Show Me A Hero: A Novel

By Melvin B. Voorhees

“Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy” is the quotation from F. Scott Fitzgerald that supplies the poignantly appropriate title to this novel.

The hero is a three-star general in field command of the U.S. Army in Korea. He is a magnificent hero—brave, profoundly patriotic, professionally skillful, intensely human. His tragedy is double-barreled: his position requires him to fight a containing war when he believes that he should fight a war to win; and his personal life is closing in defeat because his wife and son cannot share his devotion to the Army.

But the book is far more than the personal tragedy of General Lark Logan. It gives a panoramic and detailed picture of a modern army action. It traces the peculiar and often humorous experiences of enlisted men; it presents the details of a grimly conscientious court martial; it follows the working press and the working espionage systems of both sides; it affords a touching picture of a brave and deeply religious superannuated chaplain. Each of the individual stories is interrelated in a fine and highly skilled mosaic of narrative that keeps the reader turning pages to see what happens next—and that always satisfies him with the solution of each dramatic situation as it develops.

In the end, one is exalted by the fine picture of devoted Americans in action—Americans who, with all their blatancy and occasional commercial cynicism, live the sort of lives and perform the sort of actions which have made America great and must continue to do so.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Burtyrki Books
• Release date: Mar 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839743023

Book preview

© Burtyrki Books 2020, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

SHOW ME A HERO A NOVEL

By

Melvin B. Voorhees

Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

DEDICATION 8

AUTHOR’S NOTE 10

PART ONE: Redeployment 11

1 11

2 11

3 11

4 12

5 12

6 13

7 14

8 15

9 16

10 17

11 18

12 21

13 23

14 24

15 27

16 28

17 31

18 34

19 37

20 39

21 42

22 44

23 47

PART TWO: Change of Command 49

24 49

25 52

26 54

27 55

28 61

29 65

30 68

31 71

32 73

33 78

34 81

35 85

PART THREE: contact 89

36 89

37 92

36 97

39 103

40 113

PART FOUR: The Build-up 115

41 115

42 119

43 126

44 130

45 132

46 136

47 138

PART FIVE: Combat 142

48 142

49 170

50 179

51 181

52 182

53 185

54 189

55 193

56 195

57 197

58 201

59 202

60 203

61 204

62 206

63 209

64 211

65 212

66 214

67 218

PART SIX: Strategic Withdrawal 220

68 220

69 221

70 222

71 224

72 225

73 229

74 232

75 237

76 238

77 243

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 248

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 249

DEDICATION

To Nina

The salvation of their country, and all we are contending

for, depends, under Providence, upon a good

choice of officers to make this Army formidable to

the enemy, and serviceable to the cause we are

endeavoring to support.

—General George Washington, October 1776

That you should have been able to preserve the art

not only of creating mighty armies almost at the

stroke of a wand—but of leading and guiding those

armies upon a scale incomparably greater than anything

that was prepared for or even dreamed of, constitutes

a gift made by the Officers Corps of the

United States to their Nation in time of trouble,

which I earnestly hope will never be forgotten....

—The Hon. Sir Winston Churchill, 1946

God and the soldier we adore

In time of danger, not before;

The danger passed, and all things righted,

God is forgotten and the soldier slighted.

—A Marlborough Veteran, 250 years ago

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Inevitably, because of its locale and relative topicality, this work will lead readers astray if they attempt to identify any of its characters with contemporary persons. All described circumstances, incidents, and conversations are fictional, product wholly of the author’s imagination.

PART ONE: Redeployment

1

Fujiyama, its cold bowels in the depths of Honshu, saw them coming. What were three more of so many thousands?

Up from Guam in the gleaming southeast winged the Constellation with the General.

Down from Kiska in the gray northeast soared the DC4 with the Writer.

Into Tokyo Bay nosed the C-4 bearing the Private.

The General gazed down at the ship and thought, Replacements.

The Writer saw the vessel and the other aircraft and thought, Grist.

The Private eyed the circling planes and thought, Big shots.

2

Lieutenant-General Lark Spur Logan was nearing a new assignment, his twenty-third in thirty-five years in the army. His estimate of the situation: This would be his last combat job, and it could break him or place him...in history.

He had no illusion about his new command, Eighth Army. The first United Nations Army in history, they said. The finest field army the United States ever had, they said.

So?

He saw it as a polyglot outfit with many troubles, flickering policy, too many bosses, and an objective about as possible to finger as a bead of mercury on a glass table.

Well, anyhow, it might bring him a fourth star. Hortense would like that. Hortense was the General’s wife.

3

Correspondent Peter Trainor Tosser likewise approached a new assignment. He was a by-line belonging to Incorporated Press.

There’s been a lot of lousy reporting out of Korea, they said. Nobody gets across the real picture, they said.

He had a theory about that. There wasn’t any picture. There was no picture that would focus, not even for the Pentagon or the White House.

Well, he’d see. He could angle for a Pulitzer Prize, the expense account was hearty, and later maybe lectures and radio and television. Maybe a book even.

One thing he knew about pictures. They could be framed.

And then there was this other thing...

4

Private Jerome Paul Morgan was easing toward his first assignment with the military. The draft had yanked him off a Coca-Cola truck on which he had worked in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, and Helpers.

It’s rough over there, they said. If you go to Korea, pull down the shade, they said.

Nuts! Nothing and no place is ever as bad as painted by homecoming liars. That was for sure!

I’ll make sergeant and a Bronze Star and a Commendation Ribbon with a Metal Pendant. Without strain, too.

They say I’m here to keep the fighting out of my own back yard. I never had a back yard.

Anyhow, when I get home I’ll be eligible for the Legion. They got a swell bar and club.

5

The General squirmed against his safety belt as the Constellation maneuvered toward Haneda Airdrome. He could see the sprawling Tokyo-Yokohama area and the rural, real Japan beyond. He spotted the moat-rimmed home of Hirohito, with the Supreme Commander’s flag and antenna-bedecked headquarters near by.

The Old Man really was dug in here. What was it the Joint Chief called it—Operation Opulent? But nobody said the job hadn’t been well done.

So much, he thought, depends on the point of view. For instance, I see below me a friendly port of call. But it had looked different to Bomber Jimmy Doolittle.

Lark frowned. Doolittle later had written that report. How to Make Friends and Influence Soldiers. Down with the Caste System. Stateside, it had just about swamped the Old Army. It would be good to get back in the field, the overseas field, the combat field. Freedom of action, that’s what a man could thrive upon.

Just a little, at his age, he might miss that mansion home on the hill he’d had until lately at his Headquarters post of a Continental Army. All the services of a city at his (and his wife’s) command—and no fees. It’d be his last home on that scale. In retirement, he and Hortense would live much more modestly.

Hortense. He hoped she’d cleared the post after his hurried departure without any more hassles. Amazing how a woman could assume authority and make it stick—ruthlessly, too. Maybe the Senate ought to confirm wives as well as general officers.

The plane touched down silkily, rushed along the runway, whined as it was braked, and then bumped toward the terminal. The General slipped his safety belt and stood in the lurching aisle to shoulder into the blouse his Aide held for him.

There’s quite a crowd out there, sir, Major Charlie Chisholm said.

The General silently was donning a bland face and dignity.

Lord grant, he thought, there’ll be only the essential buncombe.

6

Peter Tosser’s plane from the Aleutian Route circled over Haneda and the sparkling bay and teeming cities.

Word filtered back from the control room. High brass on that other aircraft. We gotta wait till he’s down.

That’ll be Lark Logan getting in, Peter estimated. Maybe I can fly over from here with the old boy. There’d be a story in that, and a chance to cuddle the throne.

The flaps of the DC-4 wheezed downward. The warning sign came alight: FASTEN SAFETY BELTS. NO SMOKING.

As the plane banked sharply, Peter ran his eyes over blocks and blocks of business Tokyo. Somewhere down there was that famous Press Club. Maybe he’d have time for a fling there. He was curious about an enticing tale or two. He could sense the weight of home-front restraints lifting from his sloped shoulders.

Marge’s jealousy had clouded that cute apartment they had on West Sixty-sixth. For no good cause, too. He cared not a bit for those other women. Never involved, either. Well, maybe once a little, but two months’ pay fixed it. Besides, there had been reasons....

It was too bad in a way because Marge in five years as wife had been mostly all right. She was handsome, maybe beautiful, she kept herself tops, she was educated just enough to be no nuisance and she was intelligent and respectably naïve. Her background was good, very good, especially for him. Peter was realist enough to know his own was mussy.

The plane bumped down on the runway, bounced once, and rolled to a halt before it began to heave itself around. The aisle filled with passengers, military of all ranks up to colonel and a couple of female CAF’s. Over here they unkindly would be called Stateside rejects.

Pete picked up his portable as the plane eased onto the terminus ramp. He had been pecking with it on his knees.

Dearest Marge, he’d written. "Pretty soon you’ll read a yam about my experiences with geishas in a Jap bathhouse. Laugh it off. Everybody does that one the first time out over here. Besides, it won’t be true.

When you see the boss, butter him up like our Sunday morning toast. I’m dreaming up a pistolloping exclusive. As soon as I find a peg and spring it, I’ll try for a contract rewrite. Send Jake Bryan ten dollars. I forgot. All my love. Peter.

7

Private Jerry Morgan’s transport slid carefully alongside a Yokohama pier. An undersized army band played brassily beneath a sprawling sign that read: JAPAN LOGISTICAL COMMAND. Everybody seemed happy to welcome the boys bound for Korea. Jerry had heard about these Japan homesteaders. They loved to process guys through to Korea. They did it efficiently and speedily. And why not? The more they could shove along, the less chance they’d go themselves. I don’t blame ‘em, but I don’t have to like ‘em, Jerry assured himself.

Jerry and a thousand other drab passengers were in full uniform and overcoat and in line. They had their rifles and their bulging baggage bags and their odds and ends. They’d be glad to be shed of the mess details and compartment swabbing and deck guard duty and latrine laving that had been rigid routine on this ship. It was called the USNS Sergeant J. Y. Kotslofsky. Maybe they oughtta not give the Medal of Honor to foreigners. For short, it was The Kots.

Down on the pier a colonel with a chuckling voice was talking to a microphone. But the loud-speakers were too loud and Jerry couldn’t understand his words of welcome. A covey of Japanese laborers was rolling stepladder gangplanks out of the pier shed. On the pier ramp were girls with black, shiny hair. One of them distantly reminded Jerry of Corrine.

Corrine Dorsbresk was Private Morgan’s girl. And how. Corrine had been very insistent about marriage. No, Jerry nobly had said, not until I’m finished with the army. In times like these, Corrine had said, it’s every woman’s right to be a soldier’s wife. But it’s safer, Jerry had said, to be a Cola-driver’s wife.

Jerry knew he was going to worry about Corrine. She might wait, probably would, but they didn’t all, he knew that. He reflected on the case of Jakey Speld. Jakey went to Korea engaged to three girls in two counties. He got Dear John letters from all three and had a good cry over each. Then he married a Korean.

Somebody below yelled, Okay, men, let’s move smartly. Be sure your name is checked off at the bottom of the steps.

Jerry edged along the ship’s rail, sliding his bag on the deck.

8

From outside they opened the waist door of the Constellation. An immaculate junior officer immediately slipped in. Properly he planted himself and saluted.

Sir, he said, welcome to Japan.

Thank you, from Lieutenant-General Lark Spur Logan.

I am instructed to inform you, sir, that outside are the Supreme Commander’s Chief of Staff, other military personalities, a representative of the Japanese Prime Minister, Japanese newspaper reporters and photographers, our own press people.

So? asked the big, wide-shouldered General with the easy, broad face.

Well, sir, I am instructed to suggest circumspection.

Indeed.

Yes, sir.

Lark Logan growled within himself. After three decades of more varied experience with the imponderables of state, military, and international affairs than is the lot of most, he remained adjudged worthy of elementary guidance. Well, he had been warned. The Joint Chief had shaken a finger and said, Don’t let the Old Boy needle you, Lark. Get his support. You’ll need it. But, should it get too rough, get personal word to me. Chances are. I’ll see it your way.

The General ducked through the plane door and stood on the gangway platform. He saw Haneda’s installations and the hundreds of Japanese and Americans assembled for his arrival. They saw a handsome man, tall, substantially thick but not fleshy, with gray temples framing a browned, unlined face punctuated with dark blue darting eyes, a bony, big nose and wide, compressed mouth. He was the American soldier. It was a French strategist who wrote: Americans deprive themselves of much talent and suffer too often from mediocrity because they insist that all their generals look like Washington. We avoid this, and we can thank Napoleon.

The General saluted and produced a generous smile as he briskly moved down the steps. Photo lamps flashed, there were some hand-clapping, some banzais, and some sad American cheers.

The Chief of Staff, Far East Command, ceremoniously grasped his hand. Good to see you, Lark. And be careful.

So you told me.

Eh?

Your boy, there.

Oh, yes. Quite so. Nice lad. Awkward fellow, but okay. Well, let’s get about this. Old stuff for me, Lark, old stuff. Ready? Good. Here goes. Mr. Shimiginzu, may I present to you our General Logan. General, the Deputy Prime Minister of Japan. And so on, through an uneasy gathering of big Americans and little Japanese. Another newly arrived aircraft noisily rolled up toward the terminal.

Lark ran out of harmless hands to shake and encountered the press.

9

Peter Tosser shot from the door of the DC-4 like a catapulted pilot. He was lean and lank, and his brown, searching eyes glowed from a whippet face under a crushed hat.

Peter burrowed into the back of the crowd surrounding the Constellation. The sharp corners of the case of his portable were useful in nudging Japanese aside.

Excuse me. Sorry. Gangway. Please step aside, Tosser said repeatedly as he squirmed and shouldered his way. I must see the General. It’s important.

When he reached the inner fringe of the throng he encountered a massive MP.

Hold it, mister, said the solemn policeman in white helmet, and he planted a big hand on Tosser’s heaving chest.

But I’m a reporter. I just got in on that other plane. I must attend the General’s press conference.

Got a pass?

Hell! exploded Peter as he put down his portable and fumbled in his hip-pocketed wallet. If I miss this conference, I’ll report you.

Okay, grinned the big soldier. Show me a good pass, buddy, and I’ll let you in so you can report right to the General himself.

Tosser produced his U.S. Department of Defense press credential.

Got a Far East Command pass?

How could I have? I told you I just got off that other plane.

This got you to Tokyo. But over here you need a Far East Command pass. Until you get it, we don’t know you.

Peter Trainor Tosser had arrived at the frontier of an empire.

10

This is a doggoned big town, remarked Private Morgan to his seat mate as they bussed across Tokyo. These Japs all look right busy.

Jerry had the practiced eye and perception of the experienced low-level salesman. He had dealt with it enough to have a feel for the public—any public.

He eyed the long rows of tiny shops and restaurants and small service plants and factories. He scanned the faces of the scurrying people who glanced at the military convoy with but mild curiosity.

They don’t all cotton to us, Jerry commented. Some of them look like the woman about to slam the door. But most of them, except for their clothes and their Jap mugs and their jerky walk, remind me of the folks at home. Private Morgan was an unusual American. He believed people everywhere basically were pretty much alike.

The long chain of shiny busses, each driven by an alert, proud Japanese civilian, rolled through an edge of Tokyo’s main business area.

Holy cow! exclaimed Jerry’s companion, look at the GI’s on the streets. Wonder who’s fightin’ in Korea?

You and me’ll soon know, pal, Jerry dryly said.

Some guys get assigned here in Japan.

Yeh, said Jerry, but you check and you’ll see that they’ve been in a while. They know somebody, especially some officer here, who’ll ask for them. Us draftees don’t know the right people.

That don’t seem fair.

It’s just life, Jerry said. It’s no different with civilians. Don’t buck City Hall; get to know the right folks in it. See, there’s what I mean.

Jerry pointed to a Japanese cyclist who had paused to hand a tiny fish sandwich up to a whistling, platformed traffic policeman. That guy’ll get along, Jerry said.

The busses moved out through the suburbs toward Camp Drake. As they neared the American cantonment’s guarded gate, they traversed blocks teeming with noisy, competing tradesmen, blocks lined with stalls and shops openly displaying a great deal and surreptitiously offering as much more. The cluttered way was dotted by Japanese girls with flashy American façades. Private Morgan eyed them searchingly.

Yep, he said. Method’s the same.

11

General Lark Spur Logan could look back on quite a lot of experience with gentlemen of the press. He had not learned to be wholly at ease with them and had not been able satisfactorily to determine why this was so. He thought them pretty likeable fellows mostly, and yet it did seem they constantly were trying to get a man to talk more than he should about something he should avoid. Lark was annoyed further by the irritating fact that so often he couldn’t for the life of him explain to himself why he shouldn’t talk on the subject they broached. He just knew that too often when he had opened up with what seemed reasonable candor, someone in authority somewhere—usually in Washington but maybe in London or Moscow or Jerusalem or Atlanta or God knows where—had reacted in public or private with regrettable remark or injudicious observation or unwise disclosure or some sort of similarly sheathed but nonetheless dangerously pointed admonition. All of this had caused the General to produce, much as he did skin, a full-dress set of attitudes and mannerisms for the press—into which he now snugly zipped himself.

The dozen Caucasian foreign correspondents and the mob of forty or fifty of the Japanese domestic variety looked like the world publics they claimed to represent as they swarmed around the burly soldier. They operated in a heated haze of high-pressure competition all of the time, and on this occasion they had added reason to turn the screw meant to squeeze forth, at best, news worth a small fortune in cable tolls, at worst and at least, something known to the trade as a readable quote. They knew this was the last unhampered opportunity they would have for quite a spell to cross-examine Lieutenant-General Logan. Soon he’d be in his Korean Command. There, of course, most of them could see him from time to time, but they’d be there more or less as his guests or as members of his organization, or, maybe one should say, as his subjects. At any rate, they well knew the atmosphere would be very, very different. The kicking shoe would be on the military foot most of the time. You don’t often get gay with the commanding general of a field army engaged in operations against an enemy. A man in that exalted spot has got to go awfully far wrong before he’s wrong at all.

A correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune had been in Japan a long time, so long that he wore sandals and slept on the floor. He was the dean, and it was sort of unwritten protocol that he should ask the first question at a freewheeling press conference such as this. Lark waited pleasantly. At his elbow watchfully hovered the Far East Command Chief of Staff and just behind him stood the Aide, Major Chisholm.

The dean finally cleared his throat, and the attack was under way. General, you saw the President just before you left Washington. Did he give you a new Korean plan of action?

The General smiled. This was easy. It is always pleasant to visit the President, he said. Naturally, we talked a bit of Korea. I am happy to say the President wished me well in my new assignment.

Lark looked over the reporters and smiled broadly. They smiled at him. Nobody expected an answer to such a question. It was just a way to break the ice and establish the plane of the conference, which went on:

Associated Press: General Logan, do you have any innovations for Eighth Army?

The present magnificent commander in Korea has done an outstanding job. I shall be happy if I can carry on as well.

Do you anticipate any change in the current static situation in Korea?

You ought to ask that of the Communists.

Does this mean we have no intention of acting on our own?

Lark shifted his feet. I’ll have to look the ground over in Korea. Naturally, we will do the feasible thing at the proper time.

Chicago Tribune: As a Midwesterner, General, do you feel the American public is supporting this Oriental war?

Lark blinked. He had been born in South Dakota, carried East as a six-weeks-old, hadn’t seen the Midwest again until he was thirty-one and then only from within the tight insulation of a rigid post of the Old Army.

I believe, he said soberly, that our government has the full support of the people.

But do you think this is a popular war?

Lark grinned again. In all my experience, he said paternally to the Trib man, I never saw a popular war.

The General chuckled. The Chief of Staff chuckled. Everybody chuckled—and the Japanese nodded and hissed approvingly.

United Press: We have word from our Washington bureau, General, that administration dissatisfaction with the present Korean Command has led to your coming here. What do you know about it?

No such reason was given me. It is a routine change.

Did the President and Joint Chiefs express confidence in the present Korean Command?

Obviously, I can’t speak for the President and the Joint Chiefs.

Lark was growing annoyed. These fellows knew he couldn’t answer such questions even if he knew the answers, and he wasn’t too sure he did. The Chief of Staff, Far East Command, gently was pressuring his elbow.

Columbia Broadcasting System: I am Charles T. Lapwing. I have observed and I have often told our listeners, sir, that the morale of our troops is very, very high. Have the advance reports you’ve received borne this out?

Yes, yes indeed. In fact, there is every indication that Eighth Army is the healthiest in every way that we’ve ever had in the field. I am glad of the opportunity to reassure the radio audience on that point.

Thank you, sir.

Lark knew this about the radio boys: You never had trouble with them if you just took your cue and spoke the indicated line. Experience had made him adept at it.

Newsweek: My next deadline is four days away, General. Can you tell me when you’ll reach Korea?

The Chief of Staff, Far East Command, edged forward and interrupted. That, he said, is restricted security information.

General Lark Spur Logan was annoyed again; he always was annoyed by pomposity, especially when it was combined with presumption. He ignored the Chief of Staff and said deprecatingly, I can assure you that I will be on the job four days from now.

The Chief of Staff harrumphed and retired.

North American Newspaper Alliance: I am Dolores Desautel, General, sir. Will Mrs. Logan come to Japan?

Lark frowned as he recalled the words he’d had with Hortense on just that point. Not now, of course, he replied, but possibly later.

How would you feel, General Logan, if your son were sent to Eighth Army while you were in command? The male reporters eyed the woman disgustedly and stirred uneasily.

Confound the woman, Lark seethed, as he recognized the implication. But he replied quietly, My son would be just another soldier. His duty assignments would be no business of mine. Should he be sent to Korea, he’ll naturally be given a job in the usual manner and he will be expected to perform satisfactorily.

The General glanced questioningly at the Chief of Staff. Wasn’t it about time to break this off? The Chief of Staff whirled on the Aide. Check on the General’s transportation, he snapped.

London Daily Express: Do you think, General, that the air force should be turned loose to bomb beyond the Yalu?

That’s high policy. Lark grinned at the Britisher. I’m just a working man.

Would a blockade of the China Coast be helpful to you in Korea?

Come now, Lark chided mildly. You can’t expect me to comment on such topics. They’re away up above me and out of my sphere.

The British reporter jerked at his hat brim and smiled, I’ll try once more. Do you think our British troops perform adequately and will you ask for more of them?

Lark really was pleased at that one. It was a cinch; it was one on which you couldn’t lose. In my experience, he said a little more loudly than usual, all British troops are magnificent. Of course, I would like to have more of them. What commander wouldn’t? But whether we get more is the business of our governments, particularly your government, and of the splendid British people about whom I have such marvelous memories.

I’m very grateful, General Logan.

It’s a pleasure, Lark said. Some of the best friends I ever made are in your army. They’re great leaders.

Japanese Mainichi: General Logan, sair, will you permit Japanese correspondents to cover the war in Korea?

Lark looked puzzled. The Chief of Staff urgently whispered to him. That is Far East Command policy with which I am not yet familiar, Lark said stiffly.

Do you think Japan should rearm?

The General hesitated, and then answered carefully and precisely, I believe any and all free peoples should do the things events prove they must do in order to retain and insure their freedom.

A sigh of relief burst from the Chief of Staff. An American reporter raised his clasped hands and shook them at Lark, who grinned and nodded.

International News Service: Are you going to see the Supreme Commander?

I am on my way to see him now.

Were you assigned here at his request?

Lark looked grim. I feel, he said, that you ought to ask him that question. Most assuredly, I look forward with satisfaction to this opportunity to serve under him. And now, if there is nothing more, I must be on my way.

Lark didn’t pause to see if there was or was not nothing more. With MP’s clearing a way through the crowd, he and others of the military party moved toward a line of black limousines. Lark suddenly felt tired and he was sweating uncomfortably.

12

Peter Tosser had met policemen before and often been delayed, but seldom, very seldom, stopped. He wasn’t stopped this time by the MP. He was delayed, so long that the General’s press conference was about to break up.

Look, pal, he said to the white-belted big fellow whopping his noggin-stick into one of his beefy palms, I shouldn’t tell you this, but I’ll have to.

Please now, no top secrets, mister, please.

I’m not kidding, Peter said, lean over here so I can whisper.

The MP grinned broadly and skeptically, but tilted himself toward Peter. The fact is, the reporter went on, I’ve got a very personal message for General Logan. My plane left after his did and this party asked me...well, you see how it is.

Does the General really need this message? The soldier favored Peter with a long-drawn wink.

Gosh, fellow, he sure does. And right now. Even generals are human, y’know.

Yeh, I know—and how I know. The soldier pondered and looked long at Peter. Well, I guess it’s okay if...

Thanks, thanks, said Peter, taking off, and over his shoulder, Ask for me at the Press Club and I’ll make it right.

Peter Tosser reached General Lark Spur Logan’s elbow just as the latter was lowering his heavy shoulders to climb into a car.

General, may I have just a word? Lark paused. The Chief of Staff and the Aide already were in the car, since entrance was being made from the right. That was protocol.

Well? Please make it fast. I have an appointment.

I’m Peter Tosser of Incorporated Press. My plane just got in, so regrettably I missed your press conference. I have just two short questions.

Go on.

"Do you have some plans for the future of