I had pictured him as shooting touch-and-go's at Laird."
"They should be back in a couple of hours, General," Lowell said.
"You got a minute, Lowell?" the general asked.
"Yes, sir, of course."
The general took Lowell's arm and led him across the inflatable hangar, where they were alone.
"There's no good news and bad news," General Jiggs said.
"It's all bad. I just made my pitch for you to Black. I got about as far as your name."
"I didn't expect you to do that much, sir," Lowell said.
"But thank you."
"A senator's wife! What the hell were you thinking about?"
Lowell chuckled.
"I don't think it's funny," Jiggs said. "It's not funny at all, god damnit."
"There's more to it than that," Lowell said. "And I don't think even Black could get me out of this one if he wanted to, and I have it on good authority that he doesn't."
"There aren't many majors," Jiggs said, "who manage to get the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army personally pissed at them."
"Can it be kept quiet until after New Year's?" Lowell said.
"Or is it getting to be pretty common knowledge?"
"I don't know," Jiggs said. "Bellmon won't talk about it."
Bellnon's all right," Lowell said. "He'll make a good general.
"What are you going to do?"
"I think I'll go to Germany for a while. For six months or a year, anyway. it'll give me a chance to spend some time with my son."
"I'm sony, Craig," General iiggs said. "I really am."
"I appreciate that," Lowell said.
"I don't want you to sneak off this post," Jiggs said, visibly emotional. "You understand what I'm saying?"
Lowell smiled at him.
"You can come out to Laird on New Year's Day," Lowell said. "And wave so long. But between now and then, I don't want anybody, particularly the women, to know. I want the last party to be a good one."
"I'll do what I can," Jiggs said. "But I think that's wishful thinking. Men do the gossiping, not the women."
Lowell nodded and shrugged.
"I'll see you around before you go," General Jiggs said.
"I'll be around," Lowell said.
General Jiggs nodded and suddenly turned and walked out of the inflatable hangar to his H-13H.
Lowell walked back to the feed chute for the rocket launcher.
"Made his pitch to Black about what?" Greer demanded.
Lowell looked at him in surprise.
"Interesting characteristic of these curved ceilings," Greer said, "is that when somebody talks close to one side, somebody on the other side can hear everything."
"You just keep your god damned mouth shut about what you think you heard," Lowell said.
"What I heard," Greer said, "is that you're getting thrown out as of 1 January."
"Where did you get that?"
"My wife got it from her mother," Greer said.
"I don't know your wife or your mother-in-law," Lowell said.
"You don't know any of the lieutenants or the warrants in
Annex 1, either," Franklin said, joining the conversation. "But they know all about the major who was run out of Washington on a rail."
"Honest ;o God, Bill?" Lowell asked.
"I'm afraid so," Franklin said.
"Well, you guys just keep your mouths shut. It's done. It came down from the Chief of Staff himself. I just don't want it to ruin the holidays."
"MacMillan knows," Lieutenant Ed Greer said. "He knows why you asked him to pick up Major Felter. By the time they get to Washington, you can bet Parker will have heard."
"Let's hope they have enough sense to keep their mouths shut," Lowell said.
"Ah, hell, yes," Greer said.
(Three)
Washington National Airport
The District of Columbia
22 December 1958
The first thing Sanford Felter did when MacMillan crawled out of the Aero Commander at Butler Aviation at Washington
National Airport was take him aside to confide what he somewhat bitterly described as the "final chapter in the Lowell sexual saga."
"I went to Black," Felter said.
"And?"
"He told me this was the one time I should remember that
I was a major in the army," Felter said.
"Shit," MacMillan said.
"Well, we shall all pretend that nobody knows," Felter said.
"We can at least do that much."
"Dumb sonofabitch," MacMillan said. "That pecker of his has had him on the edge of something like this as long as I've known him. And I've known him a long god damned time."
Sharon walked over.
"I guess Sandy told you?" she asked.
"I knew," MacMillan said.
"So that means Roxy knows," Sharon said.
"Roxy's mad at Craig," MacMillan said. "Barbara's mad at Bellmon for not trying hard enough to get him out of it."
"Bellmon couldn't do anything," Felter said. "Nobody could.
The Chief of Staff is after Craig's scalp, and Black has apparently made up his mind to let him have it."
"Well, the best thing we can do is pretend we don't know,"
Sharon said.
"Yeah," MacMillan said.
"I hate that damned woman!" Sharon said, and flushed.
MacMillan leaned over and kissed her.
I
XVII
(One)
Auxiliary Field Three flanchey Army Airfield
Fort Rucker, Alabama
26 December 1958
They had to roll the Big Bad Bird (a/k/a the Viper) out of the hangar twice. When they rolled it out the first time, it occurred to Colonel Tim F. Brandon that a crew consisting entirely of enlisted men pushing it out would make a better shot than what he had, one sergeant, three warrants, and two field-grade officers.
So it was pushed out again with the motion picture cameras rolling, and Colonel Brandon set up another shot: Major
MacMillan and Lieutenant Greer first looking at a map, then walking around the helicopter to check the rocket canisters.
"You got about enough of your fucking pictures, Colonel?"
MacMillan snapped finally. "Can we get the god damned Bird in the air now?"
It was clearly disrespectful and insubordinate, but Colonel
Brandon swallowed his resentment.
"Give me five minutes to check things on the other field," he said and cljmbed into his jeep and drove off.
"Pissant," MacMillan said, watching him drive away.
CWO (W4) Dutch Cramer checked the bins and the chute and the canisters a final time, and nodded his approval.
Lieutenant Greer climbed up the side of the fuselage, and through the pilot's window, and strapped himself in the seat.
"Off we go into the wild blue yonder," he crooned and reached for the Engine Start switch.
His eyes fell on Major Lowell, and for a moment their eyes met. Lowell gave him a wink. Greer gave Lowell a mocking, but friendly salute, and lowered his eyes to the instrument panel as the engine began to run.
He told himself the worst part was over. They'd all gotten through Christmas without anybody bringing up what was to happen to Lowell as of 1 Jan 1959. It had been decided among the women that they would spend Christmas eve and Christmas morning with their families (which meant that Lowell was with the Parkers) and then get together for Christmas dinner. At first, Barbara Bellmon insisted on having it at the Bellmon quarters, but she lost out to Dr. Parker, who pointed out that her quarters in the hospital (hers, as Contract surgeon, with the assimilated rate of colonel, not Captain Parker's), were much larger and better able to hold everybody.
There had been an enormous turkey, a standing rib of beef, a ham, and lots of booze. All Greer had been able to drink, however, was a glass of champagne when they got there and a glass of wine with dinner. He would be flying the Big Bad
&nbs
p; Bird today.
Everybody else had gotten pretty well sauced up, and even
General Jiggs had appeared uninvited, with his wife.
"Can any old cavalryman come in here?" he had asked, when he walked in. "Or does being able to read and write disqualify me?"
Nobody mentioned what was about to happen to Lowell, but Jiggs came pretty close when he handed Lowell a Christmas wrapped package.
"What the hell is this?" Lowell asked, embarrassed. It had been decided among them that there would be no exchange of gifts.
"One could reasonably presume it's your Christmas present,"
General Jiggs said. "Open it up."
Inside the silver foil imprinted with scenes of a White Christmas in Old England was a battalion guidon, a small flag bearing a unit's number. Guidons had come into use on battlefields before the telephone and radio as a unit identifier the troops could "guide on." The only place they were still used for that purpose in the modern army was flying from a tank radio antenna to identify the tank of the unit commander.
The guidon General Jiggs gave Major Lowell was frayed and stained. It was for a tank battalion, the 73rd, and someone had lettered on it, crudely, with a grease pencil: T/F LOWELL.
"I thought you should have that," General Jiggs said.
Major Craig W. Lowell looked very much as if he was going to cry.
"Paul," Mrs. Jiggs said, quickly, "tell them what Wonder
Boy said to the colonel from X Corps. That's a marvelous story."
"Yeah," General Jiggs said. "Yeah. Well, I got the story from his operations sergeant. Let me set the stage. Lowell and forty M46s had just gone up the Korean peninsula to link up with X Corps, which had landed eleven days before at Inchon.
With his well-known modesty and reticence, he'd modified the guidon he had flying from his tank. That one. I mean, what the hell, if you're going to be in the history books, make sure they spell your name right, right?
"Well, he went a little further and a little faster than the
OPSORDER called for. I'd just found them myself, in an old
L-4. He was a hundred miles further than he was supposed to be and about thirty-six hours ahead of the time he was supposed to be a hundred miles back, if you follow me. X Corps is nosing around just south of Suwon, when all of a sudden, balls to the leather, around the bend come a half dozen tracks, with multiple.50s and 20 mm Bofors, chased by the first of the
M46s.
"The tracks were shooting at anything that moved or looked like it could move, and that included the people from X Corps.
So they waved some flags, and Task Force Lowell stopped shooting at them. Lowell drives through the tracks, and rolls up to the people from X Corps. At the time he was a major with about two hours' time in grade.
"Well, the colonel from X Corps consults his OPSORDER and announces, You're not expected here, Major, and you're not expected for another thirty-six hours.' So you know what the Duke says? What would you have me do, Colonel? Go back?"'
They had all heard the story before, but they all laughed, and it took some of the tension away. Then Mrs. Jiggs handed
Lowell a Christmas-wrapped tube. Lowell unwrapped it, glanced at it, and then started to roll it up again.
"Pass it around, Duke," Mrs. Jiggs said. "Some people haven't seen it."
"Hell," he said, but he handed it to Melody, and Greer read it over Melody's shoulder. It was a photograph of the front page of the Chicago Tribune, and it had been sealed in plastic.
It was obviously a product of the post photo lab, and Greer suspected that it had just been made.
KOREAN REPORT: The Soldiers by John E. Moran
United Press War Correspondent
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (UP) (Delayed) September
26ŽThe world has already learned that It. General Walton
Walker's Eighth Anny, so long confined to the Pusan perimeter, has linked up with U. General Ned Almond's
X United States Corps, following the brilliant amphibious invasion at Inchon.
But it wasn't an army that made the link-up, just south of a Korean town called Osan fifty-odd miles south of
Seoul, it was soldiers, and this correspondent was there when it happened.
I was with the 31st Infantry Regiment, moving south from Seoul down a two-lane macadam road, when we first heard the peculiar, familiar sound of American 90 mm tank cannon. We were surprised. There were supposed to be no Americans closer than fifty miles south of our position.
It was possible, our regimental commander believed, that what we were hearing was the firing of captured
American tank cannon. In the early days of this war we lost a lot of equipment to the enemy. It was prudent to assume what the army calls a defensive posture, and we did.
And then some strange-looking vehicles appeared a thousand yards down the road. They were trucks, nearly covered with sandbags. Our men had orders not to fire without orders. They were good soldiers, and they held their fire.
The strange-looking trucks came up the road at a goodly clip, and we realized with horror that they were firing. They were firing at practically anything and everything.
"They're Americans," our colonel said, and ordered that an American flag be taken to our front lines and waved.
Now there were tanks visible behind the trucksŽM46
"Patton" tanks. That should have put everyone's mind at rest, but on our right flank, one excited soldier let fly at the trucks and tanks coming up the road with a rocket launcher. He missed. Moments later, there came the crack of a high-velocity 90 mm tank cannon. He was a better shot than the man who had fired the rocket launcher.
There was a soldier in front of our lines now, holding the American flag high above his head, waving it frantically back and forth. Our colonel's radio operator was frantically repeating the "Hold Fire! Hold Fire!" order into his microphone.
His message got through, for there was no more fire from our lines and no more from the column approaching us.
The first vehicles to pass through our lines were Dodge three-quarter-ton trucks. These mounted two.50 caliber machine guns, one where it's supposed to be, on a pedestal between the seats, and a second on an improvised mount in the truck bed. They were, for all practical purposes, rolling machine-gun nests.
Next came three M46 tanks, the lead tank flying a pennant on which was lettered Task Force Lowell. The name "Ilse" had been painted on the side of its turret.
There was a dirty young man in "lIre's" turret. He skidded his tank into a right turn and stopped. He stayed in the turret until the rest of his column had passed through the lines.
It was quite a column. There were more M46s and some M24 light tanks, fuel trucks, self-propelled 105 mm howitzers, and regular army trucks. We could tell that the dirty young man in the turret was an officer because some of the tank commanders and some of the truck drivers saluted him as they rolled past. Most of them didn't salute, however. Most of them gave the dirty young man a thumbs-up gesture, and many of them smiled, and called out, "Atta Boy, Duke!"
When the trucks passed us, we could see that "the
Duke" had brought his wounded, and yes, his dead, with him. When those trucks passed, "the Duke" saluted.
When the last vehicle had passed, the dirty young man hoisted himself out of his turret, reached down and pulled a Garand from somewhere inside, and climbed down off the tank named "Ilse."
He had two days' growth of beard and nine days' road filth on him. He searched out our colonel and walked to him. When he got close, we could see a major's gold leaf on his fatigue jacket collar.
He saluted, a casual, almost insolent wave of his right hand in the vicinity of his eyes, not the snappy parade ground salute he'd given as the trucks with the wounded and dead had rolled past him.
"Major Lowell, sir," he said to our colonel. "With elements of the 73rd Heavy Tank."
We'd all heard about Lowell and his task force, how they had been ranging between the lines, raising h
avoc with the retreating North Korean army for nine days. I think we all expected someone older, someone more grizzled and battered than the dirty young man who stood before us.
W E B Griffin - BoW 03 - The Majors Page 40