Read Online A Mortal Terror by James R. Benn - Free Book Online Page B

military vehicles.
    I found G-1, Personnel, on the ground floor of a two-story school that was missing its roof. Colonel Raymond Schleck was seated at a desk near a boarded-up window, a tin bucket catching drips of rainwater from the ceiling. Files were stacked in wooden boxes all around him, and two clerks at the other end of the room pecked at typewriters, making piles of forms in triplicate, some nearly a foot high. They had the grimly bored look of men who knew there was probably an easier way to do this job, but also understood it had to be done the army way.
    “Colonel Schleck?”
    “See one of my clerks, Lieutenant, I’m busy.” Schleck cranked a field telephone, barked a few quick questions into it, listened, and slammed it into its leather case without comment. He crossed off names on a list and consulted a personnel file. Without looking up, he spoke again. “You still here?”
    “Yes sir. I need to speak with you about Captain Max Galante. I’m afraid one of your clerks won’t do.”
    “And who the hell are you to tell me what won’t do?” Now I had his full attention. I showed him my orders. He gave them back, frowned, then waved in the general direction of a chair.
    “You’ve heard Captain Galante was murdered?”
    “Yeah. Tough break. I lost a good platoon leader too. Landry. What can I do for you, Boyle?”
    “Tell me about Galante. You two had a disagreement, right?”
    “You think I killed him because of that?” He gave a small chuckle and shook a Chesterfield from a crumpled pack. He lit up and tossed the match into the bucket.
    “You had him transferred out of the division, so I doubt there’d be a reason to kill him. But what did you think of him?”
    “I thought he worked hard, and was sincere in his beliefs.”
    “Listen, Colonel,” I said. “It’s nice not to speak ill of the dead, but that doesn’t help me find who killed Galante and Landry.”
    “Okay,” Schleck said. “He was a snotty prig who thought he was smarter than everyone else. I mean it when I say he worked hard, but he had a bad attitude.”
    “About combat fatigue?”
    “Listen, Boyle,” Schleck said, sitting up straight and pointing his nicotine-stained finger at me. “You start telling these boys that all they have to do to get out of the line is to go on sick call with the shakes, pretty soon you’ll have empty foxholes all across these damn mountains. You can be damn sure the Krauts don’t believe in combat fatigue.”
    “You think it isn’t real?”
    “I don’t say there isn’t something to it. But Galante and I differed on the cause. In my book, there’s only one way to explain why one unit, on the line as long as another, has a completely different rate of combat fatigue cases.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Leadership, Boyle. At every level, from generals to second lieutenants. That’s what makes the difference. Poor leadership leads to excessive cases of nervous exhaustion, or whatever the shrinks call it. In a unit with good leadership, the cases are fewer. When the men trust their officers, they have confidence, and that keeps them going.”
    “But it still happens, in every unit.”
    “Some men are cowards. It’s unpleasant, but it’s true.”
    “Was this the reason you had Galante transferred out?”
    “It was on my recommendation, yes. We needed to send a message, that there was no easy way out of combat duty. Galante was always trying to ease the burden on the men, with all good intentions, I’m sure. But the fact is, it’s a heavy burden they face. It’s not fair to them to make believe it’s anything but.”
    “Okay, I get what the beef was about. You described him as snotty. Why? Because of his attitude?” I understood the difference of opinion. But the use of “snotty” spoke to something deeper, a disdain that made me suspicious.
    “Holier than thou, by a mile.”
    “You also said he was a prig. What does that have to do with anything?”
    “Nothing. That’s just