Disclaimer: I do not own the RatPatrol or profit from writing.
Summary: A short piece on what happened after Dietrich's superior realized Operation Diamond really was just about baseball.
Author's Note: I corrected a few things in here after a guest pointed it out to me. Thank you!
Dietrich tried his best to contain his laughter. He realized the situation wasn't very funny to the very nervous and flustered man on the phone. After all, the Oberst was probably going to be demoted for this. But it did serve him right. Dietrich had tried to tell him, but he simply had not listened. Instead the Oberst Bauer had ordered all the cryptologists to drop whatever they were doing and focus on decoding "Operation Diamond." The cryptologists had wasted over a month trying to figure out what it all meant. Every time any of them endeavored to tell the Oberst it wasn't code for anything, he just waved them off and told them to try harder. You certainly couldn't deny the fact the man had the demotion coming to him. Besides, a lot worse could have happened to him. It was lucky for him Rommel had gotten wind of this mishap before anyone else. Lucky for Dietrich, too. Dietrich winced whenever he thought about "Operation Diamond." He was sure the Rat Patrol had laughed their heads off at him. Oh, well. Live and learn.
After Bauer had finally come to the realization the Rat Patrol had pulled a fast one on him, he had summoned Dietrich to him, and proceeded to berate him thoroughly.
"Why didn't you look at the plans after you had taken them? How could one man be such a dummkopf as to do something like that? Because of you, several of our ammunition dumps were destroyed because the cryptology department was occupied trying to decode baseball plan," he spit these last words out. "We were supposed to destroy their ammo dump, not the other way around!"
"Well, Sir, I did try to..." Dietrich began.
"Quiet!" he snapped.
They were interrupted by Bauer's aide.
"Excuse me, Sir. Sorry to bother you, but..."
"Then don't. Can't you see I'm talking to someone right now?"
"More like yelling," Dietrich thought, wryly.
"I understand that, Sir," the aide squeaked out, "But this is important."
"I'm doing something important right now. Do you have eyes in your head?"
"Yes, of course, Sir. But Field Marshall Rommel is on the line."
He grabbed the phone. "Well, why didn't you say so, dummkopf?" he glared at his young aide.
The aide glanced helplessly at Dietrich. Dietrich shrugged his shoulders and gave him a sympathetic glance. Perhaps he would ask for this man to become his aide. Schneider did his best, which Dietrich greatly appreciated, but Schneider was more cut out for combat, not filing and writing reports.
Meanwhile on the phone, Rommel was reprimanding Bauer quite soundly. The Oberst was literally shaking. He started to stutter and muttered intelligible monosyllabic answers to the Field Marshall's rhetorical questions. Dietrich could hear the shouting.
"How could you be such a dummkopf? Even after you were told several times from several different people it wasn't a secret plan, you wasted one month of valuable work trying to decode a baseball strategy announcement." Rommel's voice conveyed his disgust.
Dietrich snorted upon hearing this. The aide went so far as to emit a full out chuckle. He was rewarded by a fierce glare. He quickly stopped mid-chuckle, but glanced at Dietrich and winked.
"Y-y-yes, Sir. N-n-no, Sir. This won't happen again. Yes, Sir, that was very generous of you. Thank you, Sir. Goodbye." Bauer set down the phone and buried his head in his hands. "What am I going to do?" he groaned. "My wife's going to kill me. My family is going to be so disgraced." He looked up. "You may go." he told Dietrich. "You, too," he nodded towards the aide.
Dietrich nodded and got up to leave. He turned back.
"What did the Field Marshall say?"
Bauer sighed, "He told me this had better never happen again and that I should be grateful he didn't demote me to Hauptmann. Instead, he only demoted me to Major. Is that all?"
Dietrich nodded and opened the door to leave.
"Oh, and one more thing, Dietrich. You won't mention this to anyone, will you?"
"You can depend on me, Sir." Dietrich leaned forward and lowered his voice. "But don't you think most everybody knows already?"
The Oberst, er, Major buried his face in his hands again. "I'll never show my face again," he groaned.
Dietrich wisely decided to leave. He felt slightly bad for the man, but only slightly. He laughed all the way back to his base.