Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [251]
“You’re a spoiled little boy. You’ve had it all your own way all your life. You can’t love anyone because you love yourself too much.”
Scott took it like a gentleman and with a sense of relief that he would soon be free of this trap. And all the while Barbara was cutting their ties, she loved him.
“You haven’t got the courage to live in this world and take your share of its responsibilities and its bitterness. You think you can go on living in the clouds, but you’re fooling yourself. One day life is going to catch up with you and you’ll crash harder than you did on that jungle airstrip and when you do there will be a lot of people whose hearts you have broken standing on the side lines and cheering.”
Scott justified the final phase with Barbara by saying he was a lousy husband and she deserved better.
Scott flew off with his infectious smile and easy way, seeking the thrill of new conquests, and he left a trail of damned fool women like Cindy who thought for a moment the wings of the eagle could be clipped.
Chapter Thirteen
SCOTT CUT ENGINES AT the hardstand at Rhein/Main and growled for Nick and Stan to secure the craft. He was weary. He stretched, looked forward to a hot soaking tub, securing a three-day pass, and shaking down Frankfurt for quail.
As the last craft of the squadron cut engines, a burst of activity erupted. The planes were engulfed by ten-wheel army trailers whose crews began pulling out the cargo; first sergeants assembled the squadron personnel on the apron, and maintenance men queried each captain on the condition of his ship.
Colonel Matt Beck, head of Operations and chief pilot on Stonebraker’s staff, met Scott at the bottom of the ladder.
“Would you come over to Operations with me, Captain,” he said. “We want to run down the personnel and condition of the craft.”
“Excuse me, Colonel ... what’s the fire?”
“These ships will be worked on tonight and stripped of certain components. They’ll be flying cargo to Berlin tomorrow.”
“We’re beat, sir ...”
“You’ll bed down on the field tonight and be ready to fly tomorrow.’’
Scott’s bath and the great treat that lay in store for German womanhood went up in smoke. He got into Colonel Beck’s jeep, drove down the row of Skymasters.
The first thing Scott saw of Rhein/Main was a coal dump fifteen feet high covering an acre of land, and a field of antennas that covered another acre. He had never seen anything like it. Bustle was everywhere. Huts were being hammered together for enlisted personnel like a Gold Rush boom town. Maintenance docks, hangars, warehouses, fire stations were being erected; roads were being built on a base of mud. They passed an immense park of the transportation corps jammed with newly arrived trucks and trailers. The sign read: 24TH TRANSPORTATION TRUCK BATTALION, UNITED STATES ARMY. Negro soldiers were shaking them down.
Across the road, Colonel Beck pointed to a small city of displaced persons who were the laborers. The movement, the gray dinginess, the mud that encased the entire field, the temporary structures all reminded Scott of wartime. Rhein/ Main was a far cry from the neat lawns and hedges of Hickam Field.
Matt Beck stopped before another temporary building marked 7497th airlift wing. He was asked to wait in the colonel’s office. The place meant business, he thought. He stretched and tried to doze.
Hiram Stonebraker, who had been inspecting the new building projects entered the office wearing a pair of grimy fatigues. “You the chief pilot of the 19th out of Hickam?”
Scott blinked his eyes open.
“What’s the status of your craft?”
He didn’t answer.
“What the hell’s the matter with you. You tongue-tied?”
“So far as I know, you’re a kindly middle-aged gentleman in dirty dungarees. I never give them classified information.”
Stonebraker looked at his coveralls, stifled a smile. He walked out of the office right into Matt Beck, who had heard the end of the conversation in horror.