But once he had locked his bedroom door, the correctness did not end.
She had steeled herself to be pawed, but he made no move to touch her.
He was in fact acting as if she were not in the room.
He took off his tunic and hung it up, then sat on the bed and pulled off his boots. Next he arranged his breeches on the couch so as to preserve their crease.
"How much have you had to drink?" he asked suddenly. "Are you sober?
" "I'm a little happy," she said.
"Are you drunk is what I'm asking," he said, looking at her.
"No, I don't think I am."
"I have a message I want you to deliver," he said.
She looked at him with the unspoken question in her eyes.
"From Eric von Fulmar. He wishes to express his best wishes to your father." She felt a chill.
"I don't quite understand," she said, her voice faint.
"But you heard what I said?" Muller asked, somewhat impatiently.
"Yes, but I don't understand the message," she said.
"It is a very simple message. When you go home in the morning--I think it will be best if you stay the night--you will give that message to your father, and then at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon you will go to the Cafe Weitz. I will meet you there and you will relay his answer to me." She felt the tears start, and she couldn't stop them.
"Herr Standartenfuhrer," she said, "I swear on my mother's grave that my father doesn't know who Eric von Fulmar is!"
"But you know him?"
"Yes, I knew him."
"That's all?"
"He was my lover when he was at the university," she said.
"You were in love with him?"
"I... I was performing a service to the state at the request of Hauptsturmfuhrer Peis," she said.
Muller went to her and grabbed her shoulders and put his face close to hers.
"It would be very dangerous for you, my girl, to lie about von Fulmar's relationship to your father," he said.
Gisella was now shaking.
"I swear before Christ he never met him," she said.
"He was your lover and he never even met your father? Why not?"
"Because I didn't want him involved," she said.
"When was the last time you heard from Fulmar?"
"I've been over this again and again and again. I don't know where he went, and he never told me he was going."
"And you have not had any contact with him since May of 1940?"
"No. I swear, I don't know anything about him.
My God, why won't you believe me?" Muller let her go, walked to his tunic, and took out a package of cigarettes. He handed her one and lit it, then lit another for himself.
"Gisella," he said, almost in a fatherly tone, al want you to consider your answer very carefully before you give it. If you should be contacted in any way by Eric von Fulmar, in any way at all, would you promptly notify Hauptsturmfuhrer Peis?" She took a deep breath.
"Yes, of course I would," she said, "if that is what is desired of me.
"
"I don't believe you," Muller said matter-of-factly.
She looked at him in horror.
"Peis would. I don't. Which is a good thing for you."
"I don't know what you mean," she said helplessly.
"Eric von Fulmar is now an officer in the United States Army," Muller said. "He sent a postcard, postmarked Bad Ems, to a mutual friend, asking that his regards be given to your father--"
"I tell you," she said desperately, interrupting him, zhe doesn't know my father!" And then the implications of what he had said sank in. He didn't sound as if he were a security officer looking for a spy or a spy's accomplices.
Gisella stared at Muller in utter confusion.
"--and I want to know what he meant by that," Muller finished.
"He didn't know my father," she wailed. "He doesn't know my father."
"Fulmar sent his regards, "Muller said flatly. "We have to find out what the hell he meant by it. My life, and now yours, Gisella, may damned well hang on that."
"I don't understand_ n she began, and he shut her off.
"Yes, you do." he said. "You're a very intelligent young woman."
"Has this anything to do with Reichsminister Speer?" Gisella asked.
She saw immediately in his eyes that the question confused him.
"I don't know," he said. "If you're asking if I am making inquiries on behalf of Speer, no.
Quite the opposite, Gisella." She looked at him curiously, and he nodded his head to confirm her suspicions.
"I want you to ask your father, right out, if he can think of any reason why Fulmar would send him his regards," Muller said. "Do you understand?
If he can't think of anything, have him guess. Whatever he tells you, you tell me. III decide whether it's important or not." He kept looking at her until finally she nodded her head, and said, very softly, "All right. All right." He nodded, then turned from her and stripped down to his underwear and got in the bed.
Baffled, she crawled in bed beside him, careful not to touch him.
Was Muller up to something with Peis? Or was he up to something deeper than Peis was ever capable of?
She had a nightmare. Peis was slapping her face, and this time Muller was watching. When Peis ripped her blouse and brassiere off and applied the tip of his cigarette to her nipple, she woke up, breathing heavily, soaked in sweat.
"I f "What's the matter?" Muller asked.
"I had a nightmare," she said.
He sort of chortled. But it was not unkind.
"I was in it?"
"You and Peis," she said. "He was burning my breast with a cigarette."
"He did that to you?"
"Yes, when Eric disappeared and I had no idea where he was, or even that he was going.
"That may happen again," Muller said, "I am sorry to say." She started to shiver.
He rolled over and put his arm around her.
He held her until she stopped shivering, then started to turn away from her.
"Don't let go of me," Gisella said.
"I'm not a fucking saint," Muller said.
"Neither am I, Herr Standartenfuhrer," she heard herself say faintly, but very clearly.
Washington, D. C 5 January 1943 Although Ed Bitter was about to leave his wife and child and--at last-approach, at least, the field of battle, he, and they, were in much better shape than other families whose head had been ordered overseas.
For one thing, he didn't have to worry about where Sarah and Joe would live. Just after Ed announced he was going overseas, his parents and Sarah's father began a very polite but quite serious competition for the privilege of housing Sarah and Joe until Ed came home.
Thus, Ed's mother argued that there was more than enough room in the Lake Shore Drive apartment. And besides, she'd love the chance to get to know her grandson better.
Joseph Child, on the other hand, argued that while it was of course up to Sarah, he thought she would be more comfortable in New York, as she had so few friends in Chicago. And besides, happily, a very nice apartment had just become vacant in a building "the bank owned" not far from his own apartment.
Sarah, Solomon-like, announced that if there was no objection, she would like to go to Palm Beach. Her father's house there was, of course, closed. But there was the guest house, right on the beach, which could be easily opened. Six rooms were more than enough room for the two of them.
And even for her father or the Bitters, if they decided to drop in for a week or ten days. Besides, she said, Florida would be good for Joe.
With exquisite courtesy, the grandparents split the problem of transporting Sarah and Joe to Palm Beach. Joseph Child would come to Washington and provide Sarah company until the guest house in Palm Beach could be made ready. Pat Grogarty, who had been the Childs' chauffeur more years than Sarah was old, would then drive Sarah and Joe to Florida, where Ed's mother (who now liked to be referred to as' Mother B
ittep) would be waiting, "to help Sarah get settled." Meanwhile, Ed had managed to convince both Sarah and the grandparents that he was simply moving from one desk assignment to another.
Not, in other words, to sea, much less to war. Though their anxieties about his safety annoyed him, he was nevertheless a little touched as well.
He was, after all, a professional naval officer, and the nation was at war.
He had obligations on that account.
But on the other hand, there was no point correcting their belief that because of his wound, he would no longer be required to go in harm's way. So he had not let Sarah know that he was now back on flight status, despite the still-stiff knee.
The funny thing was that leaving Sarah and Joe turned out to be difficult, more difficult than Ed had imagined.
While he wasn't madly, passionately in love with Sarah, he respected and admired her more than any other woman he had ever known.
She had character. She'd handled the shock of her pregnancy, for instance, in a really decent way. She'd accepted her share of responsibility, and told him straight off--and he was sure she had meant it--that he had no obligation or duty to marry her.
He had accepted, of course, his duty to legitimize his child, and would adhere to his wedding vow to "keep only to her, forsaking all others." For her part, Sarah had agreed not only to an Episcopal wedding ceremony but also to raise Joe in the Christian faith. She was a splendid woman and a splendid mother, and she loved him.
On balance, their marriage was a good thing for both of them, even without considering Joe.
Ed had come, and this was rather unexpected, to really love his son.
That experience, in fact, was one of the reasons he was sure he didn't love Sarah. He had never felt for her anything like the emotion he felt when his son smiled at him or gave him a wet kiss. Such things really made Ed melt. With Sarah, he never melted. Yet marriage seemed a very cheap price indeed for having a son like Joe.
Ed's new assignment was incredible good luck, He was getting back in harm's way, and this previously had seemed out of the question. Up to now his only reasonable expectation was to spend the war as a staff officer, a shore side staff off ficer, far from action. He was a crippled aviator, who stood virtually no chance of passing a flight physical again. And alas, he was a very good staff officer. Very good staff officers are usually much too important to send to sea. A very good crippled staff officer was a double kiss of death.
As the work he was doing for Admiral Hawley had become less and less important, his feeling of frustration had grown. When he first went to work for the admiral, the disaster at Pearl Harbor had still been a bleeding wound, and the assignment of Naval Aviation assets had been critical.
There had been neither many planes nor the spare parts and support equipment for them. Thus the appointment of these throughout the world had been very much like an intensive, indeed, deadly, game of chess.
As aircraft and equipment had trickled from assembly lines, daily decisions--based on losses--and educated guesses--based upon less than complete understanding of war plans--of requirements had to be made.
A wrong guess--or estimate, as it was called in the trade--was at the time a genuine threat to the conduct of the war. Sending more aircraft, or fewer, than the tactical situation required could have lost more than a battle.
But that situation had changed. Everybody was still screaming for more aircraft, but in point of fact, the major problem for the last several months had been scrounging shipping space rather than equipment to ship.
The trickle had become a flood. Aircraft manufacturers who had been delivering four aircraft a day were now delivering twenty. Or forty.
The Naval Flight Training Program, vastly expanded, was delivering a steady, and steadily growing, stream of pilots.
Bitter knew that his job could just as easily have been accomplished-perhaps been better accomplished--by one of the directly commissioned civilians who had entered the Navy in large numbers, men from automobile and furniture factories, grocery distribution, railroads, even five-and-ten cent-store executives. These people were skilled and practiced in moving "supply line items" from Point A to Point B in the most efficient manner.
The need for someone qualified to base the supply decisions on tactical considerations had ceased as soon as the American industrial complex began to stamp out airplanes with the same efficiency that it spit out automobiles and refrigerators.
As often as he dared, he had asked Admiral Hawley to have him returned to aviation duty or to a ship. He was a naval officer first and an aviator second, and he could hold his own on a ship, as executive officer or even as captain, with luck.
Admiral Hawley had always courteously but firmly refused. The Navy needed him most where the Navy had put him, the admiral kept telling him.
And, as things had turned out, the admiral had been proved right.
He was going overseas, going in harm's way, back on flight status, because that was what the Navy needed.
Four days after the DCNO marched into Admiral Hawley's office, Sarah drove Ed to Anacostia Naval Air Station in the Cadillac, as she had fifty times before. The only difference was that this time he wouldn't be back in a couple of days. Otherwise, it was the same routine. He traveled in a blue uniform, carrying two suitcases (his priority orders waived weight restrictions) and a stuffed leather briefcase.
Sarah clung to him when the public address system announced the boarding of the Air Force C-54, and the pressure of her breasts against his abdomen reminded him that he was going to miss that part of their marriage. Joe cried, and there were tears in Ed Bitter's eyes when he kissed his son.
The plane refueled at Gander, Newfoundland, and again at Prestwick, Scotland, after fighting a headwind across much of the Atlantic, and then took off again for Croydon Field outside London, where it was scheduled to land at half past ten in the morning London time.
TWO] U. S. Army Air Corpn Station Sornham St. Faith 6 January Major William H. Emmons, who was the commanding officer of the 474th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron of the Eighth United States Air Force, was more than a little curious about Major Richard Canidy.
Canidy was preceded at Horsham St. Faith by a telephone call from Brigadier General Kenneth Lorimer of Eighth Air Force Headquarters.
Mission 43-Special-124 was a photographic reconnaissance of the German submarine pens at Saint-Lazare, General Lorimer said. And it was being flown at Major Canidy's request. Special-124 was a high-priority mission, he emphasized. Which meant that there was to be no delaying it or canceling it or getting around it except maybe for some overwhelming catastrophe (such as, say, the end of the world).
Which meant that if Major Emmons had problems mounting it, equipment problems, say, it would be necessary to take an aircraft from another scheduled mission so that Special-124 could go.
Major Canidy himself would come to Horsham St. Faith to personally brief the flight crew (Major Emmons was always pissed when some chair warmer showed up to tell his people how to do what they were ordered to do) and would remain at Horsham St. Faith while the mission was flown.
After the mission the film magazines would be turned over to Major Canidy, who would arrange for the necessary processing.
"Under no circumstances, Bill, is Major Canidy to be permitted to go along on the mission," General Lorimer said finally. "You understand me?"
"Yes, sir." Later Major Emmons as much as said it straight out to his friend Captain Ross that Canidy was one more of the glory-hunting headquarters sonsofbitches who liked to pick up missions twenty-five missions and you got an Air Medal and went home) by inviting themselves along as' observers.
"They got in the way, and they added two hundred pounds to the gross weight, and they picked and chose the missions to observe, generally short, safe ones.
Emmons was a little sorry that General Lorimer had this Canidy's number. Special-124 was going to be short, but it wasn't going to be safe. A P-38 group attempting t
o skip-bomb the Saint-Lazare pens had lost sixteen of twenty-nine attacking aircraft. Major Emmons would be happy to send some chair-warming sonofabitch trying to pick up a mission out on one like this.
Major Canidy arrived at Horsham St. Faith at three o'clock in the morning, sleeping in the back seat of a Packard driven by an English woman sergeant. Major Emmons was surprised to see that the sonofabitch did have wings pinned to his tunic. But that was all. Just wings. No ribbons. The sonofabitch apparently hadn't even been here thirty days.
W E B Griffin - Men at War 3 - The Soldier Spies Page 19