“And speak of the devil,” Mattingly said as he got to his feet.
General Greene and a formidable-looking woman were walking up to the table.
Frade and Cronley stood.
“Good evening, General, Mrs. Greene,” Mattingly said.
General Greene shook his hand. Mrs. Greene nodded.
“Mrs. Greene, may I introduce Colonel Cletus Frade, USMC, and Captain Cronley?” Mattingly said.
She nodded, and then asked, “How is it you’re in olive drab, Captain?”
“Captain Cronley didn’t expect to be here tonight, Grace,” General Greene said.
“The dress code — it’s posted as you come in — says ‘Pinks and Greens, or more formal, after Seventeen Hundred.’”
“Grace, for God’s sake, ease up,” General Greene said.
I wondered before, Cronley thought, why Rachel, and not the general’s wife, was president of the Officers’ Wives Club. Now I know. If this pain-in-the-ass was, there’d be nobody else in it.
“Rules are rules and decorum is decorum,” Mrs. Greene said.
“You’re absolutely right,” Frade then said. “I’d have him taken outside and shot but I’m as guilty as he is. I’m not wearing a pink uniform either. I don’t even own a pink uniform.”
Both Mrs. Greene and Mattingly glared at him, she because she obviously was not used to being challenged, much less mocked.
Clete put away all that scotch! He’s plastered!
And Mattingly sees it.
This is going to be fun. Or a disaster.
“Actually, Colonel Frade,” Mattingly said, “the term is ‘pinks and greens.’”
Frade ignored him. He wasn’t through.
“Does this Army dress code prescribe female attire?” he asked.
“What do you mean by that?” she snapped.
“Just curious. In the Naval Service, officers don’t tell our ladies what to wear. And of course vice versa.”
Mrs. Greene’s mouth opened in shock, but she didn’t get to say whatever she had intended. General Greene, with relief evident in his voice, quickly announced, “Ah, here come the Schumanns and the McClungs.”
Colonel Schumann was wearing Mess Dress; Major McClung pinks and greens.
When everyone was in the now-crowded alcove, waiters closed doors, ones that Cronley hadn’t seen before, shutting off the alcove from the main dining room.
When all the male handshaking and female cheek-kissing was over, and they took their seats, Rachel was sitting across, but not directly across, from Jimmy. He just had time to decide he wasn’t going to get groped when he felt her foot pressing against his.
Momentarily, but long enough so there was no question of it not being by accident.
When a waiter appeared for their drink orders, Cronley tried to do the right thing. He really wanted a Jack Daniel’s, but knew he shouldn’t. On the other hand, he didn’t like scotch, so if he ordered a scotch, not liking scotch, he would drink it slowly.
“I’ll have a Dewar’s please.”
“Colonel Frade,” General Greene began the dinner conversation, “I’d recommend the New York strip steak. Very good. They bring it in from Denmark.”
“Why do they do that?” Frade asked.
“The club — clubs, plural — don’t want to be accused of diverting the best beef from the Quartermaster refrigerators to the brass, taking it out of the mouths of the enlisted men, so to speak, so they go outside the system and buy it in Denmark.”
“You look as if you don’t approve, Colonel Frade,” Mrs. Greene said. “Don’t they do things like that in the Naval Service?”
“In the Marine Corps, I was taught that officers can have anything in the warehouse after the enlisted men get first shot at it.”
Before his wife could reply to that, General Greene quickly said, “That strikes me as a very good rule.”
“General,” Frade asked, “did you ever notice that there’s loops on the top of Marine officers’ covers — the brimmed uniform caps?”
“As a matter of fact, I have.”
“When I was a second lieutenant, I was told that was to identify officers who might have had their hands in the enlisted men’s rations and make it easier for Marine marksmen in the ship’s rigging to shoot them.”
Greene, Colonel Schumann, and Major McClung laughed. Rachel Schumann and Mrs. McClung chuckled. Mrs. Greene’s eyebrows rose. Mattingly managed a wan smile.
“I’d be interested to hear, Colonel,” Greene said, “how you think the meeting went this afternoon?”
“Paul,” Mrs. Greene said, “I didn’t get all gussied up to come out to listen to you talk shop.”
Her husband ignored her. “Your thoughts, Colonel?”
“General, in the Marine Corps, we have another odd custom. We ask questions like that of the junior officer present. That way, since they don’t know what their seniors are hoping to hear, they have to say what they actually think.”
“We do the same thing, Colonel,” General Greene said, and his eyes went to Cronley. “Well, Captain, what impression did you take away from that long, long session this afternoon?”
Thanks a lot, Clete!
No matter what I say, it’s going to be wrong.
What the hell! In the absence of all other options, tell the truth.
“Sir, from the bottom of the totem pole, it looked to me like those people from the Pentagon are very unhappy that there’s going to be a new OSS. And/or that the Pentagon is not going to be running it.”
Greene nodded and then made a Keep going gesture with his hand. Cronley saw that Mattingly was looking at him, obviously worried about what he was going to say next.
“Sir, I had the feeling that they were really upset to hear that I have the monastery and will be in charge of Pullach.”
“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Greene said. “What monastery? What’s Pullach?”
“If the general answers those questions, Mrs. Greene, I’ll have to shoot both of you,” Frade said.
Iron Lung McClung laughed loudly.
“Jim!” his wife said warningly.
“Grace,” General Greene offered, “Captain Cronley is going to run a little operation in Pullach, which is a little dorf near Munich.”
These people tell their wives about what we’re doing?
How much do they tell them?
Probably everything.
Rachel seems to know everything that’s going on.
And Clete mockingly gave Boy Scout’s Honor that he had never told his wife anything.
So much for the sacred Need to Know.
“Why are the people from the Pentagon not pleased? Because he’s only a captain?” Mrs. Greene asked. “And if they’re not pleased, why is he going to be allowed to run it?”
“The simple answer, Mrs. Greene,” Frade said, “is because Admiral Souers says he will. And quickly changing the subject, where is our leader tonight?”
“Having dinner with Ike, Beetle, and Magruder,” Greene said.
“And here’s our dinner,” McClung said as a line of waiters approached the table.
Cronley felt Rachel’s bare foot on his ankle.
“And this admiral,” Mrs. Greene relentlessly pursued. “He can just give orders to the Army like that? An admiral?”
“Yes, ma’am, he can,” Frade said. Using his hands to demonstrate as he spoke, he went on, “This is the totem pole to which Captain Cronley referred, Mrs. Greene. We’re all on it. Cronley is at the bottom”—he pointed to the bottom of his figurative totem pole—“and Admiral Souers is here”—he pointed again—“at the tip-top. The rest of us are somewhere here in the middle.”