Chapter 3

Rhoda was not blind to the Nazi abuses. After her first walk in the Tiergarten, she refused to go back. It was far more clean, pretty, and charming than any American public park, she admitted, but the signs on the benches, juDEN vERBoTEN, were nauseating. Seeing similar signs in restaurant windows, she would recoil and demand to go elsewhere. Pug told her of his interview with Rosenthal, she had a deep attack of,the blues: she wanted to forgo the house and even talked of getting out of Germany. "My, imagine! Renting out that beautiful house for a song, just to keep it from being sold over his head-to some fat Nazi, no doubt, lying in wait to pick it off cheap. How horrible." But she agreed that they had better take it. They had to live somewhere, and the house was divine. Day by day, she reacted less to such things, seeing how commonplace they were in Berlin, and how much taken for granted. When Sally Forrest, who loathed the Nazis, took her to lunch at a restaurant where a window placard announced that Jews were not served, it seemed silly to protest. Soon she ate in such places without a second thought. In time, the Tiergarten became her favorite place for a Sunday stroll. But she insisted that anti-Semitism was a blot on an otherwise exciting, lovely land. She would say so to prominent Nazis. Some stiffened, others tolerantly smirked. A few hinted that the problem would straighten out in time. "I'm an American to the bone, going back six generations," she would say, 'and I'll never see eye to eye with you on this business of the Jews. It's absolutely awful." Most Germans seemed resigned to this independent, outspoken manner of American women and the way their husbands tolerated it; they regarded it as a national oddity. Victor Henry stayed off the Jewish topic. Nazi Germany was a big, not readily digestible lump of new life. Most foreigners were strongly for or against the Nazis. The correspondents, as Kip Tollever had observed, hated them to a man. Within the embassy views varied. According to some, Hitler was the greatest menace to America since 1776. He would stop at nothing less than world rule, and the day he was strong enough, he would attack the United States. Others saw him as a benefactor, the only bulwark in Europe against Communism. The democracies had shown themselves impotent against the spread of Bolshevist parties, they said. Hitler fought totalitarian fire with hotter and stronger fire. These judgments, either way, stood on slender bases of knowledge. Pressing his new acquaintances for facts, Victor Henry got vehement opinions and gestures. Statistics abounded in sheaves of analyses and rePorts, but too much of this stuff came down to guesses, propaganda, and questionable paid intelligence. He tried to study German history late at night and found it a muddy tangle going back more than a thousand years. In it he could find no pattern and no guide at all to the problems Of 1939. just to figure out where the Nazis had come from, and what the secret was of Hitler's hold on the Germans, seemed a task beyond him and beyond anybody he talked to; even the outlandish question of German anti-Semitismhad a dozen different explanations, depending on which of any twelve Foreign Service men you asked. Commander Henry decided that he would grope uselessly if he tried to fathom these major matters in a hurry. Military capacity was something he knew about; it was a narrow but derisive aspect of Hitler's Third Empire. Was Nazi Germany as strong as the ever-marching columns in the streets, and the throngs of uniforms in cafes, suggested? Was it all a show, no more substantial than the transparent red cheesecloth of the towering swastika banners? Deciding to take nothing for granted and to marshal facts for himself, Victor Henry dug into the job of penetrating this one puzzle. Meanwhile Rhoda adapted merrily to diplomatic life. As she got used to her staff and to Berlin customs, her dinner parties increased in size. She invited the Grohkes to a big one that included the charge d'affaires, a French film actress, the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and a dour, stout German general named Armin von Roon, with a peculiarly hooked nose and an exceedingly stiff carriage. Rhoda knew none of these people well. General von Roon, for instance, she had met at Colonel Foffeses house; and because someone had told her that he stood high in the Wehrmacht and was considered brilliant, she had made up to him. She had a gift for charming in a momentary encounter. She always looked elegant, she could be amusing or sexy without forcing either note, and she made one feel that it would be pleasant to know her better. People tended to accept her invitations. The company was above the level of Grohke and his mle. They were dazzled and flattered, and the presence of Roon all but froze them with awe. Grohke whispered to Victor Henry at one point that Roon was the real brain in Supreme Headquarters. So Pug tried to talk to Roon about the war, and found that he spoke astonishingly good English. But he would utter only frosty generalities, which made the attache think the better of him, though it yielded nothing to report. Before the evening was out Grohke, full of wine and brandy, took Victor Henry aside and told him that the captain of the Swinemonde navy yard was making stupid difficulties, but that he was going to push the visit through, "and I'll get your English friend in too, God damn it. I said I would and I will. These shore-based bastards just live to create trouble." The Henrys received one cheerless letter from Madeline, written when she arrived in Newport for the summer. Warren, as usual, did not write at all. Early in July the letter Byron had written his father at last caught up with him: Dear Dad: I received your letter and it threw me. I guess I gave you the wrong impression about this girl Natalie Jastrow. It's fun to work with her, but she's older than I am, and she was a junior Phi beta at Radcliffe. Her best boyfriend is a Rhodes Scholar. I'm not in that league. However, I appreciate your good advice. She is really excellent company, and talking to her improves my mind. That should please you. Dr. Jastrow has me researching the Emperor Constantine's military campaigns. I took the job for the money, but I'm enjoying it. That whole when the world balance tips from Paganism to ity, is really worth knowing, Dad. It has some parallels to our own day. I think you'll like Dr. Jastrow's new book. He's just a scholar and wouldn't know a torpedo boat from a medium tank, yet he has a way of grasping an ancient campaign and describing it so anybody canunderstand it and sort of picture what those times were like. Siena's going to be overrun with tourists for the Palio, a goofy horse race they put on every year. The nags run around the town square, and they say all hell usually breaks loose. Warren will make a great flier. Well, I guess that's about it. Love to all. Byron iNcg the fourteenth century-so Byron had learned-nothing much S had happened in Siena beside the Palios. A rich city-state of the Middle Ages, the military rival of Florence, Siena in x348 had been isolated by the Black Death and frozen in its present form as by a spell. A few art lovers now drifted here to admire the fourteenth-century paintings and architecture. The world at large flocked to Siena twice a year to watch the mad horse races, and otherwise let the bypassed town, a living scene out of an old tapestry, molder in the Tuscan sunshine. In nine years of living just outside Siena, Aaron Jastrow had never attended a Palio. When Byron asked why, Jastrow held forth on the cruel public games of Roman times, the forerunners of all these burlesque races of the Middle Ages. The Palio had happened to survive in mountain-locked Siena, he said, like a dinosaur in the Lost World. "Some medieval towns raced donkeys or buffaloes," he said. 'In papal Rome, they raced Jews. I'm not exactly afraid I'll be pressed into service if a horse should break its leg. I'm just not very interested." Moreover, his friend the archbishop had told him long ago that elderly people avoided the Palio, because of the risk of being jostled or trampled. But now there was the article to write. Jastrow obtained tickets for both runnings, and sent Byron and Natalie to do research in the town while he read books on the subject. They first learned that the race was a contest among Siena's neighborhoods or parishes. Each district, called a contrada, comprised a few square blocks of old houses. All of Siena contained but two and a half square miles and some thirty thousand people. But these little wardsthere were seventeen, and ten competed each year-took themselves, their boundaries, their loyalties, their colors, their emblems, with inconceivable seriousness. They bore curious names like Oca, Bruco, Torre, Tartuca, Nicchio (Goose, Caterpillar, Tower, Tortoise, Seashell). Each ward had its flag, its anthems, its separate churches, and even a sort of capital hall. Byron and Natalie spent days walking through the hilly angular streets. When an occasional old omnibus snorted by, they had to flatten against the high red-brown walls for their lives; there were no sidewalks, and the somnolent, deserted streets were hardly wider than the bus. Maps in hand, the pair visited the tiny districts one by one, trying to pin down the background of the Palio. They found out about alliances and hatreds going back hundreds of years. Panther was friendly to Giraffe, Tortoise loathed Snail, and so forth, in a tangle of emotions, very real and current. They came to realize too that the famous race itself was just a crooked farce, and thateverybody knew it. The contrade owned no horses. A few days before each race, animals from the nearby countryside were brought into town, and the competing districts drew lots for them. The stolid durable nags back year after year, shuffling from one neighborhood to an(same) other by the luck of the draw.(came) What then made a race of it? Bribing the jockeys, doping the animals, conspiring to block the best horses or injure their riders: only such devices turned the Palio into a murky contest of a sort. The largest, richest neighborhoods therefore tended to win; but the outcome was unpredictable, because a poor, small district might put on a desperate surge. It might squander funds in bribes, pledge future alliances, swear to future treacheries, just to win a banner to bear off to its hall. For that was what the 'Palio" itself was: a banner painted with a picture of the Virgin. Like all medieval races, this one was run on sacred days; it was a manifestazione in honor of the Virgin. Hence her portrait graced the and faded Palios by the dozens hung in the contrada halls. After a while, even Jastrow became interested too, in an ironic way. The crookedness, he said, was obviously the soul of the thing; old European skulduggery, bribes and counterbribes, doublecross and triplecross, sudden reversals of old alliances, secret temporary patching up of ancient enmities, convoluted chicanery in the dark-all leading at last to the horse race, When all the shadowy corruption was put to explosive Proof in red sunset light. 'Why, this article will write itself," he said cheerfully one day at lunch. "These Sienese have evolved willy-nilly a grotesque little parody of European nationalism. The archbishop told me that a woman from the Panther neighborhood who marries a Caterpillar or a Tower man Will go back to have her babies in a house on a Panther street to make sure they'll be Panthers. Patriotism! And of course, the insane explosion every summer is the key. All this obsolete mummery-Snails, Giraffes, what have you-would have died out centuries ago, except for the lovely colorful outbursts of excitement, treachery, and violence in the races. The Palio is war." "You ought to go over to town, sir," Byron said. "They're laying the track. Hundreds of truckloads of this golden-red earth, all around the Piazza tiel Campo." i "Yes," Natalie said, "the way they're decorating up the streets is quite i amazing. And wherever you look the flag-wavers are practicing-" "I'm taking off two whole workdays for the races themselves. That's plenty," Jastrow said severely. You know what?" Bryon said. "This whole thing is utterly idiotic."Natalie looked at him with startled, excited eyes, touching a handkerchief to her sweaty forehead. It was the day of the first Palio, and they stood on the balcony of the archbishos palace, watching the parade. The great lade of the cathedral gave a bit of shade at one end of the balcony, where Jastrow in his big yellow Panama hat and white suit stood talking with the archbishop. Byron and Natalie were crowded among privileged onlookers at the other end, in the hot sun. Even in her sleeveless light pink linen dress, the girl was perspiring, and a seersucker jacket and silk tie were making Byron acutely uncomfortable. Below, the Caterpillar marchers in green and yellow costumes puffed sleeves and trunks, colored hose, feathered hats-were leaving the thronged cathedral square, waving great banners to cheers and applause from the crowd; and the red-and-black Owl company was COMing in, repeating the same flag stunts: intertwining whorls, two flags flung pole and all in the air and crisscrossing, flag-wavers leaping over each other's poles while keeping their banners in fluid motion. 'Idiotic?" Natalie said. "I was just deciding it's rather magical." "What is? They do the same things over and over. We've been here for hours. There's still the Porcupine, the Eagle, the Giraffe, and the Forest to come and show off with their flags. I'm roasting." "Ah, Byron, it's the liquid flow of color, don't you see, and the faces of these young men. So help me, these people look more natural in medieval togs than in their workaday clothes. Don't they? Look at those long straight noses, those deep-set sad big eyes! Maybe they're really a remnant of the Etruscans, as they claim." "Six months of work," Byron said. "Special buildings and churches for Unicoms, Porcupines, and Giraffes. Thousands of costumes, a whole week of nothing but ceremonies, general marching hither and yon, trumpeting and drumming and trial runs, and all for one crooked race of decrepit nags. In honor of the Virgin, no less." "Oh, beautiful," Natalie exclaimed, as two Owl flags flew high in the air in crossing arcs, and the wavers caught them and whirled red-andblack arabesques to the applause of the crowd. Byron went on, mopping his face, "I was in the coose church today. They brought the horse right inside, up to the very altar to be blessed. I didn't believe the books, but I saw it happen. The priest laid a crucifix on its nose. The horse had more sense than the people. He didn't misbehave, but I guess that finished the Palio for me." Natalie glanced at him, amused. "Poor Briny. Italian Christianity really troubles your soul, doesn't it? Leslie was right, you're simply a Protestant." "Does a horse belong in a church?" Byron said. The sun was low when the parade ended. In the short walk from the cathedral to the Piazza tiel Campo, Jastrow grew nervous. A thick crowd jostled down the narrow street, all in goodhumor, but shouting, gesturing, and hurrying between the high red-brown stone walls of the old palazzos. More than once the little professor stumbled and tottered. He clung to BYron's arm. "Do you mind? I've always had a slight fear of crowds. People mean no harm, but somehow they don't notice me." They halted in a crush at a low arch and slowly squeezed through. "Good gracious," Jastrow said, as they emerged on the earth of the race track. "The piazza's transformed!" "They've been working on it for weeks," Byron said. "I told you." Siena's main piazza was one of the sights of Italy. The forgotten town planners of the Middle Ages had designed a memorably beautiful open space, hemmed in by a semicircular sweep of reddish palazzos and the imposing, almost straight facade of the fourteenth-century town hall; all overarched by the blue sky of Tuscany, and pierced heavenward by the red stone bell tower of the town hall, more than three hundred fifty feet high. All year round the vast shell-shaped space was empty except for market stalls and scattered foot traffic; and the ancient buildings that ringed it seemed abandoned or asleep. Today, in the golden light of a late afternoon sun, it was a sea of people, surging and roaring inside a ring of wooden barriers. Between these barriers and the palazzo walls lay a track of earth, and against the walls were steep banks of temporary benches. Faces crowded at every window of every building around the piazza; flags and rich hangings decorated the palazzos. The benches were jammed; all the roofs were jammed; the great central space looked full, and yet from half a dozen narrow streets more people were streaming across the track and jamming themselves in. The parade was now going around the track of earth, and all the contrade at once were doing the flag whorls, the flings, the arabesques to continuous plaudits of the throng and the cacophonous blare of many brass bands. Byron led the way to their seats, still holding Jastrow's thin arm. "Well, hasn't the archbishop done us proud!" said the professor, as they settled on a narrow, splintery plank, directly below the judges' stand. "One couldn't have a better view of the thing." He laughed without reason, obviously feeling better out of the press of bodies. 'See the mattresses?" said Natalie gaily. "There they are, down at the corners.p "Oh, yes. My lord, what an extraordinary business." The noise of the crowd rose into a general cheer. A wooden cart, drawn by four white Tuscan oxen with giant curved horns, was entering the track, surrounded by marchers in rich costume. On a tall pole in the cart swayed the Palio. "Why, it's an Assumption," said Jastrow, peering through small binoculars tit the narrow painted cloth. "Naive, but not bad at all." Around the piazza the cart slowly rolled, with helmeted policemen behind it driving the crowdfrom the track, while sweepers cleared up papers and trash. By now the paved square was one dense mass of white shirts, colored dresses, and dark heads, bringing out the half-moon shape of the track, and its danger. The red palazzos sloped downward to the town hall, where a straight street sliced off the broad curve. Heavy mattresses padded the outer barriers at these sharply cut corners. Even at the trial runs, Byron and Natalie had seen horses thud against the mattresses and knock their jockeys senseless. The sunset light on the facade of the Palazzo Pubblico, the town hall, was deepening to a blood color. The rest of the piazza was in shadow, and a heavy bell was tolling in the tower. From the town hall a long fanfare sounded. The crowd fell quiet. Trumpets struck up the old Palio march that had been echoing all week in Siena's streets. Out of the palazzo courtyard trotted the caparisoned racehorses with their flamboyantly costumed jockeys. Natalie Jastrow's fingers slid into Byron's and clasped them, and for a moment she put her cheek, cool, bony, and yet soft, against his. "Idiotic, Briny?" she murmured. He was too delighted with the contact to answer. The starting line was directly in front of them, and behind them, above the judges' stand, the Palio hung on its pole, stirring in a cool breeze blowing across the great amphitheatre. An ancient contraption of wood and rope controlled the start. To line up the dancing, overwrought animals inside the ropes proved almost impossible. The harried creatures capered in and out, they turned, reared, stumbled, and broke away twice in false starts. At last the ten horses went thudding off in a pack, with the jockeys clubbing wildly at the creatures and at each other. A yell rose above the steady roar, as two horses went down at the first set of mattresses. After that BYron lost track of the race. Mule he watched an unconscious jockey being dragged off the dirt, another wild yell of the crowd told of more mishaps, which he couldn't see. The pack came racing by in a club-waving dirt-flying jumble, strung out over five or six lengths. A riderless horse galloped well up among them, dripping foam, its reins dangling. "Can a riderless horse win?p Jastrow shouted at Byron. A man in the row below him turned up a fat warty red face with pointed moustaches and popping yellow eyes. "Si, si. Riderless is scosso, meestair, scosso. Viva Brucol Scossol' X"en the pack came past the judges' box a second time, the riderless horse was clearly in the lead, and Byron could see its Caterpillar colors and emblems. 'Scossol' the warty red face turned and bellowed happily at Dr, Jastrow, exhaling heavy odors of garlic and vane, and two fists waved at him. "See, mecstair? Mloo! Brucol Cater-peel-air, meestairl" "Yes, indeed, just so," said Jastrow, shrinking a bit against Byron.
The noise in the piazza swelled to a general mad scream as the horses went round for the third and last time, with the surviving jockeys frantically beating their nags to make them overtake the riderless Bruco horse. They came past the finish in a shower of dirt, a maze of bobbing, straining heads and flailing jockeys' arms. The riderless horse, its eyes rolling redly, was still barely in front. "Brucol' screamed the warty man, leaping a couple of feet in the air. "Scossol Scossol Ha ha!" He turned to Jastrow with a maniacal laugh, and vividly gestured that the horse was drugged by pumping a huge imaginary hypodermic needle into his arm. "Bravissimo! WHOOI', He clattered down the narrow aisle to the track, ran on to the dirt, and vanished in the swarm boiling out of the seats and over the barriers. The track was full on the instant with people milling, yelling, waving arms, jumping and embracing in ecstasy, shaking fists, clutching their heads, beating their breasts. Here and there in the mob were the bobbing Plumed heads of the horses. On the track before the judges' stand, a dozen white-shined young men were beating an unhelmeted jockey, on his knees in the dirt, holding up both arms in a plea for mercy. The jockey's face was welling bright blood. "My lord, what's going on there?" Jastrow quavered. "Somebody failed to doublecross , Byron said, "or else he triple crossed." "I suppose"-Jastrow put a trembling hand to his beard-"this is the part the archbishop warned us about. Perhaps we had better leave, and-" Byron slammed an arm across his chest. "Not now. Sit right where you are, sir, and don't move. You too, Natalie." A squad of young men, with yellow-and-green Caterpillar scarves around their necks, came driving through the mob straight for the judges' stand. They trampled up the benches past Jastrow, led by a pallid youngster streaming blood from his forehead. Byron held two protecting arms in front of the girl and Jastrow as the bloody-faced one seized the pole. The whole squad roared, cheered, and came thundering back down the benches with the banner. "Now!" Byron took the hands of the other two. "Come." The excited Sienese, as well as the tourists, were prudently making way for the triumphant Caterpillars. Moving right behind them, with one arm around the girl and another around Jastrow, Byron got through the archway into the main lower street of the town. But here the mob eddied in behind the Palio and its triumphant escort and engulfed them, crushing uphill toward the cathedral. "Oh, Lord," Natalie said. "We're in for it now. Hang on to Aaron." "Dear me, I'm afraid I didn't bargain for this," gasped Jastrow, fumbling at his hat and his glasses with one hand. The other was pinned in Byron's grip. "My feet are scarcely touching the ground, Byron." "That's okay. Don't fight them, sir, just go along. At the first side street this jam will ease up. Take it easy-' A convulsive, panicky surge of the crowd at this momenttore the professor out of Byron's grasp. Behind them sounded the clatter of hoofs on stone, wild neighs and whinnies, and shouts of alarm. The crowd melted around Byron and Natalie, fleeing from a plunging horse. It was the winner, the Caterpillar animal. A brawny young man in green and yellow, his wig awry and sliding, was desperately trying to control the animal, but as it reared again, a Hailing front hoof caught him full in the face. He fell bloodied to the ground, and the horse was free. It danced, reared, and screamed, plunging forward, and the crowd shrank away. As Byron pulled Natalie into a doorway out of the retreating mob, Aaron Jastrow emerged in the clear street without his glasses, stumbled, and fell in the horse's path. Without a word to Natalie, Byron ran out into the street and snatched Jastrow's big yellow hat off his head. He waved the hat in the horse's face, crouching, watching the hoofs. The creature neighed wildly, shied against a palazzo wall, stumbled and lost its footing, then recovered and reared, Hailing its forelegs at Byron, who waved the hat again, staying watchfully just out of range. The horse pranced about on two legs, rolling bloodshot mad eyes, foaming at the mouth. Half a dozen men in Caterpillar costumes now came running up the street, and four of them seized the reins, dragged the horse down, and began to quiet him. The others picked up their injured comrade. and People from the crowd darted out and helped Jastrow get up. Natalie ran to his side. Men surrounded Byron, slapping his shoulder shouting in Italian as he made his way to Jastrow. "Here's your hat, sir." "Oh, thank you, Byron. My glasses, you haven't seen them, have you? I suppose they're shattered. Well, I have another pair at the villa." The professor was blinkin blindly, but he acted rather excited and cheerful. "Goodness, what a commotion. What happened? I was pushed down, I guess. I heard a horse clattering about, but I couldn't see a thing." "He's all right," Natalie said to Byron, with a look straight into his eyes such as she had never before given him. "Thanks." "Dr. Jastrow, if you're not too shaken up," Byron said, taking his arm again, "we should go to the Caterpillar church for the thanksgiving service." "Oh, not at all," Jastrow laughed. The moment of action seemed to have cleared his nerves. "In for a penny in for a pound. I find all this rather exhilarating. On we go. just hang on to me a little better, Byron. You were a bit derelict there for a minute." A week or so later, Natalie and Byron were at work in the library, with a summer thunderstorm beating outside at the darkened windows. Byron, happening to look up from a map when lightning flashed, saw Natalie staring at him, her face sombre in the lamplight.
"Byron, have you ever been to Warsaw?" "No. Why?" 'Would you like to come there with me?" With great willpower, choking back his joy, Byron summoned up the opaque dull look With which he had resisted twenty years of his father's probings: "What would be the point?" "Well, it's probably worth seeing, don't you think? Slote even says it's rather old-world and gay. The thing is, Aaron's getting difficult about my trip. You know that. I could just tell him to go to hell, but I'd rather not." Byron had heard the discussions. In the aftermath of the Palio, on learning how close he had come to getting injured or killed, Jastrow was having a spell of nerves. The American consul in Florence had come up after the Palio for a visit; following that, Jastrow's glum mood had worsened. He kept insisting that the Foreign Service was getting worried over the Polish situation, and that Natalie's proposed trip was now too risky. Byron said, "Would my going make a difference?" "Yes. You know what Aaron calls you behind your back now? That golden lad. He can't get over what you did at the Palio." "You exaggerated it." "I did not. You showed striking presence of mind. I was impressed, and so was Aaron when he found out. The horse might have killed him. If I can tell him you're coming, I bet he'll stop grumbling." "Your friend Slote might take a dim view of my showing up with you. Natalie said with a grim little smile, "I'll handle Leslie Slote. All right?" "I'll think about it," Byron said. "If you need money, I'll be glad to lend you some." "Oh, I've got money. As a matter of fact, Natalie, there's not all that much to think about. I guess I'll come along. With Jastrow off in Greece, this will be a dismal place." "Bless your heart." She gave him a delighted smile. "We'll have fun. I'll see to that." 'What happens after Warsaw?" Byron said. "Will you come back here?" "I guess so, if the consul doesn't persuade Aaron to go home meantime. He's really working on him. And you, Briny?" "Well, maybe I will too," Byron said. 'I'm at loose ends."That night at dinner, when he heard the news, Dr. Jastrow ordered up a bottle of champagne. "Byron, I can't tell you what a load you've taken off my mind! This headstrong girl doesn't know how wild and backward Poland is. I do. From what my relatives write me, it hasn't improved one iota since I left there forty-five years ago. And the situation really is unstable. The villain with the mustache is making nasty noises, and we must look for the worst. However, there's bound to be some warning. My mind is much more at ease now. You're a capable young man." "You talk as though I were some kind of idiot," Natalie said, sipping champagne. "You are a girl. It's something you have trouble remembering. You were that way as a child, climbing trees and fighting boys. Well, I'll be here alone, then. But I won't mind that." 'Won't you be in Greece, sir?" Byron said. "I'm not so sure." Jastrow smiled at their puzzled looks. "It's some clumsiness about my passport. I let it lapse, and not being native-born, but naturalized through my father's naturalization, it turns out there's a bit of red tape involved in renewing it. Especially since I haven't been back in nine years. The problem may or may not be unravelled by the end of August. If it isn't, I'll just take the trip next spring." "That's something you should certainly straighten out," Byron said. . "Oh, of course. These things used to be simple, the consul says. But since the flood of refugees from Hitler began, the rules have tightened up. Well, Briny, so you and Natalie will be off to Warsaw in a few weeks! I couldn't be more pleased and I'm sure she can use a chaperone." "Go climb a tree, Aaron," Natalie said, turning pink, and her uncle laughed at her, his first wholehearted laugh in a week. "I hope you'll manage to meet my cousin Berel," Jastrow said to Byron. "I haven't seen him since I left Poland, but we've usually exchanged three or four 'letters a year. Presence of mind has always been his strong point, too." Pamela drove Commander Henry and her father to SwinemondeThe train would have been faster, but Henry wanted to see the countryside and the small towns, and the Englishman was more than agreeable. One could almost get to like Germans, he said, if one stayed out of the cities. Pug was appalled at the girl's driving. She chauffeured the rented Mercedes around Berlin in docile conformity to the lights and the speed laws, but once on the autobahn she rocketed the needle to one hundred fifty kilometers an hour. Tudsbury chatted over the wind roar, paying little attention to the scenery blurring past.
He now thought there might be no war. The British were dealing seriously at last with the Russians about a military alliance. They were starting to Turn out airplanes so much faster that regaining air parity, which they had lost in 1936, was in sight. Their pledge to Poland showed Hitler that this time Chamberlain meant business. The Nazi Party in Danzig had quieted down. Mussolini had flatly told Hitler (so Tudsbury's inside information had it) that he was not ready to fight. The correspondent foresaw respite of two or three years, during which the alarmed democracieswouldrearmfast(a) er than the Germans possibly could. The cornered dictator would eventually either fall, or start a war and be crushed, or very likely get assassinated. "I can't understand why somebody hasn't shot him long ago, the way he shows himself. He bears a charm," Tudsbury shouted, as the car careered out on the two-lane road to pass a long line of thundering trucks full of new gray-painted army tanks. Pug Henry clutched at an armrest, for another truck was approaching head on, swelling like a balloon; it went by in a howl and a screech half a second after Pamela whisked into her own lane between two trucks, brushing hair off her forehead with one relaxed little hand. "But the charm is based on success. It may lapse once he stops moving ahead. He's murdered a lot of people on the way up. They all have relatives." Commander Grohke came to meet them at the base gate in a small car, which Tudsbury could barely squeeze into. Pamela roared off to a hotel, and Grohke took the two men for a long tour, by car and on foot, through the Swinemonde yard. It was a gray afternoon, with low black clouds threatening rain. The dank east wind off the Baltic felt pleasantly cool after the sultriness of Berlin. The flat, sandy, bleak seacoast base was much like New London, Victor Henry thought. If one ignored flags and signs, in fact, the naval facilities of big powers were hard to tell apart. They were all in the same business, imitating the British navy, which had first brought the industrial age to war at sea. The low black U-boats tied in clusters to the long piers or resting on blocks in dry docks; the smell of tar, hot metal, and seawater; the slow clank and screech of overhead cranes; the blaze of welding torches, the ratite of riveters; the flat or curved sections of steel, painted with yellow or red primer, swinging through the air; the gigantic open sheds; the mounds of piping, cables, timbers, and Oil drums; the swarms of grease-blackened cheerful men in dirty coveralls, Italy, goggles, and hard hats; the half-finished hulls propped with timbers on rails slanting into dirty water-he might have been in Japan, France, or the United States. The differences that counted, the crucial numbers and performance characteristics, were not discernable. He could see that the Germans were not changing the classic double hull of a submarine, and that, like the Americans, they were doing more welding. He would have liked to apply his pocket tape to a steel pressure hull section. The plate seemed thinner than in American submarines(measure) . if is were, the U-boats could probably not dive quite as deep, unless the Germans had developed a remarkably strong new alloy. But on such a visit one used one's eye, not a camera or a tape measure.
A low sun broke out under the gray clouds, and the car cast an elongated shadow when Grohke stopped near the entrance gate at a dry dock where a U-boat rested on blocks. From one side of the dock a gangway with rails, and from the other a precarious long plank, slanted down to the submarine's deck. "Well, that's the tour," said Grohke. "This is my flagship. Since I cannot have you aboard, Tudsbury, much as I would like to, I suppose we all part company here." Henry picked up his cue from the German's smile. "Look, let's not stand on ceremony. If I can come aboard I'll come and Tudsbury won't." "Good God, yes," said the Englishman. "I've no business here any way. The U-boat commander spread his hands. "I don't want to drive a wedge in Anglo-American friendship." A whistle blasted as they spoke, and workmen came trooping off the boats and docks, and o,ut of the sheds. The road to the gate was soon thronged with them. They came boiling out of the U-boat, up the gangway. "The old navy yard hazard," Henry said. "Run for your life at five o'clock, or they'll trample you to death." Grohke laughed. 'All civilians are the same." Tudsbury said, "Well, in my next broadcast I'll have to say that the U-boat command is humming like damn all. I hope they'll take notice in London." "Just tell them what you saw." Grohke shook his hand through the car window. "We want to be friends. We know you have the greatest navy in the world. These silly little boats can do a lot of damage for their size, that's all. One of my officers will drive you to your hotel." Since workmen were jamming the gangway, Grohke grinned at Henry, and pointed a thumb toward the plank on the other side of the dock. Pug nodded. The German with a gesture invited him to go first. It was a very long drop, something like seventy feet, to the greasy puddles in the concrete dock. Pug made his way around the rim and walked down the shaky paint-spotted plank, trying to look easier than he felt. Stolid eyes of side boys in white watched from below. As he set foot on deck, they snapped to attention. Grohke stepped off the raiding plank with a laugh. "Well done, for two old blokes." looked much like an American submarine, but the cleanliness, polish, and order were unusual. A United States ship in dry dock, with civilian workmen aboard, soon became squalid and dirty. No doubt Grohke had ordered a cleanup for the American visitor, which Pug appreciated, being himself a spit-and-polish tyrant. Even so, he had to adimre the German display. The diesels looked as though they had never turned over, their red paint and brass fittings were unsullied by a grease spot, and the batteries seemed fresh from the factory. Thesailors were starched pretty fellows, almost a crew for a nautical musical comedy. As for the U-boat design, when you took the essential spaces and machines of a war vessel and stuffed them into the sausage casing of one long tube, the result was the same in any country: change the instrument legends to English, move the captain's cabin from port to starboard, add two feet to the wardroom, alter a few valve installations, and you were in the Grayling. 'Smells pretty good," he said, as they passed the tiny galley, where cooks in white were preparing dinner and somehow managing to perspire neatly. Grohke looked at him over his shoulder. You wouldn't care to eat aboard? It's awfully cramped, but these chaps don't eat too badly." Pug had a dinner appointment with the Tudsburys, but he said at once, "I'd be delighted." So he dined elbow to elbow with the captain and officers of the U-boat in the narrow wardroom. He enjoyed it. He was more at home here than in his silk-walled dining room in Berlin. The four young officers were thin-lipped, ruddy, blond, shy; like Americans in their features, but with a different look around the eyes, more intense and wary. They sat silent at first, but soon warmed to the American's compliments about the boat, and the joking of Grohke, who got into an excellent mood over the food and wine. Stories passed about the stupidity and laziness of navy yard workmen. One of Pug's best yarns, an incident of crossed-up toilet plumbing on the West Virginia, brought uproarious laughter. He had noticed before the German taste for bathroom humor. The officers told tales, which they considered comic, of their early training: first about the cleaning of latrines, then of electric shocks to which they had had to submit without flinching while their reactions were filmed; exposure to cold and heat past the point of collapse; knee bends until they dropped; the "Valley of Death" cross-country run up and down hillsides, wearing seventy-pound loads and gas masks. An officer emerged the better, they said, from such ordeals. Only Grohke disagreed. That Prussian sadism was old-fashioned, he asserted. In war at sea, initiative was more important than the blind submission that the ordeals implanted. "The Americans have the right idea," he said, either because he sensed that Pug was shocked, or out of maverick conviction. Tbev feasted on cabbage soup, boiled fresh salmon, roast pork, potato dumplings, and gooseberry torten. Obviously Grohke had ordered up this banquet on the chance that Pug might stay. Streaks of red sunset showed through the black rain clouds when Henry and Grohke I it the submarine. On the dock me crewm e so en, naked except for trunks, were wrestling inside a cheering circle, on gray mats laid over the crane tracks. Henry had seen everywhere this love of young Germans for hard horseplay. They were like healthy pups, and these U-boat men looked stronger and healthier than American sailors. "So, Henry, I suppose you join your English friend now?" "Not if you have any better ideas." The German slapped him on the shoulder. "Good! Come along."They drove out through the gate. "Damn quiet after five o'clock," said Pug. "Oh, yes. Dead. Always." Pug lit a cigarette. "I understand the British are working two and three shifts now in their yards." Grohke gave him an odd look. "I guess they make up for lost time." A couple of miles from the base, amid green fields near the water, they drove into rows of wooden cottages. "Here's where my daughter lives," Grohke said, ringing a doorbell. A fresh-faced young blonde woman opened the door. Three children, recognizing Grohke's ring, ran and pounced on the paper-wrapped hard candies he handed out. The husband was at sea on maneuvers. On an upright piano in the tiny parlor stood his picture: young, long-jawed, blond, stern. "It's good Paul is at sea," Grohke said. "He thinks I spoil the kids," and he proceeded to toss them and romp with them until they lost their bashfulness in the presence of the American, and ran around laughing and shrieking. The mother tried to press coffee and cake on the guests, but Grohke stopped her. )t "The commander is busy. I just wanted to see the children. Now we go. As they got into the car, looking back at a window where three little faces peered out at him, he said: "It's not much of a house. Not like your mansion in the Grunewald! It's just a cracker box. The German pay scale isn't like the American. I thought you'd be interested to see how they live. He's a good U-boat officer and they're happy. He'll have a command in two years. Right away, if there's war. But there won't be war. Not now." "I hope not." 'I know. There is not going to be war over Poland-So? Back to Swinemonde?" 'I guess so." As they drove into the small coastal town, Pug said, "Say, I could stand a beer. How about you? Is there a good place?" 'Now you're talking! There's nothing fancy, not in this boring town, but I can take you where the officers hang out. Isn't Tudsbury expecting you?" "He'll survive." "Yes. Englishmen are good at that." Grohke laughed with transparent pleasure at keeping the American naval attache from the famous correspondent. Young men in turtleneck sweaters and rough jackets sat at long tables in the dark, smoky, timbered cellar, bellowing a song to concertina accompaniment played by a strolling fat man in a leather apron. "Jesus Christ, I have drunk a lot of beer in this place, Henry," said Grohke. They sat at a small side table under an amber lamp. Pug showed Men pictures of Warren,Byron, and Madeline. After a couple of beers, he told of his worry over Warren's involvement with an older woman. Grohke chuckled. "Well, the things I did when I was a young buck! The main thing is, he'll be an aviator. Not as good as a submariner, but the next best thing, ha ha! He looks like a smart lad. He'll settle down." Pug joined in a song he recognized. He had no ear and sang badly off-key. This struck Grohke as hilarious. "I swear to God, Victor," he said, wiping his eyes after a fit of laughter, 'could anything be crazier than all this talk of war? I tell you, if you left it to the navy fellows on both sides it could never happen. We're all decent fellows, we understand each other, we all want the same things out of life. It's the politicians. Hitler is a great man and Roosevelt is a great man, but they've both been getting some damn lousy advice. But there's one good thing. Adolf Hitler is smarter than all the politicians. There's not going to be any war over Poland." He drained his thick glass stein and banged it to attract a passing barmaid. 'Geben Sie gut Acht auf den Osten," he said, winking and dropping his voice. "Watch the east! There's something doing in the east." The barmaid clacked on the table two foaming steins from clusters in her hands. Grohke drank and passed the back of his hand over his mouth. 'Suppose I tell you that I heard the Fuhrer hinnelf address the senior U-boat command and tell them there would be no war? You want to report that back to Washington? Go ahead, it happens to be true. You think he'll start a war against England with seventy-four operational U-boats? When we have three hundred, that'll be a different story, and then England will think twice about making trouble. And in eighteen months, that's exactly what we'll have. Meantime watch the east." "Watch the ?" Victor Henry said in a wondering tone. Aha, you're a little curious? I have a brother in the foreign ministry. Watch the east! We're not going to be fighting, Henry, not this year, I promise you. So what the hell? We live one year at a time, no? Come on, I have a tin ear like you, but we'll sing!" Victor Henry sat with his old portable typewriter on his knees, in the rosewood-panelled library. The magnificent antique desk was too high for comfortable typing; and anyway, the machine scratched the red leather top. It was not yet four in the morning, but the stars were gone, blue day showed in the garden, and birds sang. White paper, yellow paper, and carbons lay raggedly around him. The room was cloudy with smoke. He had been typing since midnight. He stopped, yawning. In the kitchen he found a cold chicken breast, which he ate with a glass of milk while he heated a third pot of coffee. He returned to the library, gathered up the top white pages of his report to the Office of Naval Intelligence, and began reading.
COMBAT READINESS OF NAZI GERMANY An Appraisal Nazi Germany is a very peculiar country. The contradictions strike the observer as soon as he arrives. The old Germany is still here, the medieval buildings, the quaint country costumes, the clean big cities, the order, the good nature, the neatness, the "thoroughness," the beautiful scenery, the fine-looking people, especially the children. However, there is an extra layer of something new and different: the Nazi regime. It's all over the face of this old country like a rash. How deep it goes is a serious question. The Nazis have certainly put up a highly patriotic, colorful, and warlike facade. The swastika flags, new buildings, marching battalions, Hitler Youth, torchlight parades and such are all very striking. But what is behind the facade Is there a strong potential for war-making, or is it mainly political propaganda and bluff? this report gives the first impressions of an officer who has been in Germany four weeks, and has been digging for facts. It is common knowledge that since 1933 Germany has been frankly and even boastfully rearming. Even before the Hitler regime, however, the army surreptitiously armed and trained in violation of the Versailles Treaty, with Bolshevik help. Once the Nazis took power, though the Russian contact was dropped, the rearming speeded up and became open. Nevertheless, twenty years ago this nation was disarmed. Seven years ago it was still helpless compared to the Allies. The question is, to what extent has that gap been closed by Hitler? Building a modern combat force is a big-scale industrial process. It takes material, manpower, and time, no matter what vaunting claims political leaders make. Two preliminary and interesting conclusions emerge from the facts this observer has been able to gather. ( z ) Nazi Germany has not closed the gap sufficiently to embark on a war with England and France. (2) The regime is not making an all-out effort to close the gap. The next five pages contained ten-year figures-contradicting many intelligence reports he had read-d German factory production, of the expansion of industry, and of the output of machines and materials. He drew heavily on his own reading and inquiries. He presented comparisons of French, British, and German gross national products and of strength on land, sea, and in the air, during this decade. These numbers indicated -as he marshalled them-that Germany remained inferior in every aspect of war-making, except for her air force; and that she was not pushing her industrial plant very hard to catch up. Contrary to popular opinion all over the world, there was no feverish piling of arms. This emerged by a comparison of plant capacity and output figures. He described in passing the desolate peace that fell over the Swinemonde navy yard at the usual quitting time. There was not even a second shift for constructing U-boats, the key to German sea warfare. He argued that the edge in the air would rapidly melt away with the present British speedup in making airplanes and buying them from the United States. As to land war, the swarminguniforms in the city streets were quite a show; but the figures proved that France alone could put a larger, longer trained, and better equipped army in the field. On a U-boat, passing through the squadron's tiny flag office, he had seen scrawled on the outside of a mimeographed report some figures and abbreviations that he thought meant: operational, 5z-at sea, 6; in port, 40, overhaul, 5. These figures met the intelligence evaluations of the British and the French. Grohke had claimed seventy-four operational boats, a predictable overestimate when talking big to a foreign intelligence officer. But even exaggerating, Grohke had not gone as high as a hundred. Fifty U-boats were almost certainly the undersea strength of Nazi Germany, give or take five, with perhaps only thirteen under construction. In 1918 alone Germany had lost more than a hundred U-boats. Then came the crucial paragraph, which he had typed with many pauses, and which he anxiously read over and over. What follows gets into prognostication, and so may be judged frivolous or journalistic. However, the impression that this observer has formed points so strongly to a single possibility, that it seems necessary to record the judgment. All the evidence indicates to me that Adolf Hitler is at this time negotiating a military alliance with the Soviet union. Arguing in support of his idea, Victor Henry alluded to the Rapallo Treaty of 1922, when the Bolsheviks and the Germans had stunned a European economic conference by suddenly going off and making a separate deal of broad scope. He pointed out that the present German ambassador in Moscow, Schulenburg, was a Rapallo man. Litvinov, Russia's Jewish pro-Western foreign minister, had recently fallen. Hitler in two speeches had left out his usual attacks on Bolshevism. A Russo-German trade agreement had been in the news, but suddenly the papers had dropped all mention of it. He cited, too, the remark of a man high in the U-boat command, 'Watch the east. Something's happening in the east. I have a brother in the foreign ministry." And he cited Hitler's pledge to the U-boat officers that there would be no war over Poland. None of this, he acknowledged, added up to hard intelligence, nor did it impress the professionals at the embassy. There were always, they said, rumors of theatrical surprises. They insisted on sticking to basic facts. The Nazi movement was built on fear and hate of Bolshevism and a pledge to destroy it. The whole dieme of Mein Kampf was conquest of "living room" for Germany in the southeast provinces of Russia. A military reconciliation between the two systems was unthinkable. Hitler would never propose it. If he did, Stalin, assuming that it was a trick, would never accept it. The words Henry had encountered most often were "fantasy" and "melodrama." He maintained, nevertheless, that the move not only made sense, but was inevitable. Hitlerwas far out on a limb in his threats against Poland. A dictator could not back down. Yet his combat readiness for a world war was marginal. Probably to avoid alarming the people, he had not even put his country on a war production basis, contrary to all the lurid blustering propaganda of "cannon instea ugh talk of Nazi pro of butter." Despite this to politicians and newspapers, the man in the street did not want a war, and Hitler knew that. A Russian alliance was a way out of the dilemma. If Russia gave the Germans a free hand in Poland, the English guarantee would become meaningless. Neither the French nor the British could possibly come to Poland's aid in time to avert a quick conquest. Therefore the Poles would not fight. They would yield the city of Danzig and the extraterritorial road across the Polish corridor, which was all Hitler was demanding. Maybe later, as in the case of Czechoslovakia, he would move in and take the rest of Poland, but not now. Victor Henry argued that the sudden reversal of alliances was an old European stratagem, especially characteristic of German and Russian diplomacy. He described many instances, fresh from his heavy history reading. He pointed out that Hitler himself had come to power in the first place through a sharp reversal of political lines, a deal with his worst enemy, Franz von Papen. Fully clothed, he fell asleep on the red leather couch, with the report and two carbon copies tucked inside his shirt, after shredding the sheets of carbon paper into the wastebasket. His slumber was restless and brief. When his eyes popped wide open again, the sun was sending weak red rays through the treetops. He showered, dressed, read the report again, and walked five miles from the Grunewald to the Wilhelmstrasse, turning the document over in his mind. Compared to Tollever's reports, which he had studied, it was a presumptuous discussion of grand strategy, far beyond his competence and his position; the sort of "Drew Pearson column" against which the Met of Naval Operations himself had warned him. On the other hand, it seemed to him factual. He had already sent in a number of technical reports like Kip's papers. He intended to write one on Swinemonde. Combat Readiness of Nazi Germany was a jump into the dark. In War College seminars, instructors had poked rude fun at "global masterminding" by officers below flag rank. The question was, now that the paper was written, should he send it or forget it? Pug Henry had written and later destroyed many such documents. He had a continuing tendency to reach beyond routine. The result Could be good or disastrous. His unsolicited memorandum on the battleship blisters had knocked him out of overdue sea duty and landed him in Berlin. That report, at least, had been within his professional sphere as an ordnance man. In diplomacy and grand strategy he was a naive newcomer. Colonel Forrest knew Germany well and he had waved aside Henry's suggestion as nonsense. Pug had ventured to talk to the charge d'affaires, whose only comment had been a subtle smile. A Foreign Service courier was flying to England at 10 A.M to board the New York-boundQueen Mary. The document could be on C.N.O's desk in a week. Henry arrived at the embassy still undecided, with not much more than a half hour in which to make up his mind. Except for Rhoda, there was nobody whose advice he could ask. Rhoda liked to sleep late. If he called her now he would probably wake her, and even then he could scarcely describe the report on the German telephone. But would Rhoda in any case offer a judgment worth having? He thought not. It was up to him-the courier, or the burn basket. He sat at his desk in the high-ceilinged, cluttered office, sipping coffee, looking out across Hermann Goering Strasse at Hitler's monumental new chancellery of pink marble. The sentry guards were changing: eight helmeted black-clad heavy SS men marching up, eight others marching away to a drum and LIFE. Through the open Windows he heard the ritual orders in shrill German, the squeal of the LIFE, the scraping tramp of the big black boots. Victor Henry decided that his job was intelligence, and that for better or worse this report told truly what he had seen so far in Nazi Germany. He hunted up the courier and gave him the document for urgent delivery to the OfEce of Naval Intelligence. Admiral Preble read Combat Readiness of Nazi Germany a week later, and sent one page of extracts to the President. The Nazisoviet pact broke on the world on the twenty-second of August, as one of the most stunning surprises in all history. On the twenty-fourth Preble received the page back in an envelope from the White House. The President had scrawled at the bottom, in strong thick pen strokes in black ink: Let me have V. Henry's service record. FDR The announcement of the pact shrieked at Byron and Natalie from the news placards in the Rome airport. They had set out from Siena before dawn in an old Renault, and while the whole world was chattering about the astounding news, they had innocently driven down along the Apennines in golden Italian sunlight, mid old mountain towns, wild airy gorges, and green valleys where peasants worked their fields. With Natalie Jastrow at his side for a three-week journey that was only starting, Byron was in the highest of spirits, until he saw the bulletins. He had never found a European airport so busy or so noisy. Gesticulating travellers were besieging the reservation desks, nearly everybody was either walking fast or running, and sweaty porters wheeling heaps of luggage were snarling at passengers and at each other. The loudspeaker never stopped its thunderous echoing drivel. At the first kiosk, he bought a sheaf of papers. The Italian papers shrilled that this great diplomatic coup by the this had ended the war danger. The headlines of the Paris and London newspapers were big, black, and frightened. The German press giggled coarse delight in tall red block letters. The front page of a Swiss newspaper caricatured Hitler and Goering in Russian blouses and fur hats, squatting and kicking out their boots, to the music of a concertina played by Stalin in an SS uniform. Across a Belgian front page, the stark headline was 1914?
in a crowded, buzzing airport restaurant, while they ate a hasty lunch of cannelloni and cold white wine, Natalie astonished him by talking of going on. To proceed into a country that might soon be invaded by Germans struck Byron as almost mad. But Natalie argued that the tourists milling in the airport were mere sheep. If a sudden political change could panic them, they had no right to be in Europe. She had stayed in Paris through the Munich crisis. Half of her American friends had fled, and later had straggled back-those who had not felt too silly. There was always less danger than most people thought. Even in a war, an American passport spelled safety. She wanted to see Poland. She wanted to see Leslie Slote and had given him her promise. She would be in and out of Poland in three weeks. The world wasn't going to end in three weeks. It did not cheer Byron to perceive how much she really wanted to rejoin Slote. Since the Palio, he had hoped that she was warming to himself. The girl had been downright affectionate during the second Palio, which they had watched without Jastrow, and at one point in the evening -when they were well into a third botdc of Soave at dinner after the race -she had remarked that it was too bad he wasn't a few years older, and a Jew. "My mother would take to you, Briny," she had said. "My troubles would be over. You have good manners. You must have lovely parents. Leslie Slote is nothing but an ambitious, self-centered dog. I'm not even sure he loves me. He and I just fell in a hole." But now she was on her way to her lover, and a political explosion that had staggered Europe made no difference to her. By now he knew something of her rash streak. Climbing on mountainsides or ruins, Natalie Jastrow took unladylike chances. She leaped gaps, she teetered along narrow ledges, she scrambled up bare rocks, careless alike of her modesty and her neck. She was a strong, surefooted girl, and a little too pleased with herself about it. He sat slouched in his chair, contemplating her across the red and white checked cloth, the dirty dishes, the empty wineglasses. The Alitalia plane was departing for Zagreb on the first leg of their flight in little more than an hour. She stared back, her lips pushed out in a wry pout. Her dark gray travelling suit was sharply tailored over her pretty bosom. She wore a black crushable hat and a white shirt. Her ringless fingers beat on the cloth. "Look," she said, "I can well understand that for you it's no longer a gay excursion. So I'll go on by myself." 'I suggest you telephone Slote first. Ask him if you should come." Natalie drummed her fingers. "Nonsense, I'll never get a call through to Warsaw today." "Try." "All right," she snapped. "Where are the damned telephones?" The long-distance office was mobbed. Two switchboard girls were shouting, plugging,unplugging, scrawling, waving their hands, and wiping sweat from their brows. Byron cut through the crowd, pulling Natalie by the hand. When she gave the operator a number in Warsaw, the girl's sad huge brown eyes widened. "Signorina-Warsaw? Why don't you ask me to ring President Roosevelt? It's twelve hours' delay to Warsaw." "That's the number of the American embassy there," Byron said, smiling at her, "and it's life and death." He had an odd thin-lipped smile, half-melancholy, half-gay, and the Italian girl warmed to it as to an offered bunch of violets. "American embassy? I can try." She plugged, rang, argued in German and Italian, made faces at the mouthpiece, and argued some more. "Urgent, emergency," she kept shouting. This went on for ten minutes or more, While Byron smoked and Natalie paced and kept looking at her watch. With a surprised look, the operator all at once nodded violently, pointing to a booth. Natalie stayed inside a long time, and came out red-faced and scowling. "We were cut off before we finished. I'm choking to death. Let's get some air." Byron brought her out into the terminal. "He got angry with me. He told me I was insane. The diplomats are burning their papers.... It was an awfully good connection. He might have been around the corner." "I'm sorry, Natalie, but it's what I expected. yp "He said I should get the hell out of Italy and go straight home, with or without Aaron. Is that what you'd have told me?" She turned on him. 'I'm so hot! Buy me a lemonade or something." They sat at a little table outside an airport cafe. She said, "Let's see the plane tickets." "I'm sure we can get refunds." He handed her the envelope. She extracted her ticket and gave the envelope back. "You get a refund. They burned papers before Munich too. England and France will fold up now just the way they did then. Imagine a world war over Danzig! Who the hell knows where Danzig is? Who cares?" "Natalie, that embassy will be swamped. You won't see much of him." "Well, if he's too busy for me, I'll do my sightseeing alone. My family lived in Warsaw for years. I still have relatives there. I want to see it. I'm on my way and I'm not turning back." The girl looked in her pocketbook mirror and jammed her hat further down on her head. "It must be about time for me to check in." He held out his hand. "Give me the ticket. I'll check both of us in while you have your lemonade." She brightened, but looked suspicious. "Are you sure you want to go?