Ordinary Heroes (14 page)

"Yes, sir, well, I was there, too."

Teedle shot me a look riddled with irony. I could not have understood much about being a general, this look said, if I expected him to be concerned about that. He called out to Frank to have his staff JAG expedite the Comtesse's damage claims.

"So now what mud was Martin slinging? That I have control of the Army Air Corps and arranged to bomb him?"

"He allowed how it was possible."

Teedle answered with a crude laugh. "There are plenty at my rank, Dubin, who wouldn't bother with a Rule Thirty-five investigation when they had an insubordinate officer. They'd send Martin out personally to scout a hilltop guarded by a full Germa
n c
ompany and never lose a wink. But if that was my idea, I wouldn't have bothered going to HQ, would I?"

"Quite right, sir."

"Oh, don't give me that 'quite right' horseshit. If you don't believe me, say so."

"I think you're making sense, General." I did, too, but Teedle seemed far too complex to expect all his actions to line up with reason. Having a minute to think, I didn't understand why General Roy had apologized to Teedle. The 26th Infantry, not Teedle's unit, was under Roy's bombs. Unless Roy forgot they had changed positions. Which was possible, too.

"Any other calumnies Martin spread to which you'd like a response?"

"May I speak freely, sir?"

"You just accused me of trying to bomb one of my officers. I think you're doing a pretty fair job of it already, Dubin, but help yourself."

I knew better than to debate Teedle by pointing out what had been said previously and by whom. He was amusing himself with the verbal fencing, knowing he had rank on his side. For all his bluster, though, I didn't have the sense that Teedle was baiting me to be cruel, so much as test me. He was an unusual man. Forthright. Opinionated. Harsh. It did not stretch credulity, watching his mobile face
,
the way he veered between imperiousness and collegiality, and the frankness with which he dared you to dislike him, to think that Teedle's peculiarities extended to far darker realms, as Bonner maintained. But not necessarily to cruelty. Cruelty was a part of human nature, I suspect he would say. We were all mean. But he was no meaner than most.

"Sir, he says your desire to get rid of him is all about the fact that you think he's a Communist."

When he heard that, Teedle put his feet up on his footlocker beside him, while he smiled and stroked his chin. It was the first time I'd seen him pause to reflect, much as Martin had shied away from the same subject. All the while, he tossed his head and the little bit of red steel wool on top of it, with what appeared to be admiration. He could never anticipate Martin. That seemed to be the meaning.

"Well, first of all, Dubin, I don't think Martin's a Communist. I know he's a Communist. He was a party member in Paris when he went off to fight in Spain. That's one of the reasons OSS wanted him in the first place. Because of his influence with the Communist unions.

"But put that aside. I'm not charging the man with disagreeable politics. I'm charging him with insubordination and endangering other troops. Even in Russia, despite calling me Comrade General, if I told
,
him to get on his knees and kiss my ass, it's same as here, he'd have to do it."

Until that remark, I'd almost put Bonner out of my mind.

"Now whether his political background is the reason OSS agreed with me that it's time to send Martin elsewhere, nobody's said that, but frankly it's a pretty fair guess, and it makes sense. Stars and Stripes and the newsreels don't tell you everything our precious Russian allies are up to, Dubin. Do you know anything about what happened in Poland in August?"

I hadn't heard much and Teedle enjoyed filling me in. With the Soviet Army on their border, thousands of Polish patriots in Warsaw had risen up against the Nazis. Many on our side, Teedle said, believed that Stalin had encouraged the Home Army to think that the Soviets would storm into Poland and join them in expelling the Nazis. But the Russians held their ground. In fact, Stalin wouldn't even allow the Allies to assist the Poles by dropping arms and supplies. Instead the Home Army was crushed. Thousands were executed, shot on the spot or locked in buildings which were then set ablaze, while the Nazis leveled Warsaw's city center.

"And why, you might ask," said Teedle, "why would the Soviets do that? Why would the Russians not help the Polish resistance, since it could ver
y w
ell diminish their own losses in retaking Poland? Any ideas?"

Nothing came to me.

"Because, Dubin, a patriot who resists Nazi occupation is just as likely to resist the Soviets. Stalin got the Nazis to do his dirty work in Poland. At that point the Supreme Command, Roosevelt, Churchill, they all knew with absolute certainty what we are in for. Stalin might as well have let his air force put it in skywriting. They aim to conquer and occupy eastern Europe. They want to substitute Soviet rule for Nazi rule. And you're damn right, we don't need anybody operating in advance of our troops who might take the Soviets' side. Martin has many friends in the ranks of the Soviet Army: He fought for at least three different Soviet generals in Spain. And I'll wager a good sum that he'll give their orders a lot more heed than he's given mine. So yes, the fact that he's a Communist, that concerns me. It concerns me a good deal. Especially since he won't follow fucking orders. But if he weren't insubordinate, I wouldn't care if he went to sleep each night in red pajamas."

The General leaned forward with his fists on his desk. "Now, man to man, Dubin, tell me the truth, does that bother you? Because listening, I thought this asshole's complaint that I'm after him because of what he thinks about political matters--I had the impression that cut some ice with you."

I took my time, but I knew I wasn't going to back down from General Teedle. It wasn't required.

"General, there are a lot of Socialists who are loyal to the United States. And hate Stalin." Two of them happened to live in an apartment in Kindle County and had raised me. I didn't say that, as usual. Who I was and where I came from was my own secret. But Teedle was perspicacious enough to sense I spoke from experience.

"And are you one of them, Dubin? Is that what you're saying? Are you a loyal American Socialist?"

"I'm a loyal American, sir. I don't agree with the Socialists all the way. My problem with Socialists, sir, is that I've met quite a few who don't strike me as idealists. They hate the rich, because they envy them." Of course, socialism and how to react to it were topics of unending contemplation for me throughout high school and college. Easton had brought me into contact with many of the people my parents reviled, and Grace herself might belong in that category, even though she largely shunned her family's privileges. Between the two of us, one of our enduring discussions was about whether we were Socialists. There was so much that went wrong in the world that came down to being poor. But I never felt comfortable with the socialist morality of my parents, by which they were entitled to want more, while the rich were obliged to want less.

"Interesting, Dubin, very interesting." I had n
o d
oubt Teedle meant that. He flipped a pencil in the air and caught it. "You and I are polar opposites here. What I have against the Commies is what you seem to want more of. I dislike them, Dubin, because they're fools. Fools. Hapless idealists who want to believe that humans are inclined to share and think first about others, when that's never going to be the case. Never.

"And because they don't see us as we are, Dubin, don't see how brutal and selfish we are, because of that, Dubin, they think we can do without God. That's why I truly dislike them. Because they believe mankind can be good without His assistance. And once we go down that road, Dubin, we're lost. Utterly lost. Because we. need God, Dubin. Every man out here needs God. And not to save his soul or keep him safe, Dubin, none of that guff Do you know why we need God, why we must have Him, Dubin? Do you?"

"No, sir," I said. I was no surer of God than of socialism, but it was one of those moments when Teedle was on the boil again, full of a locomotive fury that forbade me to get in his way.

"Well, I'll tell you, Dubin. Why we need God. Why I need God. To forgive us," he said then, and with the words his anger almost instantly subsided to sadness. His tiny eyes were liquid and morose, and any doubts I'd had about Bonner vanished. "Because when this is over, this war, that's what we'l
l n
eed, all of us who have done what war requires and, worse, what war permits, that's what we'll need, in order to be able to live the rest of our lives."

Teedle went for his canteen for the first time since I'd been there. When he lowered it, he dragged the back of his hand along his lips like a tough in a beer hall, but his little birdie eyes rimmed in pink remained on me, full of his sorry knowledge of the excesses of war and the bleak mystery of a God who, before forgiving, allowed those things to occur in the first place.

Chapter
9.

FURTHER ORDERS

In the two weeks following our return to Nancy, it became clear that the pace of the war was again quickening. Stores of gasoline had finally been received. Other field supplies--tents, blankets, jackets, two-burner stoves--remained short, but the General staff had swapped ten thousand gallons of no. io motor oil with the Seventh Army for an equal amount of diesel fuel, and it was a good bet that Patton's push into Germany would start whenever it arrived.

Yet even with the changed atmosphere, life in Nancy still seemed as relaxed as a summer resort, compared to my three days near the front. As Colonel Maples had anticipated, I had relished the excitement, and even felt some awkward satisfaction about surviving a bombing, never mind that it ha
d b
een inflicted by our own forces. On the whole, my encounters with Teedle and Martin and Gita Lodz were probably the first moments since I had enlisted that fulfilled some of my hopes.

On November 3 an orderly appeared in court to tell me that Colonel Maples wanted me when we finished for the day. As soon as Klike promised to dispense with justice, I went upstairs, where the Colonel showed me documents that had been pouched from the i8th Armored Division. Teedle had ordered me to deliver them to Robert Martin.

HEADQUARTERS, 18TH ARMORED DIVISION

APO 403, U
. S
. ARMY

EXTRACT

1. Major Robert P. Martin, 04264192, is relieved of duty with this Division at once and assigned to Central Base Station, London, England. WP w/o delay reporting upon arrival to CO thereat for duty. Govt. T is authorized.

EDCMR: 1 November 1944

BY ORDER OF BRIGADIER GENERAL

TEEDLE

Official:

James Camello

Major AC

Ass't Adjutan
t c
c:

Colonel Bryant Winters U
. S
. Army

Except for the designation of a carbon copy to Colonel Winters, who I inferred was Martin's OSS commander, the order didn't differ noticeably from prior ones I'd seen. Attached, however, were travel documents identical to those Gita had produced on my visit to the Comtesse's. They, too, were issued by Central Base in London and directed Martin to return to England forthwith, even enclosing $20 in Army scrip for a per diem. Teedle had answered Martin in kind. Since OSS would not issue direct written orders to an operative, the travel authorization was the best proof that its commanders backed Teedle.

"Well, that explains it," Colonel Maples said, once I'd reminded him that I'd needed something from OSS to deal with Martin's claims that he had other orders. "When he rang, General Teedle passed a comment about you. I think he finds you a bit precise for his taste."

"I thought that's what lawyers are, Colonel. Precise."

"Teedle regards it as an impediment." Seated behind a large oak desk as substantial as a half-track
,
Maples was smiling, touching his mustache as he often did for comfort. "Not all that different, by the way, from my clients in private practice, who gritted their teeth before talking to their lawyer. For some it was akin to the discomfort of going off to Sunda
y p
rayers.

"I'm not trying to be difficult, Colonel, but when I think this over I still can't make top or bottom of it. Why would a decorated officer suddenly defy his commanders? The girl is rather emphatic that her romance with Martin is over."

"Perhaps Martin has had enough of war. He wouldn't be the first. But ours is not to reason why, David. I told you, Rollie Teedle is not an enemy you need. Get out there and finish this off. Teedle wants Martin packing and on to London before you leave."

"Yes, sir." Maples' renewed warning about Teedle banished any lingering thought of reporting Billy Bonner's accusations. I'd hesitated when I'd briefed the Colonel on my return, realizing once I was in his office that Maples would regard the charge as patent lunacy and be displeased with me for pulling the pin on this kind of hand grenade, then lobbing it on his desk. The truth was that in the presence of the Colonel, a person of gentle but unrelenting propriety, I had no idea even how to relate what Bonner had said.