The Generals (4 page)

“We’re missing one,” he said.

“The kid with the bloody mouth told me Charley made off with the operations sergeant.”

“Goddamn!” Colonel Mennen said. If there was anything worse than getting killed or wounded, it was winding up a prisoner of Charley. When they weren’t amusing themselves tormenting prisoners in their cages, they were marching them around showing them off to Vietnamese peasants.

“How is he?”

He was privately shamed with his awareness that his concern for Staff Sergeant Craig was less based on his welfare than on his availability.

“According to the commo guy, the one who took the small arms fire, he was a regular John Wayne. The others got blown away almost as soon as it started, which left him in charge. All but one of the ARVN officers got blown away, too, so he ran the show. According to the commo guy, he saved everybody’s ass with his mortars. They were inside the wire twice, he said.”

“I was asking about his condition,” Colonel Mennen said.

“I haven’t looked at him,” the doctor said, and gestured toward the small boy on the helicopter’s seat. “Not as bad as these people. He’s walking around.”

Colonel Mennen nodded and walked away from the helicopter and climbed Bunker Hill. That had taken a real clobbering. A
real
clobbering. There were mortar fragments all over. You didn’t see many fragments unless there had been a hell of a lot of fire. The ground, in places, was literally covered with fired 7.62-mm cases from the M-60s. There were several bodies not yet covered, because no one had been up here yet. And the ground was littered with ammo cases, so many that the defenders of Bunker Hill had been forced to throw them over the sandbag wall to have room to move around.

He entered the covered passageways. There was uncased mortar ammunition, some stacked neatly, and some loosely strewn on the ground. He made his way to the interior. A Coleman lantern was still hissing. There were two bodies on the floor, their faces covered with field jackets.

He carefully turned off the Coleman lantern and made his way in darkness back outside. He looked down at the carnage, spotted the place where Charley had come over the wire. You could walk on the bodies, he thought. It was going to be a hell of a job just cleaning them up.

The unmarked landing pads were now busy, flying in ARVN and American replacements, and flying out first the wounded and then the dead. Vietcong casualties were being evacuated as their medical condition gave them priority, in the judgment of the doctors. ARVN and American dead would be placed in rubberized body bags for later evacuation. Dead Vietcong would be taken down the hill and buried in a mass grave. Colonel Mennen realized he would have to airlift in a burial detail; there were too many bodies to expect the replacements to bury them.

The smell of burned human flesh was both permeating and nauseating, but it was the napalm, more than anything else, which had saved Foo Two from falling. Courage and coolness was one thing, odds of nine to one another. No matter how good the kid had been with his mortars, no matter how many thousands of rounds he had fired from his machine guns, Charley would have taken this place without the Air Force’s rockets and napalm.

Colonel Mennen spotted Staff Sergeant Craig. He was standing by what had been the CP, a look of horror on his face, watching Green Berets free the crushed body of the detachment commander.

Mennen climbed down from Bunker Hill and walked over to him. Craig looked but did not salute.

“How are you, son?” Mennen said. “You did one hell of a job here.”

“Charley took Petrofski,” Craig said. “I saw it, but I couldn’t stop it. I thought about blowing him away, too.”

Green Berets knew fear As a general rule of thumb, Colonel Mennen believed they could control it better than lesser mortals, but they were, almost to a man, terrified of becoming a Vietcong prisoner. There were often pacts between them, one Beret solemnly promising to take out a pal when the alternative was the pal becoming Charley’s prisoner.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Mennen said. “Petrofski is a resourceful fellow. Was he hit?”

“Sure he was hit,” Craig said.

“Why don’t you go to the chopper and have your face looked at?” Colonel Mennen asked, softly.

“When they evac the wounded, they’re going to take me out, Colonel,” Craig said. “That can wait.”

“I would be ever so grateful, Sergeant,” Colonel Mennen said, gently mocking, smiling, “if you could find it in your soul to give me just a smidgen of that cheerful, willing obedience to which we all aspire.”

“Yes, sir,” Craig said, smiling at him with the corner of his mouth visible under the blood-soaked bandage.

When, in Mennen’s experienced judgment, the doctor had had enough time to be able to offer a sound opinion concerning the seriousness of Staff Sergeant Craig’s wound, Colonel Mennen walked over to the chopper. Staff Sergeant Craig was on his back on the narrow rear seat of the Huey. The surgeon was kneeling over him, taking sutures in his lip.

“How is he?” Colonel Mennen asked.

“I don’t even think there will be a scar,” the surgeon replied. “It was just jagged enough to knit neatly. I’m about finished.”

Mennen stood watching, arms folded, as the medic, with the surgeon watching him, applied a bandage and then fixed it in place with adhesive tape. Then he tapped Craig’s shoulder and the young sergeant sat up.

“Another inch to the right, and you would have a perfectly satisfactory Prussian dueling scar,” Colonel Mennen said.

“I hope this doesn’t mean I don’t get out of here,” Craig said. His lip had been anesthetized, and that made his speech slurred. He sounds like a cretin, Colonel Mennen thought. But this lad was demonstrably not a moron.

“I wanted to talk to you about that,” Mennen said. He saw surprise, and then bitter, resigned disappointment in Craig’s eyes. “Will you excuse us, gentlemen? I would have a word with this young chap.”

After the surgeon and the medic had stooped and then jumped out of the chopper, Mennen went inside and sat beside Craig.

“Why do I feel I’m not going to like what’s coming next?” Craig said.

“What’s coming next are effusive words of praise,” Mennen said. “You done good, kid.”

Craig smiled.

“I’m going to recommend you for the DSC,” Colonel Mennen said. “You don’t quite deserve the DSC, and you won’t get it. But once the noble warriors of the typewriters have played their little game, I feel sure you will get the Silver Star, which you have honestly earned. I am sure, further, that our Vietnamese allies will be similarly impressed with your distinguished service, and you can expect one or more of their better little ornaments. And then, of course, the Purple Heart. With the Purple Heart and twenty dollars you can become a member in good standing of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, which I’m sure will thrill you no end.”

“And now the other shoe, Colonel?”

“You are not especially awed with colonels, are you, Craig? I suppose that comes with having one in the family.”

Staff Sergeant Craig’s eyebrows went up.

“I am acquainted with Colonel Lowell,” Colonel Mennen said.

“I was not trying to be a wise-ass, Colonel,” Craig said. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest you were,” Mennen said. “As a matter of fact, I took it as a good sign, another indication that you have the ability to keep things in perspective. What I have in mind, Craig, is giving you a gold bar for your collar.”

Craig looked at him. He was in some kind of shock, Mennen saw, but he was thinking clearly.

“I don’t think so, Colonel,” Craig said, spittle flying from his nerve-deadened lips. “Thank you, but no thank you.”

“Pray grant me the courtesy of explaining my dilemma,” Mennen said, dryly. “It would have been more than losing an ‘A’ Team and an ARVN company had Foo Two fallen,” Mennen said. “That would have been academic to you, but it is something with which I must concern myself. I have been ordered to hold this charming geological feature against the forces of darkness and evil, and I intend to. We are, in a word, a sharp stick up Charley’s ass here. I have little doubt that as soon as he can remarshal his assets, he’ll have another go at it.

“I doubt if he will try that immediately, but I doubted that he would try it at all, so one must accept the possibility. That raises the question of staffing Foo Two. At the moment, I am a bit short of combat-experienced officers. I have a sufficiency of noncoms. I have one man, only, with combat experience here. In any event, you have just been screwed, Sergeant, by what are known as the exigencies of the service, from a ride out of here on these nice new choppers. I simply can’t afford not to have someone with experience here if somebody is available. You are.”

Craig thought that over.

“I understand, sir,” he said. It came out “undershtand” and “shir.”

“I have not finished, how could you
possibly
understand?” Mennen asked in exaggerated resignation.

“Colonel, I just got one hell of a headache. Is there something in here I could take?” He touched one of the Red Cross—marked equipment boxes.

“There probably is,” Colonel Mennen said, “but I suspect this will be equally effective.” He took a silver flask from his hip pocket and handed it to Craig. “Courvoisier,” he said.

“Thank you,” Craig said, and took a deep swallow. It made him cough, and then he took another.

“As I was saying, I have what at one time would have been called a ‘command’ problem, but we don’t do that anymore, as you know. This is the new Army, and this is a personnel assets management problem.”

Craig chuckled.

“My problem may be explained very simply. These are the facts. You will stay here, for the reasons I’ve explained. I intend to reinforce this place with experienced noncoms. They will all be senior in age and grade to you. There must be an officer in charge. I have no combat-experienced junior officers at the moment whom I can send here. It is not wise to send inexperienced officers to command experienced noncoms. They tend to consider them with a certain degree of scorn and derision.

“It was at this point in my thought process that I thought how nice it would be if Staff Sergeant Craig were a second lieutenant. The noncoms would regard him far more kindly than they would an officer yet to hear shots fired at him. And Craig, I thought, would be bright enough to heed much of the old sergeants’ advice.”

Craig started to speak. Mennen held his hand up to stop him.

“According to Army Regulations,” Mcnnen said. “In these circumstances, I have the authority to commission you. I want to.”

“If I took a commission, it would mean more time in the Army,” Craig said.

“I believe the initial appointment is for four years,” Colonel Mennen said, “but officers, you know, can resign. Such applications for resignation are approved by the appropriate general officer commanding. In this case, since you will return to Bragg when you leave here, that would mean General Hanrahan. I am sure that General Hanrahan would approve your resignation, once I had explained the circumstances to him.”

“What circumstances?”

“That you didn’t want it in the first place, and had only taken it because I told you I desperately needed you as a second john.”

“He’d let me go?”

“Yes, I am sure he would.”

“Then all I have to do is put on a bar until I go home, at the original time?”

“Correct.”

“Why not?” Craig said, after a moment.

“You have warmed the cockles of this old soldier’s heart with your emotional response to the honor being paid you,” Colonel Mennen said. “I can hear muted trumpets playing the charge, the roll of drums—”

“I don’t have anything against the Army,” Craig said. “I just want to get out.”

“If I were as rich as you are, Craig, I would feel exactly the same way,” Mennen said. “Unfortunately, I have mouths to feed, and I think I would be a lousy stockbroker.”

“I got married just before I came over here,” Craig said.

Colonel Mennen looked at him and nodded.

“We’ll do this as informally as possible,” he said. “But I don’t think we should skip the oath. Would you raise your right hand, please, and repeat after me….”

Geoffrey Craig swore that he would defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that he would faithfully execute the duties of the office upon which he was about to enter; and that he would obey the orders of the officers appointed above him by competent authority; and that he was taking the oath with no mental reservations whatsoever.

He wondered about the last, but said nothing.

Colonel Mennen had come with a set of second lieutenant’s bars and a pair of Infantry crossed rifles. He pinned the gold bar to the flash on Geoff’s green beret.

Then he opened his attaché case and took from it several stacks of paper. He closed the attaché case and put in on Craig’s lap.

“The first thing you sign is the Acceptance of Commission form,” Colonel Mennen said. “And then the Acknowledgement of Call to Active Duty.”

Craig signed the printed forms.

The third item was on printed First Special Forces Group stationery. Below the printed letterhead had been typed “‘A’ Team #16” and the date. Below that was typed “The undersigned herewith assumes command.”

“Write ‘Geoffrey Craig,’” Colonel Mennen said, “and under that, ‘Second Lieutenant, Infantry, Commanding.’”

I’ll be a sonofabitch
, Lieutenant Craig thought, as he complied with his orders,
if that doesn’t have a rather nice ring to it
.

“And now, Lieutenant, as a friendly suggestion from one officer and gentleman to another, may I suggest you change your shirt before I take you out and introduce you to your new command?”

(One)
Sioux Falls Municipal Airport
Sioux Falls, South Dakota
2115 Hours, 19 October 1962

John H. Denn, a tall, fair-skinned man of thirty-five who was a vice president for Corporate Relations of the Continental Illinois Bank, had arrived in Sioux Falls shortly before noon aboard one of CONTBANK’s twin-engine Beech Queenaire corporate aircraft.

For five years now, John H. Denn had been taking friends and customers of the Continental Illinois Bank pheasant shooting in South Dakota. Normally, CONTBANK provided portal-to-portal service, transporting the bank’s guests from Chicago, or wherever, to Sioux Falls, and then flying them home when they were finished. The party he was waiting for was traveling in its own aircraft, and while that wasn’t unheard of, it was unusual. Denn had the feeling that this party was going to be unusual in other ways, and possibly even difficult.

The party’s invitation to the Farm had come from the sixteenth floor, that is, from someone close to the very top of the Continental Illinois Bank. It had not come as a recommendation from the big boys, to be weighed by Corporate Relations against other recommendations concerning the potential guests who would be of greater or lesser value to the bank. It had come as a directive, in the form of a brief memo.

INTERNAL MEMORANDUM

Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes were the New York—based international investment bankers. There was a longstanding relationship between them and Continental Illinois. CONTBANK tried to take good care of its business partners, and that included entertaining them.

There was an extraordinary amount of personal relations in upper-echelon banking. This had at first really surprised John H. Denn as he had begun to work his way up in the hierarchy of CONTBANK. He had naively believed as a young man, fresh from Northwestern (AB) and then Pennsylvania (MBA, the Wharton School of Business), that after he had done his ritual internship service in the trenches as a teller and moved into the executive offices, the personal element would disappear. Business would be transacted based upon the pure facts and upon a rational analysis of the business circumstances. The personal element would play, at best, a minor part.

He had realized quickly that he was wrong; that bankers were no different from car salesman; that a deal had a better chance of going through when the participants were on a first-name basis and when each side thought of the other side as friends. More importantly, he had quickly learned that many deals that met every criteria for a mutually beneficial profit could and did fail because someone had taken a dislike to somebody else.

Denn had been even more surprised to realize that he was quite good as a back-slapper and hand-shaker. He was called “corporate relations” in banking; but of course it was public relations. He had become an account executive, and then an assistant vice president and then a vice president much sooner than he had expected he would. And he was well aware that his rapid promotion had as much to do with his “corporate relations” skills as with his knowledge of banking.

He had earned the reputation at CONTBANK as the man to send on difficult or unusual assignments when potential customers were likely to be difficult. He could, he thought wryly, calm the natives when they were restless. People thought they saw in him someone like themselves, who understood the problem; and they would therefore listen to his suggestions.

And then there were situations like the case in hand, where his mission was simply on behalf of the bank
as
the bank to repay services or courtesies rendered, or to cause others to feel obliged to the bank—or at least to think kindly of it.

Shooting pheasant with customers had never been mentioned at the Wharton School of Business Administration, but it should have been. Pheasant shooting was, in the real world of banking, at least as important as providing bank officers with antique-furnished offices or any other expense that could only be justified as “corporate relations.”

Pheasant shooting was so important that CONTBANK, as part of a deal with American Maize & Land Corporation (in which CONTBANK had made available $6.3 million on a ten-year 6.75% note for the acquisition by AM&L of the Herman Shoerr Estate) had insisted on reserving for itself exclusive hunting rights on the 6,400 acres involved. Long before Denn had joined CONTBANK, “the South Dakota Farm” had been organized for the entertainment of CONTBANK customers:

The largest and nicest of the farmhouses had been retained (AM&L had bulldozed the others flat) for use as a hunting lodge. A full-time caretaker had been engaged, who had very little else to do during the year except maintain the farmhouse (he and his family were furnished with a cottage a half mile away) and make sure that whatever AM&L was up to did not interfere with the pheasant population. During hunting season, however, he was expected to make himself available twenty-four hours a day to insure the comfort of CONTBANK’s guests. His wife was pressed into duty then as cook for the guests.

All this was expensive, of course, but a justified expense, which satisfied not only the Internal Revenue Service but the bank’s own internal auditors, who often took an even more critical view of entertainment expenses.

John H. Denn had not been surprised that CONTBANK wanted to entertain Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes at the South Dakota Farm. But the telex sent to him on a CONTBANK “For Your Information” buck slip had surprised him:

J. B. Summersfield had not elected to tell John H. Denn who the soldier hunters were, or why their pleasure was important to the Continental Illinois Bank.

Whatever was the true purpose of the invitation, Denn had decided he would do whatever was required to insure these people shot pheasant and had a good time.

Unless there was an early blizzard, there was no reason they should not be pleased. The house was stocked with food, three cases of liquor and one of wine—labels not ordinarily available in South Dakota; and he had had special steaks sent air freight from Kansas City. In previous years, with some difficulty, he had managed to convince the caretaker’s wife that economy was not a consideration when she was shopping.

When Denn had gone out to the Farm after his arrival from Chicago, the caretaker had assured him that sufficient plastic-insulated shipping containers were on hand, and that in the morning, he had been promised the first of the daily shipments of dry ice. You could never tell: Sometimes the hunters were really greedy for birds, and sometimes they didn’t seem to care at all. But if these people did want them, they would leave with cleaned pheasant, frozen by dry ice, in plastic bags.

There were also at the Farm eight shotguns with ammunition, in case the hunters arrived without weapons. And the two Labrador retrievers would be handled by the caretaker’s son.

In the house were telephones, a telex machine, and television sets. Everything but women. CONTBANK would not function as a procurer, even if that meant losing the chance to purchase the Bank of England at ten cents on the dollar.

Once he had checked things out at the Farm, there had been nothing to do but wait. The President of the Second National Bank of Sioux Falls, CONTBANK’s correspondent, with whom he had touched base, had called the manager of the airport and had a word with him. The result of this was that the tower would call Mr. Denn the moment he knew an Aero Commander with a General Hanrahan aboard was approaching.

When, at eight o’clock, there had been no call from the airport, John H. Denn got into the rented station wagon and drove to the airport in Sioux Falls, leaving word with the caretaker to forward any calls to him at the airport manager’s office.

At the airport, the manager told him there was no word of the Aero Commander.

“But there’s somebody else waiting for them, Mr. Denn,” he said, nodding across the small terminal building. “He’s been here about an hour.”

Standing erect, with hands folded against the small of his back, was a tall, dignified man in a fur-collared garbardine trench coat and a homburg. He wore a neatly cropped gray mustache. And he was black.

“You’re sure?”

“He had the aircraft call sign,” the manager confirmed.

John H. Denn walked over to him.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I understand we’re waiting for the same airplane.”

“We are?” the tall black man said.

“My name is Denn. I’m with the Continental Illinois Bank, and I’m here to meet General Hanrahan and his party.”

The black man took off his gray glove and extended his hand.

“I am Colonel Parker,” he said. “How do you do? Is there any news?”

The name was on the list, but he had not expected a black man.

“None so far, Colonel,” Denn said.

“While I have yet to abandon hope, Mr. Denn,” Colonel Parker said, “I have been seriously considering moving my vigil to the bar. Perhaps you would care to join me?”

“I think that’s a splendid idea, Colonel,” Denn said. “Give me a minute to tell the manager where we will be.”

Parker nodded stiffly.

They had been in the bar half an hour, and had just ordered a second drink, when the airport manager’s secretary came to them.

“Mr. Denn, the tower’s got a report on your Aero Commander. It’s five minutes out.”

“Where can I meet it?”

She looked a little embarrassed.

“We tried to save a place close by for them,” she said. “But somebody just parked there. It’ll be way down at the end, I’m afraid.”

She pointed down the airfield. Sioux Falls was jammed during pheasant season with hunters, many of whom came by private aircraft. There were, Denn judged, well over a hundred private aircraft already on the field, ranging from corporate jets to small Cessnas and Pipers.

“Colonel, I have a station wagon just outside. Why don’t you come with me?” Denn asked.

“There are five of them, plus their luggage,” Colonel Parker said. “I think it would be best if we took two cars.”

As Denn retrieved the Hertz Mercury Park Lane station wagon from the parking lot, he saw Colonel Parker unlock the door of a black Cadillac Fleetwood. The car bore Kansas license plates, and Denn put that together with the coating of road grime and deduced that Colonel Parker had driven to South Dakota from Kansas.

As the security guard unlocked the hurricane fence to pass him through, Denn stopped and rolled down the window and told him the Cadillac was with him. Then he drove down the line of parked aircraft to the end of the access road pavement. Because the moon was nearly full, there was enough light for him to see a white-and-red Aero Commander (a six-place, twin-engined, high-winged airplane) coming in to land two hundred feet over the prison. The prison, he supposed, had been built in “the country” long before there were airplanes. And the airport had probably started as a dirt strip. The result was that on approaches from the west, aircraft passed directly over the prison yard. It was hardly, Denn thought, what you could call good public relations for Sioux Falls.

When the Aero Commander touched down and rolled past on the runway, he turned to see if Colonel Parker had made the connection, and for the first time noticed that the colonel was not alone in his Fleetwood. There were two passengers in the back seat, looking with dignified curiosity out the windows. Colonel Parker had brought his own Labrador retrievers with him.

The Aero Commander taxied back from the end of the runway, turned into line beside a Twin-Beech, and stopped. The rear door almost immediately opened, and a young man wearing a blue nylon insulated jacket got out. Without a word, he went to the tail of the airplane, turned his back to Denn and Colonel Parker, and relieved himself.

Next out was a pleasant-faced Irishman, in the act of zipping up a hooded parka. He too headed for the tail of the airplane.

Denn glanced at Colonel Parker. He was not smiling. He was obviously offended at open-air urination.

Next out of the airplane was a stocky, ruddy-faced man. Either he or the other one was General Hanrahan, Denn decided.

A fuel truck drove up, distracting Denn’s attention. When he turned around again, another man had gotten out of the airplane. He was dressed in a tweed coat, sweater, and open-collared shirt. And he was enormous, probably weighing two twenty-five or more. Denn expected that he too would go to relieve himself, and he did. Last out of the airplane was a tall, handsome blond man. He saluted Colonel Parker and, looking somewhat sheepish, joined the others at the tail of the airplane.

When he had finished, the tall handsome officer went to Colonel Parker and offered his hand.

“Have we kept you waiting long, sir?” he asked.

“There are rest facilities in the terminal building,” Colonel Parker said in reply.

He was really annoyed, Denn saw.

“There were extenuating circumstances, sir,” the handsome one said.

“Indeed?” Colonel Parker asked stiffly.

“Our on-board facility, sir,” he explained, “is an aluminum funnel attached to rubber tubing. If the funnel freezes, and ours did, the system not only fails to work but…I’m sure you’re familiar, sir, with what happens when naked flesh touches freezing metal.”