Comes the War

by Ed Ruggero

  Most of the photos were high level, but Harkins could clearly see the pockmarks of bomb craters, jagged shadows that might be toppled buildings. The photos showed what the American taxpayers were getting for the millions spent on high explosives. Showed what the Germans were reaping for what they had sown during the Blitz.

  “Is this Germany?”

  “The ones on this side are Germany,” Corland said, waving his arm. “This corner of the table is France.”

  The difference was apparent even to Harkins. The photos from France showed damage to rail yards, some bridges. The pictures taken over Germany showed the destruction of entire towns, whole quarters of cities.

  “What are all these for?”

  “We’re making a photo album for FDR,” Corland said, smiling. “We want to show him what the Mighty Eighth is doing over here to win the war.”

  “A photo album? Like you’d make for vacation pictures?”

  “A picture is worth a thousand words, my friend,” Corland said, stabbing a finger onto a pile of images.

  “And what is the bombing campaign accomplishing?”

  Harkins thought Corland might ask what the question had to do with a murder investigation, but Corland became quite animated.

  “We’re tearing the heart out of German industry, for one thing. They’ll have to go back to riding horses by the time we get finished with all their factories. And the Luftwaffe? Forget it. Between the pummeling of their aircraft facilities and our Mustangs sweeping the skies of fighters, pretty soon there’ll be no enemy planes to attack our bomber formations.”

  “Wow,” Harkins managed.

  “The Brits are just carpet-bombing everything, going over at night to pile up bodies. Churchill wants revenge. But our missions are bombing with pinpoint accuracy to knock out factories, ball-bearing plants, oil production facilities. We’re crippling the German war machine and destroying the will of the German people.”

  “Hard to believe they’re still putting up a fight,” Harkins said.

  “We’re sure that the Western Front will collapse very soon. The Krauts don’t want the Soviets to gobble up Germany. They’d rather let the Brits and Americans roll through. I’ve seen some reports that ordinary German soldiers are making plans to surrender as soon as the Allies land. Better to be captured by the Americans than shot by the Russians.”

  “How can you tell from these pictures?” Harkins asked. “I mean, they’re taken from so high up.”

  “We have experts who do the analysis. These guys can point to something that looks like a bunch of squiggly lines and explain it so that even a layman can understand what he’s looking at. That’s what we were doing last night. Until this morning, actually.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We had a party for about forty reporters. Mostly Americans, though we had a handful from Latin American newspapers, too. I had our guys give them a briefing in here last night, show them the progress we’re making. That’s why I’m dressed like this,” he said, smiling. “I just kicked the last ones out about an hour ago.”

  “That must have been fascinating,” Harkins said. There was a magnifying glass on four legs standing on a pile of photos. Harkins doubted it was powerful enough to show the mangled bodies. “To hear it explained like that.”

  Corland walked to a sideboard, where he poured a brown liquid into a crystal glass, tilted his head back, and drained it all at once.

  “Hair of the dog,” he said.

  “Are you an aviator, Colonel?” Harkins asked.

  “Me? No, no, no. I don’t even like flying,” Corland said. “I was a publicity agent before the war. Hollywood. I traveled to Washington on my own dime and got an audience with the man himself, Hap Arnold. Convinced him that he needed to mount a good public relations campaign—win over support from the American people, from Congress, from the president—if he was going to get all the assets he needed. And now it’s paying off.”

  Harkins had some trouble picturing the famously gruff General Hap Arnold, commanding general of the two-million-man Army Air Forces, being swayed by a Hollywood press hack who wore a dressing gown and slippers until well into the afternoon.

  “Truth is,” Corland said, “the air force can win this war without the ground-pounders. It’s only a matter of weeks, maybe a month or two, before Germany collapses, just like in the last war.”

  “I’ve only been at OSS for a couple of days,” Harkins said. “But I hear there are people who disagree with that assessment.”

  “Who cares what those pencil pushers think? Bunch of people who won’t even come out to debate this in the open.”

  Harkins considered pointing out that the OSS was mostly a spy agency, and that public pronouncements of any kind—much less debates—were hardly tools of the trade. Instead, he said, “I heard there was a study, or maybe some studies, about German war production.”

  “I heard some bullshit like that, too,” Corland said. “But where are they getting their data for this so-called study? From a bunch of teenage Resistance fighters sending notes from the Continent by goddamn carrier pigeon? And who is doing this so-called analysis? No one who has flown over Germany, I can tell you that.”

  Corland slapped one hand on the photos from Germany, sending a few fluttering to the floor.

  “We’ve got the damned evidence right here!”

  The photos were not evidence, of course, at least not evidence of anything specific. Aerial photos of London in 1940 would have shown a city in flames, and yet the Brits went about their business and even turned the tide. But it was something else Corland said that intrigued Harkins.

  “What did you hear?” Harkins asked.

  “What?”

  “You said you heard about a study, or some studies. What exactly did you hear, and from whom?”

  “I don’t remember,” Corland said. He turned back to the sideboard, poured another two fingers from a decanter, and drank half of it.

  Harkins moved closer to the table, bent over the photos in the France pile, then straightened and looked at Corland. “Let’s say, hypothetically, that there was a credible report, an analysis that showed that all your claims about damage to German war industries were suspect.”

  Corland smirked.

  “Let’s say this report found that all your assessments were bullshit,” Harkins said. “That’s what some of your pilots are saying, by the way. Anyway, it would be in the best interest of the air force, of General Arnold, of you, for that matter, to keep that report from becoming common knowledge. Keep it under wraps.”

  Corland had one cigarette burning in an ashtray. He lit another.

  “A report like that, if taken seriously, might threaten your cushy job here,” Harkins said. “The question is: How far would the air force go to squash something like that?”

  “I don’t think I like your implication, Lieutenant,” Corland said.

  “I don’t really fucking care, Colonel,” Harkins said. “You ever hear of a woman named Helen Batcheller?”

  “She was the murder victim, right? Captain Gefner told me.”

  “Yes,” Harkins said. “Had you ever heard of her before that call from Gefner?”

  The hesitation was so brief, Harkins would have missed it if he hadn’t spent years watching liars up close.

  “No,” Corland said.

  “You sure, Colonel?” Harkins pushed. “I’m not going to find someone who heard you talking about her? Some chatty journalist, maybe?”

  “Journalists are liable to say anything,” Corland said. He tried a smile, but he was a terrible actor.

  “Yeah,” Harkins said. “Sometimes it’s hard to get a straight answer to a simple question. But me, I’m just a stubborn Mick, and I figure if I keep plugging away, something will give. Somebody will break.”

  Harkins tapped his leg with his folded cap.

  “I hope your hangover goes away soon, Colonel,” he said, then walked out of the shadowed room.

  * * *

&
nbsp; In the courtyard outside, Harkins, Patrick, and Lowell climbed into the sedan, Harkins up front.

  “Who was the guy in the bathrobe?” Patrick asked from the backseat.

  “Former Hollywood public relations man, if you can believe that,” Harkins said. “Now, apparently, a colonel in the U.S. Army Air Forces.”

  “I knew I should have held out for more rank when I volunteered,” Patrick said. “What did you learn?”

  Harkins looked at Lowell, who glanced back at him before returning her eyes to the road.

  “He said the RAF is just carpet-bombing Germany. Churchill’s revenge, he called it. Said they’re just trying to pile up bodies.”

  “What about targeting war industries?” Lowell asked.

  Harkins shook his head. “The RAF goes over at night so they can hide from the fighters. But they’re just dropping bombs. Not much aiming, other than to find the right city.”

  Lowell pressed her lips into a tight line.

  “I’m sorry, Lowell,” Harkins said.

  She shook her head. “I hate them for what they did to my family, but we’re doing the same thing. Some other mom and little ones getting crushed in their home.”

  Patrick patted Lowell on the shoulder and the three of them settled into silence.

  Harkins knew that Lowell and his brother had discussed Vera Brittain and Lowell’s concern about the morality of waging war on civilians whose chief crime was being born German and living in a city chosen off a list by some Allied planner. Harkins didn’t like it any better than she did, but the final truth was that, as with so many aspects of his life since putting on a uniform, he was powerless. He’d been shoved around Africa, Sicily, Italy, and now Britain with little to no say over how he would spend his time and energy, where he would risk his life, and only a sometimes understanding of how his daily efforts contributed to anything. He wasn’t winning the war; he was cleaning up after other people’s messes.

  Harkins looked out the window. He was getting better at shoving things to some unvisited corner of his mind. That’s where he pushed memories of Kathleen Donnelly, where he abandoned daydreams about the future, where he directed Michael’s ghost. He would deal with it all later, or his memories would deal with him.

  “Drizzling again,” Patrick said as a couple of drops splattered on the windshield. “Just enough to be annoying, and nothing like Ireland. I tell you, I got so sick of the rain there this past winter.”

  “Is it true that your California has sunshine all the time?” Lowell asked. “Somebody said that about the university where Miss Batcheller taught.”

  “Just like the movies, I guess,” Patrick said. “Why, you thinking of chucking all this wonderful weather, moving to Hollywood?”

  “What do you want to do after the war, Lowell?” Harkins asked.

  Lowell chewed the inside of her lip, looked at Harkins, perhaps to see if he was teasing. “I’m not sure. I was intrigued by the story of your friend, the woman who wants to be a doctor.”

  “Kathleen?” Patrick asked. “She’s tough, but that would be a hard road for a girl.”

  Harkins watched Lowell as she let the comment sit for a few seconds.

  “Before the war, you never heard much about women flying planes, either,” she said. “Except for Amelia Earhart.”

  “So?” Harkins asked.

  “Who do you think ferries all those planes around Britain? Delivers them to the airfields after they’re unloaded. Inside the States, too. Lots of women are shuttling aircraft around.”

  “I read about that in LIFE magazine,” Patrick said.

  “And you know that women are running those antiaircraft batteries we saw in London, right?”

  “Yeah,” Harkins said. “I saw them unloading ammo.”

  “Working in just about every factory back home, too,” Patrick added.

  “Well, we might just surprise you men someday,” Lowell said. She smiled, and Harkins realized she was teasing him. “Aldous Huxley says it’s a brave new world.”

  20

  24 April 1944

  1500 hours

  Harkins had Lowell drive him to the infirmary where Cushing had been a patient, but the prisoner had been moved the day before. After a few wrong turns they found the temporary stockade, a large garage standing next to the fire-blackened remains of some commercial shops.

  “What happened over there?” Harkins asked the sergeant on duty inside.

  “They think an antiaircraft shell set it all on fire,” the sergeant said. He was a big, cheerful guy with blond hair and a mouth full of bright teeth, like something out of a magazine ad for milk. “That stuff’s gotta come down someplace, right?”

  The jail was solid, cavernous, and chilly, with narrow windows high up in the stone walls. The space had been subdivided by adding wooden partitions that looked to be about ten feet high. Clearly not a maximum-security holding pen; probably just someplace for drunken airmen. And one accused murderer.

  “My name’s Harkins. I think you have a prisoner of mine here.”

  “Oh, right,” the desk sergeant said, suddenly a little anxious. “Major Cushing, just over from the infirmary.”

  “That’s him.”

  “I’m real sorry, Lieutenant, but I got instructions this morning that you’re not allowed to visit the prisoner.”

  Although he figured he knew the answer, Harkins asked anyway. “Who told you that?”

  “Well, my captain told me. But there was some air force lawyer in here this morning. He’s the one who put your name on this here list.”

  The sergeant held up a clipboard. Harkins’ name was printed in block letters on an otherwise blank page, with a note beside that said “NO VISITING PRIVILEGES.”

  Harkins might have tried to bullshit his way in, but the sergeant looked genuinely upset, and Harkins had another idea.

  “Okay,” he said. “It wasn’t critical that I see him. Just doing some double-checking, that’s all.”

  “Like I said, sir. I’m real sorry, but I got my orders. You know how it is.”

  “I sure do, Sarge,” Harkins said. “I surely goddamn do.”

  * * *

  Two and a half hours later Harkins, Patrick, and Lowell were back in the sedan and parked just down the street from the stockade. Patrick and Lowell sat up front, watching the jailhouse door. Harkins lay on the backseat.

  “Tall bloke, blond hair?” Lowell asked.

  “Yeah,” Harkins said. “A buck sergeant.”

  “I see him. He and a couple of others are coming out.” She looked at her wristwatch. “Looks like shift just changed.”

  “Good,” Harkins said. “Let’s give them a few minutes to get out of the area, give the new guys a few minutes to settle in.”

  “We’ve actually done something like this before,” Patrick said to Lowell. He was perfectly relaxed, his long left arm resting on the top of the front seat. “In Sicily.”

  “You went into a stockade?” Lowell asked.

  “Didn’t have to. My brother’s girlfriend just waltzed in and walked out with our guy. She knew the commander or something. Just turned on the charm, I guess.”

  “We’re not trying to get Cushing out,” Harkins said. From his spot on the backseat he could see both of their faces.

  “Not yet,” Patrick said, winking at Lowell.

  “Well, Lieutenant,” Lowell said, glancing back at Harkins. “I’m learning so much about how officers operate.”

  They waited another ten minutes before getting out of the car. Patrick had ditched his jacket with the shoulder patch of the Eighty-Second Airborne Division and pulled his trouser cuffs over his paratrooper boots. He had taken the stiffening ring out of his cap in imitation of Air Force officers. If one didn’t look too closely, he could pass for an air force chaplain. Harkins had gone through a bigger transformation. Lowell had chatted up an airman, selling him a story about having to sneak her GI boyfriend back onto base and could she please borrow a uniform blouse. When Harkins clim
bed out of the car to stand next to his brother, he wore the insignia of a corporal on his sleeve.

  Patrick went in first. A little more than ten minutes later, a soldier came out of the stockade, looked around, spotted the sedan, and walked over.

  “You the chaplain’s assistant?” the GI asked Harkins.

  “That’s me.”

  “He wants you to bring his bag in. One of the prisoners wants to receive communion.”

  “I told him he should have carried it in there,” Harkins complained. He pulled Patrick’s canvas satchel from the seat. As far as he knew, it contained only some clean underwear, the book about cathedrals, and a sandwich; he hoped no overzealous guard would ask to see inside.

  As Harkins expected, the big, blond desk sergeant was off duty. The man who’d come on shift—who’d never seen Harkins before—barely looked up as he waved him in. Harkins stepped into a long hallway formed by the temporary wooden walls. He followed Patrick’s voice to the far end and found his brother sitting on a folding chair just inside an open cell door. Across from him, perched on the edge of a bunk that was the only other piece of furniture in the tiny space, was a sober Major Frederick Cushing.

  “You look better than the last time I saw you, Major,” Harkins said.

  “I feel better, too.” Cushing had some color in his cheeks, looked like he’d gotten some sleep. He was still thin, and his unwashed hair was long for a soldier. Harkins wondered how many times the prisoners were allowed to shower in a week.

  “The chaplain here tells me we’re both on Captain Gefner’s shit list,” Cushing said.

  “He doesn’t want me talking to you,” Harkins said. “But as far as I’m concerned, I’m not finished investigating.”

  “So you believe me?” Cushing asked. “I didn’t kill her, you know.”

  “What I believe doesn’t matter as much as what the prosecutor can prove,” Harkins said.

  “It’s important to me,” Cushing said.

  “Yeah,” Harkins said. “I believe you. But I’m pretty sure Captain Gefner doesn’t, and so I’m going to need your help.”