The Captains (42 page)

Sandy Felter showed up on the junk as they were killing the last of the 12-year-old scotch. Lowell wondered if he had really come to drive him back to the airstrip, now that he was finished, or if he had come to let him know his time was up. But on the way to the airstrip, Felter said, obviously sincere: “Hey, I'm sorry about the reception.”

“Forget it.”

“What we're doing here is important,” Felter said. “It comes first.”

“In other words, nice to see you, but don't come back?”

“Yeah.”

“I won't.”

“I hope your friend comes out all right,” Felter said.

“But you really don't give a damn one way or the other, do you?” Lowell asked.

“No, I guess I don't, when you get right down to it.”

“What if it were me?” Lowell asked.

“I don't know,” Felter said, honestly.

“If you had to do it again, Sandy, would you blow away Captain Whatsisname?”

Felter gave him another incredibly cold look, one almost of hate, and certainly of contempt.

“You don't understand, do you?” he said. “I didn't do what I did to save your neck. I did it because that officer was interfering with the mission.”

“No, Sandy, I guess I don't,” Lowell said. He put out his hand, and they shook hands, and they smiled at each other, but it was as if it was between strangers.

(One)
Ch'orwon, North Korea
15 September 1951

Major Craig W. Lowell was aware that he was not only on the shit list of Major General John J. Harrier, but that he was about to become the ne plus ultra persona non grata of the IX Corps chief of staff.

The trouble he was in, in other words, was not one half the trouble he was going to be in.

He wasn't sure if he had gone slightly crazy, or if the reverse was true, that he had finally come to his senses, but the bottom line, in that quaint vernacular of Wall Street, was that he really didn't give a damn.

At the moment, it seemed to him that the army, which was having a shit fit about what had happened when Georgia had been in the Corps, was acting quite childishly. Morality and propriety had been offended, and he was the guilty party. It reminded him somewhat of the time his school had been in New Jersey playing tennis against Peddie and had been entertained by the students and faculty of Miss Beard's School in Orange, where he had put Ex-Lax on the candy plates. It had given seven or eight fifteen-year-old girls diarrhea, and sent the head into a frenzy.

The only difference seemed to be that the head at St. Mark's hadn't known who had put the Ex-Lax on the candy plates, and the head here knew who the sinner was.

There had been a lightning bolt from the Pentagon. A heavy manila envelope, sealed and stamped
BY OFFICER COURIER
, had been sent from the Pentagon in the hands of a replacement lieutenant colonel, brought from the Dai Ichi Building in Tokyo to Eighth Army Headquarters by the warrant officer courier carrying the week's cryptographic codes, and from Eighth Army to IX Corps by the Eighth Army commander's junior aide-de-camp, who personally put it in the hands of the corps commander.

The corps commander had then opened it and summoned the chief of staff, and both of them had then solemnly contemplated a short, square piece of notepaper, the letterhead of which was a representation of a full general's four-star flag, flying in the breeze.

The message was brief: “The Chief of Staff desires your comments on the article on chapter 4 of
Life
magazine, enclosed.”

Life
had somehow come into possession of the roll of film Georgia had taken at the 73rd Heavy Tank Battalion and then carried with her back to the States.
Life
had run a full-page photo showing Georgia, wearing body armor, standing with a group of tankers. There were eight tankers, six enlisted men and two officers, including Major Craig W. Lowell. Behind them was Blueballs.

They were good photographs, and the name “Blueballs” was clearly legible. So was what the troops of Baker Company—in mockery of the air force practice of painting kills on the side of the aircraft fuselages—had painted on the turret: eight silhouettes of Russian-built T34 tanks, with an X drawn through them, signifying the eight confirmed kills made by Blueballs (five of them when it had been “Ilse” on the way up the peninsula, and three by later commanders). There were also, for a laugh, silhouettes of ox carts, Korean papa-sans, and people in wheelchairs, with X's indicating they had been wiped out, too.

There was a large line of type superimposed on the picture:

GEORGIA PAIGE VISITS THE FRONT LINES
.

The caption beneath the picture read: “Her world-famous bosom hidden beneath a bulletproof vest, her long locks in braids, Hollywood's hottest new star slipped away from the USO troupe entertaining troops in the rear areas to visit this tank battalion on the front line ‘somewhere in North Korea.'”

The other five pages showed Miss Paige while an unshaved GI poured bourbon in her canteen cup; autographing a copy of the famous erect-nipples photograph stapled to a company situation map; kissing one soldier while a line formed behind him; and being helped down from Blueballs by two eager soldiers. Her shirt was improperly buttoned, as if she had had it off. Lowell was in most of the pictures, sometimes looking at Miss Paige as if she gave milk, and wearing his German Luger in the shoulder holster with the
GOTT MIT UNS
belt buckle gleaming.

Lowell had been called in by General Harrier to answer for his sins. There had been a recitation of them.

“There seems to be absolutely no question, Major Lowell, that, in direct violation of regulations, and showing less common sense than that expected of a corporal, you actually took that woman up to the front.”

“No, sir,” he said. “I mean, yes, sir. I took her up there.”

“What were you thinking?”

He could hardly have told the general what he was really thinking.

“I regret any embarrassment I have caused, sir.”

“That's not good enough, Lowell. I can't remember ever having been so humiliated by the actions of one of my officers.”

“With all respect, sir, I fail to see how my actions could humiliate you.”

I am, after all, a fucking major, and I don't think they expect major generals to go around holding majors by the hand
.

“There you are, for all the world to see, wearing an unauthorized weapon, in an unauthorized shoulder holster, with a Nazi motto on it.”

“
God is with us” is a
Nazi
motto? Does he really believe that?

“And standing in front of a tank with an obscenity painted on it.”

“I repeat, sir, my regret for any embarrassment I may have caused you.”

“And I repeat, Major, that's not good enough!”

“Yes, sir. What would the general have me do, sir, to make amends?”

“Just close your damned mouth,” General Harrier had said. “When I want a reply, I will ask for one.”

There followed a long pause.

“What I really would like to do to you, Lowell,” General Harrier finally said, “is stand you before a court-martial for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman!”

I wonder where it says in Amy Vanderbilt that what I've done is ungentlemanly
.

“With the press around here, however, that would only result in even greater embarrassment to the army.”

You're goddamned right it would. The army would really look silly if you tried to throw a court-martial at me
.

“You stand relieved as my aide,” General Harrier said. “Your behavior will be reflected in your efficiency report. Until your orders are issued, you will remain in your tent except for meals. You will come here to empty your desk between the hours of 2000 and 2030 tonight. Aside from that, I don't want to see you around this headquarters again. You are dismissed.”

“Yes, sir,” Lowell said. He saluted and about-faced, then walked down to Colonel's Row.

When he went back that night to clean out his desk, he saw how the general had replied to the Chief of Staff. The letter had been typed and then placed on the aide's desk, so that he could give it to the general for his signature first thing in the morning.

Lowell checked his uniform. His aide-de-camp's insignia were gone, and the crossed sabers of cavalry superimposed on an M46 tank were back. The Luger and the shoulder holster were locked in his footlocker, as were his tanker's boots and his tanker's shoulder holster. He had gone to supply and drawn a standard web belt and holster. He was, he decided, in the perfect uniform prescribed for a field-grade officer “awaiting assignment” at IX U.S. Corps.

Then he walked up the hill to the White House, and entered the office of the Secretary of the General Staff.

“I thought that you were told to stay in your quarters until you got your orders,” the SGS, a normally pleasant, just promoted to full bull colonel, said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I sent you orders sending you home an hour ago,” the colonel said.

“Sir, I am in doubt as to which orders I should obey,” Lowell said. “And am coming to you for clarification.” Then he laid a letter on the Secretary of the General Staff's desk. It was signed by First Lieutenant Bennington T. Morefield, Judge Advocate General's Corps, and informed him that he was to hold himself available to appear as a witness for the defense in the case of
The United States of America v. Captain Philip S. Parker IV
.

(Two)
Ch'orwon, North Korea
16 September 1951

Major General John T. Harrier went into the office of the corps commander, and closed the door.

“Major Lowell has not left the Corps, sir,” he said. “He has been summoned as a witness in Captain Parker's court-martial.”

The general thought that over a moment, and then he asked: “As a witness for the defense?”

“Yes, sir.”

The general thought that over a moment, too; then he said: “I think that it would be a very good idea, John, if you attended the trial. I want to avoid, of course, any suggestion of command influence on the outcome. But I think it's entirely appropriate that everyone concerned be aware that this case is of special interest. I would hate to have the trial disrupted by the irrational behavior of anyone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What the hell has Lowell got to do with that trial, anyway? I wasn't even aware they were acquainted.”

“I don't know, sir.”

“Keep me advised,” the general said.

Despite what he had said about wanting to avoid “any suggestion of command influence,” there was no doubt in Harrier's mind that the General wanted Parker hung. He wondered why. Some personal feeling that Parker deserved punishment? Racial prejudice? There was
something
, otherwise they could have sent any other officer in the headquarters to “keep him advised.”

When the general's chief of staff walked into the courtroom, the court would draw the obvious conclusion, that having decided to court-martial Parker, the general wanted a report on anyone who appeared to be trying to frustrate that desire.

Harrier walked down the hill from the White House and entered the tropical building with the sign
SILENCE: COURT IN SESSION
outside. There were two MPs outside the building, who saluted him, and two more inside the building, who pulled the door to the courtroom open for him.

He walked in and tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible in the rear of the small room. It was like trying to hide an elephant, he thought, under a tulip.

He was surprised at the initial steps of the trial. He had been a defense counsel in his younger days, and he would not have stricken from the court, on preemptory challenge, the two officers Lieutenant Bennington T. Morefield struck from it. They were a bird colonel and a lieutenant colonel, both wearing the Combat Infantry Badge. He would have kept them, as probably being sympathetic to another combat officer.