Brotherhood Of War: The Lieutenants Part 31

Felter was spending most of his time around the division and regimental headquarters. His fluency in Russian fitted in perfectly with Hanrahan's personal obsession. Lt. Col. Red Hanrahan took personal umbrage at the Russian insistence that the Greek revolution was nothing more than an internal affair and that they had nothing to do with it. He was determined to capture one of their Russian counterparts (they could hear them on the radio) and personally take the sonofab.i.t.c.h to Athens.

Lowell got back to loannina once or twice a week to sleep overnight, to run messages and errands from the regimental advisors, and to get an American ration meal. And, Paul Hanrahan knew, to wait for a letter that never came.

Paul Hanrahan often thought that if he could get his hands on the little German b.i.t.c.h who had dumped Lowell, he could have cheerfully choked her.

Lowell had received two letters from his mother, both of them still addressed to Private Lowell. She wrote that she remembered Athens from her honeymoon, and she gave him the addresses of restaurants he simply shouldn't miss. While he was there, she wrote, he should take advantage of the opportunity and take a week's cruise among the Greek islands. Lowell never got around to answering his mother's letters.

The letter he was waiting for took seven weeks to come.

The civilian mail service between Greece and Germany was practically nonexistent, and the APO service apparently wasn't much better.

Dear Craig, After waiting for a month, I know why you haven't written to me. I understand completely. I want to thank you for being so kind to me, and I want you to know that I will ever remember you with most fond thoughts. Your little German friend.

IIse.

Craig Lowell had no way of knowing, of course, that two weeks after he had left Germany, General Walls had called Fat Charley into his office and with great delight told him he stood relieved. When Lowell's letters to IIse arrived in Germany, care of Fat Charley, they were duly forwarded by the Army Postal Service, surface shipment, to Headquarters U. S. Army Recruiting District, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to which Fat Charley would report for duty six weeks after landing in the States.

It was only the night that Craig finally got lIse's letter that Sanford Felter heard the whole story about how Craig had met IIse. He learned, too, that Lowell was only nineteen years old and had lasted at Harvard College only three months before being placed on indeterminate suspension.

Sanford Felter wrote Sharon about it the next day after he'd sobered Lowell up and sent him out of loannina lying in the back of an ammo carrier.

He told her that he really felt sorry for Lowell because of the girl. The thing was, despite everything, despite his. good looks and his wealthy background and all, and even the way he'd become almost famous for his icy courage under fire, Craig was really just a boy who had been taken in by a German girl. She obviously was interested in him only for what he could bring her from the PX.

He had offered a prayer for Lowell, Sanford wrote, because the kid was likely to do something very foolish in his mental condition. It made me realize, he added, how good G.o.d has been to me in giving me a fine woman.

He wrote, too, that he had come to really respect and admire Colonel Hanrahan; but, because he didn't think she would either understand or care, he hadn't gone into much detail.

Hanrahan had sought out Felter's company the night before. An ad hoc social night, Hanrahan thought privately, of the loannina Chapter, West Point Protective a.s.sociation. He needed somebody to talk to; and he guessed correctly that he could talk to Felter in confidence.

In Felter's room, over a cup of tea, they talked of many things, what they were doing, their wives, the Greeks, and, of course, the Future of the Army.

He asked Felter, and Felter told him, why he had volunteered for Greece. And then Felter had put the question to him, and Hanrahan had enough ouzo aboard to answer him.

"What about you, Colonel?" Felter said. "Why are you here?"

"The function of an officer in peacetime," Hanrahan said, "is to prepare to fight the next war. That seems pretty G.o.dd.a.m.ned simple to me, but most people I know don't understand it."

"You don't mean that we're going to fight here," Felter replied, "nor that our next war is going to be a guerrilla war, do you?"

"Award the short lieutenant the cement bicycle," Hanrahan said. "No, I don't. What I'm talking about is leading other people's troops."

"Mercenaries? That's the reason the Roman Empire fell."

"I don't mean mercenaries. I mean helping people fight their own wars. Phrased simply, Felter, whether we like it or not, we're going to have to keep the Russians from taking the world over. And since there's no way we can match them man for man, we have to use other people's troops. We're the most sophisticated society in the world, and we have enough people to train other people."

"That's not mercenaries?"

"Pay attention. I said to fight their own wars. It is to the Greeks advantage to keep the Russians out. And their own men are doing just as good a job, probably a better one, than the 82nd Airborne could do. We give them the equipment, and we train them to use it."

"You think this is the future, then?"

"I want to be a general just as much as anybody else who went to school on the Hudson, Felter. And I am not n.o.ble. If I thought the way to get to be a general was to be at Bragg playing paratrooper again; that's where I would be. I intend to be the f.u.c.king expert when it comes to fighting other people's wars with other people's soldiers." Then he realized that he was talking too much, even to Felter, and went to bed.

Neither did Sandy Felter tell Sharon that he had written a staff study for Colonel Hanrahan, an intelligence estimate actually, concerning the situation. He wasn't sure if Colonel Hanrahan would have the time to read it, and if he did read it, what he would think of it. He might just laugh at him. Sanford Felter had taken the facts as he saw them and come up with what he thought was a very likely course of enemy action.

The thin line that the 27th Royal h.e.l.lenic Mountain Division had stretched across its portion of the Albanian border was growing more and more effective as time pa.s.sed. Many pathways across the border from Albania had been dynamited and rendered impa.s.sable. All roads wide enough for trucks were now covered by mortars, machine guns, and even by 37 mm mountain cannon in a few places. The enemy was no longer able to infiltrate supplies across the border with reasonable impunity, or with a rate of losses he could afford to pay.

Behind the thin line of the mountain division, however, the same paths were open as they had been for thousands of years.

The same paths and a great many caves.

If he were the enemy, Sanford Felter reasoned, rather than send supplies piecemeal across the line, he would breach the line. In a sudden attack, he would take out a couple of the little fortresses guarding the roads. Once they were out of the way, he would send truckloads of supplies through. The trucks would be lost, but if they penetrated a couple of miles behind the mountain division's lines, and guerrillas were waiting to hide the supplies in the mountains, the trucks could be considered expendable.

And certainly the Russian-supported guerrillas and, more importantly, the Red Army advisors on the other side of the border would be influenced by the basic Red Army tactic, which was ma.s.sive attack. In this case, probably with mortars.

A ma.s.sive, hour-long attack by mortars against positions which heretofore had not been subject to more than an occasional round, would probably succeed, the valor of the Greeks not withstanding.

To Sandy's immense pleasure, Colonel Hanrahan sent the study to Athens with the comment that he found it very interesting and was taking appropriate measures, within the limits of his a.s.sets, to help the mountain divisions resist such an attack.

There weren't very many a.s.sets available to the senior U.S. Army advisor to the 27th Royal h.e.l.lenic Mountain Division. But he organized. what he had as best he could-three M8 armored cars, six half-trucks, two six-by-sixes, and five weapons carriers- into a mobile light armored column c.u.m ammo train.

The vehicles and the men were now set aside and parked, awaiting the attack Felter prophesied. They were identified, and on receipt of a signal, their drivers would be given orders to report to a designated location. There a basic combat load of ammunition for the vehicles and troops and a load of mortar and small arms ammunition to resupply the fortresses under attack had been cached.

Lt. Col. Hanrahan didn't actually make these arrangements himself. He received and approved the arrangements made by Lieutenant Felter. He had come to admire Felter, a process which began with something close to paternal amus.e.m.e.nt. Felter was the archetypical West Point lieutenant, taking himself and his mission very seriously. But unlike most young lieutenants, Felter made very few mistakes. He neither left important things out, nor had to be cut down to reality. It occurred to Hanrahan one day that the only thing wrong with Felter was that he looked like a mouse. Hanrahan was regularly furious with himself for not being able to remember his first name; he kept calling him Sidney. He thought of him as the Mouse, and had not been surprised to learn from Felter that they had called him "the Mouse" at the Academy. Once he had given Mouse Felter the go-ahead to set up his relief column, Felter had presumed that he would be in command should it be necessary to actually employ the column.

At first, Hanrahan had thought the idea ludicrous, but had not hurt Felter's feelings by telling him so. But as Felter's a.n.a.lysis of the enemy's intention seemed more and more plausible, the idea of letting the Mouse have the command seemed more logical. Felter had run several dry runs: gathering the vehicles together, loading them up, forming the column. He worked the kinks out, made alternative arrangements and additions (the incorporation of three ambulances, for example) and so turned an idea into a working arrangement.

And then Hanrahan got the failed ring-knocker, and that blew the Mouse out of the saddle.

Once a week, or perhaps every ten days, a Stinson L-5 flew into Ioannina and picked up Hanrahan and flew him to Athens.

Sometimes they wanted to see him in Athens; more often he went to Athens to plead for more supplies. And sometimes he went and flew back the same day because that way he could pick up the mail sacks and maybe a couple of bottles of whiskey.

The ring-knocker was a captain, a large man with a mustache. Hanrahan had noticed him before they were introduced.

The captain was standing beside his luggage in the lobby of the Grande Bretagne. He was obviously new because he was wearing a complete OD uniform, his trousers tucked into new GI combat boots. He was also wearing his ribbons, including something Colonel Hanrahan had never seen before. It was an Expert Combat Infantry Badge without the silver wreath. All the captain was wearing was the blue part with the flintlock.

They looked at each other with frank curiosity. Hanrahan had gone Greek. His only item of V.S. issue uniform from his Limey helmet to his Limey hobnailed boots was a khaki shirt, to whose collar points were pinned the silver oak leaf .of his rank and the gold letters, V.S. Everything else was British. He carried a Schmeisser submachine gun in his hands, not because he thought he would need it in Athens, but because there was a possibility the puddle jumper might have to land en route.

And some of the areas between Ioannina and Athens were firmly in the hands of the bad guys. The captain was armed with a .45 in a regulation web belt, and a .30 carbine rested against his canvas Valu-Pak.

Lt. Co!. Hanrahan had the distinct impression that the captain did not approve of him. He was, obviously, out of uniform.

Hanrahan smiled at the mental image of what had happened back in Germany when they'd gotten Felter's delinquency report back. It had come down through channels. From Frankfurt Military Post to Headquarters, V.S. Forces, European Theater; and then because the V.S. Army Military Advisory Group, Greece, was under the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, U.S. Army, in the Pentagon, it had gone to Washington. And then been flown to Greece.

One lousy little lieutenant had been caught in an improper Uniform because he was halfway through a forty-hour plane :rip from the States. And some chickens.h.i.t, nattily uniformed IP officer, for the sake of all that was sacred to the chair warmers, in the name of General Clay, had ordered that the "'subject officer's commanding officer report by endors.e.m.e.nt hereon the specific corrective disciplinary action taken."

VanFleet had thought it was funny. There was a note in his handwriting paper-clipped to the official "Your Attention Is Invited to the Previous Endors.e.m.e.nt": "Red. If you have enough wood for a gallows, hang him. Failing that, I suppose shooting to death by musketry will have to do. Van Fleet, LT GEN." Red Hanrahan had not chuckled. at the whole thing and thrown it in the wastebasket, as General Van Fleet obviously expected him to do. For some reason, he kept it. And a day after it arrived, he put it into his typewriter.

HQ US ARMY MILITARY ADVISORY GROUP, GREECE THE UNITED STATES EMBa.s.sY ATHENS, GREECE.

TO: HEADQUARTERS, U.S. FORCES, EUROPEAN THEATER APO 757, US FORCES PERSONAL ATTENTION GENERAL LUCIUS D.

CLAY.

The commanding general) US Army Military Advisory Group, Greece, heartily concurs in the corrective disciplinary action re: 1st Lt S. T. Felter detailed in the previous endors.e.m.e.nt.

8th Ind HQ US ARMY MILITARY ADVISORY DETACHMENT 27th ROYAL h.e.l.lENIC MOUNTAIN DIVISION IN THE FIELD TO: HQ US ARMY MILITARY ADVISORY GROUP, GREECE c/o U.S. EMBa.s.sY ATHENS, GREECE BY COMMAND OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL JAMES V AN FLEET' Ward F. Doudt Colonel, General Staff Adjutant General 1. The serious transgressions by First Lieutenant Sanford T. Felter against good order and discipline enumerated in the basic communication have been considered at length by this headquarters.

2. After due and solemn consideration, and acting upon the advice of my staff, I have decided to slap subject officer lightly upon each wrist.

Paul T. Hanrahan Lt. Colonel, Signal Corps Commanding He sent it to Athens in the next mail bag, thinking it would give the general a chuckle, and that the general would then check the whole ludicrous thing away. But a week later, there came in the mail bag a carbon copy of the ninth endors.e.m.e.nt: Clay was going to have to do something about that, when he got it. And it was unlikely that he would try to lecture Big Jim VanFleet about the necessity of having officers properly uniformed and closely shaven. What would probably happen would be that Clay would simply pa.s.s the "Your Attention Is Invited to the Previous Endors.e.m.e.nt" back down to the chickens.h.i.t MP, and that, it was to be hoped, would cause the b.a.s.t.a.r.d to lose some sleep.

Lt. Co!. Red Hanrahan went into see the G-l, the personnel officer, first thing. He could see no reason why the entire G.o.dd.a.m.ned United States Army could not arrange to make an infrequent shipment of PX items to the 27th Royal h.e.l.lenic mountain Division's advisors. All he wanted was razor blades, shaving cream, and maybe a couple of lousy boxes of Hershey bars.

The G-l expected this routine complaint. He listened to it patiently, waited for it to end, promised again to do what he could, and then said: "Say, Paul. I just thought of something.

I've got a new officer for you. And I don't think he's left yet." A sergeant was dispatched to the lobby and returned with Captain Daniel C. Watson, the officer Hanrahan had noticed earlier.

Hanrahan took a certain perverse pleasure in being introduced as the man Captain Watson would be working for. It changed the captain's att.i.tude about 180 degrees.

"What is that thing on your chest, Captain?" he asked, with a smile.

He was informed that it was the Expert Infantry Badge, as opposed to the Expert Combat Infantry Badge. So far as Colonel Hanrahan was concerned, the CIB was the only medal that meant a s.h.i.t. What this ring-knocker was wearing was a qualification badge. He could shoot every weapon in the infantry a.r.s.enal, jump over barbed wire, throw hand grenades at a target, and probably make a fire by rubbing two sticks together.

After the captain had gone (to be carried to Ioannina in a supply convoy), Hanrahan asked to look at his service record.

The G-l was a little reluctant, but finally produced it.

Captain Watson had gone ash.o.r.e in North Africa with the 1st Division as a platoon leader in the 18th Infantry. He had next gone to a hospital. There was no record of a Purple Heart, and there was no award of the Expert Combat Infantry Badge.

You got the CIB for ninety days in combat, or unless you were taken out of combat sooner by getting shot, in which case the CIB and the Purple Heart came automatically and together.

Hanrahan looked up from Captain Watson's service record and met the eyes of the G-l.

"Battle fatigue," the G-l said.

"I don't want him," Hanrahan said. "I'll send him back, and you can find a job for him here."

"For Christ's sake, Paul," the G-l said. "You know how that happens." The G-l wore both the CIB and the ring. Hanrahan knew that another ad hoc meeting of the West Point Protective a.s.sociation had just been called into session.

"He paid for it," the G-l went on. "He spent the war running basic trainees. He's still a captain. His cla.s.smates are all majors, at least, for Christ sake. He deserves another chance."

"Why?" Hanrahan asked, simply.

"I can show you his 201 file if you like," the G-l said. "Once a month, from the time he went to the hospital, he requested combat duty. Every G.o.dd.a.m.ned month, Paul. A career shouldn't be ruined by one incident." Hanrahan suspected that that was a slip of the tongue. The G-l hadn't used the word "incident" without some reason. The captain, Hanrahan decided, had either cowered in a hole, or run. The a.s.sociation of Graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point had taken care of one of their own.

He had been adjudged to be suffering from battle fatigue. If you just lose it, they don't use the word incident. What the h.e.l.l, he had been close to running himself a dozen times.

"OK," Hanrahan said. "We'll give him a second chance."

"Let's go get some lunch," the personnel officer said. "I understand for a change that we're having gravy with meat chunks."

When Captain Watson reported to Ioannina the next day, the Expert Infantry Badge was missing from his breast. Hanrahan a.s.signed him as a.s.sistant G-3 (Plan and Training), sending the captain who held that post up to one of the regiments.

Watson worked like h.e.l.l; Hanrahan was willing to grant him that. He lorded it over Felter, but Hanrahan figured not only that the Mouse could take it, but that two enthusiastic ring' knockers deserved each other.

In the next two months, Second Lieutenant Lowell had only one run-in that required Colonel Hanrahan's personal attention. Righteously indignant, Captain Watson had reported to Colonel Hanrahan that Lieutenant Lowell "in his cups" had told him to go f.u.c.k himself when Captain Watson had suggested that not only was he making a spectacle of himself in the officer's mess, but that he had never seen a dirtier, more disreputable uniform.

Hanrahan had jumped allover two a.s.ses about that. He told the Duke, as he had come to think of his gone-Greek handsome young lieutenant, that the next time he talked disrespectfully to a senior officer he would personally kick his a.s.s; and he had explained to Captain Watson, with exquisite sarcasm, that it was his position as commanding officer to exercise a modic.u.m of tolerance vis-a-vis the behavior of a nineteen-year-old officer who was almost daily exposed to enemy fire, and who by his personal valor had earned the respect and admiration of the 27th Royal h.e.l.lenic Mountain Division.

"The officer of whom we are speaking, Captain, manages to get back here about once a week. While I deplore, of course, any action on the part of any officer which might tend to bring discredit upon the officer corps of the United States Army, I must confess that if I hadn't had a bath or a decent meal in a week, I myself, might be tempted to take a little drink when I came back here." Watson took the rebuke as if he had had his face slapped.

Hanrahan, after a day or two, came to the conclusion that perhaps it was getting through to Captain Watson what the f.u.c.k the army was all about. After eight years in uniform.

The next week, Watson had come to him with the request that he be given responsibility for the armored supply column.

The request came as a surprise, but the captain's arguments were soundly based. And if the bad guys did try to bust through the lines, Hanrahan would prefer to have the Mouse here, to listen to the Russian frequencies and perhaps hear something of interest.

The Mouse took the news of relief without a word, but there was a deep disappointment in his eyes that shamed Hanrahan.

The next time Hanrahan had a couple of drinks too many he told the Mouse about Watson being given a second chance. In the morning, when he remembered what he had done, he was furious with himself.

Although he looked for it, he could not detect any change in the Mouse's att.i.tude toward Captain Watson. He was, in fact, so helpful to Watson that Watson came and asked if Lieutenant Felter might not be a.s.signed as his deputy. "In case the balloon does go up, it would be better to have a backup American officer." So ordered.

VIII.

(One) The Greek-Albanian Border 5 September 1946 The balloon went up three weeks later. Hanrahan had felt in his bones that it was about to happen.

There had been intelligence reports from Athens about movements from the interior of Greece toward the Albanian Yugoslavian borders an unusual amount of donkey wagon traffic. Line crossers reported to Athens and Athens reported to Hanrahan that there was an unusual amount of truck traffic in Albania. The number of reported attempted and successful infiltrations declined.

The Mouse had hit it right on the head: Hanrahan wondered how much longer he himself would have taken to figure it out.

There were reports from allover the line, first of sniper fire, then of mortar fire. The same reports had come in for the past few days. Nothing had happened. The fire had simply died down. The Greeks felt that they were teaching the Reds a lesson with their counter-mortar fire. Granting the Greeks could drop a 76 mm mortar round in a latrine hole at 1,000 yards, Hanrahan didn't think this was the case.

And then Captain Watson had come into Colonel Hanrahan's room.

"Lieutenant Lowell is on the radio, sir," he said. "He wants to speak to you." If Captain Watson was piqued that Lieutenant Lowell hadn't wanted to talk to him, he gave no sign.

What the h.e.l.l was Lowell's radio code? Hanrahan couldn't remember.

"Duke, this is Pericles Six, go ahead."

"I'm with Pegasus Forward, Colonel. We're under heavy mortar attack." Pegasus Forward was No. 12 Company, 113th Regiment.

Ever since Nick had been killed, Lowell had sort of adopted No. 12 Company, and vice versa. He was technically a.s.signed to the headquarters company of 113th Regiment, but he spent his nights at the front with No. 12 Company. Hanrahan had learned that through Lieutenant Lowell's dedicated efforts, No.

12 Company had more than its fair share of what creature comforts were available. These he'd mostly stolen from the American officers at division.