Chapter 6

Warren had closely observed politicians visiting the Academy and the fleet. Some were impressive men like his father, but more were gladbanders with worried eyes, phony smiles, and soft bellies. His father's ambition, he knew, was flag rank in the Navy. Warren wanted that, but why not dream of more? Janice Lacouture had brains. She had everything. A single day had transformed Warren Henry's life. In the morning the war had Opened up the future; in the evening the perfect partner for that future had come out of nowhere. He did a strange thing. He walked to the window and looking out at the moon, he whispered a prayer. His youthful marching to church with his father had taken that much hold. "Let me have her, and let me pass this course and be a good naval aviator. I don't ask you to let me live, I know that's up to me, and the numbers, but if I do live and get through the war, then))-he smiled at the dark star-splashed sky-"well, then we'll see. All right?" Warren was charming God. He went to bed without telephoning Mrs. Tarrasch. She was always ready for a call from him. But now she seemed to him like somebody he had known in high school. shortly before six in the morning a ring fromsttahffemeemebtianssgyonwothkee Victor Henry. The charge was summoning an urgent outbreak of the war. Rhoda muttered and turned, throwing a naked white arm over her crossed the bed and eyes. From a crack in the curtains a narrow sunbeam the covers. Hitler was dust motes danced in the wan light as Pug threw back having good weather for the kickoff, Pug sleepily thought; just the bastard's luck! The invasion news was no great surprise. Since the Nazi-soviet pact the Polish crisis had been skidding downhill. At the big Argentine embassy supper the night before, everybody had noticed the absence of German military men and foreign office people, and had talked of war. One American correspondent had told Pug flatly that the invasion was on for three o'clock in the morning; that man had had the dope! The world had crossed a red line in time, and Victor Henry jumped out of bed to go to work in a new era. It wasn't his war, the one he had been training for all his life; not yet. But he was fairly sure it would be. Despite of surprise, he was excited and moved. In the library he switched on the radio, which seemed to take a long time to warn up, and opened the french windows. Birds sang in the sunny garden, whence a mild breeze, passing through a red-flowering shrub at the window, brought in a heavy sweet odor. The radio hummed and crackled and an announcer came on, not sounding much different than any Berlin announcer had during the past week, when the air had been full of the "incredible atrocities" perpetrated against Germans in Poland: rape, murder, disembowelling of pregnalt women, cutting off of children's hands and feet. In fact, after this long diet of gruesome bosh, the news that the war had started seemed almost tame. The voice was just as strident, just as full of righteousness, describing the Fuhrer's decision to march, as it had been in denouncing the atrocities. The account of a Polish attack at Gleiwitz to capture a German radio station-the outrage which, according to the broadcast, had sent the Wehrmacht rolling two million strong into Poland "inself-defense"was narrated with the same matter-of-fact briskness as the report of the plunge of the Germans across Polish soil, and of the surprise collapse of the Polish border divisions. Obviously an invasion of this magnitude had been laid on for a month or more and had been surging irreversibly toward Poland for days; the Polish 'attack" was a silly hoax for childish minds. Victor Henry was getting used to Berlin Radio's foggy mixture of facts and lies, but the contempt of the Nazis for the intelligence of the Germans could still surprise him. The propaganda had certainly achieved one aimto muffle the impact of the new war. Rhoda came yawning in, tying her negligee, and cocking her head at the radio. "Well! So he really went and did it. Isn't that something!" 'Sorry it woke you. I tried to keep it low." 'Oh, the telephone woke me. Was it the embassy?" Pug nodded. "I thought so. Well, I guess I should be up for this. We're not going to get in it, are we?" 'Most unlikely. I'm not even sure England and France will go to bat." 'How about the children, Pug?" "Well, Warren and Madeline are no problem. The word is that Italy won't fight, so Byron should be okay, too." Rhoda sighed, and yawned. 'Hitler's a very strange person. I've decided that. What a way to act! I liked his handshake, sort of direct and manly like an American's, and that charming bashful little smile. But he had strange eyes, you know? Remote, and sort of veiled. Say, what happens to our dinner for that tycoon from Colorado? What's his name? Will that be off?" "Dr. Kirby. He may not get here now, Rhoda." "Dear, please find out. I have guests coming, and extra help and food, you know." 'I'll do my best." Rhoda said slowly, "World War Two... You know, Time has been writing about 'World War Two' for months. It always seemed so unreal, somehow. Now here it is, but it still has a funny ring." 'You'll soon get used to it." 'Oh, no doubt it's on now. I'm supposed to have lunch with SaBy Forrest. I'd better find out if that's still on. What a mess! And my hair appointment-oh, no, that's tomorrow. Or is it? I don't function this time of the morning." Because of the early meeting, Pug gave up his cherished five-mile morning walk to the embassy, and drove there. Berlin was, if anything, quieter than usual. There was a Sunday morning look to the tree-lined avenues in mid-city, a slackening of auto traffic, a scarcity of people on the sidewalks. All the shops were open. Small trucks with machine guns at the ready, manned by helmeted soldiers, stood at some intersections, and along the walls of public buildings workmen were piling sandbags. But it was all a desultory business. The coffee shops were full of breaktasters, and in the Tiergarten the early morning strollers-nannies, children, elderly people-were out as usual forthe fine weather, with the vendors of toy balloons and ice cream. Loudspeakers everywhere were Matting the news, and an unusual number of airplanes went humming across the sky. The Berliners kept looking at the sky and then at each other with cynical sad grins. He remembered pictures of the happy cheering Berliners crowding linter den Lnden at the start of the last war. Clearly the Germans were going into this one in a different mood. The embassy was a maelstrom of scared tourists and would-be refugees, mainly old Jews. In the charge's large quiet office the staff meeting was sombre and short. No special instructions from Washington had yet come in. Mimeographed sheets of wartime regulations were passed around. The charge urged on everyone special care to preserve a correct tone of neutrality. If England and France came in, the embassy would probably look out for their people caught in Germany; a lot of lives might depend on appropriate American conduct at this touchy moment toward the truculent Germans. After the meeting Victor Henry attacked an in-tray stuffed with paper in his office, telling his yeoman to try to track down Dr. Palmer Kirby, the electrical engineer from Colorado who bore a "very important" designation from the Bureau of Ordnance. Alistair Tudsbury telephoned. "nullo! Would you like to hear the bad man explain all to the Reichstag? I can get you in to the press box. This is my last story from Berlin. I have my marching papers and should have left days ago, but got a medical delay. I OWe You something for that glimpse of Swinemonde." "You don't owe me anything, but I'll sure come." "Good. He speaks at r. Pa a thee m will call for you at two. We're packing up like mad. I hope we don't get interned. It's this German food that's given me the gout." The yeoman came in and laid a telegram on the desk. "Tudsbury, can't I take you and Pamela to lunch?" "No, no. No time. Many thanks. After this little unpleasantness, maybe. In 1949 or thereabouts." Pug laughed. "Ten years? You're a pessimist." He opened the telegram, and got a bad shock. DO You KNow WHEREABOUTS YOUR SON BYRON AND MY NIECE NATALIE PLEASE WRITE OR CALL. It was signed: AARON JASTROW, with an address and telephone number in Siena. Pug rang for the yeoman and handed him the telegram. "Try to get through to Siena, to this man. Also wire him: NOT KNOWN. PLEASE WIRE LAST KNOWN WHEREABOUTS.
"'Aye aye, sir." He decided not ' to tell Rhoda. Trying to go back to work he found himself unable to comprehend the substance of simple letters. He gave up, and looked out of the window at the Berliners going their ways in bright sunshine. Open trucks full of soldiers in gray were snorting along the street in a long procession. The soldiers looked bored. A small silver blimp came floating across the clear blue sky, towing a sign advertising Odol toothpaste. He swallowed his worry as best he could, and attacked his in-basket again. The telephone rang as he was leaving the office for lunch. He heard multilingual jabber and then a cultured American voice with a faint accent, 'Commander Henry? Aaron Jastrow. It's very good of you to call." 'Dr. Jastrow, I thought I'd better tell you immediately that I don't know where Byron and your niece are. I had no idea they weren't in Siena with you." "Well, I hesitated to wire you, but I thought you could help locate them. Two weeks ago they went to Warsaw." 'Warsaw!" "Yes, to visit a friend in our embassy there." "I'll get on it right away. Our embassy, you said?" 'Yes. The second secretary, Leslie Slote, is a former pupil of mine, a brilliant fellow. I imagine he and Natalie will get married one day." Pug scrawled the name. Jastrow coughed. 'Excuse me. It was a risky trip to make, I guess, but they did set out before the pact. She's twenty-seven and has quite a will of her own. Byron volunteered to go with her. That's really why I refuse to worry. He's a very capable young man." Victor Henry, dazed by the news, still found pleasure in this good word for Byron. Over the years he had not heard many. 'Thanks. I'll wire you when I find out something. And if you get any word, let me know." Jastrow coughed again. 'Sorry. I have a touch of bronchitis. I remember the last war SO well) Commander! It really wasn't long ago, was it? All this is giving me a strange, terribly sad feeling. Almost despairing. I hope we'll meet one day. It would give me pleasure to know Byron's father. He worships you." The long table in Borcher's restaurant was a listening post, an information exchange, and a clearing house for little diplomatic deals. Today, the cheery clink of silverware in the crowded restaurant, the smell of roast meats, the loud animated talk, were much the same; but at this special table there were changes. Several attaches had put on their uniforms. The Pole-a big cheerful Purple-faced man with great moustaches, who usually outdrank everybody-was gone. The Englishman was missing. TheFrench attache, in heavy gold braid, gloomed in his usual place. The comical Dane, senior among them, white-haired and fat, still wore his white linen suit; but he was stiff and quiet. The talk was constrained. Warsaw Radio claimed the Germans were being thrown back, but nobody could confirm that. On the contrary, the flashes from their capitals echoed Gerfnan boasts: victory everywhere, hundreds of Polish planes smashed on the ground, whole armies surrounded. Pug ate little and left early. Pamela Tudsbury leaned against the iron grillwork in front of the embassy, near the line of sad-looking Jews that stretched around the block. She wore the gray suit of their morning walk on the Bremen. "Well," he said, as they walked side by Side, "SO the little tramp went.She gave b'len a surprised, flattered look. "Didn)t he ever! Here's our car. Directly after the speech we're off. We're flying to Copenhagen at six, and lucky to have the seats. They're like diamonds." She drove the car in nervous zigzags through side streets, to get around a long convoy of tanks on a main boulevard. "Well, I'm sorry to see you and your dad go," Pug said. "I'll sure miss your fireball style at the wheel. Where to next?" " My guess is back to the USA. The governor's well liked there, and it'll be the number-one spot, actually, with Berlin shut down." "Pamela, don't you have a young man in London, or several, who object to your being so much on the move?" The girl-that was how he thought of her, which showed his own age-looked flushed and sparklingeyed. The driving gestures of her small white hands were swift, sharp, and well controlled. She diffused an agreeably light peppery scent, like carnations. "Oh, not at the moment, Commander. And the governor does need me since his eyes have got so bad. I like to travel, so I'm happy enough to -bless my soul. Look to your left. Don't be obvious about it." Beside them, halted at the traffic light, Herman goering sat at the wheel of an open red two-seater, looking imperious and enormous. He a tan double-breasted business suit, with the flaring lapels that all his clothes displayed(wore) . The broad brim of his Panama hat was snapped down to the side and back, in an out-of-date, somewhat gangsterish American style. The fat man's swollen be-ringed fingers drummed the steering wheel, and he chewed at his very long upper lip. The light changed. As the red car darted forward, the policeman saluted, and Goering laughed and waved his hand. "How easy it would have been to shoot him," Pamela said.
Pug said "The Nazis puzzle me. Their security precautions are mighty loose. Even around Hitler. After all, they've murdered a lot of people." The Germans adore them. The governor got in trouble over one of his broadcasts from a Party Day in Nuremberg. He said anybody could kill Hitler, and the free way he moved around showed how solidly the Germans were for him. Somehow this annoyed them." 'Tamela, I have a son I hope you'll meet when you're Statde." He told her about Warren. The girl listened with a crooked smile. "You've already mentioned him. Sounds too tall for me. what's he actually like? Is he like you?" "Not in the least. He's personable, sharp as a tack, and very attractive to the ladies." 'Indeed. Don't you have another son?" "Yes. I have another son." He hesitated, and then he briefly told Pamela what he had not yet told his wife-that Byron was somewhere in Poland in the path of the German invasion, accompanying a Jewish girl in love with another man. Pug said Byron had a caes way of getting out of trouble, but he expected to owe a few more gray hairs to his son before this episode was over. "He sounds like the one I might enjoy meeting." "He's too young for you." "Well, maybe not. I never do hit it quite right. There's the governor." Tudsbury stood on a corner, waving. His handshake was violent. He wore tweed far too heavy for the weather, and a green velour hat. "Hello there, my dear fellow! Come along. Pam, be back at this corner at four and wait, won't you? This won't be one of his three-hour harangues. The bad man hasn't had much sleep lately." A young German in a business suit met them, clicked his heels at Pug, and took them past SS men, along corridors and up staircases, to the crowded little press balcony of the Kroll Opera House, which the Nazis used for Reichstag meetings. The stylized gold eagle perched on a wreathed swastika behind the podium, with gold rays shooting out to cover the whole wall, had a colossal look in photographs, but before one's eyes it was just garish and vulgar-a backdrop well suited to an opera house. This air of theatrical impermanence, of hastily contrived show, was a Nazi trademark. The new Reichstag, still under construction, was dully massive, to suit Hitler's taste, and the heavy Doric colonnades were obviously of stone, but the building made Pug think of a cardboard film setting. Like most Americans, he could not yet take the Nazis, or indeed the Germans, very seriously. He thought they worked with fantastic industry at kidding themselves. Germany was an unstable old-new country, with heavy baroque charm in some places, and Pittsburgh-like splotches of heavy industry in others; and with a surface smear of huffing, puffing political pageantry that strove to instill terror and came out funny. So it struck him. Individually theGermans were remarkably like Americans; he thought it curious that both peoples had the eagle for their national emblem. The Germans were the same sort of businesslike go-getters: direct, roughly humorous, and usually reliable and able. Commander Henry felt more at home with them, in these points, than with the slower British or the devious talkative French. But in a mass they seemed to become ugly gullible strangers with a truculent streak; and if one talked politics to an individual German he tended to turn into such a stranger, a sneering belligerent Mr. Hyde. They were a baffling lot. In a demor4red Europe, Pug knew, t e German horde h s of marching men, well drilled and well equipped, could do a lot of damage; and they had slapped together a big air force in a hurry. He could well believe that they were now rolling over the Poles. The deputies were streaming,to their seats. Most of them wore uniforms, confusing in their variety of color and braid, alike mainly in the belts and boots. It was easy to pick out the military men by their professional bearing. The uniformed Party officials looked like any other politicians-jovial, relaxed, mostly grizzled or bald-stuffed into splashy costumes; and they obviously took Teutonic pleasure in the strut and the Pomp, however uncomfortable jackboots might be on their flat feet, and gun belts on their bulging paunches. But today these professional Nazis, for all their warlike masquerade, looked less jaunty than usual. A subdued atmosphere pervaded the chamber. Goering appeared. Victor Henry had heard of the fat man's quick costume changes; now he saw one. In a sky-blue heavily medalled uniform with flaring buff lapels, Goering crossed the stage and stood with feet spread apart, hands on belted hips, talking gravely with a deferential knot of generals and Party men. After a while he took his place in the Speaker's chair. Then Hitler simply walked in, holding the manuscript of his speech in a red leather folder. There was no heavy theatricalism, as in his Party rally entrances. All the deputies stood and applauded, and the guards came to attention. He sat in a front platform row among the generals and cabinet men, crossing and uncrossing his legs during Goering's brief solemn introduction. Henry thought the Fuhrer spoke badly. He was gray with fatigue. The speech rehashed the iniquity of the Versailles Treaty, the mistreatment of Germany by the other powers, his. unending efforts for peace, and the bloody belligerence of the Poles. It was -almost all in the first person and it was full of strange pessimism. He spoke of falling in battle and of the men who were to succeed him, Goering and Hess. He shouted that 1918 would not recur, that this time Germany would triumph or go down fighting. He was extremely hoarse. He took awhile to work up to the flamboyant gestures; but at last he was doing them all. Tudsbury whispered to Henry once, "Damn good handwork today," but Pug thought it was absurd vaudeville. Nevertheless this time Hitler impressed him. Badly as he was performing, the man was a blast of willpower. all the Germans sat with the round eyes and tense faces of children watching amagician. The proud cynical face of Goering, as he sat perched above and behind Hitler, wore exactly the same rapt, awestruck look. But the Fuhrer himself was a bit rattled, Pug thought, by the gravity of what he was saying. The speech sounded like the hasty product of a few sleepless hours, intensely personal, probably all the truer for being produced under such pressure. This whining, blustering "I-I-I" apologia must be one of the oddest state documents in the history of warfare. The Fuhrer's face remained a comic one to Pug's American eyes: the long straight thrusting nose, a right triangle of flesh sticking out of a white jowly face, under a falling lock of black hair, over the clown mustache. He wore a field-gray coat today-his 'old soldier's coat," he said in his speech-and it was a decidedly poor fit. But the puffy glaring eyes, the taut downcurved mouth, the commanding arm sweeps, were formidable. This queer ups tart from the Vienna gutters had really done it, Henry thought. He had climbed to the combined thrones, in Tudsbury's phrase, of the Hohenzollems and the Holy Roman Emperors, to try to reverse the outcome of the last war; and now he was giving the word. The little tramp was going! Pug kept thinking of Byron, somewhere in Poland, a speck of unimportance in this big show. When they emerged on the street in balmy sunshine, Tudsbury said, "Well, what did you think "I don't think he's quite big enough." Tudsbury stopped in his tracks and peered at him. "Let me tell you, he's big. That's the mistake we've all made over here for much too long." "He has to lick the world," Pug said. What'll he do it with?" "Eighty million armed and ravening Germans." "That's just talk. You and the French have him outmanned and outgunned." "The French," Tudsbury said. He added in a pleasanter tone, "There comes Pam. Let us drive you back to the embassy." 'I'll walk." The car stopped under a waving red swastika banner. Tudsbury shook hands, blinking at Henry through glasses like bottle bottoms. "We'll put up a show, Henry, but we may need help. Stopping this fellow will be a job, And you know it must be done." "Tell them that in Washington."Don't you think I will? You tell them, too.2) Henry said through the car window, "Good-bye, Pam. Happy landings." She put out a cold white hand, with a melancholy smile. "I hope You'll see your son soon. I have a feeling you Will." The Mercedes drove off. Lighting a cigarette, Pug caught on his hand the faint carnation scent. A big lean man in a pepper-and-salt suit, with a soft hat on his knees, was sitting in Henry's outer office. Henry did not realize how big he was until he stood up; he was six feet three orso, and he stooped and looked a little ashamed of his height, like many overgrown men. "COnlmander Henry? I'm Palmer Kirby, he said. "If you're busy just throw me out." "Not at all- Welcome. How'd you get here?" "Well, it took some doing. I had to dodge around through Belgium and Norway. Some planes are flying, some aren't." Kirby had an awkward manner, and somewhat rustic western speech. His pale face was Pitted, as though he had once been a bad acne sufferer. He had a long nose and a large loose mouth; altogether an ugly man, with clever mrinIded eyes and a sad look. The yeoman said, 'Commander, sir, couple of priority messages on your desk." 'Very well. Come in, Dr. Kirby." Pug sized him up with relief as a serious fellow out to get a job done; not the troublesome sort who wanted women, a good time, and an introduction to high-placed Nazis. A dinner and some industrial contacts would take care of Palmer Kirby. WARSAW 9 -z -39BYRON HENRY NATALM JASTROW SCRMDULED LEAVE CRACOW TODAY FOR BUg ST AND ROME AM EMEAVORING.CONFMM DEPAR'rURE. Slote. This dispatch, in teletyped strips on a gray department blank, gave Henry an evil qualm. In the afternoon bulletins, Berlin Radio was claiming a victorious thrust toward Cracow after a violent air bombardment. The other message, a slip of the charge d'affaires' office stationery, was an unsigned scrawled sentence: Please see me at once. Kirby said he would be glad to wait. Victor Henry walked down the hall to the richly furnished suite of the ambassador where the charge had held the staff meeting. The charge looked at him over his half-moon glasses and waved at an armchair. 'So you were at the Reichstag, eh? I heard part of it. How did it strike you?" 'The man's punch-drunk." The charge looked surprised and thoughtful. 'qbat's an odd reaction. It's true he's had quite a week. Incredible stamina, though. He undoubtedly wrote every word of that harangue. Rather effective, I thought. What was the mood there?" "Not happy." 'No, they have their misgivings this time around, don't they? Strange atmosphere in this city." The charge took off his glasses and leaned back in his large, leather-covered chair, resting the back of his head on interlaced fingers. 'You're wanted in Washington." "Sec Nay?" Pug blurted. 'No. State Department, German desk. You're to proceed to Washington by fastest available transportation, civilian or military, highest priority, prepared to stay not more than one week in Washington, and then to return to your post here. No other instructions. Nothing in writing. That's it." For twenty-five years Victor Henry had not made a move like this without papers from the Navy Department, orders stencilled and mimeographed with a whole sheaf of copiesto be left at stops on the way. Even his vacations had been 'qeaves" ordered by the Navy. The State Department had no jurisdiction over him. Still, an attache had a queer shadowy status. His mind moved at once to executing the assignment. "If I have nothing in writing, how do I get air priorities?" "You'll get them. How soon can you go?" Commander Henry stared at the charge, and then tried a smile. The charge smiled back. Henry said, "This is somewhat unusual." "You sent in an intelligence report, I'm given to understand, on the combat readiness of Nazi Germany?" "I did." "That may have something to do with it. In any case, the idea seems to be that you pack a toothbrush and leave." "You mean today? Tonight?" "Yes." Pug stood. "Plight. What's the late word on England and France?" "Chamberlain's addressing Parliament tonight. My guess is the war Will be on before you get back." "Maybe it'll be over." "in Poland, possibly." The charge smiled, and seemed taken aback when Henry failed to be amused. The commander found Dr. Kirby, long legs sprawled, reading a German industrial journal and smoking a pipe, which, with blackrimmed glasses, much enhanced his professorial look. 'I'll have to turn you over to Colonel Forrest, our military attache, Dr. Kirby," he said. "Sorry the Navy can't do the courtesies. I'll be leaving tovrn "Right.tt for a week." "Can you give me an idea of what you're after?" Dr. Kirby took from his breast pocket a typewritten sheet. "Well, no problem here," Pug said, scanning it. 'I know most of these people. I imagine Colonel Forrest does, too. Now, Mrs. Henry has a dinner laid on for you, Thursday evening. As a matter of fact"-Henry tapped the sheet-"Dr. Witten will be one of the guests."'Won't your wife prefer to call it off? I'm not really much on dinner parties." "Neither am I, but a German's a different person in his office than he is at a table after a few glasses of wine. Not a setup, you understand, but different. So dinners are useful." Kirby smiled, uncovering large yellow teeth and quite changing his expression to a humorous, coarse, tough look. He flourished the trade journal-"They don't seem to be setups, any way you look at them." "Yes and no. I've just come from the Reichstag-They've sure been a setup for this character Hitler. Well, let me take you across the hall to Colonel Forrest. It may be he and Sally will host the dinner. We'll see." Driving home through the quiet Berlin streets Pug thought less about the summons to Washington than of the immediate problem-Rhoda and how to handle her, and whether to disclose that Byron was missing. The trip to the United States might well prove a waste of time; to speculate on the reason for it was silly. He had been on such expeditions before. Somebody high up wanted certain answers in a hurry-answers that perhaps did not exist-and started burning up the wires. Once he had flown three thousand miles during a fleet exercise only to find, on his arrival aboard the 'Blue" flagship in Mindanao, that his services were no longer required, because the battle problem had moved past the gunnery sconng. She was not at home. By the time she got back, he was strapping shut his suitcases. "Now what on earth?" she said breezily. Her hair was whirled and curled. They had been invited to an opera party that evening. "Come out in the garden." He told her, when they were well away from the house, about the strange Washington summons. 'Oh, lord. For how long?" 'Not more than a week. If the Clippers keep flying, I should be back by the fifteenth." "When do you go? First thing tomorrow?" "Well, by luck, they've got me on a plane to Rotterdam at eight tonight." 'Tonight!" Vexation distorted Rhoda's face. "You mean we don't even get to go to the opera? Oh, damn. And what about that Kirby fellow? Is that on or off? How can I entertain a person I haven't even met? What an aggravating mess!' Pug said the Forrests would be co-hosting the Kirby dinner, and that the opera might not be on. "On? Of course it's on. I saw Frau Witten at the hairdresser's. They're planning a Marvelous supper, but naturally I won't be there. I'm not going to the opera unescorted. Oh, hell. And suppose England and France declare war? How about that, hey? That's going to be just peachy, me stranded alone in Berlin in themiddle of a world wart" I'll get back in any case via Lisbon or Copenhagen. Don't worry. I'd like you to go ahead with the Kirby thing. BuOrd wants the red carpet out for him." They were sitting on a marble bench beside the little fountain, where large goldfish disported in the late sunshine. Rhoda looked around at the close-cropped lawn, and said in a calmer tone, "All right. I've been planning cocktails out here-Those musicians who played at Peggy's tea are coming. It'll be nice at that. Sorry you'll miss it." 'Bill Forrest said nobody in this world puts on dinners like you." Rhoda laughed. "Oh, well. A week goes by fast. Berlin's interesting now." A pair of black-and-yellow birds darted past them, swooped to a nearby tree, and Perched carolling. "Honestly, though, would you believe there's a war on?" "It's just starting." "I know-Well, you'll see Madeline, anyway. And be sure to telephone Warren, that rascal never writes. I'm glad Byron's up in the Italian hills. He'll be all right unless he shows up married to that Jewish girl. But he won't. Byron seems much crazier than he is." She put her hand in her husband's. 'Inherits it from his mother, no doubt. Sorry I threw my little fit, dear. You know me.aasping her hand tight, Victor Henry decided not to upset ]Rhoda further with the news of Byron's disappearance. She could do nothing about it, after all, but fret vainly; and he guessed that whatever pickle Byron was in, he would get himself out of it. That had been the boy's history. Pug flew off on schedule that evening to Rotterdam-Tempelhof AirPort was transfonned-The shops were dark. All the ticket counters save Lufthansa were shut down. On the field, the usual traffic of European airliners had vanished, and squat Luftwaffe interceptors stood in grim shadowy rows. But from the air, Berlin still blazed wid, all its electric lights, as in peacetime. He was pleased that Rhoda had decided to dress up and go to Der Rosenkavalier, since Frau Witten had found a tall handsome Luftwaffe colonel to escort her. Byron was changing a tire by the roadside when he was strafed. He and Natalie were out of Cracow and heading for Warsaw in the rust-pitted Fiat raid, together with Berel Jastrow, the bridal couple, the bearded little driver, and his inconveniently fat wife. Cracow on the morning of the invasion had smoked and flamed here and there, but the picturesque city had not been much damaged by the first German bombardment. Byron and Natalie had had a good if hurried look at its splendid churches and castles and its magnificent old square like Saint Marles in Venice, as they drove around in cheery sunshine trying to find a way out. The populace was not in panic. The Germans were more than fifty miles away. Still, crowds moved briskly in the streets, and the railroad station was mobbed. Berel Jastrowsomehow obtained two tickets to Warsaw. Byron and Natalie would not use them, hard as Berel tried to persuade them to, so he shipped off his wife and twelve-year-old daughter. Then he adroitly took them to one office after another, through little streets and unused doors and gates, seeking to send them safely away. He seemed to know everybody, and he went at the job with assurance, but he couldn't get Byron and Natalie out. Air traffic was finished. The Rumanian border was reported closed. Trains were still departing at unpredictable times, eastward toward Russia and north to Warsaw, with people hanging from windows and clinging to the locomotives. Otherwise there were the roads. The bearded taxi driver Yankel and his wife, poor relatives of Berel, were willing to go anywhere. Berel had managed to get him an official paper, exempting the cab from being commandeered; but Yankel had small faith that it would work for long. The wife insisted on driving to her flat first, picking up all the food she had, her bedding, and her kitchenware, and roping them onto the car top. Berel thought the Americans should head for their embassy in Warsaw, three hundred kilometers away, rather than chance a dash to the border in the path of the German army. So this odd party set forth: seven of them jammed in an ancient rusty Fiat, with mattresses flapping on the roof, and copper pots rhythmically banging. They stopped at night in a town where Jastrow knew some Jews. They ate well, slept on the floor, and were off again at dawn. They found the narrow tarred roads filling with people on foot and horse-drawn wagons laden with children, furniture, squawking geese, and the like. Some peasants drove along donkeys piled with household goods, or a few mooing cows. Marching soldiers now and then forced the car off the road. A troop of cavalry trotted by on gigantic dappled horses. The dusty riders chatted as they rode, strapping fellows with helmets and sabres glittering in the morning sun. They laughed, flashing white teeth, twirling their moustaches, glancing down with good-humored disdain at the straggling refugees. One company of foot soldiers went by singing. The clear weather, the smell of the ripening corn, made the travellers feel good, though the as it climbed got too ho ere were no comba in t on sun t-The tants sigh the long black straight road through yellow fields when a lone airplane dived from the sky, following the line of the road and making a hard stuttering noise. It flew so low that Byron could see the painted numbers, the black crosses, the swastika, the clumsy fixed wheels. The bullets fell on people, horses, and the household goods and children in the carts. Byron felt a burning and stinging in one ear. He was not aware of toppling into the dirt. He heard'a child crying, opened his eyes, and sat up. The blood on his clothes surprised him-big bright red stains; and he felt a warm trickle on his face. Natalie kneeled beside him, sponging his head with a sodden red handkerchief. He remembered the airplane. Across the road the crying girl clutched a man's leg, looking down at a woman lying in the road. Betweensobs she screamed a few Polish words over and over. The man, a blond barefoot Pole in ragged clothes, was patting the child's head. "What's that, what's she saying?" "Are you all right, Byron? How 'do you feel?" "Sort of dizzy. What's that little girl saying?" Natalie looked strange. Her nose seemed pinched and long, her hair was in disorder, her face was livid and dirty, and her lipstick was cracked. She had a little of Byron's blood smeared on her forehead. "I don't know. She's hysterical." Berel stood beside Natalie, stroking his beard. He said in French, "She keeps saying, 'Mama looks so ugly 11 Byron got to his feet, propping one hand against the car's hot fender. His knees felt watery. "I think I'm okay. What does the wound look like?" Natalie said, "I don't know, your hair is so thick. But it's bleeding a lot. We'd better get you to a hospital and have it stitched." The driver, hastily tightening the bolts of the jacked-up wheel, smiled at Byron. Sweat rolled off his pallid nose and forehead into his beard. His wife and the bridal couple stood in the shade of the car, a look of shock on their faces, gazing at the sky, at the road, and at the crying girl. All down the road, wounded horses were plunging and screaming, and fowls from overturned carts were scampering helter-skelter, chased by children making a great noise. People were bending over the wounded or lifting them into carts, with much excited shouting in Polish. The sun burned down white-hot from a clear sky. Byron walked uncertainly to the crying girl, followed by Natalie and Jastrow. The mother lay on her back. She had caught a bullet straight in the face. The big red hole was an especially bad sight because her fixed eyes were undamaged. Berel spoke to the father, who had a stupid, gentle face and a bushy yellow mustache. The man shrugged, holding the little girl close. Yankel's wife came and offered a red apple to the child, whose sobbing almost at once died away. She took the apple and bit it. The man sat by his dead wife, folding his dusty bare feet, and began to mutter, crossing himself, his shoes dangling around his neck. Natalie helped Byron, who was very dizzy, into the car. They drove on; jasirow said there was a good-sized town three miles away, where they could tell the authorities about the wounded on the highway. The bride, who out of her wedding clothes was just a freckled girl with thick glasses, started to cry, and cried all the way to the town, repulsing her wan-faced husband and burying her face in the huge bosom of the driver's wife.