everyone else was in a panic over how to tell the public, the old bastard had turned the melee into a personal victory chorus with his goddamn ‘I shall return.’ It had become a slogan, a war cry, the ‘Remember the Alamo’ of World War II. But, even the Hook had to hand it to the old s.o.b., it was also a promise of victory, said with such stalwart authority that no one ever doubted him. And when he did get back, with that I have returned’ shit, everybody knew it was all over. The photographs even made the old bastard look like he was walking on water, just in case there were any heretics around.
So MacArthur became the legend, and the Hook became a mere folk hero, along with Wainwright, Chennault, Stilwell, and a few others.
After that, there was nothing but disaster ahead. Hooker could see it coming. People were tired of war. MacArthur got the sack in Korea. A hot war was brewing in Indochina. And the Hook knew the Orient, knew that Vietnam, as it would come to be known, was no place to be.
Screw it.
Let Westmoreland or some other daisy take the rap for Vietnam. The Hook hung it up and retired. There were other things to do.
Two years later the rigors of those years claimed their toll. A massive coronary almost killed Hoo.ker. The ticking in the room came from deep in his chest; a pacemaker, flawed yet effective, and much too dangerous for doctors to replace. It was a constant reminder of his mortality and would one day be a harbinger of his death. When its ominous note stopped, for that fraction of a moment before everything stopped with it, Hooker would know he was a dead man. In the meantime he continued to defy the odds; he was pushing seventy-five, but he still had the brilliance and the obsessions of a man much younger.
There was a knock on the door.
‘If that’s you, Garvey — come!’
The voice, too, was unforgettable. Deep, commanding, authoritative, intimidating and yet paternal; a voice that engendered every word with reassurance. A war correspondent had once written: ‘To know what God sounded like, one need only hear General Alexander Lee Hooker speak.’
The door opened and Garvey entered the room. He was Hooker’s oldest friend as well as his closest wartime aide, and although both had been retired for at least fifteen years, Garvey, who was a year shy of sixty, still carried himself with the ramrod posture of a Marine honour guard. He stood at attention in front of the desk. Hooker and Garvey, two men, born to the khaki, their hearts and minds shaped inexorably by the cry of the bugle, retired into an alien world of peace lovers where they still fantasized about that one last battle to ride out to, even though the dream had died years before; two men whose friendship stood second only to the charade they continued to play.
‘Good evening, General,’ Garvey said. ‘Happy New Year.’
His eyes strayed to the box.
Hooker’s harsh blue eyes stared with hatred across the long Irish clay pipe he was smoking and foe used on the box.
‘Thanks, Jess. And you. At ease, have a seat.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Let’s deal with pleasant things first.’ He reached behind him, into the gloom, to the bottle of champagne nestled in a silver bucket on a small table behind his chair. He poured two glasses and handed one to Garvey.
‘To the Division,’ he said. Garvey echoed the toast and their glasses rang in the solitude of the room. Garvey took a sip, smacked his lips and leaned back, staring up into darkness.
‘Taittinger, definitely.’ He took another sip, pursed his lips, let the bubbles tickle his tongue. ‘Uh, ‘seventy-one, I’d say.’
The older man laughed. ‘Can’t fool you. Never could. Well, here’s to the years. Been a long time, Jess.’
‘Forty years exactly, General. I joined your staff at Hickam Field on New Year’s Eve, 1939. I was a nineteen- year-old shavetail.’
‘Best I ever saw. I used to tell my officers, “That Garvey, he can be another Custer. He’ll have a star before he’s thirty.”
‘Didn’t quite make it by thirty,’ Garvey said.
‘Hmmp. There were a lot of disappointments in that war. And the rest to follow. Goddamn that old son of a bitch, playing politics at the last minute. He should have fought Truman over Hiroshima. They should have let us go in there and do it right. We deserved that shot. Damn, we deserved it. He got to do his act in the Philippines. We earned the right to Japan.’
It was a complaint heard frequently when the two men were together.
He looked down in the glass, watching the bubbles tumble to the surface. ‘What the hell,’ he said finally, ‘it’s all just history. Kids sleep through it in classrooms. They’re all gone now, anyway. Bless ‘em all. At least we won it. It’s the last goddamn war we won.’ And he raised his glass again.
‘May I smoke?’ Garvey asked.
‘Of course, Jess. Smoking lamp’s always lit for you.’
Hooker reached into a desk drawer, took out a box wrapped in silver paper and slid the package across the desk.
‘A little something to start the new year off right, Jess. With thanks for all the good years.’
It was a tradition with them, exchanging gifts on New Year’s Eve. Garvey handed a slightly smaller package to Hooker.
‘And Happy New Year to you, General.’
He stared back at the box for a moment, then watched as Hooker opened his present. It was a watch fob, a replica of the insignia of the First Island Division, The Hook’s old regiment, forged in gold with the motto ‘First to
