There, Tiny had produced bottles of Löwenbräu and passed them out. As Freddy was neatly wiping gold-rimmed lager glasses, Tiny said, “When Mattingly called, he said ‘no questions.’ He said you could tell us some of what’s happened to you, or all of it, or none of it. He said he was going to call Major Wallace and tell him the same thing. So it’s your call, Jim. If I can still call you by your first name, Captain, sir.”
Despite Cronley’s clear memory of Admiral Souers giving the Engineer colonel a very hard time for sharing intelligence that should not be shared, he told Tiny and Freddy everything that had happened in Argentina and Washington.
“I’m not surprised that President Truman came to offer his condolences,” Freddy said when he’d finished. “From what I know of him, he is a fine gentleman.”
That came out in such a thick accent that Jimmy had to work hard not to smile. Or giggle.
Tiny said, “Sonofabitch! And the bastards sent you back before you could even go to her goddamned funeral!”
Jimmy was touched by Tiny’s emotional response; it was clear he really shared his grief.
“I stopped at the funeral home on the way to the airport,” Jimmy said softly. “I asked if I could see her. The funeral director guy . . . whatever the hell they call those people . . . said ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Fuck you, I want to see her,’ and he said, ‘No, you don’t. The remains were so torn up from the accident that there couldn’t possibly be open casket services, so the coroner didn’t sew the remain
s up after the autopsy. You don’t want to see her like that, believe me. Remember her as she was when she was alive.’”
“So, what did you do?” Tiny asked.
“I broke down is what I did. Cried like a fucking baby.”
And then, without warning, he broke down and cried like a baby.
Tiny wrapped his massive arms around him and held him until Jimmy managed to control his sobbing and shook himself free of Tiny’s embrace.
When he finally got his eyes to focus he saw that Freddy Hessinger was looking at him through incredibly sad eyes.
“What do you say we get in the Kapitän and go home?” Tiny asked gently.
Cronley nodded, and then followed Dunwiddie out of the room.
[ FOUR ]
Kloster Grünau
Schollbrunn, Bavaria
American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1630 28 October 1945
When Cronley and Dunwiddie reached the compound, instead of driving through the gate, Dunwiddie had driven the Kapitän completely around the double barbed wire barriers around the perimeter.
Cronley wondered what that was all about but, before they had completed the round, decided Dunwiddie wanted both to show the troops that their commanding officer now had twin silver bars on his epaulets and to remind them once again that their first sergeant checked the security of the compound frequently and without advance warning.
Cronley had learned that behind his back the troops guarding Kloster Grünau referred to their first sergeant with the motto of the 2nd Armored Division, from which they had come—“Ole Hell on Wheels.”
When they finally entered the headquarters building—which also housed the officers’ mess and, on the second floor, the American officers and the senior German officer prisoners—General Reinhard Gehlen and Oberst Ludwig Mannberg were sitting in the foyer.
Gehlen was in an ill-fitting civilian suit. Mannberg, previously and now Gehlen’s Number Two, was wearing a superbly tailored Wehrmacht uniform from which all insignia had been removed. Only a wide red stripe down the trouser leg, signifying membership in the General Staff Corps, remained.
Both stood up when they saw Cronley and Dunwiddie.
“Captain,” Gehlen said. “I hope that you will have a few minutes for Mannberg and myself.”
“Certainly, sir,” Cronley said. He gestured toward the door of the mess.
There was no bartender on duty. Tiny went behind the bar, and in perfect German asked, “May I offer the general a scotch?”
“That would be very kind.”