Rhineland Inheritance

by T. Davis Bunn

  The door to the saloon car opened and shut. A pair of light-stepping shoes approached. Nobody moved. Everyone was as frozen as the night.

  A woman’s voice rang out, “What’s going on here?”

  The voice was answered by silence, save for some heavy breathing and a few soft groans. “You, Sergeant!” Sally Anders’ fury rang in the crisp air. “I’m speaking to you! What’s the meaning of this?”

  The big man rose from his crouch, attempting with one hand to stem the red tide flowing from his nose. His voice was clogged and his face pale in the headlight’s beams. “They were resisting arrest, ma’am.”

  “That’s absolute rubbish and you know it. I’ve heard all about your football game, Sergeant. As has Colonel Beecham, in whose jurisdiction you’re now standing, and who is waiting impatiently for the urgent papers I’m delivering.”

  The sergeant pointed over to where Servais lay prostrate on the snow-covered ground. “Ma’am, that Frenchman was driving like a lunatic. Almost mowed me and my men down.”

  “No doubt a safer tactic than being stopped and mobbed by you thugs,” she snapped back. “Now if you want to carry on a grudge match one-on-one, Sergeant, that’s your business. But a vendetta with twenty against two will not only cost you your stripes, but earn you passage home in the brig.” Her voice was an angry lash. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the sergeant muttered.

  “Now back off. All of you! Captain Burnes, are you able to drive?”

  Jake lifted himself with difficulty, his shoulder throbbing. “I think so, ma’am.”

  “Some of you men lift Captain Servais into the jeep. Move!”

  “I’m all right,” the Frenchman said in a slurred voice, struggling to his feet.

  “Have your men lift this barrier. Now, Sergeant! I haven’t got all night.” Sally started toward her car, then spun back and snapped, “And if there is one more incident, if just one hair on either of these officers’ heads gets mussed in any way, by anybody, at any time, I will report to Colonel Beecham that I witnessed a bunch of MPs assault a pair of superior officers. He will then personally see to it that each one of you spends the next few years where you belong—in a hole!”

  After Sally’s door slammed shut, there was a moment’s silence, then, “Whattawe do, Sarge?”

  “What the lady said,” he replied dully. “Open the gate.”

  “But, Sarge—”

  “Just do it!”

  Jake eased himself behind the wheel and started the motor. When the sergeant stepped forward, Jake faced him squarely and said, “You and your boys never could play football.”

  The big man tasted bile. “We’ll get you yet, Turncoat.”

  “Doubtful, doubtful,” Jake replied, ramming the gears home. “Brawn doesn’t make up for lack of brains. Not on the field, and not in life.”

  They followed Sally’s car back to staff HQ in silence, enjoying the feel of the wind, the sense of ease between them, even the aches of their bodies. They were alive! The thrill of combat was one never to be forgotten, never sought, but when there, it was incomparable. Alive!

  Sally drew up in front of the HQ building, got out and waited for them to stop. In the jeep’s headlights Jake realized that the woman’s face was wet with tears. He turned off the motor and jumped out, instantly solicitous. But she cut his gesture short. “You two are nothing more than a pair of animals!”

  The onslaught was so unexpected he had no defense. “I—what?”

  “Haven’t you had enough of war?” Her shrill voice split the night. “How long will it take for you to see the evil behind all this violence?”

  “Wait. They were the ones who—”

  “I don’t care!” she screeched. “All I want is for it to stop! I thought you were different. Caring enough to help the German soldiers regain some self-respect, build up morale, but you’re no different from all the rest of them! You can’t fight the Germans anymore, all the fight’s been beaten out of them. So now you’ve got to find somebody else to fight.”

  “That’s not it at all,” he protested, taking a step forward.

  “Yes it is, and don’t you dare come near me! Those men out there are supposed to be on the same side as you! And what were you two doing? Going after them like the combat soldiers you are! Go look at yourself in the mirror, soldier. Aren’t you just spoiling for another fight? That’s all you’re really good for, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” Sally turned and fled into the quarters.

  Jake watched her depart, then turned back and slumped into the jeep. Servais eyed him with a jaundiced air and said through bloody lips, “If I were you, my friend, I believe I would cross her off my list.”

  Chapter Three

  Two days after the night attack, Jake Burnes entered the central Karlsruhe HQ to the sound of applause.

  The Karlsruhe army staff was split into a dozen different segments, as no building large enough to house everyone had survived the war. The main headquarters was contained in a requisitioned two-story office complex which had somehow escaped unscathed, while its neighboring factory had been reduced to a two-acre dust heap.

  Staff housing was a routine problem, causing the same set of predicaments throughout all Germany. As 1945 gave way to 1946, there were over a million American soldiers struggling to police their segment of a destroyed nation, and waiting with growing impatience for orders to be shipped home.

  No longer was there the unifying goal of victory. Victory was theirs. The time of celebration had passed. The horrors of discovering the concentration camps were behind them. The Nuremberg Trials had begun. A new routine was being established, that of victor ruling over the vanquished.

  Four nations had substantial forces occupying Germany—France, Britain, Russia, and the United States. A number of others were also represented, from Greece to Denmark, Belgium to Australia, South Africa to Canada. The Four Powers gathered and argued continually. Stalin was proving almost impossible to deal with. His demands rankled more and more each day. Even as far away as Karlsruhe, on the other side of the country from the gathering Soviet troops, people were on edge whenever Stalin’s name was mentioned.

  But the biggest practical problems were unrelated to the high-level diplomacy. The infighting among the tightly concentrated forces around each base was ferocious. Command posts had to be split up and spread out across cities and regions, roads were scarred and pitted, and working telephones were as rare as fresh eggs.

  Finding allies for any undertaking, especially one as peripheral as joining another nation’s forces to help guard a border no longer under attack, was essential. Liaison jobs had to be handled like nitroglycerine.

  Knowing all this added mightily to Jake’s surprise over the reception he and Pierre received.

  As Jake let the door shut behind Servais, he turned to find the cluster of officers clapping and whistling for the pair of them. They exchanged astonished glances as a man with major’s pips walked up with hand outstretched. “Major Dan Hobbs. Let me be the first to congratulate the men who took Connors’ gorillas down a peg.”

  Jake accepted the hand, but quickly confessed, “Actually, it was the lady who saved the day.”

  “Yeah, we’re taking up a collection to send the Ice Queen a wreath.” The major grinned. “Tell me you didn’t have the whole thing timed.”

  “We didn’t have the whole thing timed,” Jake agreed.

  “Then somebody’s fairy godmother was working extra hard that night.” Major Hobbs clapped Jake on the back, said, “Come on into my office, gentlemen.”

  Once his door was closed, the major said, “Connors is making himself an impressive list of enemies.”

  “I didn’t know he was so well known,” Jake said.

  “How long have you been in these parts?”

  “Just over a month,” Jake replied. “Transferred up from Italy.”

  “So you arrive, get together a squad of prisoners and whip Connors’ pride and joy from here to Moscow
.”

  “I sort of inherited the team,” Jake explained.

  “Then you dig up the first whiff of treasure—”

  “Like you said,” Servais said to Jake. “News travels fast in these parts.”

  “And then proceed to whip his goons a second time.”

  “It came close to being the other way around,” Jake pointed out. “How did you hear about it?”

  “One of my men was up at Badenburg and caught sight of the Ice Queen laying you two out in front of HQ. So did Colonel Beecham. Colonel Beecham ordered her to tell him what happened, as she wasn’t all that eager to have it spread around. My man overheard the story.” Major Hobbs grinned. “Man, I wish I’d been there to help you guys out.”

  “We could have used it, sir.”

  “Skip the sirs, it’s just us turkeys here anyway. You know Connors is scouring the forces stationed around here, trying to dig out all the toughest guys?”

  “I guess that news missed us.”

  “Yeah. He’s putting together a rough crew. Sort of his own private army. The other MP officers around here can’t stand him. They won’t allow Connors’ boys even to set foot into their territory. That’s why he agreed to play touch football with your team. Nobody else’ll touch them with a ten-foot pole.”

  “They were big,” Jake said. “But they were dumb. It wasn’t that hard to out-think them on the field.”

  “So I heard.” The major’s good cheer clouded over. “We’re hearing some rumors that they’ve worked over some people. Way outside the line of duty. Nothing proven. Just stuff passed down the road.”

  The idea burned a hole in his gut. “I thought the war was over.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard too.” Major Hobbs’ gaze turned sharp. “I’ve even been wondering if there might not be more than bullies at work here.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  The major focused on Servais. “You’ve been around here for a while, haven’t you, Captain?”

  “Almost six months, sir. Since just after VE-day.”

  “Had you ever seen a roadblock at that point before?”

  Slowly Servais shook his head, knitting his brow in concentration. “Now that you mention it, nossir. Nowhere near it.”

  “Strange place to set one up,” Major Hobbs went on. “Out in the middle of nowhere, forest around on every side, only traffic that time of night probably between the base and headquarters down the hill. Makes you wonder.”

  “Do you think they set up an ambush for us?”

  “You said it, not me, soldier.” The major played at casual. “Just the same, I’d watch my step if I were you.”

  “That’s exactly what Colonel Beecham told us.”

  “Yeah, there’s no water on the colonel’s back. If he said something like that to me, I’d pay attention. Now, what was it I could do for you gents?”

  Jake explained his official mission. “We’d like to ask you to assign men to patrol the border as far as Wissembourg to the north and Rastatt to the south.”

  Major Hobbs stood and walked over to the large map on his side wall. After a moment’s inspection, he said, “We’re talking about a forty-mile stretch, give or take a dogtrot.”

  “That’s about it, yessir.”

  “I guess I’ve got no problem with that.” The major came back and sat down. “I’ll have to run it by the brass, but I doubt they’ll object. There’s a lot of respect for Beecham around these parts. What are we supposed to be on the lookout for, anyway?”

  “Displaced people, escaped POWs—”

  “Guys carrying sacks of treasure on their backs,” the major added.

  “Does everybody know about that?”

  “Well, I couldn’t tell you for sure, but my guess is that by now they’re discussing it at the White House. Sure as little green apples it’s festering in the brain of every one of my men.”

  “It was just one cross,” Jake objected.

  “This time,” Major Hobbs observed. “Goodness only knows what might pop up next time, am I right?”

  “I suppose so,” Jake said glumly.

  “Well, don’t you worry, Captain. I’ll make it perfectly clear that the first soldier of mine who turns trigger happy with the scent of treasure goes home in handcuffs.”

  * * *

  “Hello, soldier.” Sally Anders seemed neither pleased nor displeased to see him. “What brings you here?”

  Turning his cap over in his hands, Jake entered her small cubbyhole. That she merited a private office was the clearest possible indication of her prestige. Her desk was piled high with forms, official-looking documents, and buff-colored envelopes marked Priority. “I don’t know whether to say thank you or I’m sorry.”

  “Why, soldier, are you feeling guilty about something?”

  “You saved our lives back there,” Jake said. “And for that I’m grateful.”

  “I don’t know about your lives,” Sally replied. “But I did save you from a beating.”

  “Those goons wouldn’t have stopped until we were a couple of bloody pulps.”

  She made round eyes. “Those nice men? Do you really think so?”

  “This is hard enough, Miss Anders. Could you maybe hold the jokes until I’m through?”

  “Sorry.” She folded her hands over the papers nearest her. “Proceed, soldier.”

  He took a breath. “I’m not saying I agree with what you said out there on the street. But I want to tell you how sorry I am that I—”

  “Neither did the colonel,” Sally interrupted. “Agree, I mean. He got the story out of me in the end, you know. I never was able to stand up to him in a fight. He was pretty angry that I hadn’t let him kick the colonel and his men from here to Cincinnati. But he did call Connors this morning and give him a good roasting. He told the colonel the only thing which saved him was that I refused to testify against his boys so long as you two remained intact. I think you should be safe.”

  Jake remained silent, his eyes on his hat.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I interrupted your groveling,” Sally said, all mock sympathy. “Do go on, Captain.”

  “You’re going to make this as tough as you can, aren’t you.”

  “No reason not to. You’re too big to turn across my knee, and a piece of my mind won’t help things a bit. Might as well make you squirm.”

  Burnes started for the door.

  “Jake!”

  Reluctantly he turned back. Sally said quietly, “You really shouldn’t give in so easily, soldier.”

  It was Jake’s turn to show surprise. “Ma’am, if you think I’m giving in, you’ve got another thing coming. This is what we combat soldiers call a strategic withdrawal.”

  Sally inspected him for a long moment, then came to some internal decision of her own. “Have you got your jeep?”

  “Right outside. Why?”

  She rose from her chair. “Take me into town, will you? There’s something I’d like you to see.”

  “Sure.”

  She pointed to a group of burlap sacks piled in one corner. “Give me a hand with those.”

  Jake walked over and hefted one. “What’s in them?”

  “Contraband, soldier. Don’t ask so many questions.”

  * * *

  They made the trip in silence, Jake because he was too wary of being shot down again, and Sally because she seemed to prefer her own company. Directions were passed on with the minimum of words or a simple hand movement.

  Their route took them down what had once undoubtedly been a major thoroughfare, now a broad strip of cracked and pitted pavement bordered on both sides by rubble. The surroundings were as gray as the sky.

  Not a single building was intact. As far as Jake could see, the world was filled with single walls jutting like crumbling fingers toward an uncaring sky. All open spaces were filled with bricks and mortar and the refuse of war. A thick layer of dust covered everything.

  The people they passed seldom looked their way. Attention was almos
t always focused downward, as though no one cared to see much of their world. There were a few bicycles, but most people straggled aimlessly by on foot. The only cars they passed bore military markings. On almost every street corner a man stood with a sign saying in German, “I must eat. I will do any work. Please help me.”

  At several crossings, gangs of street kids materialized from thin air and chased after them, calling out for candy, cigarettes, chocolate, or just calling. Jake had seen this kind of thing in the smaller village where he had been stationed before, but had never grown accustomed to it. Every child he saw appeared to be begging. And here there were so many of them. All skin and bones and ragged clothing. And eyes. Haunting eyes big as saucers and old as war itself.

  They stopped in front of what probably had been a prestigious apartment block, now a flattened heap with two intact walls and a free-standing chimney. Jake could see a few pictures, washed-out wallpaper, and water-stained curtains hanging from the interior of destroyed apartments.

  He parked as Sally directed and followed her down a set of stairs into what had previously been a neighborhood bomb shelter. The door of the low building was marked with a broad painted cross. From the interior rose the sound of children chattering and playing.

  On the bottom step Jake hesitated, his forehead creased in thought. Sally turned around. “What’s the matter, soldier? Afraid of a few kids?”

  Jake shook his head, unable to figure out what had surprised him so. He followed her into what appeared to be a crudely painted fairy tale kingdom. The walls were decorated with bright sketches of stories done with an amateur’s hand—Jesus on the Mount, walking on the water, calming the storm, healing the leper, gathering the little children. In the far corner stood a makeshift communal kitchen. Beside it stretched a long table with benches. The ceiling was oppressively low. Without the wall murals the chambers would have been grim.

  “Jake, I’d like you to meet Chaplain Buddy Fox.”