We rolled over the rough cobblestones onto the bridge. I saw the gleaming helmet liners of the new escort awaiting us as we drew up to the center of the span. I motioned to one of our new guardians that we would stop at the first convenient place on the other side.
We were such a long convoy that I thought we’d be halfway through Linz before our escort directed us to pull over to the curb. There we unloaded the Mutter family and their luggage. The doctor and his wife were tearfully grateful and the little girl smiled her thanks.
I was feeling relaxed and happy and wanted to share my relief with someone, so I suggested to Lamont that we pay our respects to the colonel who had warned us not to come through Linz. It was a letdown to find only a warrant officer in the colonel’s anteroom. But he remembered us and was surprised to see us again. He said we had been lucky; the latest news was that the Russians would move up to the opposite side of the Danube by noon. We left appropriate messages for the colonel and his adjutant, returned to our trucks and headed west toward Lambach.
As on the previous trip, the escort turned back at that point. A new one—this time an impressive array of six armed jeeps—shepherded us from there. We stopped for lunch with a Corps of Engineers outfit of the 11th Armored Division on the outskirts of Schwannenstadt. The C.O., Major Allen, and his executive officer, Captain Myers, welcomed us as warmly as if we had been commanding generals instead of a motley crew of eighteen French drivers, plus twelve “noncoms” from the escorting jeeps—a total of thirty-two, including Lamont and me. We doled out K rations to our four packers, for we couldn’t take civilians into an Army mess.
After lunch I telephoned ahead to Salzburg to ask for an escort from there to Munich, requesting that it meet us on the edge of town, east of the river. The weather had cleared, and drying patches of water on the road reflected a blue sky. By the time we had sighted Salzburg it was actually hot. As we rolled into the outskirts we were enveloped in clouds of dust from the steady procession of military vehicles. We waited in vain for our new escort. After an hour we decided to proceed without one. I didn’t like the idea very much, but it was getting on toward five o’clock, and we wanted to reach Munich in time for supper. We fell far short of our goal, being forced to stop once because of a flat tire, and a second time because of carburetor trouble. These two delays cost us close to two hours. At seven o’clock we halted by the placid waters of Chiemsee and ate cold C rations in an idyllic setting. It was after nine when we lumbered into the parking area behind the Gargantuan depot at the Königsplatz. Lamont and I had twin objectives—hot baths and bed. It didn’t take us long to achieve both!
We had had every intention of making an early start the next morning, not so much because of any blind faith in Benjamin Franklin’s precepts, but simply because they stopped serving breakfast in the Third Army mess shortly before eight o’clock. In fact, the first thing one saw on entering the mess hall was a large placard which stated peremptorily, “The mess will be cleared by 0800. By order of the Commanding General.” And such was Third Army discipline—we had a different name for it—that the mess hall was completely devoid of life on the stroke of eight.
It was a little after seven when I woke up. Lamont was still dead to the world, so I shaved and dressed before waking him. There was a malevolent gleam in his eyes when he finally opened them. He asked frigidly, “Are you always so infernally cheerful at this hour of the morning?” I told him not to confuse cheerfulness with common courtesy, and mentioned the peculiar breakfast habits of the Third Army.
We arrived at the mess hall with a few minutes to spare. The sergeant at the entrance asked to see our mess cards. We had none but I explained that we were attached to the headquarters.
“Temporary duty?” he asked.