Chapter 15

Ann Johnson, the one with the broken arm, was out of the medical chamber in one week, and Ernie Holman, the one with the shattered pelvis, was out in a month, and they were easily added to the pool of unattached women. The case was different for Dom Franshone who had lost her arm above the elbow. That took just over five months to grow back, and she was badly disoriented when she was released from the medical chamber.

Dominique, known to us very quickly as Dom, clung to Loni like she was afraid of another attack by a monster. She was sleeping with Loni every night that Loni was not scheduled to sleep with me. Dom was only 17, so she was pampered by all of us. Yes, it took about 2 weeks, but Dom became my fourth wife.

That was where I laid down the law and said that I had enough wives. I announced that, henceforth, I was not going to accept any more women. Enough was enough! My wives all nodded their heads, but why did I detect a reservation in those nods. Oh, well, I was not bothered for a while.

It was about eight months after the 727 incident when it happened again, but this was another very strange event.

Author’s note: The translation of dialogue not originally in English is indicated by curly brackets: { and }.

AI relayed to me a translation of a radio pickup he received. The original was in German.

{Tank leader, where are you? Where are we? All I can see is a sea of grass. This is not the North African desert! Oh, my God, what is that charging at us. It looks like a picture of a dinosaur that I saw in a school textbook. I may be dreaming, but I cannot take a chance. Gunner, kill that thing, whatever it is!}

AI broke in with an FM transmission in German. {Tank commander, you are not dreaming. Turn south and head for a paved highway you will soon see. Go west on that highway. An airplane painted with yellow and black stripes so that it can be easily seen will soon fly over you. Do not shoot at it. It is friendly and will provide air cover for you. Do you understand me?}

{Yes, I understand. We will follow orders. Who are you?}

{I am a native of this region. Follow my instructions and help will soon arrive to lead you to safety. As you can tell, you are no longer in North Africa. All will be explained when you arrive at a safe haven. I will not transmit any more for now.}

“Al, this is AI. There is a German tank from World War II lost on the sea of grass. Please find it and escort it home. My records show that you can speak German, so please contact the tank when you have it in sight. You should be able to spot it from its dust trail.”

“Roger, AI. I’ll start looking ... Ah, I see what has to be its dust trail. Yeah, it looks like a Panzer Mark 2. I’ll give it a call.”

{Panzer Mark 2, this is the plane that is to give you air cover. Please don’t shoot at me. As you can see, I have yellow and black stripes painted on my wings and fuselage, and a big M8 on my wings and fuselage as an identification marking. Do you copy my transmission?}

{Yes, M8, I see you. What country are you from. Are you Italian? You don’t have any trace of that accent.}

{I am Bahamian, and way out of my normal neighborhood. I will explain when I see you. My name is Al, and that is also my callsign. Please be careful not to run out of gas because that would be very awkward. We do not have any gasoline we can give you to refuel. I will stop talking now, but my receiver will stay tuned to this frequency in case you need to say something to me. I will warn you if any more dinosaurs show up.}

{Very well, Al. Thank you.}

About 30 minutes later, Al’s radio blared out. {Al, we are having engine trouble and will be forced to stop. Can you help us?}

{Yes, I will call for a rescue plane to pick you up. Stay in your tank until you are told that it is safe for you to exit it. There are some dinosaurs about 1.3 miles from you and are headed in your direction. I will probably have to kill them before you can come out of the tank. Please, just be patient. We will not forget you. I will keep turned to this radio frequency.}

{Oh, by the way, the pilot of the plane coming to pick you up is a woman. She is completely competent as a pilot, so there is nothing to worry about. She might also be naked, but that is the way most of our women spend the day, so do not think that she is insulting you by not having any clothes.}

It was about 45 minutes later that Karen showed up with P1, but she was wearing clothes. She circled once to get a look at where she would have to land and then lowered her ski for landing on the grass. She released a drag parachute as soon as her ski supported her weight. She had misjudged how slippery the grass would be and stopped too soon, so she had to taxi up to the stalled German tank.

Al kept circling to make sure that there were no dinosaurs close enough to make trouble. He advised Karen that the way was clear, so the first thing she did after exiting P1 was to retrieve the parachute. She simply wadded it up and dumped it behind the last seat in the plane. She would not need it for landing back at Miami.

Al said to the tank commander, {The lady does not speak German. Do any of you speak English?}

The tank commander said that he did, so he was to be the interpreter for the flight back to Miami. The three men exited the tank and sealed it against extraneous entry before getting into the plane. Karen squared away the passengers and headed for Miami. Al went back to his regular patrol. Since the tank commander spoke English, it was not necessary for Al to return to Miami.

Karen taxied into the hanger, and everybody exited P1. The German speakers were jabbering at each other while they followed Karen into the meeting room for their orientation. I couldn’t help laughing at the reaction of the Germans when they saw all of us moving around normally, but completely nude, except for the flip-flops.

Karen and I went through our opening speeches, but slowly, so that the tank commander could translate. That made the speeches run almost three times the time it normally took, but we wanted to be absolutely sure that nothing was lost in translation. As usual, AI listened, but this time he was making sure that the translator did not screw anything up. AI was satisfied at the end of our speeches and so were we. AI had a good command of German that he had learned from Al. Of course, we were going to teach the Germans to speak English as soon as possible.

We had plenty of space, so each man was assigned a separate apartment. That was when we got the men’s names. The tank commander was Karl Himmel, the driver was Otto Schmidt, and the loader was Helmut Sammas.

I spent some time talking to Karl, explaining about some of our strange rules. There was plenty of time before supper, so the men had their medical exams right away, and I talked to Karl all of the time that he was not in the medical chamber.

It turned out that both Otto and Helmut had syphilis, but that was cured while they were in the medical chamber. Neither one had carried it long enough to have developed any medical problems, so they were safe around the women, and that was something that we wanted to be sure of.

By this time, all but five of the newest women had husbands, so we were about to turn the unattached women who were interested to test the men as possible husbands. In fact, the women all drew straws to see who was going to have first crack at the potential husbands. The new men were startled to learn that they would have company in bed tonight. AI would act as translator through the personal radios until the men learned English. Karl didn’t have that problem, so he probably had an advantage with the night’s activities.

All three of the Germans were awed at the luxury of their apartments, especially when the women pointed that these were their new homes unless they found a reason to change.