The Adjutant

A STORY

by DONALD GREENE

I WAS thumbing through a pile of British journals at the library the other day and came across a notice of Gerald Warriner’s new book of criticism. The reviewer was cautious and a little shocked by what he called the audacity of some of Warriner’s opinions; but on the whole he seemed impressed. Warriner is now some sort of junior don at Cambridge; he went over to England after the war to do postgraduate work and stayed there, Joe Roberts, who knew us both in the Army, told me that he looked Warriner up when he was in England last summer. Joe got the impression that he was reasonably happy.

I hope he is. He wasn’t happy when I first met him. That was in 1944. I was putting in time as a kind of unofficial assistant adjutant at a Paratroop Training School. Like a good many people, I had volunteered for the paratroops, found the going too tough, and been washed out. My right leg got a nasty break on my last qualifying jump, and stayed weak after it healed; they let me wear the paratroopers’ wings on my tunic, but my medical category was lowered, and I was relegated to helping look after the orderly room.

It was a headache keeping track of the comings and goings of a thousand men. The old adjutant, Major Parker, who was supposed to be in charge of administration had given it up as a bad job, and spent most of his time drinking gin fizzes in the officers’ mess. But paper work can be neglected only up to a point. It was at that point that Parker, after one last glorious sozzle, was retired and Captain Warriner arrived.

He worked in a little, railed-in cubicle in one corner of the orderly room, with a door near his desk leading to the C.O.’s office. My own desk was beside his, on the other side of the railing. I remember him on the last morning he spent at the School, his thin, intelligent head bent over a heap of papers. He was making out the monthly report of rejected personnel. In front of him, on the desk, were piled the medical records and conduct sheets; there were also a number of small scraps of plain paper each bearing a few penciled words by one of the lieutenants in command of the training platoons. These were the most damning, these notes scrawled hastily during a break in a field exercise or in an aircraft after a practice parachute descent. Some of them read “Hesitated to jump” or “Nervous during field firing.” One or two read simply, in large, unformed letters, “Just no guts.” These were signed “ J. Sims, Lt.” Warriner always sighed when they came in, for he would have to get hold of Sims and extract from him the details of the recruit’s failure. Sims knew very well that such reports were of no use but he continued to send them in. He was a burly, red-faced young man; he disliked Warriner, and the interviews that arose from these reports were unpleasant.

“God damn it, Adj,” Sims would shout across Warriner’s desk, “I forget what the bastard did three days ago, but if I said he acted yellow, he acted yellow. I don’t have to be a God-damned psychiatrist to tell when a guy hasn’t got any guts.”

And he would grin insolently into Warriner’s face as he said it. Then Warriner would begin again, slowly and painstakingly, to argue Sims into recalling the circumstances of the recruit’s failure. Gerald Warriner was then a man of about twentysix. He had a tall, frail body, a thin, white face, and a crown of ash-blond hair. A pair of heavy lenses magnified his pale blue eyes. A year before, the physical standards had been sufficiently lowered to permit him to enter the Army. His medical documents were stamped “For home service only.

He had been at an eastern Canadian university; he started, I think, as a classical scholar and then branched out into comparative literature. He had had two or three short pieces of criticism published; they had been well received, but he seemed to care little for the approbation of his fellow scholars.

He was an incongruous figure among the tough and sturdy paratroopers. They tolerated him because he did his work well and kept the administration of the School running smoothly; but they lived in a different universe from his. He was posted to the School, after the passing of Major Parker, when the Commanding Officer asked for a clever man to handle the paper work, saying that none of his para troop officers had any head for that kind of thing, Warriner, who was then a junior staff officer, heard of the vacancy and applied for it. His colleagues at Headquarters wondered why he should have asked to be posted to such apparently uncongenial surroundings. He did not tell them that it was because he was a student of literature. He had been with these fine men before, many times, on the plains of Troy and in the pass of Roncesvalles, on the dark mere of Grendel and the bare, gray rocks of Hlitharendi. He loved their courage, their aliveness; he was glad to be near them, if only as a humble camp follower.

Mixed with his admiration for the Parachute Corps, you could see, if you looked closely, that he nourished a heavy bitterness against himself — partly for his puny body, with its weak eyes and weak voice, but more for his timidity of spirit, as he thought it. That was why he felt a bond of sympathy with the wretched “washouts.” That was why Sims despised him; the others merely pitied him for his physical insignificance, but Sims saw the puny spirit behind the bodily mask.

That, at any rate, was my diagnosis of his unhappiness. He got some comfort out of doing penance for his inadequacy by leaving his comfortable job at Headquarters and coming here where his reproach was continually before his eyes. He regarded Sims as one of the Eumenides — that robust and illiterate youngster would have been much surprised at the role in which he was cast — and he knew, from his Greek poets, that the thing to do with the Eumenides is to seek them out, not try to avoid them.

2

As WE worked among the papers that November morning, a. sound began to make itself felt in the air — first a faint throbbing, then an audible whisper. I saw Warriner try to ignore it, bending down close to a column of figures, repeating the successive numbers firmly, half aloud. But it was no use. The hum grew loud and steady — the sound of aircraft nearing the building. As they came overhead, Warriner gave up the attempt to shut it out; he sat up in his chair and let himself listen to them, as he had done many times before. There were four — six — ten planes: a whole class of candidates were making their final, qualifying jump. In a few minutes it would be over. Then, in the afternoon, the class would parade and be given their wings; and in the evening there would be a hilarious party in the men’s canteen. They had reason to celebrate, these new paratroopers; they had passed severe tests; they were received companions of a brave corps; they had before them the prospect of gallantry. During the evening their officers, with an irregularity at which no one caviled, would slip away from the mess to join them and drink their health. Warriner would then go to the quiet of his office and bury himself and his thoughts in his papers.

As the roar of the planes came overhead, Warriner got to his feet and slowly went to the window. I joined him. We looked out across the snow-covered prairie, and our eyes caught the glint of the silver wings of the aircraft as they passed through the brilliance of the winter sun.

The flight was now over the jumping field, on which snow crystals sparkled. Suddenly, with a, precision of timing that made you hold your breath, ten black dots appeared in the sky, plunging toward the earth. Then, in another instant, ten white canopies billowed out above them; the downward plunge was checked, and they hovered quietly in the blue air. Other dots, other canopies, followed in swift succession, and in a moment the sky was filled with whiteness. One dot fell farther, faster, than the others, and Warriner grasped the window ledge in agony; but after a few seconds that seemed like hours, the white silk fluttered out above it too, and we breathed out again. As they neared the earth, the black dots hanging from the canopies began to swing back and forth, in pendulum fashion; but before the arcs grew too long, the first parachute had reached the ground. Its canopy collapsed softly and became invisible in the snow. The others followed, until only one was left, hanging almost motionless in the air for an interminable time. Then it too melted into the snow, and the jump was over.

“ Pretty jump, wasn’t it ?" a voice behind us said.

We turned around. The Commanding Officer had come in from his adjoining office. LieutenantColonel Bill Macdonald was thirty-one, handsome, dark, vigorous, and decisive, the very antithesis of his adjutant, who admired him vastly.

“They all look pretty to me,” said Warriner.

“I never get tired of watching them. When I hear the planes coming over, I burrow myself in my desk and say that I won’t look. But I always do.”

“I thought for a minute there was going to be a streamer, but it wasn’t, thank God.

“I saw it too,” said Warriner. “I haven’t seen a parachute failure yet, and I don’t want to.”

“Yes, they’re messy things,” said Macdonald, He went over to Warriner’s desk and sat down on a corner of it. “Look, Jerry,” he said, “come down to the canteen tonight with me and drink a beer with the boys.”

Warriner stiffened. “Why, sir?” he asked.

“Why? Why not?” The Colonel sounded impatient. “It’s not because you feel too superior to, is it ?”

Warriner gave a short laugh. “You might have spared me that question,” he said. “You ought to know by this time how inferior to them I feel.”

Macdonald stared at him. “Don’t talk like a neurotic fool,” he said. “You’ve got brains, you’ve got ability, you’ve got knowledge. These boys are good kids, but they’re thick-headed barbarians, after all. So are all of us here — that’s why we had to get you in to do our thinking for us.”

“I’m not a neurotic fool,” said Warriner. “I’m merely being honest with myself. It’s very good of you to flatter my brains and my scholarship. Just the same you paratroopers have something compared with which all the intellectual cleverness in the world isn’t worth two cents, in my opinion or anybody else’s.”

“What?”

“The power to do things, not just think them. Sims calls it guts. As good a term as any. Just answer me one question honestly, Mac. Would you exchange that little pair of wings on your breast for any amount of scholarship, any amount of intellectual or artistic brilliance?”

The Colonel said nothing.

“ Would you?”

“Well, I don’t suppose I would, Jerry,”he said uncomfortably, after a while. “But, what the hell of it? It’s only a matter of taste. It’s only that I’m used to my own kind of life. Don’t take it so seriously.”

Warriner’s only answer was a skeptical smile. Macdonald stirred restlessly and at last got to his feet. “Well,” he said, “I was trying to be kind, but it looks as if I didn’t succeed. I didn’t know you felt this way. Look, Jerry, if you want to be transferred back to Headquarters staff, I won’t stand in your way, much as I’d like to keep you here, for my own sake.”

“You mistake me, sir,” Warriner said, “if you think that the pain to my own self-esteem is anything compared with the pleasure I have in associating with you and your men. I have no desire at all to return to the company of my fellow intellectuals at Headquarters.”

“That’s a very great compliment, Jerry,” said Macdonald. “Thank you for it. I hope we’ll continue to deserve it.” He went across the room and into his own office. He looked as if he were mentally scratching his head.

3

THE bugles blew for lunch. Warriner got up from his desk, a little wearily, and we went across the parade ground to the officers’ mess. In the bar, as usual, the officers were in two groups. In one corner were the noncombatant officers, the Paymaster, the Catering Officer, a visiting psychologist. Across the room from them was a group of young lieutenants of the training staff; Sims, in their midst, was telling a story and gusts of laughter came from them. I got myself a rye and drank it leaning against the bar, watching the others. Warriner ordered a beer for himself, and went over to the second group. Sims was describing the morning’s jump; he had been in charge of one of the aircraft : —

“Then at the last minute he turned yellow again. He was in the door of the plane, ready to jump; then he changed his mind; he got himself twisted around somehow, half in the plane and half out, hanging on to the sides of the door with his fingers. Well, there wasn’t any time to waste. I wasn’t going to let the bastard spoil my jump. I looked around and saw a monkey wrench on the seat. I grabbed it and gave him a hefty wallop right on the knuckles. He gave a yell and let go; down he went like a rock.”

After the roar of appreciation died away, Warriner called quietly, “Sims.”

The circle stiffened and drew away from him a little.

“Yes, Adj?” Sims said, with an inflection of surprise.

“Will you drop into my office for a minute after lunch? I want to go over your rejection reports for last month.”

Sims groaned. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Adj, do we have to go all through that business again? Hell, I’ve got to work after lunch. I’m taking out a platoon for field tactics, and I’ve got to get away early. Tactics are more important than your damn returns.”

“You’re probably right, Sims,” said Warriner. “Still, this return has to go in this afternoon. If it doesn’t, the Colonel will get a blast from Headquarters.”

“Oh, well, if it’ll do the Colonel some good — okay, Adj. I’ll be there.”

Sims turned his back to him and went on with the narrative. The circle closed and left. Warriner outside it. He drained his glass and went into the dining room, where he took his place at a table opposite Colonel Macdonald. I followed him.

As we sat down, Macdonald handed Warriner a slip of paper. “ Here’s a teletype that just came in, Jerry,” he said. “One of your clerks brought it over; said it was coded ‘Urgent.’ What’s it all about ?”

The message read: “C.O. Paras. Review your rejection of Private Marburg J.B.M. and report soonest.” It was over the name of the senior administrative officer at Headquarters, Colonel Lewis.

“I can’t imagine,” said Warriner. “I remember Marburg as one of the washouts we sent away a few days ago. He refused to jump; nothing unusual about the circumstances that I can recall. I’ll find out what’s behind it after lunch.”

4

WHEN we went back to the office, Warriner put through a telephone call to a staff captain of his acquaintance. I was curious enough to listen in on my extension.

“ What’s the story on this wire about one Private Marburg?” Warriner asked.

The voice in the receiver laughed. “Oh, that. That’s going to be fun. Did you ever hear of a Major-General Marburg? Private Marburg is his nephew. The old general was raving around the Brigadier’s office this morning; it seems they’re friends. No, Warriner, you can’t go tossing out generals’ nephews from your precious school as if they were ordinary human beings.”

“And what does the Brigadier think we’re going to do about his general’s nephew?”

“Do? Why, find that your decision to reject him was all a big mistake; receive him back with open arms and pin a pair of wings on him.”

“If the Brigadier thinks Colonel Macdonald is going to do anything of the kind,” said Warriner, “he’s under a delusion.”

“My dear Warriner,” said the staff captain, “how you talk! The Brigadier’s a brigadier; your boss is only a lieutenant-colonel. Why shouldn’t, he do what a brigadier tells him?”

“Maybe because he has some guts,” Warriner said, and hung up the receiver.

The Colonel came in just then, and Warriner told him what he had learned. Macdonald laughed.

“Check the records on Marburg,” he said. “If they’re in order, tell Headquarters politely where they can go. If it was the Chief of the General Staff, no man that balks at a jump is going to get into the Parachute Corps over my signature.” He went into his office.

I drew out the file on Marburg, and Warriner and I reread it carefully. There was no error. Marburg, on his first flight, when ordered to jump from the aircraft, had flatly refused. The witness was Sims. To make absolutely certain, Warriner questioned Sims about it when he came in.

“Marburg? Yes, I remember the little bastard. Took one look through the door and then quit. Pure yellow.”

“You never give a man a second chance, if he once refuses to jump, do you?” Warriner asked.

“Never,” said Sims. “He may work up enough nerve later to make his qualifying jumps, but if he’s got that yellow streak in him, it’ll come out again sooner or later — likely in action, and he might muck up a whole show. We can’t, afford to take a chance like that. No, we never let them repeat, and they usually don’t want to.”

“Apparently Marburg does,” said Warriner. “It seems his uncle is a major-general, and he’s got the Brigadier batting for him.”

“Is that right?” said Sims, looking rueful. “Cripes! That’s bad.”

Warriner looked at him in surprise. “Why?” he said.

“Why?” Sims repeated. “How’d you like to have a brigadier on your tail? The old boy’s pretty vindictive, they say. You’re just as likely as not to get an adverse report on you and a request to resign your commission.”

“Would that be so terrible?” Warriner asked.

“To revert to the ranks? Go back to scrubbing floors and being ordered about by bastard corporals? What do you think?”

“You amaze me, Sims,” said Warriner. “Well, that’s all. I’ll bear in mind what you said about Marburg. Thank you.”

Sims left. Warriner drafted a teletype message to Headquarters and I sent it off. It read: “Review of record of Private Marburg J.B.M. shows no reason to revise decision.” Warriner then went back to completing his personnel report.

Half an hour later the telephone on his desk rang, and I took up mine too. It was Colonel Lewis from Headquarters. He sounded perturbed.

“Look, Warriner,” he said, “I’ve just got your teletype about Marburg. I haven’t shown it to the Brigadier yet; he’ll go through the ceiling when I do.”

“For heaven’s sake, why, sir?” asked Warriner. “This man Marburg is obviously unfit for a paratrooper. We’ve rejected hundreds on slighter grounds. What does his being a major-general’s nephew have to do with it ?”

“Oh, Christ, Warriner, grow up,” growled Lewis. “Be realistic. This is the Army. There’s as much nepotism in it as in any other trade. What has Marburg done that’s disqualified him?”

“The worst possible thing. He refused to make a parachute jump.”

“Am I right in thinking that there is no regulation which specifically states that such a refusal disbars him from further training and eventual qualification as a paratrooper? In other words, that it’s entirely a matter of Colonel Macdonald’s discretion ?”

“Quite right.'" The staff officer’s voice was becoming excited; but Warriner betrayed no emotion whatever. lie sounded calm, detached, a little bored.

“Then,” said Lewis, “if the Brigadier orders Colonel Macdonald to reinstate Marburg, he has no option but to do so.”

“Oh?” said Warriner. There was a moment’s silence. Then the Colonel’s voice came again, a little cajoling.

“Listen, W arriner, Macdonald has a lot of respect for your judgment. Before I show this message to the Brigadier, I want you to have a talk with Macdonald. Point out to him what I’ve just pointed out to you — that he has no legal basis for a refusal. lie’ll have to take Marburg back eventually; the Brigadier’s made up his mind about that: and if he does so now, it will save a lot of unpleasantness for all of us. If you’re able to talk him over, Warriner, I won ‘t forget you when the next batch of promotions comes up. Will you do that ?”

“No,” said Warriner. “Certainly not. Even if Colonel Macdonald would take my advice, which he would not, I should never advise him to take such an indefensible action.”

“I’m ordering yon to do so,” Lewis shouted, his voice rising several tones. “I happen to be your superior officer, Captain Warriner.”

“Oh, can it,” said Warriner wearily. “You know damned well there’s no use shaking military law under our noses, Colonel Lewis. The business stinks to high heaven, and you and the Brigadier wouldn’t dare have it aired before a court-martial.

I call your bluff; I refuse to obey any and every order you may see fit to issue to me with regard to the reinstatement of Private Marburg.”

Lewis sputtered. ”There are other means besides courts-martial,” he said finally.

“I care nothing for your petty persecutions,” said Warriner. “Would it save time if I sent in my resignation of my commission? I shouldn’t at all mind reverting to private and spending the duration scrubbing toilets. It would be preferable to some of the dirty jobs the Brigadier makes you Headquarters people do. If you had any guts, you’d tell him you wouldn’t do them, just as I’m telling you I won’t do this one.”

There was a long silence. Then Lewis spoke; his voice was quiet again. “What’s got into you. Warriner: You used to have the reputation of being a sensible chap when you were here at Headquarters.”

“Maybe I’ve been in better company since then, sir,” said Warriner, and he hung up the receiver.

5

LATER in the afternoon, as I had expected, a large staff car, flying a triangular blue flag from its radiator cap, stopped in front of the office. Warriner got up and went over to Colonel Macdonald’s door.

“The Brigadier’s here, sir,” he said. “Shall I send in Private Marburg’s file?”

“ Yes, and come in, Jerry,” said Macdonald. “You too, Jack. I’ll need all the moral support I can get. It looks as if I’m in for it. Wish me luck.”

Before we could reply, the door flew open and a fat little man burst into the room. This was the Brigadier, the area commander. Colonel Lewis, a nervous, graying man, followed him. Macdonald sprang to his feet and we all saluted.

The little Brigadier wasted no time on preliminaries. “Look here, Macdonald,” he said, stationing himself in the center of the room, “what’s the meaning of this message about Private Marburg? Lewis tells me you know my wishes in the matter.”

“Sir,” said Macdonald, in a pleading tone, “it’s quite impossible to qualify Marburg as a paratrooper.”

“Why?” the Brigadier snapped. “How do you know? Have you given the lad a chance;”

“ He refused to make a jump.”

es, his uncle, General Marburg, explained that to me this morning. It seems that the boy was not feeling well that day — he had a bad headache.”

“Our medical officers passed him as fit before the aircraft took off. He knew what the consequences of a refusal would be.”

“God damn if, Macdonald, don’t argue with me!” shouted the Brigadier, bringing his stick down on the desk with a crack. Macdonald winced. “If you’re trying to imply that the boy is a coward, I tell you you’re wrong. I know his family; I fought beside his uncle; I tell I you they don’t produce cowards, and I won’t, have you slandering them by rejecting this boy as though he were.”

“Sir,” said Macdonald slowly, “there’s no such imputation. Modern military psychology doesn’t use the term. All that has happened is that our instructors, who are skilled and experienced parachutists, believe that this man will not make a successful one. I have to accept their decision.”

“Nonsense. You don’t,” said the Brigadier. “Neither do I, and I don’t intend to accept it. You are competent, by virtue of your rank, which was presumably granted to you because of your superior ability and experience, to overrule any such decision of your sergeant and lieutenant instructors. And in turn, I, because of my rank — I don’t happen to be a paratrooper, and I don’t happen to be an expert in military psychology, whatever that is, but I dare say that four years in the trenches during the last war may give me some claim to experience — I have the power to overrule your decisions. I overrule this one. Marburg will be posted back to you, and you will proceed to train him —and qualify him —as a paratrooper.”

“But, sir,”said Macdonald feebly, “ there’s never been —”

“Macdonald,” shouted the Brigadier, “one more word of argument out of you, and I place you under arrest. Don’t you know an order when you hear one?”

Macdonald was silent.

“Marburg will report back here tomorrow. I want to hear of no discrimination against him. Good day.”

The Brigadier took a pace backward and glared at Macdonald, who saluted. The Brigadier returned the salute, turned about, and marched out of the room, with Lewis after him.

“Well,” said Macdonald to Warriner, who was staring at him, “that wasn ‘t very pleasant, was it ?" He gave a weak laugh, and sat down again behind his desk.

“No, sir,” said Warriner. “It wasn’t.’ His voice was toneless.

“I didn’t think the old man would take it so seriously,” Macdonald went on. “Damn it! To think of having to take that, yellow bastard back!" “Do you?” said Warriner.

“You heard what the Brigadier said, He gave me a direct order.”

“Do you really think, sir,” said Warriner, “that if you had refused, the Brigadier would have brought the case before a court-martial? Or that a courtmartial would convict

“I don’t know,” said Macdonald. He interlocked his fingers and looked at them. “Even if it didn t go to a court-martial, my name would be mud. It’s all very well for you to talk —you’re single; I’ve got a wife to think of. And what good would it do for me to be relieved of my command here? The Brigadier would put in one of his pets, and there’d be a dozen Marburgs in the Corps instead of one. Hell, I don’t want to leave here, Jerry, and go to some battalion of footsloggers, or some paper job at Headquarters. I like the boys; I want to stay with them. You ought to know how I feel — remember what you said to me this morning.”

I slunk out of the room. Warriner walked out after me, silently closing the door between the two offices.

He went to his desk and, taking a letterhead out of a drawer, wrote on it for a time. Then he gave the sheet to me. It was a letter to the Commanding Officer and read : —

SIR : —

With reference to our conversation of this morning,

When you said that you would not object to tny transfer from this School: I should now like to request that such a transfer be effected.

It is a matter of indifference to me where and in what rank I am transferred.

Your obedient servant,

G. WARRINER,Captain

“Put this on Colonel Macdonald’s desk in the morning, will you, Jack?” be said. “I’ve got a few days’ leave coming to me. I think I '11 catch tonight’s train. You can look after things till they get someone else. Or you can do the job yourself, for that matter. I’ll see them at Headquarters about another job. Lewis would be glad to get, me back, in spile of the way I insulted him. Taking insults is his business. So I’ll probably not be back.”

“Well, I’m sorry” was the only thing I could think of to say.

“Why should you be?” said Warriner. “I’m not. As a scholar it delights me when I acquire a new piece of information or have a false preconception cleared up. . . . Well, I’d better get this miserable report finished.” And his hands and eyes sped through the diminishing pile of papers with their usual sureness.

By five o’clock the letter was in the mail. We crossed the misty parade ground to the mess.

“I’ll buy you a drink,” said Warriner. We went into the bar, and he ordered two double Scotches.

“Well, here’s luck,”I said.

“Thanks,” he replied, and gulped his drink.

As we leaned against the bar, I noticed that Sims and some of his friends were gathered in the far corner. Sims was again discoursing about one of his men.

“Then they got to the open stretch of country they had to cross under fire. I gave the machine guns the signal and they started blazing away over their heads. The platoon started across, in fine order, keeping their heads well down, making good time and holding a nice, even line. Then I looked again, and there was a gap.

“ ‘Who’s supposed to be there?’ I asked the sergeant.

“ ‘Jones,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know what’s happened to him. He seems to have disappeared.’

“Well, we started looking around, but no sign of Jones. Then I saw him. He’d only gone about three yards from the start line and found a hollowin the ground, between two little mounds. There was a gap in the machine-gun fire, just there, and he was seared to go into it again. He just lay there hugging the ground and shaking.

“ ‘I’ll fix you, you yellow bastard, I said to myself. I sneaked along the trench until I was just behind where he was lying. I took out my pistol and aimed it just above his head. I pulled the trigger and the bullet must have just cleared him by inches. He gave one yell and started forward, He got to the other side before the rest of the platoon.”

There was a general laugh.

In the silence that followed, Warriner said, quietly but clearly: “You bastards make me tired.”

They stared at him openmouthed. Warriner stared back at them. Nothing was said. Then Warriner drank the rest of his whiskey, placed the glass on the bar, and went out of the room. There was a relaxed smile on his thin, nervous face. lie felt happy for the first lime In months.