by Herman Wouk
Meantime, over the fields of Belgium and France, British pilots had learned something important. They could knock down German flying machines. They knocked down many; but many British planes fell too. As the Battle of France went on, the French implored their retreating allies to throw in all their aircraft. This the British did not do. Their air commander, Dowding, told Winston Churchill that twenty-five squadrons had to be kept intact to save England, and Churchill listened to him. The French collapse thus became foredoomed, if it had ever been anything else.
At the height of the debacle, on June 9, in a letter to old General Smuts, Winston Churchill explained himself. The military sage had reproved him for failing to observe a first principle of war: Concentrate everything at the decisive point. Churchill pointed out that with the short-ranged fighter planes then in the air on both sides, the side that fought nearer its airdromes had a big advantage.
“The classical principles are in this case modified by the actual quantitative data,” he wrote. “I see only one way through now, to wit, that Hitler should attack this country, and in so doing break his air weapon. If this happens, he will be left to face the winter with Europe writhing under his heel, and probably with the United States against him after the presidential election is over.”
Winston Churchill, today an idealized hero of history, was in his time variously considered a bombastic blunderer, an unstable politician, an intermittently inspired orator, a reckless self-dramatizer, a voluminous able writer in an old-fashioned vein, and a warmongering drunkard. Through most of his long life he cut an antic, brilliant, occasionally absurd figure in British affairs. He never won the trust of the people until 1940, when he was sixty-six years old, and before the war ended they dismissed him. But in his hour he grasped the nature of Hitler, and sensed the way to beat him: that is, by holding fast and pushing him to the assault of the whole world, the morbid German dream of rule or ruin, of dominion or Götterdämmerung. He read his man and he read the strategic situation, and with the words of his mouth he inspired the British people to share his vision. By keeping back the twenty-five squadrons from the lost Battle of France, he acted toughly, wisely, and ungallantly; and he turned the war to the course that ended five long years later, when Hitler killed himself and Nazi Germany fell apart. This deed put Winston Churchill in the company of the rare saviors of countries, and perhaps of civilizations.
With France and the Low Countries overrun, and the Germans at the Channel, England now lay within range of the Luftwaffe’s fighter planes. The United States was safe from air attack in 1940, but the on-rolling conquest of Europe by the Germans, combined with the growing menace of Japan, posed a danger to the future safety of the United States. The question arose: if selling warplanes to the British would enable them to go on knocking down German aircraft, killing German pilots, and wrecking German bomber factories, might not that be, for American security, the best possible use of the aging craft while new, bigger, and stronger machines were built in the inaccessible sanctuary across the ocean?
The answer, from the United States Navy, the Army, the War Department, the Congress, the press, and the public, was a roaring NO! Franklin Roosevelt wanted to help the British, but he had to reckon with that great American NO! Churchill, with the power of a wartime chief of state, had not sent planes to France, because the survival of England depended on them. Roosevelt, presiding over a wealthy huge land at peace, could not even sell planes to England without risking impeachment.
It was a shock for Victor Henry to see Franklin Roosevelt out from behind the desk in a wheelchair. The shirt-sleeved President was massive and powerful-looking down to the waist; below that, thin seersucker trousers hung pitifully baggy and loose on his fleshless thigh bones and slack lower legs. The crippled man was looking at a painting propped on a chair. Beside him stood the Vice Chief of Naval Operations for Air, whom Victor Henry knew well: a spare withered little naval aviator, one of the surviving pioneers, with a lipless mouth, a scarred red face, and ferocious tangled white eyebrows.
“Hello there!” The President gave Victor Henry a hearty handshake, his grip warm and damp. It was a steamy day, and though the windows of the oval study were open, the room was oppressively hot. “You know Captain Henry, of course, Admiral? His boy’s just gotten his wings at Pensacola. How about this picture, Pug? Like it?”
Inside the heavy ornate gold frame, a British man-o’-war under full sail tossed on high seas beneath a storm-wracked sky and a lurid moon. “It’s fine, Mr. President. Of course I’m a sucker for sea scenes.”
“So am I, but d’you know he’s got the rigging wrong?” The President accurately pointed out the flaws, with great relish for his own expertise. “Now how about that, Pug? All the man had to do was paint a sailing ship—that was his whole job—and he got the rigging wrong! It’s positively unbelievable what people will do wrong, given half a chance. Well, that thing’s not going to hang in here.”
During all this, the admiral was training his eyebrows like weapons at Victor Henry. Years ago, in the Bureau of Ordnance, they had violently disagreed over the deck plating on the new carriers. Junior though he was, Henry had carried his point, because of his knowledge of metallurgy. The President now turned his chair away from the painting, and glanced at a silver clock on his desk shaped like a ship’s wheel. “Admiral, what about it? Are we going to put Pug Henry to work on that little thing? Will he do?”
“Well, if you assigned Pug Henry to paint a square-rigger, Mr. President,” the admiral replied nasally, with a none too kind look at Pug, “you might not recognize it, but he’d get the rigging right. As I say, a naval aviator would be a far more logical choice, sir, but—” He gestured reluctant submission, with an upward chop of a hand.
The President said, “We went through all that. Pug, I assume somebody competent is tending shop for you in Berlin?”
“Yes, sir.”
Roosevelt gave the admiral a glance which was a command. Picking his white hat off a couch, the admiral said, “Henry, see me at my office tomorrow morning at eight.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Victor Henry was left alone with the President of the United States. Roosevelt sighed, smoothed his thin rumpled gray hair, and rolled himself to his desk. Victor Henry now noticed that the President did not use an ordinary invalid’s wheelchair, but an odd piece of gear, a sort of kitchen chair on wheels, in and out of which he could easily slide himself. “Golly, the sun’s going down, and it’s still sweltering in here.” Roosevelt sounded suddenly weary, as he contemplated papers piled on the desk. “Isn’t it about time for a drink? Would you like a martini? I’m supposed to mix a passable martini.”
“Nothing better, sir.”
The President pressed a buzzer. A grizzled tall Negro in a gray gabardine jacket appeared and deftly gathered papers and folders out of various trays, while Roosevelt pulled wrinkled papers from one pocket and another, made quick pencilled notes, jabbed papers on a spike and threw others in a tray. “Let’s go,” he said to the valet. “Come along, Pug.”
All down one long hall, and in the elevator, and down another hall, the President glanced at papers and scrawled notes, puffing at the cigarette holder in his teeth. His gusto for the work was evident, despite the heavy purple fatigue smudges under his eyes and the occasional deep coughs racking his chest. They arrived in a small dowdy sitting room hung with sea paintings. “That thing isn’t going to end up in here either,” said the President. “It’s going in the cellar.” He handed all the papers to the valet, who wheeled a chromium-stripped bar beside his chair and left.
“Well, how was the wedding, Pug? Did your boy get himself a pretty bride?” said the President in chatty and warm, if faintly lordly tones, measuring out gin and vermouth like an apothecary. Henry thought that perhaps the cultured accent made him sound more patronizing than he intended to be. Roosevelt wanted to know about the Lacouture house, and wryly laughed at Victor Henry’s account of his argument with the congressman. “Well
, that’s what we’re up against here. And Ike Lacouture’s an intelligent man. Some of them are just contrary and obstinate fools. If we get Lacouture in the Senate, he’ll give us real trouble.”
A very tall woman in a blue-and-white dress came in, followed by a small black dog. “Just in time! Hello there, doggie!” exclaimed the President, scratching the Scottie’s head as it trotted up to him and put its paws on the wheelchair. “This is the famous Pug Henry, dear.”
“Oh? What a pleasure.” Mrs. Roosevelt looked worn but energetic: an imposing, rather ugly woman of middle age with fine skin, a wealth of soft hair, and a smile that was gentle and sweet, despite the protruding teeth stressed in all the caricatures. She firmly shook hands, surveying Pug with the astute cool eyes of a flag officer.
“The Secret Service has an unkind name for my dog,” Roosevelt said, handing his wife a martini. “They call him The Informer. They say he gives away where I am. As though there were only one little black Scottie in the world. Eh, Fala?”
“What do you think of the way the war’s going, Captain?” said Mrs. Roosevelt straight off, sitting in an armchair and holding the drink in her lap.
“It’s very bad, ma’am, obviously.”
Roosevelt said, “Are you surprised?”
Pug took a while to answer. “Well, sir, in Berlin they were mighty sure that the western campaign would be short. Way back in January, all their government war contracts had a terminal date of July first. They thought it would all be over by then and they’d be demobilizing.”
Roosevelt’s eyes widened. “That fact was never brought to my attention. That’s extremely interesting.”
Mrs. Roosevelt said, “Meantime, are they suffering hardships?”
Victor Henry described the “birthday present for the Führer” drive, collecting household tin, copper, and bronze; the newsreel of Göring adding busts of himself and Hitler to a mountain of pots, pans, and irons, and washtubs; the death penalty announced for collectors caught taking anything for their own use; the slogan, One pan per house; ten thousand tons for the Führer. He talked of snowbound Berlin, the lack of fuel, the food rationing, the rule that a spoiled frozen potato had to be bought with each good one. It was against the law, except for foreigners and sick people, to hail a taxi in Berlin. Russian food deliveries were coming in slowly, if at all, so the Nazis were wrapping butter from Czechoslovakia in Russian-printed packages to foster the feeling of Soviet support. The “wartime beer,” a uniform brew reduced in hops and alcohol content, was undrinkable, but the Berliners drank it.
“They’ve got a ‘wartime soap’ too,” Pug said. “Einheitsseife. When you get into a crowded German train it’s not much in evidence.”
Roosevelt burst out laughing. “Germans are getting a bit ripe, eh? I love that. Einheitsseife!”
Pug told jokes circulating in Berlin. In line with the war effort speedup, the Führer had announced that the period of pregnancy henceforth would be three months. Hitler and Göring, passing through conquered Poland, had stopped at a wayside shrine. Pointing to the crucified Christ, Hitler asked Göring whether he thought that would be their final fate. “Mein Führer, we are perfectly safe,” Göring said. “When we are through there will be no wood or iron left in Germany.”
Roosevelt guffawed at the jokes and said that there were far worse ones circulating about himself. He asked animated questions about Hitler’s mannerisms in the meeting at Karinhall.
Mrs. Roosevelt interjected in a sharp serious tone, “Captain, do you think that Mr. Hitler is a madman?”
“Ma’am, he gave the clearest rundown on the history of central Europe I’ve ever heard. He did it off the cuff, just rambling along. You might think his version entirely cockeyed, but it all meshed together and ticked, like a watch.”
“Or like a time bomb,” said the President.
Pug smiled at the quick grim joke, and nodded. “This is an excellent martini, Mr. President. It sort of tastes like it isn’t there. Just a cold cloud.”
Roosevelt’s eyebrows went up in pride and delight. “You’ve described the perfect martini! Thank you.”
“You’ve made his evening,” said Mrs. Roosevelt.
Roosevelt said, “Well, my dear, even the Republicans would agree that as a President, I’m a good bartender.”
It wasn’t much of a jape, but it was a presidential one, so Pug Henry laughed. The drink, the cosiness of the room, the presence of the wife and the dog, and the President’s naïve pleasure in his trivial skill, made him feel strangely at home. The little black dog was the homiest touch; it sat worshipping the crippled President with a bright stare, now and then running a red tongue over its nose or shifting its look inquiringly to Pug.
Sipping his martini, his pose in the wheelchair as relaxed as before, but the patrician tones subtly hardening for business, Roosevelt said, “Do you think the British will hold out, Pug, if the French collapse?”
“I don’t know much about the British, sir.”
“Would you like to go there for a spell as a naval observer? Possibly after you’ve had a month or so back in Berlin?”
Hoping that Franklin Roosevelt was in as pleasant a mood as he seemed, Victor Henry took a plunge. “Mr. President, any chance of my not going back to Berlin?”
Roosevelt looked at the naval captain for an uncomfortable five or ten seconds, coughing hard. His face sobered into the tired gravity of the portraits that hung in post offices and naval stations.
“You go back there, Pug.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“I know you’re a seafaring man. You’ll get your sea command.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“I’d be interested in your impressions of London.”
“I’ll go to London, sir, if that’s your desire.”
“How about another martini?”
“Thank you, sir, I’m fine.”
“There’s the whole question of helping the British, you see, Pug.” The President rattled the frosty shaker and poured. “No sense sending them destroyers and planes if the Germans are going to end up using them against us.”
Mrs. Roosevelt said with a silvery ring in her voice, “Franklin, you know you’re going to help the British.”
The President grinned and stroked the Scottie’s head. Over his face came the look of complacent, devilish slyness with which he had suggested buying the Allied ocean liners—eyebrows raised, eyes looking sidewise at Pug, mouth corners pulled far up. “Captain Henry here doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to be in charge of getting rid of those old, useless, surplus Navy dive bombers. We badly need a housecleaning there! No sense having a lot of extra planes cluttering up our training stations. Eh, Captain? Very untidy. Not shipshape.”
“Is that definite at last? How wonderful,” said Mrs. Roosevelt.
“Yes. Naturally the aviators didn’t want a ‘black shoe’ to handle it.” Roosevelt used the slang with self-conscious pleasure. “So naturally I picked one. Aviators all stick together and they don’t like to part with planes. Pug will pry the machines loose. Of course it may be the end of me if word gets out. That’ll solve the third-term question! Eh? What’s your guess on that one, Pug? Is that man in the White House going to break George Washington’s rule and try for a third term? Everybody seems to know the answer but me.”
Victor Henry said, “Sir, what I know is that for the next four years this country is going to need a strong Commander-in-Chief.”
Roosevelt’s mobile pink face turned grave and tired again, and he coughed, glancing at his wife. He pressed a buzzer. “Somebody the people aren’t bored with, Pug. A politician exhausts his welcome after a while. Like an actor who’s been on too long. The good will ebbs away and he loses his audience.” A Navy lieutenant in dress blues with gold shoulder loops appeared in the doorway. Roosevelt offered his hand to Victor Henry. “That Sumner Welles thing didn’t come to anything, Pug, but our conscience is clear. We made the effort. You were very helpful.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Welles wasn’t as impressed with Hitler as you evidently were.”
“Sir, he’s more used to being around great men.”
A peculiar flash, not wholly pleasant, came and went in the President’s tired eyes. “Good-bye, Pug.”
A crashing thunderstorm, with thick rain hissing down from skies black as night, stopped Victor Henry from leaving the White House. He waited for a letup in a crowded open doorway marked PRESS, where a cool damp wind brought in a smell of rainy grass and flowers. All at once a heavy hand thwacked his shoulder.
“I say, Henry, you’ve got yourself another stripe!” Alistair Tudsbury, swelling in green gabardine, leaning on a cane, his moustached face purpler than before around the nose and on the cheeks, beamed down at him through thick glasses.
“Hello there, Tudsbury!”
“Why aren’t you in Berlin, old cock? And how’s that magnificent wife of yours?”
As he spoke, a small black British car pulled up to the entrance in the streaming rain and honked. “That’s Pamela. What are you doing now? Why not come along with us? There’s a little reception at the British embassy, just cocktails and such. You’ll meet some chaps you ought to know.”
“I haven’t been asked.”
“You just have been. What’s the matter, don’t you like Pam? There she sits. Come along now.” Tudsbury propelled Henry by the elbow out into the rain.
