Command Decision (14 page)

“Maybe it is, until the B-29’s come along.”

“They’re still a dream, maybe a nightmare. Cliff always follows the beaten tracks, at a safe distance.”

Dennis smiled. “Ted, you’re imagining things.”

Martin jumped up and thumped the Swastika on the wall.

“I’m not imagining that. These things are going to be more fun than adultery, for the guys who have them. I admit I’d hate to see Cliff get your job but I’d hate it worse to see Galland get these before we get our new fighters.”

“So would I,” said Dennis. He was not smiling now.

“Well, he will if you tell Kane about today
now
. But if he thinks we’re two-thirds done we can probably brace his spine enough to let us finish Fendelhorst tomorrow.”

“And after that?”

“
After that
we discover today’s mistake. He’ll be in so deep by then he’ll have to finish to justify himself. Those pictures will keep him happy for twenty-four hours more. My God, Casey, they’re fooling the experts down in the hole and Kane doesn’t know a strike photo from a Wassermann. Why do you have to tell him tonight?”

“Why did you tell me?”

“I could trust you.”

Dennis considered before speaking slowly: “He trusts us, Ted.”

Martin exploded into blasphemy and then checked it. He knew that all the profanity at his command would not dent the rocky scruple in Dennis. He had to use reason, and he had to do it fast, while there was time. He was wondering how much time he had when General Kane himself walked through the door.

Toward Kane Martin felt only the essential contempt he cherished for all things military. He had long since recognized that the caste system was more than a relic of the monarchical principle to which armies clung to wistfully. It was vital armor against reason or competition. Toward Kane’s rank Martin felt no more respect than toward any other, including his own.

As a young man Martin had revered Kane’s flying record. As a maturing pilot he had realized that Kane’s private compass had always been set for the kind of stars men wear. He observed now that Kane was traveling with a characteristic retinue. Besides his distinguished visitor he had brought one aide and one newspaperman. Martin accepted the introductions quietly in his turn, offered an indifferent hand to his brother-in-law, and nodded absently to Garnett’s compliments on the mission and his eager insistence upon a good private talk later on.

His mind was on Dennis. He listened to Kane’s explanations that the party had extended its visiting to the headquarters of General Endicott’s neighboring division and had felt obliged to stop there for dinner. Dennis appeared to him to have shed both fatigue and tension. He looked as calm and self-possessed as if they were about to settle to cards. So did Kane.

“There are some messages for you, sir,” Dennis was saying.

“Anything from Washington?”

“No, sir.”

“They can wait.”

The bell had rung but even Martin was unprepared for the immediacy of Dennis’s opening.

“Sir, may I speak with you briefly, alone?”

“Of course, Casey. But first I want Cliff to tell you…”

“Sir, may I have one minute alone with you?”

Kane was not used to being interrupted. He spoke shortly.

“All night, when you’ve heard what I want you to hear. Cliff, will you tell Casey what we decided?”

It was Garnett, rather than Dennis, who now showed embarrassment over this superficial discourtesy of Kane’s, but an order was an order. After a hesitant glance at Brockhurst and Prescott, who had drawn a little away from the faint turbulence now making itself felt in the room, he plunged in.

“Casey, I felt it was impossible for you people to be doing anything so serious without informing higher authority.”

“That’s why I filed a report and recommendations.”

Martin locked his face muscles against the involuntary grin. He had seen Kane quicken with the impact of the remark. He knew it was no inadvertence that had caused Dennis to make it. The next job probably wouldn’t be as good as this one but Casey would be the same guy in it instead of a different man clinging to this one. For the first time he felt a twinge of pity for Garnett’s evident unease. But as Kane chose to default the retort by silence, Garnett had to continue.

“Well, Casey, they never reached us. So General Kane and I have been talking to Washington by teleprint conversation from Joe Endicott’s. We felt we owed it to the Chief to put him in the position of being able to defend what we… what’s being done here, if he approves it. Brockie here was good enough to write the whole thing out for us so as to put it in the most forceful and favorable light. I think if you’ll read it…”

He nodded to Brockhurst, who stepped forward now and offered Dennis a roll of teletype paper. Dennis had heard the news with a sense of lifting relief that the information had at last reached levels of authority commensurate with its importance. Garnett’s action had put the thing in its proper position, bringing the essence of the army’s strength, which was its unity, to bear upon it.

“I’ve read enough of Brockhurst’s lily gilding. What did the Chief say?”

“Unfortunately he’s in Florida, at the proving grounds.”

“Testing a new typewriter?”

“General!” said Kane. “I can’t tolerate such remarks. The Chief’s public relations policy has put us where we are today.”

“It sure has,” said Dennis.

Garnett intervened hastily. “We had a very constructive talk with Lester Blackmer, Casey. You know how close Les and the Chief are.”

“I know,” said Dennis. “What did Lester Yessir say?”

“Well, he couldn’t speak officially but he’s sure the Chief will be 100 per cent behind us in principle.”

Evans, entering with a trayful of sandwiches just then, blessed the luck that had brought him back at this minute. The room was crackling with tension. Kane’s face was now a dull brick red. Dennis had his jaw locked on a dead cigar but Evans could tell from the exaggerated levelness of his voice that he was angry.

“These gentlemen have eaten, Sergeant.”

“Do they know you haven’t, sir?”

Kane saved Evans the rebuke he had fully expected by turning quickly to Dennis with courteous solicitude.

“I’m sorry, Casey. Put those things on the table, Sergeant. We’ll be going soon.”

“That’s fine, sir,” said Evans blandly. Moving to the map table he cocked his ears and began unloading as slowly as he dared.

“Les warned us, Casey,” continued Garnett, “that the Chief may be very upset about our… your losses. He said he’d help us by working up a big feature story on claims.”

“Did you get those added up, General?” asked Kane.

“Multiplied, sir,” Dennis pointed dryly to the gaudy claim chart and Kane hurried to it for a personal inspection.

“Les will also stress the importance of these targets when he can reach the Chief and…” they all felt Garnett hesitate… “he’s going to try to sell the Chief on letting us finish
after the allocation meeting
.”

Dennis walked straight over to Kane, who kept his eyes on the chart.

“Sir, did you let that little two-star stooge forbid our mission for tomorrow?”

The phrasing of the question deflected Kane’s mind from its manifest insubordination. It was all very well for Dennis to dismiss Blackmer so contemptuously. Kane knew that no major general got that close to the Chief for the purpose of dulling his knives on brigadiers. Blackmer was his own contemporary. Kane had had a bad moment on learning who would steer the report on this situation to the Chief. He answered testily, as much to his own worries as to Dennis’s open anger.

“Of course not. If there’s one thing the Chief prides himself on it’s not letting his own people interfere with his commanders’ freedom of action in the field.”

Dennis caught himself quickly. “That’s fine, sir. Now the groups are waiting for the order and…”

“Not so fast, Casey. Les indicated to us, unofficially, that it would be a great thing to put the Chief in a position to announce a new monthly record for sorties and tonnages just before that meeting on Tuesday.”

“We can’t take record tonnages that far, sir.”

“I’m afraid that’s the point,” said Garnett. “Les virtually promised us if we’d take things easy for the last two days of this month he thought everything would be all right with the Chief after Tuesday.”

“Including weather, I suppose… in Washington.”

“Casey, you’ll get weather again,” said Garnett soothingly.

“When?” demanded Dennis. “I’ve waited five weeks for this. Twice we had one day; this job takes three. If we ever do get them again the big wheels will be after us for headlines over those subpens or tearing up the French perfume trade to discourage the Italians or covering some State Department four flush in the Balkans—any other damned thing on the planet except the one thing that will decide whether American bombardment can stay in business at all.”

Martin was finding it hard work to cover his excitement. He did not see how even Kane could have let the argument go on so far if his mind were made up. If it were not there was a chance, almost too elusive for measurement, but present still in the wavering course of this discussion. It lay in Kane himself, in the irresolution which was still permitting Garnett to carry the preliminary skirmish for him while he studied it and calculated. Garnett seemed to be sensing his superior’s uncertainty; he continued persuasively.

“Casey, we know you’ve had distractions. Nobody can take all the politics out of war. But you don’t need three days again. As Lester said, the saving grace of the situation is that you’re two-thirds done….”

He broke off with annoyance, looking toward the door, and Martin, following his gaze, saw with dismay that Lieutenant Jake Goldberg had burst wildly into the room, his arms laden with maps and photos and target folders.

2

Goldberg had crashed through the door with the velocity of flight. He was fleeing from himself. For on the way upstairs from the laboratory in the hole he had paused briefly to think for the first time since his eyes had seen the target folder in his hands superimpose, line for line, over the photos on the light table and his feet had started instantly for the General’s office.

His brief pause en route he now saw as the darkest of moral compromises. It had occurred to him that there was some comfort in what he had learned. At least the thing wasn’t a hospital.

Goldberg was a boy who understood the cost of the advantages that had been given him. His mother and father kept a delicatessen just off Santa Monica Boulevard. From their cash till Goldberg had been sent through all of high school and two years of college. His brain had been as immediately and happily at home with trig and calculus as the others around him were with jockies’ records and dance tunes. Goldberg’s parents had seen for the boy a chance beyond their own horizons.

War changed the chance; he was graduated number one in a class of six hundred bombardiers to become an officer in the Army of the United States. He had learned. He had been ready, equipped, and useful when his country wanted him.

Then, in one day, he had not only mistaken a target which was important enough to take the Division beyond fighters, he had found himself on the verge of trying to ameliorate his failure in the eyes of General Dennis and Colonel Martin by misrepresenting, with considered words, the importance of what he had hit.

This afternoon, as soon as the photos had come in, General Dennis had come down to the light table instead of sending for them. Before looking at them he had cleared his throat and said: “Goldberg, Colonel Martin has told me this is not your fault. He still thinks you’re the best bombardier in the army and he’s the best judge I know. Now find out what you did hit and bring it to me at once.”

***

The officers in the conference looked up at his intrusion with astonishment. They saw an unshaven lieutenant, face still grimy from powder smoke, eyes red from strain and tears. His proximity to acute hysteria was apparent in everything but the inflexible steadiness of purpose with which he now thrust his maps and photos straight at General Dennis, oblivious of everyone else in the room.

“I’ve found the damned thing, sir,” he said.

Only then did he look around to see a Major General, another Brigadier, and two strangers gaping at his appearance.

“Excuse me, sir… You said…”

“That’s right,” said Dennis quickly. “General Kane, this is today’s lead bombardier, Lieutenant Goldberg.”

Kane had had time to study the boy’s condition. He stepped forward now and extended his hand with benign paternalism.

“Good evening, Lieutenant. That was a wonderful mission you boys ran today. I couldn’t wait to see the pictures myself but I’ve been talking to a member of the Big Chief’s personal staff and he says the Chief will be very proud of you.”

Goldberg accepted the handshake absently. His mind was still on the folders in his other hand. To his astonishment it was Colonel Martin who grabbed him by the arm and started him toward the door, speaking quickly to Kane.

“Very sorry you were interrupted, sir. This can wait.”

He was propelling Goldberg forcibly toward the door when General Kane himself saw the pictures and, reaching out, took them out of the Lieutenant’s hand. At the first glance his face began to beam.

“Look, Cliff, look. These are wonderful…. You see… here’s the highway coming in, here’s the river, here’s the factory…”

Free from Martin, Goldberg stepped over to the General now, his mind clear again and focused entirely on the pictures.

“You’ve got them upside down, General,” he said.

Major Prescott wondered for an instant whether he should put this unspeakable Lieutenant in his place. But keeping his mouth shut, Prescott walked over to join his senior’s admiration of the photographs. It was Dennis who spoke now, sharply, but not to Goldberg.

“General Kane, may I have a minute alone with you?”

This time Kane did show his irritation openly.

“I’ve told you, General, you can have all night, as soon as we’re done. Look, Cliff! Look at that blast here on the smoke fringe.” He stopped, cogitated, and then spoke with decision. “These will have to go to the Chief at once by special plane.”