“I don’t understand it either, General, but some of them aren’t so delicate.”
“Huh — well, I suppose you and I qualify as cavemen?” He paused. “Well, as long as they’re in support roles, suppose we have to accept the fact. Long as I don’t have to put up with them in tanks.”
There was silence, the vibrations of the ship noticeable now, the LPH’s roll increasing.
“By God,” said Freeman, his eyes narrowing at Banks, “you’re not going to tell me we lost that one, too? The tanks? Not in the goddamned tanks?”
“Afraid so, General. Supreme Court previously backed off on some combat roles, but they said in a time of national emergency— “
“Good Christ!” bellowed Freeman. “I told Wexler — I don’t want my men riding around with pussy in the front seat. They’ve got enough to look after.”
“I don’t think we have too much to worry about, General. It just came through in the last week. Armored units haven’t got-”
“No,” said Freeman, “and I’ll tell you what. They won’t have. Now, I want you to find out who those females were that I, unknowingly, addressed last night and tell them to come to my cabin.” Freeman grabbed his cap. “On second thought, I’ll go to them. Probably a goddamned Supreme Court decision about them reporting to their commander’s cabin. I’ll be charged with molesting pussy on the high seas!”
“Ladies,” began Freeman, “I’ve come here this evening to apologize for any profanity I might have used — I, ah, certainly hope I never made any disparaging remarks about your — the opposite sex. Women in general.”
All of them could have been his daughters. For the first time in years he was tongue-tied. “I — uh — that is to say, I never have, never will support the use of, uh, inappropriate language in front of, uh, women or seek to embarrass, uh — I ‘m sorry. That’s all.” With that, Freeman turned, leaving Al Banks, who barely managed to get in a wink at one of the women before he, too, was gone, trying to catch up to the general.
Inside, the three women were looking at one another in astonishment.
“What the fuck was that all about?” one of them asked.
“Don’t ask me,” said another. “I think he’s just old-fashioned. A commander chauvinist pig.”
“Oh,” put in the third chopper pilot, a young, sandy-headed girl with a bachelor of science degree out of Penn State, “I think he’s kinda cute. Besides, I prefer old-fashioned men.”
“Cute!” said one of the other girls.” After his speech? Nothing cute about that, sweetie. He’s probably one of those guys who thinks his prick is a gun.”
“Oh,” said the sandy one, “he’s not that type.”
“Yeah, I know, Sandy. God, flag, the wife and kids. See the wedding band with the West Point ring?”
“That’s what I mean. I like men who have values.”
“It’s one way you could get promoted, I suppose. Or get the clap.”
“Well, I’m glad he’s in command. They say he’s a stickler for details,” said Sandy, turning and looking at the barometer still falling. “And I don’t like the thought of driving through this lot with some young whiz kid directing me from back on ship. I’ll be quite happy to have Freeman up front.”
“If we’re lucky, honey, you won’t have to drive anywhere. Washington’ll kill it before it kills us. I joined to see the world.”
“This is the world.”
“I don’t like it. Not this part anyhow.”
“Who does?” asked Sandy.
“Freeman, for one. He’s busting to go.”
“You really think Washington’ll cancel it?”
“I don’t know,” said one of the others. “We’re just the gofers around here.”
In Schönbühel, Austria, the Danube, rarely blue, more often green with pollution, was winding its way slowly along its two-thousand-mile course through some of the most beautiful country in Europe, by castles and patchwork fields, on through Vienna to Bratislava in Czechoslovakia, beneath the ultramodern span of the bridge of the Slovak national uprising, past the great spires of Buda and Pest, over the great Hungarian plain, down through Yugoslavia to Belgrade, and on through Bulgaria to the river’s great delta in the Black Sea.
If you had to bail out, the NATO pilots said it was best along the Danube — but not on Ulm’s spire. Hundreds of pilots did bail out in the first few weeks, a third of them falling into enemy hands, but the rest, except for a dozen or so who met with misadventure, hung up in the woods or drowned before they could break free or reach shore, found their way back to their units within three or four days along the verdant plain. It wasn’t simply a matter of friendly populations, not yet overrun by the S-WP juggernaut, helping so many fliers, but the superb “rescue “ facilities of the NATO units, who, even under the severest weather conditions sweeping down from the Carpathians and the Bavarian Alps, would do everything possible to pick up a downed flier.
For the civilians in southern Germany, caught between the two sides, it was a dangerous business, for the advance units of the Soviet-Warsaw Pact attack were almost exclusively Russian, the latter holding the Czech brigade only as support, their fighting ability held in contempt by the Soviets. This meant that if a NATO flier was caught by the enemy, it would most likely be a Russian unit, which had a clear and brutal rule: anyone having helped the flier was executed along with his or her entire family, and the nearest village razed to the ground, the girls and women delivered to the Soviet troops. Despite this terror, NATO fliers still came back, aided by civilians who understood that if the cost to the Russians of advancing every mile in Germany was not maintained, the great “rollover” convoys now en route from New York, Boston, and Halifax — trying to learn from the experience of Convoy R-1—might well arrive to find nothing to reinforce.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Of all the surface ships operating in the North Atlantic, the minesweeper was now king.
Due to the experience of Convoy R-1, wood- and fiberglass-hulled vessels suddenly emerged from dull, mundane, and in many cases outright pitied, existence in the backwaters of the navy into the exalted ranks of leaders in the age of nuclear-powered missile ships. The admiral in command of the hitherto ugly duckling minesweeper fleet of forty ships that were to accompany the first three convoys was told not to gloat but merely to do the job and to do it quickly. The minesweepers did the job as quickly as conditions in the Atlantic allowed, approaching it with the zeal of newfound importance. They also gloated. Oh, how they gloated, flagging, as it was a court-martial offense to break radio silence, the warships behind them with messages such as “Follow the leader — Compliments of MS-190,” or “We’ll tell you when it’s safe.” It became an unofficial competition between British and American sweepers as to who could be the most insolent and get away with it.
“The HMAS Gordon will be happy to show you the way.”
“By God!” fumed a Royal Navy destroyer captain. “They’re cheeky bastards.”
To make it worse, the Canadian and U.S. minesweepers were among those combat ‘support ships’ allowed to have women aboard. One of the American ships, USS Twin Forks, was skippered by a woman, and on the third day out for one of the massive four-hundred ship-convoys on “rollover” to Europe, a pair of women’s lacy briefs was hoisted to the masthead, “Compliments of ‘rollover’ leader.” This moved a U.S. admiral to issue a firm rebuke by semaphore to the minesweeper, but as the message came through, the panties were gone, the minesweeper’s captain nonplussed and assured by the crew that the lookouts on the other ship must have been seeing things. It was a brief, light relief in what was otherwise a grim business.