Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [244]
“Buff, this is Crusty. What kind of crap are you giving my people on housing.”
“Just hold your water.”
“Hell. My people have been pulled away from their families on twenty-four hours’ notice. I hate to disturb this magnificent occupation plant, but I suggest you move your country club to the suburbs and give us the housing so we can get at our work.”
“Now, you just wait a minute there, Crusty.”
“Got no time to wait. I have a thousand technicians coming in in the next couple of days and I’m not going to hold up this mission because the grand occupation country club won’t get moving. I have to have six hundred billets immediately.”
Buff Morgan grumbled that he would get on it. An old scenery chewer himself, he held the lifeless phone in his hand cursing at it for two minutes after Stonebraker hung up.
Stonebraker had come in like a hurricane. Buff Morgan was upset ... everyone in USAFE was upset.
Stonebraker noticed a young officer pace about in his outer office, had spotted him before the Staff meeting.
“You!”
“Me, sir?”
“You. Get your ass in here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“That’s what I’d like to know, General. All I know is day before yesterday orders came for me to report here directly to you.”
“Where were you stationed?”
“Andrews Air Force Base.”
“What’s your name?”
“Beaver, sir. Woodrow Beaver.”
“Beaver! Goddammit, you’re not Beaver!”
“Begging the General’s pardon, I regret that I am Woodrow Beaver. At least, I’m quite certain I am.”
“Hell, they sent me the wrong Woody Beaver!”
“It looks that way, General. I suggest, therefore, I return my ass to Andrews immediately.”
“Not so fast, Beaver. What do you do?”
“I’m a PIO officer.”
Stonebraker chuckled. “Two Woody Beavers and both PIO people.” He squinted closely at the young officer. “You don’t look too bright to me.”
“I am extremely bright.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t. I said you didn’t look like it.”
He had learned his first lesson in living with Hiram Stonebraker ... never back down.
“Beaver. I’m going to give you forty-eight hours to learn to be PIO for this mission. Take the office next to mine and come back tomorrow with extremely good suggestions.”
“Yes, sir.”
Perry Sindlinger returned from message center and handed a teletype to the general.
CLINTON LOVELESS AO 359195 HAS REPORTED TO MATS, WESTOVER, REQUESTING SPACE TO WIESBADEN. SAYS HE IS A MEMBER STAFF, MAJOR GENERAL STONEBRAKER. HE HAS NO ORDERS. ADVISE AND FORWARD ORDERS.
“I’ve already answered,” Perry Sindlinger said. “It will be good to have Clint here.”
Clinton Loveless arrived at Wiesbaden in the middle of the night dazed by the sequence of events following his departure from New York. Judy’s tears, Pudge Whitcomb’s asthmatic laugh, the children’s bewilderment all fogged together and an utter weariness was sealed by a bouncy bucket-seat flight across the Atlantic.
Perry Sindlinger was at the ramp to meet him. They drove back to the general’s headquarters in the center of Wiesbaden, where, in the middle of the night, carpenters were knocking walls out of adjoining buildings to expand the work area.
“Hello, General,” Clint rasped.
“It’s about time you got over here. I’ve got a plane standing by at Rhein/Main to run you to Berlin tonight.”
Clint bucketed down a quart of coffee while Perry and the general brought him up to date.
“Hansen’s trouble shooter, a Colonel O’Sullivan, will meet you at Tempelhof. You get together with the Germans in the Magistrat and find out just what it is going to take to feed these people. Cut everything to the bone. Swede and Buck Rogers are in Berlin looking over the air installations and ground facilities. See them. Come back with a rounded, thumbnail picture.”
“Yes, sir. What are we landing in Berlin now?”
“The day I took over the command, a week ago, we put down a thousand tons with the British.”
“How far can we push this?”
“With the present setup, not another ounce.”
Clint understood, and got up to leave. The general gave ever so slight a nod that said