"Be that as it may," Bellmon went on, obviously uncomfortable, "she is an officer"s lady, and she is not supposed to find her friends from among the enlisted wives. And second lieutenants are not supposed to run around with the sergeants, either."
"Put yourself in that girl"s shoes, Bob," Barbara Bellmon said. "How would you like to go to a party and have all the women make it pretty clear to you that they think you"re a prost.i.tute who latched on to an American meal ticket?"
"How terrible for her!" Sharon said.
"It"s your job, Barbara," Bellmon said, "to stop that sort of thing."
"When I had the chance, I did what I could," Barbara Bellmon replied.
"The point is, she didn"t give you the chance, because she didn"t go to officer"s ladies meetings. And your friend, Felter, never went to the officer"s club or to official parties."
"And socialized with the enlisted men," Felter said. He wasn"t surprised to hear that. In Ioannina, he could get away with that because of the circ.u.mstances. He could not get away with it in a garrison situation, where the customs of the service, the rigid distinctions between officers and enlisted men, were rigidly observed.
"I called him in," Bellmon went on, "and had a little talk with him. I didn"t like his att.i.tude at all, but there was nothing I could put my finger on. My father told me that before the 1928 Manual for Court-Martial, there was an offense called "silent insolence." If that was still in effect, I could have had him tried. All I could do, however, under the circ.u.mstances, was let him go. But then I wrote him a DF. . ."
"Excuse me?" Sharon interrupted. "A what?"
"A DF," Bellmon explained. "It stands for distribution form.
The next stop down from an official letter, and one step up from a note."
"I"m sorry, I must sound stupid," Sharon said.
"Don"t be silly," Barbara Bellmon said.
"Anyway, I wrote him a DF telling him that it was considered important for officers to partic.i.p.ate in the social activities of his organization, and that I expected him to appear, in the prescribed uniform, at all subsequent such events."
"And he didn"t show up?" Felter asked.
"Oh, did he show up!" Barbara Bellmon said. "General Dowbell-Howe of the British Royal Tank Corps was given an official dinner. The invitations said dress uniform with medals. That meant the general and the chief of staff and a couple of the senior colonels came in dress blues. Bob doesn"t even have any. Everybody else came in pinks and greens. Your friend, Lieutenant, shows up in mess dress. G.o.d only knows where he got it, but he showed up in it. Wearing his medals. The Army of Occupation Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, and the enormous thing pinned to the jacket and a purple sash.
His Greek medal. He looked like something out of Sigmund Romberg operetta."
"I don"t know what mess dress is;" Sharon said.
"A little jacket like a bartender"s," Barbara said. "With a vest, White tie and stand-up collar. The trousers have colored stripes, gold for armor in his case. And a cape. With a yellow lining. G.o.d, he was spectacular! I sent him home the moment I saw him and told him that I expected to have on my desk, in writing, at 0700 the next morning, his explanation for his conduct," Bellmon said. There was a touch of a smile at his face. "Why he was out of uniform."
"And your friend sent him a copy of the regulation which encouraged the optional wearing of mess dress at all official functions at which dress uniform was required."
"Sir, is it possible that he was trying to comply with his orders to the best of his ability?" Felter said, loyally. "I mean, where I would have to think a long time about buying mess dress uniform, Craig wouldn"t have to worry about it. He"d just order it."
"I don"t think so, Felter," Bellmon said. "He was doing It on purpose. He"s a real guardhouse lawyer when he wants to be."
"Tell him about the pistol range, Bob," Barbara said. "That really did it."
"As, as you know, call for the annual qualification by commissioned personnel with the .45," Bellmon said. "Lowell, as a token of the affection and respect in which he is held by his seniors, was named range officer for the Tactics Department."
"And he ran it exactly by the book," Barbara Bellmon said, chuckling.
"You really think he"s funny, don"t you?" Bellmon said.
"Honey, he reminds me of my father," Barbara said. "Think about it, you know he does. Fancy uniform. Always making waves."
"What your friend Lowell did, Felter, was certify that thirty eight of the fifty-one officers of the Tactics Department had failed, to qualify."
"Now, wait a minute," Barbara Bellmon said. "You stood up for him for that. You said you would have done the same thing, if you had the courage, when you were a lieutenant."
"I never had the smart-a.s.s reputation Lowell does," Bellmon said. "When the colonel heard about it, he was furious. He"d already lost one full day"s duty from fifty-one officers, and now he was going to lose a full day"s duty from the thirty-eight who had failed to qualify. He was convinced Lowell had failed them on purpose."
"So he sent them back out and thirty-one failed the second time around," Barbara said.
"Mrs. Bellmon," Felter asked, "your father was General Waterford, wasn"t he?"
"Why, yes, he was."
"Unless I"m mistaken, Mrs. Bellmon," Felter said, "it was General Waterford who commissioned Lowell."
"What did you say?" Col. Bellmon said.
"I said, I think General Waterford-is the one who commissioned Lowell from the ranks."
"Your friend pulled some smart-a.s.s guardhouse lawyer trick and had himself commissioned as a finance officer," Bellmon said. "I checked. I wondered where he got a commission."
"Why would my father do that?" Barbara Bellmon asked, visibly interested.
"As I understand it, Mrs. Bellmon," Felter said, "General Waterford wanted Lowell to play on his polo team. And he couldn"t, because he was a private."
"Oh, that sounds like Daddy!" Barbara Bellmon said, and really started to laugh. "Call me Barbara, Lieutenant, please." Bellmon jumped to his feet and went to a telephone on a low table by the door. He dialed a number. "Roxy," he said.
This is Bob Bellmon. Is Mac there?" There was a pause.
Sony to bother you at home, Mac. But I have just heard an incredible story that I want to check out. What do you know about General Waterford commissioning Lieutenant Lowell?" There was a much longer pause. "I wish I had known this before, MacMillan," Colonel Bellmon said, coldly. "I can"t imagine why you didn"t think I would be interested." Then he hung up.
He nodded at Barbara, who laughed out loud again, and then he said to Felter: "Score one for you, Super Sleuth. And I"ll be d.a.m.ned MacMillan knew it all the time and never said a word to me."
"MacMillan," Barbara said, chuckling again, "knew of the high esteem in which you held Lieutenant Lowell. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and Lowell as he could. I think that is known, darling, as covering one"s a.s.s.
"And we know how good Mac is at that, don"t we?" Bellmon gave his wife a dirty look.
"Well, now," Barbara Bellmon went on, brightly. "Now that we know that he and Daddy were friends, we"ll have to have Lieutenant and Mrs. Lowell to dinner, won"t we? I wonder how that"s going to go over with the colonel?" Bellmon frowned a moment, and then smiled. "Since the colonel thinks your father was at least as infallible as the Pope, It should be very interesting." He reached over and patted Felter"s knee.
"Felter, you never cease to amaze me," he said. "You"re a fountain of information n.o.body else has."
(Nine) Barbara Bellman, who was the daughter and granddaughter of a general officer, and who regarded her present role in life as simply marking time until Bob got his stars, made up with great care the guest list for the "little dinner" she arranged for the lieutenants and their wives.
First of all, she wanted to do something nice for the Lowells, especially for the wife, who had been treated shabbily. And she knew that Bob liked Felter and Felter"s wife and that he wanted to introduce him to the establishment here. It would be obvious to everyone that since the Felters and the Lowells would be the only junior officers present that they were someone of whom the Bellmons thought a great deal.
Captain and Mrs. Rudolph G. MacMillan were not on Barbara Bellmon"s guest list. Barbara felt sorry for Roxy, who would quickly get the point of not being invited. Roxy was incapable of cutting someone or hurting someone"s feelings.
MacMillan had simply, with his usual skill, protected his a.s.s.
Lowell was on some people"s s-list, and MacMillan didn"t want to get splattered. Sometimes, Barbara could not stand MacMillan.
He was supposed to be an officer and a gentleman. But he was only an officer, as he had proved here.
MacMillan, she knew, would work his way back into Bob"s good graces. For one thing, he had a skin like an alligator.
More important, she knew she would never be able to completely break him off from Bob. They"d been in the d.a.m.ned POW camp together, and Bob had some absurd notion that he had failed Mac "when they were there. He would carry Mac on his back, get him out of sc.r.a.pes, as long as they were in the army.
There was going to be an element of humor, too. Barbara could hardly wait until the colonel, who referred to Lieutenant Lowell as that "blond-headed p.i.s.sant," found out the p.i.s.sant had been a lot closer to her father than the Colonel had ever been.
There would be some dropped jaws from the other lieutenant colonels, too, when they saw Lowell and his German wife.
And they would probably drop even further when they saw that the Bellmons were having as their guest of honor a slight, already balding little Jew, who would deliver a little talk after dinner on the functioning of the U. S. Army Military Advisory Group, Greece.
Barbara decided that she would call Lieutenant Lowell"s quarters and ask his wife and Felter"s to "help" her with the arrangements for the dinner. She didn"t need any help, but if they came early, she could brief them on who was who at the party. Neither one of them, obviously, had had" any experience at all in dealing with either the wives of senior officers ~ or the senior officers themselves. And that was an important part of the army.
Barbara had no way of-knowing that Craig Lowell"s reaction to her request was that she had a lot of G.o.dd.a.m.ned nerve asking her guests to help set up her stupid party. Fortunately~ Sandy Felter correctly guessed Barbara Bellmon"s motives, and he drove the women to the Bellmons" quarters at five in the afternoon and then spent from five" fifteen to six forty-five, when it was time for them to go to the party, keeping Lowell from drinking. ,After Barbara had finished her briefing, Bob Bellmon went out of his way to be charming to the young women. He "complimented them on their looks and opened a bottle of Rhine wine for them, partly because Lowell"s wife was German and partly out of concern that if he gave either of them anything stronger, they would get tight.
"What part of Germany are you from, Mrs. Lowell?" he asked, as he poured the Rhine wine.
"Hesse," Ilse said.
"Oh, I know Hesse," he said. "Where in Hesse?"
"A small city," Ilse replied. "Marburg an der Lahn."
Of course, he thought. Marburg was near Bad Nauheim, where she apparently had met Lowell. And then he thought of something else, and the thought pleased him.
"Oddly enough, Mrs. Lowell," he said, "both my wife"s father, General Waterford, and myself, had a good friend from Marburg."
"Did you really?" Ilse asked.
"A German officer. He had gone to the French cavalry school at Samur with General Waterford; and when I was captured, he was the commandant of my prison camp. A really fine man. His name was von Greiffenberg."
"What did you say?" Ilse said, barely audibly.
"I said my friend"s name was Peter-Paul von Greiffenberg," Bellmon repeated.
"Herr Oberst Bellman," Ilse said, "OberstGraf Peter-Paul van Greiffenberg war mein Vater."
"Oh, my G.o.d!" Bellmon said.
Sharon, thinking she had to translate, said, "She said the officer you said was your friend was her father, Colonel."
"I speak German," Bellmon said, more sharply than he intended. Then, much more loudly than he intended, he called his wife"s name.
Barbara came quickly into the living room.
"What"s the matter?" she asked. She saw the look on Ilse Lowell"s face and on her husband"s. Ilse was fighting back tears.
"Mrs. Lowell," Bellmon said, "would you please be good enough to tell my wife who your father was?"
"My father," Ilse said, speaking slowly and precisely in English, "was an officer the colonel tells me he knew and that your father knew." Barbara looked at her husband.
"Von Greiffenberg," he said. He pointed his hand at Ilse.
"That"s Peter-Paul von Greiffenberg"s daughter."
"My G.o.d!" Barbara said.
"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, he did it to me again!" Bellmon said.
Barbara looked at him in confusion for a moment, until she took his meaning.
"Don"t be an a.s.s," she snapped. "How was he to know you knew him?" Then she saw the worried look on lIse"s face.
"Ilse, honey," she said, "it"s all right. It"s just that Bob really admired your father, and he feels like a fool because you"ve been here so long, and so alone, and he didn"t know who you were." Lieutenants Lowell and Felter arrived at the Bellmon quarters at the same time as did the colonel and his lady. The colonel was surprised to see Lowell, but not nearly as surprised as he was by how Bellmon greeted them.
"My wife tells me, Lowell, that there was no reason for you to presume that I knew your father-in-law. Somewhat against my better judgment, I have decided to go along with her reasoning."
"I have no idea what you"re talking about, Colonel," Lowell said.
"Colonel Graf Peter-Paul von Greiffenberg is who I"m talking about, Lieutenant," Bellmon said. "Your father-in-law.
And one of the finest officers it has ever been my privilege to know."
Lowell looked at him and saw he was dead serous. So Ilse was telling the truth about her father being a colonel after all, he thought. I"ll be G.o.d dammed!
Barbara heard his raised voice and came rushing up. She smiled broadly at the colonel and his lady.
"The most wonderful thing has just happened," she said.
I"ve just learned that Mrs. Lowell"s father was an old and dear friend of my father"s and of Bob"s. He was the commandant of Bob"s prison camp."
"Mrs. Lowell"s father?"
"Was Colonel Count Peter-Paul von Greiffenberg!" Barbara said."
"Extraordinary," the colonel said. "Well, how about that!" There, were c.o.c.ktails and then a sit a down dinner, after which Rob Bellmon, not feeling much pain, repeated the story of the extraordinary coincidence.
"As some of you know," he said, "I was liberated from Russian internment by Task Force Parker, Colonel Philip Sheridan Parker III. The man who located us, Lieutenant Sanford T. Felter, is the man we"re honoring tonight. He"s just returned from Greece, and I"ve asked him to tell us what"s going on over there." Lieutenant Felter, once he was called on, spoke with a surprising lucidity about the functioning of the military advisory group. With great skill he traced the Greek operation from the arriving until he had left it. Barbara decided that Bob was right. Felter was as smart as a whip, a far better officer than he looked capable of being. She was worried about Lieutenant Lowell. He had had entirely too much to drink, from the predinner c.o.c.ktails through the postdinner brandy, and was now sitting with the brandy bottle before him, leaning back on the legs of his chair, listening with what looked like interest to Felter"s little speech.
And then Felter lit the fuse.
"My service in USAMAG-G was entirely on the staff," he cid. "Lieutenant Lowell was on the line. I"m sure he could offer something of value to add to what I"ve said."
"You got it, Mouse," Lowell said, waving his hand drunkenly, deprecatingly. "I can"t think of a thing to add. Thank you just the same." One of the Lieutenant colonels was drunk, too. Delighted with his own wit, he said, "Since you"ve found fault with everything in the Department of Tactics, Lowell, I"m surprised you didn"t find a good deal wrong with the way General Van Fleet ran the Greek operation."