The Captains by W. E. B. Griffin

then he said to the AGC captain, “I’ll handle this, Tom.”
    He spent fifteen minutes going over Captain Lowell’s personal 201 file.
    â€œYou’re very young to be a captain, you know,” he said, finally.
    â€œYes, sir, I suppose I am,” Lowell said.
    â€œWe need infantry company commanders,” the lieutenant colonel said.
    â€œI hope you find them, sir,” Lowell said.
    â€œWhat have you been doing as a civilian, Captain?” the colonel asked.
    Lowell took a moment to reply. The colonel looked up at him.
    â€œI’m an investment banker,” Lowell said.
    â€œI’m not entirely sure what that means,” the colonel said. “Did you have a title of some sort?”
    â€œVice-chairman of the board,” Lowell said, distinctly.
    â€œThe name of the firm?”
    â€œCraig, Powell, Kenyon and Dawes,” Lowell said.
    â€œI don’t know the name,” the colonel said. Lowell didn’t reply.
    â€œIn New York City?”
    â€œTwenty-three Wall Street,” Lowell said.
    â€œPaid pretty well, I suppose,” the colonel asked, idly.
    â€œIs that an official request for information, Colonel?” Lowell asked.
    â€œYes,” the colonel said. “I guess it is.”
    â€œI drew a hundred thousand,” Lowell said.
    â€œCaptain,” the colonel said, more in resignation than anger, “if I have to tell you this, I will. It’s a court-martial offense, the uttering of statements known to be false in response to an official inquiry. According to your own 201 file, you were graduated from the Wharton School of Business just about a year ago. And now you’re telling me…”
    Lowell reached forward slightly and nudged the telephone toward the colonel. “Use my name and call collect, Colonel,” he said. “You asked for the information and I gave it to you. I inherited half the firm from my grandfather.”
    The colonel looked at Lowell for a long moment.
    â€œYou were originally commissioned in the Finance Corps,” he said. “Is that what this is all about? You want to go back to the Finance Corps?”
    Lowell chuckled.
    â€œColonel,” he said, “I would be outright disaster in the Finance Corps.”
    â€œBut you were originally commissioned in the Finance Corps?”
    â€œThat was simply an expedient means of getting me into an officer’s uniform,” Lowell said. “I never stepped behind the counter of a finance office.”
    â€œYou won a battlefield commission?” the AGC lieutenant colonel asked.
    â€œFirst they handed me a commission,” Lowell said. “The battlefield came later.”
    â€œI think that needs an explanation,” the lieutenant colonel said.
    Lowell hesitated a moment before replying.
    â€œYou know who General Porky Waterford was, I presume, Colonel?”
    â€œYes, of course. He had the 40th Armored Divison, ‘Hell’s Circus,’ during War II. You were with ‘Hell’s Circus’?”
    â€œI wasn’t in the Second World War,” Lowell said. “I was drafted after the war and sent to the Army of Occupation in Germany. To the Constabulary, which Porky Waterford commanded.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œIt was important to the general that his polo team play the polo team of the French Army of Occupation, and win.”
    â€œI don’t quite follow you,” the lieutenant colonel said.
    â€œI play polo, Colonel,” Lowell said. “In those days I had a three-goal handicap. The general wanted me to play on his team against the French. I could not play because French officers will not play with enlisted men. I was a PFC.”
    â€œAnd you’re telling me you were commissioned just so you could play polo?”
    â€œI made a deal with Waterford’s aide, a captain named MacMillan. I would take the commission, as a Finance Corps second john, and play polo, and within six