Command Decision

by William Wister Haines

  “Where in hell you been?”

  “Busy. Where’s Dennis?”

  “In the hole. You listen here, Evans…”

  “Was he smoking?”

  “No.”

  Evans sauntered to the General’s desk, took out the cigar box, selected a cigar, and lit it. McGinnis watched with horror, half expecting to see lightning strike in the room. Instead he saw, and then smelled, only a fragrant cloud of smoke. Deep inside McGinnis something cracked; he was scarcely shocked to hear himself saying:—

  “How about one of them for me?”

  “He’d notice two burning,” said Evans.

  McGinnis continued to watch with rising fury as Evans now lifted out the whiskey bottle, measured its depleted contents with a rueful eye, and then helped himself to a short, restorative swig. He was about to burst out when Evans proffered the bottle.

  “You know I never touch it. Ain’t that the General’s?”

  “I and the General share everything,” said Evans.

  “Except work,” said McGinnis bitterly. “I notice you share that with me; you leave it and I do it.”

  Evans replaced the bottle and eyed the Corporal sardonically.

  “McGinnis, if there’s one thing I pride myself on as a Tech Sergeant it’s never doing nothing a corporal can do for me.”

  “You been doing some special job for Dennis?”

  “Two,” said Evans, “for a navigator.”

  “I wouldn’t do nothing for no damn lieutenant.”

  “That’s why you’re still a corporal.”

  Evans sat down, stretched his legs comfortably up onto the map table, and regarded McGinnis with contemptuous tolerance. It comforted his present frame of mind to rediscover someone stupider than himself. Brockhurst’s car had yielded another case of whiskey. From this Evans had solaced Peterson with four bottles and the locksmith with two. The division left him with a wealth that made him, for the first time since he had been in the island, uneasy about German bombers. He had hidden it beyond reach of any possible frailty in Peterson, procured the ice cream from the cook shack, and set off on his mission in the General’s car with the feeling, not uncommon to affluence, that Providence does watch out for the deserving.

  He had accomplished his mission at the Magruders’ with what might be described as a double success and the expenditure of only half his ice cream. By nine forty-five he was free. He had the General’s car, a gallon of ice cream, enough whiskey for a field marshal, part of his natural energy, a man-deserted county, and all the night left for the further benevolence of an obviously approving fate.

  But regaining the car he was troubled, as he had been troubled through even the most delicate moments of his negotiations with the ladies Magruder, over what was happening to General Dennis. He had driven straight to the station and re-entered to the resounding anti-climax of finding McGinnis making crayon scores on a gaudy cardboard chart. He shook his head uneasily.

  “What you got there, McGinnis?”

  “Claims! Look at them lying scoundrels. Ninety-seven! If the Germans seen that they’d bust their guts laughing. How come Dennis got such a wild hair in his crotch for claims tonight?”

  “Percent’s riding him again,” said Evans.

  McGinnis remembered other things the sages of Hut Six had remarked of the biggest wheel on their horizon.

  “Oh. We going to destroy that Luftwaffe again for this Sunday’s papers?”

  “With pictures,” said Evans. “Full face and both stars showing.”

  McGinnis eyed the claim board unhappily. “I wished they’d quit this. My wife she wrote me a letter. She said in that there letter she said: ‘You’ve done destroyed that Luftwaffe six times now. When you coming home?’”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t know what to tell her. I expect she thinks it’s all lies now.”

  “Tell her we’ve beat Germany,” said Evans. “Tell her we’re just staying here till we outclaim MacArthur.”

  McGinnis pondered this. “We better hurry up then while we still got something to do it with. Eddie Cahill he called up to tell you he couldn’t get to town tonight. He said he told the new C. O. over to the 641st if they ever had another day like today he was fixing to resign as line chief and take out a junk dealer’s license.”

  “That gang ought to get their thumbs out,” said Evans. “They never could fly formation.”

  McGinnis, remembering the truth of this from his own combat days, nodded. “They ought to do better now they lost Colonel Ledgrave and Captain Jenks, though. You reckon Dennis is going to send ’em again tomorrow?”

  “Maybe a milk run,” said Evans. “But not no real mission till Percent’s got his picture on the front of Time again, or Life anyway.”

  McGinnis scowled. “That’s what the guys in Hut Six say. But you know it don’t look right to me. If we got ’em to fight we just as well to fight ’em and get it over with. That’s the way I figured my twenty-five.”

  “Is that why they made you a general?”

  “I don’t see no stars on you, Evans…”

  McGinnis broke off just in time to manage a rigid attention as the Ops door crashed inward under the impact of the General’s shoulder. McGinnis knew that nothing could save Evans now and, to his surprise, felt sorry. It wasn’t right. Evans had stolen the General’s cigar and a man who stole things…

  “Haley!” called the General.

  Without a glance at the noncoms Dennis walked in now, his eyes making a swift arc from Ops room to blackboard. Evans got himself to attention unnoticed. As Haley hurried frantically after the General to the blackboard Evans slid, with a crablike, sidling motion, to the desk and deposited the burning cigar in the General’s ash tray.

  “That’s one one forty-nine… now; crews?” snapped the General.

  “One fifty-three, sir.”

  “How many would finish their tours tomorrow?”

  “Fourteen, sir. Too many to spare.”

  Dennis shook his head wearily. “Weather?”

  “No change of consequence in the twenty-two hundred, sir.”

  “Good. Anything else?”

  Haley walked over to McGinnis and the chart now. The General returned to his desk, picked the burning cigar out of the ash tray, and inhaled with satisfaction. He looked faintly surprised as McGinnis gasped and then coughed twice.

  “The claim chart is done, sir,” said Haley.

  With his cigar going comfortably the General moved back and scrutinized the chart attentively. Then with brief and absent thanks he dismissed McGinnis, who retired with a final glance of fury at the bland Evans. Haley shuffled the papers in his pudgy hands.

  “Those medical officers are waiting, sir.”

  “Keep ’em,” said Dennis. “Any calls?”

  “Mostly for General Kane, sir. Colonel Saybold has called three times, the Embassy four more, and Lady Grattonfield six.”

  Unexpectedly Dennis smiled. “Any idea what they want?”

  Haley had noted the smile. “I’ve no idea what Colonel Saybold or the Embassy want, sir.”

  He observed the General’s appreciative grin with relief. Haley never could be sure of General Dennis; he would miss the most obvious jokes and then be observed indulging his tight-faced chuckle over things Haley did not consider funny. But this time it was all right.

  Haley waited through a decorous interval and then began to shuffle the papers again when he saw that the General had forgotten him for a quizzical scrutiny of Evans, who still preserved a caricature of the faithful soldier at attention. The General drew a long puff of smoke and looked closely at his cigar.

  “How did you come out, Sergeant?”

  “Mission accomplished, sir,” said Evans complacently.

  “Not quite,” said Haley.

  They both looked at him in astonishment now as he drew the paper from between his second and third fingers and proceeded with relish.

  “Mrs. Magruder phoned, sir, to
express her apologies to her Allies and withdraw her daughter’s charges…”

  “Good,” grunted Dennis, Haley could see he was chuckling inside at this but most men would not have known it.

  “…on one condition, sir. It appears that she and her daughter are lonely now that Mr. Magruder is at sea and she would like to have Sergeant Evans billeted at her house for protection.”

  Haley lowered the paper and turned a blank face on the General. For a second he wondered if he should have risked it. Then he saw Dennis’s face tighten with severity and knew it was all right. He would have seen no expression if it was not.

  “Well, I’m sure the Sergeant will volunteer for that, too.”

  Haley watched with satisfaction while the Sergeant reddened and hesitated perceptibly. He had seen Evans wriggle out of too many scrapes to have entire hope for this, but it looked promising.

  “Sir,” said Evans, “my oath was to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. It didn’t say anything about permanent stud duty.”

  Dennis looked intently at the cigar in his hand while Haley wondered, enviously, if the stories about the Magruders were true. He knew that enlisted men usually had the best luck in those matters. Something in the throaty, confident ingratiation of Mrs. Magruder’s voice over the phone tonight had reminded him how long it was since he had seen Mrs. Haley.

  “The United States needs navigators, Sergeant,” said the General solemnly.

  “Sir,” said the horrified Evans, “I wouldn’t do this to an admiral.”

  “We haven’t got an admiral handy,” said Dennis.

  Evans was now sweating. General Dennis appeared to be taking inner satisfaction from the flinty glances which he alternated between Evans’s eyes and the cigar in his hand. It would be just like that poker-faced bastard, he thought, to have caught on and to be settling the whole deal outside the book without an official word about it. On the other hand it might just be his own bad conscience. He tried to match the General’s formality.

  “Sir, I should like to volunteer for the Fortieth Air Army for a second tour as gunner in the Chinese theater.”

  “I’ll sign the papers as soon as your mission here is accomplished,” said Dennis. “This navigator only has ten more missions till we can get him out of here.”

  Joke or not, Dennis had him. Evans thought fast.

  “Sir, if another man was to volunteer to substitute or at least share…”

  “That’s up to you and him as long as the… er… duty is performed satisfactorily.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Evans, and executing his most correct about-face he hurried into the Ops room to find McGinnis.

  Haley watched Dennis’s face soften suddenly and heard a quick chuckle as the door closed on Evans. Within himself he felt a deep inner glow. The joke had turned out perfectly and he still had the very cream of it to offer for their private delectation.

  “There’s just one more point about this, sir.”

  “Well…?”

  “The navigator involved didn’t get back today.”

  Haley saw Dennis wince, saw the life and sparkle fade into the old weary intensity of his normal face, and, too late, could have bitten his tongue off. The General turned away from him a second and then abruptly wheeled back, all business.

  “Oh. Be sure to have his Group Exec go through his things personally before they’re sent home, Haley.”

  “I’ve told him to, sir.”

  “And you’d better tell Evans it’s love’s labor lost”—but the brief smile was heavy now.

  “Sir, he works better when he’s a little tired.”

  “Handle it your own way. What else?”

  “The boys in the groups are in a hell of a sweat to know if there’ll be a mission tomorrow, sir.”

  “So am I. Keep ’em alerted.”

  “Sir, it’s after ten and they want briefing poop and bomb loads. Most of ’em haven’t had their clothes off for seventy-two hours.”

  “Neither has anyone else, except Evans.” Dennis thought a minute. “Cut another field order tape using the data for Phase Two Operations Stitch.”

  “Phase two, sir?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Haley saw that deep fatigue had repossessed Dennis. But in their entire time together he had never known the General to make a mistake like this. He coughed and spoke diffidently.

  “Sir, I understood that General Kane had said…”

  “I didn’t say to put it on the printer. I said to cut the tape.”

  The voice rasped. Haley stiffened reflexively and made for the door without a word. He had almost reached it when a softer accent stopped him:—

  “Ernie…”

  He turned to see Dennis striding toward him, his face relaxed and his voice contrite under its fatigue.

  “I’m sorry. I’m tired.”

  It gave Haley one of the bitterest moments he had known in service. He had not only bothered his chief with a joke that misfired; he had behaved like a petulant child over a well-earned rebuke. He had to gulp before he was sure he could speak without intruding further emotion into Dennis’s troubles.

  “Roger, sir. You ought to get some sleep, Casey.”

  Dennis smiled wryly and clapping Haley on the shoulder walked into the Ops room with him.

  Chapter 7

  Evans had barely cornered McGinnis in the Ops room when he noticed the hurried passage of Dennis and Haley through it on their way down to the hold. Leading the suspicious Corporal back into the relative privacy of the General’s office, Evans took out the cigar box, opened it, and extended it with a hospitable smile.

  “What you after now, Evans?”

  “I’m fixing to share things more with you,” said Evans.

  “What else we sharing?”

  Evans snapped the box shut, replaced it with a fine simulation of indifference, and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Okay, if you want to be a corporal all your life.”

  McGinnis looked regretfully after the vanishing cigars and thought of his lost Tech stripes. The world was certainly askew but Evans seemed to have it firmly under control.

  “What you bucking for now?” he inquired more cordially.

  “Dennis won’t let me go to China till I’ve got someone to take my place. It’s worth Tech stripes but if you don’t want it…”

  “What’s the catch in this?”

  “Security.”

  “Security!” Evans averted his eyes from the outraged face and judged the progressive results of this remark by the almost discernible rise in the Corporal’s temperature.

  “Security hell! I never told no one nothing yet!”

  “You never heard nothing yet. In this job you hear the truth about things they don’t tell the President. Would you be willing to live off the station, away from the other boys?”

  “For Tech stripes? I’d be glad to get away from them boys a while just to be away. I’m so sick of hearing them talk about just that one thing…”

  “I know,” said Evans gravely. “It’s disgusting. Well, there’s some people want a respectable soldier to live there for protection…”

  They both jumped to silent attention as Dennis, with one of his habitually unexpected appearances, walked back in, made straight for his desk, and sitting down pulled out the Jenks file. Evans winked at McGinnis, who scuttled silently out.

  Alone, Evans studied the General forgivingly. The joke, if it was one, was now being projected down the hierarchy in traditional style with the most promising prospects. And if Dennis had known about the cigars his behavior had been generous.

  “Excuse me, sir. You had any chow yet?”

  “I’m expecting General Kane.”

  “He’d be pretty stringy, sir. I’ll get you something.”

  He thought he saw a swift glow of gratitude in the General’s bleak face as he went out.

  Martin, entering the General’s office quietly a few minutes later, had a more d
etached look at his friend than he had thought of taking for years. Dennis was standing with a personnel file in his hands, looking back and forth between those black dots on the map and the file itself in a posture of ineffable weariness.

  Studying him now with some of the acute attentiveness he normally preserved for the observation of engines, he wondered how Dennis took it. To ask the same question about himself would never have occurred to him. Martin had spent twenty of the last forty hours with entire aerial responsibility for the fate and effectiveness of a hundred and forty bombers through the two toughest missions of the war, to date. Sixteen of these hours he had been on oxygen, three of them he had spent shooting a machine gun for his life in the nose of a crippled Fort. He was thinking now that, as always in their long relationship, Dennis had the tough job.

  Dennis, of course, was an Academy man and he liked the service; at least he had liked it once. There had been times during the latter years when Martin had begun to wonder about that. His own views of the service were so simple they had made a legend. At the reception after his graduation from flying school, the benign old colonel who had suffered most through Martin’s training had asked the newly created lieutenant what he thought of the uniform now.

  “Just what I always thought, sir. It stinks, but you have nice airplanes.”

  Martin had been demoted three times before reaching his captaincy. In his official file, however, there had long been established separate subcategories, a C for citations and commendations and an R for reprimands. The balance between these two had kept him almost abreast of classmates who had their first of either to earn.

  He would not have cared if it hadn’t. To Martin the uniform was simply an inconvenience attendant upon life in a world full of airplanes no impecunious young man could hope to own. He considered it a fair bargain.

  At his peak there were not half a dozen Americans who could fly in the same sky with him. Dennis, already declining a little with the inevitable slowing up of the thirties, had been the only one of these in uniform. They had lived and worked and flown and played together for fifteen years. It was Dennis who had twice kept Martin in the service through crises and Citation and Commendation file might not have balanced.