The question—why?—hung like a blinking sign on the back wall of her mind, but Kay was too busy to think about it. Beetle had put her in charge of the Boss’s birthday party. The big day, October 14, was filled with meetings, and it was early evening before the family could gather at the cottage. Mickey served as bartender and Moaney and Hunt produced a baked ham, sweet potatoes, and potato salad with plenty of mustard and chopped pickles, made from the General’s personal recipe. For dessert, Mickey carried in a coconut cake with three red frosting stars and three candles. Tex broke out the champagne and they all toasted the Boss.
And then came the big moment—the presentation of the General’s birthday present. Kay led Telek out, dressed up with a red ribbon around his neck and wearing a funny little mini-harness and parachute that she had gotten from a parachute guy at Eighth Air Force headquarters. Ike read the note tied to Telek’s harness, promising that if the Scottie got airdropped into the wrong territory, the finder could return him to the Commander in Chief in Algiers for a thousand-dollar reward.
“A thousand bucks!” Butch whistled. “Jesus, I wouldn’t pay that for my wife.”
That brought a big laugh. Then they broke into nine boisterous verses of a song Butch had written. Called “Send ’Em Ike!” it was sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.” The General, delighted, sang loudly and wildly off-key, with Telek—obviously thinking himself the star of the show—adding exclamatory barks at the appropriate moments.
When clouds of war in ’Forty-one
Came thundering down upon us,
We had to pick a Man of Steel
To fight the foe Ger-Manus.
“Send ’em Ike!” arose the cry,
From the hills and valleys,
He’s the man to track them down
And stow them in the galleys.
After that, there was poker and music on the phonograph—Ike’s favorites, “Beer Barrel Polka” and “One Dozen Roses”—and a great many more toasts. Finally, the party was over and the last guest had either staggered out the door or up the stairs to bed. Ike fixed one more drink and he and Kay sat down in front of the fire.
“Any cigarettes left?” he asked.
Kay took out a pack of Camels. “Just one,” she said, holding it up. She was now the official holder of Ike’s cigarettes, responsible for trying (without a lot of success) to keep him to a three-pack maximum.
“Well, let’s have it, damn it,” he said. She took out her own and they smoked as the fire burned down to embers and Telek nestled, asleep, in Ike’s lap. After a few moments, he said, “Thank you for the party, Kay.” He smiled down at Telek. “And my dog.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” she objected, teasing. “You said he was my dog.”
“Our dog,” Ike agreed with a chuckle. “Let’s take him to the office in the morning.” He stroked Telek’s ears. “It’s going to be a long war. He might as well get used to his job.”
“What job?”
“I’m appointing him Morale Officer—second lieutenant.” He gave Kay a sideways glance. “Our dog is going to North Africa with us.”
Kay exhaled. Our dog . . . with us. The way Ike put it, it seemed so easy and ordinary and right, as if they were only going up to Oxford for an afternoon’s sightseeing. “I’m glad,” she replied. “I’d hate to leave the little guy behind—he’d probably forget who we are.” She glanced at her watch, then stubbed out her cigarette. “Speaking of going to the office in the morning, it’s late. I’d better head for my billet.”
Ike stood up, the little dog under one arm. “Telek and I will walk you to the car.” Companionably, naturally, as if he had done it a thousand times, he slipped the other arm around Kay’s shoulders. She felt its weight and its warmth as though it were wrapped around her heart.
The cottage was dark and quiet behind them and the October sky held a half-full moon and a chilly infinity of stars. Somewhere deep in the silent woods, a nightingale was singing. As Kay opened the car door, Ike turned her toward him, put a finger under her chin, and tipped up her face. His was silver in the moonlight, his expression intent, and she willed herself to remember how he looked at that moment. Her heart was thudding.
Boyishly, almost bashfully, he said, “Would you consider giving the birthday guy a kiss?”
Without a word, she leaned against him. Their kiss was light at first, friendly, perhaps testing. Then he seemed to have decided something, for—still holding Telek—he put his free arm around her, drawing her hard against him and holding her fiercely, his mouth on hers, demanding, commanding. In the dark, her eyes closed, she knew she had come to an entirely new place. She entered it eagerly, gladly, folding herself into the promise of his embrace, until Telek whimpered and squirmed and they pulled apart.
They were both laughing, Ike with a wryly amused chuckle, she with a full, surging pleasure, thinking, He asked me to go to North Africa because he wanted me with him! She was sure of it now. On a nearer branch, the nightingale unfurled another song, as if celebrating with them. For years after, she would remember how giddily happy she had been that night.
As if that weren’t enough, there was one thing more—something, she thought, that he had just this moment decided. He stepped back and cleared his throat.
“Meant to tell you that we’re taking the train to Scotland on Sunday. Just three of us—you, me, and Butch. You’ll be driving when we’re up there,” he added, “so dress warm. I’m told it’s pretty cold.” He held up the Scottie in both hands over his head, dancing him, the way a man dances a child. “We’d better leave our little guy with Tex. We don’t want him to catch cold.”
“Scotland,” she said, and felt the laughter bubbling foolishly, ecstatically in her throat. The two of them, together: this was how it was now. Not forever, not next year, perhaps not even next week. But now, this was how it was, and it was enough. She took a breath. “You continually surprise me.”
“That’s the way I like it,” he said, and dropped a light kiss on her hair. “Surprise keeps us on our toes. Goodnight, Irish.”
As she got into the car, he stood watching, holding Telek against him and whistling “One Dozen Roses.”
• • •
Early on Sunday morning, Kay, Ike, and Butch boarded the General’s private railroad coach, code-named Bayonet, for the sixteen-hour ride to western Scotland, where the First Division was practicing night amphibious landings. Bayonet was new, carpeted and teak-paneled and quite elegant, with a small conference room, an office for Eisenhower, and sleeping quarters for four. Kay had brought along several folders of paperwork and she and Ike settled down to work in the office. But he had a weary look and a raspy cough, and it seemed hard for him to focus.
After lunch in the dining car, they played bridge for a while, intently, as if to shut out everything else. And then Ike put down his cards and said, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m bone tired. It’s been a helluva week and we’ll be up all night with the landings. We’d better get a nap.”
In her compartment, Kay took off her jacket and tie and her shoes and lay down in her berth under a light blanket, enjoying the swaying of the car and the rhythmic clickety-clack of the train wheels. She was just dozing off when the door opened quietly and Ike came in. His tie was off, too, and he was in his stocking feet.
“Don’t get up,” he said, closing the door behind him. “My insomnia’s been bad. I didn’t get any sleep last night and I can’t sleep now. Thought I might just lie down beside you, if it won’t disturb you.”
Kay concealed her astonishment. “There’s not a lot of room, but you’re welcome.” She turned on her side with her back to the wall, making room for him in the narrow berth, and lifted the blanket. He lay down and turned away from her, fitting his back against her as if they were two spoons in a drawer. She rested her cheek against his back and her free arm over him, and in a few moments, his breathing slowed and he was asleep.
She lay awake for a long time, deeply aware of his ma
le scent of tobacco and Old Spice, thinking, wondering, questioning. Dick’s presence in her life, once so vibrant and compelling, had retreated into the shadows. Ike’s commanding presence, his force, filled her waking hours and her dreams.
But she had no illusions. Whatever this was, whatever it became, it was for the moment only and entirely separate from her relationship with Dick, whom she planned to marry (yes, she did, truly she did) as soon as both their divorces were final. She supposed, too, that Ike’s relationship with his wife was an entirely separate thing for him. When the war was over, he would return to her and the two of them would take up where they had left off. Whatever was now was now, only. No past, no future.
Still, as she drifted off to sleep with Ike fitted closely against her—the two of them breathing together, their hearts, she thought, beating together—she knew that a line had somehow been crossed. Her last thought as sleep came was her mother’s word: dangerous. Yes, it was, she thought, yes.
She woke at dusk, as Ike swung his legs off the narrow berth. She stirred and he leaned over her. “I’m sorry, Irish.” He bent to kiss her cheek.
Sorry? She lay still, eyes closed, unmoving. Sorry for lying beside her, sorry for leaving her, sorry for kissing her at the cottage? Or sorry for not turning toward her? As he closed the door, she lay awake, hearing those enigmatic words and trying—without success—to summon Dick’s face against the encompassing, overwhelming strength of Ike’s presence.
At midnight, they reached Kentallen, on the eastern shore of Loch Linnhe. Kay knew the loch must be beautiful, but the night was pitch black and the weather abominable—cold and wet, with near gale-force winds. They were met by Colonel Price of the British Army, who climbed into the front seat of the heavy staff car beside Kay, who took the wheel. With the General and Butch in the backseat and a caravan of eight or nine military vehicles behind them, she followed Price’s directions to the first of a dozen landing points. She stayed in the car as Ike and Butch got out in the rain, trudged across wet fields to the headland, and watched men loaded with battle gear jump out of landing crafts and storm the beach. Then back in the car and on to another beach and another flotilla of landing crafts.
Kay was accustomed to driving unfamiliar staff vehicles on unfamiliar lanes, but this drive tested her to the limit. Between midnight and sunrise, she drove some ninety hellish miles. Blackout was rigidly imposed, the roads were little better than cart tracks, and it was sometimes impossible to know whether she was driving on the road or in the verge. Finally, as dawn broke on the bleak, wind-battered shore, they came to Admiralty House in the village of Inveraray, where the Royal Navy’s Admiral Hewitt gave them breakfast.
Ike let everyone know that he wasn’t happy with the disorganized chaos he’d seen on the beaches that night. He was worried about the untrained men and—worse—the inexperienced officers, who didn’t seem to know what to do with the men after they were ashore. In a matter of weeks, they would be landing on the beaches of North Africa, possibly under hostile fire. “If they don’t sharpen up by D-Day, they’ll be sitting ducks,” he said. After observing another couple of daytime landings at Inveraray, he was even more glum.
Their train left at four in the afternoon. The three of them had sandwiches and shared a bottle of wine. Then, exhausted, they went straight to their berths. Kay wondered whether Ike would join her again, but he didn’t. The train pulled into Euston Station at 7:30 a.m., where Tex was waiting with the car—and Telek, who greeted them exuberantly. At the office, Ike said nothing at all to Kay about what had happened on the way to Scotland, but the next morning, she found an envelope on her desk.
In it was a greeting card with a picture of a bouquet of red roses. Inside was written just one word, Thanks, and the initials DE.
• • •
The weeks before the top-secret November 8 invasion were a blur of work and worry. Beetle’s ulcer kicked up and Ethel, an experienced nurse, insisted that he go the hospital, leaving Kay, Tex, and Butch to carry on without him.
Butch was concerned about the cover story he was peddling to the newspapers to account for Ike’s absence from London in early November. He was telling reporters that Ike would be flying to Washington to confer with the President. That part was fine—it was Mamie that Butch was worried about. She was bound to see the story in the papers and would be terribly disappointed when Ike didn’t show up. He wished he could get word to her that the story was a ruse to fool the Jerries.
Beetle and Eisenhower were both worried about General Clark, who had boarded a submarine to the Mediterranean to carry out a dangerous liaison mission with Vichy officials and Resistance groups. It was a dicey business, but in the end Clark got back to the sub after a brief skirmish in the surf—without his pants.
And everybody who was in on Operation Torch was worried about the thousands of troops in scores of troopships already underway across an Atlantic crawling with German subs. Churchill was a quivering mass of nerves. Eisenhower had caught cold that rainy night in Scotland; he was pumped up on caffeine and cigarettes and looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week. Watching him in the car and in the office, Kay was increasingly worried. Everything depended on him, on one man. What would happen if he got seriously sick?
A few days before Ike was due to fly to the operation’s headquarters on Gibraltar, Butch pulled her out into the hallway. Very low and hesitantly, he said, “Kay, I wonder if you could do the Boss a favor.”
“Of course,” Kay said instantly. “If I can.”
“He’s not sleeping.” Butch pulled on his cigarette. “I’ve been thinking that maybe you could stay over at the cottage tonight and . . . well, spoon with him, the way you did on the train. It might help him get some sleep.”
Kay’s breath caught in her throat, but when she searched his expression, she found no judgment in it. “How . . . how did you know?”
“A telegram came for Ike on the train’s wireless.” Butch grinned crookedly. “He wasn’t in his compartment or his office. I knew he wasn’t with me, so unless he’d jumped off the train, he had to be with you. I knocked. When you didn’t answer, I opened the door a crack and peeked. And shut it again,” he added hastily. “I decided that the telegram could wait until he woke up.” He cocked his head. “I haven’t said anything to Ike about it. Or anybody else. And I won’t,” he added emphatically. “This is just between you and me.”
Kay gave him a hard, straight look, angry that she and Ike had been spied on. But at the same time, oddly relieved that Butch knew, and grateful for his silence. It was almost as if they were partners, conspiring to protect the General. But she had to clear something up.
“What you saw was all there was to see,” she said firmly. “Just that. Nothing else.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Kay.” Butch dropped his cigarette on the floor and stepped on it. “I’ve been sharing Ike’s suite at the Dorchester for the past three months, and in all that time, I haven’t seen him sleeping as peacefully as he was on that train, with you. Maybe he misses Mamie. Maybe it’s just the comfort of a warm body.” He paused. “I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you and I don’t need to know. I’m just afraid he’s going to be a basket case if he doesn’t get some sleep.”
Kay closed her eyes, fastening on the memory of Ike’s body next to hers. She was trying to think how she could do what Butch was asking, what she could say to Ike, what would happen, what might happen, what would happen after that.
“I can’t, Butch,” she said finally. She searched for a way to explain and couldn’t find one. Helplessly, she lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “I just . . . I just can’t.”
He studied her for a moment. “Yeah,” he said regretfully. “Sorry, Irish. Dumb idea. Forget I said anything about it.”
I’m sorry, too, Kay thought. I’m really, really sorry.
• • •
Ike wasn’t sure exactly what he had intended when he went to Kay that evening on the train, but he knew why he w
ent. Or rather, he knew what he told himself. He hadn’t been able to sleep and he was desperately weary. He had simply wanted to be near her, just for the human comfort of it. That was all, nothing more, although that, to his mind, was enough. For a long time there hadn’t been anything more than comfort between himself and Mamie—the fragility of her health, her lack of interest, his preoccupation with his work—and just the warmth of her body beside him had always been enough. He was past fifty, for God’s sake. Of course it was enough.
But to his surprise, when he had wakened with Kay asleep and warm against him in the narrow berth, he had realized that just being near her might not be enough. He felt the unexpected stir of desire and understood that he shouldn’t have come, that if he didn’t leave quickly, he might do something that would complicate the situation even further. What in God’s name had he thought he was doing? He must have been out of his mind. He had compromised both himself and her. What if they had been discovered? His whispered I’m sorry, Irish, to the sleeping girl had been an impulsive testimony to his complicated regret.
And with Operation Torch just ahead, he sure as hell didn’t need any more complications. After all the months of planning and placating and appeasing and knocking heads together, the day he’d been working for was about to arrive. Everything that could be done had been done. If he had overlooked anything, if he had miscalculated, it was too goddamned late to do anything about it. They would simply have to muddle along the best they could and trust to luck—to Providence—to carry them through.
His command team was scheduled to leave for Gibraltar in six Flying Fortresses, taking off from Hurn Aerodrome near Bournemouth on Tuesday morning, November 3. But a storm had moved in and the planes were grounded. The flight was rescheduled and the team went back to London.
They spent a rainy Wednesday evening at the cottage, he and Kay, Butch and Beetle and Ethel. They had supper and listened to music on the radio and tried to pass the time by playing bridge. But they were all nervy and on edge, and nobody could concentrate on the cards. At ten, Butch had climbed the stairs to bed and Beetle and Ethel went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. Kay was headed back to her billet, and Ike went to the door with her.
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