The good news was that there was a fair princess living in the castle who loved Americans.
The bad news was that her loving of Americans was past tense. She had loved one American. He had ridden up to the castle on his white horse—actually flying a Bell WH-1D “Huey”—dallied awhile, left her in the family way, and disappeared, never to return. Nor to be heard from again.
More bad news was that her daddy—formerly Oberst Hermann Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, who had been one of the last seriously wounded evacuated before von Paulus had surrendered at Stalingrad—did not like Americans. This was possibly because of the American chopper jockey’s relationship with the princess. He had made it clear that any contact with Americans would be rare and brief.
Shortly after the Dining In, Major Naylor had been taken to the castle—formally known as Das Haus im Wald—by the Blackhorse’s commander, Colonel Frederick Lustrous, and there introduced to former Oberst Hermann Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger, who received them courteously but rather coldly in his office.
Naylor had obeyed Lustrous’s order: “Allan, look closely at the pictures on the shelf behind his desk” as Lustrous explained to Herr von und zu Gossinger that as the Regiment’s S-3, Naylor would be dealing with the von und zu Gossingers for the regiment.
Major Naylor was surprised at what he saw on the shelf. There was a photo of General George S. Patton standing with his arm around von und zu Gossinger’s shoulder. The third man in the photo Naylor recognized after a moment as Colonel John Waters, Patton’s son-in-law, who had been captured in North Africa. Patton and Waters were splendidly turned out, while “Von und Zu”—as Naylor had quickly come to think of the starchy German—was in a tattered suit.
The picture had obviously been taken immediately after the war, probably just after Waters had been freed and just before Patton had died of injuries suffered in a car/truck accident in Heidelberg. And, judging by the way Oberst von und zu Gossinger was dressed, not long at all after he had been released from a POW camp and taken off his uniform for the last time.
But the photograph clearly made the point that Von und Zu had some powerful American friends. Waters was now a general officer.
Naylor got his first look at the princess—Frau Erika von und zu Gossinger—that first visit to the castle, but they were not introduced. She was a slim young woman in a black dress, her blonde hair gathered in a bun at her neck, and had been with her son, a towheaded ten- or eleven-year-old.
At the time, Naylor decided that while the story of the princess getting herself knocked up by some American chopper jockey made a great Dining In story, it was probably pure bullshit.
Over the next two years, he became more sure of that as he developed a personal relationship with the princess. Or, more accurately, as his bride, Elaine, and Erika became friends, as did the boy and Allan Junior, who was a year younger than Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger.
The two women became much closer about a year later, after Von und Zu and his son went off a bridge on the Autobahn near Kassel in their Mercedes at a speed estimated by the authorities at one hundred ninety kilometers per hour (one hundred eighteen miles per hour), which left the princess and her son not only alone in the castle but the sole owners of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H.
By that time Major Naylor had learned the Gossinger assets went far beyond the farmlands now split by the barbed-wire fence and minefields. There were seven newspapers all over Europe, two breweries, a shipyard, and other businesses.
At the funeral of Erika’s father and brother, Allan had told Elaine that he thought Erika would now be pushed into marrying Otto Görner, managing director of the Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H., empire, who he knew had made his intentions of such known a long time ago, and who had enjoyed the blessing of the late Oberst von und zu Gossinger.
Elaine had told him that Erika had told her she would never marry—Otto or anyone else.
And she hadn’t.
Six months after the funeral, Elaine, white-faced, showed up at Naylor’s office—something she almost never did—and announced she had to talk to him right then.
“The best of the bad news is that scurrilous story about Karl being the love child of one of our oversexed goddamn chopper jockeys is true,” Elaine had reported, and handed him a slip of paper. “That’s his name.”
On the paper she had written, “WOJG Jorge Castillo, San Antonio, Texas.”
“What am I supposed to do with this?” he’d said.
“Find him.”
“After all this time? Why?”
“The worst of the really bad news, sweetheart, is that Erika has maybe a month, maybe six weeks, to live. She’s kept her pancreatic cancer a secret.”
“My God!”
“Very shortly, that Tex-Mex sonofabitch is going to be Karl’s only living relative. Find him, Allan.”
As any wise major destined for high command would do when faced with a problem that he didn’t have a clue how to solve, Naylor turned to the Blackhorse’s sergeant major. It took the wise old noncom not even thirty minutes to locate Warrant Officer Junior Grade Jorge Alejandro Castillo. He had remembered the name from somewhere, and then he had remembered where.
The sergeant major handed Major Naylor a book entitled Vietnam War Recipients of the Medal of Honor.
WOJG Jorge Castillo was in San Antonio, in the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. His tombstone bore a finely chiseled representation of the Medal of Honor and dates that indicated he had been nineteen years old at the time of his death.
That presented problems for Naylor and the Army that were difficult to express without sounding like a three-star sonofabitch. But they had to be, as Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger was about to become a very wealthy twelve-year-old. And all of that money was now going to come under the control of some Mexican-Americans in Texas who probably didn’t even know he existed.
The Army tries to take care of its own. This is especially true when the person needing help is the only son of a killed-in-action officer whose incredible courage in the face of death earned him the nation’s most prestigious medal for valor.