The Berets

by W. E. B Griffin

  (Two)

  West Berlin

  0630 Hours, 4 January 1962

  When he paid off the taxi and was standing alone on a wide windswept road that a blue sign identified as Strasse des 17 Juni, Lowell decided that he had done a damned fool thing coming here. Here was somewhere near “the wall.”

  It was colder than the arctic, for one thing, and when he had seen what he wanted to see, he was going to have a hell of a time finding a cab to go back to the Hotel am Zoo. And if he had had the presence of mind, he could have had the Mercedes that had met them at the airport bring him here. It had been delicately put to him that the car would be available to him and Peter-Paul around the clock. Translation: The polite, taciturn young men driving the car were there to protect Peter-Paul. The Russians had no interest in an obscure American lieutenant colonel, but the grandson of Peter-Paul von Greiffenberg was another matter.

  The Russians had had plenty of time and opportunity to reflect on their error in judgment in returning the Graf to the West.

  Looking like hell, to tell the truth about it, Georgia had gotten out of their bed at half past five for a six-fifteen appointment with a faggot hairdresser with an apparently mystical skill. As a personal favor, the faggot had agreed to “do her” so that she would be at her best at a luncheon awards ceremony.

  Lowell had pretended to be asleep—actually afraid that Georgia would like a quickie. The fear had been groundless. He suspected that Georgia had grown as bored with him in the sack as he was with her. All the ingredients were there: a healthy lustful male who had not been getting laid very much lately, and a healthy, lusty female who probably had but liked it anyway. Even the first time it had not been what he had fantasized. He told himself he should have known better.

  If he had been alone, he would have found some excuse to leave. But Peter-Paul was having a ball. He had taken up with a photographer (a cinematographer, Peter-Paul had corrected him). Peter-Paul knew the name and his “credits,” and the photographer had been flattered and impressed with Peter-Paul’s European manners. The photographer, a burly, bald-headed man, had told Lowell he had two sons of his own who were neither impressed with their father nor well mannered. And they barely spoke English, much less German and French, as Peter-Paul did.

  The two of them spent their days running all over Berlin, while the photographer took what he called “notebook shots.” Peter-Paul was thrilled with the privilege of carrying battery packs and other photographer’s impedimenta, and the photographer got, not only a coolie who spoke the native’s language, but a chauffeur-driven Mercedes to haul them both around. When there was an official festival function, Peter-Paul went with the photographer. The photographer introduced him to the stars as “my assistant.”

  There was no way Lowell could have taken Peter-Paul away from that sort of arrangement, and he had stayed.

  Lowell looked across the street at the two Russian soldiers guarding the War Memorial. When he had been at Command and General Staff College at Leavenworth, most of the time bored out of his mind, he had made an unofficial study of the Battle of Berlin. He had drawn several conclusions, all firmly supported by little publicized facts: Eisenhower had been dead wrong when he ordered General I. D. White’s Second “Hell on Wheels” Armored Division to halt in place on the Elbe. White could have taken Berlin. The German-Russian battle for the city had been largely a mop up operation of the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen-SS. Frenchmen who had enlisted in the Nazi cause. Although heralded as a great Soviet victory over fanatical Nazi forces, the truth of the matter was that the Germans involved in the battle were primarily concerned with trying to reach American lines so they could surrender.

  The two Russian soldiers marching back and forth in front of the War Memorial did so with a straight-legged step, holding submachine guns diagonally across their chests. Lowell could see no difference between their posture and what he had seen in newsreels described as the Nazi goosestep.

  He turned the fur collar of his overcoat up to keep the icy wind off his neck and walked down the Strasse des 17. Juni to the Brandenburg Gate.

  That was the border, and there was a wall up. It was of crudely cast concrete blocks stacked on one another and topped with barbed wire. He walked to the wall, but had to retrace his steps when he saw that at this point there was no passage beside it. He turned left at the first intersection, walked through a recently planted grove of pines, four, five feet tall, and eventually came to the wall again.

  The wall made a sharp zig here. On the far side of the turn he saw a rough-lumber arrangement that looked like an old-fashioned gallows. He walked around the corner. It was an observation platform, and the stairs to it were barred by a thin chain and a sign reading OFF LIMITS—EINTRITT VERBOTEN.

  Nailed to one of the supporting timbers was a sign in English and German: OBSERVATION POST THREE. U.S. ARMY, BERLIN GARRISON. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  Lowell ducked under the thin chain and climbed to the top. The first thing he saw was a Russian or East German observation platform, more elaborate than this one, with a roof and walls and a stove chimney. He saw two uniformed men examining him through binoculars. He was too far away to tell from their uniforms whether they were Russians or East Germans. He waved cheerfully at them, but there was no response.

  And then he dropped his eyes to the ground and swore.

  There was an area perhaps twenty-five yards wide on the East side of the wall. It had been bulldozed clear, and they were in the process of mining it. He found that difficult to believe, but when he looked around he could see, farther down the East side of the wall, the standard German triangular minefield sign, a skull and crossbones and the words Achtung! Minenfeld!

  There was something really obscene about that.

  He heard a familiar sound, the fluckata-fluckata of helicopter rotor blades. He looked over his shoulder for it, and after a moment found it. It was a Bell H-13E, with U.S. ARMY lettered on the bottom of the bubble.

  It flew closer and then came to a hover perhaps fifty feet off the ground and about the same distance from the observation platform.

  There were two people in it, one of them wearing the fur-brimmed winter service cap. The letters MP were on the front of it. The MP gestured to him, a clear signal that he was to leave the observation platform. Lowell waved as cheerfully at him as he had to the Russians, East Germans, or whoever they were in the East Zone tower.

  The smart thing to do was simply get off the observation platform, but there was something about it that kept him there. He just did not want to leave yet, and there didn’t seem to be anything the chopper-borne MP could do to make him. There was no place to set it down.

  He leaned on the two-by-four railing and looked down at the minefield again, then farther into East Berlin, where for the first time he noticed that the windows of the buildings facing the wall were mostly bricked up.

  Peter-Paul had refused several invitations to see the wall, and Lowell had been unwilling to insist. He decided now that the boy was going to see this before he left Berlin, whether or not or he wanted to.

  Peter-Paul had known nothing but comfortable circumstances. He hadn’t been born when his grandfather had been in Siberia. He had been an infant when Lowell had been in Korea and when his mother had been killed. Perhaps that made him immune to rage at something like this. But he had to be exposed to it.

  There was another familiar sound, the peculiar, unmistakable squeal of jeep brakes.

  The MP in the chopper had apparently radioed the MPs on the ground. He didn’t think there was much chance he would be hauled off in chains once he produced his AGO card, but he thought it was entirely possible that he would receive a letter through channels from the commanding general, Berlin Garrison, requesting that he reply by endorsement hereto why he had climbed a forbidden gallows and ignored the clear hand signals of a military policeman in the execution of his office.

  The gallows shivered under the footsteps of two men running up the
stairs. Lowell turned to face them.

  Two MPs, in parkas and winter caps. One of them had warrant officer’s bars pinned to the parka.

  “My God!” the warrant said, in genuine shock. “It’s the Duke!”

  The other MP looked at him in surprise.

  The warrant saluted.

  “You are Major Lowell, aren’t you, sir?” he asked.

  “Guilty,” Lowell said. “Nice to see you again.”

  He had no idea who the warrant was. Somebody from Korea, obviously. He couldn’t remember a warrant who looked like this one.

  “Stenday, sir,” the warrant said. “I was with you on the Task Force.”

  “Yes, of course,” Lowell said.

  He didn’t remember the name, either. There had been four hundred people in Task Force Lowell. He could not be expected to remember all of them. But he was shamed that he didn’t remember this man at all.

  He put his hand out. Warrant Officer Stenday jerked his glove off and shook Lowell’s hand enthusiastically. Then he remembered why he was here.

  “Get on the horn and tell them it’s an American officer,” he said. Then he turned to Lowell. “Is there something you’re after, Major?”

  “No,” Lowell said. “Nothing special. I just happened to be in Berlin, and I wanted to see this.”

  “Pretty fucking disgusting, isn’t it?” Stenday said. “You see where the bastards are mining it?”

  Lowell nodded.

  “What we should do is get a dozen M-46s and knock the sonofabitch down,” Stenday said.

  Lowell quoted the philosophy of Generalleutnant Graf von Greiffenberg: “I don’t know. It’s sort of standing proof that communism has failed, wouldn’t you say?”

  “With all respect, Major…is that right, ‘Major’?”

  “I made light bird,” Lowell said.

  “With all respect, Colonel, you haven’t seen those bastards shooting people—kids, some of them—trying to get over the wall. And we can’t shoot back.”

  Lowell could think of nothing to say. He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

  They looked at each other for a minute.

  “Can I offer you a ride to your car, Colonel?”

  “I came by cab,” Lowell said.

  “Then I’ll take you to Checkpoint Charlie,” Stenday said. “That’s on Potsdamer Platz. There’s a phone there, and we got a hot plate. How about a cup of coffee?”

  The other MP came back up the stairs.

  “They want to know what he’s doing,” he said uneasily.

  “Tell him he was pissing over the wall,” Stenday said.

  “I can’t tell them that,” the MP said.

  “Just ignore them, then. Tell them we’re going into Charlie, and then make believe the radio’s broke.” He turned back to Lowell. “No rush, Colonel. Take your time.”

  “I’ve seen all I need to see,” Lowell said, and started toward the stairs.

  There was a small, crude, tar-paper—covered shack near the MP checkpoint. Inside there was a two-burner gas stove with a coffeepot on the burner and a frying pan on the other. An MP was frying bacon. There was a glass bowl full of eggs and a shelf with condiments. The bottles triggered memories of similar bottles on crude shelves in Greece and Korea…and a strange thought: The army might go into battle in worn boots and frayed uniforms and with worn-out equipment, but by God, they were Americans, and where they went, so did Heinz 57 steak sauce, Tabasco, catsup, and a hot plate.

  The MP looked at Lowell curiously.

  “This is the civilian infiltrator,” Warrant Officer Stenday said. “Colonel Lowell. I was with the colonel in Korea.”

  “Can I fix you an egg sandwich, Colonel?” the MP said. “I got one just about done.”

  “Thank you,” Lowell said. “My mouth is watering.”

  A captain wearing MP identification on the folded-up brim of his winter cap and the OD brassard of the Officer of the Day around his parka sleeve came into the hut as Lowell was being handed a steaming white china cup of coffee.

  “Captain, this is Colonel Lowell,” Stenday said. “He was the man on the observation platform.”

  “Good morning, sir,” the captain said.

  “Your people have taken pity on a freezing tourist, Captain,” Lowell said, holding up the coffee cup.

  “Is that what you’re doing here, sir?” the captain asked.

  “Actually, I came over here to find out how Mr. Stenday managed to stay out of the stockade long enough to become an MP,” Lowell said.

  “You know Mr. Stenday?” the captain asked.

  “I knew him before he became respectable,” Lowell said.

  “‘You play ball with the Seventy-third Heavy Tank, or we’ll stick the bat up your ass,’” Stenday quoted. It was the motto of the Seventy-third Tank Battalion.

  Lowell chuckled. “It’s been a long time since I heard that,” Lowell said. “How did you wind up in the MPs, Stenday?”

  “What they do with tanks in Berlin, Colonel,” Stenday said, “is polish them. Once a month they take them out for a parade, and then they polish them again. I’m not much on that, so I wangled TDY with the MPs.”

  “I see.”

  “You want to know about Berlin tanks, Colonel?” Stenday went on. “They’re kept ready to roll. And you know what we’re going to do when the Russians come through the wall? We shag ass down to Berlin Military Post and assume a ‘defensive position.’ What that means is, we wait until they burn papers and blow up the RIAS* tower, and then we blow up the tanks and surrender.”

  The captain looked at Stenday and then at Lowell. American officer or not, Lowell had no Need to Know the details of what would happen if the Russians should decide to overwhelm the small American garrison. It was a clear violation of military security.

  “I didn’t hear him say anything, Captain,” Lowell said.

  “Neither did I, sir,” the captain said after a moment. “What did you think of the wall?”

  Lowell made a look of disgust. “What’s the reason for the ‘Off Limits’ sign on that gallows?” he asked.

  “They don’t want any incidents, people giving the Volkspolizei the finger or throwing things at them,” the captain said.

  “I’m here in Berlin with a cameraman,” Lowell said. “He’s at the film festival. Could he get permission to shoot some pictures over the wall?”

  “You’d have to get permission from PIO, sir, but that wouldn’t be any problem.”

  “Where would I find the PIO?”

  “I get off at 0800, Colonel,” Stenday said. “I’ll run you by there if you like.”

  The captain was wrong. Lowell encountered the bureaucratic mind when he went to the Public Information Division of Headquarters, Berlin Military Post. The PIO, a lieutenant colonel, said the decision whether or not a civilian photographer not accredited to Berlin Military Post would be allowed to climb the observation platform and take pictures would have to be made by higher authority. Higher authority turned out to be the Chief of Staff, a starchy full colone of infantry. After asking questions about what Lowell was doing in Berlin in the first place, he finally asked to see his orders.

  Lowell gave him the single copy of his orders that he had folded into the shape of a dollar bill and put in his wallet.

  The Chief of Staff’s eyebrows went up when he read them.

  “Very impressive orders, Colonel,” he said. “I can see no problem in letting your photographer take whatever pictures he wants to.”

  “Thank you very much, sir,” Lowell said. He had no idea what had impressed the colonel. He hadn’t even looked at his orders.

  They left what had been the Großes Hauptquartier of the Luftwaffe and was now Headquarters, Berlin Military Post, trailed by an olive-drab Opel Captain bearing a Public Information Officer and his assistant. Once settled in the car, he took the orders out and read them. He smiled. No wonder the colonel had been impressed.

  HEADQUARTERS

  THE ARMY AVIATION CENTER A
ND FORT

  RUCKER, ALA.

  Letter Orders: 26 December 1961

  1. Ref TELECON Vice Chief of Staff, USA and CG Ft Rucker Ala 1545 hours 24 December.

  2. Verbal orders V/C/S USA confirmed and made a matter of record:

  LT COL C. W. LOWELL, 0439067 Armor, USAAB, Ft Rucker Ala is placed on TDY eff 27 Dec 1961 for pd not less than thirty (30) days in connection with activities of DCSOPS. Off will proceed at his discretion to Hq USAREUR, Hq USARPAC, Hq USA MAC (Vietnam). Off auth tvl by Govt and Civ air, motor, rail and water T. When utilizing Govt T Priority AAB. Off auth 200 lbs excess baggage. Off auth at his discretion up to fifteen (15) days lv at any point in his tvl. Off auth civ clothing. Off holds TOP SECRET sec clear. Questions concerning nature of asgmt will be referred to undersigned or V/C/S.

  PAUL T. JIGGS

  Major General, USA.

  The nature of his assignment, of course, was quite simple: Get the sonofabitch out of the country so that he won’t be available to give the wrong answers to questions likely to beput to him by the Secretary of Defense. But the words could be interpreted to mean that he was carrying out some high-priority and most secret mission for the Vice-Chief of Staff himself.

  He found Peter-Paul and the photographer in the restaurant of the Hotel Am Zoo.

  “Charley, I want you to meet an old friend of mine, Warrant Officer Stenday. He has some very interesting ‘file shots’ for you.”

  “Is that so?”

  “He knows a place where you can take pictures over the wall,” Lowell said.

  The photographer’s eyebrows went up.

  “I think I’m going to like you, Stenday,” he said. “Sit down and have some breakfast.”

  “This is my son, Stenday,” Lowell said.

  “How do you do?” Peter-Paul said formally, offering his hand. Then he turned to Lowell. “Father, one of Grandfather’s men has a message for you.”

  “He does? Where is he?”

  “I believe they went to get the car,” Peter-Paul said in his British accented English.

  Lowell saw the look of surprise on Stenday’s face.