Griffin W.E.B. - Honor Bound 01 - Honor Bound

Clete took a healthy sip of his Sazerac.

It is true,he thought, that the only place you can get one of these is here. Strange but true. You can take all the ingredients with you, right down to Peychaux's Bitters — as I did to Pensacola— but when you make one, it's just not a Sazerac.

He looked up at his mother's portrait and had a thought that disturbed him a little: Jesus, she looks just like the brunette in Beth's sorority house, the one I think I could have jumped.

"I have Mr. Ettinger for you, Mr. Cletus," Jean-Jacques said, handing him the telephone.

"Ettinger?"

"Yes, Sir."

"This is Clete Howell."

"Yes, Sir. I was told that you would be arriving about now."

"Is there anyone else there?"

"No, Sir. There was a telegram several hours ago, saying that the ... people from Virginia... will be here tomorrow morning. And I was told that Lieutenant Pelosi will be on the Crescent City Limited tomorrow. He'll be coming here. I don't know about the others."

"Have you made plans for dinner?"

"No, Sir."

"Good, then you can have it with my grandfather and me. Would eight be convenient?"

"Sir, I don't want to impose."

"You won't be. Can you be in the lobby at eight, or maybe outside, if it's not raining?"

"Yes, Sir."

"You have civvies?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Wear them," Clete said.

"I was told to, Sir."

"And one more thing, Ettinger... David... from here on out, we will dispense with the military courtesy."

"Yes, S— All right," Ettinger said.

Clete thought he heard a chuckle.

"Eight o'clock," he said, and hung up.

Cletus Marcus Howell nodded his approval.

"Jean-Jacques, would you please tell Samuel we will need the car at seven-forty? And then call Arnaud's and tell them I will require a private dining room, for three, at about eight?"

"Yes, Sir," Jean-Jacques said.

"And finally, Mr. Cletus has left his luggage in his car. Would you bring it in and unpack it for him, please? And, as soon as you can, see to having his dress uniform pressed, or cleaned, or whatever it takes?"

"Mr. Cletus's car is in the carriage house, Mr. Howell," Jean-Jacques said. "His luggage is in his room. Antoinette's already taking care of his laundry, and she heard what you said about painting Mr. Cletus's picture, so she's already working on the uniform."

"Thank you."

"Can you think of anything else, Cletus?"

"I think I would like another Sazerac, Jean-Jacques, if you could find the time."

"If you fill yourself with Sazeracs, Cletus, you won't be able to appreciate either the wine or the food at Arnaud's."

"Grandfather, I am prepared to pay that price."

"You might as well fetch two, please, Jean-Jacques," the old man said.

"Yes, Sir," Jean-Jacques said. He turned and started out of the room. When his face was no longer visible to the old man, he smiled and winked at the young one.

[FOUR]

Schloss Wachtstein

Pomerania

1515 1 November 1942

Generalmajor Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein, wearing a leather overcoat over his shoulders, walked into the library and found his son slumped in an armchair facing the fireplace, a cognac snifter in his hand.

"It's a little early for that, isn't it, Peter?" he asked, tossing the overcoat and then his brimmed uniform cap onto a library table.

Hauptmann Hans-Peter von Wachtstein turned and looked at his father but didn't reply or stand up. After a moment, he said, "I've just come from turning over my staffel."

"You're celebrating, then? Peter, I really wish you hadn't started drinking," the Graf said.

"I'm all right, Poppa. A little maudlin, perhaps, but sober. I was just telling myself I should be celebrating. But it doesn't feel that way."

"My father once told me that the best duty in the service is as a Hauptmann, in command of a company. In your case, a staffel. Giving up such a command is always difficult. Perhaps you should consider that it was inevitable..."

"Inevitable?"

"You would have had to turn it over when your majority comes through; and that should be, I would think, any day now. With a little luck, before you go to Argentina."

"I had the most disturbing feeling, as a matter of fact," Peter said, "particularly afterward, when we all had a cognac in the bar, that it was a funeral, or a wake, that we were all seeing each other for the last time."

"I've had a bad day, a bad week, myself," Graf von Wachtstein said.

"I brought Karl's car out here," Peter said, changing the subject. "I didn't know what to do with it. I thought perhaps you might want to use it."

The Graf picked up the bottle of cognac and found a glass.

"Now that I think about it," Generalmajor von Wachtstein said, "one of these might be in order." He raised the glass. "To your new assignment."

"Thank you. Did you hear what I said about the Horche?"

"I might as well use it, I suppose," the Graf said. "Otherwise it will be taken for the greater good of the German Reich. Ferrying some Nazi peasant's mistress to the opera, for example."

Peter grunted. "You must have had a bad week."

"The Luftwaffe has not been able to—will not be able to— provide von Paulus's troops at Stalingrad with a tenth of the supplies he needs. But when this is brought to the attention of the Austrian Corporal, he replies, in effect, 'Nonsense, Goering has given me his word, the supplies will be delivered.' "

"And you were the bearer of those bad tidings?"

"No. Fortunately not. Unser F?hrer is made uncomfortable by people like me. I have been reliably informed that he has said that the Prussian officer class are defeatists to the last aristocrat."

Peter laughed. "Aren't you? Aren't we? There's no way we can win this war, Poppa."

"I really hope you are careful to whom you make such observations."

"I'm talking to you, Poppa. The war was lost when we were unable to invade England," Peter said. "Perhaps before that, when we were unable to destroy the Royal Air Force."

"I think we should change the subject," Graf von Wachtstein said. "Have they told you when you're going?"

"They are having trouble with the corpse," Peter said. "Or the casket for the corpse. They have to line it with lead, which apparently comes in sheets. But the Foreign Ministry can't seem to find any lead in sheets. They are working on the problem; I have been told to hold myself in readiness."

"And are you ready?"

"There is of course a rather detailed list of the uniforms a military attach? is required to have. I have been given the necessary priorities for such uniforms. Unfortunately, priority or no priority, there does not seem to be the material available in Berlin. The Foreign Ministry is working on the problem."

"Perhaps you could have them made in Buenos Aires. It is a major city; there are military tailors, I'm sure. And God knows, they have woolen material. We buy it from them by the shipload. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone were making woolens dyed to Luftwaffe specifications there."

"Dress-uniform specifications?" Peter asked. It struck him as unlikely.

"If I were a Luftwaffe procurement officer,” Generalmajor von Wachtstein said, "I think I would make sure that when unser grosse Hermann wanted yet another dress uniform, the material would be available." Unser grosse Hermann —Our Big Hermann—was Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Commander of the Luftwaffe, and a man who was more than generously large.

Peter chuckled.

"Buttons and insignia might be a problem," Generalmajor von Wachtstein went on, in his usual thorough manner. "Make sure you take that sort of thing with you. Including major's insignia."

"Jawohl, Poppa."

"Don't mock me, Peter, please. These details are important. The last thing we want is to have you sent back here because the military attach? decides you are unsuitable for the assignment."