The Berets Read online

  He waited impatiently and with growing concern for several minutes until the Angry Nine finally spoke: “Mother Hen, Mother Hen, this is Chick Leader. Over.”

  “Go ahead, Chick Leader, this is Mother Hen,” Ellis said to the handset.

  “Chick Team on the ground, intact, at 0418 hours.”

  “Roger Chick Leader, try to stay out of jail. Mother Hen out.”

  He turned off the Angry Nine, bent the antenna under its fasteners, and put it in the back of the Jaguar.

  If there was an emergency from now on, if some member of the team was injured, or if someone went to jail—arrest by diligent and curious civilian law-enforcement authorities was entirely possible—each member of the team had a telephone number to call at Bragg. Ellis, meanwhile, would furnish the training coordinator at Bragg with a number where he could be reached. If there was trouble, Bragg would call that number, and he would do whatever had to be done.

  With that exception, there would be no further communication between him and the team until their little exercise was over. Which meant that he would have all day, all night, all day tomorrow, and all of tomorrow night more or less to himself.

  “You want another little taste of this?” the Host asked as he climbed into the Jaguar.

  “If I had another little taste of that,” Ellis said, “you would have to get back to your house by yourself.”

  The Host chuckled and took a healthy swallow.

  When they got to the farmhouse, the Host’s wife was putting breakfast on the table. Ellis ate everything put in front of him: pancakes, sausage, eggs, and a large slice of ham swimming in salty gravy. He washed all this down with tomato juice and three cups of coffee.

  “If you don’t have anything to do until they finish running around in the boonies,” the Host said, “you’re welcome to stick around here.”

  “I’ve got to go into Durham,” Ellis said. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Then you’re welcome to come back anytime, on duty or off,” the Host said. “It’s been real nice having you here, Lieutenant.”

  “That’s nice of you,” Ellis said. He reached in his pocket and came out with a small box wrapped in white paper.

  “Colonel Hanrahan asked me to give you this, Mr. Ford,” Ellis said, and handed it to him.

  “I told you, my name is Les,” the Host said. He tore open the paper and opened the box. “Well, I’ll be damned”—he beamed—“ain’t that something!”

  The box contained a Zippo lighter. It was engraved on one side with glider/parachutist’s wings (a representation of a glider superimposed on standard parachutist’s wings) and the legend Lester H. Ford, T/Sgt., 325th Glider Infantry 1942–45, and on the other with the Special Forces insignia (two arrows crossing a vertical commando knife, and the legend De Oppresso Liber) and the words From His Friends in Special Forces, 1961.

  The lighter had cost $1.25, and the engraving another three dollars. Lester Ellis held it in his hands like the Koh-i-noor diamond.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said again, and handed it to his wife.

  “That’s real nice,” she said. “And you put it someplace where you won’t lose it.”

  She handed it to one of her sons.

  “And Colonel Hanrahan said to be sure to tell you that whenever you can find the time to come to Bragg, he’d like to show you what we’ve got there.”

  “I just might do that,” Lester Ford said. “By God, I will do it, first chance I get.”

  His third son handed the Zippo back to him. There was a thumb smudge on the shiny chrome. He polished it away with a paper napkin.

  “You thank your colonel for me,” he said. “And tell him anytime I can help, just say how.”

  “We appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Ford.”

  “Les, damn it! Anytime. What the hell, once a paratrooper, always a paratrooper. And it’s no trouble having them use this place as a drop zone. Hell, I like to watch ’em jump.”

  (Three)

  Office of the Professor of Military Science

  Department of Military Science

  Duke University

  Durham, North Carolina

  0825 Hours, 11 December 1961

  The professor of military science was listed in the Duke catalog as Colonel G. F. Wells, Artillery, B.S., USMA; M.S., Cal Tech; Ph.D., University of California. He was a large florid-faced man who wore his hair closely cropped. His tunic bore ribbons signifying World War II service in Europe as well as service in Korea, and the insignia indicating two or more years of service on the army general staff was pinned to his tunic pocket.

  He was annoyed when he looked up from his desk and saw the young man in the tweed sport coat, open-collared white shirt, and gray flannel slacks standing at his open door. It meant that his secretary, again, had not shown up for work on time, and it meant that he was going to have to counsel another young man about how it was in his own interests to remain in the Reserve Officer Training Corps program. He was sure that’s what the young man wanted. Everybody in the program was supposed to be in uniform at the gym, and this young buck was in civilian clothes. And you couldn’t drop out of ROTC unless you had an “interview” with the PMS&T.

  Colonel Wells was tempted to run the little bastard off until tomorrow, when he wouldn’t be as busy as he was now; but he knew that was not the way to deal with young men who wished to drop out of the ROTC program because it interfered with their social life.

  He fixed a smile on his face.

  “Come on in, son,” he said. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How come you’re not in uniform?” Colonel Wells asked as he offered his hand and waved the young man into the chair beside his desk.

  “I thought it would be better if I wore civvies, sir,” the young man said. “I’d be less conspicuous.”

  What the hell kind of an answer is that?

  “We don’t often have a chance for training like this,” Colonel Wells said. “I sort of like to see everybody participate.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, sir,” the young man said. “I hope we can make it worth your effort.”

  Colonel Wells was baffled by that response too.

  “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name, son.”

  “I’m Lieutenant Ellis, sir,” Ellis said, and when he saw the look of confusion on the colonel’s face, added: “From the Special Warfare School at Bragg, sir?”

  “Jesus, I thought you were one of my ROTC kids,” Colonel Wells thought aloud, and then added: “The reason for my confusion, Lieutenant, is when we set this exercise up with your Colonel MacMillan, he told me that the training officer he was sending was a real fireball who had taken one of your teams into Cuba.”

  Ellis looked uncomfortable.

  “No offense intended, Lieutenant. We’re glad to have you. It’s just that I expected someone a little older.”

  “I took an ‘A’ Team into Cuba, Colonel,” Ellis said.

  Now Colonel Wells looked uncomfortable. He decided to get off the subject.

  “I’ve scheduled a meeting for my officers for half past eight,” he said. “They’re probably waiting for us. It’s right down the hall.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ellis said.

  Some one called “Attention” when Colonel Wells entered the room, and he immediately responded: “Keep your seats.”

  There was a large library table, around which sat half a dozen officers. Two movable corkboards were set up at the front. On one a scale map on the Duke campus was thumbtacked, and a map of the surrounding area on another. Little flags were stuck at various points on both maps.

  “Gentlemen,” Colonel Wells said, “this is Lieutenant Ellis of the Special Warfare School. He is wearing civilian clothing to avoid calling attention to himself.”

  Ellis had the feeling that none of the officers in the room was very impressed with him. He didn’t think much of them, either, he realized.

  “Lieutenant, would you give us your game plan?” C
olonel Wells said, and sat down.

  Ellis went to the map of the surrounding area and looked for a pointer. When he couldn’t find one, he used his finger.

  “At 0415 an ‘A’ Team was dropped here,” he said. “The team consists of a captain, a lieutenant, three master sergeants, one sergeant first class; two staff sergeants, and one buck sergeant. They have their small arms, a combat load of blanks for the small arms, one mortar, one machine gun, one rocket launcher—with blank and/or inert ammo for them—three days’ rations, three Angry Nine radios, six hundred pounds of simulated Composition Two explosive in one-pound blocks, two detonating devices, and one hundred inert fuses. They were searched before they left Bragg, and they have neither identification nor money. Their mission is to come here and blow up your water tower, your power generating plant, these two bridges, and this building. Your mission, as I understand it, is to stop them.”

  “Lieutenant, did you say six hundred pounds of phony C-2?” a major asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s seventy-five pounds a man, plus their other gear,” the major said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How the hell can they carry that much weight?”

  “It’s not going to be easy, sir,” Ellis said.

  “They’re going to look very strange standing by the side of the road, trying to hitch a ride,” another officer said, and the others laughed.

  “I don’t think they’ll try to do that, sir,” Ellis said. “Colonel MacMillan has come to an unofficial arrangement with the North Carolina Highway Patrol. They will report spotting the team.”

  “What’s in it for the highway patrol?” someone asked.

  “A bottle of whiskey for each confirmed spotting. The way that rule works, when the problem is later critiqued, half of the men spotted will be presumed killed if they are spotted. And whatever they might have done after having been spotted will be played with that in mind.”

  “What about the sherriff’s deputies?” someone asked.

  “That’s between the highway patrol and the deputies,” Ellis said.

  “What are the rules of engagement between our people and yours?”

  “If we attack, because of the element of surprise, we have a four-to-one advantage. In other words, if two of my people attack eight of yours, yours are dead. If we attack with the machine gun or the mortar, we have a ten-to-one advantage. With both, a fifteen-to-one advantage.”

  “And the rocket launcher?”

  “There are six rounds for the rocket launcher. One hit with a round on the water tower will take it out; two hits are required for a bridge abutment. There’s paint, in lieu of explosive, in the nose of the rocket.”

  “You’re going to shoot paint at the water tower? The university’s going to love that.”

  “I understand that Colonel Wells and Colonel MacMillan have agreed that we’ll clean up the mess if you kill us, and that you’ll clean it up if we succeed,” Ellis said.

  “We could just surround the objectives,” an officer said. “Hell, I’ve got 160 cadets.”

  “However you do it is up to you, sir,” Ellis said.

  “Where are your people now?”

  “All I know, sir, is that they dropped on Mr. Ford’s farm at 0415. They could be anywhere,” Ellis said. He looked at Colonel Wells. “That’s all I have, sir.”

  “There’s just one thing I have,” Colonel Wells said. “To put our cadets in the right frame of mind to play this game seriously, before you send them out to protect the campus, I want you to make sure they all understand what happens to them if they are killed or captured. I have made arrangements with the Athletic Department to borrow the stadium for the rest of the weekend. Casualties will be taken to the stadium, where they will spend the rest of the weekend in pup tents and be fed with ten-in-one rations. Signs will be posted around the campus, inviting the curious to come look at the prisoners.”

  There was laughter at that.

  “And remind them that the losers get to scrape off the paint too,” Colonel Wells said. “That will be all, gentlemen. Get out there and save Duke from Lieutenant Ellis’s barbaric hordes.”

  (Four)

  Post Stockade

  Fort Jackson, South Carolina

  0830 Hours, 11 December 1961

  The shoulder insignia of the Military District of Washington was worn by officers and men assigned to the Pentagon and to other army units in and near the District of Columbia. It shows two swords crossed over the Washington Monument. Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell—and a large number of other officers and enlisted men—privately thought of it as the insignia of the “Chairborne Brigade.” There were two swords, because the Chairborne Brigade required duplicate copies of everything, and they were unsheathed because the Quartermaster Corps had sent the sheaths to Alaska; the Washington Monument was pictured because without an unmistakable pictograph, the warriors of the Chairborne Brigade would not only be ignorant of what they were doing, they would otherwise not know where they were doing it.

  After a satisfactory period of service in Washington on the General Staff of the Army, field-grade officers are awarded the General Staff Corps Badge, a gold and enamel device worn on the right breast pocket of the tunic. Lieutenant Colonel Craig L. Lowell was known to believe the award had been created to give a medal to warriors who otherwise would not get one. One qualified for it by serving two years in the Pentagon without becoming hopelessly lost in the corridors more than twice; by not contracting a social disease; and by having one’s name spelled correctly in the Department of Defense telephone directory. Considering the Pentagon, these were notable achievements.

  On his relief from assignment to the Pentagon, however, then Major Craig W. Lowell had “neglected” to remove the MDW shoulder insignia from one of his uniform tunics. He had likewise not added the General Staff Corps Badge to his informal (in a stainless-steel soap container from a long-discarded shaving set) collection of odd insignia he had once worn, but had left it pinned to the tunic with the MDW shoulder insignia.

  Officers wearing such insignia could generally prowl the corridors of the Pentagon without interference. No one paid much attention to majors or lieutenant colonels in the Pentagon anyway, and one so bedecked simply vanished in the horde.

  He had been wearing the tunic with the MDW patch and the GSC Badge in his present TDY assignment: doing the hurry-up revisions of aircraft requirements for Bob Bellmon—and ultimately for the Secretary of Defense. More attention is paid in the Pentagon to somebody with the badge and the MDW patch (the guy has been here two years and possibly knows his way around) than to an officer wearing the insignia of the Army Aviation Center (the guy’s on TDY; before I do what he wants me to do, he’ll have gone home; so why bother?).

  Before he got in the Hertz Ford and rode out to Fort Jackson, Lowell put on the tunic with the MDW patch and the GSC Badge in the motel in Columbia. He was very much aware that many people in the army—those who have never been to the Pentagon—regard officers assigned to the Pentagon as the military equivalent of divine messenger. When they are not out prowling the boonies, they stand at the right hand of God, otherwise known as the Chief of Staff.

  From their reactions when he walked into the administrative office of the Fort Jackson stockade, Lowell decided that neither the captain, the lieutenant, nor the sergeant first class had had much experience with light birds of the General Staff Corps.

  The administrative office, in a frame building with exposed studs, was divided by a counter. There was a sign on the door outside that read Knock, Remove Headgear and Wait for Permission to Enter. NO EXCEPTIONS. Lowell pushed open the door and walked in. There was a VISITORS REGISTER HERE sign thumbtacked to the counter with a loose-leaf notebook not far from it.

  He walked to the counter and placed on it his attaché case and cap with the scrambled eggs on the brim. Ignoring the GI ball-point pen on a chain, he took a pen from his pocket and signed the register: Lt. Col. C. W. Lowell, DCSOPS.<
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  That wasn’t exactly the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It was true, however, that he was on TDY to Bob Bellmon. Brigadier General Bellmon was Director of Army Aviation, Officer of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. That was close enough.

  The sergeant first class walked over to him, smiling.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said.

  Nice guy, Lowell decided. I won’t jump on his ass, the way I’d planned to.

  “Good morning, Sergeant,” Lowell said, and smiled at him.

  The lieutenant was something else. He was a cadaverous, no longer young first john wearing an MP’s leather regalia, a leather Sam Brown belt, and an MP brassard. He was looking at Lowell with frank curiosity, having diverted his attention from the crossword puzzle in the newspaper.

  “Lieutenant, haven’t you been taught to rise when a senior officer enters the room?” Lowell inquired nastily.

  The lieutenant popped to attention. The captain also rose, not quite as rapidly, and walked to the counter.

  “How may I help you, Colonel?”

  “That would depend on who you are and what you do,” Lowell said.

  “Sir,” the MP captain said, finally getting the message, “Captain Foster, Deputy Confinement Officer, Post Stockade, sir.”

  He saluted. After a moment Lowell returned it.

  “You may stand at ease, Captain,” he said.

  “How may I help the colonel, sir?” Captain Foster asked.

  “You have a private soldier named Craig in here. I wish first to see his file, and then I wish to interview him. Have you a suitable place, something private, with a table and a couple of chairs?”

  The captain, Lowell saw, was desperately trying to read what he had written in the visitor’s register. With that in mind, Lowell had printed DCSOPS in large, clear letters.

  “Sir, the files are not kept here,” Captain Foster said.