The Captains Read online

  Just like a Norman Rockwell cover on the Saturday Evening Post, he thought, and then was annoyed with himself for being a cynic.

  “You and that damned horn,” Barbara said, as she gave him her cheek to kiss. He quickly squeezed her buttocks.

  “I am ordered to take two days off,” he said.

  “It’s about time he saw how exhausted you were,” Barbara said, in reference to the general.

  “I don’t know if he did or not,” Bellmon said. “I asked for the time.”

  “Well, either way,” she said.

  They went into the house. He hung the tunic carefully on a hanger in the hall closet, and put the brimmed cap on the shelf above.

  “Make me a very cold, very large martini,” he said. “While I change.”

  “Drink now, change later?” she asked.

  “No, change now, drink lots later,” he said.

  “Is it going to be one of those days off?”

  “And aren’t you glad?” he said.

  “Uh huh,” she said. “And guess who’s going to choir practice?”

  “God loves me,” Bellmon said, and went upstairs to change. What more could a man ask, he asked himself rhetorically, than for two days off, a cold martini, a wife who likes to fool around, and a priest of the Episcopal Church who schedules children’s choir practice at precisely the right time.

  When he came down, the kids and Barbara were gone. She had taken them early to choir practice, he realized, or had in some other manner gotten rid of them. He would have to make his own martini. That seemed a small enough price to pay.

  Ten minutes later, he heard the crunch of automobile tires on the road and decided it was Barbara coming home. If he had planned ahead, he thought, he could have greeted her at the door starkers and played “Me Tarzan, You Jane” with her on the living room floor.

  It was probably better this way, he thought. Drag it out a little.

  The bell—a real, old-fashioned, hand-twisted door bell—rang.

  “Christ!” he said. “Who the hell?”

  He opened the door.

  Craig W. Lowell stood outside his door. He wore gray flannel slacks, a white shirt, and a cravat, like an English duke in the country.

  This was bound to happen, Bellmon thought. Something—something like Craig W. Lowell showing up out of nowhere—was bound to fuck up his fun.

  “Hello, Craig,” he said, forcing himself to smile. “What brings you traipsing down my country lane?”

  “I heard that beggars are offered booze,” he said.

  “Come on in,” Bellmon said, putting his hand on his arm. He didn’t like Craig W. Lowell. Barbara did. For reasons he couldn’t begin to understand, Barbara automatically forgave Lowell for things that would have seen her terminate a lifelong friendship with somebody else. Barbara’s father, General Waterford, and Lowell’s father-in-law, just returned from Russian imprisonment in Siberia, had gone to Samur, the French cavalry school, together before War II.

  Lowell’s father-in-law, Colonel Count Peter-Paul von Greiffenberg, had also been the commandant of the POW camp where Bellmon had been confined. Von Greiffenberg and Bellmon had become friends, separately from the colonel’s relationship with General Waterford.

  Until von Greiffenberg had shown up alive in Marburg a month before, Bellmon had believed that he was dead. Bellmon was delighted that von Greiffenberg had survived, not only for himself, but for the colonel’s daughter. Bellmon liked Ilse von Greiffenberg Lowell very much.

  It was Craig W. Lowell that he disliked.

  “What can I make you?” Bellmon asked.

  “Scotch,” Lowell said. “Please. Barbara home?”

  “Not at the moment,” Bellmon said, going behind the bar in the living room to make Lowell a drink. “How’s the colonel making out?” he asked.

  “He’s taking the waters in Monte Carlo,” Lowell said, dryly, “while I work on his financial affairs.”

  “When did you come back?”

  “On the seventh,” Lowell said.

  “And when are you going back to Europe?”

  “I wish to hell I knew,” Lowell said. He took the scotch from Bellmon and raised the glass to him. “Mud in your eye, Herr Oberstleutnant,” he said.

  “Who’s here?” Barbara called from the front door.

  “Come and see,” Bellmon called back.

  Barbara took one look at Craig W. Lowell and squealed with pleasure. “You look like an advertisement for fairy cigarettes in Town and Country,” she said. She went to him and kissed him on the cheek. “I thought you’d be in the south of France.”

  “Obviously, no,” Lowell said. “I have the strangest feeling that I walked in here in the middle of Bob’s Day.”

  You sonofabitch, Bellmon thought, furiously. How dare you say something like that to me in the middle of my living room?

  Barbara collapsed in laughter, infuriating her husband even more.

  “How could you tell?”

  “He was pawing at the ground when he opened the door,” Lowell said. “And then he seemed even less joyous to see me than he usually does.”

  Barbara laughed.

  “What brings you way the hell out here?” she asked. “I’m delighted to see you, of course, and we insist you stay for dinner and the night…(Goddamnit, I knew she’d do that, her husband thought)…but I’m surprised.”

  “I couldn’t stay the night,” Lowell said. “Thank you just the same.”

  “You tell me why not,” Barbara insisted, taking her husband’s martini glass and sipping from it.

  “That would put Bob in the awkward position of harboring a deserter,” Lowell said. They looked at him in confusion.

  “If that’s supposed to be funny, I missed the punch line,” Barbara said.

  “It’s not funny. I’ve deserted.”

  “Deserted what?” Bellmon asked.

  “I’ve been ordered to Benning,” Lowell said. “To go through some quickie course for reserve officers they’re going to send to Korea to get slaughtered, and I’ve decided I’m not going.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” Barbara asked.

  “You were recalled?” Bellmon asked.

  “There was a telegram waiting for me at the house,” Lowell said.

  “Ordering you to Benning?”

  “Ordering me to Meade, where some pencil-pusher told me that I was now in the infantry.”

  “There’s a shortage of infantry officers,” Bellmon said.

  “So I’m told.”

  “You’re not serious about not reporting, are you?” Bellmon asked.

  Lowell took an airlines ticket folder from his pocket.

  “Ten forty-five to London, with connections to Monte Carlo,” he said.

  “They’ll court-martial you, you realize?”

  “Possibly.”

  “What do you mean, ‘possibly’?” Bellmon snapped. “That’s absence to avoid hazardous service. They can shoot you for that.”

  “Come on, Bob,” Lowell said. “I’m not much of a soldier, I admit, but I know better than that. They haven’t, at least officially, shot anybody since they blew away that Polack, Slovik.”

  Lowell looked at Barbara, and handed her his glass.

  “I could use another one of these,” he said.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’m sorry you had to ask.”

  “Why are you telling me all this, Craig?” Bellmon asked. “You don’t think there’s anything I can do to help you, do you?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, since you ask, Colonel, I do,” Lowell said.

  “And what would that be?”

  “You could get on the telephone, and convene an ad hoc meeting of the West Point Protective Association, and find somebody to cancel that detail to infantry.”

  “What makes you think I could do something like that, even if I wanted to?” Bellmon demanded angrily.

  “Because otherwise, I’m gong to make a big stink.”

  “That sounds like
a threat,” Bellmon said.

  “No threat. Statement of intentions.”

  “I’m trying to control my temper,” Bellmon said. “I think you had better leave before I no longer am able to.”

  “Hear him out,” Barbara said, her voice flat. She handed Lowell the drink he had asked for, and when her husband said nothing else, she went on: “What do you want from Bob, Craig?”

  “I don’t want to be sent to Korea as an infantry officer, and get myself killed.”

  “The killing of officers comes with war, Lowell,” Bellmon said, icily.

  “Killing and slaughter are two different things,” Lowell said.

  “What kind of a stink are you going to cause?” Barbara asked, sounding as if she were idly curious.

  “‘Craig W. Lowell, New York banker, charged with desertion,’” he said. “‘Decorated hero says he is will not go to Korea as untrained cannon fodder.’”

  “You’d do that, too, wouldn’t you, Lowell?” Bellmon asked, the contempt in his voice shocking even his wife.

  “You bet your sweet ass I will,” Lowell said.

  “I can’t pretend to understand what you’re thinking,” Bellmon said. “What made you think you should bring me into this.”

  “It’s not that hard to figure out,” Lowell said. “I figured it out between Fort Meade and Washington. I fucking near…sorry, Barbara, that just lipped out…”

  “I’ve heard the word before,” Barbara Bellmon said.

  “I was nearly killed in Greece, you will recall.”

  “And returned a decorated hero,” Bellmon said.

  “I shouldn’t have been on the goddamned mountaintop, Robert,” Lowell said. “One of you professionals should have been there.”

  “I grant the point, but so what?”

  “So once is enough,” Lowell said. “I came through that. But I am not going to put myself in a position again where I am unqualified to lead untrained troops. And get my ass blown away at the same time.”

  “I’m beginning to understand your warped thinking,” Bellmon said. “But you had better understand, Lowell, that the army is bigger than you, or me, and that individual desires have nothing to do with anything. You better get back in your car and proceed as ordered, to Benning.”

  “You’re not refusing to go to Korea, are you, Craig?”

  “As an infantry officer, I am.”

  “He’s bluffing,” Bellmon decided, and announced, “He’s desperate and bluffing. You’re really despicable, Lowell.”

  “Certainly desperate and probably despicable, but not bluffing,” Lowell said. He drained his glass and laid it on the bar. “Sorry you had to get involved in this, Barbara,” he said.

  “Where are you going?” Barbara asked.

  “I’ll send you a postcard from the Riviera,” Lowell said.

  Barbara pushed the lever on a flop-open telephone directory.

  “What are you doing?” Bob Bellmon asked.

  She dialed a number.

  “Colonel Bellmon calling for General Davidson,” she said. She handed the telephone to her husband. “You can either tell him to send the MPs to Washigton National,” Barbara said, “to stop a deserting captain. Or that you found out that the system grabbed an armor officer who’s badly needed in Korea and threw him into the infantry.”

  He took the phone from her without thinking.

  “I’ll do nothing of the kind,” he said.

  “Who’s Davidson?” Lowell asked.

  “Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel. He was my brother’s roommate at the Academy,” Barbara Bellmon said.

  “General,” Lt. Col. Bellmon said to the telephone, “I really hate to bother you personally with this, but I don’t know how else to handle it. And it’s further made delicate because the officer involved is a close friend of my wife’s. The point, sir, is that the net you threw out to snag infantry officers snagged an armor officer we really need.”

  Barbara Bellmon and Lowell watched Bob Bellmon as he spoke. Then he said, “One moment, please, sir,” and turned to Lowell. “Let me have your orders, Lowell.”

  Lowell handed him his orders. Bellmon read them over the telephone.

  “Thank you very much, sir,” Bellmon said, finally. He handed Lowell his orders back. “I’ll have Captain Lowell remain at Fort Meade until the paperwork comes through.”

  “Now,” Barbara Bellmon said, “let’s have a friendly drink.”

  HEADQUARTERS

  U.S ARMY RECEPTION CENTER

  FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MARYLAND

  SPECIAL ORDERS

  NUMBER 191

  18 July 1950

  EXTRACT

  1. So much of Para 18, Spec Orders 187 this Hq dtd 14 July 1950, pertaining to the detail of CAPT Craig W. LOWELL, ARMOR, 0–495302 to INFANTRY is rescinded. AUTH: Telecon, Deputy, the Asst Chief of Staff, Personnel, Hq Dept of the Army & Acting Adjutant Gen, this Hq, 17 July 1950.

  2. So much of Para 18, Spec Orders 187 this Hq dtd 14 July 1950, pertaining to the trans of CAPT Craig W. LOWELL, Armor 0–495302 to the USA Inf Sch, Ft Benning Ga for tng, and for trans to Hq US Army Eight is rescinded. AUTH: Telecon Asst Chief of Staff, Personnel, Hq Dept of the Army & CG, US Army Reception Center & Ft Geo G Meade, Md. 16 July 1950.

  3. CAPT Craig W. LOWELL, ARMOR, 0–495302 Co “B” USARC, Ft Geo G Meade, Md., is trfd and will proceed US Army Outport, San Francisco Calif International Airport, San Francisco Calif by the most expeditious military or civilian air transport for further mil or civ air shipment (Priority AAAA-1) to Hq 73rd Med Tank Bn, 8th US ARMY in the field (Korea). This asgmt is in response to TWX Hq SCAP re critical shortage Co Grade Armor Officers dtd 3 July 1950. The exigencies of the service making this necessary, off is not, repeat not, auth delay en route leave. Off is not entitled to be accompanied by dependents. Off auth storage of personal and household goods at Govt Expense. S–99–999–999. AUTH: Telecon Asst Chief of Staff, Pors, Hq Dept of the Army Wash DC & Acting Adj Gen this Hq 17 July 1950.

  BY COMMAND OF

  MAJOR GENERAL HARBES

  Morton C. Cooper

  Lt Col., AGC

  Acting Adjutant General

  (Three)

  The Naktong River

  South Korea

  24 July 1950

  Lowell took the Pennsylvania Railroad to New York, a TWA triple-tailed Lockheed Constellation to San Francisco, a United DC-6 to Honolulu, and another DC-6—this one Pan American—to Tokyo via Wake Island.

  He called Ilse from New York and told her what had happened; and when he hung up, he went to the VIP lounge and got wordlessly as stiff as a board before boarding the plane. When he called her again from San Francisco, it was ten hours later, and her father had apparently talked to her, because she was not hysterical, only weeping and trying to be brave. He got the colonel on the line, and the colonel said that whatever he did, he was not to worry about Ilse and Peter-Paul. He would take care of them. The colonel wished him God speed.

  He called Porter Craig from San Francisco and told him what was happening, and asked him to personally make sure (which meant getting on a plane and going to Europe) that Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes was doing everything possible to get the colonel’s affairs straightened out as quickly as possible. He told Porter to personally make sure that Ilse understood that his army pay would be more than adequate for his needs, and that his salary from the firm would continue.

  “I don’t want her skimping and scraping, Porter, you understand?”

  “Good God, Craig, don’t worry about her. She’s family, for God’s sake!”

  For some reason, that short sentence from Porter Craig, whom he generally thought of as a three-star horse’s ass, reassured him.

  “Yeah, Porter, she is,” he said, his voice tight.

  “You take care of yourself, old boy,” Porter said. “Since you insist on going through with this, the least I can do is put your mind at rest about your wife and child. Andre does very well with your mother. You’re the one we
’re all concerned about.”

  “Yeah, well, you keep your sticky fingers out of the till, Chubby,” Lowell said and hung up because he was afraid he was going to start crying.

  An army bus met them at Tachikawa Airport outside Tokyo and drove them through really stinking rice paddies and sooty industrial areas to a military base, Camp Drake. He was assigned a BOQ, issued a footlocker for his Class “A” pink and green and tropical worsted and khaki uniforms (which would be stored at Drake while he was in Korea), then issued a steel helmet, a .45 Colt pistol with a web belt, a holster, three magazines, a magazine holder, a first aid pouch, and, for reasons he didn’t understand, a compass. He was told that in the morning he would be issued new fatigues and combat boots and taken to the range to fire the .45. In the meantime, he was restricted to the BOQ and the officer’s open mess.

  There was a telephone center in the mess, and he put in another call to Ilse. While he was waiting for it to go through, at 0310 Tokyo time, a sergeant came and found him.

  “I thought you’d gone over the fence to Tokyo for the night, Captain, when I couldn’t find you in your BOQ.”

  “I’m trying to call my wife,” Lowell said.

  “I got a car outside, Captain,” the sergeant said, uncomfortably. “There’s a C-54 going to K1—that’s Pusan—at 0400. With that priority of yours, you’ve got to be on it.”

  The C-54 was an old and battered cargo plane. He rode to K1 airfield, on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, stretched out on the pierced aluminum floor.

  There was no one to meet him, and the air force types in the crowded terminal had only a vague idea where he might find the 73rd Medium Tank Battalion.

  “If you can’t get them on the phone, Captain, there’s no fucking telling where the fuck they are.”

  Lowell picked up his now nearly empty Valv-Pak (it held only four sets of fatigues, underwear, a second pair of tanker’s boots, his toilet kit, and the 9 mm Pistole-08, the German Luger he’d carried in Greece) and walked out of the terminal.