Herman Wouk - The Winds Of War

by The Winds Of War(Lit)

  He's awfully nice." Janice said, "What about that boss of yours?"

  "Hugh Cleveland? What about him?"

  The two young women regarded each other. Wry knowing wrinkles turned up the corners of Janice's mouth. Madeline colored under the rouge and powder on her pallid face. "Yes? Why the grin, Janice?"

  She drank most of her martini.

  "Oh, I don't know. You keep taking up with one impossible fcllo'A, after another."

  "If you mean am I lying in wait for Mr. Cleveland," Madeline said with her father's briskness, "you're about as wrong as you can be.

  He's a paunchy pink-haired freckled man, ten years older than I am, and personally I regard him as a snake."

  "Snakes have the power to hypnotize, dear."

  " Yes, rabbits and birds. I'm neither."

  Rhoda went to a small Chinese Chippendale desk to answer the telephone. "Oh, hello there," she said. "Where are you?... Oh, my gawd... of course... yes, naturally. Okay. I'll leave your ticket at the box office. Yes, yes, they've been here for hours.

  Right. Bye, dear."

  She hung up, and fluttered her long pale hands at the company.

  "Well, let's drink up. Pug sends apologies. He's at the White House and he doesn't know when he can get away.") In Washington, when the absent diner is at the White House, the empty chair is not an embarrassment. Quite the contrary. Nobody asked what Victor Henry was doing at the executive mansion, or indeed commented on Rhoda's words.

  She put Burne-Wilke on her right and the senator on her left, saying, "After all these years protocol still baffles me.

  How do you choose between a United States Senator and a British lord?

  I'm favoring our foreign guest, Senator."

  "Absolutely proper," said Lacouture.

  Alistair Tudsbury said, "Lord Burne-Wilke will gladly yield you his seat on this occasion, Senator, if he can take yours when Lend-Lease comes to a vote." "Oh, done, done," exclaimed the air commodore, whose bemedalled dress uniform dazzled Rhoda.

  Everyone laughed, Tudsbury loudest of all. "Haw haw haw!" The correspondent's belly shook under a vast expanse of wrinkled waistcoat, spanned by an enormous suspension of gold chain. Rhoda said, "Well, what good spirits! I was half afraid our English friends would eat Senator Lacouture alive."

  The senator wrinkled his eyes. "You British aren't that hard up for meat ye are you?" He added after the laugh, "No, seriously, Rhoda, I'm glad you brought us together. Maybe I've convinced our friends that I'm not a Nazi-lover, but just one fellow out of ninety-six, with my own point of view. I certainly don't go for this talk of Senator Wheeler's, that LendLease will plow under every fourth American boy. That's way out of bounds. But if Roosevelt wants to send England arms free of charge, why the devil doesn't he come out and say so, instead of giving us all this LendLease baloney? It insults our intelligence."

  "I went to a peace rally in New York," Madeline piped up. "One speaker told a good story. A p tramp stops a rich man on the street. 'Please, mister, give me a quarter, Im starving," he says. The rich man says, "My dear fellow, I can't give you a quarter.

  I can lend you or lease you a quarter."

  Senator Lacouture burst out laughing. "By God, I'll work that into my next speech."

  From across the table, Palmer Kirby said, "Are you sure you want to draw on a Communist source?" "Was that one of those Commie meetings?

  Well, a story's a story."

  "It's so crazy," said Janice. 'I got stuck in a raid on Pennsylvania Avenue this afternoon, in front of the White House. We just couldn't move. The newsreel people were there, taking pictures of the pickets. Communists with signs marching round and round in a circle, chanting, 'The Yanks are not coming," and next to them a mob of women kneeling and praying, right there on the sidewalk in the snow, The Christian Mothers of America. They'll pray there round the clock, my driver said, until LendLease is defeated or vetoed. Honestly!

  Coming from Hawaii, I get the feeling the country's going mad."

  "It just shows how broad the opposition to this thing is," said the senator. "Cuts across all lines."

  "On the contrary," put in Kirby, "both extremes seem to be against helping England, while the mass in the middle is for it." Senator Lacouture waved a flat hand in the air. "No, sir. I've been a middle-of-the-roader all my life. You should hear some of the quiet talk in the Senate dining room. I tell you, if they didn't have to worry about the big-city Jews-and I don't blame the Jews for feeling as they do, but this issue can't be decided on any parochial basis-there'd be twenty more votes on my side of the fence right now. I still think they'll end there. The nose count changes every day. If the ground swell continues for another week, we'll lick this thing."

  The street door opened and closed. Victor Henry came into the dining room, brushing flakes of snow from his blue bridge coat.

  "Apologies to all hands," he said, doffing the coat. "No, no, don't get up, I'll just join you, and change my duds later."

  But the men were all standing. Victor Henry walked around the table for handshakes, and came last to Palmer Kirby. "Hello," he said.

  "It's been a long time."

  "Sure has. Too long."

  Only Rhoda knew the scientist well enough to note that his smile was awkward and artificial. At this moment, which she had been dreading for a couple of weeks, Rhoda had a surprising sensation-pleasure and pride that two such men loved her. She felt no trace of guilt as her lover clasped hands with her husband of twenty-five years. Kirby was more than a head taller than Captain Henry, and in the columnar black and white of full dress he was a magnificent fellow. Yet Pug was impressive too: erect, short, thickset, his tired eyes in deep sockets very shrewd and alive, his whole bearing charged with energy-her own husband, just back from the White House. Rhoda felt lucky, beautiful, desired, pleasantly confused, and quite safe. It was actually one of the nicest moments in her life, and it went off like a dream. Pug took his seat and began eating shrimp cocktail.

  "Say, it's a bit late for this," he remarked to Kirby, "but I sure want to thank you for driving Rhoda up from New York last summer to see Byron at sub school. That was a long way."

  Kirby spread his big hands. y, it was great to get a look at a submarine base. Your friend Captain Tully really gave us the ten-dollar tour."

  "Red Tully is 4-0," Pug said. 'I sort of suspect he nudged Byron through that school. However, I've asked no questions."

  It was exciting as a play for Rhoda, that the two men were actually talking straight off about that fateful trip. She said gaily, "Oh, Pug, you're always selling poor Briny short- Red told us he was the champion of his Plass in the training tank. Caught on to the lung right away, and did his escape perfectly the first time cool as a fish.

  Why, when we were there they had him instructing in the tank."

  "That's self-preservation, not work. Briny's always been good at that."

  "That's a talent, too," said Pamela Tudsbury.

  Pug looked at her with a trace of special warmth. "Well, Pamela, one can't get far without it, that's true. But it's the talent of a tu e."

  "Honestly! Did you ever?" Rhoda said to Lord Burne-Wilke.

  "What a father."

  Mrs. Lacouture uttered a little shriek. The old steward was offering soup to Lord Burne-Wilke, and distracted by the Englishman's medals, he was tilting the tray. The open soup tureen went slipping toward Rhoda, and her silver dress was seconds away from ruin. But as the tureen came sliding off the tray, Rhoda, who had a watchful eye for servants, plucked it out of the air, and with the quick controlled movements of a cat in trouble, set it on the table, not spilling a drop.

  Pug called out over the gasps and laughter, "Well done."

  "Self-preservation runs in the family," Rhoda said. Amid louder laughter, Alistair Tudsbury started a round of applause.

  "By God! Never have I seen anything so neat," exclaimed Senator Lacouture.

  Everybody had a joke or a compliment for Rhoda. She became exhilarated. Rhoda lo
ved to entertain. She had the ability to nail down details beforehand, and then breeze airily through the evening.

  Rhoda told stories of mishaps at dinner parties in Berlin, and began to reminisce with sharp satire about the Nazis. Forgotten was her former friendliness to the Germans; she was now the Bundles for Britain lady, partisan to the core. Palmer Kirby, getting over his nervousness in Pug's presence, threw in his experiences at a Nuremberg Parteitag. Pug offered an account of the slide at Abendruh, making the women giggle.

  Then Lord Burne-Wilke gave jocular anecdotes about the arrogance of captured Luftwaffe pilots.

  Senator Lacouture interrupted him. "Lord Burne-Wilke, were you people ever really in trouble last year?"

  "Oh, rather." The air commodore told of the dwindling of planes and pilots through July and August, of the week in September when the count of pilots fell below the survival minimum, of the desperate pessimism in the R.A.F all through October, with London burning, civilians dying in large numbers, no night fighters available, and the Luftwaffe still coming on and on, setting fire to residential districts and bombing and spreading the fires, trying to break the city's spirit.

  Lacouture probed with more questions, his pink face growing sober.

  The R.A.F, the air commodore said, was anticipating a new, larger onslaught in the spring and summer. The submarine sinkings, at their present rate, might ground the British planes for lack of fuel. An invasion would then be in the cards. 'Mind you, we hope to weather all this," he said, "but this time, Hitler may have the wherewithal. He's expanded his armed forces massively. We haven't been idle either. But unfortunately a lot of our stuff is ending up these days at the bottom of the Atlantic." Lacouture's fingers were rolling little balls of bread. He looked straight at the air commodore. "Well," he said, 'nobody's comparing the British and the Nazis as people, as civilizations. You people have been fine, and I'll tell you, possibly we should be hearing a bit more of this stuff up on the hill." Lord Burne-Wilke, with a humble little bow that made the party laugh, said, "I'm available." While the others had dessert, Victor Henry changed into his dress uniform. The guests were wrapping up to brave the snow when he rejoined them. He helped Pamela Tudsbury into her coat, scenting perfume that stirred his memory.

  She said over her shoulder, "There's news of Ted."

  For a moment Victor Henry didn't understand. On the Bremen she had slipped across the joke about Hitler in just that swift quiet way.

  "Oh?

  Really? Good or bad?"

  "Won't you telephone me?"

  "Yes."

  "Do. Please do. Do."

  The party separated into three cars, with Pug driving the British guests. He said to the air commodore, as they stopped on Massachusetts Avenue at a red light that made a cherry-colored halo in the falling snow, "You scored some points with Senator Lacouture." "Words over wine," said the air commodore, shrugging.

  w

  v v ell! Nobody's seen Constitution Hall looking like this before," Rhoda said, "or ever will again, maybe. It's fantastic."

  Every seat was filled. All the men in the orchestra, and many up the long side slopes wore full dress stilts or goldsted military uniforms. The women made a ' sea of uncovered skin, bright colors, and winking gems.

  Great American and British flags draped the stage. Rhoda had taken for herself two boxes nearest to the President's. The Lacoutures with Janice, the air commodore, and Alistair Tudsbury were ensconced in the choicer. one, and she and Pamela sat at the rail in the other, with Pug and Kirby cehind them, and Madeline in the rear.

  A commotion arose in the aisle behind them among police guards and latecomers. A murmur washed across the auditorium, and the Vice President and His wife stepped into the presidential box, into a blue-white spotlight. The audience stood and applauded. Henry Wallace responded with a self-conscious smile and a brief wave. He looked like an intelligent farmer, unhappily wearing full dress for some anniversary. The orchestra struck up "The Star-Spangled Banner," and then 'God Save the King."

  The British anthem, with the nearness of Pamela Tudsbury's bare white shoulders, awakened the London days and nights in Victor Henry's mind.

  As the audience settled in its seats and the violins began the slow introduction of a Haydn symphony, Pug's thought wandered through the blitz, the bombing run over Berlin, the German capital showing yellow in the 'light under the Hare of the exploding gas, Pamela flinging herself at him as he came into his apartment. The music broke into a dancing allegro and brought him back to the present. Pug studied the profile of his wife, sitting in her usual concertgoing pose-back straight, hands folded in lap, head tilted to suggest attentive pleasure. He thought how charming she could be and how splendidly she had carried off the dinner. A wisp of guilt touched him for the affection he felt for Pamela Tudsbury. Victor Henry was inexpert at self-excuse, having done too few things in his life of which he disapproved.

  Rhoda herself couldn't have been more at ease. The music of Haydn delighted her. She loved being highly visible in her new silver dress in a box so near the Vice President. She was pleased that the concert was a sellout. She looked forward to the supper-dance afterward. All this splendid fun was actually work in the noblest of causes, and her name stood high on the committee list. How could things be better?

  Only Palmer Kirby's news that he was going to England troubled her a bit. She meant to ask him more questions about that.

  No doubt Dr. Kirby had his thoughts, and Pamela hers. The two intruders on the long marriage, with the husband and wife, looked much like dozens of other foursomes in boxes along both sides of the cavernous hall: attractive people, elegantly clad, calmly listening to music. Kirby was sitting behind Rhoda, Pug in back of Pamela Tudsbury.

  A stranger might have guessed that the tall people were one pair, the short ones another, except that the smaller woman seemed young for the naval officer with the weathered face and heavy eyebrows.

  During the intermission crush, Victor Henry and Dr. Kirby were left together by the ladies in an overheated lobby foul with smoke.

  Pug said, 'How's for a breath of air? Looks like the snow's stopped."

  "You're on."

  Chauffeurs were stamping by their limousines on the fresh snow.

  It was bitter cold. A few young music lovers from the rearmost seats, in sweaters and parkas, chatted with smoking breaths on the slushy steps of the hall.

  Pug said, "Anything very new on uranium?"

  The scientist looked at him with head aslant. "what's uranium?"

  "Are you that far along?" Pug grinned.

  Kirby slowly shook his head, making a discouraged mouth.

  "Are the Germans going to beat us to it?" The answer was a shrug.

  'As you know, I'm in War Plans," Victor Henry said curtly. "I'm pushing you on this because we ought to have the dope, and we can't get it. If this other thing is really in the works, maybe we're just playing tic-tac-toe in our shop."

  Kirby stuited his pipe and lit it. "You're not playing tic-tac-toe. It's not that close. Not on our side."

  "Could we be doing more about it?"

  "One hell of a lot more. I'm going to England on this. They're apparently far ahead of us."

  "They've been ahead on other things," Pug said. "That's something nobody mentions in this brainless Lend-Lease dogfight. We have to be goddamned glad we've got the British scientists on our side, and we better break our necks to keep them there."

  "I tend to agree. But we're ahead of them in many things too."

  Kirby puffed his pipe, squinting at Pug. "Are you happy to be home?"

  "Happy?" Pug scooped up snow and packed a snowball. The crunching snow in his warm hands always gave him an agreeable flash of childhood.

  "I'm too busy to think about it. Yes, I guess I'm happy." He pegged the snowball over the cars into the empty street. "Rhoda was sick of Berlin, and being there by myself was certainly grim."

  "She's a superb hostess, Rhoda," said Kirby. "I've never attended better d
inner parties than hers. That was something, the way she rescued that tureen." The pipe in his teeth, Kirby uttered a harsh laugh. "Really something."

  "Among her other talents," said Pug, "Rhoda's always been a born juggler."

  Kirby wrinkled his whole face. "It's pretty sharp out here at that, eh?

  Let's go back."

  At the top of the stairs they encountered Madeline hurrying out, her white fox coat wrapped close around her long dress, a red shawl on her hair tied under her chin.

  "Where are you off to?" her father said.

  "I told Mom i wouldn't be able to stay through. Mr. Cleveland's back from Quantico. I have to see him."