Command Decision (26 page)

“All right… usually.”

3

Colonel Haley knew that he had seen too many commanders replaced in his time to be disturbed by the process. An order was an order. What was more, Haley had strong feelings about Criticism of Higher Command. Tonight, however, he regretted that this transition had not been accomplished more briskly.

Changes did produce personal tension and while General Dennis would never let his rank down, General Garnett’s agitation was so apparent that it would be unsuitable for any of the others to see it.

Entering the office, Haley informed them that the plane for General Dennis had landed and would be gassed in ten minutes. The pictures would be ready by then and General Dennis’s effects were being loaded as instructed. Dennis nodded absently but Garnett broke in with that same evident anxiety.

“You’re sure there are no messages, Haley?”

“Relay on a cable for General Dennis, sir. Mrs. Dennis and the children will be at the airport at his Estimated Time of Arrival.”

“Oh.” Haley always forgot how that fleeting smile could take a decade off Dennis’s face, for a minute. “Thanks, Ernie.”

Haley withdrew but before the door was fully closed Garnett saw Dennis’s smile sharpen into that piercing scrutiny he dreaded. He spoke quickly.

“You may not believe this but I envy you, Casey.”

“You should.” Dennis seemed to relax a little again. “I’m afraid I’ve been talking like a heel, Cliff. Don’t worry about me. I’ll duck Washington.”

“What will you do?”

Dennis had not allowed himself to think of it consciously yet but it was waiting, formulated in the background of his mind. Full consideration of it now touched him with pity for Garnett. He tried not to let his voice convey his overwhelming relief.

“I guess I still rate a training command. I’ll get one where I can have Cathy and the kids with me, where I can get a day off now and then to take the boy fishing. And at night, by God, I’ll sleep.”

“Casey, will you ask Natalie to send me a bottle of sleeping tablets, large?”

Before he had to answer that Haley and Davis hurried in with the weather map. It was like a relapse into a bad dream after too brief consciousness. Even as he told himself it was no longer his worry he could feel his stomach muscles tensing, could hear Garnett ask the question that was on his own lips.

“Well, what is it?”

Davis spread the map on the table and before he could stop himself Dennis was hanging over it with the rest of them in taut scrutiny of the symbols.

“That front is still slowing down, sir,” Davis concluded. “The entire Continent will be open for bombing all day and you’ll have until seventeen hundred over the bases.”

Dennis did not realize that he was already looking at the other map; he did not even hear the words that came clearly from his own lips.

“My God! I wouldn’t have needed parachutes.”

Then, he was aware of the silence, of Garnett’s start and the stiffening and looks of the others.

“Haley,” said Garnett, “you’re sure there’s no word from General Kane?”

“Messages are brought as received, sir.”

Dennis controlled himself until they had left the room, whispering savagely under his breath that it was not his business. But with the closing of the door the flooding bitterness inside him opened his mouth involuntarily.

“Well, is it Dieppe or Dunkirk?”

“It’s easy for you to talk,” retorted Garnett. “You’re out of it.”

“Left you a horrid example, too, didn’t I?”

He knew this was wanton cruelty, but he knew too that like all cruelty it proceeded only from the inner pain that drove it out of him. He should be done with that pain now; he had borne it long enough along with the rest of the burden. But he could not be done with it until Garnett assumed it.

“I didn’t mean it that way, Casey. I’m trying to think of the crews.”

“What crews?”

“My… the combat crews. They’ve just been through the worst three days of the war. Sixteen of them would finish tomorrow and go home, to their families, free.”

“You’d better think of the others.”

“What others?”

“The ones who’ll have to replace those sixteen and all others who’ll have to come after them if these don’t do their job.”

“Casey, that’s in the future, it’s abstract….”

“It’s what you’re paid to think about. After you’ve done it try thinking about the infantry, going up those beaches on D-Day against jet fighter bombs that have already whipped us.”

He could see Garnett recoiling and part of him could pity the man, but it was the part he had whipped too often and too mercilessly in himself. There was no place for pity in this; there would be no escape for himself until he had driven Garnett beyond it.

“I did think of it that way in Washington,” said Garnett. “But after yesterday and today, watching those ambulances, and the stretchers coming out of the planes, hearing the boys ask about tomorrow’s weather before they hit the ground…”

He paused, but there was no comfort in the bleak face before him and he went on with rising vehemence.

“I’ve had to think of Ted over there, dead or maybe wounded and hiding… or captured… and my own sister not knowing…”

“He’s damned lucky,” said Dennis, “and so are you. You wanted a B-29 command. You wanted to take him where the Japs torture captured crews for fun. Out there you wouldn’t have any Kane to save your sanity for you with orders to take it easy.”

“Casey, he hasn’t sent me any orders.”

Dennis had known this. It had been waiting for him as he entered the room, leering from Garnett’s manifest agitation, taunting him through their guarded silences, shrieking at him from the questions Garnett had asked Haley. Even more than Garnett himself Dennis had been dreading it. He had denied it to himself. He wanted only to escape, to get into that plane and go.

He had earned his freedom; he should be free. He had forced this test to the breaking point and been broken. He had failed and been fired. It was over. He should have nothing to face but the future now; there was more than enough in that.

He had to learn to live with the vacuum that had been Ted. He had to get himself together to dissemble agreement, to feign comfort from Cathy’s consolations and reassurances. He had to find work, to rededicate himself, to get a training command where his skills and experience could re-enter the inexorable continuity of the army’s purposes and contribute still.

All of this was before him. He had set his face and steps and thought toward it, but now he saw that it was another step away, that he could not yet put down the burden of the present. He was gathering himself under it slowly when Haley plodded in apologetically with the package of pictures.

“And there’s a phone call for General Garnett…”

“From General Kane?”

“No, sir. A minor disciplinary matter. I’ll be glad to attend to it with the General’s authority. One of our men has broken a window in the village and the owner insists upon speaking to the commanding general. I can handle it for you, sir.”

Dennis waited, reabsorbing strength from the weight of the burden itself as Garnett retreated eagerly into this.

“Broke a window, did he. Drunk, too, I suppose?”

“No complaint of that, sir,” said Haley scrupulously. “Statement was he broke the window jumping through it. Damage upward of thirty shillings. I’ll be glad to attend to it, sir, with authorization.”

“Send him to me,” said Garnett. “I’ll teach him to jump into windows.”

“Complaint was he broke it jumping
out
, sir.”

“EVANS!” shouted Dennis.

The Sergeant appeared in the door, clicking his heels to wary attention.

“What did you do at the Magruders’?” barked Dennis.

“Just what was expected, sir. I give them the ice cream, too.”

“Did you break a window there today?”

“I… I ain’t been there today, sir.” But they all saw him suppress a quick start of comprehension.

“Did you send someone else?”

“Sir,” said Evans, “I had a verbal directive from the General authorizing me to delegate…”

Pounding feet stampeded through the anteroom, the door burst open, and Corporal McGinnis crashed in on them. He was bleeding slightly from cuts on his hands and face but his righteous wrath was oblivious of the wounds as it was of the officers in the room. His eyes were fixed upon Evans.

“Protection! They needed
protection
! And me a married man! I bet I protect you!”

He was advancing on Evans with mayhem in his eyes when Garnett recovered enough to catch him.

“Who in hell are you?”

“Corporal Herbert McGinnis, sir.” The enormity of his intrusion was dawning upon McGinnis.

“Evans, is this the sober, reliable man you’re getting me?”

“Sir,” said McGinnis indignantly, “I joined the army to
fight
for my country…”

“SHUT UP, YOU!” thundered Haley. “General, if you’ll let me attend to this.”

“I think you’d better,” said Garnett.

He turned from the closing door for the relief of laughter, but there was no laughter in Dennis’s face.

“Kane
hasn’t
ordered a milk run?”

“No. He hasn’t ordered anything. Of course I know what he expects of me…”

“What do you expect of yourself?”

He saw Garnett squirm and then, as the remark bit more deeply into him, it found a tougher substructure. His reply was angry, combative.

“It’s easy for you to talk. When you had to decide this last night Kane was here, supporting you.”

“Was he in that lead plane this morning, supporting Ted?”

Haley, returning just then with the message from General Kane, thought Garnett looked better. His face was red with anger but there was a new tone in his curt command for Haley to read the signal aloud.

“‘General Kane and party,’” he read, “‘compelled proceed Hemisphere Commander’s dinner for guests London consequently unable attend weather conference. General Kane desires express especial confidence in General Garnett’s discretion based on weather. Other divisions notified. Signed Saybold for Kane.’”

Haley raised his head expectantly. Through the silence they could all hear the muffled droning of motors outside and the clattering of the teleprinter. But still neither Garnett nor Dennis spoke.

“The group commanders need briefing poop and bomb loads for tomorrow, sir,” said Haley.

Garnett appeared not to have heard him. His face and forehead were heavily furrowed now. He stirred and quoted, half aloud:—

“‘Especial confidence General Garnett’s discretion…’ Casey, this isn’t permission…”

“It’s just what Ted had this morning,” said Dennis. “He could be here right now, sitting in that chair, on his discretion.”

“That was different,” said Garnett slowly. “By the time he got it he was already committed. He probably didn’t have any real choice.”

“What do you think he took that toothbrush for?” demanded Dennis. “When he left here this morning he knew Kane would pass the buck to him.”

For a second more Garnett hesitated, whispering to himself that he must think. But in the echoing silence of his mind he knew it was evasion. Thought itself would only be evasion. He shook his head hard to clear it.

“Haley, notify the other divisions and all groups that the Fifth Division will attack Fendelhorst.”

***

Dennis scarcely saw Haley’s departure. There had come over him a sense of soaring, giddy lightness; he seemed to be floating in detachment. He knew it for what it was, the lifted disequilibrium of final release from a crushing load. When his senses readjusted themselves to it this time he would be free. He would walk to the plane lightly and get into it and go. None of this could follow him now.

He found that he was shaking hands with Garnett, who was grinning at him a little wryly.

“Save me a job in that training command, will you?”

“You’ll be wanting it,” said Dennis, and he knew that Garnett could understand him.

“And don’t forget those sleeping tablets.”

He nodded casually before remembering that he and Garnett were past that now.

“Cliff, they’re no good. I didn’t think you’d need to know this but—you know Major Dayhuff… I introduced him to you this afternoon.”

“Dayhuff… Dayhuff…? Oh, sure. My ordnance man. Nice fellow.”

“No. Your medical officer. Pretty nice fellow. He’ll help you, but not enough.”

He saw Garnett nod slow acceptance and began to fasten the little catches on his coat collar. His hands were not altogether sure and his feet felt light, but every minute was with him now. The entrance of Evans quickened his reawakening with a flicker of the familiar pain he had known in other partings.

“The plane’s ready, sir, and… good luck.”

He shook hands more rapidly than he meant to but he could see, in Evans’s face, that it was all right. Garnett had put on a cap to go out with him and Evans was standing back to let them pass when Haley came in.

“Sir,” he said reluctantly, “there’s an order for General Dennis from Washington.”

A look at Haley’s troubled face told him. He could feel the whole burden again now, crushing down on him through the Colonel’s silent hesitancy; he could see a reflection of it in the shocked comprehension in Garnett’s eyes.

“No! I’ve got my orders, Haley. I’ve gone home.”

“We’re instructed to relay this to your plane, sir.”

He wanted to refuse it, to run for the plane, but his feet would not move. He watched Haley walk over, a little uncertainly, and hand the paper to Garnett. It gave him a few seconds to brace himself, to set his feet, though he still could not feel them. Garnett wet his lips and read slowly:—

“‘With immediate effect General Dennis will proceed via Gibraltar, Cairo, Karachi, and Calcutta to Chungking to await imminent arrival his B-29 Command.’”

Against the first full shock of it he heard himself shout.

“No, by God…!”

Then instinctive, immediate shame choked his outburst and followed it into the silence. He found that his hands were steady on the catches of his coat collar now. He could feel his legs, all the way to the floor, and they were not buckling. The quick, upsurging roar of a warming motor outside seemed to transmit some of its own power into him. As the sound faded he could feel his new burden fully, but this time his strength was under it; the equilibrium was restored.