Lincoln’s chuckle belied his protestations. “I’ve got another piece of news for you,” he said. “John Nicholas Brown and Mason Hammond are arriving tomorrow. I thought you might like to see them before you return to Hohenfurth.”
“You told me once that Captain Posey, like many another officer, doesn’t relish visitors from higher headquarters,” I said. “Am I to infer a connection between his absence from the office and the impending arrival of these two distinguished emissaries from the Group Control Council?”
He assured me that I was not, but I left the office wondering about it all the same.
That evening George Stout paid one of his rare and fleeting visits to Munich. On these occasions he stayed either with Craig or Ham Coulter. This time the four of us—all “strays” from the Navy—gathered in Ham’s quarters.
“The work at the mine,” George said, “is going along as rapidly as can be expected in the circumstances. But it’s got to be stepped up. I came down to find out how soon you could join me.”
“I’m going back to Hohenfurth again,” I said. “Lamont Moore is to meet me there.”
George was glad to hear this and said that he and Lamont had worked together at the Siegen mine in Westphalia. He confirmed all of the good things Lincoln had told me about Lamont and said that he’d like to have both of us at Alt Aussee. He promised to have a talk with Posey about it, because he was of the opinion that these big evacuation jobs should be handled by a team rather than by a single officer. According to George, a team of at least three—and preferably four—officers would be the perfect setup. Then the work could be divided up. Each officer would have specific duties, assigned to him on the basis of his particular talents. But all members of the team would have responsibilities of equal importance. It would be teamwork in the real sense of the term.
Like all of George’s proposals, this one sounded very sensible. At the same time, when I recalled the haphazard way I had been obliged to conduct operations thus far myself, I wondered if it weren’t Utopian. That didn’t discourage George. When he had a good idea he never let go of it. And, if we had only been a larger group, I am convinced that his brain child about teams would have had wonderful results. As it was, the events of the next few weeks were to demonstrate how effective the scheme was on a small scale.
When I got out to Third Army Headquarters the next morning, George had already come and gone. I would have liked to ask Posey about their conversation but he didn’t seem to be in a chatty mood—at least not on that subject. However, he did have a few caustic things to say about “people from high headquarters who have nothing better to do than travel around and interrupt the work of others.”