God, it was wonderfully cool outside that tent. I breathed an enormous draft of air. I felt parboiled. A stave snapped, cruelly reminding me there was another soldier inside and inviting me in for another go.
I later told General Clay, “I was scared to death, and I honestly don’t know why I ran back into the tent.”
He replied, “You knew that if I saw you standing there picking your nose while one of my soldiers burned to death, I’d shitcan your ass back to San goddamn Diego before the last embers died.”
“That must have been it, all right.”
I lunged back through the flaming flap. The tent roof sagged. Fire was all around, shimmering walls of it. I was terrified. I dug into the canvas folds, trying to pry the other soldier free. A piece of flaming canvas dropped onto my back. I frantically brushed at it. The place was filled with bitter smoke, making me cough and gag. I lifted rolls of the canvas, burning my hand, then tugged as hard as my ebbing strength would allow. I kicked at the canvas and shoved it back, grabbed him, then slid him out. Walking backwards, I dragged him through the tent. The burning flap raking my back.
When Wilson Clay later pinned the silver star on my chest, he said, “Don’t let this go to your head. I give these away like candy at Mardi Gras.”
I knew better. And as he said it, his voice caught in his throat.
16
Lady Anne Percival stalked General Clay like a coyote after a rabbit. She traced him across the sky like a gunsight on a Browning .50 caliber. She set a snare for him, carefully laying the wire across his path. I’m tempted to add half a dozen more bad similes.
But after the war, when General Hargrave and I were sharing memories, he offered his own, “You know, Wilson Clay lit out after that English woman like a hound on a scent.”
I was astonished. General Clay chasing Lady Anne? What sort of heretical revisionism was this?
I was a civilian by then, so I could risk impertinence. “You’ve got it backwards, don’t you, General?”
Alex Hargrave laughed. “You were devoted to the man, Jack, and like a government mule, you were wearing blinders.”
Devoted, to be sure. That’s part of an ADC’s duty. But blinders? I doubt it. General Clay and Lady Anne’s relationship was a patchwork of meetings. I witnessed most of them, thinking at first they were happenstance, then suspecting otherwise.
Much of General Clay’s job was to show the flag and cement the alliance. After a long day at his desk or on inspection, he would fly to a social engagement to fraternize with Britain’s powerful. He loathed this assignment, or so he said.
Shortly after the general and Lady Anne’s first meeting, she began appearing regularly at these dinners, escorted by an earl or a viscount—she had an inexhaustible supply of nobility—whom she would discard at the first opportunity. Then she would materialize alongside the general.
She appeared at Admiral Fairfax’s home in Portsmouth wearing widow’s black and diamonds, a breathtaking vision. She was on Viscount Vanderman’s arm, until she left him at the bar in the library. She spent the rest of the evening in General Clay’s circle, which, predictably, became Lady Anne’s circle. She showed up at General Stedman’s dinner at his London flat, escorted by Sir William Tally, who mysteriously disappeared after cocktails. She sidled up to General Clay near the globe in the library, and they were scarcely apart the remainder of the evening.
She appeared once at Chartwell for a dinner, the hottest ticket in the kingdom. She came in with General Sutton of Fighter Command, a notorious bachelor, who grinned slyly as he handed her over to Clay as if by some prearrangement. At an opportune moment, I asked Churchill’s valet as tactfully as possible how Lady Anne’s invitation to this dinner came to pass. With the innate confidence one underling has in another, he replied out of the corner of his mouth, “I’ll be deuced if I know.”
Lady Anne sent the general a series of gifts, always delivered by a liveried servant in a Bentley. So peculiar were the presents that I took them for a code. She sent him a canary in a cage, then came a French horn with a dent in its neck. Next came a crocheted shawl, white with a red fleur-de-lis in the center. Then came a boa constrictor wrapped in a death grip around a mongoose, one of those taxidermal horrors common in taverns in the States.
General Clay accepted these gifts without saying anything, until the boa and mongoose. As he inspected the thing, holding it away from him as he might a soiled diaper, he muttered, “This woman’s crankcase may have frozen long ago, Jack. What do you think?”
I wanted to shout, “Good Christ, yes, General. Abandon ship and save yourself.” I knew better, so I clucked noncommittally.
Among the soldiers of the 1st Armored, General Clay was venerated not so much for his command abilities or his bravery, but for the thirty minutes he spent in one of their tanks.
We were inspecting one of their units, the 13th Armored Regiment south of Guildford, midway between London and Portsmouth. The 13th had made a fine show of it, with a parade roll-by and an intricate maneuver replete with crewmen on the turrets waving red flags to indicate when the tanks fired. Ammunition was too scarce to waste on maneuvers. Clay congratulated Colonel Joe Dane on the 13th’s performance.
Just as we were about to return to the plane, Lady Anne’s maroon Bentley rolled up. This was an outrageous breach of decorum—breaching decorum being among her singular traits—and I expected her to receive a curt dismissal from the general. Instead, he grinned widely, helped her from the automobile with a flourish, and introduced her to Colonel Dane.
Dane nodded uncomfortably, and his eyes widened with distress when Clay said, “I’d like to take Lady Anne for a ride in one of your new Shermans, Joe.”
“Of course, General,” he answered briskly, but with a strychnine expression. “You want a driver, or will you steer the English lady around yourself?”
“Calm yourself, Joe, and I’ll thank you for a driver.”
Lady Anne was wearing a sable coat over a black silk blouse and four strings of pearls in a choker. We walked toward one of the Shermans. Her two-inch heels sank in the churned ground, and when she climbed to the deck of the tank, her coat scraped along a patch of grease, picking up a black stain. She seemed indifferent to the spoilage.
The congregation of soldiers around the general was increasing quickly, curious about the limousine. Anxious for a glimpse, tank crewmen were popping up from their cupolas and drivers were leaving their fuel trucks. Major General Franks drove up in his command jeep and without getting out asked me, “Now what?”
The general and Lady Anne disappeared through the turret. Her coat trailed after her like a squirrel’s tail. The driver followed, to the catcalls of some of his mates.
The Sherman blew exhaust and trundled forward. It traveled less than a hundred yards across the pasture, away from the armored formations, then stopped. The Continental engine was turned off. After half a moment, the driver climbed out through the hatch and jumped to the ground. Grinning, he walked toward us.
When he arrived he announced loudly, “The general wanted to give the lady a tour of the inside of my tank, but didn’t need my help.”
This was greeted with hoots and whistles. The crowd was growing, but maintained its distance from Clay’s tank. The minutes passed. Speculation among the gathering soldiers as to events transpiring in the tank was rampant and lewd. Several wagers were made.
Out of loyalty to my commander, I felt it necessary to leave the ribald talk, so I walked toward the tank, across the pasture, following its track, avoiding flattened cow pies when possible. I arrived at the tank and leaned against a forward fender, trying to appear inconspicuous, which was difficult when two hundred tankmen were pointing at me and calling out vulgar suggestions.