Winds of War (118 page)

“It’s wonderful news about your baby, Briny,” Madeline remarked, as they drove off.

Byron said, looking straight ahead at the road, “I went into the house before, looking for you. I saw you and Cleveland.”

After a pause filled with engine noise he glanced at her.

Her brows were contracted over wide dark eyes in a scowl, and she looked lovely, but tough. She very much resembled their father. “Is
this
why you offered to drive me to the governor’s place? To lecture me? Thanks, dear.”

“That’s a married man, Madeline. Mom and Dad would be damned upset at what I saw.”

“Don’t talk to me about upsetting Mom and Dad. I have yet to marry a Jew.”

Those were the last words spoken in the car until it drew up at Washington Place. Madeline opened the door. “I’m sorry, Briny. That was nasty. But didn’t you deserve it, accusing me of God knows what! I have nothing against Natalie. I like her.”

Byron reached across her legs and slammed the door shut. The glare on his white face was frightening. “One minute. You tell Hugh Cleveland - you be sure to tell him, Madeline - that if I ever find out he’s done anything to you, I’ll come after him, and I’ll put him in a hospital.

The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, how dare you? You’re cruel and you have a dirty mind. Do you actually think I’d play around with a married man? Why,
Happy Hour
was my idea. I was so excited when Mr. Fenton told us about the rating, I’d have kissed anybody who was handy. You’re being horrible, Byron.” She took a handkerchief from her purse and wiped her eyes.

“All right. I didn’t want to make you cry.”

“Don’t you believe me?” Madeline spoke in soft and wistful tones, tearfully smiling. “My God, I thought we knew each other so well. We used to. I admit Hugh
would
sleep with me if he could. He’ll sleep with anybody, and I find that disgusting. He’s nothing but a whoremaster, and his wife’s the most miserable woman alive. I appreciate your concern for my honor. You’re very old-fashioned and sweet, like Dad. But don’t you worry about Madeline. Forgive me for that mean crack, darling. I’m awfully happy about the baby.” She kissed his cheek. He felt the tears on her skin. She got out of the car, twinkled her fingers at him, and ran into Washington Place.

When Byron got back to the naval base, target planes were coming in high over the harbor, towing long fluttering red sleeves, and on all the ships the gun crews were shouting, and slanting their weapons skyward; but there were no sounds of firing, and the excitement seemed forced and silly. The
Devilfish
, sitting high and dry on blocks, was deserted except for yard workmen and the watch. Byron took out of his desk drawer a writing pad, and the record of the
fado
song that he and Natalie had heard together in Lisbon. He put the record on the wardroom phonograph and started to write:

My darling,

The news about the baby just came and -

The hissing of the bad needle gave way to the guitar chords that opened the song. He put his head down on his arms. He wanted to picture his wife and the new baby, a boy who perhaps looked like Victor. But when he closed his eyes, what he saw was his sister’s uncovered thighs and garters.

Byron stopped the record and spent the next hour drawing a sketch of an air compressor. Working from memory, using different colored crayons and inks, he produced a picture accurate and clear enough to be printed in a manual. To this he clipped a letter he typed in the abandoned mildewy-smelling yeoman’s cubicle, formally requesting transfer to Atlantic duty. He added a scrawled pencil note on a chit:

Captain - I deeply appreciate the amnesty and the leave. The only thing I want in the world now is to see my wife and baby, and try to get them out of Europe. I’m sure you will understand.

Next morning Branch Hoban congratulated Byron on his sketch, explained with regret that he couldn’t spare an officer from the watch list, declared his conviction that Natalie and her baby were quite safe in Rome, and said he would forward the request, not recommending approval.

Chapter 51

Rhoda was startled by the bulk of the wax-sealed envelope from the State Department. Inside she found another fat envelope with pale blue Russian printing on the flap. The eleven-page typewritten letter it contained was much struck-over with pen and ink. Clipped to it, on a small sheet headed MEMORANDUM FROM ALISTAIR TUDSBURY, was a red-pencilled note in Pug’s firm slanted hand:

3 Oct.

Moscow (and still can’t believe it!)

Hi -

Don’t get scared - guess I haven’t written a letter this long since you’ve known me – haven’t had many experiences like this.

Kremlin banquet was another incredible business – that’s for next letter, this one has to go off pronto -

Regards from Tudsburys. I’ve used his typewriter and stationery. Letter explains. He’s fatter than ever, daughter’s a wraith -

Love

Pug

Hotel National Moscow

Oct. 2, 1941

Dearest Rhoda -

Three hours from now I’ll be dining in the Kremlin. How about that? It’s God’s truth. And the rest of this trip has been every bit as fantastic.

Now that we’ve got ourselves two grandsons (and how about
that
, Granny?) I’m beginning to feel I should record some of these things I’m going through, while they’re fresh in my mind. I’m no writer, but just the bare record of the facts should interest those infants one day. So don’t think I’m becoming a garrulous old fud if I start sending you occasional batches of these pages. After you’ve read them, tuck them away for the babies.

I’m somewhat punchy; haven’t had a real night’s sleep since I left London. The trip to Archangel in a British destroyer could have been restful, but for night conferences and GQ alarms all day long. That is a hot run; you’re in Luftwaffe range almost all the way. The convoys on this route take quite a shellacking. Luckily we had fog covering us about half the time.

I’m making all these typing mistakes because Tudsbury’s typewriter is cranky, and there’s nobody in the Soviet Union who can fix a British typewriter - or who wants to, you’re never sure which. I’ve been cadging embassy typewriters for my work, but they’re swamped today getting out the final conference documents. The Tudsburys occupy the best quarters in the National. Naturally! Leave that to Talky. His suite faces out on Red Square, and I can see the Kremlin through a drizzle from where I sit. Lenin stayed in this suite they say; now here I am. It’s all maroon plush and gold chandeliers and alabaster statues, with a Persian rug about an acre big, and this room even has a rosewood grand piano, almost lost in a corner. (The piano’s out of tune.) Me, I’m lodged in a back room on the top floor about five feet by ten with bare yellow plaster walls.

Tudsbury’s here right now, dictating to Pamela his broadcast for tonight. Leave it to Talky to show up where the action is! He got the War Information Office to requisition Pamela for him; his stories and broadcasts are considered ace propaganda, and he pleaded failing eyesight. She’s on extended leave from the RAF and seems miserable about it. Her flier has been a German prisoner for over a year and she hasn’t had word of him in months.

Like all the correspondents here, Tudsbury’s trying to make bricks without straw. He bent my ear for two hours last night about how tough it is. The Russians keep the reporters in Moscow, and every other day or so just call them in and give them some phony handout. Most of them think the war’s going very badly, but they don’t have much to go on besides Moscow rumors and Berlin shortwave broadcasts. It seems the Russians have been more or less admitting all the German claims, but two or three weeks late. The pessimists here - and there are plenty - think Moscow may fall in a week! I don’t, nor does Tudsbury; but our embassy people are nervous as hell, some of them, about Harriman being captured by the Nazis. They’ll be mighty relieved tomorrow when the mission flies out.

Well, as to the trip - the sea approach to Russia reminded me of Newfoundland. Up north the world is still mostly conifer forest and white water, Rhoda. It may be that man in his jackass fashion will devastate the temperate and tropical zones, and civilization will make a scrubby new start at the top of the globe.

The first surprise and shock comes at Archangel. It’s a harbor town in the wilds all built of wood. Piers, warehouses, sawmills, factories, churches, crane towers - wood. Stacks of lumber, billions of board feet, wherever you look. God knows how many trees were cut down to build that town and pile that lumber, yet the forests around Archangel look untouched. There’s an Alaskan look about Archangel, like pictures of the Klondike.

The first honest-to-God Russian I saw was the harbor pilot. He came abroad well down channel, and that was another surprise, because he was a woman. Sheepskin coat, pants, boots and a healthy pretty face. I was on the bridge and watched her bring us in, and she was quite a seaman, or sea-woman. She eased us alongside very handily. Then she shook hands with the skipper and left and all that time she hadn’t cracked a smile. Russians smile only when they’re amused, never to be pleasant. It makes them seem distant and surly. I guess we strike them as grinning monkeys. This epitomizes the job of communicating with Russians. Language aside, we just have different natures and ways.

Mr. Hopkins told me about the forests of Russia, but I still was amazed. You remember when we drove west in midsummer, I think in ‘35, and didn’t get out of cornfields for three days? The north Russian woods are like that. We flew to Moscow at treetop height. Those green branches rushed by below our wings for hours and hours and hours, and then all at once we climbed, and ahead of us was a tremendous sprawl from horizon to horizon of houses and factories. Moscow is flat and gray. From a distance it could be Boston or Philadelphia. But as you get closer in and see the onion-top churches, and the dark red Kremlin by the river, with a cluster of churches inside you realize you’re coming to a peculiar place. The pilot flew a circle around Moscow before landing, maybe as a special courtesy and we got a good look. Incidentally, the takeoff and landings are expert, but by our standards hairy. The Russian pilot jumps off the ground and zooms, or he dives in and slams down.

Well, since we got to Moscow we’ve been in the meat grinder. It’s been round-the-clock. Our orders literally are to work through the night. When we aren’t conferring we’ve been eating and drinking. The standard fare for visitors seems to be a dozen different kinds of cold fish and caviar, then two soups, then fowl, then roasts, with wine going all the time.” Each man also has his own carafe of vodka. It’s a hell of a way to do business, but on the other hand the Russians may be wise. The alcohol loosens things up. The feeling of getting drunk is evidently the same for a Bolshevik or a capitalist, so there at least you strike some common ground.

I think this conference has been an historic breakthrough. When have Americans and Russians sat down before to talk about military problems, however cagily? It’s all most peculiar and new. The Russians don’t tell hard facts of their military production, or of the battlefield situation. Considering that the Germans three short months ago were sitting where we and the British sit now, I don’t exactly blame them. The Russians have been a hard-luck people. You can’t forget that when you talk to them. This is a point that our interpreter, Leslie Slote, keeps making.

I’m not revealing secrets when I tell you the British are yielding some Lend-Lease priorities and even undertaking to send the Russians tanks. It’ll all be in the papers. They were stripped bare at Dunkirk, so this is decent and courageous. Of course, they can’t use the tanks on the Germans now, and the Russians can. Still, Churchill can’t be sure Hitler and Stalin won’t make a deal again, so the Germans may suddenly turn and throw everything into a Channel crossing. I don’t think it’ll happen. The growing hate here for the Germans is something savage; you only have to see the gruesome newsreels of villages they’ve been driven out of to understand why. Children strung up, women raped to death, and all that. Still, Hitler and Stalin seem to have mercury for blood. Nothing they do is too predictable or human, and I give the British lots of points for agreeing to send the Russians tanks.

Some of us Americans feel peculiar at this meeting, damn peculiar. The British, in danger themselves, are willing to help the Russians, while our Congress yells about sending the Russians anything. We sit between men of two countries that are fighting the Germans for their lives, while we represent a land that won’t let its President lift a finger to help, not without outcries from coast to coast.

Do you remember Slote? He’s the second secretary here now. He looked me up in Berlin, you remember, with a lot of praise for Briny’s conduct under fire in Poland. He’s the man Natalie went to visit. He still seems to think she’s the finest girl alive, and I don’t know why he didn’t marry her when he had the chance. Right now he’s trying to romance Talky’s daughter. Since she’s one of the few unattached Western girls - I almost said white girls - in Moscow, Slote has competition.”

(Incidentally, my remark about white girls is ridiculous. After two days in Moscow, trying to put my finger on what was so different here, I said to Slote there were two things: no advertisements, and no colored people. It made him laugh. Still, it’s so. Moscow has a real American feel in the informality and equality of the people, but you don’t find such a sea of white faces in any big city in America. All in all I like these Russians and the way they go about their business with determination and calm, the way the Londoners did.)