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“I would remind you, Colonel Frade, that you are speaking to a superior officer,” Mattingly said furiously.
“Senior, certainly,” Frade said. “Superior, I don’t think so.”
“Ouch!” Iron Lung McClung said softly but audibly.
“What the hell set this off?” General Greene asked.
When there was no reply to what might have been a rhetorical question, Greene went on, “Junior officer first, Colonel Frade.”
“I found Colonel Mattingly’s gratuitous insult of Cronley offensive, General,” Frade said.
“Frankly, so did I. But it didn’t give you carte blanche to talk to Colonel Mattingly so disrespectfully.”
“No, sir, it didn’t. I spoke in the heat of the moment and therefore offer my apology.”
“Colonel Mattingly?” Greene asked.
“Sir?”
“I think you should accept Colonel Frade’s apology and then offer yours to Captain Cronley.”
With a visible effort, Mattingly said, “Apology accepted.” After a pause, he went on: “Captain Cronley, it was not my intention to gratuitously insult you. If you drew that inference, I apologize.”
Great.
But the minute Clete leaves Germany, I’m really fucked.
Rachel’s foot on his ankle began to move.
General Greene looked at Cronley impatiently, and finally Cronley understood.
He stood up, came to attention, and said, “Sir, no apology is necessary.”
He sat down.
“Sit down, please, Colonel Mattingly,” Greene said. “Whereupon, we will all promptly forget the last three minutes or however long that little theatrical lasted.”
There were chuckles.
“Can we get them to do it again?” Major McClung asked innocently. “Sort of a curtain call? I liked it.”
“Jim, for God’s sake!” Mrs. McClung said.
General Greene gave McClung a look that would have frozen Mount Vesuvius.
McClung seemed unrepentant.
Rachel’s foot found Jimmy’s ankle and instep again.
—
“Colonel Frade,” General Greene said as he cut into his Danish New York strip steak, “I’d like to ask you—you and Colonel Mattingly, but you first—what you consider the greatest threat to your operation between now and the time it comes under the new organization Admiral Souers mentioned.”
Is he tactfully reminding Clete that Mattingly outranks him?
What is that saying? “There are nice generals, and there are generals who are not nice, but there is no such thing as a stupid general.”
Clete didn’t hesitate before replying.
