The Majors Page 5

  A blond, her hair was parted in the middle and drawn tight against her skull. She wore the legionnaire’s jungle fatigues. Thirty, Greer judged. Maybe not that old. A woman would turn old quick here.

  “I will bathe your leech bites,” she said, in English.

  “Je parle français, Mademoiselle,” Greer said.

  She asked him how he came to speak French, and he told her that he had been with a carnival, and there had been some French acrobats. She asked him what he had done with the carnival, and he lied and told her his father had owned it.

  And all the time, she dabbed at the leech bites and the insect bites on his backside with cotton-soaked alcohol, pulling the sheet off him when it was necessary to work below his waist. He smelled the alcohol, of course, but it was overwhelmed by the smell of her perfume.

  By the time she had worked her way down to his calves and ankles, he had a prize-winning erection.

  “Roll over,” she said.

  “That would be very embarrassing for both of us, just now,” Greer said.

  She laughed, and handed him a towel.

  He told himself that he was embarrassed, and that it would go down naturally under the circumstances, which were, after all, nurse-patient, rather than romantic.

  She found a bite they hadn’t noticed before under his armpit, and worked on that, and then she worked her way down his body. The hard-on did not go down. She worked around it, down his legs. She rebandaged the sutured shrapnel wound.

  “You still have it hard,” she said, level voiced.

  He blushed. She chuckled, deep in her throat.

  “It is nothing to embarrass,” she said.

  Her hand was on his stomach, an inch or so above the tent his erection was making of the towel.

  “There are thirty-nine women here,” she said. “French women. Five of them are married, three to officers and two to sergeants. That means thirty-four women for several thousand of mens.”

  “Those are pretty good odds,” he said.

  “We have enough with the Viet Minh without fighting among ourselves over men,” she said. “And we are not whores.”

  He had no idea what she was leading up to.

  “I only once in a while wish a man,” she said. “But if I were to have to do with a man here, it would cause difficulty.”

  He nodded.

  “You understand?” she asked.

  He met her eyes.

  She slid her hand under the towel, held him, chuckled appreciatively. She picked the towel off him with the other hand, and hung it over the rail at the foot of the bed.

  “No move,” she said, and let go of him, and got out of her Foreign Legion fatigue pants, and climbed onto the bed and straddled him and guided him into her.

  He had never had anybody do that to him before, and he never forgot it.

  The plane that came to get them out the next day crashed on landing, and then there was fog the day after that, and no plane; so it was the third day before they ran out to a gooney bird in the midst of an artillery barrage, got in it, and were soaked with the clammy sweat of fear until it got down the runway and into the air out of range of the Viet Minh’s heavy .50s.

  (Five)

  The Embassy of the United States of America

  Taipei, Formosa

  25 March 1954

  Lt. General E. Z. Black returned from dinner with the ambassador as soon as he could without giving offense. He had declined the offer of the VIP guest house and had been assigned quarters in the main Embassy building instead.

  When the marine guard saluted him, even though he was in civilian clothing, Black asked him if he had happened to see Sergeant Greer.

  “Yes, sir,” the guard said. “He’s in the attaché’s office, sir.”

  “What’s he doing there?” Black wondered out loud.

  “Sir,” the guard said, “he told the officer of the day that he was acting under your orders.”

  “Yes, of course,” General Black said. “That’s on the third floor, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” the marine said.

  He had inquired of Greer’s whereabouts out of some vestigial (perhaps parental?) concern that Greer would celebrate his safe return with whiskey and wild, wild women. What he had hoped to learn was that Greer hadn’t left the Embassy, not that he had invoked his name and was up to God alone knows what in the attaché’s office.

  It wasn’t hard to find the attaché’s office. Its door was the only one in the long corridor from which light spilled into the corridor.

  There was a soldier from the Embassy, a technical sergeant in his late thirties, perhaps even his early forties, in the outer office. Greer had installed himself at the secretary’s desk, and was furiously pounding her IBM electric typewriter.

  The Embassy sergeant came to attention the instant he saw General Black. Sergeant Greer glanced up at him, and then resumed his typing, finishing the line or the paragraph or whatever, before finally standing up.

  Greer was in a new khaki uniform. When they thought he was dead, they had packed up his personal gear and his uniforms and sent them home. When MacMillan, Felter, and Greer finally returned from Dien Bien Phu, the three had been wearing French Foreign Legion jungle fatigues. The khakis had probably come from the military attaché’s supply room here.

  Greer’s sleeves now held chevrons with one more stripe. He has just as many stripes, General Black thought, as the sergeant who has been sent to keep an eye on him, a man twice his age. Greer was also wearing a set of French parachutist’s wings, and pinned to the epaulets of his khaki shirt was the regimental badge of the 3ième Régiment Parachutiste de la Légion Étranger. He could probably get away with wearing the jump wings, General Black thought, but the Foreign Legion regimental crest had to go. But now, he decided, was not the time to tell him so.

  “You about finished, Greer?” General Black asked, when Greer had finally found time to come to attention.

  “Another half a page, General,” Greer said. He picked up a stack of paper from the secretary’s IN basket and handed them to General Black. Then he sat down, put a sheet of paper in the typewriter, and resumed his furious typing. He was finished, tearing the page from the typewriter with a reckless flourish, before General Black had read what Greer had given him.

  “This would have waited until morning,” General Black said, as he read. It was his final report on the Hanoi Conference. He corrected himself. Not exactly. His nineteen-year-old technical sergeant, fresh from vanquishing the enemy on the field of battle, had taken it upon himself to “improve” the draft Col. Carson Newburgh had written, and which he had just about decided to transmit.

  I should jump all over his ass, Black thought, but the truth was that the boy had cleaned it up, removed what could have been ambiguities.

  “I had planned to be hung over in the morning, General,” Greer said. He had had his tie pulled down. He was now standing in front of a mirror, adjusting it in place.

  Devotion to duty, General Black thought, wryly, may be defined as correcting your general’s sloppy English before you go out and get drunk.

  “Do you know what ‘hoist on your own petard’ means, Greer?”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  General Black turned to the Embassy sergeant. “Can you get Colonel Newburgh on the horn for me?” he asked.

  “Carson,” he said when Newburgh came on the line, “Greer has made certain improvements to our document. Do you feel up to having a look at them now?”

  Sergeant Wallace, the court reporter, was summoned, and the sergeant from the Embassy dismissed. It took more than an hour to make still further changes, until Colonel Carson W. Newburgh announced: “That ought to do it. We can sit around here from now on, just moving commas around. It looks good to me, E. Z.”

  “All right, Sergeant,” General Black said. “Please retype it and have it encrypted and sent off. URGENT, I think. I don’t think PRIORITY will hack it.”

  “It doesn’t have to be retype
d,” Sergeant Greer said. Black glowered at him. “We’re going to burn the goddamned original anyway,” Greer said.

  “Encrypt it the way it is, Sergeant Wallace,” General Black said.

  “We don’t have a title for it, sir,” Sergeant Wallace Black said.

  “‘Report of Lieutenant General E. Z. Black to the Joint Chiefs of Staff,’” Sergeant Greer answered for him. “‘Subject: An Evaluation of the French Military Position in Indo-China, with Emphasis on the French Garrison at Dien Bien Phu.’”

  Black thought a minute, and then nodded his head.

  Sergeant Wallace took the report and went in search of the cryptographer.

  “Your head is so large now, Greer, that I say this reluctantly,” General Black said. “But you did a good job, and I appreciate it.”

  “And may the sergeant say, general, that the sergeant is delighted with the manner the general has chosen to show his appreciation?” He fondly patted his new chevrons.

  “That’s in lieu of a medal,” Black said. “You deserve them.”

  “When I get the medal, do I have to give it back?”

  “What medal?”

  “Croix de guerre,” Greer said. “For preserving that Frenchman’s most important possession. It’ll probably say for valor, or some such bullshit, but that’s what it’ll be for. I thought you knew about it.”

  “The Pentagon won’t let you accept it, Greer,” Carson Newburgh said. “It would be embarrassing politically.”

  “Christ, and I always wanted to be a certified hero,” Greer said.

  “And those Foreign Legion regimental crests have to go, too,” General Black said. “Have them put on a cigarette lighter, or something, but get them off your uniform.”

  Greer started to take them off.

  “What about the wings?” he asked.

  “I think he can keep those, can’t he, Carson? As a qualification badge?” Newburgh nodded. “If anybody asks, say you took the French parachute course.”

  “I did, I did,” Greer laughed. “The quick course.”

  “You know what we mean, Greer,” Colonel Newburgh said.

  “I’m sorry about the Croix de guerre, Greer,” General Black said. “The French pass out medals like samples, but they’re generally pretty choosy about the Croix de guerre.”

  “They also parade magnificently,” Newburgh said, sarcastically.

  “I thought about that,” Greer said. “Maybe we’re too quick to make fun of them. They need that bullshit. We don’t.”

  “I don’t follow you, Greer,” Colonel Newburgh said.

  “We haven’t lost a war, yet,” Greer replied. “They have.”

  Black looked at him intently. The same thought had occurred to him during the four days of the conference. It was not the sort of observation you expected from a sergeant. A nineteen-year-old sergeant.

  “Now what, Greer?” Black said.

  “Sir?”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Well, sir, the sergeant hoped that the general could see his way clear to placing the sergeant on, say, five days’ TDY right here in Taipei. To tidy up loose ends, so to speak.”

  “That would obviously explain those gorgeous wings you’re wearing,” Colonel Newburgh said.

  “I am solemnly informed they work wonders with the ladies.”

  “You can have the TDY,” General Black said. “But that’s not what I was asking.”

  “I wanted to talk about that, too,” Greer said. “But I didn’t think this was the time or place.”

  “You want to stay in? You want to go to West Point?”

  “Yes, sir, I want to stay in,” Sergeant Greer said. “No, sir, I don’t want to go to West Point.”

  “Why not?” General Black asked, somewhat sharply.

  “Being a plebe would be a hell of a comedown after I’ve been a hero of the French Foreign Legion,” Greer said, laughing.

  Col. Carson Newburgh laughed. “Is that it? You think you’re too good to be a plebe?”

  “I don’t think I’d last very long, Colonel,” Greer said.

  “How about Norwich?” Black asked. “I think I can get you a scholarship.”

  “Or A&M,” Newburgh said. “I have some influence there.” He was, in fact, a trustee and former president of the Alumni Association.

  “How about a direct commission?” Greer asked. “As a first john?”

  Newburgh looked at Black, who took a long moment to collect his thoughts before replying.

  “If you had come to work for me as a lieutenant, Greer, I would write an efficiency report on you that would, unless you really fucked up, get your career on the right tracks.”

  “But?” Greer replied.

  “You didn’t. You’re an enlisted man.”

  “I get your point,” Colonel Newburgh said.

  “Forgive me, sir,” Greer said, disappointment evident in his voice. “I don’t.”

  “You haven’t had your card punched, Son,” Newburgh said. “You’ve got to play the game by the rules. You shouldn’t even be a tech sergeant.”

  “Sir, I was under the impression I was earning my keep.”

  “Technical sergeants are supposed to be thirty years old,” General Black said. “Lieutenants, at least those who will have responsible careers, are supposed to come out of the Point, or A&M, or Norwich, or the Citadel. I can get you a commission, Greer, and you’d probably get to be a captain before somebody stuck a knife in your back. What we’re talking about here is making you into a responsible senior officer, not somebody who puts in twenty years and retires.”

  “I couldn’t put up with that West Point bullshit,” Greer said.

  “No,” Black said, “I don’t think you could, either. But you’re going to have to get a college degree somehow, Greer. Or you might as well get out.”

  “Which brings us back to A&M,” Colonel Newburgh said. “I can arrange a full scholarship, Greer, if it’s a question of money.”

  “Thank you,” Greer said, but from the tone of his voice, both Newburgh and Black knew that it was thanks for the offer, but not an acceptance of it.

  “You tell me what you want,” General Black said. “And you can have it. The commission, too, against my better judgment.”

  “I wipe out correspondence courses,” Greer said. “Getting a degree isn’t going to be a problem.”

  “There’s a hurry-up program at A&M,” Newburgh said. “Get your degree in three years. And a regular commission.”

  “Or, I can go to helicopter school,” Greer said.

  “Helicopter school?” Black asked, surprised. That was the first time that had been mentioned.

  “Which means I get a warrant in six months. Then I go to the University of Chicago, which gives college credit for military experience, including flight school, and take some correspondence courses. Then I apply for a reserve commission, and a competitive tour for a regular commission.”

  “You’d have to take the Series 10 courses,” Newburgh replied. Series 10 courses were correspondence courses offered to enlisted men. If successfully completed, the noncommissioned officer was then eligible to apply for a reserve commission.

  “I already have,” Greer said.

  “How’d you do?”

  “Three decimal nine,” Greer said. Four decimal zero was perfect.

  “Then what’s this warrant officer helicopter pilot business?” Black asked.

  “That’s where the action’s going to be,” Greer said. “And the establishment is going to keep it for themselves. If I was a pilot before I took a commission, I’d be in already. Otherwise, I’m not sure I could get in.”

  “Then what’s this bullshit about wanting me to commission you?”

  “I was hoping I could get both out of you,” Greer admitted. “A commission and flight school.”

  Carson Newburgh laughed.

  “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace,” he said.

  “Mais certainement, mon Colonel,” Ser
geant Greer said.

  “I think you ought to shrink that oversized head of yours, Greer, and I think you’re making a serious, perhaps fatal mistake in not going to either the Point, or A&M, or Norwich. But if the helicopter school is what you want, I’ll see that you get it.”

  The middle-aged general and the teen-aged sergeant looked at each other.

  “Thanks,” Sergeant Greer said. There was more respect, and affection, in the one word than either General Black or Colonel Newburgh had ever before heard from Sergeant Greer.

  “Take off, Greer,” General Black said. “And five days is spelled Eff Eye Vee Eee. Not six, not seven, not even five and a half.”

  “The sergeant assures the general he will report as required, where required, and when required,” Greer said. He saluted crisply, and then he left the room.

  “If that little sonofabitch doesn’t wind up either in the stockade or in the hospital with a terminal case of social disease,” General Black said, “I think he’ll do very well.”

  III

  (One)

  Ozark, Alabama

  26 March 1954

  Thirty minutes out of Atlanta, Southern Airways Flight 117, a Super DC-3, landed at Columbus, Georgia. Six of the twenty-one passengers who had filled the seats got off, and no one got on. Howard Dutton took advantage of the opportunity to take both of his heavy, bulging, worn briefcases from beneath the seats and put them on the empty seat beside him.

  He was a stocky, square-faced man wearing rimless spectacles, a starched white shirt already well wilted, and a suit that seemed a half size too small for his body. He was always uncomfortable when his briefcases were out of his sight, for they, rather than the turn-of-the-century safe in his office, were really his private and confidential files. His wife, who was his secretary, had the combination to the safe in the office. She had orders, which he believed she followed faithfully, never to mess around in his briefcases.

  His briefcases were rarely out of his sight, even at night, when he kept them at the side of his bed in his frame house on Broad Street. They contained his secrets. He now had the biggest, most important secret of his life in the double-strap briefcase.