses?" Casey asked grinning, hopeful that Greg had changed his mind.
"Now don't you start," Greg replied. "I have an idea about this dinner we're going to have to celebrate TJ becoming Emily's uncle."
"What about it?" Casey asked.
"I just decided that we're going to have the steaks with salad, baked potatoes, and the works." Greg replied nodding towards the boxes that at that moment were being placed in the freezer.
Despite Greg and Casey's best efforts, TJ almost found out what was going on. Everyone was in the Sheep Pen enjoying the coconut almond brownies, that Casey and French had made that afternoon, and unwinding after a particularly harrowing day in which they had been ambushed by at least 40 Zeros while on the morning patrol near New Georgia. Although everyone had made it back uninjured, several of the planes had sustained significant damage, and what really had Greg concerned was the fact that Hutch had told him that a couple of the planes might be beyond fixing, unless they were able to get the parts that Washington had promised them.
However, Greg wasn't going to worry about that right now because there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it at that moment.
Greg was sitting next to Gutterman with Emily on his lap. TJ was sitting on the other side of him with French, Anderson, and Bragg across from them. Boyle had gotten up to fix some baby cereal for Emily. He came back and sat the bowl in front of Greg before he went and sat down at the end of the table. The conversation centered around the morning's ambush and the fact that if they didn't get those parts Washington had promised to send them soon, there was a very real chance they wouldn't have enough planes to keep them together as a squadron. Despite Greg's assurances that wouldn't happen, the way things were looking, a few of the Black Sheep wondered if that wasn't the reason why they still hadn't gotten the parts from Washington.
Although he didn't want to admit it Greg was beginning to wonder the same thing, since he hadn't heard anything in response to the packet that he had sent them several weeks ago containing the plane assessments. He had just finished feeding Emily her last bite of cereal when a very unpleasant smell filled the air and several of them Gutterman, especially, made some comments as to who had hygiene issues that needed to addressed and as soon as possible.
Greg looked at Emily, sniffed, and immediately realized that her diaper needed changing.
"I think the source of our odor problem is Emily's diaper," Greg remarked "And since you were so vocal about the cause of the smell, Jim, you can change her."
Jim Gutterman had done many things that he considered to be above and beyond the call of duty since he had enlisted, however he drew the line at changing messy diapers.
"TJ can do it since he's officially going to be her un...ummowww!"
At that point, Bragg had just kicked him under the table.
"What was that for?"Jim yelled.
Keeping his voice as low as possible Bragg replied.
"You know what for; you almost ruined everyone's hard work by spoiling the surprise tomorrow night."
Jim was itching for a fight and he didn't care who he had to take on to scratch it.
"I ought to break every bone in your body right here and now," he growled.
Greg realized that things were getting out of hand and if he didn't do something quickly Jim's temper was liable to get him in trouble.
"Calm down Jim," Greg said placing a hand on his shoulder. Then leaning down he whispered. "I don't want to have to repeat that fight we had a few weeks ago."
Gutterman's response was to stand up, slinging the chair behind him.
"What's stopping you, Pappy, you chicken?"
Greg handed Emily to TJ, who went to go change her, and then faced Gutterman.
"No, Jim, I'm not chicken. You've had too much to drink," Greg told him.
Jim was already on his fourth glass of beer and had had at least four bottles of hard liquor in his tent prior to that.
"And as far as I'm concerned you're on thin ice and the ice is cracking. If I were you I'd back off slowly before you fall in." Greg added his voice making it perfectly clear he wanted this to end and end now.
Gutterman drew back his fist, but before he could take a swing at Greg French and Bragg grabbed him and sat him down.
"Make another move and the only place you'll be going is home in a body bag because I'll personally kill you myself," French said his voice hard and unemotional.
Gutterman didn't say anything, but gave Greg, French, and Bragg a hateful look and moved off to sit by himself at another table, while the rest of the Black Sheep went back to their conversations as if nothing had happened.
I really had to hand it to French and Bragg for stepping in to diffuse what could have escalated into a serious situation. Although, it was clearly obvious that I was going to have to sit Gutterman down and have a serious talk about controlling his explosive temper before he endangered himself or someone else. Luckily, as far as I knew, TJ hadn't picked up on Jim almost letting it out that he was now Emily's uncle or would soon be. If he had, I was certain that he would have said something to me and so, at least as far as I knew, our surprise was still safe.
The morning dawned clear with the sun rising as an angry red zero, bringing with it the promise that it was going to be another hot, sticky, tropical day. Greg had awakened early and was sitting outside his tent reading to Emily.
"Spot is hiding behind his house. Do you see Spot?" Greg read. "Emily, can you find the doggie?" he asked.
Emily pointed to Meatball, who was lying under a nearby palm tree.
"Yes, that's Meatball, but where's the doggie here?" he asked pointing to the page.
Emily again pointed at Meatball.
"Um umm," she said taking the book from him and dropping it on the ground.
"Okay, I guess that means we're done reading," he commented.
Just then Casey walked over, he and the others had gotten back from morning patrol and Greg wondered if something had happened by the look on his face.
"Casey, how were things this morning?" he asked.
"Boring," Casey replied. "We didn't see one single enemy plane or destroyer the entire time. We even decided to do a $20 pool, but that didn't help any."
"Why, so much money?" Greg asked, usually the pools were $5 or $10 at the most.
"Well, we decided that since TJ was excused from the patrol due his being at the hospital for a checkup with Dr. Pendleton we'd have a pool and give the money to TJ for Emily," Casey explained. "However, even though we didn't see anything we're each going to give $20 to him for her."
Greg handed Casey five $20 bills and told him not to say anything to the others about what he had done, then looking at his watch realized he hadn't had breakfast yet.
"Casey, you want to walk over to the Sheep Pen and have breakfast. Then we can finalize our plans for this afternoon while we eat?"
A few minutes later, Greg and Casey sat down at one of the tables with plates of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and coffee.
TJ was just leaving the Sheep Pen after finishing his breakfast and offered to take Emily with him, Anderson, and Boyle down to the beach.
"Breakfast is decent for once, this morning," Greg commented.
"Thank French and Bragg for that, they cooked this morning," Casey explained before taking a bite of pancakes.
"Then remind me to have them cook breakfast at least a couple times a week," Greg said.
Casey thought for a few moments, while he finished his pancakes, before replying.
"Do you know how well that would go over with them!" he exclaimed.
After thinking it over for a few moments, Greg agreed that it probably wouldn't make them too happy. Then clearing their dishes and getting more coffee they sat down to finalize their plans for the evening's activities.
"Suzette said that she and the girls would be over by about 1500 to start helping set up in the Sheep Pen. Gutterman's going to help me arrange the tables after lunch. TJ, Anderson, and Boyle have taken Emily to the beach for the afternoon. French and Bragg are going to start building the fire and cooking the steaks around 1600, and then I plan on us eating about by 1800. I told Penelope and Claire to bring out the cake and punch about 1900 or so and while we're having dessert I'll make the big announcement."
"TJ is going to be speechless," Casey commented.
Greg took a drink of coffee.
"I wouldn't exactly say that, but he is going to be surprised by all of this and remind me at 1730 to go tell Hutch to stop whatever he's working on so he has time to get cleaned up and join us."
Later that evening, the Sheep Pen had been transformed into the banquet room of a five star hotel, or as close to that as Suzette and the other nurses with the help of Greg, Gutterman, and Casey could manage. Suzette had found some dark blue table cloths and white and yellow cloth napkins along with white china dinner and dessert plates as well as some fancy cut glass goblets in a storage room at the hospital. While in another storage room, Kathlynn and Claire had found a punch bowl and cups to use when serving dessert.
The centerpieces had been made by Clarissa and Annaliese and were clear glass bowls filled with polished stones and tropical flowers. Those were placed over strips of yellow and white cloth, one color cut narrower than the other so that they could be layered as a table runner.
The rest of the Sheep Pen was decorated with palm fronds and candle holders that French and Gutterman had made by drilling holes in coconuts and draining out the milk. Greg had insisted on dress uniforms for the dinner, which some of them thought was going too far considering the heat, but since it was a special occasion they didn't complain too much.
French and Bragg however sealed their fates of being scheduled to do the cooking on a regular basis with their perfectly cooked steaks and potatoes. Annaliese and Kathlynn had fixed the salad and Clarissa and Allison had somehow gotten the ingredients to make yeast rolls.
After supper, Penelope and Claire brought out a huge coconut cake and with the help of the Black Sheep, and their very creative trading practices, they had been able to obtain all of the ingredients to make real butter cream icing for the cake, which they decorated with shredded coconut.
They also made a lime punch, using limes that Gutterman and Boyle had picked from some lime trees growing near the camp. Since, the evening was in honor of Emily's adoption by TJ's brother and sister in law, Greg didn't want anything to spoil it for TJ, so he insisted that it wouldn't contain any alcohol.
He even went one step further and, without revealing the reason for the dinner, made it perfectly clear to all the Black Sheep that anyone caught adding any would face dire consequences. After dessert, Casey took Emily to go get her changed into the sundress Penelope, Kathlynn, Annaliese, and Clarissa had made from some pastel floral print material Allison's aunt had sent her several months earlier.