Chapter 6

'Wow!" Pug said. Leslie Slote stared around at the walls and ceiling. "It's the Catherine the Great Room. I've seen it in paintings. There's her crest, in those big medallions. She got some French or Italian architect in to gut this part of the palace, I believe, and do it over. It was her throne room." "Well, if this is their style of living, by God," said the admiral, 'they'll make a Communist of me yet." "I wouldn't be too surprised," Slote replied, "if this is the first time the room has been used since the revolution." The menu, printed in Russian and English on thick creamy paper with a hammer and sickle gold crest, listed fish, soups, game, fowls, and roast meats, do*n the entire long page. Attendants began to bring the courses, while more attendants stood around with bottles of wine and vodka, springing to pour. The splendid great room, the massive array of brilliantly set tables, the multicolored uniforms of generals and admirals of thee countries, the line of powerful men on the dais, with Stalin at a sharp focus even here, chatting left and right with Beaverbrook and Harriman, the lavish service, the river of wine, the gobs of caviar, the parade of rich fat foods on Czarist gold plate-all this overwhelmed Victor Henry with a reassuring sense of Russian'resources, Russian strength, Russian largesse, Russian hospitality, and Russian self-confidence. Slote had a different reaction. No doubt the Communist leaders were enjoying themselves and being hospitable, but in this vulgar outpouring, this choke of luxury, he sensed a note of crude Slav irony. Silent, unspoken, yet almost thunderous, was this message-'Very well, you of the West, these are the things that seem to make you happy, opulence and pleasure sweated out of otlws. See how well we do it too, if we choose! See how our old Russian regime did it, before we kicked them out! Can you match them? Tonwrrow we'll go back to the simple life we prefer, but since you come from the decadent West, fine, let's all get drunk together and gorge and sial. We Russians know how to live as well as you, and for the fun of it, we'll even go you one better tonight. Let's see who slides under the table first. vAsHE ZDORovW" Vashe zdorovyel Toasts kept flaring up. Anybody appoirently had the license to stand, hammer at a glass with 1-us knife for attention, and bawl a toast. Men would leave their seats and cross the room to clink glasses when a toast complimented or pleased them. Stalin kept trotting here and there, glass in hand. It was all Marvelously interesting to Slote but it was rushing by too fast, and he was missing too much, interpreting between the American admiral and the short fat Russian admiral who had tried to keep the Navy codes. Sweat shining on his bright red face, the old Russian keptgroaning, as he tossed down vodka and wine, that he was a very sick man, had not much time to live, and might as well enjoy himself. The American admiral said at one point, "What the hell, Slote, tell him he looks a lot better than I do, he looks fine." -Ah, but you see, tell him I am like the capitalistic system," groaned the little admiral. 'Healthy on the outside, rotten inside." Slote enjoyed translating this remark; but most of the admirals' talk was vague maundering about their families. He envied Victor Henry, quietly observing the scene and using all the tricks not to drink much. Slote's ears began to hurt from the shouting of the two admirals over the rising noise of the feast. He was trying to eat a succulent roast quail in sour cream, served with a fine cold Crimean white wine, but the sharpening exchange kept him too busy. Why, the Russian insisted, why wouldn't the mighty American Navy at least convoy Lend-Lease goods to England? Were they afraid of a few tin-plated U-boats? It was idiotic-his slamming fist made glasses jump-idiotic to manufacture war goods and ship them out just as target practice for Hitler's torpedoes. "Tell him we'll be convoying any day," snapped the American, "but unless he loosens up with some harbor data and operation signals, hell will freeze over before we convoy to Murmansk." The old Russian glared at the old American as Slote translated. Both officers gulped glasses of vodka and stopped talking. This respite allowed Slote to look around at the banquet, which was becoming very convivial indeed, with several heads down on tables, and one bald Russian general staggering out, held up at the elbows by two attendants. The cessation of the shouts in his ears enabled him to hear another noise: muffled harsh thumps in an irregular pattern. Ba brompl Bromp, brompf His stomach suddenly felt cold. His eyes met Victor Henry's. "Gunfire," he started to say, but the word stuck in his throat. He coughed. "Gunfire. Air raid." Henry nodded. "I'll bet they have the heaviest A.A. in the world right on these grounds. listen to that, through all those thick walls! Unreconstructed heh's breaking loose." "The Germans would do very well," Slote said with a little laugh, "if they scored a bomb bit here tonight." The thump of the guns came louder and thicker, and some banqueters were szlancing uneasily at the walls. The old Russian admiral, slumped in his seat, scarlet face resting on his chest, was shooting ill-natured glances at the Americans. Now he pushed himself to his feet, clinked furiously at a water glass until he got some attention, then held up a brimming glass of yellow vodka. "If you please! I am sitting with representatives of the United States Navy, the most powerful Navy in the world. These brave men must be very unhappy that while all humanity is in mortal danger their ships ride at anchor gathering barnacles"-he turned to the American admiral with a sarcastic grin-'so I drink to the day when this strong Navy will get in the scrap and help destroy the Hitlerite rats, the common enemy of mankind."The toast left a silence. Slote translated it in a low rapid mutter. Military and civilian Russians at nearby tables shook their heads and exchanged troubled looks. The old man dropped heavily in his seat, glaring around with self-satisfaction. The American admiral's voice shook as he said to Slote, "If I repIN, you'll have an international incident on your hands." Victor Henry said at once, "Admiral, shall I give it a try, with m)" lousy Russian?" "It's all yours, Pug." Leslie Slote reached to touch Henry's arm. "See here, the other Russians didn't like what he said, either-just a drop of vodka too much-" "Okay." Victor Henry rose, glass in hand. The subdued talk in the room faded down. The whumping of the anti-aircraft guns sounded louder, and glasses vibrated and tinkled with the concussions. The men at the head table, including Stalin, fastened intent eyes on the American. Henry brought out his response in slow, stumbling, painful phrases, in bad grammar: "My chief tells me to respond for the United States Navy. It is true we are not fighting. I drink first to the wise peace policy of Marshal Stalin, who did not lead your country into the great war before you were attacked, and so gained time to prepare." Slote was startled by the barbed aptness of the retort. "The wise peace policy of Comrade Stalin" was the Communist cliche for Stalin's deal with Hitler. Henry went on, with groping pauses for words that left tense silence in the vast hall: "That is the policy of our President. If we are attacked we will fight. I hope as well as your people are fighting. Now as for"-he stopped to ask Slote for the Russian word-"barnacles. Any barnacles that get on our ships nowadays are barnacles that can swim very fast. Our ships are on the move. We don't announce everything we do. Secrecy is another wise policy of both our countries. But let's not keep so many secrets from each other that we can't work together." "Now, our Navy needs some"-again Henry asked Slote for a wold -"some harbor data, weather codes, and so forth from you. We need them before we leave. Since this is a farewell banquet, I also drink to some fast action. Finally, I was a naval attache in Berlin. I have now travelled from Hitler's chancellery to the inside of the Kremlin. That is something Hitler will never do, and above all I drink to that." There was loud applause, a general raising of glasses, and shouts of "Your health! Fast action!" Slote reached up to stop Pug from drinking, and pointed. Josef Stalin, glass in hand, was leaving his seat. "Holy smoke, what's the etiquette on this?" Henry said. 'I don't know," Slote said. "Don't drink yet. By God, Captain Henry, that was rising to an occasion." Pug strode toward Stalin, with Slote hurrying behind him. The dictator said with an amiable grin, as they met near the dais and clinked glasses amid smiles and handclapping, "I thank you for that fine toast, and in response, you can keep California." "Thank you, Mr.
Chairman," Pug said, and they both drank. "That's a good start, and can you do anything else for us?" 'Certainly. Fast action," said Stalin, linking his ami in Pug's. They were so close that Pug caught an odor of fish on Stalin's breath. 'American style. We Russians can sometimes do it too." He walked toward the two admirals, and the old red-faced Russian stumbled to his feet and stood very erect. Stalin spoke to him in low rapid sentences. Slote, behind Victor Henry, caught only a few words, but the pop-eyed look of the admiral and Stalin's tones were self-translating. The dictator turned to Victor Henry, beaming again. "Well, it is arranged about the weather codes and so forth. Tell your chief that we Russians do not intentionally embarrass our guests. Tell him I feel the American Navy will do historic things in this struggle, and will rule the ocean when peace comes." As Slote quickly translated, Admiral Standley stood, Iris thin withered lips quivering, and grasped the dictator's hand. Stalin went back to the head table. The incident seemed to stay in his mind, because when he rose to make the last toast of the evening, to President Roosevelt, He returned to the theme. The interpreter was Oumansky, the ambassador to the United States, whose well-cut blue suit marked him off from the other Russians. His English was extremely smooth. "Comrade Stalin says President Roosevelt has the very difficult task of leading a country which is nonbelligerent, yet wants to do all it can to help the two great democracies of Europe in their fight against Fascism. Comrade Stalin says"-Oumansky paused and looked all around the wide room, in a silence no longer marred by gunfire-"may God help him in his just difficult task." This religious phrase brought a surprised stillness, then a surge of all the banqueters, glasses in hand, to their feet, cheering, drinking, and applauding. Harriman heartily shook Stalin's hand; the plethoric little Russian admiral grasped the hands of Slote, Henry, and Standley; and all over the room the banquet dissolved in great handshaking, backslapping, and embracing. But the evening was not over. The Russians marched their guests through more empty splendid rooms to a movie theatre with about fifty soft low armchairs, each with a small table where attendants served cakes, fruits, sweets, and champagne. Here they showed a war movie and then a long musical, and Slote did something he would never have believed possible: in the heart of the Kremlin, he fell asleep. A swelling of finale music woke him seconds before the lights came on. He saw others starting awake in the glare, furtively rubbing their eyes. Stalin walked out springily with Beaverbrook and Harriman, both of whom had red eyes and suffering expressions. In a grand hall, under a vast painting of a battle in snow, he shook hands with all the guests, one by one. Outside the Grand Palace the night was black, without stars, and the wind was cold and biting. The NKVD agents, leather collars turned up to their ears, blue HasWights in hand, looked sleepy, chilled, and bored, sorting the guests into their limousines.
'Say, how the devil can he drive so fast in this blackout?" the admiral protested, as their car passed through the outer gate and speeded into an inky void. 'Can Russians see like cats?" The car stopped in blackness, the escort guided the three Americans to a doorway, they passed inside, and found themselves in the small cold foyer of the Hotel National, where one dim lamp burned at the reception desk. The porter who had opened the door was muffled in a fur coat. The elevator stood open, dark and abandoned. The admiral bade them good-night and plodded to the staircase. "Come up for a minute," Henry said to Leslie Slote. 'No thanks. I'll grope my way to my apartment. It's not far." Pug insisted, and Slote followed Henry up the gloomy staircase to his squalid little room on an areaway. "I don't rate like Tudsbury," he said. "Tudsbury's about the best propagandist the Soviet union's got," Slote said, "and I guess they know it." Pug unlocked a suitcase, took a narrow dispatch case out, unlocked that, and glanced through papers. "I hope you understand," Slote said, "that those locks are meaningless. All the contents of that case have been photographed." "Yes," Victor Henry said absently. He slipped a letter into his pocket. 'Would you like a snooze? Please stick around for a while. Something may be doing." 'Oh?" Out of his new and growing respect for Henry, Slote asked no questions, but stretched out on the hard narrow bed to a twang and squeak of springs. His head still reeled from the champagne that shadowy attendants had kept pouring at the movie. Next thing he knew, knocking woke him. Victor Henry was talking at the door to a man in a black leather coat. 'Horosho, my gotovy," he said in his atrocious accent. "Odnu minutu." He closed the door. 'Want to wash up or anything, Leslie? I'd like you to come with me." "Where to?" "Back to the Kremlin. I have a letter from Harry Hopkins for the big cheese. I didn't think I was going to get to hand it over in person, but maybe I am." "Good lord, does the ambassador know about this?" "Yes. Admiral Standley brought him a note about it from the President. I gather he was annoyed, but he knows." Slote sat up.
"Annoyed! I should think so. Mr. Hopkins has a way of doing these things. This is very outlandish, Captain Henry. Nobody should ever, ever see a head of state without going directly through the ambassador. How have you arranged this?" I had nothing to do with it. I'm an errand boy. Hopkins wanted this letter to go to Stalin informally and privately or not at all. In my place you don't argue with Harry Hopkins. understand he talked to Oumansky. If it puts you in a false position, I guess I'll go alone. There'll be an interpreter." Calculating the angles in this astonishing business-mainly the angle of his own professional self-preservation-Slote began combing his hair at a yellowed wall mirror. "I'll have to file a written report with the ambassador." Sure." in a long, high-ceilinged, bleakly lit room lined with wall maps, Stalin sat at one end of a polished conference table, with many papers piled on a strip of green cloth before him. A stone ashtray at the dictator's elbow brimmed with cigarette butts, suggesting that he had been steadily at work since the departure al the banquet guests. He now wore a rough khaki uniform which sagged and bulged, and he looked very weary. Pavlov, his usual English interpreter, sat beside him, a thin, pale, dark-haired young man with a clever, anxiously servile expression. There was nobody else in the big room. As the uniformed protocol officer ushered in the two Americans, Stalin rose, shook hands, with a silent gracious gesture waved them to chairs, and then sat down with an inquiring look at Captain Henry. Henry handed him the letter and a round box wrapped in shiny blue paper. 'Mr. Chairman, I'd better not inflict my bad Russian on you any longer," he said in English, as Stalin carefully opened the White House envelope with a paper knife. Slote translated and Stalin replied in Russian, slightly inclining his head, "As you Wish." He passed to Pavlov the single handwritten pale green sheet, on which nm w iiousf was printed in an upper corner. Pug said, as Stalin unwrapped the box, "And that is the special Virginia pipe tobacco Mr. Hopkins told you about, that his son likes so much." Pavlov translattd this, and everything the American captain said thereafter, sometimes conveying Henry's tone as well as a quick exact version of his words. Slote sat silent, nodding from time to time. Stalin turned the round blue tin in his hands. 'Mr. Hopkins is very thoughtful to remember our casual chat about pipe tobacco. Of course, we have plenty of good pipe tobacco in the Soviet union." He twisted open the tin %with a quick wrench of strong hands and curiously inspected the heavy lead foil seal, before slashing it with a polished thumbnail and pulling a pipe from his pocket. "Now you can tell Mr.
Hopkins that I tried his son's tobacco." Pug understood Stalin's Russian in this small talk, but could not follow him after that. Stalin stuffed the pipe, put a thick wooden match to it, and puffed fragrant blue smoke while Pavlov translated Hopkins's letter aloud. After a meditative silence, the dictator turned veiled cold eyes on Victor Henry and proceeded to speak, pausing to let Pavlov catch up in English after three or four sentences. "That is a strange letter from Mr. Hopkins. We all know the United States manufactures millions of automobiles per year of many different models and types, including big, luxurious, complicated machines such as Cadillacs and so forth. "What is the problem with landing craft, then? Landing craft are armored lighters with small simple engines. Surely you can produce as many as you want to. Surely the British have plenty already. I cannot see this as a real obstacle to :i second front in Europe now, as Mr. Hopkins states." Pug Henry pulled from his disatch case sketches and production tables of landing craft. "Different types must he designed from scratch and manufactured, Mr. Chairman, to land against a solidly fortified coast. We expect mass production in mid-1942, at the latest. These papers may be of interest." Unexpectedly, in midrtranslation, Stalin uttered a short harsh laugh and began to talk fast in Russian, straight at Victor Henry. Slote and Pavlov made quick notes, and when the dictator paused, Pavlov took over and spoke with much of Stalin's hard sarcastic tone. "That is very fine. Mid-1942. Unfortunately, this is October 1941-If Mr. Hitler would only halt operations until mid-1942! But perhaps we cannot count on that. And what will happen meantime? I regard Mr. Harry Hopkins"-Stalin said Gospodin Garry Gopkins-"as a friend and a clever man. Doesn't he know that any operation that the British can mount now-just a reconnaissance in force of a few divisions, if they can do no better-might decide the course of this war? The Germans have only very weak reserves, mere token forces, on the French coast. They are throwing everything into the battle on our front. Any action in the west might make them pause, and draw off just the decisive margin of strength here." Stalin doodled in red ink on a gray unlined pad during the interpretation, drawing a wolf. Victor Henry said, "Mr. Chairman, I am instructed to answer any questions about the landing craft problem." Stalin used the back of his hand to shove aside the papers Pug Henry had laid before him. "Landing craft? But it is a question of will, not of landing craft. However, we will study the matter of landing craft. Of course, we have such machines too, for landing on defended coasts. Perhaps we can lend-lease some to the British. In 1915, when warequipment was more primitive than today, Mr. Churchill managed to put a big force ashore in Gallipoli, thousands of miles from England. Possibly he found the experience discouraging. But the Japanese have in recent years put ashore more than a million soldiers in China. Those men surely did not swim across, in such cold waters. So it is obviously a question of will, not of landing craft. I hope Mr. Harry Hopkins will use his great influence to establish a second front now in Europe, because the outcome of the war against the Hitlerites may turn on that. I can say no more." The dictator finished the wolf in rapid strokes during the translation, and started another with bared fangs and a hanging tongue. He looked up at Henry with the oddly genial expression common in his photographs, and changed his tone. "Have you enjoyed your stay? Is there anything we can do for you?" Victor Henry said, "Mr. Chairman, I have been a wartime military observer in Germany and in England. Mr. Hopkins asked me to go to the front here, if an opportunity arose, so as to bring him an eyewitness report." At the word 'front," Stalin shook his head. "No, no. We are obliged to guarantee the safety of our guests. That we cannot do, in the present stage of fighting. Mr. Hopkins would not forgive us if some misfortune befell you." "Mr. Hopkins has been unsparing of his own health, sir. It is wartime." An opaque wild look, almost the look in a gorilla's eyes, came into Stalin's gaze. "Well, you should understand that things are bad at the front. The Germans are breaking through again in force. We may soon see the worst hours for Russia since 1812. You will hear all the news tomorrow. That is why a second front now would earn for England the friendship of my people until the end of time." He went back to work on the wolf. Pug said soberly, "In view of this news, Mr. Chairman, I admire your cheerfulness of spirit at the banquet tonight. Stalin shrugged his broad sagging shoulders. "Wars are not won by gloom, nor by bad hospitality. Well, if Mr. Hopkins wants you at the front, he must have good reasons. We will see what we can do. Give him my thanks for the letter and the tobacco. It is not bad tobacco, though I am used to my Russian tobacco. Please tell him my feelings about the second front. Perhaps your trip to our front could bring home the urgency. Mr. Hopkins is a good adviser to your great President, and as you are an emissary from him, I wish you well." Leaving the Kremlin and driving through the blackout, the two Americans said not a word. When the car stopped, Pug Henry spoke: "Well, I'll talk to you tomorrow. I guess these fellows will take you home." "No, I'll get out." On the sidewalk, Slote touched Pug's arm as the limousine drove off. "Let'stalk here. I was utterly shocked by this business of going to the front. If Mr. Hopkins knew of the catastrophic situation Stalin just admitted to"-the diplomat's voice wavered and he cleared his throat-"he would surely withdraw those instructions." The night was ending, and though the icy -street was still black, Pug could just see Slote's pale face under his fur hat. "I don't agree with you on that. He's a pretty tough customer, Hopkins." Slote persisted, "You won't really get to the front, you know. They've just given some correspondents a tour. They kept them far behind the lines, feeding them caviar, quails, and. champagne. Still, the Luftwaffe pulled an air raid on a village and almost nailed them." "Right, but that could happen to us here in Moscow, too." "But why go, for God's sake?" Slote broke out in a ragged shrill tone. He lowered his voice. "At best you'll see one liny sector for a few hours. It's foolhardy sightseeing. It'll create endless trouble at the embassy, as well as for the Russians." Victor Henry chain-lit a cigarette. "Listen, if you can watch ten men under fire, you'll learn a lot about an army's moral in a few hours. Mr. Hopkins likes to call himself a glorified messenger boy. That's an exaggeration, but I'm an unglorified one. Doing this job might give me the illusion that I'm earning my salary. Come upstairs for a nightcap. I have some good Scotch." "No, thank you. I'm going to write my report, and then try to get an hour's sleep." "Well, cheer up, My own impression was that the big cheese was being affable, but that I won't get to go." "That's what I hope. No foreign military attache has yet gone to the front, or near it. Good morning." During the talk the sky had turned violet, and Slote could see his way on the dead quiet streets. This was a relief, for he had more than once banged into lamp posts and fallen off curbs in the Moscow blackout. He had also been challenged at pistol-point by patrolmen. One walked toward him now in the gray dawn and gave him a suspicious squint, then passed on without a word. In his flat Slote brewed coffee on the gas ring, and rapidly typed a long account of the banquet and the meeting with Stalin. When he had finished, he threw back the blackout curtains. The sun was shining. Staggeeing, bleary, he took a loose-leaf diary from a drawer and wrote briefly in it, ending withthese words: But the official report which I've just rattled off describes the meeting with Stalin in sufficient detail; and I'll keep a copy in my files. As for the Henrys, father and son, the puzzle is simply enough resolved after all. I saw the answer in die past few hours. They both have an instinct for action, and the presence of mind that goes with it. Byron displayed these traits in moments of physical danger. His father probably would too. But I've just seen him act in more sophisticated and subtle situations, requiring quick thinking, hardihood, and tact. It is not easy to keep one's head in confronting a personage like Stalin, who has an aura like a large lump of radium, powerful, invisible, and poisonous. Victor Henry managed. On reflection, I can understand why the ladies like such men. The man of action protects, feeds-and presumably fecundates, QED-more vigorously and reliably dian the man of thought. Possibly one can't change one's nature. Still one can perhaps learn and grow. Captain Henry suggested that I disregard orders and expose the Minsk documents to Fred Fearing or some newspaperman. Such an act goes entirely against my grain; and entirely for that reason, I intend to do it. Talky Tudsbury was having five o'clock tea alone in his hotel suite Tthat day, with some light refreshment of sprats, cheese, sturgeon, black bread, and honey cakes, when Victor Henry came in and told him that he was going to the front. The correspondent got so excited that he stopped eating. "Good God, man, you are? With the Germans swarming in all over the place? it's impossible. It's just talk. Dear Christ, these Russians are good at putting you off with talk. You'll never go." He brushed up his moustaches and reached for more food. "Well, maybe," Pug said, sinking into a chair, and laying on his lap the briefcase stuffed with codes and harbor charts, which he had just collected at the navy ministry. He had had five or six hours' broken sleep in four days. The room was jerking back and forth in his vision as he strove to stay awake. "But my clearance has just come in from pretty high up. Tudsbury was putting a chunk of bread heaped with mr&nes w His mouth. The morsel stopped in midair. He peered at Henry through his bottle-glass spectacles, and spoke in low quiet tones. 'I'll go with you." "The hell you will." "Victor, the correspondents went to the central front two weeks ago, when the Russians were counterattacking. The day they left, I had flu, with a rising temperature." Tudsbury threw down the food, seized his cane, limped rapidly across the room, and began to put on a fur-lined coat and a fur hat. "Who's handling this, Lozovsky? Can't I just tell him you said I could come? I know them all and they love me. It's up to you." i4 Victor Henry did not want Tudsbury along, but he was exhausted and he was sure the Russians would refuse. "Okay.""God bless you, dear fellow. Stay and finish my tea. Tell Pam I'll be back before six, and she's to retype my broadcast." "Where is she?" "A letter came for her in the Foreign Office pouch. She went to get it." Pug fell asleep in the armchair where he sat. Cold fingers brushing his cheek woke him. "Hello there. Wouldn't you rather lie down?" Pam stood over him, her face rosy from the frost, her eyes shining, wisps of brown hair showing under her gray lambskin hat. "What? Oh!" He blinked and stretched. "What am I doing here? I guess I walked in and collapsed." "Where's Talky?" She was taking off her hat and gloves. "Why did he leave his tea? That's not like him." Sleep cleared from his brain like fog; he remembered his conversation with Tudsbury, and told her. Her face went stiff and strained. "The front? They'll never let him go, but you? Victor, are you serious? Have you heard the BBC, or the Swedish Radio?" "Yes." "Well, I know better than to argue, but-I can tell you this, our embassy's getting ready to be moved to the Urals or somewhere. By the bye, Ded's all right." She went to the desk, still in her fur coat, and picked UP typed yellow sheets. "Oh, drat, another revision. Such niggling!" By now Pug was used to her casual bombshells, but she dropped this one so swiftly that he wasn't sure he had heard aright. "Pamela, what's this? What about Ted?" "He's fine. Or safe, anyhow." "But where is he?" "Oh, back in Blighty. Hardly the worse for wear, according to him. it seems he finally managed to escape-he and four French aviators-from a prison camp outside Strasbourg. He did have quite a few adventures in France and Belgium, straight out of the films. But he made it. I rather thought he would, sooner or later." She sat down and took the cover off the typewriter. "Good God, girl, that's tremendous news." "Yes, isn't it? You must read his letter. Seven pages, written on both sides, and quite amusing. He's lost three stone, and he still has a bullet in his thigh-or, more accurately, in his behind. He's quite chastened, he'll take the desk job now-as soon as he can sit at a desk, he adds rather ruefully! And that means I'm to come straight home and marry him, of course." Pamela broke her offhand manner with a long glance at Victor Henry. She put on black-rimmed glasses. "I'd better get at this. And you obviously need some sleep.""No use. The mission's leaving soon. I have to see them off. Pam, that's splendid about Ted. I'm very glad and relieved." Rubbing her hands and blowing on them, she said, "Lord, it would be a relief at that, wouldn't it? I mean to get away from Talky's handwriting, and his optimistic drivel." Tudsbury burst in on them a little later, his face aflame, his nose empurpled by the cold, just as Henry was putting on his bridge coat "Moiet byt! Qualified yes, by God! They'll confirm it tomorrow, but Victor, I believe I'm going with you!-Pam, have you finished yet? It's getting near that time.-The Narkomindel's in mad confusion, Victor, the news from the front must be really bad, but God Almighty, that clearance you've got, whatever it is, certainly is the secret password! Of course they adore me, and they know I'm entitled to a trip, but the look that came over Lozovsky's face, when I said you insisted that I accompany you!" "Oh, Talky!" Pamela stopped typing, and glared at him. "Victor didn't insist at all. He couldn't have." "Pam, one has to bludgeon these people." Tudsbury's face creased in a tricky grin. "I said you two were old friends, in fact, and that Victor rather liked you and wanted to oblige me. So please back my story if occasion arises." 'You unscrupulous old horror," Pamela said, her face mantling pink. "Well, that's true enough, as far as it goes," Victor Henry said. "I have to get on to the airport now. Pamela's got some great news, Talky." The intrusion of Tudsbury snagged the trip. The Narkomindel, the Foreign Office, hemmed, hawed, and stalled. Days went by. Pug remained stuck in Moscow with nothing to do. The ambassador and the attaches acted cool and distant, for Victor Henry was that plague of the Foreign Service, an interloper from Washington. Once he dropped in on Slote's office and found the diplomat pale, harassed, and given to pointless giggling. "Say, what's my daughter-in-law doing on your desk?" Pug said. Natalie smiled from a silver frame, looking younger and fatter, with her hair in an unbecoming knot. "Oh! Yes, that's Natalie." Slote laughed. "D'you suppose Byron would mind? She gave it to me ages ago, and I'm still fond of her. What's happened to your trip? You won't have far to go, at the rate the Germans are coming on, bee bee." "God knows," Pug said, thinking that this man was in bad shape. "Maybe it's all off."The main trouble, it turned out, was Pamela. Her father had asked to bring her along, claiming helplessness without her. He had since withdrawn the request. But the Narkomindel had fed the three names into the great obscure machine that handled the matter, and there was no starting over. Lozovsky began to lose his enial humor when Pug appeared or telephoned. "My dear Captain Henry, you will hear when you will hear. There are other equally pressing problems in the Soviet union just now." So Pug wandered the streets, observing the changes in Moscow. New red-and-black posters blazed appeals for volunteers, in the crude bold socialist imagery of muscular young workmen and peasant women brandishing bayonets at spiders, snakes, or hyenas with Hitler faces. Labor battalions shouldering spades and picks marched raggedly here and there; big trucks crammed with children crisscrossed the city; long queues stood at food shops, despite the heavy rain that persisted day after day. Soldiers and horse-drawn carts vanished from the streets. Under the sodden caps and wet shawls of street crowds, the swarm of white high-cheekboned faces wore a different look. The Slavic phlegm was giving way to knotted brows, inquiring glances, and a hurrying pace; Victor Henry thought that the approach of the Germans made the Muscovites look more like New Yorkers. Lozovsky finally telephoned him at the hotel, his voice ringing cheerily-"Well, Captain, will tomorrow at dawn suit you? Kindly come here to the Narkomindel, wear warm clothing, a raincoat, and good boots, and be prepared to be out three or four days." "Right. Is the girl coming too?" " Of course." The Russian sounded surprised and a bit offended. "That was the problem. Really it was not easy to clear, though we wanted to make the exact arrangements you desired. Our Russian girl§ face combat conditions as a matter of course, but we know that foreign ladies are much less hardy. Still we all know Miss Tudsbury, she is attractive, and one understands such a devoted friendship. It is arranged." Victor Henry decided to ignore the jollying, even ribald tone, and not to try to rewrite this record. "I'm grateful, and I'll be there." They drove southward from Moscow in the rain, and all morning ground along in a thunderous parade of army trucks, stopping only for a visit to an amazingly well camouflaged airfield for interceptors, in the woods just outside the capital. The little black automobile, a Russian M-i that looked and sounded much like a 1930 Ford, made cramped quarters, especially with unexplained packages and boxes lining the floor. When they had gone about a hundred miles, their guide, a mild-faced, bespectacled tank colonel, with the odd name of Porphyry Amphiteatrov, suggested that they stop to eat lunch and stretch their legs. That was when they first heard the German guns. The driver, a burly silent soldier with a close-trimmed red beard, turned off to a side road lined with old trees. They wound among cleared fields and copses of birch, glimpsing two large white country houses in the distance, and entered a gloomy lane that came to a dead end in wild woods. Here they got out, and the colonel led them along a footpath to a small grassy mound under the trees where garlands of fresh flowers lay. "Well, this was Tolstoy's country estate, you know," said Amphiteatrov. "It is called Yasnaya Polyana, and there is his grave.
Since it was on the way, I thought you might be interested." Tudsbury stared at the low mound and spoke in a hushed way not usual to him. "The grave of Tolstoy? No tomb? No stone?" 'He ordered it so. 'Put me in the earth," he said, 'in the woods where I played Green Stick with my brother Nicholas when we were boys. .."' Amphiteatrov's bass voice sounded coarse and loud over the dripping of water through the yellow leaves. Victor Henry cocked his head and glanced at the colonel, for he heard a new noise: soft irregular thumps, faint as the plop of the rain on the grass. The colonel nodded. "Well, when the wind is right, the sound carries quite far." "Ah, guns?" said Tudsbury, with a show of great calm. "Yes, guns. Well, shall we have a bite? The house where he worked is interesting, but it is not open nowadays." The bearded driver brought the lunch to benches out of sight of the burial spot. They ate black bread, very garlicky sausages, and raw cucumbers, washed down with warm beer. Nobody spoke. The rain dripped, the army trucks murmured on the highway, and the distant guns thumped faintly. Pamela broke the silence. "Who put the flowers there?" "The caretakers, I suppose," said the colonel. "The Germans must never get this far," she said. "Well, that's a spiritual thought," the colonel said. 'I don't think they will, but Yasnaya Polyana is not a strong point, and so the great Tolstoy must now take his chances with the rest of the Russians." He smiled, suddenly showing red gums, and not looking mild at all. "Anyway, the Germans can't lull him." Tudsbury said, "They should have read him a little more carefully." "We still have to prove that. But we win." The sun momentarily broke through and birds began to sing. Victor Henry and Pamela Tudsbury sat together on a bench, and light shafted theatrically through the yellow leaves, full on the girl. She wore gray slacks tucked into white fur snowboots, and a gray lamb coat and hat. "Why are you staring at me, Victor?" "Pam, I've never visited Tolstoy's grave before, certainly not with you, but I swear I remember all this, and most of all the nice way you've got that hat tilted." As her hand went up to her hathe added, "And I could have told you you'd lift that hand, and the sun would make your ring sparkle." She held out her fingers stiffly, looking at the diamond. "Ted and I had a bit of a spat about that. When he produced it, I wasn't quite ready to wear it." The colonel called, "Well, Captain, I think we go on?" Edging into the thickening traffic stream on the main road, the little black automobile rolled in the direction of the gunfire. Trucks filled the highway, one line moving toward the front, one returning. Whiskered men and stout sunburned women, working in fields between stretches of birch forest paid no attention to the traffic. Children playing near the highway ignored the war vehicles too. In tiny villages, washing hung outside the log cabins and the wooden houses with gaily painted window frames. One odd observation forced itself on Victor Henry: the further one got from Moscow, the nearer to the front, the more normal and peaceful Russia appeared. The capital behind them was one vast apprehensive scurry. Directly outside it, battalions of women, boys, and scrawny men With glasses clerks, journalists, and schoolteachers-had been frantically digging antitank ditches and planting concrete and steel obstacles in myriads. Beyond that belt of defense began tranquil forests and fields, with fall colors splashing the stretches of green conifer. Mainly the air raid shelters for trucks along the highway-cleared spaces in the woods, masked with cut evergreen boughs-showed there was an invasion on. Toward evening the car rolled into a small town and stopped at a yellow frame house on a muddy square. Here red-cheeked children lined up at a pump with pails; smoke was rising from chimneys; other children were driving in goats and cows from broad fields, stretching far and Hat under a purpling cloudy sky; and three burly old men were hammering and sawing at the raw frame of a new unfinished house. This was the strangest thing Pug saw all that day-these Russian ancients, building a house in the twilight, within earshot of German artillery, much louder here than at the Tolstoy estate, with yellow Hashes flickering like summer lightning on the western horizon. "Then this is their home," the tank colonel replied, when Victor Henry remarked on the sight, as they climbed stiffly out of the car. "Where should they go? We have the Germans stopped here. of course, we took out the pregnant women and the mothers with babies long ago.". t headIn the warm little dining room of the house, now a regimen quarters, the visitors crowded around the tabi, with the tank colonel, four officers of the regiment, and a General Yevlenko, who wore three khaki stars on his thick wide shoulders. He was the chief of staff of the army group in that sector, and Colonel Amphiteatrov Cold Victor Henry that he had just happened to be passing through the town. This huge man with and big smooth pink jaws, appeared to fair hair, a bulbous peasant nose oky room. Much taken With Pamela, fill one end of the narrow sen ts urging food and drink on Yevlenko kept passing gallant compliment and stony, deeplyher. His fleshy face at moments settled into an abstracted, sad and tired look; then it would kindle with jollity, though the eyes remained filmed by fatigue in sunken purple sockets. A feast almost in Kremlin style appeared, on the rough yellow cloth, course by course, brought by soldiers: champagne, caviar, soup, fowls, smoked fish, steaks and cream cakes. The mystery of this magnificent stunt was cleared up when Pug Henry glanced into the kitchen as one of the soldier-waiters opened and closed the door. The red-bearded driver of the M-i automobile was sweating over the stove in a white apron. Pug had from the car into the house. Evidently he was seen him carrying boxes really a cook, and a superb one. The general talked freely about the war, and the colonel translated. r and had far fewer tanks His army group was outnumbered in this sects and guns than the Nazis. Still, they might yet surprise Fritz. They had to hold a line much too long for their strength, according to doctrine; but a good doctrine, like a good regiment, sometimes had to stretch. The Germans were taking fearful losses. He reeled off many figures of tanks destroyed, guns captured, men killed. Any army could advance if its commanders were willing to leave blood smeared on each yard of earth gained. The Germans were getting white as turnips with the bloodletting. This drive was their last big effort to win the war before winter came. "Will they take Moscow?" Tudsbury asked. "Not from this direction Pug, retorted the general, "nor do I think they will from any other. But if they like to do it, over land. We are going to beat them. well, we'll drive them out of Moscow, and then we'll drive them out of The Germans have no strategic policy. Their idea of a strategic policy is to kill, to loot, and to take slaves. In this day and age that is not a strategic policy. Furthermore, their resources are basically inferior to ours. Germany is a poor country. Finally, they overestimated themselves and they underrated us. According to V. I. Lenin, that is a very dangerous mistake in war. It is very dangerous in war, Lenin said, to think too much of yourself and too little of your opponent. The result can only be inaccurate plans and very unpleasant surprises, as, for example, defeat." Pamela said, "Still, they have come so far." The general turned a suddenly menacing, brutally tough, piteously exhausted, angry big face to her. His expression dissolved into a flirtatious smirk-'Yes, my dear girl, and I see that you mean that remark well and do not like what has happened any more than we do.
Yes, the Nazis, through unparalleled perfidy, did achieve surprise. And there is another thing. They are cocky. Their tails are up. They are professional winners, having already won several campaigns, and driven the indomitable British into the sea, and so forth. They believe they are unbeatable. However, as they watch their comrades die like flies in Russia, I think they are starting to wonder. At first they would advance in colu= down our highways, not even bothering to guard their flanks. Lately they've grown more careful. Yes, Hitler trained them to maraud, kill, and loot, and those are old Teutonic customs, so they are good at it. We are a peace-loving people, and I suppose in ament n we were al se se e caught unprepared. So, as you say, they have come far. Now we have two jobs: to keep them from coming farther, and then to send them back where they came from, the ones we haven't squashed into our mud." He turned to Henry and Tudsbury. "We will do the job faster, naturally, if you help us with supplies, for we have lost a lot. But most of all, the opening of a front in western Europe can lead to the quick destruction of these rats. The English might be surprised to find they could march straight to Berlin once they set foot in France. I believe every German who can shoot a gun straight has been shipped here for this attack." "I never broadcast without advocating a second front now," Tudsbury said. The general nodded. "You are well known and esteemed as a friend of the Soviet people.-He glanced at Victor Henry. "Well, and what are you interested in seeing, Captain? Unfortunately, this far inland, we cannot show you very good naval maneuvers." pose-0 from the fairy tales." "General, sup of course this is absurd, but-suppose my Presifr Ties," Yevlenko said, "but unfortunately no such dent "cowueldhvaivsiet syuocuhr stoont, in a cloak of invisibility cloaks." 'What would you like him to see?" The general glanced at the four officers sitting elbow to elbow at the table across from the visitors, smoking continuously, four kinky-haired pale Russians with shrewd weary eyes, who looked like quadruplets in their identical brown tunics. None of them had as yet uttered a word. Now he addressed them, and a colloquy in rapid Russian broke out. He turned back to Henry. "You put that well. It will be arranged. As the situation is a bit fluid, I suggest you make a start at dawn." He said to Pamela, gesturing upward, "A bedroom has been cleared for you. The gentlemen will bunk with these officers." 'Good heavens, a bedroom? I counted on sleeping on the floor or on the ground in my clothes," Pamela said. "Anyway, I'm not at all sleepy yet." As the colonel translated, Yevlenko's face litup. "So? You talk like one of our Russian girls, not like a delicate Englishwoman." Offering her his arm, he led them into the next room, where worn, inked-over maps hung on the walls, and the fusty house furniture was jumbled in with desks, stools, typewriters, and black twisting telephone cables. Soldiers pushed furniture, screeching here and there to clear a space around a shabby upright piano with bare wooden keys. An officer sat, cigarette dangling from his mouth, and thumped out "There'll Always Be an England." Pamela laughed when she recognized the tune, and stood and sang it. The general led applause and called for more champagne. The pianist began stumbling through "Alexander's Ragtime Band." With an elegant low bow, General Yevlenko invited Pamela to dance. He towered head and shoulders above her, so they made a grotesque pair, two-stepping stiffly round and round the narrow clear space in heavy muddy boots, but his face shone with enjoyment. She danced with other officers, then with the general again, as the pianist ran through the few American tunes he knew and started over on "Alexander's Ragtime Band." Everybody in the room quaffed much champagne and vodka. In the doorway soldiers crowded, watching with round gay eyes the foreign lady in gray pants dancing and drinking with the officers. Pug knew that she hated to dance, especially with strangers; he recalled almost the first words he had heard Pamela utter, on the Breimn in the dim far past of peacetime: 'I shall get myself a cane and a white wig." But she made a game show. The pianist began playing Russian music-which he did much better-and Pamela sank into a chair while the officers danced alone or with each other. The laughing and the handclapping grew louder. One handsome young soldier with a weeles growth of beard burst into the room and did a bravura solo, bounding, squatting, pirouetting, then acknowledging applause with the bow of a professional ballet artist. The general lumbered to his feet and began to dance by himself; he too twirled, jumped, then folded his arms and squatted, kicking his feet and hoarsely shouting, 'Skoreyel Skoreyel Faster! Faster!" His heavy steps shook the floor. The soldiers broke into the room to ring him and to cheer; the room reeked of men's dirty bodies, of smoke, of alcohol, yet pressed beside, Pamela, Victor Henry could faintly smell her carnation perfume too. When General Yevlenko finished with a shout and jumped up panting, the men roared and clapped, and Pamela came and kissed his perspiring big red face, and he heartily kissed her mouth, causing laughter and more roars; and that was the end. The general left. The soldiers pushed the furniture back as it had been. The visitors went to sleep. dawn, it was raining hard. Children and animals floundered in the ATdim violet light all over the square, and trucks splashed, skidded, and spun their wheels, throwing up curtains of muck. The back seat of the car was roomier, since many of the packages had been eaten or drunk up. Victor Henry thought of complimenting the master chef at the wheel, but decided against it. Pamela, squeezed between her father and Pug, had managed a touch of lipstick and eye makeup. In these surroundings she looked like a movie star visiting the troops, Pug thought. "Well, we go," said Colonel Amphiteatrov. "In this weather we will go slower, and not so far."The car bumped and slid about a hundred yards, then sank and stalled. "Well, I hope we will go farther than this," said the colonel. Soldiers in greatcoats surrounded the car. With shouting and shoving they got it to move. The wheels hit soldier ground, and the car went splashing, rocking, and stewing out of the town. After a run on asphalted highway through the fields, they took a narrow mud road into a forest. The chef drove well (or the chauffeur cooked well-Pug never did find out the truth), and he kept the car going through terrible ruts, mounds, and holes, for perhaps twenty minutes. Then the car stopped dead. Pug got out with the driver and the colonel. The hubs of the rear wheels were buried in ropy red mud. It was still raining heavily. They were stuck in wild woods, so quiet that rain hitting the hot hood made a hiss. "I suppose he has a shovel," Pug said. "Yes, I suppose so." The colonel was looking around. He walked off into the woods some yards ahead-to relieve himself, Pug imagined, before getting to work. Pug heard voices, then hoarse engine snorts. The bushes began to move. Out of the shrubbery a light tank appeared, covered with boughs, its cannon pointed at Pug. Behind it walked the colonel and three muddy men in greatcoats. The American had been looking straight at the mottled, camouflaged cannon, yet had not noticed it until it started toward him. The tank chugged out of the trees, swerved, and backed on the road. Soldiers quickly attached a chain and the car was pulled loose in a moment, with the passengers inside. Then the bough-festooned turret opened, and two bristly, boyish Slav heads poked out. Pamela jumped from the car, smiled and stumbled to the tank, and kissed the tankists, to their embarrassed pleasure. The turret closed, the tank backed into the wood to its former place, and the black automobile went lurching on into the forest. Thus they were bogged and rescued several times, and so discovered that the wet silent forest was swarming with the Red Army. They arrived at a washout that severed the road like a creek in flood. The ully's sides bore gouge marks of caterpillar treads and thick truck tires, 9 but obviously the auto could not struggle across. Here soldiers emerged from the woods and laid split logs across the gash, smooth side up, lashing them together into a shaky but adequate bridge. This was a sizable crew, and their leader, a fat squinting lieutenant, invited the party to stop and refresh themselves. There was no way of telling him from his men, except that he gave the orders and they obeyed. They were all dressed alike and they were all a red earth color. He led the visitors through the trees and down into an icy, mucky dugout roofed with timbers, and so masked by brush and shrubs that Victor Henry did not see an entrance until the ofncer began to sink into the earth. The dugout was ari underground cabin of tarred logs, crisscrossed with telephone cables, lit by an oil lamp and heated by an old open iron stove burning chopped branches. The' officer, squinting proudly at a brass samovar on the raw plank table, offered them tea. While water boiled, a soldier conducted the men to a latrine so primitive and foulthough Tudsbury and the Russians happily used it-that Pug went stumbling off into the trees, only to be halted by a sentry who appeared like a forest spirit. While the American attended to nature, the soldier stood guard, observing with some interest how a foreigner did it. Returning to the dugout, Pug encountered three big blank-faced Russians, marching with fixed bayonets around Pamela, who looked vaguely embarrassed and amused. Before they left, the lieutenant showed Pug and Tudsbury through the soldiers' dugouts, obviously proud of his men's workmanship. These freshly dug puddle-filled holes in the damp earth, smelling like graves, did have heavy timbered roofs that might survive a shell hit, and the mudcaked, unshaven soldiers, crouched in their greatcoats in the gloom, appeared content enough to smoke and talk and wait for orders here. Pug saw some feeding themselves with torn chunks of gray bread and dollops of stew from a muddy tureen lugged by two muddy soldiers. Munching on their bread, dragging at their cigarettes, these men placidly stared at the visitors, and slowly moved their heads to watch them walk through the trenches. Healthy-looking, well-nourished, they seemed as much at home in the red earth as earthworms, and they seemed almost as tough, abundant, and simple a form of life. Here Victor Henry first got an ineradicable feeling that Yevlenko had told the truth: that the Germans might gain the biggest victories, but that the Red Army would in time drive them out. "Ye gods," Tudsbury managed to mutter on the way back to the car, "Belgium in 1915 was nothing like this. They live like animals." "They can," Henry replied, and said no more, for Amphiteatrov's eye was on them in these brief asides. "Well, we are not really far from our destination," the Russian said, wiping rain from his face and helping Pamela into the back seat. "If not for the mud, we would have been there now." The car bumped and skipped out of the woods. Cleared fields stretched for miles ahead, flat as a table, under gray low clouds. "There's where we're going." Amphiteatrov pointed straight ahead to a distant line of forest. They came to a crossroads of mud churned up like water at a boil, and though the road ahead looked good, the driver slithered the car sharp right. "Why don't we drive straight on?" Pamela said. "Doesn't the road go through?" "Oh, yes. It goes through. it's mined. This whole area"-the colonel's arm swept around the quiet stubbly fields-"is mined." Pug said, somewhat chilled, "Nice to know these things when you start out." Amphiteatrov gave him his infrequent, wolfish, red-gummed smile, and wiped a dear drop from his thin bluish nose. "Well, yes, Captain. Your Intourist guide in these parts should really know what is what.