Command Decision Read Free

Sarge?”
    “In the sack.”
    “I see. After a sleepless night of planning, the gallant commander snatches a few winks while his men are out on the mission.”
    “You must love that guardhouse, pumping me about missions.”
    Brockhurst snorted. “Security! Even the hangar queen’s patched up and gone today but I’m not supposed to know there’s a mission out.”
    “If you know, what are you hinting for?”
    “Angles,” said Brockhurst. “I know the hottest story in the war when I smell it but two or three angles to fill in the picture would be worth plenty to me.” Brockhurst lowered his voice persuasively.
    “I know he’s got the German plane that Swastika came from under close guard in Hangar Four. And I know he’s flown it himself, several times.”
    “You know more than that,” Evans encouraged him.
    “You’re damned right I do.”
    “You know he throwed your ass in the guardhouse for writing a piece about it and kept the piece and tore up your pass.”
    The sergeant burst into a triumphant chuckle. Brockhurst waited patiently for it to subside.
    “I got out,” he said. “And I’ve got a new pass from General Kane. The guardhouse was a break for me. But I still want to know what became of the German Dennis had in there.”
    “What are the other angles?”
    “Why has Dennis been to London so often lately?”
    Evans yawned. “Why does anyone go to London?”
    “Not that Puritanical bastard,” said Brockhurst. “Then yesterday, without even alerting us, Dennis runs off the longest mission of the war and has the worst losses to date. We try to help you guys take the curse off it with a good story and you won’t even give us the target. ‘Industrial Objectives!’ That’s a fine comfort to a lot of new widows back home.”
    “Go on.”
    “This morning everything that could roll to the end of the runway went earlier and they aren’t back yet. Maximum effort, deep in Germany, two days straight. For what?”
    “Why don’t you ask some smart newspaperman?”
    Frustration made Brockhurst’s voice edgy. “Those jerks are still waiting permission to go to bases. They think this is just a routine mission.”
    “What makes you think it isn’t?”
    “Because I get paid for using my head instead of Public Relations handouts.” He let this sink in and then barked, “Why has Dennis got a squadron commander with a D.F.C. under close arrest right now in the same guardhouse where they had me?”
    “Not brushing his teeth?”
    “Okay, my helpful friend, I’ll tell you. He’s there for refusing to go on this hush-hush mission this morning.”
    Evans jaw muscles tightened now. “Did he tell you that?”
    “Rafferty won’t let me talk to him. And I suppose Dennis will back him up. But if that little tin-star tyrant thinks the American press will stand for this…”
    “By God, you might be worth a Legion of Merit,” said Evans and shifted his glance pointedly to the Tommy guns.
    Brockhurst snorted. “You won’t get it from Dennis. Cliff Garnett sat down at Prestwick last night by special plane.”
    “Who’s he?”
    “You never heard of Brigadier General Clifton C. Garnett, Secretary to the United Chiefs of Staff?”
    “Oh God! Now we’ll never get the war over,” said Evans.
    “I’ll bet you Dennis’s war is over in a week.”
    “You reckon they’d trade him for one of them Pentagon bellhops?”
    “Garnett should have had this job to begin with.”
    Evans had heard of generals being fired but there was something about all this that didn’t quite fit. Remembering, he shook his head firmly.
    “They can’t. They never fired no general yet till they give him the Legion of Merit, or if it was bad enough the D.S.M. Dennis, he hasn’t got neither.”
    “They can give ’em mighty quick. Going to miss your hero?”
    “He’s no hero to me. I just taken this job in with the big wheels to chisel myself a ticket to China now I’m done with this war. Does this Garnett drink whiskey or