Command Decision (19 page)

“I… I had thought of that but…”

“You won’t have to tomorrow. Let’s go. I’ll get some benzedrine and meet you in the Ops room.”

Dennis felt the impact of metal in his palm and tried to speak but no sound followed Martin.

Chapter 11

Elmer Brockhurst had thought that in the course of the war he had attended enough staff, command, and press presentations to inure his stomach to anything he might hear. But on the bright Sunday morning of the second Schweinhafen mission he sat in General Dennis’s office, listening to the presentation General Kane was staging for the visiting Congressmen with a feeling of degradation that occasionally bordered upon nausea.

For this ceremony the office had been transformed into a miniature theater. Brockhurst himself, the three Congressmen, Prescott, Garnett, and Dennis were the audience, seated in a little semicircle facing Kane, who lectured them, using for illustration a series of wallboard-mounted exhibits which Evans held up in turn upon the map table.

Through the open windows came the intermittent droning of the motors in the repair hangars but it was only a feeble, fitful chorus. The parking stands were bare again. The faint whine from the stratosphere was a solitary ice-cream sortie, timed to brighten the impending lunch party.

“…and now, gentlemen,” Kane continued blandly, “because Naval Objectives are such a vital part of our overall strategy I have had Major Prescott prepare for you a special presentation on ‘The Doom of an Axis Torpedo Factory.’”

Prescott stepped briskly to the center of the stage, took the pointer from Kane, and raised a folder in his hand so that the audience could plainly see the over-sized TOP SECRET lettering upon the cover. Kane seated himself and accepted a cigarette from Congressman Malcolm. Prescott waited through the lighting of it before beginning solemnly.

“I am compelled by duty, gentlemen, to remind you that the contents of this Directive, which General Kane has authorized me to read you, are… TOP SECRET.”

He paused with the insinuating hesitancy of a strip teaser fingering the first buttons. Brockhurst saw the Congressmen stir and quicken in their seats. He noticed also a faint, rippling readjustment of the jaw muscles which had locked Dennis’s face into the bleak, expressionless mask he knew so well.

It was only, Brockhurst knew, in the details of its staged prevarication that this particular presentation differed from others he had heard. As far as he knew the Presentation was one of the many military novelties of this war. The device had had a reasonable origin. The theory had been, in the beginning, that these functions informed the commander.

Since no man could keep the details of ever-changing global warfare in his head no man tried to. They were kept in the heads and files of batteries of staff officers. These men read the news, the signals from other commands, the discoveries of Intelligence, the reports from lower echelons, and even the public prints. These, in continuous process, they digested, compared, and collated, changing colored pins on maps and lines on graphs with indefatigable intent to simplify. Then at the appointed time daily the great man, of whatever command, seated himself and absorbed this predigested knowledge as painlessly as possible from the voices, maps, charts, diagrams, statistics, and, finally, the opinions of his underlings.

From its humble beginning the institution of the War Room Presentation had grown. The drama inherent in the daily ceremony could not resist improving upon itself. War rooms became the showcases of Command, the artful illustrations of alibi.

Presentations were coached until they became full-fledged daily theatricals to which commanders led important guests with serene confidence of the desired impression. For as information became drama its reporters kept pace with tacit understanding that the actor’s first duty is to please. From the brutality of the ancient tradition that the bearer of bad news is beheaded, the War Room Presentation had advanced so far that bad news simply was not borne.

And over it all the dark, dramatic mantle of military secrecy spread its protective folds.

“…we knew, gentlemen,” Major Prescott continued, “that this one factory was manufacturing sixty-one point three per cent of the delicate timing mechanism for warheads…”

Had anyone been looking, Brockhurst’s expression might have seemed cynical.

“…and so, gentlemen”—Major Prescott dropped his voice an octave and the Congressmen obediently leaned forward—“we attacked. On this panel you see the pictures of the factory
before
…”

Brockhurst watched Evans shift the panels without expression and wondered what the Sergeant was thinking. Evans was thinking of his conversation with the warrant officer, a leathery old cavalry man, who had delivered the thirty-odd chunks of wallboard in a special truck from General Kane’s headquarters that morning before dawn.

“No war room?” asked the warrant officer. “What the hell does General Dennis do?”

“Plans missions,” said Evans. “Ever heard of them?”

Together they had remodeled Dennis’s office for the purpose. Major Prescott had appeared presently, sleepless but fresh with excitement. It had been his idea to dispense with the expert scene shifters in favor of Evans. He had pointed out to Kane that a certain mechanical crudeness would probably be even more effective than their usual polished performance.

Prescott and the warrant officer had coached Evans to their satisfaction before Prescott retired to study his lines. Evans had decided that he could afford some of the combat crews’ fresh eggs in exchange for further confidences. Under their influence the warrant officer had thawed for commiseration.

“Better hit the latrine first,” he concluded.

“It’s as bad as that?”

“Prescott won’t bother you unless you got a weak stummick,” said the warrant officer, “but that Kane he could put his mouth to a horse’s ass and blow the bridle off its head.”

2

Dennis became aware that Major Prescott had finished. He judged it was five minutes since he had looked at his wrist watch and decided it was absurd to stick to his resolution not to look at it again for ten. The glance showed him it had been two and a half.

By now Ted was well beyond fighter cover but yesterday they had had thirty-four minutes before the shooting began. Even allowing that they had not picked up the expected tail wind east of Paris… He shook his head and made a new resolution to concentrate on Kane, who was about to resume the major part of the presentation. The signal would come when it came. Nothing he might think now would alter it.

As Prescott resumed his seat the glowing glances of the Congressmen showed Dennis why Kane kept him for an aide. He could see that even Garnett was impressed with what the Major had made out of yesterday’s mission. With an inner chuckle he wondered suddenly how long Kane would be able to keep Prescott. Garnett was just the man to arrange wider horizons for an aide who could snatch triumph out of disaster as fluently as Prescott. Then his chuckle sobered on the reflection that Garnett himself might not now be returning to wider horizons.

“Finally, gentlemen,” said Kane, “we come to the health of our personnel. If there is one thing a commander must be vigilant about it is the physical and moral welfare of his troops. We never forget that the nation has given us these boys in trust. Graph, Sergeant.”

Evans held up another chunk of wallboard, criss-crossed with multi-colored graph lines.

“I have issued a directive throughout our command,” continued Kane, “that the orders of doctors are final authority. Sometimes it has ironic results. One of our officers knew he was overdue for the dentist recently but like most men he tried to put it off. However, when the inspecting lieutenant said: ‘Sir, I must remind you of the Commanding General’s directive…’ Well, gentlemen, I went to the dentist.”

He grimaced ruefully and waited. There was a second of hesitation before Prescott cued with a laugh which enabled the Congressmen to get the point. Brockhurst watched the trio from America react. Field and Stone smiled dutifully now but the whole room resounded to the booming tumult of Malcolm’s belated laughter.

“Good God! Ain’t that rich? …Majuh Gennel bein’ sent to the dentis’ by a damn
loo
tenan’… I declah! You ain’t fixin’ to do us like that, are you, Gennel?”

Something in the riotous volatility of that laughter reminded Brockhurst of Huey Long. Malcolm looked plumper on the surface but there was power in that heavy figure, and shrewdness in the little eyes. Malcolm had invaded this drab little island in the full protective coloration of his native jungle. He wore a lavender shirt with matching tie, a diamond stickpin, and bright yellow shoes. The white felt hat now rested halfway back on his bald skull in acknowledgment of his presence indoors. In these somber surroundings he looked like a prosperous clown. His native state was strewn with the political corpses of men who had thought him one.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Malcolm,” said Kane, “my Directive gives me no jurisdiction over the health of the Congress.”

He let Malcolm laugh again before sobering briskly to work.

“This, gentlemen, is our command’s overall health record compared with twenty years’ peacetime averages for the whole army.”

His pointer traced the rise and fall of the curves rapidly.

“You will note that in almost every instance our curves of incidence are substantially below normal. This is respiratory complaint, this curve digestive, this one neurosis, a point of particular pride for our rest house and morale program. The American boy, gentlemen, is a very healthy young animal.”

He paused with the patient innocence of art concealing its art, and Brockhurst watched Mr. Field reach naively for the bait.

“What’s that red curve that sticks up so high, General?”

“The history of war, gentlemen, has always shown a remarkable affinity between Mars and Venus. I have observed that the American boy is a healthy animal and that condition produces its own paradox. The red curve is our rate of venereal disease.”

“Mahs an’ Venus!” roared Malcolm. “Good God ain’t that rich! Looks to me like one thing heahabout ain’t rationed noway.”

“Well, of course, gentlemen”—Kane feigned an exaggerated gravity—“that’s the one argument that could be produced for our switching to
military
bombardment at night.” He let them smile over this and then continued briskly again. “You can see that our curve is going back down to normal now.”

Obligingly, Mr. Field reached again. “What put it up for that period, may I ask, General?”

“A factor over which a simple soldier has no control, sir—springtime.”

This time it was Mr. Stone who broke the silence that followed Malcolm’s laughter again. Stone, Brockhurst had noticed, was the most attentive of the three, a bleak, graying man of fifty whose taciturnity had prepared Brockhurst for his New England twang. It sounded rueful now.

“Well, happens so in our paaat of the world, too.”

Kane beat Malcolm to it this time with a booming laugh of his own. Dennis’s watch now showed him that there were six minutes more he would never have to live again.

“That, gentlemen,” said Kane, “is a little résumé of this command’s part in the big effort. I am at your service.”

Malcolm bounced from his seat as if sprung. Then, with the floor won, he hesitated, head down, hands deep in his pockets, round face grave with solemnity now.

“Gennel, we are deeply grateful. I think I can speak foh my colleagues an’ foh ouah country in thankin’ you fum the bottom of ouah heahts. It ain’t a easy matteh to express the things a man feels to come oveh heah onto foreign soil an’ find the American flag flyin’ an’ undeh it a fiel’ commandeh who is woythy, not only of the great nation that sent him heah, but of the American boys he comman’s. When we get back to ouah own post of duty in the Congress of the people in Washin’ton, an’ I can see ouah civilian leadehs theah, most of whom I am fohtunate enough to count among my closes’ frien’s, I can promise you theah goin’ to know fum my own lips how fohtunate this country is in some of its gennels.”

Kane did not bat an eye.

“Thank you, Mr. Malcolm. You will do the country a great service if you can make the people at home realize that the full credit belongs to our boys. I have always thought of command as a trusteeship, bestowed by the people who send us these boys, upon us who have to take them and train them and guide them and protect them until we finally face the awful decision of sending them into battle.

“War gives commanders little time for religious thought, gentlemen, but in our darkest hours I find comfort in the teachings of our chapel at West Point. Often at night I think back on the parable of the talents. There must have been moments of terrible discouragement for those servants who were trying to serve their Master as best they could with what was given them.

“There is a great lesson for all of us in their fidelity, but I think the greater lesson is to be found in the humility those experiences teach us about the wisdom of the Master who knew what he was doing when he tested his subordinates. Sometimes I have had to pray that our shortages and inadequacies here are only a test through which the Greater Wisdom is measuring our faith and confidence in the people we serve….”

He let his voice trail off into a subdued silence, wondering, as always, whether he had overdone it. Ordinarily he would not have worked so hard on any delegation below the Senate level. Prescott had said that the touch of the parable put this effort into the Cabinet caliber. But this was not an ordinary situation.

The accident of Malcolm’s relation to Jenks had delivered this trio into Kane’s hands before even the Hemisphere Commander had a chance to harden their ears. It was not an opportunity to miss.

Of Malcolm, Kane was serenely confident. The Jenks affair was a sword of many blades, as Dennis had taught him. Stone was a cold fish; he had the look of a man who remembered his regional folklore of wooden nutmegs. Kane was still worrying about him when the innocuous-looking Mr. Field cut through the echoes of his sermon with a pointed question.