Chapter 5

'That's a Roosevelt supporter talking," observed Anderson, puteng violently on the cigar. 'Now, we're proceeding from here to a dinner at the Army and Navy Club, in half an hour or so, with some British generals and admirals. We already have the list of the war materials they want. It would strip our armed forces clean. We have to make cabled recommendations to the President within five days. He's already let them have-in addition to these fifty warships-virtually all our seventy-fivemillimeter field guns, several squadrons of naval aircraft, half a million nfles, millions of rounds of ammunition-" 'He hasn't given 'em away, General," Benton observed. "The Limeys have paid cash on the barrelhead." "Yes, luckily the Neutrality Act compels that, but still it was a god-damned lie to call the stuff surplus. Surplus! We don't have any surplus! You know that. Fifty destroyers! All this without any authorization from Congress. All things we're short of. And now Congress is passing a draft law. Our boys will be drilling with broomsticks! There's going to be ati accounting one day, you know. If the British fold and this stuff winds up in German hands-a possibility to be reckoned with-the accounting Will not be far off -All who have taken part in these transactions, or even advocated them"-here General Anderson turned a belligerent face at Victor Henry-"I warn you, stand a good chance of hanging from lamp posts on Constitution Avenue." After a silence, Admiral Benton said Mildly, folding his hands over his stomach, "Well, Pug, I've told these gentlemen that I know you, and that any dope you put out is reliable. We've got a big responsibility. We've been handed one hell of a hot potato. So get down to the short hairs. What makes you think the British will keep fighting, after the way the French folded? No horseshit now." "All right, Admiral." To begin with, Victor Henry said, the British had made better use than the French of the time between the wars. He debed their scientific advances, the strength and disposition of the bathe fleet, the fighter control system he had seen at Uxbridge, the figures of German and British plane losses, the morale of the fliers, the preparations along the invasion beaches, the Chain Home stations, the production of aircraft. Fitzgerald listened with his eyes closed, his head flung back, his fingers dancing. Benton stared gravely at Pug, pulling at an ear as he had done in a hundred War Plans meetings. Train Anderson, wreathing himself in smoke, also looked hard at Pug, though the glare was fading to a frigid calculating expression. Pug gave as sober and clear an account as he could, but it was an effort. As he plodded through his military facts, Pamela Tudsbury shimmered in his mind's eye, shifting with afterimages of the flight over Berlin. He felt in an undisciplined mood and was hard put to it to keep a respectful tone. "Now wait, Pug, this RDF you're so hot on," Benton interposed, that's nothing but radar, isn't it? We've got radar. You were with me aboard the New York for the tests.""We haven't got this kind of radar, sir." Victor Henry described in detail the cavity magnetron. The senior officers began glancing at each other. He added, "And they've even started installing the stuff in their night fighters." General Fitzgerald sat straight up. "Airborne radar? What about the weight problem?" "They've licked it." "Then they've developed somethine new." "They have, General." Fitzgerald turned a serious gaze on Train Anderson, who stubbed out his cigar, observing to the admiral, "Well, I'll say this, your man makes out a case, at least. We've got to come across anyhow, since that's what Mr. Big wants. What we can do is exercise tight control item by item, and that by God we will do. And get trade-offs like that cavity thing, wherever possible." He regarded Henry through half-shut eyes. "Very well. Suppose they do hold out? Suppose Hitler doesn't invade? What's their future? What's their plan? What can they do against a man who controls all Europe?" "Well, I can give you the official line," Victor Henry said. "I've heard it often enough. Hold him back in 1940. Pass him in air power in 1941, with British and American production. Shoot the Luftwaffe out of the skies in 1942 and 1943Bomb their cities and factories to bits if they don't surrender. Invade and conquer in 1944-' 'With what? Ten or fifteen divisions against two hundred?" "Actually, General, I think the idea is simpler. Hang on till we get in." "Now you're talking. But then what?" General Fitzgerald said very quietly, "Why, then we pound Germany from the air, Train, with the bomber fleet we're building. A few months of that, and we land to accept the surrender, if anyone's alive to crawl out of the rubble." Raising an eyebrow at Victor Henry, Admiral Benton said, "How's that sound, Pug?" Victor Henry hesitated to answer. "You're dubious?" General Fitzgerald observed amiably. "General, I've just been out pounding Germany from the air. Twenty-four bombers went on the mission. Fifteen returned. Of those, four didn't bomb the right target. Navigation was off, they had operational troubles, there were German decoy fires, and so forth. Two didn't bomb any target. They got lost, wandered around in the dark, then dropped their bombs in the ocean and homed back on the BBC. In one mission they lost a third of the attacking force.""This business is in its infancy," smiled Fitzgerald. "Twenty-four bombers. Suppose there'd been a thousand, with much heavier payloads? And at that, they did get the gasworks." "Yes, sir. They got the gasworks." "How do you think it's going to go?" General Anderson said brusquely to Henry. "Sir, I think sooner or later a couple of million men will have to land in France and fight the German army." With an unpleasant grunt, Train Anderson touched his left shoulder. "Land in France, hey? I landed in France in 1918. I got a German bullet through my shoulder in the Argonne. I don't know what that accomplished. Do you?" Victor Henry did not answer. "Okay." Train Anderson rose. "Let's be on our way, gentlemen. Our British cousins await us." "I'll be right along," Benton said. When the army men were gone he slapped Victor Henry's shoulder. "Well done. These Limeys are holding the fort for us. We've got to help 'em. But Jesus God, they're not bashful in their requestsi The big crunch comes when they run out of dollars. They can't even pay for this list of stuff, without selling their last holdings in America. What comes next? It beats me. The boss man will have to figure a way to give 'em stuff. He's a slippery customer and I guess he will. Say, that reminds me-" He reached into a breast pocket and brought out a letter. Victor Henry, in his wife's small handwriting, was the only address on the envelope, which was much thicker than usual. "Thank you, Admiral." The admiral was fumbling in his pockets. 'No, there's something else. Damn, I couldn't have-no, here we are. Whew! That's a relief." It was a White House envelope. Pug slipped both letters into his pocket. "Say, Pug, for a gunnery officer you've painted yourself into a peculiar corner. That screwball socialist in the White House thinks a lot of you, which may or may not be a good thing. I'd better mosey along. Rhoda sounded fine when I talked to her, only a little sad." Benton sighed and stood. "They have to put up with a lot, the gals. Good thing she didn't know about that bomber ride. Now that you're back I sort of envy you. But me, I'm absurdly fond of my ass, Pug. I'm not getting it shot off except in the line of duty.
I commend that thought to you hereafter." Blinker Vance took off big black-rimmed glasses and stepped out from behind his desk to throw an arm around Pug. "Say, I want to hear all about that joyride one of these days, i How did it go with the big brass?" "All right." "Good. There's a dispatch here for you from Bupers." He peeled a tissue off a clipboard hung on the wall, and handed it to Pug. VICTOR HENRY DETACHED TEMPOPARY DUTY LONDON X RETURN BERLIN UNIIL RELIEVED ON OR ABOUT I NOVEMBER X THEREUPON DETACHED TO PROCEED WASMNGTON HIGHEST AIR pRioRrry X REPORT BUPERS FOR FURTHER REASSIGNMENT X Vance said, "Glad you'll be getting out of Berlin?" "Overjoyed." "Mought you'd be. Transportation tells me they've got a priority to Lisbon available on the fourteenth." "Grab it." "Right." With a knowing little smile, Vance added, "Say, maybe you and that nice little Tudsbury girl can have a farewell dinner with me and Lady Maude tomorrow night." Several times Blinker had asked Victor Henry to join them for dinner. Pug knew and liked Blinker's wife and their six children. Avoiding a censorious tone, he had declined the invitations. Victor Henry knew how commonplace these things were-"Wars and lechery, nothing else holds fashion'-but he had not felt like endorsing Blinker's shack-up. Vance now was renewing the bid, and his smile was reminding Pug that on telephoning the flat, he had found Pamela there. "I'll let you know, Blinker. I'll call you later." "Fine!" Vance's grin broadened at not being turned down. "Lady Maude will be channed, and my God, Pug, she has a fabulous wine cellar." Victor Henry returned to the bench in Grosvenor Square. The sun still shone, the flag still waved. But it was just a sticky London evening like any other. The strange brightness was out of the air. The President's hasty pencilled scrawl was on a yellow legal sheet this time. PugYour bracing reports have been a grand tonic that I needed. The war news has been so bad, and now the Republicans have gone and put up a fine candidate in Wendel! Willkie! Come November, you just might be working for a new boss. Then youcan slip the chain and get out to sea! Ha hal Thank you especially for alerting us on their advanced radar. The British are sending over a scientific mission in September, with all dieit "wizard war' stuff, as Churchill calls it. Well be very sure to follow that up! There's something heartwarming about Churchill's interest in landing craft, isn't there? Actually he's right, and I've asked for a report from C.N.O. Get as much of their material as you can. FDR Pug stuffed the vigorous scrawl in his pocket like any other note, and opened his wife's letter. It was a strange one. She had just turned on the radio, she wrote, heard an old record of "Three O'Clock in the Morning," and burst out crying. She reminisced about their honeymoon, when they had danced so often to that song; about his long absence in 1918; about their good times in Manila and in Panama. With Palmer Kirby, who now kept a small office in New York, she had just driven up to New London to visit Byron-a glorious two-day trip through the early autumn foliage of Connecticut. Red Tully had told her that Byron was lazy in his written work, but very good in the simulator and in submarine drills. She had asked Byron about the Jewish girl. The way he changed the subject, I think maybe all that is over. He got a peculiar look on his face, but said nary a word. Wouldn't that be a relief 1 YOU know that Janice is pregnant, don't you? You must have heard from them. Those kids didn't waste much time, hey? Like father like son, is all I can say! But the thought of being a GRANDMOTHERIII In a way I'm happy, but in another way it seems like the end of the world! It would have helped a lot if you'd been here when I first got the news. It sure threw me into a spin. I'm not sure I've pulled out of it yet, but I'm trying. Let me give you a piece of advice. The sooner you can come home, the better. I'm all right, but at the moment I could really use a HUSIBAND around. He walked to his flat and telephoned Pamela. "Oh, my dear," she said, "I'm so glad you called. In another quarter of an hour I'd have been gone. I talked to Uxbridge. They're being very broad-minded, If I come back tonight, all is forgiven. They're shorthanded and they expect heavy raids. I must, I really must go back right away." "Of course you must. You're lucky you're not getting shot for desertion," Pug said, as lightly as he could. "I'm not the first offender at Uxbridge," she laughed. "A W.A.A.F has a certain emotional rope to use up, you know. But this time I've really done He said, 'I'm ever so grateful to you.""You're grateful?" she said. " "Oh, God, don't you know that you've Pulled me through a very bad time? I shall get another special pass in a week, at most. Can we see each other then?" "Pam, I'm leaving day after tomorrow. Going back to Berlin for about a month or six weeks, and then home.... Hello? Pamela?" "I'm still here. You're going day after tomorrow?" "My orders were waiting at the embassy." After a long pause, in which he heard her breathing, she said, "You wouldn't want me to desert for two more days and take what comes. Would you? I'll do it." "It's no way to win a war, Pam." "No, it isn't, Captain. Well. This is an unexpected good-bye, then. But good-bye it is." 'Our paths will cross again." 'Oh, no doubt. But I firmly believe that Ted's alive and is coming back. I may well be a wife next time we meet. And that will be far more proper and easy all around. All the same, today was one of the happiest of my life, and that's unchangeable now." Victor Henry was finding it difficult to go on talking. The sad, kind tones of this young voice he loved were choking his throat; and there were no words available to his rusty tongue to tell Pamela what he felt. "I'll never forget, Pamela," he said awkwardly, clearing his throat. "I'll never forget one minute of it." 'Won't you? Good. Neither will I. Some hours weigh against a whole lifetime, don't they? I think they do. Well! Good-bye, Captain Henry, and safe journeyings. I hope you find all well at home." "Good-bye, Pam. I hope Ted makes it." Her voice broke a little. 'Somebody's coming for me. Good-bye." Fatigued but tensely awake, Victor Henry changed to civilian clothes and drifted to Fred Fearing's noisy airless hot apartment. A bomb bursting close by earlier in the week had blown in all the windows, which were blocked now with brown plywood. Fearins broadcast, describing his feelings under a shower of glass, had been a great success. "Where's la Tudsbury?" said Fearing, handing Victor Henry a cupful of punch made of gin and some purple canned juice. "Fighting Germans." 'Good show!" The broadcaster did a vaudeville burlesque of the Britishaccent. Pug sat in a corner of a dusty plush sofa under a plywood panel, watching the drinking and dancing, and wondering why he had come here. He saw a tall young girl in a tailored red suit, with long black hair combed behind her ears, give him one glance, then another. With an uncertain smile, at once bold and wistful, the girl approached. "HeHo there. Would you like more punch? You look important and lonesome." "I couldn't be less important. I'd like company more than punch. Please join me." The girl promptly sat and crossed magnificent silk-shod legs. She was prettier than Pamela, and no more than twenty. 'Let me guess. You're a general. Air Corps. They tend to be younger." "I'm just a Navy captain, a long, long way from home." "I'm Lucy Somerville. My mother would spank me for speaking first to a strange man. But everything's different in the war, isn't it?" "I'm Captain Victor Henry." "Captain Victor Henry. Sounds so American." She looked at him with impudent eyes. "I like Americans." "I guess you're meeting quite a few." "Oh, heaps. One nicer than the other." She laughed. "The bombing's perfectly horrible, but it is exciting, isn't it? Life's never been so exciting. One never knows whether one will be able to get home at night. It makes things interesting. I know girls who take their makeup and pajamas along when they go out in the evening. And dear old Mums can't say a word!" The girl's roguish, inviting glance told him that here probably was a random Hare of passion for the taking. Wartime London was the place, he thought; "nothing else holds fashion. But this girl was Madeline's age, and meant nothing to him; and he had just said a stodgy, cold, miserable good-bye to Pamela Tudsbury-He avoided her dancing eyes, and said something dull about the evening news. In a minute or so a strapping Army lieutenant approached and offered Lucy Somerville a drink, and she jumped up and was gone. Soon after, Pug left. Alone in the flat, he listened to a Churchill speech and went to bed. The last thing he did before turning out the light was to reread Rhoda's nostalgic, sentimental, and troubled letter. Something shadowy and unpleasant was there between the lines. He guessed she might be having difficulties with Madeline, though the letter did not mention the daughter's name. There was no point in dwelling on it, he thought.
He would be home in a couple of months. He fell asleep. Rhoda had slept with Dr. Kirby on the trip to Connecticut. That was the shadowy and unpleasant thing Pug half discerned. Proverbially the cuckold is the last to know his disgrace; no suspicion crossed his mind, though Rhoda's words were incautious and revealing. War not only forces intense new relationships; it puts old ones to the breaking stress. On the very day this paragon of faithfulness-as his Navy friends regarded him-had received his wife's letter, he had not made love to Pamela Tudsbury, mainly because the girl had decided not to bring him to it. Rhoda had fallen on the way back from New London. It had been unplanned and unforeseen. She would have recoiled from a cold blooded copulation. The back windows of the little tourist house, where she and Kirby had stopped for tea, looked out on a charming pond where swans moved among pink lily pads in a gray drizzle. Except for the old lady who served them, they were alone in this quiet relaxing place. The visit to Byron had gone well and the countryside was beautiful. They intended to halt for an hour, then drive on to New York. They talked of their first lunch outside Berlin, of the farewell at Tempelhof Airport, of their mutual delight at seeing each other in the Waldorf. The time flowed by, their tone grew more intimate. Then Palmer Kirby said, "How wonderfully cosy this place isle Too bad we can't stay here." And Rhoda Henry murmured, hardly believing that she was releasing the words from her mouth, "Maybe we could." Maybe we could! Three words, and a life pattern and a character dissolved. The old lady gave them a bedroom, asking no questions. Everything followed: undressing with a stranger, casting aside with her underclothes her modesty and her much-treasured rectitude, yielding to a torrent of novel sensations. To be taken by this large demanding man left her throbbing with animal pleasure. All her thoughts since then went back to that point in time, and there halted. Like a declaration of war, it drew a line across the past and started another era. The oddest aspect of this new life was that it was so much like the old one. Rhoda felt she had not really changed. She even still loved Pug. She was trying to digest all this puzzlement when she wrote to her husband. She did have twinges of silence, but she was surprised to find how bearable these were. In New York, Rhoda and Kirby heard in bright afternoon sunshine the Churchill broadcast which Pug had listened to late at night. Rhoda had chosen well the apartment for Madeline and herself. It faced south, across low brownstones. Sunshine poured in all day through white-draped windows, into a broad living room furnished and decorated in white, peach, and apple green. Photographs of Victor Henry and the boys stood in green frames on a white piano. Few visitors failed to comment on the genteel cheerfulness of the place. "He has lighted a fire which will burn with a steady and consuming flame, until the vestiges of Nazi tyranny have been burnt out of Europe.... OP Puffing at his pipe, Kirby slouched in an armchair and stared at the radio. "Marvellous phrasemaker, that man." "Do you think they'll actually hold off the Germans, Palmer?""What does Pug say?" 'He wrote a pessimistic letter when be first arrived there. He hasn't written again." 'Odd. He's been there a while." "Well, I tell myself if anything had happened to him I'd have heard. I do worry." "Naturally." The speech ended. She saw him glance at the watch on his hairy wrist. "When does your plane go?" "Oh, not for a couple of hours." He turned off the radio, strolled to the windows, and looked Out- "This is not a bad view. Radio City, the Empire State Building. Pity that apartment house blocks out the river." "I know what you'd like right now," She said. "What?" "Some tea. It's that time.-Answ,ring his sudden coarse grin with a half-coy, half-brazen smile, she hurriedly added, "I really mean tea, Mr. Palmer Kirby." "MY favorite drink, tea. Lately, anyway." "Don't be horrible, you! Well? Shall I make some?" "Of course. I'd love tea." "I suppose I should swear off it, since it was my downfall. Of all things." She walked toward the kitchen with a sexy sway. "If only I could plead baying been drunk, but I was sober as a minister's wife." He came to the kitchen and watched her Prepare the tea. Palmer Kirby liked to watch her move around, and his eyes on her made Rhoda feel young and fetching as They sat at a low table in the sunshine and she decorously poured tea and passed him buttered bread. The picture could not have been more placid and respectable. "Almost as good as the tea at Mrs. Murchison's guesthouse," Kirby said. "Almost." "Now never mind! How long will you be in Denver?" "Only overnight Then I have to come to Washington. Our board's going to meet with some British scientists. From the advance papers, they've got some remarkable stuff. "I'm sure they're surprising the Germans.""So! You'll be in Washington next." "Yes. Got a good reason to go to Washington?" "Oh, dear, Palmer, don't you realize I know everybody in that town, Absolutely everybody. And anybody I don't know, Pug knows.)' He said after a glum pause, "It's not very satisfactory, is it? I don't see myself as a homewrecker. Especially of a military man serving abroad." "Look, dear, I don't see myself as a scarlet woman. I've been to church both Sundays since. I don't feel guilty, but I do feel mighty curious, I'll tell you that." She poured more tea for him. "It must be the war, Palmer. I don't know. With Hitler bestriding Europe and London burning to the ground, all the old ideas seem, I don't know, NUVIAL or something. I Mean conpared to what's real at the moment-the swans out in back at Mrs. Murchison's place-those sweet pink lily pads, the rain, the gray cat-the tea, those funny doughy cakes-and you and me. That's as far as I've gotten." "I didn't tell you why I'm going to Denver." "No. "There's a buyer for my house. Wants to pay a tremendous price. I've told you about the house." "Yes, it sounds heavenly. Do you really want to let it go?" "I ratite around in it. I've been thinking, and it comes to this. Most of my friends are in Denver. The house is perfect to live in, to entertain in, to have my children and the grandchildren for visits. If I had a wife, I wouldn't sell it." He stopped, looking at her now with serious, large brown eyes filled with worried shyness. The look was itself a proposal of marriage. "What do you think, Rhoda?" -Oh, Palmer! Oh, heavenly days!" Rhoda's eyes brimmed. She was not totally astonished, but the relief was beyond description. This resolved the puzzlement. It had not been a crazy slip, after all, like that foolishness with Kip Tollever, but a grand passion. Grand passions were different. He said, 'That can't really be news to you. We wouldn't have stayed at Mrs. Murchison's if I hadn't felt this way." "Well! Oh, my lord. I'm proud and happy that you should think of me like that. Of course I am. But-Palmer!" She swept her hand almost gaily at the photographs on the piano. "I have friends who've married again in their fifties, Rhoda.
After divorces, some of them, and some are blissfully happy." Rhoda sighed, dashed her fingers to her eyes, and smiled at him. "Is it that you want to make an honest woman of me? That's terribly gallant, but unnecessary." Palmer Kirby leaned forward earnestly, tightening his large loose mouth. "Pug Henry is an admirable man. It didn't happen because you're a bad woman. There was a rift in your marriage before we met. There had to be." In a very shaky voice, Rhoda said, "Before I ever knew him, Pug was a Navy fullback. I saw him play in two Army-Navy games. I had a boyfriend who loved those games-let me talk, Palmer, maybe I'll collect myself. He was an aggressive, exciting player, this husky little fellow darting all over the field. Then, my stars, he BURST on me in Washington. The actual Pug Henry, whose picture had been in the papers and all that. The war was on. He looked dashing in blue and gold, I must say! Well, great heavens, he courted the way he played football. And he was very funny in those days. Pug has a droll wit, you know, when he bothers to use it. Well, all the boys I went with were just from the old Washington crowd, all in to the same schools, all cut out by the same cookie cutter, you might say. Pug was something different. He still is. For one thing, he's a very carious Christian, and you can bet that took a lot of getting used to! I mean right from the start it was a complicated thing. I mean it didn't seem to interfere at all with his ROMANCING, if I make myself clear, and yet-well, Pug is altogether unusual and wonderful. I'll always say that. I must bore Pug. I know he loves me, but-the thing is he is so Navy! Why, that man left me standing at my wedding reception, Palmer, for half an hour, while he drove his commanding officer to catch a train back to Norfolk! That's Victor Henry for you. But in twenty-five years-oh dear, now for the very first time I suddenly feel very, very wretched." Rhoda cried into her handkerchief, her shoulders shaking. He came and sat beside her. When she calmed down, she looked at him and said, "You go along to Denver, but ask yourself this. I've done this to Pug. Wouldn't you be thinking for ever and a day, if by some wild chance you got what you're asking for, that I'd do it to you? Of course you would. Why not?" He stood. "I'll keep that appointment in Denver, Rhoda. But I don't think I'll sell the house." "Oh, sell it! As far as I'm concerned, you go right ahead and sell that house, Palmer. I only think you yourself might regret it one day." "Good-bye, Rhoda. I'll telephone you from Washington. Sorry I missed Madeline this time. Give her my best." He said, glancing at the photographs'on the piano, "I think your kids would like me. Even that strange Byron fellow.""How could they fail to? That isn't the problem." She walked with him to the door. He kissed her like a husband going off on a trip. IEPTEMBERwas crisping the Berlin air and yellowing the leaves when s Pug got back. Compared to London under the blitz, the city looked at peace. Fewer uniforms were in sight, and almost no trucks or tanks. After beating France, Hitler had partially demobilized to free workers for the farms and factories. His remaining soldiers were not loafing around Berlin. Either they were poised for invasion on the coast, or they garrisoned France and Poland, or they guarded a thin prudent line facing the Soviet union. Only the air war showed its traces: round blue-gray snouts of flak guns poking above autumn leaves, flaxen-haired German children in a public square gawking at a downed Wellington. The sight of the forlorn British bomber-a twin of F for Freddie-with its red, white, and blue bull's-eye, gave Pug a sad twinge. He tried and failed to see the wrecked gasworks. Scowling Luftwaffe guards and wooden street barriers cordoned off the disaster. Goering had long ago announced that if a single British bomb ever fell on Berlin, the German people could call him Meyer. The evidence of Meyer's shortcomings was off limits. But Pug wondered how many Germans would have gone there anyway to look. These were weird people. In Lisbon, when he boarded the Lufthansa plane, Germany had then and there smitten him: the spotless interior, the heel-clicking steward, the fast service of food and drink, the harsh barking loudspeaker, and his seatmate, a fat be"pectacled blond doctor who clinked wineglasses with him and spoke warmly of the United States and of his sister in Milwaukee. The doctor expressed confidence that America and Germany would always be friends. Hitler and Roosevelt were equally great men and they both wanted peace. He deplored the ruthless murder of Berlin civilians by British bombers, as contrasted to the Luftwaffe's strict concentration on military targets. The R.A.F, he pointed out, painted the underside of their planes with a remarkable black varnish that rendered them invisible at night, and constantly changed altitude so that the A.A. batteries had trouble finding the range. That was how they had sneaked by. But these petty unfair tricks would avail them nothing. German science would find the answer in a week or two. The war was really over and won. The Luftwaffe was invincible. The British criminals responsible for dropping bombs on women and little children would soon have to face the bar of ustice. This man was exactly like a London music-hall burlesque German, complete to the squinting smile and the rolls of fat on his neck. Pug got tired of him. He said dryly that he had just come from London and that the Luftwaffe was getting beaten over England. The man at once froze, turned his back on Pug, and ostentatiously flourished an Italian newspaper with lurid picturesof London on fire. Then when Pug first returned to the Grunewald house, the art museum director who lived next door, a vastly learned little dark man named Dr. Baltzer, rushed over, dragging a game leg, to offer his neighbor a drink and to chat about the imminent British collapse. Besides being obliging neighbors, the Baltzers had invited the Henrys to many interesting exhibitions and parties. Mrs. Baltzer had become Rhoda's closest German friend. Tactfully, Pug tried to tell his neighbor that the war wasn't going quite the way Goebbels's newspapers and broadcasters pictured it. At the first hint that the R.A.F was holding its own, the little art expert bristled and went limping out, forgetting his offer to give Pug a drink. And this was a man who had hinted many times that the Nazis were vulgar ruffians and that Hitler was a calamity. This was what now made Berlin completely intolerable. The Germans had balled themselves into one tight fist. The little tramp had his one Reich, one people, one leader," that he had so long screeched for. Victor Henry, a man of discipline, understood and admired the stiff obedient efficiency of these people, but their mindless shutting out of facts disgusted him. It was not only stupid, not only shameless; it was bad warmaking. The "estimate of the situation"-a phrase borrowed by the Navy from Prussian military doctrine-had to start from the facts. When Ernst Grohke telephoned to invite him to lunch shortly after His return, he accepted gladly. Grohke was one of the few German military men he knew who seemed to retain some common sense amid the Nazi delirium. In a restauraiat crowded with uniformed Party officials and high military brass, the submariner griped openly about the war, especially the way Gijring had botched the Battle of Britain. From time to time he narrowed his eyes and glanced over one shoulder and the other, an automatic gesture in Germany when talking war or politics. "We'll still win," he said. "They'll try all the dumb alternatives and then they'll get around to it." "To what?" Pug said. 'Blockade, of course. The old English weapon turned against them. They can't blockade us. We've got the whole European coast open from the Baltic all the way around to Turkey. Even Napoleon never had that. But England's got a negative balance of food and fuel that has to choke her to death. If Goering had just knocked out harbors this summer and sunk sbi, -adding that to the tremendous score our U-boats and magnetic mines have been piling up-England would already be making aproaches through the Swiss and the Swedes." He calmly lifted both hands upward. "No alternative! We're sinking them all across the Atlantic. They don't have the strength to convoy. If they did, our new tactics and torpedoes would still lick them. Mind you, we started way under strength on U-boats, Victor. But finally denitz convinced Raeder, and Raederconvinced the Fuhrer. After Poland, when England turned down the peace offer, we started laying keels by the dozens. They begin coming off the ways next January. An improved type, a beauty. Then-four, five months, half a milliod tons sunk a month, and phfffi-Churchill kaput. You disagree?" Grohke grinned at him. The small U-boat man wore a well-tailored purplish tweed suit and a clashing yellow bow tie. His face glowed with sunburned, confident good health. "Come on. You don't have to sympathize. We all know your President's sentiments, hen? But you understand the sea and you know the situation." Pug regarded Grohke wryly. He rather agreed with this estimate. "Well, if Goering really will switch to blockade, and if you do have a big new fleet of 'em coming along-but that's a couple of big if's." "You doubt my word?" "I wouldn't blame you for expanding a bit." "You're all right, Victor." Grohke laughed. "Goddamn. But I don't have to expand. You'll see, beginning in January." "Then it may get down to whether we come in." The U-boat man stopped laughing. 'Yes. That's the question. But now your President sneaks a few old airplanes and ships to England, and he can't even face your Congress with that. Do you think your people will go for sending out American warships to be sunk by U-boats? Roosevelt is a tough guy, but he is afraid of your people." "Well! Ernst Grohke and Victor Henry! The two sea dogs, deciding the war." The banker Wolf Steller was bowing over them, thin sandy hair plastered down, cigarette holder sucking out of his smile. "Victor, that is a beautiful new suit. Savile Row?" "Yes, as a matter of fact." "Unmistakable. Well, it will be a pleasure to start ordering clothes there again. There are no tailors like the British. I say, how far along are you gentlemen? Come and join us. just a few pleasant chaps at our table." "No thank you, Herr Steller," Pug said. "I must get back to my office quickly." "Of course. I say, Ernst, did you tell Captain Henry you're coming to Abendruh this weekend? Victor's an old Abendrub visitor, you know. By jove! Why don't you come along this time, Victor? Twice lately you've said no, but I'm not proud. You and your old friend Ernst can tell each other big sea lies all weekend! Do say yes. There will be just two or three other spjendid fellows. And some lovely ladies, not all ofthem attached." Under Victor Henry's quick glance, Grohke smiled unnaturally and said, "Well, that's not a bad idea, is it?" "All right," said the American. It was quite clear to him now what was going on and why Grohke had called him. "Thank you very much." "Grand. Ripping. See you on Friday," said the banker, clapping Victor Henry on the shoulder. After this, the talk of the two naval officers was lame and sparse. Ernst Grohke busied himself with his food, not looking much at Pug. That same afternoon, to Victor Henry's surprise, his yeoman rang him and said Natalie Jastrow was on the line from Siena. "Jehosephat! Put her on." "Hello? Hello? What happened? I was calling Captain Henry in Berlin." The girl's voice was muffled and burbling. "Here I am, Natalie." "Oh, hello! Is Byron all right?" "He's fine." -Oh, what a relief!" The interference on the line stopped. Natalie's voice came clear. "I haven't had a single letter from him since I left. I sent a cable and got no answer. I know how impossible the mail is nowadays, but still I've begun to worry." 'Natalie, he hasn't had any letters from you. He wrote me that. And I'm sure he didn't get your cable. But he's in good shape." "Why, I've been writing once a week. How aggravating that is! I miss him so. How's he doing in submarine school?" Outside Victor Henry's window, the guard was changing at the chancellery, with rhythmic boot-thumpings and brisk German barks. Natalie's telephone voice stirred an ache in him. The New York accent was different from Pamela's, but it was a young low girlish voice like hers. 'Scraping by, I gather." Her laugh, too, was much like Pamela's, husky and slightly mocking. 'That sounds right." "Natalie, he expected you back long before this." "I know. There were problems, but they're straightening out. Be sure to tell him I'm fine. Siena's quite charming in wartime, and very peaceful.
It's sort of sinking back into the Middle Ages, Byron's got three months to go, hasn't he?" "He finishes in December, if they don't throw him out sooner." Again the laugh. "They won't. Briny is actually very sure "footed, you know. I'll be back by December. Please write and tell him that. Maybe a letter from you will get through." "It will. I'll write today." It was a small gathering at Abendruh, with no staircase slide. Pug was sorry that Ernst Grohke didn't see the crude elaborate joke, so much to the Teutonic taste. The submariner obviously was ill at ease, and could have used the icebreaker. The other men were a Luftwaffe general and a high official in the foreign ministry, company far above Grohke. The five pretty ladies were not wives. Mrs. Stiller was absent. Victor Henry sized all this up as an orgy in the making, to get him hat to his surprise, they went to talk about the British. After dinner, somew to a wood-panelled room where musical instruments were ready, and Steller, the Luftwaffe general, the man from the foreign ministry, and a the banker had redheaded lady played quartets. In Pug's previous visits hown no musical skill, but Steller played first violin quite well. The Luftwaffe general, a very tall dark cadaverous man with sickly hollow eyes, bowed and swayed over the cello, drawing forth luscious sounds. Pug had seen this man once before, at a distance at Karinhall in full uniform; he had looked far more formidable then than he did now in his dinner jacket and monocle. The musicians made mistakes, stopped a couple of times, joked stly, and took up the music once more. The foreign ministry man on the second violin, a roly-poly Bavarian with a drooping yellow mustache, was a superb fiddler. It was the best amateur music Pug had ever heard. Grohke sat with the submissiveness of most Germans in the presence of art, drinking a lot of brandy and stifling yawns. After a couple of hours of this, the ladies abruptly said goodnight and left. If there had been a signal, Pug missed it. "Perhaps we might have a nightcap outside," said the banker to Pug, putting his violin carefully in its case. "The evening is warm. Do you like the tone of my Stradivarius? I wish I were worthy to play it." The broad stone terrace looked out on a formal garden, a darkly splashing fountain, and the river; beyond that, forest. A smudged orange moon in its last quarter was rising over the trees. In the light of reddishyellow flares on long iron poles, shadows danced on the house and the flagstone floor. The five sat, and a butler passed drinks. Melodious birds sang in the quiet night, reminding Pug (men) of the nightingales at the British bomber base. "Victor, if you care to talk about England," said Steller from the depths of an easy chair, his face in black shadow, "we would of course be interested." Pug forced a jocular tone. "You mean I have to admit I've been in England?"The banker heavily took up the note. "Ha, ha. Unless you want to get our intelligence people in bad trouble, you'd better." After everybody else laughed, he said, "If you prefer, we'll drop the subject here and now for the weekend. Cur hospitality hasn't got-how do you say it in English?"-he switched from the German they were all speaking-"strings tied to it." But you're in an unusual position, having travelled between the capitals." "Well, if you want me to say youpve shot the R.A.F out of the sky and the British Will quit next week, it might be better to drop it now." In a gloomy bass voice, the long shadowy form of the general spoke. 'We know we haven't shot the R.A.F out of the sky. 'Speak freely. General jagow is my oldest friend," said Steller. " we were schoolboys together. And Dr. Meusse"-he waved an arm at the foreign ministry man, and a long skeletal shadow arm leaped on the wallgoes back almost that far." 'We say in the Luftwaffe," put in the general, "the red flag is up. That means we all talk straight. We say what we think about the Fuhrer, about Goering, about anything and anybody. And we say the goddamnedest things, I tell you." 'Okay, I like those ground rules," said Victor Henry. "Fire away." 'Would an invasion succeed?" spoke up Dr. Meusse. 'What invasion? Can your navy get you across?" "Why not?" said General jagow in calm professional tones. "Through a corridor barricaded on both sides by mine belts, and cordoned off by U-boats, under an umbrella of Luftwaffe? Is it so much to ask of the Grand Fleet?" Pug glanced at Grohke, who sat glumly swirling brandy in a bell glass. 'You've got a U-boat man here. Ask him about the cordons and the mine belts." With an impatient gesture that flicked brandy into the air, Grohke said, in thick tones, "Very difficult, possibly suicidal, and worst of all, entirely unnecessary." General jagow leaned toward Grohke, his monocle glittering in the flare light, his face stiff with anger. Pug exclaimed, "Red flag's up. "So it is," jagow said, with an unforgiving glare at the submariner, who slouched down in darkness. "I agree with him," Pug said. "Part of a landing force might get through-not saying in what shape. There's still the invasion beacheswhich I've seen close on. Which I personally would hate to approach from seaward.""Clearing beach obstacles is a technical task," jagow said, with a swift return to offhand tones. "We have special sappers well trained for that." "General, our marine corps has been studying and rehearsing beach assaults intensively for years. It's the toughest attack problem in the book. I don't believe the Webrmacht ever thought about it until a few weeks ago." "German military ingenuity is not negligible," said Dr. Meusse. "No argument," said Victor Henry. jagow said, "Of course we can't land without wastage. We would take big but endurable losses. Once we obtained a solid lodgment, you might see Churchill fall. The Luftwaffe would fight for the beachhead to the last plane. But I believe the R.A.F would run out of planes first." Victor Henry made no comment. "What is the bombing of London doing to British morale?" Steller asked. "You're making Churchill's job easier. They're fighting mad now. Knocking hell out of London won't win the war. Not in my judgment. Not to mention that bombers can fly east as well as west." The general and the banker looked at each other. The general's voice was sepulchral. "Would it surprise you if some people here agreed with you?" "Churchill cleverly provoked the Fuhrer by bombing Berlin on the twenty-sixth," said Steller. 'We had to hit back, for morale reasons. The trick worked, but the British people must now pay. There's no political alternative but a big reprisal." 'Let's be honest," said Dr. Meusse. "Field Marshal Goering wanted to go after London and try to end it." jagow shook his head. "He knew it was too soon. We all did. It was those six days of bad weather that saved the R.A.F. We needed another week against those airfields. But in the long run it will all be the same." Steller said, "They're a brave people. I hate to see them prolong the agony." "They don't seem to mind," Victor Henry said. "By and large, they're having a good time. They think they're going to win." 'There is the weakness," said Dr. Meusse, pulling on his mustache.
"National megalomania. When a people loses touch with reality, it is finished." ' Stiller lit a thick cigar. "Absolutely. The course of this war is fixed now by statistics-That is my department. Would you care to hear them?" "Gladly. Especially if you'll give away some secrets," said Victor Henry, evoking friendly laughter from all the Germans except Grohke. The submariner was sunk in gloom or sleep. "No secrets," said Steller. 'The financial stuff may be a little new to you. But take my word for it, my figures are right." 'I'm sure of that." "Good. England lives at the end of-how would you put it-a revolving bucket chain of ships. She always has. This time the buckets are being shot off the chain faster than she can replace them. She started the war with about twenty million tons of shipping. Her own, and what she could scrape up elsewhere. That tonnage is disappearing fast. The rate now is-what's the latest?" He spoke condescendingly to Grohke. The submariner covered a yawn. "That figure is secret. Victor must have a damn good idea from what he heard in London." Pug said, 'I have." "All right. Then you know the curve is upward. Nothing else matters in this war. England will soon run out of fuel and food, and that will be that. When her machines stop, and her planes are grounded, and her people are clamoring for food, Churchill will fall. There's no way out." 'Isn't there? My country has a lot of fuel and food-and steel and shipyards too-and we're open for business.)) The banker coldly smiled. -yes, but your Neutrality Act requires that England pay cash for everything. Cash and carry. That is the one sensible thing your people learned from the last war, when England repudiated her war debts. Roosevelt, Willkie, it doesn't matter now. There isn't a chance-you bear me out on this, Victor-that your Congress will ever make another war loan to England. Will they? " "No." cd All right. Then she is kaput. She started the war with about five billions in foreign exchange. Our intelligence is she's already spent more than four. The planes and supplies and ships she needs right now to keeping will wipe out the last billion or SO like a snowball on a hot stove.
By December the British Empire will be broke. Bankrupt! You see, dear fellow, they got into a war they couldn't fight and couldn't pay for. That is the simple fact. And it was the political genius of the Fuhrer, Victorwhatever you think of him-to foresee this, through all the fog of the future. just as he foresaw that the French wouldn't fight. Staunch leadership brings victory." Steller leaned forward, with a disdainful hand-wave. "Yes, Churchill's words are very eloquent, very touching, very spiritual. But he was England's worst Chancellor of the Exchequer. He hasn't the slightest notion of logical or financial realities. Neither has had. His pretty literary soap bubbles are all going to pop. Then there will be peace." Dr. Meusse put in, "We are sinking ships now at a raic we never reached until the best months of 1917. Do you know that?" "I know that," said Captain Henry. "And as I said to Ernst the other day, that's when we came in." The silence on the terrace lasted a long time. Then Wolf Steller said, "And that is the world tragedy that must not occur now, Victor-Germany and America, the two great anti-Bolshevik powers, going to war. The only victor will be Stalin." The voice of Grohke, coarse and fuddled, issued from the depths of his chair. "It won't happen. It'll all be over too fast. Wait till January, when we get ourselves some U-boats." The weekend proved cold, dull, rainy, and-for Pug-very heavy on music and culture. The five ladies, all in their thirties, all mechanically flirtatious, were available for talks for walks, for dancing; and when the rain briefly stopped, for tennis. Pug assumed they were available for the night, too. He had trouble telling them apart. Ernst Grohke slept a lot and left early on Sunday. The other three men had been indifferent to the submariner, though markedly warm and agreeable to Victor Henry. Obviously Grohke had served his purpose. Obviously his telephone call and the encounter with Steller in the restaurant had been arranged. These big shots were incapable of carrying further a pretense of cordiality to a German four-striper. an Pug was asked, and he swered, many more questions about his trip to England. Except for one probe by the gaunt Luftwaffe man about the radar stations-which Pug answered with a blank, stupid look-there was no effort to pump hard intelligence out of him. Rather, there seemed to be an effort to pump him full of German politics, philosophy, and poetry. These three old comrades were mightily fond of intellectual talk, and kept pressing on Henry books from Steller's library that came up in conversation. He tried to read them at bedtime. After fifteen minutes, night after night, he fell into deep restful slumber. Germany's strange literature usually had that effect on Victor Henry. He had long since given up trying to understand the fantastic seriousness with which Germans took themselves, their "world-historical" position, and every twist and Turn of their murky history since Charlemagne. From a military standpoint, all this river of ink about German destiny, German culture, German spirituality, Germanophilism, pan-Germanism, and the rest, kept underliningone fact. Here was an industrial people of eighty million that had spent a century uniting itself, talking to itself, rolling up its sleeves to lick the world, and convincing itself that God would hold Germany's coat and cheer it on. That was worth bearing in mind. The sun broke through late Sunday when they were having cocktails on the terrace. Steller offered to show Victor Henry his prize pigs, and walked him a long way down the river to the pens. Here amid a great stink, the host told Henry the pedigrees of several remarkably large hairy porkers, lying in muck and hungrily grunting. As they strolled back, the banker said, "Have you been badly bored, Victor?" 'y, not in the least," Pug lied. "I know it's been a different sort of weekend. Meusse and jagow are very spiritual fellows. We have been pals forever. jagow was my first real contact with Goering. Before that I was very close to von Papen, who as you know was the Nazis' biggest opponent, until he himself in 1933 saw where destiny was pointing. He actually made Hitler chancellor." Steller idly struck at purple flowering thistles with his heavy black stick, knocking off thier heads. The broken flowers gave off a fresh rank smell. "Jagow thinks the world of you." "He plays a hell of a cello," said Pug, "for a fly-fly boy." "Yes. He is brilliant. But he is not well. Victor, he especially appreciates your willingness to talk about England. Most friendly of you." "I haven't revealed anything. Not intentionally." Steller laughed. 'You're an honorable servant of your government. Still, your observations have been illuminating. What strikes all of us is your sense of honor. Honor is everything to a German. Flattery made Pug Henry uncomfortable. He met it with silence and a dulled look. "If there's anything that General jagow could do for you, I know it would give him pleasure." "That's very kind, but not that I know of." "Installations you might care to visit?" "Well, our air attache would jump at such an invitation." "As you wish. jagow would take a more personal interest in you. "There's one thing, a bit out of the ordinary. Am R.A.F pilot, a good friend of mine, went down in the Channel several weeks ago. Your people might have picked him up."With a wave of the knobby stick, Steller said, "That should be simple to find out. Give jagow this pilot's name, rank, and so forth. You'll have your answer shortly." "I'll be much obliged." "If your friend is a prisoner, you might even be able to visit him." "That would be great." Wolf Steller called him early in October, when Victor Henry had almost forgotten the strange weekend. "Your man is alive." "Who is?" Steller reeled off Gallard's name, rank, and serial number. "He is in France, sdE in a hospital but in good condition. General jagow invites you, as his personal guest, to visit Luftwaffe Headquarters close by. You are invited as a friend, not as an American attache. This telephone call is the only communication there will be. No reciprocity is necessary." After a moment Pug said, "Well, that's good news. The general is mighty kind." "As I told you, you made a hit with him." "I'll have to call you back." "Of course." The charge d'affaires, when Pug told him about this, drooped his eyes almost shut, leaned back in his chair, and ran his thumb back and forth on his mustache. "The Luftwaffe man wants something of you." "Naturally." "Well, you have my approval. Why not jump at it? You might learn something, and you'll see this flier. Who is he?" "Well-he's engaged to the daughter of a friend of mine." The charge's eyes opened a little wider and he stroked his mustache. Pug felt pressed to add something. "Alistair Tudsbury's daughter, in fact." "Oh, he's Pam's fiance, is he? Lucky boy. Well, by all means go ahead and see how Pam Tudsbury's fiance is," said the charge, with a wisp of irony that did not escape, and that irritated, Victor Henry. The weather was bad. Pug went to Lille by train. Rail travel was surprisingly back to normal in German-ruled Europe. The train left on time and roared through tranquil rainy autumn landscapes. Germany, Belgium, and northern France looked all alike in October mist and drizzle, one large flat plain of farms, evergreens, and yellowing trees. The cities looked alike too, hodgepodges of ornate venerable buildings at the center, rimmed by severe modern structures; some were untouched by the war, some were scarred and blotched with rubble. In the crowded restaurant car, amiably chatting Germans, Dutchmen, Frenchmen, Belgians, a few with wives, wined and dined amid rich good smells and a cheery clatter. Uniformed Wehrmacht officers, at a table apart, glanced with contempt at the civilians and gave the scurrying waiters curt commands. Otherwise it was business as usual under the New Order,except for the absence of Jews. The Jews had been the busiest travellers in Europe, but on this train none were to be seen. In the Berlin-Lille express, the Third Reich looked a good bet to last a thousand years, by right of natural superiority and the ability to run things. Trains headed the other way, jammed with cheerful young troops, gave Victor Henry his first solid hint that the invasion-if it had ever been on-might be off. An emissary of General jagow, a rigid thin lieutenant with extra gold braid on a shoulder, a splotch of ribbons, and a twitching eye muscle, met the American naval officer at the station, drove him to a grimy stone building with a facade of wet statues in the middle of Lille, and left him in a cheerless, windowless little office containing an ink-stained desk and two chairs. The dusty yellow walls had clean squares and oblongs where pictures of French officials had been removed. Behind the desk was a bright new red, white, and black swastika flag, and the popuJar picture of Hitler scowling in his soldier's coat, cowlick falling over one eye, a photo crudely touched up to make him look younger. The room had the loudest-ticking pendulum wall clock Pug had ever heard; its face was green and faded with age, The door opened. A helmeted German soldier with a submachine gun tramped in, wheeled at the desk, and crashed his boots to stiff attention. Gallard followed him, his right arm in a sling, his face puffy, discolored, and bandaged, and behind him came the lieutenant with the twitching eye. The pilot wore his flying suit, in which large rips were crudely patched up. "Hello, Ted," said Victor Henry. Gallard said, with a look of extreme surprise, "Hello there!" A dressing on his lower lip and chin muffled his speech. In quick precise German, the lieutenant told Captain Henry that, since British airmen were honor bound by their orders to seize every chance to escape, General jagow could not-to his regret-omit the precaution of an armed guard. There was no time for that. The soldier would not interfere. He had no knowledge of English. He was instructed to shoot at the first move to escape, so the lieutenant begged the gentlemen to avoid any gestures that might confuse him. As to the content of the interview, the general left it wholly to the honor of Captain Henry. If there were no questions, he would now withdraw. "How do I let you know when we're through?" Pug jerked a thumb at the blank-faced soldier. "If I get up and walk toward the door, for instance, that might confuse him." "Very true." The lieutenant inclined his head and his eye twitched. "Then kindly raise the telephone for a few moments and replace it in the cradle. I will then return. Permit me to mention that the general hopes you will join him for lunch at advance headquarters, a drive of forty kilometers from here." As the door closed, Pug pulled out his cigarettes, and lit one for the Pilot. "Ah! God bless you." Gallard inhaled the smoke as a man emerging from under water gulpsair. "Does Pam know? Did anybody see me parachute?" "One of your mates claimed he had. She's sure you're alive." 'Good. Now you can tell her." "That'll be a rare pleasure." The wall clock ticked very loudly. Flicking the cigarette clumsily with his left hand, Gallard glanced at the guard, who stood like a post, machine gun slanted in his white-knuckled hands. The beetling line of the German helmet gave the farm-boy face a stern, statuesque look. "Puts a bit of a chill on the small talk, eh?" "He's rather a ripe one," Pug said. The guard, staring straight ahead, was giving off a co -upt unwashed smell in the close little room, though his smooth-shaven face was clean enough. "Rather. I say, this is the surprise of my life. I thought I was in for a rough grilling, or maybe for getting whisked off to Germany. They never told me a thing, except that I'd get shot if I misbehaved. You must have good friends in the Luftwaffe." What do you want me to tell Pamela?" 'Will you be seeing her?" "I don't think so. I'm going back to Washington shortly. I can wire or write her." "There's so much to tell. First of all, I'm all right, more or less. Some burns around the face and neck." He lifted the slung arm. "Luckily the bullet only broke the bone, didn't shatter it. I can't fault the medical attention. The food's been bloody awful-moldy black bread, vile margarine with a petroleum aftertaste, soup full of rotten potatoes. The other day it mysteriously improved. just in my ward. Last night we had a really passable stew, through it might have been Lille cats and dogs. Tasted good. I suppose all that was apropos of your little visit. I'm terribly grateful to you. Really, it's splendid that you've managed to do this, Captain Henry. How is Pam? Tell me about her. When did you last see her? How did she look?" "I saw her several times after you disappeared. She'd come down to London, and I'd take her to dinner and to cheerful places. For a while she was peaky and wouldn't eat. But she was coming around. Practically the last thing she told me was that she expected you back. That she was goidg to wait for you and marry you." The pilot's eyes grew moist, "She's aMarvelous girl, Pamela." He looked around at the guard. "Say, he does smell bad, doesn't he?" Watching the soldier's dull unchanging face, he said in an offhand tone, "Will you look at that face? Explains a lot, doesn't it? Eighty million docile dangerous swine like this fellow. No wonder Hitler's their leader." There was not a flicker in the soldier's eyes. "I really don't think he understands English." "Don't count on it," said Pug, dry and fast. "Well, tell her I admit she was right. When I get back I'll take the headquarters job. That's where I belong." He shook his head. "Silly clot that I am. These jerries were ahead of me and below, Me-ri o's, three sitters-a great chance. But I missed my shot, didn't pull up in time, dove right down between them, and next thing I knew I felt a slam on the shoulder, just like a very hard punch. My engine caught fire. I pulled back hard on my stick and by God it was loose as a broken neck. I looked around and saw I had no tail section. Shot clean off. Well, I released the hood and the harness pin, and crawled out of there. I don't even remember getting burned, but the flames got to my face, mostly around the mouth. I only felt it when the salt water stung." Gallard sighed and glanced around the room, his dejected eyes coming to rest on the rigid malodorous soldier. "And here I am. What's happening in the war? The Hun doctors say it's practically over. Of course that's a lie." Victor Henry made his account as cheerful as possible. The pilot nodded and brightened. "That's more like it." The clock ticked. The soldier startled them by contorting his face and sneezing twice. Tears ran down his face, but he stood rigid as before. "Ruddy idiotic," said Gallard, 'that you'll walk out of here to lunch with a Luftwaffe general, and I'll still be a prisoner at gunpoint. I suppose You'd better be cracking off." "No hurry. Take a few cigarettes. I'd give you the pack, but Rosebud might think it was funny business and get confused." "Ha! Rosebud is good. Damned thoughtful of you, sir." Gallard pulled out several cigarettes, and then impulsively extended the pack toward the soldier. The German's eyes shifted down and up, and he briefly shook his head like a horse driving off Hies. Gallard chain-lit a cigarette. "Look here, I don't know how you've managed this, but thank you. Thank you! It's helped more than you can guess." "Well, it was mainly luck, but I'm glad I tracked you down." With a distorted grin-the left side of Gallard's bandaged mouth seemed frozen-the pilot said, "Of course Pam thinks you can do anything." Pug glanced up at the old clock. The numbers were too faded to read, but the hands werealmost closed at noon. "I guess I'd better not keep the general waiting." "Certainly not, sir." The pilot looked at the guard and added, "Anyway, while I'll never forget Rosebud, he's making me ill." The clock pock-pocked a dozen times while Victor Henry held the telephone receiver up off the hook. He replaced it. "Tell Pam I'll be seeing her," said Gallard, in firm tones implying an intention to escape. 'Be careful." "Trust me for that. I've got a lot to live for, you know. You're elected to be best man, if you're witmn a thousand miles." "If I am, I'll come." Driving through Lille, Pug marked again, as he had in the restaurant car, how German rule had serenely settled in. In the drizzly gray streets and boulevards of this large industrial town, the French were going about their business, directed by French policemen, driving French cars with French license plates, amid French shops and billboards. Only here and there an official poster in heavy black German type, a sign on a street or over a building entrance-often containing the word oTEN-and the jarring sight of German soldiers cruising in army cars, reminded one that Hitler was the master of Lille. No doubt the city was being politely and methodically plundered. Pug had heard about the techniques: the worthless occupation currency with which the Germans bought up most things, and the meaningless custody receipts given by outright looters. But the process was nowhere visible. The busy pedestrians of Lille looked glum, but Victor Henry had never seen the French when they were not looking glum. Here, as on the train, the New Order appeared good for a thousand years. In a tall LuftwafFe cap, shiny black boots, and a slick blue-gray milary raincoat to it his ankles, the cello player looked taller, leaner, and considerably fiercer. The lieutenant's slavish bows and heel clicks, the scrambling obsequiousness of everybody at headquarters, amply showed that jagow was most high brass. He offered Victor Henry his choice of a decent lunch at a "rather comfortable" chateau nearby, commandeered by the Luftwaffe, or a mere bite here at the airfield. Nodding approval of Pug's preference, he doffed his raincoat, dropping it from his shoulders without looking around at the lieutenant who caught it. On a cloth-covered table in an inner office, the general and his guest ate soup, trout, veal, cheese, and fruit, all served up in gold-trimmed china by gliding, smiling French waiters, with three superb wines. General jagow picked at the food and hardly tasted the wine. Recognizing the cyanosed pallor of heart trouble, Victor Henry made no comment. He was hungry and dug in heartily while the general smoked cigarettes and talked, in a clipped exact German which his lieutenant evidently had been imitating. Often he interrupted himself to cover his mouth and cough carefully.
The United States Navy, jagow said, was the only military machine in the world professionally comparable to the German army. He had visited it as an observer in the thirties, and had brought back to Goering the dive-bombing idea. So the Luftwaffe had developed the Stuka. 'Whether you approve or not," he said with a tired smile, "the success of our blitzkrieg owes a sizable debt to your Navy." "Well, maybe we'll take that bow after the war, General." The American Army, jagow went on with a wry nod at Pug's irony, was in no way comparable. The doctrine and practice, like that of all modern armies, derived from German General Staff concepts. But he had noticed an amateurishness, a lack of.spirit in the maneuvers, and the numbers were pitiful. Essentially, the United States was a great sea power, he said, linking the two world oceans. The state of the armed forces reflected that geopolitical fact. That started him on Spengler, who he said had failed, like all too many Germans, to understand the United States. That was the fallacy in 'The Decline of the West. The United States was white Christian Europe again, given a second chance on a rich virgin continent. America allied to a modernized orderly Europe could bring on a vast rebirth of the West, a new golden age. At least this was what Pug made out of the general's cloudy high-flown talk, so much like the evening conversations at Aberidruh. Over the coffee-terrible stuff tasting like burned walnut shellsjagow said, "Would you care to have a look at the aerodrome? The weather is rather disagreeable." "I'd like that very much, if one of your aides can spare the time." The weary smile reappeared. "I finished my work on this campaign long ago. The rest is up to the field commanders. I am at your disposal." They drove around the aerodrome in a small closed car, full of the sulphurous fumes of German gasoline. In wan sunlight, from holes of bright blue opening in the low overcast sky, stubby Messerschmitt log's stood half-concealed in dispersal bunkers, their painted crosses and swastikas much the worse for wear. It was just like a British fighter base: repair shops, hangars, dispersal huts, crisscrossing air strips, set among peaceful farms, and rolling pastures where herds of cows grazed. Fading signs in French showed that this was an expanded base of the defeated French air force. Most of the buildings were raw new structures of wood or cement. Cracked old landing strips stood beside broad fresh ones like autobahns. "You've done all this since June?" said Pug. "Pretty good." jagow for a moment looked like a flattered old man, showing his sparse teeth in a pleased soft grin. "You have the professional eye. The Western newspaper smart alecks want to know why the Luftwaffe waited six precious weeks before commencing the attack. What do they know about logistics?" While Hitler left the operation of the air force strictly to Goering, said the general, he hadinsisted on one point which showed his military genius. After the conquest of the Low Countries and northern France, advanced air bases had had to be set up on his orders. Only then would he allow the Luftwaffe to strike at England. Advanced bases would double or triple German air power. The same plane could make two or three times as many attacks in the same number of hours, and-on these shortened runs kilograms of bombs could replace kilograms of gasoline. "The simplest strategic thinking," said jagow, "and the soundest." They visited a dispersal hut, where worn-looking German youngsters, strangely like the R.A.F fighter pilots, lounged in flying suits, ready to go. But when they saw jagow they sprang to attention as the British pilots never had. The hut was roughly built, and the plump simpering pinup girls on the wooden walls, next to mime(more) ographed watch notices and regulations, offered doughy German sexiness rather than the bony Anglo-American variety. Otherwise it was all the same, including the mildewy smell of bedding and flying clothes. As jagow's car drove along the field, an air raid siren went off. Pilots came scrambling out of their huts. "Stop the car," he said to the driver, adding to Victor Henry, "A nuisance raid, high level. A sound tactic, we must respond and it throws our pilots off balance. But the British pay with a lot of bombers. Flimsy planes, poorly armed. Shall we get out and watch?" Messerschmitt after Messerchmitt wheeled into position and roared off, a steady stream of steep-climbing fighters. "TO Me this is a depressing sight," said jagow, hugging his lean body in the shiny long coat with both arms, as though chilled. "Germans fighting Englishmen. Diamond cut diamond. It is civil war in the West, plain suicidal foolishness. The English could have a decent honorable peace tomorrow. That bulldog Churchill is counting on one thing and one thing only-American help." "General, he's counting on the courage of his people and the quality of his air force." "Captain Henry, if Roosevelt cut off all help and told Churchill he wanted to mediate a peace, how long would this war go on?" "But that's impossible. "Very true, because your President is surrounded by Morgenthals, Frankfurters, and Lehmans." General jagow held up a long skinny hand in a long gray glove as Pug started to protest. "I am not a Nazi. I came into the Luftwaffe from the army. Don't ever think anti-Semitism is aGerman problem. Ah over EuroPe the attitude toward the Jews is exactly the same. The Fuhrer has been realistic in spelling it out, that's all. Some of his Party followers have committed silly excesses. But you can't indict a whole people for the crudeness of a few. Those American Jews around Roosevelt make the same mistake that our Nazi fanatics do.n "General jagow," Pug broke in earnestly, "You can't make a greater mistake than to believe that the Jews are behind our hostility to Hitler's regime." He was hoping to penetrate this hardened German obsession just once. Jagow was unusually intelligent. "A lot of our people deeply admire the Germans. I do. But some things Hitler has done are unforgivable to any American." "Things Hitler has done!" jagow sighed, his eyes heavy and sad. "I'll tell you something that may amaze you, Captain. When we took Poland, It was we Germans who stopped the Poles from murdering the jews-They took our arrival as a signal to let loose. It was like open season on Jews! The atrocities were unbelievable. Yes, our Wehrrnacht had to step in and shield the Jews from the Poles." The general coughed hard. "I am not pretending we love the Jews. I don't claim they should love us. 1 re tr gi all actually understand the Morgenthals. But they' a c y wrong. The United States must not allow a war to the death between England and Germany. We are all one civilization. We are the West. If we fight it out among ourselves we'll go down before Asiatic Bolshevism. There will be barbaric darkness for a thousand years." jagow fell silent, his hollow, somewhat feverish eyes boring at Pug. Then he put out a long stiff finger. 'If there were only a few strong advisers to give your President this viewpoint! But those advisers who aren't Jewish are of British descent. It's a damnable situation. We'll beat the British, Captain Henry. We have the power. We never intended to fight them. The Fuhrer could have built a thousand submarines and strangled England in three months. He never emphasized U-boats. You know that. What do we gain by such a victory? We only crush our finest natural ally." "Well, General, you attacked Poland when she was England's ally. You made the deal with Stalin. Those things are done." "They were forced on us." Behind a gloved hand, jagow coughed long and genteelly. 'We are a strange people, Captain Henry, hard for others to understand. We are very generous, very naive. Always we are reaching for the stars. To others we seem insensitive and arrogant. Our English cousins are every bit as arrogant, I assure you. Ah, but what a manner theycultivated! They despise their Jews. They keep them out of the clubs where power is concentrated, and the banks, and all vital positions. But they act politely to them. We admitted the Jews to all our very highest circles, until they swarmed in and threatened to take over entirely. But we showed our feelings. That's the difference. The German is all feeling, all Faustian striving. Appeal to his honor, and he will march or fly or sail to his death with a happy song. That is our naivete, yes, our primitivism. But it is a healthy thing. America too has its own naivete, the primitive realism of the frontier, the cowboys. What does it all add up to? We need friends in the United States to explain that there are two sides to this war, and that the only solution is peace in the West, unity in the West, an alliance in the West that can control the world.-Ah, look there. The British markanship is rather hard on the French livestock, but that's about all." On a distant hill, huge inverted pyramids of dirt splashed high in the air amid flame and smoke, and cows galloped clumsily around. The general glanced at his watch. "I have a little conference at headquarters. If you can stay for dinner, there is a very pleasant restaurant in Lille-"-'I have to return to Berlin, General. I can't express my gratitude, but-" Up went the glove. "Please. To talk to an American, a professional military man, who shows some understanding of our situation, is literally good for my health." Messerschmitts were landing in the rain when jagow turned Victor Henry over to his lieutenant at the entrance to the headquarters building. "If we can be of further service in the matter of Flight Lieutenant Gallard, let us know," jagow said, stripping off a glove to offer a damp cold hand. "Auf Wiedersehen, Captain Henry. If I have been of any small service, all I ask is this. Wherever duty takes you, remember there are two sides to the war, and that on both sides there are men of honor. The ornately molded and carved ceilings in Wolf Steller's bank seemed forty feet high. It was after hours, A few clerks worked silently behind the grilles. The footsteps of the two men on the red marble floor echoed and re-echoed under the high vault, like the tramp of a platoon. "It is a little gloomy here now," said Steller, "but very private. This way, Victor." They passed through a sizable conference room into a small richly furnished office, with a blaze of paintings crowding the walls; little though he knew, Henry recognized two Picassos and a Renoir. 'So, you go so soon," Steller said, gesturing to a heavy maroon leather couch. "Did you expect this?" "Well, I thought my relief would be along in a couple of weeks. But when I got back from Lille, here he was, waiting.""Of course you are anxious to be reunited with your very beautiful wife." Victor Henry said, with a glance at the larger Picasso, a gruesomely distorted woman in flaring colors, "I thought modern art was frowned on in the Third Reich." Steller smiled. "It has not gone down in value. The field marshal has one of the great collections of the world. He is a very civilized man. He knows these things will change." 'They will?" "Most assuredly, once the war is over. We are a nation under siege, Victor. Nerves get frayed, a mood of extremism prevails. That will die away. Europe will be a wonderful place to live. Germany will be the pleasantest place of all. What do you say to a glass of sherry?" "That'll be fine. Thanks." Steller poured from a heavy crystal decanter. "What do we drink to? I daresay you won't drink to the victory of Germany." With a tart grin Pug said, "We're neutral, you know" "Ah, yes. Ah, Victor, if only you were! How gladly we would settle for that! Well, to an honorable peace?" "Sure. To an honorable peace." They drank. "Passable?" "Fine. I'm no expert on wines." "It's supposed to be the best sherry in Europe." "It's certainly very good." The banker settled in an armchair and lit a of the floor lamp his scalp glistened pink through little trip to Lille was a success, hen?" "Yes, I'm obliged to you and the general." "Please. By the ordinary rules, such a thing would be not only unusual but utterly impossible. Among men of honor, there are special rules." Steller heaved an audible sigh. "Well, Victor, I didn't ask you to give me some time just to offer you sherry." "I didn't suppose so." "You're a military man. There are special conversations that sometimes have to be forgotten, obliterated without a trace. In German we have a special phrase for these most delicatematters. 'under four eyes." "I've heard the phrase." "What transpires next is under four eyes." Victor Henry, intensely curious at this point, felt there was nothing to do but let the banker talk on. What might be coming next, he could not imagine; his best guess was a wispy peace feeler at second hand from Goering, to convey to the President. 'You had a conversation with Gregor jagow about the course of the war. About the tragic absurdity of this fratricidal conflict between Germany and England." Pug nodded. "Did his ideas make sense to you?" "Frankly, we don't study geopolitics in the Navy. At least we don't call it that. So I'm not up on Spengler and so forth." 'You're an American pragmatist," said Steller with a smile. "I'm a gunnery expert misplaced in diplomacy, and hoping the hell to get out of it." "I believe you. The man of honor wants to serve in the field." "I'd like to do what I'm trained for." "You do agree that American help, and expectation of far greater help, is what is keeping England in the war?" 'Partly. They just don't feel like quitting. They think they'll win. "With American help." "Well, they think they'll get it." "then what stands between the whole Western world and an honlong cigar. In the light his thin Hat hair. "Your orable peace-which you and I just drank to-is Churchill's reliance on help from Roosevelt." Pug took a few moments to answer. 'Maybe, but what's an honorable peace? Churchill would want to depose Hitler. Hitler would want to depose Churchill. Both those gentlemen are equally firmly in the saddle, and both really represent the national will. So there you are." "You are going back to serve as naval aide to President Roosevelt." Steller said this with a slight interrogative note. Pug's face registered no surprise. 'I'm going back to the Bureau of Personnel for reassignment." The banker's smile was tolerant and assured. Well, our intelligence usually gets these things right. Now, Victor, let me have my say, and don't break in until I've finished. That's all I ask. All right?""All right." The banker puffed twice at his cigar. "Men of honor talk among themselves, Victor, in a special language. I'm addressing you now in that vocabulary. 'nese are matters of incredible delicacy. In the end, beneath the words there must be a spiritual kinship, With you, Gregor jagow and I have felt that kinship. You have been impeccably correct, but unlike so many people at the American embassy, you don't regard Germans as cannibals. You have treated us as human beings like yourself. So did your delightful and beautiful wife. It has been noticed, I assure you. That you sympathize with England is only natural. I do myself. I love England. I spent two years at Oxford. "Now, you heard what Gregor said about the Jewish influence around your President. I know you have to deny it, but it is a very serious fact of this war. We must live with it and do what we can about it." Pug tried to speak. Steller held up a rigid palm. "You said you would hear me out, Victor. In the circumstances, we need friends in Washington. Not to use undue influence, as the Jews do so shamelessly. Simply to present the other side. Roosevelt is a visi man of very broad on, He can be made to see that American interest requires a graft honorable peace in the West. For one thing, only such a development can free him to handle Japan. Do you supPose we give a damn about japan? That new pact is all a comedy to keep the Russians worried and quiet. -Now, Victor-and remember this is under four eyes-we do have such friends. Not many. A few. Patriotic Americans, who see the realities of the war instead of the propaganda of the Jews-and of Churchill, who is just an adventurous megalomaniac and has never been anything else. We hope you'll be another such friend." Victor Henry regretted that he had drunk up the glass of sherry rather fast. The conversation was taking a turn which needed sharp handling. He leaned forward. "Let me go on," said the banker, waving the cigar at him. "You know of my connection with Hermann Goering. To me he is a great figure of European history. His practical grasp of affairs and his energy still astound me. The Fuhrer-well, the Fuhrer is different, he operates on a plane above all of us, a plane of prophecy, of grand dreams. The engineer at the throttle is Goering. Nothing in Germany escapes him. Nothing happens that he does not approve and know about. You Americans with your Puritan bias think him a bit of a sultan. But we Germans love opera and opulence. It's a weakness. The field marshal knows that andplays to it. Of course, he thoroughly enjoys himself, too. Why not? His zest for life is Faustian, Rabelaisian. 'Victor, Hermann Goering has established in Switzerland some anonymous, untraceable bank accounts. His resources are enormous. These bank accounts, after the war, will be the rewards of Germany's honorable friends, who have said the right word in the right place for her when it mattered. It is nothing like espionage, where you pay some sneaking wretch for papers or information he hands over. This is simple gratitude among men of honor, a sharing of benefits in the day of victory. If our friends want the accounts, they will be there. If they don't-" Steller shrugged and sat back. "I've said my piece, Victor. And after you've said yours, this conversation will be as if it never existed." It was one of the few occasions in Victor Henry's life when he was taken totally by surprise. "That's interesting," he said. "Extremely interesting." After a measurable pause he went on, "Well! First, please tell me, if you can, what made you, or General jagow, or Field Marshal Goering, think that I might be receptive to this approach. That's highly important to me, and to this whole matter, I assure you." "My dear chap, the Washington picture is vital, and you're enroute to Washington. The day American supplies to England are shut off, we've won the war. We've got it won now, really, but England is just hanging on, hoping for she doesn't know what. She'll be flat broke in three or four months, and if your Neutrality Act holds, that's the end. Now Victor, the field marshal remembers your interesting visit with the banker GianelliHis purpose now is exactly what Roosevelt's was then, to avoid further useless bloodshed. He thinks you can help, and General jagow is confident that you will." Stiller gave Pug his most ingratiating smile, crinkling his eyes almost shut. "As for me, I know your exquisite wife is a very sympathetic and friendly woman. My guess is that she has always reflected your real feelings, more than your correct words. I trust I'm right." Victor Henry nodded. "I see. That's a clear answer, Herr Steller. Here's mine, under four eyes. Please tell Field Marshal Goering, for me, to stick his Swiss bank account up his fat ass." Blue smoke wreathed around Steller's shocked face. His eyes went wide and glassy, his face became dark red from his striped collar to his hair, and his scalp reddened too, His teeth showed in an ugly smile. "I remind you, Captain Henry," he said in a new slow singsong tone, "that you have not left the Third Reich yet. You are still in Berlin. Field Marshal Hermann Goering is second here only to the Fuhrer." "I'm an officer in the United States Navy. Unless I misunderstood you, or you want to withdraw it"-Victor Henry's voice hardened almost to a bark-you've asked me, in his name, to commit treason for money."The banker's nasty smile faded. In a placating tone, with a soft look, spreading out his hands, he said, "My dear Victor, how can you take it in that way? I beg you, think! The highest officers in the American armed forces blatantly and openly advocate help for England all the time. What I asked of you was just to present both sides, when the occasion arose, for the sake of American security and for peace." 'Yes, as a man of honor. I heard you. I really believe you meant it. General jagow said you Germans were a difficult people to understand. That is the truth. I'm giving up. My assignment here is over." Victor Henry knew he had hit too hard, but he had reacted as he did in a ball game, on instinct and impulse. He stood, and the banker got to his feet too. 'See here, old top," Steller said gently, 'we Germans are at war, surrounded by foes. If the United States is ever in such a situation-and history takes strange turns-you may one day. make an approach like this to a man you respect, and find it as difficult as I have. I think your response has been naive and wrong. Your phrasing was coarse. SuE, the spiritual quai ity was there. It was an honorable reaction. I have absolutely no hard feelings. I trust you have none. I place a high value on your goodll, Victor. And we did have good times at Abendruh, didn't we?" Smiling, Seller held out his smooth thin clean hand. Pug turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Out of the loudly echoing bank he walked, nodding at the door attendanes deep bow. In the warm sunlit Berlin evening, on the sidewalk outside, beautiful German children surrounded a one-legged man on a crutch, who was selling pink paper dolls that danced on strings. Victor Henry walked several blocks at a pace that made his heart pound. The first new thought that came to him was that, with his grossly insulting words and acts, he might have murdered Ted Gallard. (from WORLD EMPIRE LOST) The Falling Crown The winter and spring between the Battle of Britain and our attack on the Soviet union stand in popular history as a breathing spell. Actually, in these eight months the axis of the war changed, for the British Empire as a reality left the stage of history. In 1939, this momentous event lay shrouded in the future. A proper name for this war might well be "The War of the British Succession," for the real question that was fought out was this: after the collapse of the British Empire, which would drag with it all European colonialism, what shape was the new world order to take, and under whose rule? This historic turn, and this momentous issue, Adolf Hitler foresaw. He inspired and mobilized Germany to rise and dare all to seize the falling crown. The feats that our nation performed against odds will someday be justly treated in history,when passions die and the stain of certain minor 'be seen in perspective. MeantimehistorianswriteasthoughonlythestrugglesoftheAll(excesses) ies(can) were heroic, as though we Germans were a species of metal monster incapable of bleeding, freezing, or hungering, and therefore deserving of no credit for our vast victories. As Hitler said, the winning side writes the history. Yet, in their praise of their own arduous successes, the Allies despite themselves honor us, the nation that almost won the British succession, against a combination of all the industrial nations in the world except feeble Italy and far-off impoverished Japan. For all of Hitler's military mistakes, and they were many and serious, my professional judgment remains that the German armed forces would have won the war, and world empire, but for one historical accident. His real opponent, roduced by fate at this point in time, was an even craftier and more ruthless political genius, with more sober military judgment and greater material means for industrialized warfare: Franklin D. Roosevelt. The nation this man led was in no way comparable to the German people in military valor, as test after test in the field eventually showed. But that did not matter. This great manipulator so managed the war that other nations bled themselves almost to death, so as to hand his country the rule of the earth on a silver platter. The United States of America, today the troubled master of the world, lost fewer men in the entire war than Germany expended in any one of half a dozen campaigns. Almost twenty million soldiers, sailors, and airmen perished in the Second World War. Of these, America in four years of global war lost about three hundred thousand on all fronts including her war with Japan! For this almost bloodless conquest of the earth, which has no parallel in all history, the American people can thank that enigmatic, still shrouded figure, the Augustus of the industrial age, the Dutch-descended millionaire cripple, Roosevelt. Franklin D. Roosevelt's world conquest still goes unrecognized. In the present historical writings on the war, he is granted nothing like the stature he will one day have. There is little doubt that he wanted it that way. The Augustan ruler, a recurring figure in history, seizes the realities of power under a mask of the humble, benign, humanitarian citizen, Nobody since the emperor Augustus ever managed this as Franklin Roosevelt did. Even Augustus was not as sonctimonious, for in those days the Christian vocabulary of humility and humaneness was not in vogue to lend such depths to hypocrisy. Roosevelt's Feat In his successful waging of the Second World War, Franklin Roosevelt made no major military mistakes. That is a record not matched by any world conqueror since Julius Caesar. His slogan of "unconditional surrender" was widely called a blunder, by commentators as diverse as Goebbels and Eisenhower. I do not agree, and in its place, I will take up that stricture and challenge it. Our propaganda office called him a tool of the Jews, but of course that was the silliest bosh.