Jean-Philippe Portet saw her-though not his father's-reasoning, and he was graduated from the U.S. Army Corps Flight Training School at Randolph Field, Texas, on August I, 1941, and married Patricia Ellen Detwiler the next day. Their first child was born ten months later, by which time Lieutenant Portet was flying C-46- Commandos Over the Hump in the China-Burma India Theater of Operations.
In early 1944 Captain Portet was discharged from the U.S. Army Air Corps to accept a commission in the armed forces of a friendly foreign power. The Royal Belgian Air Force commissioned him a commandant (major) and he was given command of a group (two squadrons) of C-47 aircraft in time to participate in the Normandy Invasion.
He ended the war a lieutenant colonel and afterward found immediate employment with Sabena. His wife and child remained in the Unites States until 1947 because of the conditions in Europe. They rented a small house in Burnt Mills, New Jersey, and Captain Portet got to see them three or four times a month when he was laying over between flights between Brussels and New York.
In November 1947, shortly after she had joined her husband in Brussels, Mme. Portet, nee Detwiler, was struck by a truck while crossing the Boulevard de Waterloo en route to the 11:00 A.M. service at the Eglise Americaine on the Rue Cap Crespel. She died the next afternoon without regaining consciousness.
It was decided-it was the only thing to do-that Jacques!
Jack Portet would be raised in St. Louis by his maternal grandparents, with the understanding that as soon as he was old enough, he would come to live with his father in Europe and be educated there.
In March of 1951, Jean-Philippe Portet flew to California to accept delivery of the first Lockheed 1049D Constellation in the Sabena fleet. Developed largely through the efforts of Howard Hughes, the four-engine, triple-tailed transport had a range of approximately 5000 miles at a speed of about 360 mph and was ideal for Sabena's African routes.
On the way over from Europe- for no other reason than convenience-he took a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt am Main.
When the Lufthansa DC-4 was forced by weather to remain overnight at Gander, Newfoundland, as a matter of professional courtesy he was asked to dine with the Lufthansa crew, and met Fraulein Hannelore "Hanni" Grusterberg, a Lufthansa stewardess.
No one at Sabena said anything when Captain Portet married, in August 1951, the tall blonde Hamburgerin, but the German occupation of Belgium had been brutal, and Belgians have long memories. Rocks were thrown through the windows of the Portet apartment and Hanni was once spat on while shopping.
It was arranged for Captain Portet to remove his bride from an unpleasant situation. He was taken off the Atlantic routes and assigned to the African, where he flew Lockheed's on the routes Sabena operated within Africa and between Africa and Europe.
The Portets moved into a roomy apartment on a high floor of a new building in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Their daughter, Jeanine, was born in Johannesburg in February 1953. The next month Captain Portet was offered the position of Chief Pilot of Air Congo, a joint venture then of Belgian and Congo Belge investors (including Sabena). He was offered a substantial increase in salary, transfer of his retirement and seniority credits, and a written guarantee that if things didn't work out, he could return to Sabena.
As an inducement the job offer carried with it the offer of a mortgage loan at very attractive terms. Jean-Philippe had used it to buy a large villa on three hectares overlooking the Stanley Basin of the Congo River in Leopoldville. Jacques/Jack Portet, then ten years old, first saw his new half sister in June 1953, when he flew to Leopoldville to spend the summer with his father.
Hanni Portet promptly fell in love with him, and the first serious argument she had with her husband was over his refusal to insist that the boy be allowed to live with them. It would not, he said, be fair to his grandparents, for one thing, and for another he would rather have his son grow up as an American and not as an over privileged colonialist. There would be time for his "Europification" later.
Hanni got her way the next year, though not as she would have wished. Jack's Grandmother Detwiler died suddenly. Thus it was either turn the boy over to his uncle (whom Jack despised) or his aunt (whom his father thought had the brains of a gnat) or bring him home to the Belgian Congo.
Jack finished the equivalent of elementary school in Leopoldville, attended Culver Military School in the United States .for two years, and then finished his secondary education at the lycee in Brussels from which his father had graduated. After that he had gone on to the Free University in Brussels.
One of Captain Portet's responsibilities as Chief Pilot of Air Congo was the establishment of new service. In other words, he located places in the Congo Beige which Air Congo could service profitably and saw to it that they had the necessary navigation aids and ground-service equipment, and that they were adequately staffed.
Air Congo added three light, twin-engine Beechcraft airplanes to its fleet. Although Captain Portet was careful to remain current in the long-range passenger and cargo aircraft, he spent most of his time in the air in one of the little Twin-Beeches. He took a father's natural pride when his eleven-year-old son, sitting on a pillow, could keep it. straight and level. By the time he was twelve, the boy could take it off and land it.
And then he discovered an interesting omission in the Rules of the Ministry for Air of the Belgian Government, which governed air operations in the Congo Beige. No minimum age for a pilot's license was specified, presumably because it had never occurred to anyone that a fourteen-year-old would present himself for the written and flight examination for a private pilot's license.
Jack Portet's private pilot license was his reward for a 3.6 grade average during his two years at Culver. As a legally licensed pilot, he could go on the flight manifest as pilot-in-command. And he did, whenever he went anywhere with his father in the Twin-Beech. Captain Portet was long past the point where he was concerned with building hours, especially in Twin-Beech, and no one at Air Congo was going to question his authority, or his wisdom, in letting the kid fly.
Before he was sixteen, Jack Portet earned his commercial pilot's license, with twin-engine and instrument endorsements. It was his intention to become the youngest airline pilot in the world, and he studied hard and long for the written examination, only to find out that the Belgian Airline Pilot's Rating (ATR) was governed by the International Airline Agreement, and the IOO said that you had to be twenty-one to get your ATR.
He took and passed the examination the week he graduated from college. He didn't need the rating to fly Air Simba's Curtiss aircraft, because they would not be flying passengers on a scheduled basis. But if they couldn't make a go of Air Simba, he would have to get a job elsewhere, most likely with Air Congo, and that would require the ATR.
Jack Portet went to his room, actually a three-room suite, opened the letter from the government in St. Louis, read it, and then changed into tennis clothes and walked down the wide stairs to the pool.
His father raised his eyebrows at him quizzically. Jack handed him the letter.
It said that his friends and neighbors had selected him for induction into the Armed Forces of the Unites States of America, and that he was to present himself at the Armed Forces Induction Center, St. Louis, Missouri, on Thursday, January 2, 1964, at 9:00 A.M., bringing with him such personal items as he would need for three days.
"You knew it was coming," his father said.
"Shit," Jack said. "If I had the courage, I would put mascara on my eyelashes, swish in, and kiss the doctor."
His father chuckled.
"Then the Belgians would get you," his father said. "They don't care about fairies. One way or another, you're going in uniform."
III
(One)
277 Melody Lane Ozark, Alabama 1305 Hours 24 December 1963
"Don't argue with me, Porter," Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell said to Porter Craig, Chairman of the Board of Craig, Powell, Kenyon & Dawes, Investment
Bankers. "I'm a Norwich University graduate now, and don't you forget it."
"Oh, Jesus," Porter Craig said. He stopped himself just in time from demanding what the hell being a college graduate had to do with the question of where to set up a just delivered folding table (intended for use as a bar) in the living room of the house.
Lieutenant Colonel Lowell, who was a tall, muscular, handsome man with a mustache, and Porter Craig, who was shorter, a bit overweight, and balding, were cousins. Between them they owned just about equally 84 percent of the stock in the investment banking firm. Porter Craig did the actual running of it, although for tax purposes Lowell was carried on the books as Vice Chairman of the Board. Lowell was a career Army officer.
He was now in civilian clothing: a tweed sports coat, a red cashmere sleeveless sweater, gray flannel slacks, loafers. In civilian clothing, Porter Craig often thought, Craig Lowell looked like a model in one of the ads for twenty-four-year-old Scotch whiskey in Town & Country magazine. In uniform, Porter thought, especially when he elected to wear his decorations, Craig Lowell looked like every man's dream: handsome, heroic, dashing, and just a bit wicked.
Craig Lowell had been expelled from Harvard as an eighteen year old from college. He didn't need the rating to fly Air Simba's Curtiss aircraft, because they would not be flying passengers on a scheduled basis. But if they couldn't make a go of Air Simba, he would have to get a job elsewhere, most likely with Air Congo, and that would require the ATR.
Jack Portet went to his room, actually a three-room suite, opened the letter from the government in St. Louis, read it, and then changed into tennis clothes and walked down the wide stairs to the pool.
His father raised his eyebrows at him quizzically. Jack handed him the letter.
It said that his friends and neighbors had selected him for induction into the Armed Forces of the Unites States of America, and that he was to present himself at the Armed Forces Induction Center, St. Louis, Missouri, on Thursday, January 2, 1964, at 9:00 A.M., bringing with him such personal items as he would need for three days.
"You knew it was coming," his father said.
"Shit," Jack said. "If I had the courage, I would put mascara on my eyelashes, swish in, and kiss the doctor."
His father chuckled.
"Then the Belgians would get you," his father said. "They don't care about fairies. One way or another, you're going in uniform. "
III
(One)
1277 Melody Lane Ozark, Alabama 1305 Hours 24 December 1963
"Don't argue with me, Porter," lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell said to Porter Craig, Chairman of the Board of Craig, Powell, Kenyon & Dawes, Investment Bankers. "I'm, a Norwich University graduate now, and don't you forget it."
"Oh, Jesus," Porter Craig said. He stopped himself just in time from demanding what the hell being a college graduate had to do with the question of where to set up a just delivered folding" table (intended for use as a bar)in the-living room of the house.
Lieutenant Colonel Lowell, who, was a tall, muscular, handsome man with a mustache, and Porter Craig, who was shorter a bit overweight, and balding, were cousins. Between them they owned just about equally 84 percent of the stock in the investment banking firm. Porter Craig did the actual running of it, although for tax purposes Lowell was carried on the books as Vice Chairman of the Board. Lowell was a career Army officer.
He was now in civilian clothing: a tweed sports coat, a red cashmere sleeveless sweater" gray flannel slacks, loafers. In civilian clothing, Porter Craig often thought, Craig Lowell looked like a model in one of the ads for twenty-four-year-old Scotch whiskey in Town & Country magazine. In uniform, Porter thought, especially when he elected to wear his decorations, Craig Lowell looked like every man's dream: handsome, heroic, dashing, and just a bit wicked.
Craig Lowell had been expelled from Harvard as an eighteen- year-old and then drafted. He had won a commission (a battlefield promotion which for political reasons couldn't be called that), while serving with the U.S.- Military Advisory Group in Greece. Then he had been released -into the reserve. The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania had been happy to have the heir apparent to half of Craig, Powell, Kenyon & Dawes in their student body, whether or not he had been granted the usually prerequisite undergraduate degree; and he had graduated from Wharton summa cum laude. But before he could move into the office reserved for him at the firm, the Korean War had broken out, and he had been among the first reserve officers called up to fight it.
He had never again taken off his uniform.
Porter Craig had at first believed that there was a sort of joining the Foreign Legion element to Craig Lowell's Army career.
His wife had been killed in an automobile accident in Germany and by a perverse coincidence on the same day Lowell had been decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross and won a battlefield promotion to major in Korea. Later he had come to understand that Lowell would probably have-not stayed long with the firm under any circumstances; he far preferred soldiering to banking.
But Colonel Lowell had now become, as he had said, a college graduate. And this, Porter Craig thought, was both another example of the idiocy of the military mind and of the military's eager willingness to throw-the taxpayers' money down the toilet.
Apparently a routine review of his records had uncovered the fact that Lieutenant Colonel Lowell was not possessed of a baccalaureate degree, a requisite for a regular Army officer. The summa cum laude from Wharton apparently didn't count, because that was a master's degree, and the regulation clearly specified baccalaureate. Nor did Craig Lowell's career (he was already a lieutenant colonel when The Great Discovery was made) seem to count, nor his awesome display of medals for valor.
The regulation required him to have a baccalaureate degree.
And that, incontrovertibly and indisputably, was that. And further, in keeping with the Army's tradition of having a contingency plan for every contingency and to hell with what it costs the hardworking taxpayer, there was a program to deal with the requirement.
The program was called Bootstrap. Under it, the Army had sent Lieutenant Colonel Lowell back to college, not only paying his tuition, but keeping him on full pay and allowances while he spent just under a year picking up the- necessary credit hours.
While Porter Craig did not exactly approve of his cousin's Army career; he wasn't exactly unhappy to have the firm mostly to himself either. But Craig Lowell was not the only member of the family who seemed to have succumbed to the siren call of the military. For Porter Craig was now worried - about the parallels between Craig Lowell and his only-son, Geoffrey. Geoff had-also been drafted when he had flunked, out of college. And then after Craig had gotten him out of a mess in basic training (Geoff had beaten up his sergeant), he had gone to Vietnam as a Green Beret buck sergeant; and he had returned the previous August with a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, more, Purple-Hearts than his father liked to think about, and the silver bar of a first lieutenant: He had also, as Mrs. Porter Craig frequently observed married a German girl-as Craig himself had done as a young man.
Lieutenant Geoffrey Craig, his wife, and Mr. and Mrs. Porter Craig, were now all pretending, that Geoff still remained in the Army because the Army was not permitting. officers to resign at ,this time-even those who had 'survived Vietnam'. But Porter Craig thought the odds were seventy-thirty that Geoff would stay in the Army, period. He was in flight school; and the-life of an officer flying airplanes has a-great deal more appeal for a twenty-three-year--old like Geoff than going back to school for four years in order to prepare himself to sit behind a desk.
Porter Craig understandably wanted his son in the bank, but he was not a fool. He understood that this was not: the time to discuss the issue; So he looked on the bright side of things, starting with the all-important fact that Geoff had come home from Vietnam alive. And he had come home not only an officer, but a responsible and unusually mature young man.
And then there wa
s Ursula, whom Porter Craig credited with having had a very great deal to do with placing and keeping Geoff on the straight and narrow. Porter saw in Ursula a potentially invaluable ally in his campaign to move Geoff out of the Army and into the bank. He had thus been very carefully sowing "1 Want You Out of the Army" seeds in her mind, seeds he was confident would be fertilized when nature took its course and she got in the family way.
Lieutenant Colonel Lowell and Mr. and Mrs. Portet Craig were at the moment the Christmas holiday guests of Lieutenant and Mrs. Geoffrey Craig. A most unusual-occurrence, as both Porter Craig and his wife were well aware: Craig Lowell had last participated in a family Christmas gathering when he was seventeen. And yet when Geoff asked him to come, Lowell decided to fly in from Florida (where he was assigned to something called STRICOM) for this gathering without-hesitation. And he'd flown in early, and with the obvious intention of staying long.
The New Breed Page 7
