The Majors

by W. E. B Griffin

  Franklin trotted after him.

  “The general,” Captain Parker said, “as an indication of his deep concern that the colored should not be discriminated against, has graciously made his personal helicopter available for your check ride.”

  Franklin was now wholly baffled.

  “The general,” Captain Parker went on, “was taught to ride a horse by a colored soldier when he was a very young officer. That colored, so to speak, the general’s thinking about the colored. He finds it difficult to accept the fact that some coloreds, from time to time, really do really stupid things.” Parker paused. “I have been led to believe, Mr. Franklin, that you have been instructed in the techniques of preflight inspection of aerial vehicles such as the one before you. If so, please conduct the inspection.”

  Franklin conducted the preflight. Captain Parker strapped himself in the passenger seat.

  “Fire it up, Mr. Franklin,” he said, and Franklin started the engine.

  Parker depressed the mike button on his stick.

  “Laird local control, Chopper One on the pad in front of the CP for a local flight to Hanchey. The Six is not aboard.”

  “Laird local control clears Chopper One for a local flight to Hanchey.”

  “Were you aware, Mr. Franklin,” Captain Parker politely commented over the intercom, “that Major General Angus Laird took off from this very helipad and, the application of carburetor heat having slipped his mind, flew a machine just like this one into the trees?”

  Franklin looked at Parker. Parker put both hands out in front of his body and made a lifting motion, and then pointed in the general direction of Hanchey Field.

  Franklin saw that the needles were in the green, and inched back on the cyclic.

  “Laird local, Chopper One light on the skids,” Parker’s voice came over the helmet earphones.

  Ten minutes later, his voice came again.

  “Now that you’ve demonstrated you can get it up,” he said, “let’s see if you remember how to put it down.” He pointed to a clearing in the pine forest in the center of which was a whitewashed circle with a fifteen-foot-tall “H” in the center.

  Franklin made what he thought was one of his better landings.

  Parker made a cutting motion across his throat with his hand. Franklin killed the engine, and the fluckata-fluckata-fluckata sound of the rotor changed pitch as it slowed.

  “Tell me true, Franklin,” Parker said, “out here where no one can hear us, as one Afro-American warrior to another, just how much bootleg chopper time do you have?”

  “About 600 hours, sir.”

  “My, you really must have worked at it, getting that much time.”

  Franklin didn’t reply.

  “The safety-of-flight allegations made against you, which may yet see your black ass thrown out of WOC school, accuse you of flying one of these things hands-off, in order that you might take snapshots.”

  “Yes, sir,” Franklin said.

  “‘Yes, sir, that’s what they say I did,’ or ‘Yes, sir, that’s what I did’?”

  “I was taking pictures, sir. I used to be a photographer.”

  “So I understand,” Parker said, dryly. “Purely to satisfy my personal curiosity, will you show me how you performed this aerial feat of legerdemain?”

  Franklin looked at him for a moment, as if making up his mind.

  “What you have to do, Captain,” he said, “is lock the cyclic under your knee. Like this.”

  He demonstrated how to fold the left leg over the cyclic control, the sticklike control to the left of the pilot’s seat which controls both the angle of attack of the rotor blades and the amount of fuel fed to the engine.

  “All you really can do is hold your attitude,” Franklin explained. “You control the stick with your left foot and your right knee.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Parker said. “And somebody saw you doing this?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The only reason they haven’t thrown your ass out is probably because nobody believes it can be done.”

  “Am I to be thrown out, Captain? Is that what this is all about?”

  “No, you’re going to graduate. The ‘incident’ report has been lost.”

  “Jesus Christ, I’m glad to hear that,” Franklin said.

  “You really want to fly, huh?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “You were doubtless inspired by some aviator with whom you had contact?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who taught you how to fly, despite regulations to the contrary?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who probably came up with this ‘no-hands’ technique of flying?”

  “After he taught me how to fly,” Franklin said, “we used to practice at 3,500 feet. He’d try to do it, and I grabbed the controls when something went wrong.”

  “In other words, one hell of a pilot, huh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Handsome devil, who when he is not doing something terribly John Wayneish, spends his time deciding which of the attractive ladies who gather around as moths to a candle he is going to honor with a screw?” Parker said. “A great big honky named Major Craig W. Lowell?”

  “Do you know the major, sir?” Franklin asked.

  “I wouldn’t admit this to just anybody, Mr. Franklin,” Captain Parker said, “but not only do I know the bastard, he’s my best friend.”

  They grinned at each other for a moment.

  “What happens now, sir?”

  “I take you home for supper, what else?” Parker said. He made a wind-it-up signal with his index finger. Franklin reached out and held down the Engine Start switch.

  “The colored guy I told you taught the general to ride?” Parker’s voice came over the earphones.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “My father,” Parker said. Then there was a click as he depressed the microphone switch on the stick to the second detent, activating the transmitter. “Laird local, Chopper One in the Hanchey area. Request low level clearance to Pad One.”

  He looked at Franklin, and made the pick-it-up gesture with his hands.

  “Both hands, Bill,” he said. “Use both hands.”

  XV

  (One)

  Quarters No. 3

  Fort Meyers, Virginia

  11 December 1958

  Every week or so, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army “got together” with the Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. The meetings were social and unofficial. In the hourly logs of their activities carefully maintained by their respective aides-de-camp the time blocks contained the abbreviation “AIQ.” Alone In Quarters.

  Very rarely were they alone, and only from time to time were they actually in their quarters. They were never, of course, completely alone. There was always a master sergeant or a warrant officer hovering around someplace with a .45 pistol in the small of his back or an M2 carbine in the golf club bag. There were generally, too, a junior aide around to grab the phone and a driver; and more remotely officers with the duty of being instantly available should they be needed (physicians and military policemen; cryptographers and public relations officers; ad infinitum) kept themselves aware of the locations of the Five and the Six and of the shortest, fastest way to get from where they were to where they were.

  Alone meant that the Five and the Six were not officially or semiofficially entertaining anyone, including each other. Alone meant that what was said in the room where they happened to be would stay within that room. Not because the room had been swept to make sure it contained no clever little listening devices (although that of course had been done) but because the people at their little get-togethers were absolutely trustworthy.

  At 1840 hours, twenty minutes to seven, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army said to his wife and his senior aide, “I’m going to walk over to E. Z. Black’s. I’ll be back after a while.”

  As soon as the six had gone out the door, the senior aide made a couple of telephone calls to pass th
e word where the Six would be and where he himself would be, and then he went home. Unless he was grossly mistaken, the Six would stay in place for the next five or six hours.

  At 1843 hours, the Six entered Quarters No. 3, General E. Z. Black’s quarters, through the kitchen door. There he found Master Sergeant Wesley, who had been with Black since they wore riding breeches (they spent a lot of time on the backs of horses), Senator Fulton J. Oswald of South Carolina and the Military Affairs Committee, Carson W. Newburgh, chairman and chief executive officer of the Newburgh Corporation, and, of course, the Five, General Black.

  “What can I get you to drink, General?” Master Sergeant Wesley asked. The men nodded at each other, but none spoke or offered a hand to be shaken.

  “Has he got any of that good scotch left, Wes?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “Yes, suh, twenty-four years old an’ as mellow as it’s gonna git,” Sergeant Wesley said, turning and taking a bottle from a kitchen cupboard.

  “Carson brought the chow,” the Vice Chief of Staff said. “You have your choice between steak or pheasant. The pheasant’ll take Wes about an hour to fix.”

  “I’ll have the steak, then,” the Chief of Staff said.

  “Does the general want it cooked like a steak?” Sergeant Wesley inquired. “Or are you gonna eat it raw like Colonel Newburgh and the senator?”

  “Steak tartar?” the Chief of Staff asked, chuckling. “Why not?”

  “It’s guaranteed to put lead in your pencil, General,” the senator said.

  “It’ll take a hell of a lot more than some chopped beef and an egg yolk to put lead in my pencil, Senator,” the Chief of Staff said.

  Sergeant Wesley handed him a glass, dark with barely diluted scotch.

  “If you gentlemen would like to go into the study, I’ll start seeing about supper,” Master Sergeant Wesley said.

  “Give us half an hour, Wes,” General Black said. “Time for another drink.”

  “Anybody else coming?” the Chief of Staff asked as they walked into the study. A table covered with an army blanket had been set up in case they decided to play poker.

  “This is it,” E. Z. Black said. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “Tell E. Z. what you told me, Senator,” the Chief of Staff said.

  “The air force knows about your rocket-armed helicopters,” the senator said. “I got that straight from the horse’s ass, the distinguished senior senator from Rhode Island.”

  “Helicopter,” General Black said. “Singular. One.”

  “One is one more than I knew about, E. Z.,” the Chief of Staff said.

  “Does the air force think we have them, or do they know we have them?” He corrected himself: “That we have one of them?”

  “They have still and motion pictures,” the senator said.

  “Dirty bastards must have planted a spy,” General Black said, angrily.

  “Maybe that’s what I should have done,” the Chief of Staff said. “Instead of relying on you to keep me up with the interesting minutiae of the field army.”

  “I try to spare you the minutiae, General,” E. Z. Black said. “To save you for politics.”

  “If this isn’t politics, then what the hell is it?”

  “I spent an hour this afternoon, for example,” E. Z. Black went on, “trying to decide what to do about an ordnance light colonel in Japan who’s also been in the movies. He happens to have the key to the tactical nukes.”

  “What kind of movies?”

  “Stag movies. Queer stag movies. He’s the star,” E. Z. Black said. “I was going to bring that minutia to the general’s attention for a decision.”

  “Jesus!” the senator said.

  “There are several options,” E. Z. Black went on. “The CIC and the G-2 want him removed and court-martialed, or at least cashiered. Some other people want the game to go on, to see who’s dealing.”

  “What other people?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “CIA,” E. Z. Black said. “And Felter.”

  “And you want to go with Felter, right?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “That is my recommendation. Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s get back to your armed helicopters,” the Chief of Staff said. “We both know that Felter will call the tune in the end anyway. The President thinks he’s a goddamned genius.”

  “Isn’t he?” the senator asked.

  “He’s a goddamned major in the U.S. Army,” the Chief of Staff said. “That’s all he is.”

  The senator laughed. “Bullshit!” he said. “All he is is a major in the army who gets to whisper in the President’s ear once a day.”

  “I’d be a lot happier if he’d resign and just…” the Chief of Staff began. Black interrupted him.

  “Get a hard-on for the army?” he said. “Felter thinks of himself as an army officer, and I think that’s just fine.”

  “The question is, does he? I mean, does he really?”

  “Yes, he does,” Black said, firmly.

  The Chief of Staff looked at the Vice Chief of Staff for a moment. They didn’t like each other. The Chief of Staff was West Point and infantry/airborne. The Vice Chief of Staff was Norwich and armor. The chemistry was bad between them. They had known and casually disliked each other for a quarter of a century. A mutual respect between them had slowly blossomed as their parallel careers had brought them to the top. They now deeply respected each other, but they were not friends.

  Master Sergeant Wesley brought in a fresh tray of drinks and some cheddar cheese on toothpicks. The Chief of Staff put a cheddar chunk in his mouth.

  “Tell me about your armed helicopters,” he said.

  “The idea’s a natural,” Black said. “I’ve been playing with it since before I went to Korea. When I commanded Fort Polk, Mac MacMillan strapped a 3.5 rocket launcher onto the skid of an old H-23 and showed me what he could do to M3 and M4 hulks on the known distance range.”

  “So Mac’s involved in this?” the Chief of Staff asked. As an 82nd Airborne Division regimental commander, the Chief of Staff had recommended that Technical Sergeant Rudolph G. MacMillan of the Regimental Pathfinder Platoon be directly commissioned as a second lieutenant. Before MacMillan could be sworn in, he had been captured (at the time, it was thought he had been killed) under such circumstances that he had been recommended for the Medal of Honor.

  “Mac and Bob Bellmon,” E. Z. Black said.

  “You realize this is liable to cost Bellmon his star?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “I am sure Colonel Bellmon recognized the inherent risk to his career,” Black said.

  “Anybody else?” the Chief of Staff asked. “E. Z., I’m getting a little annoyed pulling these details out of you like twelve-year molars.”

  “The chain of responsibility is me to Bellmon to MacMillan. There are two other officers involved. There’s a young lieutenant named Greer, who served with the French Foreign Legion—who, as you know, regularly arm their choppers—in Algeria. He’s at Fort Hood with the helicopter, and a couple of mechanics and an Ordnance Corps warrant officer I borrowed from Ted Davis.”

  “In other words, General Davis is also involved?”

  “No, sir. General Davis could honestly testify that he had no inkling whatever of what was going on. I asked him for a competent ground rocket man who knew his way around ordnance depots. He didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t volunteer any information.”

  “OK,” the Chief of Staff said.

  “And there’s one more man, an officer in DCSLOG, here.”

  “What’s his function?”

  “This has cost a lot of money,” E. Z. Black said. “This guy’s good at getting it from other appropriations. He was also in North Africa and knows what’s going on.”

  “Has he got a name?”

  “Lowell. Major C. W. Lowell.”

  “What was that name, E.Z.?” the senator asked.

  “Lowell. Major Craig Lowell,” Black said.

  �
��Oh, shit,” the senator chuckled. “Well, that brings us to Item Two on the agenda,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?” General Black asked, genuinely confused.

  “E.Z.,” the senator said, “I really hate to ask you if you know what else your Major Lowell has been up to.”

  “I don’t understand,” E. Z. Black said. He was a little worried that the senator was going to tell him Lowell’s parties were getting to be too much the talk of the town.

  “He’s gotten himself involved with a senator’s wife,” the Chief of Staff exploded.

  “It’s probably really not his fault,” the senator said. “But it could be awkward.”

  “What do mean, it’s ‘probably not his fault’?” the Chief of Staff snapped.

  “The senator is old and rich. The senator’s wife is young and healthy. The major is young—and a bachelor.”

  “Actually a widower,” Carson Newburgh said.

  “You know him, Carson?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “Yes, I know him. Fairly well, as a matter of fact,” Newburgh said. “I didn’t know about this, however. Who’s the lady?”

  “Constance,” the senator told him.

  “And who else knows about it?” Newburgh asked.

  “Everybody, probably, but the husband. And I’m not too sure about that.”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” the Chief of Staff said. “E.Z., you really know how to pick them!”

  “I didn’t know about this,” E. Z. Black said.

  “You don’t live in Georgetown,” Carson Newburgh said. “All sorts of interesting things go on there.”

  “Lowell lives in Georgetown?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “Right next door to the senator whose wife we’re talking about,” the senator said.

  “How the hell does he afford that?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “He’s comfortable, General,” Carson Newburgh said. “Very comfortable.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “Are you familiar with Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes?”

  “Stockbrokers?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “That, too, but primarily investment bankers. There are two major stockholders. Porter Craig, chairman of the board and chief executive officer, who owns half. And his cousin, Major Lowell, who owns the other half.”