PART TWO Chapter 1

i Pairnela I i ;l ,i i i i mill The France was caving in, people began at last to perceive that a main Aturn of mankind's destiny now hung on flying machines. Of these there were only a few thousand on the planet. The propeller warplanes Of 1940 were modestly destructive, compared to aircraft men have built since. But they could shoot each other down, and unopposed, they could set fire to cities far behind battle lines. Massive bombing of cities from the air had, for some years after the First World War, been considered war's ultimate and unthinkable horror. But by 1940, the Germans had not only thought of it, but had twice done it: in the Spanish Civil War and in Poland. The Japanese, too, had bombed China's cities from the air. Evidently the ultimate horror was quite thinkable, though the civilized term for it, strategic bombing, was not yet in vogue. The leaders of England therefore had to face a bitter decision: whether to send their few precious planes to fight over France against the Germans, or hold them back to defend the homeland's cities and shores. The French had even fewer planes. In the years before the war, instead of constructing an air fleet, the French had built their Maginot Line. Their military thinkers had argued that aircraft were the scouts and stinging insects of war, useful, annoying, hurtful, but incapable of forcing a decision. As the French state, under the punch of German dive bombers, flew to pieces like a Limoges vase hit by a bullet, its premier issued a sudden frantic public appeal to President Roosevelt to send "clouds of airplanes." But there were no clouds to send. Maybe the French premier did not know what a paltry air force America had, or that even then, no fighter plane in existence could travel more than a couple ofhundred miles. The level of information among French politicians at the time was low. Meantime, over the fields of Belgium and France, British lots had learned something important. They could knock down German flying machines. They knocked down many; but many British planes fell too. As the Battle of France went on, the French implored their retreating allies to throw in all their aircraft. This the British did not do. Their air commander, Dowding, told Winston Churchill that twenty-five squadrons had to be kept intact to save England, and Churchill listened to him. The French collapse thus became foredoomed, if it had ever been anything else. At the height of the debacle, on June 9, in a letter to old General Smuts, Winston Churchill explained himself. The military sage had reproved him for failing to observe a first principle of war: Concentrate everything at the decisive point. Churchill pointed out that with the shortranged fighter planes then in the air on both sides, the side that fought nearer its airdromes had a big advantage. "The classical principles are in this case modified by the actual quantitative." he wrote. 'I see only one way through now, to 'Wit, that Hitler should attack this country, and in so doing break his air -weapon. If this happens, he will be left to face the winter with Europe writhing under his heel, and probably with the United States against him after the presidential election is over." Winston Churchill, today an idealized hero of history, was in his time variously considered a bombastic blunderer, an unstable politician, an intermittently inspired orator, a reckless self-dramatizer, a voluminous able writer in an old-fashioned vein, and a warmongering drunkard. Through most of his long life he cut an antic, brilliant, occasionally absurd figure in British affairs. He never won the trust of the people until 1940, when he was sixty-six years old, and before the war ended they dismissed him. But in his hour he grasped the nature of Hitler, and sensed the way to beat him: that is, by holding fast and pushing him to the assault of the whole world, the morbid German dream of rule or ruin, of dominion or Gdtterdiimmerung. He read his man and he read the strategic situation, and with the words of his mouth he inspired the British people to share his vision. By keeping back the twenty-five squadrons from the lost Battle of France, he acted toughly, wisely, and ungallantly; and he turned the war to the course that ended five long years later, when Hitler killed himself and Nazi Germany fell apart. This deed put Winston Churchill in the company of the rare saviors of countries, and perhaps of civilizations. With France and the Low Countries overrun, and the Germans at the Channel, England now lay within range of the Luftwaffe's fighter planes. The United States was safe from air attack in 1940, but the onrolling conquest of Europe by the Germans, combined with the growing menace of japan, posed a danger to the future safety of the United States. The question arose: if selling warplanes to the British would enable them to go on knocking down German aircraft, killing German pilots, and wrecking German bomber factories, might not that be, for American security, the best possible use of the aging craft while new, bigger, and stronger machines werebuilt in the inaccessible sanctuary across the ocean? The answer, from the United States Navy, the Army, the War Department, the Congress, the press, and the public, was a roaring NO! Franklin Roosevelt wanted to help the British, but he had to reckon with that great American NOI Churchill, with the power of a wartime chief of state, had not sent planes to France, because the survival of England depended on them. Roosevelt, presiding over a wealthy huge land at peace, could not even sell planes to England without risking impeachment. It was a shock for Victor Henry to see Franklin Roosevelt out from behind the desk in a wheelchair. The shirt-sleeved President was massive and powerful-looking down to the waist; below that thin seersucker trousers hung pitifully baggy and loose on his fleshless thigh bones and slack lower legs. The crippled man was looking at a painting propped on a chair. Beside him stood the Vice Chief of Naval Operations for Air, whom Victor Henry knew well: a spare withered little naval aviator, one of the surviving pioneers, with a lipless mouth, a scarred red face, and ferocious tangled white eyebrows. 'Hello there!' The President gave Victor Henry a hearty handshake, his grip warm and damp. It was a steamy day, and though the windows of the oval study were open, the room was oppressively hot. "You know Captain Henry, of course, Admiral? His boy's just gotten his wings at Pensacola. How about this picture, Pug? like it?" Inside the heavy ornate gold frame, a British man-o'-war under full sail tossed on high seas beneath ' a storm-wracked sky and a lurid moon. ,it's fine, Mr. President. Of course I'm a sucker for sea scenes." 'So am I, but do you know he's got the rigging wrong?" The President accurately, pointed out the flaws, with great relish for his own expertise. "Now how about that, Pug? all the man had to do was paint a sailing ship-that was his whole job-and he got the rigging wrong! It's positively unbelievable what people will do wrong, given half a chance. Well, that thing's not going to hang in here." During all this, the admiral was training His eyebrows like weapons at Victor Henry. Years ago, in the Bureau of Ordnance, they had violently disagreed over the deck plating on the new carriers. Junior though he was, Henry had carried his point, because of his knowledge of metallurgy. The President now turned his chair away from the painting, and glanced at a silver clock on his desk shaped like a ship's wheel. "Admiral, what about it? Are we going to put Pug Henry to work on that little thing? Will he do?""Well, if you assigned Pug Henry to paint a square-rigger, Mr. President," the admiral replied nasally, with a none too kind look at Pug, "you might not recognize it, but he'd get the rigging right. As I say, a naval aviator would be a far more logical choice, sir, but-" He gestured reluctant submission, with an upward chop of a hand. The President said, "We went through all that. Pug, I assume some body competent is tending shop for you in Berlin?" "Yes, sir." Roosevelt gave the admiral a glance which was a command. Picking his white hat off a couch, the admiral said, "Henry, see me at my office tomorrow morning at eight." "Aye aye, sir." Victor Henry was left alone with the President of the United States. Roosevelt sighed, smoothed his thin rumpled gray hair, and rolled himself to his desk. Victor Henry now noticed that the President did not use an ordinary invalid's wheelchair, but an odd piece of gear, a sort of kitchen chair on wheels, in and out of which he could easily slide himself. "Golly, the sun's going down, and it's still sweltering in here." Roosevelt sounded suddenly weary, as he contemplated papers piled on the desk. "Isn't it about time for a drink? Would you like a martini? I'm supposed to mix a passable martini." "Nothing better, sir." The President pressed a buzzer. A ed tall Negro in a gray gabardine jacket appeared and deftly gathered papers and folders out of various trays, while Roosevelt pulled wrinkled papers from one pocket and another, made quick pencilled notes, jabbed papers on a spike and threw others in a tray. 'Let's go," he said to the valet. "Come along, Pug." All down one long hall, and in the elevator, and down another hall, the President glanced at papers and scrawled notes, puffing at the cigarette holder in his teeth. His gusto for the work was evident, despite the heavy purple fatigue smudges under his eyes and the occasional deep coughs racking his chest. They arrived in a small dowdy sitting room hung with sea paintings. "That thing isn't going to end up in here either," said the President. "It's going in the cellar." He handed all the papers to the valet, who wheeled a chromium-stripped bar beside his chair and left. "Well, how was the wedding, Pug? Did your boy get himself a pretty bride?" said the President in chatty and warm, if faintly lordly tones, measuring out gin and vermouth like an apothecary. Henry thought that perhaps the cultured accent made him sound more patronizing than he intended to be. Roosevelt wanted to know about the lacouture house, and wryly laughed at Victor Henry's account of his argument with the congressman. "Well, that's what we're up against here. And Ike Lacouture's an intelligent man. Some of them are just contraryand obstinate fools. If we get Lacouture in the Senate, he'll give us real trouble." A very tall woman in a blue-and-white dress came in, followed by a small black dog. "Just in time! Hello there, doggie!" exclaimed the President, scratching the Scottie's head as it trotted up to him and put its paws on the wheelchair. "This is the famous Pug Henry, dear." "Oh? What a pleasure." Mrs. Roosevelt looked worn but energetic: an imposing, rather ugly woman of middle age with fine skin, a wealth of soft hair, and a smile that was gentle and sweet, despite the protruding teeth stressed in all the caricatures. She firmly shook hands, surveying Pug with the astute cool eyes of a flag officer. "The Secret Service has an unkind name for my dog," Roosevelt said, handing his wife a martini. "They call him The Informer. They say he gives away where I am. As though there were only one little black Scottie in the world. Eh, Fala?" "What do you think of the way the war's going, Captain?" said Mrs. Roosevelt straight off, sitting in an armchair and holding the drink in her lap. "It's very bad, ma'am, obviously." Roosevelt said, "Are you surprised?" Pug took a while to answer. "Well, sir, in Berlin they were might sure that the western campaign would be short. Way back in January, all their government war contracts had a terminal date of July first. They thought it would all be over by then and they'd be demobilizing." Roosevelt's eyes widened. 'That fact was never brought to my attention. That's extremely interesting." Mrs. Roosevelt said, 'Meantime, are they suffering hardships?" Victor Henry described the "birthday present for the Fuhrer" drive, collecting household tin, copper, and bronze; the newsreel of Goering adding busts of himself and Hitler to a mountain of pots, pans, and irons, and washtubs; the death penalty announced for collectors caught taking anything for their own use; the slogan, One pan per house; ten thousand tons for the Fuhrer. He talked of snowbound Berlin, the lack of fuel, the food rationing, the rule,that a spoiled frozen potato had to be bought with each good one. It was against the law, except for foreigners and sick people, to bail a tad in Berlin. Russian food deliveries were coming in slowly, if at all, so the Nazis were wrapping butter from Czechoslovakia in Russian-printed packages to foster the feeling of Soviet support. The "wartime beer," a uniform brew reduced in hops and alcohol content, was undrinkable, but the Berliners drank it. "They've got a 'wartime soap' too," Pug said. 'Einheitsseife.
When you get into a crowded German train it's not much in evidence." Roosevelt burst out laughing. "Germans are getting a bit ripe, eh? I love that. Einheitsseifel' Pug told jokes circulating in Berlin. In line with the war effort speedup, the Fuhrer had announced that the period of pregnancy henceforth would be three months. Hitler and Goering, passing through conquered Poland, had stopped at a wayside shrine. Pointing to the crucified Christ, Hitler asked Goering whether he thought that would be their final fate. "Mein Fiih, we are perfectly safe," Goering said. "When we are through there win be no wood or iron left in Germany." Roosevelt guffawed at the jokes and said that there were far worse ones circulating about himself. He asked animated questions about Hitler's mannerisms in the meeting at Karinhall. Mrs. Roosevelt interjected in a sharp serious tone, 'Captain, do you think that Mr. Hitler is a madman?" "Ma'am, he gave the clearest rundown on the history of central Europe I've ever heard. He did it off the cuff, just rambling along. You might think his version entirely cockeyed, but it all meshed together and ticked, like a watch." 'Or like a time bomb," said the President. Pug smiled at the quick grim joke, and nodded. "This is an excellent martini, Mr. President. It sort of tastes like it isn't there. Just a cold cloud." Roosevelt's eyebrows went up in pride and delight. "You've described the perfect martini! Thank you." "You've made his evening," said Mrs. Roosevelt. Roosevelt said, "Well, my dear, even the Republicans would agree that as a President, I'm a good bartender." It wasn't much of a joke, but it was a presidential one, so Pug Henry laughed. The drink, the cosiness of the room, the presence of the wife and the dog, and the President's naive pleasure in his trivial skill, made him feel strangely at home. The little black dog was the homiest touch; it sat worshipping the crippled President with a bright stare, now and then running a red tongue over its nose or shifting its look inquiringly to Pug. Sipping his martini, his pose in the wheelchair as relaxed as before, but the patrician tones subtly hardening for business, Roosevelt said, "Do you think the British will hold out, Pug, if the French collapse?" "I don't know much about the British, sir." observer? Possibly "Would you like to go there for a spell as a naval after you've had a month or so back in Berlin?" Hoping that Franklin Roosevelt was in as pleasant a mood as he seemed, Victor Henry took a plunge. "Mr. President, any chance of my not going back to Berlin?"Roosevelt looked at the naval Captain for an uncomfortable five or ten seconds, coughing hard. His face sobered into the tired gravity of the portraits that hung in post offices and naval stations. "You go back there, Pug." "Aye aye, sir." "I know you're a seafaring man. You'll get your sea command." "Yes, Mr. President." "I'd be interested in your impressions of London." "I'll go to London, sir, if that's your desire." "How about another martini?" "Thank you, sir, I'm fine." "There's the whole question of helping the British, you see, Pug." The President rattled the frosty shaker and poured. "No sense sending them destroyers and planes if the Germans are going to end up using them against us." Mrs. Roosevelt said with a silvery ring in her voice, "Franklin, you know you're going to help the British." The President grinned and stroked the Scottie's head. Over his face came the look of complacent, devilish slyness with which he had suggested buying the Allied ocean liners-eyebrows raised, eyes looking sidewise at Pug, mouth corners pulled far up. "Captain Heny here doesn't know it yet, but he's going to be in charge of getting rid of those old, useless, surplus Navy dive bombers. We badly need a housecleaning there! No sense having a lot of extra planes cluttering up our training stations. Eh, Captain? Very untidy. Not shipshape." "Is that definite at last? How wonderful," said Mrs. Roosevelt. "Yes. Naturally the aviators didn't want a 'black shoe' to handle it." Roosevelt used the slang with self-conscious pleasure. "So naturally I Picked one. Aviators all stick together and they don't like to part with planes. Pug will pry the machines loose, Of course it may be the end of me if word gets out. That'll solve the third-term question! Eh? What's your guess on that one, Pug? is that man in the White House going to break George Washington's rule and try for a third term? Everybody seems to know the answer but me. Victor Henry said, "Sir, what I know is that for the next four years Roosevelt's mobile pink face turned grave and tired again, and he this country is going to need a strong Commander-in-Chief." coughed, glancing at his wife. He pressed a buzzer. "Somebody the people aren't bored with,Pug. A politician exhausts his welcome after a while. Like an actor who's been on too long. The good will ebbs away and he loses his audience." A Navy lieutenant in dress blues with gold shoulder loops appeared in the doorway. Roosevelt offered his hand to Victor Henry. "That Sumner Welles thing didn't come to anything, Pug, but our re very helpful." conscience is clear. We made the effort. You we "Aye aye, sir." "Welles wasn't as impressed with Hitler as you evidently were." "Sir, he's more used to being around great men." d A peculiar flash, not wholly pleasant, came and went in the Presienes tired eyes. "Good-bye, Pug." A crashing thunderstorm, with thick rain hissing down from skies black as night, stopped Victor Henry from leaving the White House. He waited for a letup in a crowded open doorway marked Press, where a cool damp wind brought in a smell of rainy grass and flowers. All at once a heavy hand thwacked his shoulder. 'I say, Henry, you've got yourself another stripe' Alistair Tudsbury, swelling in green gabardine, leaning on a cane, his moustached face purpler than before around the nose and on the cheeks, beamed down at him through thick glasses. 'Hello there, Tudsbury!" Why aren't you in Berlin, old cock? And how's that magnificent wife of yours?" As he spoke, a small black British car pulled up to the entrance in the streaming rain and honked. "That's Pamela. What are you doing now? Why not come along with us? There's a little reception at the British embassy, just cocktails and such. You'll meet some chaps you ought to know." 'I haven't been asked." "You just have been. What's the matter, don't you like Pam? There she sits. Come along now." Tudsbury propelled Henry by the elbow out into the rain. "Of course I like Pamela," Henry managed to say as the father opened the car door and thrust him in. 'Pam, look whom I bagged outside the press room!" 'y, how wonderful." She took a hand off the wheel and clasped Pug's, smiling familiarly as though not a week had passed since their parting in Berlin. A small diamond sparkled on herleft hand, which before had been bare of rings. "Tell me about your family," she said as she drove out of the White House grounds, raising her voice over the slap of the wipers and the drumming of the rain. "Is your wife well? And what happened to that boy of yours who was caught in Poland? Is he safe?") "MY wife's fine, and so's Byron. Did I mention to you the name of the girl he travelled with to Poland?" "I don't believe you did." "It's Natalie Jastrow."Natalie! Natdie Jastrow? Really?" "Knows you, she says.Pamela gave Henry a quizzical little glance. "Oh, yes. She was visiting a chap in your embassy in Warsaw, I should think. to get married. Or so they say." sh so "Exactly. She went to see this fellow Slote, Now Leslie Slote." tend me and my n in "Oh? Bless me. Well, Natalie's quite a girl," said Pamela, looking straight ahead. "How do you mean that?" "I mean she's extraordinary. Intelligence, looks." Pamela paused. "A handful, You mean," Pug said, remembering that Tudsbury had used the word to describe Pamela. "She's lovely, actually. And ten times more organized than I'll ever be." "Leslie Slote's coming to this party," Tudsbury said. "I know," Pamela said. 'Phil Rule told me." The conversation died there, in a sudden cold quiet. When the traffic halted at the next red light, Pamela shyly reached out two fingers 10 touch the shoulder board of Henry's white uniform. "What does one call you now? Commodore?" "Captain, captain," boomed Tudsbury from the rear seat. "Four American stripes. Anybody knows that. And mind your Protocol. This man's becoming the Colonel House Of this war." "Oh, sure,#t Pug said, "An embassy papershuffler, you mean. The lowest form of animal life. Or vegetable, more exactly." Pamela drove skillfully through the swarming traffic of Connecticut and Massachusetts Avenues. As they came to the embassy, the rain was dvilidling-Late sunlight shafted under the black clouds, lighting up the "Willpower." , r pink banks of blooyning rhododendron, the line of wet automobiles, and CPS. Pamela's streaking arrival and the stream of guests mounting the steps skidding halt drew glares from several Washington policemen, but nothingmore. "Well, well, sunshine after the storm," said Tudsbury. "A good omen for poor old England, eh? What's the news, Henry? Did you hear anything special at the White House? Jerry is really riding hell for leather to the sea, isn't he? The teletype says he's knocked the French Ninth Army apart. I do think he's going to cut the Allied line right in two. I told you in Berlin that the French wouldn't fight." "They're supposed to be counterattacking around Soissons," Pug said. Tudsbury made a skeptical face. As they went inside and fell into the long reception line extending up a majestic stairway, he said, "The bizarre thing to me is the lack of noise over Germany's invasion of Belgium and Holland. The world just yawns. This shows how far wetve regressed in twenty-five years. Why, in the last war the rape of Belgium was an earthshaking outrage. One now starts by assuming total infamy and barbarity in the Germans. That gives them quite an edge, you know. Our side doesn't have that freedom of action in the least." At the head of the wide red-carpeted stairs, the guest of honor, a skinny, ruddy man of fifty or so, in a perfectly cut double-breasted black suit with huge lapels, stood with the ambassador, shaking people's hands under a large painting of the King and Queen, and now and then nervously touching his wavy blond hair. 'How are you, Pam? Hullo there, Talky," he said. "Lord Burne-Wilke, Captain Victor Henry," Tudsbury said. Pamela walked on, disappearing into the crowd. Duncan Burne-Wilke offered Pug a delicate-looking but hard hand, smoothing his hair with the other. "Burne-Wilke is here to try to scare up any old useless aeroplanes you happen to have lying around," said Tudsbury. 'Yes, best prices offered," said the ruddy man, briefly smiling at the American, then shaking hands with somebody else. Tudsbury limped with Pug through two large smoky reception rooms, introducing him to many people. In the second room, couples shuffled in a corner to the thin music of three musicians. The women at the party were elegantly clad, some were beautiful; men and women alike appeared merry. It struck Victor Henry as an incongruous scene, considering the war news. He said so to Tudsbury. "Ah well, Henry, pulling long faces won't kill any Germans, you know. Making friends with the Americans may. Where's Pam? Let , s sit for a moment, I've been on my feet for hours." They came upon Pamela drinking at a large round table with Leslie Slote and Natalie Jastrow. Natalie wore the same black suit; so far as Pug knew she had come to Washington in the clothes she stood up in, with no luggage but a blue leather sack. She gave him a haggardsmile, saying, "Small world." Pamela said to her father, "Governor, this is Natalie Jastrow. The girl who went tootling around Poland with Captain Henry's son." Slote said, rising and shaking hands with Tudsbury, "Talky, you may be the man to settle the argument. What do you think the chances are that Italy will jump into the war now?" "It's too soon. Mussolini will wait until France has all but stopped twitching. Why do you ask?" me to do it." Natalie said, "I've got an old Uncle infasmiielynab,uatnd somebody should go and fetch him out. There's nobody in the Slote said, "And I tell you, Aaron Jastrow's quite capable of getting himself out." "Aaron Jastrow?" said Tudsbury with an inquisitive lilt. "A Jew's Jesus? Is he your uncle? What's the story?" "Will you dance with me?" Pamela said to Pug, jumping up. "Why, sure." Knowing how much she disliked dancing, he was puzzled, but he took her hand and they made their way through the jam toward the musicians. She said as he took her in his arms, thanks. Phil Rule was coming to the table. I've had enough of him." "Who is Phil Rule?" "Oh-he was the man in my life for a long time. Far too long. I met him in Paris. He was rooming with Leslie Slote. He'd been at Oxford when Leslie was a Rhodes Scholar. Phil's a correspondent, and an excellent one, but a monster. They're much alike, "Really? Slote's the brainy quiet type, I thought." pair of regular rips." Pamela's thin lips twisted in a, smile. "Don't You know they can be the worst? They have Pressure-Cooker souls, those fellows." They danced in silence for a while; she was as clumsy as ever. She spoke up cheerily. 'I'm engaged to be married." "I noticed your ring." "Well, it was a good job I didn't wait for that Navy flier son of yours, wasn't it?" it." "You didn't give me any enCOuragement, or I might have worked on Pamela laughed. "Fat lot of difference that would have made. And Natalie really has your other boy, has she? Well, that's the end of the available Henrys, then. I made my move in good time.""Who is he, Pamela?" "Let's see. Ted's rather hard to describe. Teddy Gallard. From an old Northamptonshire family. He's nice-looking and rather a lamb, and a bit mad. He's an actor, but he hadn't got too far when he joined the R.A.F. He's only twenty-eight. That makes him fairly ancient for flying. He's in France with a Hurricane squadron." After another silence Pug said, "I thought you didn't like to dance. Especially with Americans." "I don't. But you're so easy to dance with and so tolerant. The young ones are now doing an insane thing called the shag. One or two have got hold of me and fairly shagged my teeth loose." "Well, my style is straight 19i4-" "Possibly that was my year. Or should have been. Oh dear," she said, as the music changed tempo and some of the younger couples began ho ping up and down, "here's a shag now." They walked off the dance floor to a purple plush settee in the foyer, where they sat under a bright bad painting of Queen Mary. Pamela asked for a cigarette and took several puffs, leaning an elbow on her knee. Her low-cut dress of rust-colored lace partly showed a small smooth white bosom; her hair, which on the Bremen had been pulled back in a thick bun, bung to her shoulders now in glossy brown waves. "I have a yen to go home and enlist in the W.A.A.FS." He said nothing. She cocked her head sideways. "What do you think?" "Me? I approve." "Really? It's rank disloyalty, isn't it? Talky's doing a vital service to England here." 'He can get another secretary. Your lucky R.A.F man is there." She colored at the word lucky. "It's not that simple. Talky's eyes do get tired. He likes to dictate and to have things read to him. He keeps weird hours, works in the bathtub, and so forth." "Then He'll have to indulge his eccentricities a bit less." "But is it right just to abandon him?" "He's your father, Pamela, not your son."Pamela's eyes glistened at him. "Well, if I actually do it, we shall have Tudsbury in Lear, for a week or two. 'How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, to them a thankless child!' -1 think the governor will rather enjoy throwing himself into the part, at that. Perhaps we should return to him now, Captain Henry." He said as they stood and walked to the main reception room, "Why not call me Pug, by the way? Everybody does who knows me." "Yes, I heard your wife call you that. What does it mean?" "Well, at the Naval Academy, anybody named Henry usually gets called Patrick, the way a Rhodes gets labelled Dusty. But there was a 'Patrick' Henry in the class above me, and I was a freshman boxer, so I got tagged Pug." "You boxed?" Her glance travelled across his shoulders and arms. "Do you still?" He grinned. "Kind of strenuous. Tennis is my game, when I can get around to it." "Oh? I play fair tennis." "Well, good. If I ever get to London, maybe we can have a game." "Are you-2 She hesitated. 'Is there any chance of your coming to London?" -It's not impossible. There they are, way down there," Pug said. "Gosh, this room's mobbed."Natalie seems miserable," Pamela said. Pug said, "She just lost her father." "Oh? I didn't know that. Well, she's grown more attractive, that's sure. Definitely marrying your boy, is she?" f(It seems so. Maybe you can give me advice on that one. I feel she's too old for him, too smart for him, and just about everything else is wrong with it, except that they're crazy about each other. which is something, but not everything." "Maybe it won't come off. There's many a slip," Pamela said. "You never have met BYron. You'd see in a minute what I mean, if You did. He's really still a baby." She mischievously glanced at him and tapped his arm. "You do sound fatherly at that." Tudsbury and Slote were in a lusty argument, with Natalie looking sombrely from one to the other. "I'm not talking about anything he owes England. That's beside the Point," Tudsbury said, striking his empty glass on the table. "It's his responsibility to the American people as their leader to ring the alarm and get them cracking, if they're to save their own hides.
"What about the Chicago quarantine speech?" Slote said. "That was over two years ago, and he's still trying to live down the warmonger charges. A leader can't dash ahead around the bend and out of sight. The People still haven't gotten over their disgust with the First World War. Now here's another one, brought on by stupid French and British policy. It's not the time for singjng 'Over There," Talky. It just won't work." 'And while Roosevelt watches his timing," said Tudsbury, "Hitler Will take half the world. Pamela, be a love and get me another drink. My leies killing me." "All right." Pamela docilely walked to the bar. Tudsbury turned to Henry, "You know the Nazis. Can Roosevelt afford to wait?" "What choice has he? A few months ago Congress was fighting him just on selling you guns." "A few months ago," Tudsbury said, "Hitler wasn't overrunning Beiglum, Holland, and France, and directly facing you across the water." "Lot of water," said Pug. Slote slowly beat two fingers with one, like a professor. 'Talky, let's review the ABC'S. The old regimes are simply not competent for the industrial age. They're dead scripts, molted skins. Europe's made a start on replacing them by a lot of wholesale murder-the usual European approach to problems, and that's all the First World War was about-and then by resorting to tyrannies of the left or the right. France has simply stagnated and rotted. England's played its same old upper-crust butterfly comedy, while soothing the workers, with gin and the dole. Meantime Roosevelt has absorbed the world revolt into legislation. He has made America the only viable modern free country. It was a stupendous achievement, a peaceful revolution that's gutted Maan theory. Nobody wholly grasps that yet. They'll be writing books about it in the year 2,000. Because of it, America's the power reserve of free mankind. Roosevelt knows that and moves slowly. It's the last reserve available, 'the last best hope."' Tudsbury was screwing all his heavy features into a mask of disagreement. 'Wait, wait, 'Wait. To begin with, none of the New Deal issued from this great revolutionary's brain. The ideas Hooded into Washington with the new people when the administration changed. They were quite derivative ideas, mostly copied from us decadent butterflies. We were a good deal ahead of you in social legislation.-Ah, thank you, Pam.-Now this slow moving can be good politics, but in war it's a tactic of disaster. Fighting Germany one at a time, we'll just go down one at a time. Which would be a rather silly end to the English-speaking peoples."'We have theatre tickets. Come and have dinner with us," Slote said, standing and stretching out a hand to Natalie, who rose too. "We're going to L'Escargot." "Thank you. We're dining with Lord Burne-Wilke. And hoping to inveigle Pug Henry into joining us." S love bought Natalie as luxurious a dinner as Washington offered, with champagne; took her to a musical comedy at the National Theatre; and brought her back to his apartment, hoping for the best. In a common enough masculine way, he thought that if all went well he could Win her back in one night. She had once been his slave; how could such a feeling disappear? At first she had seemed just another conquest. He had long planned a prudent marriage in his thirties to some girl of a rich or wellconnected family, after he had had his fun. Natalie Jastrow now put him in a fever that burned up all prudent calculations. Leslie Slote had never wanted anything in his life as he wanted Natalie Jastrow. Her distracted lean look of the moment was peculiarly enticing. He was quite willing to marry her, or do anything else, to have her again. He opened his apartment door and snapped on lights. "ye gods, a quarter to one. Long show. How about a drink?" 'I don't know. if I'm to search around tomorrow in New York courthouses for Aaron's documents, I'd better get to bed." "Let me see his letter again, Natalie. You mix us a couple of shorties." "All right." Removing his shoes, jacket, and tie, Slote sank in an armchair, donned black-rimmed glasses, and studied the letter. He took one book after another from the wall -heavy green government tomes-and drank, and read. The ice in both drinks tinkled in the silence. "Come here," he said. Natalie sat on the arm of the couch, under the light. Slote showed her, in a book, State Department rules for naturalized citizens living abroad more than five years. They forfeited citizenship, but the book listed seven exceptions. Some seemed to fit Aaron Jastrow's case-as when health was a reason for staying abroad, or when a man past and retired had maintained his ties with the United States. "Aaron's in hot water on two counts," Slote said. "There's this joker about his father's naturalization. If Aaron actually wasn't a minor at the time, even by a week or a day, he isn't an American, technically, and never has been one. But even if he was, he has the five-year problem. I mentioned this to him once, You know. I said he should go back to the United States and stay a few months. I'd just seen too many passport messes crop up on this point,ever since the Nazis took over Germany." Slote picked up the glasses, went to his kitchenette, and mixed more drinks, continuing to talk. "Aaron's been a fool. But he's far from unique. It's unbelievable how careless and stupid Americans can be about citizenhip. In Warsaw a dozen of these foul-ups turned up every week. The best thing now-by far-is to get the Secretary of State to drop a word to Rome. The day that word arrives Aaron will be in the clear." Padding to the couch in his stocking feet, he handed her a drink and sat beside her. "But trying to unravel any technical problem, however small, through channels scares me. There's a monumental jam of cases from Europe. It could take Aaron eighteen months. I therefore don't think there's much point in your digging around in Bronx courthouses for his alien registration and his father's naturalization records. Not yet. After all, Aaron's a distinguished man of letters. I'm hoping the Secretary will shake his head in amusement at the folly of absent-minded professors, and shoot off a letter to Rome. I'll get on this first thing in the morning. He's a thorough gentleman. It ought to work." Natalie stared at him. He said, "What's the matter?" 'Oh, nothing." The girl drank off half her drink, all at once. 'It certainly helps to know a man who knows a man, doesn't it? Well! If I'm to hang around Washington till the end of the week, we'll have to get me a hotel room, Leslie. I'm certainly not going to stay here after tonight. I feel damned odd even about that. Maybe I can still try a few of the hotels." "Go ahead. I was on the phone for an hour. Washington in May is impossible. There are four conventions in town." 'If Byron finds out, God help me." "Won't he believe that I slept on the couch?" 'He'll have to, if he finds out. Leslie, win you get me rmission to go to Italy?" He compressed his mouth and shook his head. "I told you, the Departmenes advising Americans to leave Italy." "If I don't go, Aaron won't come home." "Why? A broken ankle isn't disabling.""He just will never pull himself together and leave. You know thatHe'll dawdle and potter and hope for the best." Slote said with a shrug, "I don't think you want to go there to help Aaron. Not really. You're just running away, Natalie. Running away, Hey, and shatcause you're in way over your head with your submarine ho tered by losing your father, and actually don't know what on earth to do next with yourself." "Aren't you clever!" Natalie clinked the half-full glass down on the table. "I leave in the morning, Slote, if I have to stay at the YWCA. But I'll make your breakfast first. Do you still eat your eggs turned over and fried to leather?" "I've changed very little, altogether, darling." "Good-night." She closed the bedroom door hard. Half an hour later Slote, dressed in pajamas and a robe, tapped at the door. "Yes?" Natalie's voice was not unfriendly. "Open up." Her faintly smiling face was pink and oily, and over a nightgown she had bought that afternoon she wore a floppy blue robe of his. "Hi. Something on your mind?" "Care for a nightcap?" She hesitated. 'Oh, why not? I'm wide awake." Humming happily, Leslie Slote went to the kitchen and emerged almost immediately with two very dark highballs. Natalie sat on the couch, arms folded, face shiny in the lamplight. "Thanks. Sit down, Leslie. Stop pacing. That was a mean crack about Byron." "Wasn't it the truth, Natalie?" "All right. If we're playing the truth game, isn't it simpler today than it was a year ago for a Foreign Service officer to have a Jewish wife, since the Nazis are now beyond the pale?" Slote's cheery look faded abruptly. 'qbat never once occurred to me." "It didn't have to occur to you. Now listen, dear. You can feed me stiff highballs, and play 'This Can't Be Love' on the phonograph, and all that, but do ygu really want me to invite you into the bedroom? Honestly, it would be a sluttish thing to do. I don't feel like it. I'm in love with somebody else." He sighed and shook his head. "You're too damned explicit, Natalie.
You always have been. It's coarse, in a girl." "You said that the first time I proposed, sweetie." Natalie stood, sipping her highball. "my goodness, what a rich drink. I do believe you're nothing but a wolf." She was scanning the books. "What can I read? Ah, Graham Wallas- The very man. I'll be asleep in half an hour." He stood and took her by the shoulders. 'I love you, I'll love you forever, and I'll try every way I can to get you back." "Fair enough. Leslie, I must go to Italy to get Aaron out. Honestly! I feel horrible about my father. He was worrying over Aaron the very day he died. Maybe this is irrational expiation, but I've got to bring Aaron home safe." "I'll arrange it, if it's arrangeable." "Now you're talking. Thanks. Good-night." She kissed him lightly, went to the bedroom, and closed the door. He did not rap again, though he read for a long time and had more drinks. HEVice Chief of Naval Operations for Air was drinking coffee with a blond man in a blue Royal Air Force uniform. It was Lord Burne-Wilke; he nodded at Victor Henry, with a faint smile. During their long convivial dinner with the Tudsburys, Burne-Wilke had said not a word to Pug about this meeting. "Good morning, Henry. I understand you know the Air Commodore." The admiral worked his eyebrows at Pug. "Yes, sir." "Good. Have a cup of coffee." The wiry old man bounced away from his desk to a map of the United States on the wall. "And let's get at it. Here, here, and here"-his bony finger jumped to Pensacola, St. Louis, and Chicago-"we've got fifty-three old-type scout bombers, SBU-i's and 2,"s, that have been declared surplus. We want to get them back to ChanceVought, in Stratford, Connecticutthat's the manufacturer-and get all U.S. Navy markings and special equipment removed. Our British friends will then pick 'em up as is, and fly 'em to a carrier that's standing by in Halifax. That's the picture. For obvious reasons"-the admiral contracted his brows fiercely at Pug-"involving the Neutrality Act, this is a touchy business. So the idea is to get this done without leaving a conspicuous trail of blood, guts, and feathers. You can have a plane to take you around and you should get at it today." "Aye aye, sir." "We have sixty pilots on hand and waiting," said Lord Burne-Wilke.
"How soon do you suppose you could have the planes, Captain Henry?" Victor Henry studied the map, then turned to the Englishman, "Day after tomorrow, sir, late afternoon? Would that be convenient? It'll take some time to get off those markings." The Englishman gave him a stare, and then smiled at the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. The admiral remained impassive. "Day after tomorrow?" said Lord Burne-Wilke. "Yes, sir. The stragglers, if any, could come along on the deck of the next available cargo ship." "Actually, we were thinking in terms of a week from now," said Lord Burne-Wilke. "We've given some of the fliers leave. It would require a bit of rounding up. How about Wednesday morning? That gives you and us four days." "Very well, sir." Burne-Wilke said to the admiral, "You do think that's feasible?" "He says so." "Well, then, I had better get right at this." As the door closed, the admiral glared at Victor Henry, with a tinge of humor showing. "Day after tomorrow, hey?" "Admiral, I didn't think those pilots were really on hand and waiting." The two men exchanged a look of insiders' amusement. The foreigner had demanded fast action; the U.S. Navy had offered him faster action than he could handle; very satisfying, and needing no words. "Well, Wednesday's cutting it close enough. Let's have some fresh coffee, hey? Now, this whole thing is a subterfuge." The admiral pressed a buzzer. "I suppose you grasp that. The boss man wants it, so that's that. There are a few things you'd better understand, however." Showing a new grudging cordiality toward Victor Henry, the admiral explained that the President had elicited from the Attorney General -"probably by twisting his arm pretty damn hard"-the scheme and the reasoning for selling these planes to England despite the Neutrality Act. First, the Navy was declaring the aircraft surplus. Second, Chance-Vought was accepting them for a trade-in on new F-4-U's, at a good high price. Chance-Vought could afford to do this, because it was turning around and selling the old planes to England at a profit. The catch was that the delivery of the F-4-U's lay far in the future.
Undoubtedly President Roosevelt was evading the spirit of the Neutrality Law and the will of Congress, by allowing these planes out of the country now. The Army in particular would raise a howl. It was very short of aircraft, and had a standing request in to the Navy for surplus flying machines of any description. "Now, Henry, there's no question here, and no hope, of concealment in the long run. But if it were announced in advance, there'd be a big storm on the front pages. It might not go through, which would be too bad. Any Germans that the Limeys knock down with those old SBU's we won't have to fight later. We're not going to stay out of this brawl. The boss man's idea is to get it done and then take what comes. The way the war news is breaking, it may not cause a whisper, after the fact. I hope not. However"-the admiral paused, squinting at Victor Henry over the rim of his coffee cup-"this does involve a chance of congressional investigation. Somebody like you could end up a goat. The President thought you could get the job done, and I concurred, but this is a volunteer job Strictly volunteer." "Aye aye, sir," said Pug. "I'd better get at it." Briny, my loveBrace yourself. When you receive this letter I ought to be in Lisbon. I'm flying to Italy to fetch Uncle Aaron out of there. With luck I'll be back in two months or less. It depends on the earliest boat passage I can get for us, and for that damned library and all those research files. Sweetheart, don't be angry. It's good for both of us to catch our breaths. Your submarine school, and even Uncle Aaron's mess, are providential. Your father's visit to Miami was an alarm clock, and it rang just in time. My ideas have altered, I must say, since my Radcliffe days when I started the Student Antiwar Committee! I never realized there were people like you, Warren, and your father. I'm sure the stereotyped military men do exist in droves, the hard-drinking narrow bigoted nincompoops. I've met a few of those. The new thing is the Henrys. You're peculiarly unobtrusive on the American scene, I don't know just why, but thank God you're there! Darling-weren't you having sober second thoughts about me at Warren's wedding? Honestly, I saw your mother's viewpoirrt and quite sympathized with her. Why on earth should her little boy Briny want to marry this dusky old Jewess, with Rhine maidens like Janice Lacouture ]Ri so abundant in the United States? Now, mind you, I have not the slightest sense of inferiority. I value my intelligence and I know I'm a passably attractive Dark Lady. Being a Jew is an accident to me. It's left little trace on my ideas or my conduct.
Too little, I guess; we live in a secular age, and I'm a product of it. The question remains, should you and I try to bridge a big gap of background and interests because of a random encounter and a fantastic physical pull? I'm not backing out, Byron, I love you. But a couple of months to think it over is no hardship, it's a godsend. Now let me quickly tell you what's been happening. I enclose the letter Aaron sent me that you didn't want to look at. You can ignore his silly words about us. The whole picture of his problem is very clear in it. Leslie Slote has been absolutely Marvelous. You mustn't be jealous of him, Briny. The way you behaved when I left Pensacola was very upsetting to me. I've rejected repeated, almost grovelling marriage proposals from this man. I've told him that I love you, that I've promised to marry you, and that he is out. He knows it. Still he dropped everything to work on Aaron's stupid mess. Never forget that. Word has gone out to Rome from the Secretary's oflice to expedite Aaron's return! It's less than two hours to plane time. I'm dashing this off in the airport. I didn't go home. I stopped in New York for a day and bought enough things to see me through the trip. I'm travelling very light-one suitcase! You'll be admitted to that submarine school, I'm positive of that. I know your father wants it desperately, and I think deep down you do too. It's the right thing for you now. When I come back, if you still want me, I'm yours. Plain enough? So courage, and wish me luck. Here I go. Love you, Natalie Three days before the start of the submarine course, Byron was sitting in a squalid furnished a Chinese laundry in New London, looking through the formidable reading list, w(room) hen th(over) e postman rang. Natalie's large hurried Special Delivery scrawl on the thick envelope promised bad news. Slumped in a ragged armchair amid smells of soap and hot starch from below, Byron read her shocking letter over and over. He was glancing through Aaron's faintly typed sheets when the telephone jarred him. "Ensign Henry? Chief Schmidt, commandant's office. Your father's here. He's gone with Captain Tully to inspect the Tambor over at Electric Boat. If you want to join them they're at Pier Six, the commandant says.)) "Thank you." Sore at being followed even here by his father, hot to vent his anger and disappointment, Byron took ten minutes to dress and leave. Victor Henry, meanwhile, walking through the new submarine with his classmate, was in high good humor, though red-eyed with lack of sleep.
The scout bomber job was done. It had taken a lot of work and travel. A dozen aircraft had been in repair shops, the pilots had been scattered over the countryside, and there was no sense of urgency anywhere. Getting all-night work on the disabled planes, dragging those pilots out of their wives' arms or back from their fishing trips, had been a struggle. Some commandants had asked rough questions. jiggs Parker at the Great Lakes Air Station, another classmate of his, had put up a fight to get a written record of the transfer, until Pug had told an outright lie about new top-secret equipment to be tested on the planes, which might be exPended in the process. jiggs had eyed him for a long silent minute, and then given in. Well, white lies were part of security, Victor Henry thought, and jiggs knew that. Byron caught up with his father and the commandant in the forward torpedo room of the Tambor, inspecting the new firing mechanisms. "Hello, Dad. What brings you here?" The harsh voice, the look on Byron's face, told Pug something serious was wrong. "Happened to be not far from here, so I thought I'd mosey over. You met Byron yet, Red?" "Not yet. I know he passed the physical and he's in the new class." Captain Tully offered his hand. "Welcome aboard, Byron. You're in for a rough couple of months." "I'll try to survive, sir." At the almost contemptuous words, Red Tully's eyes shifted disapprovingly to the father. Byron followed along on the tour without another word, his countenance white and angry. "Say, what the devil's the matter with you?" Victor Henry snapped as he and his son came out of the conning tower on the breezy slippery black deck, leaving Captain Tully below talking to the skipper. "You'd do well to watch your tone toward your superiors. You're in the Navy now." "I know I'm in the Navy. Read this." Pug saw Natalie's name on the envelope Byron thrust out. "Isn't it personal?" Still Byron offered the letter. Victor Henry held the flapping pages in both hands and read them there on the submarine deck."His face was flushed as he handed them back to his son. "Quite a girl. I've said that before." "If anything happens to her over there, I'll hold you responsible, Dad, and I'll never forget it." Pug frowned at his son. "That's unrea,nable. She's gone to Italy because of her uncle." "No. You scared her off by saying I might not get admitted here if I were married. It wasn'ttrue. A lot of the students are married men. If you hadn't come to Miami I might be one by now." "Well, if I misled her, I'm sorry, I wasn't sure of the criteria, I thought that for hazardous duty they preferred single men, and for all I know, they do, and simply can't get enough. Anyway, this is what you should be doing. She's dead right about that, and I give her credit for realizing it. Possibly I should have butted out, but the decisions you're making now will shape your whole life, and I wanted to help. It was a wordy speech for Victor Henry, and he spoke without his usual firmness, disturbed by his son's fixed hostile expression. He felt guilty, an unfaniiiiar sensation: guilty of interfering in his son's life and possibly of driving off the girl. Even if Natalie had been wrong for Byron, her sudden flight was a blow that he could feel admost as his son did. Suppose she had been the best thing in the world for the drifting youngster? Suppose, despite all good fatherly intentions, her being Jewish had made a difference? Byron's answer was as sharp and short as his father's had been apologetic and strung-out. "Yes, you helped. She's gone. I'll never forget, Dad." Red Tully emerged from the conning tower, looked around, and waved. "Hey, Pug? Ready to go ashore?" Victor Henry said rapicuy to his son, 'You're in this now, Briny. It's the toughest school in the Navy. What's past is past.Byron said, 'Let's get off this thing," and he walked toward the gangway. On a hot beautiful evening early in June, when the newspaper headlines were roaring of the British evacuation from Dunkirk, and Churchill on the radio was promising to fight to the end, on the beaches, in the streets, and in the hills, Victor Henry left for Europe. Rhoda stayed behind, because of the worsening of the war, to make a home for Madeline in New York. Pug had suggested this and Rhoda had rather enthusiastically agreed. Madeline, a busy and happy young woman, put up no objection. Pug found it surprisingly easy to get a plane ticket at that time into the warring continent, as Natalie had. The hard thing was to get out. ATALIIR tried for five days to fly from Lisbon to Rome. She finally Nobtained a plane ticket, but at the last minute it was voided when a large party of boisterously laughing German army officers, obviously full of lunch and wine, streamed through the gate, leaving twenty excluded passengers looking at each other. This soured her on the airlines. Railroad passage across collapsing France was far too risky. She booked passage on a Greek freighter bound for Naples. The wretched voyage took a week. She shared a hot tiny cabin with a horde of black roaches and a withered Greek woman smelling of liniment; and she scarcely left it, horrid as it was, because on deck and in passageways the ship's officers and rough crewmen gave her disquieting looks. She could scarcely eat the food. The pitching and rolling kept her awake at i-iiglit. Enroute, her portable radio squawked the BBC stories of the French government's flight from Paris, of Italy's jump into the war, and of Roosevelt's words,"The hand that held the dagger has stuck it into the back of its neighbor." Natalie arrived in Italy nervous and exhausted, with a strong feeling that she had better get Aaron out of Siena at once, forgetting books, clothes, furniture-everything except the manuscript. But once on dry land, after a decent meal or two with good wine, and a long luxurious night's sleep in a large soft hotel bed, she wondered at her own panic. Neither in Naples nor in Rome was there much sign that Italy was at war. The summer flowers spilled purple and red over stucco walls in bright sunshine, and in crowded streets the Italians went their lively ways as usual. Jocular, sunburned young soldiers had always abounded in Italian trains and cafes. They appeared as unbuttoned and placid as ever. After the long, hot, filthy train ride to Siena, her first distant glimpse of the old town, rising out of the vine-covered round hills, gave her a stifled bored feeling, almost as Miami streets did. "God, who ever thought I'd come back here?" she said to herself. The hills outside the town already showed the veiled dusty greenof midsummer. In Siena nothing had changed. The after-lunch deadness lay on the town; scarcely a dog moved in the empty red streets in the sun. It took her half an hour to find a working taxicab. Aaron, in his broad-briiniiied white hat and yellow Palm Beach summer stilt, sat in his old place in the shade of the big elm, reading a hook. Beyond him, over the ravine, the black-and-white cathedral towered above the red-roofed town. "Natalie! You made it! Splendid." He came stumping toward her on a cane, with one foot in a metal-framed cast. "I called and called for a taxicab, but when it was time for my nap none had come. I did have a wonderful nap.-Come inside, my dear, you'll want some refreshment. Giuseppe will see to your things." The house looked the same, though the heavy foyer furniture noN? wore its green chintz slipcovers. In his study the pile of manuscript, the pile of notes, the array of reference books, were all in the same places. His writing board lay on the desk, with the yellow pages of his day's work clipped to it, awaiting morning revision. "Why, Aaron, you haven't even begun to pack!" "We'll talk about it over tea," he said, with an embarrassed smile. "I suppose you'd like to have a wash first?" "But what's the situation, Uncle Aaron? Haven't you heard from Rome? Didn't word come from Washington?" "Word came from Washington. That was fine of Leslie." He sank into a chair. "I really can'tstand on this ankle yet for more than a teNN, minutes. I stupidly fell again m,ben it was almost healed. What a nuisance I am! But anyway, I reac ed page 967 today, and I do think it's goodish. Now go and have a wash, Natalie, you look positively boiled, and you're caked with dust." The young consul in Florence received her affably, rising from behind a heavy carved black desk to escort her to a chair. The room reeked of the rum-flavored tobacco he was smoking in a curved rough briar pipe. The Sherlock Holmes prop looked odd in his small hand. He had a pinkand-white face, gentle bright blue eyes, and a childish thin mouth ",with the lower lip stilled in as though at some permanent grievance. His blond hair was thick, short, and straight. His gray silk suit, pinned white collar, and blue tie were elegant and neat. His desk name plate read AUC;UST VAN WINAKIER II. He said in a quavering voice, clearing it of hoarseness as he talked, "Well! The eminent author's niece, eh? What a pleasure. I'm sorry I couldn't see you this morning, but I was just up to my ears." "Perfectly all right," Natalie said. He waved his little hand loosely. 'People have been scurrying home in droves, you see, and just dumping everything on the consulate. There's an aw lot of commerce still going on, and I'm stuck with the paperwork. I'm becoming a sort of broker and business agent for any number of American companies-unpaid, of course. I was in the most unbelievable snarl this morning over-of all things-a truckload of insecticidal Can you bear it? And, of course, there still are Americans in Florence. The screwier they are, the longer they stay." He giggled and rubbed his back hair. 'The trouble I've been having with these two girls, roommates, from California! I can't mention names, but one of them is from a rich Pasadena oil family. Well! She's gotten herself engaged to this slick little Florentine sheik, who calls himself an actor but actually is nothing but an overgrown grocery boy. Well, this oily charmer has gone and gotten her roommate pregnant, my dear! The three of them have been having all-night brawls, the police have been in, and-oh, well. You don't get rich in this work, but there's never a dull moment." He poured water from a tall bottle into a heavy cut-glass goblet, and drank. "Excuse me. Would you like some tvian water?" "No, thank you." 'I have to drink an awful lot of it. Some stupid kidney thing. Somehow it gets worse in the spring. I actually think Italian weather leaves a lot to be desired,don't you? Well!" His inquiring bland look seemed to add-'What can I do for you?" Natalie told him about the new wrinkle in Jastrow's situation. The day Italy had entered the war, a man from the Italian security police had visited Jastrow and warned him that, as a stateless person of Polish origin, he was confined to Siena until further notice. She mentioned, as cordially as she could, that the OVRA undoubtedly knew this fact from intercepting Van Wmaker's letter. 'Oh, my God, how perfectly awful," gasped the consul. "Is t what's happened? You're quite right, I didn't have my thinking cap on when I wrote that letter. Frankly, Natalie-if I may call you that-I was floored when your name came in today. I figured you'd have come and gone by now and taken your troublesome uncle home. He has been a trial, you know. Wellf This is a pretty kettle of fish. I thought the visa solved everything and that I'd seen the last of the Jastrow case." 'What do we do now?" Natalie said. "I'm blessed if I know, just offhand," said Van Wmaker, running his fingers through his hair upward from the back of his neck. "May I make a suggestion?" Natalie spoke softly and sweetly. "Just renew his passport, Mr. Van Wmaker. That would stop the state icssilus", business. They couldn't hold him back then." Van Wmaker drank more rvian water. "Oh, Natalie, that's so easy to say! People don't see the screaming directives we get, warning us agilinst abuse of the passport system. People don't see departmental circulars about consuls who've been recalled and whose careers have gone Poof! because they were loose about these things. Congress makes the immigration laws, Natalie. The Consular Service doesn't. We're simply sworn to uphold them." "A4r. Van Wmaker, the Secretary of State himself "7ants AIron cleared. You know that." "Let's get one thing straight." Van Wmaker held up a stiff finger, his round blue eyes gone sober. He puffed his pipe and waved it at her. "I have had no instructions from the Secretary. I'm extremely glad we're doing this face to face, Natalie, instead of on paper. He couldn't go on record as intervening for one individual against another in matters involving equal treatment under law." The eyes relaxed in a sly twinkle. '(i did hear from Rome, between you and me, that his office asked us to expe(rite your uncle's departure. I was stretching way over backwards, honestly, issuing that visa, jumping him to the head of a list of hundreds and hundreds of names," Van Wmaker knocked his pipe into a thick copper tray, and went on in a different, gossipy tone. "Actually, I think time will solve your uncle's problem. The French are already asking for an armistice. 'The British won't fight on very long. They'd be mad to try.