Empire and Honor

by W. E. B Griffin

  “You speak English pretty good,” the MP said.

  “Thank you,” Elsa said.

  “Got a fucking hit!” the sergeant with the Wanted List cried in surprised elation.

  “Oh, shit,” the MP said. He sounded genuinely sorry.

  “Is something wrong?” Elsa asked.

  “Put your suitcase on the ground and open it,” the MP said.

  “May I ask why?”

  “Because I’m going to search it, and then you’re going to carry it over to that truck, put it on the truck, and then get on with it.”

  The sergeant with the Wanted List was now standing with his hands on his hips beside the MP.

  The young man who had been slumped in his jeep walked up.

  “What have we got, Sergeant?”

  “What’s it look like? We got a hit,” the sergeant said.

  “Try that answer again, and this time preface your answer with ‘sir,’” the young man said.

  Elsa tried not to stare as she thought, My God, he’s enormous! A perfect blue-eyed Aryan!

  He looks like a recruiting poster for the SS.

  And he’s an officer—he made the sergeant call him “sir.”

  But he doesn’t have any officer’s insignia?

  “Sir, this fräulein’s name is on the Wanted List,” the sergeant said.

  Cronley gestured for the sergeant to hand him the list, and then again to get Elsa’s Personalausweis.

  “Is this you, fräulein?” Cronley asked in German, showing her the Wanted List.

  Elsa looked. “Yes, it is. But it’s ‘Frau,’ not ‘Fräulein.’”

  “I told you,” the sergeant said, belatedly adding “sir.”

  The MP captain walked over.

  “What have we got?” he asked.

  “We got a hit, sir,” the sergeant said. “I’ve been trying to tell this guy—”

  “You have a problem, Mr. Cronley?” the MP captain said.

  “Well, somebody obviously didn’t explain this list to your sergeant,” Cronley said.

  “Meaning what?”

  “After Frau von Wachtstein’s name is the number four. On the bottom of the list is an explanation of the numbers. Four says ‘Personnel in this category are to be courteously detained, and Colonel Robert Mattingly will be immediately contacted by the most expeditious means at Frankfurt Military 4033.’”

  Cronley then handed the Wanted List to the captain.

  “Jesus, Cronley, that went right over my head,” the captain said.

  “Yeah,” Cronley said. And then, switching to German: “Frau von Wachtstein, will you come with me, please?”

  “Is something wrong?” Elsa asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Cronley said.

  “Where are we going?” Elsa asked.

  “To Marburg, so I can get on the horn and call this Colonel Mattingly, whoever the hell he is.”

  Elsa went to her suitcase and reached to pick it up. Cronley beat her to it, and effortlessly carried it to his jeep and tossed it in the backseat.

  He gestured for Elsa to get in the jeep, and then got in himself. He started the engine and started to move the jeep. Then he fished in his tunic pocket and came out with a Hershey’s bar and handed it to her.

  She looked at him as if he had just offered to meet her price.

  He read her mind.

  “My mother is German,” he said. “Okay?”

  Then he revved the jeep and started off.

  They were quiet for the first ten minutes or so of the trip to Marburg. Then he said, “Your Personalausweis says you’re thirty-two. Is that correct?”

  “And I look fifty. Is that why you ask?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “I’m thirty-two,” she said after a moment. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-one,” Cronley said.

  A boy, Elsa thought. He’s just a boy.

  [FIVE]

  Alte Post Hotel

  Stadt Mitte

  Marburg an der Lahn, Germany

  1355 6 October 1945

  The XXIInd CIC Detachment had requisitioned Marburg’s Alte Post Hotel, including the staff, for its headquarters and living quarters. It was in what the Americans thought of as the Old Town, on Steinweg, the ancient cobblestone road that led to the fortress on top of the hill.

  Cronley parked in front of the hotel and led Elsa into the lobby, then to the door of the office of Major John Connell, the executive officer.

  “What have you got there, Cronley?” Connell asked, looking askance at the German woman.

  “This is Frau von Wachtstein, Major. She’s a Four on the Wanted List.”

  Major Connell had been born in Philadelphia, as his parents had been, but he was Jewish, and he didn’t like people whose name appeared on the Wanted List.

  “Why the hell did you bring her here? You should have taken her directly to the POW enclosure.”

  “She’s a Four, Major,” Cronley said.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “She is supposed to be ‘detained with courtesy’ and we’re supposed to notify some Colonel . . . a Colonel Mattingly . . . in Frankfurt.”

  “What the hell? You said ‘Mattingly’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have the Wanted List? Let me see it.”

  “I don’t have one, sir.”

  “Damn! Well, I’ve got one here somewhere.”

  Connell rooted through the papers on his desk until he found it. He read it, and learned what the number four after Frau von Wachtstein’s name required.

  He picked up his telephone.

  “Get me Frankfurt Military 4033,” he said.

  The reply could be heard metallically but faintly.

  “Four Oh Three Three.”

  “Colonel Mattingly, please.”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Major Connell, Twenty-second CIC.”

  “Hold one.”

  It took a full minute to locate Colonel Mattingly.

  “Mattingly.”

  “Sir, this is Major Connell of the Twenty-second CIC. The MPs picked up a German woman on the Wanted List. It said to notify you.”

  “Who? What’s her name?”

  “Frau . . .” Connell looked at Cronley for help.

  “Elsa von Wachtstein,” Cronley furnished, and Connell repeated it.

  “Where is she?”

  “Here in my office, sir.”

  “Put her on.”

  John Connell handed Frau von Wachtstein the telephone.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Guten tag, Frau von Wachtstein,” Mattingly said in fluent German. “May I ask what your relationship is to Generalleutnant Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein?”

  “He was my father-in-law,” Elsa said immediately.

  “And Generalmajor Ludwig Holz?”

  “He was my father.”

  “And Major Karl von Wachtstein?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, then in a quiet tone she replied, “He was my husband.”

  “And one more, if you please, Frau von Wachtstein. Major Hans-Peter von Wachtstein?”

  “He was my brother-in-law—my late husband’s brother.”

  “Is your brother-in-law, Frau von Wachtstein,” Mattingly said.

  “Hansel survived?” Elsa said after another moment’s hesitation. With the back of her hand, she began wiping away the tears starting to roll down her cheeks.

  “I saw Hansel last week,” Mattingly said. “I’ll explain everything when I see you, Frau von Wachtstein, which will be in the next three or four days.”

  Elsa was now sobbing.

  Without realizing that he was doing it, Cronley put his arm around her shoulder. She leaned against him, now dabbing at her eyes with a rag of a handkerchief.

  “Put the major back on the phone, please, Frau von Wachtstein,” Mattingly said.

  Elsa wasn’t listening.

  Cronley gently pried the handset from her fingers and ha
nded it to Major Connell.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “What was your name?”

  “Connell, sir. Major John Connell. I’m the Twenty-second’s exec.”

  “Is the commanding officer there?”

  “No, sir. The colonel’s in Kassel.”

  “Okay, then, you’re elected,” Mattingly said. “Listen carefully to me, Connell.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Frau von Wachtstein is not a prisoner, but an honored guest.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Her father and father-in-law were brutally exterminated for their role in the July 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler at Wolfsschanze—Wolf’s Lair, his headquarters—in East Prussia. Getting the picture?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If the SS had been able to find her, she would now be dead,” Mattingly went on. “God only knows how she managed to stay out of their hands.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “As much as I would like to drive up there right now, that’s out of the question. It’ll be three, four days before I can get away.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In the meantime, you are to provide her with whatever she needs.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I mean whatever she wishes, Major. Put her in the BOQ. If she needs clothing, get it for her. See that she has every creature comfort within your means to provide. Make sure she is not left alone. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Any problems, call me. If I’m not here, speak with Colonel Jim Born.”

  “Colonel Jim Born. Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t fuck this up, Major,” Colonel Mattingly concluded, and broke the connection.

  John Connell hung up.

  The action seemed to remind Elsa that she was leaning against the boy who looked like an SS recruiting poster, and when she straightened, Cronley was reminded that he had his arm around the soft, warm back of a woman who looked fifty and was in fact thirty-two. He withdrew it as if it was burning him.

  “Major, can I ask who Colonel Mattingly is?” Cronley asked.

  “You certainly can,” Connell said. “It is important, Lieutenant, that you know.”

  So the boy is an officer, Elsa thought. So he’s not a boy?

  And why isn’t he wearing officer’s insignia?

  “Colonel Robert Mattingly is the commanding officer of OSS Forward,” Connell explained. “Know what that means? The OSS?”

  “I’ve heard of the OSS, sir, but I really don’t know what it is,” Cronley said.

  “The Office of Strategic Services,” Connell clarified, “is our super-secret intelligence organization. In the European Theater of Operations it is directly under General Eisenhower. OSS Forward is the OSS in Germany. In the last Intelligence Conference—two weeks ago at U.S. Forces European Theater headquarters in the I.G. Farben Building in Frankfurt—the USFET intelligence officer, Major General Seidel, told us that we were to cooperate fully with OSS Forward, and if we were unable to comply with any of their requests, he was to be personally notified. Getting the picture?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When we first met, Cronley, I said something to the effect that we would find something for you to do, where, despite your somewhat rudimentary—strike that—your nonexistent intelligence background, you could cause only minimal damage. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That opportunity seems to have been dropped in our laps, doesn’t it? Except for your ability to cause only minimal damage.”

  Cronley didn’t reply.

  “I’m throwing you to the wolves, Cronley,” Connell said. “For the good of the service, so to speak. I could assign one of the other officers—one of my few remaining competent officers—to care for Frau von Wachtstein. But if I did, and the performance of that officer failed to meet Colonel Mattingly’s expectations—and he has the reputation for being impossible to satisfy—that would result in the loss to the Twenty-second of an officer whose services the Twenty-second desperately needs. Still with me?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “On the other hand, if your caring for Frau von Wachtstein until Colonel Mattingly shows up here to take her off our hands failed to meet Colonel Mattingly’s expectations, and you were transferred to duties counting snowballs in Alaska, the loss to the Twenty-second would not be so devastating.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “You are relieved of all other duties, Lieutenant, except those of caring for Frau von Wachtstein, until relieved by Colonel Mattingly.”

  “Yes, sir. Sir, I don’t have any idea how to do that.”

  “I suspected that might be the case. So let’s consider what has to be done. For one thing, you’ll need a place for her to stay. I will call the Kurhotel and order that she be placed in their best accommodations, and you in an adjacent room.”

  The Kurhotel, on Marburg’s south side, had a natural spring that allegedly offered health-giving properties. The large, fairly modern hotel had been requisitioned to house field grade officers in the Marburg area.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You will require transportation. Take my car—I’ll use your jeep until I can get something from the motor pool.”

  Major Connell drove a requisitioned Opel Kapitän, a GM-produced car about the size of a Chevrolet.

  “Yes, sir. Clothing, sir?”

  “Good question. It shows you’re thinking, son. Take her to the Officers’ Sales Store. I’ll call ahead and tell them they are to sell you two complete WAC officer’s uniforms, including the appropriate undergarments. As an honored guest, I see no reason Frau von Wachtstein cannot be attired in an officer-equivalent civilian uniform, can you?”

  “No, sir. And the PX, sir, to provide Frau von Wachtstein with toiletries?”

  “I’ll call them and authorize the sale to you of whatever Frau von Wachtstein requires.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I will do what I can to protect you, Cronley,” Connell then said. “But it probably won’t be much.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Carry on, Lieutenant Cronley,” Connell said, and then switched to German and told Frau von Wachtstein that Lieutenant Cronley was going to take care of her and that if there were any problems, she should not hesitate to bring them to his attention.

  Before leading Elsa from the office, Cronley wondered how the hell Frau von Wachtstein was supposed to bring any problems to Connell’s attention, and they were in the Kapitän before he realized that Connell had not addressed the subject of who was going to pay for the Officers’ Sales Store and the PX items.

  What the hell, it’s not a problem.

  After not getting his pay at either Fort Knox or Camp Holabird, it had caught up with him a week before. He had been carrying around thick wads of scrip twenty-dollar bills—the Army-issued currency designed to keep real dollars out of the economy—totaling a little over a thousand dollars.

  I’ll worry about getting repaid later.

  —

  “Your call, Frau von Wachtstein, what would you like to do first? Go to the hotel? Or the clothing store? Or the PX?”

  “Or the what?”

  “The PX. It stands for Post Exchange. It’s a store where you can buy soap and shampoo, and other stuff.”

  Elsa considered the question before replying.

  “If I was asked what I want most in the world right now, it would be a long, hot bath.”

  Cronley had a quick shaming moment, wondering what she would look like climbing naked into a bathtub. Or standing in a shower.

  “To the hotel then?” he asked.

  “But eventually, I would have to get out of the tub,” Elsa continued, “and then I would be standing there in the nude, with nothing to put on but these dirty rags.”

  He had another shaming mental picture of Elsa standing there in the nude pondering her choices.

  “First things first,” she said. “Soap and shampoo. Then cl
othing. Then the hotel and a long, hot bath.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cronley said.

  [SIX]

  The PX was not far from the Alte Post Hotel.

  When Elsa was finished selecting what she needed—including a bottle of Chanel No. 5, which she said was the first she’d seen since her husband had brought her a bottle back from Paris in 1940—it made quite a stack on the checkout counter, the movement of which was solved by the purchase of a Valve Pak canvas suitcase.

  It also substantially thinned one of the wads of twenty-dollar bills after Cronley retrieved it from where he had been carrying it—inside the calf of his Western boots.

  The Officers’ Sales Store was on the other side of town, in the Quartermaster Depot.

  On the way, Elsa volunteered, “We had a Kapitän like this.”

  “You and your husband?”

  She nodded.

  “You said he . . . had died.”

  “He gave his life for the fatherland on the Eastern Front in 1941,” she said with no expression in her voice.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “At least he died a soldier’s death.”

  “As opposed to what?” Cronley blurted.

  “The way his father died—strangled to death hanging from a butcher’s hook.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “Yes,” Elsa said, and mockingly parroted, “Jesus Christ!”

  Then she reached over and touched his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess it was being in here. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not your concern,” Elsa said.

  —

  At the Officers’ Sales Store in the Quartermaster Depot, a German clerk showed her what was available: Uniform, Class A, Female Officer’s—which consisted of a brown tunic and a pink skirt, a khaki shirt and necktie, silk stockings, and a pair of Shoes, Female Officer’s, Brown, w/2-Inch Heel.

  “These are the first silk stockings I’ve seen in years,” Elsa said.

  There was a dressing room into which Elsa disappeared to try on everything.

  Cronley had a mental image of her stripping down to her underwear.

  He shook his head.

  What the fuck is the matter with me?

  She came out wearing her old clothes with the new shoes.

  “I’ll change into this,” Elsa said, holding up the uniform on a hanger, “after I’ve had my bath.”