The Hunting Trip (27 page)

There, a number of people were looking at them. Some with tears running down their cheeks and others with cold hate in their eyes.

“Friends, coworkers, fellow dancers, and childhood friend Waldo Pfefferkopf, this is my beloved Philip, who I am now going to take to the bar in the Hotel Sacher, where I will discuss the details of our upcoming nuptials with him.”

She then picked up Heisse Wurst, who had been growling and gnawing at Phil's ankle during the passionate embrace, and then led Phil by the hand to the Hotel Sacher, which is right across the street from the stage door of the Vienna State Opera, and into the bar.

There she ordered a double Slivovitz, straight up, water on the side, and told the waiter to give Phil the same.

When the drinks were served, she tossed hers down.

“Well, that's the last of those I get for a while,” Brunhilde said. “Thanks to you and my stupidity.”

“Excuse me?”

“Women in the family way should not imbibe intoxicants,” Brunhilde said. “Why am I not surprised you don't know that?”

“I'll try to remember that in the future.”

“Or smoke cigars,” she added.

“You smoke cigars?” Phil blurted.

“Not any longer, I don't, thanks to you and my stupidity.” She saw the look on his face, and explained:

“I did a six months' tour with the Royal Danish Opera Ballet Company. That's in Denmark. Danish women smoke cigars. Even in public. I tried it and liked it and kept doing it. Not in public, of course. But that simple pleasure is gone for the next eight months, too, as women in the family way are discouraged from smoking cigars.”

“I see.”

“Let me tell you what's going to happen,” Brunhilde said. “I have a certain reputation here at the Vienna State Opera, where I have been dancing since I was six years old. I may be forced to leave the opera
because I allowed my emotions to overcome my usual good sense in Paris.

“That I did so is understandable, of course. After you kicked that first
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Frenchman in his
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and then the second
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Frenchman in the ear and took that wicked knife away from him and then took me to your suite in the George V, I got a good look at you in the light and thought with a little training you might be able to become a premier danseur yourself—”

“You thought I might become a male ballet dancer?” Phil asked incredulously.

“Why not? They're not all
poofters
, you know. Half of the ones in the Corps de Ballet here have been trying—and failing—to get in my pants since I was twelve, which was when my bosom started to blossom.”

“That's very interesting.”

“If we are to be man and wife and march down life's path together, you're going to have to understand that you're not permitted to interrupt me when I'm talking. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“As I was saying, it was understandable that I threw caution to the wind in the George V. My pearl of great price was going to have to go eventually, I knew, most probably to Waldo Pfefferkopf, my childhood friend, who's been trying to get in my pants since I was six, so why not have a trial run, so to speak, with a decent-looking American rich enough to keep a suite in the George V . . .”

“Brunhilde, I'm not rich.”

“What?
Mein Gott!
Just when you think things are as bad as they can get, they get worse!”

“Actually, I'm a technical sergeant in the U.S. Army.”

“Ach du lieber Gott!”

“Who will, however, soon be a first lieutenant.”

“Whoopee! I could tell you, but won't, how many lieutenant colonels and up of various armies have tried unsuccessfully to get in my pants.”

“Thank you for not sharing that information with me.”

“Shut up, my Philip, while I finish telling you what's going to happen and why.”

“Yes, Brunhilde.”

“I realized that my stupidity in allowing my lust to overwhelm my common sense was going to make me leave the Vienna Opera in shame and go God only knows where with a none-too-bright American, but then I thought there was a way around the shame part.

“I publicly admit that I threw myself into your arms—your arms, not your bed—because I had been struck with Cupid's arrow. They understand things like that in Vienna. There is a strong Hungarian ambience here, and God knows Hungarian women are always throwing themselves at some jackass because they think they're in love.”

“I don't quite understand.”

“Then shut up and I'll tell you. What I have told everybody, including my childhood friend Waldo Pfefferkopf, is that I have been struck by Cupid's arrow and am about to throw away everything I hold dear by marrying you, an American
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who hates opera, the ballet, and insists on taking me to Texas.

“They will—already do, as a matter of fact—hate you, but I will be able to leave behind the image of a poor girl who couldn't help herself, instead of the image of a stupid female who couldn't control her lust. Get it?”

“Got it.”

“And since we'll be far away from my beloved Vienna when our
child is born, and we're a little vague about exactly when that happened, no one will be able to count the months from the date of our marriage to the date of my delivery and conclude that I wasn't entitled to the virginal white wedding dress I will wear tomorrow. Got it?”

“Got it.”

—

The result of this
was the next day Brunhilde Wienerwald and Philip Wallingford Williams III were united in civil matrimony by the presiding justice of the Austrian Supreme Court in the Supreme Court Building in Vienna.

The bride, who wore a virginal white dress with matching veil, wept through most of the ceremony. The presiding justice glowered at Phil throughout the ceremony. The guests, including the bride's childhood friend Waldo Pfefferkopf, wept throughout the ceremony and between sobs glowered at Phil.

As Mr. and Mrs. P. W. Williams came down the wide marble steps to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's rendition of “Treulich Geführt”—which means “Bridal Chorus,” from
Lohengrin
, Richard Wagner's masterpiece 1850 opera—delicate, scented tiny grains of rice were tossed at Brunhilde.

Baseball-sized balls of frozen rice wrapped around rocks were thrown at Phil.

—

The couple drove
from the Supreme Court Building to the Bristol Hotel so the bride could change out of her wedding dress into something more suitable for their honeymoon wedding trip, which would be their drive to Berlin.

Once they were in their room, the groom went quickly into the bathroom where, standing, he dealt with the problem that had bugged
him all though the wedding ceremony, while they were being showered with rice by the wedding guests, and on the drive to the Hotel Bristol.

This took a little time, and when he came out of the bathroom he expected to find Brunhilde already changed into the clothing she would wear as they drove to Berlin.

Instead, Brunhilde was lying on the bed, wearing only the most basic of black lace intimate undergarments and holding a rose from her wedding bouquet between her teeth.

He looked at her and she looked at him.

Finally, she took the rose out of her mouth.

“
Mein Gott
, didn't anyone ever tell you,
Dummkopf
, that a wedding isn't official until it's been consummated?”

Phil took her meaning, of course, but as he took off his clothing and joined her in bed he was sure, based on his bride's weeping throughout the ceremony, that the consummation would be brief and
pro forma.

He was wrong.

They didn't get out of bed except twice to eat room service oysters and have a bottle of champagne until shortly after 1 p.m. the next day.

Only when their nuptial oaths had been truly consummated again and again did they check out of the Hotel Bristol, get in the Cadillac, and head for Berlin, where Phil looked eagerly forward to their becoming First Lieutenant and Mrs. P. W. Williams, MI, USA, which he was sure would occur as soon they got to Berlin.

Time would quickly prove he was wrong about that, too.

XI

PHIL RETURNS TO AMERICA

[ ONE ]

Berlin, Germany

Friday, November 18, 1949

Y
ou did what?” Pastor-in-Chief Peter O'Shaughnessy asked incredulously when Phil informed him of his change in marital status.

Phil repeated that he was now man-and-wife with the former Brunhilde Wienerwald of the Vienna State Opera and was looking forward to his new life as a married man and commissioned officer and gentleman.

Colonel O'Shaughnessy momentarily forgot that commissioned officers and gentlemen are not supposed to use profane, vulgar, or indecent language when addressing subordinates who have in some way displeased them.

“You dumb
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, do you have any
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idea what you've done?”

“Sir, I just told you what I've done.”

“What I meant, you stupid
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, is do you know what that means?”

“Until just now, sir, I thought that Mrs. Williams and myself could move into company grade officers' quarters to await my new assignment and the birth of my first child.”

“Oh, have I got news for you!”

“Yes, sir?”

“Well, for one thing, anyone who is dumb enough to marry a
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indigenous person can forget becoming a commissioned officer and gentleman.”

“Why is that, sir?”

“Because commissioned officers and gentlemen are required—and it makes sense if you think about it—to have at least a Confidential security clearance. What security clearances did you say you had?”

“Sir, I have a run-of-the-mill Top Secret security clearance. And also a Top Secret-Honorable Peters security clearance, so that I can deal with the CIA. And a Top Secret-Sexual security clearance.”

“The operative word there, you stupid
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DELETED!!
is ‘had,' meaning past tense. Which means you can say
auf Wiedersehen
to your run-of-the-mill Top Secret security clearance and your Top Secret-Honorable Peters security clearance, and of course your Top Secret-Sexual security clearance.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And do you know what that means, about to be ex CIC Special Agent Williams,
vis-à-vis
your CIC career?”

“No, sir, I don't.”

“You can kiss that goodbye, too. You were booted out of the CIC as of the moment you said, ‘I do.'”

“I'm sorry to hear that, sir. What happens to me now?”

“First, give me your CIC credentials and badge and your U.S.
Pistol, Cal. 45 ACP 1911A1. And the shoulder holster that goes with the latter.”

“Yes, sir,” Phil said, and laid everything on Colonel O'Shaughnessy's desk.

“Since you are now, at least for the moment, Technical Sergeant Williams, really out of uniform, since you are wearing civilian clothing, and are no longer a CIC special agent authorized to wear civilian clothing.”

“I will change into my uniform just as soon as the opportunity to do so presents itself, sir.”

“You will do so now,” Colonel O'Shaughnessy said, “by going into the Enlisted Latrine, not the Officers' and Civilian Gentlemen's Restroom. Report back here to me when you have done so.”

—

Phil changed into
his uniform and reported to Colonel O'Shaughnessy when he had done so.

“While you were gone, Technical Sergeant Williams,” the colonel greeted him, “I had the opportunity to speak with the Honorable Ralph Peters on the secure radio telephone circuit about your unbelievable
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stupidity. He said to tell you that he is deeply disappointed in you. He said you should have learned what kind of lower-class amoral women ballet dancers are from your duties as editor in chief of the German-American Gospel Tract Foundation, and because you married a ballet dancer, he has been forced to revise his previously stated opinion
vis-à-vis
your future with the CIA.

“He said, and I quote, ‘We have some really stupid people in the agency, but so far none of them has been so
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stupid as to marry a
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Viennese ballerina, and I am not
going to be responsible for bringing the first one through those plate glass doors at the main entrance to Langley.'”

“Yes, sir,” Phil said. “I am sorry to have disappointed Colonel Caldwell, excuse me, the Honorable Ralph Peters.”

“And you should be. And he said for you to give me the keys to the Cadillac. He said he knew all along that he should have sold it to me for a dollar because he knew I wasn't the kind of person to be so
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stupid as to marry a
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ballet dancer and you had already shown a penchant for doing stupid things such as going steeplechase racing with a naked woman on a Clydesdale.”

“Yes, sir,” Phil said. “I understand the former pastor-in-charge's reasoning.”

He handed Colonel O'Shaughnessy the keys to the Cadillac.

“You better fill it up as soon as you can, sir,” Phil said. “It's almost on empty.”

“I'll take that under advisement, even knowing that I shouldn't pay a whole lot of attention to any advice offered by someone who has displayed such monumental
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stupidity.”

“Yes, sir. Just take it for what it's worth.”

“Let me tell you what happens now, Technical Sergeant Williams. Your luggage and your Viennese ballet dancer will be unloaded from my Cadillac and into a truck, three-quarter-ton four-by-four, which Berlin Brigade has provided. Orders are in the process of being cut relieving you under dishonorable conditions from the Thirty-third CIC and assigning you to the Replacement Company of Berlin Brigade.

“On your arrival there—because we are Americans and believe that no one, not even a miserable
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like you, is guilty until proven guilty in a court-martial—you and your
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ballet dancer will be housed in transient noncommissioned officers' quarters.

“Don't make yourselves too comfy, because the first thing tomorrow morning a board of officers will convene to decide your fate. I wouldn't be at all surprised if by this time tomorrow you will be Recruit Williams, pay grade E-1, making little rocks out of big ones in the Berlin Brigade Stockade Wing of Spandau Prison.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are dismissed, soon-to-be-ex-Technical Sergeant Williams.”

—

Brunhilde surprised Phil
—as much as she had surprised him by appearing in the bed, dressed as she was in the Hotel Bristol—by refusing his offer of taking all the money he had and going back to Vienna.

“The wording was ‘for better or worse,'” Brunhilde said. “Weren't you listening? The least I can do is stick around until they tell you how many years you'll be making little rocks out of big ones before I have to go back to Vienna and try to support myself while waiting for our child to be born in shame by standing in the rain in front of my beloved Wiener Staatsoper and selling pencils out of a tin cup.”

She could not be dissuaded from her decision.

Phil was later to learn, over the many years of their marriage, that she rarely could be dissuaded from any decision she made.

—

The next morning,
as Phil waited for whoever was going to drag him from the transient noncommissioned officers' quarters to wherever he was to be court-martialed, there came a knock at the door.

When he opened it, a second lieutenant of the Quartermaster Corps was standing there. Phil saw that he was wearing a ring identifying him as a graduate of the United States Military Academy.

He announced: “I am Second Lieutenant J. Thomas Smith, Junior, Technical Sergeant Williams, and I have been appointed your defense
counsel. We don't have time, as the court is on its way here, so very quickly, my legal advice is for you to plead guilty and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.”

Phil opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, the door burst open and a captain of infantry wearing the insignia of an aide-de-camp to a brigadier general burst into the room and called, “Atten-hut!”

Then a brigadier general entered the room, followed by a full colonel and a lieutenant colonel of the Judge Advocate General's Corps, a lieutenant colonel of the Quartermaster Corps, a lieutenant colonel of Military Police, a Corps lieutenant colonel of the Adjutant General's Corps, and half a dozen assorted field grade officers of various combat arms and technical services, half a dozen company grade officers of various combat arms and services, and four MPs, all enlisted men.

The company grade officers were immediately ordered from the room to find enough suitable furniture for a court-martial and enough chairs for everybody.

Finally, this was accomplished.

“If I may have your attention, gentlemen,” the brigadier general said. “And yours, too, Technical Sergeant-for-the-moment Williams. This is my understanding of the situation. The senior Judge Advocate General's Corps officer, the colonel, will call the court to order. The next senior Judge Advocate General's Corps officer, the lieutenant colonel who will be serving as prosecutor, will read the charges. Technical Sergeant Williams will enter his plea of guilty or not guilty. The evidence will be heard. The board will debate. The board will then announce their decision of guilty as charged. The senior Judge Advocate General's Corps officer—the colonel—will pronounce the sentence, which I don't think should go so far as hanging but should be pretty stiff, considering what the accused has done.

“The MPs will then haul the prisoner off to Spandau, and you all can get back to your duties, and I can go meet my wife at the golf course. Any questions?”

No one had any questions.

“I will now leave the room and wait outside,” the Berlin Brigade commanding general concluded, “as there are a bunch of
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pantywaists who would accuse me, if I stayed, of exercising undue command influence on this court-martial.”

He then left.

—

The Proceedings
proceeded to the part where the board president called upon the prosecutor to read the charges.

“May it please the court,” the prosecutor said. “We have a small problem
vis-à-vis
reading the charges.”

“Which is?”

“I can't find anything in the Uniform Code of Military Justice 1948 that makes getting married a violation of military law to the detriment of good military order and discipline and punishable by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.”

“Not only do I find that hard to believe,” the JAGC colonel said, “but the general's not going to like it.”

“Your Honor, I went over that
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UCMJ 1948 for hours. Until the wee hours, as a matter of fact. There's just nothing there.”

“Perhaps you didn't know where to look. Somebody get me a copy of the UCMJ 1948.”

This was done. The senior JAGC officer examined it very carefully. Twice.

“I'll be a
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, you're right. There's not a
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DELETED!!
thing in here that makes getting married to a
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ballet dancer a
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misdemeanor, much less a
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high crime, which is what we need here.”

The senior JAGC officer then pointed at Second Lieutenant J. Thomas Smith, Jr., and said, “Go tell the general what you found in the UCMJ 1948 that will allow this court to send the accused you are defending to Spandau.”

“Sir, there's nothing in the UCMJ 1948 that will allow us . . . you . . . to send Technical Sergeant Williams to Spandau.”

“You tell the general that, Lieutenant. Perhaps because of your youth, he'll show you some compassion.”