Brotherhood Of War: The Lieutenants Part 33

"Captain Watson's courage and personal example were an inspiration to his men. I know of no finer, epitaph for a soldier than to say that he died leading his men into battle.

"The officers and men of both the 27th Royal h.e.l.lenic Mountain Division and the U.S. Military Detachment join me in expressing their sorrow at the loss of your husband and their comrade-in-arms. I have been advised that Captain Watson has been recommended for a decoration by the commanding general of the 27th RHMD.

"Sincerely yours, Paul W. Hanrahan, Lieutenant Colonel, Signal Corps, Commanding." Felter looked at Lt. Col. Hanrahan.

"I'm not sure I can live with this, sir," he said.

"You will live with it, Lieutenant. You will live with it the rest of your life. As I will live with the knowledge that if I had done what I knew should be done and had refused to accept him up here, he would still be alive. The subject is closed, Felter. I don't wish to discuss it further." There came the sound of a multiengined airplane.

"That must be the Sutherland," Colonel Hanrahan said. "I guess we better go say good-bye to the Duke."

"People know, Colonel," the Mouse said. "Captain Chrismanos saw me. Lowell was there when we brought the body back. He asked me what had happened and I told him."

"The subject is closed, Mouse," Hanrahan repeated. "Closed.Fished."

He took Felter's arm and led him out of his office. They walked over to the infirmary, another of the stone buildings reinforced with sandbags. There was a sign over the door: "The Mayo Clinic G&O Ward."

"How is he?" Hanrahan asked the young American doctor, as if Lowell weren't lying on the stretcher, awake.

"I'd like to get a little more blood in him," the surgeon said.

"He lost a h.e.l.l of a lot. We need some type O-Positive. I was about to have a look."

"I'm O-Positive;" Felter said.

"You look pretty shaken, Mouse," the doctor said. "I think we're right on the edge of shock."

"I'll give him the blood," Felter said. "I'm all right."

"You sure you got enough to give away?" Lowell asked.

"Get on with it, doctor," Hanrahan ordered. "They don't like to leave that Sutherland sitting here any longer than they have to."

Felter rolled up his sleeve and lay down on the operating table.

When they were connected and left alone for a moment, he looked down at Lowell, below him on the stretcher on the floor.

If they send you home, will you go see Sharon?" Felter asked".

"You gutsy little sonofab.i.t.c.h," Lowell said. "I've been asking about you blowing that yellow b.a.s.t.a.r.d away. I would never have thought you would have had the b.a.l.l.s."

"What I'm afraid of is that 1 really shot him because he called me Jewboy," the Mouse said. "I shouldn't have done it."

"Christ, I'm glad you did," Lowell said. "I was scared s.h.i.+tless up there. Better him than me. What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you?"

"Will you go see Sharon?" Felter asked again, to change the subject.

"They're not going to send me home. They're sending me to Frankfurt, for Christ's sake. I'll be back here in a month."

"But if they do, will you?"

"Yeah, sure."

"You've got the address?"

"Burned in my memory," Lowell said. "The Old Budapest Restaurant. How could 1 forget that?"

"Warsaw Bakery," Felter corrected him, even though he knew Lowell was pulling his leg. "Are you in pain, Craig?"

"No, believe it or not. It feels like it's asleep. Doc says it will start to hurt after a while. He gave me some pills."

"You'll be all right," Felter said. "You were very lucky, Craig."

The doc and the colonel came in and watched as the blood flowed between them. Then they were discormected, and a couple of Greek soldiers picked up Lowell's stretcher and carried it to the wharf and manhandled it into a rowboat. The doc rode out with him in the rowboat to the Sutherland seaplane and saw that the crew chief knew what to do with him. He wasn't really in any danger. His arm and shoulder had been sliced open with shrapnel, and he'd lost a lot of blood, but the doc doubted that there would be any trouble once they got him in a bed and started a penicillin regimen and got some decent food in him.

When the doc got back to sh.o.r.e, the Mouse had pa.s.sed out and was on the stretcher.

(Three) New York City, N.Y. 8 September 1946 The very existence of the United States Army Advisory Group, Greece, posed certain delicate administrative problems for the United States Army, especially when one of its members got himself shot up.

There was no war, ergo, there could be no wounds, no Purple Hearts. Personel of USAMAG(G) were "injured" not "wounded."

The entire Standing Operating Procedure-Notification of Next of Kin, U.S. Army Military Advisory Group, Greece, Persormel, was cla.s.sified CONFIDENTIAL. The next of kin were to be advised by the most expeditious means, by a notification team consisting of a chaplain and another commissioned officer. In the case of company-grade officers, where possible, the notification officers would be a grade senior to the injured officer. They would exercise judgment in imparting specific information to the next of kin. The implication was that the next of kin be told as little as possible beyond the fact that their next of kin had been "injured"; his condition; the prognosis; and the medical facility (normally the 97th General Hospital in Frankfurt) to which he had been sent for treatment.

A brand-new olive-drab Plymouth four-door sedan, driven by a sergeant and carrying a major of the Adjutant General's Corps and a lieutenant colonel of the Army Chaplain's Corps bounced off the Governors Island ferry and headed up past the Battery to the West Side Highway. It crossed Manhattan, on 57th Street, past Carnegie Hall, and then turned up Park Avenue. It turned left on 60th Street, and left again on Fifth Avenue, and finally stopped before a large apartment building overlooking Central Park. The doorman of the building, after a moment's indecision, walked across the sidewalk and opened the door of the staff car.

"On whom-are you calling, gentlemen?" he asked.

"Mrs. Frederick C. Lowell," the major said.

"You mean Mrs. Pretier," the doorman corrected him.

"No, 1 mean Mrs. Frederick C. Lowell," the AGC major :misted.

"Mrs. Frederick Lowell is now Mrs. Andre Pretier," the doorman said. "Does Mrs. Pretier expect you, gentlemen?"

"No, she does not," the AGC major said. "This is official business. " Mrs. Pretier could not come to the telephone-she was dressing-but Mr. Pretier gave the doorman permission to pa.s.s the gentlemen through to the elevator.

Mr. Pretier, who despite his name was a sixth-generation American, came to the door on the heels of the maid.

"My name is Pretier, gentlemen," he said. "What is it you wished to speak to my wife about?"

"We would prefer, sir," the major said, "to speak to Mrs. Pretier personally." "Well, if you insist, and it won't take long. We're on our way out, so to speak. Can I offer you something?" He raised his martini gla.s.s.

"No, thank you, sir," they said in unison, the chaplain a bit more sternly because he was a Southern Baptist and as such a total abstainer.

Mrs. Janice Craig Lowell Pretier entered the living room, which overlooked Central Park, a few moments later. She swirled through the door to show off her dress to, her new husband, and stopped at the bar where she picked up a martini gla.s.s.

"Aren't you darling, Darling," she said. "Just what I need before I face those awful people." Her eyes fell upon the two officers standing at the entrance to the thirty-five by fifty foot room holding their uniform hats in their hands. Both were impressed by the room and its furnis.h.i.+ngs, and made just a little uneasy by the opulence and what it represented.

"What's this?" Janice Pretier asked with one of her warming little smiles. "Oh, it's about the jeep," she added. "I thought someone would show up eventually about that."

"Ma'am?" the AGC major asked.

"Three weeks ago," Mrs. Pretier explained, "someone in the army in Brooklyn telephoned to say there was a jeep over there, and could I come for it. It must be my son's. He's a soldier, you know, but I haven't..."

"Ma'am," the AGC major said, "we're here about your son. Your son is Lieutenant Craig W. Lowell, is he not?"

"And that's something else strange I've wanted to ask somebody about. One day he's a private playing golf in Germany, and the next thing I hear is that he's a lieutenant in Greece. A lieutenant is an officer, isn't he?"

"Yes, ma'am," the AGC major said.

"Then what's this all about? My son is just a boy. You people really shouldn't have drafted him at all."

"Mrs. Pretier, your son has just been recommended for the award of the second highest medal the King of Greece can bestow."

"Craig? You must be mistaken. A medal? What for? You people must have your wires crossed or something."

"No, ma'am, if your son is Craig W. Lowell, there's no mistake," the major said. "And I'm afraid I have some disturbing news, as well," he added.

"Disturbing? What do you think this has been so far? What are you talking about?"

"I'm afraid, ma'am," the chaplain said, "that your boy has been injured. He's in no danger-"

"Injured? What do you mean, injured?"

"He's suffered some cuts on his shoulder and arm," the chaplain said. "He is in no danger."

"Surely, this must be some ghastly mistake," Mr. Pretier said.

"And how did that happen?" Mrs. Pretier asked, icily, no longer smiling, now holding the major and the chaplain personally responsible for damage to her baby: "It seems that Craig," the chaplain said, "was wounded in action . ."

"Wounded in-action? What are you talking about? The war is over."

"There is a revolution in Greece, ma'am," the major said.

"What's that got to do with my Craig?" she asked.

"Your son is a.s.signed to the American Military Advisory Group in Greece," the major said.

"I don't understand any of this," Mrs. Ptetier said. "Andre, darling, get Daddy on the phone, like a dear, will you?" He went to the telephone and dialed a. number.

"Lieutenant Lowell had been flown to the 97th General Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, for treatment," the major said. "It is one of the finest hospitals in the world. The treatment is unsurpa.s.sed."

"I still think this is some horrible mistake, a nightmare. You are actually standing there and telling me my son has been shot, and is in a hospital?"

Andre Pretier carried the telephone to his wife. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the handset, which had a silver sheath over it, from his hand.

"Daddy? Daddy, there are two soldiers here in the apartment, and they've got some crazy story about Craig being shot and being in a hospital in Greece or Germany or someplace; and Daddy, here, you talk to them."

The chaplain was closest to her. She thrust the phone at him.

"This is Chaplain Foley of First Army Headquarters, sir.

I understand that you are Lieutenant Craig Lowell's grandfather. Is that the case, sir?"

"I was going to go in the service myself," Andre Pretier said to the major from the Adjutant General's Corps. "But they found a heart murmur."

(Four) Frankfurt am Main, Germany 9 September 1946 The ambulance, a civilian-type Packard rather than a GI ambulance, rolled without stopping past the guard at the gate of the 97th General U.S. Army Hospital on the eastern outskirts of Frankfurt.

The huge, attractive hospital was a rambling, four-story structure, built just before World War II. The ambulance drove to the Emergency entrance, turned around carefully, and backed in.

A nurse and two medics who had gone to Rhine-Main Air Base to meet the plane got out; and four medics, in hospital whites, rolled a stainless steel body cart out to the ambulance.

Between them, they got the patient out of the ambulance and onto the cart and rolled him quickly through automatically opening gla.s.s doors.

An officer of the Medical Service Corps met them right inside the door. His eyes rose when he saw the patient was holding a holstered German luger against his chest with his one good hand.

"Have you got a permit for that gun?" the Medical Service Corps captain demanded. "Is it registered?"

"Registered?" Second Lieutenant Craig W. Lowell said, incredulously. He started to laugh, but, it hurt. "Oh, s.h.i.+t," Lowell said, shaking his head.

"I'll have to ask you to give me that pistol, Lieutenant," the captain said.

"f.u.c.k you," Craig W. Lowell said.

"Watch your language, Sorry boy," a middle-aged nurse dressed in operating room greens said, walking up to the wheeled cart. A green mask hung around her neck, a green cap covered most of her gray hair, and her feet were in hospital slippers.

Lowell looked up at her.

"There's a lady present," she said.

"Sorry," he said.

She put her fingers on his wrist, and took his pulse. She snapped her fingers, and a younger nurse pushed a flask of fresh blood on a wheeled stand up to the body cart'. The older nurse snapped her fingers again, and one of the medics handed her an alcohol wipe. Moving with speed born of skill and experience, she found his artery, slipped a needle into it, and watched until the blood began to flow into him. Then she signaled for the medics to start wheeling the body cart.

"What about that pistol?" the Medical Service Corps captain asked.

There was no reply.

The middle-aged nurse walked rapidly down the highly polished linoleum of the corridor, past the emergency examining rooms, directing the cart with one hand behind her. They came to a bank of elevators. After a moment a door whooshed open. There were three people on it, one in whites, two in uniform.

"Out," the middle-aged nurse said, gesturing with her hand.

The body cart, and the fresh blood stand, and the nurse and the two medics pus.h.i.+ng the cart got on the elevator. There was no room for the captain. When the door started to close automatically, he put out his hand and held it open.

"He can't bring that pistol in the hospital," he said to the middle-aged nurse, who was a major in the Nurses Corps.

"Not now, G.o.dd.a.m.nit," she said. "Not in his shape. I'll see care of it later. Let go of the door." The door closed, and the elevator started to rise.