"The M 1, the Garand, has it all over the Lee-Enfield. 303, but there"s G.o.dd.a.m.n little .30-06 ammo in clips up where you guys are going. Plenty of .30-06 for the machine guns, so if you want to try to reuse your clips, that"s your option." Lowell remembered trying without much success to reload the spring steel clips for the Garand on the rifle range at Fort Dix.
"I can give you all the clipped .30-06 you want here, but you"re going to have to carry it with you," the old warrant officer went on. "Now the Webley .455 ain"t worth a s.h.i.t either, and that .38 S&W shoots a .38 S&W as opposed to a .38 Special. That"s really not worth a s.h.i.t. There"s nothing beats an army .45 if you can shoot one, but there"s Lugers if you want. Plenty of 9 mm all over."
"What do the regulations say we"re supposed to draw?" Lieutenant Felter asked, politely.
"They haven"t made up their mind yet, Lieutenant," the warrant officer said. "There"s one school of thought that says you"re a technical advisor and a noncombatant, and don"t have to go armed at all. n.o.body believes that s.h.i.t. Now, if you should want to draw a U.S. Army weapon for protection against burglars, or whatever, you can have a .45 and either an M 1 or a carbine or a Thompson. But you have to sign for them.
"You don"t want to sign for a weapon, you can take your choice of anything else. One pistol and one rifle or Sten. They"re not on paper."
Lieutenant Felter took and signed for a Colt .45 and a Thompson submachine gun. The captain from the 19th Armored Field Artillery took and signed for a .45 and a carbine.
Lowell had fired the Thompson "for familiarization" at Fort Dix and hadn"t been able to keep it from climbing off the target. He was therefore afraid of it and signed for an M 1 instead. Giving in to an impulse, he also took a 9 mm Luger.
He had never held one in his hands before. For that matter, it was the second pistol he had ever held in his hands at all. He had also fired "for familiarization" the Colt .45 at Fort Dix and had been unable to hit a three-by-four target at twenty-five yards with it.
Had he wanted to, however, he could have fired High Expert with the Garand. He had been surprised at how he had taken to the Garand. The legendary recoil, which had frightened him and the other trainees, had turned out to be far less uncomfortable than that of the 12-bore Browning over-and-under his grandfather had given him for his twelfth birthday. He had spent long hours firing the Browning on the trap range his grandfather had built behind his house on the island. He had understood the Garand from about the fifth shot he had taken with it; and by the time their week on their range was over, he felt quite as comfortable with it as any gun he had ever fired. If he had to take a shot at somebody, which seemed beyond credibility, he would do it with a Garand. He took the Luger because he had always wanted one. It looked lethal. All self-respecting n.a.z.i bad guys in the movies, and sometimes even Humphrey Bogart and Alan Ladd, used Lugers. But the idea that he would actually shoot it at somebody was as ludicrous as the grade B movies.
Lowell took a sealed oblong tin can marked "320 Rounds Caliber .30-06 Ball in Clips and Bandoliers" and two loose bandoliers of Garand ammunition. The ordnance warrant officer gave him two cardboard boxes of pistol ammunition. The printing on them was in German: Fur Pistolen 08 9 mm deutsche Waffen und Munitionsjabrik, Berlin. 50 Patronen.
It wasn"t quite credible, despite the evidence in his hands, that the pistol and the ammunition for it had been intended for use by the German Army.
They were fed lunch, 10-in-l ration Beef Chunks w/Gravy, in the elegant dining room of the Grande Bretagne. Afterward, they found their names on a mimeographed Special Order of Headquarters, U.S. Military Advisory Group, Greece, which had been slid under their door. Felter and Lowell had been a.s.signed to share a room. The field artillery captain"s rank had ent.i.tled him to a private room, next door.
"s.h.i.t," Lowell said, when, sitting down on the bed, he read his orders. His name and the captain"s were on the orders together. They were being a.s.signed to the Advisory Detachment, 27th Royal h.e.l.lenic Mountain Division. Felter had been a.s.signed to Headquarters, USAMAG(G), to something called DAB, Operations Division.
"What the h.e.l.l is DAB?" Lowell asked.
"I think it means Doc.u.ment a.n.a.lysis," Felter replied. "Probably Doc.u.ment a.n.a.lysis Branch." He could tell from the confused look on Lowell"s face that Lowell knew no more than he had before his reply. "I"m sort of a linguist," Felter said.
"No kidding?"
"My parents came from Europe," Felter said. "I picked up German, and Russian, and Polish."
"I had a German governess," Lowell said, in German.
"They need people who speak German," Felter replied in German. "They told me most of the maps are German and that what I"ll be doing is adapting them for us. Didn"t you tell that AG captain you spoke it?"
"I told him I didn"t speak it," Lowell said, still in German.
"Well, go tell him you can. You can stay here," Felter said.
"You"re going to get yourself killed with one of the divisions."
"Why do you say that?" Lowell asked.
"You don"t really think that ROTC and Basic Officer"s Course qualified you for what you"ll be doing, do you?"
"I was directly commissioned," Lowell said. "I don"t know what they teach in ROTC or Basic Officer"s Course."
"Directly commissioned as what?" Felter asked.
"Actually, so that I could play polo on a general"s team," Lowell said.
"Am I supposed to believe that?"
"It happens to be the truth," Lowell said.
"You"ve had no duty with troops?" Felter asked.
"I was thrown out of college, so the draft board got me," Lowell said. "And then I had basic training, and then I was the official golf pro for the U.S. Constabulary golf club, and then I played polo," Lowell said.
"You"re absolutely unqualified for duty as an advisor to troops on the line," Felter said.
"And you are?" Lowell asked. Felter let that pa.s.s.
"You"re liable to get killed. Don"t you understand that?" Felter asked.
"Ever since I put on this officer"s uniform," Lowell said, "with a rare exception here and there, people have gone out of their way to let me know they think I"m something of a joke as a man. I"m rather tired of it. I intend to see if I am, or not."
"You don"t know what the h.e.l.l you"re saying," Felter said.
"You too, you see? Even you."
"I"m a professional soldier," Felter said, somewhat solemnly.
"Sure you are," Lowell said, sarcastically.
"Listen to me, stupid," Felter said. "I was at West Point. I was in on the last days of the war. For what it"s worth, I"m even a Ranger."
"No s.h.i.t" Lowell asked. He was dumbfounded. "Christ, you don"t look like it." "Thanks a lot," Felter said. They smiled at each other. Felter got up.
"Where are you going?"
"I"m going to tell the adjutant you speak German," Felter said.
"No, you"re not," Lowell said. "Leave things alone. It"s important to me." Felter, standing by the door, looked at him.
"If you"re a West Pointer, and whatever else you said, a ranger, what are you doing here?" Lowell asked.
"I asked for this a.s.signment," Felter said.
"Why?" Lowell asked.
"For the experience," Felter said.
"I want the experience, too," Lowell said. "Please mind your own business, Felter."
"Good G.o.d!" Felter said. "Have you got notions of glory, or what?"
"I just want to see what happens," Lowell said, simply.
"And, figure it out. It would be your word against mine about whether or not I speak German."
Felter looked at him for a moment, and then walked to where Lowell had rested his M 1 Garand against the wall beside the bed.
"Do you know how to use one of these?" he asked.
"Actually, I"m pretty good with one of them," Lowell said.
"But I"d be grateful if you"d show me how that Luger works."
"Why did you take a Luger if you don"t know how it works?" Felter asked, throwing up his hands.
"I already know I can"t shoot a .45 worth a s.h.i.t," Lowell said, simply. "And I thought the Luger was prettier."
"Jesus, you"re insane!" Felter said. Then he picked up the Luger. "Come over here, Lieutenant. I will show you how this works."
"Thank you, sir. The lieutenant is very kind, sir." He smiled at Felter. "Are you really a ranger, you little b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"
"Yes, I am, you dumb s.h.i.t," Felter said.
(Two) At midnight, there was a boom. Lowell, who had been sleeping fitfully dreaming of Ilse, sat up in bed and turned the light on.
"Douse the light!" Felter ordered in a fierce whisper. Lowell saw him, .45 in hand, standing against the wall. He turned the light off and started to giggle before it sank in that the boom had been a shot and that they had been issued weapons and what the army called "live ammo" and that they were in Greece and there was a revolution going on.
He slid out of bed, and groped in the dark for the Garand.
He found it in the comer of the room. He took an 8-round clip from the cloth bandolier and opened the action. It made an awful amount of noise. When he slipped the clip into the action, it sounded like a door slamming. His heard was pounding. He stood between the beds, the MI at his shoulder, covering the door.
There was a rap on the door. Lowell"s finger tightened on the trigger before he realized if somebody was going to burst in to murder them in their beds, it was unlikely he would knock first. He took his finger off the trigger, but kept it inside the stamped metal loop of the trigger guard, and kept the rifle at his shoulder.
"Duty officer!" a voice called.
Felter jerked the door open. Light from the corridor flooded the room.
The duty officer saw Lowell, and Felter, poised for action.
He put his hands up, half mockingly, in surrender.
"I guess you heard it," he said. "Where did it come from?"
"Next door, I think," Felter said, lowering his pistol. Lowell had no idea where the sound had come from. The duty officer turned and walked further down the corridor. Felter went after him, and Lowell followed, feeling foolish, carrying the Garand at port arms.
There was no answer to the duty officer"s knock at the field artillery captain"s door. He pushed it open. "s.h.i.t!" he said. He went into the room.
Lowell looked over Sanford Felter"s head. The field artillery captain who had been kicked out of the Constab along with Lowell had lain down on his bed, put the muzzle of his .45 in his mouth, and blown the top of his head allover the brocade wallpaper of his room. His face bore a startled look. His eyes were wide open, as if he was looking at them.
Craig Lowell barely made it back to his room and the toilet bowl before throwing up.
He was still throwing up when the duty officer came into their room and picked up the telephone.
"Sorry to bother you at this hour, Colonel, but I think maybe you"d want to come up to 707. That new captain just blew his head off." He looked in at Lowell, sprawled sick and scared on the floor.
"You all right?" he asked, and there was genuine concern in his voice.
Lowell nodded his head.
(Three) A sergeant came to their table in the dining room the next morning and told Felter that the adjutant wanted to see him.
Felter and Lowell said good-bye, shaking hands.
"Be careful," Felter said. "For G.o.d"s sake, don"t do anything foolish."
"Same to you," Lowell said.
They were both aware of and surprised by the emotion they felt at parting. Felter started to ask Lowell one final time if he wanted him to tell the adjutant he spoke German, but he decided against it. He would make up his mind when he saw the adjutant.
Thirty minutes later, Felter walked into the room where Lowell lay on the bed, waiting for word that it was time to leave. Lowell said nothing as Felter walked into the room.
Felter went to the closet and took out his Valv-Paks.
"The army, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to save your a.s.s," Felter said.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n you, I told you to keep your mouth shut," Lowell said, angrily, sitting up on the bed.
"I have just been appointed a replacement for the captain," Felter said. "We"re both going to the 27th Royal h.e.l.lenic Mountain Division. . . whatever the h.e.l.l that is."
(Four) It was almost exactly two hundred air miles from Athens to Ioannina on the northern sh.o.r.e of Lake Ioanninon. There the headquarters of the 27th Royal h.e.l.lenic Mountain Division was located. It was just over twice that distance by road. They averaged twenty-five miles per hour over the road in a Dodge three-quarter-ton weapons carrier. The road was mostly dirt, or more accurately, stones, and narrow; and it wound around one precipitous granite mountain after another. From time to time, they pa.s.sed through small villages of whitewashed stone houses perched precariously to fit whatever flat s.p.a.ce had been available when they had been built.
They were twenty-six hours on the road, stopping overnight at Preveza on the Ionian Sea, because, as the sergeant driving the truck told them, the commies held the roads at night.
Headquarters of the 27th h.e.l.lenic was in a two-story whitewashed stone building with walls eighteen inches thick. It was further reinforced to the level of the second floor by a mound of sandbags tapering toward the top. A pair of swarthy-skinned, unshaven Greeks wearing British Army uniforms were on guard outside. British .303 Lee-Enfield rifles were slung over the shoulders. They watched without expression as Felter and Lowell removed their bedrolls, their packs, their luggage, and the cases of ammunition from the back of the. truck.
A competent-looking American master sergeant in British woolen battle trousers, a crumpled GI khaki shirt, and British hobnailed boots waved them inside the building. He did not salute.
"The colonel"ll be back for supper," he said. "You want something to eat?" When they nodded, he said, "We have Greek and GI rations. The Greek gives you the s.h.i.ts until you get used to it. The GI rations make you sick, period." A Greek woman with a scarf around her head and in a voluminous black shirt served them lamb stew on tin plates, black coffee, and a large chunk of dark bread.
The colonel, when he showed up, turned out to be a wiry red-haired lieutenant colonel wearing the crossed flags of the Signal Corps.
"My name is Hanrahan," he said. "You"ll be working for me." Then he switched to Greek and, watching them carefully, talked for about thirty seconds. Then he shook his head in disgust when it was obvious that neither of them understood a word he was saying.
"That was too much to expect, I guess," he said, in English.
"There"s probably five thousand officers, Greek-Americans, who would give their left nut to come over here. And what do I get? No offense, gentlemen, but this is a f.u.c.ked-up war." He showed them a map. They were thirty miles from the Albanian border. Numbers on the map indicated the height of various mountain peaks from 5,938 feet to 8,192 feet. Lowell knew they were high, but he hadn"t thought that high.
"Our mission," Colonel Hanrahan said, "is to keep the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds from shipping supplies from Albania into Greece. There"s no way in h.e.l.l we can block every goat path, but we can block the roads. We do this from emplacements on hilltops, like something in the Lives of the Bengal Lancer. Little forts. They have machine guns for self-protection and mortars to cover the roads.
"The way it"s set up is that I"m the advisor to the division.