by Herman Wouk
Byron swiftly drew back his arm despite the bulk of his bridge coat, and crashed a fist into Cleveland’s smiling face.
Madeline gave another “EEK!” louder and shriller than before. Cleveland went down like a poled ox, but he was not really knocked out, because he landed on his hands and knees, crawled about, and got up. As he did so his lava-lava fell off, and he was standing stark naked, with a sizable white paunch protruding over his spindly legs and private parts. This unprepossessing sight was quite eclipsed by the astounding transformation of his face. He looked like Dracula. All his upper front teeth were filed to sharp little points, with slightly longer fangs at either end.
“Jesus CHRIST, Hugh,” Madeline cried out, “your teeth! Look at your teeth!”
Hugh Cleveland stumbled to a wall mirror, grinned at himself, and uttered an eerie wail. “Jethuth Chritht, my bridge! My porthelain bridge. It cotht me fifteen hundred flicking dollarth! Where the hell ith it?” He glanced wildly around the floor, turned on Byron and lisped in great indignation, “Why the hell did you thock me? How ridiculouth can you get? Let’th find that bridge, and damned fatht!”
“Oh, Hugh,” Madeline said nervously, “put something on, for Heaven’s sake, will you? You’re prancing around naked as a jaybird.”
Cleveland blinked down at his bare body, snatched the lava-lava, and fastened it on as he strode around searching the floor for his bridgework. Byron saw a white thing lying on the carpet under a chair. “Is this it?” he said, picking up the object and offering it to Cleveland. “Sorry I did that.” Byron wasn’t really very sorry, but the man was a pitifully idiotic sight with his sharpened-down tooth stumps, and the lava-lava carelessly dragging on his bulging belly.
“That’th it!” Cleveland went back to the mirror, and with two thumbs pressed the thing into his mouth. He turned around. “How’s that, now?” He looked normal again, flashing the celebrated smile that Byron had seen in so many magazine advertisements of Cleveland’s radio sponsor, a toothpaste company.
“Oh, heavens, that’s better,” said Madeline, “and Byron, you apologize to Hugh.”
“I did,” Byron said.
After grimacing at himself in the mirror and gnashing his teeth to test the fixity of the bridge, Cleveland turned to them. “Well, it’s just a damned good thing it didn’t break. I’ve got that U.S. Chamber of Commerce banquet tonight to toastmaster, and that reminds me, Mad, Arnold never did give me my thcript. What am I thuppothed to do if— oh, Chritht, there it goeth. It’th thlipping! I’m loothing it!” As he talked, Byron could indeed see the bridge come loose and drop out of his mouth. Cleveland lunged to catch it, stepped on the hem of the lava-lava, and fell on his face naked again, the flowery cloth pulling off and crumpling under him.
Madeline clapped her hand to her mouth and glanced at Byron, her wide eyes sparkling with their sense of fun shared since childhood. Hurrying to Cleveland, she spoke in tones of tender concern, “Are you hurt, honey?”
“Hurt? Thit, no.” Cleveland got to his feet, the bridge clutched in his fingers, and strode to the bedroom, his plump white bottom waggling. “Thith ith damned theriouth, Mad. I’m calling my dentitht, and he better be in! I’m getting paid a thouthand buckth to be toathtmathter tonight. Thon of a bith!”
He slammed the door.
Picking up the lava-lava, Madeline snapped at Byron, “Oh, YOU! HOW could you be such an ANIMAL!”
Byron glanced around the room. “Honestly, what is this setup, Madeline? Does he live here with you?”
“What? How can he? He’s got a family, stupid.”
“Well, what are you doing then?” Pouting, she did not answer. “Mad, are you just having a toss now and then with this fat old guy? How is that possible?”
“Oh, you don’t understand anything. Hugh is a friend, a dear good friend. You’ll never know how good he’s been to me, and what’s more —”
“You’re committing adultery, Mad.”
A fleeting miserable look came and went on her face. Madeline flipped a hand, shook her head, and smiled a super-wise female smile. “Oh, you’re so naive. His marriage is better now than it was, MUCH better. And I’m a much better person. There’s more than one way to live, Briny. You and I come from a family of fossils. I know Hugh would marry me if I pushed him, he’s daffy about me, but —”
Half-dressed, Cleveland looked out of the bedroom and lisped loudly at Madeline that his dentist was driving in from Thcarthdale. “Call Tham right away. Tell him to get hith ath over here in ten minuteth. Chritht, what a meth!”
“Tham?” Byron said as Cleveland closed the door.
“Sam’s his chauffeur,” Madeline said, hurrying to a telephone and dialling. “Oh, Byron, are you disowning me? Can I cook you a dinner? Shall we get blind drunk tonight? Want to stay here? There’s a spare room. When are you leaving? What’s the news of Natalie? — Hello, hello, let me talk to Sam… Well, find him, Carol. Yes, yes, I KNOW my brother Byron’s in town. Jesus Christ; do I know it… Never mind, just find Sam, and tell him to get the Cadillac over here in ten minutes flat.”
She said as she hung up, “Byron, I’ve worked for Hugh for four years, and I didn’t know he had bridgework.”
“Live and learn, Mad.”
“If the whole thing weren’t so awful,” she said, “and if you weren’t such a disgusting neanderthal, it would be the funniest goddamned thing I’ve been through in my life.” Her mouth was wrinkling, suppressing laughter. “I’ve nagged him for years to get rid of that horrible stomach. Look at you, now! Flat as a boy, just like Dad. Will, you give your adulterous sister a kiss?”
“Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery; nothing else holds fashion,“ rails the sour Thersites.“A burning devil take them!”
Janice had some warning, so she was able to receive Byron in poised innocence; as Madeline could have done too, given half a chance.
When her father-in-law had passed through Honolulu, dissembling to him about her affair with Carter Aster had given her not a qualm. It was none of his business. No man could think like a woman about these things, least of all Captain Victor Henry, who wouldn’t even play cards on Sunday. Frankness would have led only to embarrassment, and no possible useful purpose would have been served. But Byron’s cable posed a problem to Janice.
Aster had told her that her brother-in-law would be reporting to the Moray. Byron was altogether a peculiar sort, fully as dashing as Warren, but with a sweetly idealistic attitude toward women which could prove a nuisance. His moral views seemed as narrow as his father’s. His tale about the girl in Australia had been all but incredible, but Janice had believed it. What would have been the point of a lie that made him out a prudish simpleton?
Yet, when a war was on, when men were far from home and lonely, when everywhere there was great activity in what Aster robustly called “unauthorized ass” — a phrase that much amused Janice, though she pretended to bridle at it — why should Byron have denied himself a natural and beautiful relationship? The Aster affair had sprung up more or less accidentally. After Midway an attack of dengue fever had laid her low, and Carter Aster had visited her every day and had seen to her needs of food and medicine, and one thing had led to another.
She knew that Byron would be scandalized if he found out. Janice didn’t understand that side of Byron; he was damned different from his brother. She regarded his prudishness as a quaint minor foible, and she certainly did not want to disillusion or estrange him. She considered herself a Henry, she liked that family better than her own, and she had always found Byron a very attractive man. It was wonderful to have him around.
So as Aster was getting dressed to return to the submarine late one night, Janice decided to take things in hand. She was smoking a cigarette in bed, nude under a sheet.
“Byron’s due in the morning, honey.”
“He is?” Aster paused in pulling on khaki trousers. “So soon? How do you know that?”
“He cabled me from San Francisco. He’s getting
a ride on NATS.”
“Well, great! It’s high time. We need him aboard.”
It was past midnight. Aster never stayed till morning. He liked to be up and about on the submarine at reveille; also, he was tender of Janice’s reputation, living as she did in a row of houses with early-rising neighbors. Janice loved Aster, or at least loved her hours with him, but she wanted nothing permanent with him. He had nothing like Warren’s breadth, he read trash, and his talk was pure Navy. He reminded her of the many Pensacola pilots who had bored her before Warren had come along. Aster was an able naval engineer, with an urge to excel and to kill, born for submarining. And he was a considerate and satisfying lover; the perfect partner for unauthorized ass, so to say, but not much more. If Aster sensed her qualified regard for him, he wasn’t complaining.
“The point is, dear,” Janice said, “that hanky-panky has to be out for a while.” He gave her a cool inquiring look, tucking in his shirt. “I mean, you know Byron. I love him dearly. I don’t want him getting all upset and disapproving. I can’t have it.”
“Now let me understand you. Are you calling it off?”
“Oh, would you mind, all that much?”
“Hell, yes, I’d mind, Janice.”
“Well, don’t look so tragic. Smile.”
“Why does Byron have to know?”
“When you’re in port, he’ll be spending nights here.”
“He’ll have the duty every other night.”
“Yes, I suppose he will. All the same —”
Aster came to the bed, sat down, and gathered her in his arms.
After a breathless few kisses she murmured, “Well, we’ll see, we’ll see. One thing, Carter. Byron must never, never find out. Understand?”
“Sure,” Aster said. “No need for it.”
The morning he arrived Byron stayed only long enough to have breakfast, then went on to the submarine; but in that short time he unburdened with frank and deep bitterness of heart the gist of what had happened in Marseilles. The news that Natalie and her baby were caught in Germany horrified Janice. Automatically she defended what her sister-in-law had done, and tried to reassure Byron that it would all turn out well. But she feared Natalie was doomed. Watching him play with Vic in the garden before he left, she had to exert willpower not to cry. The instant mutual magnetism between the uncle and the child was poignant to behold. When Byron said he had to go, Victor clung to him with arms and legs as he had never done with Warren.
The Moray stayed around Pearl Harbor for several more weeks, most of the time out at sea in the training areas. When the submarine came into port Byron spent every other night at Janice’s cottage. The first time he remained aboard, Aster telephoned. Janice did not know what to do. She told him to come over, but not until after little Vic was asleep in bed. His visit was a failure. She was uneasy, Aster quickly discerned it, and after a couple of drinks he left without touching her. She saw him only once after that before the Moray left on patrol. When Byron told her that they were sailing in the morning, she said, “Oh! Well, why don’t you ask Carter to come to dinner, then? He’s been awfully kind to me and Vic.”
“That’s nice of you, Jan. Can he bring a girl?”
“If he wants to, sure.”
Aster brought no girl. The three of them dined by candlelight, drinking a lot of wine and working up to a jolly mood. Byron’s spirits were improving with his return to submarine duty. Aster’s correct mixture of informality and aloofness won Janice’s gratitude. At one point they turned on the radio for the war news, and heard that the Germans had at last surrendered at Stalingrad. They opened another bottle of wine on that.
“There go the Krauts,” Byron said, lifting his glass, “and none too soon.” To his wine-flushed mind, this news signalled the early deliverance of his family.
“Damn right. Now we get the Japs,” said Aster.
When the evening was over and Janice was left alone, her head reeled with wine, and she was feeling in delighted girlish confusion that the death of her husband was behind her, and that she truly loved two men.
* * *
Global Waterloo 4:Ctalingard
(from World Holocaust by Armin von Roon)
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE:General von Roon’s discussion of Stalingrad concludes the strategic analysis section of World Holocaust. The original book sketches all campaigns and battles to the end of the war. But as it happens, this subsequent ground is covered briefly, and with much more anecdotal interest, in the epilogue to Roon’s magnum opus: a personal memoir of his dealings with Adolf Hitler called “Hitler as Military Leader.” This gives interesting glimpses of the Fuhrer in decay during the mounting collapse of Germany on all fronts. My translation continues with excerpts from the memoirs, adding only Roon’s essay on the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
I have taken some liberties with Roon’s writing on Stalingrad. Seen in isolation, the battle was a senseless five-month grinding of whole German armies to hamburger in a remote industrial town on the Volga. One needs the context of the 1942 summer campaign to grasp what happened there. But Roon’s Case Blue analysis is so fogged with names of Russian cities and rivers, and with German army movements, that American readers cannot get through it. So I have inserted some passages of “Hitler as Military Leader” to illuminate the picture, employing only the words of Armin von Roon, and I have tried to cut out as many confusing technical and geographical references as possible.— V.H.
Stalingrad fulfilled on the battlefield Spengler’s prophetic vision of the decline of the West. It was the Singapore of Christian culture.
The true tragedy of Stalingrad is that it need not have happened. The West had the strength to prevent it. It was not like the fall of Rome, or of Constantinople, or even of Singapore: not a world-historical crushing of a weak culture by a stronger one. On the contrary! We of the Christian West, had we but been united, could readily have repulsed the barbaric Scythians out of the steppes in their new guise of Marxist predators. We could have pacified Russia for a century and changed its essential menacing nature.
But this was not to be. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s one war aim was to destroy Germany so as to win unimpeded rule of the world for American monopoly capital. Rightly he perceived that England was finished. As for the menace of Bolshevism he was either blind to it, or saw no way to eradicate it, and decided that Germany was the competitor he could destroy.
The great Hegel has taught us that it is irrelevant to challenge the morality of world-historical individuals. Morally, if one values the Christian civilization now being swamped by Marxist barbarism, Franklin Roosevelt was unquestionably one of mankind’s archcriminals. But in military history, one regards only how well the political aim of a war leader was achieved. However shortsighted Roosevelt’s aim, he certainly achieved the destruction of Germany.
Sunset Glow
Our second great assault on the Soviet Union, called “Case Blue,” * led to Stalingrad. It was an insightful concept, it was mainly Hitler’s, and it came close to success. Hitler himself ruined it.
The contrast of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler in their war-making is altogether Plutarchian. Spidery calculation versus all-out gambling; steadfast planning versus impulsive improvising; careful use of limited armed strength versus prodigal dissipation of overwhelming strength; prudent reliance on generals versus reckless overruling of them; anxious concern for troops versus impetuous outpouring of their lives; a timid dip of a toe in combat versus total war with the last reserves thrown in; such was the contrast between the two world opponents as they at last came to grips in 1942, nine years after they both took power.
In retrospect the world sees Hitler as the disgusting 1945 figure in the bunker: Roosevelt’s trapped victim, a distintegrating, trembling, unrepentant horror lost in dreams, maintaining his grip on a prostrate Reich by sheer terror. But this was not the Hitler of July 1942. Then he was still our all-masterful FUHRER: a remote, demanding, difficult warlord, but the ruler of an empire unmatc
hed by those of Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon. The glow of German victory lit the planet. Only in retrospect do we see that it was a sunset glow.
Case Blue
Case Blue was a summer drive to end the war in the east.
Our great 1941 drive, Barbarossa, had aimed to destroy the Red Army and shatter the Bolshevik state in one grand three-pronged summer campaign. We had tried to do too much at once. We had hurt the enemy, but the Russian is a stolid fatalist, with an animal ability to resist and endure. The Japanese unwillingness to attack Siberia — duly reported to Stalin by his spy Sorge from our embassy in Tokyo — had enabled the Red dictator to denude his Asian front and hurl fresh divisions of hardy brutish Mongol troops at us. These winter counterattacks, though halting us in the snows outside Moscow, had petered out. When the spring thaw came we still held an area of the Soviet Union roughly analogous to the entire U.S.A. east of the Mississippi. Who can doubt that under such an occupation the flighty Americans would have collapsed? But the Russians are a different breed, and they needed one more convincing blow.
Case Blue carried forward Barbarossa in its southern phase. The aim was to seize southern Russia for its agricultural, industrial, and mineral wealth. The theme was limited and clear: Hold in the north and center, win in the south. Granted that Hitler’s continental mentality could not grasp the Mediterranean strategy, it was the next best thing to do. We were in it, and we had to attack. Moreover, it did not appear that we could fight the war to a finish without the Caucasus oil.
Under all the muddled political verbiage of Hitler’s famous Directive Number 41, rewritten by his own hand from Jodl’s professional draft, the governing concepts of Case Blue were:
Straighten out the winter penetrations;
Hold fast, north and center, on the Leningrad-Moscow-Orel line;