The Colonels by W.E.B. Griffin

Author:W.E.B. Griffin [Griffin, W.E.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, United States, Fiction - Men's Adventure, War & Military, Fiction, War stories, Men's Adventure, General, Korean War; 1950-1953, Soldiers
ISBN: 9780515090222
Publisher: Jove
Published: 2007-06-15T05:00:00+00:00

(Five)

Someone touched his shoulder. Lowell looked up and saw Paul Jiggs, bending down by the open door of the staff car.

“You all right, Craig?” Jiggs asked.

“Lost in thought,” Lowell said. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jiggs said.

Lowell got out of the car. They were stopped in front of Quarters No. 1. General Henderson was standing ten feet from the car, looking uncomfortable.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, sir,” Lowell said.

General Henderson made a deprecating gesture with his hand.

Lowell followed them into the house, an attractive but not luxurious brick home. Lowell thought that the first time he had seen officers’ row at Fort Knox, he thought it looked like a set for a prewar Hollywood musical comedy about a college campus. Mid-American U.

It was, he thought now, far more elegant than Paul Jiggs’s official quarters at Fort Rucker. More elegant and much larger.

The aides were inside. Lowell was surprised when General Henderson led them past the living room—where a tray of hors d’oeuvres was waiting on a table—into the kitchen. To the obvious surprise of the white-jacketed GIs in the kitchen, Henderson pulled open one of the kitchen cabinet doors and took from it three glasses. Then he stooped and opened another cabinet and took from it a bottle of scotch.

“If you have had the privilege of serving under General Jiggs, Major Lowell,” he said, “then I’m sure you have learned that there are times when a commander must violate one of his own orders. This command frowns on drinking before 1700. This is the time to violate that regulation. I hope you’ll join me.”

He poured whiskey in the glasses and handed one to Jiggs and Lowell.

Lowell took his.

Henderson looked as if he could think of nothing to say.

“Absent comrades,” Paul Jiggs said, softly, and tossed down his whiskey straight.

“Right,” General Henderson agreed, and drank his at a draught.

“Absent companions,” Lowell said, and drank his.

“Make three more of those,” General Henderson said to one of the enlisted men, “with ice and water, and bring them into the living room.”

He motioned Jiggs and Lowell ahead of him.

“You were stationed here, Lowell?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. I went to Officer’s Basic Course, and then I was assigned to the Armor Board for a while.”

“You’ve been here, before? To Quarters 1, I mean?” General Henderson asked.

“Just in the garden, sir.”

“A lot of interesting people have lived here,” Henderson said. He showed him a plaque on which the names of former residents were listed. It was a long list. The names included Major General G. S. Patton, Jr., who had occupied Quarters No. 1 before the European campaigns of World War II from which he emerged as a four-star general; Major General E. Z. Black, now the four-star Vice Chief of Staff; and Major General I. D. White, who had gone on to command the X Corps (Group) in Korea and was now the four-star Commander in Chief, Pacific.

Lowell was pretty sore that Paul Jiggs’s name would never be on the list. Now that he had

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