to the rescue, I figured I really owed that guy, whoever he was. Then I found out who he was and what he had done, and I figured I owed it to him to do what I could to get him off the hook. So I came here.”
“Did you see Colonel Felter over there, Father?”
“Yes, sir, he was at Kamina.”
“So he knows about Portet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And?”
“There was an Air Force colonel flying the presidential Special Missions DC-9 at Kamina. Felter told him to get Portet to Fort Bragg by the most expeditious means. When we got to Washington, the Learjet was waiting for us, and we came here.”
“Instead of you checking into Walter Reed, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hanrahan shook his head in resignation.
“And did Colonel Felter have anything to say to you, Sergeant Portet?”
“Yes, sir. He told me to report to you and keep out of sight until I heard from him.”
“That’s all?”
Portet hesitated, then dug in his pocket and came up with a set of Belgian parachutist’s wings.
“He gave me these, sir.”
“Why aren’t you wearing them?”
“I wasn’t sure I was entitled to them, sir.”
“You’re entitled to them,” Hanrahan said. “You earned them the hard way. The medals are something else. You need to get congressional approval to accept them.”
“Colonel Felter told Colonel Van de Waele he didn’t think there would be any problem about that, sir,” Lunsford said.
Hanrahan shook his head again.
“Well, gentlemen, as I said before, welcome home,” he said. “Now, before I throw your ass in the hospital, Father, and bury you at Camp Mackall, Sergeant, is there any little thing I can do for either of you?”
“I could use another little taste of the scotch, General,” Captain Lunsford said.
“One more, Father, and that’s it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Jack?”
“I’d like to call Marjorie, sir.”
“There’s a phone in the kitchen.”
II
[ ONE ]
Quarters #1
Fort Rucker, Alabama
1605 1 December 1964
As Major General Robert F. Bellmon, sitting in the rear seat of his 1963 Chevrolet staff car, rolled up the driveway to the quarters provided for the commanding general, U.S. Army Aviation Center and Fort Rucker, he had a thought he frequently had under the circumstances:
If I wasn’t the CG, I damned sure wouldn’t live here.
It did not mean that he felt honored and grateful that the U.S. Army was providing him, as a token of its respect for him personally, or the office he held, with such magnificent living accommodations, but quite the reverse.
He hated the place. He thought it was the sort of home in which a manager of the Farm Bureau Insurance Company would live; or the assistant vice president of a very small bank; or a moderately successful used car salesman.
He knew where the commanding general of Fort Benning, Georgia, a fellow major general, hung his hat. Quarters #1 at Benning was “Riverside,” a charming old southern mansion. And he knew where the commanding general of Fort Knox, Kentucky, another fellow major general, hung his: in a very nice two-story brick colonial house with a very nice rose garden behind it.
Quarters #1 at Fort Rucker was a single-story frame building built just a few years before. You had to look close to see that it was larger—only slightly larger—than the sea of officers’ quarters built nearby. Among the many other adjectives that frequently came to his mind when thinking about it was “pedestrian. ”
But he was the commanding general, and he had to live in the commanding general’s quarters, although he would have much preferred to live elsewhere. There were a number of nice houses available on the civilian market in Ozark and Enterprise and Dothan, the nearest towns to Fort Rucker. And he could afford the rent. He was not a wealthy man, but he was comfortable; he didn’t have to live on his Army pay.
There were two cars in the carport—the damned place didn’t even have a garage—and three more on the concrete pavement in front of it. And the driveway was inadequate. If, for example, Barbara (Mrs. Robert F.) Bellmon wanted to go someplace in her Oldsmobile 98, now in the carport, at least two of the other cars would have to be moved out of the way. The Oldsmobile had a blue sticker, an officer’s sticker, on its bumpers, reading FORT RUCKER ALA 1.
Parked beside the Oldsmobile was a glistening, flaming-red Jaguar V12 convertible. It carried a red bumper sticker reading FORT RUCKER ALA 9447. Red stickers were issued to enlisted men; civilian employees of the post got green stickers.
The Jaguar was the POV of Sergeant Jacques Portet, whom