“Mattingly’s man, right?” McClung boomed.
Cronley nodded.
He looked down the table and saw Mattingly sitting at the far side of General Greene.
He felt Mrs. Schumann’s knee press against his.
The waiter appeared and placed drinks in front of the senior officers. And one in front of Cronley.
Well, I just won’t drink it.
General Greene stood up, tapped his scotch glass with a knife, and announced, “Chaplain Stanton will give the invocation.”
The Christian chaplain stood up, looked around impatiently, and then intoned, “Please rise!”
Everyone stood.
The invocation went on for some time. It dealt primarily with resisting temptation. Finally, he invoked the blessing of the Deity and sat down, and everyone did the same.
Mrs. Schumann leaned toward Cronley and whispered, “I thought he was never going to stop.”
When she leaned away from him and shifted on her chair, her hand dropped into his lap. She found his male appendage and took a firm grip on it.
Holy Christ! Now what?
After a moment, and a final squeeze, she turned it loose.
He recalled the advice of a tactical officer at A&M. During a lecture on the conduct to be expected of an officer and a gentleman, he had cautioned the class about becoming involved with a senior officer’s wife.
“It don’t matter if she jumps on you and sticks her tongue down your throat. Keep your pecker in your pocket. It’s like having a drunk guy on a motorcycle run into you when you’re doing thirty-five in a fifty-five-mile-per-hour zone. Right and wrong don’t matter. You’re at fault.”
He looked at Mrs. Schumann. She smiled and gave him a little wink.
He smiled back as well as he could manage.
He spent the rest of the meal with his legs crossed, sitting as close to Major Iron Lung McClung as he could, and not looking at Mrs. Schumann.
She made no further attempt to grope him until the affair was about to adjourn for farewell cocktails, and Mattingly came to stand behind him.
“I’m sorry I have to take you away from all this fun, Captain Cronley,” Mattingly said. “But we still have our business to take care of.”
“Yes, sir,” Cronley said, and stood.
So did Mrs. Schumann.
“It was very nice to meet you, Captain Cronley,” she said. “Perhaps we’ll see one another again.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She offered her right hand and quickly groped him with the left.
“My husband will be fascinated to hear I’ve met you.”
[ FIVE ]
1310 30 October 1945
When the Army had requisitioned the Schlosshotel Kronberg to house OSS Forward, the German staff had come with it. Now, the hotel manager greeted the former commander of OSS Forward warmly.
Thus, Cronley was not surprised when, despite the inhospitable sign—THIS IS A FIELD GRADE OFFICERS’ FACILITY—behind the marble reception desk, the smiling manager assured Mattingly that he would be happy to accommodate Captain Cronley and arrange for a staff car to take the captain to the Eschborn airstrip in the morning.
The room that the manager assigned Cronley was one of the better ones. A small suite, it was on the ground floor. French doors opened onto a flagstone patio overlooking the golf course.
In the sitting room, Mattingly waved Cronley into an armchair. He took the one opposite it, leaned forward, and waved his hand in the general direction of the main dining room.
“I’m sorry about all that. If I ever knew about that damned newly arrived luncheon, I forgot about it.”
“Well, it gave General Greene a chance to stick it to you, didn’t it?”
Mattingly’s face tightened.
“You do have a flair for saying things you really shouldn’t, don’t you, Jim?”
“Sir, no disrespect was intended. But it was pretty obvious the general was sticking it to you. And liked it.”
Mattingly considered that for a moment.
“Okay. That’s as good a point to start as any. Did you wonder why General Greene was enjoying, to use your colorful phrase, sticking it to me?”
“Yes, sir. I did.”
“I was assigned as his deputy commander over his objections. I didn’t have the opportunity, the authority, to tell him why until Admiral Souers gave me the authority when we were in Washington. I told Admiral Souers that I had to tell him, so that he could get Colonel Schumann off our backs. Greene has known about Operation Ost and what’s going on at Kloster Grünau only since I told him the day we got back.
“Greene didn’t like being kept in the dark. That’s understandable. But now Schumann has been told to back off.”
“He was told about Operation Ost?”
“Of course not. Greene just told him that Kloster Grünau is off-limits to him, and to forget about you, and you shooting up the engine in his car. With him in it.”
“He apparently told Mrs. Schumann.”
“They call that ‘pillow talk.’ It happens. I can only hope that Schumann told his wife not to spread it amongst the girls of the CIC/ASA Officers’ Ladies Club.”
“Do you think he did?”
“Probably. Tony Schumann is a good officer. But he’s also Jewish, which means that he won’t stop looking into the rumors that somebody is getting Nazis out of Germany to Argentina, and wondering if what’s going on at Kloster Grünau has something to do with that.”
“Jesus!”
“And General Greene knows what I’m probably thinking about in that connection. So, yeah, he found it amusing that I showed up, with you in tow, at that CIC/ASA Officers’ Ladies Club Welcome Newly Arriveds luncheon, to be met by Mrs. Schumann.
“In a way, it was amusing. But it could have turned out the other way. She could very easily have not been as charming to you as she was. Some wives might be offended that a young officer had shot out the engine of their husband’s car and act accordingly. You follow me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She could have asked, ‘I’m curious why, Colonel Mattingly, after Captain Cronley fired a machine gun at my husband, he’s here and not in the EUCOM stockade awaiting court-martial?’”
I wonder why she didn’t?
Maybe Colonel and Mrs. Schumann aren’t the happy couple everyone thinks they are.
Happily married women don’t usually drink four martinis before lunch and then grope officers under the table.
“As you suggested, sir, Colonel Schumann probably told her not to ask questions about what happened at Kloster Grünau.”
“What I’m worried about, Jim, is that you don’t fully understand (a) the absolute necessity of maintaining the security of Operation Ost, and, more important, (b) that you’re in a position where a careless act of yours can cause more trouble in that regard than you fully understand.”
Here it comes.
“I must respectfully argue, sir, that I fully understand both.”
“Then what the hell did you think you were doing when you interrogated the NKGB agent? I told Dunwiddie to deal with that situation.”
When Cronley didn’t immediately reply, Mattingly went on, “Cat got your tongue, Captain? I’m surprised. You usually have an answer for everything at the tip of your tongue.”
“I have an answer, sir, but I suspect you’re not going to like it.”
“Let’s find out.”
“For one thing, sir, Major Orlovsky is my prisoner, not General Gehlen’s.”
“Your prisoner?”
“And I didn’t like the way he was being treated by Gehlen’s man, Bischoff.”
“What do you mean your prisoner?”
“Sir, Orlovsky was arrested trying to sneak out of Kloster Grünau by one of my men. Doesn’t that make
him my prisoner?”
“I am beginning to see where you’re coming from,” Mattingly said after a moment. “So tell me, Captain Cronley: What are your plans for your prisoner? What are you going to do with him?”
“I haven’t quite figured that out, sir.”
“Has it occurred to you that he may have to be disposed of?”
“If you mean shot, yes, sir.”
“And, that being the case, it would be much better if he was disposed of by someone other than an American officer?”
“If Major Orlovsky has to be shot, sir, I’ll do it. I’m not willing to turn that—or Major Orlovsky—over to Gehlen.”
“It didn’t take long for those new captain’s bars to go to your head, did it?” Mattingly said furiously. “Just who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’m the officer you put in charge of security of Operation Ost, sir.”
“Captain, I am the officer in charge of security for Operation Ost.”
“Sir, that’s not my understanding.”
“What is your understanding, you impertinent sonofabitch?”
“That you, sir, are in charge of the European functions of Operation Ost, that Lieutenant Colonel Frade is in charge of the Argentine functions, that the whole thing is under Admiral Souers, and that, far down on the Table of Organization, I’m in charge of security for European functions under you.”
“And would you say that gives me the authority to tell you what to do and how to do it?”
“So long as your orders are lawful, sir.”
“Meaning what?”
“That I don’t think you have the authority to grant authority to Gehlen to take prisoners, to interrogate prisoners, and certainly not to shoot them.”
“Maybe you do belong in the EUCOM stockade. For disobedience to my orders to you to let Sergeant Dunwiddie deal with the NKGB problem.”
“If you put me in the stockade, sir . . .” Cronley began, then hesitated.
“Finish what you started to say,” Mattingly ordered coldly.
“. . . or if I should drop out of contact for more than a day or two . . . or should something happen to me, Colonel Frade would want, would demand, an explanation.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you? God damn you!”
Cronley didn’t reply.
Mattingly tugged a silver cigarette case from his tunic pocket, took a cigarette from it, and then lit it with a Zippo lighter.
He exhaled the smoke.
“This has gone far enough,” he announced.
He took another puff and exhaled it through pursed lips.
“My mistake was in taking you into the OSS in the first place,” he said thoughtfully, almost as if talking to himself. “I should have known your relationship with Colonel Frade was going to cause me problems. And which I compounded by sending you to Argentina with those files.”
He looked into Cronley’s eyes.
“So, what do I do with you, Captain Cronley? I can’t leave you at Kloster Grünau thinking you’re not subject to my orders.”
“Was that a question, sir?”
“Consider it one.”
“You can let me deal with the problem of Major Orlovsky.”
“What does that mean?”
“Let me see if I can get the names of Gehlen’s people who gave him those rosters.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like to try. And, sir, I don’t think that I’m not subject to your orders. I just think you’re wrong for wanting to turn the problem over to Gehlen.”
“Don’t you mean ‘General Gehlen,’ Captain?”
“Herr Gehlen has been run through a De-Nazification Court and released from POW status to civilian life. He no longer has military rank, and I think it’s a mistake to let him pretend he does.”
“It makes it easier for him to control his people, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t care if they call him Der Führer. I am not going to treat him as a general in a position to give me orders. It has to be the other way around.”
“Or what?”
“You have to go along with that, or relieve me.”
“Whereupon you would tell Colonel Frade why I relieved you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what makes you think Frade wouldn’t think relieving a twenty-two-year-old captain who wouldn’t take orders was something I had every right to do?”
“I’ll have to take that chance, sir.”
Mattingly looked at him a long moment. “My biggest mistake was in underestimating your ego,” he said, almost sadly. “I should have known better. Why the hell couldn’t you have stayed a nice young second lieutenant who only knew how to say ‘Yes, sir’ and wouldn’t dream of questioning his orders?”
Cronley didn’t reply.
“We seem to be back to: ‘What the hell do I do with you?’”
“You can let me see how I do with Major Orlovsky.”
“My question was rhetorical, Captain Cronley. I was not asking for a reply.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Prefacing the following by saying that this conversation is by no means over, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen now. In the morning, you will return to Kloster Grünau. I’ll give you a week to see what you can learn from Major Orlovsky. One week. Seven days from now, you will come back here and report to me what, if anything, you think you have learned, and offer any suggestions you might have regarding the next step.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“Don’t entertain any illusions that you have come out on top of our little tête-à-tête. Whatever happens, our relationship in the future will be considerably less cordial than it has been in the past.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Now, presuming you still take some orders, I don’t want you to leave this room until you get in the staff car that takes you to the airfield in the morning. There is room service. You will eat your supper and breakfast in the room. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t want you bumping into Mrs. Schumann. Your first encounter with her ended without anything untoward happening. I want to keep it that way.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mattingly got out of his chair and left the suite without saying another word.
Cronley looked at the closed door, and then wondered aloud, “Why the hell couldn’t I have stayed a nice young second lieutenant who only knew how to say ‘Yes, sir’ and wouldn’t dream of questioning my orders?”
Then he walked into the bathroom to meet the call of nature.
[ SIX ]
When Cronley came back into the sitting room, he pushed the curtains on the French doors aside and looked out. It was drizzling, a precursor, he thought, of the bad weather moving in. Defying the drizzle, four golfers were walking down the fairway with their caddies trailing after them.
He let the curtain fall back, having remembered that there was room service.
A little celebratory Jack Daniel’s is in order for the prisoner in Room 112.
After that confrontation with Mattingly, while things are certainly not ginger-peachy, Mattingly knows he can’t let Gehlen’s men shoot Orlovsky. At least right away.
He had just picked up the telephone when there was a knock at his door.
Shit! Mattingly’s back with something devastating to say to me.
He swung open the door.
Mrs. Colonel Schumann was standing there.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
“Mrs. Schumann, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“Would you prefer that I cause a scene in the corridor?”
He backed away far enough for her to enter, leav
ing the door open.
She glanced at it. “If you leave the door open, someone’s likely to see me in here.”
“I don’t think us being in here behind a closed door is a very good idea.”
She moved quickly around him and slammed the door closed.
“I have no more interest in getting caught doing this than you do.”
“Ma’am, I think you’ve had a little too much to drink.”
“Just enough to find the courage to do this.”
She advanced on him. He retreated until his back was against the door.
Jesus, she’s going to grope me!
“Shut up and kiss me,” she ordered. “And for God’s sake, Jimmy, stop calling me ‘ma’am.’”
She raised her face to his.
And then she groped him.
[ SEVEN ]
1405 30 October 1945
Why do I really not want to open my eyes?
Maybe I’m thinking that if I just lie here keeping them closed I won’t have to face what I just did.
Cronley felt Mrs. Schumann’s fingers on his face and opened his eyes.
She was beside him in the bed, supporting herself on an elbow, looking down at him.
“What did you do, doze off?” she asked.
She had a sheet and blanket over her shoulders, but they did not conceal her breasts, her stomach, or her large patch of black pubic hair.
“What we just did wasn’t smart,” he said.
“Probably not. But we did it, and we can’t take it back.”
He looked at her, and then away, and now he saw their clothing scattered between the bed and the door to the sitting room.
“So tell me about those sad eyes,” she said.
He didn’t reply.
“They’re what attracted me to you. So tell me.”
“You really want to know?”
“I really want to know.”
“Okay. The day after we eloped, my wife was killed when a drunk hit her head-on with his sixteen-wheeler.”
“Oh, Jimmy, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“When did this happen?”
“Five days ago. No, four.”
“I don’t believe that. And if you think you’re being amusing, you’re not.”
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