Rhineland Inheritance Read online

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  “You mean your animals waded into a bunch of helpless prisoners and took them apart,” Jake said bitterly.

  “I shall pretend that I did not hear that wild and careless accusation,” the colonel said with pleasure. “And you watch your step, Captain. You can rest assured that I certainly will.”

  * * *

  Once they had completed their official business, their return journey was held to a slow, dusty crawl. An endless line of trucks, armored personnel carriers, battle tanks, and heavy-equipment conveyors filled the road. Pierre waited until they had placed several hours between them and Oberkirch before asking Jake, “So who is this Connors, anyway?”

  “Connors is a product of what I call the limousine school of war,” Jake replied. “He went directly from OCS to a posting in Washington, and weaseled his way up the ladder from behind the safety of a desk.”

  “There are officers of this caliber in every corps,” Pierre replied.

  “Yeah, so I’ve heard. Connors is a special case, though. He’s managed to make quite a name for himself. I was amazed at how many people were eager to give me the lowdown on him when I arrived in Germany.”

  “What brought him over from Washington?”

  “Oh, he sort of resigned himself to the fact that Major Connors would never become General Connors unless he accepted an overseas posting. There was a problem, though.”

  Pierre made the sound of a clucking hen.

  “Give the man a cigar,” Jake confirmed. “Connors values his own skin above everything else, and his own comfort a close second.”

  “I can think of several French officers who are close relations of our dear colonel,” Pierre mused. “Birds of a feather, you might say.”

  “With great care and after much deliberation,” Jake continued, “Connors selected a posting to the general staff of the Sixth Army. He waited until the Germans looked pretty well whipped, but not to the point where they were ready to roll over and play dead. The staff headquarters was being moved every week or so, as the front rolled on across Belgium and into Germany. Connors figured he wouldn’t have much trouble finding a deep, dark hole if the Germans ever tried to attack.”

  “Something went wrong,” Pierre guessed.

  Jake nodded. “Connors failed to take into account the command mentality of the Sixth Army’s chief, General George Patton. Patton hates these pencil pushers almost as much as I do.”

  “As we do, mon Capitaine,” Pierre corrected. “Don’t leave me out of this.”

  “Right. So according to scuttlebutt, what followed then were the six most harrowing months of Connors’ life. He survived—”

  “Alas,” Pierre interjected. “While too many good men went down.”

  “And he gained his colonel’s wings,” Jake went on. “But he also gained a reputation among the battle-hardened officers.”

  “One with the fragrance of sun-ripened Gorgonzola,” Pierre suggested.

  “Something like that. So instead of being posted to Nuremberg or Berlin or another of the great centers of post-war activity, Connors found himself relegated to this backwater near the French border.”

  “Not the place where one might be expected to have the chance to gain a general’s star.” Pierre shook his head. “What a pity.”

  “Rumor has it,” Jake replied, “that his commanding officer told him he had almost as much chance of making general as the porcupine did of becoming America’s favorite house pet.”

  “A bitter pill,” Pierre said.

  “So when I arrived in Oberkirch, I found the gallant colonel busy gathering a company of toughs in MP uniforms. Why, nobody could figure out, but there were a lot of ideas floating around. The one I liked best was that the general’s straight talk had turned Colonel Connors into a certified loon.”

  * * *

  Sally Anders put it more succinctly that evening over dinner. “Connors is a toad,” she declared.

  Jake feigned shock. “You’re speaking of a superior officer.”

  “A great hairy toad,” she insisted.

  “Toads don’t have hair,” Pierre pointed out.

  “This one does,” she countered.

  “Not that much,” Jake said.

  “And warts,” Sally went on. “I bet he even catches flies with his tongue.”

  They ate together in the Officers’ Mess because Sally had refused to dine with either of them alone, although both had invited her. Jake had even asked twice. Her reply was, you make too good a team to have it broken up fighting over a woman.

  Pierre said, “I still don’t understand why Connors went after you that way.”

  “All this fuss over a football game,” Jake agreed.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with the game,” Sally replied. “Not directly, anyway.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You gave people something they’ve been looking for,” Sally explained. “A good reason to laugh at Connors. A group of half-starved German POWs beat Connors’ prize battalion at their own game, and did it because they used strategy instead of strength. You punctured the balloon of his dignity, Jake. You showed him for the pompous idiot he is. And he hates you for it.”

  “How do you know Connors so well?” Pierre asked.

  “Jake isn’t the only one Connors has bulldozed. We’ve got several here on our staff who are still nursing wounds.”

  “We have?”

  “Anybody who’s seen as a threat to Connors’ ambitions is given the chopping block as soon as possible.” Sally smiled at Jake. “Given the level of your diplomatic skills, soldier, I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did.”

  “You should have heard Connors today,” Pierre said, and related the episode on the HQ front steps.

  “That man is a menace in uniform,” Sally declared.

  “You won’t find much argument with us on that point,” Jake said.

  “I can’t believe he’d do such a thing to innocent men,” she fumed. “You’re going to have to do something, Jake.”

  He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

  “And watch your step. You’re taking care of a lot right now. Don’t forget yourself.” She lit up. “No, wait; I’ve got an idea.”

  “Suddenly there’s a dangerous light in your eyes,” Jake said anxiously.

  Sally leaned conspiratorially across the table. “Do we agree that Connors shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “No buts,” she said sharply. “Did you know that the man’s in love with his jeep?”

  “He is?” Pierre asked.

  “Sure,” Jake replied. “Everybody who’s ever served with Connors knows about that jeep. He keeps it in a special shed just outside the Oberkirch camp. Every day he manages to catch some poor enlisted man doing something wrong, just so he can order him to wash and wax it.”

  Pierre’s eyes widened. “Wax a jeep?”

  “It’s the truth, I promise,” Jake said. “Had these little throw rugs on the floor, made us scrape off our boots before getting in. Crazy.”

  “Okay, okay,” Sally interrupted. “We already know the man’s a maniac. Now what I suggest is we hit him where it hurts.”

  “The question is,” Jake countered. “How much is it going to hurt us?”

  “Not at all if we’re careful.” Sally was on her feet. “You two go get into your dirtiest fatigues. Meet me back here in an hour.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got to see a friend in Stores.”

  Chapter Nine

  The next day, Jake tried to still his queasy stomach as he knocked on Colonel Beecham’s door. He found some comfort in the greenish, pasty shade of Servais’ face. When the muffled voice thundered from within, Jake swallowed once, turned the handle, and entered.

  Beecham’s weary expression deepened when they came into view. “Not you two,” he groaned. “What do you want now?”

  “You sent for us, sir,” Jake point
ed out.

  “Impossible. The only reason I’d do that would be to hand you a pair of postings to Antarctica.”

  “Does that mean we’re dismissed, sir?”

  “No, you’re here, so I might as well get to the bottom of this.” He inspected the two men. “What are you doing in dress uniforms?”

  “Our fatigues were, ah, stained, sir.”

  “Well, go over to Stores and draw out some more. I can’t have my men marching around looking like a pair of parade-ground heroes.” The colonel shuffled through his papers until he found one. “I’ve got a requisition order from Stores here. Do you know anything about it?”

  Jake and Pierre exchanged baffled glances. “We haven’t asked for anything, sir.”

  “Not you directly. It’s from some doctor or other. Le’see, he wants syringes, inoculations for everything from typhus to the yellow peril, and enough other stuff to outfit a field hospital.” Beecham lowered the page. “Does this have something to do with those kids?”

  “I guess it might, sir.”

  “You guess.” Beecham snorted. “Are you trying to steal my doctors, son?”

  “Nossir, nothing like that. They just asked if they could help out.”

  “I’ll bet.” He studied the paper a moment longer, then scrawled his signature and thrust it forward. “Have Miss Anders try to sell the idea to the local Red Cross. But if they kick up a fuss, tell Stores I said it was okay.”

  “Yessir. Thank you, sir.”

  “And Burnes.”

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t bother me again. Not today. Not this week. Not for a month or so. Not if you value your hide. It’s time for you and your sidekick to vanish from my sight.”

  “We’ll make like the wind, sir,” Jake promised.

  “That’ll be the day,” Colonel Beecham said. “Oh, one more thing. Do either of you know anything about how Colonel Connors’ jeep received a complimentary paint job last night?”

  Jake found it difficult to keep his gaze straight, his voice level. Very difficult. “Nossir.”

  “Canary yellow, if I understand it correctly.”

  “News to me, sir.”

  “The perpetrators apparently attached a feather-duster to the rear bumper.” Colonel Beecham found it necessary to frown fiercely over the news. “They painted large chickens in flight on either door. And wrote ‘Property of the Chicken Colonel’ across the front.”

  “Can’t imagine who would do such a thing,” Jake replied.

  “Funny,” Beecham said in a low voice. “I could come up with several dozen names right off the top of my head. Which is exactly what I told Connors when he called me this morning and accused you two of doing the dirty deed.”

  To that Jake made no reply.

  “All right, make yourselves scarce.” Beecham dropped his eyes back to his papers. “Permanently.”

  Once back in the hallway, Pierre observed, “Our colonel is looking weary.”

  “Exhausted,” Jake replied. “Utterly exhausted.”

  “We must try not to bother him further,” Servais said.

  “I’ll explain the situation to Sally,” Jake offered.

  Pierre smiled. “Come, my friend. Let us go and tell her together. I no longer feel I can trust you alone with her.”

  * * *

  But it was Sally who found them, a wide-eyed, fearful Sally who ran up and cried breathlessly, “You’ve both got to come with me at once.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Sally had already turned on her heel and headed for the door. “There’s no time to lose!” she called back. “Hurry!”

  She asked them to stop by the hospital for a fourth passenger, Dr. Harry Weaver. The young man came racing down the stairs as soon as the jeep pulled up, black bag in hand. “I’m due in surgery in two hours,” he said, climbing on board. “We’ll have to hurry.”

  “Would somebody mind telling me what’s going on?” Jake asked.

  “To the chocolate factory,” Sally cried. “Step on it!”

  Pierre was sufficiently caught up in the urgency to throw caution to the winds. Conversation was impossible. All three passengers were kept busy simply trying to stay in the bouncing jeep.

  They pulled up in front of the gang’s ruined building to find Chaplain Fox waiting by the door. He waved them to a stop, his customary smile gone, his eyes grave with concern. As soon as the doctor alighted, Fox took one arm and led him forward, leaving the others to find their own way.

  The stench hit Jake before he was over the entrance plank. The odor was so strong it was a physical shock. He forced himself onward, reached the doorway to the gang’s single room, then stopped.

  The doctor bent over an inert body. Jake immediately recognized Karl, the young leader. The boy moaned softly, struggling to move. He was restrained by the chaplain, who leaned over him, murmuring gently in his ear. Beside Karl, two bodies were stretched out, another boy and a girl. The smell from them, too, was a solid force, so strong it was difficult to breathe in the room.

  “What is it?” Jake managed.

  “It’s just as I feared,” the doctor replied, rocking back on his haunches. “We have been receiving reports from other regions, but this is the first confirmed case in this area. It’s not surprising, of course. It tends to attack the young, the weak, the unprotected.”

  “What does,” Jake demanded.

  The doctor gave a sigh of resignation. “Cholera. Also known as the plague.”

  Chapter Ten

  There was never enough time. There was never enough of anything. Jake moved in a constant, wearying blur, his mind always filled with all that remained undone.

  No one assigned him the duty. Jake did not question how or why he shouldered these tasks. He simply did what was required. He had to. It was only later that he wondered at his unquestioning response to a call he had never heard. Not with his mind, anyway.

  The first crisis arrived soon after they loaded the four inert youngsters into the jeep, and he and the doctor careened off to the local Red Cross clinic. The chaplain, Sally, and Servais stayed behind, heading off in different directions to do a rapid survey of the other gang hideouts.

  Jake and Harry Weaver were met at the hospital by another staunch member of the No Brigade, a large doctor in starched whites. “Just a minute there, Captain,” he said sternly as they came rushing up the stairs with Karl and another of the boys in their arms. “Where on earth do you think you’re going?”

  “This boy needs medical attention,” Jake snapped. “There are two more in the same condition out in the jeep. Could you ask two of your staff to give us a hand?”

  “Not so fast, not so fast.” The doctor moved to block Jake’s forward progress. “Where are these kids’ papers?”

  “They have no papers.”

  “Then this is out of the question,” the doctor insisted. “This clinic is specifically designated to assist the citizens of this town only. And only those citizens whose papers are in order. As it is, my staff and I are stretched to the limit. The absolute limit. You will simply have to cart this boy and his friends off elsewhere.”

  “Wait,” Harry Weaver began. “I am—”

  “Hold it, Harry,” Jake said, his voice ominously low. “Let me handle this one.”

  As gently as he could, Jake lowered Karl’s limp body to the floor. He then turned, grabbed the clinic doctor by his lapels, lifted him clear off the floor, and in two swift steps slammed him up against the side wall.

  “Now look here,” the doctor said, his voice up two full octaves.

  “No, Doc,” Jake snarled back, his face a scarce three inches from the doctor’s nose. “You look real good. You search that small mind of yours and make dead certain there’s not some other clause you might have missed.” He slammed the heavy man back against the wall like an oversized puppet. The doctor let out a high-pitched squeak. “You better hope there’s something you’ve forgotten, Doc.” Another slam. Another squeak. “That is, unless you
’d like me to show you just how thin you can be stretched.”

  The doctor drew a breath with difficulty and managed to gasp, “Well, now, I think we might be able to do something.”

  Jake let the man drop, and wiped his hands on his coat. “Four beds,” he commanded. “More when we need them. Or I’ll be back.”

  “Really, Captain,” the doctor said, collecting himself. “There’s no need for threats.”

  “That was no threat, Doc” Jake replied, stooping down to lift Karl up again. “That was nothing but cold hard fact. Now let’s see those beds.”

  * * *

  Death became his enemy, shortages his greatest foe. Jake fought with the same single-minded purpose that had brought him and his men through other earlier battles. He fought with all that he had at his disposal, accepting help from whichever quarter it might come. He fought with the desperate determination of a commander who knew that preserving the lives of his men was his most sacred responsibility.

  The chaplain, Sally Anders, and Pierre Servais were Jake’s chief lieutenants. But there was never any question of who was in charge. There was no time to question it. Nor was there any need. Jake simply shouldered the burden and charged.

  The change was mirrored in others. Children who had never learned to obey anyone or anything were gradually coming to follow instructions instantly and to the letter. At least they did so when the commands came from Jake. Pierre, since he spoke no German, became supplies driver and chauffeur extraordinaire.

  Chambers that had harbored sick children were swept and scrubbed for the first time since the war’s end. Proper latrines were dug. The chaplain took over the rubble heap next door to the créche; with the help of some of the children he cleared a space, erected a shelter, and started an indoor-outdoor kitchen where the gangs could come and sit on dry ground and eat a decent hot meal at least once a day.

  And of course, all of this meant that Jake had to scrounge for even more supplies.

  Help began arriving from the strangest sources. Mornings would often begin to the sound of growling truck motors, staffed by men he did now know, coming from bases as far away as Stuttgart and Heilbronn, sent by officers he had never met. Each frantic day he would pass soldiers, speak with them, issue orders, alert them to a new outbreak or a point of urgent need, then hurry on, only to wonder afterward who he had just addressed.