The Lieutenants

by W. E. B Griffin

  (Two)

  Hq, 393rd Tank Destroyer Battalion (Reinforced)

  Youks-Les-Bains, Algeria

  24 February 1943

  The command post was built against the side of a stony hill, facing away from the front lines and the German artillery. At the crest of the hill, four half-tracks, two mounting 75 mm antitank cannon and two mounting multiple .50 caliber machine guns in powered turrets, were dug in facing the front.

  On the ground, on the friendly side of the hill, two more half-tracks with multiple .50s faced the opposite direction. A half-moon of barbed wire with sandbagged machine-gun emplacements guarded the command post dugouts. The dugouts were holes in the side of the hill, with timber supporting sandbag roofs.

  Two jeeps, traveling well above the posted 25 mph speed limit, approached the 393rd CP from the rear. Each held three men, and an air-cooled Browning .50 caliber machine gun on a pillar. The front jeep had nonstandard accouterments: the seats were thickly padded leather, instead of the normal thin canvas pad; a hand bar had been welded to the top of the windshield; and a combination flashing red light and siren of the type usually found on a police car was mounted on the right fender. It had been painted olive-drab, but the paint, here and there, had flecked off the chrome. An eight-by-twelve-inch sheet of tin, painted red and with a single silver star in the middle, was placed above the front and rear bumpers. Communications radios were bolted to the fender wells in the back seat, and their antennae whipped in the air. Spring clips had been bolted to the dashboard. Each held a Thompson .45 ACP caliber submachine gun.

  The driver of the lead jeep was a master sergeant in his thirties, a pug-nosed, squat, muscular man with huge hands. He wore a tanker’s jacket and a Colt .45 automatic in a shoulder holster. Beside him sat a firm-jawed, silver-haired, almost handsome man in his fifties, wearing an Army Air Corps pilot’s horsehide jacket, with a silver star on each epaulet. A yellow silk scarf, neatly knotted, was around his neck. He also carried a .45 in a shoulder holster. The man in the back seat was young, clean-cut, and dressed like the general, the only difference being the silver bars of a first lieutenant on the epaulets of his pilot’s horsehide jacket.

  The second jeep contained three enlisted men, a technical sergeant and two staff sergeants, armed with both Garand M1 rifles and Colt pistols carried in holsters suspended from web belts around their waists. Their helmets had “MP” painted on their sides.

  As they approached the gate to the command post of the 393rd Tank Destroyer Battalion (Reinforced), the master sergeant driving the lead jeep saw that the road was barred by a weighted telephone pole suspended horizontally across the road. He reached down and flipped the siren switch. The siren growled, just long enough to signal the soldier at the gate to raise the telephone pole.

  He did not do so. The two jeeps skidded to a stop.

  The master sergeant at the wheel of the lead jeep started to rise in his seat. The general, with a little wave of his left hand, signaled him to sit back down.

  “It’s all right, Tommy,” he said.

  This wasn’t garrison, and the guard was not ceremonial. The German advance had been stopped a thousand yards away.

  The guard was a very large, six-foot-tall, very black PFC, carrying a Garand rifle slung over his shoulder. He stood at the weighted end of the pole, examined the passengers in the jeep carefully, and then, satisfied, stood erect, grasped the leather sling of his M1 with his left hand, saluted crisply with his right, and then pushed the weighted end of the pole down. The barrier end lifted. The guard then waved them through. He stood at attention until both jeeps had passed, and then he quickly cranked the EE-8 field telephone at his feet.

  “General officer headed for the CP,” he said. “Porky Waterford.”

  By the time the two jeeps had reached the bunker with the American flag and the battalion guidon before it, a very tall, flat-nosed Negro lieutenant colonel whose brown skin was somewhat darker than his boots had stepped outside the bunker. He was dressed in olive-drab shirt and trousers, with a yellow piece of parachute silk wrapped around his neck as a foulard. He carried a World War I Colt New Service .45 ACP revolver in an old-fashioned cavalry-style holster (one with a swivel, so the holster would hang straight down even when mounted).

  The guard at the door to the CP carried a Thompson .45 caliber submachine gun. He saluted the moment the jeep stopped, and the brigadier general in the front seat jumped out.

  The lieutenant colonel, whose features and dark skin made him look very much like an Arab, took three steps away from the door, came to attention, and saluted.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Parker, sir, commanding,” he said.

  The brigadier general returned the salute, and then put out his hand.

  “How are you, Colonel?” he asked. The handshake was momentary, pro forma.

  “Very well, thank you, General,” Lt. Col. Philip Sheridan Parker III said. “Will the general come into the CP?”

  “Thank you,” Brigadier General Peterson K. Waterford said.

  Colonel Parker waved him ahead into the CP. Someone called “Attention.”

  “Rest, gentlemen,” General Waterford said, immediately.

  The command post was crowded, but neat and orderly. One wall was covered with large maps and charts, overlaid with celluloid. There was a field switchboard, communications radios, folding tables equipped with portable typewriters. A large, open, enameled coffee pot simmered on an alcohol stove. There were perhaps twenty men, officers and enlisted, all black, in the room.

  “Would the general care to examine our situation?” Colonel Parker said, gesturing toward the situation map.

  “Actually, Colonel,” General Waterford said, “I took the chance that you would have a minute or two for me on a personal matter.”

  “Perhaps the general would care to come to my quarters?” Lieutenant Colonel Parker offered.

  “That’s very kind of you, Colonel,” General Waterford said.

  “Captain,” Parker said to a stout, round-faced captain, “would you brief the general’s aide?”

  The captain came to attention. “Yes, sir.”

  Colonel Parker pushed aside a piece of tarpaulin that served as the door to his quarters, an eight-by-eight-foot chamber hacked out of the hill. Inside were a GI cot, a GI folding table, two GI folding chairs, a GI desk, and two footlockers.

  “Will the general have a seat?” Colonel Parker inquired. When Waterford had sat down, Parker knelt and opened one of the footlockers and took out two bottles, one of scotch and one of bourbon. He looked at General Waterford, who indicated the scotch by pointing his finger. He poured scotch into one cheese glass, and bourbon into the other. He handed the general the scotch, then tapped it with his glass of bourbon.

  “Mud in your eye, Porky,” he said.

  “Health and long life, Phil,” the general replied. They drank their whiskey neat, all of it. Parker asked with raised eyebrows if Waterford wanted another, and Waterford declined with a shake of his head.

  “I’m really sorry about Bob Bellmon, Porky,” Colonel Parker said. “I was going to get my thoughts together, and then ask if you thought I should write Marjorie.”

  “What are your thoughts?” Waterford asked.

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” Parker said. “We were withdrawing. That’s a week ago today. About three miles from Sidi-Bou-Zid, we came across two shot-up M4s. I had a moment or two, so I went and looked. The bumper markings identified them as belonging to 73rd Medium Tank. Numbers two and fourteen.”

  “Tony Wilson took the time to tell me what he knew,” Waterford said. “Bob went out in number two. He was trying to link up with the 705th Field. Two lousy tanks was all that Tony could spare. Tony said Bob convinced him that they had to try with what they had. Neither of them knew, of course, but the 705th had already been rolled over.”

  Lt. Col. Philip Sheridan Parker III felt sorry for Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Wilson, who commanded the 73rd Medium Tank Battalion. Losing men
was always bad. Having to explain how they were lost in person to a man who was simultaneously the father-in-law, a general officer, and an old friend must have been very rough indeed.

  “Both tanks had been struck with something big,” Parker said. “I’d say a high velocity tungsten-cored round from the Mark IV Panzer. Both had burned. One of them had exploded.”

  “Which one?” Waterford asked.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t remember which one,” Parker said.

  “That’s all right,” Waterford said. “Did you get a body count?”

  “They burned and blew up, Porky,” Colonel Parker said. “And I didn’t have much time. We were under intermittent fire.”

  “But?”

  “I hate to say this, because it might give hope where there is none,” Colonel Parker said. “But I have a feeling that one man may have gotten out. And that he was carried off as a prisoner. There were Mark IV tracks, and footsteps. But they may just have been looking over the hulks.”

  Waterford sat with his shoulders bent, examining his hands.

  “Yes, of course,” Waterford said, after a long silence.

  Parker poured an inch and a half of scotch in the cheese glass and handed it to Waterford. Waterford took it and tossed it down.

  “I’m sorry, Porky,” Parker said, gently, “but that’s all I have.”

  “When we go back,” General Waterford said, retaining control of his voice with a visible effort, “the Graves Registration people will probably be able to tell us something. They’re really quite good at this sort of thing.”

  “If Bobby didn’t make it, Porky,” Colonel Parker said, “he went out quick.”

  “He went out too young. Bobby was…is…twenty-five,” Waterford said. “God, I hate to write Barbara.”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing,” Parker said. “Writing the next of kin.”

  “You came out of it better than most,” Waterford said. “We got the shit kicked out of us, Phil.”

  “I lost seven officers and sixty-three troopers,” Parker said.

  “Equipment?”

  “I put all the old 37 mm stuff out in front. I lost seventeen tracks. Nine from mechanical failure. I blew them.”

  “I repeat, you came out of it a lot better than most,” Waterford said.

  “Are they going to relieve Lloyd Fredendall? That’s the rumor.”

  “Probably,” Waterford replied. “He lost the battle.”

  “Who’s going to get the Corps?” Parker asked.

  “I hope Seward. That’d put me in line for the division. But I suppose Georgie Patton will get it. Eisenhower still calls him ‘Sir,’ when he’s not careful.”

  “I hope you get it, Porky,” Parker said.

  “No, you don’t, you bastard. You’re just saying that. You’re jealous.”

  “Of course I’m jealous. But if you get the division, maybe you’ll take us with you.”

  “If I get the division, Phil, you can bank on it. You’ve got some fine troops.”

  “I think so,” Parker said. “None of mine ran.”

  General Waterford stood up. “I wish I could say the same thing,” he said. “You know what the history books are going to say: ‘In their first major armor engagement of World War II, at Kasserine Pass, Tunisia, the Americans got the shit kicked out of them. Many of them ran.’”

  “They call that blooding, Porky,” Phil Parker said.

  General Waterford stood up, put his arm around Parker’s shoulder, and hugged him.

  “Thank you for your time, Phil,” he said.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t of more help,” Parker said.

  “I didn’t ask, Phil,” Waterford said. “Where’s Phil?”

  “A sophomore at Norwich. He’ll be in the class of ’45.”

  “Maybe we can wind it up by then,” Waterford said.

  “God, I hope so.”

  (Three)

  Carmel, California

  28 February 1943

  Barbara Waterford Bellmon, a lanky, auburn-haired, freckle-faced brunette of twenty-four, stood by her locker in the ladies’ locker room of the Pebble Beach Country Club and held out her hand for her winnings. She had gone around in 82, four over ladies’ par, and they had been playing for a dollar a stroke. She had just won thirty-three dollars, and it was important to her that she be paid.

  As the losers searched in their coin purses and wallets for the money, Barbara thought again that she really didn’t like women. Women, she thought, were really lousy losers; they paid up reluctantly. She knew that the other members of her foursome would have preferred not to pay up at all, to let the settling-up slide until it was forgotten. It wasn’t the money. These women were all well-to-do. It was some quirk of the female character.

  “All I’ve got is a fifty,” Susan Forbes said, examining the contents of her wallet, but not offering the fifty dollar bill. Susan was a long-legged blond, who looked considerably younger than her thirty-three years. Barbara took a twenty and a ten from her wallet and held it out.

  “Oh, here’s a twenty,” Susan said.

  As if you didn’t know, Barbara thought, and snatched it from Susan’s hand. Surprise, surprise.

  “Thank you very much,” Barbara said, sweetly. “Next?”

  “The least you could do is buy us lunch,” Patricia Stewart said, as she passed over a crisp ten dollar bill. Pat, whom Barbara thought of privately as the archetypical Tweedy Lady, was, at thirty-six, the oldest of the golfers. Barbara handed her a dollar change.

  “I have a date,” she said.

  “Sounds exciting,” Susan said. “Anyone we know?”

  “He’s tall, dark, handsome, and a Catholic priest,” Barbara said.

  “Shame on you,” Susan said.

  Standing on one leg, Barbara took off her golf shoes, put them into her locker, and then stuffed her golf socks into her purse. Finally, she slipped her bare feet into a pair of loafers.

  They went through what Barbara considered the ludicrous routine of making smacking noises with their lips in the general vicinity of each others’ cheeks. Then Barbara walked out the ladies’ locker room, back onto the course rather than into the clubhouse itself, and went around the building to the parking lot.

  She got behind the wheel of her mother’s car, a 1937 Ford convertible sedan. After performing the elaborate but necessary ritual it required to get going (pump the gas pedal twice, then hold it down while the starter cranked, release it instantly when it coughed, while simultaneously praying), she backed out of the parking slot and drove home.

  Home was Casa Mañana, her parents’ home, a rambling Spanish-style building with red-tiled roofs set on ten acres overlooking the Pacific. There were three flagpoles set in a brick-lined patch of grass in front of the house. An American flag, just barely moving in the wind, hung from the taller center pole. The two smaller poles were bare.

  Casa Mañana, roughly translated, meant the “house for tomorrow.” For three generations, it had been the home to which the Waterfords planned to retire, and where their women waited when the men had gone off to war. It was at Casa Mañana that the family gathered, when possible, at Christmas, and it was a family tradition that the babies were christened according to the rites of the Episcopal Church of St. Matthew’s in Carmel, no matter where in the world they were born. It was home to people whose profession saw them spending a good part of their lives in foreign countries or in remote military posts.

  There was enough money to keep it open, staffed, ready for occupancy, when there was no member of the family closer than a thousand miles. Over the years, the Waterfords and the Bellmons had slowly and wisely invested their money, so there was now enough to live “comfortably” if unostentatiously.

  Just inside the door, on shelves, were two red flags neatly folded into triangles. One of them bore a single silver star, and the other two silver stars. The single-starred flag belonged to the present owner of the house, her father, Brigadier General Peterson K. Waterford, who had i
nherited the house from his father, Major General Alfred B. Waterford. The two-starred flag had belonged to Bob’s father, Major General Robert F. Bellmon, Sr. They’d buried Bob’s father from Casa Mañana, taking the remains to the military cemetery at the Presidio of San Francisco. When they’d hauled his flag down from the pole for the last time, they had folded it up and put it beside General Waterford’s flag, where it would be ready when it was needed again. Porky Waterford was almost sure to make major general soon, and then he could fly it as his own. Or it could just stay there until Bob, twenty years from now, was himself entitled to the red flag of a general officer.

  The flags were well made; they’d last that long. General Waterford’s flag had belonged to his father.

  With long and almost masculine strides, Barbara walked through the house, in search of her mother. It must be noon, Barbara realized. Mother and the kids were having their noontime cocktail. Marjorie Waterford never took a drink until noon, and she rarely made it to twelve fifteen without one. She called it a cocktail, but it was invariably bourbon and water, one ice cube. The kids got ginger ale with a maraschino cherry.

  “How did you do?” Barbara’s mother inquired, asking with her eyes if Barbara wanted a drink.

  “No, I don’t think so, thank you,” Barbara said. “I don’t want to smell of it. When I come back.” She smiled with self-satisfaction at her mother. “I went around in 82 and took them for thirty-three bucks.”

  “Good for you,” her mother said. “Father Bob called. He asked if he could bring somebody with him.”

  “Did he say who?”

  “No. He said he had two. He didn’t give any names. I think he would have, if it was someone we know.”

  “Yes,” Barbara replied, as if distracted.

  “I had Consuela do a pork loin,” Mrs. Waterford said. “I thought that and over-brown potatoes, and a salad.”

  “That will be very nice,” Barbara said. “I don’t know how he stands it, doing that, day after day after day.”

  “That’s what priests are for,” her mother said. “And he’s probably used to it by now.”

  “I’d better get changed,” Barbara said.