Command Decision: A Novel of the Army Air Forces

BY WILLIAM WISTER HAINES

CHAPTERS I - X1

COMMAND DECISION

by WILLIAM WISTER HAINES

1

ELMER BROCKHURST drove up to the sate of the Fifth Division Headquarters with deeper emotion than he would have disclosed to any of his fellow war correspondents in London. Pride had been stirring in him all the way up the Great North Road that led from the metropolis like the trunk of a tree to the branching, budding American air bases in the flat middle counties. To enter an American station was to come home. The glow inside him Mas intensified rather than diminished by the knowledge that he personally would be unwelcome here.

Brockhurst had quarreled with officialdom through five campaigns. A powerful syndicate kept him because he won a satisfactory proportion of the quarrels. Today he knew he would be fighting his own people in a good old-fashioned family row. The expression of the young Corporal on guard confirmed this pleasant presentiment even before the boy spoke.

“You’re forbidden on the station, Mr. Brockhurst. Orders.” Then, to modify the severity of this pronouncement the boy smiled confidentially. “The Old Man’s got his tail over the dashboard.”

Brockhurst produced his new pass and watched the young face pucker with perplexity.

“Just a minute, sir.”

He went into the guard box. Brockhurst waited, studying the station with a practiced eye. This particular Division Headquarters had its little nucleus of buildings across the perimeter track from an Operational Group, — the standard, ugly brick rectangles, carved with the crazy angles of camouflage, and beyond them the loaf-shaped roofs of the Nissons nestling along the hedgerows. A dispirited volleyball game was in progress on the sandy flat.

His mind was on business as his eyes followed the long oval of ihe perimeter track, a two-mile enclosure of emerald grass slashed and crisscrossed with runways. The black, oil-stained parking stands that studded its outer rim like teeth on a gear wheel were barren. The great greenish beetles that waddled and snorted here through darkness and half-light had vanished for the day.

Brockhurst saw that the ambulances and crash trucks were drawn up in meticulous formation near the Operations tower. But their motors were idle, the asbestos suits were still laid out on fenders, the crews not yet assembled. There was a mission out all right, a big one. But under the soft rare sunlight of a brilliant summer day the station drowsed.

Studying it more slowly now, Brockhurst wondered what it was that made this pastoral patch of Lincolnshire America. It was more than the drooping flag over Division Headquarters, more than the velocity of the occasional jeeps, more than the accent or attitude of the guard. He was remembering an old phrase: you could take the boy out of the country but you couldn’t take the country out of the boy. That was what made this place, all these places, America. Brockhurst had seen this happen in both hemispheres, on both sides of the equator. The Army simply took the country along with it.

His reverie was interrupted by the Corporal.

“I guess it’s okay, Mr. Brockhurst. That’s General Kane’s signature all right.”

He returned the pass with a final, awed glance.

“But when Dennis sees you he’ll spit a snake.”

At four that afternoon Technical Sergeant Harold Evans had relieved his assistant, Corporal Herbert McGinnis, in the office of General Dennis with a sense of buoyant well-being. He had just had almost five hours of uninterrupted sack. He had had four fresh eggs and an orange in the combat mess. He had a date with Joan at the White Hart at seven and he thought the chances of keeping it were good. After missions like yesterday’s and today’s the General wouldn’t send them tomorrow. With the board scrubbed Evans was a cinch for at least six hours off.

When he had finished his missions Evans had thought himself lucky at the chance to become the General’s Sergeant. He had been compelled to choose, fast, between that and Personnel. Headquarters certainly meant indoor work and better food and transportation than he was likely to get elsewhere. And traditionally it should have meant plenty of liquor. Evans had accepted only to discover that General Dennis rarely drank. The single bottle of whiskey in his desk was reserved for the visits of Colonel Martin and they both knew how much Colonel Martin drank and when.

Otherwise, the job was all right. General Dennis was real Army, even to that ring; curl, crisp, predictable. He was distant and took his job hard. But on the whole Evans had nothing against the General except the deplorable drought in the office, a drought that was partly compensated by Mrs. Dennis’s regular shipments of the best cigars Evans had ever tasted.

As soon as he had taken over the office, Evans put on the General’s coffee and then studied his watch. The General had not gone to the sack until eleven. The boys would scarcely be back for another hour. It seemed a fairly safe bet that he’d be alone for thirty minutes. He went over to the desk and selected one of Dennis’s cigars with loving care. As a precaution before lighting it, he hung the CONFERENCE — Do NOT DISTURB sign on the anteroom door.

Evans seated himself within reach of the coffeepot on the stove and lit the cigar with expanding content. He knew the boys were having it rough today but he couldn’t help it and no one had cried for him while he was doing his twenty-five. There hadn’t been any fighter cover through most of his missions and for a time after the end of his tour he had enjoyed pointing out to the replacement crew’s that the war was getting soft. By now they should be almost back to the fighters anyway and from there in was a good bet, even on three motors.

Evans filled his big lungs with the delectable fragrance of the cigar and lifted his feet comfortably up onto the General’s map table. Then he dropped them softly and tensed as he saw the anteroom door swinging silently open. Anyone who barged through that sign should be big. His apprehension changed to outraged indignation as he perceived that it was only Elmer Brockhurst.

2

BROCKHURST had barged in so boldly because he had learned over his coffee in the cookshack that the General was still asleep. Audacity had done a lot for Brockhurst in life; he had hoped it would be good for a look at the map board in the General’s office this afternoon.

Finding Evans on duty only sharpened his scrutiny of the room. The maps and operational status boards were properly masked behind their heavy draw curtains. Brockhurst had been afraid of this; he well knew the working, as distinguished from the official, rule that the lower the echelon the higher the security. Lieutenant Generals regularly told and showed him things Lieutenants would have been busted for mentioning.

Divisions were relatively small units in the expanding Air Forces. The Brigadier Generals who commanded them were usually obscure, most conscientious, and often capable. The office of this particular one was the usual barren rectangle of damp brick.

Through the Ops room door across the room Brockhurst could hear the muffled clattering of the teleprinter. The rack of tommy guns, the General’s tin hat, gas mask, and service automatic hanging neatly behind the big bare desk reflected not only the apprehension inherent in all Army Regulations but the wistful hope of all headquarters staffs that something might conceivably happen. The phones on the desk, black for admin, green for secrecy, red for Ops, were proof that to and from this dreary room there would be a great deal of talk.

The wall ornaments were as standard as GI soap. That Fortress propeller had unquestionably been removed from the first plane in the Division to survive twenty-five missions. The unmounted Browning 50 was as certainly the first in the Division to have shot down a German plane. The converted peanut tins on desk and map table were well into a second tour of duty as ash trays.

In a corner a carefully arranged cluster of British, American, and Division flags drooped over a squat, sturdy chest clearly stenciled Division Flag Locker. Brockhurst wondered whether the juxtaposition of flags, guns, and fire extinguishers represented some Sergeant’s conscious sense of irony or perhaps was so ordered in regulations.

Then he saw something new. From a previously blank patch of brick wall now blazed the black and white Swastika-shaped marking cross of a German fighter plane. It was authentic. Brockhurst had seen captured ones before. But he knew that heavy Bombardment Divisions did not capture German planes. He had known it when, two days before, his startled eyes had seen this same marking cross on its own plane in Hangar 4 just before the guard arrested him for snooping. For the moment he covered his excitement.

“Is the Old Man in, Sergeant?”

“Does it look like it?”

The Sergeant’s cigar dispelled any pretense that the General was around. But his manifest annoyance seemed to have thawed a little with the success of his crack and that was something.

“Seriously, Joe, where’s the Old Man?”

“My name isn’t Joe. What old man?”

Brockhurst hesitated. Sometimes a note of contempt for the brass went a long way with these kids. This Evans was a mature, self-reliant young man if Brockhurst had ever seen one. He smiled sardonically.

“Brigadier General K. C. Dennis, Commanding General of the Fifth American Bombardment Division, Heavy. Don’t all good Sergeants call their Generals ‘The Old Man’?”

Leaving Evans to chew that one over, Brockhurst walked calmly over to the fighter-plane marking cross. Assurance went a long way with the Army. He had just begun a closer study of the cross when he heard Evans’s voice,

“Who let you in here?”

He continued his silent, absorbed examination.

“Who let you in here?”

“I can’t hear you, Sergeant,” he said over his shoulder.

Then he did hear the hard ominous steps, the hands on the tommy gun, the clatter of a handejected shell on the bare floor. He turned to find himself looking into the muzzle of the gun. The safety was forward.

Brockhurst felt fear soak through him as if he were porous. The trigger pull on those guns was notoriously light, as light as the balance of impulses in that poker-faced boy who was pointing it squarely at his stomach. Too late he realized that he had been wasting subtlety on a barbarian.

“Who let you in here?”

“I’ve got a pass.”

“I seen Dennis tear your pass up. A man without no pass is a spy.”

Brockhurst gulped.

“I’ve got a new pass, from Dennis’s boss.”

Evans now had to shoot or forget it. Up to here it had been perfectly safe.

“Walk your pass over here, slow,” he said.

Brockhurst extended it with exaggerated slowness over the tommy gun muzzle and listened while Evans muttered through a careful reading of the simple sentence. “Signed — who?”

“Major General R. G. Kane, that’s who.”

Evans nodded, awed, in spite of himself. “Imagine that! A goddamned old Major General probably gets as much money as a fair to middling third baseman and can’t sign his own name clear enough to read. Yeah, that’s old Percent himself.”

“Why do you boys call him that?” Brockhurst knew very well but there was safety in continuing the distraction. ,

“Because of that crap he puts in the papers about what percentage of Germany his gallant forces destroy every afternoon, weather permitting.”

Evans returned the pass, racked the tommy gun, resumed his seat, and puffed hard to restore the fading ember of his cigar. Brockhurst resisted a wish to wipe his forehead with his handkerchief and sat down beside the Sergeant, keeping his eyes ostentatiously averted from that fighter-plane marking.

“Coffee?” said Evans.

Brockhurst welcomed this first intimation of cordiality. This Sergeant probably knew every detail of the story he wanted.

“Where is Dennis, Sarge?”

“In the sack.”

Brockhurst lowered his voice persuasively.

“I hear he’s got the German plane that Swastika came from, under close guard in Hangar 4. And 1 know he’s flown it himself, several times.”

“You know more than that,” Evans encouraged him.

“You’re damned right I do.”

“You know he throwed your ass in the guardhouse for writ ing a piece about it and kept the piece and tore up your pass.”

The Sergeant burst into a triumphant chuckle. Brockhurst waited patiently for it to subside.

“I got out,” he said. “And I’ve got a new pass from General Kane. That guardhouse was a break for me. But I still want to know what became of the German Dennis had in there.”

“What are the other angles?”

“Well, yesterday, without even alerting us, Dennis runs off the longest mission of the war and has the worst losses to date. We try to help you guys take the curse off it with a good story and you won’t even give us the target. ‘Industrial Objectives’! That’s a fine comfort to a lot of new widows back home.”

“Go on.”

“This morning everything that could roll to the end of the runway went earlier and they aren’t back yet. Maximum effort, deep in Germany, two days straight. For what?”

“Why don’t you ask some smart newspaperman?”

“Because I get paid for using my head instead of Public Relations handouts.” He let this sink in and then leaned forward gravely, confidentially.

“Listen, Sarge, Dennis is washed up. Trouble with the press, record losses yesterday and probably again today, a Squadron Commander with a DFC in the guardhouse. Dennis is a ruptured duck, boy. But a couple of angles on this deal would be worth some good bourbon to me.”

“What angles?”

“What became of that German Dennis had in the guardhouse?”

“Bonded bourbon?”

“Bottled in bond.”

“How much?”

“Four bottles.”

Evans’s face darkened with indignation. “You give Rafferty in the guardhouse two cases, just for having his girl in the village make that phone call that got you out.”

“I did like hell. I gave Peterson one case—” Brockhurst shut his mouth, too late. He had set too many verbal traps himself not to feel the click of this one. “Okay, call it a case, for the whole story, though.”

Evans looked cautiously at both doors, removed the cigar from his mouth, and leaned forward. Brockhurst’s ears stretched.

“Dennis kept him there till last night. But yesterday they was a snafu at the Quartermaster’s and he run clean out of Spam. The General, he said By God he’d promised the men meat for breakfast and if they wasn’t no other meat we’d just have to use that Kraut. If you could have heard them boys at breakfast bitching about the meat packers profiteering—”

Brockhurst arose, livid. “Okay, you got your joke and I still got my whiskey.”

Evans waited until the anteroom door banged shut on the correspondent. Then he jumped for the black phone on the General s desk: “Guardhouse — Rafferty, give me Peterson — Peterson this is Evans. Bring six of them twelve marbles you just found to General Dennis’s anteroom in a musette bag.” He locked his lips over the cigar and revived the ember before cutting off the paean of protest that battered his eardrums. “You heard me—in twenty minutes. Well, Jesus Christ, I’m giving you half of ‘em, ain’t I?”

He hung up the phone and stretched his long arms with tingling satisfaction. His instinct not to shoot that fool had been right. Now, for a little patience, he not only had six immediate bottles of whiskey: he had discovered an operating procedure. It always took time to get onto a new job but he had the war under control again now.

3

GENERAL DENNIS returned to work that afternoon feeling a little better than usual. He had had nearly five hours of sleep — two troubled and fitful until they awoke him with the strike signal, then three of deep and blessed oblivion.

On the way over to the office he had noted that six of yesterday’s crop of Minor Repairs were already restored to serviceability and practicing formation. It was a modest but tangible reserve against tomorrow.

But now, as his mind came fully to life again, returning anxiety dispelled his momentary relief. It would be forty-odd minutes before he would know about his losses, either in the abstract or about Ted himself. In the meantime he had to get on with the Jenks case and whatever else had come up while he slept.

He noted the Sergeant’s flustered jump to attention and noted also that the man had been smoking with his feet, on the desk. That was normal; it was also normal for them to think they were fooling a man who didn’t care. The click of the phone probably meant he had been phoning his girl.

“Was that for me?”

“No, sir,” said Evans blandly.

Dennis was already crossing the room for a hurried look through the window at the sky he had not studied for a full thirty seconds. He fired another question over his shoulder.

“Any word since the strike signa?”

“No, sir.”

Dennis’s eyes were lost in the sky. Gently Evans placed the partly smoked cigar in the ash tray on the desk. He made it safely, and then scrutinized the General at the window with a curiosity he had never felt about him until this afternoon.

Evans saw a wiry, almost fragile figure, immaculately trim and erect with half a lifetimes habit of perfect posture. A lingering trace of shaving soap by the left ear almost matched the pallor of that bony face, with tight skin furrowed ten years deeper than its rightful forty. Not until this moment had Evans observed that Dennis always looked deeply, permanently tired. The sharpness of those deep-set gray eyes and the alertness of that trim figure camouflaged this fatigue most of the time. Seeing him in comparative repose now, Evans was struck with the resemblance of his deep inner weariness to that he had noticed in older crew members toward the end of a tour. Without waiting to be asked, he poured a cup of coffee and placed it on the desk.

Abruptly Dennis dismissed a sky he could not change and strode back to the desk. Evans held his breath. The General looked about him with a little frown of perplexity and then lifted the cigar to his mouth and inhaled deeply. Evans exhaled. The General was all business now as he reached for the coffee.

“Ask Colonel Haley to step in, alert the weatherman, and have the guard bring Captain Jenks.”

Evans vanished into the Ops room. Dennis reached into the top drawer of the desk and pulled out a manila-covered file an inch thick. It was filled with orders, reports, certificates, judgments, records, qualifications: everything the Army of the United States considered worth remembering about Jenks, Lucius Malcolm, Capt. A. C., from its original satisfaction about the proportions of sugar and albumen in his urine right down to that ghastly moment this morning. Dennis had read the file through before sleeping. Now he only stared at it as if the cover might show him something the contents had not, until Haley entered the room, saluting at the door.

The very sight of his Chie f of Staff comforted Dennis but it was scarcely a personal emotion. Haley was solid gold and, like many forms of that substance, somewhat lumpy. He was painstaking about his uniforms but his appearance always suggested troublesome adenoids. Dennis leaned heavily on his tireless, phlegmatic capability but the relationship between them was more the product of custom than of written regulations.

These latter made Haley, in fact, Dennis’s professional wife, who did multitudinous essential chores with skill and force, creating a serene, efficient background which freed the Commander’s concentration for problems beyond the household. Haley’s own notions of propriety and decorum kept the service rigid. Dennis had wondered at times if Haley, like himself, did not privately regret that the relationship was so inescapably functional. If so, he never showed it. He never showed anything.

“Anything from the mission?”

“Just the strike signal I woke you for, as ordered, sir.”

“Read it again.”

Haley’s pudgy fingers pulled the right paper nimbly out of a sheaf. He read without emotion.

‘“Primary plastered. Warm here, Martin.’”

“‘Warm’—” mused Dennis.

“Intelligence said they’d fight today, sir.”

“But he says he plastered it, Haley.”

“Yes, sir. And Colonel Martin is always conservative.”

“Ted conservative?” Dennis looked his astonishment.

“On operational matters he is, sir. I’ve noticed it.”

Dennis grunted. “I guess you’re right. How’s the board?”

Haley walked to the wall and pulled back one of the curtain masks with relief. When the General was just talking, it was impossible to tell where the conversation would lead or what might come up. The board was the purest , indisputable arithmetic.

Dennis followed him over now for a close scrutiny of the welter of crisscrossing chalk columns on the blackboard. He, too, knew it was purest arithmetic and accurate. Haley would have torn a strip off anyone guilty of a digit’s error in it. This board reflected, minute by minute, every demonstrable measurement of its operating condition. If Dennis had gone to it without the question, Haley would have stood behind him silently. Since he had asked about it, Haley read aloud the items of foremost concern.

“Thirteen Minor Repairs promised by 1500, eighteen promised from Major Repair by 2300. Twentytwo Maidenheads from Modification arriving stations now. Thirty of those new ones weather-bound in Iceland took off at 1100 this morning. They’re already modified and we should have them for tomorrow’s board.”

“That’s final on yesterday’s salvage?”

“Yes, sir. Ten to Major Repair, sixteen Category E.”

“Sixteen —”

Haley could feel the sense of loss in Dennis’s voice. He saw that the General was a little down, anyway, probably about that Jenks business. In the circumstances it seemed to him proper to point out the compensation.

“Of course, Major Repair will cannibalize them for parts, sir. And there were only two killed in the crews.”

Dennis nodded. “Are the newcomers from Iceland flying Ferry crews or replacements?”

“Mostly Ferry crews. But you can see, sir, that our crew position is better since these Category E’s. And we’ve had twelve from Flak houses, eighteen from leave and sick, and twenty-eight new from Combat Crew Replacement Center today, sir.”

The General nodded and concentrated now on the subtler revelations of the internal numbers. The board was much better than when he had gone to bed. Why is the 641st slow again with minor repair, Haley?”

“That instrument man, sir. He was just a watchmaker, you know, a civilian. His work is good but he will fall asleep on his bench toward the end of the night.”

Evans re-entered the room just in time to hear the last of this and see the General nod quietly. It was not necessary for him to return while Haley was there but today his new curiosity had brought him back.

“Fifty-eight crews then for fifty-three certain planes so far, not counting the Iceland bunch. Is all leave still canceled?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And eleven crews graduate today?”

“If they get back, sir.”

“We lose ‘em anyway. Let’s see, we put up a hundred and forty-four this morning —”

“Two were Category E, sir. Collisions. And three aborted, but two of them are promised in that fifty-three for tomorrow.”

“Fifty-three and one thirty-nine is one ninetytwo. What can you promise me for tomorrow?”

Haley looked blank. “ I can’t promise anything but that fifty-three until we get today’s landing count and battle damage, sir. If you’d like a projection based on previous experience—”

“Never mind,” said Dennis.

They both knew that previous experience was meaningless against today’s target. That was where the projections — all the arithmetic, for that matter — always collapsed. Dennis could and often did work the whole long equation in his head.

So many missions meant so many hits; so many tons on the ones that hit (an internal equation of planes sent and distance) meant such and such a density of destruction in so wide a radius. Such and such a destruction over so wide a radius meant so many weeks of deprivation to Germany of something y useful or x vital.

Dennis knew the phones in Berlin were hot this minute with orders for new concrete, steel, labor, machinery. Somewhere else in Germany (Intelligence now thought it was probably Potsdam) Galland was doing his own arithmetic. His was in fighters that took only one motor and one pilot apiece and had not a quarter of the bomber’s vulnerable surface. And he always had at least six hours more to repair and redispose. In many ways Dennis envied him. On the other hand he never knew whether he’d have to fight on the morrow. Dennis did. “Ted said ‘Warm.’ Make out leave passes for 10 per cent but hold ‘em till we get a count. How do the boys feel?”

“They’re too tired to feel, sir, said Haley.

4

THE arithmetic was over and Haley knew they might as well not have done it. It was always meaningless until the landing count and battle damage from the day’s mission were tabulated. But the General checked his board after every absence from the office. Only then would he take up the rest of his problems. Haley braced himself slightly.

“All right. What else, Haley?”

“Nothing of consequence, sir.”

“Get the weatherman.”

Haley called curtly through the Ops door and Major Belding Davis shuffled in, unmilitary, untidy, and unconcerned about it as always. He was a first-rate civilian meteorologist and he considered it the Army’s own fault to have put him in uniform. It had been done because the Army feared civilians as it feared everything it could not regulate; the result was to make a bad officer out of a good scientist. Davis knew that he did not need regulation. He was conscientious and diligent. The uniform simply made him resentful and the rank made everyone under him resentful.

The one bright spot in the matter for him was that General Dennis seemed to understand this.

His dealings with Davis were strictly professional and he paid no attention to anything else. Davis had learned to respect the General’s knowledge of meteorology up to a point. Beyond that it was hopeless because the General was incurably subjective about weather. He thought, as most people did, only of its accommodation to his own purposes.

Davis was familiar, from civilian life, with this attitude, but the Army had produced a variation on it that troubled him. Weather, for military understanding, was studied, estimated, and prophesied at two-hour intervals in each one of innumerable ascending headquarters from Operating Group to Hemisphere Commander.

The readings and estimates were made by different men, having access to different parts of the same available data; the prophecies reflected the many differences. At first Davis had thought this merely another instance of the superfluity and confusion of all things military. Lately he had begun to realize that, as weather was a determinative factor in action, its readings fixed responsibility for ordering that action. Davis now briefly explained the current readings, taking a grim satisfaction in the fact that even Army Regulations could not make nature disclose its intentions in the same forms to different men at two-hour intervals.

“General Kane’s people refuse concurrence pending further development, sir. But I think when l bring you the 1800 map —”

Today Dennis was unusually impatient. He strode to the masking curtain and pulled it back from the Operational map.

“Show me what you think on this map and keep your mouth shut about what you see,” he said.

To orient himself Davis studied the large, conventional 1:250,000 military map of England and Northern Europe. He had seldom seen this particular one on which targets were marked before attack. With a start he noted now a new little triangle of three black marks, deep in Germany. One of them had already been crossed through with savage red crayon on the plexiglas covering. It was yesterday’s target; the inference was unmistakable. Humanly Davis had been irritated by his exclusion from any part in Plans except weather itself. He forgot himself in momentary astonishment at the location of those marks. Beside him Haley picked up a piece of red crayon and eyed one of them. “Time for an improvement, isn’t it, sir?”

“Improvement?” The General’s mind was on weather.

“Colonel Martin said ‘Primary plastered,’ sir.” The crayon was touching the plexiglas when the General stopped Haley. He was smiling but his voice was firm. “Let’s let Ted do that.

“Of course, sir,” said Haley apologetically.

Davis was ready now and began with an exposition of the prospects along the coastal fringe but Dennis stopped him short.

“Never mind the coastal fringe. What about here?” His knuckles rapped the little triangle of black marks.

“My God, sir. Three days running in there?”

Too late, Davis remembered that he was not a part of Plans. The General did not raise his voice but it bit like a drill.

“Major, I’m consulting you about the weather.”Evans could feel his hackles rise at the General’s tone and was glad those eyes were not on him. For Davis he felt no sympathy. He had sweated out too many of Weather’s mistakes to pity a fool who spoke out of turn about troubles that were not his. He saw Davis recoil a little, gather himself, and run through a rapid recital of the available facts and his opinion. _

“I’m not sure Kane’s people will agree, sir, but “But you yourself think it will be all right in here?” “Yes, sir.”

“And over the bases for landing?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure of that.”

“Bring anything else as you get it.”

Davis went out disgruntled. Dennis turned on Haley. “Have you anything from Headquarters?“ This, Evans knew, also meant Kane’s command, which was the next step up in the progression. Previously Evans had thought of everything above the Headquarters of his Squadron as one homogeneous malevolence. Now he realized that Dennis was talking about his own boss, presumably the one who might fire him. Evans kept his ears tuned.

“They’re releasing all Divisions to Commanders’ discretion for tomorrow, sir. General Kane is reported so busy in that London conference that he will be unable to pass on the weather personally.”

The Sergeant had a swift impression that Dennis and Haley might have smiled at each other if Dennis had not suddenly glanced over to where he was standing quietly at ease.

“Any squawk from Washington yet?”

“Not yet, sir.” This time they both smiled as everyone did at mention of Washington, but the smiles were brief.

“Send Captain Jenks in.”

“Want me with you, sir?”

“No. I’ll try him alone again.”

Evans thought Haley looked relieved, though faintly disapproving. But all the witnesses in the Army wouldn’t help that one. Evans scuttled toward the anteroom door, anxious to take delivery on his whiskey. As he was going out he heard Dennis check Haley again at the door.

“Has that cable come for Ted?”

There were upwards of fifteen thousand men in the Division and every one of them felt a sense of personal concern over the kid Colonel Martin was sweating out.

“No, sir,”said Haley. “I’ve even checked with Message Center London. Mrs. Martin must be late.”

“She’s ten years late,” said the General wearily.

Haley and Evans both hesitated until it was plain that he had not been talking to them. After a second they went out.

5

ALONE, Dennis removed the coffee cup from his desk and threw the cigar into the stove. Then he sat down with the Jenks file before him but he did not open it. The roots of this case went to something deeper than that file. He was going to have to dig it out of the boy himself, if he could.

Dennis had not wasted a second cursing the misfortune that had brought this up at the most critical juncture, so far, of the Fifth Division’s war. These things always happened in Armies sooner or later. This one had happened to the Fifth Division this morning. Dennis intended, if it were militarily possible, to keep it in the Division and save the boy. From the visible evidence it did not look possible.

Captain Jenks entered, marching correctly before a frightened guard. Dennis noted that the men in the guardhouse had been too literal about close arrest; they might have allowed Jenks to shave and change out of those flying coveralls. He returned the guard’s salute, instructed him to wait outside, and studied Jenks narrowly through the brief interval of the guard’s exit. The boy was scared but that young, rather strong face still had rigidity and restraint. No man flew nineteen missions without learning a lot about fear. This boy would still fight. Dennis took pains to make his voice as even as he could.

“Jenks, have you thought this over?”

“I thought it over this morning,” said Jenks.

Dennis noticed the absence of any “sir.” The boy knew he was beyond the help of manners.

“You’ve had more time.”

“I don’t need more time.”

There was always the chance that a few hours of solitude would produce a change. Dennis had already risked eleven hours for the chance. Jenks knew as well as he did that there were only thirteen hours left, but he had not changed.

“Damn it, boy, do you realize that this is serious?”

“Yes, for both of us.”

“What are you hinting at?”

“I’m not getting killed to make you a record,” said Jenks. “I’ll tell the court so, too, and the whole damned world.”

“What else will you tell them?”

“That you lost forty bombers, four hundred men, by deliberately sending us a hundred and sixty miles beyond fighter cover yesterday. This morning, when we’re entitled to a milk run, you order us a hundred and eighty miles beyond the fighters.”

“Why do you think you’re entitled to a milk run?”

“After yesterday’s losses. Besides, I can read a calendar.”

Dennis knew now that the boy was going to fight to the end, as anyone would fight for his own life. He was working toward his one chance. Dennis couldn’t tell yet whether it was transparency or purpose that had made him expose this chance a little, almost as if to show its strength. Under the letter of the law he was doomed and he was not going to fight the law. He was going to fight Dennis himself.

“What’s the calendar got to do with it?”

“You big boys think flak fodder like us can’t even read, don’t you? Where does the Air Corps get all those lovely new statistical records for sorties and tonnages that General Kane announces every month? They get ‘em on milk runs, the last three or four days.”

“So you would have gone on an easy one today?”

“I’m entitled to it,”

Inwardly Dennis was torn between immediate relief and a darkening sense of the ultimate hopelessness of this. There had been from the first the possibility that he was dealing with a sincere, stubborn martyr. The boy might have been risking personal fate to lighten for the others the severity of their official sentence.

“Eleven other crews took this for their last mission.”

“That’s their business,” said Jenks. “If you big shots are entitled to a record racket so am I.”

“Did it never occur to you, Jenks, that there might be another reason for these particular record missions?”

“What?”

“Destroying something that can kill a lot more than four hundred boys.”

For the first time Jenks shifted uneasily on his feet. “Everything in Germany is made to kill people. Why can’t we hit targets under fighter cover like General Kane promised?”

“He didn’t promise that.”

Jenks hesitated. Dennis knew now that he was cracking the case the boy had worked out for himself in the guardhouse. Jenks made a further effort to sound reasonable, persuasive.

“Well, everyone who knows the Army knew what General Kane meant in the press interview after that rat race over Bremfurt six weeks ago. That day we lost nineteen and the whole Air Corps turned itself inside out explaining. Yesterday we lost forty and today will be worse —” Jenks hesitated. Then, as if realizing the irrelevance of all this, he lowered his voice insinuatingly. “How do you think the public is going to like this?”

Dennis had to fight down that feeling in the pit of his stomach. They were coming to the end of it. Possibly the boy’s corruption did derive from the prevarications of the Army press and public relations policy. But Dennis had to deal with his behavior. He spoke curtly. “The public isn’t my

business.”

Jenks misread his short silence for intimidation. “What would the press say if they knew you ordered both these attacks on your own authority when General Kane was absent from weather conferences at his Headquarters?

“That isn’t your business. You were ordered to go. After learning the target you refused.

He saw Jenks stiffen under the gaff of the stripped, naked truth and then slowly go limp. His voice

became defensive.

“I’ve been to plenty tough targets”

Dennis tapped the file. “You aborted from the two toughest missions prior to yesterday.

“For mechanical malfunctions.” Jenks was breathing hard.

“One Engineer’s examination said: ‘Possibly justifiable.’ The of her one said: ’Defect not discernible.’ ”

“ It was plenty discernible to me — and my co-pilot will tell you the same thing, unless he’s prejudiced.

“He should be. He’s flying your seat today. And you’re a Squadron Commander with a DFC. That just makes it worse.

“For somebody,” said Jenks but it was only an echo of bravado. Dennis had shattered him purposely to make him see the hopelessness of his case — to find, if it were humanly possible, some reason for this in the wreckage.

Dennis had thought himself familiar with every form of fear. He had seen them all, from the straitjacket cases to the ones who simply sat alone, in lounge and bar and mess, waiting consciously for the inevitable moment when their own parahzed reflexes would give them final release. He still did not think this was simple fear. He had not thought so from the first. Something was eluding him here, as it would elude the court. No court would even bother to search behind such utterly damning facts. And yet the man had flown nineteen missions. Wearily, Dennis began again.

“Jenks, if you’ve got any legitimate reason what-

The anteroom door crashed open and the General looked up with impatience to see Evans holding it ajar. Even before he could voice a rebuke the Sergeant spoke warningly. _

“Major General R. G. Kane and party, sir.”

6

GENERAL KANE seldom visited the operating echelons of his command. He would have considered any need to do so a symptom of weakness in the subordinate commander involved, a condition remediable by instant replacement. Like every Commander he bridged a gulf between upper and nether regions, connecting and explaining them to each other. Policy and plans came down: results went up. His duty was to execute the former and answer for t he latter.

Officially his status between the worlds he linked was rigidly neutral. But no man became a Major General without realizing that the practical division of his two worlds was simple. Below him were troubles, above him opportunities.

Kane had moved upward through life because his eyes were fixed upward. But they had never been blind to the fact that men must climb on something solid. He had always fought fiercely, on his own level and above it, for the subordinates he wanted. When he got them he made it his business to see that they liked working for him.

This temporary war with Germany had not changed either Kane or the conditions of life that had made him. It had only expanded both his troubles and his opportunities. He remained vigilant over his key subordinates, who, sharing in the bonanza that had elevated him, were now mostly Brigadiers. . .

But the Lieutenant Generals, the Admirals, the Embassy, the press, the Prime Minister, and Kanes Allied opposite numbers were in London. There the battle lines of the permanent wars, between the Army and the Navy, between the Army and its troublesome stepson of the Air, between Service and Civilians, had been extended from Washington. And there, for most of every day and late into the night Kane fought the wars he knew best.

The luxury of liking or disliking people he had long since abandoned as an extravagance beyond the military life. But he had deliberately incurred the wrath of three Lieutenant Generals to get Dennis for himself.

Dennis could not only operate a Division, he could have operated an Air Army. He was young but so was the war. There were men with ihree stars who would have traded records with him. Kane had spent long hours with his most private card index before making the decision. It was finally his conclusion that of all the coming men in the Army he wanted firmly placed before turning his back on the fickleness of Washington, Dennis was foremost.

Professionally it had been a hard decision. Final choice had lain between Dennis and Garnett, who had been strongly urged upon him. The two men were opposites. Garnett’s very real talent for staff work and planning had taken him indoors to fight the Navy and Congress, while Dennis, by preference, was still flying and commanding small echelons. Among the other factors, Kane had had to weigh operational against diplomatic capability.

Earlier in his own career Kane had had to make the same essential choice for himself. He had judged that the future lay inside. He had lived through the bitterness of seeing some of the men who stayed out of doors appointed to superior commands which he himself had blueprinted. The lesson had not escaped him, nor had the fact that Garnett was urged upon him and Dennis stubbornly denied.

He had taken Dennis, and the victory of getting him, as proof of his own power at first. But, with Garnett’s consolatory appointment to the Secretaryship of the United Chiefs of Staff, the decision had returned to haunt Kane. Confirmation that he was big enough to demand, and get, Dennis had automatically reduced Dennis in his eyes.

For Dennis never would have taken the job with the United Chiefs anyway, and, but for Kane’s own choice, would by now probably have been safely sidetracked in the Pacific. Whereas Garnett, in the Pentagon, and conscious of Kane’s known refusal of him, was dangerous. His sudden arrival in London on business that Kane instantly recognized as insufficient for an emissary of such weight had given Kane considerable anxiety.

Dennis, jumping to attention at Evans’s announcement, saw instantly that Kane was worried about something. He carried his hard, spare figure more jauntily than ever. The ruddy face under the jet-black hair was frozen in the fixed, unnatural smile which the Army had once used to adorn recruiting posters. His air of affable, almost exuberant cordiality would have persuaded any stranger, as it was worn to persuade Dennis, that he hadn’t a care in the world. Not until he saw Garnett step through the door after Kane did Dennis understand.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” he said. “If I’d known you were visiting us I’d have been at the gate.”

Don t speak of it, Casey, don’t speak of it. Cliff Garnett here wanted to see a real operational headquarters at work so I brought him straight down from London without waiting on protocol. You remember Cliff, of course?”

At another time Dennis might have laughed. Every regular in the Army knew that Garnett was the fifth successive General Officer of his name. The Garnett legend had begun at Chapultepec. He and Dennis had been classmates. They had worked together as young men and, with their brides, lived across the fences from each other in the dismal family quarters at Hawaii, in the Philippines, in the Canal Zone. They had run neck and neck for the first silver bar in the class. Dennis had got it. Later, though they had drifted apart a little, within the narrow confines of the Corps itself they had remained as aware of each other as vice-presidents in a small firm. Garnett had got his star first but Dennis had the Fifth Division. At least, he reflected, lie had had it until now.

Hello, Casey. You fellows are certainly doing a wonderful job over here.”

Dennis muttered something he hoped sounded satisfactorily responsive, and studied Garnett himself. The Pentagon had washed away the deep tan that had always been Garnett’s peacetime pride. He was not yet fat but desk work and deprivation of exercise showed quickly on him. Dennis noted with amusement that he had already managed to procure one of the little British sword canes which so delighted some American Generals in London. Then, with a start, Dennis realized he’d been away from the higher echelons too long. Garnett hadn’t had time to procure that toy: Kane had given it to him.

But Kane was now ostentatiously introducing Dennis to a Major, his new aide. The handshake was too firm; the face and eyes had already taken on the unctuous familiarity of the job.

“I’m very happy to meet the Commander of our famous Fifth Division, said Major Prescott.

“Have you replaced Major Taylor?”

“For the moment, anyway, sir,” said Prescott. “He went home to do a book and movie on General — that is, on this Air Army, so I’m sort of taking over.”

“And here, Casey,” said Kane, turning again, “is my friend Elmer Brockhurst.”

Dennis had been too intent on Garnett to notice that the correspondent had entered, chatting familiarly with Prescott, and now confronted him with an outstretched hand below his faint smile. Dennis ignored the hand. General Kane, I’ve refused this man the station for worming operational information out of my people.”

He saw anger flash and then fade, deep under Kane’s blank simulation of a smile.

Now, my boy, that’s one of the things I’ve come down here about. You and Brockie were both trying to do right and —”

He had been looking about the room as he spoke and his eyes had fallen for the first time on Captain Jenks, waiting at rigid attention. With instant decision Kane left the Brockhurst matter in the silent air, which he had known to close over hotter issues than this, and making straight for the Captain, he extended a hand, face and voice exuding paternal cordiality. “ Why, Captain Jenks, delighted to see you, my boy.”

Brockhurst watched Dennis almost visibly frosting over as Kane shook hands with the Captain and then, throwing an affectionate arm around his dirty coveralls, led him back to General Garnett.

“Cliff, this is one of our real heroes. I had the pleasure of decorating him with the DFC while Casey was in the hospital a while ago. He’s a Squadron Commander and already has sixteen missions. It is sixteen, isn’t it, Captain?’

“Nineteen now, sir. Jenks was embarrassed but he was visibly absorbing assurance from General Kane’s pat ronage.

“Nineteen, eh,” chuckled Kane. “I guess that name on your ship hardly applies any more. Captain Jenks named his Fortress the Urgent Virgin,’Cliff. Maybe you saw her. Elmer here got us a wonderful spread on her in Coverage, three pages and nine pictures.”

Brockhurst now realized that this was indeed the boy on whom he had done the special article. He had begun the assignment with zest and ended it holding his nose. In twelve years of newspaper work he had never seen anyone, from actresses to presidents, as camera-conscious as that kid.

At the time he had shrugged and blamed the uniform. Since then he had begun to wonder. The effect of the uniform was illusory; it only intensified what was in the man. Kane’s cunning and Dennis’s inhuman austerity seemed sound examples. He attuned his ears as Kane went on.

“What brings you up to Division Headquarters, today, my boy? Are you helping General Dennis here?”

Jenks hesitated. “Not exactly, sir.”

“It’s a disciplinary matter, sir,” said Dennis. “Captain Jenks and I will attend to it later.

He indicated the door to Jenks but Kane did not remove the firm arm from the Captain’s shoulder.

“This is what you wanted to see, Cliff, real field problems. Now, Casey, you and Captain Jenks carry right on just as if we weren’t here. If there s one thing I pride myself on it’s not interfering with the vital work of my Divisions.”

Dennis looked pointedly from Kane to Brockhurst.

“This is not a matter for the press, sir.”

Sergeant Evans, watching intently from his post by the door, scowled to himself. Garnett looked like one of the finicky ones to him, and if Dennis were trying to get himself fired he could not ha\e chosen a better way. Kanes courtship of the press was as notorious throughout the Division as in the Savoy. Evans saw him flush angrily before he addressed Dennis. “Brockie is a friend of mine, General.” He let this sink in before turning his affability to Jenks again. “Well, what’s the disciplinary trouble, my boy? Some of those high-spirited young pilots of yours getting out of hand?”

Jenks shuffled his foot through a perceptible silence. “Perhaps General Dennis will explain, sir.”

“Captain Jenks is under arrest for refusal to fly the mission as ordered this morning, sir,” said Dennis.

7

DENNIS had hoped to spare his visitors the pain of the preliminaries in the Jenks case. It would be bad enough for Kane if and when it got up to his level. To have it aired, prematurely, before the press and a visitor, especially a visitor of Garnett’s level, shocked his entire training. He could see that Kane, too late, felt the same way. The truth had hit him like a quirt. He reddened and removed his arm hastily from Jenks’s shoulder before regarding the Captain with reproachful appeal.

“My boy — Captain Jenks — I don’t believe it.”

Of all of them Jenks had had the most preparation. He had known it would have to come out, whether here or later. He spoke quietly, managing an air of patient grievance.

“It’s true, sir, as far as the General went.” Then boldly he counterattacked. “Do you know what the target was, General Kane?”

Kane palpably did not. Caught squarely, he hesitated and then turned on Brockhurst, his voice weighted with gravity.

“ Brockie, I’m afraid there is a question of military security if you don’t mind —”

Brockhurst did mind, acutely, but he knew that he could get what he wanted when he had Kane alone. He lingered just long enough to let Kane feel his displeasure and then walked out the anteroom door. As it closed behind him, Dennis tried swiftly to cover for Kane though he well knew that Garnett would not have missed the effect of the Captain’s question. The boy was shrewd; he was going to make the maximum trouble.

“The target was Schweinhafen, sir,” said Dennis.

“Schweinhafen! You’ve begun Operation Stitch?”

This was worse and worse. Inwardly Dennis now cursed Jenks for the first time. It was shocking to have Kane in such a position before Garnett but there was no help for it.

“Began yesterday with Posenleben, sir.”

“Posenleben!” This time they could all see Kane wilt a little under the third blow. “ What happened? ”

“Excellent results, sir. Over three-quarters total destruction and —”

“I mean what did you lose?”

“Forty, sir.”

“Forty! Good God! Does the press know it?”

“They haven’t released it, sir. I put a security blackout on the whole thing as we agreed.”

“Well, that’s something.” He had completely forgotten the presence of Jenks and was slowly regaining some of his composure when the horror of the next thought struck him.

“You didn’t signal Washington, did you?

This time Dennis had to check his own indignation before speaking.

“Of course not, sir. Routine report to your Headquarters only.”

Kane knew they were all studying his agitation now but he had no energy to waste on appearances. As always in crisis he was sorting out the ramifications of the problem in the order of t heir urgency and importance. Washington was the thing that could not wait. Next he would have to prepare to handle the press. After that would be time enough to hush up the Jenks matter and make whatever explanations might be necessary to Garnett and Dennis. “Were the claims high, Casey?”

“Very, sir. I was too busy with bomb damage assessment to count them myself but —”

“Have them tabulated at once, by groups, on heavy board, ready to photograph.”

While Dennis was transmitting the order into the Ops room, Kane thought rapidly but he knew he was not thinking clearly. There were so many sides to this mess; Jenks, the Operation, the press, Washington, Garnett; each place his mind touched seemed hotter. The difficulty fired in him a surging wrath at the injustice of it. No man alive worked harder than he did; this kind of luck haunted him, every stroke of it compounding every other one. He could see that he was going to have to stop and explain to Garnett as he went along. It was unsafe not to. Garnett was already inquiring.

“Would someone mind explaining to a visitor what this Operation Stitch is?”

Dennis hesitated appropriately and then, as Kane kept his abstracted silence, spoke briefly.

“Kind of a three-horse parley, Cliff. Posenleben, Schweinhafen, and ” he glanced pointedly at Jenks and Prescott — “one other.”

“I thought I was reasonably familiar with your directive,” said Garnett. “But I don’t remember those.”

Dennis spoke dryly. “Some things aren’t in directives, Cliff.”

“Evidently.” Garnett turned squarely to Kane. “Pm surprised that the United Chiefs haven’t been informed of this, General Kane.”

Evans, listening delightedly behind his inscrutable impassivity, had difficulty in suppressing a start. That guy might look like an actor but nobody spoke to Major Generals that way by accident. Locking his face muscles he waited for Kane to blast the Brigadier out of the room. Kane turned to Garnett with a rueful, disarming smile.

“I was going to send them a provisional plan but I didn’t know General Dennis intended implementing it so soon.”

Evans saw Dennis stiffen and saw the color change under the thin blond hair at the back of his neck. But it was the Major with a face like a toad’s belly who spoke, ingratiatingly, to Garnett.

The whole idea was General Dennis’s, sir.”

“And I’ll explain it myself, Major,” said Dennis abrasively. “General Kane, do you wish to detain Captain Jenks further, sir?”

Kane wished that Captain Jenks had been stillborn. He had just begun to figure out the line for Washington and the press when this was thrust back into his face. But Garnett was watching this, too, closely.

“Did you go on the mission yesterday, Jenks?” “I did. It was a bloody massacre. Today will be worse.”

With a spasm Kane realized that this was probably true. “Any news from today, General Dennis?”

“Strike signal from Colonel Martin, sir. It said; ‘Primary plastered.’”

“I mean about losses.”

“Ted indicated fighting. No details yet, sir.” Unexpectedly Evans now saw Garnett wheel on Dennis. “So Ted is flying missions.”

“He led the Division today. Yesterday too.”

He knew only too well what was coming. Garnett’s sister was married, unhappily, to Ted Martin. Dennis had been Martin’s best man. No matter how scrupulously everyone behaved, the alignment of sympathies was obvious. Garnett, with good reason, worried about the marriage. Dennis hated being dragged into it. But now that Prescott had pulled Kane a little to one side for some detailed reminder, Dennis could see Garnett gathering himself for the chance.

“You know about Helen, of course, Casey?”

“Sure — any news yet?”

“Not when I left but she’s due any minute. Ted shouldn’t be flying missions at all, let alone just now.”

Dennis knew that Garnett himself knew better than this. Yet he couldn’t help resenting the intimation that he himself had not thought of that. He spoke more curtly than he intended.

“He gets paid too. General Kane, have you any further need of Captain Jenks?”

Whatever Prescott had whispered to Kane had restored his composure somewhat. He was speaking again to Jenks and with more confidence.

“And after the terrible strain of yesterday you felt unable to take the responsibility of flying a crew again you were under shock?”

Jenks got it instantly. “We were all under shock, sir. Two days running beyond fighter cover, when you had practically promised us—”

“That’s not exactly what I said.”

Jenks checked quickly. “Well, sir, we all knew you’d never ask a thing like that, just to make a record. When we learned you’d released the Division to General Dennis and then this came up, everyone was shocked.”

“Everyone else went,” said Dennis.

Kane cleared his throat. “General,” he said, “as you know, I pride myself on never interfering with the functioning of my subordinate echelons. But in a matter that touches one of our combat boys I know you will forgive an older commander’s concern. With your permission I should like to talk to Captain Jenks alone.”

He led Jenks to the anteroom and, with an afterthought, beckoned Prescott to follow them. Dennis shrugged. There was no help for it. He tried to make himself smile cordially as he faced Garnett and waited for some more dirty linen.

8

GARNETT, however, had understood his earlier rebuke. On everything, except this lamentable family trouble, he was a man of delicacy and perception. Recovering his normal urbanity now, he opened with some remarks about Dennis s own family. He had made a point of calling on them the day before he left. It was a normal courtesy but it was the kind many men overlooked. His consideration and the fresh letters he now delivered disarmed Dennis.

“They’re fine, Casey, and terribly proud of you.”

Dennis judged that Garnett might be using this as a cover for whatever official business had brought him over, but he was grateful for the chance to forget official business momentarily. The thought of Cathy and his children, especially in such inevitable contrast to poor Ted’s troubles, took him for a minute out of that bleak room. He asked some further questions and warmed himself in Garnett’s ringing reassurances. It was decent of Cliff to have driven ‘way out into Maryland in all the haste and turmoil of his departure. And Cliff genuinely did like his family.

“Lucy carries a picture of you in a cellophane case she made herself, Casey.”

“Yeah?” He was embarrassed, but greedy too. “How’s the kid?”

Cliff smiled. “Young William Mitchell gave me special orders. You’re to destroy all of Germany except one little piece which he wants saved for his first bomb. He means it too, Casey. He asked me if I thought you could do it.”

Dennis could feel the very thought of that frecklefaced bundle of trouble renewing him. But he could no more share with Cliff than with anyone, except Cathy, the way he felt about his kids. He tried to make himself sound impersonal.

“What did you tell him?”

“Well, I told him with war you never know.”

It was a typically guarded Garnett answer but it shattered the serenity Dennis had momentarily regained. Every time Ted took the Division, Dennis reminded himself sternly that it wasn t as bad as if young William Mitchell were doing it, but the margin was too thin for comfort. He spoke almost to reassure himself.

“Seven and a half years would be pretty bad even for the United Chiefs, Cliff.”

Garnett tensed a little. “Don’t be bitter, Casey. They have their troubles, too.”

Then, detecting Dennis’s instant contrition, he moved immediately to the inevitable topic.

“Helen is worried about Ted, Casey.”

“Is she?”

“Very. You know that always was the real trouble.”

“Was it?”

“Yes. In the early days, especially when you and Ted were testing, she got so she couldn’t even answer the phone. That was why she wouldn’t have kids then. She had no security, even for a day ahead.”

Dennis knew that Garnett realized as well as he did that none of the other girls had had any more security. It was the thing that made him so sensitive about it, so desperate to change it somehow by talk. But it was past the help of talk and Dennis wanted only to drop the whole subject.

“No?”

“Oh, I know she left him, Casey, but think of her side of it —”

Dennis had known from the first that he would never be able to think of her side of it fairly. He had known Helen Garnett since the days when she used to come to Academy hops. The Garnett size and looks had been designed for men, but Helen had the carriage for them and the Garnett habit of authority. Dennis danced with her punctiliously, once at each hop, as he did with most of the sisters of his classmates.

Thereafter, he had seen more of her, at closer quarters, on her occasional visits to outlying posts. Dennis and Cathy both liked Cliff’s Natalie. Army life forced propinquity upon them and they had exchanged dinners, played cards, alternated in the hospitality of the weekly movies, and loaned and borrowed food and bathtub gin on a dozen dreary fields from Clark to Bolling. Helen’s visits always touched these exiles, for the girls at least, with the fleeting metropolitan glamour of new clothes and hair styles.

To the young bachelor officers who thronged the houses during her visits she brought the gayety of visiting royalty—brief, bright dreams of a powerful connection and an expert facility for terminating these hopes without undue pain. Even they seemed to understand and approve the Garnetts’ tacit assumption that Helen belonged to a brighter world than the services offered. For all of his normal acuteness, Dennis had been a little surprised the first time Cathy had privately pronounced her cold-blooded.

Often by the imperial whims which wrote the orders in the service, the Garnetts and Dennises drifted apart to different posts on different assignment. It was following one of these separations that the Dennises had been ordered, as unexpectedly and inconveniently as always, to Washington during the summer while Cathy was having William Mitchell. The orders were only temporary and had caught them in what was even for them a financial crisis. The sweltering, cockroach-ridden little flat on H Street was one of their few unhappy memories.

Even by then Ted Martin had become practically a member of the family. With the relative opulence of a bachelor on flying pay he had his own flat in Georgetown, a new car, and an expanding address book which did not run to dowagers. He had come over to the Dennis flat one Sunday with an oiler to drive them out of the city heat for dinner, just as Cliff was telephoning to ask them across the river for a julep. Cliff had cordially included him in the invitation.

Two previous Generals Garnett had married prudently, and while Garnett’s Tree was not a mansion, the big hall was cool with the river breeze coming in across the terrace, and the old Georgian brick wore the languorous charm of its generations with shabby grace. They had stepped from dazzling sunlight. on the bluestone drive into a serene antiquity just as Helen burst into the opposite terrace door, her black hair vivid against a summery white dress.

She had greeted Cathy and Dennis warmly enough but with the slight inattentiveness she always accorded married people. She had been turning away from her introduction to Ted before the echo of his name caught in her consciousness, and she had repeated, as people had begun to repeat that name: — “Not the Lieutenant Martin? Why, Cliff never told me he knew you.”

On the terrace Cliff had introduced them with evident satisfaction to Helen’s fiancé, a prosperouslooking middle-aged stockbroker, who sighed amiably over his julep. “You fellows have all the fun.”

They had spent a pleasant afternoon, thanks to Cliff’s excellent juleps, and departed over Helen’s vociferous protests that they remain for pickup supper. On the way down the river Cathy had kidded Ted about Helen’s obvious interest in him. Ted had replied indifferently that the brassiere had not yet been made which could keep her from being anyt hing but another Garnett stuffed shirt.

The next morning Helen had called Cathy to ask for Ted’s address and phone number. It happened that that week he had been flying something to Sacramento. In the eight days of his absence Helen had called Cathy three times more.

9

ED had been back about six weeks when Garnett had come out from the War Department to the hangar one morning to ask Dennis bluntly what he knew about this Lieutenant Martin. The question had astonished Dennis. He had begun to explain what he had very early perceived and what the whole service was now beginning to realize about Lieutenant Martin, when Garnett cut him short impatiently. “I know all that. Casey, Helen’s broken her engagement to Morton Collins.”

The connection seemed to him incredible. Ted had not mentioned Helen since that Sunday. He remarked this but Garnett only shook his head and then blurted: “It’s not as if he’d been at the Point with us. Does he understand all the rules, Casey?”

All the rules meant the unwritten but explicit one that propinquity and boredom had established to protect peacetime tedium; all the brothers were valiant, all the sisters were virtuous. An equally explicit corollary to this rule was that exceptions to it must be conducted three miles from the flagpole.

He had reassured Garnett as delicately as he could. He knew that Cliff’s judgments were apt to be superficial and in this case probably not untinged with envy. Even by then the envious were trying to dismiss the foundations of the growing Martin legend with the simple explanation of Martin luck. Dennis knew better. There was far more than luck in the perfection of that flying, far more than an aviator in the complexity of the man himself.

Dennis doubted that any woman had ever touched the capacity for thought and feeling locked up in the pilot below the troublesome and insubordinate young Lieutenant. He could scarcely tell Cliff that Helen seemed the last woman in the world to do it. He did tell him privately that he knew Ted was happily preoccupied in half a dozen other directions.

Garnett had thanked him and gone off glumly. Dennis had forgotten it until, in the privacy of their bedroom that night, Cathy had remarked that they saw little of Ted lately. She had looked around from her hair-combing indignantly as he told her of Cliff s visit that day. “Ted indeed! Why doesn’t he teach Helen the rules?”

“Helen?”

“Casey! She had rape in her eye that afternoon.”

He had protested, more to himself than to her; in the first place he didn’t believe it. If it were true, Ted had survived other encounters with that peril.

“No wonder you two can fly blind! Don’t you realize she’s playing for keeps?”

“Well, I don’t know what we can do. Ted’s of age —”

“And she’s three years older. Casey, can’t you order him somewhere?”

He had explained to her that newly created Captains did not order people anywhere, and had done his best to forget. Later in the week they accepted a hasty dinner invitation from the Garnetts with foreboding. Ted’s car was in the driveway as they arrived. In the hall Ted and Helen greeted them arm in arm, Ted’s face stiff with an unnatural smile as Helen announced the engagement.

Three months later Ted had driven into the hangar one morning, late again. One glance showed Dennis that he was also unfit to fly again. But instead of pretending, he had beckoned Dennis into the car and slammed the door for privacy. “Casey, is there any place officers can’t take wives?”

Dennis had known by then — they had all known — that it was going badly. The finality of this shocked him. It was the first time Ted had spoken of it. But they never beat around the bush with each other.

“Look, Ted, these things adjust themselves in time. And you’ve got the kid to think of—'

“There isn’t any kid,” said Ted. “There never was.”

10

WITH an effort Dennis pulled his attention back to Garnett, who was still talking.

“Five years in boardinghouses on gold-bar pay, Garnett was saying. “The morning he made First he had to call his CO a goddamned fool and get busted before lunch. That afternoon he turned down twelve thousand a year from the best airline in America. What would you have thought?”

“ I’ve always thought he was a rare guy, Cliff.”

“She’s realized that, Casey. She did go back to him.”

“Cliff, what’s all this leading to?”

“Does Ted think she just came back to him and is having that kid because he is pretty secure now?”

“You’ll have to ask Ted what he thinks. It’s his business.”

“Ted and I were never very close,” persisted Garnett. “You know what he thinks of you.”

“Maybe that’s because I don’t try to run his life.” “It’s in your hands. You don’t have to send him at his age.”

Dennis flinched and looked at his wrist watch.

“I don’t have to send any of them. We could all be secure, under Hitler.”

Instantly he felt ashamed of the retort because he knew that Garnett, too, was deeply troubled. He was relieved at the sight of Kane leading his party into the room again, walking with some of his old assurance as he brought Jenks straight over to them.

“General Dennis, Captain Jenks is obviously the victim of a shock condition induced by the strain of his nineteen missions. This is a clear-cut case of combat-fatigue — a medical, not a disciplinary matter. He needs immediate rest.”

“Sir, did the Captain tell you that he finished ten days in a rest house Thursday and has been medically certified fit for the completion of this tour?" He saw Kane coloring again, apoplectically, but it did not cool his own fury. This preposterous fabrication was an insult to his investigation. It was probably the idea of Prescott, whose smirk had vanished now. Kane, with a clear head, would never have fallen for such a stupid stratagem. Already he had begun to think of a new way out, but Prescott, now under a heightened obligation, spoke first.

“ Captain Jenks, did you know of any defect in your plane that would have made such a long flight impossible for it?”

“His co-pilot took the plane. It hasn’t aborted.” Dennis chopped the words out fast to save Kane from this second transparent trap. But although he had heard clearly, Kane clutched at the straw. “We won’t know that till the plane comes back,” he said.

“If it comes back,” said Dennis. He had never seen Kane fumble like this before. There must be serious trouble in London or Washington. Dennis felt doubly guilty that his chief should have to be worried with such a business at the moment. But Kane was regaining a little of his old brusqueness.

“We’ll continue the investigation later, General,” he said.

The guard answered Dennis instantly and they all watched through a taut silence while he marched Jenks out.

“General,” said Kane as the door closed, “this is very serious.”

“Every detail will be checked, sir. It happened at 5.20 this morning. I’ve got the rest of the twentyfour hours.”

He wanted to shield Kane from it as long as possible, to make him see that it was not his burden yet, that every resource would be strained to keep it from becoming his burden. But Kane’s perceptions had outraced intermediate consolation.

“Twenty-four hours for what?”

“To charge him, sir.” If Kane wanted to face it, that was it.

“What charge are you considering?”

“Unless something new comes up, the only possible charge is: ’Desertion in the Face of the Enemy.'" ‘ “Good God, boy! We can’t shoot a man with nineteen missions and a DFC.”

Dennis pitied him. His own mind had recoiled from the implication of this case. He had hoped to save Kane some of what he had been through himself. But it was out now. He had to help Kane get himself together. “Do you think we’ll ever have another tough mission if we don’t, sir? At a group briefing this morning when the target map was uncovered I saw five men cross themselves. One fainted. But they went and they know Jenks didn’t.”

He could tell that Kane understood. It simply took time for any mind to face it. Garnett had already taken it in and was digesting it slowly. It was that presumptuous new aide who seemed to feel that speech, anv speech, was better than what they were all thinking. “Couldn’t a quiet transfer be arranged, say to transport or training?” he asked.

“So he could go yellow there and kill passengers or students?”

Bu t Prescott either didn’t want to learn or could n’t. “Precautions can be taken, General,”he persisted. “There is such a thing as the end justifying the means. This case would put the honor of the whole Air Forces at stake.”

“It already has. Every man in the Division knows it.”

“I was thinking of the larger picture.”

“You can. I’m thinking of the Division. It doesn’t. require your assistance, Major.”

He did not enjoy squelching this worm but Prescott was going to embarrass General Kane with his effrontery sooner or later unless he learned some manners somewhere. Kane himself seemed to be catching up to this now. “Homer, go talk this over, very thoroughly, with Elmer Brockhurst.”

As the aide closed the anteroom door behind him, Kane spoke a little apologetically to Dennis.

“Brockhurst has a remarkable feel for public reaction, Casey. We’ve got to consider every angle.”

Dennis picked up the file and extended it to Kane.

“There are dubious Engineers’ reports on two previous abortions, sir. He apparently got this DFC for happening to be in the lead and bringing a squadron home after the Commander had gone down over Brest. But that’s routine. He was made Squadron Commander after his twelfth mission, which is pretty fast for a boy with one questionable abortion at the time, even in a squadron with 72 per cent losses.”

Kane did not take the file. He had not been paying full attention through the recital and his next question shocked Dennis. “Have you talked to his Group Commander, Casey?”

“You didn’t get yesterday’s reports, sir?”

“No. I was at a meeting in London. Why?”

“Colonel Ledgrave went down yesterday, sir.”

He could see both Kane and Garnett recoil from the news as he had done when he took it over the phone. “ My God,” said Kane softly. “Leddy! Any parachutes seen ? ”

“Two, coming out of the left waist gate, sir. But Leddy was riding with the bombardier and she exploded just as the waist gunners got out.”

“Casey,” said Garnett, “is it necessary for—for our own people — to go so often?”

“Yes.”

Kane spoke again now, wearily but clearly.

“Had Leddy never mentioned Jenks to you?”

“Never, sir.”

“That’s my oversight, Casey. I had meant to tell you as I told him, in confidence, that Captain Jenks’s uncle is on the Military Affairs Committee in the House.”

11

COLONEL HALEY was not the most perceptive of men, but entering just then he could feel the surcharged tension in the room. Garnett and Kane were looking at each other tensely. Dennis was nodding his head slowly over the Jenks file.

Ignoring the others, Haley addressed himself to Dennis.

“Two sightings, sir. First from the Royal Observer Corps. Thirty-nine coming over the Channel now.”

“How did they look?”

“Ragged, sir. Five feathered props reported.”

“What’s the other?”

“Two in the Channel, so far, sir. Air-Sea Rescue has a good plot on one and Spitfires will cover the pickup.”

Dennis nodded. Haley did his most formal aboutface and closed the door quickly behind him.

“How soon will you have a count?” asked Kane.

“About forty minutes, sir. They’ll start landing soon.”

Kane nodded and stepped over to the window for a look at the sky. There was tarnish on the old-style wings he wore, but he always forbade his Sergeant to polish them.

“Am I right in surmising this sounds bad?” asked Garnett.

“Ted says they plastered the target.”

“I was thinking about losses.”

“That’s one way of thinking of it,” said Dennis shortly.

“Casey, what are you trying to do that’s more important than losses? I’m very familiar with your directive and this is your build-up period. Frankly, I don’t know what the United Chiefs will think.”

“When did they start thinking?”

Casey! Kane looked at him sternly.

“Sorry, sir.”

He knew he had that one coming. Kane seldom bothered to rebuke trifles. Now, as if regretting this, he came over to them and made bis voice conciliatory. Casey, Cliff here has been sent over with some pretty important dope for us. I think I’ll ask him to tell you the story just as he told it to me.”

Dennis composed himself patiently, wondering which of Washington’s multitudinous apprehensions had catapulted his classmate across the Atlantic. He could still remember the solemn minions who had flown in by highest priority to insist that the “nipples and other anatomical portions normally covered” of the young ladies painted on Fortress noses be overpainted with clothing.

Instead of opening immediately Garnett digressed for a short demonstration of the strength he represented. “ I’ll tell Casey, of course, sir. But before I do I would like to be briefed on this Operation Stitch.”

“Haven’t you told him, sir?”

Kane thought before answering, “I thought it would be fairer for you to, since it’s so largely your idea, Casey.”

The disavowal was so obvious that it startled Dennis. He decided that he must be touchy today, as he always was when Ted was out. The hell with it. He strode over to the Swastika on the wall and tapped it.

“Six weeks ago a German fighter, the one this came from, landed on the No. 1 Strip out there.” He pointed and Cliff glanced briefly through the window.

“Shot up?”

No. The pilot was a Czechoslovakian engineer and test pilot. He’d been forced to work for them but when they sent him to the Baltic with this job for testing he flew it here instead. The weather was ten tenths and this was the first field he saw when he broke through.”

“Accommodating,” said Cliff. “What kind of fighter was it?”

“Focke-Schmidt One.”

“Focke-Schmidt One?”

“Remember the dope we got out of Lisbon on a new, jet-propelled fighter — Messerschmitt wing, the new Serrenbach propulsion unit — forty-eight thousand service ceiling and six hundred at thirty thousand?”

“Yes,” Garnett nodded, “but Wright Field said it was impossible.”

“I know. This is what it does.”

Walking over to the board, Dennis stripped back another section of the curtain mask, wondering, as he did, how long it had been since Cliff had studied a performance curve. Garnett followed him to the board and ran a swift, expert finger along the coordinate lines of the big graph, inked on in different colors, while Dennis watched approvingly.

“These are the tests,” said Dennis, indicating rapidly the red, green, yellow, and blue curves. “Thunderbolt, Mustang, Lightning, and Spit Twelve.” Then as he saw Garnett beginning to gape with comprehension he lifted his hand to the heavy black curve so obviously in a class by itself. And this is the Focke-Schmidt One.”

“Jesus Christ!” said Garnett. Then he caught himself and spoke accusingly. “Oh, I see, the German job’s in kilometers.”

“No, it isn’t. That’s miles too.”

Garnett, wheeled from the incontrovertible evidence of the curve. “Who made these tests?”

“Ted Martin and I.”

“You two?”

“Three turns apiece.”

Garnett traced the black curve with an incredulous finger. “You did that in your — at your age?”

Dennis had prepared himself for this. It was not widely known, even among regulars, that he had been forbidden both speed and oxygen under the bluntest medical warning. His friends were always careful, when something brought it up, to remind him that it was an honorable deficiency. He had burnt out his capacity for extremes in the service. But it still hurt to be less than he had been, to see reservations about himself in other eyes.

In a combat command it had been downright awkward. Kane had advised him to permit issuance of a public statement about why he never flew missions as most Generals occasionally did. Dennis knew it was stupid, but he had stonily replied that unless his superior believed that it affected the Command’s morale adversely he regarded his physical condition as a private matter. Kane had not forced him; he knew, as did the whole service, that in his present condition Dennis could work most men into the ground.

“You shouldn’t have done it, Casey,” said Garnett.

“I wanted to be sure. It gave me a week in the hospital to think things over afterward.”

He was making a mental note to swear Cliff to silence about this when he saw Cathy on his return, but in the midst of it he remembered that he did not yet know whether Cliff was returning. Garnett was tracing the curve again with an awed, rueful finger.

“Well, of course the new Mustang will be a big improvement —

“This is not an improvement, Cliff. It’s a revolution.”

“Yeah. But with enough Mustangs, and the new Thunderbolts —”

“Can you arrange an armistice until we get ‘em?”

“When will the Germans get these?”

“They’ve got three factories in line production now. Or rather,” he added with a brief smile, “they had day before yesterday. The Czech thinks they already have one Group on conversion training. Our Intelligence has lost that Group for a month.”

“Have you lost any planes to it?”

“Lost planes don’t report, Cliff. We’ve had no sightings from the bombers. But last week we wrote off three reconnaissance planes for the first time in months. They were stripped to the ribs and flying at forty thousand but something got them.”

Kane spoke now with a petulance that Dennis understood. He had tried to resist this information himself.

“Of course we don’t know it was this plane that got them.”

“It wasn’t mice.”

“What about this Czech, Casey? Could this be a double cross?”

Garnett’s mind, too, was following the protesting pattern. He was begging for a denial of that curve. Grimly, Dennis went on to explain the other steps of his investigation. He told Garnett how, with Kane’s permission, he had gone down to Whitehall itself, where the gray-faced men worked deep underground behind doors. He had a deep respect for Intelligence, the men who dropped into darkness by parachutes, who counterfeited their way into faraway hangars and headquarters.

He told Cliff how Intelligence had traced out the Czech’s genealogy, how they had put infrared cameras on night fighters and photographed the FockeSchmidts, which only came out of hiding after dark, on the aprons of three camouflaged factory airfields. Then, leaving the graph, Dennis pulled the mask from the Operational map and revealed the little triangle of black dots.

“Posenleben, Schweinhafen, and Fendelhorst. That’s Operation Stitch, for Stitch in time—”

Garnett whistled. “They’re far enough in.”

“Marshal Milch thinks better of us these days,” said Dennis ruefully.

“What’s the present limit of fighter cover, Casey?”

Dennis picked up a piece of blue crayon and swung the arc on the plexiglas map cover. Garnett didn’t even bother to reach for the measuring tape. The gap between line and dots was too clear.

As he proceeded with his exposition, Dennis noticed that Kane was studying Garnett as intently as Garnett was studying the problem. He had forgotten Cliff’s capacity for concentration and for absorbing information rapidly. The counter questions were pointed and pertinent. Dennis had time to reflect that the United Chiefs probably asked sharp questions, too. He could see that Kane, like himself, was trying to read the Chiefs through their Secretary. But it was also part of the Secretary’s business to keep his thoughts to himself.

“This curve was made, Cliff, with four 30-millimeter cannon mounted.”

He could see Garnett’s brief silence reducing this last arithmetic to its shocking significance in range and lethal burst.

“Good God! How were they?”

“Sweet up to thirty-five thousand. That’s enough.”

It was. Garnett took a long breath.

“Casey, why hasn’t this technical data been reported?”

“It has. Through channels. You’ll hear from it in about a year.”

A rueful nod. Then: “What’s your honest opinion, Casey?”

“This can run us out of Europe in sixty days.”

Kane broke into protest.

“That’s giving them absolute perfection in production, in testing, in crew conversion, in armament operation, in spotting, signals, control, tactics ” He paused, plainly groping for still further margin between himself and the blunt truth.

“That’s giving them thirty days to get two Groups operational and thirty more to catch one of our columns for just half an hour, sir. I put that in the report, Cliff.”

“Why didn’t you send this report to us?” asked Garnett.

Dennis did not answer. Garnett turned from him slowly for a deliberate, inquiring scrutiny of Kane. The Major General stirred like a man trying to shake off a bad dream.

“I couldn’t endorse such alarming conclusions, Cliff. This would disturb the United Chiefs at the very time when everything depends on our getting well established here, on an acceptable loss basis, for the good of the whole service.”

“You didn’t agree with the report then, sir?”

“Nobody could prove these assumptions now,” said Kane angrily. “We have experimental jobs of our own that could be hotted up to test like that with Ted or Casey flying. I did send a preliminary appreciation that we could not exclude the possibility of encountering an unsuspected enemy capability.”

“Did you approve this Operation Stitch, sir?”

Kane’s ruddy face was dark purple.

“I told General Dennis that this operation constitutes a tactical emergency within the scope of Division Commanders’ directives. If, in his opinion, the threat justifies countermeasures—”

“That’s my opinion, Cliff,” said Dennis. “It’s my rap.”

Kane flashed him a grateful glance but Garnett shook his head.

“Your losses are the United Chiefs’ rap, Casey. As a matter of fact, that’s what I’m over here about. A lot of our people were very upset, even before yesterday. A very substantial body of opinion still doesn’t believe we can succeed with daylight precision bombardment.”

“A very substantial body of opinion didn’t believe in the Wright brothers, either.”

“It isn’t quite that simple, Casey. This program is making a terrible drain on our over-all resources of the very best manpower and matériel. I may as well tell you that the United Chiefs are having another Global Allocation meeting on Tuesday.”

There was instant relief in realizing what had been wrong with Kane today. He had already known this, Dennis gathered.

Tuesday — I’ve had to wait three weeks for this run of weather, Cliff. You can only count on about one three-day run a summer here. But we got Posenleben yesterday and Schweinhafen today and this is only Saturday. Weather thinks it will be okav for Fendelhorst tomorrow. We can finish before that meeting can do anything to us.”

“Have you thought what losses like this might do to that meeting?”

He had been thinking of exactly that.

Kane took up the slack of the silence. “This could upset the whole larger picture, Casey.”

“Would you rather have Göring upset it, sir?”

“That’s still an assumption,”said Kane plaintively. “The over-all plan calls for me — for us — to have the largest bomber force in the hemisphere. These two days are going to be a terrible shock to the Chiefs, Casey. I’m not at all sure that, for the good of the whole service, I’m justified in permitting a third —”

“You’ve got to, sir,” snapped Dennis. “Concentration is the crux of this matter. You agreed to that before I started.”

“Why? Why just now?” inquired Garnett.

“Weather,” said Dennis. “It may be a month before we can get back to Fendelhorst. These two attacks have tipped our hand. Half the rolling flak in Germany is probably on its way there right now. They’ll either make it impregnable or disperse that machinery until we’ll never find it unless we get it in the next forty-eight hours.”

Garnett nodded absently but his frown reflected a detachment from such details as European weather. Kane and Dennis regarded each other stonily. Then, even before their ears could hear the first faint roaring, the three men with one accord made for the windows as everything else in their minds gave way to the pressure of the returning Fortresses.

(To be continued)