Armageddon - Leon Uris

“They had no right to call him back,” Clint said.

“At first, I thought that. But it would have killed him quicker if they had left him behind.”

“This mission burns out airplanes and breaks down men. Neither we nor the machines are meant to stand up under this kind of pounding.”

“Then, Clint, the only way the general will survive is if he continues to believe it can be done.”

Clint returned to his room at the Rose Hotel and was awake far into the night. Hiram Stonebraker, those G-5 people in Berlin, the flyers at Y 80, and the mechanics at Rhein/Mud made up for a lot of those whorehouses on Madison Avenue. He was glad now that he had come.

The next day was Sunday; he called M.J. to inquire.

“The general has gone to his office,” she said.

“I’ll be damned.”

What a day! Clint looked around the street outside the Rose Hotel. His first day off and the sun was shining.

Stonebraker kept his staff housed in a cluster of requisitioned hotels diagonally across the Koch Brunnen Square from Headquarters. The plush Schwarzer Bock, Rose, and Palast held the top-ranking people. Lesser hotels scattered all over the city were requisitioned for junior officers and enlisted personnel.

Clint walked to the main exchange for toilet gear and cigarettes. Wiesbaden had been spared except for a single stray stick of bombs. In the heart of the city all the grandiose civic and commercial buildings had been requisitioned by the Air Force for USAFE and all those other offices and wings needed to run the tremendous air establishment. Beer halls had been converted into mess halls and the late-comer, the First Airlift Task Force, took a block on Taunusstrasse with shops and apartments and converted it into a makeshift command post.

Clint returned to the Rose, wondered what the hell to do. He went to the Bier Stube at the Palast, a congregation point for Airlift people. The Lift was back in full operation; no one was around this early. Might as well see a little of Wiesbaden, he thought, and strolled to the Wilhelmstrasse along a line of once elegant shops and still lovely sidewalk cafes.

Out of the immediate bailiwick of Headquarters Clint could see that the city was a crown jewel, with tradition and grandeur. It had a history as a spa dating back to Roman times, and was heavily patronized by the aristocracy and Rhineland industrialists.

He crossed the Wilhelmstrasse to the flower-studded colonnade, which began with a statue of Bismarck. On one side was the Opera House and on the other a park and fountains. As airmen and their girls passed him, he began to feel lonely.

Clint hummed, “Sunday in the Park.” Christ, he hated Sunday in the park in New York; it was like a ghetto boxed in by sheer walls of high buildings.

He was drawn toward the end of the colonnade by the sound of the Air Force band playing a Sunday concert before the Kurhaus.

AQUIS MATTIACIS read the carved lettering above six columns supporting the domed roof of the Kurhaus. The original Roman name of the city and the site of the springs with curative powers held a building rumored to have been built by twenty-six millionaires each having put up huge sums.

The Kurhaus had been requisitioned as the Eagle Club to serve American families. Ping-pong tables stood on marble floors and a soda fountain was installed in one end of a dining room. The German books were gone from the oriental-carpeted library and replaced by English tomes.

Behind the Kurhaus stretched a magnificent park of lakes and little bridges and riding trails and tennis courts, once patronized by arrogant monocled barons, slash-cheeked steel kings, and their hourglass-figured ladies.

He could hear the band playing “William Tell Overture.” Why the hell did all bands play “William Tell Overture”? Maybe it wasn’t a good idea having a day off.

Clint caught a taxi and drove up the hills to the Neroberg Officers’ Club. The great hotel was in a lush setting, a forest on a foothill of the Taunus Mountains looking down on Wiesbaden and the Rhine. Clint sat at the bar, listened to Egon at the piano.

There were mostly USAFE people around and even though they didn’t give a damn what was happening at Erding and Rhein/Main and Obie they could not escape the Airlift. Along with the gossip and complaints of how tough it was to live off the German economy, there was tension. There was a lot of talk about wanting to get dependents out of Germany before the Berlin thing blew up.

Clint looked around in growing desperation for a face from Headquarters. He bought Egon a round; the German played, “This Love of Mine,” which he and Judy thought of as “their” song.

He bummed a bathing suit, took a drive down to the Opelbad, a luxurious pool set in the woods and vineyards over the city. He studied the women at pool side with a practiced eye, but none of them was as voluptuous as Judy....Screw it, Clint thought.

“Where to, sir?” the taxi driver asked.

“Airlift Headquarters.”

Clint sighed with relief as he entered Taunusstrasse 11. He went first to the Control Center and chatted with the duty control officer, who gave him a capsule briefing, then went upstairs to Operations and made his own hasty calculation that they would set down three thousand tons.

He went to his office, put the hot plate on for coffee, took off his blouse, and began to read over the preliminary agreement drawn up with the British for the joint operation of bases at Celle and Fassberg. He dialed General Stonebraker’s office.

The general’s secretary answered.

“This is Colonel Loveless. General in for me?”

“Hello.”

“Clint Loveless, sir.”

“Yes, Clint.”

“How’s your ... indigestion, sir.”

“Fine.”

“I’m working over the agreement with the British. I’ll try to have it on your desk tomorrow afternoon before I shove off for Burtonwood.”

“I thought I gave you the day off.”

“You did, sir. I don’t know what to do with a day off.”

“Well, long as you’re here, have the agreement on my desk this afternoon.”

Clint clenched his teeth for a long second. “Yes, sir. By the way, General, did you see the memo on how the British are getting the sparrows off the Gatow airfield?”

“No.”

“Seems like one of their airmen used to train falcons for hunting. They’re sending some over from England. Say they’ll have those sparrows out of there in an hour.”

“Why the hell didn’t we think of that!”

“Guess we’re not too much on falconry.”

“By the way, Clint, M.J. is having cocktails and dinner for some of the staff and wives who are particularly angry at me. Why don’t you join us at the dining room at seven.”

“Sounds like a winner, sir.”

Clint dug into the agreement, now happy he had returned to work. His phone rang.

“Colonel Loveless.”

“Suh, this is Sergeant Bufford,” a Texan drawled. “I’m here at Rhein/Main at the Lost Wives’ Club. We got us a Mrs. Clinton Loveless who came in by commercial aircraft. We reckon she belongs to you, suh.”

Clint blinked with disbelief. “Has she got two pale kids with her?”

“Ma’am, you got two pale kids?”

Judy took the phone. “Clinton. Will you please come over and get us.”

“I’ll be damned.”

The general grumbled that the agreement would be late reaching his desk, but nevertheless gave Clint his own staff car and had his aide contact the hotel to arrange a suite.

Judy didn’t know for sure if she had done the right thing by coming to Germany without telling him, but when they embraced and he sniffled while he hugged the children, she knew it was all right

Tony and Lynn were deposited in a bathtub the size of a small swimming pool while the travel-weary wife collapsed with a martini.