Top Secret
Page 4
Jimmy told her again: The bottom lines were (a) she could not get into Occupied Germany unless she was a dependent, and (b) even if she did somehow get into Occupied Germany, they could not get permission to marry there.
When he had finished, she said without much conviction, “There has to be a way.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Are you open to a wild idea?”
“Try me.”
“When I was here before, I learned that Elkton, Maryland, up near the Pennsylvania border, is where people go when they’re eloping. Justices of the peace there will issue a marriage license, then marry you, and have you on your way in about an hour.”
“Huh,” Marjorie said.
“What I was thinking was that, since they’re going to send me—”
“Where did you say Elkton, Maryland, is?”
“On U.S. 1 up near the Pennsylvania border.”
“I came from Washington on U.S. 1,” Marjorie said. “I know how to find it.”
She reached to the dashboard, turned the ignition key, and then pressed the starter button.
[ FOUR ]
The Lord Baltimore Hotel
20 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore 21, Maryland
2325 25 October 1945
“Yes, sir? May I be of assistance?” the assistant manager of the hotel inquired of Second Lieutenant Cronley.
“We’d like a room, please. A nice room.”
“Have you a reservation, sir?”
“No. I don’t.”
“And your luggage, sir?”
“No luggage.”
The assistant manager adjusted his necktie knot, then said, “Sir, the Lord Baltimore might not be appropriate for you and the lady. May I suggest—”
“If you’re about to suggest we try some sleazy motel down the street,” Mrs. Marjorie Howell Cronley interrupted, “I would be forced to conclude you have an evil mind, sir.”
She pulled from her purse a certificate of marriage and held it up for the assistant manager’s edification.
He forced a big smile. “I was about to suggest, madam, one of our junior suites.”
“Do you have a senior suite? If so, we’ll take it,” she said.
“Well,” Jimmy asked not more than fifteen minutes later, as Marjorie laid her head on his chest, “now that our marriage has been truly consummated, what do we do now?”
“What do you mean ‘truly consummated’?”
“You have to do what we just did or you’re not really married.”
“Professor Freddy told you that, right?”
“Sergeant Hessinger is a fountain of information, most of it useful.”
“So, what did he have to say about the Army and lieutenants whose marriage has been truly consummated?”
“As much as I remember—this took place of course before you seduced me, and I wasn’t all that interested in the subject at the time—”
He yelped when she bit his nipple.
“I seduced you?”
“As I remember it, that’s what happened.”
“We’ll fight later. Tell me what he said.”
“Presuming you’re married, as we are now, the sponsor—that’s me—goes to his commanding officer and requests that his dependent—that’s you—be allowed to join him in Germany.”
“Requests? He could turn you down?”
“Commanding officers can do anything. But he won’t. Major Wallace is a good guy. Then, once quarters are assigned—that’s what the Army calls houses—you will get what they call ‘invitational orders’ which will allow you to get on a transport—a Navy ship—and sail to Germany. Bremerhaven, Germany. Sponsors usually meet the incoming dependents on the dock. There will be several hundred of us, but you will be able to spot me from afar. I will be the sponsor with the biggest boner, the painful result of my having been separated from my dependent for six weeks or so.”
“This thing, you mean?” Marjorie grabbed his male appendage.
“That’s it. That’s what I had in mind when I endowed you with all my worldly goods.”
“And you had better not forget who it belongs to now.”
“Indeed.”
“Wait. Why can’t I fly over there?”
“I don’t know, but I will damned sure ask Freddy to look into it. Dependents of senior officers—colonels and generals—sometimes get to fly. But I am the exact opposite of a senior officer. I’ll see what I can find out. Maybe I could say you live in France or England. I just don’t know. I’ll ask Freddy.”
She sighed. “Six weeks or so seems like a very long time.”
“When I asked before, ‘What do we do now?’ I meant right now. Tonight.”
“Re-consummating our marriage is the first thing that pops into my mind,” Marjorie said.
“Keep that thought. But what I was wondering is what do we tell your mother?”
“Nothing,” she replied immediately, which told him that she had already given the problem some thought. “Let her go ahead with her plans for a double wedding.”
“I don’t think Colonel Mattingly would let me come back here now. And I understand.”
“I was afraid of that. I still don’t want to tell her until I have to. You don’t have to tell your parents either. We can wait until we see what’s going to happen.”
“What are you going to tell her about tonight?”
“I’m sure she thinks we’re doing what we’ve been doing. Out of the bounds of holy matrimony. She knows there’s nothing she can do about it. She feels sorry for us that you’re being sent back to Germany right away.”
“So you can spend the night?”
She grunted. “Mom doesn’t feel that sorry. After a while, I’ll take you back out to Camp Holabird and then drive back to Washington. After breakfast tomorrow, I’ll tell her I’m going to quote visit unquote with you again, and come pick you up and we’ll come back here.”
“Here?”
“Our first home. More than that. I’ll get an historical sign made. ‘On this site on October 25, 1945, the marriage of Lieutenant and Mrs. J. D. Cronley Junior was consummated at least twice.’”
He laughed.
“I’ll get a cab back to Holabird. It’s a long way out there.”
“No. I am now a wife. A good wife drops her husband off at work, and I want to be a good wife.”
“Is that before or after consummation?”
“During,” she said.
[ FIVE ]
The Officers’ Club
U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center & School
Camp Holabird
1019 Dundalk Avenue, Baltimore 19, Maryland
1120 26 October 1945
Lieutenant Cronley drained his Coca-Cola and set the glass on the bar. In an hour, he could call room service at the Lord Baltimore and order up something a little stronger. But Coke was it for now.
I wouldn’t want my bride to think I’m a boozer.
The Squirt said she would be here between eleven-thirty and noon. That gives me ten minutes to walk to the gate so I can be waiting for her.
He almost made it to the door when the bartender called his name. Jimmy turned to see he was holding up the handset of a telephone. He walked quickly to take it.
“Lieutenant Cronley, sir.”
“Colonel Mattingly, Jimmy. A car is being sent for you. It should be there within the hour. Collect your stuff and be waiting for it. You’re to be at the White House at fifteen hundred hours.”
“Shit!”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant?” Mattingly said coldly.
“Sorry. That slipped out.”
“Make sure nothing slips out when you’re with the President.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The car will be a Chevy station wagon. Civilian p
lates. The driver and his assistant are fellow alumni of Holabird High.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They will bring you to the Hay-Adams. Your parents are there.”
“My parents? How did they get there?”
“How would you guess? Your girlfriend’s grandfather sent the Connie for them. They’ll be going to the White House with us.”
She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my wife.
When do I tell Mattingly?
“And afterward?”
“You’re on the twenty-one hundred MATS flight . . . we’re on the twenty-one hundred MATS flight . . . from Bethesda to Frankfurt.”
“Shit!”
“That one I understand,” Mattingly said. “It’s out of my hands, Jim.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“See you shortly.”
[ SIX ]
Main Gate
U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center & School
Camp Holabird
1019 Dundalk Avenue, Baltimore 19, Maryland
1132 26 October 1945
Marjorie kissed him when he got into the Buick.
“Well,” she said, “whatever should we do now to pass the time?”
“They called. We all have to be at the White House at three.”
She didn’t reply.
“My folks are there,” he said. “At the Hay-Adams.”
“I know. I thought I was going to have to break your mother’s legs to keep her from coming here with me. Grandpa saved me. He said, ‘Well, Virginia, I guess you are too old to remember that when you’re in love, you don’t want your mother hanging around.’”
“And then I’m on a plane at nine tonight for Frankfurt.”
“I didn’t know that. Oh God, Jimmy!”
“Yeah, oh God!”
“Well, maybe we can find a five-dollar motel between here and Washington,” Marjie said. “For a quickie.”
“They’re sending a car for me.”
“Wonderful!” she said, thickly sarcastic. Then she had a second thought. “I can’t go to the White House dressed like this. I’ll have to change!”
“Yeah. I guess.”
They locked eyes.
“I don’t know how yet,” Marjorie said, “but we’re going to find time between now and when you get on the plane.”
“God, I hope so!”
“Kiss me quick, Jimmy, before I start saying a lot of dirty words.”
He watched the Buick drive down Dundalk Avenue, and then he went inside the fence and walked to the goddamned Transient Officers Quarters to wait for the goddamned Chevrolet station wagon with goddamned civilian plates driven by a goddamned fellow alumnus of goddamned Holabird High.
[ SEVEN ]
The Hay-Adams Hotel
800 Sixteenth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1345 26 October 1945
Jimmy saw his mother and father standing with Cletus Marcus Howell and Colonel Mattingly the moment he walked into the hotel lobby.
His mother was wearing an ankle-length Persian lamb coat. His father had on a Stetson and western boots, and between them a Brooks Brothers suit, button-down collar shirt, and a rep-striped necktie. Both parents fit—as did their son—the description “lanky and tanned Texan.” But only his father had been born in Texas. His mother was from Strasbourg, a “war bride” from the First World War.
His mother went to him quickly and wrapped him in an embrace.
“My baby,” she said. “My poor, poor baby.”
She seemed to be on the edge of tears, and, he realized a moment later, had spoken in German, which he’d learned from his mother.
Jimmy then wondered what the hell that was all about, but asked the question that was foremost in his mind.
“Mama, wo ist der Squirt?”
His mother started to sob.
He partially freed himself from her embrace.
“Mama, was ist los?”
A visibly upset Cletus Marcus Howell walked up to them, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Marjie’s gone, Jimmy,” he said. “Some drunken sonofabitch in a goddamned sixteen-wheeler hit her Buick head-on on U.S. 1 just inside the District and she’s gone.”
[ EIGHT ]
The Marquis de Lafayette Suite
The Hay-Adams Hotel
1505 26 October 1945
When the President of the United States came into the sitting room of the suite, Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr. was sitting on a couch, holding a glass dark with whisky. To his left was Mrs. Martha Howell, and to his right, Mrs. Virginia Cronley, his mother. Cletus Marcus Howell and James D. Cronley Sr. were sitting on a matching couch across a coffee table from them.
The coffee table held a silver coffee service, a bottle of Collier and McKeel Handcrafted Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey, a bottle of Haig & Haig Pinch scotch, and a silver bowl of ice.
Leaning against the wall, and wearing a starched white jacket, was Thomas Jefferson “Tom” Porter, a silver-haired black man in his late sixties. He had been Cletus Marcus Howell’s butler/chauffeur/confidant and close and loving friend for as long as anyone could remember.
In an armchair pulled up to the end of the coffee table was an elegantly dressed Irishman in his early sixties. His name was William Joseph Donovan. Until it had been disbanded by Presidential Order about three weeks before—on October 1, 1945—he had been director of the Office of Strategic Services. Pulled up in another armchair at the other end of the coffee table was Colonel Robert Mattingly.
The First Lady followed the President into the room. She was followed by Rear Admiral Sidney William Souers.
All the men stood.
“The admiral tells me he thought it would be all right if Bess and I came to express our sympathy,” President Truman said.
“Very kind of you both, Harry,” Cletus Marcus Howell said. “Tom, fix the President a little taste of the Collier and McKeel while I make the introductions.”
The President ignored him and walked to Jimmy Cronley.
“Son, I can’t tell you how sorry Bess and I were when Admiral Souers told us what happened to your girlfriend.”
“She wasn’t his girlfriend, Mr. President,” Jimmy’s mother said. “They eloped yesterday.”
“Oh my God!” Mrs. Truman blurted.
Jimmy’s mother put her hands over her face and began to sob. Bess Truman went to the couch, dropped to her knees, and put her arms around her.
“That’s Jimmy’s mother, Mrs. Truman,” Cletus Marcus Howell said. “The other lady is—was—Marjorie’s mother.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Jimmy said. “And thank you for not making . . . for excusing me from reporting to you at the White House.”
The President didn’t reply. He looked around and then took the glass Tom was extending on a silver tray. He took a healthy swallow, then looked around.
“General,” he said to Donovan. And then he said, “Colonel,” to Mattingly.
“Mr. President,” they replied just about simultaneously.
“And that’s Jimmy’s dad, Harry,” Cletus Marcus Howell said. “James D. Cronley Senior.”
The two shook hands.
“You can take a lot of pride in your son, Mr. Cronley,” President Truman said.
“I do, Mr. President. I’m very . . .” His voice broke, and then he found it and continued, “. . . I’m very proud of Jimmy.”
The President took another sip of the Collier and McKeel.
“I’d forgotten, Mr. Cronley,” he said, “that you and General Donovan served together in the First War.”
“Yes, sir. We did.”
President Truman scanned the room, then gestured. “Everybody please sit down,” he ordered. He turned to Tom Porter. “Could you get chai
rs for my wife and me, please? And Admiral Souers?”
The President helped his wife to her feet and installed her in a chair and then sat down himself. He looked at Jimmy.
“Son, the reason I asked the admiral to bring you to the White House was that I was going to make you a first lieutenant and give you the Bronze Star for what you did. That was General Marshall’s recommendation. He said he thought the Bronze Star was appropriate, but that since the war was over, the Bronze Star could not have the V for Valor device on it. And he said he would ‘look into’ making you a first lieutenant even though you don’t have the time in grade.
“This was before, I think I should mention, Admiral Souers told me what happened on U.S. 1. I don’t want you to think that what’s going to happen now is because I pity you, though God knows I think what happened to you this afternoon is about the worst kick in the ba— in the stomach that I can imagine.
“What happened was I got to thinking the Bronze Star without the V for Valor device wasn’t ‘appropriate.’ And as far as General Marshall ‘looking into’ whether you could be promoted early or not, I remembered when my National Guard outfit got called up for the First War, I went from staff sergeant to captain overnight. And finally, I remembered I’m commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America.”
The President drained his Collier and McKeel, handed the glass to Tom, and said, “I’ll have another of those, but hold off a minute, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stand up, son,” the President ordered as he rose from his own chair. “We’ll get to what was supposed to happen in the White House.”
Jimmy stood.
“Okay, Sid,” the President ordered.
“Attention to orders,” Admiral Souers proclaimed.
General Donovan and Colonel Mattingly jumped to their feet and came to attention. Cletus Marcus Howell got to his feet next, then Jimmy’s father, and finally all the women.
“War Department, Washington, D.C., twenty-sixth October 1945,” Admiral Souers read from a sheet of paper. “Extract of General Orders. Classified SECRET. Paragraph one. Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Junior, Cavalry, Army of the United States, with detail to Military Intelligence, is promoted to Captain, Cavalry, with detail to Military Intelligence, with date of rank twenty-six October 1945. Authority, Verbal Order of the President of the United States.”