Tides of Valor

by Peter Albano

  Rodney felt a familiar heat uncoil in his guts like a hot spring. “Well, well,” he said evenly. “The champion of the proletariat is back—back with his appetite and thirst. I thought you provided for yourself?”

  “Aw, shit, man. You motherfuckers were going to throw this shit into the garbage, anyway. We just intercepted it.” Margaret laughed raucously, spraying bits of partially chewed white meat. The servants stared at Nathan in disgust.

  Rodney walked across the room and stopped close to his brother. An atavistic rage crept over him and he felt control slipping. At that moment he hated his brother. He lashed out, “I hear Hitler’s a son of a bitch—has been for a whole two weeks. No hero anymore. No trouble with that, brother?”

  Nathan dropped his drumstick and gulped down a huge swallow of scotch. “That Fascist pig and his lackeys must be stamped out or the whole world will be enslaved.”

  “You’re humming a new tune, Nathan.”

  “The world changes, brother. Keep up with the times instead of marching to that reactionary drum of yours.”

  Rodney boiled over. “You loved Borah, Wheeler, Lindbergh, and the rest of those isolationists until June twenty-second. Then, suddenly, they were traitors and Roosevelt and Churchill were your heroes. That stinkin’ rag the Daily Worker reversed itself in twenty-four hours.” He leaned forward, fists balled. “The whole Communist Party is schizophrenic and you, personally, are a contemptible hypocrite.”

  Slowly Nathan came to his feet, eyes flashing a warning. “Watch that big mouth, brother,” he warned. The servants, Margaret, all stared wide-eyed. An oppressive silence gripped everyone.

  Feeling anger possess him like a rapacious beast that had lain in ambush all these years, Rodney challenged, “Do you think you can close it, brother?”

  “You’re chicken shit, Rodney,” Margaret said. She hurled a drumstick that bounced off his tan shirt, leaving a greasy smear. Rodney shifted his eyes to the girl. It was a mistake. He never saw the fist. For a moment he thought someone had clubbed him from behind. His head snapped backward and he reeled as a big bony fist caught him on the side of the head. Gongs rang in his ears and lights like comets flashed across his retinas. His cheek felt numb and at the same time there was a coppery salt taste in his mouth.

  He had been in many fights in his youth. In fact, he had even been thrown out of two football games when he knocked down linemen who punched and gouged at his eyes in pileups. He leapt back and avoided the second punch of the combination. The sneak punch had been cowardly and rage came on him with startling ferocity as if a ravening beast had jumped on his back and dug into him with claws and fangs. He heard the beast growl in his ears, it was his own voice. His veins were charged and his senses had not been so alert since Bismarck. He crouched, weaved with his massive fists raised, and shook his head clear. Nathan stepped toward him.

  Nathan was flabby and out of shape but still dangerous. Rodney stared at his brother’s face; it was impassive and cold like an executioner. There was no boxing. The space was too confining and both fighters were so intent on destroying his enemy, there were no calculated moves, no thinking—just actions and reactions.

  “No! No! Gentilhommes!” Nicole cried while Antoine stared silently, soup spoon in hand.

  “Gentlemen, please,” Travers pleaded. The pleas were ignored. Travers reached for the phone.

  The punch came from the level of Nathan’s knees. This time Rodney was ready, ducking and riding away from it. The huge fist as big as the ham roast in the oven whistled past his temple, scraping the flesh away from the outside corner of his eye and brushing his hair straight up. The counterpunch was instinctive. Exploding from his crouch like a loaded spring and with all of his 190 pounds behind it, Rodney’s fist slammed into his brother’s armpit. He was sure he felt ribs crack. The impact was so hard, he felt his own teeth jar in his head and a sharp pain shot up his forearm.

  Nathan stopped in midstride, grunted, spittle flying, and his breath hissed like an open pressure valve on a steam boiler, but he swung a right hand that caught Rodney on the cheek. The impact twisted Rodney’s head, hair lifted from his scalp and for an instant stood erect like clipped wheat. Saliva and blood flew from the corner of his mouth. Both men jumped back. Margaret laughed with glee and took a huge bite of chicken breast.

  Thinking his brother was badly injured, Nathan charged like a corrida bull, swinging short arcing punches. He had misread his brother. Lefts and rights rained on Rodney’s arms and shoulders as he retreated. He ducked, weaved, then stepped inside the attack, bringing a fist up hard into Nathan’s soft midriff. His brother doubled forward, bearded chin crashing down on Rodney’s shoulder. Nathan grabbed him in a bear hug. Clinching, punching, screaming into each other’s faces, the brothers staggered against the long salad table, upsetting it and sending it crashing to the floor with bowls of lettuce, celery, tomatoes, potato and macaroni salads, long-handled spoons and forks and a half-dozen jars of dressing that broke and spilled their oily contents onto the linoleum. Losing their footing and spinning like a pair of drunken dancers, they bounced against a wall with such force two pans fell from their hooks. They broke apart, stunned.

  Nicole screamed, Travers shouted into the phone, and Antoine ran from the room, carrying the huge pot of boiling soup.

  Numbly, the two combatants stared at each other. “Had enough, brother?” Rodney said.

  The answer was a guttural shout like an enraged bull and a wild charge. Counter punching, Rodney gave ground. Blows rained off his shoulders, arms, glanced off the side of his head punishingly. He slipped in some oily salad dressing and balanced precariously on one foot. Yelling with triumph, Nathan brought a fist up that caught Rodney on the side of the head. His head jerked to the side, teeth clashing together and lacerating his tongue. Droplets of sweat flew from his hair and scalp like a halo. The gongs rang again and a door slammed in his head, vision starring, penetrated by small winking lights. His knees bent like reeds in a heavy rain. Desperately, he swung, felt his fist impact his brother’s nose. There was a crunch like teeth biting into a crisp apple as flesh flattened, gristle broke, blood and mucus flew. Rodney felt a fierce joy surge.

  Now both brothers were treading salad dressing like first-time ice skaters on a frozen pond, slipping, sliding, clutching each other, crashing into the cutting block, and tumbling to the floor with it and a dozen knives and cleavers. They rolled across the floor, shrieking into each other’s faces, punching, coating themselves with salad dressing, potato salad, macaroni, lettuce, and squashed tomatoes. Rodney swung again and again, some blows dying in the air, others skinning his knuckles on the linoleum, and yet others cracking against bone and muscles. His brother began to weaken.

  Desperately, Nathan grabbed a cleaver. Nicole screamed. Travers shouted a warning. Antoine reentered the room and tried to grab Nathan’s arm but was knocked down when the brothers rolled into him. Margaret bellowed, “Slice him into hamburger, baby!” and then laughed with glee.

  Grabbing Nathan’s wrist, Rodney forced the hand and the murderous blade straight up. Then he elbowed his brother’s body away slightly and brought a knee up hard into Nathan’s crotch. He felt his brother’s genitals flatten from the blow and the strength went out of Nathan like air out of a punctured balloon. The cleaver clattered to the floor.

  Margaret screamed, “You fight dirty, you son of a bitch!”

  With a shout of triumph, Rodney rolled on top of his brother and straddled him, knees pinning Nathan’s arms to the floor. Looking down into the battered face, he saw one eye purple and closed, lips swollen and bleeding, nose twisted with blood, and mucus streaming from both nostrils. He hated his brother for his hypocrisy, his treachery, the humiliations and frustrations of a lifetime.

  But most of all, he hated him for mocking every value Rodney held dear, deriding the very things that gave his life meaning. He was not satisfied. At that moment, he wanted to
kill him. He raised his fist.

  Then the whirlwind struck him. It was Margaret Hollister, crashing into him from behind with all of her 160 pounds. The impact was like a battering ram and the black curtains dropped again. The force of the charge knocked him flat on his face and he skidded face first into a heap of potato salad and a broken jar of mayonnaise. The girl was on his back, clawing, cursing, howling like a banshee. Then Nathan was on his feet, staggering and then falling on top of the combatants. Rodney felt the breath crushed out of him and he was convinced he would strangle on the salad and mayonnaise. Mercilessly, Margaret’s blows rained on the back of his head, ears, and neck while she shouted “Motherfuckin’ pig!” over and over. There was a high-pitched scream like steam from a kettle and Nicole leapt onto the pile. Her weight toppled the mass of bodies. Clawing, screaming, flailing, the four rolled in a single contorting mass across the floor.

  The sound of the one voice in the world that could stop them crashed through the room. “Rodney! Nathan!” their mother screamed. But the brothers were deaf. The punching, cursing continued. Then strong hands gripped and pulled.” Travers, Antoine, the groundsman. Crag Watson, and two policemen pulled the combatants apart and held them. Nicole, sobbing out of control, staggered out of the room, brushing salad from her black taffeta. Cursing, Margaret returned to her chair. She downed a full glass of Scotch. The two brothers, held by the five men, were pinned against the wall.

  Following the rule of bloody, vicious fights, the combatants were “fought out,” not only drained of energy, but of emotion. They were both pliable as rubber and almost docile as they were held against the wall. But hatred still burned deep in Nathan’s eyes.

  “Would you like them booked?” one of the officers asked.

  Brenda looked at the officer sadly, “I am embarrassed to admit it, but they are my sons.”

  “Both of them?” the officer asked incredulously, obviously concluding Nathan and Margaret were intruders, or, at worst, thieves.

  “Yes, both of them.” Brenda turned to the boys. “My sons. My God,” she said, voice heavy with heartbreak. She stepped close and the brothers stared at their mother. “What have I done that was so terribly wrong?” she said. “Where did I fail?” She seemed to be speaking to herself. “Both from my womb, same father, same blood. How can this happen? Caine and Abel over again?”

  The boys remained mute.

  Brenda shook her head. Her voice returned, octaves lower, “It’s kill, kill, kill. The whole world’s insane and the insanity infects my family, is in my sons.”

  Nathan looked at Margaret and signaled her with a toss of his head. “We’ll leave,” he said softly. Brenda nodded and he was released. He and Margaret left hand in hand while the officers watched them warily.

  Only after the door closed behind Nathan was Rodney released. “I’ll leave, too, Mother.”

  She looked deep in his eyes with a sadness that tore at his soul. “Stay, Rodney—stay until your leave is up. Four more days. I asked you before and I still want you here with me.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Nathan will be gone soon, too.”

  “What do you mean, Mother?”

  “He joined the Marine Corps yesterday.”

  That evening Rodney was unable to eat the roast ham because of his sore jaw and tongue. Salad had no appeal—the taste of potato salad and salad dressing was still in his nose—and he confined himself to onion soup loaded with croutons and cheese. A Jell-0 dessert went down easily. After dinner, he, Brenda, Ellen, and Aunt Betty moved to the sitting room where his mother’s pride, a huge Majestic Superheterodyne radio, squatted arrogantly in a corner. With a large four-foot mahogany cabinet festooned with strips of gleaming chrome, it had a huge cyclopean dial near the top. Its controls resembled the diving station of a submarine and it flashed with more lights than the Marquee on the Radio City Music Hall.

  Rodney was glad it was Monday evening. This was the night for the Lux Radio Theater and Brenda never missed a single production. In fact, she was addicted to the radio, listening religiously to “Fibber McGee and Molly,” “Myrt and Marge,” “The Incomparable Hildegarde,” “The March of Time,” “Burns and Allen,” Fred Allen’s “Town Hall Tonight,” “The Jack Benny Show,” and many more. When the war broke out in 1939, she began searching the dial for correspondents. The voices of William L. Shirer, Edward R. Murrow, Dorothy Thompson, Winston Burdett, and Howard K. Smith began to boom through the big speaker each afternoon and evening. Rodney was hoping the radio, anything, would take her mind from the terrible scene in the kitchen. Sullen and depressed, she had not spoken a dozen words to anyone for the entire evening. He was glad when Hamilton Babcock entered and sat next to Brenda on a long sofa in front of the radio. Hamilton always listened to the program with Brenda. Brenda switched on the radio and Rodney sank back in his chair.

  Cecil B. DeMille’s limpid, dulcet voice filled the room, speaking in awed tones of this evening’s gripping dramatization of “Dark Victory,” starring dark Gable and Josephine Hutchinson.

  Just as the orchestra was reaching for the thundering crescendo that would introduce the first act, the knock came and Travers entered the room. He coughed. Brenda turned off the radio with a quick, irritated twist of a knob in the corner of the giant eye. Travers’s voice was apologetic, “Sorry to interrupt, madam. There’s a gentleman to see you.”

  “Who is it?”

  “He didn’t say, madam.”

  Sighing, Brenda stood. “Show him in.”

  “He is already in, madam.”

  Rodney and Hamilton came to their feet and faced the door with Brenda.

  RAF Major Randolph Higgins entered the room. In his serge woolen, blue-gray, perfectly tailored uniform. He looked taller and broader than ever. His thick brown hair was highlighted with silver-gray strands and lines clearly slashed downward from the corners of his eyes and mouth showing the years of strain and the toll of time. But in a way, his growing maturity, erect, assured bearing, broad shoulders, and trim waist made him appear more attractive than ever. His face was still very handsome with a straight aristocratic nose, square jaw, and fine unwrinkled skin. His brown eyes were flashing as if backlighted and held only Brenda in their gaze. He raised his arms.

  Brenda choked, covered her mouth with a closed fist, and then made strange squeaking sounds deep in her throat as if she were incapable of forming words. She rushed into his arms and for the first time in his life, Rodney saw his mother and Uncle Randolph touch each other. It was far more than a touch. They held each other tightly while Brenda kissed his cheeks, his neck, and finally his mouth. Hamilton came erect in a rigid stance and his lips slashed back from his teeth in an inverted crescent. Finally, Randolph pulled back slightly and Brenda found words, “Oh, God, you’re alive. You’re alive,” she sobbed. “My dear, dear Randolph. I’ve been so worried.”

  Ellen and Betty crowded around, prying their way in to kiss and hold the pilot for a few moments. Nicole entered and walked up to Randolph timidly. She was crying and tears streamed down her cheeks. It was a bold move for a maid, but the Frenchwoman seemed not to care—and neither did Randolph. He held her very close and she whispered in French in his ear and then kissed his cheek. He smiled and whispered something back in French. Then she curtsied and left. Instantly Rodney sensed an intimacy—a feeling that something deeply personal had happened between the pair long ago.

  Finally, Rodney made his way through the crowding women and grasped his uncle’s hand. “I say, you look fit, nephew,” Randolph said, smiling broadly. The women fell silent. “And it was marvelous having you at Fenwyck for a weekend.”

  “It was great being there and you, too, look well, Uncle.”

  “Sinking the Bismarck did wonders for you.”

  “A tonic, sir. Like to do it again.’’ Everyone except Brenda laughed.

  After a quick introduction to Hamilton, Ran
dolph sat between Brenda and the businessman. Brenda held onto Randolph’s hand possessively. Hamilton’s eyes were as cold and hard as highly polished marble.

  Travers entered and at a signal from Brenda moved to a corner bar where he poured bourbon for Hamilton, scotch for Randolph and Rodney, and wine for the women. Brenda raised her glass, “To Randolph Higgins, the mysterious major who can materialize anywhere, anyplace, anytime.”

  Everyone laughed and drank. Randolph asked about Nathan. Brenda, showing astonishing aplomb, explained that he no longer lived at home and that he had joined the Marines and was waiting to be called. Randolph nodded approvingly and sipped his scotch. “And what do you hear from Regina?’’ he asked cautiously.

  Brenda bit her lip. “Nothing. It’s been months.”

  “Daresay, deucedly mucked situation there,” Randolph noted. He explained how Lloyd was home for a short leave and assured everyone the family was well. He did not mention Bonnie’s fiancé, Blake Boggs.

  “Will Lloyd be home long?” Betty asked.

  “Betty, that could be a secret,” Brenda cautioned.

  Randolph smiled enigmatically. “Not really. He’s been in North Africa for almost two years and is home on a short leave. Since both ‘Lord Haw Haw’ and ‘Axis Sally’ not only named his brigade in broadcasts that covered half the world, but, also, Axis Sally actually cited Lloyd personally, as the commanding officer, I can’t see any harm in telling you.”

  “He’ll return to North Africa?”

  “Probably. He’s got to settle some logistical problems first—those are secret.”

  “And you? Why are you here? How long will you stay? Can you stay with us?” Brenda asked.

  Randolph threw up his hands defensively. “I’ve got to catch a train at oh-two-hundred.” There was a groan.

  “Can you tell us your mission?”

  Randolph sipped his drink. “Some of it.” He ran his eyes over the room. “You know I’m a fighter pilot.” He looked at Brenda. “And, Brenda, you know in the early days I designed aircraft with Tommy Sopwith and the lot.’’ Brenda nodded, never taking her eyes from Randolph as if she were not yet convinced he was sitting next to her. “Everyone knows we—the RAF, Coastal Command, the Royal Navy—have been shopping for aircraft here, in the States, since ‘thirty-nine.”