Other people came running, a wardboy, and another nurse and a doctor.
When they got him onto a wheeled cart, he reached for Ilse’s hand, and held it. She looked so terrified he was afraid she would faint.
The doctor said, “What’s that all about?”
“This is my girl,” Lowell said.
“She can’t come with you now,” the doctor said. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”
“She either comes,” Lowell said, “or I will wake up everyone in the fucking hospital.”
“OK, Romeo,” the doctor said. “If that’s the way you want it.” They were rolling him down the hospital corridor now, toward the elevator. “What were those stitches put in there for, anyway?” the doctor asked.
“I was hit in Greece,” Lowell said.
“Oh, you’re the multiple shrapnel case,” the doctor said. “I’ve heard all about you.”
They were in some kind of an emergency room now, and they stopped the cart and Lowell looked up at Ilse, who was crying and smiling at once, and he felt a pin prick and the next thing he knew he was in the hospital bed, with Major Florence Horter looking down at him. She was still in her Class “A” uniform skirt and khaki shirt.
“You’re disaster prone, you know that?” she said. “A walking accident.”
“I found my girl,” he said. “She was here all the time, goddamnit. Scrubbing your goddamned floors.”
Major Florence Horter just nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
(Eight)
HEADQUARTERS
WALTER REED US ARMY HOSPITAL
Washington, D.C.
SPECIAL ORDERS 27 Sept 1946
NUMBER 265
EXTRACT
41. 2ND LT LOWELL, Craig W FinC (Det Armor) 0-495302, Det of Patients, WRUSAH, is plcd on CONVALESCENT LEAVE (not chargeable as Ord Lv) for pd of thirty (30) days, and WP Home of Record, 939 Fifth Avenue, New York City NY. Off auth per diem. Off auth tvl by personal auto. TCS. TDN. Off will report as req to U.S. Army Hosp, Governor’s Island, New York, NY as nec for outpatient treatment. AUTH: VO, The Surgeon General.
FOR THE HOSPITAL COMMANDER
James C. Brailey
Colonel, Medical Service Corps
Adjutant
Lowell rode in a taxicab from Walter Reed to the station. His right arm was still in a sling, but he could bend it and get it into the sleeves of his shirt and Ike jacket. The wound on his chest had stopped suppurating, and while there was still some suppuration from the wound on his arm near the elbow—a slimy, bloody goo—all he had to do to it was to keep putting fresh bandages on it to keep it clean. He was to exercise it every day.
He had five twenty-dollar bills, crisp new ones, in the breast pocket of his jacket. No one seemed to know where his records were, so they had given him a partial payment and told him that he could get another from the finance officer on Governors Island by showing his orders and his ID card.
He had a canvas bag from Frankfurt, bought with the partial pay Florence Horter had arranged for him at the 97th General. The bag held two changes of underwear, two khaki shirts, a razor, a tube of shaving cream, and a styptic pencil. Over the underwear and below the shirts was the Luger. The German belt and holster had simply rotted away, but he had kept the GOTT MIT UNS brass buckle. The battle jacket was in Germany. Florence Horter had said there was no point in his taking it with him, and he had agreed.
He bought his ticket, boarded the train, and went to the club car. He was disappointed that they refused to serve drinks until the train left the station. A salesman came and sat down in the opposing chair and took out his briefcase and started to use it as a desk. Lowell was relieved; he would not be expected to talk.
When the train started moving, he ordered a bottle of ale from the waiter and drank most of it down immediately. He was parched. Some soldiers got on the train in Baltimore, but none came into the club car. A great many soldiers got on the train in Trenton, and a dozen came into the club car.
Lowell thought that it was almost exactly a year before that he had gotten on the train at Trenton, Private Craig W. Lowell, ordered from the U.S. Army Replacement Training Center (Infantry), Fort Dix, N.J., to the U.S. Army Overseas Personnel Station, Camp Kilmer, with seven days’ delay-en-route leave.
Like these guys, probably.
A group of four troopers obviously fresh from basic took over a four-man table and called for drinks. One of them pulled down his tie, unbuttoned his jacket, and slumped down in the chair.
It must be the ale, Lowell thought. That trooper’s behavior annoys me more than I am willing to bear in silence.
He got up and walked to the table.
“Pull up your tie, button your jacket, and act like a soldier,” he heard himself say.
He was met with eight hostile, scornful eyes. Nobody moved.
“I won’t tell you again,” Lowell said.
“Yes, sir!” the one with the loose tie and open jacket said. There was a snicker from one of the others. But the tie was pulled up, and the jacket buttoned.
“Thank you,” Lowell said. He returned to his seat. For some reason, he was very pleased with himself, even though he couldn’t imagine why he had done what he did.
The train backed into Pennsylvania Station, so that the parlor cars and the club car were close to the end of the platform. Long before he could get up and get off the train, he saw his grandfather, a tall, heavy, mustachioed man in a chesterfield and homburg, standing just outside the wrought-iron gate. A man in gray chauffeur’s livery stood beside him.
When he finally managed to leave the train, and his grandfather saw him, there was a smile on his face. He took his homburg off and held it in his hand as Craig walked up.
“Well,” the Old Man said, “home is the soldier, home from the wars.” He put his hand out. Craig Lowell hugged him. His grandfather, he thought, was the only one in the family worth a shit.
“You don’t have any luggage?” his grandfather asked, rather ceremoniously putting the homburg on his head.
“Let me have that, sir,” the chauffeur said, reaching for the canvas bag from the Frankfurt PX.
“I’ll carry it, thank you,” Lowell said.
The car, a 1940 Packard with a body by Derham, the front seat exposed to the elements, was parked in the 33rd Street entrance to the station. A policeman, standing near it, touched his cap as they approached. Lowell’s grandfather waved Craig into the car first. Inside, it smelled of leather and cigars. His grandfather leaned forward in the car and took a cigar from a box mounted beneath the glass divider.
“May I have one of those?” Craig asked.
“Yes, of course,” his grandfather said. He looked indecisive for a moment, and then handed him the cigar he held. “I’ve already clipped it,” he said. “Would you like me to light it for you?”
“Just hand me the lighted match, please,” Craig said. His grandfather struck a regular kitchen match on the sole of his shoe and handed the flaming match to Craig.
“How long have you been smoking cigars?” he asked.
“Since I was ten,” Craig said. “My father caught me smoking a cigarette and made me smoke a cigar, so I would get sick. But I didn’t get sick; I liked it. What he did was teach me to smoke cigars, not give up smoking.”
“I didn’t know that,” his grandfather said.
“Where are we going?” Craig asked.
“I thought we’d have some lunch,” his grandfather said. “Porter wanted us to come downtown, but I thought you would be going out to Broadlawns…”
“Porter?”
“I thought it would be appropriate, under the circumstances, to have Porter welcome you home. It’s such a trip in from the Island that I didn’t think you’d want your mother to endure it.”
Lowell wondered if that meant his mother was drunk again, or flying high on her pills.
“I had hoped to have a talk with you alone,” Lowell said.
“I was under the impressio
n you liked Porter.”
“Porter is an asshole,” Lowell said.
“You’re not in the company of soldiers now,” the Old Man corrected him. “Watch your language, Craig.”
“You told him to come,” Craig said, an accusation.
“I telephoned to tell him you had returned to this country, and he said that I should by all means bring you to lunch when you got to New York.”
“What is he doing downtown?” Lowell asked.
“Working for Morgan and Company,” his grandfather said. “I thought he could use the experience.”
Geoffrey Craig had had two children, a son and a daughter. Porter Craig was the son of his son, now deceased, and Craig Lowell the son of his daughter. There were no other children or grandchildren.
The Packard limousine pulled to the curb before a building just off Fifth Avenue on 43rd Street. The chauffeur ran around the front and opened the passenger door. Geoffrey Craig got out, and then turned to help Craig. They walked up a shallow flight of stairs, and the older man held open a door for his grandson.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Craig,” the porter said. He went to a large board which listed the names of every member of the club and had a little sliding tag device to indicate if they were in the building.
Lowell looked up at the board and saw Craig, Porter below Craig, Geoffrey.
“Porter belongs?” he asked. The Old Man nodded.
“I thought you had to be at least sixty,” Craig said.
He got a withering look from his grandfather. Porter Craig at that moment walked into the foyer of the club. He was a slightly chubby man of indeterminate age. He was actually, Craig thought, twenty-nine or thirty. He could have passed for twenty-five or forty.
“Well, hello, Craig,” he said, with forced joviality. “How the hell are you, boy?” He grabbed Lowell’s shoulders.
“Watch the goddamn shoulder,” Lowell said.
“Sorry,” Porter Craig said, jerking his hands away.
The porter appeared with a claim check.
“I’ll be happy to take that bag, sir,” he said.
“I’ll keep it, thank you,” Lowell said.
“Does Craig have to sign the guest book?” Porter Craig asked.
“I believe he does,” the older man said.
“Sign it for me, then, Porter,” Lowell said.
“Yes, of course.”
They walked up a wide flight of stairs and took chairs around a small table.
A waiter took their drink order.
“Ordinarily, I don’t,” Porter Craig said. “But this is rather a celebration, isn’t it?”
When the drinks were served, a scotch sour for the Old Man, a scotch and soda for Porter, and a bottle of ale for Lowell, Porter Craig raised his glass and said, “Welcome home, Craig.”
“Thank you,” Lowell said. He wondered what Ilse was doing at precisely that moment. It was half past one here. It was half past six, already getting dark, in Germany.
“Granddad tells me you’re going out to Broadlawns and get your strength back,” Porter Craig said.
“I don’t know if I am or not,” Lowell said.
“Because of Pretier, you mean?” his grandfather asked. “Actually, he’s rather a decent sort, Craig.”
“If he can put up with Mother,” Lowell said, “he’s either a saint or a masochist.”
“That’s a remark in extraordinarily bad taste,” his grandfather said.
Lowell shrugged, but made no apology.
“Your mother expects you,” his grandfather said. “You’re going to have to go out there.”
Lowell shrugged again, this time in agreement.
“I’ll go see her,” he said.
Lowell finished his ale, and looked around for the waiter.
“Is that good for you?” his grandfather asked.
Lowell looked at him and raised his eyebrows.
“I’m a big boy, now,” he said.
“With a chip on your shoulder,” Porter Craig said.
“Porter, Craig has just gone through a terrible experience,” their grandfather began, and was interrupted when another guest stumbled over the canvas bag from the PX in Frankfurt. He didn’t fall down, just lurched, regained his balance, and gave the trio a dirty look.
“What in the world do you have in that bag,” Porter Craig asked, “that you refuse to check it?”
“A change of underwear, a razor, and a pistol,” Craig said.
“What are you doing with a pistol?” his grandfather asked.
“You’ll go to jail,” Porter Craig said. “Didn’t you ever hear of the Sullivan Law? Pistols are illegal.”
“Not for an officer, they’re not,” Lowell said.
“I’ve been curious about that,” Porter Craig said. “Are you really an officer? How did you become an officer? You’re only nineteen. And you didn’t finish school. The last I heard, you were expelled and drafted, and the next thing, you show up in an officer’s uniform…”
“Just who the hell do you think you are, Porter, the FBI?” Lowell asked.
“Porter’s curiosity is natural,” their grandfather said. “I’m more than a little curious myself.”
“You have a right to be,” Lowell said. “So far as I know, that temporary guardianship order is still in effect.”
“And I don’t?” Porter Craig asked.
“Fuck off, Porter,” Craig Lowell said, conversationally. Heads turned.
“Lower your voice,” the Old Man said. “Porter, under the circumstances, I think that it might best if Craig and I talked privately.”
Porter Craig, red-faced, tight-lipped, got to his feet and fled from the room. He didn’t even say good-bye. Grandfather and grandson locked eyes.
“I realize now that bringing him here was a mistake,” the older man said.
“I’ve never liked that sonofabitch,” Craig said. “And one of the things that came to mind when he gave me the phony dear-cousin welcome downstairs was that I no longer have to put up with his bullshit.”
“You have proved that you are a man,” his grandfather said. “That language is unnecessary. Please remember that you are a guest in my club. A club to which your father belonged.”
“I’m sorry,” Craig said, sounding genuinely contrite.
“We’ll say no more about it,” his grandfather said. He took a wooden match and struck it and handed it to Craig, whose cigar had gone out. “Do you like that?”
“Really good.”
“I’ve had some put down at Dunhill’s,” his grandfather said. “They make them in Nicaragua, of all places. I’ll have some sent out to Broadlawns, or, if you like, you can stop by on your way to the Island and pick up whatever you need. I’m taking a cab downtown, so that you can have the Packard.”
“Thank you,” Lowell said.
“And now, I hope, we can conduct our conversation in a civilized manner,” his grandfather said. “Do you feel like telling me what has happened to you?”
“All right,” Lowell said, and he told his grandfather the whole story, leaving out any reference to Ilse.
“If I didn’t think it would set off a stream of obscenity,” the Old Man said, when he had finished, “I would tell you that I am not only proud of you, Craig, but happy for you. You seem, finally, to have grown up.”
Lowell smiled broadly.
“Is something funny?” his grandfather asked.
“Grandpa, you just fell into the spider’s web,” Lowell said.
“How do you mean?”
“I want my majority,” Lowell said.
“I don’t quite understand.”
“I want to go back to court with you, and have that temporary guardianship order revoked, and then I want another order granting me my majority.”
“Would you mind explaining why?”
“It’s a little embarrassing for me, as an officer and a gentleman by act of Congress, to be legally a minor child.”
“We can talk about this later,” h
is grandfather said.
“No, we’re going to talk about it now,” Lowell said.
“Let’s get something to eat first,” his grandfather said.
“Fine. We can talk while we eat,” Lowell said.
They walked out of the library into the dining room and ordered.
“Even if I were willing to go along with this majority business,” his grandfather said, “what makes you think the court would?”
“For one thing,” Lowell said, “you seem to generally get what you’re after in court. And for another, according to the law of the State of New York, one of the times maturity can be granted is when the minor child is commissioned as an officer in the armed forces.”
“You’ve consulted an attorney, I gather?” the Old Man said, dryly, looking at the plate of Dover sole the waiter had laid before him.
“I’ve asked one a couple of questions,” Lowell said.
“The only possible motivation I can come up with is that you have the misguided notion you’re qualified to manage your financial affairs, that you want your trust fund now.”
“I didn’t say that,” Lowell said. “I don’t know the first goddamned thing about money. I don’t give a damn about managing the trust fund. I want some money from it, say another thousand a month, but that’s all.”
“They’re making available a thousand a month now, aren’t they?” Lowell nodded. “And that’s not enough?”
“I told you, Grandpa, I’m a big boy now. I don’t need you or anyone else telling me how much money I need.”
“And,” the Old Man said, sharply, “if I don’t think it’s wise to go along with this idea of yours?”
“Then I’ll just have to find some hungry shyster lawyer,” Lowell said.
They locked eyes again. Finally, his grandfather snorted.
“And I think you’d do that,” he said. “Let me understand what you’re asking. You want your majority. You want an income of two thousand a month from the fund. Actually, it’s funds, plural. And you will permit me to retain the management of the funds?”
“I’d be grateful to you if you would,” Lowell said.
“You’d put that in writing, of course?”
The Lieutenants Page 34