“General Clay replied — and this is just about verbatim—‘Screw your goddamned gymnasium and your goddamned library. Get a goddamned Engineer battalion over to Pullach today and get that goddamned compound built yesterday.’”
“Ouch,” General Greene said.
“General Clay then concluded the conversation by saying something to the effect that ‘the next time the deputy commander of European Command tells you he wants something built, it would behoove you to build it immediately, rather than when you can conveniently fit it into your schedule.’”
“Ouch, again,” General Greene said.
Mattingly turned to Bristol. “Colonel, can you pick up this narrative?”
“Yes, sir. I was at the gymnasium site when the post commander showed up and relayed General Clay’s orders to me. I said, ‘Yes, sir. I’ll go out there first thing in the morning.’
“He said, ‘You will go out there now, Colonel. And I suggest you take a cot and a sleeping bag with you, because you’re not going to leave that site until the project is completed.’ I called my wife, told her I would be out of town for a few days, went by my office and picked up the plans — your plans, I believe, Colonel…?”
Mattingly nodded.
“… and came out here with a handful of my people. By the time we got here, it was too dark to do much of anything but set up the cots, although I did call my headquarters and told them to start moving equipment out here. Then I went to bed.
“I got up at first light and walked around the area, making up my mind what had to be done and when. Then a puddle jumper flew over, twice, and landed on that road out there.” He pointed. “I went out to ask the pilot what the hell he thought he was doing.
“General Clay got out of the L-4, greeted me cheerfully, and said he hoped I had coffee and a couple of doughnuts, as he hadn’t had any breakfast. As we walked here, he said, ‘One of the first things you’re going to have to do is extend that runway. My pilot wasn’t sure he could land on it.’
“I said, ‘Sir, that isn’t a runway.’
“‘It will be,’ he said. ‘And I have a few other little changes to make to Colonel Mattingly’s plans for this place.’ It took him about an hour. I’d forgotten, if I ever knew, that he was Corps of Engineers — you don’t think of general officers as having a branch of service — but he quickly showed he was one hell of an engineer. Anyway, he said, ‘Get me a sheet of plywood. We’ll use it as a plat.’
“And then he sketched the village, freehand, on this”—he pointed to the sheet of plywood—“with a grease pencil, and showed me where he wanted the fences to be, the barracks for the American guards, and the tent city for the Poles… the Polish.”
“Those men in the dyed fatigues?” General Greene asked.
“Yes, sir. They’re former Polish soldiers. They’d been German POWs. He said they didn’t want to go home because the Russians were now running Poland, so Ike had decided he wasn’t going to make them go home. He said they’d make good guards around our installations and to put them to work. General Clay said if you wanted to keep them on, after the compound is open, we could start building barracks for them.”
“Start building, Colonel,” Mattingly said. He turned to Cronley. “What do you think, Cronley?”
“I’m like you, Colonel. I didn’t expect anything like this.”
“Well, I suggest you’d better get used to it. It looks to me as if this place is just about ready for you to move into it, and that’s what you’re going to do, the minute it’s ready.”
“I’d estimate a week, sir, to complete everything,” Colonel Bristol said.
“Colonel,” Major McClung said, “have you been told we’re going to put an ASA listening station in here?”
“No,” Bristol said simply.
“Well, we are,” General Greene said. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“I don’t know what that will entail, sir.”
McClung said, “A building…”
“That should be no problem.”
“… and an antenna farm near the building.”
“I’m back, Major, to I don’t know what that will entail.”
“Why don’t you come back and show him in the morning, McClung?” General Greene ordered. “My stomach is growling and I’ve already seen what I came to see.”
[SEVEN]
Rachel had teased him to erection on the drive back to Munich, but had then withdrawn her hand.
When they reached the hotel, Cronley decided that was the last he would see of her tonight — and for a while. It already was late and after dinner everyone would retire, the Schumanns together. And after he flew Clete to Frankfurt first thing in the morning, he would fly back to Kloster Grünau, not to Munich.
She was now sitting across from him in the alcove off the main dining room, but her foot was out of range of his ankle.
She’s lucky her husband doesn’t show any signs of even suspecting what she was doing to me in the front seat. Correction. I’m lucky… we’re both damned lucky.
“I want to say this while everyone’s here,” Frade announced as they were having their dessert. “I’ve decided to send my deputy, Major Max Ashton, over here to assume command of this end of Operation Ost…”
Shit, Cronley thought. So I am being relieved.
And I had just about decided my half turning of Orlovsky had kept me my job.
“… Not only is the Pullach compound too much for one man to handle, but those Pentagon types — Lieutenant Colonel Parsons and Major Ashley — who are going to be at Pullach for General Magruder worry me.
“As most of us saw, they are very much aware they outrank Captain Cronley. What I’m going to do as we’re flying back to Washington is try to convince General Magruder that Colonel Parsons would be much more valuable sitting at his Pentagon desk than he would be here. If he doesn’t agree — and I don’t think he will, as it’s pretty clear to me that they are very much interested in having Army G-2 take over Operation Ost — then I’m going to go to Admiral Souers and tell him what I’m thinking. I’ll probably lose that battle as the admiral doesn’t need one more fight with the Pentagon. In other words, over my objections, Parsons will probably show up at Pullach.
“If that happens, Colonel Mattingly, I would appreciate it if you would whisper in Parson’s ear that while he might outrank Major Ashton, he doesn’t outrank you.”
“Consider it done,” Mattingly said, smiling.
“Now, as far as who runs Pullach: Cronley dealt with a serious problem out there in the last few days to the complete satisfaction of Colonel Mattingly, General Gehlen, and me.”
To Mattingly’s complete satisfaction? That’s hard to believe.
“What sort of a problem? May I ask?” Colonel Schumann asked.
“You may ask, Colonel, but Colonel Mattingly and I have decided the fewer people who know about it, the better. I’m sure you’ll understand. The point is Cronley has established a close rapport with General Gehlen that I found at first hard to believe. But it’s real, and I am not going to endanger it by telling Gehlen that Major Ashton will now be running things.
“So Cronley will run General Gehlen, so to speak, answering only to me. And Major Ashton will run everything else, answering to both Colonel Mattingly and me.