The Majors Page 8

  “On an ambulance plane,” MacMillan said. “Once you go into Dien Bien Phu, you stay there. Which is why they’re not putting any more women in there. The only way to get out is on an ambulance plane. The gooks use the Red Crosses as aiming points.”

  “You say Colonel Black told Felter the French wanted command of American troops?”

  “That’s what he said,” MacMillan replied. “That’s when he started talking French. He told them that there was absolutely no way the American people would stand still for putting American troops under French command, even if, which he doubted they would, they would stand still for Americans being sent there at all.”

  “And their response?”

  “They would rather have their dicks cut off with dignity than admit that they had to have the Americans bail their ass out again.”

  “So what’s going to happen, Mac?” Bellmon asked.

  “Dien Bien Phu is going to fall,” MacMillan said. “If we sent in a couple of divisions, maybe, just maybe, we could have it. Otherwise, it goes.”

  “What do you mean, ‘it’?”

  “All of it, the whole goddamned colony.”

  Bellmon didn’t say anything for a long time.

  “You want to play golf, Mac?” he said, finally.

  “One more thing,” MacMillan said.

  “What?”

  “Thanks for not running right over to Roxie when the cable came,” MacMillan said.

  “I figured you’d turn up,” Bellmon said. “God takes care of fools and drunks and you qualify on both counts.”

  They locked eyes for a moment.

  “So Lowell got through flight school?” MacMillan said, closing the subject.

  “Not without difficulty, I understand, between us,” Bellmon said. “He is not a natural-born aviator.”

  “The Duke generally hires people to do dirty jobs like that,” MacMillan said. “They sent him to Seventh Army, huh?”

  “Yeah, for a year. Basic utilization tour. Major Lowell will spend the next year being told what to do by lieutenants and captains.”

  “At least they’ll be older than he is,” MacMillan said, and then he walked out of the gazebo and thumbed a tee into the ground.

  IV

  (One)

  Broadlawns

  Glen Cove, Long Island, N.Y.

  12 April 1954

  Only a few of the house’s chimneys, and only if you knew where to look for them, could be seen from any point along the fence which enclosed Broadlawns. The fence, which enclosed 640 acres, more or less (a square mile, as nearly as they bothered to survey in 1768), marched around the property from the low waterline of Long Island Sound, up and down the rocks and boulders and the flat places and the hollows, and was broken only once, at the gate.

  The fence was made of brick pillars, eight feel tall, between which were suspended two iron strips. Every eight inches along the iron strips was a steel pole, pointed at the upper end. The fence and the gate and the gatehouse had been erected as hastily as possible in the early days of the Civil War when one of Broadlawns’s mistresses had been concerned that the draft riots in New York City, fifteen miles away, might spread to the country. She was in the family way at the time and had to be indulged.

  There was one gatepost, to which a bronze sign reading BROADLAWNS was affixed. The other side of the gate was tied to the gatehouse, which was built of granite blocks, and made large enough to house ten or a dozen men and feed them, in case the draft riots did get out of hand, and it was necessary to protect the place in the country, as the family thought of it, with private policemen.

  A policeman lived in the gatehouse now. He had been brought to the gatehouse as a baby, when his father had been in charge of the gate. He had grown up and gone to high school, and to Fordham University for two years; and then he had become a New York state trooper, and had risen to sergeant in twenty-eight years of service. He had retired to the gatehouse, and now his son was a state trooper lieutenant.

  The retired state trooper sergeant had taken over the responsibilities of groundskeeper when the groundskeeper had died. He supervised the men who tended the grounds and the mechanic who kept the lawn mowers and other equipment running, and was responsible for just about everything on the place outside the house. Inside the house was the responsibility of the butler.

  The retired state trooper and his son had been very helpful to the present owner of the house when he had been a young man with access to automobiles easily capable of exceeding the speed limits of the state of New York. There was only one arrest on the records, that for a 105-mile-per-hour chase by seven police cars, the arrest coming only when the car had blown a tire and rolled over. There was a limit to the sergeant’s influence with his peers.

  The house was visible from Long Island Sound, but it was so far back from the water, across broad lawns, that it appeared from the water to be smaller than it was. Even up close, standing in the drive, it wasn’t very imposing. It was only when one was inside that the size and complexity of the house became apparent. It had begun as a farmhouse; and additions had been made to it, the most recent in 1919. There were now seven bedrooms, a library, a morning room, a drawing room, a living room, a bar, a small dining room, a large dining room, and a breakfast room.

  Many people believed that Broadlawns was a private mental hospital, and others thought it belonged to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and was used as a retreat for clergy who had problems with alcohol or were otherwise mentally disturbed.

  Developers, over the years, studying plats of the land, had often thought it would be a very desirable piece of property to turn into really classy, half-acre, maybe even three-quarters of an acre, plots. They had been informed the property was not for sale. The persistent ones, who believed that everything had its price, were advised by their bankers not to make nuisances of themselves. The people who had owned Broadlawns since 1768 did not wish to be disturbed, and since they were deeply involved in the real estate business around New York, they were not the sort of people small-potatoes developers could afford to antagonize.

  Most of the property around Wall Street which was not owned by Trinity Episcopal Church was owned by the people who owned Broadlawns. And they had other property as well.

  Broadlawns’s butler was a West Indian, a tall, light-brown man with sharp facial features and graying hair. He wore a gray cotton jacket over gray striped trousers. When he walked into the bar to announce a call for Major Craig W. Lowell, his pronunciation was Oxford perfect, and somehow a bit funny.

  “I beg your pardon, Major. The firm is on the line. They wish to transfer a call. Is the major at home?”

  Major Craig W. Lowell, who was a little drunk, looked at him in annoyance.

  “Did they say who?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” the butler said.

  “Shit,” Major Lowell said. He was a very large man, who wore his blond hair in a short, barely partable crew cut. He was blue-eyed, although his eyes turned icy sometimes when he was annoyed, as they did now and made him look older than his twenty-six years.

  He unfolded himself from the leather armchair in which he had been slumped, his feet on a matching footstool, a cognac snifter cradled in his hands, and walked to the telephone on the bar. The butler beat him to it, pushed a button on the base of the telephone, and then picked up the handset and held it out to him.

  “Thank you,” Lowell said, and then to the telphone: “This is Major Lowell.”

  “I have a Major Felter on the line, Major,” a voice Lowell recognized to be that of his cousin’s, Porter Craig’s, secretary said. “May I transfer it?”

  “By all means,” Lowell said.

  He heard her say, “One moment, Major Felter, I have Major Lowell for you.”

  “Mouse, you little bastard!” Major Lowell said.

  “I’m at LaGuardia,” Major Felter said. “Where are you?”

  “What the hell are you doing at LaGuardia?”

  “I came
to see you off,” Major Felter said.

  “Hold on, Mouse,” Major Lowell said. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and turned to face the other man in the room, his “stepfather,” Andre Pretier. “Can I use your car?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Mouse, go to the Pan American counter and give them my name,” Lowell said. “Tell them I’m going to meet you.”

  “They have taxicabs,” Major Felter said.

  “Go to the goddamned lounge,” Lowell said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” He hung up before Felter could protest further.

  “The chap they thought had been killed?” Andre Pretier asked.

  “Uh huh,” Lowell said. “He came to see me off.”

  “Will you see that we can take care of the major’s guest?” Andre Pretier said to the butler.

  The butler dipped his head, and walked silently out of the room.

  “You want some more of this, Andre?” Lowell asked, holding up the bottle of cognac. Andre Pretier shook his head, “no.”

  “But help yourself,” he said, and then he said: “Sorry, Craig. I seem to be unable to remember this is your house.”

  “Shit,” Lowell said, and then he chuckled. “Sorry, Andre, I seem to be unable to remember one doesn’t say ‘shit’ in polite company.”

  Andre Pretier smiled and raised his snifter in salute.

  “May I make a suggestion?” Pretier asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You’ve had a bit of that,” he said. “Are you all right to drive?”

  The eyes turned icy again. But then Major Lowell said, “No, of course I’m not.” He pushed a button, and in a moment, the butler reappeared.

  “Would you ask Thomas to go to the Pan American VIP lounge at LaGuardia,” Andre Pretier ordered, “and pick up a…”

  “Major Sanford T. Felter,” Lowell supplied.

  “Yes, sir,” the butler said.

  The butler returned to the bar forty minutes later.

  “Major Felter, Major Lowell,” he announced.

  Felter, wearing a baggy, ill-fitting suit, walked into the room. Lowell jumped out of his chair, hesitated awkwardly, then gave in to the emotion. He went quickly to the slight man, wrapped his arms around him, and lifted him off the ground.

  “For God’s sake, Craig!” Felter protested. Lowell set him down.

  “I’m glad to see you, you little shit,” Lowell said. “I thought you were pushing up daisies.”

  Andre Pretier got to his feet.

  “Mouse, this is my stepfather,” Lowell said. “Andre Pretier. Andre, Sandy Felter.”

  “A genuine pleasure, Major Felter,” Pretier said.

  “How do you do, sir?” Felter said, shaking his hand.

  “What do you want to drink, Mouse?” Lowell asked.

  “Have you got a Coke? Or ginger ale?”

  “Can you imagine this teetotaling little bastard jumping into Dien Bien Phu, Andre?”

  “For God’s sake, Craig!” Felter protested again.

  “The Mouse is a spook, Andre,” Lowell said. “He sees Russian spies hiding behind every set of drapes.”

  “What are you celebrating?” Felter asked, coldly. He had seen that Lowell was drunk.

  “Craig was in Hartford,” Andre Pretier said. “Visiting his mother.”

  “How is she?” Felter asked.

  “‘Progressing nicely’ is the phrase they used,” Lowell said.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Felter said, politely.

  “What that means is that she hasn’t gone any further over the edge,” Lowell said. He looked at Andre Pretier. “I have no secrets from the Mouse, Andre,” he said. “But if that was out of line, I’m sorry.”

  “Not at all,” Pretier said. “What we’re doing for my wife, and Craig’s mother, Major, is trying to get her the best help we can. It doesn’t seem to be working as well as we had hoped.”

  “I’m sorry,” Felter said.

  “To get off that unpleasant subject, Mouse,” Lowell said, “what brings you to Sodom on Hudson?”

  “I wanted to see you off,” Felter said. “I wanted to thank you for going to see Sharon.”

  “Shit,” Lowell said. He smiled a little drunkenly at Andre Pretier. “There I go again, Ol’ Sewer Mouth.”

  “Sharon told me what you did, Craig,” Felter said.

  “Christ, I hope not. You mean she told you I proposed?”

  Felter shook his head resignedly.

  “When are you going?” he asked.

  “Half past ten,” Lowell said. “Pan American has a sleeper flight to Paris. And then I’ll catch the Main-Seiner to Frankfurt.”

  “Then I’m glad I decided to come today,” Felter said. “If I had waited until tomorrow, you would have gone without calling. Exactly as you left the house an hour before I got there.”

  “Well, since you were still alive, I realized that Sharon wasn’t going to marry me,” Lowell said. “So there was no point in my staying for your great ‘here I am home, straight from the mouth of death’ scene.”

  “How did you find out, Craig?” Felter asked. “Sharon said you got there an hour after the notification team.”

  “Actually, it was closer to two hours,” Lowell said. “I had a little trouble finding an air-taxi.”

  “And you’re not going to tell me who told you?”

  “So you can turn him in for breaking security?” Lowell asked. “No way, Mouse.”

  “OK, let it go,” Felter said. “Tell me about flight school.”

  “There I was, ten thousand feet up, with nothing between me and the earth but a thin blond…”

  “How much have you had to drink?” Felter asked.

  “A bunch,” Lowell said. “I wasn’t prepared for Hartford.”

  “I tried to tell him, Major, that she probably wouldn’t recognize him,” Andre Pretier said. “But he insisted on going.”

  “Tell me about Dien Bien Phu,” Lowell said. “What the hell were you and Mac doing there in the first place?”

  “You know more than you should already, Craig,” Felter said.

  “I want to hear about you and MacMillan running around in the jungle,” Lowell insisted. “After bailing out of a gloriously aflame airplane.”

  “I’m beginning to suspect who you talked to,” Felter said.

  “What happened, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Perhaps,” Andre Pretier said, “it would be better if I excused myself.”

  Felter looked at him a moment.

  “There’s no need…”

  “Excuse me,” Andre Pretier said, and got up and walked out of the room.

  “I’m not supposed to talk about this,” Felter said. “And you know it. And I feel badly about asking him to leave his own living room.”

  “This is the bar,” Lowell said, “not the living room. And it’s mine, not his.”

  “God, you’re impossible. You know what I mean.”

  “That’s so much bullshit,” Lowell said. “If you can’t tell me, Mouse, who can you tell?”

  “Maybe I will have a drink,” Felter said. “Can I trust you to keep your mouth shut?” He answered his own question. “No, of course, I can’t,” he said. “But every spook has to have one weakness. You’re mine.”

  He related what had happened at Dien Bien Phu, painting a picture of himself as a rear echelon chair-warmer being led to safety through the Indo-China forest by a French Foreign Legion corporal, one of the Army’s most decorated parachutists, and a nineteen-year-old sergeant with a sawed-off shotgun.

  Lowell automatically added Felter’s role to their exploits. In his judgment, Major Sanford Felter was quite as accomplished a close combat warrior as MacMillan or anyone else Lowell had ever met in the service. He had seen Felter in action; in fact, he owed his life to Felter, who had blown away an officer who had stood in the way of a reinforcement column coming to Lowell’s rescue during counterinsurgency operations in Greece.

  A mental pict
ure came into Lowell’s mind of Felter in Indo-China in his tropical worsted uniform, the large .45 automatic he was never without held in front of him with both hands. He literally wasn’t large enough, or his thin wrists strong enough, to fire the .45 with one hand. With two hands, firing slowly and deliberately, he seldom missed. He was literally a dead shot.

  “So, with appropriate pomp and ceremony,” Felter concluded, “during a barrage of 105 mm fire, cannon and ammo courtesy of the First Cavalry, we were formally inducted as honorary members of the 3 ième Régiment Parachutiste of the French Foreign Legion.”

  “Christ,” Lowell said, “I wish I had been there.” He wondered if he really meant that. He knew that his saying so had pleased Felter, for Felter had long had the notion (Lowell considered it unfounded) that Lowell was a natural-born combat soldier.

  “They tried to give us the Croix de guerre,” Felter said. “Naturally, since we weren’t supposed to be there in the first place, there’s no way we’ll be allowed to accept it.”

  “Christ, and what I’ve been doing, at enormous expense, is learning how to fly a whirlybird,” Lowell said.

  “Tell me about it,” Felter said.

  “Nothing to tell,” Lowell said. “It’s just as idiotic, having a major fly a helicopter, as I thought it would be. Like assigning a major as a jeep driver. I felt like a goddamned fool, when, with the band playing and flags flying, they pinned our wings on us.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Felter said, firmly.

  “I don’t know if I do or not, Mouse,” Lowell said, drunk-serious. “I have to be periodically rebrainwashed; my faith wavers.”

  Felter glanced out the window and saw Andre Pretier walking on the wide lawn which stretched from the house down to the water’s edge. He opened the French doors and walked out to him.

  “I seem to have run you out of your own house,” he said. “But I’m through talking about what I shouldn’t have talked about, if you’d like to come back in.”

  “I understand,” Pretier said. Felter led him back into the house.

  “What we’re talking about now is the importance of aviation to the army,” Felter said. “I’m afraid it’s not all that interesting.”