uncomfortable.
The loadmaster came to get us thirty minutes before takeoff.
We filed out onto the tarmac and walked up the ramp into the
belly of the plane. There was a long line of cargo pallets in
the centre bay. We sat on webbing jump seats with our backs
to the fuselage wall. On the whole I figured I preferred the first-class section on Air France. The Transportation Corps
doesn’t have stewardesses and it doesn’t brew in-flight coffee.
We took off a little late, heading west into the wind. Then we
turned a slow one-eighty over D.C. and struck out east. I felt the
movement. There were no windows, but I knew we were above
the city. Joe was down there somewhere, sleeping.
The fuselage wall was very cold at altitude so we all leaned
forward with our elbows on our knees. It was too noisy to talk. I
stared at a pallet of tank ammunition until my vision blurred
and I fell back to sleep. It wasn’t comfortable, but one thing you
learn in the army is how to sleep anywhere. I woke up maybe
ten times and spent most of the trip in a state of suspended
animation. The roar of the engines and the rush of the slipstream
helped induce it. It was relatively restful. It was about
sixty per cent as good as being in bed.
We were in the air nearly eight hours before we started our
initial descent. There was no intercom. No cheery message
from the pilot. Just a change in the engine note and a downward
lurching movement and a sharp sensation in the ears. All
around me people were standing up and stretching. Summer
had her back flat against an ammunition crate, rubbing like a
cat. She looked pretty good. Her hair was too short to get
messy and her eyes were bright. She looked determined, like
she knew she was heading for doom or glory and was resigned
to not knowing which.
We all sat down again and held tight to the webbing for
the landing. The wheels touched down and the reverse thrust
howled, and the brakes jammed on tight. The pallets jerked
forward against their straps. Then the engines cut back and we
taxied a long way and stopped. The ramp came down and a dim
dusk sky showed through the hole. It was five o’clock in the
271
afternoon in Germany, six hours ahead of the east coast, one
hour ahead of Zulu time. I was starving. I had eaten nothing
since the burger in Sperryville the previous day. Summer and I
stood up and grabbed our bags and got in line. Shuffled down
the ramp with the others and out onto the tarmac. The weather
was cold. It felt pretty much the same as North Carolina.
We were way out in the restricted military corner of
the Frankfurt airport. We took a personnel bus to the public
terminal. After that we were on our own. Some of the other guys
had transport waiting, but we didn’t. We joined a bunch of
civilians in the taxi line. Shuffled up, one by one. When our turn
came we gave the driver a travel voucher and told him to drive
us east to XII Corps. He was happy enough to comply. He could
swap the voucher for hard currency at any U.S. post and I was
certain he would pick up a couple of XII Corps guys going out
into Frankfurt for a night on the town. No deadheading. No
empty running. He was making a living off of the U.S. Army,
just like plenty of Germans had for four and a half decades. He
was driving a Mercedes-Benz.
The trip took thirty minutes. We drove east through suburbs.
They looked like a lot of West German places. There were vast
tracts of pale honey buildings built back in the fifties. The new
neighbourhoods ran west to east in random curving shapes,
following the routes the bombers had followed. No nation ever
lost a war the way Germany lost. Like everyone I had seen the
pictures taken in 1945. Defeat was not a big enough word. Armageddon would be better. The whole country had been