Death and Honor

[ONE]

Senior German Officer Prisoner of War Detention Facility Camp Clinton, Mississippi 0915 6 August 1943

It had been a thirty-minute drive in a 1941 Chevrolet Army staff car from Jackson Army Air Base to the POW camp, down a narrow macadam road that cut through the loblolly pine trees of rural central Mississippi.

When they got close to the base—signs on what had been a farmer’s fence read KEEP OUT! U.S. GOVERNMENT PROPERTY—Frade started looking for the barbed-wire fences and observation towers of a POW camp. There were none.

Their driver turned off of the macadam onto a rutted red clay road, and two hundred yards down that saw a guard shack in the center of the road manned by a pair of armed MPs in uniform. A curved sign erected over the shack read PRISONER OF WAR CAMP. Below that, in smaller letters, it said CLINTON, MISSISSIPPI, and below that was a square sign reading, VISITING PROHIBITED.

Frade noted that now there was a single coil of concertina marking the perimeter.

“Not much barbed wire,” he observed aloud as the staff car pulled to a stop at the guard shack.

“Yeah,” Fischer said. “Why is that?”

“Where are they going to go if they escape?” Graham replied. “This is the middle of nowhere. The wire’s more of a psychological barrier; it serves as a reminder of where they are.”

One of the guards in the shack came out, looked into the car, and then sort of came to attention and saluted. Graham was in uniform, as was Fischer, who was riding in the front seat.

Frade was annoyed: If a Marine saluted a full bull colonel that sloppily, he’d find himself suddenly practicing the rendering of the hand salute for the next two weekends.

“We’re expected,” Graham said as he returned the salute.

“Yes, sir,” the guard said, and walked to a counterbalanced striped barrier pole and raised it. Then he gestured somewhat impatiently for the staff car to pass.

Five hundred yards from the gate was a copse of trees and beyond that another fence. It was a standard chain-link fence that looked as if it belonged in someone’s backyard and might, Clete thought, pose a problem for a six-year-old to climb over.

Inside the fence line were small groups of German officers, perhaps two dozen men in all, apparently out for a morning stroll.

“The little one with the big nose,” Graham offered, “is General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, who has the dubious distinction of having surrendered the Afrikakorps.”

Frade found General von Arnim—who wore a khaki uniform and had his hands folded on his back—marching purposefully over the sparse grass, trailed by four other officers.

Graham went on: “He’s not looking at us, of course, but I’m sure he’s wondering what’s going on. By now, he knows we’ve taken Frogger from the general population.”

“He’s not the only one wondering what’s going on,” Clete said. “Are you going to tell me what I’m supposed to do? Or am I supposed to wing it?”

“Actually, Major Frade, I’ve given the question of how you should handle this a good deal of thought. If I knew what you should do, I’d tell you. But I don’t know. I could tell you to wing it, but that’s a little too casual. So I think that you should use your best judgment. I’ll back whatever you decide to do.”

Clete didn’t reply.

“The expected response, Major, was, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ ”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

There was another copse of trees on the other side of the field, where the Germans were having their morning constitutional, and then the camp itself. It looked like any other hurriedly-built-to-last-five-years temporary military installation, like Jackson Army Air Base.

There were no hangars, of course, but there were many more “colonel’s quarters” than Frade expected to see. These were small, one-story frame buildings intended for the use of senior officers. They held two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a bath.

The staff car pulled up before one of them, and the driver got out to open Graham’s door.

Graham looked at Frade. “Do you want us to come in with you?”

It was a moment before Clete had time to consider the question.

“You go in first,” he finally said. “Then Len goes in—I want this guy to recognize him from the photos—then I’ll come in. Neither one of you say anything to him. If I give you a signal, leave us alone.”

Graham’s face tightened. He had just been given an order, not a suggestion. Marine majors do not give orders to Marine colonels.

He decided this was not the time to raise the subject.

After a moment, he nodded and said, “Okay.”