The Aviators

by W. E. B Griffin

  "I'd only need them for ninety-six hours, Bob," Rand repeated, reasonably.

  "I don't know why I'm arguing about this," Bellmon said.

  "But no, you would need them for at least one hundred forty four hours, six days. Twenty-four hours to get them here ready to work, ninety-six hours-which will, and you know it, probably be extended-for BLUE BLAZES II, and then another twenty-four, almost certainly more, to get them back to work at the school."

  "Bill says," Hok Wendall said, nodding at Major General William C. Campbell, the Fort Benning commanding general, "that he'll pay for fuel and TDY pay for the air crews, and he'll work something out with you about contract maintenance." "No," Bellmon said. "Thank you, Bill, for the thought.

  But I cannot, I will not, shut down my Chinook operation for six days. Do you realize how many people that would leave sitting around on their hands? How much that would delay training? You're already screaming at me for pilots.

  How I am going to turn out pilots or mechanics if I don't have any aircraft to train them on?"

  "I keep saying this, Bob," George Rand said. "We only need them for ninety-six hours."

  "And I keep saying it's just impossible."

  "I've been thinking of making the proposal officially to General Howze," Hok Wendall said.

  "If you do, and he approves-which seems damned unlikely to me-I'll take it to DCSOPS," Bellmon said. "My God, don't make me the heavy in this. The 11th Air Assault is not the only unit in the Army that needs Chinooks. They're programmed for Germany. Christ, I've even got to send three, and crews for them, to the Arctic Test Board. And what the hell is going to happen to the training program if you cowboys dump a couple of them?"

  "Cowboys?" Hok Wendall asked just a little coldly.

  "I know all about the relaxed safety standards," Bellmon said. "And to repeat, don't make me the heavy in this. I'm as much interested in getting the 11th off the ground as you are. But not at the expense of the seed com." There was no reply from Generals Wendall or Rand. Bellmon looked at Brigadier General William R. Roberts.

  "Bill?" Bellmon asked. "You think I'm wrong?"

  "No, of course not," Roberts replied.

  "Why doesn't that surprise me?" Wendall asked.

  "That was a low blow, Hok," Bellmon said coldly.

  General Wendall met his eyes for a moment and shrugged.

  "Yes, it was," he said. "I didn't mean it the way it sounded. No offense, Bill?"

  "No, Sir, none taken," Roberts said.

  Bullshit on both counts, Bellmon thought.

  "Well, George," Hok Wendall said, smiling, "it looks as if you came up with a splendid idea whose time has just not yet come."

  "It would appear that way, Sir."

  "And I'm sure, Hok, that if you did decide to go to Ham Howze, you would tell me, wouldn't you?"

  "That's your low blow for the day," Wendall said, his smile forced. "That makes us even." A white-jacketed orderly appeared with yet another silver pot of coffee.

  "Not for me, thank you, Sergeant," General Bellmon said, waving the pot away.

  "I heard, Bill," General Wendall said to General Roberts, "that your mentor has formed an unholy alliance with the Chief of Staff and is already making noises that when it's up to strength, the 11th should be redesignated as the First Cav." The First Cavalry Division, organized and equipped as a regular infantry division, was at the time stationed in Korea.

  "Mentor meaning who?" General Roberts asked somewhat sharply.

  "01' sabers-on-the-tank I. D. White," Wendall said.

  When the old insignia of Armor, a silhouette of a World War I tank, had been redesigned as a front-on view of a World War II tank, then-Major General I. D. White had insisted, with all of the enormous persuasion of which he was capable, that Cavalry sabers be superimposed on it.

  "Seems like a splendid idea," Roberts said. "Or are you just pulling my chain?"

  "I heard that, too," General Campbell said.

  "No kidding?" Bellmon asked.

  "And you fiyboys are going to be issued riding breeches and sabers," General Campbell continued, "and Smokey the Bear campaign hats."

  "Screw you, Bill," General Bellmon said, tempering it just slightly with a smile. "Is there anything else?"

  "George has a favor to ask you," O. K. Wendall said. "I told him what I knew you would say, but he wants to ask anyway."

  "Shoot, George," Bellmon said.

  "General Wendall tells me that as the man who writes the regulations for pilot training, you also have the authority to waive them," George Rand said.

  "Go ahead and ask, George, but if the question is what I think it's going to be, the answer will be sorry, no."

  "I just got here. I've got a lot to learn. I just don't have the time to take six weeks or two months to go to Rucker and learn how to fly, and I think everybody agrees that I have to get myself rated. There are qualified people here, former Rucker IPs, who could teach me how when I could find a few loose hours."

  "Sorry, no," Bellmon said. "I warned you."

  "For what it's worth, George," Bill Roberts said, "I agree with Bob. When you're learning how to fly, you don't need anything else on your mind." Rand glowered at Roberts. On Roberts's breast were the wreathed and starred wings of a Master Army Aviator. Roberts had been the first aviator so designated. He was, de facto and de jure, the Army's most experienced aviator. He could hardly be told to mind his own business, although that thought ran through George Rand's mind.

  "Bob," General Wendall said quickly, as if he sensed the possibility of a blow-up, "why don't you call Barbara and tell her you're weathered in? We can run the wives off and get drunk. I for one think not only that are we entitled, but that we have a duty to celebrate George's star."

  "Plenty of room here, Bob," General Campbell said.

  "Rub it in, you bastard," Bellmon said. "Hell, I'd really like to. But I can't." He looked at his watch. "Christ! I've got to get the hell out of here." He looked at Brigadier General George Rand. "George, whenever you feel you can take the time' from here, you call me. I promise you, I will run you through a flight program, taught by the best people I have, and as quickly as you can get through it. But they need you here alive, and I'm not going to be responsible for you killing yourself."

  "I understand, Bob," Brigadier General Rand said, although he did not.

  [ONE]

  Quarters #1

  Fort Rucker, Alabama

  1810 Hours 11 January 1964

  Miss Marjorie Bellmon, only daughter of Major General Robert F. Bellmon, telephoned Captain John S. Oliver, aide-de-camp to Major General Robert F. Bellmon, catching him just as he was leaving the office. Bellmon had left a half hour before.

  "Guess what?" she said.

  Captain John S. Oliver did not have to guess. He instantly understood that for the fourth time since he had become aide-de-camp to Major General Robert F. Bellmon he was about to rescue Miss Marjorie Bellmon from automotive breakdown and deliver her to her home.

  Her MGB had carburetion problems. No mechanic in the area had any idea what caused them, but the symptoms were

  well known. Whenever it was raining and she was driving home from the bank, the MGB burped, coughed, and died.

  Usually, she would have the car towed to the Ford dealer where she had bought it, and then she would have either Geoff or Ursula Craig drive her home. When neither of them were available, she would call Johnny Oliver. He didn't mind. It wasn't the General's Daughter leaning on the General's Aide, but a friend asking a friend for a favor.

  "Where are you?" Captain Oliver asked.

  "By the auxiliary field, about three miles from the Ozark gate."

  "You want me to call the Ford place?"

  "To hell with them Johnny, would you pull it home for me?"

  "Be right there," he said. "What are you going to do with the car?"

  "I'm going to take Daddy's forty-five and put a merciful round in the radiator," she said. "But there's no sense taking it bac
k to the Ford place. "

  "We'll be there in ten minutes," Oliver said.

  "We'll be there? Is he still following you around, happily wagging his tail?"

  "That's true," Oliver said.

  "He" was Cadet Captain Robert F. Bellmon, Jr., who was at the moment sitting on a leather couch, reading a copy of Armor magazine.

  Since Johnny and Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell had brought Bobby home for Christmas leave, General Bellmon had encouraged Bobby to tag along after him and his aide during the duty day. Oliver wasn't sure if that was because the General wanted to show Bobby off-in his complete-to cape Cadet Gray uniform-or whether he considered it part of Bobby's education.

  And then, when Bellmon finally turned him loose at the end of a day, Bobby had taken to tagging along after Oliver alone. This turned out to be at once flattering and annoying, but Oliver didn't have the heart to run him off. And, in any event, it was about to be over. Bobby was catching the 8:05 Southern Airways flight to Atlanta, and thence to New York, tonight.

  "We'll be right there," Oliver said. "Don't put it out of its misery yet. Somebody has to know how to fix it. "

  "If that's Marjorie, and her car is broken down again," Bobby said, raising his eyes from Armor, "it's her own fault."

  "How do you figure that, Mr. Bellmon?" Oliver asked.

  "I told her the fuel line is fouled," he said. "All she has to do is blow it out."

  "Well, I'm glad you're going with me to get it, then, Mr. Bellmon," Oliver said. "As full of hot air as you are, you should certainly be able to blow it out better than that air compressor at the Ford place has already done it, three times. "

  "I didn't know it had been blown out," Bobby said.

  "Engage your ears, and your brain, Mr. Bellmon, before you operate your mouth," Oliver said. "Come on, lets go." They found Marjorie and her MGB without trouble, and Johnny went through the motions of trying to start the car himself, correctly predicting it wouldn't do a damn bit of good. Then he fastened a nylon rope to the bumpers of both cars and-towed the MGB to Quarters One.

  The three of them were shoving it backward into the carport when Barbara Bellmon came out.

  "Oh, not again!" she said.

  "If it doesn't heal itself over the weekend," Johnny said, "Marjorie has promised to put it out of its misery."

  "I'd like to put the salesman who sold it to her out of his misery," Barbara Bellmon said. Then she turned to her son.

  "I hope you're all packed. If you're on the 8:05 plane, I want to leave here at seven."

  "Johnny can take me to the airport, Mom, you don't have to bother," Bobby replied.

  "Captain Oliver is not the family chauffeur, Bobby," Mrs. Bellmon said angrily. "You really have a hell of a lot of nerve, Bobby! I'll take you, or Marjorie will."

  "I'll run him in, Mrs. B," Johnny said. "I'm going to Dothan anyway."

  "Don't let him push you around, Johnny," Mrs. B said.

  "He's just like his father, pushing people around." Johnny Oliver remembered the old soldier's advice to look at the mother if you wanted to see what the daughter was going to be like twenty years later, and decided it was equally applicable to men. General Bellmon in his youth had probably looked like Bobby did now, and was probably as stuffy, self-righteous, and naive. And in twenty-five years, Bobby would probably be just as good a general officer as his father was, and even, conceivably, as wise.

  "No problem," Johnny said. "The airport's on my way." Oliver really had no intention of going to Dothan on his own. But taking Bobby to the airport would spare Mrs. B having to drive him in, and it would take only an hour, back and forth.

  "Well, at least let me give you something to eat, Johnny," Mrs Bellmon said. "I insist."

  "I accept," Oliver said. "Thank you."

  "If you think he's bad now, Mother, wait till they pin that gold bar on him. Then he will be really insufferable." Bobby Bellmon gave his sister the finger. Their mother pretended not to see it.

  When they were on U.S. 231, headed, for Dothan in Oliver's Pontiac convertible, Cadet Captain Robert F. Bellmon, Jr., rested his back against the door and asked, "Johnny, what do you think of my sister?"

  "She's my boss's daughter," Oliver replied. "I don't think about her."

  "You know what I mean."

  "Oh, you mean, what do I think of her as a female, a representative of the allegedly gentle sex?"

  "Yeah."

  "Mr. Bellmon, that falls into the category known as none of your fucking business."

  "I'll tell you what the Old Man said. He and Mom were talking, and the Old Man said, 'She could do a lot worse.' She being Marjorie, of course, and you being who she could do a lot worse than."

  "Isn't there something in the Sacred Honor Code of Hudson High making it a high crime and misdemeanor to refer to a major general, who just happens to be your father, as the Old Man, much less eavesdropping on his conversations and then reporting what you overheard?'"

  "Hey, I'm on your side. I think you and Marjorie would make a good pair. "

  "Don't hold your breath, Mr. Bellmon," Oliver said.

  "Nothing like that is going to happen."

  "You never can tell."

  "Bobby, 'shut up."

  [TWO]

  Building T-124 Fort Rucker, Alabama

  2045 Hours 11 January 1964

  When he pulled into the parking lot behind the BOQ, for a moment Johnny Oliver thought that Marjorie had some bow miraculously brought her MGB back to life, and for some reason had come to the BOQ. Then he saw that the MGB had a Fort Rucker Temporary registration card-an oblong piece of cardboard taped to the rear window, and that it had Texas license plates.

  He scooped his laundry and dry cleaning out of the back seat of the Pontiac and started toward the building. Then he stopped and went back to take another look at the MGB. Something had caught his eye, and now he saw what it was. It was, he decided, the legendary MGB of Many Colors, like Joseph's robe in the Good Book.

  One fender was blue and the other was dark maroon. And between them was a flaming-yellow hood. The body was British Racing Green, and so was one of the doors. The other door matched the hood.

  Oliver shook his head and walked into the building and up the stairs and down the corridor to room seven. And with some effort, while balancing the laundry and dry cleaning with one hand, he pulled the key out of his pocket with the other and got the door open. There was an envelope on the floor. He dumped the laundry and dry cleaning on the bed and went back for the envelope.

  It held a neatly typed note from the sergeant in the billeting office:

  1330 10 Jan Capt. Oliver:

  We ran out of space.

  I had to put a 2nd Lt in Six.

  Just as soon as there is room for him in a Student BOQ, I'll move him.

  Sincerely Yours,