“I wondered the same thing about you,” he blurted.
And that’s the last of the Jack Daniel’s.
“Maybe we have something in common,” she said.
He smiled politely at her.
“Major McClung,” a voice boomed in his ear. He saw the mustachioed Signal Corps officer sitting next to him with his hand extended. “They call me ‘Iron Lung.’”
“Jim Cronley, Major.”
“Mattingly’s man, right?” McClung boomed.
Cronley nodded.
He looked down the table and saw Mattingly sitting at the far side of General Greene.
He felt Mrs. Schumann’s knee press against his.
The waiter appeared and placed drinks in front of the senior officers. And one in front of Cronley.
Well, I just won’t drink it.
General Greene stood up, tapped his scotch glass with a knife, and announced, “Chaplain Stanton will give the invocation.”
The Christian chaplain stood up, looked around impatiently, and then intoned, “Please rise!”
Everyone stood.
The invocation went on for some time. It dealt primarily with resisting temptation. Finally, he invoked the blessing of the Deity and sat down, and everyone did the same.
Mrs. Schumann leaned toward Cronley and whispered, “I thought he was never going to stop.”
When she leaned away from him and shifted on her chair, her hand dropped into his lap. She found his male appendage and took a firm grip on it.
Holy Christ! Now what?
After a moment, and a final squeeze, she turned it loose.
He recalled the advice of a tactical officer at A&M. During a lecture on the conduct to be expected of an officer and a gentleman, he had cautioned the class about becoming involved with a senior officer’s wife.
“It don’t matter if she jumps on you and sticks her tongue down your throat. Keep your pecker in your pocket. It’s like having a drunk guy on a motorcycle run into you when you’re doing thirty-five in a fifty-five-mile-per-hour zone. Right and wrong don’t matter. You’re at fault.”
He looked at Mrs. Schumann. She smiled and gave him a little wink.
He smiled back as well as he could manage.
He spent the rest of the meal with his legs crossed, sitting as close to Major Iron Lung McClung as he could, and not looking at Mrs. Schumann.
She made no further attempt to grope him until the affair was about to adjourn for farewell cocktails, and Mattingly came to stand behind him.
“I’m sorry I have to take you away from all this fun, Captain Cronley,” Mattingly said. “But we still have our business to take care of.”
“Yes, sir,” Cronley said, and stood.
So did Mrs. Schumann.
“It was very nice to meet you, Captain Cronley,” she said. “Perhaps we’ll see one another again.”