The Captains

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Yeah. That’s what I hope,” Lowell said. “MacMillan is the best guardhouse lawyer in the army.” He was growing annoyed with Felter.

  “I know what you’re going to think, and say, before I say this, Craig,” Felter said, “but you’re going to have to do without MacMillan.”

  “You want to tell me why?”

  “Because what we’re doing here is more important than your friend in trouble,” Felter said. “And you know me well enough to know I wouldn’t say that unless I had to.”

  “If I wasn’t desperate, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m sorry, Craig,” Felter said. “It’s a matter of priority.”

  “What my friend is accused of is shooting an officer who refused to fight. You know how that happens sometimes.” The look in Felter’s eyes was frightening. They locked eyes for a long time.

  “You can talk to MacMillan,” Felter said, finally; and it was, Lowell realized, the voice of command, a decision beyond argument. “But you are not to involve him. I don’t want any attention directed to us through him. You understand that?”

  Felter called in one of the sergeants and told him to take Lowell to MacMillan. MacMillan was aboard one of the junks Lowell had seen as the H23 prepared to land. From the air, it looked like any other junk. Up close, he saw what it really was. There were mounts for .50 caliber machine guns bolted to the deck, foreward and aft. There were radio antennae mounted to the masts, and through an open hatch, Lowell saw large diesel engines.

  MacMillan himself was sitting on the deck of the aft cabin with three Koreans, all of them carefully inspecting belts for .50 caliber machine guns. MacMillan seemed neither pleased nor surprised to see Lowell, although he got to his feet when he saw Lowell and broke out a bottle of 12-year-old scotch. And he said, after a moment, what he was thinking: “Jesus Christ, what are you, twenty-three?”

  “Twenty-four,” Lowell said. “Me being a major bothers the shit out of you, doesn’t it, Mac?”

  “Yeah, I guess it does,” MacMillan said. “You’re a long way from the golf course at Bad Nauheim, aren’t you, PFC Lowell?”

  “I would never have guessed that you, Captain MacMillan, sir,” Lowell said, a little annoyed, “would end up as a pirate.”

  “I don’t think this is really auld lang syne time,” MacMillan said. “What do you want, Lowell?” But before Lowell could start to reply, MacMillan said something else. “Felter told me what happened to your wife. Sorry about that, Lowell. What did you do with the kid?”

  “He’s in Germany. His grandfather came home from Russia.”

  “I wrote Roxy and told her, and she wrote back and said I should send her your address. I never got around to it, but what Roxy wants to do is offer to help. You need anything?”

  “Not for the boy,” Lowell said. “But a friend of mine is in trouble. You remember the big guy I ran around with at Knox?”

  “Man Mountain Coon, you mean?”

  “They’re going to put him before a general court-martial,” Lowell said.

  “Charged with what?”

  “In the early days over here, he blew away an infantry officer when he wouldn’t fight.”

  MacMillan sipped deeply at his drink before replying. “I heard of that happening,” he said, “to people you wouldn’t believe.”

  “I need some help,” Lowell said.

  “For openers,” MacMillan said, “You start by saying, he is accused of blowing this guy away. You don’t admit it if he did it on the White House lawn with the President watching.”

  “The first thing I thought about,” Lowell said, “was getting on the telephone and having a criminal lawyer sent over from the States. But then I thought that might make him look guilty. And then I thought of you.”

  “You don’t need a high-priced lawyer for the trial,” MacMillan said. “That pisses the court off. Later, on appeal, is when you need the real shysters.”

  “You sound pretty sure they’ll find him guilty.”

  “Is he?”

  “He did what they say he did.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll get convicted of it,” MacMillan said. “But the thing you have to keep in mind is that general courts generally know what the convening authority wants done. If the general who convened the court wants your friend hung, he’ll probably be found guilty.”

  “Shit!” Lowell said.

  “Well, it’s no big deal,” MacMillan said. “Even if they sock him with a death sentence, it won’t be carried out; aside from rapists and criminal types, the army has executed only one man since the Civil War. What will probably happen, the worst that will happen, is that the court-martial will find him guilty, sentence him to death, or life, to make the point that you aren’t supposed to go around shooting people, and the general, on review, will commute death to life, or life to twenty years, and he would be out, with good behavior, in maybe five, six years.”

  “How do we keep him out of jail at all?” Lowell asked. “I don’t care what it costs, Mac.”

  “Money won’t do you any good here,” MacMillan said. “Maybe later. The best thing you can do is check around and find some reserve judge advocate officer, who’s really pissed about being called back in the service and doesn’t give a shit for his army career or efficiency report. Get him to defend your friend. He may be lucky. But even if he’s not, a good civilian lawyer can generally get anybody off on appeal. Somebody is bound to fuck up something in the paperwork.”

  Sandy Felter showed up on the junk as they were killing the last of the 12-year-old scotch. Lowell wondered if he had really come to drive him back to the airstrip, now that he was finished, or if he had come to let him know his time was up. But on the way to the airstrip, Felter said, obviously sincere: “Hey, I’m sorry about the reception.”

  “Forget it.”

  “What we’re doing here is important,” Felter said. “It comes first.”

  “In other words, nice to see you, but don’t come back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I hope your friend comes out all right,” Felter said.

  “But you really don’t give a damn one way or the other, do you?” Lowell asked.

  “No, I guess I don’t, when you get right down to it.”

  “What if it were me?” Lowell asked.

  “I don’t know,” Felter said, honestly.

  “If you had to do it again, Sandy, would you blow away Captain Whatsisname?”

  Felter gave him another incredibly cold look, one almost of hate, and certainly of contempt.

  “You don’t understand, do you?” he said. “I didn’t do what I did to save your neck. I did it because that officer was interfering with the mission.”

  “No, Sandy, I guess I don’t,” Lowell said. He put out his hand, and they shook hands, and they smiled at each other, but it was as if it was between strangers.

  XIV

  (One)

  Ch’orwon, North Korea

  15 September 1951

  Major Craig W. Lowell was aware that he was not only on the shit list of Major General John J. Harrier, but that he was about to become the ne plus ultra persona non grata of the IX Corps chief of staff.

  The trouble he was in, in other words, was not one half the trouble he was going to be in.

  He wasn’t sure if he had gone slightly crazy, or if the reverse was true, that he had finally come to his senses, but the bottom line, in that quaint vernacular of Wall Street, was that he really didn’t give a damn.

  At the moment, it seemed to him that the army, which was having a shit fit about what had happened when Georgia had been in the Corps, was acting quite childishly. Morality and propriety had been offended, and he was the guilty party. It reminded him somewhat of the time his school had been in New Jersey playing tennis against Peddie and had been entertained by the students and faculty of Miss Beard’s School in Orange, where he had put Ex-Lax on the candy plates. It had given seven or eight fifteen-ye
ar-old girls diarrhea, and sent the head into a frenzy.

  The only difference seemed to be that the head at St. Mark’s hadn’t known who had put the Ex-Lax on the candy plates, and the head here knew who the sinner was.

  There had been a lightning bolt from the Pentagon. A heavy manila envelope, sealed and stamped BY OFFICER COURIER, had been sent from the Pentagon in the hands of a replacement lieutenant colonel, brought from the Dai Ichi Building in Tokyo to Eighth Army Headquarters by the warrant officer courier carrying the week’s cryptographic codes, and from Eighth Army to IX Corps by the Eighth Army commander’s junior aide-de-camp, who personally put it in the hands of the corps commander.

  The corps commander had then opened it and summoned the chief of staff, and both of them had then solemnly contemplated a short, square piece of notepaper, the letterhead of which was a representation of a full general’s four-star flag, flying in the breeze.

  The message was brief: “The Chief of Staff desires your comments on the article on chapter 4 of Life magazine, enclosed.”

  Life had somehow come into possession of the roll of film Georgia had taken at the 73rd Heavy Tank Battalion and then carried with her back to the States. Life had run a full-page photo showing Georgia, wearing body armor, standing with a group of tankers. There were eight tankers, six enlisted men and two officers, including Major Craig W. Lowell. Behind them was Blueballs.

  They were good photographs, and the name “Blueballs” was clearly legible. So was what the troops of Baker Company—in mockery of the air force practice of painting kills on the side of the aircraft fuselages—had painted on the turret: eight silhouettes of Russian-built T34 tanks, with an X drawn through them, signifying the eight confirmed kills made by Blueballs (five of them when it had been “Ilse” on the way up the peninsula, and three by later commanders). There were also, for a laugh, silhouettes of ox carts, Korean papa-sans, and people in wheelchairs, with X’s indicating they had been wiped out, too.

  There was a large line of type superimposed on the picture:

  GEORGIA PAIGE VISITS THE FRONT LINES.

  The caption beneath the picture read: “Her world-famous bosom hidden beneath a bulletproof vest, her long locks in braids, Hollywood’s hottest new star slipped away from the USO troupe entertaining troops in the rear areas to visit this tank battalion on the front line ‘somewhere in North Korea.’”

  The other five pages showed Miss Paige while an unshaved GI poured bourbon in her canteen cup; autographing a copy of the famous erect-nipples photograph stapled to a company situation map; kissing one soldier while a line formed behind him; and being helped down from Blueballs by two eager soldiers. Her shirt was improperly buttoned, as if she had had it off. Lowell was in most of the pictures, sometimes looking at Miss Paige as if she gave milk, and wearing his German Luger in the shoulder holster with the GOTT MIT UNS belt buckle gleaming.

  Lowell had been called in by General Harrier to answer for his sins. There had been a recitation of them.

  “There seems to be absolutely no question, Major Lowell, that, in direct violation of regulations, and showing less common sense than that expected of a corporal, you actually took that woman up to the front.”

  “No, sir,” he said. “I mean, yes, sir. I took her up there.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  He could hardly have told the general what he was really thinking.

  “I regret any embarrassment I have caused, sir.”

  “That’s not good enough, Lowell. I can’t remember ever having been so humiliated by the actions of one of my officers.”

  “With all respect, sir, I fail to see how my actions could humiliate you.”

  I am, after all, a fucking major, and I don’t think they expect major generals to go around holding majors by the hand.

  “There you are, for all the world to see, wearing an unauthorized weapon, in an unauthorized shoulder holster, with a Nazi motto on it.”

  “God is with us” is a Nazi motto? Does he really believe that?

  “And standing in front of a tank with an obscenity painted on it.”

  “I repeat, sir, my regret for any embarrassment I may have caused you.”

  “And I repeat, Major, that’s not good enough!”

  “Yes, sir. What would the general have me do, sir, to make amends?”

  “Just close your damned mouth,” General Harrier had said. “When I want a reply, I will ask for one.”

  There followed a long pause.

  “What I really would like to do to you, Lowell,” General Harrier finally said, “is stand you before a court-martial for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman!”

  I wonder where it says in Amy Vanderbilt that what I’ve done is ungentlemanly.

  “With the press around here, however, that would only result in even greater embarrassment to the army.”

  You’re goddamned right it would. The army would really look silly if you tried to throw a court-martial at me.

  “You stand relieved as my aide,” General Harrier said. “Your behavior will be reflected in your efficiency report. Until your orders are issued, you will remain in your tent except for meals. You will come here to empty your desk between the hours of 2000 and 2030 tonight. Aside from that, I don’t want to see you around this headquarters again. You are dismissed.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lowell said. He saluted and about-faced, then walked down to Colonel’s Row.

  When he went back that night to clean out his desk, he saw how the general had replied to the Chief of Staff. The letter had been typed and then placed on the aide’s desk, so that he could give it to the general for his signature first thing in the morning.

  Hq IX Corps

  APO 708

  San Francisco, Cal.

  16 Sept 51

  Dear General Malloy:

  The Corps Commander has asked me to reply to your note regarding the article in Life magazine. My junior aide-de-camp, Major Craig W. Lowell, was the IX Corps Escort Officer for the Baxley USO Troupe while they were in the IX Corps area.

  Major Lowell, who, you may recall, commanded Task Force Lowell during the breakout from the Pusan perimeter and the link-up with X U.S. Corps, is a responsible combat commander who would not, obviously, endanger the life of Miss Paige by taking her (or any other civilian) into a position where there would be any danger of enemy action.

  When the Baxley Troupe performed for troops including the 73rd Heavy Tank Battalion (Reinforced) near the 8077th MASH, some troops of “B” Company, 73rd Heavy Tank, Major Lowell’s former command, and without specific permission to do so, brought one of the “B” Company tanks from the line to the 8077th MASH area. I can only presume that they hoped their former company commander would be able to get them special consideration to pose with Miss Paige in photographs; in any event, this obviously transpired. Enclosed are photographs of Miss Paige, the tank Bluebell, and troops of Baker Company taken at the time, and which were not published in Life.

  Both this unauthorized movement, and the very questionable “humor” of the lettering and symbols on the tank in question were brought to my attention by the IX Corps G-1, Colonel Thomas C. Minor. I am attaching a copy of his report, including photographs of the tank in question, together with the copy of my letter to the CO, 73rd Heavy Tank Battalion, directing him to immediately correct the spelling of the name of Bluebell, and to obliterate all symbols except those of the eight T34s Bluebell has been officially credited with killing.

  We have, obviously, as you are well aware, no control over what Life magazine, or any other publication, chooses to say. However, what responsibility there is for this unfortunate incident is clearly mine. I have counseled Major Lowell, informing him that his special consideration for troops of his former command was ill-advised and unseeming.

  I stand ready, of course, to answer any other questions you might have.

  Sincerely,

  John J. Harrier

  Major General

 
Lowell checked his uniform. His aide-de-camp’s insignia were gone, and the crossed sabers of cavalry superimposed on an M46 tank were back. The Luger and the shoulder holster were locked in his footlocker, as were his tanker’s boots and his tanker’s shoulder holster. He had gone to supply and drawn a standard web belt and holster. He was, he decided, in the perfect uniform prescribed for a field-grade officer “awaiting assignment” at IX U.S. Corps.

  Then he walked up the hill to the White House, and entered the office of the Secretary of the General Staff.

  “I thought that you were told to stay in your quarters until you got your orders,” the SGS, a normally pleasant, just promoted to full bull colonel, said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I sent you orders sending you home an hour ago,” the colonel said.

  “Sir, I am in doubt as to which orders I should obey,” Lowell said. “And am coming to you for clarification.” Then he laid a letter on the Secretary of the General Staff’s desk. It was signed by First Lieutenant Bennington T. Morefield, Judge Advocate General’s Corps, and informed him that he was to hold himself available to appear as a witness for the defense in the case of The United States of America v. Captain Philip S. Parker IV.

  (Two)

  Ch’orwon, North Korea

  16 September 1951

  Major General John T. Harrier went into the office of the corps commander, and closed the door.

  “Major Lowell has not left the Corps, sir,” he said. “He has been summoned as a witness in Captain Parker’s court-martial.”

  The general thought that over a moment, and then he asked: “As a witness for the defense?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The general thought that over a moment, too; then he said: “I think that it would be a very good idea, John, if you attended the trial. I want to avoid, of course, any suggestion of command influence on the outcome. But I think it’s entirely appropriate that everyone concerned be aware that this case is of special interest. I would hate to have the trial disrupted by the irrational behavior of anyone.”