Bayonet Skies

by John F. Mullins

  He walked to Flint Kaserne, just across the street, admiring, yet again, the old buildings. The Kaserne dated to before World War II. It had been an SS Officer Training School, turning out thousands of young lieutenants who went on to lose their lives in a series of battlefields across Europe, Asia, and Africa. Young idealists, for the most part, who believed as strongly in what they were doing as he did in the cause for which he had fought. They had been Waffen SS, of course, not the Totenkopf SS concentration camp guards, who had largely been drawn from prisons. The Waffen SS had been good soldiers for the most part, and brave. But that hadn’t done them much good, had it?

  His team sergeant and several others were already at the team room. The others wandered in shortly after. Some of them looked like their first stop last night had been the club. But their uniforms were clean, and they were shaven. No matter how much they partied and how late they stayed up they always looked like soldiers the next day. Some of them, he knew, would have had no sleep at all. Back in the old days he had often partied right up to the time he had to get cleaned up to go to work. He couldn’t imagine doing it anymore. Perhaps he was getting old. After all, he’d just turned thirty.

  After battalion formation they returned to the team room to clean up the gear. The parachutes, recovered from the cache point, had to be hung, shaken out, and dried at the rigger shed. They would repack them later. Weapons were thoroughly scrubbed. The blanks used on exercises caused them to foul badly. Medical and demolition kits were repacked and requisitions made to replace supplies used.

  By early afternoon they had finished the physical tasks, and then came the part he liked least, the paperwork. After-action reports had to be written, long detailed narratives of what had gone right and wrong with the operation. Unhesitatingly, he wrote down what he had said at the briefings. Colonel Casey wouldn’t like it, but what the hell. Unlikely he would get around to reading it anyway. His time was far too valuable for such mundane tasks. Someone up at EUCOM, European Command at Stuttgart, would, and perhaps it would strike a chord. In any case he had already done as much damage as he could to his career, this wouldn’t hurt it more.

  And finally the day was over. He wanted to go home and take a little nap, but it was impossible. It was Friday, and Fridays meant mandatory happy hour at the club. Every officer was expected to be there, and woe be unto you if you weren’t. Those who missed it, for any reason other than being on exercise or deathly ill, would read about it in their next efficiency report. And one small negative remark on an OER, anything, in fact, less than perfect, would mean that you would get some very unwanted attention at Department of Army the next time they were reviewed. So many good officers had already been riffed that only those whose efficiency reports said they walked on water on a regular basis still hung on.

  Perhaps happy hour was a good idea, he didn’t know. At least you got the chance to let your hair down, communicate with the other officers on something other than a professional basis. On the negative side it had started him drinking again. He’d avoided it a long time, stayed away from parties, skipped going to bars. He’d decided that many of the bad decisions he’d made over the years had been due to having too much to drink.

  But happy hour, with its cheap booze and the general attitude that if you didn’t drink there must be something wrong with you, had been too much to resist. Many times he had dragged himself home early in the morning after far too much happy hour. But then at least he was able to sleep.

  He was late, so the place was already crowded when he got there. The two bartenders were working as hard as they could, the jukebox was playing Vicki Leandros’s latest song, the other officers were shouting to make themselves heard. He looked around, spotted Al Dougherty, threaded his way through the mass of green-clad men over to him.

  “Jimmy, me boy!” Al shouted. “I hear you made yourself popular again. Ursula, give Jimmy a stiff scotch. He looks like he needs it.”

  Jim accepted the drink, and the smile Ursula gave him, in gratitude. He took a long draught.

  “So when are you going to give Ursula a chance, Jimmy?” Al asked as she moved back down the bar. “She wants you so bad she can taste it. And from what I understand, she’s not so bad tasting herself.”

  “You know better than that shit,” Jim said, fingering his wedding ring. Not that a wedding ring made much difference around Bad Tölz. Adultery and drinking were the two major sports, easing out skiing by a wide margin. Perhaps it was a function of too many American women cooped up in too small a spot, with their husbands generally gone. A form of cabin fever.

  “I know, Jimmy.” Al laughed. “True love, and all that shit. Glad I’m not afflicted. This is a bachelor’s paradise.”

  “So you know so much about what happened to me,” he said to Al to change the subject, “what about you? Did the old famous Aloysius Dougherty luck hold?”

  Al frowned. “Not exactly,” he said. “We jumped into Kiel Bay, couple of klicks off the coast, scout swam to the shore. Landed in a little inlet ’bout halfway between Oldenburg and Schönburg. Territory is about the same there as it would be if we had to go a little bit farther east. They were on our ass from the beginning. Never did get anywhere close to the target. Spent damn near all the time running. Then my belly started acting up. Puking blood the last couple of days. Guess I wasn’t as ready for this shit as I thought I was.” Al had been shot in the stomach a few years before, in Vietnam. They’d removed several feet of his intestines.

  Al’s team’s wartime area of operations (AO) was East Germany. As such, he had even less chance of survival than did the teams who were targeted at the Soviet Union. The East Germans were widely regarded as the best troops the East Bloc had to offer.

  “Coin check!” someone yelled, followed by the slap of a piece of metal on the bar.

  “Shit!” Jim swore, searching frantically for his. You were supposed to carry the silver-dollar sized coin, engraved with the Special Forces (Europe) logo and your name, at all times. Tradition was that if a coin check was called and you didn’t have yours you had to buy everyone a drink. If, on the other hand, everyone had theirs, the one initiating the check had to buy.

  Jim finally felt the familiar piece of metal in the pocket of his field jacket; slapped it on the bar. Colonel Casey, he saw, had initiated the check. And it appeared that the colonel was going to have to buy. Good. The colonel had all sorts of little tricks like that, like checking to make sure everyone had dogtags, or that their uniforms were perfect, or that they carried the requisite cards in their wallets. In his mind it maintained morale. Everyone else just thought it a pain in the ass.

  The colonel paid, and the liquor flowed. One thing about him, Jim had to admit, he wasn’t cheap. Didn’t have the vaguest idea of what to do with his command, followed slavishly the orders of the generals in Washington who would just have soon disbanded the Special Forces, but he wasn’t cheap. That was something, anyway.

  “You see the news in the Scars and Gripes today?” Al asked.

  “Yeah. Looks like the NVA has a clear path all the way to the South China Sea. Why?”

  “They cut the country in two, it’ll be all over.”

  “Only a matter of time now. Think we’ll do anything about it?”

  Al snorted at the thought. “With stumblebum in the White House? Not hardly. And you sure as hell know that even if Tricky Dicky had lasted we wouldn’t have done anything either. Hell, it was him and the good doctor that gave it away in the first place.” He took a long drink.

  “Besides,” Al said finally, “what could we do anyway? Army’s gutted. Air Force and Navy aren’t much better. Hell, we couldn’t even mount a good rescue effort when the Cambodians took the Mayaguez. So how are we gonna stop the NVA? Nuke ’em? You know better than that.”

  “So we just let it happen.”

  “That’s about the size of it. C’mon, have another drink. Don’t mean nothin’ nohow.”

  Christ, Jim thought, he’s right. And I’m gett
ing to the stage I just don’t care anymore. Numb. So much bad news already, a little more doesn’t matter.

  “So tell me, what did you actually do to piss the good colonel off? I heard rumors, but you know how that goes.”

  Jim shrugged. “Just got on my high horse again about Special Forces missions. And the chief of staff for Intelligence was listening to the briefback.”

  Al whistled. “Not a good plan, mate. Hell, you and I both know there’s not gonna be a war in Europe anyway, so why bother?”

  “Yeah, but suppose we’re wrong? You want to be attacking some East German power plant, instead of putting a guerrilla band together? Hell of a waste, don’t you think?”

  “Shit, my man, if the balloon ever goes up, we’ll go nuclear before any of us get a chance to do anything, so what the hell? We can’t stop them with conventional forces, so we’ll throw a tactical nuke to slow them down. They’ll throw a little bit larger one in our rear area. We’ll nuke one of their cities. They’ll get England. And so it goes, until all the big stuff is flyin’, and there won’t be anything left. You know that, no matter how crazy we think the politicians on either side are, none of them are going to risk that.”

  Al drained his glass, signaled Ursula for a refill. “So I’m gonna just sit back, ride it out, retire, and then do what I’m gonna do.”

  “Yeah, and what’s that?”

  “Get me a little piece of land down in Florida, collect my retirement check, and shoot at anything that comes around in Army green. Drink beer with my buddies. Do a little fishing. Purchase some honest affection now and then.”

  “And go right out of your fucking mind.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not as hung up on this shit as you are. I think I might not do bad at all. And if I do, there’s always a war somewhere. Suspect they might pay a hell of a lot better money than this. Look, here comes Ursula again. Sure you don’t want a taste of that?”

  The club got even louder and more raucous. Other officers drifted by and talked, mostly about work. From the ones who had not been on the exercise he found that there was yet another exercise coming up, this time in Crete. His team was scheduled to go. More problems with Alix, he thought. Perhaps he’d better inquire about the S-4 job.

  Later, much later, some of the wives showed up; some to reclaim their drunken husbands and take them home, others to join the party. Alix was one of the latter. She refused to drink anything, thinking it bad for the baby, but she’d never needed to drink to have fun anyway.

  He watched as the men’s eyes followed her, and was proud and the same time jealous. Not that he blamed them. She was beautiful. And not that he was worried. She had never shown the slightest inclination toward other men.

  She pecked him on the cheek, smiled at Al, whom she genuinely liked. “My husband being a bad influence on you again?” she asked.

  “Hell, you know me, Alix. I never needed any help.” Al offered her his barstool.

  “Glad there’s at least one gentleman here,” she said, shooting a look at Jim, who had been getting ready to offer his own. Al laughed. Jim glared at him.

  “Sonofabitch,” he said, “you’re always getting me in trouble.”

  Al looked offended. “Me, get you in trouble? That’ll be the day. Alix, I’m very much afraid you’ve married an ungrateful wretch here. My advice is to divorce him immediately and marry me. I’ll be a good husband and father to whatever-its-name. Trust me!”

  “No offense, Al my love, but a woman would have to be out of her mind to marry a reprobate like you. Of course, there are some who would say that one would have to be out of their mind to marry Jim, too. Including me sometimes. Can you get your girlfriend to bring me a cola, darling?” she asked Jim. “Or do we poor ladies not rate around here?”

  When he had asked her to marry him, he had wondered how well she would fit into the military society. Nothing in her background had prepared her for it. Daughter of a Russian immigrant who had used his medical skills to become one of the foremost surgeons on the West Coast and a San Francisco society lady, her life had been one of privilege. He made less money as a captain in the Army than she had received as an allowance while going through college. His friends were rough, profane, rakish. Hers, the ones he had met, were refined, educated, and to a person, devoutly antiwar.

  He needn’t have worried. She had an easy manner about her that made friends wherever she went. From the beginning she had engaged as an equal in the chaffing banter that always went on when he and his friends got together. As Al had said of her admiringly, shortly after they met, “That girl don’t take no shit from nobody!” She had thoroughly charmed everyone, from the colonel on down. Was it any wonder, he thought, that he loved her so much? He didn’t know what he had done to deserve this luck, but he hoped it would never run out.

  They talked, laughed, danced a couple of times. Occasionally she would leave him, go and talk with other wives. And their husbands. He watched as she turned away, with laughter and grace, yet another pass from one of the bachelors. The more she turned them down, the more they liked her. Perhaps, he thought, because of the male tendency to want something they could not have, and scorn something they could. Many of the other wives were not so picky, and were treated accordingly.

  Amused, he watched the usual Friday night flirtations. It wasn’t difficult to surmise who was having an affair with whom. The little looks, the surreptitious touches, the dancing just a little bit too close; all were telltales. He doubted that the affected husbands or wives were blind to it. Perhaps they just didn’t want to see.

  Finally Alix made her way back to him, smiling that little secret smile that said, I know something you don’t know. He wondered what delicious little piece of gossip she had picked up now. She loved the little intrigues, the palace politics, the jockeying for position that went on constantly. He, on the other hand, hated it, wanting only for them to let him alone so he could go on trying to be a soldier in this goddamned peacetime army. He often thought that she would have made a far better officer than he.

  He wondered what she had found out. She’d tell him, sooner or later. After she’d had the chance to see how to manipulate it to his advantage. And sometimes after she’d already performed the manipulation.

  “You about ready to get out of here?” he asked.

  “You’re not having fun?” She laughed at the face he made.

  “Just afraid if we stay here much longer we’ll get cornered by the battalion commander again.” That individual could be seen telling one of the new lieutenants, for at least the twentieth time, about the Ia Drang Valley. The lieutenant’s eyes had a distinct glazed look. Lieutenant Colonel Grimstead had been a company commander in the 1st Cavalry Division during that bloodying, and had been quite a hero. But he was one of the most boring men on earth.

  He was also, Jim knew, having an affair with the lieutenant’s wife. He hoped the colonel was better in bed than at conversation. Though he doubted that the wife, a notorious social climber, cared much one way or the other.

  “Besides,” he said, “I was in the field for a long time. And last night just whetted my appetite.”

  She laughed, loud and long. “And just what do you think you’ll be able to do about that? With as much scotch as you have sloshing around in you? Still, you may have a point about Colonel Grimstead. Come on. I’ll make some coffee and you may be of some use yet tonight.”

  Chapter 3

  He got a call the next morning to come and recover Jerry Hauck from the MPs in Munich. Christ, just what I need, he thought as he got out of bed. He sat back down quickly, his head threatening to fall off and roll around the floor. Alix slept on, oblivious. He looked at her longingly, wanting nothing more than to crawl back in beside her. Sleep late, until the hangover went away, and then make love again. She had a little smile, as if she were dreaming of the same thing.

  No! Duty called. God damn Jerry Hauck, anyway. What had he done now? The MPs hadn’t said. Probably fighting again. This
certainly wasn’t the first occasion. Jerry was one of the finest field soldiers he had ever known, and one of the worst in garrison. When Jim had arrived at Tölz Jerry was on his way to being kicked out of the Army. All the other team leaders had despaired of him. Jim had asked for Jerry to be assigned to his team, remembering the debts he owed the man from Vietnam. He doubted that he would have survived a couple of missions if it hadn’t been for Jerry. And in the field he hadn’t been sorry. Mostly in the garrison it had been okay too. Jerry, after a long and painful counseling session behind the team room, had been straight for quite some time. Now, it seemed, he was back up to his old tricks.

  Finally he got up, took a handful of aspirin, and by the time he got out of the shower was feeling almost human. He dressed, left a note for Alix, and went downstairs. The German kids from across the road were already in the playground, having a wonderful time with the American children. The group was chattering away in a half English–half German patois that none of the parents could understand. Too bad the adults didn’t get along as well. The Americans thought the Germans arrogant, which they were, and the Germans thought the Americans uncultured. Which, for the most part, they were.

  The drive to Munich was pleasant. The used BMW he had bought upon arrival in Germany purred away, the road was just tortuous enough to be interesting, and the scenery was, as always, perfect. Almost too perfect, as if it were a set by Disney. The fields were even and green, the cows fat and clean. The houses were painted white, with sharply pitched roofs and window boxes spilling over with pink and white flowers. The streets of the little towns looked scrubbed. He had to slow down only once, while a herd of cows ambled down the road from field to farm. It would have been a much more pleasant drive had it not been for the German drivers behind him who, infuriated because he presumed to drive at less than eighty to ninety miles an hour on the narrow winding road, constantly flashed their lights, honked, and, when there was even the slightest chance, zoomed by. The German driver thought it his or her god-given right to travel just as fast as the cars would go. On the autobahn it made for some truly spectacular accidents, thirty- to forty-car pileups not being uncommon.