Postwar Days #7: August 16, 1945 Pt. 3

A general, a prime minister, and a superhero

Germany would have been a beautiful country, if it hadn't been for all the Germans. The rolling hills were marked by craters, those thick fairy-tale woods burnt to a crisp. But the boys had found a couple areas that were still undisturbed, good for driving and getting out of the pressure-cooker for a few hours. And, on this day of great celebration, General Dwight Eisenhower was doing just that.

He had gone out with Kay in a requisitioned Jeep. She was still nominally his driver, but Ike took the wheel this time. They talked sparsely, and mostly just took in the beautiful day with fingers entwined.

They stopped in an obscure dead-end to kiss for a while. There was a little bit of heavy petting -- strictly adolescent stuff, between two people who had never had much of an adolescence. They didn't go too far, though. A general must have discretion. A president even more so.

As they got back in the car, Ike remarked that this area would make for a great golf course after the war. He could practically see himself trying to work out how to get the ball to curve before the emerald hill they had parked in front of. Kay didn't respond. She was somewhat sullen, Ike thought. Of course, she likely thought that the end of the war meant the end of their relationship. Ike had a wife back home, and a son, and a military career. A British mistress didn't fit into that, no matter how charming Kay was. Well, she was probably right. But he didn't care to think about that right now.

There were all kinds of miserable topics one could get distracted by. The division of Germany, for one. Zhukov was a good man, but was anyone else in the Russian command? And those terrible bombs they had dropped on Japan. What would war be like, once those things spread? Could any commander, no matter how brilliant, win against an enemy that could kill his people in such numbers?

But the sun was shining, the war was over, and Ike had a beautiful woman by his side. There would be time enough for the details later.

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