Command Decision (22 page)

“Evans, is there plenty in the officers’ bar?”

“Not a drop, sir.”

“What?”

“End of the month, sir. Quota’s gone.”

“Nothing?”

“Local beer, sir. I suppose Congressmen would drink it but…”

“How about the Medical Officer?”

“He hasn’t been paid back for the time those Cabinet members were here, sir. He’s still dry.”

“God damn democracy!” said Dennis.

“Sir, there are the combat ration stocks.”

“They’re low, aren’t they?”

“Enough for about six missions left, sir.”

Dennis thought but not for long. “All right. These bastards can go dry for one day. Maybe it’ll kill them.”

“Sir, General Kane ordered…”

“Damn it, Sergeant, I can’t sweat whiskey, can I?”

“Sir, just a little from the combat stocks…”

“Not a drop. Now get the hell out of here….”

“I knew there was a catch in this job,” said Evans.

Dennis watched with speechless stupefaction as the Sergeant, in direct disobedience of his order, walked calmly to the Division Flag Locker, unsnapped the padlock and, reaching inside, pulled out some bottles of excellent bourbon whiskey.

“Sergeant, where on earth…?”

“Present from an admirer, sir. It’s too good for the Congress but if we have to…”

“Look here…” said Dennis. He pulled out his wallet, grateful for an excuse to cover his emotion. “You could get…”

“No, sir.” Evans put the whiskey on the map table and shook his head with finality at the money. Then, a little hesitantly, he spoke again. “I’d like one thing for it, sir.”

“What?”

“To shake your hand.”

Dennis extended a hand with the feeling that this transaction was becoming more improper every minute and a scandalized realization that he did not give a damn.

“What’s this for, Sergeant?”

“For telling that servant of the people what a son of a bitch he is,” said Evans.

“Oh… well, you’d better get some glasses and water.”

But as he reached the door Evans heard the General’s voice again. For the first time in his recollection it was not entirely steady.

“Sergeant, I appreciate this.”

“Well, sir, I’d hate… breaking in a new general.”

Haley, returning from the hole, found Dennis staring at the whiskey on the map table with a warmth in his face the Colonel had never seen.

“Well?”

“Not a blip, sir. The Krauts are wise today. I’m afraid Ted’s getting the whole dose.”

“Nothing from him yet, of course?”

“He’s not due for eleven minutes, sir. General Kane is showing his visitors around downstairs. I have some figures.”

They were deep in arithmetic at the board when Garnett hurried into the office.

“Casey, the Old Man says for God’s sake…”

“Just a minute, Cliff. Hurry up, Haley.”

“…and twenty-six of yesterday’s battle damage….”

Watching the concentration with which Dennis agonized over every detail, Garnett wondered now how he could ever have envied him. Kane’s original choice between them had bitterly disappointed Garnett. At the time it had been the best air command in the war for a brigadier and the whole service knew it.

Duty with the United Chiefs, however, had brought Garnett compensations. There had been time to study and analyze the whole war. He had lived with invaluable foreknowledge of what was going to happen. Now, with momentous B-29 commands on the near horizon, Garnett could bless the decision that had fixed Dennis so firmly here and left himself in a position of unique advantage.

The specter of German jets, overhanging the already precarious position of this command, accentuated Garnett’s gratitude for his personal detachment from it. He understood the gravity of the threat and he admired the courage of Dennis’s response to it. But Garnett had seen enough of the highest echelons to know that they required more than courage from subordinate commanders. In the military world as elsewhere men sought and cherished subordinates whose successes seemed to reflect the brighter gleams of a favorable fortune.

Success with the countermeasure of Stitch would be an invisible success, won at gruesome cost. Failure would discredit American Air Power in this theater, dislocate the timetable, possibly reverse Global Strategy. For there was powerful opinion that the B-29s, under the right command, could be decisive in the Pacific.

“…so we should be able to count on a margin of thirty-eight.”

“Thanks,” said Dennis. “Send Davis with the noon map.”

As Haley scuttled out Dennis apologized to Garnett.

“Sorry, Cliff. I had to get a reading on tomorrow before that traveling circus gets back in here. What’s up?”

“The Old Man wants you to be more careful with the visiting Elks. Between ourselves, he’s scared, Casey.”

“Yeah.” Garnett thought Dennis looked more sad than contemptuous. “A man who’s held altitude records, scared of Congressmen.”

“Confidentially, Casey, he knows he’s pretty close to that third star.”

“I wonder if that’s where it sets in?” Dennis smiled. “Let me know, will you?”

“You’ll be likelier to let
me
know, with your record now.”

“Don’t kid me,” said Dennis. “Haven’t you got one of those B-29 jobs sewed up?”

Garnett managed a deprecatory laugh: “I thought so till I suddenly got shunted over here without explanation. Of course it’s only an observation tour but some of that Washington competition is pretty rough. You’re well out of it, Casey.”

This time he could see that Dennis was trying to cover a smile. It served him right. There was no use beating around the bush with a man who knew this business as well as he did.

“Listen, old man, did Ted speak to you about this?”

“No.”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt my chances a bit if the Chief knew he’d like to be my chief of staff out there.”

“Did you talk to him about it?”

“Casey, it isn’t proselytizing when a guy’s your own brother-in-law. It isn’t your fault, but we both know you’ll never be able to give him more than Eagles in this job.”

“What can you give him?”

“One star immediately. And the Pacific looks like a long war.”

“Did he know this last night?”

“Yes.”

Garnett watched tautly while Dennis looked first at his watch and then intently at the map.

“I wish I had.”

“I realise it was… unorthodox of me to speak to him first, but you know yourself you have to handle Ted with kid gloves.”

Dennis appeared to be thinking this over for so long that Garnett was on the verge of elaborating when the reply came.

“Cliff, just don’t try to handle him. He does that fine.”

“You mean… it’s all right… I can have him?”

“For that job? Of course.”

“And you’ll… persuade him?”

“Yes.”

“Casey, if you knew what this means to me…”

“Save it, Cliff. I’m not doing it for you.”

Garnett gulped and recovered fast. There was no rancor in the reply but Dennis had withdrawn into his shell.

“You don’t understand. I’m thanking you for Ted, old man.”

“I’m not doing it for him entirely. Those B-29’s need Ted.”

“Don’t worry, Casey, we’ll make ’em sing. After the example you fellows have given us over here…”

Haley and Davis returned with the weather map and at first sight of them Dennis forgot everything else. He had spread the map on the table and was already scrutinizing it before he spoke again.

“Well…?”

“The mass is denser but that’s slowing it up, sir. It’s eighty-four miles behind expected drift now.”

“How much longer will that give us?”

“The Continent will be cavu all day, sir. But at present drift this will start closing the bases in by fifteen hundred.”

“How would that fit, Haley?”

“Lacks about twenty minutes, sir.”

Dennis nodded and walked a slow circle around the room, deep in thought. Garnett glanced at the map.

“Can’t you just start them that much earlier?”

Dennis did not answer. Haley coughed apologetically.

“It would mean forming in the dark… with that gas and bomb load. We have observed that sometimes early collisions have a demoralizing effect upon a whole mission, sir.”

Dennis came back to the table, still oblivious of Garnett.

“But even by sixteen hundred they could clearly see where the island is from, say, fifteen thousand?”

“Yes, sir,” said Davis. “It’ll stack up over the island like froth on a beer till it cools enough to move on. That’s the trouble.”

“Bring me the fourteen hundred map as soon as it’s done and anything special as it comes. Haley, wait a minute.”

Dennis waited until the door closed on Davis.

“Have every spare parachute in the Division repacked this afternoon. Tonight repack enough from the Groups till you can fill out with fresh packs tomorrow.”

Garnett saw Haley stiffen with the impact of the order but his discipline did not fail him. He replied with a steady “Yes, sir,” and left the room at once.

“Casey, what are you thinking of?”

“Paratroops do it.”

“But the planes…”

“They’re expendable, Cliff.”

“A whole division for one target?”

“All they’re made for is to hit the right targets.”

“But have you thought what they’ll say in Washington?”

“I’m thinking what they’ll say in Berlin. They count on weather like this.”

2

Brockhurst, entering just then, could not be sure whether he saw or only wished to see that Garnett was staring at Dennis with an awed respect. He decided that it was imagination. It was the essence of the whole ghastly tragedy that none of the little men whom the accidents of rank had placed around Dennis ever would understand him. In all fairness Brockhurst had to acknowledge that only yesterday he himself had thought Dennis a blundering butcher.

“General Garnett, General Kane asked me to ask you if you would come down to the hole at once.”

He watched Garnett spring for the door with the instinctive, unthinking obedience that was at once the strength and the ruin of the service. Dennis put on the formality with which he always shielded himself from strangers.

“Did General Kane want me?”

“No,” said Brockhurst, “nor me either. That’s the point.”

He had hoped to invite curiosity and through it a moment of intimacy for personal amends, but the next remark showed him what he should have known; Dennis did not rise to civilian innuendoes.

“Did he tell you to loaf in here?”

“General, I owe you a personal apology.”

“These are my working hours, Mr. Brockhurst.”

“You see, General Kane has double-crossed me….”

“Please take your grievance against my boss to him.”

“But that’s not what’s important. He’s double-crossing you.”

“You’re speaking of my superior, Mr. Brockhurst.”

“He’s ordering a recall signal on your mission.”

This did shake that stony impassivity. Dennis glanced at his watch and then at the map, but his lips remained locked.

“I know it’s too late to save losses,” said Brockhurst. “They’re probably fighting now. But it puts Kane on record. What happens now is your rap.”

“And my business,” said Dennis evenly.

“It’s the country’s business, if the country could know. He’s sacrificing the whole operation, taking the losses without getting the result… just from fear.”

“Commanders have to fear losses, Mr. Brockhurst.”

Momentarily Dennis had become more responsive than the correspondent had ever known him. But the armor of his uniform still seemed impenetrable.

“He isn’t afraid of losses and you know it. He isn’t afraid of Germany or Washington or even these goddamned Congressmen. There’s only one thing in the world Kane is afraid of now and that’s you.”

“Me?” At least the surprise was genuine.

“You. Because you’re doing what’s right and Kane has lived long enough to know that someone always pays a hell of a price for that.”

“The boys are paying that, Mr. Brockhurst.”

“Not all of it. Kane’s got you framed like a picture.”

Dennis spoke patiently, as if to a troublesome child.

“You don’t understand the army.”

“It’s only people in uniform. I understand people.”

“No, it isn’t. People only shout for soldiers after they’ve blundered themselves into danger they can’t cope with as people. Then they accept the uniform….”

“Nuts. Even military decisions have to be made on the opinions of men. When you know yours are right…”

“It’s your duty to persuade your superior as forcibly as you can, after that it’s your duty to execute his decision.”

“Even when you know he’s shirking the decision?”

“You don’t know it. He may be acting on information you don’t have. This whole bombardment program may be only a diversion or holding attack in the higher strategy. I’m paid to serve General Kane; others are paid to judge him.”

“You have faith they’re better at the top?”

“We keep chaplains for questions of faith, Mr. Brockhurst.”

“You keep everything; you’ve got it all taped, haven’t you? Your own chaplains, judge advocates, food, pay, promotion, decoration and unlimited free coffins… you’ve made a separate world out of it with everything a man…”

“Everything but freedom”—Dennis smiled wryly now—“but I’ve read, in your press, that we’re fighting for that.”

“And your personal part in this…”

“Is very simple. Life without freedom is. I am responsible for making this command inflict maximum injury on the enemy, within orders.”

“And when the orders are deliberately ambiguous?”

“Your superior may be receiving the same kind.”

Brockhurst nodded wearily. “Okay, General, you get a hundred on the rules. But don’t ask me to think you believe in them against everything in reason…”

“That’s what war is, Mr. Brockhurst. If we win, reason may get another chance.”

The teleprinter in the next room burst into frenzied clattering now and its first accents claimed Dennis with instant reversion to the harsh reality of the mission. Brockhurst watched him disappear through the door.

Brockhurst realized, as he knew Dennis had, that Kane’s recall signal to the mission marked a turning point. Up to then the senior commander had, at least negatively, countenanced Dennis’s course of action. Now he had made mechanical preparation for an adroit jettison. It was plain premeditated dissociation from the risk he had permitted Dennis to take.