Ian Slater: WW III

“Well,” mused Schuman, “as far as Korea goes, it seems now we’re in better shape than anyone had a right to expect.”

“Because,” interjected Trainor, “we gave Freeman — if you’ll pardon the pun — a free hand there, Mr. Schuman. And State ought to realize that. Only thing those jokers understand in the Kremlin is the fist.”

“You’re beginning to sound like General Freeman,” said Schuman in a slightly disapproving tone. “I hope it isn’t contagious.”

“Well, he did one hell of a job over there, Mr. Schuman. You can’t deny that. We could do with a few more like him in Europe.”

“It’s a much different war in Europe,” said Schuman.

“How?” Trainor challenged him, suspecting that the national security adviser’s comments about Freeman were motivated more from envy of the general’s sudden celebrity than from any sound military consideration.

“We don’t need cowboys in Europe, Mr. Trainor.”

The president held up his hand for an end to the disagreement. He was due for a meeting with the Joint Chiefs, and he intended to bring the matter of Freeman up there. Formerly the president’s title of commander in chief was viewed by the vast majority of American people as a more or less honorary title until he was actually involved in the direction of some military action. In having taken the responsibility of giving the green light for the Pyongyang raid, his stocks were now high, and he intended using them as bargaining chips with the Joint Chiefs. In the president’s view, Freeman’s raid had done infinitely more than turn around the position in Korea and raise American morale and status all around the world in perhaps its darkest time since the Cuban crisis.

Freeman, as far as the president was concerned, had overnight established a new battlefield code of conduct, showing what Mayne called “armchair video” commanders that in a rapid and highly fluid, high-tech mobile war, perhaps more than ever a commanding officer needed HUMINT — human intelligence — to get away from HQ and “go on the point.” Precisely because of all the gizmology available, a commander ought to get out of the claustrophobic, noisy push-button world of divisional HQ tents and get into the thick of the fighting himself, just as some of the fighter pilots had found out that for all the benefits of instrument flying, sometimes it was necessary to simply shut off all the “incoming” buzz and use their eyes.

On this October day, however, with southern England flashing by, Robert Brentwood was one commanding officer who wanted to forget the war, and had it not been for Lana’s letters and the tape she had sent to him from the Spence boy, he might have succeeded. He certainly would not have been on the 10:00 a.m. Glasgow to Victoria Station had he not read her letters, beginning with the last one she had posted. Now she had been posted to some “godforsaken rock,” as she called it, the name of the rock carefully erased by the censor. It could have been anywhere, from Gibraltar to the Galapagos.

Robert was struck by the change in her tone. The self-centeredness of the beautiful coed and the bitterness of her failed marriage alike were conspicuous now by their absence. Instead she talked to her older brother about the terrible ordeal of Ray, of the Spence boy and how it had brought her closer to her three brothers. The war, she wrote, had not diminished her own worries, which she’d hoped it would, for despite common wisdom, she’d found that other people’s troubles, worse though they may be, had not helped put her own “into perspective.” That kind of thing, she discovered, was only a “short fix.” Talking of fixes, she asked Robert whether it was true that many of the pilots were being given — the censor had crossed the word out, but she obviously meant amphetamines. “Yes, they are,” would have been his answer.

After a long letter about Ray, her next had been almost exclusively about the Spence boy, not as a lover, Robert could see, though in matters of the heart he regarded himself as woefully deficient. She went on to tell him that if the war had taught her anything, it was that morale was often more potent than penicillin, that with a purpose before you, you could brave all kinds of horrors that normally would prove too much. Which is what had surprised her so much about William Spence’s death. Unlike some of the smart-ass profs who were against the war and were 4-Fs and knew they wouldn’t be called up, the young sailor had recognized that this was a war NATO and the United States had to win, that at the very best, it was good against evil. At the very worst, no matter what the deficiencies of NATO countries, there was a vast difference between a regime that could knock your door down and take you away in the early hours of the morning and a regime that was required to show good cause. Which was why, she told Robert, she had thought that William Spence, filled with old-fashioned love of country, family, would pull through. But then no one, including herself, had seen that “old hag,” pneumonia, creeping up, just sitting there, knitting, patiendy rocking in the savage corner. Waiting.

It had made her even more worried about Ray. Apparently he’d gone into a funk until some admiral from La Jolla had visited him and told him straight that if he was going to go into a damn sulk over it and not see his kids, he might as well make himself useful — OD and clear the bed for somebody who needed it.

Some of the fighter pilots, she said, who were coming in were experiencing what they call “electronics burn” the result of an intense spitting kind of fire that came from all the high-tech, lightweight, but highly inflammable consoles they’d stuffed into the cockpits. Anyway, apparently Ray had had his sixth plastic surgery operation and had seen the kids. Everyone had a good cry, “according to Mom,” and Ray had started to make noises about sea duty, though that would certainly be a long way off if not out of the question. Maybe some form of support ship, a tender, spare parts or something. Mom was all in a flap because she’d just heard that young David was in for some kind of decoration.

Lana didn’t know, though, whether it was such a good idea for Ray to try and get back in the navy. “Knowing Ray,” she’d written, “he’ll probably be worse than—” she couldn’t think of the name “—the man played by James Cagney in ‘Mr. Roberts’—you know, the old grump who kept losing his palm trees.”

“Anyway, Bob,” she ended, “if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last two years, from Hong Kong to this godforsaken rock, it’s that love is all that matters and you should give it wherever you can. Hopefully you’ll get some back before we’re all blown to Kingdom Come.”

Robert Brentwood had read all the letters at Holy Loch and, as per her instructions, had run the tape forward a little so Mr. and Mrs. Spence wouldn’t fret about not hearing anything for the first few minutes. Robert had waited to push the “stop” button, not wanting to intrude in any way on the boy’s private thoughts to his family. But the tape was silent. It had come via fleet mail quickly enough, and Brentwood guessed the security and bomb people had done their job — the package going through X ray, and with it, the dead boy’s last message to his folks.

Under the circumstances, and seeing that he had two weeks to fill, Robert thought that the least he could do was visit the boy’s folks. Before going to Waterloo and catching a train down to Surrey, he had called into Marriage’s bookstore. The same manager in Harris tweed who had taken his order several months before had just finished serving a customer when he looked up and saw Brentwood walking in. The manager beamed. “Welcome back, Captain.”