“General Greene can do the left and I’ll do the right,” General Smith said.
“And then he takes the oath with his hand on a Bible.”
“So then we need a Bible and a copy of the oath,” General Smith said.
“I know the oath, sir,” Dunwiddie said.
“And here’s the Bible,” the WAC officer said, “and the bars.”
“And your role in this, Corporal,” General Smith said, “is to take pictures. You ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which we will send to your parents, Tiny.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And—I’m glad I thought of this—to General Isaac Davis White, your father’s classmate at Norwich.”
“That’s a marvelous idea, General,” Cronley said.
“Excuse me?”
“I understand, sir, that General White thought Tiny should have been commissioned a long time ago.”
As he spoke, Cronley looked at Colonel Mattingly. Mattingly glared icily at him. Major Derwin picked up on it.
What the hell is that all about?
Flashbulbs exploded as Smith and Greene pinned the twin silver bars of a captain—known as “railroad tracks”—to Dunwiddie’s epaulets.
“Who holds the Bible?” General Smith inquired. “What about that, Homer?”
“That’s not prescribed, sir. Sometimes a wife, or a mother, or even somebody else.”
“Sir,” Dunwiddie asked, “what about Captain Cronley?”
“That’d work.”
CWO Alice McGrory handed the Bible to Captain Cronley. He stood between Generals Smith and Greene and held the Bible up to him.
“Anytime you’re ready, Tiny,” General Smith said.
Dunwiddie laid his left hand on the Bible and raised his right.
“I, Chauncey Luther Dunwiddie,” he boomed in a basso profundo voice, “having been appointed captain . . .”
He paused just perceptibly, and then continued slowly, pronouncing each syllable, “. . . in the United States Army, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the office upon which I am about to enter.” He paused a final time, and then proclaimed, “So help me God!”
There was a moment’s silence.
“I must have heard people take that oath a thousand times,” General Smith said. “But never quite like that. Very impressive, Tiny. Moving.” He paused. “Permit me to be first, Captain Dunwiddie, to welcome you into the officer corps of the United States Army.”
He extended his hand, and Dunwiddie took it, said, “Thank you, sir.” Then he asked, “Permission to speak, sir?”
Smith nodded and said, “Granted.”
“Sir, as the general will understand, this moment is of great personal importance to the captain. The captain would very much like to have a memento of General Gehlen being here.”