The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [155]
It sunk in to Ben like a stab that kept on penetrating. Tepee Weepy and Loudon. The unholy pair that manufactured the Supreme Team in the first place. Now an entire week of hanging around with the buzz bombs, just so Loudon could mouth off nationally, hell, internationally about—
"Break in, quick," he instructed the wire operator while frantically scrawling. The young soldier apprehensively but bravely looked up from the message. "'Loudmouth,' sir?"
"Sorry, that got away from me." Ben grabbed back the paper, cursing and fixing the name at the same time. Off the message went.
CAN'T WE DO THAT STATESIDE, AT TSU STADIUM FOR INSTANCE, SITE OF INITIAL GLORY, ETC.? LOUDON NOT A HABITUE OF EUROPE NORMALLY.
There was a pause, giving Ben some faint hope that logic might register on TPWP. Then:
NEGATIVE. LOUDON TO USE ANTWERP OCCASION TO ANNOUNCE THAT THE TREASURE STATE GOLDEN EAGLES OF 1941—'ELEVEN MEN AS BRAVE ON THE ULTIMATE FIELD OF BATTLE AS ON THE GRIDIRON'—ARE HIS ALL-AMERICAN TEAM FOR 1944, IN MEMORIAM. YOU AND STAMPER WILL BE HIGHLIGHTED AS THE SURVIVING TEAMMATES, THUS PRESENCE IN ANTWERP MANDATORY UNTIL AFTER USO SHOW.
Ben could not take his eyes off the words. You goddamn grandstander, Loudmouth. You never miss a chance to pluck the patriotic harp, do you. All-dead is closer to the truth. Maximum urges contended in him, to sink into a corner laughing insanely or take a kicking fit against the TPWP wire machine. The owl-eyed clerk watched him skittishly.
Pulling himself together, more or less, he gripped the pencil and pad, and with concentration as slow and forced as a gradeschooler's put into block letters the next message.
STAMPER COMING DOWN WITH NERVOUS IN THE SERVICE. SUGGEST IMMEDIATE LEAVE TO TIDE HIM OVER UNTIL USO SHOW. IF HE CRACKS UP, LORD HAW-HAW WILL HAVE PLENTY TO HEE-HEE ABOUT.
Parsing it to himself, he added, sardonically wondering if he had better get a rubber stamp of it made: SOONEST BEST.
Tepee Weepy got the message in more ways than one.
SOON IS BEST THAT CAN BE DONE THROUGH ANTWERP HQ CHANNELS, BUT WILL HAVE STAMPER PULLED FROM ACK-ACK DUTY, DON'T WORRY.
The teletype machine fell silent for all of ten seconds or so, then burped back into action.
NOW TO BUSINESS AS USUAL: EXPECTING THOUSAND-WORD PIECE, CLASSIC REINKING STYLE OF SHINE AND SHADOW, ON LIFE IN COMBAT ZONE 'SOMEWHERE IN EUROPE.'
"Have you gone out of your gourd, Ben? They're supposed to give me leave here in a combat zone?" That evening in the Wonder Bar, Moxie was so incredulous he was neglecting his beer. "I'll believe that the day after it happens."
"Fine," Ben said tiredly. "You can test your faith when the general calls you in, first thing tomorrow. Maurice set it up." He started his bottle to his lips, then thought to check on Moxie's facial tic. It was active. Good, that'll help. "By the way, I had to make you out to be the next thing to a nutcase. So if people look at you a certain way, that's why."
Moxie laughed, short and sharp. "Rhine King, you never did think I threw you the ball enough."
***
They had to kill seven days waiting for the USO show, every one of those a blank-walled twenty-four hours of tedium with a concrete lid on it. It did not help that they both thought their underground quarters smelled like Montana earthen cellars where potatoes and rutabagas were stored. Moxie, restless as a sidewinder even in the best of times, had a particularly hard time with enforced leisure. "If I wanted to be caged up, I'd have been born a goddamn canary." Growly and still ticcing, he devoted himself to reading Philo Vance mysteries during the day and romancing Inez in the Wonder Bar at night.
For his part, Ben prowled the bunker maze of the base with a simmering case of deadline fever, searching for some way to write about Antwerp's deluges of death from the sky without ever mentioning buzz bombs. "What if," he tried out on Maurice Overby, "I just say it's a mystery weapon the Germans call a Vergeltungswaffe?"
"Rather a nice try, Ben, but I'm afraid not," came the