Command Decision

by William Wister Haines

  “That front is still slowing down, sir,” Davis concluded. “The entire Continent will be open for bombing all day and you’ll have until seventeen hundred over the bases.”

  Dennis did not realize that he was already looking at the other map; he did not even hear the words that came clearly from his own lips.

  “My God! I wouldn’t have needed parachutes.”

  Then, he was aware of the silence, of Garnett’s start and the stiffening and looks of the others.

  “Haley,” said Garnett, “you’re sure there’s no word from General Kane?”

  “Messages are brought as received, sir.”

  Dennis controlled himself until they had left the room, whispering savagely under his breath that it was not his business. But with the closing of the door the flooding bitterness inside him opened his mouth involuntarily.

  “Well, is it Dieppe or Dunkirk?”

  “It’s easy for you to talk,” retorted Garnett. “You’re out of it.”

  “Left you a horrid example, too, didn’t I?”

  He knew this was wanton cruelty, but he knew too that like all cruelty it proceeded only from the inner pain that drove it out of him. He should be done with that pain now; he had borne it long enough along with the rest of the burden. But he could not be done with it until Garnett assumed it.

  “I didn’t mean it that way, Casey. I’m trying to think of the crews.”

  “What crews?”

  “My… the combat crews. They’ve just been through the worst three days of the war. Sixteen of them would finish tomorrow and go home, to their families, free.”

  “You’d better think of the others.”

  “What others?”

  “The ones who’ll have to replace those sixteen and all others who’ll have to come after them if these don’t do their job.”

  “Casey, that’s in the future, it’s abstract….”

  “It’s what you’re paid to think about. After you’ve done it try thinking about the infantry, going up those beaches on D-Day against jet fighter bombs that have already whipped us.”

  He could see Garnett recoiling and part of him could pity the man, but it was the part he had whipped too often and too mercilessly in himself. There was no place for pity in this; there would be no escape for himself until he had driven Garnett beyond it.

  “I did think of it that way in Washington,” said Garnett. “But after yesterday and today, watching those ambulances, and the stretchers coming out of the planes, hearing the boys ask about tomorrow’s weather before they hit the ground…”

  He paused, but there was no comfort in the bleak face before him and he went on with rising vehemence.

  “I’ve had to think of Ted over there, dead or maybe wounded and hiding… or captured… and my own sister not knowing…”

  “He’s damned lucky,” said Dennis, “and so are you. You wanted a B-29 command. You wanted to take him where the Japs torture captured crews for fun. Out there you wouldn’t have any Kane to save your sanity for you with orders to take it easy.”

  “Casey, he hasn’t sent me any orders.”

  Dennis had known this. It had been waiting for him as he entered the room, leering from Garnett’s manifest agitation, taunting him through their guarded silences, shrieking at him from the questions Garnett had asked Haley. Even more than Garnett himself Dennis had been dreading it. He had denied it to himself. He wanted only to escape, to get into that plane and go.

  He had earned his freedom; he should be free. He had forced this test to the breaking point and been broken. He had failed and been fired. It was over. He should have nothing to face but the future now; there was more than enough in that.

  He had to learn to live with the vacuum that had been Ted. He had to get himself together to dissemble agreement, to feign comfort from Cathy’s consolations and reassurances. He had to find work, to rededicate himself, to get a training command where his skills and experience could re-enter the inexorable continuity of the army’s purposes and contribute still.

  All of this was before him. He had set his face and steps and thought toward it, but now he saw that it was another step away, that he could not yet put down the burden of the present. He was gathering himself under it slowly when Haley plodded in apologetically with the package of pictures.

  “And there’s a phone call for General Garnett…”

  “From General Kane?”

  “No, sir. A minor disciplinary matter. I’ll be glad to attend to it with the General’s authority. One of our men has broken a window in the village and the owner insists upon speaking to the commanding general. I can handle it for you, sir.”

  Dennis waited, reabsorbing strength from the weight of the burden itself as Garnett retreated eagerly into this.

  “Broke a window, did he. Drunk, too, I suppose?”

  “No complaint of that, sir,” said Haley scrupulously. “Statement was he broke the window jumping through it. Damage upward of thirty shillings. I’ll be glad to attend to it, sir, with authorization.”

  “Send him to me,” said Garnett. “I’ll teach him to jump into windows.”

  “Complaint was he broke it jumping out, sir.”

  “EVANS!” shouted Dennis.

  The Sergeant appeared in the door, clicking his heels to wary attention.

  “What did you do at the Magruders’?” barked Dennis.

  “Just what was expected, sir. I give them the ice cream, too.”

  “Did you break a window there today?”

  “I… I ain’t been there today, sir.” But they all saw him suppress a quick start of comprehension.

  “Did you send someone else?”

  “Sir,” said Evans, “I had a verbal directive from the General authorizing me to delegate…”

  Pounding feet stampeded through the anteroom, the door burst open, and Corporal McGinnis crashed in on them. He was bleeding slightly from cuts on his hands and face but his righteous wrath was oblivious of the wounds as it was of the officers in the room. His eyes were fixed upon Evans.

  “Protection! They needed protection! And me a married man! I bet I protect you!”

  He was advancing on Evans with mayhem in his eyes when Garnett recovered enough to catch him.

  “Who in hell are you?”

  “Corporal Herbert McGinnis, sir.” The enormity of his intrusion was dawning upon McGinnis.

  “Evans, is this the sober, reliable man you’re getting me?”

  “Sir,” said McGinnis indignantly, “I joined the army to fight for my country…”

  “SHUT UP, YOU!” thundered Haley. “General, if you’ll let me attend to this.”

  “I think you’d better,” said Garnett.

  He turned from the closing door for the relief of laughter, but there was no laughter in Dennis’s face.

  “Kane hasn’t ordered a milk run?”

  “No. He hasn’t ordered anything. Of course I know what he expects of me…”

  “What do you expect of yourself?”

  He saw Garnett squirm and then, as the remark bit more deeply into him, it found a tougher substructure. His reply was angry, combative.

  “It’s easy for you to talk. When you had to decide this last night Kane was here, supporting you.”

  “Was he in that lead plane this morning, supporting Ted?”

  Haley, returning just then with the message from General Kane, thought Garnett looked better. His face was red with anger but there was a new tone in his curt command for Haley to read the signal aloud.

  “‘General Kane and party,’” he read, “‘compelled proceed Hemisphere Commander’s dinner for guests London consequently unable attend weather conference. General Kane desires express especial confidence in General Garnett’s discretion based on weather. Other divisions notified. Signed Saybold for Kane.’”

  Haley raised his head expectantly. Through the silence they could all hear the muffled droning of motors outside and the clattering of the teleprinter. But still neith
er Garnett nor Dennis spoke.

  “The group commanders need briefing poop and bomb loads for tomorrow, sir,” said Haley.

  Garnett appeared not to have heard him. His face and forehead were heavily furrowed now. He stirred and quoted, half aloud:—

  “‘Especial confidence General Garnett’s discretion…’ Casey, this isn’t permission…”

  “It’s just what Ted had this morning,” said Dennis. “He could be here right now, sitting in that chair, on his discretion.”

  “That was different,” said Garnett slowly. “By the time he got it he was already committed. He probably didn’t have any real choice.”

  “What do you think he took that toothbrush for?” demanded Dennis. “When he left here this morning he knew Kane would pass the buck to him.”

  For a second more Garnett hesitated, whispering to himself that he must think. But in the echoing silence of his mind he knew it was evasion. Thought itself would only be evasion. He shook his head hard to clear it.

  “Haley, notify the other divisions and all groups that the Fifth Division will attack Fendelhorst.”

  ***

  Dennis scarcely saw Haley’s departure. There had come over him a sense of soaring, giddy lightness; he seemed to be floating in detachment. He knew it for what it was, the lifted disequilibrium of final release from a crushing load. When his senses readjusted themselves to it this time he would be free. He would walk to the plane lightly and get into it and go. None of this could follow him now.

  He found that he was shaking hands with Garnett, who was grinning at him a little wryly.

  “Save me a job in that training command, will you?”

  “You’ll be wanting it,” said Dennis, and he knew that Garnett could understand him.

  “And don’t forget those sleeping tablets.”

  He nodded casually before remembering that he and Garnett were past that now.

  “Cliff, they’re no good. I didn’t think you’d need to know this but—you know Major Dayhuff… I introduced him to you this afternoon.”

  “Dayhuff… Dayhuff…? Oh, sure. My ordnance man. Nice fellow.”

  “No. Your medical officer. Pretty nice fellow. He’ll help you, but not enough.”

  He saw Garnett nod slow acceptance and began to fasten the little catches on his coat collar. His hands were not altogether sure and his feet felt light, but every minute was with him now. The entrance of Evans quickened his reawakening with a flicker of the familiar pain he had known in other partings.

  “The plane’s ready, sir, and… good luck.”

  He shook hands more rapidly than he meant to but he could see, in Evans’s face, that it was all right. Garnett had put on a cap to go out with him and Evans was standing back to let them pass when Haley came in.

  “Sir,” he said reluctantly, “there’s an order for General Dennis from Washington.”

  A look at Haley’s troubled face told him. He could feel the whole burden again now, crushing down on him through the Colonel’s silent hesitancy; he could see a reflection of it in the shocked comprehension in Garnett’s eyes.

  “No! I’ve got my orders, Haley. I’ve gone home.”

  “We’re instructed to relay this to your plane, sir.”

  He wanted to refuse it, to run for the plane, but his feet would not move. He watched Haley walk over, a little uncertainly, and hand the paper to Garnett. It gave him a few seconds to brace himself, to set his feet, though he still could not feel them. Garnett wet his lips and read slowly:—

  “‘With immediate effect General Dennis will proceed via Gibraltar, Cairo, Karachi, and Calcutta to Chungking to await imminent arrival his B-29 Command.’”

  Against the first full shock of it he heard himself shout.

  “No, by God…!”

  Then instinctive, immediate shame choked his outburst and followed it into the silence. He found that his hands were steady on the catches of his coat collar now. He could feel his legs, all the way to the floor, and they were not buckling. The quick, upsurging roar of a warming motor outside seemed to transmit some of its own power into him. As the sound faded he could feel his new burden fully, but this time his strength was under it; the equilibrium was restored.

  “Cliff, does that say ‘with immediate effect’?”

  “I’m afraid it does, Casey.”

  “Evans,” he said sharply, “get your things.”

  About the Author

  William Wister Haines was born in 1908 in Des Moines, Iowa, the second of four sons of a utility company executive. He attended Culver Academy and graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Des Moines. He was at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania when the Great Depression struck.

  Haines found a job as a lineman in Searchlight, Nevada, where crews were erecting the huge transmission towers that took power to the mines. He would return to Penn for a semester or two until his funds ran out, and then go back to tower building. In 1930 he shifted to catenary line work—the electrification of railroads—and worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

  After graduating from the University, Haines continued line work on the “Pennsy.” He started a novel about this dangerous profession. Part autobiographical, Slim became a national best seller in 1934. Warner Brothers made it into a film starring Henry Fonda and Pat O’Brien using Haines’s screenplay. Eighty years later, both the movie and the book Slim are still well-known to most linemen.

  Haines wrote short stories about linework for the Saturday Evening Post, the Atlantic Monthly, Reader’s Digest, and Argosy. In 1938 he published a second novel about linework, High Tension.

  As World War II loomed, his youngest brother, Dr. John Haines, joined the Army. When he was captured and imprisoned on Corregidor, the older brothers promptly enlisted. One served in Italy and another in the South Pacific.

  Haines was sent to Great Britain as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Eighth Air Force. His duties were to evaluate the strength of the German Air Force and plan bombing raids. He later worked with the team that first cracked German war codes, a project called “Ultra.” His summary of the U.S. Air Force’s use of Ultra was published when the material was declassified thirty years later.

  After forty-one months, Haines was discharged with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. For his war service, he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit. In 1945 the family relocated to Laguna Beach, California, where he immediately started writing Command Decision.

  The first version was a play. Several agents and publishers thought that such a tale was premature because the American public was sick of war. His publisher, Little Brown, suggested he make the drama into a novel. It appeared as a four-part serial in the Atlantic Monthly in 1947. As a book, Command Decision quickly became a national best seller. It is regarded as the first major story about World War II. In October of 1947, Command Decision opened on Broadway at the Fulton Theater. It ran for 409 performances.

  The movie rights were sold to MGM, which acted at the behest of Clark Gable. The actor saw the story as a vehicle for portraying the service he had experienced as an Air Force officer. The movie also starred Brian Donlevy, Walter Pidgeon, John Hodiak, Cameron Mitchell and Van Johnson.

  William Haines always believed that war was the extension of politics. The protagonist, General Casey Dennis, must deal with political interference that warps his decisions and pressures him to attack less dangerous targets.

  For nearly 40 years Haines lived south of Laguna Beach, California, in a community known as Three Arch Bay. In 1957 The Hon. Rocky Slade, a tale of Midwestern politics, was published. His 1961 novel The Winter War was given the Golden Spur award by the Western Writers of America. In 1968 The Image came out, his book about family conflict within the military/industrial complex. Films he worked on such as Torpedo Run, On Wings of Eagles and Beyond Glory all reflected his telling views of the military.

  Screenplays he wrote or collaborated on with other screenwriters during those yea
rs reflected his war experience, including Alibi Ike, which starred Joe E. Brown and Olivia de Haviland; Black Legion, with Humphrey Bogart; The Texans, with Randolph Scott; Beyond Glory, with Alan Ladd; The Racket and One Minute to Zero, with Robert Mitchum; The Wings of Eagles, with John Wayne; Torpedo Run, with Glenn Ford and Ernest Borgnine; and The Eternal Sea, with Sterling Hayden.

  Though William Wister Haines grew up in the Midwest, he was part of a prominent Philadelphia family. He lived at times at “Wyck,” the Haines ancestral home, in Germantown. It is now a National Historic Landmark. His uncle Owen Wister, author of The Virginian, strongly encouraged him to become a writer.

  William Wister Haines had two children and died in 1989 at the age of 81.