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“If the general answers those questions, Mrs. Greene, I’ll have to shoot both of you,” Frade said.
Iron Lung McClung laughed loudly.
“Jim!” his wife said warningly.
“Grace,” General Greene offered, “Captain Cronley is going to run a little operation in Pullach, which is a little dorf near Munich.”
These people tell their wives about what we’re doing?
How much do they tell them?
Probably everything.
Rachel seems to know everything that’s going on.
And Clete mockingly gave Boy Scout’s Honor that he had never told his wife anything.
So much for the sacred Need to Know.
“Why are the people from the Pentagon not pleased? Because he’s only a captain?” Mrs. Greene asked. “And if they’re not pleased, why is he going to be allowed to run it?”
“The simple answer, Mrs. Greene,” Frade said, “is because Admiral Souers says he will. And quickly changing the subject, where is our leader tonight?”
“Having dinner with Ike, Beetle, and Magruder,” Greene said.
“And here’s our dinner,” McClung said as a line of waiters approached the table.
Cronley felt Rachel’s bare foot on his ankle.
“And this admiral,” Mrs. Greene relentlessly pursued. “He can just give orders to the Army like that? An admiral?”
“Yes, ma’am, he can,” Frade said. Using his hands to demonstrate as he spoke, he went on, “This is the totem pole to which Captain Cronley referred, Mrs. Greene. We’re all on it. Cronley is at the bottom”—he pointed to the bottom of his figurative totem pole—“and Admiral Souers is here”—he pointed again—“at the tip-top. The rest of us are somewhere here in the middle.”
“Perfect description,” General Greene said. His wife glared at both him and Frade.
“I’ll tell you about it later, dear,” Greene said. “Now let’s have our dinner.”
—
“I think you’re right, Cronley,” Major Iron Lung McClung said several minutes later. “Magruder, Mullaney, Parsons, and Ashley—the Pentagon delegation—are all probably outraged that they won’t be taking over Pullach. But I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”
“Sir?”
“Magruder’s not going to get anywhere at dinner tonight complaining to Ike or Beetle. Not with Souers there. And when Magruder and Mullaney get back to Washington, who can they complain to? Not Souers. And so far as Parsons and Ashley, when they’re at Pullach, the only one they can complain to about getting ordered around by you is Colonel Mattingly, and he’s not going to be sympathetic.”
“My only problem with that,” Mattingly said, “is that being in charge may well go to Cronley’s head. I’m going to have to counsel him to make sure that doesn’t happen. He’s more than a little weak in that area. He tends to assume authority he doesn’t have and to act first and ask permission, or even counsel, later.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Frade said.
“No, Colonel Frade, I am not kidding,” Mattingly said coldly. “He has a dangerous loose-cannon tendency.”
“Jimmy,” Frade said, “don’t let your being given command of the monastery or Pullach go to your head. Or turn you into a loose cannon. Say, ‘Yes, sir.’”
“Yes, sir.”
“Consider yourself so counseled,” Frade said, and then turned to look at Mattingly. “Jesus Christ, Mattingly!”
Rachel’s bare foot, which had been caressing Cronley’s ankle, suddenly stopped moving as Mattingly stood.
