Winds of War (110 page)
Through all the talk of grand hypothetical plans - hundreds of ships, tens of thousands of airplanes and tanks, millions of men - one pathetic item kept recurring: an immediate need for a hundred fifty thousand rifles. If Russia collapsed, Hitler might try to wrap up the war with a Crete-like invasion of England from the air. Rifles for defending British airfields were lacking. The stupendous materiel figures for future joint invasions of North Africa or the French coast contrasted sadly with this plea for a hundred fifty thousand rifles now.
Next morning, boats from all over the sparkling bay came clustering to the
Prince of Wales
for church services. On the surrounding hills, in sunlight that seemed almost blinding after days of gray mist, the forests of larch and fir glowed a rich green.
An American destroyer slowly nosed its bridge alongside the battleship, exactly level with the main deck, and a gangplank was thrown across. Leaning on his son’s arm and on a cane, Franklin Roosevelt, in a blue suit and gray hat lurched out on the gangplank, laboriously hitching one leg forward from the hip, then the other. The bay was calm, but both ships were moving on long swells. With each step, the tall President tottered and swayed. Victor Henry, like all the Americans crowding the destroyer bridge, hardly breathed as Roosevelt painfully hobbled across the narrow unsteady planks. Photographers waiting on the
Prince of Wales
quarterdeck were staring at the President, but Pug observed that not one of them was shooting this momentous crippled walk.
He thought of Franklin Roosevelt as he had first known him - the young Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the athletic cocksure dandy, the obvious charmer and lady-killer, full of himself, on top of the world, bounding up and down a destroyer’s ladders and spouting salty lingo. The years had made of him this half-disabled gray man, heaving himself one agonized step at a time over a gangplank a few feet long; but here was enough willpower displayed, Pug thought, to win a world war. A ramp could have been jury-rigged and laid across with ease. Franklin Roosevelt might have wheeled over in comfort and with dignity. But in his piteous fashion he could walk; and to board a British battleship, at Winston Churchill’s invitation for church parade, he was walking.
His foot touched the deck of the
Prince of Wales
. Churchill saluted him and offered his hand. The brass band burst forth with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Roosevelt stood at attention, his chest heaving, his face stiff with strain. Then, escorted by Churchill, the President hitched and hobbled all the way across the deck, and sat. No wheelchair ever appeared.
As the sailors massed in ranks around the afterdeck sang “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” and “Onward Christian Soldiers,” Winston Churchill kept wiping his eyes. The old hymns, roared by a thousand young male voices in the open air under the long guns, brought prickles to Victor Henry’s spine and tears to his eyes. Yet this exalting service made him uneasy, too.
Here they were, men of the American and the British navies, playing as comrades-in-arms. But it was a phony picture. The English were fighting, the Americans were not. The Prime Minister, with this church parade under the guns, was ingeniously working on the President’s feelings. Here was diamond cut diamond, will against will! Churchill was using everything he could, including Roosevelt’s supposed religious tendency, to move him. If Franklin Roosevelt could come away from this experience without giving a promise to declare war on Germany, or at least to lay down an ultimatum to Japan, he was a hard man; and the weeping old fat politician beside him was playing a damned hard game himself, for which Victor Henry admired him.
The British chaplain, his white and crimson vestments lapping in the wind, his thick gray hair blowing wildly, read the closing Royal Navy prayer: “
. . . Preserve us from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of the enemy; that we may be a security for such as pass upon the sea upon their lawful occasions . . . and that we may return in safety to enjoy the blessings of the land, with the fruits of our labors . . . and to praise and glorify Thy Holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord . . .
”
A few British sailors cautiously moved out of ranks. One, then another, sneaked cameras from their blouses. When nobody stopped them, and the two leaders smiled and waved, a rush began. Cameras appeared by the dozens. The sailors swarmed into a laughing, cheering ring around the two men. Pug Henry, watching this unwonted disorder on a warship with mixed feelings of amusement and outrage, felt a touch on his elbows. It was Lord Burne-Wilke. “Hello there, my dear fellow. A word with you?”
Either the British worried less about fire than the Americans, or they had found a good way to fake wood panels. Burne-Wilke’s cabin had the dark, warm, comfortable look of a library den. “I say, Henry, what is your position on shipboard drinking? I have a fair bottle of sherry here.”
“I’m for it.’
“Good. You’re dry as a bone in your service, aren’t you? Yet last night the President served us an excellent wine.”
“The President is the source of all Navy regulations, sir, and can tailor them to his desires.”
“Ah? Jolly convenient.” Burne-Wilke lit a cigar, and they both sipped wine. “I suppose you know that this ship crossed the ocean without escort,” the air commodore resumed. “Our first night out of England, we ran into a whole gale. Our destroyers couldn’t maintain speed, so we zigzagged on alone.”
“Sir, I was appalled to hear about it.”
“Really? Rather sporting of the British Prime Minister, don’t you think, to give the Hun a fair shot at him on the open sea? Three thousand miles without air cover or surface escort, straight through the entire submarine fleet?”
“You had your good angels escorting you. That’s all I can say.”
“Oh, well, at any rate here we are. But it might be prudent not to overwork those good angels, what? Don’t you agree? On our way back, every U-boat in the Atlantic will certainly be on battle alert. We shall have to run the gamut.” Burne-Wilke paused, studying the ash on his cigar. “We’re stretched thin for escorts, you know. We’ve rounded up four destroyers. Admiral Pound would be happier with six.”
Victor Henry quickly said, “I’ll talk to Admiral King,”
“You understand that this cannot be a request from us. The Prime Minister would be downright annoyed. He’s hoping we’ll meet the
Tirpitz
and get into a running gun fight.”
“Let me start on this now, sir.” Pug drank up his sherry, and rose to his feet.
“Oh? Would you?” Burne-Wilke opened the cabin door. “Thanks awfully.”
On the afterdeck, the photographing was still going on. Officers with cameras were now shouldering sailors aside, as the two politicians cheerfully chatted. Behind them stood their glum chiefs of staff and civilian advisers. Hopkins, squinting out at the sunny water, wore a pained expression. The military men were talking together, except for Admiral King, who stood woodenly apart, his long nose pointing seaward, his face congealed in disapproval. Pug walked up to him, saluted, and in the fewest possible words recounted his talk with Burne-Wilke. The lines along King’s lean jaws deepened. He nodded twice and strolled away, without a word. He did not go anywhere. It was just a gesture of dismissal and a convincing one.
Amid much wining and dining, the conference went on for two more days. One night Churchill took the floor in the
Augusta
wardroom after dinner, and delivered a rolling, rich, apocalyptic word picture of how the war would go. Blockade, ever-growing air bombardment, and subversion would in time weaken the grip of Nazi claws on Europe. Russia and England would “close a ring” and slowly, inexorably tighten it. If the United States became a full-fledged ally, it would all go much faster, of course. No big invasion or long land campaign would be needed in the west. Landings of a few armored columns in the occupied countries would bring mass uprisings. Hitler’s black empire would suddenly collapse in rubble, blood, and flame. Franklin Roosevelt listened with bright-eyed smiling attention, saying nothing, and applauding with the rest.
On the last day of the conference, just before lunch, Admiral King sent for Pug. He found the admiral in undershirt and trousers in his cabin, drying face and ears with a towel. “Task Unit 26 point 3 point 1, consisting of two destroyers, the
Mayrant
and the
Rhind
, has been formed,” King said without a greeting. “It will escort the
Prince of Wales
to Iceland. You will embark on the
Prince of Wales
as liaison officer, disembark in Iceland, and return with our task unit.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“You’ll have no written orders. But we’re not in the kind of spot we were in last time. In confidence, we’ll soon be convoying all ships to Iceland. Maybe by next week. Hell our own marines are occupying the place now. The President’s even sending a young officer along as a naval aide to Churchill while he tours our Iceland base. Ensign Franklin D. Roosevelt, Junior.” King spoke the name with an expressionless face.
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, Henry, how are you at languages?”
“It’s a long time since I tried a new one, Admiral.”
“Well, a military supply mission will go to the Soviet Union in September. If Russia’s still in the war by then, that is. Mr. Hopkins has brought up your name. He appears impressed, and the President too, by your expertise in landing craft and so forth. Now your service record has been checked, and it seems you claim a ‘poor to fair’ knowledge of Russian. Hey? How is that? That’s very unusual.”
“Admiral, I put that down when I entered the Academy in 1911. It was true then. I don’t remember ten words now.” Henry explained the circumstances that had given him Russian-speaking chums in his Sonoma County boyhood.
“I see. Well, it’s there on the record. Upon returning from Iceland you will be detached from War Plans to prepare yourself, with an intensive refresher course in Russian, for a possible trip to the Soviet Union on special detached duty. You’ll have interpreters. But with even a smattering, your intelligence value will be greater.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
King put on his uniform jacket, stared at Victor Henry, and for the first time that Henry could recall, favored him with a smile. “On the record, incidentally I see you used to be a fair gunnery officer, too.”
“My one hope is to get back to that.”
“Have you heard that extension of the draft passed the House of Representatives an hour ago?”
“It did? Thank God.”
“By one vote.”
“What?
One
vote, sir?”
“One vote.”
“Whew! That’s not going to encourage the British, Admiral.”
“No, nor the President, but it’s how the American people feel right now. It may be suicidal, but there it is. Our job is to keep going anyway. Incidentally, Henry, I’ll soon be needing an operations officer on my staff. After your Russian errand, if it comes off, that’s an assignment you may get.”
Victor Henry kept his face rigid. “It would be an honor, Admiral.”
“I thought you might like it. I believe you’ll measure up,” King said, with an awkward trace of warmth.
Compared to a battleship command, it was a crushing prospect. Desperation forced Pug to say, “President Roosevelt may have other ideas. I just never know.”
“I mentioned this to the President. He said it sounded like the perfect spot for you.”
A verse from Psalms knifed into Pug’s mind: “
Put not your trust in princes
,”
“Thank you, Admiral.”
Within the hour, as Victor Henry was packing, a summons came from the President. The interview this time took but a minute or two. Roosevelt appeared fatigued and preoccupied, making quick pencilled notes on one document after another at the baize-covered table. Harry Hopkins was in the room, and beside him a tall handsome ensign, with a strong resemblance to the Assistant Secretary who in 1917 had bounded around the destroyer
Davey
.
The President introduced Franklin D. Roosevelt, Junior, to Pug, saying “You gentlemen will be travelling together. You should know each other.” As the ensign shook hands, the President gave Captain Henry a poignant man-to-man glance, as much as to say – “
Keep an eye on him, and talk to him.”
This human touch half dissolved Victor Henry’s hard knot of mistrust for the President. Perhaps Roosevelt had turned off King with a pleasantry and still meant to give him the battle ship. The President’s bland manner in dismissing him was, as always, unfathomable.
To brass band anthems and booming gun salutes, in a brisk breeze smelling of green hills and gunpowder, the
Prince of Wales
left Argentia Bay. The great conference was over.
In the wardroom of the
Prince of Wales
, Victor Henry could sense the subtle gloom hanging over the ship. What the conference had accomplished to increase help for England remained undisclosed; and in itself this clearly struck the battleship’s officers as a bad sign. These men, veterans of two combat years, of air attacks and gun fights, had a subdued dismal air, despite the grandeur of their ship and the stuffy luxury of their wardroom. The predicament of England seemed soaked in their bones. They could not believe that Winston Churchill had risked the best ship in their strained navy, and his own life, only to return empty-handed. That wasn’t Winnie’s style. But vague hope, rather than real confidence, was the note in their conversation. Sitting in the lounge over a glass of port after dinner, Pug felt quite out of things, despite their politeness to him. It struck him that his presence embarrassed them. He went to bed early. Next day he toured the
Prince of Wales
from flying bridge to engine rooms, noting contrasts with American ships, above all the slovenly, overburdened, tense crew, so different from the scrubbed happy-go-lucky
Augusta
sailors.
Major-General Tillet came up to him after dinner that evening, and laid a lean hand on his shoulder. “Like to have a look at the submarine sighting chart, Henry? The Prime Minister thought you might. Quite a reception committee gathering out there.”