Disclaimer.
As much as I'd like it to be so, these characters don't belong to me, but to Combat! and Selmur Productions, ABC, and Image Productions. I get no monetary compensation for my work.
Captain Walter Smith waited for his charge to be brought back from Trois Anges. He didn't have much to do. He was tired of pacing the floor and he didn't want to annoy the radio man, again. Since the young MP seemed to need his sleep and was doing exactly that, he wouldn't have felt right waking up the kid just for some conversation.
He moved and heard a slight rustle from a pocket. He reached in and pulled out a few pieces of folded paper. He opened up one, the note from Eleanora. Damn, as if he needed that little reminder. Another, the set of orders that he did his best to follow, the colonel's interpretation not withstanding. The third, the note from his friend Nathan Oliver. The note that set him on this assignment.
It should have been so simple. Nothing he hadn't done before.
[In keeping with Combat! flashback tradition, imagine a harp glissando and some wavery visual effects if you wish.]
xxxxx
Assignment
Major Nathan Oliver looked around the bustling room. Who could handle this hot potato? A captain walked across his field of view, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, a sheaf of papers in the other. Walter. Perfect.
"Captain Smith?"
"Yes, Major?"
"Come into my office." The major said with a grin as he gestured back behind him, towards a desk hiding under stacks of papers, maps, and markers. A scuffed helmet served as an ad hoc paperweight. A field telephone occupied the one place on the desk free of paper. Oliver often thought war would be so much easier without all this paperwork in quadtriplicate or whatever the number of copies the Army, in its infinite wisdom, deemed essential.
Smith smiled and setting his papers and cup on his own relatively neat desk, headed over towards the major. When he got to Oliver's desk, he asked, "What can I do for you, sir?"
Major Oliver sorted through the stack of papers, grabbed one along with a Michelin road map and said, "Let's go for a little walk. Grab your coffee if you want. I'd hate for it to get cold."
The two men walked out of the busy room in companionable silence into a quieter area. As they walked, the major asked, "Are you working on anything urgent?"
Smith said, "Right now, nothing that needs a fine touch or is secret. Anyone here could do the work. Mostly general announcements to the Wehrmacht troops. Stale, at that."
"A waste to put you on it. Why you aren't in G2 is beyond me." Before the captain could say anything, Oliver held up his hand. "Nope, it's true." He said, "I'm pulling you off whatever you're doing."
"Walter, this just came in from Division." He handed Smith the paper, then the map. "It's high priority."
Smith looked up from scanning the flimsy. "So, couldn't find anyone else?" he said with a bit of a smile.
"You're the perfect man. You speak French like a native and are used to dealing with, um, personalities." Some of the information the major had been given was strictly off the record, that was all he felt he could pass on to his friend. Walter was probably going to kill him when he got back from this assignment.
Oliver went on, "You're replacing someone who was taken ill. You're to go back to Division. Report to Colonel Barker. He has your orders, and details on the mission. You'll be gone for about a week or so, so pack and get going."
"Anything else you can tell me, Nathan?" Walter knew there was more. They'd grown up together, even double-dated back in college, but after that, earning a living sent the two friends to different parts of the country. They kept in touch, but hadn't seen each other in years, yet here they were. The winds of war had blown them together in France.
"No. Nothing I'm at liberty to say. They wanted somebody that can speak the lingo. Someone that can get along with just about anyone. And you're the best man I know."
"Why, thanks, I think." Smith tucked the paper into a pocket and started to hand back the map.
"Keep the map. Pick up a vehicle. All the paperwork you need will be waiting for you at the motor pool." The major thought for a moment. "You have anything else going on?"
"Somebody just dumped a bunch of requisitions on my desk. Which is not what I do. You'll need to re-route them. Or I can hand them all to Adams. He seems like he doesn't have a lot to do." Adams was lazy, in Smith's opinion.
The major scowled. "Those requisitions were assigned to Adams." He was going to have a little heart-to-heart with that young idiot.
"No, we'll go by your desk. Give everything to me. I'll deal with the lieutenant." Dead wood, Adams was. He gave 90-day wonders a bad name. The man would never be a first lieutenant unless the entire officer corps was wiped out first. Adams spent most of his time figuring out how to weasel out of work. Oliver wished he could send the 2nd looey to a combat unit, but that would be disastrous for anyone under his command.
It was time to send the captain on his way, but Oliver couldn't send him off without a small caution. "Colonel Barker, rear echelon staff man, all the way. Reinterprets orders to suit himself."
"What are you saying?" Smith asked.
"Nothing solid, but he has a reputation. He would have been retired long ago, as a captain, but the war came along. Promotion sometimes come easy if you are good with paperwork." "The only time I've ever seen him was at some big staff conference back in England. I wouldn't have even remembered him but he has a line of bluster. Full of himself."
The major stuck out his hand, "All right, Walter. Good luck." The friends shook. "Not sure where all you're going, but come back in one piece." Oliver added, "Watch yourself. Not everyone over here in France loves us. Even those who say they are our friends."
"You know it." Smith smiled. "I'd better get packed. You know how those boys in the rear hate to be kept waiting.
"Oh, Captain," Oliver said, before Smith had taken more than a step away.
"Yes, sir?"
"Don't forget a tie. They take spit and polish a bit more seriously back there."
As Smith stuffed some things in a pack, he wondered what the mission could be. It involved difficult personalities. He understood well what Nathan was implying.
He checked his side arm and put it in his holster. Tucking his garrison cap in his belt, he grabbed his bag and stuck his helmet on his head. Squared away, he headed to the motor pool and off to Division.