The Captains

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Washington wants one of their own men on the scene, General,” Colonel Hanrahan said.

  “What’s he doing in an army uniform if he’s one of yours?” General Black said.

  “Captain Felter thinks of himself as a soldier, General,” Colonel Hanrahan said, somewhat tartly. “Like myself, he has declined an offer of civilian employment with the agency to which we are attached. I had Captain Felter sent from Germany. I can think of no other officer as well qualified to handle this operation. Captain Felter was with me in Greece.”

  “E. Z.,” the UNC said, cutting off the exchange, “the real purpose of this meeting, my presence here, is to impress on you the importance of Hanrahan’s mission. And to tell you that the word I got, when Colonel Hanrahan was ‘attached’ here, was that what Hanrahan wants, Hanrahan gets.”

  “Yes, sir,” General Black said. “I understand, sir.” He turned to Felter. “Anything we’ve got you can have, Captain,” he said. “And if you run into any trouble with MacMillan, as you’re liable to, you come to see me.”

  “I can handle Major MacMillan, sir,” Captain Felter said, matter-of-factly.

  (Three)

  Kwandae-Ri, North Korea

  30 August 1951

  Captain Sanford T. Felter, wearing the crossed flags of the Signal Corps (and without his Combat Infantry Badge, his parachute wings, and his West Point Class of 1946 ring) went to Korea with Lt. General E. Z. Black at the conclusion of the general’s R&R leave. General Black’s L-17 Navion met them at K16 in Seoul and flew them to the XIX Corps (Group) airstrip.

  General Black’s aides-de-camp met the Navion. General Black’s junior aide was instructed to have Captain Felter equipped with field uniforms and to have him standing by the General’s office no later than 1600. General Black’s senior aide was told to contact Major MacMillan at the 8045th Signal Detachment and have him at the general’s office no later than 1530.

  Then General Black went to his quarters and changed into his fatigue uniform. He had—wondering if it made him some sort of a pervert—stolen a handkerchief from his wife. He sniffed its perfume and then carefully wrapped it in plastic and slipped it into his breast pocket. He wondered how long the perfume would last.

  He then underwent a two-hour briefing by his G-3 on what had happened in his absence. When it was finished, MacMillan was waiting for him. When they walked through the outer office of General Black’s personal office, Captain Felter was already there, dressed in mussed fatigues, brand-new combat boots, and looking, General Black thought, like the Israeli version of Sad Sack.

  “You miserable sonofabitch,” General Black said to MacMillan, “not only did you make a three-star horse’s ass out of me in front of the Supreme Commander, and in front of a professional spook named Hanrahan, but you broke your word to me. You gave me your word you wouldn’t go within five miles of the MLR.”

  Very lamely, MacMillan explained: “I said I wouldn’t fly within five miles of the line.”

  “You’re a goddamned guardhouse lawyer, that’s what you are. That’s a bullshit excuse and you know it is. I meant, and you know I meant, that you were not to stick your ass in the line of fire.”

  “Goddamnit, General,” MacMillan said, now shamed that he had been caught, “I’m paid to be a soldier. Take the fucking Medal back and let me go to a line outfit.”

  General Black was wholly unaccustomed to having that sort of language directed to him by a very junior major, who didn’t even know he was a major. His face whitened, but in the end he concluded that not only was there something wrong with a personnel system that ordered an officer out of combat solely because he had performed superbly in combat previously, but that, under identical circumstances, he would have done exactly what MacMillan had done. Probably not as well, General Black decided. But he would have tried.

  “At least you could have told me about the goddamned submarine, Mac,” General Black said, taking a bottle of the 24-year-old Ambassador scotch from his desk drawer and pouring two drinks. He looked up at MacMillan. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Well, I figured the general had enough on his mind,” MacMillan said.

  “Your escapades have come to the attention of the highest authorities,” General Black said. He and MacMillan upended the shot glasses, swirling the scotch around in their mouths, then swallowing it, together, as if it had been rehearsed. “God, that’s good whiskey.”

  “I’m really sorry if I got you in trouble, General,” MacMillan said. “I really am. I never thought anybody would find out.”

  “Congratulations,” General Black said, pouring more 24-year-old scotch into their glasses.

  MacMillan looked at him in confusion.

  “You are now a field-grade officer, Mac,” Black said.

  “No shit?” MacMillan asked, pleased and surprised.

  “The UNC is going to give us a parade,” Black said. “You get the gold leaf pinned on your shirt, and I will be awarded the Horse’s Ass Medal with crossed swords and diamonds for letting a dumb shit pull what you pulled on me.”

  “We’re not in trouble,” MacMillan said, relaxed and smiling.

  “You know Colonel Red Hanrahan?” the General asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hanrahan is so impressed with your little operation that he’s taking it over.”

  “Where does that leave me?”

  “Did you happen to notice that captain sitting outside? The one who looks like Sad Sack?”

  “His name is Felter,” MacMillan said. “I’ve never met him, but I know who he is. He’s in thick with Red Hanrahan. And Bob Bellmon, too. What’s he got to do with this?”

  “You’re now working for him, effective immediately,” General Black said.

  “He’s CIA? Since when is the CIA getting involved in blowing up bridges?” MacMillan asked.

  “Who said CIA? I didn’t use that word.”

  MacMillan shrugged. “Hanrahan’s CIA.”

  “They’re going to use your operation as a cover for them,” General Black said. “Putting their people in and getting them out.”

  “That’s all?”

  “They have priority of mission,” General Black said. “You take your orders from Captain Felter.”

  “I can handle that. I was afraid you were going to put me behind a desk.”

  “I should,” General Black said. “If you get yourself knocked off running around like John Wayne, Mac, my ass will be in a crack.”

  “I have no intention of getting myself killed,” MacMillan said.

  “Watch yourself, is all I’m saying. I mean it, Mac. I don’t want to find myself in a position explaining why I allowed a Medal of Honor winner to get himself shot.”

  “Yes, sir. Is that all you’ve got for me?”

  “Not quite,” the General said. He gave MacMillan the rest of the bottle of the 24-year-old Ambassador scotch.

  MacMillan put the whiskey in a musette bag and walked out to pick up Captain Felter.

  “I thought I knew who you were,” he said, putting out his hand. “But I wasn’t sure if I should admit it.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Major,” Felter said, shaking his hand.

  “You heard about that, too, huh?”

  “I heard. Congratulations.”

  “Yeah, well. You keep your mouth shut, and your nose clean, and you can’t help but get promoted,” MacMillan said.

  “I saw Colonel Bellmon, Colonel and Mrs. Bellmon, in Washington. They asked to be remembered to you, if I saw you. I said I didn’t think I would see you.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet she sent her best regards,” MacMillan said. “And speaking of asshole buddies, I saw an old friend of yours the other day. Lowell. Would you believe that pissant is a major?”

  “I heard he was.”

  “He just got himself named aide-de-camp to the chief of staff at IX Corps.”

  “You heard what happened to Ilse?” Felter asked.

  “Who? Oh, you mean that kraut he married. I
never could remember her name. Yeah, I heard. Tough.”

  “Yeah,” Felter said. “Tough.”

  “I’ve got a Beaver at the airstrip,” MacMillan said. “Whenever you want to go.”

  “I’m ready anytime you are,” Sandy Felter said.

  “I want to stop by the PX and buy some major’s leaves,” MacMillan said. “But that’s all I have to do. You got the time, we could run over to IX Corps and see Lowell. Take us about an hour.”

  “I’d like to see him, of course,” Felter said, “but I don’t think we’re going to be able to find time for that. Or that it would be a good idea, even if we could find the time.”

  Macmillan recognized the rebuke.

  “Hey,” he said, “I got the word. I mean I got the word. But put your mind to rest. There aren’t half a dozen people aside from my people who know what we’re doing. The word is that we’re a radio relay outfit. My guys tell that story when they get to the IX Corps for the PX and a steak and whatever. What I’m saying is that I don’t let anything get in the way of my mission, either.”

  “Sorry,” Felter said, after a moment. “You tend to get paranoid in my line of work.”

  (Four)

  Socho-Ri, South Korea

  30 August 1951

  An hour later, as darkness fell, MacMillan dropped Task Force Able’s L-20 DeHavilland Beaver out of overcast skies and landed on a dirt road fifty yards from the Sea of Japan, near the village of Socho-Ri.

  The inhabitants of the village had been evacuated. The thatch-roofed, stone-walled houses had been fumigated and taken over as living quarters. The three American officers, twenty-seven American enlisted men, and seven Korean officers occupied the seven best houses, one of which served as a mess hall, bar, and transient quarters. These houses were surrounded with concertina barbed wire and were known as the compound.

  The senior Korean officer, Major Kim Lee Dong, had been a lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army, with long service in China. Among other duties, he had been charged with housekeeping. He had levied upon the women’s section of the Republic of Korea for mess personnel, selecting from the more than two hundred eager volunteers for special duty forty women who understood that members of an elite unit expected more of their mess support personnel than cooking, washing, and tending the furnaces of the hootches. Presuming the performance of their duty was satisfactory, they could expect not only a triple ration to do with what they wanted, but supplemental pay as well.

  MacMillan, once he had assumed command of Task Force Able, had arranged for the Korean military personnel, officer and enlisted, to be placed on the American ration return. Inasmuch as Task Force Able was considered to be combat unit on the line (MacMillan had arranged for that determination, too), each individual on the ration list was authorized a ration and a half, plus a comfort ration of cigarettes, toilet paper, candy bars, and even writing paper and envelopes. There was a special ration of two cans of beer per day.

  While the appetites of the Americans were phenomenal by Korean standards (the breakfast menu of Task Force Able, for example, was fruit juice, coffee, reconstituted milk, cereal, eggs to order, bacon, ham, biscuits, toast, butter, jam and marmalade, and fresh fruit), there was invariably enough food left over (indeed, uncooked) to provide mess personnel with an additional source of income via the black market, even after augmenting the Korean ration.

  A jeep and a three-quarter-ton truck met the DeHavilland L-20. The American driver of the truck, the mess sergeant, supervised the off-loading of that day’s ration of fresh fruit and fresh meat (picked up while MacMillan was at XIX Corps) so that the fucking slopes wouldn’t make half of it disappear before it got to the fucking kitchen, while the Korean driver of the jeep drove MacMillan and Felter to the club in the compound.

  The club was crowded with American enlisted men, most of them sergeants, and all of them somewhat older than the teenagers who constituted the bulk of enlisted men in Korea. They were at the bar. A captain and a warrant officer were sitting before a table reserved for officers, drinking beer and bourbon.

  “Gentlemen,” MacMillan said, “this is Captain Felter, who has been attached to us as an advisor. And I am, in case you are all blind, Major MacMillan, your new field-grade commanding officer.”

  He said it loud enough for everybody in the building to hear, and they all came over to congratulate him.

  “I suppose I’m stuck to buy all you thirsty bastards a drink,” MacMillan said. “Just make sure you beer drinkers don’t get a sudden scotch urge.”

  “Welcome, Captain,” the captain who had been sitting at the table said, once the commotion died down a little. “Welcome to MacMillan’s Floating Circus.”

  Felter was experiencing a strange emotional experience. He took a moment to analyze it, to try to explain it, as he shook the captain’s and the warrant officer’s hands. Then he knew what it was. He didn’t feel at all like a stranger here. It was Ioannina, the 24th Royal Hellenic Mountain Division, the U.S. Military Advisory Group, Greece, all over again. It was as if, instead of having come to an obscure village in the middle of nowhere, he had come home.

  “I’m going to move Felter in with me,” MacMillan said. “Which means you’ll have to move out, Paul.” The captain’s face registered surprise. “The ‘advice’ Felter is going to give us is advice we’re going to follow,” MacMillan added. “Get the message?”

  “I don’t want to move the captain out of his quarters,” Felter said.

  “My pleasure, Captain,” the captain said. “Besides, MacMillan snores.”

  Without asking, a Korean girl in army fatigues delivered a liter bottle of Asahi beer and a glass and set it before MacMillan.

  Felter spoke to the girl in Korean. She was visibly surprised, and giggled, and covered her mouth with her fingers. Then she scurried away and returned in a moment with a bottle of white wine. Felter thanked her in Korean.

  “I’m impressed, Felter,” MacMillan said. “There aren’t many people who speak Korean.”

  “I get by,” Felter said, shyly.

  The sliding door opened and a heavyset Signal Corps captain, followed by a slight warrant officer stepped inside the room.

  “Who the hell are they?” the captain who had lost his room to Felter asked. There were few visitors to Socho-Ri, and no welcome ones.

  The newcomers looked around the room, saw the officers at their table, and walked over to them.

  “What can I do for you, Captain?” MacMillan asked, not very friendly.

  “Hello, Captain,” the newcomer warrant officer said, putting out his hand to Felter. “Nice to see you again.”

  Felter got to his feet and shook the warrant officer’s hand and said it was nice to see him, too. It was evident to MacMillan that Felter hadn’t the foggiest idea who the warrant was.

  “We’re looking for Captain Felter,” the captain said. “I see we found him.”

  “Can I help you?” Felter asked.

  “I got two commo vans for you,” the captain said.

  “Oh, yes,” Felter said. “I didn’t expect you so quickly.”

  “I’ve got orders to get the net in by 2000,” the captain said. “You want to tell me where to put it?”

  “I really don’t know,” Felter said, looking at MacMillan.

  “Mr. Davies is my commo officer,” MacMillan said. “Maybe he can help.”

  “I need a place to rig some ninety-foot antennae,” the captain said.

  “Go show him where, Davies,” MacMillan said. Davies got to his feet and so did Felter. They left the room. The newly arrived warrant officer sat down in Davies’s chair.

  “I’m crypto,” he said. “I don’t know diddly shit about antennae, fortunately. Hey, honey, get me a beer, will you?”

  “I gather you’re going to be with us?” MacMillan asked, almost sarcastically.

  “It looks that way, Major,” the cryptographic warrant officer said.

  “Mac,” the captain said, “just who the fuck is that
little Jew?”

  “I told you,” MacMillan said, “he’s here as an advisor. From above.”

  “But who the fuck is he?”

  “I’ll tell you who he is, Captain,” the cryptographic warrant officer said. “That’s Mouse Felter.”

  “Is that supposed to mean something?” MacMillan asked.

  “He’s one mean little son of a bitch, for one thing. I wouldn’t recommend letting him hear you call him a little Jew, Captain.”

  “Why do you say he’s mean?”

  “I was with him in Greece. I don’t think he remembers me. I was an EM then. But I remember him.”

  “What did he do mean in Greece that so impressed you?” MacMillan asked.

  “I’m not sure I should talk about it,” the warrant officer said.

  “Goddamnit, you started it, now finish it,” MacMillan said sharply. He was more than a little curious to know what the warrant knew about Felter.

  “Well, we had a captain who didn’t want to relieve some Greeks stuck on a hill,” the warrant officer said. “They was dropping mortars on the road. And the Mouse figured he should at least try. There was some kid American lieutenant on the hill with the Greeks.”

  “The kid’s name was Lowell, right?” MacMillan said.

  “Yeah, you know about it, huh?”

  “Doesn’t everybody who’s been in the army more than two weeks?” Mac replied. Guessing it was Lowell was a wild shot. It had hit the fucking bull’s-eye.

  “I have nine years, six months, and four days, Major, sir,” the captain said. “And I don’t know about it.”

  “Tell him,” MacMillan said, grateful that he would now hear the rest of the story himself.

  “When this captain lost his nerve, and not only wouldn’t go up the hill, but told the Mouse he couldn’t go either, the Mouse blew him away with a Thompson,” the warrant officer said. “Just like that.” He made the stuttering sound of a Thompson.

  “No shit?” the captain said.

  “No shit,” the warrant officer said. “Don’t fuck around with him, he’s meaner than shit.”

  Unknowingly, Captain Sanford T. Felter had jut been raised 95 Brownie points in the opinion of Major Mac MacMillan.