by Jake Tapper
“Mac was also in D-Day,” Strongfellow said. “Hundred and First Airborne.”
“Second Battalion, Five Hundred and Sixth Parachute Infantry, under Colonel Sink,” MacLachlan said as he unpinned his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves. “Drop Zone C. Between Hiesville and Sainte-Marie-du-Mont.”
“We landed at Omaha,” said Charlie, loosening his tie. “I was in K Company—we secured the bridge over the Vire River and protected the right flank.”
MacLachlan raised his glass and waited for Charlie’s to greet it.
“To those still there,” MacLachlan said.
Clink.
MacLachlan dealt. Charlie waited until all five cards hit the coffee table before he picked up his hand. The cards were unusually thick. He studied the queen of spades.
“Is this a Map Deck?” Charlie asked. MacLachlan and Strongfellow both beamed. During the war, American and British intelligence agencies had worked with a playing-card company to manufacture a special deck of cards that hid within them maps of escape routes on German territory near POW camps. Cards could be peeled apart to produce the maps, so they were ever so slightly thicker than average.
“You bet,” said MacLachlan.
“I got one from the OSS before I dropped into Germany,” said Strongfellow.
Charlie held a card up to the light, then examined its ridge.
“One of the cards has been opened if you want to see.” Strongfellow reached into the deck box and slid out a joker. He handed it to Charlie, who peeled it open to reveal an escape route through the German village of Dallgow-Döberitz. “Mac loves puzzles and hidden clues and such.”
Charlie whistled. “Amazing.”
“I had to soak it first,” said Strongfellow.
“Ante up,” said MacLachlan. “Nickels in.”
Charlie reached into his pocket, withdrew a dozen or so coins, and dropped them on the table. He steered a nickel into the pot.
“Speaking of anteing up, that was quite a move you made in Appropriations,” MacLachlan said. “Not sitting out any hands, I see.” He smiled.
As much as he hated to relive the event that had led him to speak up at the previous week’s meeting, Charlie knew this was his moment. Looking at his cards, he began: “Ten days after we landed on Omaha Beach, on June seventeenth, our orders were to seize Isigny, the bridge over the Vire River, then recapture Saint-Lô, La Madeleine, Pont Renard, La Heresneserie, on and on. Basically nonstop combat until we met up with the Soviets at the Elbe.”
The two men were listening intently as Charlie paused to sip his drink.
“Cards?” MacLachlan asked.
Charlie looked at his hand and threw down the two he didn’t want. MacLachlan tossed replacements in front of him. An eight of hearts and a nine of spades. A straight, almost a straight flush.
MacLachlan gave Strongfellow three cards and gave one to himself. They assessed their hands as Charlie continued.
“So we were in the midst of recapturing Le Meaune. We had Easy Company with us too. There were Jerries everywhere, and Vichy French. It was a mess. You could hardly tell who was on whose side.”
“Open with a dime,” said MacLachlan. Charlie moved a dime from his pile to the center of the table.
“I see you,” he said.
“See you and raise,” Strongfellow said, putting fifteen cents into the pot. He slid a cigar from his inside suit-jacket pocket and began lighting it, swirling the cigar, sucking in, and waving the lighter beneath it. Charlie was momentarily confused, since he’d thought Mormons didn’t smoke, but he let it pass. None of his business.
“We were in a farmhouse outside of town, me and my platoon,” Charlie continued. “Mortars were going off in the distance but nothing near us. This French family was being friendly. Mom, dad, four kids, a grandma. We were just talking, trying to communicate—none of us spoke French—trying to figure out which Germans were around. And suddenly, the older son, maybe sixteen, took out a knife and tried to stab me. He was scared sloppy, and the blade hit my helmet, which I was holding.”
Strongfellow leaned back on the couch. MacLachlan took a sip from his glass.
“So we restrained the kid and got concerned that something was going on, you know? We looked around the house, found nothing, then told the dad to show us the barn. He was nervous. He insisted on taking two of his kids with him, a boy and girl. Young. Under ten. I guess his thinking was that if they were with him, we’d be less inclined to kill him.
“It was me, Rodriguez, Hillman…” Charlie could name all his men in his sleep, but he realized it didn’t much matter to the other congressmen. “Anyway, most of my platoon went with me, and a couple stayed back in the house.” He vividly recalled the faces of the men in his platoon, a motley gang of teenagers and guys in their thirties, some educated and others street-smart.
“So we’re in the barn,” Charlie went on, “and Rodriguez, this skinny private first class from Spanish Harlem, he notices some crates in a stall. They don’t look like they belong there, so he goes to check it out, and right at that moment a mortar explodes outside. Parts of the barn are blown away, a support beam falls right on top of the French family, and some sort of gas starts seeping out of one of the crates.”
“Gas?” said Strongfellow. “Krauts didn’t use gas.”
“Not on soldiers, they didn’t,” MacLachlan corrected. “Jews were another story.”
“I don’t know that it was German gas. It might have been left over from the First World War. Who knows where it came from. Anyway, Hillman, our platoon sergeant, shouted for us to put on our gas masks, so we all fastened these cheap rubber things around our heads. Mortars are still going off outside the barn so no one runs out, but we all sprint to the other end of the barn. Except the family. And Rodriguez. Rodriguez’s pinned down under the beam too. And he can’t even reach his mask.
“Hillman had always thought the masks were pieces of garbage, so when he looked at me through the cheap plastic, I knew what he was thinking. I was the captain, though, and we had a man in trouble. I grabbed Corporal Miller’s mask, told the platoon sergeant to follow me, and we ran to Rodriguez. I put the mask over Rodriguez’s face while Hillman tried to move the beam off Rodriguez and the French family. More of my guys came over, with their masks on, and they all tried to move the beam. But then they started choking. With the masks on. Rodriguez, too, was choking. With his mask on. The French kids and the dad were choking without masks.”
“What about you?” MacLachlan asked.
“Mine worked,” Charlie said, wincing slightly. He took a sip from his glass and looked down, as if there were answers in the ice cubes.
“And then?” Strongfellow asked after the pause grew uncomfortable.
Charlie exhaled dramatically, as if he were exhausted. “The platoon sergeant and the other guys ran outside, vomiting. Their masks were worthless. If they’d stayed to save Rodriguez and the family, they would have died. The mortars started moving north. Somehow I managed to push the beam enough to wedge Rodriguez out and get him outside in the fresh air. But he was in bad shape. Foaming at the mouth. Eyes crossed. Skin turning green.”
“What was it?” Strongfellow asked. “Mustard?”
“Don’t know,” Charlie said. “We left the barn at once. Rodriguez was messed up. We had a few of the guys take him to an aid station a couple miles back. Toward the beach. He died before he got there, we later were told. My other two men also got wounded in the process. Shot. They survived, but we never saw them again either. Haber, Scully. Shipped back home. Whole thing was FUBAR.”
There was a pause as Strongfellow and MacLachlan collected their thoughts.
“The French family?” MacLachlan finally asked. “The dad and his two kids?”
Charlie shook his head.
“So this is why you want to block Goodstone?” MacLachlan continued. “They made the gas masks?”
“They did, sir,” Charlie said.
“Did you report it?” MacLachl
an asked.
“Yes, sir,” Charlie said. “To my CO. And then later, with paperwork related to Rodriguez’s death.”
“Did they ever own up to it?” asked MacLachlan. “Issue any sort of report explaining what happened and why it will never happen again? Compensate the Rodriguez family?”
“You know, I wondered that as well,” Charlie said. “After the markup, I had an aide look into it. Best I can tell, Goodstone did nothing. Though the army did tell me they notified the company.”
“Good Lord,” MacLachlan said, shaking his head. “Wish I could say I was surprised.”
“You going to keep pushing it?” Strongfellow asked. “Carlin seemed pretty PO’ed.”
Before they could continue the conversation, there was a knock at the door and a black man in his thirties wearing a gray flannel suit poked his head into the room.
“Is this the card game?” he asked.
There was an uncomfortable silence as the roomful of white veterans decided what to do. Washington, DC, like much of the nation, remained segregated in almost every way.
“You sure you’re in the right place?” one of the congressmen in the back of the room asked.
“This is the card game for veterans, unless I am mistaken,” the man said. He thrust a hand into his baggy trouser pocket, then slowly began to extricate it. He raised his hand; between his fingers dangled a blue-and-white-striped ribbon with one strip of red in the middle. Attached to the ribbon swung a small bronze replica of a propeller laid upon a cross pattée.
A Distinguished Flying Cross.
Charlie realized the man with the medal was Isaiah Street, a former Tuskegee Airman, one of the elite flying aces in segregated units of the U.S. Army Air Forces and a particularly decorated one at that. He and Representative Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of New York were the only black men in Congress.
“I got a Purple Heart, too, in my other jacket,” Street said. “But all I did to earn that one was not die.”
“We need a fourth over here, Congressman,” Charlie said, glancing at Strongfellow and MacLachlan, who nodded to affirm the invitation. The rest of the room turned back to their card games.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Street said, taking off his jacket as the other three finished up their hand. MacLachlan won with a full house.
“My deal,” said Strongfellow. “Texas hold ’em okay?”
“Only if we stick with cash,” Charlie said. “I can’t call if Street throws down his Distinguished Flying Cross.”
Street laughed. “I like to get in the door on the first try,” he said.
Strongfellow dealt each man two cards and placed three other shared cards faceup on the table. The men fell into a brief silence, each contemplating his pair.
“Check,” said MacLachlan, and then he glanced at Charlie with one bushy eyebrow raised. “I hear you’ve been shanghaied by Kefauver to sign up for his latest publicity tour.”
“What’s he up to now?” asked Street. “Check.”
“Check,” said Charlie.
“Check,” said Strongfellow. He threw down a fourth shared card in the middle of the table.
“Nickel in,” said MacLachlan, throwing a coin into the pot. “Oh, he’s cooked up a bullshit hearing about comic books being the reason for urban crime waves,” MacLachlan said. “Kefauver’s latest attempt to cast himself as a white knight in preparation for ’56.”
After Street anted up, Charlie came to terms with the fact that he was holding a garbage hand.
“I’m out,” he said.
“Raise,” said Strongfellow, tossing a dime into the pot. He slid the fifth and final shared card faceup, prompting a harrumph from MacLachlan.
“Fold,” he said.
“Sounds like the old okey-doke to me,” Street said. “Raise.” He put down a quarter, and Strongfellow groaned mildly and tossed his cards on the table. Street reassembled the deck and began shuffling.
“Okey-doke?” asked Strongfellow.
“You’ll forgive him, Street, he’s from Utah,” Charlie joked.
“A distraction,” explained Street. “Omaha Hi-Lo, gentlemen,” he announced as he dealt the cards. “Okey-doke’s a scam. The guy on the street who holds up his hat with one hand and says, ‘Look at my hat, nothing in my hat,’ and with the other hand he’s pinching your wallet.”
“I don’t think it’s a distraction,” said Charlie. “I think they mean it. And I’m in no position to say no.”
“Course not,” said MacLachlan.
As Street finished dealing each man four cards facedown, Charlie wondered how much he could press his case with his new friends. He inspected his cards: the ace of hearts, the ace of spades, the two of clubs, the seven of diamonds. Two aces before even one flop card had been dealt; a great start, but he couldn’t seem too eager. He threw down a nickel.
“I need Kefauver on my side because of the cruddy gas masks I told you about,” Charlie said as everyone else anted up. “I don’t think Goodstone should get another nickel from the taxpayers. And I can use any support. Whether it’s from Kefauver, someone else on the Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, or any of you fine gentlemen.”
Charlie turned to a confused-looking Street to offer a brief synopsis of the saga of the gas masks and Private First Class Rodriguez. Strongfellow chimed in with the more pressing issue of Chairman Carlin’s anger at Charlie for trying to block federal funds from Goodstone.
“I know the answer before I ask,” said Street, “but I assume Goodstone never reached out to the private’s family?”
Charlie shook his head. His two priorities upon returning to Manhattan after the war had been marrying Margaret and sitting down with the Rodriguezes to tell them what had happened. He saw them every June at St. Cecilia’s in Manhattan, where they all lit candles. “Near as I can tell, Goodstone’s done everything they can to pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Pretty crummy,” Street said. “Brother Powell’s on Appropriations; I can talk to him, see what he thinks.”
“I’d keep it quiet for now, boys,” Strongfellow cautioned. “Carlin is a mercenary.”
“But don’t you think if we can get a sizable group of veterans in the House to oppose this, Carlin will see the writing on the wall?” Charlie asked. “Why would this be worth making a stink about? I doubt Goodstone would want the publicity.”
“This isn’t some Andy Hardy movie, Charlie,” MacLachlan said. “Folks don’t band together when the chips are down and put on a show.”
“Mac is right,” Street said. “We need to learn a lot more before we do anything. We don’t know if Goodstone has connections or a loose wallet or powerful friends or what.”
“You don’t want to get in over your head,” Strongfellow warned.
“They had to have paid someone off to have gotten away with it,” said Street.
“Or someones,” agreed MacLachlan.
“I get it, I get it,” said Charlie, now a bit embarrassed.
“One just needs to be a bit more stealthy on this battlefield, Charlie,” MacLachlan said. “And we need to do a lot more recon.”
“Carlin is mean,” said Strongfellow. “You can’t just take him on willy-nilly.”
“But you’re actually ahead of the game, here, in one way,” said MacLachlan. “It makes more sense for you to try to get Kefauver to remove the Goodstone money when the bill gets to the Senate.”
“Here’s the flop,” said Street, throwing down the first shared card for the table: the ace of clubs.
Charlie didn’t believe in omens, but having two aces in the hole and a third on the table improved his mood a touch. Still, he felt naive and dejected and couldn’t help reflecting that principles had been a lot easier to fight for before he entered a world where there were actual consequences.
Chapter Six
Sunday, December 7, 1941
New York City, New York
Charles Everett Marder had been born prematurely in Manhattan on December 7, 1920, a date of lit
tle consequence in any way until the day he turned twenty-one. A birthday-celebration lunch was planned around his schedule, and at two o’clock he met his parents at P. J. Clarke’s on Fifty-Fifth and Third. It was their favorite restaurant, unassuming and lively, and Mary Marder pretended not to know that its chief attraction for her husband and son was the barroom radio, always tuned to whatever game was being played that day.
As the Marders walked in, the Brooklyn Dodgers football team, which outer-borough-born Winston rooted for, had won the coin toss in its game against Manhattan’s New York Giants, a favorite of Charlie’s, at the Polo Grounds. The family eased into a back booth as a waiter materialized, pen poised.
“Hamburger, please, medium rare, with extra fries and a black-and-white shake,” Charlie said. “Starving,” he explained to his mother when she looked shocked at his abrupt order.
“I was about to ask how it could be possible that my baby is officially an adult, but you still order like a nine-year-old,” Mary Marder teased.
“Martini for me, dry as a desert,” put in Winston. “I want to see tumbleweeds skimming across the meniscus. Oh, and get one for my boy too. Eighty-six his milk shake unless you plan on bringing it in a bottle with a nipple.”
Mary did her best to ignore her husband’s crudities, as did Charlie, who began to tell his parents about his upcoming exams while he and his father pretended they weren’t also listening to the football game blaring on the radio behind the bar. Mary had just asked Charlie about his plans, or lack thereof, after graduation in June when Winston shushed them so he could hear more of the important bulletin interrupting the game.
“Flash: Washington,” barked the broadcaster. “The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.”
As the waiter delivered the martinis, the restaurant fell into silence except for a man’s tinny, scratchy voice on the radio.
“Hello, NBC. Hello, NBC. This is KTU in Honolulu, Hawaii. I am speaking from the roof of the Advertiser Publishing Company Building. We have witnessed this morning the distant view of a brief full battle of Pearl Harbor and the severe bombing of Pearl Harbor by enemy planes, undoubtedly Japanese. The city of Honolulu has also been attacked and considerable damage done.”
