The Captains

by W. E. B Griffin

  “The regiment has been badly mauled in the opening days of this conflict. Average unit strength is approximately sixty percent of the authorized table of organization and equipment. Until the last couple of days, requirements elsewhere have denied us replacement personnel.

  “You gentlemen are the vanguard of the new and revitalized 24th Infantry. In one way, the fact that the unit to which you will be assigned will have an entirely new complement of officers and have as replacements more than fifty percent of its strength, may be viewed as an advantage. You will have the opportunity to mold it in your image, gentlemen. I am sure you will rise to the challenge. Are there any questions?”

  “Sir, you said, ‘an entirely new complement of officers’?” Lieutenant Stevens asked. He had already determined that he was the senior officer. He had interpreted that to mean he would be the company executive officer, but with “an entirely new complement” he might be company commander. If you served in combat with a company for thirty days in a position senior to your rank, you could be promoted to that rank.

  “A slip of the tongue. There is one officer presently assigned to Tank Company,” the colonel said. “I’m sure that at least one of you will outrank him. He made first lieutenant in May.”

  Lieutenant Stevens found this very fascinating information indeed.

  It had been the division commander’s intention to call the regimental commander to inform him of his decision to make Parker a captain, which would permit him to remain in command. From everything he’d heard about Parker, he was a first-class officer and not only deserved the promotion but was obviously qualified to command (he had lived through the last two months). But something had come up every time he was about to reach for the telephone and tell him of his decision.

  Lieutenant Stevens rode in the front seat of the ambulance without Red Cross markings, wondering if that wasn’t somehow illegal. An ambulance was an ambulance. Taking one…it was probably stolen…and painting the red cross over and using it like a truck was something you could expect from a bunch of niggers.

  One of the first things he would do in command would be to get rid of it. If they wanted to be treated like white men, it was time they understood they would be expected to behave like white men.

  Tank Company was located six miles from the regimental command post, in a village called Chinhae. Lieutenant Stevens was momentarily pleased when he saw the first sergeant, a tall erect colored man in a crisply starched uniform, who approached the ambulance, came to attention, and saluted.

  “Sir, may I welcome you to Tank Company?” the first sergeant said. “We’ve been waiting for you gentlemen for a long time.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Stevens said. “Will you have someone take care of our personal gear? Is that the way to the orderly room?”

  “Yes, sir,” the first sergeant said. Stevens knew that he had zinged him. Good. The important thing to do was establish your control. Then you could be a nice guy. Within reason, of course. Give a nigger an inch and he’d take a mile.

  Tank Company had apparently taken over some sort of Korean country inn, something like a hotel. The floor was of woven straw. There was a sign lettered with a wax crayon, tacked to the wall. SHOE LINE. BARE FEET BEYOND THIS POINT.

  Some nigger’s sense of humor, obviously mocking the sign erected at regimental boundaries: HELMET LINE. HELMETS WILL BE WORN BEYOND THIS POINT.

  Well, he had no intention of paying a bit of attention to that. He marched down the tatami-covered corridor until he came to another sign. CP.

  He slid a sliding door open. There was a nigger buck sergeant sitting in front of a typewriter, his face making it perfectly obvious that the device was entirely too complicated for him to grasp. He looked up at Lieutenant Stevens and the other officers and his eyes widened.

  “Don’t you come to your feet, Sergeant, when you see an officer in here?” Lt. Stevens demanded. He was rather pleased with himself. He was establishing his position on military courtesy much sooner than he thought he would have an opportunity to do so.

  The sergeant jumped to his feet. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “The Old Man says not to, and we haven’t had many officers around here.” He paused, smiled, and added, “We ain’t been inside all that much, either.”

  “Watch it in the future, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Stevens said, with what he thought was just the proper mixture of sternness and paternalism. “Where is your officer?”

  “In his office, sir,” the sergeant said, nodding to another sliding door.

  Lieutenant Stevens slid the door open. He saw a very large, very black man, naked to the waist, sweating, standing looking out the window. He held a can of beer in his hand.

  “Ah, you must be the replacement officers,” he said. “Come on in and have a beer.” He waved at a metal container on the floor. It bore a red cross on all of its visible sides, and the words HUMAN BLOOD—RUSH.

  “Just what the hell is going on around here?” Lieutenant Stevens asked.

  “I beg your pardon?” the half-naked nigger asked in that phony Harvard a lot of them, in Lieutenant Stevens’s experience, affected.

  “Are you by any chance an officer?” Lieutenant Stevens demanded.

  “Yes, I am,” the nigger replied, amused. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Lieutenant Stevens,” Stevens said.

  The half-naked black man with the can of beer stopped smiling. He looked Stevens up and down, and then looked beyond him at the other officers.

  “Is that a West Point ring I see on your hand, Lieutenant Stevens?”

  “As a matter of fact, it is,” Stevens said. “But I asked who the hell you are.”

  “I find it difficult to believe,” the half-naked nigger said, in his Harvard accent, every syllable precisely pronounced, “that an officer exposed to all the opportunities afforded by the United States Military Academy at West Point is unaware of the protocol involved in reporting to a new command. I presume, therefore, there is some excuse for your lack of military courtesy.”

  “I believe I’m in command here, Lieutenant Parker,” Lieutenant Stevens said.

  “Oh?” Parker said, his tone of voice suggesting idle interest. “I haven’t been informed of my relief.”

  “I’m informing you now,” Stevens said.

  “I see,” Parker said. “And where am I supposed to go? Regiment? Did you happen to bring me a copy of my orders?”

  “You’ll stay here, so far as I know,” Stevens said. “What I’m saying, Lieutenant, is that I’m senior to you.”

  “I was promoted captain today,” Parker said. “Were you promoted captain before that?”

  Stevens felt his stomach contract into a knot.

  “There’s apparently been some sort of mix-up,” he said.

  “Sir,” Parker said.

  “Sir,” Stevens said.

  “Well, now that the air is cleared,” Parker said, “have these officers sit down, lieutenant, and remove their foot gear. There’s a sign outside that you should have read.”

  Stevens and the others just looked at him.

  The sergeant who had been behind the typewriter came into the room without knocking.

  “Here’s your shirt, Captain,” he said.

  “One of the beer cans was frozen,” Parker said, conversationally. “It exploded.” He turned his back on the others and tucked his shirt in his trousers. “And when you have removed your shoes, gentlemen,” he went on, “you can go back out and try reporting to your new commanding officer as the customs of the service dictate.”

  Stevens heard the nigger warrant officer chuckle. His face flushed, he sat down on the woven straw tatami and took off his boots. Deeply humiliated, carrying his boots in his hands, he went back down the corridor past the SHOE LINE sign, dropped off his boots, and then made his way back to Parker’s office.

  When the four officers and the warrant officer were shoeless, Stevens marched them into Parker’s office.

  “Sir,” he said, s
aluting. “Lieutenant Stevens and other replacement officers reporting for duty.”

  Parker casually returned the salute.

  “Stand at ease, gentlemen,” he said. “Welcome to Tank Company, 24th Infantry.” He met the eyes of each man. “As we have just established, I am Captain Philip Sheridan Parker IV, the commanding officer. There are some things I think you should know. First of all, about me. I am not only regular army, but I am a fourth generation army brat. For the past two months, I have been the only officer physically present for duty. I am still alive, and in command, and that should impress you as de facto proof that I am qualified to command this unit.

  “Secondly, Tank Company has the distinction of being the only unit in the regiment which has not, at least since I’ve been in command, run in the face of the enemy. Through a process of attrition, our strength, until Eighth Army saw fit to send us replacements today, was down to one officer, sixteen noncoms and 102 enlisted men. Each of these men, and especially the noncoms, has been tried in battle and found worthy. The first sergeant pointed out to me this morning that none of our platoon sergeants or tank commanders held a rank higher than corporal when we entered combat. The majority, in fact, were privates first class.

  “I have no way to judge the quality of the replacements, officer or enlisted. I have full confidence in the men I had before you and the enlisted replacements arrived. Having seen here what the effects of poor leadership are, I have no intention of seeing either the combat effectiveness of this unit destroyed, or equally important, losing the lives of any of my men by placing in a position of command any officer until I am satisfied that he is, indeed, qualified to take command.

  “I am, therefore, going to turn each of you over to a platoon sergeant. You, Lieutenant Stevens, will be turned over to First Sergeant Woodrow. Until such time as they, in their exclusive judgment, decide that you are qualified, you will, with the insignia of rank removed, function as a tank crewman, and perform such other duties as you may be assigned.”

  “You can’t do that!” Stevens protested.

  “Any officer who fails to measure up will be relieved. There is a pool of officers who have been relieved in Pusan. I understand they are engaged in unloading ships, as stevedores,” Parker went on.

  “What about me, Captain?” the warrant officer asked.

  “Were you a company clerk before you got your warrant?”

  “I was a battalion personnel sergeant,” he said.

  “OK. You can relieve Sergeant Foster,” Parker said. “If you can find a typist in the replacements, you can have him. All of our morning reports for the past two months have to be redone. Foster can help you do that. When he’s finished, I promised him a tank.”

  He looked at each of them again, one at a time, slowly.

  “With the exception of Lieutenant Stevens, you are dismissed,” he said. “Tell Sergeant Foster I said to turn you over to Sergeant Woodrow.”

  Confused, shaken, angry, they saluted awkwardly in sort of a contagious reaction, and filed out of the office. Stevens remained.

  “I presume, Lieutenant,” Parker said, “that in addition to being regular army, you are a career soldier?”

  “Yes, sir,” Stevens said.

  “You won’t have much of a career if I relieve you, Lieutenant,” Parker said. “Oh, eventually, I’m sure the West Point Protective Association would take care of you. They would have the records changed. But you and I know, Lieutenant, don’t we, that you would forever be identified as the guy who was relieved in the nigger tank company? Officers who are relieved while serving with a nigger tank company very seldom make general, Lieutenant.” Parker let that sink in a moment, and then he went on.

  “If you cross me, you’ll be lucky to make light bird in twenty years. I know the rules of this game, and I know them better than you do.” Parker paused. “I don’t expect a reply, Lieutenant, and you are dismissed.”

  VI

  (One)

  Company “B” 73rd Medium Tank Battalion (Separate)

  Pusan, South Korea

  2 September 1950

  The Old Man, also known as “the Duke,” and sometimes as “Deadeye”—none of these appellations ever to his face although he was fully aware of and rather pleased by what the troops called him—walked down the trench to the command post. He had a cigar jammed into the corner of his mouth, and he carried an M1 Garand rifle in the crook of his arm, for all the world like a hunter out for an afternoon’s sport.

  Forty-five minutes before, a six-by-six had deposited replacements—one lieutenant and four troops, two sergeants and two privates first class—at the CP, and they were nervously waiting to meet their new commanding officer.

  Baker Company was in the hills, north and west of Pusan, its M4A3s dug into the shale of the mountains, surrounded by sandbag revetments. Where possible, a roof of logs and sandbags was built over them. They were, for all practical purposes, pillboxes. Their function was to protect the line with direct fire from their 75 mm cannons and their machine guns.

  The M4A3s seldom moved from their positions. The engines were regularly run, and they received regular maintenance, and the tanks were moved a few feet once or twice a day to keep the tracks lubed; but the troops had been fighting more as infantrymen than as tankers, the distinction between them being primarily that the infantrymen were periodically relieved, if only for a brief period, while the tankers had yet to leave the lines. The heat was brutal, and there was little ice.

  S/Sgt William H. Emmons, Jr.:

  We had ice. God knows where the Duke got it, but he got it; and we had enough to cool, if not chill, our drinking water, and the strawberry preserve soda, and the daily booze ration. It was so fucking hot that sometimes the beer cans exploded before we could get them cooled. The food was C and 10-in-1 rations, high protein, left over from World War II and generally inedible. When the Duke took over, the company was suffering from dysentery, heat rash, heat exhaustion, and low morale, primarily because we were under intermittent fire twenty-four hours a day (not continually, just enough to keep our nerves taut, or to drive us over the edge) and the only thing we had to look forward to was more of the same.

  When the Duke walked in the CP bunker, the first sergeant called “Atten-hut!” and the replacements stood straight and tall.

  “Rest,” the Duke said, and then: “What have we here? Visitors?”

  “Sir,” the lieutenant said, saluting, “Lieutenant Monahan reporting for duty with a detail of four.”

  The Duke returned the salute.

  “What about that, First Sergeant?” the Duke said. “The lieutenant has manners.”

  “Yes, sir,” the first sergeant said. “I noticed that.”

  “But you don’t,” the Duke said. “You haven’t offered these gentlemen a libation, have you? Shame on you, First Sergeant.”

  “I beg the captain’s pardon, sir,” the first sergeant said, as if he was all shook up by the criticism. Then he turns to the replacements: “May I offer you gentlemen a small libation?”

  I admit, I didn’t know what a fucking libation was until Imet the Duke, but the buggy look they gave the soldier was because you don’t expect first sergeants to pass out booze anywhere, much less in a bunker about fifty yards from the fucking front line.

  “Sir?” the replacement lieutenant asked, baffled.

  “We have martinis, scotch, bourbon, and some really dreadful rum,” the Duke said.

  “Not for me, thank you, sir,” the replacement lieutenant said. He was not about to make a fool of himself. The troops shook their heads and mumbled, “No, thank you, sir.”

  “I think I’ll have a martini, First Sergeant, if you please,” the Duke said.

  “I just happen to have some made, sir,” the first sergeant said. “And with the captain’s permission, I will have one myself.”

  “Of course,” the Duke said.

  Then he asked the replacements for their orders, and by that time the first sergeant had taken a blo
od flask from a Medical Corps insulated cooler. He also took two martini glasses from the cooler. The blood flask, which had a rubber gasket sealer, was filled with a transparent fluid. which the first sergeant carefully poured into the martini glasses.

  The replacements watched this wide-eyed.

  “I regret, sir,” the first sergeant said, like an English butler, “that we seem to be out of both olives and onions.”

  “The exigencies of the service, First Sergeant,” the Duke said.

  They raised their glasses to each other.

  “To Baker Company, 73rd Medium Tank,” the Duke said.

  “You play ball with Baker Company,” the first sergeant replied.

  “Or you get the bat stuck up your ass,” the Duke finished. They sipped their martinis.

  The Duke turned to the replacements.

  “We give you an option around here, gentlemen,” he said. “You get two drinks, or two beers, a day. You may take less, but no more. Would you like to know what happens to anyone, but especially noncoms and officers, who take more than their daily sauce ration?”

  “Yes, sir,” the replacement lieutenant said, after he realized he was expected to reply.

  “Pray tell the lieutenant, First Sergeant,” the Duke said.

  “You get the bat stuck up your ass,” the first sergeant said. And then it was too much, and the Duke broke up and laughed, and the first sergeant laughed, and that made it all right for the rest of us to laugh.

  “Welcome to Baker Company,” the Duke said. “I’m the Generalissimo of this ragtag rolling circus. My name is Lowell. You may call me ‘sir.’”

  The goddamned Duke had class, there was no question about that. That regular business of giving the replacements a drink (some took it and some didn’t know what the fuck was going on and didn’t) did a couple of things. It made them feel at home; it made them feel they were in sort of a special outfit; and it got the Duke’s point across, that nobody could afford to get sauced.