The Majors Read online

  “These things are a lot tougher than anybody believes,” Lowell said. “And can take much more of a beating. As your properly focused, perfectly exposed movies are going to prove.”

  “Can I wait till I stop shitting my pants?” Sergeant Franklin said. He opened the side of a Paillard Bolex 16 mm motion picture camera, removed the exposed film it contained and reloaded it. Lowell had bought the expensive Swiss-made camera when the issue Eyemo camera had given Sergeant Franklin trouble. “Otherwise, the flick will shake a lot.”

  Lowell patted him on the shoulder.

  “I am sure that you will do your usual splendid work,” he said.

  Franklin responded to the sarcasm in kind. “Yah, suh, boss. I does mah best foah you, boss.”

  Lowell affectionately punched his arm and got out of the helicopter and walked to his Jaguar. He started for the consulate, debating en route whether to report as he was—that is, in a short-sleeved, somewhat sweaty, open-necked tropical shirt and trousers—or to stop by his suite in the Hotel d’Angleterre on the Avenue Foch and change into something more in keeping with the formal atmosphere of the Consulate General. He elected to change uniforms. The military attaché was a starchy old bastard, and all he needed from him was a lousy efficiency report to go with the lousy efficiency report he’d received from Lt. Col. Withers.

  He parked the Jag behind the elegant baroque villa that served as the Consulate building and had himself let in the back door by one of the Marine guards. When he saw that the military attaché had chosen that day to wear a white uniform, he was happy that he had changed into fresh tropical worsted tunic and trousers. He went through the prescribed ritual, “Sir, Major Lowell reporting to the military attaché as ordered,” and standing at attention until given at ease. It seemed a little absurd in the baroque splendor of the villa, but he sensed the colonel expected it.

  “Rest, Lowell,” the colonel said. “Would you like a little something to cut the dust?”

  “I would be profoundly grateful for a vodka tonic, sir.”

  “But you’ll take a little neat scotch, right?”

  “Yes, sir, with equal gratitude.”

  “How did it go?” the attaché asked, taking a bottle of scotch and what looked like Kraft cheese glasses from a drawer of the enormous mahogany desk.

  “They put in a company and a half—a company, plus half the heavy weapons platoon and a signal section—in about five minutes. Against automatic weapons fire I would rate at medium to heavy,” Lowell said.

  “What kind?”

  “German and U.S. light .30s, I think. A couple of Browning .50s.”

  “And they didn’t get their whirlybirds shot down?”

  “They all got in all right,” Lowell said. “Several of them are going to have to be either repaired on site or destroyed. They won’t fly.”

  “And you have all this in your movies, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That really surprises me,” the colonel admitted. “I would have given good odds that a good PFC with a BAR could knock those things out of the sky like a skeet shooter.”

  “I’m really impressed with how tough the H-21s are. For that matter, all of them: I took half a dozen hits in the H-23 and didn’t know it until we landed.”

  “Sergeant Franklin all right?”

  “Yes, sir. Have we got anything on hazardous duty pay for him?”

  “Yeah, they turned it down. And they turned down flight pay, too. It’s not authorized. What I’m going to do is up his housing allowance. The State Department pays for that, and they’re willing to go along. In money terms, he’ll do better than he would with flight and hazardous duty pay. It’s not right; he should get credit for sticking his ass in the line of fire, but it’s the best I can do.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Lowell said. “I appreciate your efforts.”

  “You’re not leaning on him, are you, Lowell? I mean, he really is a volunteer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t like to lean on troops,” the colonel said, and then in the next breath: “What do you intend to do about your efficiency report?”

  “Sir?”

  “I’ve been waiting for your ‘Exception to Rating and Indorsement,’” the colonel said.

  “Colonel,” Lowell said, “I’m guilty as charged.”

  “Bullshit,” the colonel said. “You’re guilty of getting your wick dipped, not of ‘conduct suggesting a lack of the high moral standards required of an officer.’ You’ll never get rid of the gold oak leaf if you let that stay in your record.”

  “Sir, I don’t know what I can do,” Lowell said.

  The colonel took a sheaf of paper and carbons from his desk drawer and threw it on the table.

  OFFICE OF THE MILITARY ATTACHE

  THE CONSULATE GENERAL OF THE UNITED

  STATES

  ALGIERS, ALGERIA

  APO 303, C/O POSTMASTER, NEW YORK, N.Y.

  201-LOWELL, Craig W. Maj 0439067

  21 June 1956

  SUBJECT: Exception to the Efficiency Report of 30

  November 1955 and the Indorsement

  Thereto.

  TO: Secretary of the Army

  Department of the Army

  Washington 25, D.C.

  In the absence of any specific allegations concerning the moral conduct of the undersigned, the undersigned protests the entire tone of subject efficiency report and the indorsement thereto and requests that it be expunged from his record.

  Craig W. Lowell

  Major, Armor

  Assistant Military Attache

  1st Ind

  Office of the Military Attache

  United States Consulate General 23 June 1956

  Algiers, Algeria, France

  TO: The Chief of Staff

  United States Army

  Washington, D.C.

  1. Recommend approval.

  2. In the period subject officer has been assigned to the Office of the Military Attache, U.S. Consulate General, Algiers, Algeria, he has been under the close and personal supervision and observation of the undersigned. Not only has he demonstrated the highest personal standards to be expected of an officer, but has virtually daily risked his life in observing the operations of the French Army against the Algerian insurgents.

  3. That his conduct has reflected credit upon the United States, as well as the United States Army, is made evident by the letter of commendation from the Consulate General (attached as Enclosure I) and by the citation accompanying the award to subject officer of the Legion of Honor, Class of Chevalier, by the Governor General of Algeria in the name of the French Republic. (Translation of citation attached as Enclosure II. The medal and the citation is currently being forwarded, through State Department channels, to the Office of Congressional Liaison, U.S. Department of State, requesting Congressional approval of the Award of a Foreign Decoration to a Serving Officer in Peacetime.)

  4. It is clear to the undersigned, based on his twenty-nine (29) years of commissioned service that this officer has been grievously wronged in a personal vendetta, in all probability based on personal jealousy. Not only has this officer been promoted to his present grade long before his contemporaries, but is obviously destined, in the absence of petty chicanery against him, for much higher grade and responsibility.

  5. The undersigned has been authorized to state that the Consul General concurs in this indorsement.

  Ralph G. Lemes

  Colonel, Infantry

  Military Attache

  The indorsement was already signed.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Lowell said.

  “Just don’t believe any of that heroic diplomat bullshit,” the colonel said. “And for Christ’s sake, keep your pecker in your pocket from now on.”

  “You didn’t have to do this,” Lowell pursued.

  “No,” the colonel said. “I didn’t.”

  It took four months to come back.

  HEADQUARTERS

  DEPAR
TMENT OF THE ARMY

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  26 October 1956

  Major Craig W. Lowell

  Office of the Military Attache

  The United States Consulate General

  Algiers, Algeria, France

  (Via Diplomatic Pouch)

  Dear Major Lowell:

  Reference is made to your letter of 21 June 1956, in reference to your efficiency report and the Indorsement thereof, covering your service while assigned to the Flight Detachment, Headquarters, Seventh United States Army.

  The efficiency report and the Indorsement thereto has been expunged from your service record and the following substituted:

  “While assigned to the Flight Detachment, Headquarters, Seventh United States Army, Major Lowell performed in a wholly satisfactory manner all the duties to which he was assigned.

  “The exigencies of the service having made the rendering of an efficiency report covering this service impossible, it is directed that any personnel actions being based on Major Lowell’s record consider his service while assigned to the Office of the Military Attache, U.S. Consulate General, Algiers, Algeria, as also applying to his service in Seventh Army.”

  The Secretary of the Army believes this to be an equitable resolution of the problem and has asked me to tell you that he extends every good wish for a successful career in the future.

  Sincerely,

  Ellwood P. Doudt

  Major General

  Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army

  Of the two acts, betraying a subordinate officer by screwing his wife, or making the chief of Rotary Wing Special Missions back down from the lethal efficiency report rather than make it public knowledge that Phyllis had dallied in his bed, the latter made Lowell feel more ashamed of himself. That was really conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

  It made him more than a little ashamed of himself, for he was guilty as charged, and he was afraid that he hadn’t seen the last of the chief of Rotary Wing Special Missions. If he was ever assigned under him (or even near him), he would get an efficiency report he couldn’t protest.

  His orders came a month after the letter from the Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army.

  HQ DEPT OF THE ARMY 16 DEC 1956

  MILITARY ATTACHE

  US CONSULATE GENERAL

  ALGIERS, ALGERIA

  MAJOR CRAIG W. LOWELL 0439067 ARMOR RELVD OFC MIL ATTACHE US CONSULATE GEN ALGIERS ALGERIA TRF AND WP VIA MIL OR COMMERCIAL AIR TRAN FT LEAVENWORTH KANS RUAT CG US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE NOT LATER THAN 2400 HRS 6 JAN 1957 PURP ATTENDING USACGSC COURSE NO. 57–1. OFF WILL REPT OFC OF MIL LIAISON, THE PENT WASH DC EN ROUTE NLT 1200 HRS 29 DEC 1956. PCS. OFFICER AUTH TRANS PERSONAL AUTO AND HOUSEHOLD GOODS. NO REPEAT NO DELAY EN ROUTE LEAVE AUTHORIZED BECAUSE OF TIME LIMITATIONS.

  FOR THE ADJUTANT GENERAL:

  STANLEY G. MILLER

  COLONEL, AGC

  It was more than he had dared hope for. The year-long “Long” Course at the Command and General Staff College. If he ever was to get promoted before being “passed over” twice by a promotion board and thrown out of the army, or if he was ever to be given any kind of command or even a responsible job on a staff, he had to have C&GSC. Now that he had been given C&GSC, he realized that he had refused to think about his chances of a meaningful career. He had been living day to day.

  He wondered why C&GSC had come through now. He suspected that it had something to do with his protesting the efficiency report. Maybe they had asked questions about him, unofficially, a telephone call here and there. He decided that that was probably it, and that he had been lucky, that the telephone calls had been directed to people, Paul Jiggs, for example, who would go to bat for him.

  He had no idea what the OFC OF MIL LIAISON he was supposed to report to was. He had never heard of it.

  Colonel Lemes asked what he intended to do with the Jaguar. Impulsively, Lowell offered to sell it to him and quoted a price he later found out was far below the market value. Colonel Lemes snapped it up. Lowell later wondered whether the colonel was just taking advantage of a bargain or whether he considered it a favor, tit for tat, a Jaguar at a bargain basement price in return for a salvaged career.

  (Two)

  Washington, D.C.

  29 Dec 1956

  Lowell flew home via Paris on his first transcontinental jet. He spent the night at Broadlawns in Glen Cove and took the first flight he could catch to Washington the next morning. Just to stick the needle in, he telephoned his cousin Porter Craig and told him that he was going to decide, after discussing his future assignment in Washington, whether or not to stay in the army. Then he thought about that, and afraid that Porter would make another telephone call to the senator, called him back and took him off the hook.

  The OFC OF MIL LIAISON turned out to be a small, three-room suite in the next-to-the-inner of the five rings of Pentagon offices. They were waiting for him and had a shiny staff car ready to take him back across the Potomac into Washington. The car went into the basement garage of a huge, monolithic building, where a squeaky clean young man in civilian clothes ritually offered his hand, identified himself as Captain Somebody, and took him in an elevator into a conference room on the fifth floor for what he said would be a “routine debriefing.”

  The squeaky clean young captain had a looseleaf notebook stuffed with paper. When they were joined by a secretary using a court reporter’s stenotype machine, he opened the notebook and began to ask questions. Lowell was astonished at the amount of information the questions represented. They knew not only the names of most of the French officers with whom he had had contact, but a good deal about them as well.

  Once the questions had been asked and answered, the lights were dimmed and a slide projector introduced. The slides had been made from the miles of film Sergeant Bill Franklin had made of French Army (in particular, the Foreign Legion’s and the parachutists’) actions against the Algerian insurgents. Each slide represented a question the film had left unanswered.

  During the slide show, someone else came into the room, sat against the door, and watched without speaking. When the lights were finally turned back on, Lowell turned and saw the newcomer was Sandy Felter. He was in civilian clothing.

  “Are you through with him, Captain?” Felter asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the captain said. There was something in the captain’s demeanor, something in his tone of voice, that told Lowell he was paying Sandy Felter far more than the ritual courtesy paid by a captain to a major.

  “Then I guess I’ll take him home with me and feed him,” Sandy said, walking over and putting out his hand.

  “I didn’t know you knew the major, sir,” the captain said.

  “Oh, yes,” Felter said. “Major Lowell and I are old friends.”

  In Sandy’s Volkswagen, on the way to the far reaches of Alexandria, Sandy said: “My neighbors don’t know I’m in the army. In case it comes up.”

  “Super Spook, huh?”

  “Nothing like that,” Sandy said. And then changed the subject to ask about P.P.

  Sharon laid out a full dinner; that meant she had known he was coming. That meant that Sandy had known he was coming. What the hell was he doing?

  “Where did you get my film?” he asked. “I sent it to Bill Roberts.”

  “We asked Roberts for it and copied it,” Sandy replied. That asked more questions than it answered.

  There were two kids now, and Sharon was as big as a house with her third. She told him, after hearing about Elizabeth, that he had done the right thing to leave P.P. in Germany with her.

  He spent the night on the Felter’s couch, which unfolded into a bed. In the morning, Sandy drove him by his hotel where he changed into a fresh uniform and then over to the huge building again. Sandy parked the Volkswagen in a reserved spot near the elevator.

  That meant he was important around here, Lowell realized, and then laughed at himself. He was becoming a spook himself, noticing
details and reaching conclusions.

  He wasn’t in the building long. Overnight, what the stenotypist had taken down had been transcribed. He was asked to go over it, and make sure that the transcription and his answers were correct. Afterward, Felter appeared again and apologized for not being able to take him to the airport. He told him that when he got his feet on the ground at Leavenworth, he should plan to come to Washington and spend some time with them.

  And then, almost idly, Felter asked if Lowell had had any thoughts about his replacement in Algiers.

  Lowell was surprised at the question. What was Felter doing involved in officer assignments?

  “I thought they had a school for attaché types,” Lowell said.

  “I don’t want an attaché type,” Felter said. “I want someone like you over there, who won’t regard the assignment as a two-year cocktail party tour. I want somebody who’ll really report on how the French are fighting that war. I suspect we’re going to have one of our own to worry about pretty soon.”

  “You’ve answered your own question, Mouse,” Lowell said. “You need a chopper jockey who’s not afraid to get shot at. One who speaks French. Most important, one that nobody else wants.”

  Felter smiled at him.

  “What business is that of yours, anyway?” Lowell asked.

  “What business do you have, asking me what business I have?” Felter responded with a smile.

  “Screw you, Mouse,” Lowell said, affectionately. Then he hugged Felter and got into a plain (but obviously government-owned) Chevrolet and was driven to Washington National Airport.

  Sandy Felter returned to his office.

  The reason Lowell had done so well with the French was that he was a gutsy combat type who spoke French fluently. Felter knew another gutsy combat type who also flew choppers and spoke French. Who was an honorary member of the 3ième Régiment Parachutiste de la Légion Étranger.

  He didn’t know if the soldier could get a Top Secret clearance, and he was only a warrant officer, which wouldn’t do. But a commission would be easy enough to arrange.

  He called the office of Military Liaison in the Pentagon and told them he wanted the service record of WOJG Edward C. Greer on his desk within the hour.