"They were pretty mad, sir," Lieutenant MacMillan said.
"If they give you any real trouble, you let me know," the man in the gla.s.ses said. He lifted the medal suspended around MacMillan"s neck on a starred blue ribbon. "That ought to be worth a weekend pa.s.s, anyhow. If they give you any real trouble, tell-them the Commander in Chief told you that."
III.
(One) Kilometer 835, Frankfurt-Ka.s.sel Autobahn Near Bad Nauheim, Germany 6 April 1945 A BMW sidecar- motorcycle bounced up the median of the autobahn. It was driven by a huge black American T/4, an MP bra.s.sard on his arm. A three-by-six-foot American flag was just barely flapping from an antenna rigged as a flagpole, and a small pa.s.senger was hanging onto the lip of the sidecar c.o.c.kpit.
Endless ranks of gray--uniformed "prisoners marched -listlessly down the median in the opposite direction. There were four tightly - packed columns of American vehicles on the autobahn itself, on both sides of the median. On the left, moving northward in what were customarily the southbound lanes, was a slow-moving armored column and a second slightly faster moving line of General Motors six-by-six trucks. The north bound lanes were jammed with a stopped double column of trucks.
The BMW motorcycle came to a bridge over a deep gorge.
Its center span was blown and lay in a pile of crumbled concrete and steel two hundred feet below. The combat engineers had laid a one-lane Bailey Bridge over the gap, and a trio of military policemen directed traffic over it. Six tanks were waved across with impatient gestures, then six of the trucks from the columns On the left. The columns on the right were going to have to wait, and they had the message. Their drivers were sitting on the hoods of the GMCs. The line of prisoners wended its way down the far bank of the gorge and then up the near side.
The BMW with the sidecar had a siren, and the pa.s.senger shouted for the motorcycle driver to sound it as they approached the MPs. One of the MPs heard it, looked, stepped in front of it, and raised his hand. The pa.s.senger of the motorcycle waved his hand violently, imperiously, motioning the MP aside.
The MP swore, but he saw the MP bra.s.sard on the driver, and he thought he saw the glint of officer"s insignia on the collar points of the pa.s.senger. He looked to his left. There was a fifteen-foot gap between two of the M4A3 tanks about to enter on the bridge. What the f.u.c.k, if they got run over, they could be quickly pushed out of the way. Without signaling the tank to stop or slow, he waved the motorcycle into the moving line.
First with a roar of the engine to pull ahead of the tank, then the squeal of brakes to keep from running under the tank ahead of it, the motorcycle pulled into line, and then bounced over the Bailey Bridge, somewhat c.o.c.keyed: the wheels of the motorcycle rode in the tread of the bridge, and the wheel of the sidecar was on the planks of the Bailey, six inches lower than the road.
When they reached the far side of the Bailey, they were going too fast, and the motorcycle lurched dangerously as it bounced off the Bailey and onto the undamaged portion of the bridge.
Five hundred yards off the bridge, a cl.u.s.ter of vehicles was parked in a field to the left. There were six military police jeeps, each with sirens and flashing lights mounted in their fenders and in their rear a machine gun on a pedestal. There were four half-tracks, each with a four-barreled multiple .50 on a turret in the bed. There were three M4A3 tanks, and half a dozen GMCs with van bodies, plus another GMC guarded by two MPs. Three flags were stuck into the ground beside its rear-opening door. One was the national colors, the second was the two-starred red flag of a major general; and the third carried an enlargement of the shoulder insignia of the 40th Armored Division, a triangular patch, yellow, blue, and red, with- the number forty at the top.
As the BMW motorcycle turned out of the moving tank column with its flag catching the breeze, Major General Peterson J. Waterford came out of the van. He stopped at the top of the folding stairs and put a tanker"s helmet on his head. The 40th Divisional insignia was on each side of the helmet, and there were two stars on the front. The general wore a furcollared aviator"s jacket {stars on the epaulets, the zipper fastened only at the web waistband) a shade 31 (pink) shirt, shade 31 riding breeches, with dark suede inner knees, and glistening riding boots. A shoulder holster held a .45 Colt automatic, and there was a yellow scarf at his throat.
The general smiled. "Jesus, Charley," he said. "Get a load of that, will you?" He had seen the BMW with the large black T/4 and the flapping American flag whose pa.s.senger was doing his d.a.m.ndest to hang on as the sidecar bounced him around.
The motorcycle slid to a halt, and that d.a.m.ned near, sent the pa.s.senger flying out on his a.s.s. The general was barely able to restrain himself from laughing out loud. The pa.s.senger stood up in the sidecar and saluted. That sight was too much. The pa.s.senger was about five feet five or six, and the helmet and the goggles nearly covered his head. He looked, the general thought, like a mushroom. The general chuckled loudly, almost a laugh, as he returned the salute. Fat Charley, his G-3, laughed out loud.
"General Waterford, sir," the saluting-mushroom said, and scrambled out of the sidecar, bending over it to pick up a Schmeisser machine pistol, and then trotting up to the van steps. The mushroom saluted again. General Waterford saw that it was a little Jew, and that the little Jew had a second lieutenant"s bar pinned to his collar.
"Lieutenant, where the h.e.l.l did you get that motorcycle?" General Waterford demanded, with a broad smile.
"Sir, Lieutenant S. T. Felter requests permission to speak to the general, sir."
"Speak," Major General Peterson K. Waterford said, amused.
"Sir, I think we should speak in private," Lieutenant Felter said. "It"s a personal matter."
"A personal matter?" General W Waterford was no longer amused.
"A personal matter involving the general, sir," Felter said.
Waterford looked at him without expression for ten seconds. Then he turned around and stepped back inside the van, signaling for the lieutenant to follow him. Fat Charley, the G-3, stepped to one side to let the lieutenant pa.s.s.
The interior of the van had been fitted out as a mobile command post. There were desks and a half dozen telephones.
On two of the walls were large maps covered with celluloid on which troop dispositions and the flow of forces had been marked! with colored grease pencils.
"All right, Lieutenant," General Waterford said. "Who are you, and what do you want?" The lieutenant took off the helmet, and pushed the goggles down over his chin, so they dangled from their strap around his neck. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then came almost to attention.
"Sir, I am Lieutenant S. T. Felter, attached to the POW interrogation branch of the 40th MP Company."
"And ?"
"General, I believe I have located Lieutenant Colonel Bellmon."
"Which Bellmon would that be?" General Waterford asked, making an effort-and succeeding-to keep his voice under control.
"Lieutenant Colonel Robert F. Bellmon, sir. Your son-in-law."
"You"re sure, Lieutenant?" Waterford asked. Fat Charley stepped into the van. "He says he"s located Bob," Waterford said.
"How reliable is your information, Lieutenant?" Fat Charley asked.
"I would rate it as ninety percent reliable," Felter said. "I have three separate prisoner interrogations to base it on. One of the prisoners taken near Hoescht was a captain who was formerly a.s.signed to Stalag XVII-B."
"I heard he was in Stalag XVII-B," Waterford said. "That"s not news."
"The officer prisoners of Stalag XVII-B are being evacuated, on foot, from near Stettin," Lieutenant Felter said. "May I use the map, sir?"
"Go ahead," the general said. Felter went to a map of Germany mounted on the wall of the van, pointing out where Stalag XVII-B had been located near Stettin. Then he pointed out the route reported to be, and most likely JO be, the one it would take if moving westward on foot.
Both the general and Fat Charley followed the map with interest.
"Have you any report on Colonel Bellmon"s physical condition?" General Waterford asked.
"Yes, sir. He is in good physical condition. I understand he is the de facto senior prisoner."
"As opposed to de jure?" Waterford asked, half sarcastically. "Where did you go to school, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir. As opposed to de jure. I understand the senior prisoner is a full colonel suffering from depression."
c.o.c.ky little b.a.s.t.a.r.d, General Waterford thought. He wondered where he had come from. CCNY Jew, the general guessed. Then Harvard Law.
"I asked where you went to school," General Waterford said.
"I was at the Academy for two and a half years, sir," Felter said.
"West Point?" the general asked; incredulously.
"Yes, sir. I resigned."
"Well, then, Lieutenant," General Waterford said, "you will understand my position. While I am very grateful to you for bringing me this information, you will understand why I cannot act upon it. Why I must let things happen as they will. I cannot, as much as I would like to, send a column to free them."
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, for Christ"s sake, Porky," Fat Charley said. "Why not? We have the a.s.sets!"
"I rather doubt that Colonel Bellmon would want me to," General Waterford said. "It would clearly be special privilege."
"It would be freeing prisoners. Bob"s not the only one."
"The subject is not open for discussion, Colonel," Waterford said. He looked at Felter, then walked to the door of the van. As he reached it, he turned around.
"Charley," he said, "get the lieutenant"s name, and write a letter of commendation to be put in his file. That was good detective work, Lieutenant, and you demonstrated a tact in presenting your information that becomes you. Thank you very much, and please keep me posted." Then he walked down the steps of the van.
Fat Charley picked up a sheet of paper and a pencil and bent over the built-in map table.
"Name, rank, and serial number, Lieutenant," he said.
Felter gave it to him.
Then Fat Charley made up his mind.
He took a second sheet of lined notepaper and wrote on it.
He gave it to Felter. Felter read it.
Phil: Porky says he will not order a relief column because it would be special privilege. Charley.
"Two point three miles beyond the bridge," Fat Charley said, "the one we fixed with a Bailey?"
"Yes, sir. I came that way."
"You will find the 393rd Tank Destroyer Regiment. I want you to tell the commanding officer, Colonel Parker, precisely what you told General Waterford."
"Yes, sir," Felter said. "Sir, if Colonel Parker is going to lead a rescue operation, I would very much like to go along."
"I have no idea, Lieutenant," Fat Charley said, "what Colonel Parker may do."
"Yes, sir."
"What I am going to do, Lieutenant, is telephone your commanding officer and tell him that I have pressed you into temporary duty here for a few days. General Waterford is a busy man, and I see no reason to bother him with any of this.
Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir." Felter pulled the goggles back up over his chin and adjusted them. He picked up his helmet.
"Lieutenant, may I make a suggestion?"
"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Felter replied. "Of course."
"If you put a couple of handkerchiefs, or socks, or something, between the top of the straps and the inside of the helmet liner, it will keep your helmet from riding so low on your head."
"Really?" Second Lieutenant Felter said. He took two handkerchiefs from his field jacket pocket and jammed them into the helmet.
"There," Fat Charley said when Felter had put it on. "Now you"ll be able to see."
"I never wore it much," Felter confessed. "But I heard the general was very firm about helmets."
"On your way, Felter," Fat Charley said, smiling. He touched Felter"s shoulder in a gesture of affection as Felter walked past him. "Good luck."
(Two) Kilometer 829, Franlifurt-Ka.s.sel Autobahn Near Bad Nauheim, Germany 6 April 1945 .
The officers and the first grade noncoms (the regimental sergeant major, the battalion sergeants major, the first sergeants, and the other six-stripers, the S-3 and S-2 operations sergeants, the regimental motor sergeant and band sergeant) gathered in a half-circle around Colonel Philip Sheridan Parker III, commanding the 393rd Tank Destroyer Regiment.
Colonel Parker, in a zippered tanker"s jacket, tanker"s boots, and with his Colt New Service Model 1917 revolver hanging from a pistol belt around his waist, stood on the curved brick entryway to a mansion the 393rd had taken over as a command post three days before.
Built into the walls of the mansion, which looked more French than German, were flag holders. The American flag hung loosely from one, and the 393rp"s flag, a representation of a tiger eating a tank, and which the colonel personally thought was more Walt Disney than military, hung from the other.
They didn"t look like the Long Gray Line, in that some of them were fat, and some of them were short, and some of them were fat and short, and all of them were colored. But neither, Colonel Parker thought, as he often did when he looked at them, did they look like a Transportation Corps port battalion.
They looked like what they were, combat soldiers, who had proved themselves under fire, and knew they were good. Colonel Philip Sheridan Parker thought, all things considered, that his men were just as good as the Buffalo Soldiers, the 9th United States Cavalry (Colored) which had charged up Kettle Hill under Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and Master Sergeant Philip Sheridan Parker, Sr.
"Ten-hut!" his adjutant said, softly.
"Rest!" Parker said.
His noncoms and officers stood at a loose but respectful parade rest.
This was not, Colonel Parker thought again, the Fow-Fowty Fow Double Clutchin", Motha-f.u.c.kin" QM Truck. These were soldiers.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I think it is. pretty clear that this campaign is about over. It is equally clear to me that we are at the moment about as useful to current operations as teats on a boar hog." There were chuckles.
"It is my judgment that we have been committed to action for the last time. We may, and probably will, move again, but I think we have had our last action against tanks. The Germans seem to have run out of tanks, or at least out of any fuel to run the ones they have left.
"On the other hand, they are dug in here and there, and apparently haven"t gotten the word the ball game is all over but the shouting. What I am attempting to do is paint the situation as one where we can, with our heads held high for doing our duty as well as anyone, just sit still and wait for the capitulation. "It has, however, come to my attention that about 250 captured American officers are being marched on foot from western Poland into Germany. It is my intention to lead a column to liberate them. I have not, repeat not, been ordered to do so.
I am proceeding under my general authority to engage targets of opportunity wherever and whenever encountered. I intend to engage whatever targets-I happen to find in eastern Germany with two dozen tracks, ten jeeps, and thirty six-by-sixes, which will carry what supplies we need and ,whatever American prisoners we are fortunate enough to encounter.
"I will not ask for volunteers. However, those of you who would prefer to make the intelligent, rational, honorable decision to remain here until the war is over may return now to whatever you were doing before 1 called this officer and noncom call. Atten-hut. Dis-missed."
Not a man moved.
Colonel Parker waited until he was sure the lump in his throat had gone down sufficiently so that it would not interfere with his speaking voice. "All of you obviously can"t go," he said. "Officers may plead their cases to the exec, who is not going, and enlisted men to the sergeant major, who is. We obviously can"t have a force made up entirely of officers and master sergeants. For one thing; if has been my experience that, as a general rule of thumb, such people make lousy track crewmen."
There was again the polite, respectful chuckling.
"1 will not, repeat not, listen to appeals of the decisions made by the exec and the sergeant major," Colonel Parker said.
"We move out in thirty minutes."
Lieutenant Sanford K. Felter was denied by Colonel Parker himself the honor of leading Task Force Parker into eastern Germany in the sidecar of his liberated BMW motorcycle.
Parker felt the motorcycle was a good idea, and so was the flag flapping from its jury-rigged antenna (intact, he-ordered every American flag but one in the regiment carried along in the tracks, unfurled); but Lieutenant Felter was too valuable an a.s.set for the operation to risk having him blown away while riding in the van in a motorcycle. Lieutenant Felter spoke Russian, and that was going to be necessary.
Lieutenant Felter rode in the third vehicle of the column, the first track, behind the motorcycle and a jeep, standing up in the rear, holding on to the mount of the multiple .50.