Read Online Behind Hitler's Lines by Thomas H. Taylor - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Thomas H. Taylor
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combat, it affected them, sometimes acutely, knowing the names and feelings of loved ones they had never met but would never forget.
To have an officer figuratively reading over his shoulder was not disturbing for Joe, so Duber's last enticement of bypassing censorship fizzled. Unlike most of his buddies, Joe didn't have a girl waiting for him back home, so he never gave a censor cause to blush. Dating had been too expensive while the Beyrle family was down and almost out before the war. In England, camaraderie was stronger for him than companionship, though after his paymaster adventure there had been a lass named Greta of the Auxiliary Territorial Service who took a fancy to him. He never mentioned her in any letters to his parents. Joe only suggested that he was chased and no longer chaste.
Letters from home (also by V-mail) were not censored, and for Joe they were an increasingly remote connection with the past. Whatever was back there had already exerted its influence, a vital impulsion but expended, a booster rocket that had done its job. Now, to finish the job, whatever it entailed, was the be-all and end-all for Joe and those around him, no matter how much they joked or pretended otherwise.
The paymaster experience had sparked his sense of being special, as part of what mattered most. It had developed an expanded and novel perspective of the war, a vague but keen appreciation of components previously beyond his ken. Joe declined Duber's blandishments because he wanted to remain eligible for more uniqueness—someone else would have to carry out Sink's conditional return of the brandy.
Duber recruited Jack Bray, leaving Joe nonplussed. He had acquiesced to Jack and Orv in turning down anything Duber offered. Now here was Jack picking it up like a girl Joe wasno longer interested in. Okay, buddy, what's going on? Well, Jack said, this was an investment. Four bottles, sure to appreciate, were worth the risk. Yeah, he had counseled Joe otherwise, but… hell, this is going to be fun! Joe, you got in on the fun (and the reward) when you stood guard for the heist. On a maneuver while Joe was away, Duber had poached game in Sherwood Forest, gotten caught, and told the sheriff of Nottingham that he was America's Robin Hood—and he got away with it. Duber was a proven winner. His plan for the brandy transfer was simple, the odds very good.
Then why, Joe demanded, didn't Duber transfer the stuff himself? Well, the heat was on; Duber was under suspicion and maybe under surveillance. You've been the risk taker, Jack said, referring to Joe's proxy jumps; now
we
want some fun-risk-reward. We joined the Airborne for that. And Duber is a sergeant. We do what he tells us in the field and will in war, so you can't separate that from off-duty.
Jack and Orv were basically mild young men, resembling each other in their countenance and slim physiques. Neither of them took to Airborne bravado. Each felt, as General Taylor was to say, that he didn't much like jumping out of airplanes but loved being around men who did. As only soldiers do, they loved Joe, he loved them, and they proved to be right when the transfer went down as smooth as the brandy— brandy with which Sink and his staff toasted the crumbling of the Atlantic Wall hours before they took off to vault it.
With the transfer accomplished and the heat off, the Blues' attention spun down to a shrinking vortex of concentration on what they were to do and how to do it. It didn't help when Captain Shettle moved up to be Wolverton's operations officer, replaced as CO of I Company by Captain McKnight, a taciturn, Lincolnesque man.
As McKnight's radio operator, Joe was his shadow in the field and had to understand his unrevealing personality, anticipate his orders, actions, and inactions. This resembled a new libidinous relationship: a complicated ebb and flow of affection, admiration, incomprehension, and fury. Nothing hadgone outstandingly well under Shettle; there were no
To have an officer figuratively reading over his shoulder was not disturbing for Joe, so Duber's last enticement of bypassing censorship fizzled. Unlike most of his buddies, Joe didn't have a girl waiting for him back home, so he never gave a censor cause to blush. Dating had been too expensive while the Beyrle family was down and almost out before the war. In England, camaraderie was stronger for him than companionship, though after his paymaster adventure there had been a lass named Greta of the Auxiliary Territorial Service who took a fancy to him. He never mentioned her in any letters to his parents. Joe only suggested that he was chased and no longer chaste.
Letters from home (also by V-mail) were not censored, and for Joe they were an increasingly remote connection with the past. Whatever was back there had already exerted its influence, a vital impulsion but expended, a booster rocket that had done its job. Now, to finish the job, whatever it entailed, was the be-all and end-all for Joe and those around him, no matter how much they joked or pretended otherwise.
The paymaster experience had sparked his sense of being special, as part of what mattered most. It had developed an expanded and novel perspective of the war, a vague but keen appreciation of components previously beyond his ken. Joe declined Duber's blandishments because he wanted to remain eligible for more uniqueness—someone else would have to carry out Sink's conditional return of the brandy.
Duber recruited Jack Bray, leaving Joe nonplussed. He had acquiesced to Jack and Orv in turning down anything Duber offered. Now here was Jack picking it up like a girl Joe wasno longer interested in. Okay, buddy, what's going on? Well, Jack said, this was an investment. Four bottles, sure to appreciate, were worth the risk. Yeah, he had counseled Joe otherwise, but… hell, this is going to be fun! Joe, you got in on the fun (and the reward) when you stood guard for the heist. On a maneuver while Joe was away, Duber had poached game in Sherwood Forest, gotten caught, and told the sheriff of Nottingham that he was America's Robin Hood—and he got away with it. Duber was a proven winner. His plan for the brandy transfer was simple, the odds very good.
Then why, Joe demanded, didn't Duber transfer the stuff himself? Well, the heat was on; Duber was under suspicion and maybe under surveillance. You've been the risk taker, Jack said, referring to Joe's proxy jumps; now
we
want some fun-risk-reward. We joined the Airborne for that. And Duber is a sergeant. We do what he tells us in the field and will in war, so you can't separate that from off-duty.
Jack and Orv were basically mild young men, resembling each other in their countenance and slim physiques. Neither of them took to Airborne bravado. Each felt, as General Taylor was to say, that he didn't much like jumping out of airplanes but loved being around men who did. As only soldiers do, they loved Joe, he loved them, and they proved to be right when the transfer went down as smooth as the brandy— brandy with which Sink and his staff toasted the crumbling of the Atlantic Wall hours before they took off to vault it.
With the transfer accomplished and the heat off, the Blues' attention spun down to a shrinking vortex of concentration on what they were to do and how to do it. It didn't help when Captain Shettle moved up to be Wolverton's operations officer, replaced as CO of I Company by Captain McKnight, a taciturn, Lincolnesque man.
As McKnight's radio operator, Joe was his shadow in the field and had to understand his unrevealing personality, anticipate his orders, actions, and inactions. This resembled a new libidinous relationship: a complicated ebb and flow of affection, admiration, incomprehension, and fury. Nothing hadgone outstandingly well under Shettle; there were no
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