The General's Women

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “It’s still ours,” she said with a delighted laugh, loving the sound of the words. “It’s still ours.”

  • • •

  And so they settled into the routine that would carry them toward D-Day, now only four months away—an impossibly short time to do all the things that had to be done to put a million-and-a-half men on the European continent.

  Before the week was out, Eisenhower had decided that there were too many distractions in the city, where after-dark London, with its endless round of cocktail parties, restaurants, the theater, and all-night pub crawls, was too temptingly available. He had also been warned by British intelligence that the Germans were about to aim their new and still secret Vergeltungswaffen—long-range artillery V-weapons—at the city. In Grosvenor Square and Norfolk House, personnel and records were packed together like sardines in a tin, and he worried that a single hit on either place could set the invasion back by weeks or even months.

  So the General ordered SHAEF (the official acronym for Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force) to move to Bushy Park, near Teddington—which also had the advantage of being just a few minutes’ drive from Telegraph Cottage. Partially enclosed by a high wall, the entrance guarded by white-gloved, white-helmeted MPs, Bushy Park had belonged to the Eighth Air Force and even had its own landing strip. The hurriedly assembled Nissen huts, PX and mess buildings, and tents were ideal for the three thousand SHAEF workers. Quartered together, working together, they quickly developed a close relationship that made collaboration easier.

  Eisenhower’s staff—Kay, Beetle, Tex, Butch, and the WACs—had their offices in Building C, a corner shack with a tin roof covered with a dingy green-brown camouflage netting. There was never enough heat, the cement floor was damp, the overhead fluorescents flickered and buzzed, and a haze of tobacco smoke hung in the air. The General’s modest, windowless office had a thin brown carpet, utilitarian sofa and chairs, a swivel chair, and a gray metal desk equipped with two telephones: the same red six-line phone he had used in North Africa and a scrambler, designed to baffle enemy eavesdroppers.

  Kay (who was billeted with the WACs in a house in nearby Stanley Lane) for the first time had an office all to herself, adjacent to Eisenhower’s. He had asked her to serve as his appointments secretary, as well as handle his personal mail. This would relieve Tex for other tasks and was exactly the right job for her, since she knew everyone the General knew and understood everything he was working on.

  Which was everything under the sun and then some. One hour the Boss might be closeted with Under Secretary of State Stettinius, visiting from the States to discuss the politics of a liberated Europe. The next, he might be telling Patton to shut his goddamned mouth about the Russians and stay out of trouble. Or he might be listening to Montgomery’s continual complaints about American generals. Lunch could be peanuts and a candy bar alone at his desk, or a hot plate of spaghetti and meatballs that Kay brought him from the mess. Once every two weeks, he had a formal luncheon with the British Chiefs of Staff, and twice a week, sometimes more, a lunch at Number Ten Downing Street.

  When Eisenhower got in the car after an hour with the Prime Minister, Kay could see the strain on his face. Churchill had made a sort of peace with Overlord, but he wasn’t optimistic about its outcome. He would accompany Eisenhower out to the Packard, lean on the door, and say, “My dear General, liberate Paris by Christmas and you will make a believer out of me.”

  To Kay, the Prime Minister would add, plaintively, “Take good care of this man, Miss Summersby. The two greatest nations on earth have an incalculable investment in him.”

  “I will, sir,” Kay would reply. She would drive the General back to SHAEF for a session on the complicated Free French situation, an emergency meeting about a suspected security breach, or a discussion of Overlord’s airborne support, which Eisenhower passionately defended against the British generals who believed that the operation was heading for an aerial catastrophe. Or conferences on the two-thousand-plus ships and naval craft required for the Normandy assault, the C-47s needed for the airdrops of the 82nd and 101st, and the demand for parachutes—some ninety thousand had been earmarked for Overlord—not just for dropping men behind the lines but for dropping provisions and equipment. And once, he had to step into a squabble between the British Chiefs of Staff and the Munitions Board to insist that four million barrels of 130-octane aviation fuel be reserved for Normandy.

  Evenings, there were dinner meetings with whatever general hadn’t been available during working hours. Often, after dinner, Kay would go into the office to find the Boss on the phone or writing a letter or sending a cable, pleading for more landing craft. And more and more and then more. He was worried that there weren’t enough landing crafts to deliver enough men to take the beaches and break through the German lines. There could never be enough.

  And sometimes, late in the afternoon, the General might put down a paper and say, “I can’t take this goddamned crap one more second. Let’s go for a horseback ride.” They would go to Richmond Park, ideal because it was closed to the public and there was no need for guards to keep an eye on them. Richmond was a “Starfish” site, designed to lure enemy bombers away from London. Inside the park, British engineers had built a phony “decoy town”—one of 630 such sites around England. This one had plywood buildings and make-believe “factories” surrounded by cleverly designed fires that could be lit at night to make it look like an industrial area targeted by bombs. Kay and Ike avoided the decoy “streets” and stayed on the bridle paths that wound through the springtime woodland, carpeted with bluebells and violets and graced with wild cherry blossoms. It felt private enough, but they never knew when one of the Starfish maintenance men might be around.

  Once or twice a week, Eisenhower and Kay drove to the kennel—Hackbridge Kennels, in Surrey—to visit Telek. Kay had taken him an old handbag, and for the next six months, the Scottie slept with his head on it. The little dog was wild with delight when he saw them coming; when they left, he lay with his nose between his paws, utterly bereft. Ike felt just as bad. “I feel as if I’ve locked up part of my heart,” he said sadly. Telek’s empty place was partially filled by Shaef the cat, who did something Telek couldn’t: she cleared the mice out of the cottage.

  Telegraph Cottage remained their refuge. There was something about the little house, Kay thought, that invoked intimacy and trust. They were never quite alone there, but they had moments of privacy in the garden, which was gloriously alive with azure, purple, and red rhododendrons, and on the secluded stone bench at the edge of the woods. They held hands and occasionally kissed, but mostly they just talked—sharing their stories about their lives outside of England and the war, about her marriage to Gordon Summersby and his to Mamie.

  Her marriage, she told him, had been a mistake from the beginning, built on nothing but a silly, shallow enjoyment of people and parties; when it broke up, there was nothing left and little to mourn.

  His marriage, he told her, had been deeply damaged by the death of their son Icky at three—“The one disaster,” he said, “from which I will never recover.” He still harbored the awful feeling that if Mamie had tended to the little boy earlier, he might have survived. But she had stayed in bed with a headache that day, so Icky didn’t get to the doctor until Ike got home. “Or if I had paid more attention in the morning,” he said, and shook his head. “John was our antidote to the loss of Icky. Maybe if we’d had more children . . .” The marriage had been dying for years, he said, and with it, desire. “We don’t even have anything to talk about.”

  For her, the hours of conversation held an intimacy as sweet and all-embracing as physical lovemaking. But he spoke haltingly, painfully, as if he had never spoken such words aloud before, and Kay wondered whether he had perhaps not consciously thought them. Perhaps he was giving voice to new thoughts, a new way to see himself and his marriage. It couldn’t be easy. But while they talked about the past, they didn’t talk about the future, honorin
g their tacit agreement that this hour, this day, was all they had.

  Ike had said he’d like to try his hand at oil painting, so Kay asked Betty Baker, a friend in the American Red Cross, to put together a kit and give him a lesson or two. He set up an easel in the garden and began to paint the cottage. One afternoon, Kay looked over his shoulder to discover that he was sketching its floor plan, with an addition.

  He held out the pad to her. “Look at this, Kay. The kitchen could be turned into a big dining room, and then a new kitchen added on, with a maid’s room over it. And maybe enlarge the garden—put in more roses and a place for vegetables. A run for Telek, too, don’t you think?”

  “I think it all sounds utterly wonderful,” she murmured.

  Sternly, she reminded herself of what he had said at Hay’s Lodge in January: that their relationship would end when the war ended. But the little floor plan looked like a sketch of a possible future together, and she couldn’t extinguish the flare of hope that lit her heart. What an enormous gift it would be to live here, with him, for the rest of their lives, sharing peace after war and the tranquility of a quiet English life. Impossible, of course. But the thought was a sweet refuge in the midst of the unrelenting preparations for D-Day.

  • • •

  Hay’s Lodge proved to be a refuge, too. Ike often had to attend a late dinner and an early meeting the next day, and the Lodge was a convenient place to spend the night. It was there, one night in late February, that he asked Kay to stay with him.

  The day had included an early lunch with the Prime Minister and a long meeting with the British Chiefs of Staff that went until well after five. A storm had blown in along the Thames estuary that afternoon, and rain was lashing the streets and backing up traffic.

  “We’re not driving to the cottage in this crap,” Ike said. “Let’s have supper at the Lodge. Maybe the storm will let up later.” He frowned. “But if we go to a restaurant . . .”

  Kay knew what he meant. They couldn’t eat out in peace, because the General’s face and uniform were instantly recognizable. He’d be barraged with requests for autographs. And somebody would be sure to have a camera.

  “Let’s get take-away,” she said. “There’s a pub in Tottenham Court Road. The food won’t be fancy, but—”

  “Who cares about fancy?” Ike asked. “Take-away is fine.”

  Usually, when they were at the Lodge, others were with them. But tonight, the place had the feel of an empty house. Ike built a fire in the chilly sitting room, while Kay uncorked a bottle of white wine and spread out their supper—fish and chips, wrapped in the traditional newspaper—on the coffee table in front of the sofa. They ate sitting close together before the fireplace, with soft music on the wireless.

  “Almost as good as my fried catfish,” Ike said appreciatively, licking his fingers. “I’ll have to fix it for you someday, Kay. I soak it in buttermilk for an hour, then dunk it in cornmeal with lots of paprika and fry it in hot peanut oil.” He grinned. “Best damn catfish in Kansas, especially when it comes with mashed potatoes and a big spoonful of catfish gravy. But you gotta catch the fish in the Smoky Hill River. That’s what makes them good.”

  Kate sipped her wine. “In Ireland, fish and chips are called ‘one and one.’”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ike asked curiously.

  “The first fish and chips in the country were sold in Dublin, by an Italian immigrant. His wife didn’t know any English, so when a customer went to the cash register to pay, she would point to the menu and ask, ‘Uno di questo, uno di quello?’ ‘One of this, one of that?’ So that’s what we call fish and chips. One and one.”

  On the wireless, Vera Lynn was singing “The White Cliffs of Dover,” a song that Kay loved. Outdoors, thunder growled. Ike turned his head, listening to the gusty wind and the rain rattling against the windows.

  “The storm is getting worse,” he said. After a moment, he spoke again. “You’re not driving in this weather.”

  “That sounds like an order, sir.” Kay picked up the newspaper wrappings and began feeding them to the fire, humming the melody to “The White Cliffs of Dover.” Love and laughter and peace ever after.

  “Come to think of it, that’s what it is. An order.” He pushed himself out of his chair and put his arms around her. “Come here, Irish.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were upstairs in his bed. An hour later, she was lying beside him, feeling the weight of his arm across her, watching him sleep, his face soft, the lines erased, his body utterly relaxed. He had been a strong lover, urgent, eager, but tender—all that she could have wished. It had happened easily, naturally, sweetly, exactly as it was meant to happen. And it gave them both the confidence that it could happen again, would happen again. One and one, she thought, in perfect synchrony. Whatever pain lay in the future, she would always have that memory to hold against her heart.

  After a while, she slipped out of bed, gathered her clothes, and went quietly toward the door. He stirred, awoke, and said, “Where are you going?”

  “To the guest bedroom.” She smiled in the dark. “If I’m asked, I want to be able to say, ‘I have never slept with Dwight Eisenhower.’”

  He chuckled, turned over, and went back to sleep.

  • • •

  Eisenhower hadn’t meant it to happen.

  That is, he hadn’t been consciously planning to make love to Kay when he directed her to drive to the Lodge on that stormy night. Instead, he had been thinking of how hard it was raining, and how tired he was and about the prima donnas he’d had to deal with at the afternoon meeting and the bitter disagreement he’d had with Montgomery. He hadn’t even been thinking of it when they finished eating and the storm seemed to become worse.

  In fact, he hadn’t actually thought of it at all. He had simply gotten out of his chair and reached for her and there she was, in his arms, soft and willing. What had happened next had seemed easy and uncomplicated and right. It was exactly what he had needed, at the moment he needed it most. Now that it had happened, he knew it would happen again—now that he knew he could. Funny how that worked.

  But it might be a very long time before it happened again. Preparations for D-Day occupied every waking hour of Eisenhower’s day. He knew a commander’s visit could lift the men’s morale (as it lifted his), so he filled the calendar with troop inspections. Taking Butch and Kay, he went by train with Bradley and Patton to Portsmouth to inspect the Fourth and Twenty-Ninth Infantry Divisions, where he talked personally with small groups of soldiers—no newspapermen allowed. A week later, with Montgomery and Air Marshal Tedder, he visited the Sandhurst cadets, then the Scottish Highlanders and the American Second and Third Armored. Then it was on to Salisbury, Newbury, Winchester, and the amphibious landing exercises that took place on the beaches at Slapton Sands, near Dartmouth, which did not go as planned.

  By this time, England was groaning under the weight of arms, ammunition, and troops—a million Americans alone—and a joke made the rounds: The only things keeping the island from sinking into the North Sea were the huge silver barrage balloons that held it up. Convoys rumbled through the quiet countryside all day and through the night, moving heavy equipment from the north to staging areas in the south. Tanks, amphibious “Ducks,” fog-burning FIDOs, concrete and steel breakwaters, Mulberry and Gooseberry prefabricated harbors—all these and more were parked and piled along the Channel coast. Soldiers’ leaves were canceled. Civilians were banned from the military zone from the southern beaches ten miles inland. Most of the locomotives and coach cars had been requisitioned for military service, so the queues at the stations got longer and longer. Everywhere, for everyone, security had never been tighter. Which posed a difficult challenge for Eisenhower, from an unexpected direction.

  Butch and Beetle brought it to his attention. The problem, they said, was Kay. She was a security risk—and a substantial one, at that.

  They had the conversation in Ike’s office in Building C, one afternoon wh
en Kay was out on an errand. It was raining again, and chilly, and Eisenhower had caught cold during the trip to Northern Ireland. He wasn’t in the best of moods, especially not for this.

  “It’s not a new problem,” Butch added. “There was some concern about her back in North Africa, but she didn’t have as much access there as she does here. And the stakes in this operation are a lot higher.”

  “Dammit,” Ike said testily, “I don’t have time for this crap today.”

  “Sorry, Boss.” Beetle looked him straight in the eye. “You need to hear this.”

  Ike blew his nose. “Okay. But make it snappy. Bradley will be here in—” He looked at his watch. “Eight minutes.” Bradley was always on time, unlike Patton, who always ran late

  Butch nodded. “Everybody likes Kay and accepts her—on a personal level. Most men have their own private friendships and other arrangements. They understand.”

  “You better believe it,” Ike muttered. “You’ve got Molly.” He looked at Beetle. “You’ve got Ethel.” Pots calling the goddamned kettle black.

  “But Molly and Ethel don’t work at SHAEF,” Beetle replied steadily. “They don’t have access to the Supreme Commander’s private correspondence, his telephone calls, his daily logbook. They don’t go with him every time he inspects the troops at top-secret locations. Or drive his car, with top-secret discussions going on in the backseat.” He leaned forward, his thin face serious. “It’s Churchill who’s raising the question, Ike. He’s afraid of the consequences if the Germans find out about her—especially Goebbels.”

  “Goebbels?” Ike stared at him. “What the hell—” And then he understood. Goebbels was Hitler’s propaganda minister. Churchill was afraid he might publish the story as a way to discredit the Supreme Commander. Or maybe just threaten to publish it. Ike remembered the President saying something about blackmail.