Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [293]
Tie-down webs were freed. A human chain emptied the ten tons of cargo in sixteen minutes. Nick lost the toss and waited for the mobile canteen to buy coffee and sandwiches.
He watched the swarm of activity, never failing to marvel at the place. Once Tempelhof had been a parade ground for Prussian pomp. In the early days of aviation it had been made into an airfield with stands for barnstorming shows.
Hitler built an enormous edifice to house Goering’s Air Ministry. Great steel canopies were high enough to shelter a plane while being loaded and unloaded along the crescent-shaped building.
The building itself, one of the largest in the world, ran from seven floors below the ground to seven above it. The Russians had flooded these subterranean basements, where fighter-plane assembly plants were safe from Allied bombers. Yet, with all of this massiveness, there was the irony that room was planned for but one undersized runway.
Stan found the Red Cross girl and gave her the package for the Operation Santa Claus collection while Scott ran down a buddy who promised to deliver Hilde’s package to Ernestine Falkenstein.
A mobile Operations and Weather truck gave them plane-side briefings on the return flight. Good luck ... so far, the low in the North Sea had not developed into a front.
The VIP’s were impressed; Time and Life were impressed.
Women laborers swept the coal dust off the apron and sacked it. Some days they swept up three or four tons.
A short ceremony had been staged for the journalists with their crew being presented with gifts from the Metal Workers’ Union.
A number of the planes were partly loaded with light bulbs in crates bearing the crest of the Berlin Bear and the defiant inscription:
MANUFACTURED IN BLOCKADED BERLIN.
In thirty-two minutes after touching down at Tempelhof they were going through takeoff procedures again. New blocs were en route, on the way back, or being formed up. The immense Traffic Control Center atop the I. G. Farben Building in Frankfurt mapped this endless parade.
Scott’s heart was in his mouth as he cleared Berlin. In an hour and twenty minutes he would call Hilde and she would give him an answer.
Chapter Thirty-three
“HILDE, YOU’VE BEEN CRYING,” Judy Loveless said, coming into the kitchen.
“I used to cry a lot. I haven’t in a long time.”
Judy closed the door behind her. “Scott? Your family?”
“Scott. Could I have your advice?”
“I don’t think I should interfere, Hilde.”
“Please.”
“Okay.”
Hilde dried her eyes and poured Mrs. Loveless a cup of coffee from the always ready pot, then she sat opposite.
“Scott is going on leave. He has asked me to go with him. Till now there has been nothing between us, I assure you. But he is how he is and he will not change. Somehow ... I can’t find the words to send him away.”
“What do you want from him? A playmate? A dancing partner? Do you think it’s fair to keep him hanging around?”
“Then what you say is, I must submit.”
“What I say is you are so much on the defensive you’re not giving yourself a chance to discover your own feelings.”
“I don’t love him.”
“Hilde ... look at me. Have you ever been in love?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe Scott Davidson has either. Eventually you must expose yourself to the risk of finding love.”
“If I could believe I could have something like you and Colonel Loveless have ...”
“We didn’t pick it off of a tree, Hilde, or find it parked at our front door one day. Being in love is troublesome and it brings pain ... and it also means being able to give of yourself.”
Hilde bowed her head and swallowed hard.
“You’re a big girl, Hilde. If you want love, you’re going to build it on tears, room by room.”
A contribution to the perfection of the Airlift was for the craft to radio ahead to its home base and give in code information on whether his ship needed maintenance or carried cargo.
Those planes needing minor repairs or carrying cargo from Berlin reported it ahead; the information was relayed to the various