Behind Hitler's Lines Read Online Free PDF Page B

she was off-limits! He was quarantined! Something had to be done, and it was for Joe and Orv to help him do it, as Keystones were reveling in pubs once the preserve of Currahees, buying drinks for Blue girls. Only two factors worked in favor of the paratroopers: for the legs, new acquaintances had not yet taken firm hold, and the 28th Division also had a full schedule of training and maneuvers. Ifcertain pubs could be denied to them, the thirty-day quarantine would expire before the fairest of Wiltshire were won over by Pennsylvanian treachery.
    Joe and Orv consulted Duber, who, though he had a wife in the States, was courting a lady of Swindon and was said to be engaged to her. As in his fishing technique, Duber believed in demolition solutions. The quarantine called for smoke grenades. Designed to guide resupply parachute drops and air strikes, they produced voluminous smoke in a variety of colors. The Keystone color was red, but Duber felt green would be better—the signal to go (and don't come back). He directed that Orv, Jack, and Joe hit three pubs simultaneously. They knew the proprietors and felt bad about anonymous bombing, but when Keystones piled out of every door and window, that was compensation. The girls, now changing hands again, were initially angry, suspecting Blues and no one else. But a short time healed. Bray's lover was the first to forgive and led a movement back to the paratroopers.
    Joe had been a reluctant smoke grenadier, but to support his tripod of buddies he'd joined the fray. For a GI, Joe was more serious than most, while Jack was the leading fun lover. He had fun training, and fun afterward, and he thought even war would be fun. Joe hadn't had much fun in his life except with family and in athletics. Coming at fun from different directions drew them together.
    Orv fit somewhere in between. He'd had a serious girlfriend back home and wrote to her steadily, but she jilted him before the 101st went overseas. That was as serious a tragedy for Joe as when his sister had died of scarlet fever. He and Jack mourned with Orv, trying to direct him toward local girls but mostly watching him because they cringed to see him change very much, as vicariously they were much a part of him, sharers of experiences and what was to come. Joe, Jack, and Orv were a trinity, three in one and one in three. There were pairs like that and a few quartets—the largest such group a squad of twelve—with overlapping bonds of different strength and codependence.
    The communication squad of company headquarters waswhere the three worked under Sergeant Todd, closely integrated with officers. Because of his build and stamina, Joe carried Captain Shettle's radio, a forty-pound SCR 300, plus a small walkie-talkie. Joe knew his job and liked it for keeping him Best Informed about I Company in the field. Being around headquarters also kept him current with the concerns of Wolverton, Sink, and even some of the commanding general, Maxwell Taylor. What concerned them all was lack of jump training. Scarce aviation fuel was the reason, and balloons became an expedient, “barrage” balloons levitating all over Great Britain to snarl German bombers.
    It was widely though not officially recognized that Joe had done a lot more parachuting than most paratroopers. Back in Georgia he had jumped illicitly for others who were afraid that a bad landing would result in injury that could put them out of the Airborne, reducing them to legs. Such worriers paid Joe five bucks per proxy, a reward for what he would have done for free because he loved to jump. Impersonation at Fort Benning was easy because jumpers had only numbers on their helmets, not name tapes on their chests.
    Joe made over a hundred dollars that way till his shambling gait became familiar to the parachute-school cadre (not part of the 506th). One day a cadre jumpmaster consulted his manifest, stopped in front of Joe, and asked if he had a brother going through the school. Joe