The Majors Page 18

  That was not, as MacMillan put it, getting a “YH-40 to play around with.”

  But Bellmon didn’t correct him. He knew he hadn’t heard the end of the battle with Colonel Bill Roberts. He felt very much alone, alone in a way neither MacMillan or Greer could understand. Right now, they were the only two people he could really count on. It would have made no sense to hurt Mac’s feelings by correcting him.

  VIII

  (One)

  The Officer’s Open Mess

  Camp Rucker, Alabama

  22 August 1955

  “Mrs. Hyde? I’m Barbara Bellmon,” the woman said, walking briskly over to Rhonda with a smile on her face, and her hand extended. “I’m so glad you could come.”

  “It was very nice of you to ask me,” Rhonda Wilson Hyde, Administrative Officer (Probationary) of the USA Aviation Combat Developments Agency said to the wife of the Director of the USAACDA.

  “I thought we should get to know one another,” Barbara Bellmon said. She led Rhonda into the barroom of the officer’s open mess and waved her into a chair at a table. A GI waiter was immediately at their side.

  “What can I get you, Miz Bellmon?” he asked.

  “Oh, I think I’ll have one of your wave-the-vermouth-cork-over-the-neck-of-the-gin-bottle martinis,” Mrs. Bellmon said.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” the waiter said. He looked at Rhonda.

  “The same for me, please,” Rhonda said.

  She liked this. Respectable married women in Dale and Houston counties did not go by themselves to a bar and order martini cocktails at lunchtime.

  “I always like a martini before lunch,” Barbara Bellmon said. “But I feel wicked if I do it at home.”

  “I know what you mean, Mrs. Bellmon,” Rhonda said.

  “Oh, call me ‘Barbara,’ please,” Mrs. Bellmon said.

  “And you call me ‘Rhonda,’” Rhonda said, pleased with that too.

  “We should have had lunch sooner,” Barbara Bellmon said. “But I was out of town.”

  “Oh?”

  “A wedding,” Barbara Bellmon said. “Scotty Laird’s sister’s boy married my cousin Ted’s daughter. That’s pretty involved, I guess, isn’t it? If you’re an army brat, as I am, you simply presume that everybody knows who you mean.”

  “‘Scotty’ Laird? Is that the general who’s coming here?”

  “Yes,” Barbara Bellmon said. “We grew up together, as the kids did. Army brats seem to wind up married to each other.”

  “That sounds very nice,” Rhonda said. She found it interesting that Mrs. Bellmon was a friend of the incoming post commander. She had certainly started off in the right circles.

  The waiter delivered the martinis.

  “Here’s to you and your new job,” Barbara Bellmon said, raising her glass.

  “Why, thank you,” Rhonda said, and took a sip of the really icy, really dry martini.

  “Do you like your job?” Barbara Bellmon asked.

  “I’m just learning it,” Rhonda confessed. “But I’m fascinated. I’ve been on the long distance telephone more in the last two weeks than I’ve ever been in my life.”

  “I’m sure it’s quite a change from what you’re used to,” Barbara Bellmon said. There was something in her tone that Rhonda didn’t like, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Yes, it is,” she said smiling.

  “You’ll quickly learn that the army is a small world of its own,” Barbara Bellmon said. “Everybody knows everybody else.”

  “Your husband,” Rhonda said, and then corrected herself, “Colonel Bellmon and Major MacMillan are old friends, I know that.”

  “They met in a POW camp,” Barbara Bellmon said. “During World War II.”

  “That must have been tough on you,” Rhonda said, sympathetically.

  “We have a friend,” Barbara Bellmon said, “Major Craig Lowell. I think you’d like him. Well, as proof of my small army world theory: the commandant of the stalag, which is what they call a POW camp, was a Colonel von Greiffenberg. He and my father had been classmates at the French cavalry school at Samur together.”

  “Was your father a soldier?” Rhonda asked.

  “My maiden name was Waterford,” Barbara Bellmon said.

  It took Rhonda a second or two to pick up on that.

  “General Waterford? The one with the tanks?”

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Bellmon said.

  “Well, my God, I’m impressed,” Rhonda said.

  “You shouldn’t be,” Barbara Bellmon said. “His friends called him ‘Porky.’”

  “You know, you just can’t imagine anybody calling a general ‘Porky.’”

  “Only other generals called him that,” Barbara Bellmon said. Rhonda wondered why she was getting this whole business, why Barbara Bellmon was trying to impress her with her army connections. Then she realized that if she had been the daughter of a famous tank general, a friend of Eisenhower and Patton and people like that, she’d want people to know, too.

  “I’m really impressed,” Rhonda said, truthfully.

  “Well, I’m telling you what a small world it is,” Barbara Bellmon went on. “After the war, my father met a young soldier who really impressed him, and he arranged for him to be commissioned.”

  That was the truth, Barbara Bellmon realized as she spoke, but it was not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. What had impressed her father about Private Craig W. Lowell was that he was a three-goal polo player.

  “Can generals do that? I mean, make officers out of soldiers?”

  Barbara Bellmon signaled the waiter for a second martini.

  “Generals can do practically anything they want to do,” Barbara Bellmon said. “That’s why everybody wants to be a general.” They laughed together.

  “I was telling you about Craig Lowell,” Barbara said. “Well, he married a German girl—” now that I admit I am stretching the truth, she thought, the distortions come so easily!—“and that’s something that young officers just don’t do. Like making a pass at their commanding officer’s daughter. Or wife.”

  “I understand,” Rhonda said.

  “And who do you think the girl turned out to be?”

  “I really can’t guess,” Rhonda replied.

  “The daughter of Colonel, now Generalmajor, von Greiffenberg,” Barbara Bellmon said. “They named their son after the general, who was then in a Russian POW camp. He wasn’t released until 1950.”

  “But then everybody lived happily ever after? What a charming story!”

  “Not really,” Barbara Bellmon said. “When Craig was in Korea, the girl was killed in an automobile accident.”

  “Oh, how terrible!”

  “Yes, it was. And what made it worse was that the man who killed her was also an army officer. A quartermaster major. He was cashiered, of course, but that didn’t bring Craig’s wife back.”

  “What happened to the baby?”

  “He’s being raised by his mother’s family,” Barbara Bellmon said.

  “You really are just one big family then, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Barbara Bellmon said, and then to the waiter: “Oh, that was quick!” The waiter set fresh martinis before them.

  “I’m go glad you told me all of this,” Rhonda said. “It helps me to understand so much!”

  “There’s one other thing you should understand,” Barbara Bellmon said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Army wives don’t like to share their husbands,” Barbara Bellmon said.

  For a moment, Rhonda wasn’t sure that she had heard right.

  “I’m sure,” she said, “that I don’t know what you mean.” She tried to sound as indignant as she could. While it was true that she thought that Colonel Bellmon was quite a man, and to be absolutely truthful about it, she had wondered what it would be like with him, that had been fantasy. She was not about to get involved with her boss. Especially since he had shown absolutely no interest in her.

  “You know exa
ctly what I mean,” Barbara Bellmon said.

  “I don’t know…”

  “You’re not Bob’s type,” Barbara Bellmon said. “But on the other hand, if any man has it waved in his face often enough, he’s going to take a sniff.”

  “I just don’t know…” Rhonda protested.

  “Mac MacMillan,” Barbara Bellmon said, “is something else. He’s not quite as bad as Craig Lowell, but he has been known to stray. When that happens, Roxy MacMillan is very unhappy. And when Roxy MacMillan, who is one of my very best friends, is unhappy, I’m unhappy. And if I’m unhappy, I can make things very unpleasant for you, Rhonda.”

  “You have no right to say these things to me!” Rhonda said.

  “I have the right,” Barbara Bellmon said. “I’m what they call the colonel’s lady. And it’s not all pouring tea, Rhonda. You’d better understand that, too.”

  Rhonda was now speechless.

  “All I’m saying to you is stay away from the married men, officer and enlisted,” Barbara Bellmon said. “If you’re not getting what you need at home, and you can’t find it off the post, stay away from our married men.”

  “I don’t have to sit here and be insulted this way!” Rhonda said.

  “If you want to satisfactorily complete your probationary period, you do,” Barbara Bellmon said. “I’m holding all the aces. When my father taught me to play poker, he told me to go for the jugular.”

  She met Rhonda’s eyes and held them for a moment.

  “Have a go at young Mr. Greer,” she said. “I’d rather have him involved with someone like you than have him get caught by one of the local belles.”

  Without thinking what she was saying, Rhonda said: “Greer is just a kid!”

  “He’s big enough,” Barbara Bellmon said. “And they’re supposed to be better when they’re young. Just keep in mind, though, that Greer’s part of the family. Sort of a little brother.”

  “I don’t quite understand you.”

  “Get Mac to tell you about him sometime. They had quite an escapade in Indo-China together.”

  The waiter appeared.

  “Your table is ready, Miz Bellmon,” he said, handing her the check. Barbara Bellmon signed it.

  “You know, of course, Rhonda,” she said, “that when you complete your probationary period, you’ll be eligible to join the officer’s club.” She met her eyes again. “Shall we have our lunch?” she asked.

  “I’m famished,” Rhonda said.

  “Probably the martinis,” Barbara Bellmon said and led Rhonda into the dining room.

  (Two)

  Augsburg, West Germany

  26 September 1955

  Major Craig W. Lowell spent most of the morning (from 0950 until 1215 hours) of 26 September 1955 in the PX cafeteria at the Hersfeld Kaserne of the 24th Armored Cavalry Regiment, drinking nickle coffee from a china mug and reading The Stars and Stripes and Cavalier and True magazines.

  Major Lowell had flown to Hersfeld a full colonel of the Ordnance Section of Headquarters, Seventh Army, who was uneasy being flown about by junior officers and who had requested Major Lowell as pilot. Once in Hersfeld, however, reasoning that since Lowell was not an ordnance officer and therefore had nothing to contribute to his business with the 24th’s commanding and ordnance officers and was in fact nothing more than a pilot, the ordnance colonel had told Major Lowell to “go catch a cup of coffee somewhere, and I’ll get word to you when I need you.”

  At 1215 hours, Major Lowell was summoned from the PX cafeteria to the officer’s open mess by the ordnance colonel, who at that time had reasoned he had an obligation to see that his pilot was fed. Even if he was an airplane driver, he was a major, a field-grade officer; common military courtesy required that he be invited to eat with them.

  Luncheon at the 24th Armored Cavalry officer’s open mess was a little awkward for Major Lowell. The colonel commanding the 24th Armored Cavalry was there, as was his executive officer, his S-3 plans and training officer, his S-4 supply officer, and the commanding officers of Troops “A,” “C,” and “D.” All of these officers were naturally armor officers, and most of them looked curiously at Major Lowell when the ordnance colonel introduced him as “my pilot.”

  Major Lowell was wearing the cavalry sabers superimposed upon a tank insignia of armor, an Expert Combat Infantry Badge (second award), and his aviator’s wings. In contravention of regulations, he was not wearing any of the ribbons representing any of his many medals.

  Lowell typically ran into two classes of armor officers, those who knew about Task Force Lowell and those who didn’t. Of those who did know about it and knew that he had been its commander, eighty to ninety percent felt that both its reputation and the promotion and decoration of its commander were so much bullshit. These rather rejoiced to see that the army had finally caught up with him and thrown him out of armor on his ass. Those other armored officers (including a rare one here and there who had been in Task Force Lowell), who felt that it was one of the better operations in that fucked-up war in Frozen Chosen and that its commander fully deserved his Distinguished Service Cross and the gold leaf, were even more awkward when encountered. They were embarrassed to see the man who had led forty-four M46 tanks faster and further than anyone else reduced to flying a whirlybird.

  Those two groups together consisted of perhaps ten percent of all armor officers. The other ninety percent had never heard of Task Force Lowell or of Major Craig Lowell. They were cavalrymen, stationed in a fort on the enemy’s border, ready at a moment’s notice to heed the sound of the trumpet and charge off to do battle, and they thought as much of an armor major who arrived driving a helicopter as they would have thought, a hundred years before, of a cavalry major who arrived at Fort Riley driving a mess wagon. Any cavalryman who would do something so degrading wasn’t very much of a cavalryman.

  There were no officers present at luncheon who had served under Major Lowell at the time he led Task Force Lowell, but there were, he was sure, at least two officers who connected him with Task Force Lowell and would thus have something to talk about when he was gone. The commanding officer of the 24th Armored Cavalry was one of them.

  “Didn’t you at one time work for General Paul Jiggs, Major?”

  Brigadier General, then Lieutenant Colonel, Paul Jiggs had been the commanding officer of the 73rd Heavy Tank Battalion, from which Task Force Lowell had been formed.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I thought so,” the colonel said. He did not pursue the subject. He had pegged Lowell for who he was, and whether he had pegged him as a brilliant armor commander or a spectacular fuck-up didn’t matter; Lowell either deserved better than being a fucking chopper jockey or he was a real fuck-up. In either case, his presence was an embarrassment.

  After luncheon, Major Lowell returned to the PX cafeteria and sat there among the off-duty enlisted men and the dependent wives until 1515 hours, when a sergeant came and fetched him. The ordnance colonel now desired to be flown back to Augsburg.

  Lowell told himself that this was just not his lucky day. It would not have been pleasant if the ordnance bird had wanted to RON (Remain Over Night), for that would have meant spending the night in the O Club of the 24th Armored Cavalry. On the other hand, since the ordnance colonel had decided that he did not wish to spend the night on the East German border, this meant Lowell would be back in Augsburg in time for the monthly formal dinner dance, which he would be expected to attend.

  Lowell dreaded unit parties. Because they bored him out of his mind, he generally managed to have himself sent away on a RON flight when they were scheduled. This time, he thought as he parked the Bell H-13 and supervised its refueling, he would not be successful in ducking the formal dinner dance.

  Dress, mess, or Class “A” uniform with black tie was the required uniform for formal dinner-dance affairs. Dress or mess uniform were recommended but not prescribed. Dress and mess uniforms cost a small fortune, and commanders were reluctant to make the junior officers spen
d the money.

  It had occurred to someone at Seventh Army, however, that aviators were paid more money every month than their nonflying peers, and what better way for them to spend that money than on mess and/or dress uniforms? Once they got the flyboys into mess and dress, maybe the others would be shamed into buying the uniforms.

  Major Lowell knew that he was expected to show up in at least a dress uniform. He was a bachelor. Bachelor majors could afford uniforms. He elected to go in mess dress, which was the most elegant and most expensive of the options. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to be a conscientious member of the staff, or whether he was doing it for himself. Perhaps it was just to remind himself—after the scornful looks of the armor officers at Hersfeld—that he had once been a pretty good tank commander himself, despite what he was now doing.

  There are cavalry yellow stripes down the seams of armor officer’s mess dress trousers, and the lapels are cavalry yellow. Each sleeve has golden cord, sewn in an eleborately curved pattern. Second lieutenants get one cord, colonels six. As a major, Lowell got to wear four golden cords. And a golden cummerbund.

  He pinned his three rows of minature medals to the right lapel. Around his neck, on a three-inch-wide purple ribbon, he hung the saucer-sized medal which signified that he had been named to the Order of St. George and St. Andrew by the King of Greece.

  He looked, he thought, like something from a Sigmund Romberg operetta.

  He dined with the chaplains; a Baptist who was visibly uncomfortable in a place where the booze flowed like rivers, and the Roman Catholic, whom Lowell suspected of being a pansy. As soon as he decently could, he left them and went to the bar.

  Though Lt. Colonel Withers had become a teetotal when he had been born again, he still believed in unit parties because they were family affairs. Withers came to him at the bar and, in the belief that he was skillfully killing two birds with one stone, suggested to Major Lowell that he dance with the officers’ ladies.