"The general has arranged for a check ride in half an hour, sir.
"I see," Roberts said. "Thank you for keeping me abreast, Major." Then he hung up.
"Jesus!" Lowell said, as he hung up the phone. "Something wrong?" Jane Cassidy asked. "I'm going to Fort Knox with General Jiggs in the morning," Lowell said. "And for some reason, this displeases
Colonel Roberts."
"I'm surprised that you're surprised," she said.
"Huh?"
"Colonel Roberts is one of those people who wants to keep all his puppies in their kennels where he can keep an eye on them," she said.
"And here you are, running off with another pack."
He chuckled.
"That's a good way to put it, I guess," he said. "In many ways."
you're very innocent," she said. "You don't really understand why you make people like Colonel Roberts uncomfortable."
"Innocent?" he said, in surprise. He had never been accused of that before.
"Socially speaking, I mean," Jane Cassidy said. It was oblique, but it was unmistakably her first reference to what had happened between them.
The proof was in the faint flush that came to her face.
He ended it quickly. "See if you can find either Mr. Cramer or Mr. Franldin, will you, please?" he asked.
She nodded and walked out of the office.
Warrant Officer Franklin came in a moment later. "You wanted to see me, sir?" Lowell told him what had happened. "Tell Dutch and Sergeant Piner, will you, Bill?"
"Dutch is on the flight line," Franklin said. "Mrs. Cassidy went after him."
"OK, then I'll tell him. Or she will. But you too. OK?" "Fly good," Franklin said. "It would be very, very embarrassing to bust a check ride under these circumstances." "Screw you, Bill," Lowell smiled. "And close the door when you leave.
I've got to change clothing."
He took off his tunic and laid it on the desk, and then added his necktie. Then he took off his trousers and put them on a hanger, added the tunic and tie, and hung it all on a nail pounded into the concrete blocks.
He had just put on his flight suit when Jane Cassidy came back into the room.
"Mr. Cramer was busy," she said. "So I told him what's happened."
"Thank you," he said.
"Aren't you going to be cold, wearing just that?" she asked.
"There's a heater," he said.
He turned his back to her, and took a zippered nylon flight jacket from another hanger suspended from a nail in the concrete block wall. He thrust his arms into the sleeves, and felt for the zipper.
"That's only cotton," she said. "I should think you'd freeze to death." "No, " he said.
"I guess that some people are just warmer-blooded than others," she said.
There was a meaning beyond the words. He turned to face her.
"When are you coming back?" she asked. "I'll be at Knox only overnight," he said. "Tom's leaving tomorrow for St. Louis," she said. "They're having trouble with one of the purifiers." "Oh," he said.
"He's taking the children with him," she said. "It was his idea.
They've never been there before."
"Do you want to go with them?" he asked.
"No," she said.
Without being aware that he was doing it, he reached oflt and touched her face. She caught his hand in both of hers and held it against her chest. His fingers spread and touched her breast and tightened.
"I was afraid you wouldn't want to," Jane Cassidy said.
"I'm afraid for you."
"You're afraid it will get out of control," she laughed. "It won't. I don't fancy myself falling in love with you."
"That's not beyond possibility," he said.
She pushed his hand off her breast and 7turned around. "Then forget it," she said, coldly. "I can't afford that. I won't have it!"
He put his hand out toward her hair, and then withdrew it.
"Where the hell would we go?" he said.
"Moving Jannier in with you wasn't the smartest move you've ever made," she said. "But that isn't the problem. I've arranged for a place to go."
"What is the problem?" "That dumb remark of yours about love," she said. "And from you, of all people."
"What is it you want from me?" he asked.
She turned to face him again. Her face was calm, but there was excitement in her eyes. Her hand moved to the thin cloth of his flight suit. He was erect. She grasped him firmly.
"This," she said. "Only this. Nothing else. Can you understand that?"
She turned him loose.
"Can you?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"We have a place in Panama City," she said. "I told Tom I would drive down there to check on it while he's gone. It's off by itself. Safe, in other words." (Two)
The pilot of the L-23F waiting for Lowell at Laird Operations was a lieutenant colonel, wearing an army green uniform onto which were pinned the starred wings of a Master Aviator.
He was one of the old-timers, the professional pilots, maybe going back as far as War II, an officer who had spent ten years doing nothing but flying single-engine two seaters. A card carrying member, Lowell knew, of the Cincinnati Flying Club.
Lowell saluted him.
"Good afternoon, sir," he said. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting."
There was no direct reply to this.
The lieutenant colonel pointed at the L-23, which was the military version of the Beechcraft Twin Bonanza, a six-place, twin-engined, low-wing airplane.
"How much L-23 time do you have, Major?" he asked. He did not offer either his name or his hand. "A couple of hundred hours," Lowell said.
"And how much twin engine time?"
"Counting civilian time, about twelve hundred, sir."
"Most of it in the Commander?" Charm time having failed, fuck you, Colonel. "Most of it, Colonel. May I proceed with the preflight?"
"How much time in the F model L-23?" the lieutenant colonel pursued.
"When my Commander was in for a 500-hour overhaul," Lowell said, "I rented a Queenaire and put twenty-five, thirty hours on it."
"Then you actually have no time in the L-23F?"
"Colonel, it's the same airplane," Lowell said.
"No, Major," the lieutenant colonel said. "It is not."
"Yes, sir."
"Major, you don't seem to have the qualifications to take a check ride in this aircraft."
"Colonel, I was ordered here to take a check ride."
"And does General Jiggs know that you haven't gone through the transition course?"
"I would guess, sir," Lowell said, "that the general has made the same mistake I have."
"I don't understand."
"The general has flown with me in a Queenaire," Lowell said. "And I would hazard the guess that he presumes that if I could fly a Queenaire, I can fly this thing."
"May I ask where you have flown the general?"
"From here to South Dakota, Colonel, and back. We went out there to shoot pheasant."
The colonel looked at him.
"Well, Major, since the general has arranged for me to see if you're qualified to fly the L-23F, I think we should do just that."
"May I proceed with the preflight?"
"I always give people I'm checking one mistake, Major," the colonel said. "Here's yours: Don't you think it would be a good idea to file a flight plan, first?"
You chickenshit sonofabitch!
"My mistake, sir. I mistakenly presumed the colonel would have filed a local flight plan, sir. I regret my mistake."
(Three) Laird Army Airfield Fort Rucker, Alabama 0533 Hours, 24 January 1959
"Laird clears Army 4177 for takeoff on three-eight for VFR direct Birmingham. The time is four zero past the hour. The altimeter is two niner niner eight. The winds are five miles per hour, gusting to fifteen, from the north. Contact Birmingham local control on 127.27."
"Seven Seven rolling," Lowell said to the microphone as the L-23F moved off
the threshold and onto runway three eight.
"Have a pleasant flight, General," the tower operator said.
"Thank you," Jiggs said, picking up a microphone.
Jiggs waited until Lowell was on a course for Birmingham and had contacted Atlanta area and been given an instrument flight rules clearance from Birmingham to Godman Field at Fort Knox before he said: "Of course, I'm pretty new at this, but for an amateur, you seemed to do that rather smoothly for someone only marginally qualified to pilot this aircraft." "Is that what the sonofabitch said?" Lowell asked.
"That's what he said, and when I told him that I thought I'd take my chances, I'm sure I left him convinced that I was prepared to make literally any sacrifice for the Armor Protective Association."
Lowell chuckled.
"What are the differences between this plane and the one you used to fly?"
"Aside from the military frequency radios, none that I can find."
"In other words, you really feel that you can safely fly me to Fort Knox?"
"Yes, General, I have that hope." Jiggs chuckled again. "Why did you file the IFR after you were airborne?"
"Because with all the training going on at Rucker people flying from nowhere to nowhere for the practice Atlanta makes the army wait until they clear people who are really going somewhere. You'll notice there was no wait when I told them we were going to Kentucky."
"And there would have been otherwise?"
"If we had asked to go round-robin to Savannah, there would have." "You're devious, Lowell," Jiggs said, approvingly. "Very devious."
"It was the leadership I had as a young officer, sir," Lowell said. "I was forced to serve under an officer, sir, who couldn't get me comfort rations. When I politely remonstrated with him, he told me to be devious."
"Did I really use that word?"
"Yes, sir, General, sir, you really did. "Be devious, Lowell. Think of something," is exactly what you said."
General Jiggs laughed.
"Well, I paid for that, and dearly," he said. "I wrote reports on you and your damned comfort rations for years after that."
"You mean somebody found out?"
"Oh, sure they found out. And the clear implication was that I'd sold the razor blades and soap on the black market."
"Why didn't you tell them they were lost to enemy action?"
"That's the difference between you and me, Craig," Jiggs said, almost sadly, and no longer jocularly. "I can't do that sort of thing as easily as you can. I won't be a hypocrite and say I didn't know our S-4 was a bit vague about whether some equipment was lost to the enemy or just lost; but I can't sign a statement I know isn't true."
"So what did you do?" "I told them the truth, that one of my officers was overzealous, but that the responsibility was mine."
"You should have given them my name," Lowell said. "I was on the shit list anyhow."
"Was on?"
"I believe that combat troops are entitled to whatever their commander can get for them, even if he has to steal it."
"And that made you a superb combat commander," Jiggs said. "Beloved by his troops."
"But?"
"But what?"
"Wasn't that sarcastic?"
"Not at all." "I was neither superb nor beloved," Lowell said. "Immodesty compels me to admit that I was good, but let's not go overboard."
"You were both," Jiggs insisted.
"But?" Lowell asked.
He suddenly realized what was happening. He was being given a father-to-son or, perhaps more accurately, a Dutch uncle talk prior to the announcement-or even prior to his figuring it out that he was to have command of the 3087th Aviation Company (Tank Destroyer) (Provisional). He hadn't even had to wait for the appropriate moment to ask for it.
He thought that was a very nice thing, indeed, for Paul Jiggs to do.
Unnecessary, but nice. Lowell didn't have to be told that this command was his last chance, that if he fucked this up, he might as well get out of the army. If he fucked this up he just might some distance down the pike get a silver leaf. But that would do him about as much good as a gold watch and social security, because that promotion would be the kiss good-bye before his forced retirement. He needed that silver leaf, but he needed it pretty damn soon. His time was running out.
But if he handled this command right, he would get the silver leaf, and soon, and he would be back in the competition for promotion: first for an eagle and ultimately for the stars of general officer. He had every intention of commanding the 3087th Aviation Company (Tank Destroyer) (Provisional) not only to the best of his ability, but with one eye on what was expected of him as a responsible field-grade officer.
It was less a question of his having been forgiven than of his actual qualifications. He had been a tank commander of distinction. There was no question about that. He had a Distinguished Service Cross (the second highest decoration for valor), a Distinguished Service Medal, a Silver Star, and a chapter in the textbooks. "Task Force Lowell," named after its youthful commander, was cited as the "classic example"
of the proper use of an armored force in the breakthrough and exploitation.
And with Ed Greer in his grave and Mac Macmillan running around in the boondocks of Fort Bragg in a silly green hat, he was the expert on this newest tool of war, the tank-killing, rocket-armed chopper. If there was a God of War, of' Mars had decided to annoint him.
In his mind, Lowell went one step further. He had been admired by his troops. He had never asked them to do anything that wasn't necessary, and they knew it. And the result had been that when he asked them to do something, they'd given it one hell of a try.
He had not commanded troops since Korea. It was going to be just fine to be "the Old Man" again.
"But nothing, Craig," General Jiggs said. "You were one hell of a commander." (Four)
"Godman, Army 4177," Lowell said to the microphone. "4177, Godman."
"Godman, Army 4177, L-23F, five minutes out, due south. Request approach and landing."
"4177, have you a Code Eight aboard?"
Lowell looked at Jiggs. Code Eight made reference to the fact that a major general was in pay grade 0-8.
"No honors," Jiggs said.
That didn't surprise Lowell. Jiggs rarely took advantage of the privileges which he was entitled to as a general officer. He stood in line in the officers' club cafeteria at lunch. It was to be expected that he would not wish the airfield commander to drop whatever he was doing to jump in a jeep and rush out and salute him when he landed in an airplane.
"Godman, affirmative on the Code Eight. No honors, I say again, no honors, are desired. Ground transport will be required."
"Godman clears Army 4177 for landing as number one on one eight. The winds are negligible, the altimeter is two amer inner seven. Report on final."
"Understand number one on one eight," Lowell said, as he dropped the nose of the airplane.
He saw U.S. Highway 31W, leading to Elizabethtown, off his left wing; and he made his approach over the main post. "4177 over the outer marker," he reported, and then a moment later, "4177 turning on final."
"4177, hold on the runway for a Follow-Me," Godman tower ordered.
"Roger, Godman," Lowell said, as he lined up with the runway. The landing, he thought somewhat smugly, was a greaser. Just a faint chirp from the tires, no bump. As he reversed the propellors, he saw a jeep painted in a black-and white checkerboard pattern, with an enormous checked flag flapping in the wind. It was racing the Follow-Me down the taxiway parallel to the runway.
The airplane slowed. He retarded the throttles.
"Well, General, sir," he said, "despite your marginally competent pilot, you'll probably see your wife again."
Jiggs laughed.
He stopped the airplane on the runway, and then turned it around. The Follow-Me drove onto the runway, turned around, and then started down the runway. Lowell opened the throttles enough to follow it.
"Oh, Jesus!" General Jiggs said, pointin
g out the windshield. Beyond the Base Operations buildings and the hangars beside it, on an expanse of grass, was a company of troops, a half dozen M48 tanks, a band, and a color guard.
"One would surmise," Lowell said dryly, "that the general's desire for no honors is being gloriously ignored." "I shouldn't have told him I was coming," Jiggs said.
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