Chapter 11

There's a lot of talk about peace in the west, too." "Honestly? Already? God, will you look at that cafe? Five hundred Berliners if there's one, eating pastry and drinking coffee, laughing, talking. Ah, to be a Berliner! Where was I? Oh yes. Well, anyway, at this point, see, the water pump gave out and the fan belt broke. The German planes never stopped going by overhead. The bride was having hysterics. We were twenty miles from the nearest town. There was a cluster of farmhouses about a mile down the road, but they'd been bombed to pieces, so-" "Farmhouses?" Pug broke in alertly. "But the Germans keep claiming loud and clear that the Luftwaffe is attacking only military targets. That's a big boast of theirs." Byron roared with laughter. "What? Dad, the military targets of the Germans include anything that moves, from a pig on up. I was a military target. There I was, above the ground and alive. I saw a thousand houses blown apart out in the countryside, far behind the front. The Luftwaffe is just practicing on them, getting ready for France and England." "You want to be careful how you talk here," Rhoda said. "We're in the car. That's safe, isn't it?" it "Sure is. Go on," Pug said. He was thinking that Byron's story might Turn into an intelligence report. The Germans were indignantly complaining about Polish atrocities, and publishing revolting photographs of mutilated "ethnic Germans" and Wehrmacht officers. By contrast, they offered photographic proof of happy captured Polish soldiers eating, drinking, and doing folk dances; pictures of Jews being fed at soup kitchens, waving at the cameras and smiling; and many photographs of German guns and trucks rolling past farmhouses and through untouched towns, with jovial Polish peasants cheering them. Byron's tale cast an interesting light on all this. On and on Byron talked. At the Grunewald house they went into the garden. "Hey, a tennis court! Great!" he exclaimed in the same manic tone. They sat in reclining chairs, drinks in their hands, as he described the siege of Warsaw with extraordinary clarity, picking out details that made them see and hear and even smell the whole thing-the dead horses on the streets, the tank traps and the menacing sentries at the corners, the unflushed toilets at the embassy when the water main broke, the gangs trying to put out roaring fires in a whole block of buildings with buckets of sand, the taste of horsemeat, the sound of artillery, the wounded piled in the hospital lobby, the farade of a synagogue slowly sliding down into the street, the embassy cellar with its rows of canvas cots, the eerie walk across no-man's-land on a quiet dirt road dotted with autumn wild flowers. The blue-gray Berlin evening drew on, and still Byron talked, getting hoarse, drinking steadily,and losing no coherence or clarity. It was an astonishing performance. Again and again the parents looked at each other. 'I get famished just talking about it," Byron said. He was describing the startling feast laid out by the Germans in the Klovno railroad station. "And there was another spread just like it when we got to Kenigsberg. They've been stuffing us ever since on the train. I don't know where it all goes to. I think in Warsaw I must have digested the marrow out of my bones. They got hollow and they're just now filling up again. Anyway, when and where and how do we eat?" 'You look like such a tramp, Byron," Rhoda said. "Don't you have any other clothes?" "A whole big bag full, Mom. it's in Warsaw, neatly labelled with my name. Probablyies ashes by now." They went to a small dark little restaurant off the Kurt-iirstendamm. Byron laughed, pointing to the fly-specked curling cardboard sign in the window: Tens PXSTAUT DOFS NOT siERVE jvws. "Are there any left in Berlin to serve?" "Well, you don't see them around much," Pug said. "They're not allowed in the theatres and so forth. I guess they're lying pretty low." "Ah, to be a Berliner," Byron said. 'Warsaw's alive with Jews." He stopped talking when the soup came. Apparently his own voice had been keeping him awake, because between the soup and the meat course his head nodded and dropped on his chest. They had trouble rousing him. "Let's get him home," Pug said, signalling to the waiter. "I was wondering how long he'd last." 'Wha? Less not go home," Byron said. "Less go to the theatre. The opera. Less have some civilized fun. Less do the tovm. Ah, to be a Berliner!" Pug said, after they had put Byron to sleep and were strolling in the garden, "Quite a change in him." "It's that girl," Rhoda said. "He didn't say much about her." "That's my point. He said nothing about her. Yet he went to Poland because of her, and got caught in Cracow on account of her. He lost his passport, for heaven's sake, protecting her relatives. Why, he was talking to her uncle when that synagogue all but fell on top of him. Seems to me he did almost everything in Poland but become a Jew." Pug looked coldly at her but she went on unbeedingly, "Maybe you can find out something more about her from this man Slote. It's a strange business, and she must be some girl." Topping the pile of letters on Pug's desk the following morning was a pale green envelope,almost square, engraved in one corner: TH.E whrrn HousE. de he found on a single sheet, similarly engraved, a slanted scrawl in heavy pencil. You were dead right again, old top. Treasury just now informs me the ambassadors got hopping mad at the very idea of our offering to buy their ocean liners. Can I borrow your crystal ball? Ha ha! Write me a letter whenever You get a chance, about your life in Berlin-what you and your wife do for fun, who your German friends are, what the people and the newspapers are saying, how the food is in the restaurants, just anything and everything that occurs to you. What does a loaf of bread cost in Germany today? Washington is still incredibly hot and muggy, though the leaves have started turning. FDR Pug put all other mail aside, and stared at the curious communication from the curious man whom he had once soaked with salt water, who was now his Commander-inel, the creator of the New Deal (of which Pug disapproved), the man with perhaps the best-known name and face on earth except Hitler's. The cheerful banal scribble was out of key with Roosevelt's stature, but it very much fitted the cocky young man who had bounced around on the Davey in a blazer and straw hat. He pulled a yellow pad toward him and listed points for an informal letter about his life in Berlin, for obedience and quick action were Navy habits soaked into his bones. The yeoman's buzzer rang. He flipped the key. "No calls, Mittle." "Aye aye, sir. There's a Mister Slote asking to see you, but I can-" "Slote? No, hold on. I'll see Slote. Let us have coffee." The Foreign Service man looked rested and fit, if a bit gaunt, in his freshly pressed tweed jacket and flannel trousers. "Quite a view," Slote said. "Is that huge pink pile the new chancellery?" "Yes. You can see them change the guard from here." 'I don't know that I'm interested in armed Germans on the move. I have the idea." Both men laughed. Over the coffee the commander told Slote something of Byron's four-hour gush of narrative. The diplomat listened with a wary look, running Ns fingers repeatedly over the rim of his lit pipe. "Did he mention anything about that unfortunate business in Praha?" Henry looked puzzled. 'When we had a girl in the car, and found ourselves under German shellfire?" "I don't believe so. Was the girl Natalie Jastrow?" 'Yes. The incident involved the Swedish ambassador and an auto trip to the front lines." Pug thought a moment. Slote watched his face intently. 'No. Not a word." With a heavy sigh, Slote brightened up. "Well, he exposed himself to direct enemy fire, while I had to take the girl out of the car and find shelter for her." Slote baldly narrated his version of the episode. Then he described Byron's water-hauling, his handiness in making repairs, hisdisregard of enemy planes and artillery shelling. "I'd be glad to put all this in a letter, if you wish," Slote said. "Yes, I'd like that," Pug said with alacrity. "Now, tell me something about this Jastrow girl." "What would you like to know?" Victor Henry shrugged. "Anything. My wife and I are slightly curious about this young female who got our boy into such a jam. What the hell was she doing in Warsaw, with all of Europe mobilizing, and why was he with her?" Slote laughed wryly. "She came to see me. We're old friends. I thought she was out of her mind to come. I did my best to stop her. This girl is a sort of lioness type, she does what she pleases and you just get out of the way. Her unde didn't want her to travel alone, what with all the war talk. Byron volunteered to go along. That's as I understand it." 'He went with her to Poland as a courtesy to Dr. Jastrow? Is that the size of it?" "Maybe you'd better ask Byron." 'Is she beautiful?" Slote puffed thoughtfully, staring straight ahead. "In a way. Quite a brain, very educated." Abruptly he looked at his watch and stood up. "I'll write you that letter, and I'm going to mention your son in my official report." "Good. I'll ask him about that incident in Praha."Oh, no, there's no need. It was just an instance of how he cooperated." "You're not engaged to the Jastrow girl?" No, I'm not." "Well, I hate to get personal, but you're much older than Byron, and quite different, and I can't picture a girl who bridges that gap." Slote looked at him and said nothing. Pug went on, "Where is she now?" "She went to Stockholm with most of our people. Good-bye, Commander Henry." Rhoda telephoned Pug around noon, breaking into his work on the letter to Roosevelt. 'That boys slept fourteen hours," she said. 'I got worried and went in there, but he's breathing like an infant, with a hand tucked under his cheek." "Well, let him sleep." 'Doesn't he have to report somewhere?" "No. Sleep's the best thing for him." Complying with the President's orders to write chattily, Pug closed his letter with a short account of Byron's adventures in Poland. Plans were whirling in his mind for official use of his son's experiences.
He filed the growl letter for the diplomatic pouch, and went home uneasy at having bypassed the chain of command and wasted a work day. He did also feel vague pride in this direct contact with the President, but that was a human reaction. In his professional judgment, this contact was most likely a bad thing. Byron was reclining in the garden, eating grapes from a bowl and reading a Superman comic book. Scattered on the grass de him were perhaps two dozen more comic books, a patchwork of lurid covers. "Hi, Dad," he said. "How about this treasure? Franz collects them." (Franz was the butler.) "He says he's been panhandling or buying them from tourists for years." Pug was stupefied at the sight. Comic books had been a cause of war in their household until Byron had gone off to Columbia. Pug had forbidden them, torn them up, burned them, fined Byron for possession of them. Nothing had helped. The boy had been like a dope fiend. With difficulty Pug refrained from saying something harsh. Byron was twenty-four. "How do you feel?" 'H "Go this is a great Superman. It makes me ungry," Byron said. d, homesick, reading these things." Franz brought Pug a highball on a tray. Pug sat silently with it waiting for the butler to go. It took a while, because Franz wiped a glass-top table, cut some flowers, and fooled with a loose screen door to the tennis court. He had a way of lingering within earshot. Meanwhile, Byron read the Superman through, put it on the pile, and looked idly at his father. Pug relaxed and sipped his drink. Franz was reentering the house. "Briny, that was quite a tale you told us yesterday. The son laughed. "I guess I got kind of carried away, seeing you and Mom again. Also Berlin had a funny effect on m-. "You've had access to unusual information. I don't know if there's another American who went from Cracow to Warsaw after the war broke out." 'Oh, I guess it's all been in the papers and magazines." "That's where you're wrong. There's a lot of arguing between the Germans and the Poles-the few Poles who got away and can still argue -about who's committed what atrocities in Poland. An eyewitness account document." like yours would be an important up another comic book. "Possibly." Byron shrugged, picking "I want you to write it up. I'd like to forward your account to the Office of Naval Intelligence." 'Gosh, Dad, aren't you overestimating it?" "No. I'd like you to get at it tonight.
"I don't have a typewriter," Byron said with a yawn. 'There's one in the library," Pug said. 'Oh, that's right, I saw it. Well, okay." With such casual assents, Byron had often dodged his homework in the past. But his father let it go. He was clinging to a belief that Byron had matured under the German bombing. "That fellow Slote came by today. Said you helped out a lot in Warsaw. Brought water to the embassy, and such." "Well, yes. I got stuck with the water job." 'Also there was an incident at the front line with the Swedish ambassador. You climbed a tower under German fire, while Slote had to hide this Jastrow girl in a farmhouse. It seems to be very much on his mind." Byron opened Horror Comics, with a cover picture of a grinning skeleton carrying a screaming half-naked girl up a stone staircase. "Oh, yes. That was right before we crossed no-man's-land. I made a sketch of the road." "Why does Slote dwell on it?" "Well, it's about the last thing that happened before we left Warsaw, so I guess it remained in his mind." "He intends to write me a letter of commendation about you." "He does? That's fine. Has he got any word on Natalie?" "Just that she's gone to Stockholm. You'll start on that report tonight?" 'Sure." Byron left the house after dinner and returned at two in the morning. Pug was awake, working in the library and worrying about his son, who blithely told him he had gone with other Americans to the opera. Under his arm Byron carried a new copy of Mein Kampf in English. Next day when Pug left the house BYron was up and dressed, lounging on the back porch in slacks and a sweater, drinking coffee and reading Mein Kampf-At seven in the evening the father found Byron in the same place, in the same chair, drinking a highball. He was well into the thick tome, which lay open on his lap. Rubbing bleary eyes, he gave his father a listless wave. Pug said, 'Did you start on that report?" "I'll get to it, Dad. Say, this is an interesting book. Did you read it?" "I did, but I didn't find it interesting. About fifty pages of those ravings give you the picture. I thought I should finish it, so I did, but it was like wading through mud."Byron shook his head. "Really amazing," and turned the page. He went out again at night, returned late, and fell asleep with his clothes on, an old habit that ground on Pug's nerves. Byron woke around eleven, and found himself undressed and under the covers, his clothes draped on a chair, with a note propped on them: Write THAT GODDAMN REPORT. He was'idling along the Kurfilstendamm that afternoon, with Mein Kampf under his arm, when Leslie Slote went hung past him, halted, and turned. "Well, there you are! That's luck. I've been trying to get hold of you. Are you coming back to the States with us or not? Our transportation's set for Thursday." "I'm not sure. How about some coffee and pastry? Let's be a couple of berliners." Slote pursed his lips. "To tell the truth, I skipped lunch. All right. What the devil are you reading that monstrosity for?" "I think it's great."Great! That's an unusual comment." They sat at a table in an enormous sidewalk cafe, where potted flowering bushes broke up the expanse of tables and chairs, and a brass band played gay waltzes in the sunshine. "God, this is the life," Byron said, as they gave orders to a bowing, smiling waiter. Look at these nice, Polite, cordial, jolting, happy Berliners, will you? Did you ever see a nicer city? So clean! All those fine statues and baroque buildings, like that Marvelous opera, and all the spanking new modern ones, and all the gardens and trees-why, I've never seen such a green, clean city! Berlin's almost like a city built in a forest. And all the canals, and the quaint little boats-&d you see that tug that sort of tips its smokestack to get under the bridges? Completely charming. The only thing is, these pleasant folks have just been blowing the hell out of Poland, machine-gunning people from the sky-I've got the scar to prove it-pounding a city just as nice as Berlin to a horrible pulp. It's a puzzle, you might say." Slote shook his head and smiled. "The contrast between the war front and the back area is always startling. No doubt Paris was as charming as ever while Napoleon was out doing his butcheries." 'Slote, you can't tell me the Germans aren't strange." 'Oh, yes, the Germans are strange." "Well, diaes why I've been reading this book, to try to figure them out. It's their leader's book. Now, it turns out this is the writing of an absolute nut. The Jews are secretly running the world, he says. That's his whole message.
They're the capitalists, but they're the Bolsheviks too, and they're conspiring to destroy the German people, who by rights should really be running the world. Well, he's going to become dictator, see, mipe out the Jews, crush France, and carve off half of Bolshevist Russia for more German living space. Have I got it right so far?" 'A bit simplified, but yes-pretty much." Slote sounded amused but uneasy, glancing at the tables nearby. 'Okay. Now, all these nice Berliners like this guy. Right? They voted for him. They fonow him. They salute him. They cheer him. Don't they? How is that? Isn't that very strange? How come he's their leader? Haven't they read this book? How come they didn't put him in a padded cell? Don't they have insane asylums? And who do they put in there, if not this guy?" Slote, while stuffing his pipe, kept looking here and there at the people around them. Satisfied that nobody eavesdropping, he said in a low tone, "Are you just discovering the phenomenon of A(was) dolf Hitler?" 'I just got shot in the head by a German. That sort of called my attention to it." 'well, you won't learn much from Mein Katnpf. That's just froth on top of the kettle." "Do you understand Hitler and the Germans?" Slote lit his pipe and stared at the air for several seconds. Then he spoke, with a wry little smile of academic condescension. 'I have an opinion, the result of a lot of study." "Can I hear it? I'm interested. "It's a terribly long story, Byron, and quite involved." Slote glanced around again. 'Some other time and place I'll be glad to, but" "Would you give me the names of books to read, then?,) "Are you serious? You'd let yourself in for some dull plodding." "I'll read anything you tell me to. "Well, let me have your book." On the Hyleaf of Mein Kampf, Slote listed authors and tides all the way down the page, in a neat slanted hand, in purple Polish ink. Running his eye down the list, Byron felt his heart sink at the unfamiliar array of Teutonic authors, each name followed by a heavy book tide, some by two:... Treitschke-Moe -van den Bnwk-Fries-Menzel-FichteSchlegeArndt-jahn-Riihs-Lagarde-Langbehn-Spengi if... Among them, like black raisins in much gray dough, a few names from his contemporarycivilization course at Columbia caught his eye: Luther-Kant-Hegel-Schopenhauer-Nietzsche. He remembered that course as a nuisance and a nightmare. He had Passed with a D minus, after frantic all-night cramming of smudgy lecture notes from the fraternity files. Slote drew a heavy line, and added more books with equally forbidding authors' names:... Santayana-Mann-Veblen-Renan-Heine-Kolnai-Rauschning..... "Below the line are critics and analysts," he remarked as he wrote. "Above are some German antecedents of Hitler. I think you must grasp these to grasp him." Byron said dolefully, "Really? The philosophers too? Hegel and Schopenhauer? Why? And Martin Luther, for pity sake." Contemplating the list with a certain and satisfaction, Slote added a name or two as he pulled hard at his pipe, making the bowl hiss. "My view is that Hitler and the Nazis have grown out of the heart of German culture-a cancer, maybe, but a, uniquely German phenomenon. Some very clever men have given me hell for holding this opinion. They insist the same thing could have happened anywhere, given the same conditions: defeat in a major war, a harsh peace treaty, ruinous inflation, mass unemployment, Communism on the march, anarchy in the streets-all leading to the rise of a demagogue, and a reign of terror. But I-" The waiter was approaching. Slote shut up and said not a word while they were being served. Watching the waiter until he went out of sight, the Foreign Service man drank coffee and ate cake. Then he started again, almost in an undertone. "But I don't believe it. To me Nazism is unthinkable without its roots in German nineteenth-century thought: romanticism, idealism, nationalism, the whole outpouring. It's in those books. If you're not prepared to read every word of Hegel's Philosophy of History, for instance, give up. It's basic." He shoved the book back to Byron, open at the flyleaf. "Well, there you are, for a starter." "Tacitus?" Byron said. "Why Tacitus? Isn't he a Roman historian?" "Yes. Do you know about Arrninius, and the Battle of the Teutoburger Forest?" "No, I don't." "Okay. In the year 9 A.D Byron, a German war leader named Arminius stopped the Romans at the Rhine, once and for all, and so secured the barbarian sanctuary in the heart of Europe. It's a key event in world history. It led eventually to the fall of Rome. It's affected all European politics and war to this hour. So I believe, and therefore I think you should read Tacitus's account of the campaign. Either you go into these things, or you don't." Byron kept nodding and nodding, his eyes narrowed and attentive. "You've read all these books? Every one?" Slote regarded the younger man quizzically, gnawing his pipe. "I haven't retained them as well as I should, but, yes, I have." 'What you'reactually trying to tell me, I imagine, is to go peddle my papers, that this is a subject for Rhodes Scholars." "Not at all, but it is a hard subject. Now, Byron, I'm really overdue at the embassy. Are you or aren't you coming with us? We fly to Oslo Thursday, and from there to London. Then we just take our chancesdestroyer, freighter, ocean liner, maybe an airplane trip via Lisbon-whatever turns up." Byron said, 'I"at are Natalie's plans? She got kind of snappish with me toward the end, and wouldn't talk much." Slote looked at his watch. 'She was disagreeable and vague with me, too. I really don't know." He hesitated. "I'll tell you something else. You may not like it. You may not believe it. But it's so, and possibly you'd be better off knowing it." "Go ahead." 'I asked her about you, whether you planned to return to Siena. Her answer was, "Well, I hope not. I sincerely hope I never see Byron Henry again, and if you ever get a chance, please tell him so with my compliments."-You look surprised. Didn't you have an argument before she left? I was positive you had." Byron, trying to compose his face, said, "Not exactly. She just seemed grouchy as hell." Slote said, "She was in a gruesome mood. Said she had a bad backache from all the train riding, for one thing. Very likely she meant nothing by it. I know she felt grateful to you. As indeed I do." Byron shook his head. "I can't say I've ever understood her." Slote glanced at the check and said, tucking bright-colored marks under a saucer, 'well, look, Byron, there's no time to discuss Natalie Jastrow. I'll tell you this. I've had no peace of mind since the day I first met her two years ago, at a very stupid cocktail party on the Quai Voltaire." "Why don't you marry her?" Byron said, as Slote started to rise. The older man fell back in his chair, and looked at him for several seconds. "All right. I'm not at all sure I won' Byron, if she'll have me." "Oh, she'll have you. I'll tell you what. I guess I'll stay on here with my folks for a while. I won't go to Oslo." Slote stood, holding out his hand. "I'll give your passport and so forth to your father's yeoman. Good luck." Byron said, shaking hands and gesturing at Mein Kampf, "I appreciate the lecture and the list." 'Small return," Slote said, 'for services rendered." 'Will you let me know," Byron said, "if you get word before you leave Berlin about where Natalie went?" Knocking out his pipe against his palm, Slote said, "Certainly," and hurried off into the sidewalk crowd. Byron ordered more ersatz coffee and opened Mein Kampf, as the cafe band struck up a merry Austrian folk dance.
uG Victor Henry'absence in the States, his wife had tangled Dherself in a romance; somethingshehad(s) not done in his much longer absences through almost twenty-five years. There was something liberating for her in the start of a war. She was forty-five. Suddenly the rules she had lived by so long seemed slightly out of date. The whole world was shaking itself loose from the past; why shouldn't she, just a wee bit? Rhoda Henry did not articulate this argument. She felt it in her bones and acted on it. Being an ex-beauty, and remaining pretty, she had always drawn and enjoyed the attention of men, so she had not lacked opportunities for affairs. But she had been as faithful to Pug Henry as he had been to her. She liked to go to church, her hymn-singing and prayers were heartfelt, she believed in God, she thought Jesus Christ was her Savior-if she had never gone deeply into the matter-and she was convinced in her soul that a married woman ought to be true and good. In the old Navy-wife pastime of ripping apart ladies who had not been true and good, she wielded well-honed claws. Setting aside a trivial kiss here and there, only one episode in the dim past somewhat marred Rhoda's otherwise perfect record. After an officers' club dance in Manila, where she had soaked up too much champagnePug being out at sea in a fleet exercise-Kip Tollever had brought her home and had managed to get her dress off. Madeline, then a child troubled by bad dreams, had saved the situation by waking and starting to cry. By the time Madeline was comforted, Rhoda had sobered up. Relieved to be back from the brink, yet bearing Kip no malice, she had donned a proper housecoat and had amiably shooed him out of the house. That had been the end of it. No doubt Kip the next morning had been just as grateful to Madeline. Victor Henry was practically the last man in the Navy he wanted to risk angering. Thereafter, Rhoda was always somewhat kittenish toward Tollever. Now and then she wondered what would have happened had Madeline not awakened. Would she really have gone through with it? How would she have felt? But she would never know; she did not intend to get that close to trouble again; the wine had been to blame. Still, there had been something titillating about being undressed by a man other than old Pug. Rhoda preserved the memory, though she buried it deep. Dr. Palmer Kirby was a shy, serious, ugly man in his middle-fifties. After the dinner party for him, discussing the guests with Sally Forrest, Rhoda had dismissed him as "one of these ghastly B s." just to be sociable, she had vainly tried her usual coquettish babble on Kirby over the cocktails. "Well, since friend husband's away, Dr. Kirby, I've put you on my right, and we can make nAy while the sun shines." "UnL On your right. Thank you."That had almost been the end of it. Rhoda detested such heavy men. But he had happened to say at dinner that he was going next day to a factory in Brandenburg. Rhoda offered to drive him there, simply because she had long wanted to see the medieval town, and Kirby in a sense was her husband's guest. On the way they had a dull, decorous lunch at an inn. Over a bottle of Moselle, Kirby warmed up and started to talk about himself and his work. At an alert question she asked him-living with Pug, Rhoda had learned to follow technical talk-Palmer Kirby suddenly smiled. It seemed to her that she had not seen him smile before. His teeth were big, and the smile showed his gums. It was a coarse male smile of knowledge and appetite, far from disagreeable, but startling in the saturnine engineer. 'Do you'really care, Mrs. Henry?" said dr. Kirby. "I'd be glad to explain the whole business, but I have a horror of boring a beautiful woman." The smile, the words, the tone, all disclosed that the man had missed none of her coquetry; that on the contra , he dry like her. A bit flustered, she touched a hand to her hair, tucking the waves behind her small white ears. 'I assure you, it all sounds fascinating. just use words of one syllable as much as possible." "Okay, but you brought this on yourself." He told her all about magnetic amplifiers-!magamps," he called them-devices for precise control of voltages and currents, especially in high power. Asking one adroit question after another, Rhoda soon drew out the key facts about him. At the California Institute of Technology he had written his doctoral thesis on electromagnetism. At forty he had decided to manufacture magnetic amplifiers on his own, instead of settling for an executive post at General Electric or Westinghouse, and security for life. The long struggle for financing had all but sunk him; it was just now paying off. War industries demanded magamps in quantity, and he was first in the field. He had come to Germany because the Germans were ahead of the United States in the quality of some components. He was studying their techniques and buying their nickel-alloy cores. She also learned that he was a widower and a grandfather. He talked about his dead wife, and then they exchanged long confidences about their children's faults and virtues. Like most men, Kirby loved to talk about himself, once over his shyness. His story of back-breaking money troubles and final success so enthralled her that she forgot to be coy, and spoke pleasantly and to the point. Rhoda was most attractive, in fact, when she made the least effort to be. She was the kind of woman who can dazzle a man at first acquaintance by piling everything into the shop window: none of it forced or faked, but in sum nearly all she has to offer. Victor Henry had long since found that out. He had no complaints, though he had once imagined there must be much more. Palmer Kirby was hit hard by this maximum first impact. He ordered a second bottle of Moselle, and they got to Brandenburg almost an hour late. While he went about his business Rhoda strolled through the picturesque old town, guidebook in hand; and her mind unaccountably kept wandering to her little misconduct long ago with Kip Tollever. She was abit dizzy from the Moselle, and it wore off slowly. When they returned to Berlin toward evening, Kirby offered to take her to dinner and to the opera. It seemed quite natural to accept. Rhoda rushed home and began raking through her dresses and shoes, pushing her hair this way and that, wishing she could have gone to the hairdresser, hesitating over her perfumes. She was still at it when Kirby came to call for her. She kept him waiting for an hour. In girlhood she had always kept boys waiting. Pug had harshly cured her of the habit, for Navy social life began and ended by the clock, and he would not tolerate embarrassment by Rhoda. Keeping Palmer Kirby waiting while she fussed over herself was a delicious little nostalgic folly, a lovely childish self-indulgence, like eating a banana split. It almost made Rhoda feel nineteen again. The mirror told her a different story, but even it seemed friendly to her that night: it showed shiny eyes, a pretty face, a firm figure in the sheer slip, and arms that were round and thin all the way up, instead of bagging above the elbow as so many women's did. She sailed into the living room wearing the pink suit with gold buttons that she had bought to please Hitler. Kirby sat reading one of Pug's technical journals. He took off big black-rimmed glasses and rose, exclaiming, "Well, don't you look grand!" "I'm awful," she said, taking Kirby's arm, "dawdling so long, but you brought it on yourself, asking the old girl out after a hard day." The opera was La Traviata, and they enjoyed discovering that they both had always loved it. Afterward, he proposed a glimpse of the notorious Berlin night life. It was nothing he'd ever do by himself, he said; still, Berlin night life was the talk of the world, and if it wouldn't offend Mrs. Henry, she might enjoy a peek at it. Rhoda giggled at the notion. "Well, this seems to be my night to howl, doesn't it? Thank you very much for a disreputable suggestion, which I hasten to accept. Let's hope we don't run into any of my friends." So it happened that when the telephone rang in the Henrys' home at two in the morning-the long-distance call from New York, via the U.S.S. Marbleh in Lisbon-there was nobody to answer. Rhoda was sipping champagne, watching a hefty blonde German girl fling her naked breasts about in blue smoky gloom, and glancing every now and then at Dr. Palmer Kirby's long solemn face in thick-rimmed glasses, as he smoked a long pipe and observed the hard-working sweaty dancer with faint distaste. Rhoda was aroused and deliciously shocked. She had never before seen a nude dancing woman, except in paintings. After that until her husband returned, she spent a lot of time with Kirby. They went to the less frequented restaurants. In her own vocabulary, she never "did anything." When Pug returned, the adventure stopped. A farewell lunch at Wannsee for Palmer Kirby was Rhoda's idea, but she got Sally Forrest to give the lunch, saying she had already sufficiently entertained this civilian visitor. If Sally Forrest detected an oddity in this she said nothing. With the end of the Polish war at hand-onlyWarsaw was still holding out-the two attaches felt able to take off some midday hours. Berlin wore a peactime air, and there was even talk that rationing would soon be over. Byron drove them all out to the resort in an embassy car. Along the broad sandy beach on the Havel river, people strolled in the sun or sat under broad gaily colored umbrellas, and a number of gymnasts braved the fall breezes to exercise in skimpy costumes. in the luncheon the Forrests ordered, rationing was not much in evidence. The pasty margarine tasted as usual like axle grease, but they ate excellent turbot and good leg of lamb. Midway during the lunch a loudspeaker crackled and whined, and a voice spoke in firm clear German: "Attentioni In the next few minutes you u?ill hear a report of the highest 'InVortance to the Fatherland." The identical words boomed all over the river resort. People stopped on the promenade to listen. On the beach the small figures of the gymnasts halted briefly in their tumbling or running. An excited murmur rose all through the elegant Kaiserpavillon restaurant. "What do you suppose?" Sally Forrest said, as the music resumed, thin gentle Schubert on strings. 'Warsaw, I'd guess," said her husband. "It must be over." Dr. Kirby said, "You don't suppose there's an armistice coming up? I've been hearing armistice talk all week." "Oh, wouldn't that be Marvelous," Rhoda said, "and put an end to this stupid war before it really gets going!" Byron said, "It's been going." Oh, of course," said Rhoda with an apologetic smile, "they'd have to make some decent settlement of that hideous Polish business." "There'll be no armistice," said Pug. The buzz of talk rose higher on the crowded terrace and in the dining room. The Germans, eyes bright and gestures animated, argued with each other, laughed, struck the table, and called from all sides for champagne. When the loudspeaker played the few bars of Liszt's music that preceded big news, the noise began to die. "Sondermeldungl' (Special bulletin!) At this announcement, an immediate total stillness blanketed the restaurant, except for a clink here and there. The loudspeaker randomly crackled; then a baritone voice spoke solemn brief words. "From Supreme Headquarters of the Fuhrer. Warsaw hen fallen.The whole restaurant rang with applause and cheers. Women jumped to their feet and danced. Men shook hands and hugged and kissed each other. Brass band music-first "Deutschland Ober Alles," then the "Horst Wessel Lied"-came pouring out of theloudspeakers. To a man the diners in the Kaiserpavillon rose, all except the American party. On the beach, on the promenade, wherever the eye turned, the Germans stood still, most of them with arms thrust forward in the Nazi salute. In the dining room, about half were saluting and singing, a discordant swell of voices in the vulgar beery National Socialist anthem. Victor Henry's skin prickled as he looked around, and he felt at this moment that the Germans under Adolf Hitler would take some beating. He then noticed something he had not seen for many, many years. His son sat , face frozen, lips pressed in a line, white-knuckled hands clasped on the table. Byron had almost always taken pain and punishment dry-eyed since the age of five, but now he was crying. The American party, sitting in a restaurant full of people on their feet, was getting hostile glares. "Do they expect us to stand?" Sally Forrest said. "I'm not standing," Rhoda said. Their waiter, a roly-poly man in black with very long straight blond hair, hitherto all genial expert service, stood bellowing with arm outstretched, visibly sneering at the Americans. Byron saw none of this. Byron was seeing dead swollen horses in the gutter, yellow plywood patches on rows of broken buildings, a stone goose bordered with red flowers in a schoolyard, a little girl in a lilac dress taking a pen from him, orange starshells bursting in the night over church domes. The song ended. The Germans applauded and cheered some more, and began toasting each other. The string orchestra switched to drinking songs, and the whole KaiserpaviUon went into a gay roar of Du, du, liegst mir im Herren, Du, du, liegst mir im SinnByron cringed to hear it, and to recall that a full belly and a glass of beer had brought him to join German soldiers in this song, not six hours after he had escaped from burning Warsaw. la, ia, ia, jal Weisst night u7ie gut which dir bin... At the Americans' table the waiter started removing plates with a jerky clatter, spilling gravy and wine and jostling them with his elbows. 'Watch what you're doing, please," Colonel Forrest said. The waiter went on with his brusque sloppy clearing. Sally Forrest gave a little yelp as he struck her head with a plate. Pug said to him, 'Look. CaR your headwaiter, please." "Headwaiter? I am the headwaiter. I am your head." The man laughed and walked off. Dirty dishes remained scattered on the table. Wet purple and brown messes stained the cloth. Forrest said to Henry, 'It might be smart to leave.""Oh, by all means," Sally Forrest said. 'Just pay, Bill, and we'll go." She Picked up her purse. 'We haven't had our dessert," Pug Henry said. "It might be an idea to knock that waiter on his behind," Dr. Kirby said, his face disagreeably contorted. "I volunteer," said Byron, and he started to get up. "For God's sake, boy!" Colonel Forrest pulled him back. "An incident is just what he wants, and what we can't have." T'be waiter was striding past them to another table. Henry called, "I asked you to bring your headwaiter." "You're in a hurry, honorable sir?" the waiter jeered. "Then you'd better leave. We're very busy in this restaurant." He turned a stout back on Henry and walked away. "Stop! Turn around." Pug did not shout or bark. He used a dry sharp tone of command that cut through the restaurant gabble. The waiter stopped and turned. "Go call your headwaiter. Do it immediately." He looked straight into the waiter's eyes, his face serious and hard. The waiter's glance shifted, and he walked off in another direction. The nearby diners were staring and muttering. 'I think we should go," Sally Forrest said. "This isn't worth the trouble." The waiter soon approached, followed by a tall, bald, long-faced man in a frock coat, who said with a busy, unfriendly air, "Yes? You have a complaint?" 'We're a party of Americans, military attaches," Pug said. "We didn't rise for your anthem. We're neutrals. This waiter chose to take offense." He gestured at the table. "He's been deliberately clumsy and dirty. He's talked rudely. He's jostled the ladies. His conduct has been swinish. Tell him to behave himself, and be good enough to let us have a clean cloth for our dessert." The expression of the headwaiter kept changing as Victor Henry rapped the sentences out. He hesitated under Henry's direct gaze, looked around at the other diners, and all at once burst out in a howl of abuse at the waiter, flinging both arms in the air, his face purpling. After a short fierce tantrum, he turned to Pug Henry, bowed from the waist, and said coldly, 'You will be properly served. My apologies." And he bustled off. Now a peculiar thing happened. The waiter reverted to his former manner without turning a hair, without a trace of surliness, resentment, or regret. The episode was obliterated; it had never happened. He cleared the dishes and spread a new cloth with deft speed. He smiled, he bowed, he made little jokes and considerate little noises. His face was blood red, otherwise hewas in every respect the same charming, gemutlich German waiter who had first greeted them. He took their dessert orders with chuckles and nods, with arch jests about calories, with solicitous suggestions of wine and liqueurs. He backed away smiling and bowing, and hastened out of sight. "I'll be damned," said Colonel Forrest. "We hadn't had our dessert," Pug said. "Well done," Kirby said to Pug Henry, with an odd glance at Rhoda. "Beautifully done." 9fOb, Pug has a way about him," Rhoda said, smiling brightly. "Okay, Dad," Byron said. Victor Henry shot him a quick look. It was the one remark that gratified him. The Americans rushed uneasily through their desserts: all but Victor Henry, who was very deliberate about eating his tart and drinking his coffee. He unwrapped a cigar. The waiter jumped to light it for him. "Well, I guess we can shove off," he said, puffing out a cloud of smoke. "Time's a'wasting, and the colonel and I are cheating the U.S. Government." That night after a late dinner, as they were having coffee on the terrace, Rhoda said, 'I see you've brought home a pile of work. I thought we might see that new Emil Jennings movie. But I can get one of the girls to come along." 'Go ahead. I'm no fan of Emil jannings." Rhoda drank up her coffee and left the father and son sitting in the gloom. "Briny, what about that report? How's it coming?" "The report? Oh, yes, the report." Byron leaned forward in his chair, legs apart, elbows on knees, hands clasped. "Dad, I'd like to ask you something. What would you think of my joining the British navy? Or the marines. Victor Henry blinked, and took a while to answer. "You want to fight the Germans, I take it?" "I enjoyed myself in Warsaw. I felt useful." "Well, this is one hell of a change, coming from you. I thought a military career was o-u-t out." 'This isn't a career." Pug sat smoking and looking at his hands, crouching forward in his chair. Byron usually slouched back and extended his long legs, but now he was imitating his father. Their attitudes looked comically alike. "Briny, I don't think the Allies are going to make a deal with Hitler, but what if t do? A peace offensive's coming up, that's for sure.
Suppose you join the British, possibly lose your citizenship-certainly create a peck of problensand then the war's off? There you'll be, up to your neck in futile red tape. Why not hang on a while and see how the cat jumps?" "I guess so." Byron sighed, and slouched back in his chair. Pug said, "I don't like to discourage an admirable impulse. What might be a good idea right now is to ask for active duty in our Navy, and-" "No, thanks." "Now hear me out, dammit. You've got your commission. The reserves who go out to sea now will draw the best duty if and when the action starts. You'll have the jump on ninety-nine percent of the otbersIn wartime you'll be the equal of any Academy man." 'Meantime I'd be in for years. And then suppose the war ends?" "You're not doing anything else." "I wrote to Dr. Jastrow in Siena. I'm waiting to hear from him." The father dropped the subject. Rhoda went to see the Emil jannings movie, but first she did something else. She picked up Dr. Palmer Kirby at his hotel and drove him to Tempelhof airport. This was not necessary; cabs were available in Berlin. But she had offered to do this and Kirby had accepted. Perhaps there would have been no harm in telling her husband that she was giving the visitor this last courtesy; but she didn't. They hardly spoke in the car. She parked and went to the cafe lounge while he checked in. Had she encountered a friend, she would have needed an explanation on the spot and a story for her husband. But she had no such worry; she felt only a bittersweet excitement. What she was doing gave her not the slightest guilty feeling. She had no wrong intent. She liked Palmer Kirby. It was a long, long time since a man had seemed so attractive to her. He liked her, too. In fact, this was a genuine little wartime romance, so decorous as to be almost laughable; an unexpected flash of melancholy magic, which would soon be over forever. It was not in the least like her aborted drunken peccadillo with Kip Tollever. "Well, I guess this is it," Kirby said, falling in the chair opposite her in the gangling way which always struck her as boyish, for all his grizzled head and sharply lined face. They sat looking at each other until the drinks came. "Your happiness," he said. 'Oh, that. I've had that. it's all in the past." She sipped.
'Did they give you the connection to Lisbon that you wanted?" 'Yes, but the Pan Am Clippers are jammed. I may be hung up in lisbon for days." "Well, I wish I had that in prospect. I hear that's becoming the gayest city in Europe." "Come along." "Oh, Palmer, don't tease me. Dear me, I was supposed to call you Fred, wasn't I? And now I find I've been thinking of you all along as Palmer. Fred-well, there are so many Freds. You don't strike me as Fred." "That's very strange." He drank at his highball. What is?" "Anne called me Palmer. She never would call me anything else." Rhoda twirled the stem of her daiquiri glass. "I wish I had known your wife." "You'd have become good friends." "Palmer, what do you think of Pug?" "Hell. That's a tough one." The engineer pushed his lips out ruefully. "My first impression was that he was a misplaced and-frankly-rather narrow-minded sea dog. But I don't know. He has a keen intellect. He's terrifically on the ball. That was quite a job he did on that waiter. He's a hard man to know, really." Rhoda laughed. "How right you are. After all these years, I don't know him too well myself. But I suspect Pug's really something simple and almost obsolete, Palmer. He's a patriot. He's not the easiest person to live with. He's so goldamed single-minded." "Is he a patriot, or is he a Navy career man? Those are two different things." Rhoda tilted her head and smiled. "I'm not actually sure." "Well, I've come to admire him, that much I know." Kirby frowned at his big hands, clasped around the drink on the table. 'See here, Rhoda, I'm really a proper fellow, all in all. Let me just say this. You're a wonderful woman. I've been a sad dull man since Anne died, but you've made me feel very much alive again, and I'm grateful to you. Does this offend you?" "Don't be a fool. It pleases me very much, and you know it does." Rhoda took a handkerchief from her purse. "However, it's going to be a little hard on my contentment for a day or two. Oh, damn." "Why?I should think it would, add to your contentment." "Oh, shut up, Palmer. Thanks for the drink. You'd better go to your plane." "Look, don't be upset." She smiled at him, her eyes tearful. 'y everything's fine, dear. You might write, just once in a while. Just a friendly little scribble, so I'll know you're alive and well. I'd like that." "Of course I will. I'll write the day I get home." "Will you really? That's fine." She touched her eyes with her handkerchief and stood. "goodbye." He said, getting to his feet, "They haven't called my plane." "No? Well, my chauffeuring job is finished, and I'm leaving you here and now." They walked out of the lounge and shook hands in the quiet terminal. War had all but shut down the airport; most of the counters were dark. Rhoda squeezed Dr. Kirby's hand, and standing on tiptoe, kissed him once on the lips. This in a way was strangest of all, reaching up to kiss a man. She opened her mouth. After all, it was a farewell. 'Good-bye. Have a wonderful trip." She hurried away and turned a corner without looking back. She saw enough of the Emil jannings movie to be able to talk about it to Pug. Byron at last wrote the report on his adventures in Poland. Victor Henry, suppressing his annoyance over the five vapid pages, spent an afternoon dictating to his yeoman everything he remembered of Byron's tale. His son read the seventeen-page result next day with astonishment. "Ye gods, Dad, what a memory you have." 'Take that and fix it any way you want. Just make sure it's factually unchallengeable. Combine it with your thing and let me have it back by Friday." Victor Henry forwarded the patched report to the Office of Naval Intelligence, but forgot his idea of sending a copy to the President. The cool autumn days went by and Berlin began taking on an almost peacetime look and mood. Byron lounged around the Grunewald house, knotting his forehead by the hour over one book after another from Leslie Slote's list. Three or four times a week he played tennis with his father; he was much the better player, but Pug, a steely plodder at first, wore him down and beat him. With food, exercise, and sun, however, Byron lost his shed look, regained strength, and started winning, which pleased Pug as much as it did him. One morning he walked into his father's office at the embassy and saw sitting on the floor, carefully roped up and ticketed with a tag in his own handwriting, the large valise of suits, shoes, and shirts he had left behind in Warsaw. It was a shocking little clue to the efficiency of the Germans. But he was glad to have the clothes, for American styles were idolized inGermany. He blossomed out as a dandy. The German girls in the embassy looked after the slender young man whenever he walked down the hall, casually A la mode, with heavy red-glinting brown hair, a lean face, and large blue eyes that widened when he wistfully smiled. But he ignored their inviting glances. Byron pounced on the mail every morning, searching in vain for a letter from Siena. When the Fuhrer made his Reichstag speech offering peace to England and France, early in October, the propaganda ministry set aside a large block of seats in the Kroll Opera House for foreign diplomats, and Pug took his son along. living through the siege of Warsaw, and then reading Mein Kampf, Byron had come to think of Adolf Hitler as a historic monster-a Caligula, a Genghis Khan, an Ivan the Terrible-and Hitler standing at the podium surprised him: just a medium-size pudgy individual in a plain gray coat and black trousers, carrying a red portfolio. The man seemed to Byron a diminutive actor, weakly impersonating the grandiose and gruesome history-maker. Hitler spoke this time in a reasonable, pedestrian tone, like an elderly politician. In this sober style, the German leader began to utter such grotesque and laughable lies that Byron kept looking around for some amused reactions. But the Germans sat listening with serious faces. Even the diplomats gave way only here and there to a mouth twitch that might have been ironic. A powerful Poland had attacked Germany, the little man in the gray coat said, and had attempted to destroy her. The brave Wehrmacht had not been caught unawares and had justly punished this insolent aggression. A campaign strictly limited to attack of military targets had brought quick total victory. The civilian population of Poland, on his personal orders, had not when molested, and had suffered no loss or injury, except in Warsaw. There again on his orders, the German commanders had pleaded with,the authorities to evacuate their civilians, offering them safeconduct The Poles with criminal folly had insisted on holding defenseless women and children within the city. To Byron, the brazenness of this assertion was stupefying. All the neutral diplomats had made desperate efforts for weeks to negotiate the evacuation of Warsaw's women and children. The Germans had never even replied. It was not so much that Hitler was lying about this-Byron knew that the German nation was following a wild liar and had been for years, since Mein Kampf was full of obvious crazy lies-but that this lie was pointless, since the neutrals knew the facts and the world press had reported them. Why, then, was Hitler saying such vulnerable nonsense? The speech must be meant for the Germans; but in that case, he reflected-as Hitler went on to "offer an outstretched hand!" to the British and the French-why was the speech so mild in style, and why were so many seats reserved for diplomats? "Surely if forty-six million Englishmen can claim to rule over forty million square kilometers of the earth, then it cannot be wrong," Hitler said in a docile, placating tone, holding up bothhands, pahns outward, "for eighty-two million Germans to ask to be allowed to till in peace eight hundred thousand kilometers of soil that are Mstorically their own." He was talking about his new order in central Europe, and the expanded Third Reich. The British and the French could have peace simply by accepting things as they now were, he said, adding a hint that it might be well if they also gave Germany back her old colonies. The Fuhrer at the end fell into his old style, howling and sneering, shaking both fists in front of his face, pointing a fist and a finger straight upward, snapping his hands to his hips, as he pictured the horrors of a full-scale war, which he said he dreaded and which nobody could really win. That night Pug Henry wrote in his intelligence report:... Hitler looks very well. He obviously has first-rate powers of recuperation. Maybe licking Poland toned up his system a bit. Anyway, the haggardness is gone, his color is excellent, he isn't stooping, his voice is clear, not harsh, and-at least in this speech-very pleasant, and his walk is springy and quick. It would be a grave mistake to hope for a physical breakdown in this m§in. The speech was a lot of the same old stuff, with some remarkable whoppers, even for the Fuhrer, about who started the Polish war and about the sterling conduct of the Germans toward civilians. This tommyrot was certainly for internal consumption. His German listeners appeared to be swallowing it, though it's very hard to discern what Germans really think. 'The radio tonight is making a great to-do about the 'outstretched hand' peace proposal. Well evidently be hearing 'outstretched hand" from now on, possibly to the end of the war, even if it's ten years hence. The offer may have been authentic. If the Allies accept, Germany gets her half of Poland for the price of a quick cheap campaign, and her preWorld War colonies, no doubt as a reward for the faultless chivalry of her aimed forces. Hitler has never been bashful about making the most outrageous proposals. They've been accepted, too. So why not try another one? At the very least, if he gets the truce and the conference he suggests, the British and French publics will undoubtedly relax and slack off. The Germans can use the breather to get their half-hearted industrial effort rolling for the showdown. On every count this was a clever speech by a leader who is riding high and seems to have the magic touch. The only fault I can find is a dull and boring delivery, but that too may have been calculated. Hitler today was the judicious European politician, not the roaring Aryan firebrand. Among his other talents he is a gifted vaudevillian. Pug told Byron to write down his impressions of the speech. Byron handed in half a written page: My outstanding impression was the way Adolf Hitler follows out what he wrote in Mein Kampf. He says there, in his section on war propaganda, that the masses are 'feminine," acting on feeling and sentiment, and that whatever you tell them must be addressed to the dullest ignoramus among them, in order to reach and convince the broadest possible audience. Thisspeech was full of lies that ought to annoy a halfeducated German boy of ten, and the peace proposals amounted to a total German grab. Maybe Hitler judges other countries by his own; otherwise I can't understand the speech. I only today what utter contempt Hitler has for the Germans. He regards them as bottomlessly naive and stupid. They follow him and love him. Who am I to say he's wrong? His father thought this was not bad, and included it in quotation marks as the comment of a youth American spectator. The din of the German radio and press in the next days was terrific. Italy and japan had hailed the Fuhrer as the greatest peacemaker of all time. A mighty popular surge for peace was sweeping the West and the United States. But "Churchillian" warmongers were trying to stamp out this warm response of the peoples to the Fuhrer's outstretched hand. If they succeeded, the most ghastly bloodbath of all time would follow, and history would know whom to blame. Pug gathered from neutral intellience in Berlin that some Frenchmen wanted to make a deal and call off the war, but not because they took seriously anything Hitler had said. It was just a question of yielding to the facts or fighting on. Into this confusing noise came an electric shock of news. A U-boat had sneaked into the British fleet anchorage in Scapa Flow at the northern tip of Scotland, had sunk the battleship Royal Oak, and had returned home safely News pictures showed the solemn fat-faced Fuhrer shaking the hand of Lieutenant Commander Prien, a nervous stiff young man with receding hair. The Nazi propaganda ministry foamed with ecstasy over the British Adn-,dralty's report that sadly praised Prien's skill and daring. The writer was Churchill himself. Goebbels' s broadcasters said the sinking of the Royal Oak would prove a great boon to peace, since the Fwuer's "outstretched hand" proposal would now receive more serious consideration. A small reception was laid on for neutral military attaches to meet Prien. Victor Henry put his son's name on the list, with the rank Ensign, USNR, and Byron received a card. The Henrys dined before the reception at the apartment of Commander Grohke, a small dark walk-up flat on the fourth floor of an old house with bay windows. Heavy thick furniture so cluttered the rooms that there was hardly space to move. The meal was salt fish and potatoes, but it was well cooked and Byron enjoyed it. He found the Grohkes disconcertingly normal, though he was prepared to detest them. When the talk got around to Byron's experiences in Poland the woman listened with an unhappy, motherly look. 'One never knows what to believe any more. Thank God it's over, at least. Let there only be peace, real peace. We don't want war. The last war ruined Germany. Another war will be the absolute end of our country." Rhoda said, 'It's so awful. Nobody in the world wants war, yet here we are in this mess." Grohke said to Victor Henry, 'What do you think? Are the Allies going to discuss the Fuhrer's very reasonable offer?"'Do you want me to be polite, or are you asking for information?" "Don't be polite, Henry. Not with me." 'Okay. Germany can have peace if she gets rid of Hitler and his regime." You could even hang on to a lot of your gains. That gang has got to go. Grohke and his wife looked at each other in the candlelight. 'Then it's hopeless," he said, playing with his empty wineglass. 'If your people won't understand one thing about Germany, we have to fight it out. You don't know what this country was like in the 1920's. I do. If the system had gone on another few years there would have been no navy, no economy, nothing. Germany would have fallen apart. This man stood up and put Germany back on the map. You have Roosevelt, we have him. Listen, Henry, I sat in a fancy club in New York and heard people call Roosevelt an insane socialist cripple. There are millions who hate him. Right? Now I'm not a Nazi, I've never said the Fuhrer is a thousand percent right. But he's a winner, damn it all. He gets things done, like Roosevelt. And you want us to get rid of him? First of all it isn't possible. You know what the regime is. And if it were possible we wouldn't do it. And yet there can be peace. It depends on one man, and he isn't our Fuhrer." '"Who then?" "Your President. The British and the French are beaten right now. Otherwise they'd have attacked in September. When will they ever have such a chance again? They're holding out for only one reason-they feel America's behind them. If your President says one word to them tomorrow -'I'm not helping you against German-this world war will be over before it starts, and we'll all have a hundred years of prosperity. And I'll tell you one more thing. That's the only way your President can make sure japan won't jump on your back." It occurred to Victor Henry, not for the first time, that his meeting with Grohke on the Bremen had probably not been accidental. 'I guess we'd better get on to that reception," he said. Lieutenant Commander Prien looked surprised and interested when Byron's Turn came in the reception line of floridly uniformed attaches. "You are young," he said in German, scrutinizing Byron's face and wellcut dark suit as they shook hands. "Are you a submariner?" "No. Maybe I should be." Prien said with a charming grin, and sudden wholehearted warmth, "Ach, it's the only service. But you have to be tough." Blue-uniformed sailors lined up the chairs for a lecture. Pug Henry was flabbergasted by thecandor of the U-boat captain's talk. It was no revelation that Prien had gone in on the surface at slack water, in the dark of the moon. That could be surmised. But Prien had no business exhibiting the Luftwaffe's aerial photographs of the entrances and analyzing the obstacles. It was handing the British their corrective measures on a silver platter. It also disclosed technical news about German reconnaissance photography-scary news, to be sure. This was urgent stuff for the next pouch. Byron listened as intently as his father. What fascinated him was the living detail. Prien spoke clear slow German. He could follow every word. He could see the northern lights sh(a) immering in the black night, silhouetting the U-boat, reflecting in purple and green sparkles on the wet forecastle, and worrying the captain half to death. He was mentally dazzled by the automobile headlights on the shore that suddenly flashed out of the gloom and caught the captain square in the face. He saw the two dim gray battleships ahead, he heard the black chill waters of Scapa Flow lap on the U-boat hull as it slowed to fire four torpedoes. He almost shared the German's disappointment when only one hit. The most amazing and inspiring part of the tale came after that. Instead of fleeing, Prien had made a big slow circle on the surface, inside the Royal Navy's main anchorage, to reload tubes; for the torpedo hit had failed to set off a general submarine alarm. It simply had not occurred to the British that there could be a U-boat inside Scapa Flow; on the Royal Oak they had taken the hit for an internal explosion. And so, by daring all, Prien had succeeded in shooting a second salvo of four torpedoes. "We got three hits that time," Prien said. "The rest you know. We blew up the magazines, and the Royal Oak went down almost at once." He did not gloat. Nor did he express regret over the nine hundred drowned British sailors. He had put his own life in hazard. The odds had been that he, and not they, would die in the night's work-tangled in the nets, impaled on rocks, or blown to bits by a mine. So Byron thought. He had sailed out, done his duty, and home. Here he was, a serious, clean-cut professional,alivetotellthetale.Thiswasnot(come) Warsaw, and this was not strafing horses and children on country roads. Pug Henry and his son drove slowly home through deserted streets in the blue-lit blackout. They did not talk. Byron said as the car turned into their street, 'Dad, didn't you ever consider submarines?" The father shook his head. "They're a strange breed, those fellows. And once you're in the pigboats, you have a hell of a job ever getting out. This Prien's a lot like our own Navy submariners. Now and then I almost forgot there that he was talking German." "Well, that's what I'd have picked, I think," Byron said, "if I'd gonein.p# The car drew up to the house. Pug Henry leaned an elbow on the wheel, and looked at his son with an acid grin in the faint glow of the dashboard. "You don't get to sink a battleship every day." Byron scowled, and said with unusual sharpness, "Is that what you think appeals to me?" 'Look here," Pug said, "the physical on submariners is a damn rigorous one, and they put you through a rough graduate school, but if you're actually interested-" "No thanks, Dad." The young man laughed and tolerantly shook his head at his father's persistence. Victor Henry often tried to start the topic of submarines again, but never drew another glint of interest. He spent a week with Byron touring shipyards and factories. The German attache in the United States had asked for such a tour, so a return of the courtesy was automatic. Pug Henry enjoyed travelling with his son. Byron put up with inconvenience, he never got angry, he joked in annoying moments, and he rose to sudden emergencies: a plane overbooked, a train missed, luggage vanished, hotel reservations lost. Pug considered himself fast on his feet, but Byron, by using a certain easygoing charm, could get out of holes, track things down, and persuade desk clerks and ticket agents to exert themselves, better than his father. During lunches with factory owners, plant managers, and yard superintendents, Byron could sit for two hours looking pleasant without talking, and reply when spoken to with something short and apt. "You seem to be enjoying this," Pug remarked to Byron, as they drove back to the hotel in dark rain from a long tiring visit to the Krupp works in Essen. "It's interesting. Much more so than the cathedrals and the schlosses and the folk costumes," Byron said. 'This is the Germany to worry about." Pug nodded. 'Right. The German industrial plant is the pistol Hitler is pointing at the world's head. It bears study." "Pretty sizable pistol," Byron said. "Too sizable for comfort." "How does it compare to the Allies', and to ours, Dad?" A glass partition in the Krupp courtesy limousine separated them from the chauffeur, but Pug thought the man held his head at an attentive tilt. "That's the question. We've got the biggest industrial plant in the world, no doubt of that, but Hitler isn't giving us a second thought right about now, because there's no national will to use it as a pistol. Germany with her industrial setup can run the world, if nobody argues. The means and the will exist. Macedonia wasn't very big when Alexander conquered the world. Brazil may be four times as big and have ten times the potential of Germany, but the payoff is onpresent capacity and will. On paper, as I keep insisting, the French and the British combined sfih have these people licked. But on paper Primo Camera had Joe Louis licked. Hitler's gone to bat because he thinks he can take them. It's the ultimate way to match industrial systems, but a bit chancy." "Then maybe this is what war is all about nowadays," Byron said. "Industrial capacity." "Not entirely, but it's vital." "Well, I'm certainly learning a lot." Pug smiled. Byron was spending his hotel evenings doggedly reading Beg--I, usually falling asleep in an hour or so over the open book. "How are you coming along on that Hegel fellow?" ,it's just starting to clear up a bit. I can hardly believe it, but he seems crazier than Hitler. They taught me at Columbia that he's a great philosopher." "Possibly he's too deep for you." "Maybe so, but the trouble is, I think I understand him." The gray, dignified chauffeur gave Byron a hideous look as he opened the door for them at the hotel. Byron ran over in his mind what he had said, and decided to be more careful about calling Hitler crazy. He didn't think the chauffeur was an offended Hegelian. Aletter arrived from Aaron Jastrow in a burst of airmail from the outside a few days after the British and French, to the great rage of the German radio, rejected the Fuhrer's outstretched hand. Mail to the embassy was supposed to be uncensored, but nobody believea ffial the letters came in sudden sackfuls two or three weeks apart. The red and green Italian airmail envelope was rubber-stamped all over, purple and black and red. Dr. Jastrow was still typing with a worn-out ribbon, perhaps even the same one. He was too absentminded and, Byron suspected, too inept mechanically to change a ribbon, and unless someone did it for him he would use the old one until the words on the page looked like spirit typing. Byron had to put the letter under a strong light to make it out. October 5th Dear Byron: Natalie is not here. I've had one letter from her, written in London. She'll try to come back to Siena, at least for a while. I'm selfishly glad of that, for I'm very much tied down without her. Now about yourself. I can't encourage you to come back. I didn't discourage Natalie because I frankly need her. In her fashion she feels a responsibility for her bumbling uncle, which is a matter of blood ties, and very sweet and comforting. You have no such responsibility. If you came here and I suddenly decided to leave, or were forced to go (and I must live with that possibility), think of all the useless motion and expense you'd have put yourself to! would really like having you here, but I must husband my resources, so I couldn't pay for your trip from Berlin. Of course if you happened to come to Italy, though I can't think why you should, I would always be glad to see you and talk to you. Meantime I must thank you for your inquiry. just possibly it had some teeny connection with the other inquiry about Natalie's whereabouts, but I'm grateful for it anyway-and I must recommend that for your own sake you forget about Siena, Constantine, and the Jastrows. Thank you for all you did for my niece. I gather from her letter-not from your far too modest and bare note-that you saved her from danger, perhaps from death. How glad I am that you went! My wannest regards to your parents. I briefly talked with your father on the telephone. He sounded like a splendid man. Faithfully yours, Aaron Jastrow When Byron got home that evening he took one look at his father, sitting in a lounge chair on the porch facing the garden, and backed away. Pug's head was thrust forward and down, over a highball glass clenched in two hands. Byron went to his room and plugged at Hegel and his baffling 'World Spirit" until dinner time. Rhoda endured Victor Henry's glowering silence at the table until the dessert came. "All right, Pug," she said, digging into her ice cream, what's it all about?" Pug gave her a heavy-lidded look. "Didn't you read the letter?" Byron thought his mother's reaction was exceedingly peculiar. Her face stiffened, her eyes widened, her back straightened. "Letter? What letter? From whom?" "Get the letter on my dressing table for your mother, please," Pug said to Byron. "Well, goodness me," Rhoda gasped, as she saw Byron trampling down the stairs with a pink envelope, "it's only from Madeline." "Who did you think it was from?" "Well, good lord, how was I to know? The Gestapo or somebody, from your manner. Honestly, Pug." She scanned the letter. 'So? What's wrong with this? That's quite a raise, twenty dollars a week." "Read the last page." 'I am. Well! I see what you mean." "Nineteen years old," Pug said. "An apartment of her own in New York! And I was the fusspot, about letting her leave school." "Pug, I merely said when you got here that the thing was done.