"Your side, major?" And the staff officers listened to a defense based upon blind, dumb obedience to orders.
"We will take this matter under advisement," the general announced then. "Now, captain, what made you suspect that the colonel was coming through Pass 27?"
"I didn't," Kinnison replied, mendaciously. "To reach any one of those passes, however, he would have to come down this valley"—tracing it with his forefinger upon the map. "Therefore I held my whole force back here at Hill 562, knowing that, warned by my air of his approach, I could reach any one of the passes before he could."
"Ah. Then, when your air was sent elsewhere?"
"I commandeered a flitter—my own, by the way, and sent it up so high as to be indetectable. I then ordered motorcycle scouts out, for the enemy to capture; to make the commander of any possible attacking or reconnaissance force think that I was blind."
"Ah—smart work. And then?"
"As soon as my scout reported troop movements in the valley, I got my men ready to roll. When it became certain that Pass 27 was the objective, I rushed everything I had into preselected positions commanding every foot of that pass. Then, when the colonel walked into the trap, I wiped out most of his main column. However, I had a theoretical loss of three-quarters of my men in doing it"—bitterly. "If I had been directing the defense, I would have wiped out the colonel's entire force, ground and air both, with a loss of less than two percent."
This was strong talk. "Do you realize, Captain Gannel, that this is sheer insubordination?" the general demanded. "That you are in effect accusing me also of stupidity in planning and in ordering such an attack?"
"Not at all, sir," Kinnison replied instantly. "It was quite evident, sir, that you did it deliberately, to show all of us junior officers the importance of thought. To show us that, while unorthodox attacks may possibly be made by unskilled tacticians, any such attack is of necessity fatally weak if it be opposed by good tactics. In other words, that orthodox strategy is the only really good strategy. Was not that it, sir?"
Whether it was or not, that viewpoint gave the general an out, and he was not slow in taking advantage of it. He decided then and there, and the always subservient staff agreed with him, that Major Delios had indeed been stupid, incompetent, and inefficient; and Captain Gannel forthwith became Major Gannel.