W E B Griffin - BoW 04 - The Colonels

by The Colonels(Lit)

  "But you have this money?"

  "No, sir," Black said. "Apparently the Chief of Staff has the matter under study."

  "In other words, he's sitting on it?" the President asked.

  "I didn't say that, sir," General Black said.

  "No, but that's why you're here," the President said. "What's the fight, still over who gets to run Special Forces? Or over you putting the rocket choppers under armor?"

  "I have not discussed the matter with the Chief of Staff, sir," Black said, uncomfortably.

  "I knew it was bad between you two," the President said, not kindly, "but I didn't know you weren't talking."

  The President reached into his pocket and took out a plastic ball-point pen. He wrote, "Approved, DDE," on both memoranda.

  "Did lever tell you you sometimes remind me very much of Georgie Patton, E. Z.?"

  "I'm flattered, Mr. President."

  "Don't be," the President said. "It wasn't intended that way. In the end, you'll remember, I had to relieve him. When he caused more trouble than he was doing good."

  "Mr. President," the President's Chief of Staff said, "we're getting way behind schedule..." (Three) Bachelor Officer's Quarters No. T-221S Division Area Fort Bragg, North Carolina 024S Hours, 21 January 19S9

  They had begun playing at shortly after noon, with chips. The chief warrant officer who organized the game served as the banker. The white chips were worth a quarter, the red chips worth fifty cents, and the blue chips a dollar. Everybody bought chips, and the chief warrant officer put the money in the cardboard box that had held the chips, weighting it down with an electrician's and carpenter's pocket knife that he had had since he was a staff sergeant.

  At the time everyone an tied up he took a blue chip from each player's pot and put it in the box. He had a refrigerator full of beer, and there were bottles of Jack Daniel's whiskey and Dewar's White Label scotch. When they sent out for food from the PX snack bar, he would pay for that, too. In the course of an evening, the value of the blue chips taken from the pots would be worth maybe fifty or seventy dollars more than what the booze and chow had cost, but it was understood that the profit was his because he had organized the game, and it was going to be his ass if the MPs or the officer of the day came into his room and accused him of running a gambling operation or in the quaint language of the Manualfor Courts Martial "of maintaining gaming tables," which was an offense against good military order and discipline.

  There were six men at the table now. Earlier there had been as few as three and as many as seven. The chief warrant officer was now out of the game. It had grown too serious for him. And although there were still chips on the table, mostly greenbacks were in the pots now fives and tens.

  The chief warrant officer was surprised that the game had gotten too rich for his blood, because they were three weeks into the month. On payday, he would not have been surprised at today's stakes. Now he was.

  With the exception of the kid, the officers hunched over the blanket-covered table were mostly older people. There was another chief warrant officer (the assistant S-4 of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment); a captain of the Medical Service Corps (in charge of administering the 82nd's dispensaries); an artillery captain from Division Artillery; a senior lieutenant of the Adjutant General's Corps (the 505this assistant adjutant); the chief warrant who had organized the game (he was QIC of the 505this parachute riggers), and the kid.

  The kid was a shiny new shave tail fresh from OCS, who had a platoon in one of the line companies.

  It had been the chiefs matter-of-fact belief that the kid was about to lose his ass when he'd joined the game. These people knew how to play poker, and the kid was obviously out of his class. The chief had felt no pity for him. Learning when to play poker or more importantly, when not to play poker was an important part of a young officer's education; and the only way to learn that was to get into a game over your head and lose your ass.

  But the kid hadn't lost. He was a lot more cautious than the chief thought he would be, and he'd won steadily. Not much at once, no spectacular hands, but the pile of chips in front of him had continued to grow. He was at least smart enough not to try to drink hard stuff in the company of these people. He'd had a couple of beers, was all.

  And when they'd brought in the fried chicken from the PX snack bar, he'd gotten out of the game instead of eating while he played, and he'd eaten more chicken and french fries and cole slaw than you'd think would go in him.

  Then he'd gotten back in the game.

  The others didn't like it much. They had figured that they'd take the kid's money in a couple of hours, and he'd leave the game, and then they could play the way they usually did. The way they usually played (they were all pretty well matched) was that nobody ever won or lost more than a hundred bucks most often something on the order of fifty or sixty.

  But there was that much money in each pot now. When the stakes had gone up, it hadn't frightened the kid. He'd stayed right in there, folding usually when somebody opened for ten bucks, but sometimes staying and sometimes winning, and winning enough so that the stack of chips he was using to hold down the folding money looked like it was about to fall over.

  "Five games," the kid announced, as he watched the Medical Service Corps captain rake in a pot worth maybe sixty-five bucks.

  "Huh?" the artillery captain asked.

  "Five games," the kid repeated. "In five games I quit. I've got a field training exercise at 0400."

  "Quit now, if you want," the artillery captain said.

  "I'll give you five more chances to get your money back," the kid said.

  "Then I quit."

  "Quit now, for all I care," the artillery captain said.

  The first hand, the kid folded his cards after looking at them. The secondhand, he stayed until the second raise, but folded after the artillery captain raised the AGC lieutenant twenty bucks.

  The third hand, the kid folded again after looking at his cards.

  The fourth hand, the kid stayed all the way, losing maybe fifty, fifty-five bucks, when he called the warrant officer who had a full house, tens over threes.

  The fifth hand, the kid opened for twenty dollars, and as he dropped the twenty, folded in half lengthwise, onto the blanket, he said: "Last hand. Take a chance."

  Everybody but the AGC lieutenant stayed in.

  The kid took one card. He looked at it, and then laid it on top of the others.

  "Up to you," the artillery captain said.

  The kid thought it over.

  "Another twenty," he said, and dropped two tens onto the blanket.

  That folded the warrant officer. The Medical Service captain dropped a twenty onto the blanket.

  "Your twenty and twenty," the artillery captain said, when it came to him.

  "And twenty," the kid said, counting out forty bucks in fives and tens and dropping it on the blanket.

  That folded the Medical Service Corps captain.

  "You're bluffing, sonny," the artillery captain said.

  "I'm giving you a chance to get your money back," the kid said. "This is my last hand." "You said tharbefore," the artillery captain said. He looked at the kid, and then at his cards.

  "Your twenty and fifty," he said.

  The kid counted the money in front of him. He had eighteen dollars in folding money. He had twenty-three dollars and change worth of chips.

  He pushed the chips and folding money, forty-one dollars' worth, into the center of the table. Then he reached in his pocket and threw his wallet after it.

  "Call," he said.

  "Full house," the artillery captain said, turning over three jacks and a pair of eights.

  He looked at the kid.

  The kid turned his cards over. Four kings. Three kings, a six, and another king. The way he'd handled his cards, laying them in front of him as he got them, not touching them except to discard one of them, everybody knew he'd been dealt three kings, and gotten the fourth when he'd drawn the one card.
He had tried to draw another six.

  A real poker player would have drawn two cards, hoping to make either the fourth king, or get a pair.

  "I guess that's mine, huh?" the kid said. He started to reach for the pot.

  "What's in the wallet?" the artillery captain said.

  "Fot Christ's sake, he was only nine dollars shy," the chief who ran the game said.

  "If you're shy, you got to say so," said the artillery captain. "He didn't say anything."

  "There's enough in the wallet to cover the nine bucks," the kid said.

  "I want to see it," the captain said.

  "That's the same as calling me a liar," the kid said. "Is that what you're doing?"

  The artillery captain, with a sudden move, grabbed the wallet. He opened it.

  "The fucking thing is empty!" he said, triumphantly, and tossed the wallet to the chief whose game it was. "That's my pot, and that's the last time you play with us, fuckhead!" The kid said: "Chief, there's a ten dollar bill folded up in the plastic window with my driver's license."

  The chief looked. There was. He unfolded it, snapped it open so everybody could see it, and then dropped it in the pot.

  "It's his pot," he pronounced.

  The kid pushed his chips to the chief, who counted out twenty-three dollars and seventy-five cents from the bank and gave it to him. He counted the money he had from the pot, put all the twenties together and the tens and the fives and the singles.

  "Good night," the kid said.

  The chief warrant whose game it was nodded. None of the others said a word. They had watched him count his money, and they were all a little pissed that this dumb little second john was walking out with $320 of their money. He'd played bad poker and bet all but his last fucking dollar, and was still walking out with their money. That wasn't poker, that was bullshit. They would not let him play again.

  The kid was pleased. They had not been watching him early in the game, when he had begun to-palm a ten dollar bill here, a five there, whenever he had won a pot, and to stick them in his pocket so the others wouldn't notice. He had come in the game with $105, and he had no intention, if the cards went against him, of leaving the game with less than that. After the first two hours, he had been playing with their money. If he lost that, he would have quit. As it turned out, he was walking out with $650 of their money, not $320.

  The kid was pleased with himself. He was going to go in the boonies and play boy scout in the morning; but he'd be back on Friday and be given the rest of the day off. There was a used car lot on Bragg Boulevard with a sign that said, "$100 Down on Any Car on the Lot." He would go buy a car, any car, just so he would have wheels. He could get a better car later. But the first thing to do was buy a car, and the second was to drive over to the Special Warfare School and give Colonel Macmillan his two hundred back.

  Hangar No. 4 Laird Army Airfield Fort Rucker, Alabama 23 January 1959

  Mrs. Jane Cassidy sat in Major Lowell's small office at a desk back to back with that of the major. The section's three pilots (one of whom was WOJG William B. Franklin) and two clerks (one a PFC, the other a GS-4 clerk-typist) were installed in half of the larger of the rooms of the two-room "suite." The armorer officer (CWO "Dutch" Cramer and his three enlisted men: two armorers and one aircraft frame mechanic, all senior noncoms in their late twenties) had the other half.

  Lowell really hadn't known what to expect the first duty morning after the New Year's party. He would not have been surprised if Jane had not come to work at all, and he would have been equally unsurprised if she had been waiting for him as a mistress waits for her lover.

  run COLONELS 223

  She had stood up when he walked in. He'd looked at her. She avoided his eyes.

  "Good morning, Major Lowell," she said. "Good morning, Jane," he'd replied. She had raised her eyes to his. "I've made coffee," she said. "Would you like a cup?" "Yes," he said. "I would. Thank you."

  She had fetched the coffee from the machine in Dutch Cramer's room, and set it before him on his desk.

  Then she had sat down at her typewriter and begun to type. She had been obviously unnerved by the encounter, but Lowell had decided that the ball was in her court. If she wanted a transfer, she would have to bring it up.

  She did not bring it up. She acted as if New Year's Eve simply hadn't happened. It was too easy a solution, he thought. Sooner or later, there would be a reference to it. But until there was, he decided, the action indicated for the situation was no action at all.

  The next day, she brought a framed photograph of herself with her family and put it on the desk.

  The crucifix, he thought, held up in the face of Lucifer to ward him off.

  And that was all that happened between them.

  Lowell was not unaware, however, of Jane Cassidy's physical charms. The smell of her perfume or simply looking at her triggered a hunger in his groin. And when she reached to answer the telephone they shared, as she did now, he was acutely aware of what her breasts looked like beneath the layers of clothing that modestly restrained and concealed them.

  With a little bit of luck (that was already showing up on the horizon), he would shortly leave the Rocket Armed Helicopter Section, Rotary Wing Branch, Aircraft Test Division and Mrs. Jane Cassidy and put the whole thing behind him. It would become one of his better memories, he thought. The memory of her in his bed would endure for a long time.

  "One moment, please," Jane Cassidy was saying to the telephone, which was mounted on a swinging platform bolted to the wall. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand.

  "General Jiggs, Major," she said.

  She put the handset on the telephone platform and pushed it over to him, in the process innocently giving him a view down the open collar of her blouse. The cups of her brassiere were stitched in a circular pattern, like a bull's-eye.

  "Major Lowell, sir."

  "I understand you're about to go over to Knox," Jiggs said.

  "Yes, sir," Lowell said. "They've formed a company. I thought I should go see what help I could be."

  He desperately wanted command of the rocket-armed helicopter company.

  He thought that when the time came he could ask for it, and that he would probably be given it; In the meantime, he wanted to be as close to the company as possible.

  "Tell me your plans," Jiggs said.

  "I'm taking Dutch Cramer, Bill Franklin, and Sergeant Piner, one of the armorers, with me, sir," Lowell said. "We're going over in the morning."

  "how are you traveling?"

  "In the Commamier, sir," Lowell said.

  "In order to get everybody TPA, or because no aircraft was available?"

  "No aircraft was available, sir," Lowell said. "It was either take my airplane or go commercial, and it's a hell of a roundabout way to get from here to there." "I just found that out," General Jiggs said. "And concluded that two and a half hours sitting around Atlanta between planes was not a wise expenditure of my time."

  "You're going to Knox, sir? Would you like to fly over with us?"

  "What I think we should do, Craig, is for you to leave your people behind, then you and I should go over together. Unless there is some objection, I've laid on a school L-23 for 0530 tomorrow morning. We'll spend the night and come back the day after tomorrow. You can send your people over then, if you like."

  "Yes, sir," Lowell said. For some reason, Jiggs wanted to go to Knox with him alone. He was very curious about that, but knew he dared not ask. If Jiggs had thought he was entitled to an explanation, he would have given him one.

  "Are you checked out in the L-23?" Jiggs asked.

  "No, sir. Not at Rucker."

  "Is there some reason you couldn't take a check ride this afternoon?"

  "No, sir," Lowell said. "But we could take the Commander."

  "A school L-23 will be at Laird Operations in thirty minutes with an instructor pilot," General Jiggs said. "If you bust the check ride, call me when you get back. Otherwise, I'll see you at 0530
tomomow."

  "Yes, sir."

  Lowell broke the connection with his finger after he heard General Jiggs hang up, then dialed the number of Colonel William Roberts.

  "What is it, Lowell?"

  "General Jiggs just telephoned, sir," Lowell reported. "He wants me to go to Fort Knox with him in the morning, RON. And he wants me to leave Mr. Franklin, Mr. Cramer, and Sergeant Piner behind." "You'll travel in your aircraft?" Colonel Roberts asked coldly.

  "No, sir. The general has laid on an L-23."

  "I wasn't aware that you're checked out in the L-23."