Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell came out of the sleek Cessna first. He was wearing civilian clothing: a Harris tweed jacket; gray flannel slacks; loafers; and an open-collared, yellow, button-down shirt. There was a paisley foulard around his neck.
He stood on the wing root and stretched his arms over his head. Then he looked down at Captain Oliver and Second Lieutenant Bellmon and smiled.
“Hello, Bobby,” Colonel Lowell called down cordially. “How nice of you to come out here in the rain to meet us.”
“Hello, Uncle Craig,” Bobby said. He had known Lowell since he was a little boy; that, Oliver had noticed, gave Lowell the right to call him “Bobby” without his taking offense.
Lowell came down off the wing and offered his hand to Johnny Oliver.
“I thought you’d been retired,” he said. “But thanks anyway, Johnny.”
“My pleasure, Colonel,” Johnny said. “How was the flight?”
“Humbling,” Lowell said. “Safe, but humbling. You know we had to come in ILS?”
“Yes, sir. We watched your approach. The ILS operator said it was textbook.”
“What made it humbling was that he carried on a conversation with us while he was doing it,” Lowell said. “When I make an ILS approach in weather like this, I resent the intrusion on my concentration of a watch ticking.”
Brigadier General Paul R. Hanrahan came out of the Cessna’s cabin next. He was in uniform, wearing only his combat-jump-starred parachutist’s wings and his Combat Infantry Badge with the star above the flintlock that indicated a second award.
“Oh, hell,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to come out to meet me,” he said. “All we asked for was a ride.”
“Our pleasure, General,” Oliver said, saluting.
“And you, too, Bobby. Well, I appreciate it,” Hanrahan said as he came off the wing root.
Lowell went to the baggage compartment and took out their luggage.
Sergeant Jack Portet came out last. He stood on the wing root and pulled up his tie, rolled down and buttoned his shirt cuffs, and then reached back into the airplane for his uniform blouse. He put that on and buttoned it, then reached inside a last time and came out with a green beret. He put that on, then stooped to adjust the “blouse” of his trousers around the top of his highly polished parachutist’s “jump” boots.
He came off the wing root and saluted Johnny Oliver.
“Hello, Jack,” Oliver said, returning the salute and then offering his hand. “That was a nice ILS.”
“That wasn’t quite what I hoped to hear,” Portet said.
“So far as I know, she’s at Quarters One.”
“And doesn’t know I’m coming?”
“She probably does by now,” Oliver said. “I called Quarters One.”
Jack mockingly saluted Second Lieutenant Bellmon.
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” he said. “How are you, today?”
Not knowing what else to do, Bobby returned the salute. Hanrahan and Lowell smiled at Oliver. Lowell winked.
Portet went to a compartment in the side of the airplane and took out wheel chocks and a cover for the pitot tube, then walked around the plane, putting them in place. While he was doing that, Oliver took tie-down ropes from the compartment and tied the wings down. Then they walked together toward Base Operations.
“Now, let’s get this show on the road,” General Hanrahan said. “The first priority, Johnny, when it can be arranged with his schedule, I’d like a few minutes with General Bellmon, the sooner the better.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem, sir,” Oliver said. “You’re in the Magnolia House. Why don’t you call him when you get there?”
“Okay,” Hanrahan said. “How did he react to the news that you’re coming to work for me?”
“I haven’t told him, sir,” Oliver said.
“You haven’t?” Hanrahan asked sharply. “Why not?”
“I . . . sir, I was about to say there hasn’t been the opportunity. But the truth is, I haven’t made the opportunity. I plan to tell him tonight at his party.”
“He already knows,” Hanrahan said. “The orders were changed by DA TWX. I have a copy.”
“Oh, God!” Oliver said.
“You should have told him, Oliver,” Hanrahan said.
“Yes, sir, I should have.”
Hanrahan started to say something else, but stopped when Marjorie Bellmon came out the door of the Base Operations building.
“The USO has arrived,” Lowell said sotto voce. He shifted into a thick, but credible, southern accent. “Why, Miss Marjorie, whatever brings you heah?”
“Oh, shut up, Uncle Craig,” Marjorie Bellmon said. She went to General Hanrahan and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
“Thank me, it’s my airplane,” Lowell said. He extended his cheek.
“Okay,” she said, and kissed him. “Thank you, too.”