“General, you’re always expecting me yesterday.”
“I gather it’s pretty urgent?”
Tyreen waited for the sergeant to close the door on them. The General smoked a cigar, showing his teeth around it. Tyreen said, in a very dry tone, “One of our captains is missing.”
“That seems to be the name of the game.” The General sat down and nodded toward an armchair. “Even benzedrine loses its effectiveness after a while. Did you know that? How are you feeling these days?”
“All right,” Tyreen said offhandedly. He started to go on, but the General cut in:
“Bill McQuestion will be swinging through here next week. That’s why I asked. It wasn’t just an idle question.”
Tyreen said, “I’m as healthy as you are.”
“David, nobody’s as healthy as I am.”
Tyreen squinted at him, expecting trouble. General Jaynshill said, “One of the reasons I asked Bill McQuestion to come by here was because I wanted him to have a look at you.”
“I had a physical a couple of months ago.”
“Which you passed with flying colors.” The General turned hard: “David, have you got your brains up your ass or what? How much did it cost you to get a clean bill of health?”
“General,” Tyreen said carefully, “I hope you don’t think it’s easy to bribe medical officers. Because—”
“I didn’t say it was easy. But I did read the report. It said ‘Recovery complete’ — and that’s not what I expected to see. Do you want to know what the last hospital report on you was? I can quote it for you. Tertian malaria. Incurable. I asked Bill McQuestion what that meant. You can’t get rid of it, David. You can control it, like diabetes, if you know how to handle it. It takes care. Care and rest.”
Tyreen’s chin lifted. Tautness and anger were ground into the lines around his mouth. He said nothing. General Jaynshill said, “Doctor McQuestion will be here early next week. I’ve made arrangements for him to see you. I expect you to be there — Tuesday at ten.”
“And it hurts you more than it hurts me.”
“Maybe. I’ve got no right to keep you on duty, the shape you’re in. Hell, David, you’re not even in shape to get in shape. You need three months in hospital, six months convalescence, and then a nice routine job where you can put your feet up on a desk until you retire. And that’s exactly what you’re going to get.”
“Thanks,” Tyreen said bluntly.
“You’re physically unfit to hold your job. It comes right down to that.”
“Martin, I’ve seen baboons that wouldn’t claim you for a friend.”
The General put the heels of his palms against the desk and stood. “I’m sick of this war and weary of fools. I don’t have the energy to argue. You’re stubborn — you’ve got the courage of righteousness — you’ve done a pretty good job down here. But we’re going into new phases all the time. You’re being phased out. That’s as clear as I can make it, isn’t it? Phased out the way any component gets phased out when it’s rusty and needs repairs.”
Tyreen shook his head. “You’ve never beaten around the bush with me before. Don’t tell me any of this comes as sudden news to you — you’ve known my condition for months. Somebody put you up to this. It came straight down from Washington, didn’t it?”
“Don’t take that hurt attitude with me, David. You know what a man has to do when he sits behind my desk.”
“It was the Cambodes,” Tyreen said. “Wasn’t it?”
The General replied with unreasonable violence, “Drop it, David. Drop — it.”
But the General’s face colored under Tyreen’s stare. Tyreen knew, with brittle-clear prescience, just how it would go from there. But he had to push it through; to accept it without hearing it aloud would be an affront to his own orderly dignity. He said, “I ordered the raids across the border into Cambodia. To bust up the VC concentrations over there. And you’re sacking me for that?”
The General glanced at the spiral of smoke rising from his cigar. Tyreen said, “Before it was issued, you knew I was going to give the order. You could have countermanded it any time.”
“I knew nothing of that order until after the raids had come off,” General Jaynshill said woodenly.
Tyreen sat bolt upright. Then, meeting the General’s hooded stare, he sat back. All he said was, “I see.”
“Maybe you don’t.” The General crammed his cigar into a big glass ashtray. “It wasn’t a question of your job or mine. If I passed the buck to you, at least it wasn’t to save my own hide.”
The General came around the desk and planted himself in front of Tyreen. “I ask you to believe in me that much.”
“God damn it, of course I believe you.”
Jaynshill put his back to him and clasped his hands. “A cardinal rule of guerrilla warfare — you’ve got to cover your tracks. You forgot that rule when you ordered those penetrations into Cambodia.”
“All right,” Tyreen said slowly.
“I didn’t countermand that order, David. I deliberately put your neck in the noose.”
“Why?”
“Because the job had to get done. Someone had to order it done.”
“And we are all expendable.”
“Cambodia raised hell. We violated their neutrality. They are pissed off, David. Somebody’s head has to roll. Cambodia knows who ordered the raids. They have your name and your photograph, thanks to their friends in South Vietnamese intelligence. And they are patiently waiting to see whether we do anything about you or not. And yes, you’re expendable — more expendable than most, because it was only a matter of weeks or months before I’d have had to ship you home in a casket if I’d kept you on duty much longer. Look, David, you know the rules out here. They’re the same as the rules you played by when you were a little kid. You can do anything, so long as you don’t get caught. The only punishable crime is getting caught.”
“Who caught me, Martin?”
The General stared at him. “We’ve got a dirty little war here that ought to be wiped off the books and forgotten, but it won’t be, because it’s taking place inside a glass fishbowl. People who live in glass fishbowls can’t afford to get caught. The Army can’t take this kind of pressure. The country can’t take it, and my command can’t take it. You’ve been convicted, and if we don’t pass sentence on you, then the sentence will be passed on the rest of us. If that happens enough times, we’ll lose this war no matter how hard we fight out there in the jungle.”
Tyreen lighted up a cigarette. A chill passed. He said stupidly, “Do you really think sacking me will solve the problem? Do you think anybody will believe those raids weren’t okayed by my superior?”
“Generals only salute what their subordinates run up the pole. We haven’t time to watch you stitch the flag. The Cambodes may not believe that, but they’ll accept it. All they want is enough to appease their injured vanity.”
“And I’m just a white poker chip.”
“In a no-limit game,” the General agreed. He added softly, “Please, David, don’t escalate my problems.” He wheeled away and tramped heavily across the room.
Tyreen said, “Do I have anything to say about all this?”
“Not a thing.”
Tyreen nodded. A bright glint pushed out of his eyes. “All right. I’ll go home and prop my feet on a desk. I won’t go to work on McQuestion to whitewash my medical report. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want it. I’ve got to have it.”