The Valhalla Exchange - Jack Higgins [50]
Howard picked up the letter, read it with lacklustre eyes. Grant came in with two mugs of tea and placed them on the desk. Mullholland motioned him to stay.
After a while, the American looked up. 'They seem to be in a mess, these people. What do you want me to do about it?'
'I'd like you to go and get them. Accept this Colonel Hesser's surrender formally, then return with the prisoners as soon as possible. The German officer who brought this letter, Lieutenant Schenck, is willing to return with you to show you the way. He was quite badly wounded, but I think we can fix him up well enough to stand the trip.'
'You want me to go?' Howard said.
'And those two men of yours. I've been thinking about it. We could give you an ambulance. Plenty of room then for the others for the return trip.'
'Have you any idea what it's like out there, sir, between here and Arlberg?'
'I can guess,' Mullholland said evenly.
'And you want me to go with two men and a crippled German?' Howard's voice was flat, unemotional. 'Is this an order?'
'No, I've no authority to order you to do anything, Captain, as I think you know. The blunt truth is that I just haven't got anyone else available. This is a medical unit, and as you've seen for yourself, we're up to our eyes in it.'
Howard stared down at the letter for a long moment, then he nodded slowly. 'I'll put it to my sergeant, Hoover, and Private Finebaum, if that's all right with you, sir. I think, under the circumstances, they should have some choice in the matter.'
'Fine,' Mullholland said. 'But don't take too long about making your decision, please,' and he used the phrase Schenck had used to him. 'Time really is of the essence in this one.'
Howard went out and Mullholland looked up at Grant. 'What do you think?'
'I don't know, sir. He looks as if he's had it to me.'
'Haven't we all, Sergeant-Major?' Mullholland said wearily.
Finebaum and Hoover shared a pup tent at the end of the rows on the other side of the vehicle park. Hoover was busily writing a letter while Finebaum crouched in the entrance, heating beans in a mess tin on a portable stove.
'Beans and yet more beans. Don't these Limeys eat anything else?'
'Maybe you'd prefer K-ration,' Hoover said.
'Oh, I've got plans for that stuff, Harry.'
Finebaum said, 'After the war, I'm going to buy a whole load of that crap - war surplus, you understand? Then I'm going to take it round to my old grannie who runs a strictly kosher house. So kosher that even the cat's got religion.'
'You mean you're going to feed K-ration to the cat?'
'That's it.'
'And break that old woman's heart? I mean, what did she ever do to you?'
'I'll tell you what she did. The day the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor she called me in and said, Mannie, you know what you've got to do, then she opened the front door, pointed me in the general direction of the recruiting office and shoved.'
He spooned beans on to a tin plate and handed it to Hoover. The sergeant said, 'You talk too much, but I know how you feel. I'm bored to hell with this place too.'
'When are we going to get out of here?' Finebaum demanded. 'I mean, I respect and love our noble captain, nobody more so, but how much longer do we stand around and wait for him to find his goddamned soul?'
'You cut that out,' Hoover said. 'He's had about all he can take.'
'In this game there's only two ways to be - alive or dead. Now I've seen a lot of good men go under in the year I've served with you and him. But they're dead and I'm not. I don't rejoice in it, but it's a fact of life and I ain't going to sit and cry over them either.'
Hoover put down his plate. 'Why, you son of a bitch, I've just made a discovery. You're not doing it because you're here or a patriot or something. You're doing it because you like it. Because it gives you kicks like you've never had before.'
'Screw you!'
'What are you after - another battle star? You want to be right up there in the line with those