Sitting at the head of the table, Digger was making too many jokes, Pug thought, so as to put himself at ease with the ship's lieutenant commanders and two-stripers. That was all right. Digger was a big fellow and could Turn on impressive anger at will. Pug's style was more of a monotone. His own sense of humor, such as it was, went to jabbing ironies. As an executive officer-if he ever achieved it-he planned to be taciturn and short. They would call him a dull sour son of a bitch. One had plenty of time to warm up and make friends, but the job had to be done right from the hour one reported aboard. It was a sad fact of life that everybody, himself included, jumped to it when the boss was a son of a bitch, especially a knowledgeable son of a bitch. In the West Virginia he had been a hated man until that first meatball pennant had broken out at the yardarm. Hereafter he had been the ship's most popular officer. The immediate target of Digger's raillery was his communications officer, a lean morose-looking Southerner. Recently the Colorado had received new powerful voice radio transmitterwhichbouncedwavesofftheHeavisidelayeratash(a) allow angle. If atmospheric conditions were right, one could talk directly to a ship in European waters. Digger had chatted with his brother, the engineering officer in the Marblehead, now anchored off Lisbon. The communications officer had since been romancing an old girlfriend in Barcelona via the Marblehead radio room. Digger had found this out three days ago, and was still trying it for jokes. Pug said, 'Say, how well did this thing work, Digger? Could you understand Tom?" "Oh, five by five. Amazing." "Do you suppose I could talk to Rhoda in Berlin?" it occurred to Pug that this was a chance to tell her about Madeline, and perhaps reach a decision. The communications officer, glad of an opportunity to stop the baiting, said at once, "Captain, I know we can raise Marblehead tonight. It ought to be simple to patch in the long-distance line from Lisbon to Berlin." "Tell be what-two or three o'clock in the morning there?" Brown said. "TWO, sir." 'Want to break in on Rhoda's beauty sleep, Pug?" 'I think so." The lieutenant carefully rolled his napkin in a monogrammed ring, and left. The talk turned to Germany and the war. These battleship officers, like most people, were callowly inclined to admire and overestimate the Nazi war machine. One fresh-faced lieutenant said that he hoped the Navy was doing more work on landing craft than he'd been able to read about. If we got into the war, he said, landing would be almost the whole Navy problem, because Germany would probably control the entire coastline of Europe by then. Digger Brown brought his guest to the executive officer's quarters for coffee, ordering around his Filipino steward and lolling on the handsome blue leather couch with casual pride of office.
They gossiped about their classmates: a couple of juicy divorces, a premature death, a brilliant leader turned alcoholic. Digger bemoaned his burdens as a battleship exec. His captain had gotten where he was with sheer luck, charm, and a Marvelous wife-that was all; his ship-handling was going to give Digger a heart attack. The ship was slack from top to bottom; he had made himself unpopular by instituting a stiff program of drills; and so forth. Pug thought that for an old friend Digger was showing off too much. He mentioned that he had come back from Berlin to talk to the President. Digger's face changed. 'I'm not surprised," he said. "Remember that phone call you had at the Army and Navy Club? I told the fellows, I bet that'
from the White House. You're flying high, fella." Having taken the wind out of Digger's sails,(s) Victor Henry was content to say nothing more. Digger waited, stuffed his pipe, lit it, then said, 'What's Roosevelt really like, Pug?" Henry said something banal about the President's charm and magnetism. There was a knock on the door and the communications officer came in. "We raised the Marblehead, no strain, sir. It took all this time to get through to Berlin. What was that number again?" Pug told him. "Yes, sir, that checks. The number doesn't answer.The eyes of Digger Brown and Victor Henry met for a moment. Brown said, "At two in the morning? Better try again. Sounds like a foul-up." "We put it through three times, sir." "She might have gone out of town," Henry said. "Don't bother anymore. Thanks." The lieutenant left. Digger puffed thoughtfully at his pipe. 'Also, she cuts off the phone in the bedroom at night," Henry said. 'I forgot that. She may not hear the ringing in the library if the door's closed." 'Oh, I see," Digger said. He puffed again, and neither said anything for a while. "Well. Guess I'll make tracks." Victor Henry stood up. The executive officer accompanied him to the gangway, looking proudly around at the vast main deck, the towering guns, the flawlessly uniformed watch. 'Shipshape enough topside," he said. "That's the least I demand. Well, good luck on the firing line, Pug. Give my love to Rhoda." "If she's still there, I will." They both laughed. Hello, Dad!" Men Paul Munson's plane landed, Warren was waiting at the Pensacola airfield in a helmet and flying jacket. The son's handgrip, quick and firm, expressed all Warren's pride in what he was doing. His deeply tanned face radiated exaltation. "Say, where do you get this outdoors glow?" Pug said. He deliberately ignored the scar on hisson's forehead. 'I thought theyd make you sweat in ground school here. I expected you to look like something from under a rock." Warren laughed. "Well, I had a couple of chances to go deep-sea fishing out in the Gulf. I tan fast." Driving his father to the b.O.Q, he never stopped talking. The flight school was in a buzz, he said. The day after Hitler invaded Poland, Washington had ordered the number of students tripled, and the year-long course cut to six months. The school was 'telescoping the syllabus." In the old course a man qualified in big slow patrol planes, then in scout planes, and then, if he were good enough, went on into Squadron Five for fighter training. Now the pilots would be put on patrol, scout, or fighter tracks at once, and would stay in them. The lists would be posted in the morning. He was dying to make Squadron Five. Warren got all this out before he remembered to ask his father about the family. "Ye gods, Brinys in Warsaw? Why, the Germans are bombing the hell out of that town." "I know," Pug said. "I stopped worrying about Byron long ago. He'll crawl out of the rubble with somebody's gold watch." 'What's he doing there?" "Chased a girl there." "Really? Bully for him. What kind of girl?" "A Jewish Phi beta from Radcliffe." "You're kidding. Briny?" "That's right." With an eloquent look, surprised and ruefully impressed, Warren changed the subject. really big. There The audience at Paul Munson's lecture was surpnsing must have been more than two hundred student aviators in khaki, youngsters with crew cuts and rugged clever faces, jammed into a small lecture hall. Ijke most naval men, Paul was a bumbling speaker, but the students sat on the edges of their chairs, because he was telling them how to avoid killing themselves. With slides and diagrams, with much technical jargon and an occasional heavy bloodthirsty joke, he described the worst hazards of carrier landings, the LIFE-or-death last moments of the approach, the procedure after cracking up, and such cheerful matters. The students laughed at the jokes about their own possible deaths. The strong male smell of a locker room rose from the packed bodies. Pug's eye fell on Warren, sitting in a row across the aisle from him, erect and attentive, just one more close-cropped head in the crowd. He thought of Byron in Warsaw under the German bombs. It was going to be a tough ten years, he thought, for men with grown sons. Warren told him after the lecture that Congressman Isaac Lacouture, the man who had taken him deep-sea fishing, had invited them to dinner at the beach club. Lacouture was president ofthe club, and before running for Congress had been chairman of the Gulf Lumber and Paper Company, the biggest firm in Pensacola. 'He's anxious to meet you," Warren said as they walked back to the b.O.Q. ctmy?)y 'He's very interested in the war and in Germany. His opinions are kind of strong." "why has he taken such a shine to you?)t "Well, sir, this daughter of his, Janice, and I have sort of bit it off With an easy knowing grin, Warren parted from him in the lobby. At his first sight of Janice Lacouture, Victor Henry decided against talking to Warren about Pamela Tudsbury. What chance'had the slight English girl in her mousy suits against this magnetic blonde whose long legs dazzled at every Turn and flip of her skirt, this assured radiant tall American girl with the princess-like air, and the lovely face only slightly marred by crooked teeth? She was another, early Rhoda, swathed in cloudy pink, all composed of sweet scent, sexual allure, and girlish grace. The slang was changed, the skirt hem higher. This girl looked and acted brainier. She greeted Pug with just enough deference to acknowledge that he was Warren's father, and just enough sparkle to hint that he was no old fud for all that, but an attractive man himself. A girl who could do that in half a minute of talk, with a flash of the eyes and a smile, was a powerhouse, and so much ' thought Pug, for his inept matchmaking notions. A stiff wind was blowing from the water. Waves broke over the club terrace and splattered heavy spray on the glass wall of the dining room, making the candlelit Lacouture dinner seem the cosier. Victor Henry never did get it clear who all the ten people at table were, though one was the beribboned commandant of the naval air station. The person who mattered, it was soon obvious, was Congressman Isaac L-acouture, a small man with thick white hair, a florid face, and a way of half sticking out his tongue when he smiled, with an air of sly profundity. -How long are you going to be here, Commander Henry?" Lacouture called down the long table, as green-coated waiters passed two large baked fish on silver platters. 'You might like to come out and spend a day fishing, if the weatherman will Turn off this willawa. Your boy caught these two kingfish with me." Pug said that he had to return to New York in the morning to get his plane for Lisbon. Lacouture said, "Well, at that I suppose I'll be hurrying up to Washington myself for this special session. Say, how about that? What do you think of revising the Neutrality Act? How bad is the situation, actually? You should know." "Congressman, I think Poland's going to fall fast, if you call that bad." "Oh, hell, the Allies are counting on that! The European mind works in subtle ways. The President has sort of a European mind himself, you know. That mixture of Dutch and Englishis really the key to understanding him." Lacouture smiled, protruding his tongue. 'I've done a lot of business with the Dutch, they're very big in the hardwoods trade, and I tell you they are tricky boys. The gloomier things look in the next few weeks, why, the easier it'll be fOr Roosevelt to jam anything he wants through Congress. Right?" 'Have you talked to Hitler, Commander Henry? What is he really like?" said Mrs. Lacouture, a thin faded woman, with a placating smile and a sweet tone that suggested her social life consisted mainly of softening her husband's impact, or trying to. Lacouture said as though she had addressed him, "Oh, this Hitler is some kind of moonstruck demagogue. We all know that. But for years the Allies could have cleaned up him and his Nazis with ease, yet they just sat there. So it's their mess, not ours. Any day now we'll be hearing about the Germans raping nuns and boiling soldiers' corpses down for soap. British intelligence started both those yarns in 1916, you know. We've got the documentary evidence on that. How about it, Commander Henry? You've been living among the Germans. Are they really these savage Huns the New York papers make them out to be?" All the faces at the table turned to Pug. "The Germans aren't easy to understand," he said slowly. "My wife likes them more than I do. I don't admire their treatment of Jews." Congressman Lacouture held up two large hands. "Unpardonable! The New York press is quite understandable on that basis." Warren said firmly from the middle of the table, "I don't see how the President's revision would weaken our neutrality, sir. Cash and carry simply means anybody can come and buy stuff who has the ships to haul it off and the money to pay for it. Anybody, Hitler included." Lacouture smiled at him. "The administration would be proud of you, my boy. That's the line. Except we all know that the Allies have the ships and the money, and the Germans have neither. So this would put our factories into the war on the Allied side." 'But nobody ever stopped Hitler from building a merchant marine," Warren promptly came back. 'Piling up tanks, subs, and dive bombers instead was his idea. all aggressive weapons. Isn't that his tough luck?" 'Warren's absolutely right," Janice said. Lacouture sat back in his chair, staring at his daughter, who smiled back impudently. What both of you kids don't or won't understand," Lacouture said, is that this proposal is the camel's nose under the tent flap. Of course it seems fair. Of wurse it dens. That's the beauty of the package. That's the Roosevelt mind at work. But let's not be children. He isn't calling a special session to help Nazi Germany! He thinks he's got a mission to save the world from Hitler. He's been talking way since 1937-He's cracked on the subject. Now I say Adolf Hitler's neither the foulfiend nor the Antichrist. That's all poppycock. He's just another European politician, a little more dirty and extreme than the rest. This is just another European war, and it'll end up a lot dirtier than the rest. The way for us to save the world is to stay out of it. The citadel of sanity!" He rapped out the phrase and looked around the table, as though half expecting applause. "That's what we have to be. The Atlantic and Pacific are our walls. Broad, stout walls. The citadel of sanity! If we get in it we'll go bankrupt like the others and lose a couple of million of our finest young men. The whole world will sink into barbarism or Communism, which aren't so very different. The Russians will be the only winners." A small bald man with a hearing aid, seated across the table from Pug, said, 'Damn right." Lacouture inclined his head at him. ' "You and I realize that, Ralph, but it's amazing how few intelligent people do, as yet. The citadel of sanity. Ready to pick up the pieces when it's over and rebuild a decent world. That's the goal. I'm going back to Washington to fight like an alligator for it, believe you me. I'll be marked mud among a lot of my Democratic colleagues, but on this one I go my own way." When dinner ended, Janice and Warren left the club together, not waiting for coffee, and not troubling to explain. The girl smiled roguishly, waved a hand, and disappeared in a whirl of silky legs and pink chiffon. Warren belted long enough to make an early morning tennis date with his father. Victor Henry found himself isolated with Lacouture over rich cigars, coffee, and brandy in a corner of a lounge, in red leather armchairs. The congressman rambled about the charms of life in Pensacola-the duck-hunting, the game-fishing, the year-round good weather, and the swiftly advancing prosperity. The war would make it a real boomtown, he said, between the expansion of the Navy air base and the spurt in the lumber trade. "Creosoted telephone poles. You take that one item, Commander. Our company's had some unbelievable orders, just in the last week, from North Africa, japan, and France. The whole world's stringing wires all of a sudden. It's an indication." He tried to persuade Henry to stay over one day. A ship carrying mahogany was due in from Duich Guiana at noon. It would dump the logs in the harbor, and lumber mill workers would lash them into rafts and tow them up the bayou. 'It's quite a sight," he said. "Well, I've got this chance to fly back to New York with an old buddy. I'd better go." "And from there to Berlin, via Lisbon?" "That's the plan." "Not much chance of our paths crossing then, in the near future," Lacouture said. "Your wife's a Grover, isn't she? Hamilton Grover up in Washington is a friend of mine; we have lunch atthe Metropolitan Club about once a month." Pug nodded. Hamilton Grover was the wealthiest of the cousins, rather beyond Rhoda's orbit. 'And you're a Henry. Not one of those Virginia Henrys that go back to old Patrick?" Henry laughed, shaking his head. "I doubt it. I'm from California." "Yes, as Warren told me. I mean originally." "Well, my great grandfather came west before the gold rush. We're not sure from where. My grandfather died young and we never got the story straight." 'You're probably Scotch-Irish." "Well, no, sort of mixed. My grandmother was French and English." 'That so? We've got some French in our family ourselves. Not a bad thing, hey? Gives the men that certain touch in I'amour." Lacouture uttered a hearty coarse laugh, the get-together noise of American men. "Quite a boy, your Warren." "Well, thanks. Your girl is beyond words." Ucouture sighed deeply. 'A girl's a problem. Warren tells me you have one, so you know. They'll fool you every time. We weren't as lucky as you, we have no boys. All Warren wants to do is fly airplanes the rest of his life for the Navy, right?" "well, those wings of gold look awfully big to him now, Congressman.pr Lacouture puffed at his cigar. 'I liked the way he talked up at dinner. Of course he's naive about foreign affairs. You learn a lot about the outside world in the lumber business." Lacouture swirled the large brandy snifter. 'No doubt you're glad to see Warren carrying on the Navy tradition. Wouldn't want to see him smft over into business, or anything like that." The congressman smiled, showing his tongue, and good but crooked teeth like his daughter's. 'Warren goes his own way, Congressman." "I'm not so sure. He thinks the world of his dad." The talk was getting awkward for Victor Henry. He had married a girl much better off than himself, and he had doubts about such a course in life. Nor did he especially like Janice Lacouture. Once the incandessence died down, she would be as tough as her father, who was already and openly weighing the notion of swallowing Warren. He said, "Well, until the war ends he's in, and that's that." "Of course. But that may not be for long, you know. If we can just stay out, it'll be over in a year or so. Maybe less. As soon as the Allies are positive they can't suck us in, theyll make the best deal they can get. They'd be nuts to try anything else. Well, I've enjoyed visiting with you, Commander. Whatthe hell? No sense trying to anticipate what the kids nowadays will do anyway. Is there? It's a different world than when you and I grew up." "That's for sure." Next morning, promptly at six-thirty, Warren appeared in his father's room. Not saying much, and rubbing his bloodshot and baggy eyes, he drank the orange juice and coffee brought by the steward. A strong wind still blew outside, and he and his father wore sweaters as they volleyed and began to play. Pug ran up three games. The mist soared erratically here and there. "Have a good time last night?" Pug called, as Warren knocked one flying over the fence, and the wind bore it up on the roof of a nearby cottage. Warren laughed, stripped his sweater off, and won the next five games, regaining his fast drive and his mid-court smash. The father was a plugging, solid player with an iron backhand, but he had to conserve his breath. "Goddamn it, Warren, if you've got a point won, win it," he gasped. The son had passed up an easy kill to hit the ball where Pug could reach it. "The wind took it, Dad." "The hell it did." Now Pug threw off his sweater, answered several of his son's smashes, caught his second wind, and drew even. "Whew! I've got to quit. Ground school," Warren called, mopping his face with a towel. "You've really kept your game up, Dad." When in Berlin we tucked into a house with a court. You've played better." Warren came to the net. He was pouring sweat, his eyes were clear, and he looked eager and happy. "You had more sleep." "Quite a girl, that Janice." "She's got a head on her shoulders, Dad. She knows a hell of a lot of history." The father gave him a quizzical look. They both burst out laughing. 'All the same it's true. She does know history." 'What did you cover last night? The Hundred Years' War?" Warren guffawed, swishing his racquet sharply. Pug said, "Her father figures to make a lumberman............