His uniform had managed to maintain a few of its creases even after a couple of days in the field. Unlike General Patton, he was not armed with a pair of pearl-handled revolvers. He did, however, carry the standard issue Browning 1911. Tolliver rarely had need of a sidearm but thought it would be wise to take one along as he headed into Indian Country.
As the war seemed to be winding down — some claimed the Germans would be done by Christmas — anyone and everyone who could finagle it was trying to get some sort of field command, or to at least get close enough to the fighting to hear actual shots exchanged in anger. The desire to own some piece of the actual war also fueled quite a market in battlefield souvenirs. He’d even heard of a German Stalhelm bring swapped for a bottle of Kentucky bourbon.
Once peacetime arrived, there would be a lot of jockeying for the limited number of leadership roles, and those with some form of field command would be better positioned to survive the culling that was sure to take place once the war was over and the Army didn't need so many officers.
Tolliver, though, was thinking that he might be fine with getting out of the Army after this war. His brother-in-law had a large Ford dealership near Washington, D.C., and had already offered Tolliver a job as the general manager. Tolliver was mulling it over. It was strange to think that by next summer, he might be back in the States, ordering tires and gasoline and spare parts for civilian cars and trucks.
Maybe it was foolishness or curiosity, or equal parts of both, but he’d had a desire to see some of the war before it moved into its final stages. When the opportunity presented itself to get out in the field, General Tolliver had jumped at the chance. He had wrangled a trip into the field to check on the supply chain first-hand, instead of relying on the written reports typed by his clerks.
His was a military family in many ways, but Tolliver had never actually seen any combat. Hell, he thought, he’d scarcely ever been close enough to the fighting to hear artillery. The thought made him a little ashamed. And so he’d pressed this Jeep and young driver into service to see a little of the war before it was over.
Tolliver couldn’t help comparing himself to his grandfather, Confederate Colonel Amos Tolliver, who had been a real soldier, fighting at Pickett's Charge and Gaines' Mill, among other places, until he had finally fallen, mortally wounded, in an inconsequential skirmish known locally as "The Battle of Gifford's Field.” Tolliver was something of a Civil War history buff and he had visited the field, which he imagined had looked very much the same eighty years before. Back then, the field outside Richmond grew a ragged crop of cornstalks as Union troops closed in on the Confederate capital.
It was exciting to think of what he had seen through his eyes. Had he ever met General Lee or Stonewall Jackson? Colonel Tolliver was forgotten to most, and he certainly had not been famous in his day. There weren’t any mentions of him in most of the history books.
His grandson knew the feeling. As an obscure brigadier general working to supply the troops, Tolliver’s name would not have rung many bells with Eisenhower, who mostly dealt with the likes of Bradley, Patton and Montgomery. To be sure, they were a handful.
The Jeep caught the edge of a shell hole and bounced, forcing Tolliver to get a grip on the Jeep. Again, his shins whacked painfully against the metal dash. With just 60 horsepower, the four-wheel-drive Jeep wasn't fast, but it churned up the muddy road. As for the name, Jeep, nobody was sure where that had come from, but it had certainly stuck. The sturdy vehicle was helping them win the war, but it wasn't about to be confused with a Cadillac.
Like his grandfather, General Tolliver would have much preferred riding a horse, but that was modern warfare for you, all gasoline and gears rather than saddles and hooves. Tolliver knew what kept a modern Army going because he had written requisition orders for most of those supplies.
"Which way, sir?" the driver asked, coasting the Jeep to a stop at a crossroads that lacked any sort of road sign.
The young driver was clearly anxious, his eyes darting around at the woods and fields for any sign of Germans. Did the driver, who was hardly more than a teenager, know something he didn't?
The truth was, Tolliver didn't have a clue which way to go.
He wasn’t particularly worried — not yet, at least. The Germans were supposed to be done and gone, but they apparently hadn't gotten that particular memo. Already this morning, they'd had a close call when they had spotted a German tank in the distance. Fortunately, the tank either hadn’t seen them in turn or had not been interested in something as inconsequential as a lone Jeep. Still, the sight of the panzer had left them both shaken. That was a little too close for comfort.
In avoiding the tank, however, one wrong turn had led to another. It had been a compounding of errors that led them to this anonymous crossroads. The retreating Germans had removed all the road signs or pointed them in the wrong direction in an effort to confuse the Allied advance.
He hadn't counted on getting lost. In fact, he was more than a little embarrassed about it. He was supposed to be a general, after all. The young soldier kept his eyes on Tolliver, waiting for some kind of instructions. Out of the corner of his eye, Tolliver saw that the kid gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white.
His driver wasn’t annoyed. He was scared.
They had lost contact with the American advance more than two hours ago, and it was just possible they would round a bend in the road and come upon an entire SS regiment. If that happened, Tolliver's field trip would get unpleasant in a hurry.
“Just let me, uh, get our bearings,” Tolliver said.
“Yes, sir.”
Tolliver took out his map. He sighed, and reluctantly, he fished out his glasses in order to read the tiny place names. The fact that the glasses made him look like an old man likely did not inspire much confidence in the driver.
This was already the fourth time he had looked at the map in the last hour. The problem with a map was that it was really only useful if you knew where you were in the first place. Tolliver didn't have any idea. Goddammit. The muddy roads and brown fields were all starting to look the same to him. They had gone down one unmarked road and then another, until they had ended up at this spot — wherever the hell that was.
The landscape around them consisted of low, rolling hills covered in pastureland and patches of woods. It was pretty country, or it would be if it hadn't been so gray and overcast. One good thing was the Army Air Corps was grounded, meaning that their Jeep wouldn't be mistaken for a Kraut vehicle and strafed into oblivion. Up ahead, bigger hills began and marched toward Belgium and the Ardennes region. Somewhere up in those hills was the Moselle River, and beyond that, the Rhine itself.
As he studied the map, turning it one way and then another in hopes that it would reveal their location, he felt his driver's eyes studying him doubtfully. The kid seemed to be wondering just what sort of general he was driving around.
"Sir?" the driver asked again, one foot on the clutch, the other on the brake. He seemed anxious to get going, rather than to idle here like sitting ducks at this godforsaken crossroads.
Tolliver wasn't going to pretend to know something he didn't. "Son, if you have any idea where we are, I hope that you will speak up."
"I'm sorry, sir." The driver looked at him nervously. "I haven't got a clue, sir."
Tolliver glanced at the sky to get his bearings from the sinking sun, then waved his hand at the road that led west. Generals made decisions, he reminded himself, even when they were supply officers. He forced himself to grin, putting a brave face on it. ”The Moselle River must be in that direction. We're bound to run into our boys before we get there."