‘I’ll still be able to send for her, won’t I?’
‘Your wife?
Why in the world should you want to?’
‘A husband and wife should be together.’
‘That’s out of the question also.’
‘But they said I could send for her!’
‘They lied to you again.’
‘They had no right to lie to me!’ Colonel Scheisskopf protested, his eyes wetting with indignation.
‘Of course they had a right,’ General Peckem snapped with cold and calculated severity, resolving right then and there to test the mettle of his new colonel under fire.
‘Don’t be such an ass, Scheisskopf.
People have a right to do anything that’s not forbidden by law, and there’s no law against lying to you.
Now, don’t ever waste my time with such sentimental platitudes again.
Do you hear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ murmured Colonel Scheisskopf Colonel Scheisskopf wilted pathetically, and General Peckem blessed the fates that had sent him a weakling for a subordinate.
A man of spunk would have been unthinkable.
Having won, General Peckem relented.
He did not enjoy humiliating his men.
‘If your wife were a Wac, I could probably have her transferred here.
But that’s the most I can do.’
‘She has a friend who’s a Wac,’ Colonel Scheisskopf offered hopefully.
‘I’m afraid that isn’t good enough.
Have Mrs. Scheisskopf join the Wacs if she wants to, and I’ll bring her over here.
But in the meantime, my dear Colonel, let’s get back to our little war, if we may.
Here, briefly, is the military situation that confronts us.’
General Peckem rose and moved toward a rotary rack of enormous colored maps.
Colonel Scheisskopf blanched.
‘We’re not going into combat, are we?’ he blurted out in horror.
‘Oh, no, of course not,’ General Peckem assured him indulgently, with a companionable laugh.
‘Please give me some credit, won’t you?
That’s why we’re still down here in Rome.
Certainly, I’d like to be up in Florence, too, where I could keep in closer touch with ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen.
But Florence is still a bit too near the actual fighting to suit me.’
General Peckem lifted a wooden pointer and swept the rubber tip cheerfully across Italy from one coast to the other.
‘These, Scheisskopf, are the Germans.
They’re dug into these mountains very solidly in the Gothic Line and won’t be pushed out till late next spring, although that isn’t going to stop those clods we have in charge from trying.
That gives us in Special Services almost nine months to achieve our objective.
And that objective is to capture every bomber group in the U.S. Air Force.
After all,’ said General Peckem with his low, well-modulated chuckle, ‘if dropping bombs on the enemy isn’t a special service, I wonder what in the world is.
Don’t you agree?’
Colonel Scheisskopf gave no indication that he did agree, but General Peckem was already too entranced with his own loquacity to notice.
‘Our position right now is excellent.
Reinforcements like yourself keep arriving, and we have more than enough time to plan our entire strategy carefully.
Our immediate goal,’ he said, ‘is right here.’
And General Peckem swung his pointer south to the island of Pianosa and tapped it significantly upon a large word that had been lettered on there with black grease pencil.
The word was DREEDLE.
Colonel Scheisskopf, squinting, moved very close to the map, and for the first time since he entered the room a light of comprehension shed a dim glow over his stolid face.
‘I think I understand,’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes, I know I understand.
Our first job is to capture Dreedle away from the enemy.
Right?’