Major General Reinhard Gehlen and what had been Abwehr Ost were being hidden from the Soviets in a former monastery—Kloster Grünau. They were being guarded by a reinforced company of 2nd Armored Division soldiers. They were all Negroes. They had no commanding officer, and one was needed. There were no Negro officers in the “intelligence pool” who spoke German, and the white officers in the pool who did were needed for more important duties.
At the time, Cronley thought that he was about to spend the foreseeable future in the middle of nowhere as the cushion between 256 black soldiers and about that many German intelligence officers and non-coms. The one thing he could be sure of, he had thought, was that for the rest of his military service—he was obligated to serve four years—he would be doing something even less exciting than washing mud off the tracks of tanks in a motor pool somewhere.
He had quickly learned how wrong his prediction was.
—
“You would feel safe flying a Storch there?” Mattingly asked.
“Yes, sir. No problem.”
“I seem to recall hearing my friend say that ‘there are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots.’”
“I’m a young, very cautious pilot, sir. I can get into Eschborn with no trouble.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you at Eschborn at half past eleven tomorrow morning. Come as a civilian.”
“Yes, sir.”
[ FIVE ]
When Cronley went from his quarters to the senior officers’ dining room, he saw that only one place was set at the table. Dunwiddie was on his way to Sonthofen, which meant he wouldn’t be here for supper. No plates for Gehlen and Mannberg meant they had already eaten.
Without waiting for me, and thus expressing—without coming right out and saying anything—their displeasure with me for countermanding Bischoff’s order about not changing Orlovsky’s shit bucket.
And probably conferring on how they can tactfully remind Major Wallace and Colonel Mattingly of my youth and inexperience in the hope he will tell me to pay attention to my elders.
Well, fuck both of them!
Cronley went into the bar, found the Stars and Stripes where Mannberg had left it earlier, went back into the dining room, and ate alone. He refused the offer of a drink, or a beer, as he would be flying first thing in the morning.
The mess was run by Tiny’s mess sergeant and two of his assistants. Tiny’s mess sergeant supervised—declared—the menu, and his two sergeants drew the rations from the Quartermaster, divided them between what would be eaten in the two messes, and those to be given to the families of Gehlen’s men.
Gehlen’s men did the actual cooking and all the other work connected with the two messes and the NCO club, including the bartending.
The only news that Cronley found interesting in Stars and Stripes as he read it over his grilled pork chops, applesauce, mashed potatoes, and green beans was that the PX was about to hold a raffle, the winners of which would be entitled to purchase jeeps for $380. The vehicles, the story said, had been run through a rebuild program at the Griesheim ordnance depot and would be “as new.”
The first thing Cronley thought was that he would enter the raffle. A jeep would be nice to have on the ranch outside Midland, if he could figure a way to get one from Germany to Texas.
That thought was immediately followed by his realization that he was never going back to the ranch in Midland.
Not after what happened to the Squirt . . .
He realized he had to put the Squirt, the jeep, and Midland out of his mind.
The first thing he thought next was that while he knew he had seen a chart case in Storch Two, which meant there was probably also one in Storch One, he hadn’t actually seen a chart, and a chart would be a damned good thing to have when trying to fly to Eschborn.
The first time he’d flown into Sonthofen he had made a straight-in approach on a heading of 270, the course Colonel Wilson had ordered him to fly. The first time he’d flown back to Kloster Grünau, he’d had Schröder with him, and since that was before Schröder had been vetted by General Gehlen and he hadn’t wanted Schröder to know where they were going, Cronley simply had taken off and set a course of 90 degrees, the reciprocal of 270, and flown that until he saw Schollbrunn ahead of him. He knew where Kloster Grünau was from there. On his second flight from Sonthofen, he’d done the same thing; the second time it was easier.
Flying to Eschborn is not going to be so simple. I am going to need a chart of the route showing, among other things, the available en-route navigation aids and the Eschborn tower frequencies so I can call and get approach and landing instructions.
Come to think of it, I have never seen an Air Corps chart.
Are there Air Corps charts and Army charts? Or does the Army use Air Corps charts? And what’s the difference, if any, between military charts and the civilian ones I know?
Jesus, am I going to have to call Mattingly back and tell him that on second thought I’ve decided to put off flying into Eschborn until I think I know what I’m doing?
He got up quickly from the table and walked out of the room and then the building. He saw one of the machine gun jeeps making its rounds and flagged it down.
“Take me to the Storches,” he ordered.
“The what, sir?” the sergeant driving asked as the corporal who had been in the front seat scurried into the back.
“The airplanes,” Cronley clarified.
Getting to the map cases in the airplane turned out to be a pain in the ass. The troopers had done a good job putting them under tarpaulins so they would be less visible from the air. Untying the tarpaulins so that he could get under them was difficult in the dark, and once he got to the chart case and looked inside, he knew that he would not be able to examine what it contained in the light of his flashlight. Sticking the nose of the jeep under the tarpaulin to use the jeep’s headlights proved to be difficult and then ineffective.
Finally, he stuffed the charts back into the case, removed it from the Storch’s cockpit, and made his way out from under the tarpaulin.
“You want us to take the tarpaulin all the way off, Captain?”
“No, thanks. Just take me back to the mess.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No. Take me to the chapel,” he said. He thought: So I can see if they changed the shit bucket in Orlovsky’s cell, or whether Bischoff told them to ignore me.
—
Bischoff and the small, tough sergeant who had been in the room behind the altar were again sitting at the card table, playing poker with packs of cigarettes and Hershey bars for chips. There were two others at the table, both soldiers, neither of whom Cronley had seen.
The sergeant stood.
He nodded politely and said, “Captain.”
“What does it smell like down there?” Cronley asked.
“Well, Captain, it don’t smell like roses,” the sergeant said. “But it smells better . . . scratch that. It don’t smell near as bad as it did.”
“Show me,” Cronley said, and then added, “We won’t need you down there, Herr Bischoff.”
—
Major Konstantin Orlovsky of the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs reacted to the opening of his cell door as he had the first time. Shielding his eyes from the headlights, he slid his back up the wall until he was standing.
“Take the light out of his eyes,” Cronley ordered, and then, “If you can, turn all but one of those headlights off.”
“I’ll have to rip them loose,” the sergeant said.
“Then do it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Everybody out of here but you and me, Sergeant, and then close the door.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you,” Orlovsky said.
Cronle
y didn’t reply.
When the door had creaked closed behind them, Cronley looked at the sergeant.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“Staff Sergeant Lewis, Harold Junior, Captain.”
“If I hear that you have repeated to anyone but First Sergeant Dunwiddie one word of what I’m about to say in here, Staff Sergeant Harold Lewis Junior, you will be Private Lewis, washing pots and pans for the Germans in the kitchen until I decide whether or not to castrate you with a dull bayonet before I send you home in a body bag. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir, Captain.”
“Okay. Now the question, Major Orlovsky, is, ‘What do I do with you?’”
Orlovsky didn’t reply.
“What the Germans want from you are the names of the people here who gave you those rosters Sergeant Tedworth took away from you. Once you give them the names, you’ll all be . . . disposed of.”
“That’s the scenario I reached, Captain Cronley.”
“It doesn’t seem to worry you very much.”
“Are you familiar with Roman poet Ovid, Captain?”
“I can’t say that I am. I’m just a simple cowboy. We don’t know much about Roman poets—for that matter, about any poets—in West Texas.”
Orlovsky smiled.
“Ovid wrote, ‘Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.’”
“Which means what? That you’re happy to be locked up in the dark, waiting to be shot?”
“Which means that my only worry is that I will be subjected to a painful interrogation—for you a useless interrogation—before I am shot. That I will be shot is a given.”
“Why useless? And why is you being shot a given?”
“So far as your first question is concerned, since I know I’m to be shot, why should I give you those names? And how could you be sure, if I gave you a name, or names, that they would be the names of the people you want? As to the second, what alternative do you have to eliminating me? You can’t free me, and you can’t keep me here for long.”
Cronley didn’t reply. He instead asked, “Where’d you learn your English?”
“In university. Leningrad State University. Why do you ask?”
“You speak it very well. I was curious.”
“And you speak German very well,” Orlovsky said, his tone making it a question.
“My mother taught me—she’s German. I’ll tell you what, Major: You think some more. Think of some way that you can give me the names I want in exchange for your life. And I’ll do the same. Maybe we can make a deal.”
“Why should I believe you have the authority to ‘make a deal’?”
“Because I’m telling you I do.”
“And what would Major Bischoff have to say about you making a deal?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. The Germans lost the war. I’m the honcho here. ‘Honcho’ is West Texas talk for ‘the man in charge.’”
“That’s a good deal of authority for a simple West Texas cowboy to have. Why should I believe you?”
“I don’t see where you have another option.”
He nodded at Orlovsky and turned to Staff Sergeant Lewis.
“I’m going, Sergeant. Bring people in here and make absolutely sure Major Orlovsky doesn’t have the means to pull the plug on himself.”
“Bischoff already thought of that, Captain.”
“Look again. And keep Bischoff out of here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good night, Major Orlovsky. We’ll talk again.”
“Good evening, Captain Cronley.”
[ SIX ]
When he had taken the chart case to his room and laid its contents out on his desk, Cronley quickly saw that Army Aviators used Air Force aerial charts, and that Air Force charts were essentially identical to the civilian charts with which he was familiar.
The case also contained a “knee-pad”—a clipboard onto which a chart could be fitted under a sheet of plastic. It had a spring clip on its underside so the board could be clipped to his pant leg—and not fall off—in flight.
He spent the better part of an hour planning his flight to Eschborn, using a grease pencil to write the critical data on the plastic over the chart, and then very carefully checking everything twice.
Then he took a shower and went to bed.
He went to sleep wondering what to think of his last conversation with Orlovsky. Was he really so resigned to being shot? Or was it a case of a skilled NKGB officer being able to use that to put a young and inexperienced officer in his pocket?
That raised the question of why he was putting his nose into something that could be—and more than likely should be—handled by Gehlen, Mannberg, and Bischoff without his interference.
The Squirt was lying asleep on her side on the couch along the right side of the Beech Model 18’s cabin. She was wearing Western boots with a skirt that had come pretty high up as she moved in her sleep.
Jimmy had always found boots on girls in skirts very erotic.
He dropped to his knees and touched the Squirt’s face tenderly with his fingertips.
Her eyes opened.
“What are you doing back here and not flying?” she said.
“I have designs on your virginal body.”
“Not so virginal anymore, thanks to you. Who’s flying the plane?”
“We’re at ten thousand feet over Midland making five-minute circles on autopilot.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I’m horny, is what I am.”
She sighed. “Me too, now.”
They kissed.
He put his hand up her skirt.
She put her hand to the front of his trousers.
“Well, look what I found!” the Squirt said, smiling.
—
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” he said furiously as he awoke.
And then he wailed, “Oh, God!” in anguish.
And then he wept.
For a long time.
And then he went to sleep again.
IV
[ ONE ]
Kloster Grünau
Schollbrunn, Bavaria
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
0715 30 October 1945
First Sergeant Chauncey L. Dunwiddie, easily holding two large china mugs in his massive left hand, knocked at the door to Captain James D. Cronley Jr.’s bedroom with the knuckles of his right fist.
“Come!”
Cronley was sitting on his bed, pulling on his pointed-toe boots.
“Coffee?” Dunwiddie asked.
“Oh, yeah. Danke schön.”
Dunwiddie handed him a mug.
“You all right, Jim?”
“Why do I think you have a reason for asking beyond a first sergeant’s to-be-expected concern for his beloved commanding officer?”
Dunwiddie hesitated momentarily, then said, “I’ve been wrong before. But when I got back at oh-dark-hundred and walked past your room, I thought I heard you crying in your sleep. I almost came in then, but my back teeth were floating, so I took a leak. When I came back, you’d stopped.”
Cronley hesitated momentarily, too, before replying.
“I wasn’t crying in my sleep. I was wide awake. I had what is politely called ‘a nocturnal emission.’ I started crying when I woke up and realized that wet dream—and every goddamned thing associated with it—was never going to come true.”
Dunwiddie didn’t reply.
“Am I losing my mind, Tiny?”
Dunwiddie hesitated again before replying, and when he did it wasn’t a reply, but a question. He pointed at the chart case. “What’s that?”
“That’s an aviation chart case. Experienced pilots such as
myself use them to carry maps—aviation navigation charts—around.”
“You’re going somewhere?”
“Eschborn. As soon as I have breakfast.”
“Mattingly sent for you?”
“I told him I needed to talk to him.”
“You going to tell me what about?”
“Orlovsky.”
“He told me to deal with Orlovsky, Jim.”
“That’s what I want to talk to him about.”
“I heard you went to see our Russian friend. Twice.”
“Sergeant Lewis told you?”
“Sergeant Lewis waited until I got back from Sonthofen to tell me.”
“I gather he didn’t approve?”
“Actually, he began the conversation by saying, ‘You know, our baby-faced captain isn’t really a candy-ass. He told Bischoff to fuck off, and then he told me if I told anybody but you what he said to Orlovsky he’d cut off my dick with a dull bayonet.’ Or words to that effect.”
“That’s close enough.”
“Mattingly doesn’t want to know what Gehlen does with the Russian. That’s why he told me to deal with it.”
“And you’re happy with that?”
“Do I have to point out that first sergeants—and brand-new captains—do not question what full bull colonels tell them to do?”
“Do first sergeants question their orders from brand-new captains?”
Dunwiddie didn’t reply.
“Let’s try one and see. Sergeant, if the prisoner Bischoff attempts to talk to Major Orlovsky, you will place him under arrest.”
“You’re crazy, Jim. He’ll go right to General Gehlen—”
“I’m not finished,” Cronley interrupted. “You will immediately assign enough of our men to protect Major Orlovsky around the clock from any attempt by any of the Germans to kill him. The use of deadly force is authorized to protect Major Orlovsky. The foregoing is a direct order.”
“Jesus, Jim!”
“The answer I expect from you, Sergeant, is ‘Yes, sir.’”
Dunwiddie looked at Cronley for ten seconds before coming to attention and saying, “Yes, sir.”
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