“Scott! Scott!”
He gripped the writhing girl and held her until a blackness overcame her.
Chapter Forty
SPRINGTIME!
Ulrich Falkenstein had shepherded his people through the winter. He felt it proper now to respond to invitations and receive ovations for his people in Paris and London, New York and Washington.
In exactly four years after the last Russian cannon fired down the Unter Den Linden, the greatest paradox of the century had happened. Berlin had completely reversed its meaning in the eyes of the world. In the resurrection of 1949, a stunning series of events occurred that halted the Communist scourge on the European continent.
Western Europe, now infused with the blood of the Marshall Plan, staggered from its ruins and the despair was replaced by a dynamic new birth. The sound of building was heard again.
As the West took this new lease on life they declared that they would defend themselves from further Soviet outrage in unity. In this springtime of 1949, NATO, the common defense, was born as a son of the Truman Doctrine.
In the resurrection of 1949 a new German state of the three Western Zones was in the making. A constitution was drawn with mankind’s hope that a new kind of Germany would emerge.
The Soviet Union had failed. They had failed to stop the formation of a Western-oriented Germany; they had failed to drive the West from Berlin. The Airlift poured six and seven thousand tons of goods into Berlin every day. The pressure was off the West for negotiations for a settlement.
More generators were flown in and as the coal stocks grew the electrical capacity was raised. Raw materials were flown in and the acute job shortage began to ease.
The Airlift was now putting down tonnage equal to what the rails and highways had delivered before the blockade.
Consumer goods began to appear in dribbles: clothing, soap, bedding, books, radios, shoes, pots, pans. The B marks were replaced by the same Western currency used in the zones.
Those devils who used the threat of starvation were now finding themselves on the receiving end. The Western counterblockade staggered Soviet Berlin and Soviet Germany, creating havoc and turning the tables. Time, that ally which the Soviet Union used as a merciless tactic, now turned into a tactical enemy ... now it was they who wanted to make a peace.
Hiram Stonebraker ordered the Combined Airlift Task Force to create an all-out operational assault on every tonnage record with an elaborate plan. With weather promising, midnight of the day of April 16 was chosen as the start of the twenty-four-hour period. Woody Beaver seized upon the occasion to name it “The Easter Parade.”
At midnight the first blocs moved for Berlin from Y 80 and Fassberg with all other bases in ready.
M.J. and Hiram breakfasted at his usual hour of 0600. As he ate, he called the Control Center. His chief of staff was already there and reported everything had moved through the night on schedule.
Stonebraker quelled his anxiety. It would be a long day, the plan was daring, and he wasn’t sending in a single goddamned ounce of cheese.
“You know, M. J.,” he said in a rare show of nostalgia, “I signed the order yesterday taking the last Gooney Bird out of the Lift. I’ve been thinking about it. It’s a fine old ship. Maybe nowhere near as sophisticated as these new birds, but it knows all the tricks of the sky. When our backs were to the wall and it was needed ... it came through. They tell me the Gooney Birds will all be retired, but I’ll bet you that ten years from now in any air base in the world ... you’ll find a Gooney Bird.”
His wife patted his hand. She handed him a small package. “This came after you turned in,” she said. It appeared to be another of those gifts from the people of Berlin. A note was attached. He mused, “This is from Chip Hansen.”
Dear Crusty,
We have convinced this former Berlin manufacturer of small parts for armaments to reorient his production to something more useful. The factory began yesterday in a small way. They wanted you to have Model #1, Serial #1.
Faithfully,
Chip
Stonebraker’s leathery face beamed as he took out a stainless-steel spinning reel. “Look at this, M.J. It’s even left-handed.” He opened the bale, turned the handle, played with the drag adjustment.
“Maybe Chip Hansen is trying to say that we’re just a couple of old Gooney Birds too. Why don’t you start looking through the fishing magazines and catalogues you’ve been sending for and hiding. I put some of them in your briefcase.”
He grunted, decided to carry the reel to his office, disguised.
At Taunusstrasse 11 the general went directly to the Control Center. Almost everyone was there and the suspense was rising.
The Easter Parade was now in daylight, having flown out the night. Weather was holding, no Russian harassment, no breakdowns.
Through the night they had been landing in Berlin in one-minute intervals. With seventeen hours left to go they had already set down four thousand tons.
Clinton Loveless was in his office, doodling on his desk. It was ironic, he thought, that the two letters should arrive on the same day. One was from J. Kenneth Whitcomb III on gold-embossed Whitcomb Associates stationery.
Clint:
I’ll get right to the play. The deal we discussed before you took leave to go on your great patriotic mission is still open. We need you, baby. Let me say that we’ve checked out what you’ve been doing and we’re proud you’re on our team. We Americans can score a touchdown in any league.
Clint, I’ve picked up the ball on a big one. We are developing the first no-deposit, no-return bottle in America. It will revolutionize the industry ...
The second letter came on rather austere stationery from a mining company in Utah. It was from the president, who was the son of the founder. He wrote that his father had hand-dug the first claim at the turn of the century.
It was a good company with good products and a good reputation. It employed three hundred people. The letter stated they were not able to adjust to modern methods. He had heard that Clinton Loveless once helped out small companies in trouble and allowed them to survive without being gobbled up.
“Will you help us?” the letter asked.
Judy read both letters. She took the one from Pudge Whitcomb, tore it into a hundred parts, put it in the fireplace with a final comment. “That jerk.”
Stonebraker poked his head into Clint’s office.
“Morning, sir.”
“Why aren’t you in the Control Center with the rest of the peasants!”
“Sit down, General, take a look at this,” he answered dreamily.
He spread out a set of drawings. Clint was playing with the idea of preloading cargo on pallets in the rounded shape of the airplane’s fuselage. The pallets would be lifted to the plane by conveyer belts, rolled down the floor of the craft on ball bearings. There wouldn’t be an inch of waste space.
Stonebraker realized Clint had an idea of great brilliance for that time when the jet transport was developed with its great capacity.
“Bring this crap into my office when we finish today. Looks interesting.”
Finishing up “today,” meant midnight No one was about to leave Taunusstrasse until the final figure of the Easter Parade was known.
The day wore on. No breakdowns in the rhythm of the Lift. The tonnage reached and passed five thousand ... six ... seven ... eight.
Ten o’clock that night Hiram Stonebraker was concentrating on a Penn Fishing Tackle Catalogue. He shoved it into his desk drawer as Woody Beaver came in and began stuttering.
“Speak up, Beaver!”
“Ten thousand tons, General. We’re landing them every sixty-three seconds!”
“Well, don’t get your bowels in an uproar. We still have two hours left.”