Sex and the High Command (27 page)

“You want to tell it to the judge, Charlie?”

Well, he thought, as he hurried to the men’s room, her people had taken it for three hundred years. He should be able to take it for the next twenty-five or so, unless he decided to curtail his three score and ten by sending the candied pineapple rings to Sug.

Inside, the head was dingy, littered, with a yellow-streaked urinal lining the far wall. Three benches had been moved in from the main waiting room and they were bare except for a naval rating who was snoozing away with his head resting on his sea bag and his hat down over his eyes.

To calm his indignation over the plight of his President, arrested for speeding inside the city limits when his plane touched down at 120 miles an hour, Hansen walked over to read the graffiti above the urinals. As he read, he heard his page squeaked over the squawk boxes, one of which was affixed in the comer of the men’s room. If they piped the announcements into the men’s room, males must not be considered completely subhuman, he thought.

“Amusing, aren’t they?”

He wheeled at the sound of Helga’s voice, and the woman he loved stood before him, a smile of delight on her face, wearing bell-bottomed trousers and a coat of Navy blue.

“As I live and breathe,” she said, “if it isn’t the Dock Walloper!”

“By heavens, Helga!”

“Who did you expect? Senator Dubois?”

“Would I be hugging him like this?”

“Waltz me away from the urinal, Benjy. Its wave length is jamming my perfume.”

He waltzed her away, asking, “Say, what happened between you and Joan Paula?”

“Nothing. We staged a tiff for the Blubber Presiding… JP took over the communications watch at Anacostia. An emergency developed, or she would have come with me. We’ll have to take a taxi back. I was too excited to drive over.”

“My per diem doesn’t permit taxis.”

“I’ll pay the fare.”

“Good. I’m ordered to report to Anacostia.”

“We know. That’s Joan Paula’s command, and she’s one of us.”

“Who’s ‘us’?”

“The Men’s Preservation League. It’s one of those bleeding heart organizations for promoting civil rights,” she said. “But we can gossip in the cab.” She hoisted the sea bag on her shoulder and looked around her. “I must speak to the girls about these men’s rooms.”

He had to let her carry the sea bag, since he was an officer and she was posing as a rating, but she walked easily under her burden. Outside, on the empty platform, she called the cab and held open the door for him. He crawled in, but he thought she was carrying things too far and said so.

“Don’t you worry,” she said. “You may be a fourth-class citizen to the government but you’re a collector’s item for the girls.”

“Happy to see me?”

“Ecstatic, you brute. Those V-bombs lack character. They make a terrific first impression, but after six months or so it’s like shaking hands with your brother.”

“Helga. I was appointed Vice Admiral.”

“Good. Joan Paula will be thrilled to know she has an admiral to order around. She’s putting you in charge of seamanship instruction. Women are such dreadful ship handlers. When the President signaled he was landing. Fatso Carey tried to recall the
Gluckstag
. The ship was late, anyway. The woman skipper—that slob in the White House wouldn’t trust a man with a shipload of girls—got lost because her radar was jammed and she ran aground on Cape Atholl trying to make the turn for home. Joan Paula had to stick around communications because she’s helping direct rescue operations through Thule. Young Lindenberry had to send snow cabs to pick up the girls, or those poor things would be freezing to death. Fatso Carey would like that. That woman’s vicious, Ben.”

“The cruelty isn’t one-sided, Helga. You know, I’m down here to pick up some inertial guidance devices…”

“Oh, no, you aren’t! Joan Paula suspended that operation. You’re all she wanted. She’ll brief you on Operation Tethered Bull and Operation Jelly Roll—but let’s not talk about unpleasant things. Joan Paula’s changing your orders to ‘proceed and report’ so you’ll have two weeks alone with me on Hatteras. It’s quiet down there in winter, and there’ll be no PE’s snooping around. Oh, another bit of pleasant news. Senator Dubois is dead.”

“Postoperative complications, I hope,” Hansen said.

“Oh, no. Carey promised him something for his defection. She sent him an eight-girl relay team from the Rockettes, and he died on the seventh lap. Ben, this is no country for old men.”

“I would never die on any lap,” he said, recalling Helga’s idiosyncrasy.

She squeezed his hand in what developed was a warm misunderstanding. “I’m glad, Ben, because it’s not my nature to be selfish, and I’m going to have to share you with the other girls until the Greenland crop matures.”

There was no further time for sentiment as the taxi came to halt before the sentry gate at Anacostia.

“You report in, Ben. Say hello to Joan Paula, and hurry back. Our car’s parked in the lot, and I’ll be waiting at the gate.”

Hansen was surprised and relieved when a Bam sentry, uniformed in conventional green, snapped to attention and saluted before checking his orders. She then called a Wave orderly over who also saluted and said, “This way, sir.”

Military etiquette was still being observed.

He followed the Wave into the administration building and down a long corridor to a door marked
officer in charge, training detail
. The Wave knocked three times and opened the door to Joan Paula’s “Come in.”

Joan Paula, seated at her desk and bent over a communications log book, did not look up when they entered or when he sang out, “Lieutenant junior grade Hansen reporting, ma’am.”

“At ease. Lieutenant. Carry on. Orderly.”

Coppery highlights burnished her auburn hair. Her white blouse was crisply pressed. On sight, he would have given her a 4.0 for military appearance, and the new half stripe, gleaming on her blue coat sleeve, showed him someone else also appreciated her.

When she heard the orderly close the door, she looked up, smiled, and raised her arm to show him the stripe. “Got the extra one yesterday. Papa. It’s not a bloody war, but it’s a sickly season.”

She arose and extended her hand for a handshake.

“Did you bring me a seal from Greenland?”

“You didn’t requisition one.”

“Same old Papa. Draw up a chair.”

“Is a handshake all I get?”

“That’s all you get at a naval facility,” she said, “because rank must be observed. But I have something else to satisfy the amenities.”

With Hansen efficiency, she slid open the drawer of her desk and drew out two water glasses, a decanter of water, and a fifth of bourbon.

“The hooch is nonreg,” she said, pouring, “but rank has its privileges. I’ve got new orders for you, here.” She pulled a set of papers from the desk, and shoved them toward him. “They’re ‘proceed and report’ so you can take the ten days as my Christmas present. Mother’s carting you off to the Cape over Christmas, so I’m giving you the extra time to recuperate… Skoal!”

“Skoal,” he answered, commenting to himself on her precision of movement and her easy but definite manner of speech. “Am I looking at the future CNO?”

“No,” she answered flatly. “I’m looking at the future CNO. You’re looking at the future Mother Presiding. Henrietta’s too fat. Obesity presupposes overindulgence. Overindulgence presupposes lack of self-discipline. She’s setting the wrong moral tone for the country. Between you and me. Papa, I’m giving her sixteen years of office, then I’m moving into the civilian establishment. As old Merryweather Dippynose used to say, If your aim is power, you can’t operate from a military base.”

She sipped her drink reflectively. “Old Sug could fire off more ideas per minute than a rapid-fire machine gun.”

“Sug was fanciful,” Hansen said, “but he did have the good sense to make me Vice Admiral.”

“Congratulations, Papa. Keep it, for what it’s worth. By the way, they got all the girls off the ship and are towing it to Thule. I hope they don’t melt the ice cap tonight.”

“How long have you been in contact with Shiloh?”

“Almost from the day the Government in Exile landed.”

“Sug never mentioned to me he was talking to you.”

“He couldn’t. He was violating Shiloh regulations by not going through channels.”

“One thing intrigued us, up there, JP. What’s happening to all the men in the country?”

“Oh, you can thank Mother Carey for that. You have to hand it to the slob, she knows her chemistry. She devised a diaphragm armed with a needle dipped in a compound of curare and cyanide. At least eighty percent of all males over fourteen have committed involuntary suicide.”

“That’s savagery!” Hansen exploded.

“Oh, no, Papa. All men must die, and how could a man die better?”

Her logic was so immaculate that his beginning indignation evaporated, but he was struck by a sudden fear.

“Are the Greenland girls armed?”

“Of course not, Papa. Sug’s too smart. He’d cause a blow-back in the firing chamber with a belaying pin, and after that there’d be no stopping him. This way, he’ll delay for dalliance and I’ll have time to stop the operation.”

Obviously Joan Paula knew as much about Primrose’s Plans and Operations as Hansen knew, and he said flatly, “Joan Paula, you’re a double agent.”

“No and yes, Papa. No, in that I don’t intend to let myself be vaporized for the greater glory of the male. Yes, in that I, too, am a member of the Men’s Preservation League, but never for the reasons Mother is. I’m sparing a few men for demonstration in anthropology classes and a few will be thrown to the PL’s as a sop for their support. Some may be preserved for heavy menial tasks.”

“What if the men object?” Hansen asked.

She flashed him a Helgalian smile. “Then I’ll stick ’em in zoos… but back to military matters, Papa. We’re turning the airports into used-car lots, so there’ll be no landings by air, and I’m setting up a counteroperation to Meat Cleaver.”

Hansen was dismayed by her war aims, but he was essentially a tactician and he felt the grand design for any military operation was a civilian responsibility. As a tactician, acutely aware that his advice might be that of the future CNO to his future Commander in Chief, he said, “You’re aware. Commander, that the
Gluckstag
can be rendered seaworthy by early April and that landings could be effected on our coast by the Greenland insurrectionists.”

He recalled, now, his wonderment at the map for Operation Meat Cleaver in Primrose’s office. The amphibious landings had been predicated on the admiral’s possession of the SS
Gluckstag
.

Joan Paula waved his advice aside. “I thought of that, Papa, before the
Gluckstag
left. That’s why I installed Operation John Paul Jones to get you home. There are two phases to my counteroperation: Phase One is Operation Tethered Bull.”

She got up and pulled down a wall map showing the area of Greenland. “With six destroyers, manned by crews you’ll train, you’ll set up a blockade screen, here.” Her hand swung in an arc from Cape Parry to Cape York. “This should bottle up the
Gluckstag
until you are ready to commence Phase Two, in late spring.

“Phase Two will commence with the arrival of an attack transport, whose crew will also be trained by you, carrying two battalions of women Marines, now in training at Quantico. When the transport arrives on station, you will then commence Operation Jelly Roll. You land and attack.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You will be Chief of Combined Operations, Afloat and Ashore. Now, this should brief you on the strategy. You can work out the details with Plans and Operations when you return from leave.”

She snapped the map up, walked back to her desk, and stood behind it, very erect and so briskly military that she exuded motion while standing still. “Now, as to our official relationship, Papa—I won’t tolerate gold-bricking. I don’t give a royal encapsulation for any excuse ever invented. When I give an order, I want you to hoist ‘execute’ promptly.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She didn’t smile at his reply. Instead, she placed her knuckles on the desk and leaned toward him. “To avoid the disruptive influence of an obvious male on my staff, and to give Mother vent to her tailoring talents, your uniform of the day will be a skirt. Keep aloof from your sister officers and the ratings, or you’ll give Lesbianism a bad name.”

She glanced at her watch, dropped her official manner, and smiled as she extended her hand for a farewell handshake. “Lieutenant, I know you’re anxious to commence your leave, so welcome aboard and carry on.”

“Thank you. Commander.” Hansen rose, shook hands, and left.

He walked slowly down the passageway, unnerved but undaunted by his audience with the lieutenant commander. Although he didn’t relish the task of rounding up his old comrades as museum pieces or wearing a jockstrap under undies, once the area in which he was to perform had been defined, he knew he could bring a greater professionalism to his job than any other officer in this woman’s Navy.

Hansen walked into the cold and humid night, shoving behind him the thoughts which had invaded the area of his expertise and outraged his sense of order. In all fairness, he could not generalize about the ladies as long as one Helga, the ever-loyal, remained. Out yonder, waiting in the light of the sentry gate, he could see the family jalopy with its side door open, and his pace quickened.

Helga intended to drive. By pushing it, she could reach the cottage on Hatteras before dawn so they could stand, hand in hand, and watch the sunrise over the dunes and the gray Atlantic. He had not seen the sun for six weeks.

On Ocean Front Drive, in the town of Virginia Beach, stands a rectangular building which survives from the days before the Women’s Democratic Republic. In spring and summer, its lawn is kept neatly trimmed. Above the structure, during the daylight hours, is raised a blue flag with a triangular grouping of three white stars that signifies a Vice Admiral is aboard. Inside the building is a room reserved for exhibits—old sabers, a telegram yellowed with age, photographs, a black and white third-repeater pennant, and a faded Bonnie Blue ensign of the Confederate Navy. In a roped-off cornet of the room stands the highlight of the exhibit, a tall, erect figure wearing the uniform of a Vice Admiral, USN, old style, with trousers. Beneath the figure is a plaque which reads: