the couch, a silver champagne cooler, three empty Heineken bottles lying on their sides, and an empty Heineken six-pack.
“Hey there, Jeremiah,” Major Lunsford called. “You’re armor. Come on in and give Jack a hand; Allan and I are whipping his . . . armor tactics.”
“Hi, Aunty Marjie,” Allan called.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Marjorie replied tenderly. And then, less tenderly: “What’s going on here?” and then, as Allan reached for one of the upright Heineken bottles, “My God, you’re not giving that child beer?”
Allan picked up a Heineken bottle, cried, “Beer, beer, beer,” and took a healthy swig.
Marjorie ran to take it away from him.
“As in root beer, light of my life,” Jack said. “What did you think?”
“What’s he doing here?” Marjorie asked.
“Allan’s mommy and uncle Johnny are discussing world ecological problems in my apartment,” Father said. “We are taking care of Allan.”
“If she sees him drinking out of that beer bottle, she’ll be furious, ” Marjorie said.
“God, I hope so,” Father said. “Johnny may have forgiven her, but Jack and I damned sure haven’t.”
“When did she get here?” Marjorie asked. “What’s going on?”
“She confessed, in the few minutes we’ve seen either of them, that she was inspired by our married bliss when we called,” Jack said. “Actually, what she said was that when we didn’t talk about Johnny, she thought there was something wrong. She was too proud to ask, of course, but after we left, especially when Allan wanted to know where Johnny was, and threw a fit when she told him he was going to have to forget about Johnny—”
“Oh, God,” Marjorie said.
“—she realized (a) that had been selfish of her and (b) that she really cared about him, leading her to conclude (c) that she would really rather be a camp follower after all, and immediately loaded Allan in the car and came here.”
“I’ll be damned,” Marjorie said.
“Come on in, Jeremiah,” Lunsford said. “We’ll take you out to the post in the morning. After you have a beer, you and I will go to my apartment and throw buckets of water on Romeo and Juliet to cool them down long enough to discuss sleeping arrangements. ”
“Father,” Marjorie said, “that’s disgusting.”
“You haven’t seen them,” Father said.
“I should be mad at you,” Marjorie said, “and happy for them. Instead, I want to cry.”
[ FOUR ]
Office of the Commanding General
The John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
1015 28 January 1965
“Sir, Colonel Martin asks for a minute,” Captain Ski Zabrewski boomed from the open door.
Brigadier General Paul R. Hanrahan nodded, then raised his voice.
“Come on in, Padre!”
Chaplain (Lt. Col.) T. Wilson Martin marched into Hanrahan’s office, stopped twelve inches from Hanrahan’s desk, came to attention, and saluted.
“Good morning, General. Thank you for seeing me.”
Chaplain Martin was almost—not quite—as large as Captain Zabrewski, and if anything, his voice was even deeper. His crisply starched uniform bore the wings of a master parachutist, and he had earned the hard way the green beret he clasped in his left hand.
“At ease,” Hanrahan said, and rose from behind his desk to offer Martin his hand. He waved him into the chair in front of the desk.
“Coffee?”
“No, thank you, sir, I’m trying to cut down.”
“What’s on your mind, Padre?” Hanrahan asked.
Padre is the Spanish word for father. Roman Catholic priests are called “Father,” and thus Padre. Chaplain (Lt. Col.) Martin was of the Protestant persuasion—a Presbyterian, or an Episcopal, or maybe a Lutheran, Hanrahan thought; not a Baptist. Chaplain Martin had a cultivated taste for French cognac—and preferred to be addressed as “Chaplain” or “Colonel.”
Hanrahan, who privately thought that chaplains should not wear the insignia of rank, because it made their relationships with enlisted men that of officer to enlisted man, rather than shepherd to a member of the flock, called all chaplains “Padre,” even if they were Jewish rabbis.
“May I speak frankly, General?”
“You know you can.”
“General, I have serious concerns about Captain Oliver and Mrs. Wood.”
“How so?”
“I feel they are entering this marriage impetuously.”
“What gives you that idea?”
“Sir, when I spoke with them . . . I said I was going to speak frankly . . . it was obvious, forgive the bluntness, that they are very strongly attracted to one another in a physical sense.”
“In heat, you mean?” Hanrahan asked, smiling.
“I wouldn’t have used those words, but yes, sir.”
“Doesn’t it say somewhere in the Good Book that we’re supposed to be fruitful, to go forth and multiply?”
“Sir, it has been my painful experience that young people often mistake that physical attraction for one