WAR SMELLS OF DEAD TOMORROWS

 

When last we left Richard Blaine, he was in the outer office of General Omar Bradley on New Year's Eve 1944 awaiting almost certain execution.

WAR SMELLS OF DEAD TOMORROWS

“Sometimes legends make reality and become more useful than the facts.”

- William Randolph Hearst

 

From the open doorway, Officer Hansan snapped, “If you two are finished whispering to each other, the general will see you now. And may God have mercy on you both, for the general surely will not.”

We both rose stiffly, smartly and followed the sweep of his arm. He ushered us into the general’s office and quickly left us as if he were double-parked. I wanted to join  him.

As if sensing my thoughts, Sentient took control of my body again and smartly saluted. Sergeant Savalas followed my example. General Bradley did not return our salutes. He didn’t even get up. He kept glaring at a sprawl of printed pages spread over his desk.

I knew this routine. I had gotten it often it enough from Headmaster Sterns. I knew the message: he was an important man, and we were not. There were urgent matters of import with which he had to attend … and the two of us were not in the same solar system as them.

I tried to force out of my Sentient frozen lips what I always said in such situations with Sterns: Ave Caesar morituri te salutant! (“Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you!”)

Sentient hissed inside my mind: ‘Hush! He is on the verge of ordering your execution. Let me handle this intelligently.’

Like with the sergeant, words of startling white appeared beneath the man’s clenched jaws:

‘General Omar Nelson Bradley, a man who symbolizes quiet competence.

His unusual first name is a tribute to Omar D. Gray, a newspaper editor. His second name is that of a local doctor. Unfortunately, Omar seems not to know why his parents chose those names. One was a man of letters, the other a man of science.

Bradley is one of the great tacticians of this war, praised by everyone from paratroop commander James Gavin to Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower.

But his real asset is his ability to get results from his commanders—he is as much an enabler as a creator of success. The keys to this are his intelligence, his humanity, and most of all his ability to keep his ego largely in check—a rare quality in a general of any rank, let alone one who finds himself commander of the greatest invasion force ever known in the history of your army.

Often quite kind to common soldiers, he sometimes explodes in white-hot rage when unduly provoked … as your Major Laska has just done.’

The general’s office was suddenly filled with the scent of cherry blossoms mixed with pineapple as when Miss Tethers abruptly changed her mind about me in her office.

General Bradley took a deep breath as if to control himself. But I had a bad feeling that it was really Sentient taking control of him. Not a great idea as she had already admitted her understanding of humanity was less than ideal and had  already landed me in this trouble.

This could be disastrous.

The general crumbled one printed page in his right fist. “I have more on my desk than any sane man should try to handle, and your Major Laska obviously believes our ranks are reversed and is giving me orders. Me, his commanding officer.”

His face screwed up. “Hell!”

Bradley shook his head. “Listen to me.  He even has me swearing like Patton.”

He glared at me. “You shouldn’t even be on this continent. You should already have been executed for mutiny, for treason in Sicily!”

He ironed his seamed face with callous fingers. “You follow orders, mister. No matter if they are suicidal, you follow orders!”

Sergeant Savalas began to reach into his left shirt pocket, but Bradley held up his hand. “Do not bother, sergeant. Thanks to MI-6, I already have a copy of that report you wanted to hand me in person.”

Sergeant Savalas frowned, “MI6?”

Bradley husked, “Yes, MI6. Your pipsqueak of a major sent a telegram … a telegram to Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan, head of COSSAC demanding you and the Captain here be given the New Year’s eve midnight mission of collecting sand samples all along the Normandy coast!”

He sighed, “It so enraged the man that he ordered MI6 to find out just who this Captain Blaine really was.”

Bradley snatched up another page from his desk. “So, sergeant, I have a copy of your concise report on the treason your captain committed.”

“Not treason,” glowered Sergeant Savalas. “Major Laska ordered a direct frontal assault on a force that outnumbered us three to one. Laska said he would have led it, but he had broken his leg.”

Bradley held up that hand again. “I know all that, sergeant … a broken leg that turned out to be only a turned ankle … for which that son of two of Roosevelt’s most influential advisors and contributors received a purple heart!”

“No,” insisted Sergeant Savalas. “You don’t understand. Captain Blaine did lead us on that frontal assault, but ….”

Bradley growled, “But suddenly, all twelve of you somehow got switched to the enemy’s left flank as if by magic.”

He pounded the desk with a meaty fist. “I don’t believe in magic, mister! I do believe in ….”

Bradley stared unbelieving at the two patches by his fist on the desk surface. Patches of Spartan helmets backlit by an American flag.

“Those patches were on your sleeves when you entered. How?”

Sentient spoke through me. “I knew you disapproved of my Spartan 3oo ….”

“This is the Army, Captain, not Quantrill’s’ Raiders. You don’t get to pick and choose what men or orders you want.”

Sentient kept on as if Bradley had not spoken, “So, I removed them and placed them on your desk.”

“But how?”

Sergeant Savalas said low, “The Captain is from New Orleans, sir. I think he has some hoodoo in him.”

Bradley frowned, “New Orleans? Did you know Andrew Higgins?”

“No, sir, but I would have liked to have met a man whose first two names were Andrew and Jackson. Andrew Higgins is a self-taught genius in small-boat design. His LCVP’s are mostly plywood which circumvents the shortage of steel. They ….”

Bradley interrupted Sentient. “You know an awful lot of classified information, son.”

Sergeant Savalas started to speak, but Bradley waved him off. “This MI6 report talks all about your captain’s ‘small, still voice’ which I do not believe in any more than I do magic.”

He turned stern eyes to me. “You know how important getting a true reading on the composition of the sands along Normandy’s beaches is?”

Sentient shook my head up and down. “Will the beaches west of the mouth of the Orne River support DUKWs, tanks, bulldozers, and trucks? There is reason to fear that they will not, because British geographers and geologists report that there has been considerable erosion of the coastline over the past two centuries.”

Sentient had me flash what I knew must look like it belonged to the Cheshire Cat from the way my lips felt stretched as she spoke through me again:

“French Resistance fighters have managed to smuggle four volumes of geological maps out of Paris, one in Latin done by the Romans, who had surveyed their entire empire for a report on fuel sources. The survey indicated that the Romans had gathered peat from the extensive reserves on the Calvados coast.”

The phony smile forced on me by Sentient hurt my face as it grew wider. “If there are, indeed, boggy peat fields under a thin layer of sand on the current coast, it will not hold tanks and trucks. COSSAC has to know before the invasion. And the only way to find out is to obtain samples.”

“How the hell do you know so much, Captain? And please, sergeant, do not mention that small, still voice, or I might start baying at the moon.”

He frowned and asked out of left field, “Are revelations like this the reason Major Laska hates you so? Or is it something else?”

Sentient murmured within my head. ‘You are on your own with this one.’

‘Thank you ever so much, Sentient,’ I thought back to the Voice. ‘You know I haven’t a clue what you’ve done to that man.’

Bradley’s face grew darker the longer I remained silent. “Captain, I asked you a question.”

I took a deep breath and made a stab at an answer. “Sir, I was caught up with the sensation of feathers and the quiet of the fall.”

Anger flashed hot in his brown eyes. “What?”

Beside me, Sergeant Savalas groaned low.

“Icarus, sir. Major Laska is reaching for the sky. His ambition outstrips his ability and is just held together with hope and candle wax. It will end badly for him, sir. And deep down he senses it.”

He glowered at me. “That’s no answer. Humph. But I can believe you have an I.Q. of 400 with a reply like that one.”

Sergeant Savalas, looking like his better self was warring with his good sense, cleared his throat. “I believe I have an answer for your question, sir.”

Bradley coughed a laugh. “Leave it to the non-com to come up with one. Well, sergeant, speak up.”

“Laska ,,,.”

Bradley’s face darkened, and the sergeant corrected himself, “Major Laska … knows Captain Blaine is a better officer, a smarter man … and worse, Blaine refuses to genuflect in his presence.”

The sergeant’s words obviously struck Bradley out of left field, and the general laughed out loud. “Well, I can see how that might just irritate a man like Laska.”

The general took us in with a baleful smile. “I’ve decided against the firing squad for you two. This New Year’s Eve you get a moonlit suicide mission.”