The Memories of Milo Morai Read online

  “That’s damned funny,” remarked Lieutenant Obrenovich, with a look of puzzlement.

  “What is?” asked Milo.

  “The money the captain gave the drivers, sir,” Obrenovich replied. “Every movement I’ve been on, if civilian POL facilities had to be used, they were paid in Army scrip, not in cash. This must be some kind of really hush-hush operation that nobody wants any records of.”

  Neither he nor any of the others then could have known just how right was his surmise. But they would all live to learn.

  All fed and refueled, they headed out south once more. In the city of Richmond, they changed routes and direction, east on Route 60, through Sandston, Roxbury, Providence Forge, Lanexa, Toano, Norge, Lightfoot and on toward Williamsburg.

  “Any ideas yet, lieutenant?” asked Milo tiredly.

  “Oh, yes sir,” was the quick reply. “There’s only three places down here we could be going—Camp Eustis is just the other side of Williamsburg, then the Army Air Corps has an airfield called Langley near a town called Newport News, and of course there’s Fortress Monroe, in Hampton. I hope it’s Monroe— I’ve heard that that’s a good-duty post.”

  They pulled off the highway and onto the road to Camp Eustis, but once waved through the main gate, they drove directly to the main motor pool, where all —officers and enlisted, male and female—with the sole exception of Barstow were loaded aboard a deuce-and-a-half truck. Then the tailgate was raised and secured and a thick canvas curtain was lashed tightly across the back opening. They sat on the hard wooden seats, crowded closely with their bags and cases piled on the steel bed between the two benches.

  Once they were underway, Captain Sam Jonas said, half shouting in order to be heard above the noise of the big engine, “This is orders. It’s felt that we’ll be better off not knowing just where we’re going, how to get there even. The only one who’ll know that, for a while, will be the general; he’s in the cab of this truck. No, don’t bother to ask me any questions—I don’t know any more answers than whatall I’ve just told you.”

  As they dismounted after a long, bumpy, exceed­ingly uncomfortable truck ride, they were given no time to look around, but were ushered into the first floor of a building that looked to Milo’s experienced eyes like a wooden barrack with all its windows covered by sheets of tar paper. Inside were a score of folding chairs, a few one-gallon butt cans and one thirty-gallon GI can.

  Barstow stood beside a rack of brand-new mops and brooms, facing the door by which they all entered. “Sit down,” he ordered brusquely, adding, “This won’t take long, then you can start getting situated in the quarters you’ll occupy while we’re here. Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.”

  With everyone occupying one of the less than comfortable chairs, Barstow, still standing, said, “First off: where you are; you don’t know, you don’t need to know and most of you aren’t going to know, so don’t try to find out. There are no public telephones here, and the few outside lines are and will stay under lock and key. Keep away from them or your ass will be grass. Understand? You may write all the letters you want with the understanding that they’ll be thor­oughly censored before they go to the place from which they’ll be mailed; you’ll all be given an address to use for return mail.

  “Second point.” He ticked off another finger. “And listen damned tight to this—your life could depend on your comprehension of what I’m about to say. You are all restricted to the confines of this cantonment area, no ifs, ands or buts, no exceptions of anybody at any time or for any purpose whatsoever! When you get out of this building, you’ll see that there is a twelve-foot chain-link fence topped with triple strands of barbed wire completely surrounding mis post. Keep away from it—it’s electrified with enough juice to fry you crisp. Eight feet beyond the inner fence is an outer one, and the space in between them is filled with barbed-wire concertinas three feet deep. The gates are as high as the fences and fitted with tamperproof alarms. There are guard towers, manned on a twenty-four-hour basis, with searchlights and machine guns and men who are under orders to use them against any human being who tries to get over those fences—coming or going—or through those gates without authorization, and there are walking sentries and jeep patrols, as well as other safeguards that, although you can’t see them, are no whit less deadly.”

  “Arbeit macht frei,” said Padre bitterly, to no one in particular. Then, to Barstow, “And just how long have you sentenced us all to your private little—most likely, highly illegal—concentration camp, general?”

  Barstow merely shrugged. “Call it what you wish, Lieutenant Metz. It wasn’t my idea … well, at least not all of it, anyway. Very tight security is needed for this relatively short but urgently vital operation, and this is the only way of which we know to maintain such a state of full security at all times.”

  “Security?

  Security from who, from what, general?” Padre yelped. “Japan has surrendered now, the Nazis were finished last May, so just who is there any longer to keep secrets from? Or do I really need to ask that of a quasi-Fascist reactionary like you?”

  Barstow sighed and shook his head. “I’d think that even a mind as dense as yours would have by now absorbed the fact that you can’t anger me with your radicalism and holier-than-thou condescension, Padre. Why do you keep trying, huh? The security measures are, of course, to protect this operation from Uncle Joe Stalin’s Russians, the people we’ll have to fight in the next war.

  “That’s enough, Padre, no more of your questions, if that’s what they really are. We’ve had a long, hard trip today, and most of us would like to chow down and get in some sack time—I know I would—and we won’t do either until this briefing is done.

  “As of work call tomorrow morning, the only people on post who will be wearing uniforms will be me, Sergeant Baker and Privates Hayes and Lyman, plus the cooks, medical personnel and suchlike who will be keeping us reasonably comfortable and this post operating. The rest of you will all be wearing civvies. Those of you who came from Europe with me are accustomed to this drill, the rest of you now know why you were issued civvies back up at Holabird. And no nonuniformed person will ever be addressed by rank or last name here—those of you who want to choose a name other than your own given name or use a nick­name should give that name to Private Hayes before you leave this building.

  “As regards quarters, we have plenty of space allotted us, so you can all have private rooms if you wish, or you may double-or triple-or quadruple-bunk, it’s entirely up to you. Of course, some more personnel will be joining us shortly, and we may have to give you all roommates when they arrive.” He grinned. “War is hell, they say. By the way, Betty, at least two of the incomings will be female, so you’ll be assured of someone to go to the loo with you.

  “You’ll assemble back here after work call tomorrow morning and we’ll take a walking tour of our projected areas of activity, then return for more briefing, in-depth briefing.

  “Chow tonight will be Crations.”

  There was a concerted groan from his audience.

  “They won’t kill you, this once.” Barstow grinned maliciously. “At least they’ll be hot, and there’s loaf bread and real coffee to go with them, cold milk, too. The cooks won’t get here until tonight, but that means you’ll have an Aration breakfast. And you’ll all be pleased to know that these cooks of ours are going to be top-notch, every one of them, hand-picked. You’ll also be pleased to know, I’m certain, that as we will have no ranks here, everyone will be considered an officer and will be able to receive a liquor ration.

  “This room we’re now in will be fitted up as a club, with a bar; upstairs will be the closest thing to a PX— smokes, candy, toiletries, items of civilian clothing, radios, that sort of thing, but no money; you can draw scrip against your pay.

  “Now, let’s go get moved in. At 1800 hours, come to the mess hall, it’s the fourth building to your right from this one. Then I would suggest that we all sack in —although reveill
e here won’t be until oh six hundred, hours, we’ve got a lot to do and not too awfully much time to do it in.”

  At his nod to Sam Jonas, standing in the rear, that officer half-shouted, “Atten-HUT!”

  With a scraping and rattling of the folding chairs, the group arose and were dismissed.

  Everyone opted for a private room; privacy for many of them had been rare and precious during the war years. There were three rooms owning private toilets, lavatories and sheet-steel shower stalls, and one was awarded to Betty, the largest already was piled with General Barstow’s gear, and they drew high-card for the third; Milo won with the ace of clubs.

  He was unpacking his bags into wall and foot lockers when there was a knock on his door. Not even slowing down, he said simply, “Come.”

  Second Lieutenant Elizabeth O’Daley, WAAC, strode into the room, came to a halt and seemed on the verge of snapping to and saluting before she remem­bered the reasserted rules of Barstow and forced herself back into an appearance of informality. Betty had come over from the States to Munich by way of England and Paris with then-Colonel Barstow when first he had set up his DP-screening operation there. She was a translator of Slavic languages and looked Slavic, despite her Irish name—big-boned and -breasted, dark-blond with fair, big-pored skin and eyes of a faded blue over widespreading cheekbones. She had been a WAAC corporal back then, and Barstow had been bumping her rank up ever since that time.

  Holding out a broad, thick hand on the palm of which rested a package of Lucky Strikes, she said, “Milo, I prefer Old Golds, and my ration was these. Would you like to trade?”

  Milo smiled and nodded toward the small table, on the top of which reposed the package of Cration cigarettes, matches, field toilet paper and chewing gum. “Sure, Betty. I have no particular preference in smokes. Cigarettes are cigarettes, so far as I’m concerned.”

  Sighing deeply, her big, heavy breasts rising and falling, she picked up the Old Golds and laid the package of Luckies in their place. “Gott sie dankt! You and I are the only two who didn’t get Camels, you know, and I can’t abide those so-called cigarettes; I’ve heard that the company makes them of what they sweep up off the cigarette-factory floor at the end of the day … and I can believe it. When I buy them, I get Fatimas, but they don’t pack those in Crations, not ever.”

  He shrugged. “Betty, I learned to smoke whatever came my way a long time ago. But move those things off the chair and sit down for a minute.”

  When he had lit her cigarette and his own with his Zippo, he took a puff, then said, “You rode down from Holabird with Barstow, didn’t you? Yes, so tell me, do you have any idea why we’re here, wherever we are? Any idea just what we’re going to be doing?”

  After exhaling twin streams of bluish smoke from her nostrils, Betty shook her head. “No, not really, Milo. The general is a very private man, you know, when he wants to be. All that I can say is that what­ever it is, he considers it to be damned important, to him, to the Army and to the country. On the basis of my knowledge of the man—and I’ve worked under his command for almost three years, now, ever since the Army found out I could speak and read and write four languages, plus English—I’d say that his attitude means that whatever we’re going to be doing will be of vital importance.”

  “And that’s all you know, huh?” probed Milo. “You didn’t hear anything the whole trip?”

  “Well … now that you mention it, Milo. See, I was in the back seat beside the general with Padre up front with the driver until we stopped for lunch, and almost the entire morning was devoted to one of their endless debates. The driver was a Volga German who had, he told me at lunch, lost numerous relatives in the Revo­lution and the various purges since, and I thought on several occasions he was going to just run that damned Cadillac off the road when Padre came out with certain of his incredibly naive stupidities. You know, Milo, I think that that priest honestly and truly believes that Premier josef Stalin and Pope Pius XII are just alike.”

  He shrugged again, tamping out his cigarette against the side of the butt can. “They may well be, from all I’ve heard, Betty. You must remember, both of them played footsie with Schickelgruber and Company until he fucked them over. Uh, sorry about that, but …”

  She just grinned. “Don’t worry, Milo. WAACs use it too-—it’s the most-used word in the Army, I think. But do you really think that? Do you really think the Pope and Stalin are conspiring to take over the world, like Padre says? I’ve just always thought he had a few screws loose, myself.”

  Milo grunted. “I’m quite certain he does, Betty, and considerably more than just a few. I know a little more about that man than you possibly do. I knew him back before the war, in Chicago, and he was as good as a Nazi then, tied in with the Bund. He and an older priest, one Father Rustung, caused me a lot of trouble because I refused to get myself tricked into a marriage to a Norwegian-American woman who finally ad­mitted that she was after the couple of thousand dollars I then had, not me. Even so, faced with the facts, finally, those damned priests gave me the bitter and unfair choice of marrying the conniving bitch or being jailed for fornication; that was when and why L left Chicago and enlisted in the Army.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Betty. “I’d never have guessed you for a fellow Midwesterner. You sure as hell don’t talk like one. Chicago is where my family settled, too, you know.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. “I knew a lot of Irish in Chicago, lived with an Irish family, in fact.”

  “Oh, I’m not Irish, Milo, not by birth. O’Daley was my husband’s name. My maiden name was Elizaveta Petrovna Dzerzhinski.”

  “That explains it,” said Milo. “You don’t look at all to be racially Irish—I’d thought you were some kind of Slav, all along. So you’re Russian, eh?”

  Pursing her lips, she nodded. “In a manner of speak­ing, though if my father ever heard me say it, I’d be in danger of getting knocked the length of a room. He’s a Rostov Cossack and inordinately proud of the fact. He was badly wounded in the Great War, but despite being crippled, he still raised a regiment to fight against the Reds and he led them until there was nothing left to fight with or to lead, then he got himself and my mother and my older brother, Piotr, out of Russia and into Rumania, where I was born just before we all came to this country. My two younger brothers and our baby sister, Astrita, are ail American-born.”

  Hesitantly, Milo asked, “You said that your hus­band’s name was O’Daley. Are you a widow, then, or divorced?”

  She sighed and sadly answered, “James was a Fleet Marine. We were married on the sixth of December, 1941, the day after my twenty-first birthday and his twenty-fourth. We had not been married even six months when he was killed, went down with his tor­pedoed ship. I mourned him for about a month, then I enlisted in the WAACs to free a man from Stateside duty to go over and avenge James O’Daley for me.” She sighed again and went on. “Papa tried to get into the Army, the Marines, the Navy and even the Coast Guard, but of course he was far too old and crippled, too. Piotr was exempted from the draft because he was felt to be more use to the country helping Papa to run our factory in Gary, Indiana, which was working on defense-industry contracts. Poor little Ivan died at Tarawa, and Sergei lost the foot and lower half of his leg after being wounded in Le Muy, in southern France.”

  “You’ve had a rough go of it, haven’t you, Betty,” Milo stated with patent feeling.

  “No, not really, Milo, not as bad as some, my in-laws, for an example. They lost five out of seven children in the war, all sons, all Marines. And the one son who did survive it was, I’m told, so savagely beaten by the goddamn Japs in prison camps that he’ll be crippled for life in both body and mind, and never able to come home or even leave the hospital.

  “Mr. and Mrs. O’Daley have never stopped mourn­ing any of their boys, and I don’t think they ever will until the day they die. But me, I learned to handle my grief for James and Ivan and my brothers-in-law; yes, they’re dead and I miss them terribly
, but I’m still alive and I must try to make a good life for myself in a world without any of them, and I’m not at all inclined to handle my losses the way that my sister-in-law, Moira O’Daley, did—Holy Orders don’t have any appeal for me.”

  “Yes, you’ve made a good adjustment, Betty, even I can see that.” Milo nodded. “I know just how hard it is, too, to make that kind of adjustment, for I lost a hell of a lot of friends in the war, too. And right at the very tag end of it all, the best and oldest pal I had died in my arms on the street of a small town in Germany, shot by a little kid who couldn’t have been as much as fourteen years old, a fucking Hitler Jugend. And my buddy was only there because he had driven out of his way to see me and spend a few minutes with me.” The last words contained’ ill-concealed bitterness.

  Betty arose and walked the few steps to reseat herself beside him on the clothes-littered bunk. Laying a hand upon his, she said, “Oh, Milo, that must have been especially crushing for you. But you must not blame yourself for his death. Such cruel things happen in any war. Why, my papa …”

  Through the wide-opened door came Padre. “Well,” he smirked nastily, “you work fast, don’t you, Major Moray? I wonder just what our Fascist General Barstow will have to say about this. Let me warn you, Lieutenant O’Daley, this man is an infamous libertine, a seducer of innocent young womanhood, who still is wanted, I would assume, in the State of Illinois, for the felonious crime of fornicationl Even being in close proximity and alone with such a man could imperil your immortal soul, I warn you as a priest of God.”

  Betty looked at the officious man as if he had but just crawled from beneath a rock. “Padre, please credit both Milo and me with a little intelligence. Had either of us intended to copulate here and now, don’t you think we would at least have closed the door, if not locked it? And contrary to what you seemingly have believed for as long as you’ve served under Barstow, he and I are not and have never been lovers, only friends and companions who share many of the same likes, dislikes and viewpoints.”