Command Decision

by William Wister Haines

  He let his voice trail off into a subdued silence, wondering, as always, whether he had overdone it. Ordinarily he would not have worked so hard on any delegation below the Senate level. Prescott had said that the touch of the parable put this effort into the Cabinet caliber. But this was not an ordinary situation.

  The accident of Malcolm’s relation to Jenks had delivered this trio into Kane’s hands before even the Hemisphere Commander had a chance to harden their ears. It was not an opportunity to miss.

  Of Malcolm, Kane was serenely confident. The Jenks affair was a sword of many blades, as Dennis had taught him. Stone was a cold fish; he had the look of a man who remembered his regional folklore of wooden nutmegs. Kane was still worrying about him when the innocuous-looking Mr. Field cut through the echoes of his sermon with a pointed question.

  “You mean you want more planes, General?”

  3

  Dismayed as he was Kane showed no trace of his inner misgiving. Field had been docile enough through the military matters, following every statistic with the quiet attentiveness of the earnest Pilgrim. The case hung on getting him back to figures. Inwardly cursing the impulse that had made his risk oratory on Congressmen, Kane reverted to crisp bluntness.

  “If the nation wants aerial supremacy we must have them, sir.”

  Field looked thoughtfully at the map and scratched the back of his head. Stone spoke up now with troubled sincerity.

  “The nation wants aerial supremacy everywhere, General. They all tell us the same thing; the people from India, China, Africa, Australia, the navy, the British, the Russians…”

  “I’m sure they have their problems, Mr. Stone. But a simple field commander would be overreaching his duty to try to evaluate the higher strategy. I only know that my boys have been given the most important and difficult mission of this war.”

  “How do you figure that, General?” Field’s question was mild enough but Kane did not need a second lesson in the penetration behind that mildness. It was touch and go but he had worked hard, through the night, and he was confident of his memory. He paused, frowning as if summoning words of his own.

  “Because it is our mission, sir, to destroy the German Air Force. We are doing what no other weapon in this war has done or can do. We’re making it fight, on our initiative, over Germany where it can’t refuse. We are tearing it up over Germany. The German Air Force has been the balance of power in this war ever since Munich…”

  Brockhurst, recognizing the rhythm of these words now, glanced at Dennis. The Brigadier was studying the sky outside the window intently. Brockhurst saw him raise his left arm as if to look at his wrist watch but instead of doing so he lowered it into his lap again and kept his eyes fixed in the sky.

  Turning, Brockhurst saw Prescott checking off sentence after sentence as Kane continued through the speech. Kane had a bad minute or two with the sequence of the campaigns but he got through them. Then, as if sensing the relief in Prescott’s face, he swept on with gathering confidence. The Congressmen were entirely his now. They were leaning forward with rapt concentration as Kane came to a carefully amended conclusion of the speech.

  “…we are pinning that Air Force down in Germany, gentlemen, destroying its factories by systematic plan and destroying its effective, operational planes by combat. We are winning aerial supremacy and the reinforcements you give us are the price of that supremacy.”

  Brockhurst stole another glance at Dennis and there stirred in the back of his mind some lines he had not recalled for years:

  If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,…

  But Dennis was not hearing it. Brockhurst doubted that he was even aware of it. His eyes were still on the sky outside. The only sign he showed of having heard Kane’s conclusion was to glance briefly at his wrist watch.

  “Gennel,” said Malcolm. “I consideh that a mastehful summary, mastehful.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Malcolm. I hope I’ve been able to show you…”

  “General,” said Stone, “that’s interesting but we have other problems, too. The air war isn’t the only one.”

  “We never forget that, Mr. Stone. We hold it a high privilege to pave the way for our companion services. No battle in this war has been won without aerial supremacy, as I pointed out.”

  “That may be true here,” said Field. “But the navy thinks…”

  “Sir, co-operation with naval objectives is one of our foremost commitments. You gentlemen have just heard Major Prescott explain how General Dennis sent this division all the way to Gritzenheim to knock out the most significant torpedo factory in Europe. We knew it would cost us heavy losses but if there’s one thing this command prides itself on it’s looking at the war as a whole. Ample replacements are essential if we’re to continue fulfilling that part of our directive which gives naval objectives a very high priority among our target categories.”

  “You’re getting most of the available replacements now,” said Stone. “What did you say your loss rate is?”

  “Loss and claim chart again, Sergeant.”

  Evans shuffled through the exhibits and produced another twenty square feet of wallboard. Its essential information, like that of the rest, could have been written clearly on a playing card.

  “Overall rate four point nine per cent so far, sir.”

  “That’s computed up to…?” Field persisted patiently.

  “Last Sunday, sir,” said Kane quickly. “We only total calculations at the end of each week.”

  “What are losses this week, General?”

  “I’ll have to tell you tomorrow, Mr. Stone, when I’ve heard from all the divisions.”

  He nodded quickly to Evans for removal of the board but Malcolm spoke up now with authority in his slow accents.

  “Just a minute, Sahgent, till I see if I can get this thu my haid. What were losses in this division, Gennel?”

  Kane hesitated. “Have you the figures, General Dennis?”

  Dennis rose before answering. “Ninety-four lost outright, five in the Channel, and thirty-odd damaged beyond economical repair, sir.”

  Brockhurst saw both Kane and Garnett start at the mention of the planes in the Channel and the Category E’s. These were never included in public reports. The explanation was that such information might comfort an enemy who presumably did not know of them, after several years of his own cross-Channel bombing operations. Malcolm appeared to cogitate before proceeding with silky deliberation.

  “Neah about a hund’ed an’ thirty, out of what overall strength, Gennel Dennis?”

  “It varies with the replacement flow, sir. The average runs from one eighty to two hundred.”

  Malcolm’s face clouded over slowly as if with pain.

  “That would mean betteh than sixty puh cent in this division against youah overall average of less than five, wouldn’t it, Gennel Kane?”

  “For this division, for this week, yes,” admitted Kane. “But we had two exceptionally bad days. When these losses are figured into the aggregate average…”

  “I undehstan’ the aggregate average, suh, but I don’t undehstan’ this discrepancy between Gennel Dennis’s division an’ the othehs. Perhaps Gennel Dennis will explain his own self.”

  Dennis spoke with quiet patience: “This division has the only extension tanks for especially distant targets, sir. Both these operations were beyond the range of friendly fighter escort.”

  “An’ the boys who were lost were deliberately sent beyon’ the range of friendly fighteh coveh?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask who ahdehed these operations?”

  “I did.”

  “On youah own authority?”

  “Yes.”

  Kane intervened quickly now, showing obvious agitation.

  “General Dennis was quite within his authority, Mr. Malcolm. It happened that when these particular attacks were ordered I was too engrossed with other duties to keep myself
entirely cognizant of the changing weather picture. In those circumstances all divisions are released to commanders’ discretion.”

  “I undehstan’ the technicalities,” Gennel Kane. No one expec’s a man of youah responsibilities to plan every attack foh every division every night.” He paused to let the exoneration sink in before continuing. “But the fac’s appeah to be that the minute youah back was turned Gennel Dennis took it on his own self to ahdeh these disastrous attacks…”

  “They were not disastrous,” said Dennis evenly. “Posenleben was the best piece of bombing in this war. As for yesterday…”

  “That was a great success,” interrupted Kane. “The navy has been very eager for us to destroy that torpedo plant. It was a great piece of interservice co-operation and a very bright spot in General Dennis’s record.”

  Brockhurst had heard and read and indeed written too many official lies to be troubled about this one. What troubled him now was that he did not understand how Dennis had forced Kane to permit the second attack on Schweinhafen. Methods were usually visible through men; in this case they should have been transparent. Kane would respond, in extremity, only to fear. What had Dennis been able to make him fear?

  Brockhurst had had a glimpse, indeed a clinical scrutiny, of the things Kane feared in the conference last night. There were coils within coils of the man’s mainspring but they added up to ambition. Whether it was for himself or for the Air Forces was immaterial; the years had made them one. They had also made him as prudent as a turtle. Now he was permitting desperate risks for stakes so high and at a cost so sickening as to jeopardize the whole service.

  Brockhurst knew that he had lost his news story already. The Air Forces would never dare to release the news of jets until the climax forced it out in alibi or exultation. It was a pattern bitterly familiar. The battleship men had denied bombs until they had to fight a naval war for landing fields; the tankers had explained away the 88-millimeter gun to the satisfaction of everyone but the crews who fought it. The story would be ended before it could be told.

  And yet in this variation of the old pattern Brockhurst scented a new ending, perhaps the beginning of a new pattern, attainable by immediate, courageous counter-measure, by Stitch in time. Against the whole tradition of the uniform Dennis was forcing it on a superior. How?

  Brockhurst would never learn from Kane. The Major General had rejoined them in the anteroom last night smoldering with a chagrin he could not conceal, a fear more powerful than his fear of the press. He had told Brockhurst bluntly that he was summoned to London on secret military business. Only under blunt duress had his prudence reawakened to compromise; he would meet Brockhurst at the Division Headquarters next morning and redeem his promise of the full story later.

  Brockhurst had spent a wakeful night in a neighboring pub until the roar of the departing bombers confirmed his surmise. Dennis had won. How?

  An unfortunate mishap had delayed the correspondent’s return to the Headquarters. He had left his car in the street outside the village pub. During the night some rascals had picked the lock cleanly and made off with a case of whiskey.

  Brockhurst drank little himself. He and Coverage both considered that whiskey comes by its fullest value in other men’s mouths. But the loss of a case in the island’s drought was serious. He had complained to the pubkeeper, who replied indignantly that it was impossible; all Americans had been confined to their bases during the night. The man’s indignation took on heat from a private conjecture that one of his own neighbors must have excluded him from such a wizard do. It was the war; it corrupted everyone.

  Brockhurst had reached Headquarters just as the Congressmen were settling to Kane’s presentation. He instantly recognized their presence as part of the puzzle but Kane used it cunningly to shield himself from further questioning. The correspondent could not tell yet whether Kane was defending Dennis or adroitly cutting his throat.

  ***

  “Gennel Kane,” said Malcolm, “I honoh youah loyalty to youah subohdinate commandeh, but it looks to me like ouah boys are payin’ a pretty bloody price for Gennel Dennis’s recohd.”

  “They’re paying a bloody price for the whole country’s record, Mr. Malcolm,” said Dennis quietly.

  “You consideh the country’s responsible foh you sendin’ these boys beyon’ frien’ly fighteh coveh?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “How did you vote on the fortification of Guam?”

  “What?”

  “How did you vote on the fortification of Guam?”

  Stone’s chuckle broke a perceptible silence.

  “By God, Aaaathur, he’s got you.”

  Malcolm’s ruddy face was turning livid.

  “We’ll see who’s got who…”

  “Arthur,” said Field evenly, “it’s not our place to criticize operations. What are you attacking today, General Kane?”

  “Why… as you gentlemen know, I was on my way to you at the time of the determinative weather conference. I think General Dennis can explain the details more clearly than I.”

  As if unconscious of Malcolm now, Dennis walked quietly to the wall, stripped the masking curtain from the map, and pointed with a finger as he explained unemotionally.

  “This is a three-pronged operation today, gentlemen. General Salmond’s division is attacking the Brest shipyards and sub pen. General Endicott’s division will attack a submarine repair yard at Emden almost simultaneously. The Fifth Division is attacking the Focke-Schmidt aircraft factory at Schweinhafen.”

  The others crowded to the map for a closer examination. Brockhurst noticed that General Kane’s red cross through Schweinhafen had been erased during the night. The black markings indicating Schweinhafen and Fendelhorst gained prominence from the proximity of the heavy red cancellation of Posenleben. Malcolm scowled at them thoughtfully.

  “Seems to me I heard this division attacked Schweinhafen yestehday, Gennal.”

  “The target was cloud-covered, Mr. Malcolm,” said Kane quickly, “Colonel Martin, who had been instructed for that very contingency, very wisely decided to take the torpedo factory instead, knowing how long we had been planning on it. It was a wonderful piece of air generalship, gentlemen. Colonel Martin is our outstanding flying commander.”

  Stone pondered: “Is that the Martin who was in hot water over plane tests a few years ago?”

  Kane smiled benignly. “Colonel Martin was a very impetuous young man, Mr. Stone, but those qualities are standing us in good stead now.”

  Field nodded now with an air of remembrance. “It seems to me, if I recollect rightly, that plane he complained of never did come to much. Will we have a chance to meet him?”

  “Later,” said Dennis. “He’s leading the Division today.”

  ***

  Dennis had stood alone on the roof of a Group Ops tower to watch the take-off. Heavy ground mist had blanketed the lowlands during the night. It clung still like a three-dimensional blotter over everything. For brief seconds he had been alone in the damp grayness with a troubled broken silence that swirled and eddied around him like the fingers of the mist itself.

  Every plane motor on the field had been cut off after warming up. Through the enveloping background of the silence itself he could hear occasionally the faint purring of the bowser engines pumping to replace in the plane tanks every drop of the precious gallons expended in the warming up of the motors.

  Dennis had been raising his wrist watch closer to his eyes when he heard them. There was an explosion of muffled coughing padded with the whirring of starters. Then the reports deepened as motors caught. The noise blended rapidly into a cup of continuous thunder that pressed in around him from every side. The air, the roof, his clothes, his body, the universe itself, began to shake with a thunder of vibrations rising up and ever up beyond every former crescendo of man’s imagining.

  Around him the grayness of the mist tossed and danced in fitful homeless dislocation, swirling and opening and cl
osing, lifting and falling and eddying in a demented frenzy of disintegration that tore the physical texture of the air. Then, through the turbulence, he had seen the spectral fans of the riding lights rolling around the perimeter track toward him.

  The great beetles waddled heavily as they came. Through the thunder itself cut the gnatlike squealing of brakes protesting the crushing momentum of bomb and gas loads. They came faster, running a little to catch up with each other and then checking themselves with clumsy jerks and half turns. As the leader stopped the others pressed in behind it, inching and squeezing for compression, jealous of every foot of space between them with its inexorable price of gas to be burned for recovery of their final position in the air.

  The compressed waiting line zigzagged back into the mist which had become heavy with the acrid fumes of burning brake bands. Down the line Dennis could see the faces of the pilots and copilots and discern the drawn tension under the long visors even through the blur of universal vibration. Some wiped endlessly with waste at the vapor on the plexiglass before them, some craned their necks anxiously out of windows before closing up another few inches.

  From long habit Dennis counted as they came. The brakes on the last one were still squealing when he saw the blink of the Ops light. The heavy thunder of the column had abated now for economy of fuel. With the blinking of that light it broke over him again in all the final fury of the force that beat down gravity itself.

  The lead plane lifted visibly in its tracks against the rigidity of its brakes. The naked girl on the nose blurred, even her most prominent points of interest dissolving into one quivering pale blob of light against mottled green darkness. Mist leaped upward in flight from the thunder of the whole column. Through the sudden clarity Dennis saw space opening behind the lead ship, and saw that she was receding from him.

  He had known that Ted should be busy at the radio desk. As always Dennis had driven Martin out to the parking stand in his own car. This morning the young pilot had had his crew drawn up at rigid attention to await them, his eager face almost bursting with pride over their passenger.