The General's Women

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Yeah, maybe I will,” he said, as amiable as ever. He stood up, then reached over and patted her on the head, grinning. “As I said, you’re doing a great job. Just keep it out of the newspapers, kiddo. Okay?”

  Kay swallowed a retort, nodded briefly, and turned away.

  • • •

  The next afternoon, the General gave her another assignment—one that would change her life in an entirely unexpected way.

  She had driven Eisenhower to the depot at Cheltenham, where the supplies and equipment for Operation Torch were being assembled and stored. The General had spent several hours with General Lee—John C. H. Lee, whose proselytizing zeal had earned him the name “Jesus Christ Himself Lee.” But Lee had to be Jesus Christ, Ike had said, if he was to organize the millions of tons of materiel that would supply the invasion and arrange its transport to North Africa. “An even bigger miracle than the loaves and fishes,” he’d added with a grin.

  The General must have seen fewer snafus than usual in Jesus Christ’s supply system, for when he got back in the Packard, Kay saw that he was in a good mood. He relaxed in the backseat with a cigarette while she drove through the pretty Cotswold countryside. It was a dazzling day, with an azure sky spread over an emerald landscape of picturesque stone cottages and barns and meadows flecked with grazing sheep and cattle.

  Eisenhower rolled down the window and fresh air filled the car. “You know, Kay,” he said reflectively, “when this war is over and I’ve stopped moving from one damned army post to another, I’m going to find myself a place in the country and put down a few roots. I want a garden, and some apple trees. Horses, a couple of cows for fresh milk, pigs, chickens, a dog.” He tossed his cigarette out the window and rolled it back up. “I woke up this morning thinking about this dog I had when I was a kid back in Abilene. Flip, her name was. Fox terrier, smart as the dickens, all guts, all glory, all the time. Never knew when to quit, even when she was up against a dog twice her size.”

  That made Kay smile. “We always had dogs at Inish Beg,” she said over her shoulder. “My favorite was MacTavish, a Scottie and black as the devil. Tavvy was feisty, independent as they come. Opinionated, too.” Her heart lightened and she chuckled, remembering the little dog. “We always had to give him a job to do, or he’d find one on his own. Digging holes in Mum’s rose garden, or managing the geese. Crazy, I know, but I miss him still.”

  There was a lengthy silence, and what the General said next was so unexpected that it took Kay’s breath away. “Well, then, maybe you’d like to have another.”

  “Another . . . dog?” Not sure she had heard him correctly, Kay looked up to catch his glance in the mirror.

  “Yes. You’ve been very kind to me.” His smile was warm. “And you’re very good for me. I’d like to do something for you. A Scottie, if that’s what you want, like MacTavish.” He chuckled. “President Roosevelt has a Scottie, you know—Fala, his name is. He’s an opinionated little fellow, too, knows exactly what he wants. Jumped right up on my lap when I went to see the President.”

  “A dog,” Kay said wonderingly. “A dog? Oh, General, a dog would be absolutely—”

  “Smashing,” he said, and they both laughed. “But there’s just one thing about this,” he added, sobering. “As far as everybody else is concerned, it will have to be the General’s dog. If anybody thinks I’m getting a dog for my driver, I’ll catch it six ways from Sunday.” He shook his head ruefully, and Kay wondered if he was thinking of his wife.

  “I understand,” Kay said quickly. “It’ll be our dog.” She bit her lip. “Our” sounded too presumptuous, as if she were claiming a connection to him that was not hers to make.

  But Eisenhower seemed pleased. “Exactly, Kay. Our dog—just between us. Officially, it’s my dog.”

  Our dog, she thought. Two very small words, but to her they seemed to signify paragraphs, whole chapters, a book, even, page after page of unspoken possibilities. Our dog.

  He sat forward and put his right hand on the back of her seat, almost touching her shoulder. “You wouldn’t know it from looking at Beetle’s sour puss, but he’s a dog lover. I’ll put the two of you in charge of getting our Scottie—for my birthday. It’s coming up on the fourteenth.”

  “It’ll be my very great pleasure, sir,” Kay said, and heard the happiness in her voice, not just because she was getting a dog, but because she and Ike were sharing a dog. Eisenhower must have heard it too, for the incandescent smile she saw in the mirror seemed to lighten the whole sky.

  • • •

  The next morning when Kay went into the office, Tex said, “Hey, Kay, we’ve got a new project. The Old Man has decided he wants a dog for his birthday. Operation Dog, he’s calling it. Seems to be quite excited about it, too.” He shook his head. “Although I don’t know what in the hell he’s going to do with a dog when he goes to—”

  He shut his mouth quickly, and Kay knew why. Operation Torch was now just a month away, and Tex was in charge of packing up the office for the move to the St. George Hotel in Algiers, designated as the North African headquarters. But the operation was supposed to be a secret. Eisenhower, with his usual skill in misdirection, had ordered Tex and Butch to put up maps of Norway where visitors to the office—journalists and broadcasters from the BBC and the various American press bureaus—would be sure to see them. The newspapers had been quick to notice and were already beginning to speculate that the thousands of American troops now gathering at Scapa Flow in Scotland would be fighting the Germans in Norway.

  Kay didn’t answer Tex. She knew as much about North Africa as he did, but she didn’t like to think about it. She was a British civilian, a volunteer, not an official member of Eisenhower’s staff. She wouldn’t be going with them. She had already said a hasty goodbye to Dick, whose unit was part of the task force that would be landing at Oran, east of Algiers. She swallowed, thinking that she would probably be reassigned to the London motor pool and already feeling bereft and abandoned.

  But nobody had left yet, and in the meantime, her job was to find a dog for the General. Their dog. She didn’t ask herself why that thought made her almost giddy with pleasure. If she had, she might have remembered her mother’s caution. Dangerous.

  • • •

  Operation Dog got underway immediately and Kay and Beetle (who was really rather nice, when he wasn’t being Ike’s sonofabitch) began looking for candidates. They found what they wanted at the Duke Street Kennels, near Selfridge’s. Two possibilities, actually: a sweet-tempered year-old Scottie named Angus and a coal-black three-month-old puppy, the spitting image of MacTavish. Beetle fancied the older dog because he was housebroken, but Kay fell in love with the puppy because he was so lively and alert.

  “Not housebroken yet, though,” Beetle said with a frown. “Ike will do better with a dog that already knows his manners.”

  “Why don’t we let the Boss choose?” Kay suggested, and with a shrug, Beetle agreed. They took both dogs to the office, where Angus sat placidly on the General’s rug and the puppy piddled on it, then strutted around proudly, claiming the territory as his own.

  The General crouched down. “Come here, fella,” he said to both of the dogs. Angus, the picture of Scottish dignity and decorum, stayed where he was. But the puppy bounced up to Eisenhower, put both paws on his knee, and boldly licked his nose.

  “Some cheek,” Kay said with a little laugh.

  Ike picked up the dog and held him. “Think I’ll keep this one, Beetle.”

  Beetle nodded. “Yes, sir. Come on, Angus,” he said, and tugged on Angus’s leash.

  “Good job, Kay,” the Boss said when Beetle had closed the door. He put the puppy in her arms. “Does the little fellow have a name?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kay said, so happy she could hardly stand still. “He’s got a pedigree a mile long. According to his papers, he is Laird Dougal of Douglas Glen. He answers to Dougal.”

  “Well, let’s see how long it takes him to learn his new name,” Eise
nhower said. “I’m calling him Telek.”

  She tilted her head. “Telek?”

  “T-E-L-E-K,” he said. “As far as the staff is concerned, it stands for Telegraph Cottage. But I’ll tell you, privately, that it’s Telegraph Cottage—and Kay.” He wasn’t touching her, but she felt as if his glance were embracing her. “Two things in my life that allow me to bear the rest of it.” His voice roughened. “Which is pretty goddamned hellacious right about now.”

  “Telek.” She buried her face in the puppy’s fur. “Thank you,” she said in a muffled voice.

  “No,” Ike said. “I’m the one who’s thanking you.” He leaned toward her, so close that she thought for one crazy instant that he might be going to kiss her. Then he seemed to catch himself. He took a step back and retreated behind his desk, where he stood indecisively for a moment, then cleared his throat.

  “You know I’m leaving for North Africa at the end of this month,” he said abruptly.

  She could only nod. Of course she knew.

  “The staff will join me in Algiers after the area is secure and stabilized. We’ll be there for the duration—as long as it takes to takes to run the Nazis out of the Mediterranean.” He paused, then spoke, slowly and distinctly, almost as if he were weighing each word. “This is a . . . personal request, Kay. It’s not an order. I would like you to come to North Africa and drive for me, if you’re willing.” He nodded at Telek. “And take care of our dog.”

  Her heart beat faster. She felt her throat get tight. “General Eisenhower, I—”

  “Wait. Don’t answer just yet.” He straightened and picked up a handful of papers, turning half away, not looking at her. “Think about it. But let me know your decision tomorrow. I need to get Tex started on the paperwork.”

  The little dog nuzzling her neck, Kay stared at him, wide-eyed. She hadn’t dared to hope that he would ask, but she already knew her answer. Later, she would tell people—and write, in her first memoir—that she was eager to go to North Africa to be near Dick, who would be with General Fredendall. And that was true. She did want to be near Dick. Going to North Africa would make it possible to see him, once in a while. But at that moment, Major Richard Arnold might have been on the moon.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. Then, more loudly, resolutely, “Yes, I want to go, sir, very much. Thank you.”

  He turned to look at her, his gaze unreadable, and she wondered whether he was surprised by her eagerness. Should she have pretended reluctance, caution?

  He gave her a lopsided grin. “Very good. Your young man—he’s with Fredendall, is he? No doubt he’ll be glad to hear that you won’t be too far away.”

  She pressed her lips together, pushing down her disappointment. She must have misunderstood. “Yes, sir,” she said quietly. “I’m sure he will.”

  He studied her for a moment, as if he wanted to say something else. But he only nodded.

  “Very well,” he said gruffly. “Now take that dog and get the hell out of here so I can go to work. Don’t you know there’s a war on?”

  • • •

  After Kay left the office with the Scottie, Ike sat down to the usual stacks of orders. There wasn’t much time before the North African operation and there were still hundreds of tasks to be done, tasks he couldn’t delegate, decisions only the commander in chief could make.

  Commander in chief. His rapid rise still seemed almost incredible to him, although he thought it might also be viewed as providential. He wasn’t much on organized religion, but he believed in a God who took care of his own—a righteous God who was watching out for the Allies and was ready to help them kick the Axis powers back to the devil, where they belonged. He smiled, remembering what Georgie Patton, who was something of a mystic, had said right here in the office a couple of weeks before. That the Almighty Himself had given Ike his job and was writing the orders for his promotions. That this was true, Georgie claimed, was demonstrated by Ike’s initials, D. D. “Divine Destiny” Eisenhower.

  Ike had laughed and told Georgie he could go to hell, but he had to admit that there might be something to it. He had chosen a military career, not out of a sense of higher calling or patriotic duty, but only because West Point offered a free education, which meant that he wouldn’t have to work his way through college the way his brothers had. But they’d been successful, where his army career had gone nowhere. As a staff officer, he had stalled out at major—three steps above the rank he held when he left West Point—for sixteen long years. Just thirty months before, he had been a lieutenant colonel who had never commanded so much as a squad in combat. And now he was Commanding General, European Theater of Operations.

  But Ike had always been ready to make decisions and shoulder responsibilities, even though there hadn’t been much opportunity for either in the peacetime army. Peace was what was wrong with the army, in his opinion. The officer corps was made up of tired men, old men, men who were hopelessly inept. It was so thick with deadwood that it was a fire hazard. War was a purging flame, and it was the fire and smoke from Pearl Harbor, like the pillars of cloud and fire that led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, that had finally shown America the way forward. War, with all of its pain and anguish, was what brought out the very best in a man, and in a nation. As a man, as an officer, as the commander in chief, he knew he was ready.

  But the challenge was immense. With three task forces leaving from multiple debarkation points and landing at three different points along a thousand-mile front, Torch was unquestionably the most complex operation in military history. It was hard to be optimistic about the outcome. Most of the troops weren’t battle-tested, logistics were a nightmare, communication was unreliable, and the Mediterranean weather was a constant worry. Still, he had told Georgie that as D-Day approached, he had never felt better.

  “I could lick Tarzan,” he’d said, and grinned with all the confidence he could muster.

  It was a lie. It was all bravado, an attempt to conceal his never-ending uncertainty about the decisions he was making, about the prospects of victory, about the cost in men and materiel. It was getting harder to concentrate on the job that had to be done. Worst of all, it was getting harder to look self-assured, confident, optimistic.

  But he had to look confident and optimistic, had to be on top of every situation. He had to keep up the façade, no matter how much effort it took. And that, he confessed to himself, was the reason he wanted—no, he needed—Kay with him. Unlike everyone else in his command, she had no expectations and no agenda. Nobody had ordered her to do what she was doing; she had volunteered, and she served without question, criticism, or hidden purpose. He needed the companionship of a woman, especially a vital, spirited, interesting woman whose smile was almost enough to make him forget that there was a war. Never mind the other thing—the powerful physical attraction he could not deny but wasn’t quite willing to acknowledge—that was why he needed her. She could make him forget the war, and he needed to forget the war.

  Which was why he had blurted out the question a moment ago—the question that had been nagging at him for weeks. He wanted Kay with him in North Africa, and he was delighted and relieved that she had said yes, even though he knew she had agreed so she could be closer to that young man she was engaged to.

  But there were difficulties. For one thing, she was a civilian, a British civilian, and a volunteer. Attaching her to his command was going to take some doing, and there would be questions. For another, there was the appearance of the thing, as Butch had coyly reminded him just the other day. He knew that the staff had covertly code-named the cottage Da-de-da, Morse for the letter K, and he had caught their knowing glances more than once. But Beetle had no room to criticize, since he was sleeping with that beautiful American nurse, Ethel Westermann, and making arrangements for her to go to North Africa with him. Ike didn’t intend to sleep with Kay—after all, she was engaged to that Arnold fellow. But people would have their suspicions, and some wouldn’t be shy about saying so.

&n
bsp; Suspicions. He glanced down at Mamie’s photo on his desk, at the eyes that always seemed to follow him as he moved. His wife, whom he loved quite sincerely—but no longer passionately, as he had when they were young—and to whom he fully intended to return when the war was over. He was uncomfortably aware of Mamie’s jealous possessiveness, so to avoid provoking her wrath he had omitted any mention of Kay in his letters home. And he was especially careful to assure her at least once in every letter, sometimes twice or three times, that she was the only woman in his heart. Still—

  His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door, and Tex came in with a document. “Sorry, sir, but this has to go out this afternoon.”

  Reaching for his pen, Ike said, in an offhand way, “Kay will be joining us in North Africa, Tex. Find out what’s involved—the paperwork, I mean—and get it straightened out for her.”

  Tex’s gingery eyebrows went up. He hesitated as if he were about to ask a question, but all he said was “I’ll take care of it, sir.”

  “Good.” Ike took the document, scanned it, and scrawled his signature. “What’s next?” he asked, handing it back.

  “The Chiefs of Staff. At four, sir.”

  “Right,” Ike said. “Tell Kay to get the car. I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

  • • •

  For Kay, the General’s invitation changed everything. Before, she had been an outsider in the office, the temporary who would be left behind when the staff closed up shop at Grosvenor Square and moved to North Africa. Now, she was one of them. She was going with them—with him!—and she was so excited that she could scarcely breathe.

  But in another way, the invitation changed nothing. She couldn’t be sure why he had asked her. Was it because he wanted her with him, or because he thought he was doing something nice for her and Dick? That seemed more likely, she told herself. Didn’t it?