“Well, if you’re so eager to join up, Mr. Rosnovski, I could use you, but not in the way you imagine. General Demers needs someone to take overall responsibility as quartermaster for the Fifth Army while they’re fighting in the front line. If you believe Napoleon was right when he said an army marches on its stomach, you could play a vital role. The job carries the rank of major. That is one way in which you could unquestionably help America to win the war. What do you say?”
“I’ll do it, General.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rosnovski.”
The general pressed a buzzer on his desk, and a very young lieutenant came in and saluted smartly.
“Lieutenant, will you take Major Rosnovski to personnel and then bring him back to me?”
“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant turned to Abel. “Will you come this way, please, Major?”
Abel followed him, turning as he reached the door.
“Thank you, General,” he said.
Abel spent the weekend in Chicago with Zaphia and Florentyna. Zaphia asked him what he wanted her to do with his fifteen suits.
“Hold on to them,” he replied, wondering what she meant. “I’m not going to war to get killed.”
“I’m sure you’re not, Abel,” she said. “That wasn’t what was worrying me. It’s just that now they’re all three sizes too large for you.”
Abel laughed and took the suits to the Polish refugee center. He then returned to New York, went to the Baron, canceled the advance guest list and twelve days later handed the building over to the American Fifth Army. The press hailed Abel’s decision as a “selfless gesture” of a man who had been a refugee of the First World War.
It was another three months before Abel was called to active duty, during which time he organized the smooth running of the New York Baron for General Clark and then reported to Fort Benning, to complete an officers’ training program. When he finally did receive his orders to join General Demers of the Fifth Army, his destination turned out to be somewhere in North Africa. He began to wonder if he would ever get to Germany.
The day before Abel left to go overseas, he drew up a will, instructing his executors to offer the Baron Group to David Maxton on favorable terms if he was killed and divide the rest of his estate between Zaphia and Florentyna. It was the first time in nearly twenty years that he had contemplated death, not that he was sure how he could get himself killed in the regimental canteen.
As his troop ship sailed out of New York harbor, Abel stared at the Statue of Liberty. He could well remember how he had felt on seeing the statue for the first time nearly twenty years before. Once the ship had passed the Lady, he did not look at her again, but said out loud, “Next time I see you, you French bitch, America will have won this war.”
Abel crossed the Atlantic, taking with him two of his top chefs and five others of the kitchen staff who had enlisted. The ship docked at Algiers on February 1, 1943. Abel spent almost a year in the heat and the dust and the sand of the desert, making sure that every member of the division was as well fed as possible.
“We eat badly, but we eat a damn sight better than anyone else” was General Clark’s comment.
Abel commandeered the only good hotel in Algiers and turned the building into a headquarters for General Clark. Although Abel could see he was playing a valuable role in the war, he itched to get into a real fight, but a major quartermaster in charge of catering is rarely sent into the front line other than to feed the troops.
He wrote to Zaphia and George and watched by photograph as his beloved daughter Florentyna grew up. He even received an occasional letter from Curtis Fenton, reporting that the Baron Group was making an ever larger profit, every hotel in America being packed because of the continual movement of troops and civilians. Abel was sad not to have been at the opening of the new hotel in Montreal, where George had represented him. It was the first time he had not been present at the opening of a Baron, but George wrote at reassuring length of the new hotel’s great success. Abel began to realize how much he had built in America and how much he wanted to return to the land he now felt was his home.
He soon became bored with Africa and its mess kits, baked beans, blankets and fly swatters. There had been one or two spirited skirmishes out there in the western desert, or so the men returning from the front assured him, but he never saw any real action, although often when he took the food to the front, he would hear the firing, and it made him even angrier. One day to his excitement General Clark’s Fifth Army was posted to Southern Europe. Abel hoped this would be his chance to see Poland once again.
The Fifth Army, while American, landed on the Italian coast in amphibious craft. Aircraft gave tactical cover. They met considerable resistance, first at Anzio and then at Monte Cassino, but the action never involved Abel and he began to dread the end of a war in which he had seen no combat. But he could never devise a plan that would get him into the fighting. His chances were not improved when he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and sent to London to await further orders.
With D Day, the great thrust into Europe began. The Allies marched into France and liberated Paris on August 25, 1944. As Abel paraded with the American and Free French soldiers down the Champs Elysées behind General de Gaulle to a hero’s welcome, he studied the still magnificent city and decided exactly where he was going to build his first Baron hotel in France.
The Allies moved on up through northern France and across the German border in a final drive toward Berlin. Abel was posted to the First Army under General Omar Bradley. Food was coming mainly from England; local supplies were almost nonexistent, because each succeeding town at which the Allies arrived had already been ravaged by the retreating German army. When Abel arrived in a new city, it would take him only a few hours to commandeer the entire remaining food supply before other American quartermasters had worked out exactly where to look. British and American officers were always happy to dine with the 9th Armored Division and wondered how the 9th had managed to requisition such excellent supplies. On one occasion when General George S. Patton joined General Bradley for dinner, Abel was introduced to the famous Patton, who always led his troops into battle brandishing an ivory-handled revolver.
“The best meal I’ve had in the whole damn war,” said Patton.
By February 1945, Abel had been in uniform for nearly three years and he knew the war would be over in a matter of months. General Bradley kept sending him congratulatory notes and meaningless decorations to adorn his ever-expanding uniform, but they didn’t help. Abel begged the general to let him fight in just one battle, but Bradley wouldn’t hear of it.
Although it was the duty of a junior officer to lead the food trucks up to the front lines and then supervise mess for the troops, Abel often carried out the responsibility himself. And as in the running of his hotels, he would never let any of his staff know when or where he next intended to pounce.
It was the continual flow of blanket-covered stretchers into camp that March day which made Abel want to go to the front and take a look for himself. When it reached a point where he could no longer bear the one-way traffic of bodies, Abel rounded up his men and personally organized the fourteen food trucks. He took with him one lieutenant, one sergeant, two corporals and twenty-eight privates.
The drive to the front, although only twenty miles, was tiresomely slow that morning. Abel took the wheel of the first truck—it made him feel a little like General Patton—through heavy rain and thick mud; he had to pull off the road several times to allow ambulance details the right of way in their return from the front. Wounded bodies took precedence over empty stomachs. Abel hoped that most were no more than wounded, but only an occasional nod or wave suggested any sign of life. It became obvious to Abel with each mud-tracked mile that something big was going on near Remagen, and he could feel the beat of his heart quicken. Somehow, he knew this time he was going to be involved.
When he finally reached the command post he could hear the enemy fire in the near distan
ce, and he started pounding his leg in anger as he watched stretchers bringing back yet more dead and wounded comrades from he knew not where. Abel was sick of learning nothing about the real war until it was part of history. He suspected that any reader of The New York Times was better informed than he was.
Abel brought his convoy to a halt by the side of the field kitchen and jumped out of the truck, shielding himself from the heavy rain, feeling ashamed that others only a few miles away were shielding themselves from bullets. He began to supervise the unloading of 100 gallons of soup, a ton of corned beef, 200 chickens, half a ton of butter, 3 tons of potatoes and 100 ten-pound cans of baked beans—plus the inevitable K rations—in readiness for those going to, or returning from, the front. When Abel arrived in the mess tent he found it full of long tables and empty benches. He left his two chefs to prepare the meal and the orderlies to start peeling 1,000 potatoes while he went off in search of the commanding officer.
Abel headed straight for Brigadier General John Leonard’s tent to find out what was going on, continually passing stretchers of dead and nearly dead soldiers. Looking upon the torn, mangled wounded would have made any man sick in ordinary circumstances, but now at Remagen the condition of the injured took the air of being commonplace. As Abel was about to enter the tent, General Leonard, accompanied by his aide, was rushing out. He conducted a conversation with Abel while continuing to walk.
“What can I do for you, Colonel?”
“I have started preparing the food for your battalion as requested in overnight orders, sir. What——?”
“You needn’t bother with the food for now, Colonel. At first light this morning Lieutenant Burrows of the Ninth discovered an undamaged railroad bridge north of Remagen—the Ludendorff bridge—and I gave orders that it should be crossed immediately and every effort made to establish a bridgehead on the east bank of the river. Up to now, the Germans have been successful in blowing up every bridge across the Rhine long before we reached it, so we can’t hang around waiting for lunch before they demolish this one.”
“Did the Ninth get across?” asked Abel.
“Sure did,” replied the general, “but they encountered heavy resistance when they reached the forest on the far side. The first platoons were ambushed and God knows how many men we lost. So you better stow that food, Colonel, because my only interest is seeing as many of my men get back alive as possible.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” asked Abel.
The fighting commander stopped walking for a moment and studied the fat colonel. “How many men have you under your direct command?”
“One lieutenant, one sergeant, two corporals, and twenty-eight privates. Thirty-three in all including myself, sir.”
“Good. Report to the field hospital with your men and bring back as many dead and wounded as you can find.”
“Yes, sir,” said Abel, and he ran all the way back to the field kitchen, where he found most of his own men sitting in a corner smoking. None of them noticed Abel when he entered the tent.
“Get up, you bunch of lazy bastards. We’ve got real work to do for a change.”
Thirty-two men snapped to attention.
“Follow me!” shouted Abel. “On the double!”
He turned and started running again, this time toward the field hospital. A young doctor was briefing sixteen medical corpsmen when Abel and his out-of-breath, unfit men appeared at the entrance to the tent.
“Can I help you, sir?” asked the doctor.
“No, I hope I can help you,” replied Abel. “I have thirty-two men here who have been detailed by General Leonard to join your group.” It was the first time his men had heard it.
The doctor stared in amazement at the Colonel. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir,” said Abel. “We’re here to find out how we can assist you.”
“Yes, sir,” the doctor said again.
He handed Abel a carton of Red Cross armbands, which the chefs, kitchen orderlies and potato peelers proceeded to put on as they listened to the doctor’s briefing. He gave them details on the action in the forest across the Ludendorff bridge.
“The Ninth has sustained heavy casualties,” he continued. “Those soldiers with medical expertise will remain in the battle zone, while the rest of you will bring back here as many of the wounded as possible.”
Abel was delighted to be taking an active part at last. The doctor, now in command of a team of forty-nine men, passed out eighteen stretchers, and each soldier received a full medical pack. He then led his motley band toward the Ludendorff bridge. Abel was only a yard behind him. They started singing as they marched through the mud and rain; they stopped singing when they reached the bridge and saw stretcher after stretcher that showed clearly the outline of a lifeless body. They marched silently across the bridge in single file by the side of the railroad track, where they could see the results of the German explosion that had failed to destroy the foundations of the bridge. On up toward the forest and the sound of fire, Abel found he was excited by being so near the enemy and horrified by what that enemy was capable of inflicting on his fellow man. From everywhere cries of anguish came from his comrades. Comrades who until that day had wistfully thought the end of the war was near … .
He watched the young doctor stop again and again, doing the best he could for each man. Sometimes, when there was not the slightest hope of patching up a wounded man, he would mercifully kill him quickly. Abel ran from soldier to soldier, organizing the stretcher-bearers for those unable to help themselves and guiding the ambulatory wounded back toward the Ludendorff bridge. By the time their group had reached the edge of the forest only the doctor, one of the potato peelers and Abel were left of the original party; all the others were carrying the dead or wounded back to the hospital.
As the three of them dashed into the forest, they could hear enemy guns close by. Abel could see the outline of a big gun, hidden in undergrowth and still pointing toward the bridge, but now damaged beyond repair. Then he heard a volley of bullets that sounded so loud he realized for the first time that the enemy was only a few hundred yards ahead of him. Abel quickly crouched down on one knee, expectant, his senses heightened to screaming pitch. Suddenly there was another burst of fire in front of him. Abel jumped up and ran forward, reluctantly followed by the doctor and the potato peeler. They ran on for another hundred yards, until they came across a lush green hollow covered with white crocuses and littered with the bodies of American soldiers. Abel and the doctor ran from corpse to corpse. “It must have been a massacre,” screamed Abel in anger as he heard the retreating fire. The doctor made no comment: he had screamed three years before.
“Don’t worry about the dead” was all he said. “Just see if you can find anyone who is still alive.”
“Over here,” shouted Abel as he knelt beside a sergeant lying in the German mud. Both his eyes were missing. Abel placed little bits of gauze in the sockets and waited impatiently.
“He’s dead, Colonel,” said the doctor, not giving the sergeant a second glance. Abel ran on to the next body and then the next, but it was always the same, and only the sight of a severed head standing upright in the mud stopped Abel in his tracks. He kept having to look back at its passive stare like that of the bust of some Roman god. Abel recited like a child words he had learned at the feet of the Baron: “‘Blood and destruction shall be so in use and dreadful objects so familiar that mothers shall but smile when they behold their infants quartered by the hands of war.’ Does nothing change?” he asked, outraged.
“Only the battlefield,” replied the doctor.
When Abel had checked thirty—or was it forty?—men, he once again turned to the doctor, who was trying to save the life of a captain whose head, but for a closed eye and his mouth, was already swathed in blood-soaked bandages. Abel stood over the doctor watching helplessly, studying the captain’s shoulder patch—the 9th Armored—and remembered General Leonard’s words: “God knows how many men we lost
.”
“Fucking Germans,” said Abel.
“Yes, sir,” said the doctor.
“Is he dead?” asked Abel.
“Might as well be,” the doctor replied mechanically. “He’s losing so much blood it can only be a matter of time.” He looked up. “There’s nothing left for you to do here, Colonel. Why don’t you try to get this one back to the field hospital. He might have a chance. And let the base commander know that I intend to go forward and I need every man he can spare.”
“Right,” said Abel, and he helped the doctor carefully lift the captain onto a stretcher. Abel and the potato peeler tramped slowly back toward the camp, the doctor having warned him that any sudden movement to the stretcher could only result in an even greater loss of blood. Abel didn’t let the potato peeler rest for one moment during the entire two-mile trek to the hospital. He wanted to give the captain every chance to live. Then he would return to the doctor in the forest.
For over an hour they trudged through the mud and the rain, and Abel felt certain the captain had died. When they finally reached the field hospital both men were exhausted as they handed the stretcher over to a medical team.
As the captain was wheeled slowly away he opened his unbandaged eye, which focused on Abel. He tried to raise his arm. Abel saluted and could have leaped with joy at the sight of the open eye and the moving hand. How he prayed that that man would live.
He ran out of the hospital, eager to return to the forest with his little band of men, when he was stopped by the duty officer.
“Colonel,” he said, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. There are over three hundred men who need feeding. Christ, man, where have you been?”
Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Page 40