Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  Pug saw vast quantities of Lend-Lease materiel in use.

  Above all, there were the trucks, the trucks everywhere.

  Once Yevienko said to him, at a depot in the south where olive-painted trucks, not yet marked with Russian lettering and red stars, stretched literally out of sight in parallel rows, "You have put us on wheels. It is making a difference. Now Fritz's wheels are wearing out. He is going back to horses.

  One day he will eat the horses, and run out of Russia on foot.

  In an army HQ in a large badly shattered river town called

  Voronezh, they were eating an all-Russian supper: cabbage soup, canned fish, and some kind of fried grits. The aides were at another table. Yevienko and Pug sat alone. "Kapitan Henry, we will not be going to Kharkov after all," the general said in a formal tone. "The Germans are counterattacking."

  "Don't alter your itinerary on my account."

  Yevlenko gave him the unsettling glare he had flashed in Leningrad. "Well, it's quite a counterattack. So instead we will go to Stalingrad."

  "I'm sorry to miss your son."

  "His air wing is in action, so we would not see him. He is not a bad young fellow. Maybe some other time you will meet him.

  From the air, the approaches to Stalingrad were a moonscape.

  Giant bomb craters, pustular rings by the thousands, scarred a snowy earth Uttered with machines. Stalingrad itself, straggling along a black broad river flecked with floating ice, had the roofless broken look of a dug-up ancient city. As Yevienko and his aides stared down at the ruins, Pug recalled his own dismaying airplane arrival over Pearl Harbor. But Honolulu had been untouched; only the fleet had been hit. No city on American soil had known such destruction. In the Soviet Union it was everywhere, and worst in this scene below.

  Yet as they drove into the city past burned-out huts and buildings, tumbled masonry, and piles of wrecked machines, all in a vile stink of destruction, the crowds of workers clearing away the debris looked healthful and high-spirited.

  Merry children were playing around the ruins. There were many traces of the vanished Germans: street signs in their heavy black lettering, smashed tanks, guns, and trucks piled about or jammed in the rubble, a soldiers' cemetery in a crater-pocked park, with painted wooden grave markers topped by simulated iron crosses. High on one broken wall, Pug noticed a half-scraped-off propaganda poster: a schoolage German girl in blonde braids, cowering before a slavering ape in a Red Army uniform, reaching hairy talons for her breasts.

  The jeep pulled up before a bullet-riddled building, on a broad central square where all the other structures were entirely bombed out.

  Inside, Soviet bureaucracy was regenerating itself, complete with file cabinets, noisy typewriters, pasty men at rough desks, and women carrying tea. Yevienko said, "I will be very busy today. I will Turn you over to Gondin. During the battle Gondin was secretary to the Central Committee. He did not sleep for six months. Now he is quite sick."

  A big very tough-looking gray-headed man in uniform, his face graven with deep lines of fatigue, sat behind a plank desk era photograph of Stalin. Resting a large hand on the desk, he looked pugnaciously at the stranger in the blue bridge coat. Yevlenko introduced Victor Henry. Gondin sized the newcomer up with a lengthy stare, thrust out a heavy jaw, and sardonically inquired, "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"

  "Govaryu po-russki nemnogo" ("I speak a little Russian"), Pug mildly returned.

  The official raised thick eyebrows at Yevlenko, who put his good hand on Victor Henry's shoulder. "Nash, " he said.

  ("Ours.") Pug never forgot that, and never understood what had prompted Yevlenk to say O' it. At any rate, "Nash" worked on Gondin like magic.- For two hours he walked and rode with Pug around the wrecked city, out into the hills, down into the ravines that sloped to the river, and along the waterfront. Pug could scarcely follow his rapid Russian talk about the battle, spate of commanders' names, unit numbers, dates, and maneuvers, all POured out with mounting excitement.

  Gondin was reliving the battle, glorying in it, and Victor Henry did get the general idea: - the defenders backed up against the Volga, surviving on supplies and reinforcements ferried across the broad river or brought across the ice; the fighting slogan, There is no land east of the Volga; the long horror of Germans on the hills in plain view, on rooftops of captured sections, or rumbling in tanks down the streets; the bloody deafening house-by-house, cellar-by-cellar fighting, sometimes in rain and in blizzards, the unceasing artillery and air bombardment, week upon week, month upon month. In the outskirts of the city, the German defeat was written in the snow, in loxig trails winding westward of smashed tanks, self-propelled guns, howitzers, trucks, half-tracks, and most of all in gray-clad bodies by the thousands, still strewn like garbage over the quiet cratered fields, miles upon miles. "It's a tremendous job," said Gondin. "I suppose in the end we'll have to pile up and burn these dead rats.

  We're still taking care of our own. They won't be back to bury theirs."

  That night, in a cellar, Pug found himself at the sort of feast the Russians seemingly could produce in any place, under any circumstances: many varieties of fish, some meat, black and white bread, red and white wine, and endless vodka rved up on plank tables.

  The feasters were army officers, city officials, Party officials, about fifteen men; the introductions went fast, and obviously didn't matter.

  It was Yevlenko's party, and three themes ran through the boisterous talk, singing, and toasts: the Stalingrad victory, gratitude for American Lend-Lease, and the imperative need of a second front.

  Pug gathered that his presence was the excuse for some relaxation by these big shots. He too bore a heavy burden of emotion and tension.

  He let go, and ate and drank as though there were no tomorrow.

  Next morning when an aide woke him in the frigid darkness, a blurry recollection made him shake his aching head. If it was not a dream, he and Yevlenko had staggered down a corridor together, and Yevlenko had said as they parted, "The Germans have retaken Kharkov."

  After Pug's swift passage through wartorn Russia, Moscow appeared to him about as untouched, peaceful, wellkept, and cheery as San Francisco, despite the unfinished buildings abandoned and deteriorating, the sparseness of traffic, the difficulty of getting around, the dirty humps and ridges of ice, and the whole look of wartime neglect.

  He found the ambassador ebullient. Pravda had printed every word of the Stettinius Report on Lend-Lease, leading off with it on the front page! A rash of stories on Lend-Lease was breaking out in the Soviet press! Moscow Radio was broadcasting Lend-Lease items almost every day!

  Back home, the. Senate had passed the renewal of LendLease unanimously,. the House with only a few dissenting votes. Standley was snowed under with congratulations for speaking out. American and British newspapers had officially but gently disowned him. The President had passed it all off with an ambiguous joke to reporters about the tendency of admirals to talk too little or too much. "By God, Pug, maybe my head will roll yet for what, I did, but by God, it worked!

  They'll think twice before kicking us around anymore."

  Thus Standley, in the warm pleasant library. at Spaso House, over excellent American coffee and white rolls and butter; his wrinkled eyes bright, his corded neck and face red with pleasure. He got all this out before Victor Henry said anything about his trip. Pug's account was briec He would at once write up his observations, he said, and submit them to Standley.

  "Fine, Pug. Well! Leningrad, Rzhev, Voronezh, Stalingrad, hey?

  By God, You covered ground. Won't this ever put Faymbnville's nose out of joint! Here he sits on his ditty box, the grand high mucky-muck of Lend-Lease, never gets a look-see at what's really happening and here you come along, and go might out and get the dope.

  Outstanding, Pug."

  "Admiral, I'm the.beneficiary of a delusion around here that I'm somebody."

  "By God, you are somebody. Let me see that report soonest.

  Say, how abou
t the Germans retaking Kharkov?

  That confounded maniac Hitler has nine lives. Lot of down-in-the-mouth Russkis at the Swedish embassy last night."

  Among the letters pied on Pug's desk, a State Department envelope caught his eye with Leslie Slote handwritten in red ink on a corner.

  He first read a letter from Rhoda. The change in tone from her former false-breezy notes was marked.

  "I did my best to make you happy while you were here, Pug darling.

  I was very happy, God knows. But I honestly don't know how I rate with you anymore." That was the key sentence in a couple of subdued pages. Byron had passed through, and had told her about Natalie's removal to Baden-Baden. "I'm sorry you missed Byron. He's a man, every inch of him. You'd be proud. Like you, thought, he's capable of scary silent anger. Even if Natalie gets home safe with that child, as Mr. Slote assures me she will, I'm not sure she can ever make it up to him. He's in an agony of worry over the baby, and he feels she let him down.

  Slote's letter was written on lohg yellow sheets. The red ink, unexplained, made the contents seem more sensational than they perhaps were.

  March 1, 1943

  Dear Captain Henry: The pouch is a handy thing. I have some news for you and a request.

  The request first. Pam Tudsbury is here, as you know, working for the London Observer. She wants to go to Moscow, where indeed all the major war stories are to be found these days. She applied for a visa some time ago. No soap. Pam sees her journalist's career going glimmering, whereas she's developed an interest in her work and wants to keep at it.

  Quite simply, can you, and will you, do something about this?

  When I suggested to Pam that she write you, she turned colors and said not a chance, she wouldn't dream of pestering you. But having observed you in action in Moscow, I had a notion that you might pull it off. I told Pamela that I would write to you about her, and she turned more flamboyant colors and said, "Leslie, don't you dare! I won't hear of it." I took that as British female doubletalk for "Oh, please, please do."

  One can never be sure why the Narkomindel turns deaf or sulky. If you want to have a go at this, the problem may be a matter of some forty Lend-Lease Aircobras. These planes were earmarked for the Soviet Union, but the British managed to divert them for the invasion of North Africa. Lord Burne-Wilke had a hand in this. Of course that may not Turn out to be the hitch at all. I mention it because Pam did.

  I come to my news. The attempt to get Natalie and her uncle out of Lourdes fell through, because the Germans moved the whole group to Baden- Baden, quite against international law. A month or so ago Dr. Jastrow fell dangerously ill with an intestinal ailment requiring surgery. Operating facilities in Baden-Baden evidently were limited.

  A Frankfurt surgeon came and looked him over, and recommended that he be moved to Paris. The best man in Europe for such surgery is in the American Hospital there, we're told.

  The Swis Foreign Office has handled this very smoothly. Natalie, Dr. Jastrow and the baby are in Paris now. The Germans were quite decent about allowing them to remain together. Apparently his.life was in some danger, because there were complications. He was operated on twice, and he is slowly recuperating.

  Paris must be far pleasanter for Natalie than BadenBaden. She is under Swiss protection, and we are not at war with France. There are other Americans living in Paris under such special circumstances, awaiting the grand Baden-Baden swap, in which they will be lumped.

  They have to report to the police and so forth, but they are warmly treated by the French. The Germans keep hands off so long as the legalities are observed. If Aaron and Natalie can stay in Paris until the swap comes off, they'll probably be the envyof the Baden-Baden crowd.

  There is the problem of their Jewish identity, and I can't pretend it isn't worrisome. But that existed in BadenBaden too, perhaps more acutely. In short, I remain concerned, but with a little luck all should go well. The Lourdes thing was worth a try, and I regret it didn't come off. I'm very impressed at the water you draw with Harry Hopkins.

  I saw Byron as he whistled through Washington. For the first time I noticed a physical resemblance to you. He used to look like an adolescent movie actor. And I had a long phone talk with your wife about Natalie, which calmed her somewhat. Natalie's mother calls me every week, poor lady.

  About myself there is little to tell, none of it good, so I will pass that by. I hope you can do something for Pamela. She does yearn to go to Moscow.

  Yours, Leslie Slote General Yevlenko did not rise or shake hands, but nodded a welcome, waving off his aide and motioning Pug to a chair with the dead hand. There were no refreshments in sight.

  "Thank you for agreeing to see me."

  A nod.

  "I'm looking forward to the Lend-Lease statistical summary you said you'd let me have."

  "It is not ready. I told you that on the telephone."

  "That is not why I am here. You mentioned last week the correspondent who came to the Moscow front with me, Alistair Tudsbury."

  "Yes?"

  "He was killed in North Africa by a land mine. His daughter is carrying on his work as a correspondent. She is having difficulties obtaining a journalist's visa to the Soviet Union."

  With a cold incredulous little smile, Yevlenko said, "Kapitan Henry, that is something to take up at the visa section of the Narkomindel."

  Pug rode over this predictable brush-off. "I would like to help her."

  "She is a particular friend Of yours?" A man-to-man insinuating note on the Russian word osobaya-.

  "Perhaps I am mistaken, then. I have heard from British correspondents here that she is engaged to be married to the Air Vice Marshal, Lord Duncan Burne-Wilke."

  "She is. Still, we are good friends."

  The general laid his living hand over the artificial one On his desk.

  He was wearing what Pug thought of as his "official" face: no smile, eyes half-closed, heavy mouth pulled down. It was his usual aspect, and a truculent One. "Well. As I say, visas are not my concern. I am sorry. Is there something else?"

  "Have you heard from your son on the Kharkov front?"

  "Not as yet. Thank you for inquiring," Yevlenko replied in a final tone, standing up. "Tell me, does your ambassador still feel we are suppressing the facts of Lend-Lease?"

  "He is gratified by recent Soviet press and radio coverage."

  "GOOD- Of course some facts are best suppressed, as, for example, when the United States breaks a pledge to send, Lend-Lease Aircobras urgently needed by our squadrons, and allows the British to divert the planes instead to themselves. To publicize such facts would only delight our enemies. Nevertheless, wouldn't you say such bad faith between allies isia very serious matter?"

  "I have no information on such an occurrence.."

  "Really? Yet Lend-Lease seems to be your sphere of duty.

  Our British friends are afraid, of course, to let the Soviet Union become too strong. They are thinking, what about after the war? That is very farsighted." Yevienko was standing with both hands on the desk, grating out sarcastic words. "Winston Churchill tried to stamp out our socialist revolution in 1919. No doubt he has not changed his low opinion of our form of government. That is most regrettable.

  But meantime, what about the war against Hitler? Even Churchill wants to win that war. Unfortunately, the only way to do that is to kill German soldiers. As you have now seeli with your own eyes, we are killing our share of German soldiers. But the British are very reluctant to fight German soldiers. Those Aircobras were diverted by Lord Duncan Burne-Wilke, as it happens, for the landings in French North Africa, where there are no German soldiers."

  In this tirade, Yevlenko's intonation on each repetition of nemetskie soldati, "German soldiers," was intolerably coarse and sneering.

  "I said I know nothing about this." Pug reacted in a quick hard fashion. He had his answer on Pamela's visa, but the thing was going much beyond that. "If my government broke a pledge, that is a grave matter. As for Prime
Minister Churchill, the British under his leadership fought against Germany for a whole year alone, while the Soviet Union was supplying Hitler. At El Alamein and elsewhere they have killed their share of German soldiers. Their thousand-bomber raids on Germany are causing great damage and tying down a great force of antiair defenders. Any misunderstanding like this Aircobra affair certainly should not be publicized, but corrected among ourselves.

  Lend-Lease must go on despite such things, and despite our heavy losses. One of our Lend-Lease convoys has just suffered the worst U-boat onslaught yet in this war. Twenty-one ships sunk by a wolf pack, thousands of American and British sailors drowned in icy waters so that Lend-Lease can reach you."