Winds of War (22 page)

“I don’t think he’s quite big enough.”

Tudsbury stopped in his tracked and peered at him. “Let me tell you, he’s big. That’s the mistake we’ve all made over here for much too long.”

“He has to lick the world,” Pug said. “What’ll he do it with?”

“Eighty million armed and ravening Germans.”

“That’s just talk. You and the French have him outmanned and outgunned.”

“The French,” Tudsbury said. He added in a pleasanter tone, “There comes Pam. Let us drive you back to the embassy.”

“I’ll walk.”

The car stopped under a waving red swastika banner. Tudsbury shook hands, blinking at Henry through glasses like bottle bottoms.

“We’ll put up a show, Henry, but we may need help. Stopping this fellow will be a job. And you know it must be done.”

“Tell them that in Washington.”

“Don’t you think I will? You tell them, too.”

Henry said through the car window, “Good-bye, Pam. Happy landings.”

She put out a cold white hand, with a melancholy smile. “I hope you’ll see your son soon. I have a feeling you will.” The Mercedes drove off. Lighting a cigarette, Pug caught on his hand the faint carnation scent.

A big lean man in a pepper-and-salt suit, with a soft hat on his knees, was sitting in Henry’s outer office. Henry did not realize how big he was until he stood up; he was six feet three or so, and he stooped and looked a little ashamed of his height, like many overgrown men. “Commander Henry? I’m Palmer Kirby,” he said. “If you’re busy just throw me out.”

“Not at all. Welcome. How’d you get here?”

“Well, it took some doing. I had to dodge around through Belgium and Norway. Some planes are flying, some aren’t.” Kirby had an awkward manner, and somewhat rustic western speech. His pale face was pitted, as though he had once been a bad acne sufferer. He had a long nose and a large loose mouth; altogether an ugly man, with clever wrinkled eyes and a sad look.

The yeoman said, “Commander, sir, couple of priority message on your desk.”

“Very well. Come in, Dr. Kirby.” Pug sized him up with relief as a serious fellow out to get a job done; not the troublesome sort who wanted women, a good time, and an introduction to high-placed Nazis. A dinner and some industrial contacts would take care of Palmer Kirby.

WARSAW

9 . 1 . 39.

BYRON HENRY NATALIE JASTROW SCHEDULED LEAVE CRACOW TODAY FOR BUCHAREST AND ROME AM ENDEAVORING CONFIRM DEPARTURE. SLOTE.

This dispatch, in teletyped strips on a gray department blank, gave Henry an evil qualm. In the afternoon bulletins, Berlin Radio was claiming a victorious thrust toward Cracow after a violent air bombardment. The other message, a slip of the chargé d’affaires’ office stationery, was an unsigned scrawled sentence:
Please see me at once
.

Kirby said he would be glad to wait. Victor Henry walked down the hall to the richly furnished suite of the ambassador where the chargé had held the staff meeting.

The chargé looked at him over his half-moon glasses and waved at an armchair. “So you were at the Reichstag, eh? I heard part of it. How did it strike you?”

“The man’s punch-drunk.”

The chargé looked surprised and thoughtful. “That’s an odd reaction. It’s true he’s had quite a week. Incredible stamina, though. He undoubtedly wrote every word of that harangue. Rather effective, I thought. What was the mood there?”

“Not happy.”

“No, they have their misgivings this time around, don’t they? Strange atmosphere in this city.” The chargé took off his glasses and leaned back in his large, leather-covered chair, resting the back of head on interlaced fingers. “You’re wanted in Washington.”

“Sec Nav?” Pug blurted.

“No. State Department, German desk. You’re to proceed to Washington by fastest available transportation, civilian or military, highest priority, prepared to stay not more than one week in Washington, and then return to your post here. No other instructions. Nothing in writing. That’s it.”

For twenty-five years Victor Henry had not made a move like this without papers from the Navy Department, orders stenciled and mimeographed with a whole sheaf of copies to be left at stops on the way. Even his vacations had been “leaves” ordered by the Navy. The State Department had no jurisdiction over him. Still, an attaché had a queer shadowy status. His mind moved at once to executing the assignment. “If I have nothing in writing, how do I get air priorities?”

“You’ll get them. How soon can you go?”

Commander Henry stared at the chargé, and then tried a smile. The chargé smiled back. Henry said, “This is somewhat unusual.”

“You sent in an intelligence report, I’m given to understand, on the combat readiness of Nazi Germany?”

“I did.”

“That may have something to do with it. In any case, the idea seems to be that you pack a toothbrush and leave.”

“You mean today? Tonight?”

“Yes.”

Pug stood. “Right. What’s the late word on England and France?”

“Chamberlain’s addressing Parliament tonight. My guess is the war will be on before you get back.”

“Maybe it’ll be over.”

“In Poland, possibly.” The chargé smiled, and seemed taken aback when Henry failed to be amused.

The commander found Dr. Kirby, long legs sprawled, reading a German industrial journal and smoking a pipe, which, with black-rimmed glasses, much enhanced his professorial look. “I’ll have to turn you over to Colonel Forrest, our military attaché, Dr. Kirby,” he said. “Sorry the Navy can’t do the courtesies. I’ll be leaving town for a week.”

“Right.”

“Can you give me an idea of what you’re after?”

Dr. Kirby took from his breast pocket a typewritten sheet.

“Well, no problem here,” Pug said, scanning it. “I know most of these people. I imagine Colonel Forrest does, too. Now, Mrs. Henry has a dinner laid on for you, Thursday evening. As a matter of fact” – Henry tapped the sheet – “Dr. Witten will be one of the guests.”

“Won’t your wife prefer to call it off? I’m not really much on dinner parties.”

“Neither am I, but a German’s a different person in his office than he is at a table after a few glasses of wine. Not a setup, you understand, but different. So dinners are useful.”

Kirby smiled, uncovering large yellow teeth and quite changing his expression to a humorous, coarse, tough look. He flourished the trade journal. “They don’t seem to be setups, any way you look at them.”

“Yes and no. I’ve just come from the Reichstag. They’ve sure been a setup for this character Hitler. Well, let me take you across the hall to Colonel Forrest. It may be he and Sally will host the dinner. We’ll see.”

Driving home through the quiet Berlin streets Pug thought less about the summons to Washington than of the immediate problem – Rhoda and how to handle her, and whether to disclose that Byron was missing. The trip to the United States might well prove a waste of time; to speculate on the reason for it was silly. He had been on such expeditions before. Somebody high up wanted certain answers in a hurry – answers that perhaps did not exist – and started burning up the wires. Once he had flown three thousand miles during a fleet exercise only to find, on his arrival aboard the “Blue” flagship in Mindanao, that his services were no longer required, because the battle problem had moved past the gunnery scoring.

She was not at home. By the time she got back, he was strapping shut his suitcases. “NOW what on earth?” she said breezily. Her hair was whirled and curled. They had been invited to an opera party that evening.

“Come out in the garden.”

He told her, when they were well away from the house, about the strange Washington summons.

“Oh, lord. For how long?”

“Not more than a week. If the Clippers keep flying I should be back by the fifteenth.”

“When do you go? First thing tomorrow?”

“Well, by luck, they’ve got me on a plane to Rotterdam at eight tonight.”

“Tonight!” Vexation distorted Rhoda’s face. “You mean we don’t even get to go to the opera? Oh, damn. And what about the Kirby fellow? Is that on or off? How can I entertain a person I haven’t even met? What an aggravating mess!”

Pug said the Forrests would be co-hosting the Kirby dinner, and that the opera might not be on. I saw Frau Witten at the hairdresser’s. They’re planning a marvelous supper, but naturally I won’t be there. I’m not going to the opera unescorted. Oh, hell. And suppose England and France declare war? How about that, hey? That’s going to be just peachy, me stranded alone in Berlin in the middle of a world war!”

“Rhoda, I’ll get back in any case via Lisbon or Copenhagen. Don’t worry. I’d like you to go ahead with the Kirby thing. BuOrd wants the red carpet out for him.”

They were sitting on a marble bench beside the little fountain, where fat red fish disported in the late sunshine. Rhoda looked around at the close-clipped lawn, and said in a calmer tone, “All right. I’ve been planning cocktails out here. Those musicians who played at Peggy’s tea are coming. It’ll be nice at that. Sorry you’ll miss it.”

“Bill Forrest said nobody in this world puts on dinners like you.”

Rhoda laughed. “Oh, well. A week goes by fast. Berlin’s interesting now.” A pair of black-and-yellow birds darted past them, swooped to a nearby tree, and perched caroling. “Honestly, though, would you believe there’s a war on?”

“It’s just starting.”

“I know. Well, you’ll see Madeline, anyway. And be sure to telephone Warren, that rascal never writes. I’m glad Byron’s up in the Italian hills.
He’ll
be all right, unless he shows up married to that Jewish girl. But he won’t. Byron seems much crazier than he is.” She put her hand in her husband’s. “Inherits it from his mother, no doubt. Sorry I threw my little fit, dear. You know me.”

Clasping her hand tight, Victor Henry decided not to upset Rhoda further with the news of Byron’s disappearance. She could do nothing about it, after all, but fret vainly; and he guessed that whatever pickle Byron was in, he would get himself out of it. That had been the boy’s history.

Pug flew off on schedule that evening to Rotterdam. Tempelhof Airport was transformed. The shops were dark. All the ticket counters save Lufthansa were shut down. On the field, the usual traffic of European airliners had vanished, and squat Luftwaffe interceptors stood in grim shadowy rows. But from the air, Berlin still blazed with all its electric lights, as in peacetime. He was pleased that Rhoda had decided to dress up and go to
Der Rosenkavalier
, since Frau Witten had found a tall handsome Luftwaffe colonel to escort her.

Chapter
11

Byron was changing a tire by the roadside when he was strafed. He and Natalie were out of Cracow and heading for Warsaw in the rust-pitted Fiat taxi, together with Berel Jastrow, the bridal couple, the bearded little driver, and his inconveniently fat wife.

Cracow on the morning of the invasion had smoked and flamed here and there, but the picturesque city had not been much damaged by the first German bombardment. Byron and Natalie had had a good if hurried look at its splendid churches and castles and its magnificent old square like Saint Mark’s in Venice, as they drove around in cheery sunshine trying to find a way out. The populace was not in panic. The Germans were more than fifty miles away. Still, crowds moved briskly in the streets, and the railroad station was mobbed. Berel Jastrow somehow obtained two tickets to Warsaw. Byron and Natalie would not use them, hard as Berel tried to persuade them to, so he shipped off his wife and twelve-year-old daughter. Then he adroitly took them to one office after another, through little streets and unused doors and gates, seeking to send them safely away. He seemed to know everybody, and he went at the job with assurance, but he couldn’t get Byron and Natalie out. Air traffic was finished. The Rumanian border was reported closed. Trains were still departing at unpredictable times, eastward toward Russia and north to Warsaw, with people hanging from windows and clinging to the locomotives. Otherwise there were the roads.

The bearded taxi driver Yankel and his wife, poor relatives of Berel, were willing to go anywhere. Berel had managed to get him an official paper, exempting the cab from being commandeered; but Yankel had small faith that it would work for long. The wife insisted on driving to her flat first, picking up all the food she had, her bedding, and her kitchenware, and roping them onto the car top. Berel thought the Americans should head for their embassy in Warsaw, three hundred kilometers away, rather than chance a dash to the border in the path of the German army. So this odd party set forth: seven of them jammed in an ancient rusty Fiat, with mattresses flapping on the roof, and copper pots rhythmically banging.

They stopped at night in a town where Jastrow knew some Jews. They ate well, slept on the floor, and were off again at dawn. They found the narrow tarred roads filling with people on foot and horse-drawn wagons laden with children, furniture, squawking geese, and the like. Some peasants drove along donkeys piled with household goods, or a few mooing cows. Marching soldiers now and then forced the car off the road. A troop of cavalry trotted by on gigantic dappled horses. The dusty riders chatted as they rode, strapping fellows with helmets and sabers glittering in the morning sun. They laughed, flashing white teeth, twirling their moustaches, glancing down with good-humored disdain at the straggling refugees. One company of foot soldiers went by singing. The clear weather, the smell of the ripening corn, made the travellers feel good, though the sun as it climbed got too hot. There were no combatants in sight on the long black straight road through yellow fields when a lone airplane dived from the sky, following the line of the road and making a hard stuttering noise. It flew so low that Byron could see the painted numbers, the black crosses, the swastika, the clumsy fixed wheels. The bullets fell on people, horses, and the household goods and children in the carts. Byron felt a burning and stinging in one ear. He was not aware of toppling into the dirt.

He heard a child crying, opened his eyes, and sat up. The blood on his clothes surprised him – big bright red stains; and he felt a warm trickle on his face. Natalie kneeled beside him, sponging his head with a sodden red handkerchief. He remembered the airplane. Across the road the crying girl clutched a man’s leg, looking down at a woman lying in the road. Between sobs she screamed a few Polish words over and over. The man, a blond barefoot Pole in ragged clothes, was patting the child’s head.