'That's a Roosevelt supporter talking," observed Anderson, puteng violently on the cigar. 'Now, we're proceeding from here to a dinner at the Army and Navy Club, in half an hour or so, with some British generals and admirals. We already have the list of the war materials they want. It would strip our armed forces clean. We have to make cabled recommendations to the President within five days. He's already let them have-in addition to these fifty warships-virtually all our seventy-fivemillimeter field guns, several squadrons of naval aircraft, half a million nfles, millions of rounds of ammunition-" 'He hasn't given 'em away, General," Benton observed. "The Limeys have paid cash on the barrelhead." "Yes, luckily the Neutrality Act compels that, but still it was a god-damned lie to call the stuff surplus. Surplus! We don't have any surplus! You know that. Fifty destroyers! All this without any authorization from Congress. All things we're short of. And now Congress is passing a draft law. Our boys will be drilling with broomsticks! There's going to be ati accounting one day, you know. If the British fold and this stuff winds up in German hands-a possibility to be reckoned with-the accounting Will not be far off -All who have taken part in these transactions, or even advocated them"-here General Anderson turned a belligerent face at Victor Henry-"I warn you, stand a good chance of hanging from lamp posts on Constitution Avenue." After a silence, Admiral Benton said Mildly, folding his hands over his stomach, "Well, Pug, I've told these gentlemen that I know you, and that any dope you put out is reliable. We've got a big responsibility. We've been handed one hell of a hot potato. So get down to the short hairs. What makes you think the British will keep fighting, after the way the French folded? No horseshit now." "All right, Admiral." To begin with, Victor Henry said, the British had made better use than the French of the time between the wars. He debed their scientific advances, the strength and disposition of the bathe fleet, the fighter control system he had seen at Uxbridge, the figures of German and British plane losses, the morale of the fliers, the preparations along the invasion beaches, the Chain Home stations, the production of aircraft. Fitzgerald listened with his eyes closed, his head flung back, his fingers dancing. Benton stared gravely at Pug, pulling at an ear as he had done in a hundred War Plans meetings. Train Anderson, wreathing himself in smoke, also looked hard at Pug, though the glare was fading to a frigid calculating expression. Pug gave as sober and clear an account as he could, but it was an effort. As he plodded through his military facts, Pamela Tudsbury shimmered in his mind's eye, shifting with afterimages of the flight over Berlin. He felt in an undisciplined mood and was hard put to it to keep a respectful tone. "Now wait, Pug, this RDF you're so hot on," Benton interposed, that's nothing but radar, isn't it? We've got radar. You were with me aboard the New York for the tests.""We haven't got this kind of radar, sir." Victor Henry described in detail the cavity magnetron. The senior officers began glancing at each other. He added, "And they've even started installing the stuff in their night fighters." General Fitzgerald sat straight up. "Airborne radar? What about the weight problem?" "They've licked it." "Then they've developed somethine new." "They have, General." Fitzgerald turned a serious gaze on Train Anderson, who stubbed out his cigar, observing to the admiral, "Well, I'll say this, your man makes out a case, at least. We've got to come across anyhow, since that's what Mr. Big wants. What we can do is exercise tight control item by item, and that by God we will do. And get trade-offs like that cavity thing, wherever possible." He regarded Henry through half-shut eyes. "Very well. Suppose they do hold out? Suppose Hitler doesn't invade? What's their future? What's their plan? What can they do against a man who controls all Europe?" "Well, I can give you the official line," Victor Henry said. "I've heard it often enough. Hold him back in 1940. Pass him in air power in 1941, with British and American production. Shoot the Luftwaffe out of the skies in 1942 and 1943Bomb their cities and factories to bits if they don't surrender. Invade and conquer in 1944-' 'With what? Ten or fifteen divisions against two hundred?" "Actually, General, I think the idea is simpler. Hang on till we get in." "Now you're talking. But then what?" General Fitzgerald said very quietly, "Why, then we pound Germany from the air, Train, with the bomber fleet we're building. A few months of that, and we land to accept the surrender, if anyone's alive to crawl out of the rubble." Raising an eyebrow at Victor Henry, Admiral Benton said, "How's that sound, Pug?" Victor Henry hesitated to answer. "You're dubious?" General Fitzgerald observed amiably. "General, I've just been out pounding Germany from the air. Twenty-four bombers went on the mission. Fifteen returned. Of those, four didn't bomb the right target. Navigation was off, they had operational troubles, there were German decoy fires, and so forth. Two didn't bomb any target. They got lost, wandered around in the dark, then dropped their bombs in the ocean and homed back on the BBC. In one mission they lost a third of the attacking force.""This business is in its infancy," smiled Fitzgerald. "Twenty-four bombers. Suppose there'd been a thousand, with much heavier payloads? And at that, they did get the gasworks." "Yes, sir. They got the gasworks." "How do you think it's going to go?" General Anderson said brusquely to Henry. "Sir, I think sooner or later a couple of million men will have to land in France and fight the German army." With an unpleasant grunt, Train Anderson touched his left shoulder. "Land in France, hey? I landed in France in 1918. I got a German bullet through my shoulder in the Argonne. I don't know what that accomplished. Do you?" Victor Henry did not answer. "Okay." Train Anderson rose. "Let's be on our way, gentlemen. Our British cousins await us." "I'll be right along," Benton said. When the army men were gone he slapped Victor Henry's shoulder. "Well done. These Limeys are holding the fort for us. We've got to help 'em. But Jesus God, they're not bashful in their requestsi The big crunch comes when they run out of dollars. They can't even pay for this list of stuff, without selling their last holdings in America. What comes next? It beats me. The boss man will have to figure a way to give 'em stuff. He's a slippery customer and I guess he will. Say, that reminds me-" He reached into a breast pocket and brought out a letter. Victor Henry, in his wife's small handwriting, was the only address on the envelope, which was much thicker than usual. "Thank you, Admiral." The admiral was fumbling in his pockets. 'No, there's something else. Damn, I couldn't have-no, here we are. Whew! That's a relief." It was a White House envelope. Pug slipped both letters into his pocket. "Say, Pug, for a gunnery officer you've painted yourself into a peculiar corner. That screwball socialist in the White House thinks a lot of you, which may or may not be a good thing. I'd better mosey along. Rhoda sounded fine when I talked to her, only a little sad." Benton sighed and stood. "They have to put up with a lot, the gals. Good thing she didn't know about that bomber ride. Now that you're back I sort of envy you. But me, I'm absurdly fond of my ass, Pug. I'm not getting it shot off except in the line of duty.
I commend that thought to you hereafter." Blinker Vance took off big black-rimmed glasses and stepped out from behind his desk to throw an arm around Pug. "Say, I want to hear all about that joyride one of these days, i How did it go with the big brass?" "All right." "Good. There's a dispatch here for you from Bupers." He peeled a tissue off a clipboard hung on the wall, and handed it to Pug. VICTOR HENRY DETACHED TEMPOPARY DUTY LONDON X RETURN BERLIN UNIIL RELIEVED ON OR ABOUT I NOVEMBER X THEREUPON DETACHED TO PROCEED WASMNGTON HIGHEST AIR pRioRrry X REPORT BUPERS FOR FURTHER REASSIGNMENT X Vance said, "Glad you'll be getting out of Berlin?" "Overjoyed." "Mought you'd be. Transportation tells me they've got a priority to Lisbon available on the fourteenth." "Grab it." "Right." With a knowing little smile, Vance added, "Say, maybe you and that nice little Tudsbury girl can have a farewell dinner with me and Lady Maude tomorrow night." Several times Blinker had asked Victor Henry to join them for dinner. Pug knew and liked Blinker's wife and their six children. Avoiding a censorious tone, he had declined the invitations. Victor Henry knew how commonplace these things were-"Wars and lechery, nothing else holds fashion'-but he had not felt like endorsing Blinker's shack-up. Vance now was renewing the bid, and his smile was reminding Pug that on telephoning the flat, he had found Pamela there. "I'll let you know, Blinker. I'll call you later." "Fine!" Vance's grin broadened at not being turned down. "Lady Maude will be channed, and my God, Pug, she has a fabulous wine cellar." Victor Henry returned to the bench in Grosvenor Square. The sun still shone, the flag still waved. But it was just a sticky London evening like any other. The strange brightness was out of the air. The President's hasty pencilled scrawl was on a yellow legal sheet this time. PugYour bracing reports have been a grand tonic that I needed. The war news has been so bad, and now the Republicans have gone and put up a fine candidate in Wendel! Willkie! Come November, you just might be working for a new boss. Then youcan slip the chain and get out to sea! Ha hal Thank you especially for alerting us on their advanced radar. The British are sending over a scientific mission in September, with all dieit "wizard war' stuff, as Churchill calls it. Well be very sure to follow that up! There's something heartwarming about Churchill's interest in landing craft, isn't there? Actually he's right, and I've asked for a report from C.N.O. Get as much of their material as you can. FDR Pug stuffed the vigorous scrawl in his pocket like any other note, and opened his wife's letter. It was a strange one. She had just turned on the radio, she wrote, heard an old record of "Three O'Clock in the Morning," and burst out crying. She reminisced about their honeymoon, when they had danced so often to that song; about his long absence in 1918; about their good times in Manila and in Panama. With Palmer Kirby, who now kept a small office in New York, she had just driven up to New London to visit Byron-a glorious two-day trip through the early autumn foliage of Connecticut. Red Tully had told her that Byron was lazy in his written work, but very good in the simulator and in submarine drills. She had asked Byron about the Jewish girl. The way he changed the subject, I think maybe all that is over. He got a peculiar look on his face, but said nary a word. Wouldn't that be a relief 1 YOU know that Janice is pregnant, don't you? You must have heard from them. Those kids didn't waste much time, hey? Like father like son, is all I can say! But the thought of being a GRANDMOTHERIII In a way I'm happy, but in another way it seems like the end of the world! It would have helped a lot if you'd been here when I first got the news. It sure threw me into a spin. I'm not sure I've pulled out of it yet, but I'm trying. Let me give you a piece of advice. The sooner you can come home, the better. I'm all right, but at the moment I could really use a HUSIBAND around. He walked to his flat and telephoned Pamela. "Oh, my dear," she said, "I'm so glad you called. In another quarter of an hour I'd have been gone. I talked to Uxbridge. They're being very broad-minded, If I come back tonight, all is forgiven. They're shorthanded and they expect heavy raids. I must, I really must go back right away." "Of course you must. You're lucky you're not getting shot for desertion," Pug said, as lightly as he could. "I'm not the first offender at Uxbridge," she laughed. "A W.A.A.F has a certain emotional rope to use up, you know. But this time I've really done He said, 'I'm ever so grateful to you.""You're grateful?" she said. " "Oh, God, don't you know that you've Pulled me through a very bad time? I shall get another special pass in a week, at most. Can we see each other then?" "Pam, I'm leaving day after tomorrow. Going back to Berlin for about a month or six weeks, and then home.... Hello? Pamela?" "I'm still here. You're going day after tomorrow?" "My orders were waiting at the embassy." After a long pause, in which he heard her breathing, she said, "You wouldn't want me to desert for two more days and take what comes. Would you? I'll do it." "It's no way to win a war, Pam." "No, it isn't, Captain. Well. This is an unexpected good-bye, then. But good-bye it is." 'Our paths will cross again." 'Oh, no doubt. But I firmly believe that Ted's alive and is coming back. I may well be a wife next time we meet. And that will be far more proper and easy all around. All the same, today was one of the happiest of my life, and that's unchangeable now." Victor Henry was finding it difficult to go on talking. The sad, kind tones of this young voice he loved were choking his throat; and there were no words available to his rusty tongue to tell Pamela what he felt. "I'll never forget, Pamela," he said awkwardly, clearing his throat. "I'll never forget one minute of it." 'Won't you? Good. Neither will I. Some hours weigh against a whole lifetime, don't they? I think they do. Well! Good-bye, Captain Henry, and safe journeyings. I hope you find all well at home." "Good-bye, Pam. I hope Ted makes it." Her voice broke a little. 'Somebody's coming for me. Good-bye." Fatigued but tensely awake, Victor Henry changed to civilian clothes and drifted to Fred Fearing's noisy airless hot apartment. A bomb bursting close by earlier in the week had blown in all the windows, which were blocked now with brown plywood. Fearins broadcast, describing his feelings under a shower of glass, had been a great success. "Where's la Tudsbury?" said Fearing, handing Victor Henry a cupful of punch made of gin and some purple canned juice. "Fighting Germans." 'Good show!" The broadcaster did a vaudeville burlesque of the Britishaccent. Pug sat in a corner of a dusty plush sofa under a plywood panel, watching the drinking and dancing, and wondering why he had come here. He saw a tall young girl in a tailored red suit, with long black hair combed behind her ears, give him one glance, then another. With an uncertain smile, at once bold and wistful, the girl approached. "HeHo there. Would you like more punch? You look important and lonesome." "I couldn't be less important. I'd like company more than punch. Please join me." The girl promptly sat and crossed magnificent silk-shod legs. She was prettier than Pamela, and no more than twenty. 'Let me guess. You're a general. Air Corps. They tend to be younger." "I'm just a Navy captain, a long, long way from home." "I'm Lucy Somerville. My mother would spank me for speaking first to a strange man. But everything's different in the war, isn't it?" "I'm Captain Victor Henry." "Captain Victor Henry. Sounds so American." She looked at him with impudent eyes. "I like Americans." "I guess you're meeting quite a few." "Oh, heaps. One nicer than the other." She laughed. "The bombing's perfectly horrible, but it is exciting, isn't it? Life's never been so exciting. One never knows whether one will be able to get home at night. It makes things interesting. I know girls who take their makeup and pajamas along when they go out in the evening. And dear old Mums can't say a word!" The girl's roguish, inviting glance told him that here probably was a random Hare of passion for the taking. Wartime London was the place, he thought; "nothing else holds fashion. But this girl was Madeline's age, and meant nothing to him; and he had just said a stodgy, cold, miserable good-bye to Pamela Tudsbury-He avoided her dancing eyes, and said something dull about the evening news. In a minute or so a strapping Army lieutenant approached and offered Lucy Somerville a drink, and she jumped up and was gone. Soon after, Pug left. Alone in the flat, he listened to a Churchill speech and went to bed. The last thing he did before turning out the light was to reread Rhoda's nostalgic, sentimental, and troubled letter. Something shadowy and unpleasant was there between the lines. He guessed she might be having difficulties with Madeline, though the letter did not mention the daughter's name. There was no point in dwelling on it, he thought.
He would be home in a couple of months. He fell asleep. Rhoda had slept with Dr. Kirby on the trip to Connecticut. That was the shadowy and unpleasant thing Pug half discerned. Proverbially the cuckold is the last to know his disgrace; no suspicion crossed his mind, though Rhoda's words were incautious and revealing. War not only forces intense new relationships; it puts old ones to the breaking stress. On the very day this paragon of faithfulness-as his Navy friends regarded him-had received his wife's letter, he had not made love to Pamela Tudsbury, mainly because the girl had decided not to bring him to it. Rhoda had fallen on the way back from New London. It had been unplanned and unforeseen. She would have recoiled from a cold blooded copulation. The back windows of the little tourist house, where she and Kirby had stopped for tea, looked out on a charming pond where swans moved among pink lily pads in a gray drizzle. Except for the old lady who served them, they were alone in this quiet relaxing place. The visit to Byron had gone well and the countryside was beautiful. They intended to halt for an hour, then drive on to New York. They talked of their first lunch outside Berlin, of the farewell at Tempelhof Airport, of their mutual delight at seeing each other in the Waldorf. The time flowed by, their tone grew more intimate. Then Palmer Kirby said, "How wonderfully cosy this place isle Too bad we can't stay here." And Rhoda Henry murmured, hardly believing that she was releasing the words from her mouth, "Maybe we could." Maybe we could! Three words, and a life pattern and a character dissolved. The old lady gave them a bedroom, asking no questions. Everything followed: undressing with a stranger, casting aside with her underclothes her modesty and her much-treasured rectitude, yielding to a torrent of novel sensations. To be taken by this large demanding man left her throbbing with animal pleasure. All her thoughts since then went back to that point in time, and there halted. Like a declaration of war, it drew a line across the past and started another era. The oddest aspect of this new life was that it was so much like the old one. Rhoda felt she had not really changed. She even still loved Pug. She was trying to digest all this puzzlement when she wrote to her husband. She did have twinges of silence, but she was surprised to find how bearable these were. In New York, Rhoda and Kirby heard in bright afternoon sunshine the Churchill broadcast which Pug had listened to late at night. Rhoda had chosen well the apartment for Madeline and herself. It faced south, across low brownstones. Sunshine poured in all day through white-draped windows, into a broad living room furnished and decorated in white, peach, and apple green. Photographs of Victor Henry and the boys stood in green frames on a white piano. Few visitors failed to comment on the genteel cheerfulness of the place. "He has lighted a fire which will burn with a steady and consuming flame, until the vestiges of Nazi tyranny have been burnt out of Europe.... OP Puffing at his pipe, Kirby slouched in an armchair and stared at the radio. "Marvellous phrasemaker, that man." "Do you think they'll actually hold off the Germans, Palmer?""What does Pug say?" 'He wrote a pessimistic letter when be first arrived there. He hasn't written again." 'Odd. He's been there a while." "Well, I tell myself if anything had happened to him I'd have heard. I do worry." "Naturally." The speech ended. She saw him glance at the watch on his hairy wrist. "When does your plane go?" "Oh, not for a couple of hours." He turned off the radio, strolled to the windows, and looked Out- "This is not a bad view. Radio City, the Empire State Building. Pity that apartment house blocks out the river." "I know what you'd like right now," She said. "What?" "Some tea. It's that time.-Answ,ring his sudden coarse grin with a half-coy, half-brazen smile, she hurriedly added, "I really mean tea, Mr. Palmer Kirby." "MY favorite drink, tea. Lately, anyway." "Don't be horrible, you! Well? Shall I make some?" "Of course. I'd love tea." "I suppose I should swear off it, since it was my downfall. Of all things." She walked toward the kitchen with a sexy sway. "If only I could plead baying been drunk, but I was sober as a minister's wife." He came to the kitchen and watched her Prepare the tea. Palmer Kirby liked to watch her move around, and his eyes on her made Rhoda feel young and fetching as They sat at a low table in the sunshine and she decorously poured tea and passed him buttered bread. The picture could not have been more placid and respectable. "Almost as good as the tea at Mrs. Murchison's guesthouse," Kirby said. "Almost." "Now never mind! How long will you be in Denver?" "Only overnight Then I have to come to Washington. Our board's going to meet with some British scientists. From the advance papers, they've got some remarkable stuff. "I'm sure they're surprising the Germans.""So! You'll be in Washington next." "Yes. Got a good reason to go to Washington?" "Oh, dear, Palmer, don't you realize I know everybody in that town, Absolutely everybody. And anybody I don't know, Pug knows.)' He said after a glum pause, "It's not very satisfactory, is it? I don't see myself as a homewrecker. Especially of a military man serving abroad." "Look, dear, I don't see myself as a scarlet woman. I've been to church both Sundays since. I don't feel guilty, but I do feel mighty curious, I'll tell you that." She poured more tea for him. "It must be the war, Palmer. I don't know. With Hitler bestriding Europe and London burning to the ground, all the old ideas seem, I don't know, NUVIAL or something. I Mean conpared to what's real at the moment-the swans out in back at Mrs. Murchison's place-those sweet pink lily pads, the rain, the gray cat-the tea, those funny doughy cakes-and you and me. That's as far as I've gotten." "I didn't tell you why I'm going to Denver." "No. "There's a buyer for my house. Wants to pay a tremendous price. I've told you about the house." "Yes, it sounds heavenly. Do you really want to let it go?" "I ratite around in it. I've been thinking, and it comes to this. Most of my friends are in Denver. The house is perfect to live in, to entertain in, to have my children and the grandchildren for visits. If I had a wife, I wouldn't sell it." He stopped, looking at her now with serious, large brown eyes filled with worried shyness. The look was itself a proposal of marriage. "What do you think, Rhoda?" -Oh, Palmer! Oh, heavenly days!" Rhoda's eyes brimmed. She was not totally astonished, but the relief was beyond description. This resolved the puzzlement. It had not been a crazy slip, after all, like that foolishness with Kip Tollever, but a grand passion. Grand passions were different. He said, 'That can't really be news to you. We wouldn't have stayed at Mrs. Murchison's if I hadn't felt this way." "Well! Oh, my lord. I'm proud and happy that you should think of me like that. Of course I am. But-Palmer!" She swept her hand almost gaily at the photographs on the piano. "I have friends who've married again in their fifties, Rhoda.
After divorces, some of them, and some are blissfully happy." Rhoda sighed, dashed her fingers to her eyes, and smiled at him. "Is it that you want to make an honest woman of me? That's terribly gallant, but unnecessary." Palmer Kirby leaned forward earnestly, tightening his large loose mouth. "Pug Henry is an admirable man. It didn't happen because you're a bad woman. There was a rift in your marriage before we met. There had to be." In a very shaky voice, Rhoda said, "Before I ever knew him, Pug was a Navy fullback. I saw him play in two Army-Navy games. I had a boyfriend who loved those games-let me talk, Palmer, maybe I'll collect myself. He was an aggressive, exciting player, this husky little fellow darting all over the field. Then, my stars, he BURST on me in Washington. The actual Pug Henry, whose picture had been in the papers and all that. The war was on. He looked dashing in blue and gold, I must say! Well, great heavens, he courted the way he played football. And he was very funny in those days. Pug has a droll wit, you know, when he bothers to use it. Well, all the boys I went with were just from the old Washington crowd, all in to the same schools, all cut out by the same cookie cutter, you might say. Pug was something different. He still is. For one thing, he's a very carious Christian, and you can bet that took a lot of getting used to! I mean right from the start it was a complicated thing. I mean it didn't seem to interfere at all with his ROMANCING, if I make myself clear, and yet-well, Pug is altogether unusual and wonderful. I'll always say that. I must bore Pug. I know he loves me, but-the thing is he is so Navy! Why, that man left me standing at my wedding reception, Palmer, for half an hour, while he drove his commanding officer to catch a train back to Norfolk! That's Victor Henry for you. But in twenty-five years-oh dear, now for the very first time I suddenly feel very, very wretched." Rhoda cried into her handkerchief, her shoulders shaking. He came and sat beside her. When she calmed down, she looked at him and said, "You go along to Denver, but ask yourself this. I've done this to Pug. Wouldn't you be thinking for ever and a day, if by some wild chance you got what you're asking for, that I'd do it to you? Of course you would. Why not?" He stood. "I'll keep that appointment in Denver, Rhoda. But I don't think I'll sell the house." "Oh, sell it! As far as I'm concerned, you go right ahead and sell that house, Palmer. I only think you yourself might regret it one day." "Good-bye, Rhoda. I'll telephone you from Washington. Sorry I missed Madeline this time. Give her my best." He said, glancing at the photographs'on the piano, "I think your kids would like me. Even that strange Byron fellow.""How could they fail to? That isn't the problem." She walked with him to the door. He kissed her like a husband going off on a trip. IEPTEMBERwas crisping the Berlin air and yellowing the leaves when s Pug got back. Compared to London under the blitz, the city looked at peace. Fewer uniforms were in sight, and almost no trucks or tanks. After beating France, Hitler had partially demobilized to free workers for the farms and factories. His remaining soldiers were not loafing around Berlin. Either they were poised for invasion on the coast, or they garrisoned France and Poland, or they guarded a thin prudent line facing the Soviet union. Only the air war showed its traces: round blue-gray snouts of flak guns poking above autumn leaves, flaxen-haired German children in a public square gawking at a downed Wellington. The sight of the forlorn British bomber-a twin of F for Freddie-with its red, white, and blue bull's-eye, gave Pug a sad twinge. He tried and failed to see the wrecked gasworks. Scowling Luftwaffe guards and wooden street barriers cordoned off the disaster. Goering had long ago announced that if a single British bomb ever fell on Berlin, the German people could call him Meyer. The evidence of Meyer's shortcomings was off limits. But Pug wondered how many Germans would have gone there anyway to look. These were weird people. In Lisbon, when he boarded the Lufthansa plane, Germany had then and there smitten him: the spotless interior, the heel-clicking steward, the fast service of food and drink, the harsh barking loudspeaker, and his seatmate, a fat be"pectacled blond doctor who clinked wineglasses with him and spoke warmly of the United States and of his sister in Milwaukee. The doctor expressed confidence that America and Germany would always be friends. Hitler and Roosevelt were equally great men and they both wanted peace. He deplored the ruthless murder of Berlin civilians by British bombers, as contrasted to the Luftwaffe's strict concentration on military targets. The R.A.F, he pointed out, painted the underside of their planes with a remarkable black varnish that rendered them invisible at night, and constantly changed altitude so that the A.A. batteries had trouble finding the range. That was how they had sneaked by. But these petty unfair tricks would avail them nothing. German science would find the answer in a week or two. The war was really over and won. The Luftwaffe was invincible. The British criminals responsible for dropping bombs on women and little children would soon have to face the bar of ustice. This man was exactly like a London music-hall burlesque German, complete to the squinting smile and the rolls of fat on his neck. Pug got tired of him. He said dryly that he had just come from London and that the Luftwaffe was getting beaten over England. The man at once froze, turned his back on Pug, and ostentatiously flourished an Italian newspaper with lurid picturesof London on fire. Then when Pug first returned to the Grunewald house, the art museum director who lived next door, a vastly learned little dark man named Dr. Baltzer, rushed over, dragging a game leg, to offer his neighbor a drink and to chat about the imminent British collapse. Besides being obliging neighbors, the Baltzers had invited the Henrys to many interesting exhibitions and parties. Mrs. Baltzer had become Rhoda's closest German friend. Tactfully, Pug tried to tell his neighbor that the war wasn't going quite the way Goebbels's newspapers and broadcasters pictured it. At the first hint that the R.A.F was holding its own, the little art expert bristled and went limping out, forgetting his offer to give Pug a drink. And this was a man who had hinted many times that the Nazis were vulgar ruffians and that Hitler was a calamity. This was what now made Berlin completely intolerable. The Germans had balled themselves into one tight fist. The little tramp had his one Reich, one people, one leader," that he had so long screeched for. Victor Henry, a man of discipline, understood and admired the stiff obedient efficiency of these people, but their mindless shutting out of facts disgusted him. It was not only stupid, not only shameless; it was bad warmaking. The "estimate of the situation"-a phrase borrowed by the Navy from Prussian military doctrine-had to start from the facts. When Ernst Grohke telephoned to invite him to lunch shortly after His return, he accepted gladly. Grohke was one of the few German military men he knew who seemed to retain some common sense amid the Nazi delirium. In a restauraiat crowded with uniformed Party officials and high military brass, the submariner griped openly about the war, especially the way Gijring had botched the Battle of Britain. From time to time he narrowed his eyes and glanced over one shoulder and the other, an automatic gesture in Germany when talking war or politics. "We'll still win," he said. "They'll try all the dumb alternatives and then they'll get around to it." "To what?" Pug said. 'Blockade, of course. The old English weapon turned against them. They can't blockade us. We've got the whole European coast open from the Baltic all the way around to Turkey. Even Napoleon never had that. But England's got a negative balance of food and fuel that has to choke her to death. If Goering had just knocked out harbors this summer and sunk sbi, -adding that to the tremendous score our U-boats and magnetic mines have been piling up-England would already be making aproaches through the Swiss and the Swedes." He calmly lifted both hands upward. "No alternative! We're sinking them all across the Atlantic. They don't have the strength to convoy. If they did, our new tactics and torpedoes would still lick them. Mind you, we started way under strength on U-boats, Victor. But finally denitz convinced Raeder, and Raederconvinced the Fuhrer. After Poland, when England turned down the peace offer, we started laying keels by the dozens. They begin coming off the ways next January. An improved type, a beauty. Then-four, five months, half a milliod tons sunk a month, and phfffi-Churchill kaput. You disagree?" Grohke grinned at him. The small U-boat man wore a well-tailored purplish tweed suit and a clashing yellow bow tie. His face glowed with sunburned, confident good health. "Come on. You don't have to sympathize. We all know your President's sentiments, hen? But you understand the sea and you know the situation." Pug regarded Grohke wryly. He rather agreed with this estimate. "Well, if Goering really will switch to blockade, and if you do have a big new fleet of 'em coming along-but that's a couple of big if's." "You doubt my word?" "I wouldn't blame you for expanding a bit." "You're all right, Victor." Grohke laughed. "Goddamn. But I don't have to expand. You'll see, beginning in January." "Then it may get down to whether we come in." The U-boat man stopped laughing. 'Yes. That's the question. But now your President sneaks a few old airplanes and ships to England, and he can't even face your Congress with that. Do you think your people will go for sending out American warships to be sunk by U-boats? Roosevelt is a tough guy, but he is afraid of your people." "Well! Ernst Grohke and Victor Henry! The two sea dogs, deciding the war." The banker Wolf Steller was bowing over them, thin sandy hair plastered down, cigarette holder sucking out of his smile. "Victor, that is a beautiful new suit. Savile Row?" "Yes, as a matter of fact." "Unmistakable. Well, it will be a pleasure to start ordering clothes there again. There are no tailors like the British. I say, how far along are you gentlemen? Come and join us. just a few pleasant chaps at our table." "No thank you, Herr Steller," Pug said. "I must get back to my office quickly." "Of course. I say, Ernst, did you tell Captain Henry you're coming to Abendruh this weekend? Victor's an old Abendrub visitor, you know. By jove! Why don't you come along this time, Victor? Twice lately you've said no, but I'm not proud. You and your old friend Ernst can tell each other big sea lies all weekend! Do say yes. There will be just two or three other spjendid fellows. And some lovely ladies, not all ofthem attached." Under Victor Henry's quick glance, Grohke smiled unnaturally and said, "Well, that's not a bad idea, is it?" "All right," said the American. It was quite clear to him now what was going on and why Grohke had called him. "Thank you very much." "Grand. Ripping. See you on Friday," said the banker, clapping Victor Henry on the shoulder. After this, the talk of the two naval officers was lame and sparse. Ernst Grohke busied himself with his food, not looking much at Pug. That same afternoon, to Victor Henry's surprise, his yeoman rang him and said Natalie Jastrow was on the line from Siena. "Jehosephat! Put her on." "Hello? Hello? What happened? I was calling Captain Henry in Berlin." The girl's voice was muffled and burbling. "Here I am, Natalie." "Oh, hello! Is Byron all right?" "He's fine." -Oh, what a relief!" The interference on the line stopped. Natalie's voice came clear. "I haven't had a single letter from him since I left. I sent a cable and got no answer. I know how impossible the mail is nowadays, but still I've begun to worry." 'Natalie, he hasn't had any letters from you. He wrote me that. And I'm sure he didn't get your cable. But he's in good shape." "Why, I've been writing once a week. How aggravating that is! I miss him so. How's he doing in submarine school?" Outside Victor Henry's window, the guard was changing at the chancellery, with rhythmic boot-thumpings and brisk German barks. Natalie's telephone voice stirred an ache in him. The New York accent was different from Pamela's, but it was a young low girlish voice like hers. 'Scraping by, I gather." Her laugh, too, was much like Pamela's, husky and slightly mocking. 'That sounds right." "Natalie, he expected you back long before this." "I know. There were problems, but they're straightening out. Be sure to tell him I'm fine. Siena's quite charming in wartime, and very peaceful.
It's sort of sinking back into the Middle Ages, Byron's got three months to go, hasn't he?" "He finishes in December, if they don't throw him out sooner." Again the laugh. "They won't. Briny is actually very sure "footed, you know. I'll be back by December. Please write and tell him that. Maybe a letter from you will get through." "It will. I'll write today." It was a small gathering at Abendruh, with no staircase slide. Pug was sorry that Ernst Grohke didn't see the crude elaborate joke, so much to the Teutonic taste. The submariner obviously was ill at ease, and could have used the icebreaker. The other men were a Luftwaffe general and a high official in the foreign ministry, company far above Grohke. The five pretty ladies were not wives. Mrs. Stiller was absent. Victor Henry sized all this up as an orgy in the making, to get him hat to his surprise, they went to talk about the British. After dinner, somew to a wood-panelled room where musical instruments were ready, and Steller, the Luftwaffe general, the man from the foreign ministry, and a the banker had redheaded lady played quartets. In Pug's previous visits hown no musical skill, but Steller played first violin quite well. The Luftwaffe general, a very tall dark cadaverous man with sickly hollow eyes, bowed and swayed over the cello, drawing forth luscious sounds. Pug had seen this man once before, at a distance at Karinhall in full uniform; he had looked far more formidable then than he did now in his dinner jacket and monocle. The musicians made mistakes, stopped a couple of times, joked stly, and took up the music once more. The foreign ministry man on the second violin, a roly-poly Bavarian with a drooping yellow mustache, was a superb fiddler. It was the best amateur music Pug had ever heard. Grohke sat with the submissiveness of most Germans in the presence of art, drinking a lot of brandy and stifling yawns. After a couple of hours of this, the ladies abruptly said goodnight and left. If there had been a signal, Pug missed it. "Perhaps we might have a nightcap outside," said the banker to Pug, putting his violin carefully in its case. "The evening is warm. Do you like the tone of my Stradivarius? I wish I were worthy to play it." The broad stone terrace looked out on a formal garden, a darkly splashing fountain, and the river; beyond that, forest. A smudged orange moon in its last quarter was rising over the trees. In the light of reddishyellow flares on long iron poles, shadows danced on the house and the flagstone floor. The five sat, and a butler passed drinks. Melodious birds sang in the quiet night, reminding Pug (men) of the nightingales at the British bomber base. "Victor, if you care to talk about England," said Steller from the depths of an easy chair, his face in black shadow, "we would of course be interested." Pug forced a jocular tone. "You mean I have to admit I've been in England?"The banker heavily took up the note. "Ha, ha. Unless you want to get our intelligence people in bad trouble, you'd better." After everybody else laughed, he said, "If you prefer, we'll drop the subject here and now for the weekend. Cur hospitality hasn't got-how do you say it in English?"-he switched from the German they were all speaking-"strings tied to it." But you're in an unusual position, having travelled between the capitals." "Well, if you want me to say youpve shot the R.A.F out of the sky and the British Will quit next week, it might be better to drop it now." In a gloomy bass voice, the long shadowy form of the general spoke. 'We know we haven't shot the R.A.F out of the sky. 'Speak freely. General jagow is my oldest friend," said Steller. " we were schoolboys together. And Dr. Meusse"-he waved an arm at the foreign ministry man, and a long skeletal shadow arm leaped on the wallgoes back almost that far." 'We say in the Luftwaffe," put in the general, "the red flag is up. That means we all talk straight. We say what we think about the Fuhrer, about Goering, about anything and anybody. And we say the goddamnedest things, I tell you." 'Okay, I like those ground rules," said Victor Henry. "Fire away." 'Would an invasion succeed?" spoke up Dr. Meusse. 'What invasion? Can your navy get you across?" "Why not?" said General jagow in calm professional tones. "Through a corridor barricaded on both sides by mine belts, and cordoned off by U-boats, under an umbrella of Luftwaffe? Is it so much to ask of the Grand Fleet?" Pug glanced at Grohke, who sat glumly swirling brandy in a bell glass. 'You've got a U-boat man here. Ask him about the cordons and the mine belts." With an impatient gesture that flicked brandy into the air, Grohke said, in thick tones, "Very difficult, possibly suicidal, and worst of all, entirely unnecessary." General jagow leaned toward Grohke, his monocle glittering in the flare light, his face stiff with anger. Pug exclaimed, "Red flag's up. "So it is," jagow said, with an unforgiving glare at the submariner, who slouched down in darkness. "I agree with him," Pug said. "Part of a landing force might get through-not saying in what shape. There's still the invasion beacheswhich I've seen close on. Which I personally would hate to approach from seaward.""Clearing beach obstacles is a technical task," jagow said, with a swift return to offhand tones. "We have special sappers well trained for that." "General, our marine corps has been studying and rehearsing beach assaults intensively for years. It's the toughest attack problem in the book. I don't believe the Webrmacht ever thought about it until a few weeks ago." "German military ingenuity is not negligible," said Dr. Meusse. "No argument," said Victor Henry. jagow said, "Of course we can't land without wastage. We would take big but endurable losses. Once we obtained a solid lodgment, you might see Churchill fall. The Luftwaffe would fight for the beachhead to the last plane. But I believe the R.A.F would run out of planes first." Victor Henry made no comment. "What is the bombing of London doing to British morale?" Steller asked. "You're making Churchill's job easier. They're fighting mad now. Knocking hell out of London won't win the war. Not in my judgment. Not to mention that bombers can fly east as well as west." The general and the banker looked at each other. The general's voice was sepulchral. "Would it surprise you if some people here agreed with you?" "Churchill cleverly provoked the Fuhrer by bombing Berlin on the twenty-sixth," said Steller. 'We had to hit back, for morale reasons. The trick worked, but the British people must now pay. There's no political alternative but a big reprisal." 'Let's be honest," said Dr. Meusse. "Field Marshal Goering wanted to go after London and try to end it." jagow shook his head. "He knew it was too soon. We all did. It was those six days of bad weather that saved the R.A.F. We needed another week against those airfields. But in the long run it will all be the same." Steller said, "They're a brave people. I hate to see them prolong the agony." "They don't seem to mind," Victor Henry said. "By and large, they're having a good time. They think they're going to win." 'There is the weakness," said Dr. Meusse, pulling on his mustache.
"National megalomania. When a people loses touch with reality, it is finished." ' Stiller lit a thick cigar. "Absolutely. The course of this war is fixed now by statistics-That is my department. Would you care to hear them?" "Gladly. Especially if you'll give away some secrets," said Victor Henry, evoking friendly laughter from all the Germans except Grohke. The submariner was sunk in gloom or sleep. "No secrets," said Steller. 'The financial stuff may be a little new to you. But take my word for it, my figures are right." 'I'm sure of that." "Good. England lives at the end of-how would you put it-a revolving bucket chain of ships. She always has. This time the buckets are being shot off the chain faster than she can replace them. She started the war with about twenty million tons of shipping. Her own, and what she could scrape up elsewhere. That tonnage is disappearing fast. The rate now is-what's the latest?" He spoke condescendingly to Grohke. The submariner covered a yawn. "That figure is secret. Victor must have a damn good idea from what he heard in London." Pug said, 'I have." "All right. Then you know the curve is up............