An enormous Army truck was parked right in the middle. It had mounted on it what to Cronley, who had grown up in the Permian Basin oil fields, looked like an oil well work-over drill.
What the hell?
His passenger quickly assessed the situation and over the interphone calmly inquired, “What are you going to do now?”
“General, I’m going to make another pass over the strip. People will be looking at us. When they do, you and I are going to wave our hands at them, hoping they understand we want them to move that truck.”
Cronley switched to AIR-TO-AIR and with some difficulty managed to relay that order to Kurt Schröder and Tiny Dunwiddie in their Storch.
It all proved to be unnecessary.
When Cronley began what was going to be his hand-and-arm-waving pass over the road, he saw the truck had already been moved off.
He landed. Schröder put his Storch down thirty seconds later.
A jeep rushed up to them. It was being driven by Lieutenant Colonel Bristol, the Engineer officer in charge of the Pullach compound building project. Lieutenant Stratford, the ASA officer sent by Major Iron Lung McClung to install the Collins/SIGABA system, was with him.
Bristol and Stratford got out of their jeep and were standing beside Cronley’s Storch when he climbed out.
“Oh, it’s you,” Bristol said.
“Sir, why do I think you’re disappointed?” Cronley asked.
“Absolutely the contrary,” Bristol said. “When I saw two idiot pilots wanting to land on what is not a landing strip, I was afraid General Clay had come back.”
“General Gehlen, this is Colonel Bristol, the Engineer officer in charge of setting up the compound.”
Bristol, in a Pavlovian reflex to the term “general,” popped to attention and saluted. After a just perceptible hesitation, Gehlen returned it.
“I’ve been hoping I’d get to meet you, sir,” Bristol said.
“Very kind of you, Colonel. But I don’t think we’re supposed to exchange military courtesies.”
“My fault,” Cronley said. “I should have said ‘Herr Gehlen.’ But I have a lot of trouble remembering General Gehlen is no longer a general.”
“Cronley,” Bristol said, “general officers are like the Marines. Once a general, always a general. And especially in this case. When General Clay told me what’s going on here, he referred to the general as General Gehlen, and went out of his way to make sure I understood the general is one of the good guys.”
“Again, that’s very kind of you,” Gehlen said. “And of General Clay.”
“So welcome to your new home, Herr Gehlen. I hope you’ll let me show you around. Perhaps you’ll have a suggestion or two.”
“Since you brought up the subject, Colonel . . .”
“Yes, sir. What’s your pleasure?”
“Would it be possible to extend this runway a little? Actually, for some distance?”
“Well, that’s on my list, sir. And just now it went to the top of the list.”
“Would it be too much to ask that it be done before we leave? My friend Kurt Schröder”—he pointed at Kurt—“once told me you need more runway to take off than to land.”
“Herr General, wir können hier gut raus,” Schröder said.
Bristol’s eyebrows went up as he looked at Schröder, who was wearing the Constabulary pilot’s zipper jacket that Lieutenant Colonel William W. Wilson had given Cronley.
“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” he said. “I guess a lot of you CIC guys speak German. I guess you’d have to.”
An explanation, or a clarification, proved to be unnecessary, as there was an interruption: Dunwiddie, who was wearing his rank-insignia-less CIC uniform, was looking intently at Lieutenant Stratford, and vice versa.
Then Stratford put his hands on his hips and barked, “Well, you miserable rook, don’t just stand there slumped with your mouth open and your fat belly hanging out, come to attention and say, ‘Good morning, sir.’”
Dunwiddie said, “I’ll be goddamned—it is you!”
Stratford walked quickly to Dunwiddie, started to offer his hand, then changed his mind and hugged him. Dunwiddie hugged him back, which caused him to lift Stratford at least eighteen inches off the ground.
“These two, Colonel Bristol,” Cronley said drily, “were once confined to the same reform school in Vermont. The large one is my Number Two.”
Cronley thought: They’re pals. Great!
Stratford is going to be very useful. And not only with the ambulances.
“Be advised, Cronley,” Bristol said sternly, “that I find derogatory references to Norwich University, the nation’s oldest and arguably finest military college, from which Lieutenant Stratford and I are privileged to claim graduation, totally unacceptable.”
Oh, shit!
Bristol’s cold glower turned into a smile.
“Relax,” he said. “Stratford warned me that I should expect—and have to forgive—such behavior from a graduate of Texas Cow College.”
He walked over to Stratford and Dunwiddie with his hand extended.
“Jack Bristol, Dunwiddie. Class of 1940. You’re Alphonse’s little brother, right? We were roommates.”
Oh, am I on a roll!
—
During the next two hours, while he learned more about Norwich University, its sacred and sometimes odd customs, and its long roster of distinguished graduates, than he really cared to know, Cronley also had reason to believe that he was indeed on a roll.
It took him less than a half hour to conclude that the stories he’d heard that Norwich graduates could give lessons in ring-knocking to graduates of West Point—and for that matter to graduates of Texas A&M, the Citadel, and VMI—were all true. They really took care of each other.
That first came up when Tiny asked Colonel Bristol about the Polish DP guard force. Colonel Bristol told Dunwiddie they had been assigned to him for as long as he thought they’d be necessary. And he immediately asked Dunwiddie if he wished to dispense with their services when the rest of his men arrived.
“No, sir. I’d like to keep them as long as possible,” Tiny replied.
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Bristol said without hesitation. “What I’ll do is leave a squad, or maybe a platoon, here to keep the place up. I think General Clay would expect me to do that. And they’ll need the DPs to guard them, of course. That’ll give you a couple of months to figure out a justification to keep them permanently.”
After that, Cronley, who had already decided that the situation required that he bend the Need to Know rules out of shape insofar as Lieutenant Stratford was concerned, decided they were also going to have to be bent almost as far for Colonel Bristol.
The first step there was to explain to Bristol exactly what was going to take place in the South German Industrial Development Organization compound, who was going to be inside it, and then to ask his recommendations about providing the necessary security.
Bristol was happy to sketch out on the plywood map what he thought should be done. His plan essentially required the installation of more chain-link fences. The outer line of fences would surround the whole village. It would be guarded by the Polish DPs. They would be housed in buildings between the outer fence line and the second line of fences.
Anyone driving past the Pullach compound would see only them and the SÜD-DEUTSCHE INDUSTRIELLE ENTWICKLUNGSORGANISATION signs posted on the fence. But not the black American soldiers guarding it with heavy machine guns.
They would be there, of course, but out of sight from the road. They would control passage into the second security area. They would be housed in the area between the second fence and the third. And this area would contain not only the refurbished houses in which they would be housed, but their mess and their service club as well.
As this w
as being discussed, Cronley was reminded that Mrs. Anthony Schumann handled enlisted morale for the ASA/CIC community. He had quickly dismissed her from his mind. He would deal with her later. Right now, he was on a roll.
Like the first two fences, the third fence, two hundred yards in from Fence Line Two, had already been erected. It, too, would be guarded by Tiny’s Troopers. Colonel Bristol sketched in, with a grease pencil, where he thought additional fences should go. There should be a new, inner compound, housing only the headquarters of the Süd-Deutsche Industrielle Entwicklungsorganisation and five refurbished houses.
One of these would be for General Gehlen and another for Ludwig Mannberg, and their families. A third would be for visiting VIPs—such as General Greene, Colonel Mattingly, and Lieutenant Colonel Schumann. The fourth would house Lieutenant Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley, the Pentagon’s G-2 representatives, and the fifth the Military Government Liaison Officer. That meant Cronley now and, when Major Ashton arrived from Argentina, Polo and Altarboy.
The Vatican ASA listening station and quarters—all in one refurbished house—would have sort of a compound of its own in the area between Fence Line Two and Fence Line Three.
“Setting those few fences shouldn’t take long,” Colonel Bristol said. “Not with the White Auger.”
“The what, sir?” Cronley asked.
“The White Auger. The truck that we had to move off the strip so you could land.”
Cronley still seemed confused, so Colonel Bristol provided a further explanation.
“That White Model 44 truck. It has an auger mounted. Drills a hole five feet deep in a matter of seconds.” He demonstrated, moving his index finger in a downward stabbing motion and making a ZZZZZ, ZZZZZZ, ZZZZZ sound.
“Yes, sir. The sooner you can get to this, the better.”
“I’ll get right on it. I’ll have all the fences up in two days, tops.”
Colonel Bristol was even more obliging when it came to extending the runway, putting up a shed large enough to get both Storches out of the weather, and doing something about getting them a means to refuel the airplanes.
“I think a jeep-towable regular gas truck would work just fine,” he said. “And I’ve got a couple of them I can spare.”
Things went even better when Bristol was showing Gehlen the house he would occupy. It gave Cronley the chance to take Tiny and Lieutenant Stratford next door to the house that would be occupied by the Military Government liaison officer “to show Dunwiddie where you installed the SIGABA system.”
As soon as they walked into the room, Sergeant Mitchell of the ASA handed Cronley a SIGABA printout.
“This came in not sixty seconds ago, sir,” he said.
Cronley read it:
PRIORITY
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
FROM VINT HILL TANGO NET
1250 GREENWICH 5 NOVEMBER 1945
TO VATICAN ATTENTION ALTARBOY
COPY TO BEERMUG ATTENTION ALTARBOY
POLO ATTENTION POLO
FOLLOWING BY TELEPHONE FROM TEX 1235 GMT 5 NOV 1945
BEGIN MESSAGE
THANKS TO OLD MAN BANKING PROBLEMS SOLVED EARLIER THAN EXPECTED STOP DEPARTING MIDLAND CASH IN HAND 1300 GMT STOP TEX
END MESSAGE
END
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
—
Cronley handed the message to Dunwiddie, then did some arithmetic aloud: “It’s six thousand miles, give or take, from Midland to Buenos Aires. At three hundred knots, give or take, that’s nineteen hours. Factor in two hours in Caracas for refuel and another two hours for maybe a bad headwind, that’s twenty-three hours. That’ll put them into Jorge Frade at twelve hundred Greenwich—fourteen hundred our time—tomorrow.”
“Thank you for sharing that with us,” Dunwiddie said.
“Which means that twenty-four hours after that, best possible scenario, forty-eight hours after that, worst scenario, or thirty-six hours after that, most likely scenario, Major Ashton will get off a South American Airways Constellation in Frankfurt. To which I say, Hooray!”
“You really want this guy to come, don’t you?” Tiny asked.
“This will probably shock you, Sergeant Dunwiddie, but I am really looking forward to having Major Ashton relieve the unbelievably heavy burden of this command from my weak and inadequate shoulders.”
Cronley turned to Lieutenant Stratford.
“Now, when Major Ashton gets off that Constellation in Frankfurt, we have to get him here without anyone knowing we’re doing so. The way we’re going to do that is meet the airplane with a three-quarter-ton ex-ambulance. The bumpers of that vehicle identify it as having come from the motor pool of the 711th QM MKRC.”
“The what?” Stratford asked.
“The 711th Quartermaster Mess Kit Repair Company.”
“I have the strangest feeling you are not pulling my chain,” Stratford said.
“We’re not,” Dunwiddie said.
Cronley went on: “Sequence of events. We hear, from the SIGABA aboard the Constellation, when it takes off from Lisbon, when it will arrive in Rhine-Main. I then get in one of our Storches and Kurt gets in the other one. We fly to the airfield at Eschborn . . .”
“I know where it is,” Stratford said.
“. . . where the ambulance, having been stashed somewhere safe, has gone to meet us—”
“‘Stashed somewhere safe’?”
“That’s where you come in,” Dunwiddie said.
“I get in the ambulance,” Cronley continued. “We drive to Rhine-Main. Major Ashton gets in the ambulance. We drive back to Eschborn. We get back in the Storches and take off. The ambulance then departs for where it had been stashed.”
“You want me to stash your ambulance for how long?”
Cronley didn’t answer.
“Phase two,” he said. “Two to four days after that, the Storches fly into Eschborn again. This time they have a passenger. The passenger and I get in the ambulance, which has come from its stash place to meet me. We drive to Rhine-Main. The passenger—who may have a companion, we haven’t decided about that yet—gets on an SAA airplane. The ambulance drives me back to Eschborn and the Storches take off. The ambulance drives off, destination Kloster Grünau.”
“Who’s the passenger?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“He is not pulling your chain,” Dunwiddie said.
“For how long am I supposed to stash your ambulance?”
“Maybe two ambulances?” Cronley asked. “I am a devout believer in redundancy.”
“Two ambulances.”
“Thank you,” Cronley said. “When I get back to Kloster Grünau, we’ll send them to Frankfurt. In other words, from tomorrow until this is over. At least a week. Maybe ten days.”
“We’ve got a relay station outside Frankfurt, in an ex-German kaserne not far from the 97th General Hospital. I could stash your ambulances there in what used to be stables for horse-drawn artillery.”
“Thank you,” Cronley said again.
—
When they came out of the building, intending to join Colonel Bristol and General Gehlen, Technical Sergeant Abraham L. Tedworth rolled up in a jeep. He was heading a convoy. Behind him were three canvas-backed GMC 6×6 trucks—each towing a trailer—and three jeeps, also towing trailers and with their .50 caliber Browning machine guns now shrouded by canvas covers.
Sergeant Tedworth got out of his jeep. He put his hands on his hips and bellowed at the 6×6s, “Get your fat asses out of the trucks and fall in!”
Lieutenant Stratford was visibly impressed as forty black men, the smallest of whom was pushing six feet and two hundred pounds, all armed with Thompson submachine guns, poured out of the trucks and, without further orders, formed four ten-man ranks, came to a
ttention, then performed the Dress Right Dress maneuver.
Sergeant Tedworth took up a position in front of them, did a crisp about-face, and then saluted Cronley, who was by then in position, with First Sergeant Dunwiddie standing the prescribed “one pace to the left, one pace behind” him.
“Sir,” Tedworth barked, “First Platoon, Company C, 203rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, reporting for duty, sir.”
Cronley returned the salute.
“Welcome, welcome,” Cronley said. “At ease, men.”
They looked at him curiously.
“I’m sure you all noticed the precision with which First Sergeant Dunwiddie marched up behind me,” Cronley said. “This officer”—he pointed to Stratford—“Lieutenant Stratford is responsible. He taught First Sergeant Dunwiddie all he knows about Close Order Drill.”
This produced looks of confusion.
“I shit you not,” Cronley said solemnly.
This produced smiles.
“And after he did that, Lieutenant Stratford taught Rook Dunwiddie, as he was known in those days, how to tie, as well as shine, his boots and other matters of importance to a brand-new soldier.”
This produced wide smiles and some laughter.
“He will, I am sure, be happy to explain all this to you as he shows you around your new home,” Cronley said. “First Sergeant, take the formation.”
Dunwiddie was unable to restrain a smile as he saluted and barked, “Yes, sir.”
—
Well, that does it, Cronley thought as Dunwiddie started off on what was obviously going to be a familiarization tour of the Pullach compound.
Tiny’s Troops are here. The SIGABA is up and running. Those two bastards from the Pentagon will shortly arrive. The compound is now open for business.
And Major Ashton will soon be here to take the heavy burden of command from my shoulders.
“Very impressive,” Stratford said. “Where did you get them?”
“From General I. D. White,” Cronley said. “They were part of the Second Armored Division. And, yes, Lieutenant Stratford, I do know where General White got his commission.”
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