Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [287]
The Skymasters went to a hangar known as Station Number One where the process began with a stripping of radios and instruments and continued from hangar to hangar where they were steam-cleaned to remove the coal dust, then parts and instruments and engines were broken down, rebuilt, tested, reinstalled, checked out.
Only five Skymasters a day could be completed on the line. Others were backing up in Germany awaiting overhaul.
Douglas and Lockheed Aircraft sent engineers over to consult with Clint on proper methods to stop tank leaks, a continuing menace. A special team from Erding Base was given a course on a sealing method known as TC-48 so they could teach it to all maintenance crews in Germany.
After the general and Clint Loveless finished their inspection Scott remained to confer on pilots’ complaints about hydraulic-system seepage, tire wear, faulty wiring, fire hazards, foreign matter in oil screens, and those other things a chief pilot worried about.
Five days after he arrived in Burtonwood, Scott picked up a renovated Skymaster at Station Number Five and flew it back to Rhein/Main.
Scott stood before the door of the Loveless house not having the slightest idea why he should return. Hilde opened the door, and felt a sense of relief on seeing him for the first time in two weeks, but stifled her joy.
“Bad penny,” he said.
“Come in.”
“Anybody in?”
“Colonel and Mrs. Loveless are out and the children are asleep. If I had known you were coming I would have kept them up.”
“I’m hungry,” Scott said.
He sat at the kitchen table. She served him cold chicken and noodles and dark bread.
I am so glad you’re back, she thought.
I must be crazy, he thought.
Chapter Thirty
“CLINT!” HIRAM STONEBRAKER BARKED, “what have you done for Fassberg today?”
“For Fassberg, sir?”
“Goddammit, we’ve got to think about Fassberg! I’m away for a week on an inspection and Fassberg has fallen three hundred tons a day behind Celle. When you return for the staff meeting, you damned well better tell me what you intend to do for Fassberg!”
“Yes, sir.”
Stonebraker had gone to the States with his Logistics people to inspect a materiel depot built at Middletown, Pennsylvania, to support the Airlift. While he was gone, Lieutenant Woodrow Beaver struck!
Beaver had quietly written to Al Capp, creator of Lil’ Abner and father of the Shmoo, an American leprechaun put on earth to cure man’s ills. Beaver reckoned the Shmoo could be helpful to the Airlift.
The lovable pear-shaped little fantasy could be converted into beef, ham, or cheese if one was hungry. You could build a house out of a Shmoo or make them into dresses and shoes. Shmoos could be converted into any denomination of currency. There was nothing Shmoos couldn’t do.
Al Capp agreed to help. Beaver had some inflatable Shmoos made and all was in readiness for the moment Hiram Stonebraker left Germany on the Middletown inspection.
Beaver had Armed Forces Radio dramatically announce that Shmoos were coming to Berlin!
Ten every day would be parachuted and those lucky Berliners who found them could convert them at the Red Cross for CARE PACKAGES.
At the end of the week, the Shmoos had won the heart of the Berliners.
“Beaver! Get in here!”
Stonebraker shoved a Task Force Times under his nose. “Well?”
Beaver studied the paper earnestly. “You mean the photo contest to name the Airlift Queen, sir?”
“I mean the goddamned Shmoos!”
Beaver handed the general cables from AP, UP, INS. The Shmoo had stormed the front pages. NBC was sending a top team to document the life of a Shmoo from birth, through a dramatic corridor flight, and on to the German family who found him in Berlin. Three Soviet papers carried front-page editorials denouncing the Shmoos.
“Get the hell out of here,” Stonebraker said.