“You’re in the CIC now,” the second lieutenant went on. “We of the CIC do not use obscene language such as ‘EXPLETIVE DELETED!! New Hampshire,’ which is one of the United States we are sworn to defend from undue Soviet and other unfriendly curiosity.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I will endeavor to remember that.”
“See that you do!”
—
Over the next few days, as he waited for the administrative wheels of the CIC Center to slowly turn, Phil wondered if his assignment to Berlin was possibly a sub-rosa award for his having been a member of the Fort Holabird Skeet Team, which not only had kicked the EXPLETIVE DELETED!! out of the Navy Intelligence Skeet Team the very week he had joined it, but on other occasions during his time as a student had inflicted similar defeats upon the skeet teams of the National Park Service and the Pentagon Police Force in Washington, D.C., and the security forces of the National Center for the Control of Venereal Diseases in Baltimore.
In the end, he decided it was just a coincidence, as he had been told again and again there was no room for personal favoritism in the CIC.
—
As soon as he got the $350 check to buy civilian clothes, his new passport—which identified him as an employee of the U.S. Government—and his airline tickets, Phil started to faithfully execute the orders laid out in Par. 17 above.
Well, maybe not faithfully.
If he executed them absolutely faithfully, he would have gone on leave—he was headed for New York—at his own expense.
Ten days later—if he faithfully followed his orders—he would have taken the train back from New York, again at his own expense, and upon his arrival in Baltimore gone to Baltimore-Washington Airport and taken an Eastern Airlines flight to Newark using the Army-provided ticket. From Newark he would have taken the shuttle bus (ticket provided) to Idlewild Airport, where he would board the Pan American flight to Frankfurt.
He decided it would make more sense to skip the Go Back To Baltimore et seq elements of this agenda, and instead take a cab to JFK from his father’s apartment in Manhattan when his leave was over.
In the club car of the train carrying him to New York City, to which, having no civilian attire, he was traveling in uniform, he picked up a discarded copy of the Sunday edition of The New York Times.
In it was a society section story informing the world that Mr. and Mrs. T. Jennings Black III of New York City and Rowayton, Connecticut, announced the marriage of their daughter Alexandra to Mr. Hobart J. Crawley IV, son of Mr. and Mrs. H. J. Crawley III of New York City and East Hampton. The story went on to relate that the ceremony had taken place in the Yale Club of New York City, with the Reverend K. Lamar Dudley, D.D., of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, presiding, and that the groom was at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, where the couple would reside following their return from their wedding trip to Bar Harbor, Maine.
Phil was understandably distraught.
Alexandra had married another.
After all of my efforts, she married a EXPLETIVE DELETED!! Yalie!
And that EXPLETIVE DELETED!! Yalie was going to get—by now probably had gotten—her EXPLETIVE DELETED!! pearl of great price.
Which leaves me not only desolate but the last EXPLETIVE DELETED!! seventeen-year-old EXPLETIVE DELETED!! virgin in the world.
He decided he would drown his sorrows.
He caught the waiter’s eye.
“Bring me a double Famous Pheasant, no ice, please.”
The waiter leaned close to him.
“No EXPLETIVE DELETED!! way,” the waiter said softly, so that no one else would hear him. “How old are you, boy? Eighteen?”
Following the theory that when all else fails, tell the truth, Phil shrugged his shoulders and confessed, “Seventeen,” and then blurted, “The love of my life has married a Yalie.”
He held up The New York Times as proof.
“Well, that would tend to make a man turn to drink,” the waiter said. “But this is the Pennsylvania Railroad and you have to be old enough to vote to buy a drink in a PRR club car. Which you ain’t. Sorry.”
“I understand,” Phil said.
The waiter left only to return several minutes later with a teapot and cup.
“Drink this, boy. It’ll make you feel better.”
“Thank you kindly, sir, but I don’t drink tea.”
“This is special tea. They make it in Dungaress, Scotland. I understand Her Majesty the Queen herself really likes to sip it. Try a little sip, why don’t you? See for yourself if you think it’s worth the ten dollars a cup market forces require me to charge for it.”
—
By the time the train reached Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station, Phil wasn’t feeling much of the pain he had been feeling since learning of Alexandra’s nuptials. Or much pain at all.
When he entered his father’s apartment, his sire was there.
“I would say ‘welcome home,’” his father greeted him, “except it’s Wednesday, and my own military experience has taught me that privates are rarely, if ever, given time off in the middle of the week. Which makes me suspect that you have experienced more of the rigors of military life than you like, and have, as we old soldiers say, ‘gone over the hill.’”
P. Wallingford Williams, Jr., having taken ROTC at Harvard College, had entered military service as a second lieutenant of artillery and gone to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where in the sixth week of the Basic Artillery Officer’s Course he had dropped the trail of a 105mm howitzer on his left foot while attempting to set the cannon up for firing. Army surgeons saved the foot, except for the big toe, the loss of which caused Lieutenant Williams to be medically retired from the service with a five percent disability pension. He later became quite active in several disabled veterans organizations.
“Actually, Pop, I’m on my way to Berlin.”
“I have to tell you, son, that it won’t do you any good to go to New Hampshire. The military police will run you to earth no matter where you try to hide. My advice is that you go to Penn Station, or Grand Central, whichever you prefer, and surrender yourself to the military police who patrol there. Perhaps, considering your youth, the courts-martial will temper your sentence with compassion.”
“I’m not AWOL, Pop. I’m en route to the Berlin in Germany.”
“And why are you wearing corporal’s chevrons? In my day in uniform, impersonation of a noncommissioned officer was nearly as serious an offense as impersonating a commissioned officer. You’re never going to get out of Leavenworth.”
“I’m wearing corporal’s chevrons, Pop, because I am a corporal. Here, have a look at my orders.”
On doing so, Second Lieutenant P. Wallingford Williams, Jr., Artillery, Medically Retired, announced, “I can’t make heads or tails of that gibberish. Why don’t we start over?”
“Sir?”
“Hello, Philip. What brings you home, wearing corporal’s chevrons, in the middle of the week?”
Phil told him.
“Obviously, I owe you my profound apologies,” his father said when he had finished. “I can only offer in extenuation that on the last seven occasions on which you appeared unexpectedly at my door in the middle of the week, it was because you had been booted from the finest boarding schools on the East Coast. And each time that happened, it cost me an arm and a leg—I shudder to remember what it cost me to get you into Saint Malachi’s—to get you into another one.”
“I understand, Pop. No apology is necessary.”
“But I must tell you, Philip, that even when I so unthinkingly thought, ‘My God! Now he’s Gone Over The Hill,’ I also thought, Well, at least he didn’t do to me what Hobo Crawley’s boy did to ol’ Hobo.”
“Pop, are you talking about Hobart J. Crawley the Fourth?”
“Indeed I am. The son of Hobart J. Crawley the Third
.”
“And what was that, sir?”
“I ran into ol’ Hobo at the bar at the New York Athletic Club. Actually, I picked him up off the floor of the bar at the Athletic Club, where he was curled in a fetal position and weeping piteously. When I got him into an armchair in the lounge and got about a quart of black coffee into him, he confided in me his shame.”
“And what was that, Pop?”
“That idiot son of his, the one they call ‘Little Hobo,’ couldn’t keep his You Know What in his pocket and instead used it to get another mental deficient in the family way. You may have seen her around. They live in this building. Tall blonde with a vapid face and no bosom worth mentioning. Anyway, these two are now going to contribute to the further degeneration of the gene pool, and poor ol’ Hobo’s stuck for the tab for the whole operation for the foreseeable future. Little Hobo is now on his third try to get out of the freshman class at Yale. I thank you from the bottom of my heart, son, for not doing anything like that to me.”
“You’re welcome, Pop.”
“I do have one question, Philip, about your orders.”
“Sir?”
“That three-hundred-and-fifty-dollar clothing allowance. What’s that all about?”
Phil told him.
“And how long are you going to be in Berlin?”
“I enlisted for two years. I’ve got about seventeen months left to go.”
“That’s outrageous!” the elder Williams said indignantly. “How the hell does the Army expect you to spend seventeen months in Berlin with only a sports jacket and a pair of slacks—well, maybe two pair, one wool, one khaki—to wear?”
“I thought I would go to Brooks Brothers in the morning, Pop, to see what they might have on sale.”
“Tomorrow, my boy, we will go to J. Press—I thought you understood, God knows I’ve told you this often enough, that J. Press serves gentlemen and Brooks Brothers the less fortunate others—we will go to J. Press and get you enough clothing to spend seventeen months in Berlin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“On my nickel, of course, in the hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me for what I thought—My God, what’s it going to cost me to keep him out of Leavenworth?—when you came home just now.”
On the tenth day of his son’s delay-en-route-leave, P. Wallingford Williams, Jr., loaded CPL Williams Philip W. III—and the three leather suitcases containing the corporal’s new wardrobe—into a taxicab on Park Avenue and waved goodbye as Phil headed for Idlewild and the Pan American Flight to Frankfurt.
III
OL’ PHIL’S FIRST GRAND EUROPEAN TOUR
[ ONE ]
22-26 Beerenstrasse
Zehlendorf, Berlin, Germany
Monday, May 5, 1947
The black Volkswagen Beetle drove through Zehlendorf, which looked to Phil very much like South Orange, New Jersey—that is to say, the part of South Orange where his mother lived with lots of big houses with lawns, not downtown South Orange by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroad commuter station, which was sort of lower-middle-class in ambience—and then through a set of twelve-foot-high cast-iron gates that opened at their approach.
Inside, Phil saw a rather large three-story building before which were parked seven Volkswagens essentially identical to the one in which he was riding. Phil, who had paid attention during the classes in Techniques of Observation he had been subjected to at Fort Holabird while in training, quickly saw that, while on casual observation the Volkswagens were essentially identical, upon closer examination the eye trained to be alert for details could see that they were not.
One of the VWs was painted olive-drab green all over, including the bumpers, and on the bumpers had been stenciled some numbers and letters, including the legend U.S. Army. The others were of various colors, including one that was startlingly purple.
And they had different license plates. Two had large, egg-shaped plates with black numbers and letters on a white background. Both plates had the letter B followed by numbers on them. Phil thought the B might have something to do with Berlin. One of them, which was dark blue in color, had an American-shaped white license plate with the legend US GOVT above its numbers. The remaining four Beetles also had white plates and numbers, but their legend read US of AMERICA.
“Here we are,” the driver of the Volkswagen said, as he pulled to a stop beside its cousins.
The driver, a large young man in civilian attire—a corduroy jacket and khaki pants—was not very loquacious.
When Phil had been claiming his luggage at the airfield, which was called Tempelhof, the driver had walked up to him and inquired, “Williams, P.?”
When Phil had replied in the affirmative, the driver had picked up one of Phil’s suitcases, announced, “I’ve got the EXPLETIVE DELETED!! driver duty,” and motioned for Phil to follow him.
The driver assisted Phil with his luggage, carrying his suitcases into the foyer of the building. Once there, he pointed to a door, put the suitcase on the floor, and walked back outside.
Phil went to the door and knocked.
“Come.”
Phil went inside.
A heavyset man in his early thirties in a gray flannel suit rose to his feet from behind a desk.
“Williams, P.?” the man inquired.
“Yes, sir.”
The man examined him carefully.
“You have made a good first impression, Williams. The last three replacements Holabird sent us were sartorial disasters. One of them was actually wearing cowboy boots and blue jeans, and another a baseball cap with the brim turned sideways.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“I’m the first sergeant, Williams. As I’m sure you know, first sergeants are not addressed as ‘sir.’ I am also a CIC special agent. You may therefore call me, at your option, either ‘Special Agent Dumbrowski’ or ‘Mr. Dumbrowski.’”
“Yes, Mr. Dumbrowski.”
“I am now going to send you in to meet Supervisory Special Agent O’Reilly, who commands the Thirty-third CIC Detachment. He likes to become personally acquainted with all newcomers.
“But before I actually do that, CIC Administrator Williams, there are certain things I wish to bring to your attention. First, Supervisory Special Agent William O’Reilly is a lieutenant colonel of Infantry, pay grade O-5. He is also a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. With me so far?”
“Yes, Mr. Dumbrowski.”
“Now, I am sure in your previous uniformed service you were trained in, and, it is to be hoped, became proficient in practicing the protocol one follows when first meeting one’s new commanding officer, to wit: The newcomer marches into the commander’s office, stops four feet—no more, no less—from the commanding officer’s desk, where he comes to attention, salutes, and says, ‘Sir, STATE NAME AND RANK reporting to the commanding officer for duty, sir.’ You are familiar with this protocol?”
“Yes, Mr. Dumbrowski.”
“Good. Now we are not required here in the Thirty-third to follow this protocol, because we are in civilian attire, and one does not salute when so attired. Nor are we required to use the term ‘sir’ when addressing another member of the CIC family, even if we are aware that the individual is a commissioned officer.
“Having said that, CIC Administrator Williams, I suggest that when Supervisory Special Agent O’Reilly gives you permission to enter his office, you march into his office, stop four feet—no more, no less—from his desk, come to attention, and without saluting, repeat, without saluting, say, ‘Sir, CIC Administrator Williams reporting to the supervisory special agent in charge for duty, sir.’ Can you remember that?”
“I thought you said we’re not supposed to say ‘sir.’”
“If memory serves, and mine invariably does, the word I used was ‘required.’ Supervisory Specia
l Agent O’Reilly has told me on several occasions that rather than taking offense as he does when one of his peers refers to him as ‘Bill,’ when someone calls him ‘sir,’ it warms the cockles of his Irish heart as it reminds him of his happy days as an upperclassman in the West Point Corps of Cadets tormenting plebes.” He paused, then added, “Clear?”
“Yes, Mr. Dumbrowski.”
Dumbrowski walked to an interior door, knocked on it, opened it a crack, and announced, “Mr. O’Reilly, sir, newly arrived CIC Administrator Williams is here and requests audience.”
“Send him in.”
Phil entered the office, went through the routine previously described, and found himself looking at Lieutenant Colonel William O’Reilly, who wore a red crew cut above a freckled face. He was about five feet four in height and appeared to weigh somewhere in the 125- to 135-pound body weight range.
“You may relax,” the colonel, who was in civilian attire, said.
Phil decided this was the CIC version of At Ease and relaxed.
The colonel stared at him intently.
“I have been going over the final report of your complete background investigation, Williams. It has been my experience that when one wishes to learn all there is to know about an individual, one is wise to do so. Reading yours makes me suspect that whoever assigned you here is either grossly incompetent or had been drinking.
“According to your FRCBI, your secondary education ended with your expulsion from Saint Malachi’s School, at which time you had completed two years and some months of your secondary education. Is this true?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Phrased another way, you do not have a high school diploma?”
“Yes, sir. Correct.”
“The FRCBI also states that you were expelled from Saint Malachi’s School for moral turpitude, but does not go into the details of such turpitude. Would you care to share them with me?”
“No, sir.”
“Do it anyway.”
Phil related his transgression with regard to the intimate undergarments of Miss Bridget O’Malley.
“I have to tell you, Williams, that even having the acquaintance of another former student of Saint Malachi’s School and knowing the depths of depravity to which he frequently sinks, I consider the humiliation of a nice Irish Catholic girl by a teenaged Protestant sexual deviate, such as you obviously are, absolutely indefensible. And I warn you sternly herewith that if you pull anything like that while assigned to the Thirty-third CIC, you will rue the day you did.”
The Hunting Trip Page 6