"It was my pleasure, believe me," Jenkins answered. Did he sound all male and knowing there for a moment, or was that only Peggy reading between the lines? She couldn't very well ask him.
"If you hadn't suggested that I write to the Fuhrer with my problem, I don't know if it ever would have got fixed," Peggy said. Not only was that true, but it reminded the lurking listeners Hitler was on her side. Can't hurt, she thought.
"Nothing else was working. I figured you should go straight to the top and try your luck there," he said. Peggy found herself nodding. Blind obedience to everything in buttons, sure as hell. Jenkins spoke again, on a different note this time: "And I hope everything else is all right?"
"Oh, yes!" Peggy said quickly. She'd got her period-and what the Germans used for pads these days was a shame and a disgrace. Wouldn't that have been fun? She couldn't have brought a visible sign of her shame home to Herb. But how she could have found a discreet German doctor without opening herself up to Gestapo blackmail forever was beyond her. One thing she didn't need to worry about, anyhow. Those things made a dismayingly short list these days.
"Well, that's good," Jenkins said. "Believe me, we like to do everything we can for Americans in Germany. Too often, it's less than we'd want. I hope everything goes very well for you, and I hope to see you again one day after everything settles down, if it ever does."
"Thanks again," Peggy said. "So long." She hung up. I hope to see you again? If that didn't mean I hope to lay you again, what did it mean? She was damned if she'd ever get drunk with a diplomat again.
She lugged her suitcase down the hall to the elevator at ten after two. It was heavy and clumsy. Why didn't it have wheels and a handle with more reach? But that was a side issue. She wouldn't be late here, not for nothin'.
The elevator operator was a woman. A gray-haired man had had the job, but something-war work? conscription? trouble with the Gestapo?-had pulled him away from it. The war was biting more and more people these days.
Peggy checked out and settled down to wait. She watched traffic go by on the street outside. There wasn't much to watch: buses, military vehicles, a doctor's car (a placard taped to the door proclaimed what that one was).
Right at 2:30, a taxi pulled up in front of the hotel. Peggy hauled her suitcase out onto the sidewalk. "Let me take that for you," the driver said. His left hand was artificial, but his right arm was plenty strong. Into the trunk the suitcase went. "The train station, yes?"
"Yes!" Peggy said. He opened the door for her, then got in himself. He used his right hand to clamp the thumb and fingers of the left onto the wheel. That left the good hand free to shift gears, and to help the other as needed.
Maybe he saw Peggy's eye on him, for he said, "It's clumsy, but it works. And I've had plenty of practice since the last war. Only one accident in all that time, and it wasn't my fault. The police court said so."
"Good for you," Peggy said. She gave him a big tip when they got to the station. He took her suitcase out of the trunk as easily as he'd put it in, but she didn't let him carry it to the ticket counter. Enough was enough. She could manage, and she did.
Her ticket was waiting. She'd had paranoid fantasies that it wouldn't be, that the Nazis were still playing cat-and-mouse games with her. But no. Here it was, in her hands. The conductor gravely examined it when she walked up to the train. "I am required to ask you to show me an exit visa," he said.
"Here you go." Peggy was proud to show it off.
"Sehr gut. Danke schon," he said, touching the brim of his cap. "All is in order. You may board."
You may board! If those weren't the three most beautiful words in the German language, Peggy didn't know what could top them. She found her berth. It had to be the best one on the train. The Germans were laying it on thick, all right. About time, too! Peggy settled in with a sigh of pleasure.
At 3:30-not 3:29, not 3:31-the train jerked into motion. "Yippee!" Peggy said. No one heard her. It wouldn't have mattered if someone had. You couldn't translate Yippee! into German. But she was on her way home at last. HANS-ULRICH RUDEL ALWAYS WONDERED what would happen when Colonel Steinbrenner summoned him to the tent that did duty as squadron HQ. Showing you were worried was only likely to make things worse, though. "Reporting as ordered, sir," he said, drawing himself up to stiff attention.
"At ease," Steinbrenner said. "You're not in trouble this time, Oberleutnant Rudel."
"Oberleutnant?" Hans-Ulrich squeaked in surprised. He'd just got promoted. "Thank you very much, sir!"
"You're welcome. You earned it." Steinbrenner opened a box that sat on the card table serving as a desk. "You earned this, too." He took out a large Iron Cross on a red-white-and-black ribbon.
"A Ritterkreuz!" Rudel said, all breath and no voice-he was beyond even squeaking now.
"That's right. You've got the first Knight's Cross in the squadron. Not the last, I hope, but the first. Congratulations!" Medal in hand, Colonel Steinbrenner stood up. He came up and handed it to Hans-Ulrich. "You wear it around your neck."
"Yes, sir. I know," Hans-Ulrich said dazedly. Too much was happening too fast. He managed to put it on without dropping it. If you had to have a shield for your Adam's apple, where could you find a better one?
"I've got the gold pips for your shoulder straps and the new collar patches with two chickens on them, too," Steinbrenner said. "I figured you'd rather put the Ritterkreuz on first, though."
"Uh, yes, sir," Rudel managed.
Something besides the medal sat in the box, too: a piece of paper. Unfolding it, Steinbrenner read, "'In recognition of Lieutenant Rudel's cleverness in suggesting the installation of antipanzer cannon on the Ju-87, and in recognition of his gallantry in personally testing the new weapons system against the enemy.' That's not a bad citation. No, not half bad." He stuck out his hand.
Hans-Ulrich shook it. "I never expected any of this," he muttered.
"Well, you've got it. Enjoy it." Steinbrenner's eyes twinkled. "And you get to buy everybody drinks twice-once for the promotion, and once for the Knight's Cross."
"Oh, joy." Now Hans-Ulrich's voice sounded distinctly hollow. That was an honor he could have done without. He'd be the only sober guy at a party-no, two parties-full of rowdy drunks. They'd get rowdy on his Reichsmarks, too, and it wasn't as if he were rolling in them.
"You could even unbend a little yourself," the squadron commander said. "It's not as if you haven't got a good excuse."
"I don't care to do that, sir, thank you." Rudel stayed within military discipline. He also stayed stubborn.
"Well, have it your way. You've earned the right this time." Colonel Steinbrenner, for once, didn't feel like arguing or teasing.
Hans-Ulrich could be stubborn about several things at the same time: a Renaissance man, of sorts. "You need to give Albert something, too," he said. "If we'd got hit, he'd be roast meat just like me."
Steinbrenner tapped another box on the table with the nail of his index finger. "Iron Cross, First Class. Does that suit you, your Excellency?"
Sarcasm went over Rudel's head as often as not. This time, his ears burned. "Yes, sir," he mumbled.
"Well, good. Now get out of here so I can pin it on him. He's due in"-Steinbrenner glanced at his watch-"six minutes."
Thus encouraged, Hans-Ulrich got. Sergeant Dieselhorst wasn't coming yet, which was good. If he saw the Knight's Cross, he'd figure he was in line for a medal, too. This way, it would be a surprise-and the nice kind of surprise, at that.
Several groundcrew men walked out of a revetment where they'd been working on a damaged Stuka. As usual, their chatter was two parts technical jargon, one part filth. One of them waved to Hans-Ulrich: not much spit and polish on a working air base. The wave came to a jerky stop when he saw the new medal at Rudel's throat. "Heilige Scheisse!" he said. "That's a Ritterkreuz!"