He also told me he was cursed with never forgetting a phone number. I laughed aloud. He turned his gunsight eyes on me and demanded, “Ask me.” I thought for a moment, then said, “Tell me the telephone number of your high school in Davenport.” He immediately gave me a number. I wrote it down. After the war I checked it and was astonished that Clay had remembered it.
He took ten dollars off me one day when he said he could remember, in order, all the cards I dealt from a shuffled deck. I was quick to make the wager, and I lay down the cards, one by one on top of each other as fast as I could deal them. I turned the deck over to check him. He recited them in order, all fifty-two, and I gave him the money, accompanied by a particularly grating laugh from him.
The general needed all his mental prowess for his arguments with the prime minister. They seldom quarreled over anything of substance, as they generally agreed on the conduct of the war. Instead, they would burn their combined intellectual gifts squabbling about trifles, like an old couple that has lived together for sixty years. Churchill once snorted when Clay used the word “sick” to mean something other than nausea. They argued over the word for an hour and a half. They debated Churchill’s plan to move British clocks ahead fifteen minutes after the war, so England would have its own time and to spite the French in the bargain. They argued over whether the steering wheel should be on the left or right side of an automobile. They argued over modifications of the rules for rat-baiting, should that sport ever come back into vogue.
I listened to these discussions, dismayed at the genius abused, the wit wasted, and the time these great men consumed. Such was the caliber of the intellects being squandered and such was the inanity of the subjects that these discussions can fairly be compared to bringing in two bulldozers to remove a dandelion from a lawn.
General Clay never got the best of the prime minister, so he always editorialized to me later, “Winnie can be a bonehead, Jack, which you’ve just seen for yourself,” or, “Who does the prime minister think he is, anyway?” I’ve said this before, but I think the two truly enjoyed each other.
Another fabrication cherished by the general’s detractors is that he became wealthy during his tenure as AEF commander. The truth is that Clay’s game was high-stakes poker, and he was good at it. Once a week he organized a game. I may sound like a prig, but, along with his picayune arguments with the prime minister, cards were the other profligate waste of Clay’s intellectual might. He was a consistent winner, scooping up the chips and leaving the table with most of the money. I credit applied brilliance to his success.
Clay’s poker table was a hot ticket, and he allowed anyone to join the game “as long as he can pay the freight.” Not many soldiers could afford the ten-dollar ante and the raises that put five hundred dollars in the pot many times a night. But few could resist the challenge. So AEF battalions would pool money and send their best poker player to Clay’s table. A typical game would include a sergeant major who ran a brigade motor pool, a corporal from a rifle company, an AA loader, a nobleman from one of the nearby manors, a surgeon from a divisional HQ, a major general from an AEF division, and Clay. The guests usually left the table at three or four in the morning, baffled and broke.
I wish I could report that Clay did something virtuous with his winnings, donated it to some good cause. Instead, he wired it to his wife in the States. By my estimate, the general was sending home a thousand dollars a week before the invasion.
I have had a good chuckle at the military historians’ attempt to determine the origin of a peculiar battle flag shared by two AEF battalions. They were white pennants with an ace of spades embroidered on them, carried as a sort of armorial banner by the 81st Reconnaissance and the 5th Quartermaster battalions. Another of the pennants flew over Breathed Manor near Deal, placed there in triumph by Sir Robert Squires. The pennant was created by the 81st when its player became the first to beat General Clay at poker. Clay learned of the flag, and allowed it, although he claimed that Sir Robert was undoubtedly a ringer, brought in by his enemies. “They found some cardsharp from Chicago and taught him a British accent.” The ace of spades pennants were highly prized, and when Clay inspected the 81st and 5th, they were exhibited prominently and tauntingly.
I have recently read another calumnious story about the general, the writer trying to draw broad personality conclusions from it. The story dates from Clay’s days at West Point. I doubt it is true. During hazing, Clay and five other plebes were assigned by senior cadets to capture the Naval Academy’s mascot, a goat named Captain. The team was to return by midnight the following day. Kidnap attempts were regularly made on the goat, which was well guarded by midshipmen. On those few occasions the goat was successfully stolen, it was returned after a week, dressed in a tailored West Point cadet’s uniform
Clay’s team, minus Clay, appeared at the appointed hour before the senior cadets. They had failed, and their dressing-down was well underway when Wilson Clay appeared in the hall, dressed as a farmer and rolling a manure-filled wheelbarrow in front of him. He dug his hand into the wheelbarrow and pulled out Captain, its eyes rolled back in the sockets and its throat cut.
General Hargrave scoffed at this story. He said that he was on Clay’s plebe team, that Clay was also duly berated for having failed, and that Clay did nothing of the kind. But Jerome Carleigh, Clay’s quartermaster general, told me he saw Clay that night driving through West Point in a pick-up truck with a wheelbarrow in the back. I’ve mentioned Clay’s aversion to blood, so the story is unlikely. Yet gardening was not taught at the academy, so I don’t know why Clay would have had a wheelbarrow that night.
I return here to Lady Anne Percival, perhaps confirming some rumors and, with luck, killing others. Hargrave once called me Clay’s chaperone. I argued that I acted instinctively, like a grizzly sensing danger to her cub. He laughed uproariously and said, “Jack, you were an old maid, clucking and fretting and patrolling, as if guarding the virginity of your young ward.”
I should have been offended, were there not some truth to Hargrave’s comment. Lady Anne was a raptor, making me want to protect General Clay. I did so without much subtlety, I’m afraid.
One evening at Haldon House, long after the earl had retired, I wearied of amusing conversation and excused myself. Lady Anne and the general didn’t hear me. I walked through the long hallway, then through the massive door and passed a yew hedge. I wandered over to the two bodyguards in the jeep behind the general’s. They were riflemen happy for this soft assignment.
One of the bodyguards was slumped back in the seat with a knee across the steering wheel. His Ml was on the passenger seat. He spoke with a street accent. “I got a look at the lady. Quite a looker, heh, Colonel?” He gestured vulgarly with his hands, approximating a woman’s bosom.
“You will do both of us a favor, Corporal, if you keep your comments to yourself.”
He raised an eyebrow at the other guard, a private standing near a rear wheel well and leaning on the two-way. The private grinned knowingly.
“Yes, sir,” the corporal answered. “I mean, I thought all English babes were skinny. But the general’s girlfriend has a body that would sweat paint off a Chevrolet.”
“Corporal, did I not make myself clear?”
The private straightened and renewed his smile. “Looks like the general is doing pretty well for an old guy, don’t it? Take a look.”
I turned to the house. I didn’t notice anything amiss.