We whiled away a couple of hours at the club before the colonel said that we should be starting back. I hoped that we would be in time to pay our respects to the phantom duchess, but the clock in the square was striking twelve when we rumbled through the empty streets of Rosenberg. It had begun to rain again.
At six the next morning, I looked sleepily out the window. It was still raining. We would have a slow trip unless the weather cleared, and I thought apprehensively of the steep road leading into Linz. Fresh eggs—instead of the usual French toast—and two cups of black coffee brightened my outlook on the soggy morning and I was further cheered to find the convoy smartly lined up like a row of circus elephants when I reached the monastery at seven-thirty. Leclancher had taken the lead truck and the ailing Roger was bundled up in the cab of one of the others.
Dr. Mutter waved agitated farewells from beneath the ribs of a tattered umbrella as we slid slowly down the monastery drive. At the corner of the main street of the village we picked up our escort, two armed jeeps. They conducted us to the border where we gathered in two similar vehicles which would set the pace for us into Linz. The bad weather was in one respect an advantage: there was practically no traffic on the road.
At Linz I stopped long enough to thank Anderson and his colonel for the escort vehicles they had produced on a moment’s notice that morning in response to a call from Colonel Sheehan. This third pair of jeeps were very conscientious about their escort duties. The one in the vanguard kept well in the lead and would signal us whenever he came to a depression in the road. This got on Leclancher’s nerves, for I heard him muttering under his breath every time it happened. But I was so glad to have an escort of any kind that I pretended not to notice his irritation.
When we reached Lambach, midway between Linz and Salzburg, we lost this pair of guardians but acquired two sent on from the latter city. While waiting for them to appear, I scrounged lunch for myself and the drivers at a local battery. As soon as the new escorts arrived we started on again and pulled into Salzburg at two-thirty. This time there were no delays and we threaded our way through the dripping streets and out on to the Autobahn without mishap.
I now had only one remaining worry—the bad detour near Rosenheim. Again, perhaps thanks to the weather, we were in luck and found this treacherous by-pass free of traffic. As we rolled into Munich, the rain let up and by the time we turned into the Königsplatz, the sun had broken through the clearing skies.
My first major evacuation job was finished. As soon as I got my drivers fixed up with transportation back to their camp and the members of our escort party fed and billeted I could relax with a clear conscience. It was a little after five-thirty, and Third Army’s inflexible habits about the hour at which all enlisted men should eat didn’t make this problem such an easy one. Third Army Headquarters was a good twenty minutes away, so I took the men to the Military Government Detachment where the meal schedule was more elastic. Afterward I shepherded them to their billets and went off to my own. I would have to write up a report of the expedition for Captain Posey, but that could wait.