Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line

by James V Milano

  The next day, Milano called in his secretary. "Pat," he said, "remember what I said about Henry Butcher? That's countermanded. He's fair game-if anyone wants him."

  "Now, what on earth made you change your mind?" she asked in astonishment.

  Milano just sighed. "Don't ask. It's simply too painful."

  Some months after Butcher's arrival, Paul Lyon was nominated to take two Russian defectors to Naples and see them off on a ship for Buenos Aires. He took Butcher with him, and the four men set off in one of the section's illegal jeeps, pulling a small trailer with their belongings. The journey down the length of Italy was uneventful and stimulating. Italy was a marvelous and invigorating change from the rigors of 1940s Austria. It was spring in Italy, and everything seemed hopeful and cheerful, quite unlike the sullen depression of Central Europe.

  The two Russians had been given the code names Edgar and Jess and brand-new Slavic names for their bogus refugee passports. They had been interrogated at length by the Special Intelligence Section and had provided valuable information on the Soviet order of battle and the morale, equipment, and intentions of the Soviet armies. Now they were escaping from Europe to a new life in the New World. They were excited, exuberant, and determined to enjoy themselves. Lyon and Butcher were given firm instructions to keep a sharp eye on them.

  When they reached Naples, the two Russians and their minders were taken to a hotel near the waterfront. It was a scene quite unlike anything the Russians had encountered in a lifetime of misery in the Soviet Union: at home, they had known nothing but revolution, civil war, famine, purges, and then the horrors of the Great Patriotic War. They had most recently spent six months in the enforced austerity of safe houses and barracks in the hands of the Americans in Austria. Naples was a revelation. There was constant bustle in the streets, men and women walking, running, arguing, and laughing together. There was no war damage, there was plenty to drink and eat, the women were beautiful, and everyone seemed friendly and happy. Naples has always enjoyed the most vibrant street life of any city in Europe, and in the golden days just after the war, as all the tensions and fears of the dreadful years melted away, Neapolitans enjoyed themselves to the full.

  The Russians were put in a room overlooking the street. Paul Lyon went off to dinner with his local contact, Inspector Alfredo Capatelli, the local representative of the Italian Border Police. They left Henry Butcher to keep an eye on Edgar and Jess. The three men ate together in the hotel dining room, drinking a few glasses of the local red wine, and then Butcher sent them to their room with firm instructions to stay there. If they wanted to go out, they should ask his permission-and he would go with them. Edgar and Jess sat in their room, looking at the enticing, exciting scene in the street below, while Butcher retired to his room at the back of the building to study a German grammar.

  Just across the street was a bar, its large, uncurtained windows showing the homesick, thirsty Russians an alluring view of the interior. They watched with longing as sailors and civilians went in and out. They could see the drinkers standing at the bar or sitting at little tables in the room or on the terrace outside, drinking and laughing. It was too much for the Russians. It was more than human flesh could stand, to see others enjoying the delights of freedom while they were cooped up in a dreary hotel room with genuine American dollars in their pockets. They each had fifty dollars, provided by the Special Intelligence Section, to make a start in their new lives in Latin America. They decided not to disturb Lieutenant Butcher. He was quite happy studying German verbs, and anyway he might not be sympathetic if they asked him to let them wander forth into the Italian evening. Besides, he was only a lieutenant. If Captain Lyon had been there, they might have restrained themselves.

  So Edgar and Jess walked quietly down the stairs of the hotel and strolled across the street to the bar. It was called Niccola's, and the padrone made them welcome. They were soon installed happily at the counter, enjoying the first taste of freedom they had known in years. Then they had an idea for another joy they had long missed. At the end of the bar was a staircase leading to the upper floor. It was an elegant staircase with a finely carved banister, there was a lush red stair carpet, and at the top was a most suggestive door. The two observed that every so often a client from the bar would go up and would return an hour or so later. They deduced that the stairs and the door were meant to serve a particular purpose. They were veterans of the Red Army, conquerors of the Third Reich, and they marched boldly up the stairs and knocked on the door.

  It was opened by a lady in high heels, makeup, and not much else. They spoke no Italian and she certainly spoke no Russian, but communication was not a problem. The madam introduced the two sexstarved Russians to her two favorite girls, Fatima and Tereza, and a deal was soon concluded. They paid five dollars each, in advance, which the madam took from them, wishing them an enjoyable evening. The whores took the two men off to their rooms for an hour's pleasure. After months-or years-of celibacy, they made the most of the opportunity, and the girls gave them their money's worth.

  Jess was a cautious man. He rolled his wallet in his trousers, making a bundle of the whole, and left it where he could see it. Edgar was more trusting-and when he got dressed, he discovered that the rest of his allowance was missing. The limits of sign language quickly became apparent: Edgar demanded his money back in violent Russian, the hooker denied that she was a thief, in voluble and noisy Italian. The madam arrived, and Edgar grabbed her by the throat demanding his money. By now the brothel was in a turmoil. Jess, scrambling into his clothes, checked that his own wallet was intact and came to his comrade's assistance. The barman arrived and was quickly thrown down the stairs by the thoroughly enraged Russians. They had not defeated Hitler, escaped to the Americans, and journeyed to Naples to be robbed by an Italian whore. Soon there was a full-scale riot-and the police arrived. They spoke no Russian, of course, but it was easy to deduce what had happened. This was not the first time a Naples whore had rolled a client, nor the first time the client had protested violently. The difference was that the two men had no papers, spoke no known language, and had managed to inflict a quite unusual amount of damage on the brothel and bar before the police came to break up the fight.

  Later that evening, Paul Lyon and Inspector Capatelli returned to the hotel and checked with Lieutenant Butcher. He had spent a useful and educative evening with the German language. Lyon asked him if his charges had given him any trouble, and Butcher blithely replied that he had heard not a peep out of them. They had promised him to ask if they wanted to leave the hotel, and he had heard nothing and therefore assumed that they had gone obediently and quietly to bed. Lyon, who knew more of the ways of the world than the unsuspecting lieutenant, stepped across the hall to check. The room was empty. Henry was appalled. He had lost his proteges, failing the most important job he had yet been given.

  Lyon paused just long enough to tell Butcher what he thought of him, and he and Capatelli ran down to look for the missing Russians. The man at the desk told them he had seen them go out two hours earlier and suggested that they might have headed for Niccola's, across the street. When the two Americans arrived with the police inspector, they found a scene of desolation. There had been a fight, beginning upstairs and ending on the floor of the barroom. The padrone explained that two foreigners had unjustly accused two of his barmaids of robbing them and had insulted his house, his wife, and the honor of Italy and of Naples. They had been taken away by the police and were doubtless being dealt with as they deserved.

  The two errant Russians were soon discovered in the police station, handcuffed and miserable. Inspector Capatelli intervened with the senior officer, asking that the men be released into his custody. But that was impossible. They had caused a riot. They had broken furniture. They had no papers, their nationality was unknown, and altogether they were most suspicious characters. The two girls' papers were in order, they had passed their latest health inspection, the bar was a respectable establishment that woul
d never rob its clients. He could do nothing until his superior officer, Lieutenant Antonio Donadio, arrived the following morning. All the pleadings of the Americans and their Neapolitan ally were unavailing, and the two Russians spent the night in jail. Lyon wished there was some way he could send Butcher to join them.

  This was a serious matter. If the affair could not be settled immediately, the Italian authorities would quickly discover that two Russians, speaking not a word of English, were traveling with American papers and visas for Argentina. The whole Rat Line might be exposed. Furthermore, they were due on board their freighter at two the following afternoon: it was to sail at six. Lyon had to call in the chits for every favor he had ever provided the Italians. Inspector Capatelli went to work directly on Lieutenant Donadio, and various Italian generals, police officials, and politicians in Rome were induced to offer their opinions that this had been a mere barroom brawl, that it should not be blown out of proportion, that the Americans were most concerned to hush the matter up, and that, as a loyal ally, Italy should do everything in its power to keep them happy. One of those Lyon contacted was General Barsanti, the border police official who had been provided with tickets to the Salzburg Festival. He called his friend in the national police, the carabiniere who had also been to Salzburg the previous summer, and that was the key to releasing the two Russians. He was Donadio's superior officer and told him that life would be easier and relations with the Americans and Rome headquarters would be much improved if he overlooked the little disturbance at Niccola's. The argument was persuasive. Donadio arrived at the police station first thing in the morning, and the two Russians were released. They were in time to catch their boat, and they departed to begin their new lives in South America. Lyon gave Edgar another fifty dollars and a stern admonition to protect it in future. Then the two Americans returned to Austria. They had a story to tell.

  Butcher was called on the mat by Major Milano, who explained that the world does not work according to the West Point honor code and that he should not always believe everything he was told by Soviet defectors-or other dubious characters. He was also told that for the rest of his tour of duty he should keep to his desk and stay out of trouble. He left the office a chastened young man, and Milano's secretary, Pat, took pity on him. She told him that she was meeting two other girls for a drink after work in a local nightspot, Le Bar, and invited him to come along and drown his sorrows. This was a wellconnected establishment with all the booze a man could need, and Butcher and the three girls were soon thoroughly plastered. The girls started discussing how to cheer him up and suggested that he should perform some feat of valor, do something no one else had ever done, to demonstrate that he was not afraid of Major Milano or any of these other Operations jerks who were giving him a hard time.

  Hans, the barman, suggested that the thing to do was to drive a jeep up to the gates of Schloss Salzburg, the great Renaissance palace on the hill dominating the town. The road ended a good 150 feet below the top, and there was only a narrow, cobbled passage zigzagging up to the gate. No vehicle had ever been up there. Butcher protested that he was an excellent driver, the jeep was a four-wheel-drive marvel of American engineering-and he was a West Point man who could soberly judge the state of the path when they got there.

  Hans promised a round of drinks on the house when they returned from the exploit, and Butcher and the girls piled into the jeep and set off up the trail. Butcher, though very drunk, could still drive: when he reached the end of the paved road, he drove straight on, full speed, up the cobbled path to the top. The girls shrieked encouragement as the jeep swayed around the tortuous, narrow path, with nothing below but eternity. They reached the summit successfully and parked beneath the walls of the castle-and were then faced with the impossibility of getting down again. It was far too dangerous to back down, and there was no space to turn. So they abandoned the jeep and returned down the hill on foot. The girls went to the bar to claim their drink from Hans, who was suitably impressed by their exploit. Henry went to bed. He was sober enough to realize that he would be in-trouble- in the morning.

  One of the girls promised that she would call a friend of hers, who was in charge of the motor pool, first thing in the morning. He would get the jeep back. Alas for caution: all Salzburg was in the streets early the next day, staring up at the jeep in front of the castle, as full of admiration at the feat as ever drunken Henry could have wished. In the cold light of day it was a truly remarkable achievement, and no one could imagine how any driver, however skilled, had managed to get the vehicle safely to the top. The military police were summoned, and a sergeant presented himself to Major Milano's office to report that one of his vehicles, of morethan-dubious provenance, had been found. The culprit came in to face the music. His mood was not helped by a terrible hangover.

  The jeep was recovered, with much difficulty and in the course of several hours of nerve-racking maneuvering. Lieutenant Butcher was saved from punishment by a stroke of good fortune: his transfer orders arrived that morning. He was to be shipped back to an army base in California. A regular unit would have insisted on courtmartialing him, but the Special Intelligence Section had better things to do. Milano and his colleagues decided that there was some good in the man, after all, that would serve the Regular Army well, even if he were not up to the special demands of secret operations. One of them observed that Lieutenant Butcher had been well trained and prepared for the world, like a Thoroughbred racehorse. Unfortunately, he had been put into the starting box facing the wrong way and would have to be turned around before he could serve any useful purpose or get anywhere.

  The metaphor appealed to Milano, and he forgave the errant lieutenant. Besides, Butcher was about to leave. The section threw a party to bid him farewell, and late that evening they drank to Butcher's health and wished him well. He rose to his feet, swaying slightly, and addressed the assembly thus:

  "If this were a regular unit, I would say how happy I had been working with you, how well you have maintained the noble traditions of the U.S. Army, how I learned so much and will cherish the memory and all that. However, since this isn't a regular army unit, I'll say that I've never seen anything like it. I never dreamed there was such a bunch anywhere. I've never been quite sure what you were all up to, but I'm quite sure you're playing hell with most army traditions. In fact, some of you don't appear to be any sort of soldiers at all, more like Machiavelli and Mata Hari. All in all, it's an experience I'll never forget and I'm simply delighted to get the hell out of here."

  Lieutenant Henry Butcher was accident prone. So was Corporal Elmer Peterson, a mechanic in the motor pool. He had been part of the team since North Africa, but his difficulties first came to Milano's attention shortly after they arrived in Austria. The allotment division of the Army Finance Office back in the United States notified Milano that Mrs. Peterson was collecting marriage allowances from no less than seven different members of the U.S. Armed Forces. Each of them believed himself married to her and had signed over the regulation proportion of his monthly wages. It said much for her ingenuity, though not for the military bureaucracy, that she had apparently gotten away with it for several years.

  Milano summoned Peterson to break the news. He asked the corporal about his wife, how he had met her, how long they had been married, what their future plans were. Peterson told a story that might have been repeated by many soldiers. Before being posted abroad in 1943, he had been stationed in Fort Benning, Georgia, working as a mechanic. Like other soldiers at the base, he had spent his spare time and his pay at Phoenix City, a place of ill repute across the Chattahoochee River in Alabama. The town had expanded greatly during the war, in tandem with the expansion of Fort Benning, and was at least somewhat protected from the scrutiny of the military police by being in a different state. The soldiers appreciated its movie theaters, saloons, gambling houses, and whorehouses, not to mention the scarcity of MPs. The city equally appreciated the opportunity to help the men spend their pay, and a great num
ber of people, notably including many young women, had moved to Phoenix City.

  One evening Peterson had been standing in line at a movie theater there when he had struck up a conversation with a striking-looking girl standing in front of him. It was a warm night, and she affected the fashion of the time, which consisted of light clothes and verylow-cut blouses. She was a well-endowed girl, showing herself off to full advantage, and Peterson had been appropriately impressed. She had told him that she was clerk at a local five-and-dime store and this was her night off. Peterson had bought her a ticket, and they had sat together during the film and had gone to a cheap cafe afterward. Romance moves fast in wartime, and Peterson was due to be posted abroad in the near future. The girl, whose name was Beulah, was very sympathetic, and one thing had led to another. She had told him she liked him, she loved him, but she would not sleep with him unless they got married first: she was from a small country town, and her mother had told her that she should not give herself to a man before her wedding.

  Peterson had fallen for Beulah's line. She knew a justice of the peace, she said, who would not object to being awakened at that late hour. She had taken her infatuated soldier to the man's house and succeeded in rousing him from his slumbers. He had agreed to marry them on the spot. The license had cost two dollars, and the justice charged five dollars to perform the ceremony. He had done it often before: there were many impulsive soldiers in Fort Benning. His wife and daughter had stood up as witnesses, in their dressing gowns. The newlyweds had then moved to a motel, where they had stayed until it was time for Peterson to report for the transport abroad. Milano did not inquire how the lovesick bridegroom had been satisfied with his new wife's boasted virginity. He had already concluded that the corporal was very stupid. Evidently all had gone well, because Peterson had taken her to the personnel office at the base the next day to register her for her marriage allotments.