Ueutenant, will you take Major Rosnovski to personnel and then bring him back to me?'
'Yes, ur' The lieutenant turned to Abel. 'Will you come this way, please, Major?'
Abel followed him, turning as he reached the door. 'Thank you, General,'he said.
He spent the weekend in Chicago with Zaphia and Florentyna. Zaphia asked him what he wanted her to do with his fifteen suits.
'Hold on to them,' he replied,'wondering what she meant. 'I'm not going to get myself killed in this war.'
'I'm sure you're not, Abel,' she replied. 'That wasn't what was worrying me. ies justdiat now they're all three sizes too large for you.'
Abel laughed and took the suits to the Polish refugee centre. He then returned to New York, went to the Baron, cancelled the advance guest list, and twelve days later banded the building over to the American Fifth Army. The press hailed Abel's decision as a 'selfless gesture, worthy of a man who had beer; a refugee of the First World War.
It was another three months before Abel was called to active duty, during which time he organised the smooth running of the New York Baron for General Clark and then reported to Fort Benning, to complete an officers'
training programme. When he finally did receive his orders to join General Denvers and the Fifth Army, his destination turned out to be somewhere in North Africa. He began to wonder if he would ever get to Germany.
The day before Abel left, he drew up a will, instructing his executors to offer the Baron Group to David Maxton on favourable terms, and dividing the rest of his estate between Zaphia and Florentyna. It was the first time in nearly twenty years that he had contemplated death, not that he was sure how he could get himself killed in the regimental canteen.
As his troop ship sailed out of New York harbour, Abel stared back at the Statue of Liberty. He could well remember how he had felt on seeing the statue for the first time nearly twenty years before. Once the ship had passed the Lady, he did not look at her again, but said out loud, 'Next time I look at you, you French bitch, America will have won this war.'
Abel crossed the Atlantic, taking with him two of his top chefs and five kitchen staff. T'he ship docked at Algiers on 17 February 1943. He spent almost a year in the heat and the dust and the sand of the desert, making sure that every member of the division was as well fed as possible.
'We eat badly, but we eat a damn sight better than any~ one else,'was General Clark's comment.
Abel commandeered the only good hotel in Algiers and turned the building into a headquarters for General Clark. Although Abel could see he was playing a valuable role in the war, he itched to get into a real fight, but majors in charge of catering are rarely sent into the front line.
He wrote to Zap~iia and George and watched his beloved daughter Florentyna grow up by photograph. He even received an occasional letter from Curds Fenton, reporting that the Baron Group was making an everilarger profit because every hotel in America was packed because of the continual movement of troops and civilians. Abel was sad not to have been at the opening of the new hotel in Montreal, where George had represented him. It was the first time that he had not been present at the opening of a Baron, but George wrote at rea&nuing length of the new hotel's great success. Abel began to realise how much he had built up in America and how much he wanted to return to the land he now felt was his home.
He soon became bored with Africa and its mess kits, baked beans, blankets and fly swatters. T'here had been one or two spirited skirmishes out there in the western desert, or so the men returning fronx the front assured hini, but he never saw any real action, although often when he took the food to the front he would hear the firing, and it made him even angrier.
One'day to his excitement, General Clark's Fifth Army was ordered to invade Southern Europe.
The Fifth Army landed on the Italian coast in amphibious craft while American aircraft gave them tactical cover. They met considerable resistance, first at Anzio and then at Monte Cassino but the action never involved Abel and he dreaded the end of a war in which he had seen no combaL But he could never devise a plan which would get him into the front lines.
His chances were not unproved when he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and sent to - LGndon to await further orders.
With D - Day, the great thr - ust into Europe began. The Allies marched into France and liberated Paris on 25 August 1944. As Abel paraded with the American and Free French soldiers down the Champs Elyses behind General de Gaulle to a hero's welcome, he studied the still magnificent city and once again decided exactly where he was going to build his first Baron hotel in France.