When they were gone, instructors would pick up what was left behind.
"Lieutenant," Eaglebury had told him, "you know what's going to happen if you leave the BARs behind?"
"Why don't you tell me, Sergeant?"
"We'll be a mile or so in the jungle, and they'll find the BARs. And they'll say that without them we can't accomplish our mission, and they'll make. us start all over again."
"I don't think we can accomplish our mission carrying them with us," Ellis had replied. "We'll have to take that chance." "And the next thing they'll decide," Eaglebury said, as if talking to a backward child, "is that a very good way to teach us not to leave our weapons behind is to let us run through the whole fucking program, and then tell us we had to have BARs, and then, tell us to start all over."
It was possible that Eaglebury was right, Ellis had decided. But it was certain that they couldn't carry the extra weight of two twenty-pound Browning automatic rifles and ten magazines through the swamp. The BARs had stayed.
All of Lieutenant Ellis's stalwart troops were older than he was. The youngest of them, a sergeant, was twenty-three with five years' service already. It was not surprising that the rest had come to think of him (and to refer to him behind his back) as "the Boy Wonder." Or else, because of his recent graduation from Officer Candidate School (which had a six months' training program) they called him "the Six Months' Wonder."
All of them were either sergeants first class or master sergeants; members, therefore, of the two highest enlisted grades. Some of them had been nice guys, perfectly willing to play the game that their second lieutenant was an officer and therefore presumed to have the correct answers. Several of them had not. And one in particular, SFC Eaglebury, Edward B." was a real sonofabitch. From the moment they had first been out of sight of their superiors, SFC Eaglebury had made it quite plain that he thought his commaiiding officer was straight from the Beetle Bailey comic strip. As far as he was concerned, Ellis was absolutely incapable of finding his ass with both hands, much less of leading eight men across thirty miles of cypress swamp from Point A to Point B, in what was euphemistically described as a "map problem."
The map problems that Second Lieutenant. Ellis had had trouble with in OCS at Benning now seemed child's play in comparison to this exercise, the sort of thing cub scouts did. What the Super Boy Scouts under his wise and mature command had been expected to do seemed on its face just about impossible. But their execution had proved to be more difficult than that.
The first map, the one issued just before the jump, had a blank spot in the middle. It was marked "uncharted." Among other things they had to do was fill in the blanks with paths, "geological features" (in the swamp, there were none), and "creeks and rivers" (the swamp was mostly water).
On the morning of the third day, he was permitted to open the first sealed map. The blank space was slightly smaller on Map No. 2 than it had been on Map No. 1, and it showed the approximate location of a stream and a bridge they were to rig for demolition (but not actually blow). They didn't find the sonofabitch for thirty-six hours, during which SFC Eaglebury kept morale up by amusing the others with his impersonation of Lieutenant Ellis as a blind man complete with a cypress pole cane.
By day ten their food was essentially exhausted, save for some high energy bars. They were obviously going to have to catch something to eat "game" or "reptile" or "fowl."
The Super Boy Scout Rules, as the "Guidelines" were somewhat irreverently called, proscribed the use of "standard service weapons in the taking of game," but it was permitted to take game (including reptiles) by the "use of locally constructed snares, traps, etc." No instructions concerning the building of a snare or trap, etcetera, had been furnished; and none of the eight enlisted men on Ellis's team of budding Green Berets had even seen a snare or trap, or had any idea how to build and/or use one.
Eaglebury loudly announced that he didn't have the vaguest fucking idea how to find something wild in the swamp, much less kill it, and was happy to leave that little problem to Lieutenant Ellis. However, after they had failed to catch anything with snares or traps, he had a helpful suggestion.
"Grenade the bastards, Ellis," Eaglebury said.
"And how would I explain what happened to the grenades, Sergeant?"
"Just tell them you lost the bastards, Lieutenant. Who'd ever know?"
Ellis refused, although the temptation was great. His reasoning was that his "A" Team was unusual in that none of his troops was a country boy with hunting experience. Ordinarily, an "A" team would have somebody on it who could go out and "snare" or "trap" a turkey or shoot a wild pig with the22 pistol as easily as going to the A&P and buying a frozen turkey. If he allowed the use of a grenade to kill something, the troops would get the idea it was all right. And it wasn't, for reasons having nothing to do with sportsmanship. Grenades would (a) be needed for a real mission and (b) make a hell of a noise, which would call attenfion to them.
Ellis's refusal to use grenades, in Eaglebury's opinion, made him chickenshit as well as stupid.
Ellis had done the only thing he could think of. He found some wild pig tracks on an island in the swamp. If pigs had been there before, it seemed to him, they would come back. But not if they saw somebody waiting for them. The solution to that was to hide someone by immersing him in the cruddy fucking water, so that he wouldn't be seen.
He toyed with the idea of having one of his men (Eaglebury came immediately to mind) do the hiding. There were two things wrong with that. He had heard somewhere that an officer should never order his men to do something he was unwilling to do himself (and he was pretty god damned unwilling to play submarine in the swamp) and he was afraid that if he ordered Eaglebury to do it, Eaglebury would tell him to go fuck himself. Ellis thus had to play Daniel Boone himself. He left the team on a small, semidry island and waded into the swamp toward the tracks. Despite the heat, he had just begun to shake from the water's chill when he heard a faint grunting sound that could be a pig. So he stayed there. And fifteen minutes later, a wild pig not much larger than a medium-size dog, came into sight, trotting along on thin legs.
It was the first time he had ever had a good look at a wild animal, and it was fascinating.
What is going to happen now, he thought, as he steadied the pistol against the cypress stump beside which he was nearly submerged, is that the fucking sights will be off. Among two thousand other things he had forgotten to do was zero in the pistol.
He could barely see the front sight over the silencer, which was a thick black cylinder and mounted to the.22's muzzle.
He fired when he thought he had the best shot he was going to get, and the wild pig looked only as if something had surprised it. Ellis was sure he had missed. But then the pig just crumpled to the dirt.
Ellis came out of the swamp water steadying the pistol with both hands, aiming at the animal as if it was a dangerous criminal capable of returning his fire. When he kicked it with his foot he was genuinely surprised to learn that it was dead.
When Ellis returned with the dead pig, he knew he had earned the admiration, of everybody except of course Eaglebury. Eaglebury announced that the pig hadn't been cleaned immediately, and was liable to poison them all. Besides, exactly how did Ellis plan to cook the fucking thing? Unless that was done right, they were all going to catch trichinosis. "Fuck you, Eaglebury," M/Sgt Dessler suddenly snapped. "What did you say?" Eaglebury growled.
"I said fuck you," " Dessler said. "Leave the fucking lieutenant al6the."
"Or what?"
"Or I'll shove that fucking dead pig up your ass!"
"You and who else?"
"Him and me, Eaglebury," SFC Talbot said. "The lieutenant got us something to eat. All you're giving us is a pain in the ass.
(Two) The Office of the Commanding General Fort Rucker, Alabama 1530 Hours, 3 July 1959
Major General Paul T..Jiggs answered one of the three telephones on his office desk, then handed it to Colonel Wilham R. Roberts, with who
m Jiggs had been having a serious talk.
"For you, Bill," Jiggs said.
"Colonel Roberts," he said, wishing that whoever was calling had waited until he was in his own office.
"Sergeant Kowalski, sir. You said I was to let you know the minute Major Lowell showed up."
"Has he?"
"The tower just called, sir. He ought to be on the ground in five minutes."
"Hold on, Sergeant," Roberts said. He covered the microphone with his hand. "Lowell's five minutes out," he said to General Jiggs. Jiggs shrugged, then asked: "Who's that?" "Sergeant Kowalski," Roberts said.
"Tell him to meet Lowell and ask him to come here," Jiggs said.
Roberts nodded, relayed the message, and hung the telephone up.
"Well," Roberts said, "he did come back."
"I expected him back, Bill," Jiggs said. "But I was afraid it would be at 2350."
That was not quite the truth. Until now, Jiggs had not been sure what Lowell was liable to do. But now that he was back, Jiggs felt more than a little disloyal to Lowell, and was not about to agree with Roberts's insinuation that Craig had gone on a hinge.
As Jiggs should have known, Lowell was reporting in just before the end of duty hours on the last day of his leave. The day of departure (no matter what the hour) is a day of leave. The day of return (no matter what the hour) is a day of duty. It was like Lowell to report in during duty hours, not at two minutes to midnight.
When Lowell walked into Jiggs's office, he was wearing a tropical worsted uniform with creases indicating that he had been flying in it for some hours.
"Sir," Lowell said. "Major Lowell reporting as ordered."
"Sit down, Craig," Jiggs said. "Can I get you some coffee?"
"Please, sir, Lowell said; taking one of the armchairs.
Jiggs got on the intercom and ordered coffee.
"A lot of people have been wondering where you were," Colonel Roberts said. It was a reproof.
"I was not aware, sir, that I was required to make my whereabouts known," Lowell said, adding, "Colonel Felter knew where I was."
"He did not elect to share that information," Roberts said, icily. "You might be interested to know that a rather elaborate search was unable to trace you beyond Los Angeles."
"I was in Las Vegas, sir," Lowell said.
"I thought we checked Vegas," Jiggs said to Roberts.
I put Into a private field out of town," Lowell said.
"Have you been on a bender, Craig?" Jiggs asked.
"I don't think it could fairly be called a "bender," sir," Lowell said.
"I'll rephrase," Jiggs said. "Have you been up to anything that is going to come to my attention officially?"
"No, sir," Lowell said, flatly.
"For what it's worth, C
"Thank you." raig, I'm sorry about what happened."
"And with that, should we close the subject?"
"I would be grateful if we could," Lowell said.
"So how was Las Vegas?" Jiggs asked playfully. "An awful lot of neon lights," Lowell said. "Your car is here," Roberts said. He would have liked to have stood Lowell tall for his disappearing act. Jiggs, however, had obviously decided that since Lowell was back from leave on time, the matter should be dropped. Though technically Jiggs was not Lowell's commanding officer, he was a major general.
"Mr. Franidin called from Washington and asked for leave to drive it down. I thought it the thing to do."
"That was very kind, sir," Lowell said, "of you and Mr. Franklin."
"And Mr. Franklin has been baby-sitting your house," Colonel Roberts said.
"Sir?"
"I guess you don't know about that, do you?" Jiggs asked. When he saw confirmation on Lowell's face, he explained: "Captain Jannier and Mrs. Greer... eloped, I suppose is the word... while they were in Washington. They are now living in her house. Mr. Franidin asked Colonel Roberts's permission to stay in your house, and he thought it was a good idea."
"I am indebted to Mr. Frankin and you, sir," Lowell said. The coffee was delivered.
"Is there anything I can do for you, Lowell?" Jiggs asked. He hoped Lowell would say something glib, something about being given tomorrow off. He had a job for Lowell, an important one, but talking to him about it would wait a day or two.
The day of the "wedding," Jiggs and Bellmon had removed themselves to a field three hundred yards from the house to talk privately. Their primary concern at the time was to keep Lowell out of trouble; for there was more than a good chance that he would do something stupid.
But they also had very much on their minds a meeting held that morning in DC SOPS Invasion of Cuba was under serious consideration, and Jiggs was to have a number of responsibilities in that connection. Bellmon and Jiggs agreed that the one thing Jiggs needed now was someone to help him discharge his new responsibilities. Though the obvious candidate was- Colonel Bill Roberts, the conversation turned from Roberts to Lowell.
Bellmon confessed to iiggs that he was astonished at Loweli's performance in forming, activating, and equipping the armed helicopter companies at Bragg. Bellmon was specifically surprised at Lowell's TOE for the provisional battalion. He had thought it would take Lowell at least ninety days to prepare the first draft; and he had delivered it twenty-four days after authorization had been received. The draft was approved-with only minor changes almost as Lowell had presented it.
None of this, of course, surprised Jiggs. As Jiggs's operations officer in Korea, Lowell's performance had been brilliant, "more valuable really," he said to Bellmon, "than his saber waving."
"In two weeks, Bob," Jiggs went on, "from the day it was authorized, he turned the 73rd Medium Tank Battalion, with M4A3s, into what was really a combat command, with M48s; and he had it up and running, too."
"Is that why you let him command the task force?" Bellmon asked. He had wondered for years how that had come about. He and Jiggs were longtime friends friends since the Point-but they were officers; and one officer did not ask another the question in Bellmon's mind.
What the hell were you thinking of; giving command of a battalion-size force to a twenty-four year-old who had earned his captaincy in the National Guard?
"No, it wasn't," Jiggs confessed. "If I had taken that command, I would have had six hundred and eighty-four pissed off and surly troops, bitter troops, to lead. They called him "the Duke' and kidded around with him. But if they were going to ride into Balaclava, they wanted "the Duke' to be leading the charge."
"Balaclava? "Into the valley of death rode the four hundred'?"
Bellmon asked, softly. It sounded like an exaggeration.
"Yeah," Jiggs said. "But this Duke knew what he was doing. He didn't ride straight into the guns, he sent flying columns to flank them.
Flying columns? What they were was four troops in a three-quarter-ton with a.50 caliber machine gun and a couple of.30s. "What I want you guys to do is sneak around the rear of that hill and blow away the bad guys at the cannons," Lowell told them. And off they went, no questions and no hesitation, and blew away the bad guys at the cannons.
That left me with two nagging questions, Bob."
"Oh?" Bellmon had a strange feeling that this was the first time Jiggs had ever discussed Task Force Lowell with a peer in complete honesty.
"Would they have gone if I had ordered them to go? And if they had gone, would they have stopped just out of sight and waited for some other sonofabitch to put himself in the line of fire?"
Bellmon didn't reply. "I know the answer, of course," Jiggs said, softly. "And the answer is that if I had sent them where he sent them, they would have been on the radio in five minutes saying they were pinned down." "I don't think that's true," Bellmon said. "Did that ever happen to you?" "Yes," Jiggs said. "It happened to me during the Bulge." - "I was at Kasserine," Beilmon said. "I was captured at Kasserine because troops just evaporated, refused to fight. It happens."
"It never happened to Lowell," Jiggs said. "He's a hell of a combat commander, and no
w the sonofabitch is passed over for promotion again." "Have you told him?"
"No. And I don't want you to, either. We need him. I realize what a prick that makes me." "My father-in-law," Bellmon said, "here at the Farm, as a matter of fact, just before he went back to Germany after the war, told me I should never forget that most soldiers hate warriors. At the time, I didn't really understand what he meant."
"By extension, then, most paper-pushers hate good paper pushers Jiggs had replied. "So Lowell has two strikes against him."
Bellmon chuckled.
"He also gets laid a lot," Jiggs added. "That really makes people jealous. Three strikes, Lowell, you're out."
"He's not going to get laid tonight, is he?" Bellmon replied, and was immediately ashamed of himself.
W E B Griffin - BoW 04 - The Colonels Page 43