Robert Adams - A Man Called Milo Morai

As the two old friends sat over their coffee, stuffed to repletion and beyond, Jethro said, “I had wanted a suckling pig for this occasion, Milo, but the Germans simply wanted more than I thought I should pay for one.”

“The Germans?” blurted Milo, taken aback. “Where the hell would the Germans get a pig of any description? They’re all starving hereabouts, lining up at every camp to get our mess garbage.”

“Oh, not from Germans around here, Milo. Most of this meal came from Marburg and points beyond, though the bread and the pastries were brought up from Paris by Angelique, along with the nuts and most of the cheeses. I have a contact for the purchase of various items I might want, and, Milo, you would be truly astounded at just how much can now be bought in Nazi Germany for American dollars, pounds sterling or gold—especially for gold. All of the Nazi rats know that the ship of state is sinking fast, you see, and they’re making urgent plans for their futures elsewhere, which futures will require hard monies are they to be.”

“Trading with the enemy, huh?” said Milo. “Jethro, if it ever gets out, they won’t just bust you, they’ll shoot you or hang you- Division might just slap your wrist a few times, but corps and army… .”

Stiles laughed aloud, saying, “Oh, Milo, you are a true naif . Old friend, I am not so stupid as to be in this alone. Some of the highest-ranking officers in this army are with me in these ventures … not in person, of course, but in spirit and in investment. There is over twenty-five troy pounds of gold coin concealed in this pied a terre of mine, along with some hundreds of thousands of dollars in various Allied currencies. Do you honestly think that I could receive or store that much without the willing connivance of my military superiors? Here, try the Antiquary now, it’s one of the best of the single-malts.” After a longish pause while Stiles fiddled with stuffing and lighting his pipe, he said, “Milo, what are your plans for after the war? The Army will be reduced drastically, you know. It’s that way in America after every war, and that means you won’t stay an officer. They’ll likely only keep you in—a Regular or not—if you return to the grade you held before this all started.

“Milo, I keep having presentiments and disturbing dreams. I don’t think I’m going to come through this war alive. No, now, just hold it, don’t say anything, let me finish. My father, my mother, my first wife and the child I had by her all are dead, and my only living relatives are certain distant cousins most of whom I’ve not seen in years and never cared much for, anyway. If I do die over here, there will be no one to care for Martine, for she now has no family left, either.

“Milo, old friend, I want your solemn promise that should something happen to me, you will take my place, will give Martine the care and the companionship she deserves and will try to bring our children up properly. Will you give me such a promise, buddy?”

As men and the sinews of war poured across the Rhine over the Ludendorff railway bridge and the pontoon bridge that replaced the damaged span when finally it collapsed into the swift, swirling waters, the invading U.S. Army surged forward. Marburg fell to elements of General Hodges’ First Army, then on April 1, 1945, his army and General Simpson’s Ninth Army met near Paderborn and the encirclement of General Model and his half-million-man army was complete.

No one expected the skillful, determined and well-supplied German army to surrender simply because they were surrounded, and they did not, but fought on, fought stubbornly and well, against overwhelming odds, to defend the vital Ruhr. But it was an effort foredoomed to failure, for there no longer was a Luftwaffe and the defenders suffered day and night bombing in addition to the fire of guns, howitzers, rockets and heavy mortars, and, by April 14, Model’s army had been split in half. On April 18, the valiant General Model, refusing to be responsible for the loss of the lives of more German soldiers, ordered his remaining units to surrender to the Americans, then put his pistol to his head and suicided.

Milo had established the Charlie Company CP in a house that still had its roof, on the outskirts of the town of Delitzsch, just northeast of Leipzig. Since the drive from the Rhine had begun, the company had lost two officers and more than fifty enlisted men, but now replacements were catching up to them and the other battered, under-strength units of battalion, regiment and division, along with much-needed supplies.

After a morning spent at battalion headquarters in the middle of the nearby town, Milo returned to resume his paperwork. First Sergeant Cohen entered and said without preamble, “Captain, when are we due to cross the Mulde and head for Berlin? Do you know?”

Milo looked up and smiled. “Scuttlebutt up at battalion is that we aren’t. It seems that Ike means to let the Russkis take Berlin, and we’ll probably end up hunting out diehard SS and Nazis in Bavaria. At least that’s what the adjutant thinks, and he’s been right more times than wrong, Bernie.”

“Well, shit, captain,” the sergeant burst out heatedly, “we’re no farther from Berlin, right now, than the Russkis are, so why the hell just give it to them on a fuckin’ silver platter? Our armies fought just as fuckin’ hard as theirs did to get this close. We’re less than a hundred miles away, and all these Krauts are flat beat, no fight left in any of the damned fuckin’ Master Race anymore.”

“True enough, Bernie, but only around here. The adjutant says that the Russkis are having to fight like hell against troops every bit as stubborn as those we faced in the Ruhr. D’you want to go through another helping of that kind of shitstorm? I don’t! I’d much rather think of dead and wounded and missing Red Army troops than American GIs, if you don’t mind, Bernie. We’ll no doubt take casualites in those mountains down there”—he gestured at a map of Germany tacked to a hardwood-paneled, bullet-pocked wall—“but I guarantee we’d take more if we moved on toward Berlin.”

“Captain, by the way, it was a radio message came in while you was up to battalion. Your friend what use to be battalion CO, Gen’rul Stiles, is going to be passing through this afternoon and is going to stop by here to see you about something.”

True to his word, Jethro roared up in a big, long, powerful Mercedes touring car, its brand-new GI paint job streaked and splashed with mud, its tires and undercarriage thick with huge gobs of the gooey stuff.

“Where the hell did you get the car?” asked Milo. “And how the hell do you, a lowly BG, get away with driving around in it?”

Stiles smiled and shrugged languidly. “Spoils of war, Milo, I acquired it from the widow of a … shall we say, a former busineess associate in Marburg.” To Milo’s raised eyebrows, he added, “Yes, that particular one. It seems some of his SS buddies killed him and took away all of his hard funds and all of his other small, valuable items, as well. So I got the automobile at a very good price, dirt cheap, actually.

“What I detoured by here for was this.” Delving into the thick briefcase he had brought in, he withdrew two bulky sealed and taped manila envelopes and placed them on Milo’s desk. “Scoff if you wish, old buddy, but I feel that my demise is very, very near, and—”

“Your demise from what, pray tell?” said Milo. “Jethro, this war is as good as over for us. The Krauts around here are all beat down flat and begging for peace; this whole fucking town is aflutter with white sheets hung out the damned windows. My company and the rest of the battalion and the regiment might well run into some stickiness if we are sent hunting holdout Nazis and SS, but you can bet your arse that division HQ isn’t going to be anywhere near that fracas. So, unless Webber piles up that fancy new auto of yours, or you decide to take a stroll through an uncleared minefield, I can’t think of any possible danger you might be in.”