As first Captain James D. Cronley Jr. and then Captain Chauncey L. Dunwiddie came through the door, the troopers saluted crisply.
Captains Cronley and Dunwiddie returned the salute.
One of the troopers put a glistening brass whistle—which had been hanging from his epaulet on a white cord—to his lips and blew twice.
The train immediately began to move. The troopers went quickly through the door and it slid closed.
Captain Cronley addressed those waiting on the platform, Mr. Friedrich Hessinger and Miss Claudette Colbert.
“How nice of you to meet us. And now that you have seen the evidence of the high regard in which Captain Dunwiddie and myself are held by the U.S. Constabulary, I am sure we will be treated with greater respect and deference than you have shown in the past.”
“Well, I’m awed,” Miss Colbert said.
“You got us to come down here to watch you get off the train?” Mr. Hessinger asked incredulously.
“What happened,” Tiny said, “is that Colonel Wilson was showing us the communications on the train, and asked if there was anyone we wanted to call. Our leader said, ‘Let’s get Freddy on the phone, and have him pick us up at the bahnhof. Save the price of a taxicab.’ So he did.”
“A cab would have cost you fifty cents!” Hessinger complained.
“‘A penny saved is a penny earned,’” Cronley quoted piously. “Isn’t that true, Miss Colbert?”
“And ‘A fool and his money are soon parted,’” she replied.
Their eyes met momentarily.
He forced the mental image this produced of Miss Colbert in her birthday suit from his mind.
Nose to the grindstone, Cronley!
“Is Major Wallace in the office?” he asked.
“Probably for the next five minutes,” Freddy said. “He really hates missing Happy Hour at the Engineer O Club, and that starts at five o’clock.”
“I may have to ruin his evening,” Cronley said. “We’ve got a lot to do and we’re going to need him.”
“For instance?” Freddy asked.
“I’ll tell you at the office,” Cronley said, “when I tell him.”
“For instance,” Tiny said, “we’ve got to get the Storchs to Sonthofen first thing in the morning, which means I’m going to have to go out to Kloster Grünau and set that, and some other things, up. Do I just take the Kapitän?”
“I can drive you out there,” Claudette said.
“Do it. We’ll need the Kapitän in the morning,” Cronley ordered.
[THREE]
Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten
Maximilianstrasse 178
Munich, American Zone of Occupation, Germany
1705 17 January 1946
Major Harold Wallace was checking to ensure the door to Suite 507 was securely locked when Cronley and Hessinger came down the aisle.
“What would it take to get you to miss Happy Hour at the Engineer O Club?”