The Colonels, page 31
part #4 of Brotherhood of War Series
(One)
Schloss Greiffenberg
Marburg an der Lahn, West Germany
14 February 1959
There was a 200-meter firing range set up between rows of apple trees in the orchard to the west of the Schloss. When Generalmajor Graf Peter-Paul von Greiffenberg had had it refurbished after the war, he had it equipped with electrical targets. An electric motor and pulley system permitted targets to be fastened to a rack at the firing line, and then moved to the butts. After these had been fired on, they could be returned to the firing line for examination.
The targets today, however—somewhat to the consternation of Generalmajor Graf von Greiffenberg—were four quart cans of Campbell’s tomato juice, raised from the ground on bricks.
The marksman was Peter-Paul Lowell, a blond twelve-year-old who was tall for his age and who bore a strong resemblance both to his grandfather and his father. He was wearing a formal German hunting costume: a green lodencloth jacket, matching green knickers, gray stockings, and a felt hat, the band of which was not ornamented. If he was lucky the next day, he would get his roebuck, a small deer, and thus be privileged to dip the hat feathers in the animal’s blood, a symbol of entering the fraternity of hunters.
Peter-Paul Lowell also wore a pair of American shooting muffs over his ears. They didn’t fit over the hat, so the headband was down on his neck.
Major Craig W. Lowell, similarly attired, corrected his son’s standing position, and then stepped back.
“Go ahead, P.P.,” he said in English.
“I do wish you wouldn’t call me that,” the boy said, in British-accented English.
“Pardon me,” Lowell said, smiling. “Go ahead, Peter.”
The boy took the rifle from his shoulder and worked the action. Then he put it to his shoulder again.
“Take a breath,” Major Lowell ordered. “Let half of it out. Hold it. And then squeeze.” He put his index fingers in his ears.
The boy took careful aim through the telescopic sight and fired.
There was a sharp crack. The recoil staggered the boy. The can of Campbell’s tomato juice exploded.
“Mein Gott!” Peter-Paul Lowell exclaimed.
His father and grandfather applauded. Peter-Paul Lowell turned to them beaming.
“Keep the goddamn muzzle pointed at the ground and down range!” Craig Lowell snapped.
Embarrassed, the boy complied.
“Open the action,” Lowell commanded, “and hand it to me. And then run down there and have a look at the can.”
The boy did as he was ordered.
“You’ve made him very happy with that rifle, Craig,” the Graf von Greiffenberg said, when he was out of earshot.
“He’s making me very happy with it,” Lowell said.
“And I see your reasoning with the juice can,” the Graf said, nodding down range. The boy was holding up the can, ripped wide open by hydrostatic force, awe on his face.
“My father did that to me,” Lowell said. “With a sixteen-bore shotgun. It’s something you never forget.”
Peter-Paul Lowell ran back from the butts.
“It simply exploded!” he said. “Quite extraordinary.”
You’re not only half kraut, you’re half limey. Which leaves no half for American.
“Beginner’s luck, probably,” Lowell said. “I’ll bet you can’t do it again.”
“I shall certainly have a go at it, Father,” the boy said, miffed, and reached for the rifle.
He fired four more times, missing once.
“What do you say, Grandpa?” Lowell asked, seriously. “You think we can safely take him with us?”
“I’m not sure, Craig,” the Graf said, solemnly, going along. “He’s still so young.”
“Grosspapa!” Peter-Paul Lowell said, in exasperation.
“Well, perhaps we could try,” von Greiffenberg said.
“May I shoot some more?”
“You can finish that box of shells,” Lowell said. “But we’re out of tomato juice.”
He had just finished shooting three five-shot groups of about three inches, which made his father extraordinarily proud of his son, when the butler appeared.
“Herr Generalmajor Graf, your guests have arrived.”
“We’ll be there directly,” the Graf said.
“Now comes the dirty part,” Lowell said. “First you clean up the mess the tomato juice made, and then you clean the rifle.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said.
“Perhaps,” the Graf said, tactfully, “Peter-Paul could do that after he’s met our guests.”
“Of course,” Lowell said.
He had understood both the Graf’s tactful reluctance to override Lowell’s orders to his son and the “our” guests. Lowell knew the primary—perhaps the only—reason the Graf had invited U.S. Army officers on the hunt was to introduce him to them.
“You always make sure the weapon is empty,” Lowell said, “and then you leave the action open.”
“Very well,” Peter-Paul Lowell said.
There were four U.S. Army officers, in uniform, waiting in the sitting room of the Schloss (which was more of a large villa than the term “Schloss,” or “castle,” implied). The two senior officers were Major General Bryan Ford, the European Command intelligence officer, and Brigadier General John B. Nesbit, the Seventh Army intelligence officer. They were accompanied by two junior officers, their aides-de-camp. All four stood up as they saw von Greiffenberg stride into the room.
Out the window, Lowell saw they had come in staff cars. An invitation to shoot with the Chief of Intelligence of the Bundeswehr was apparently considered official business.
“I’m so sorry not to have personally greeted you,” the Graf said. “We were teaching Peter-Paul how to fire his new rifle. You have, at least, been offered something to drink?”
“We’ve been well taken care of, Herr Generalmajor Graf,” Major General Ford said, in fluent German.
“I don’t believe you know these gentlemen, do you, Craig?” von Greiffenberg said. “General Ford, General Nesbit, may I present my son-in-law, Major Lowell?”
“We have mutual friends, Major,” General Ford said, in English, as he offered his hand. “Colonel Hanrahan and Lieutenant Colonel Felter.”
“Lieutenant Colonel Felter, sir?” Lowell asked.
“A couple of weeks ago,” General Ford said.
“The best friend,” Lowell said, dryly, “is always the last to know.”
General Ford wondered if there wasn’t a touch of bitterness in Lowell. He knew a good deal about Major Craig W. Lowell. When he’d examined the dossier on Generalmajor Graf von Greiffenberg, he had found it fascinating that the Generalmajor, (who had been one of the very few members of the Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg plot to assassinate Hitler to go undetected and to survive the war) had an American officer for a son-in-law. He had looked into it.
The first information he’d come up with had been promising. Lowell was an aviator—and a very rich man. That had seemed to indicate that he was sort of a playboy, who, not needing to earn a living, found it amusing to be a soldier and a flyboy. Just the sort of man, in other words, that he could arrange to have assigned to Germany to be close to his father-in-law. He probably wouldn’t learn much from the close-mouthed Graf. But he just might. Getting Lowell close to the Graf was worth whatever effort it might require.
But then he’d learned more about Craig W. Lowell, and why he was an aviator. Lowell had performed brilliantly as a tank force commander in Korea; his performance had earned him a Distinguished Service Cross and a major’s gold leaf at twenty-four. And then he’d had a run-in with a general officer, ostensibly for something silly, taking a visiting movie actress to the front line, but actually for standing up in a court-martial in defense of a black officer accused of shooting down a cowardly infantry officer. The result had been the same, Paul Hanrahan had told him: an efficiency report accusing him of immaturity, of lacking the qualities required of a commanding officer.
And Mr. Spook himself, Presidential Counselor (and then Major) Sanford T. Felter, had told General Ford that in his opinion the assignment of Major Lowell to a position where he “could keep an eye on von Greiffenberg” would be “ill advised.”
“I’d actually hoped, Major, that you would talk to him. Perhaps appeal to his sense of duty.”
“And his patriotism?” Felter had replied.
“That, too,” General Ford had said, with a smile.
“General,” Felter had said, very coldly, “when this officer was nineteen years old, he elected to assume command of a company of Greek mountain infantry when its officers were killed. The prudent thing for him to have done—what he was authorized to do—was evacuate himself when he was in any kind of danger. At the time he was rather severely wounded. I would not presume to lecture him on duty. Neither would I suggest to him that he involve himself in something I regard as both shoddy and counterproductive.”
“We’re in a shoddy business, Major,” General Ford had replied. He did not like being lectured to by a Jewish major.
“If Major Lowell were given such an assignment, he would resign; and in the process you would alienate Generalmajor Graf von Greiffenberg,” Felter said. “To reiterate, I consider it ill-advised.”
“I had frankly hoped to have your cooperation, Major,” General Ford had said.
“I’m sorry, sir, you have my opposition,” Felter had replied.
Felter’s opposition had proven to be more than philosophical. General Ford had put the wheels in motion; after there had been no action in two months, and during a time when he had been in Washington, he’d asked the Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence, about the case.
“You can’t have Lowell, Bryan,” the DCSINTEL said. “I’m surprised that you asked.”
“May I ask why, sir?”
“Because Major Felter thinks it would be counterproductive,” the DCSINTEL said. “He told me so, personally.”
“And you agree with him, sir?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” the DCSINTEL said. “But that isn’t really the point. The point is that Major Felter meets privately with the President of the United States for fifteen minutes every day. I haven’t seen the President at all in three months. He didn’t mention that, of course, when he called me about this.”
“He called you about this?”
“Yes, he did. He said that he was very sorry that he had to disagree with you about it, and asked me if I thought he was wrong.”
“I just can’t believe that you jump when a major says to,” General Ford said.
“It didn’t get to that, Charley,” the DCSINTEL said. “I think he’s right and you’re wrong. It was therefore unnecessary to find out for sure who has more influence with the President, me or his personal representative to the intelligence community.”
“You think Felter would have taken it to the President?”
“I don’t know,” the DCSINTEL said. “But I do know that when he does go to the President, he generally gets what he wants. He had Paul Hanrahan put in charge of the Green Berets over the violent protests of airborne establishment.”
“A man with a lot of clout, who takes care of his buddies?”
“I’m not getting through to you, Bryan,” the DCSINTEL said, somewhat sharply. “That’s disappointing. The reason Major Felter has influence with the President is because the President knows his advice is not influenced by any personal considerations. The only axe Felter grinds is the President’s. If you like, the country’s.”
General Ford thought of that conversation with the DCSINTEL as he watched Major Craig Lowell, dressed up like a German aristocrat, shaking hands with the aides-de-camp.
“General Ford is my counterpart in the EVCOM, Craig,” the Graf said. “And General Nesbit is the Seventh Army G-2.”
“How are you, young man?” General Ford said to Peter-Paul.
“I am very pleased to meet you, General,” Peter-Paul Lowell said, in his British-accented English, as he offered his hand.
He holds out his hand like the Prince of Wales meeting a faithful lackey, Lowell thought, and sounds like him, too.
General Ford was visibly surprised at the boy’s adult behavior.
“And that’s a new rifle?” Ford asked. “May I see it?”
“Father brought it to me from America,” Peter-Paul said, handing it over.
General Ford looked first in the breech, and then examined the rifle carefully.
“Very nice, indeed,” he said, handing it to General Nesbit. He looked at Lowell and repeated it, and then asked, “Two-fifty-three thousand, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what that is,” General Nesbit said, as he handed the rifle to Ford’s aide.
“It was the first of the high velocity cartridges,” Lowell said. “It fires an 87-grain hollowpoint at a little over 3,000 feet per second.”
“And without much recoil, is that it?” Ford asked.
“That was how it was sold to me,” Lowell said. “Griffin and Howe made it up for P.P. in New York. They said it would be ideal for roebuck.”
“I’m sure it will be,” Ford said. “That’s really a fine rifle, young man. You can be proud of it.”
“I am,” Peter-Paul said. “Quite.”
The butler extended a tray with glasses on it to Lowell.
“The scotch is to the right, Herr Major,” he said, in German.
Lowell took the drink.
“We have our cultures mixed here,” the Graf said. “The European drinks bourbon, and the American drinks scotch.”
“That isn’t the only way the cultures are mixed,” Lowell said, without thinking.
“To a good hunt,” the Graf said, raising his glass.
Lowell saw a stout envelope on one of the tables. It looked familiar, and when he went to it, he saw that it was addressed to him at Schloss Greiffenberg, c/o the Dresdener Bank in Frankfurt and bore the return address of Craig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes. It was marked “Personal—By Courier.”
“How long has that been here?” he asked the butler.
“It came forty minutes ago, Herr Major,” the Butler said. “A messenger from the Dresdener Bank brought it.”
Lowell was aware that General Ford’s ears had picked up on that.
“It’s probably nothing more than my officers’ club bill, sir,” he said, “but I arranged to have my mail, official and otherwise, forwarded to me here. I suppose I’d better look at it.”
“Go right ahead, Major,” General Ford said.
Lowell sat down and ripped open the envelope.
He was glad he had. In addition to his bill from the officers’ club, which he waved triumphantly over his head for General Ford to see (“What did I say, sir?”), there were three memos from Bill Franklin at the Board requiring his decisions, and two letters from Porter Craig, one asking what sort of a bill for rent he was supposed to send General Bellmon for his use of the town house in Georgetown, another dealing with the place in Glen Cove. Both letters required immediate answers.
And then he saw the other envelope. It bore the imprint of the Daleville Inn and was addressed to him at the Board. The handwriting was unfamiliar. He opened it.
THE DALEVILLE INN
Daleville, Alabama 36367
180 Air-Conditioned Rooms + Restaurant
Lowell, you smart-ass sonofabitch!
I can’t imagine what was running through your perverted mind, except that you concluded I was so dumb that I would never find out that it was you flying the helicopter that blew up the tanks on television, or that you were the youngest major in the army with as many decorations as Patton. I am sure only that it wasn’t modesty.
Why a bunch of very nice guys (Franklin, Cramer, et al.) think you’re Mr. Nice Guy baffles me.
It is lucky for you, and you will doubtless be surprised to learn, that I am not one of those journalists who get their revenge with a poison pen, but I could not pass the opportunity by to tell you that I think you stink in spades!
You had no reason at all to make a fool of me!
Screw you, Lowell!
Cynthia Thomas
So that was her name. Cynthia. It was a real jaw-clencher’s name.
“Gentlemen,” Lowell said, “will you excuse me? The barn is burning down and nobody can find the fire hose.”
He called Fort Rucker first and put out those fires, and then he called Porter Craig at the firm.
“You are not to send the Bellmons any kind of a bill, Porter,” he said, when he reached him. “What the hell’s the matter with you? I told you they’re friends of mine.”
“I’m fine, Craig,” Porter Craig said. “Thank you for asking. And how are you? How’s the littlest Lowell?”
“And I don’t care if it takes half the lawyers in New York, I want that ‘public domain’ bullshit about the beach in Glen Cove fought all the way.”
“You should read more carefully, Craig,” Porter Craig said. “The property in question is not contiguous to the estate. It’s half a mile down the beach. And, as I thought I explained rather clearly in the letter, it is my humble judgment that (a) there are some very interesting tax advantages; (b) they are going to clarify the position of the estate, in other words, admit the grandfather clause is applicable, which will preserve it for you until the country goes communist; and (c) there’s nothing we can do about it. It has been used as a public beach for eighty years, and they could, if they wanted to, claim it as abandoned.”
“Oh,” Lowell said, lamely.
“You’re welcome, Craig,” Porter Craig said.
“I’m sorry, Porter,” Lowell said. “I really am a little upset.”
“About what?”
“The littlest Lowell is half kraut, half limey, and no percent American.”
“Oh,” Porter Craig said, sympathetically. “Craig, if I have to say this, we’d love to have him here.”
“Which is worse?” Lowell said. “Half kraut and half limey? Or one hundred percent jaw-clencher?”
“I wouldn’t hazard a guess about what that means,” Porter Craig said.
“Speaking of jaw-clenchers,” Lowell said.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means, Craig.”
