He had glanced at it casually, and then a story on the first page caught his attention. He read it quickly and then again very carefully.
ATTEMPTED RAPE OF WACS FAILS
Would-be Rapists Pick Wrong Victims
By Janice Johansen
Associated Press Foreign Correspondent
Munich Jan 25—
Three would-be rapists died on the spot and a fourth died later in the 98th General Hospital when their attempted assault of WAC Technical Sergeants Claudette Colbert and Florence Miller went very wrong for them early in the morning of January 24.
The men, so far unidentified but believed to be Polish DPs who escaped from the Oberhaching Displaced Persons Camp, forced the two WAC non-coms into an ambulance the would-be rapists had stolen earlier from the 98th General Hospital and driven to the parking lot of the Munich Military Post Non-Commissioned Officers’ Club.
With knives at their throats, neither Colbert nor Miller offered resistance until they were inside the stolen ambulance. Then, as soon as the ambulance began to move and she saw her opportunity, Sergeant Colbert took her .38 caliber revolver from where she had it concealed in her brassiere and opened fire. Three of the would-be rapists died instantly in the ambulance and a fourth was declared dead on arrival at the 98th General Hospital.
Sergeants Colbert and Miller are cryptographers assigned to the Army Security Agency’s Munich station. They are required to be armed because of the classified material they deal with daily.
“Normally, I leave my pistol in the office,” Sergeant Colbert said. “But last night, thank God, I had it with me.”
Asked why she had concealed the weapon in her brassiere, the sergeant said that since she didn’t want to walk into the NCO club with a holstered weapon, and couldn’t leave the pistol in the vehicle in which she and Sergeant Miller had driven to the NCO club, “I didn’t have any other option.”
Colonel Arthur B. Kellogg, the Munich provost marshal who investigated the shooting incident, offered high praise to the WAC non-com: “Sergeant Colbert’s courage and professional cool-mindedness when dealing with a life-threatening situation like this reflects great credit not only upon her personally, but on all the members of the WAC. I am going to recommend to her commanding officer that she be recommended for at least the award of the Army Commendation Medal.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Wallace said.
The question of whether Cronley gets relieved is out of my hands.
As soon as El Jefe—or the admiral—hears about this, we’ll both get relieved.
DCI is supposed to be a secret organization, not written about on the front page of a goddamn newspaper.
If I can’t shut up one lousy goddamn reporter—and they’ll come after me on this, not Cronley—I don’t belong in the goddamn Girl Scouts, much less the DCI.
What did Truman say? “The buck stops here!”
And when both Cronley and I are sent . . . Where was it they sent Napoleon?
Elba!
And when Cronley and I are counting snowballs on some Aleutian island version of Elba, who’s going to take my place?
That fucking Mattingly, that’s who!
And that’ll see DCI taken over by G-2 in no more than two hours!
Major Wallace then began his search for Captain Cronley, whom he intended to politely ask if he had any conception whatever of the damage he had caused by failing to take into consideration the enormous damage one lousy fucking journalist can do, and therefore doing nothing whatever to silence said one fucking journalist and as a result of which he and I will be counting snowballs in fucking Alaska through all eternity. Amen.
—
Major Wallace marched across the dining room to where a waiter was pouring coffee from a silver urn into Captain Cronley’s c
offee cup.
What I would like to do is shove that goddamn coffeepot up his ass.
But I will not do that because I am an officer and a gentleman.