Malcolm S. Pickering

Malcolm S. Pickering is a Second Lieutenant and Marine pilot. He is the son of Fleming Pickering and known as Pick. He is twenty-two years old and heir to a shipping and hotel fortune. Pick is assigned to the Naval Air Station at Pensacola where he delivers Wildcats to different bases. Pick learned the hotel business by working in different positions in the family hotel business. The Marines want to use him as a mess officer but General McInerney, a friend of his father, intervenes and he becomes a Marine aviator. During flight training he and Dick Stecker live in a suite at a hotel. Pick receives orders to go to Guadalcanal in September, 1942. In many ways, Pick does not seem to take things seriously and is somewhat irresponsible, such as flying his grandfather's plane, which he has never flown before, under the Golden Gate Bridge...