Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  "What? Lourdes? France? How'd she get to Lourdes?"

  "She's with our interned diplomats and journalists. That's all he said about her. Byron was in Lisbon, trying to get transportation back, last Slote heard. He's got orders to new construction.

  "Well! And the baby?"

  "Slote didn't say. I asked him to dinner. And do you remember Sime Anderson? He called, too. The phone never stopped ringing."

  "The midshipman? The one who ran me all over the tennis court while Madeline giggled and clapped?"

  "He's a lieutenant commander! How about that, Pug? I declare, these days if you've been WEANED you're a lieutenant commander. He wanted Madeline's phone number in New York." Staring into the fire, Pug said, "She's back with that monkey Cleveland, isn't she?"

  "Dear, I got to know Mr. Cleveland in Hollywood. He's not a bad fellow." At her husband's ugly look she faltered, "Besides, she's having such fun! And the MONEY the child makes!" The firelight was casting harsh shadows on Victor Henry's face. She came to him.

  "Darling, how about that drink? I'm frankly all of a QUIVER."

  His arm went round her waist, and he kissed her cheek.

  "Sure. Just let me ring Digger Brown first, and-find out why in hell I'm here on Class One priority."

  "Oh, Pug, he'll only tell you to call the White House. Let's just pretend your plane's late and-why, what on EARTH is wrong, sweetie?"

  "The White House?"

  "Well, sure." She clapped a hand to her lips. "Oh, LORDY.

  Lucy Brown will have My HEAD. She swore me to secrecy, but I just assumed you knew."

  "Knew what?" His tone changed. He might have been talking to a quartermaster. "Rhoda, tell me exactly what Lucy Brown toto you, and when."

  "Dear me! Well-it seems the White House ordered Bupers to get you back here, p.d.q. This was early in November, before, well, before you lost the Northampton, Pug. That's all I know. That's all even Digger knows."

  Pug was at a telephone, dialling. "Go ahead and make that drink.

  "Dear, just don't let on to Digger that Lucy told me. He'll ROAST her over a slow fire."

  The Navy Department switchboard was long in answering.

  Victor Henry stood alone in the big living room, recovering from his surprise. The White House was still for him, as for any American, a %magic expression, but he had come to know the sour aftertaste of serving a President. Franklin Roosevelt had used him like a borrowed pencil, and in the same way had dropped him; paying off, politician fashion, with the command of the unlucky California. Victor Henry bore the President no grudge. Near or far, he still regarded the masterful old cripple with awe. But he was resolved to fight off-'at any cost, further presidential assignments. Those sterile shorebound exercises as flunky to the great had all but wrecked his professional life. He had to get back to the Pacific.

  Digger was out. Pug went over to the fireplace and stood with his back to the blaze. He did not feel at home, yet in Janice's cramped cottage he had. Why was that? Before going to Moscow he had spent less than three months in this house.

  How huge it was! What had they been thinking of, to buy such a mansion? Once again he had allowed her to chip in some of her own trust money, because she wanted to live in a style beyond his means.

  Wrong, wrong. There had been talk of putting up lots of grandchildren.

  What a bitter memory!

  And what were the summer slipcovers doing on the furniture in chill December, in a room smelling of Christmas? He had never liked this garish flower pattern on green chintz. Though he could feel the fire heat on his jacket, the chill in the house seemed to pierce to his marrow. Maybe it was true that serving in the tropics thinned the blood. But he could not remember feeling so cold before, on returning from Pacific duty.

  "Martinis," Rhoda announced, marching in with a clinking, tray.

  "What about Digger?"

  "Not there."

  The first sip made a fiery streak down Pug's throat. He had not tasted alcohol in months; not since a spell of heavy self-numbing after Warren's death. "Good," he said, but he regretted agreeing to the martini. He might need all his wits at Bupers. Rhoda offered him a plate of open-face sandwiches, and he commented with assumed heartiness, "Hey, caviar! Really cosseting me, aren't you?"

  "You don't remember?" Her smile was archly flirtatious.

  "You sent it from Moscow. An Army colonel brought me six tins, with this note from you."

  "For when we meet again," the scrawl on shoddy Russian paper read.

  "Martinis, caviar, a fire, AND... especially AND... ! Love, Pug."

  It all came back to him now: the boisterous afternoon when the Harriman party had shopped in the one tourist store still functioning, in the National Hotel, months before Pearl Harbor. Pamela had vetoed all the shawls and blouses; an elegant woman like Rhoda, she had said, wouldn't be caught dead in these tacky things. The fur hats had seemed made for giantesses. So he had bought the caviar and scrawled this silly note.

  "Well, it's damn good caviar, at that."

  Rhoda's warm glance was inviting a pass. That much, Victor Henry had often pictured: the sea captain home from the wars, Odysseus and Penelope heading for the couch. Her voice was dulcet. "You look as though you haven't slept for days."

  "Not all that much." He put both palms to his eyes and rubbed.

  "I've come a long way."

  "Haven't you ever! How does the good old U. S. A. look to you, Pug?"

  "Peculiar, especially from the air at night. Solid blackout on the West Coast. Inland you be "n to see lights. Peaceful blaze in Chicago. Past Cleveland they start dimming down again, and Washington's dark."

  "Oh, that's so typical! No'consistency. This ungodly mess with shortages! All the talk about rationing! Off again, on again! You never know where you're at. And the HOARDING that's going on, Pug.

  Why, people boast about how clever they've been, piling up tires, and meat, and sugar, and heating oil, and I don't know what all. I tell you, we're a nation of spoiled HOGS."

  "Rhoda, it's a good idea not to expect too much of human nature.

  The remark cut his wife short. A doubtful look, a silent moment.

  She put her hand on his. "Darling, do you feel like talking about the Northampton?"

  "We got torpedoed and-sank."

  "Lucy says most of the officers and crew were saved."

  "Jim Grigg did a good job. Still, we lost too many men."

  "Did you have a close call yourself." Her face was eager, expectant.

  In lieu of some affectionate move, for which he felt no impulse, he began to talk about the loss of his ship. He rose and paced, the words running free after a while, the emotions of the terrible night reviving.

  Rhoda listened shiny-eyed. When the telephone rang he halted in his tracks, staring like a wakened sleepwalker. "I guess that's Digger."

  Captain Brown boomed heartily, "Well, well, Pug. Made it, did you? Great."

  "Digger, did you get a dispatch from Cincpac about me?"

  "Look, let's not do any business over the phone, Pug. Why don't you and Rhoda just take it easy and enjoy yourselves today? It's been a long time, and so on and so forth. Heh heh!

  We'll talk tomorrow. Give me a ring about nine in the morning."

  "Are you tied up today? Suppose I come down right now?"

  "Well, if that's what you want." Pug heard his old friend sigh.

  "But you do sound tired."

  "I'm coming, Digger." Pug hung up, strode to his wife, and kissed her cheek. "I'd better find out what's doing."

  "Okay." She cupped his face in her hands, and gave his mouth a lingering kiss. "Take the Oldsmobile."

  "It still runs? Fine."

  "Maybe you'll get to be the President's-naval aide. That's Lucy's guess. Then at least we'd see something of each other for a while, Pug."

  She walked to a little desk and took out car keys. The unselfconscious pathos of Rhoda's words got to him more than all the flirting. Alone in a cold house, bereaved
of her firstborn son-whom they still hadn't mentioned, whose picture smiled from the piano top; her husband home after more than a year away, rushing out about his business; she was being very good about all this. This sway of her slender hips was beguiling. Pug wondered at his own lack of desire for her. He had an impulse to throw off the bridge coat he was donning, and to seize her. But Digger Brown was expecting him, and she was dropping the keys into his hand with an arch little flip. "Anyway, we'll dine at home, won't we? Just the two of us?"

  "Sure we'll dine at home, just the two of us. With wine, I trust, and-' he hesitated, then forced a ribald lift of the eyebrows, "especially and."

  The flash in her eyes leaped across the gulf between them.

  "On your way, sailor boy."

  Outside it was the same old Navy Building, the-long dismal "temporary" structure from the last war still disfiguring Constitution Avenue, but inside it had a new air: a hurrying pace, a general buzz, crowds of Waves and callow-looking staff officers in the corridors.

  Lurid combat paintings that hardly seemed dry hung on the dusty.walls: dogfights over carriers, night gun battles, bombardments of tropic islands.

  During most of Pug's career, the decor had been mementos of the Spanish-American War, and of Atlantic action in 1918.

  Digger Brown looked every bit the king of the hill that he was: tall, massive, healthy, with a thatch of grizzled hair, with a year of battleship command under his belt (Atlantic service, but good enough), and now this top post in Bupers. Digger had flag rank in the bag. Pug wondered how he must seem to Brown. He had never been overawed by his fast-moving old friend, nor was he now. Much passed unspoken as they shook hands and scanned each other's faces. The fact was, Pug Henry made Captain Brown think of an oak tree in his own back yard, blasted by lightning yet still vigorous, and putting forth green shoots each spring it-from charred branches.

  "That's hell about Warren," Brown said.

  Henry made an elaborate business of lighting a cigarette.

  Brown had to get the rest spoken. "And the California, and then the Northampton. Christ!" He gripped Pug's shoulder in awkward sympathy. "Sit you down."

  Pug said, "Well, sometimes I tell myself I didn't volunteer to be born, Digger, I got drafted. I'm all right."

  "And Rhoda? How'd you fikd her?"

  "Splendid."

  "What about Byron?"

  "Coming back from Gib to new construction, or so I hear."

  Pug cocked his head at his old friend, squinting through smoke.

  "You're riding high-"

  "I've yet to hear a gun go off in anger."

  "There's plenty of war left out there."

  "Pug, it may be a reprehensible sentiment, but I hope you're right." Captain Brown put on horned-rimmed glasses, thumbed through dispatches on a clipboard, and handed one to Pug. "You asked me about this, I believe?"

  FROM: CINCPAC

  TO: BUPEM DESME ASSIGNMENT STAFF DUTY THIS COMMAND VICTOR (NONE) HENRY CAPTAIN U.S.N SEMAL 4329 EX C.O NORTHAMPl'ON X NimrFz Pug nodded.

  Brown unwrapped a stick of chewing gum. "I'm supposed to quit smoking. Blood pressure. It's got me climbing the walls.

  "Come on, Digger, are my orders to Cincpac set?"

  "Pug, did you wangle this on the trip home?"

  "I didn't wangle it. Spruance sprang it on me. I was amazed. I thought I'd catch hell for losing my ship."

  "Why? You went down fighting." Under Pug's hard inquiring look, Digger Brown chewed and chewed. The big body shifted in the swivel chair. "Pug, you ducked Cincpac staff duty last year, according to Jocko Larkin."

  "That was then."

  "Why do you suppose you were recalled with Class One air priority?"

  "You tell me."

  Slowly, with a portentous air, Brown said, "The...

  Great... White... Father." Then more lightly, "Yessir!

  The boss man himself. You're supposed to report in to him soonest, in full feathers and war paint." Brown laughed at his own humor.

  "What's it about?"

  "Oh, blast, give me a butt. Thanks." Brown dragged at the cigarette, his eyes popping. "You know Admiral Standley, I believe.

  The ambassador to Russia, that is."

  "Sure. I went there with him last year on the Harriman mission.

  "Exactly. He's back for consultations with the President.

  Even before the Northampton was lost, Rear Admiral Carton was telephoning us from the White House in a big sweat about you. Standley was inquiring about your availability.

  Hence the Class One priority."

  Pug said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice, "Nimitz should draw more water around here than Standley does."

  "Pug, I have my instructions. You're to call Russ Carton for an appointment to see the President."

  "Does Carton know about the Cincpac dispatch?"

  "I haven't told him."

  "Why not?"

  "I wasn't asked."

  "Okay, Digger. I'm asking you to notify, Russ Carton about that Cincpac dispatch. Today."

  A brief contest of cold stares. With a deep drag on the cigarette, Digger Brown said, "You're asking me to get out of line.

  "Why? You're derelict in not telling the White House Cincpac wants me."

  "Christ on a bicycle, Pug, don't give me that. When that man up on Pennsylvania Avenue snaps his fingers, we jump around here. Nothing else signifies."

  "But this is just a whim of old Bill Standley's, you say."

  "I'm not sure. Tell Russ Carton about Cincpac yourself when you see him."

  "N.G. He must get the word from Bupers."

  Captain Brown sullenly avoided his eyes. "Who says he must?"

  Victor Henry intoned as in a language drill, "Ich muss, du musst, er MUSS." An unhappy grin curled Brown's mouth and he picked up the chant, "Wir m4sseti, ihr mant, she masst.

  "Massen, Digger."

  "Mazen- I never could hack German, could I?" Brown pulled deeply on the cigarette and abruptly ground it out.

  "God, that tasted good. Pug, I still think you should find out first what the Great White Father wants." He hit a buzzer in an annoyed gesture. "But have it your way. I'll shoot a copy to Russ.

  The house was warmer. Pug heard a man talking in the living room.

  "Hello there," he called, very loud.

  "Oh, hi!" Rhoda's cheery voice. "Back so soon?"

  A deeply tanned young officer was on his feet when Pug walked in.

  The mustache puzzled him, then he put together the blond hair and the bright new gold half-stripe of a lieutenant commander. "Hello there, Anderson."

  Pouring tea at a table by the fire, Rhoda said, "Sime just stopped by to drop off Maddy's Christmas present."

  "Something I picked up in.Trinidad." Anderson gestured at the gaily wrapped box on the table.

  "What were you doing in Trinidad?"

  Rhoda gave the men tea and left, while Anderson was telling Pug about his destroyer duty in the Caribbean.

  U-boats had been having fat pickings off Venezuela and the Guianas, and in the Gulf of Mexico: oil tankers, bauxite carriers, freighters, and passenger liners. Emboldened by the easy pickings, the German skippers had even taken to surfacing and sinking ships with gunfire, so as to save torpedoes. The American and British navies had now worked up a combined convoy system to control the menace, and Anderson had been out on that convoy duty.

  Pug was only vaguely aware of the Caribbean U-boat problem.

  Anderson's tale made him think of two large photographs in the Navy Building, showing Eskimos bundled in furs watching the loading of a Catalina flying boat in a snowstorm, and Polynesians naked but for G-strings staring at an identical Catalina moored in a palm-fringed lagoon.

  This war was a leprosy spreading all over the globe.

  "Say, Anderson, weren't you working with Deak Parsons at BuOrd on the AA proximity fuse, advanced hush-hush stuff? "

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then why the Sam Hill were you shipped off to the Ca
ribbean on an old four-piper?"

  "Shortage of deck officers, sir."

  "That fuse is fantastic, Sims."

  The bright blue eyes glowed in the brown face. "Oh, has it gotten out to the fleet?"

  "I saw a demonstration off NoumA-a against drone planes.