The Captains

by W. E. B Griffin

  The junk was dead in the water, and seemed to be slowly sinking, although it was hard to tell.

  MacMillan gently shoved Felter’s shoulder. He wanted to tell him that a destroyer was now inching its way through the ocean toward them. Felter woke up, as if he had been asleep, and moved, and then screamed.

  MacMillan, who had the hypo ready, jabbed it into his arm. It worked quickly. He threw the empty syringe over the side, and then, after a moment, the three full ones he had in his hand. It had been his intention, if the fire reached them, to give Felter several of the hypos. Enough so that he wouldn’t feel the flames.

  The destroyer loomed over them, so close that MacMillan was genuinely concerned they would be overturned, and drowned at the last goddamned moment.

  And then people were coming down knotted ropes. They wore those silly-looking navy steel pots and life preservers. One of them was an officer, getting tar or whatever it was on the ropes all over his clean, starched khakis.

  “Over here,” MacMillan said.

  “I’m from the Dewey,” the navy officer said.

  “You got a doctor aboard?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “You better take care of him,” MacMillan said, indicating Felter in the body basket. “He’s in pretty bad shape.”

  “You don’t look so hot yourself, sir,” the navy officer said.

  “I’m all right,” MacMillan said and got to his feet and passed out.

  He woke up in a bed. From the way the destroyer was rolling, he knew they weren’t moving. His trousers had been cut off him, and there was a bandage on his leg, although he was still dirty.

  Temporary dressing, he decided, while they work on Felter. He felt his forehead, and found another bandage.

  He sat up in the bed, and saw that he could see out an open door. The junk, still burning, was three hundred yards away. He swung his feet out of the bed, and made it to the door just in time to meet a doctor, an army doctor, coming in.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” the doctor said. “Get your ass back in bed.”

  “Why aren’t we moving?”

  “They just got orders to destroy the junk,” the doctor said.

  MacMillan was pleased that it took five rounds from the destroyer’s 5-inch cannon before the junk finally rolled over and sank beneath the surface of the Sea of Japan.

  Only then did he permit the surgeon to have a look at his leg and face.

  “You haven’t mentioned Felter,” he said, as the surgeon cleaned the wound in his leg. “Does that mean he didn’t make it?”

  “He’s got a pretty badly torn-up leg,” the doctor said. “But he’ll make it.”

  “Where are we going now?”

  “Pusan,” the doctor said. “To the hospital ship Consolation.”

  “Am I that bad hurt?”

  “No. Not at all. You’ll be sore. You lost a chunk of meat, but it was mostly fat. No muscles, I mean. You were lucky.”

  “Then why do I have to go to a hospital ship?”

  “Because General Black said that I was to permit nothing whatever to interfere in any way with your recovery to the point where he can put you on a plane to the United States at the earliest possible moment,” the doctor said.

  MacMillan laughed, deep in his belly, loudly.

  (Seven)

  Pusan, South Korea

  0900 Hours

  17 November 1951

  The U.S. Navy hospital ship Consolation, her sides and superstructure a brilliant white, a Red Cross thirty feet square painted on each of her sides, floated sedately in Pusan Harbor.

  Captain Rudolph G. MacMillan, dressed in hospital pajamas and a bathrobe, watched as a powerboat, known as the Captain’s Barge, glistening brass and spotless white paint and polished mahogany, put out from Pier One in Pusan and made its way to the Consolation’s landing ladder. Two sailors in spotless white uniforms and a lieutenant junior grade stood on the landing platform. The sailors secured the boat to the landing platform, and the lieutenant held out his hand for the passenger of the barge. The passenger jumped onto the platform at the bottom of the landing stair without help. The lieutenant saluted.

  “Welcome to the Consolation, General,” he said. “The captain’s waiting for you.” He gestured up the stairs.

  Lt. General E. Z. Black walked briskly up the stairs, trailed by an aide-de-camp.

  When he reached the top of the stairs, six sailors blew on long, narrow brass whistles.

  Lieutenant General E. Z. Black smiled and saluted.

  A navy captain in a white dress uniform, complete with sword, and a navy captain in dress whites without a sword took two steps forward and saluted.

  “Permission to come aboard, sir?” General Black asked.

  “Permission granted,” the captain with the sword said. General Black threw a crisp salute to the national colors flying on the flagstaff aft. Then he saluted the two captains again. He spotted MacMillan, and smiled, which relieved MacMillan.

  “Don’t think I came to see you, you disobedient sonofabitch,” General Black said. All was right with MacMillan’s world. If the general were really mad, he would have been icily formal.

  “Welcome aboard, General,” the captain with the sword said, a little confused by the interchange between the general and the major. “It isn’t often we’re honored by the presence aboard of a senior army officer.”

  “Thank you very much,” General Black said. “You know why I’m here?” he asked but didn’t wait for a reply before going on. “I want to make sure that nothing gets in the way of Major MacMillan’s prompt return to the ZI. And I want to check on Captain Felter.”

  “Felter’s got problems, General,” MacMillan said solemnly.

  “What kind of problems?” General Black asked. He directed the question to the captain without a sword.

  “There’s not much left of his knee, sir. After consultation, we have concluded that amputation of the leg is indicated.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” General Black said.

  “Felter doesn’t want it cut off, General,” Mac said.

  “What do you mean, he doesn’t want it cut off?” Black asked sharply.

  “He says he’ll take his chances, and he won’t let them cut it off,” MacMillan explained. “He made me promise I’d tell you.”

  “What the hell does he expect me to do about it?” Black asked, very uncomfortably.

  “There’s a psychiatric problem involved with the loss of a limb, sir,” the hospital ship commander said.

  “I suppose there would be a problem,” General Black said. “But is ‘psychiatric’ the right word?”

  “I don’t know what other word to use,” the navy physician said. “By definition, Captain Felter is, at the moment, deranged.”

  “Because he doesn’t want his leg cut off, he’s crazy? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not that we believe him, of course, General,” the hospital ship commander replied. “Or that it would affect our decision if we did, but he has threatened me personally, and any other medical officer involved, with physical violence if we proceed with the procedure.”

  “If Captain Felter threatened your life, Doctor,” General Black said, “I would take it very seriously.”

  “I had hoped, sir, that you might have a word with him.”

  “Is their no way his leg could be saved?”

  “Not here, sir. Possibly at San Diego Naval Hospital. Just possibly. The damage is severe.”

  “But there’s a chance it could be saved at San Diego?”

  “I don’t think anyone could restore that knee, General. At best, his leg would be stiff for the rest of his life.”

  “I think I would rather have a stiff leg than no leg at all,” Black said. “Why don’t we send him to San Diego?”

  “It’s against policy, sir.”

  “What do you mean, against policy?”

  “We are fully equipped here to render general hospital treatment. We
provide such treatment.”

  “But you just told me they could save his leg at San Diego,” General Black said.

  “I said they might be able to, sir,” the captain said. “If he were there. But he’s not there. He’s here and it’s against policy to transfer patients between facilities of equal capability.”

  “I have never, in twenty-nine years of military service,” General Black said, “heard such unmitigated bullshit.” His aide winced. MacMillan smiled. Both had been treated before to an E. Z. Black rage.

  “General, there is no cause for…”

  “Shut your mouth, Captain,” E. Z. Black said. “If I want any more bullshit out of you, I’ll squeeze your head like a pimple.” He turned to the aide-de-camp.

  “Give your pistol to MacMillan,” he said. The aide did as he was ordered.

  “If any of these butchers get within fifteen feet of Felter, Mac, shoot them,” Black ordered. He turned to the aide. “You get back in this jackass’s Pirates of Penzance rowboat,” he said, “and go ashore, and get on the telephone to United Nations Command, and you tell them I have two officers aboard this floating abattoir that I want transferred immediately by air to the U.S. Army General Hospital in Hawaii. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And then you come back out here, and you make personally sure, at pistol point if necessary, that they put Felter and MacMillan on the plane.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I intend to make a formal report of this encounter, General Black,” the captain without a sword said.

  “So do I,” Black said. “And when I’m through with you, you pasty-faced sonofabitch, you won’t be allowed to put a Band-Aid on a soldier’s pimple. You’ll be back in the VD ward of Charity Hospital in Havana, treating syphilitic whores. Where, goddamnit, you obviously belong.”

  He turned to MacMillan.

  “I presume you know where I can find Felter, Mac?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take me there.”

  “I’ll be happy to escort the general,” the hospital ship commander said. He had regained control of his temper after remembering that that morning’s Stars & Stripes had reported that the President had recommended Black for his fourth star.

  “You keep out of my sight!” General Black snarled. “Lead the way, Mac.”

  “Right this way, General,” Major MacMillan said.

  XVI

  (One)

  Los Angeles, California

  2 January 1952

  The bellman at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel set the two Valv-Paks immediately inside the revolving door, where they would be out of the way and convenient to carry back outside. It was the bellman’s professional judgment that the man in the somewhat rumpled clothing would not be staying. He admitted to not having a reservation.

  On the other hand, the desk would try to fit him in. Whenever possible, the hotel tried to do what it could for servicemen. The bellman knew the tall, rather good-looking man was a serviceman, because the Valv-Paks were stenciled in black with his name and rank.

  He could see where “CAPT” had been obliterated with black paint, and “MAJ” added. MAJ XXXX C W Lowell 0-495302.

  “May I have the pleasure of serving you, sir?” the desk clerk asked. He thought that the young man before him was rather interesting. His clothing, a tweed jacket and gray flannel trousers, was mussed, as if he had slept in it, or it had been stored or something, but it wasn’t cheap clothing. And the man himself looked a bit worn, as if he had been drinking, or gone without sleep. But he was beautiful.

  “Can you put me up?”

  “You don’t have a reservation?” It was more a statement of fact than a question.

  “No,” he said. “I’d like a suite. For a day at least. Possibly longer.”

  “I’m afraid there’s very little available, without a reservation, Mr….”

  “Lowell,” he said. “C. W. Lowell. Major C. W. Lowell.”

  “Yes, of course. Major. Forgive me.” He didn’t look old enough to be a major. But he probably looked marvelous in a uniform. “Let me see what I can do for you,” the desk clerk said, with a warm smile. He checked his file. “I do have a cancellation. A nice room on the fourth floor, front.”

  “If that’s the best you can do,” Lowell said. Good God, did they have a union rule? That you had to be a faggot, have a phony English accent, and smell like a flower shop to get a job as a desk clerk?

  “Front!” the desk clerk called, and told the bellman to take Major Lowell to 407. Then he checked the registration card to see where Major Lowell was from. It told him hardly anything at all.

  “C. W. Lowell, Maj USAR, c/o The Adj Gen, The Pentagon, Wash DC,” it said, and his purpose for being in Los Angeles was “personal.”

  The bellman was pleasantly surprised with the newest guest of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. He had expected two dollars, a dollar a bag. He got instead, a twenty dollar bill, from a thick wad of twenties (the bellman had been in the service and guessed, correctly, that Major Lowell had just been paid; the army paid in twenty dollar bills).

  “I’ve got a lot to do,” Major Lowell said to him. “And not much time to do it in. First order of business is to get me a bottle of scotch, either Johnny Walker Black, or Ambassador, something like that, and some soda. Will twenty take care of you and that?”

  “That’ll take care of it fine, sir,” the bellman said, snatching the twenty.

  “I’ve got to commune with nature,” Lowell said, pointing to the bathroom. “If I’m still in there when you bring the scotch, stick around. I’ve got more for you to do.”

  When he came out of the bathroom, the bellman had not yet returned. He emptied his trouser and jacket pockets, and then took off his clothing, down to his underwear, sat on the bed, and reached for the telephone. The bellman came in.

  “Open that up and make me a light one,” Lowell said. To the telephone he said, “Please get me Mr. Porter Craig at Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes at 22 Wall Street in New York City. I’ll hold.”

  The bellman opened the bottle of Ambassador 12-Year-Old and made the maior a drink and handed it to him. The major reached for the stack of twenty dollar bills tossed casually on the bed and came up with two more.

  “Take that jacket and pants and have them pressed,” he ordered. “It’s worth ten bucks to me to have that done immediately. How you split that with the valet is up to you. The rest of it is to get me a box of good cigars, Upmann Amatistas, if the tobacconist has them. If not, any good, large Cuban cigar. If they have them, get Ring Size 47. If not, the larger the better.”

  “Upmann Amatistas,” the bellman said. “The larger the better. Yes, sir.”

  Lowell turned his attention to the telephone. The number was ringing.

  “Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes, good afternoon.”

  “Long distance is calling Mr. Porter Craig.”

  “I’ll connect you with his office.”

  “Mr. Craig’s office, good afternoon.”

  “Long distance is calling Mr. Porter Craig.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Craig isn’t in at the moment.”

  “Find out where he is,” Craig Lowell said.

  “May I ask who is calling?”

  “Craig Lowell.”

  “Sir, if you wish to speak to the party on the line, I’m required to charge you for the call.”

  “OK. OK. Where is Mr. Craig?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Mr. Craig is in conference and cannot be disturbed.”

  “Tell him I’m on the phone,” Craig Lowell said.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t disturb him, sir. He left specific word.”

  “Goddamn it, woman, you tell him I’m on the line!”

  “One moment, sir.”

  “This is Mr. Lucas. I’m Mr. Porter Craig’s administrative assistant. With whom am I speaking?”

  “Craig Lowell. Get him on the line.”

  “One moment, please, Mr. Lowell.”

  There was
a pause, and then a voice with the somewhat nasal, somewhat clipped intonations of a Wall Street investment banker out of St. Mark’s School, Harvard College, and the Harvard School of Business Administration.

  “Craig! How are you, boy?”

  “Christ, you’re harder to get on the phone than God.”

  “The girl in the office is new, Craig. She didn’t know who you were. You really didn’t have to swear at her.”

  “Porter, I’ve had enough bullshit in the last twelve hours to last me a lifetime. I don’t need any more from you.”

  “Where are you, Craig?”

  “Los Angeles. In a six-by-six-foot cubicle in the Beverly Wilshire.”

  “You’re home then. Welcome home, boy!”

  “I need some influence out here, Porter. Who do we have out here?”

  “What kind of influence?”

  “I need a movie star’s unlisted telephone number for one thing,” Craig said.

  “That can be arranged, I’m sure. Any movie star in particular? Have you been partaking of the cheering cup, Cousin?”

  “Not yet. I asked you who we have out here.”

  “I never know with you. Are you serious about the movie star’s telephone number?”

  “Dead serious.”

  “Then Ted Osgood is your man. He’s keeping an eye on our participation in The Fall of Carthage at Magnum.”

  “How large is our participation?”

  “If you had been reading the tons of paper I’ve been sending to you, you would know.”

  “I’ve had other things to do.”

  “Two point five million; thirty-seven point five percent.”

  “That’s the guy I want.”

  “Well, he’s right there in the Beverly Wilshire with you. Call him and tell him who you are, and I’m sure he’ll get any telephone number for you that you might want.”

  “He probably wouldn’t answer his phone, either,” Lowell said. “You call him, and you tell him who I am. Tell him to speak to the management and get me out of this closet, and then tell him to arrange a car for me, and then to meet me. I’ll either be in my room, the bar, or the barbershop.”