Winds of War (98 page)

Rightly or wrongly, Henry sensed an unpleasant nuance in the way the man said “your family,” and he broke in, “Natalie and her uncle aren’t Jewish refugees, they’re a couple of Americans.”

“There was some question, Captain - apparently a very serious question - as to whether Aaron Jastrow was technically an American. Now we’ve cleared it up. In return I really think you should write that letter.”

“I’d like to oblige you, but as I say, I wasn’t asked to address the President on this subject.” Pug got to his feet. “Is there something else?”

Whitman confronted him, hands in jacket pockets. “Let me be frank. The Undersecretary wants a report from me, for him to forward to the President. But just a word from you would conclude the matter. So -”

“I’ll tell you, Mr. Whitman, I might even write it, if I could find out why a distinguished man like Jastrow got stopped by a technicality when he wanted to come home. That’s certainly what the President wants to know. But I can’t give him the answer. Can you?” Whitman looked at Victor Henry with a blank face. “Okay. Maybe somebody in your section can. Whoever was responsible had better try to explain.”

“Captain Henry, the Undersecretary of State may find your refusal hard to understand.”

“Why should he? He’s not asking me to write this letter. You are.”

Pulling hairy hands from his pockets, Whitman chopped both of them in the air with a gesture that was both a plea and a threat. He suddenly looked weary and disagreeable. “It’s a direct suggestion of the State Department.”

“I work for the Navy Department,” said Pug. “And I have to get back on the job. Many thanks.”

He walked out, telephoned the Norfolk Navy Yard from a booth in the lobby, and sent a message to Byron on the
S-45
. His son called him at his office late in the afternoon.

“Eeyow!” shouted Byron, hurting his father’s ear. “No kidding, Dad! Do you believe it this time?”

“Yes.”

“God, how marvellous. Now if she can only get on a plane or a boat! But she’ll do it. She can do anything. Dad, I’m so happy! Hey! Be honest now. Was I right to talk to the President, or was I wrong? She’s coming home, Dad!”

“You had one hell of a nerve. Now I’m goddamned busy and I hope you are. Get back to work.”

Chapter 43

“. . .
Therefore I have tonight issued a proclamation that an UNLIMITED national emergency exists, and requires the strengthening of our defenses to the extreme limit of our national power and authority . . .”

“Okay!” exclaimed Pug Henry, sitting up, striking a fist into a palm, and staring at the radio. “There he goes!”

Roosevelt’s rich voice, which in broadcasting always took on a theatrical ring and swing, rose now to a note of passion.

“I repeat the words of the signers of the Declaration of Independence – that little band of patriots, fighting long ago against overwhelming odds, but certain, as we are, of ultimate victory: ‘With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’”

After a moment of crackling static, the announcer sounded awed: “
You have been listening to an address by the President of the United States, speaking from the East Room of the White House in Washington.”

That’s terrific! It’s far more than I expected.” Pug snapped the radio off. “He finally did it!”

Rhoda said, “He did? Funny. I thought he just pussy-footed around.”

“Pussy-footed! Weren’t you listening? ‘We are placing our armed forces in position . . . we will use them to repel attack . . . an
unlimited
national emergency exists . . .’”

“What does all that mean?” Rhoda yawned and stretched on the chaise lounge, kicking her legs. One pink-feathered mule dropped off her naked foot. “Is it the same as war?”

“Next thing to it. We convoy right away. And that’s just for starters.”

“Makes me wonder,” said Rhoda, flipping the negligee over her legs, “whether we should pursue those houses any further.”

“Why not?”

“They’ll surely give you a sea command if we go to war, Pug.”

“Who knows? In any case, we need a place to hang our hats.”

“I suppose so. Have you thought any more about which house you’d want?”

Pug grimaced. Here was an old dilemma. Twice before they had bought a bigger house in Washington than he could afford, with Rhoda’s money.

“I like the N street house.”

“But, dear, that means no guest room, and precious little entertaining.”

“Look, if your heart is set on Foxhall Road, okay.”

“We’ll see, honey. I’ll look again at both of them.” Rhoda rose, stretching and smiling. “It’s that time. Coming to bed?”

“Be right up.” Pug opened a briefcase.

Rhoda swished out, purring, “Bring me a bourbon-and-water when you come.”

Pug did not know why he was back in her good graces, or why he had fallen out in the first place. He was too preoccupied to dwell on that. His arithmetic on merchant shipping was obsolete if the United States was about to convoy. Transfers of ownership and other roundabout tricks could be dropped. It was a whole new situation now, and Pug thought the decision to convoy would galvanize the country. He made two bourbon-and-waters, nice and rich, and went upstairs humming.

* * *

The yeoman’s voice on the intercom was apologetic. “Sir, beg your pardon. Will you talk to Mr. Alistair Tudsbury?” Victory Henry, sweating in shirt-sleeves over papers laid out on every inch of his desk, as trying – at the urgent demand of the office of the Chief of Naval Operations – to bring up to date before nightfall the operation plan filed months earlier, for combined American and British convoying.

“What? Yes, put him on. . . . Hello? Henry speaking.”

“Am I disturbing you, dear boy? That’s quite a bark.”

“No, not at all. What’s up?”

“What do you make of the President’s press conference?”

“I didn’t know he’d had one.”

“You
are
busy. Ask your office to get you the afternoon papers.”

“Wait a minute. They should be here.”

Pug’s yeoman brought in two newspapers smelling of fresh ink. The headlines were huge:

NO CONVOYS – FDR

and

PRESIDENT TO PRESS:

SPEECH DIDN’T MEAN CONVOYS

“Unlimited Emergency” Merely a Warning;

No Policy Changes

Skimming the stories, Pug saw that Franklin Roosevelt had blankly taken back his whole radio speech, claiming the reporters had misunderstood it. There would be no stepped-up United States action in the Atlantic, north or south. He had never suggested that. Patrolling, not convoying, would go on as before. No Army troops or marines would be sent to Iceland or anywhere else. All he had been trying to do was warn the nation that great danger existed.

Tudsbury, who could hear the pages turning, said, “Well? Tell me something encouraging.”

“I thought I understood Franklin Roosevelt,” Pug Henry muttered.

Tudsbury said, “What’s that? Victor, our people have been ringing church bells and dancing in the streets over last night’s speech. Now I have to broadcast and tell about this press conference.”

“I don’t envy you.”

“Can you come over for a drink?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Please try. Pam’s leaving.”

“What?”

“She’s going home, leaving on a boat tonight. She’s been pestering them for weeks to let her return to Blighty.”

“Let me call you back.”

He told his yeoman to telephone an old shipmate of his, Captain Feller, at the office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

“Hello, Soapy? Pug. Say, have you seen the papers about that press conference? . . . Yes, I quite agree. Well, now, next question. This Convoy Annex Four. Do you still want it by tonight? . . . Now, Soapy, that’s a rude suggestion, and it’s an awfully bulky annex. Moreover I hope we’ll use it one day. . . . Okay. Thanks.”

Pug hit the buzzer. “Call Tudsbury. I’m coming over.”

“The funny part is,” Pug said to Tudsbury, Rhoda said he pussy footed around. I was taken in.”

“Maybe it needs a woman to follow that devious mind,” said the correspondent. “Pam, where are your manners? Pug’s here to say good-bye to you. Come in and have your drink.”

“In a minute. My things are all in a slop.” They could see Pamela moving in the corridor, carrying clothes, books, and valises here and there. They sat in the small living room of Tudsbury’s apartment off Connecticut Avenue, hot and airless despite open windows through which afternoon traffic noise and sunlight came streaming.

Tudsbury, sprawling on a sofa in a massively wrinkled Palm Beach suit, with one thick leg up, heaved sigh. “I shall be alone again. There’s a girl who is all self, self, self.”

“Family trait,” called the dulcet voice from out of sight.

“Shut up. Please, Pug, give me something comforting to say in this bloody broadcast.”

“I can’t think of a thing.”

Tudsbury took a large drink of neat whiskey and heavily shook his head. “What’s happened to Franklin Roosevelt? The Atlantic convoy route is the jugular vein of civilization. The Huns are sawing at it with a razor. He
knows
the tonnage figures of the past three months. He
knows
that with Crete and the Balkans mopped up, the Luftwaffe will come back at us, double its size of last year and howling with victory. What the devil?”

“I’ll have my drink now,” said Pamela, striding in. “Don’t you think you should be going, governor?”

He held his tumbler out to her. “One more. I have never been more reluctant to face a microphone. I have stage fright. My tongue will cleave to the roof of my mouth.

“Oh yes. Just as it’s doing now.” Pamela took his glass and Pug’s to the small wheeled bar.

“Put in more ice. I’ve caught that decadent American habit. Pug, the Empire’s finished. We’re nothing but an outpost of forty millions, with a strong navy and a plucky air force. Why, man, we’re your Hawaii in the Atlantic, many times as big and powerful and crucial. Oh, I could make one hell of a broadcast about how preposterous your policy is!”

“Thanks, Pam,” Pug said. “I agree with you, Tudsbury. So does the Secretary of the Army. So does Harry Hopkins. They’ve both made speeches urging convoy now. I have no defense of the President’s policy. It’s a disaster. Cheers.”

“Cheers. Yes, and it’s
your
disaster. This is a contest now between Germany and the United States. If you lose, God help you and all mankind. We were too slow, too stupid, and too late. But in the end we did our best. You’re doing nothing, in the last inning.” He swallowed his drink and pulled himself to his feet. “We expected more from the United States Navy, anyhow. I’ll tell you that.”

“The United States Navy is ready,” Pug shot back. “I’ve been working like a bastard all day on a general operation order for convoy. When I saw those headlines, it was like my desk blowing up in my face.”

“Good God, man, can I say that? Can I say that the Navy, before this press conference, was preparing to start convoying?”

“Are you crazy? I’ll shoot you if you do.”

“I don’t have to quote you. Please.”

Pug shook his head.

“Can I say your Navy is ready to go over to convoy on a twenty-four hours’ notice? Is that true?”

“Why, of course it’s true. We’re out there now. We’ve got the depth charges on ready. All we have to do is uncover and train out the guns.”

Tudsbury’s bulging eyes were alive now and agleam. Pug, I want to say that.”

“Say what?”

“That the United States Navy is ready to go over to convoy and expects to do it soon.”

Pug hesitated only a second or two. “Oh, what the hell. Sure, say it! You can hear that from anybody in the service from CNO down. Who doesn’t know that?”

“The British, that’s who. You’ve saved me.” Tudsbury rounded on his daughter. “And you told me not to telephone him, you stupid baggage! Blazes, I’m late.” The fat man lumbered out.

Pug said to Pamela, “That isn’t news.”

“Oh, he has to work himself up. He’ll make it sound like something. He’s rather clutching at straws.”

She sat with her back to the window. The sun in her brown hair made an aureole around her pallid sad face.

“Why did you tell him not to phone me?”

She looked embarrassed. “I know how hard you’re working.”

“Not that hard.”

“I meant to ring you before I left.” She glanced down at her intertwined fingers, and reached him a mimeographed document from the coffee table. “Have you seen this?”

It was the British War Office’s instructions to civilians for dealing with German invaders. Pug said, leafing through it, “I read a lot of this stuff last fall. It’s pretty nightmarish, when you start picturing the Germans driving through Kent and marching up Trafalgar Square. It won’t happen though.”

“Are you sure? After that press conference?”

Pug turned up both hands.

Pamela said, “They’ve updated that manual since last year. It’s calmer, and a lot more realistic. And therefore somehow more depressing. I can just see it all happening. After Crete, I really do think it may.”

“You’re brave to go back, then.”

“Not in the least. I can’t stand it here. I choke on your steaks and your ice cream. I feel so bloody guilty.” Pamela wrung her fingers in her lap. “I just can’t wait to go. There’s this girl in the office – would you like another drink? no? - well, the fool’s gone dotty over a married man. An American. And she has a fiancé in the RAF. She has nobody to talk to. She pours it all out to me. I have to live with all this maudlin agonizing, day in, day out. It’s wearing me down.”

“What does this American do?”

“That would be telling.” With a little twist of her mouth she added, “He’s a civilian. I can’t imagine what she sees in him. I once met him. A big thin flabby chap with glasses, a paunch, and a high giggle.”