The Lieutenants
Page 25
When she and Sandy walked over to their parents, Sharon sensed that the West Pointers were whispering about them.
Then the plane was announced.
Sharon’s mother and Mama Felter started to cry out loud when Sandy kissed them. Sharon kept her tears back until Sandy climbed the stairs and disappeared inside the plane. Then she cried on her mother’s bosom.
In the car on the way home, Papa said something terrible. He didn’t know he said it. He was just thinking aloud. Papa said, “I suppose if you have to send somebody to get shot, it’s better to send a Jew.”
Sharon told herself that Sandy was the smartest boy she had ever met. If she believed that, she would have to believe that he would come to realize that what he was doing was the wrong thing for him, for them; and then he would come home and they could build a life together.
When he missed her, Sharon decided, that’s when he would decide he was wrong.
(Five)
Bad Nauheim, Germany
11 July 1946
Colonel Charles A. Webster, the Constabulary’s adjutant general, entered the office of the commanding general, Brigadier General Richard M. Walls, to bring certain personnel actions to the general’s attention. General Walls had received no word regarding his future. He did not know if he would be given command of the Constab permanently or whether a major general would be sent in to take General Waterford’s place. He had therefore been commanding the Constab from the same office from which he had commanded the Constab artillery, rather than moving into Waterford’s office at Constabulary headquarters.
“I’m afraid I’ve let this slip, sir,” Webster confessed, handing General Walls a teletype message. “I sort of hoped they would just forget us.”
“What is it?”
“USFET laid a requirement on us for two combat-qualified officers to send to Greece. They also have to speak Greek.”
“And?”
“I found people with those qualifications, but their commanders don’t want to give them up.”
“What the hell is going on in Greece?”
“I really don’t know, sir. As I said, I thought if I just let it slip, they’d forget us.”
“And what’s the problem?” Walls asked. He read the TWX from USFET:
PRIORITY
FROM USFET 10 JULY 1946
COMMANDING GENERAL U.S. CONSTABULARY
ATTN: ADJUTANT GENERAL.
REFERENCE TWX 55098. 27 MAY 1946.
YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY FURNISH NAMES OF TWO OFFICERS SELECTED FOR TRANSFER TO US ARMY MILITARY ADVISORY GROUP, GREECE, REQUESTED IN REFERENCED TWX.
YOUR ATTENTION IS INVITED TO REQUIREMENTS SPECIFIED IN REFERENCED TWX. SELECTED OFFICERS SHOULD BE OF COMBAT ARMS, GREEK SPEAKING, AND AVAILABLE FOR HARDSHIP TOUR OF NOT LESS THAN ONE YEAR. VOLUNTEERS ARE PREFERRED.
BY COMMAND OF GENERAL CLAY
After General Walls read the TWX, he pushed it back to Colonel Webster. “Let me think about it a minute, Charley,” he said. “I really hate to give up officers with combat experience. If the balloon should go up with the goddamned Russians, how the hell am I expected to fight with an officer corps that never heard a shot fired in anger?”
“That brings us to Lieutenant Lowell, sir,” Webster said. “Does the general intend to bring him before a board of officers for dismissal from the service?”
“That fancy-pantsed sonofabitch hasn’t been an officer long enough for us to make that judgment,” General Walls said. “Not to speak ill of the dead, that was really going too far, even for Waterford. Where’s MacMillan? Did he find a new home?”
“Yes, sir. We got a TWX yesterday. He’s assigned to Knox. He won’t even be coming back.”
“I would like to be able to send that sonofabitch to Greece,” General Walls said. He looked up at Colonel Webster. An idea had been born. He reread the TWX.
“As I read this thing, Colonel,” he said, “it says volunteers are preferred. ‘Preferred’ is not the same thing as ‘required,’ is it? And it also says that officers ‘should be’ of combat arms, Greek speaking, and available for a hardship tour. I would say that Lieutenant Lowell is available for a hardship tour, wouldn’t you, Colonel?”
“Yes, sir, I would,” Webster replied. “If the general decides not to board him out of the service.”
“And he is presently detailed to a combat arm, isn’t he?” General Walls asked. There was a pleased tone in his voice.
“Yes, sir, he is.”
“Pity he doesn’t speak Greek, but two out of three isn’t bad, is it, Colonel?”
“Not bad at all, sir.”
“Who else can you think of, offhand, Colonel, who also meets these requirements?”
“I heard from the CID, General, that there’s a captain in the 19th they think isn’t entirely all man, if you follow me.”
“Anybody else?”
“There’s a lieutenant in Combat Command A who’s been writing some rubber checks.”
“Send the fairy,” the general said. “Anything else, Colonel Webster?”
“Not a thing, sir. That takes care of all the loose ends I can think of.”
“Get both of them out of the Constabulary this afternoon, Colonel,” General Walls said.
(Six)
The military police duty officer came into Fat Charley’s office in the provost marshal’s building that Craig Lowell thought looked like a gas station.
“I thought I should bring this to the colonel’s attention, sir,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Colonel Webster just called, and said he was speaking for the general, and I was to send every available man to locate and arrest Lieutenant Lowell and bring him to his office.”
Fat Charley thought a moment, and then he dialed Colonel Webster’s number.
“Charley, what is this business about an arrest order on Lieutenant Lowell?”
“The general wants him out of the Constabulary this afternoon, Colonel.”
“Where’s he going?”
“He has been selected for assignment to Greece,” Webster said, somewhat triumphantly.
“For Christ’s sake, Charley, I saw that TWX. It says combat-experienced officers who speak Greek. It’s not that boy’s fault Waterford handed him a commission.”
“Would you care to discuss it with the general, Colonel?”
“No,” Fat Charley said. “I’ll have him at your office in an hour, Colonel.”
“Thank you for your cooperation, Colonel,” Colonel Webster said.
Fat Charley hung up the telephone. He reached for his hat. “Is your driver outside?”
“Yes, sir. You know where to find Lowell?”
“I think so,” Fat Charley said. “Have you issued an arrest order?”
“The duty sergeant put one out before I got this,” he said. “Should I cancel it, sir?”
“No, you better let it stand,” Fat Charley said. “I’m on Walls’s shit list enough as it is without making things worse.”
(Seven)
Forty-five minutes later Lieutenant Craig W. Lowell marched into Colonel Webster’s office.
“Sir,” he said, saluting. “Lieutenant Lowell reporting to Colonel Webster as ordered.”
“You may stand at ease, lieutenant,” Colonel Webster said. “Lieutenant, this interview will constitute official notice to you of inter-theater movement orders. Regulations state that personnel notified of such orders be further informed that failure to comply with such orders constitutes desertion. Do you understand the implication of what I have just told you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“By command of General Clay, Lieutenant, you are relieved of your assignment to the U.S. Constabulary, and are transferred to Headquarters, United States Army Military Advisory Group, Greece, effective this date. You will take with you such fatigue uniforms, field gear, and shade 33 uniforms as are necessary for an extended period of duty in the field. Shade 51 uniforms, and any household goods you may have, to include any personal v
ehicles, will be turned into the quartermaster. Such items will be stored for you at no expense to you at the U.S. Army Terminal, Brooklyn, New York, until such time as you complete your assignment, or request other disposition of them. You will procede from here to Rhine-Main Air Corps Base so as to arrive there for shipment by military air no later than 1800 hours this date.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you any questions?”
“Sir, I’m a little short of cash. May I have time to stop by American Express?”
“As part of your out-processing, Lieutenant, a partial payment of $100 will be made.”
“Sir, I don’t believe that will be enough money.”
“You won’t need money where you’re going, Lieutenant,” Colonel Webster said. “Any other questions?”
“No, sir.”
“Captain Young, of my staff, will accompany you through your out-processing. If you have no further questions, that will be all, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lowell saluted, did an about-face, and marched out of Colonel Webster’s office.
Captain Roland Young, Adjutant General’s Corps, who had rather relished the notion of personally running this disgrace to the uniform the hell out of the Constab, was annoyed and frustrated when he led Lowell into the corridor outside the adjutant general’s office and found the provost marshal waiting for them. He could hardly tell the provost marshal to fuck off, even if the word was out that the provost marshal, like other members of Waterford’s palace guard, was in hot water himself.
“I’ve sent a jeep for Ilse,” the provost marshal said to Lowell. “They should have her here in a couple of minutes.”
Captain Young thought that Colonel Webster would be very interested to hear that the provost marshal, in direct contravention of Constab (and for that matter, Theater) regulations, had ordered the transport of a German female in an official army vehicle.
“Thank you, sir,” Lowell said. What the hell was he going to do about Ilse?
“What is the lieutenant’s schedule, Captain?” Fat Charley asked.
“The lieutenant, sir, is to report to Rhine-Main no later than 1800 hours,” Captain Young said.
“Amazing how efficient you paper-pushers can be when you want to,” Fat Charley said.
Captain Young thought that Colonel Webster would be interested in that sarcastic remark, too.
“Is there anything I may do for the colonel, sir?” Captain Young asked. “There’s not much time to go through the processing.”
“I don’t have anything else to do, Captain,” Fat Charley said. “I think I’ll just tag along with you.”
The saddest part, Fat Charley thought later, was that in Lowell’s room in the Bayrischen Hof, the two of them had looked like Romeo and Juliet. She cried and Lowell was teary-eyed, and they exchanged promises. They even dragged him into it. He offered to forward letters to Lowell, and to receive them for Ilse from Greece. And he assured Lowell, man to man, that he would keep an eye on her.
He would keep an eye on her, all right. He was convinced that what that eye would see—despite her tearful promises, despite the three hundred dollars Lowell had borrowed from him and handed over to her, despite what she probably believed herself at the moment—was that in two weeks she would be sharing some other junior officer’s bed.
(Eight)
Rhine-Main Air Base
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
11 July 1946
Military Air Transport Flight 624, a passenger-configured C-54, landed at Rhine-Main twenty-two hours after takeoff from McGuire Air Base at Fort Dix, and after fuel stops at Gander, Newfoundland, and Prestwick, Scotland.
There was a welcoming delegation of officers and their ladies for the officers who were being assigned to Germany, and Transportation Corps people to handle those who were going beyond Frankfurt. Felter’s khaki uniform was mussed, and he needed a shower, but clean uniforms and a bath were not among the facilities offered.
Felter was informed that the Athens plane was scheduled for departure at 1800 hours. It was 1500, three in the afternoon, German time. That meant he had at least three hours to kill. He could take the shuttle bus running from Rhine-Main to the Hauptbahnhof in Frankfurt, have a couple of hours in Frankfurt, and return to Rhine-Main with plenty of time to make the flight.
The last time he had seen Frankfurt, he thought as the bus took him into town, it had still been smoldering, and he had been riding in the sidecar of a “liberated” Wehrmacht motorcycle.
When he got off the bus, he saw a white-and-black GI sign on a German hotel, the Am Bahnhof, identifying it as a bachelor officer’s quarters. It followed that a BOQ in a hotel would have a mess. There had been an in-flight lunch between McGuire and Gander (a balogna sandwich, an apple, and a container of milk) and another (identical) between Gander and Prestwick. He had had nothing to eat since Prestwick.
He had just about reached the door of the bahnhof when a nattily attired MP stepped in front of him and saluted.
“One moment, please, sir,” he said. “May I see your identification, please?”
Felter handed it over.
“Would the lieutenant please come with me, please?” the MP said.
“What’s this all about?”
“You are being detained, sir, for being in violation of USFET uniform regulations.”
“I’m in transit,” Felter said.
“Would the lieutenant please come with me, sir?” the MP said; and with movements as stiff as the Chocolate Soldier, he indicated the bahnhof. Inside the bahnhof was an MP station commanded by a first lieutenant.
The MP lieutenant wore parachutist’s wings and the insignia of the 82nd Airborne Division. Felter remembered that the 82nd had left in Europe one regiment, the 508th, to guard the headquarters of the Army of Occupation. He now noticed that the lieutenant wore crossed rifles, not crossed pistols. He was an airborne infantry officer pressed into service as an MP.
“Lieutenant, you’re a mess,” the paratrooper said to him. “Have you got some sort of excuse?”
“I’m en route from Bragg to Greece,” Felter said.
That caused some interest. For a moment, Felter thought he was going to be able to straighten this whole thing out.
“What were you doing at Bragg?”
“Ranger School,” Felter said.
The lieutenant looked significantly at Felter’s bare chest. Felter reached in his pocket and took his parachutist’s wings from a collection of coins and held them up and smiled.
The lieutenant did not smile back.
Lieutenant Felter signed an acknowledgment that he was in receipt of a copy of a delinquency report, AG Form 102, the original of which would be sent through official channels to his commanding officer. He was delinquent in that he was in an unauthorized uniform, cotton khaki, where wool OD shade 33 or tropical worsted with blouse was specified. He was, moreover, without a necktie. He was not wearing qualification insignia (parachutist’s) as required. In the Comments section, it was further pointed out that the uniform he was wearing was mussed and unmilitary, and that the subject officer was not freshly shaven.
A telephone call was made, and some senior military policeman decided that the thing to do with him, since he was in transit, was to transport him back to Rhine-Main, and turn him over to the air base duty officer, who could keep an eye on him until his plane left.
A Ford staff car was dispatched for that purpose.
It was, Felter thought, the first time that he’d been on report since he was a plebe.
The MP lieutenant marched him into the passenger terminal, where he telephoned for the duty officer, and then waited until he showed up and could sign for the “detainee,” as if the detainee were a package. Then Felter was led to a small waiting room which held two other officers, a field artillery captain and an armored second lieutenant, tall, blond, muscular, in a superbly fitting uniform. He looked entirely too good to be true. He looked, Sanford Felter though
t, like a model hired to pose for a recruiting poster.
“Keep your eye on this one, too, Captain,” the duty officer said. “See that he gets on the Greasy Goddess.” The captain nodded, but did not speak until the duty officer had left.
Then he said, “Sit down next to him, Lieutenant,” and indicated the too handsome, too perfect lieutenant.
Felter did as he was told. The two lieutenants examined one another, and formed first impressions. While there were exceptions, of course, Felter had come to believe that officers who looked like movie stars seldom lived up to their appearance. Moreover, from the moment Major Bellmon had let him listen in to the telephone call at Bragg, when the officer Bellmon was speaking to thought that Bellmon wanted him shanghaied to Greece, Felter had come to understand that so far as most people in the army were concerned, an assignment to Greece was one step above being cashiered.
There was something in the field artillery captain’s attitude that suggested that whatever had seen him assigned to the U.S. Army Military Advisory Group, Greece, it was not of his choosing, nor to his liking. He had, Felter was sure, been shanghaied. It was an easy step from there to conclude that the second lieutenant in the custom-tailored uniform and the handmade jodhpurs was also being shanghaied. It was not at all unusual for second lieutenants, even West Pointers, to go wild when they first became officers. Drinking generally got them, but there were variants of this. Fast cars, women, gambling. Or a combination of all those things and more. Even before he learned his name, it was Sanford Felter’s first judgment of Craig W. Lowell, that Lowell had done something to outrage the system, and had been banished.
Lowell’s assessment of Felter was equally nonflattering. Felter was not physically impressive. His hair was already thinning. His khaki uniform was baggy on him. He was, Lowell concluded, one of those Jewboys, who had scored 110 on the Army General Classification Test and qualified for Officer Candidate School. He had somehow managed to get through OCS (when there was a shortage of second lieutenants, it was difficult to flunk out) and had been commissioned. Once assigned as an infantry officer, he had obviously been unable to cut the mustard, and they had gotten rid of him.