Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

Rhoda gave her husband one of her most melting, appealing looks.

  He thought of mentioning the anonymous letters he too had received, but saw no purpose in that. Pamela might have told Rhoda about them; in any case, no use stirring up that mud. He did not comment..

  She burst out, "It's so unfair! I didn't even KNow -Hack, then, did I? Talk about your double standard! Why, he's slept with all KINDS of women, to hear him talk. Single, married, divorced, he makes no bones about it, even reminisces, and the point always is how different I am. And I am too, I am!

  There was only Palmer Kirby. I still don't know how or why THAT happened. I'm not one of those cheap flirts he's run around with all his life. But these letters are wrecking everything. He seems so unhappy, SO CRUSHED. Of course I denied everything. I had to, for His sake. For such an experienced man, he's strangely naieve.

  What surprised Pug most was that this casual outright admission of her adultery-"There was only Palmer Kirby"-could give him pain; not the agony of the first shock, her letter asking for a divorce, but still, real pain.

  Rhoda had skirted a specific admission until this very moment.

  Her habit of silence had served her well, but the words had slipped out because Peters was now the man who mattered. This was the real end, thought Pug. He, like Kirby, was part of her past. She could be careless with him.

  "The man loves you, Rhoda. He'll believe you, and forget about the letters."

  "Oh, will he? And suppose he asks you about them tomorrow.

  "That's unthinkable."

  "Not so unthinkable. You're meeting for the first time since all this happened."

  "Rhoda, we've got a very urgent priorities problem to thrash out.

  He won't bring up personal matters. Certainly not those anonymous letters. Not to me. His skin would crawl at the idea."

  She looked both amused and miserable. "Male pride, you mean."

  "Call it that. Forget it. Go to sleep, and pleasant dreams."

  "May I have another drink?"

  "Sure.

  "Will you tell me afterward what happened? I mean, what you talked about?"

  "Not the business part."

  "I'm not interested in the business part."

  "If anything personal comes up, I'll tell you, yes." He handed her the drink. "Any idea who's writing the letters?"

  "No. It's a woman. Some vicious bitch or other. Oh, they abound, Pug, they abound. She uses green ink, writes in a funny up-and-down hand on little tan sheets. Her facts are all cockeyed, but she does mention Palmer Kirby. Very nastily.

  Dates, places, all that. Disgusting."

  "Where's Kirby now?"

  "I don't know. I last saw him in Chicago when I was coming back from California, right after-after Midway. I stopped there for a few hours to break it off once for all. Funnily enough, that's how I met Hack."

  As she drank, Rhoda described the encounter in the Pump Room, and finding Colonel Peters afterward on the train to New York.

  "I'll never know why he took a fancy to me, Pug. I was very distant in the club car that night. Actually, I FROZE him. I was feeling wretched about Palmer, and you, and the whole mess, and I was by no means over Warren. I wouldn't accept a drink. Wouldn't get into conversation. I mean, he was so OBVIOUSLY fresh from a roll in the hay with that creature in green! He still had that glint in his eye, and I wasn't about to give him IDEAS. Then next morning in the dining car the steward seated him at my table. It was crowded for breakfast, so I couldn't object, although I don't know, maybe he SLIPPED that steward something. Anyway, that was it. He said Palmer had told him about me, and he admired my brave spirit so much, and all that. I still kept my distance. I always have. He really pursued me, in a gentlemanly way, showing up at church, and Navy affairs, and Bundles for Britain, and so on.

  It was a very gradual business. It was momns before I even agreed to go to the theatre with him. Maybe that's what intrigued Hack, the sheer novelty of it all. It couldn't have been my girlish charm. But when he thinks back to when we met, there I was, after all, visiting Palmer Kirby. It makes those horrid letters SO PLAUSIBLE."

  This was more than Rhoda had said about her romance in all the months that Pug had been back. She was being positively chatty. Pug said, "Feeling better now, aren't you?"

  "Heaps. You're sweet to be so reassuring. I'm not a crybaby, Pug, you know that, but I am in a STATE about those letters. When you told me you were meeting him tomorrow, I panicked. I mean, Hack can't possibly ever ask Palmer.

  That's not done. Palmer wouldn't tell, anyway. You're the only other one who knows. You're the aggrieved husband, and, well, I just got to thinking of all kinds of awful possibilities." She had finished her drink and was slipping pink mules back on her bare feet.

  "I really didn't know anything, anyway, Rhoda. Not until tonight."

  She went rigid, staring at him, one mule in her hand, her mind obviously mcing back over the conversation. "Oh, nuts." She slammed the slipper down on the floor. "Of course you knew. Don't be like that, Pug. How could YOU NOT know?

  What was it ever all about?"

  Pug was sitting at the desk where the big leather-bound Warren album still lay, beside a pile of his file folders. "I'm sort of waked up now," he said, picking up a folder. "I'll do a little more work."

  MANHATTAN ENGINEERING DISTRICT Brig. Gen. Leslie R. Groves, U.

  S.A Chief Colonel Harrison Peters, Deputy Chief The signs on the two adjoining doors, on an upper floor in the State Department building, were so inconspicuous that Pug walked by them and had to backtrack.

  Colonel Peters strode from behind his desk to shake hands. "Well!

  High time we met again."

  Pug had forgotten how tall the man was, perhaps six feet three, and how handsome: brilliant blue eyes, healthily colored long bony face, straight body in a sharply tailored uniform, no trace of a bulge at the middle. Despite the gray hair the general effect was youthful, manly, and altogether impressive, except for an uncertain quality in his broad smile.

  No doubt he was embaffaswd. Yet Pug felt very little resentment toward the Army man. It helped a lot that the fellow had not cuckolded him. Pug did believe he hadn't, mainly because that had been the only way for Rhoda to play this particular fish.

  The small desk was bare. The only other furniture was an armchair.

  There were no pictures on the wall, no files, no window, no bookcase, no secretary; a low-level operation, one would think, assigned to a run-of-the-mill colonel. Pug declined coffee, and sat in the armchair.

  "Before we get down to business," said Peters, flushing a little, "let me say one thing. I have the greatest respect for you. Rhoda is what she is, a woman in a million, because of her years with you. I regret we haven't yet talked about all that. We're both busy as hell, I know, but one of these days we'll have to."

  "By all means."

  "Do you smoke cigars?" Peters took a box of long Havanas from a desk drawer.

  "Thanks." Pug did not want a cigar, but accepting it might improve the atmosphere.

  Peters took his time about lighting up. "Sorry I was slow getting back to you."

  "I guess the phone call from Harry Hopkins helped."

  "That would have made no difference, if your smrity clearance hadn't checked out."

  "Just to shortcut this a bit," Pug said, "when I was naval attache in Berlin I supplied the S-1 committee, at their request, with dope on German industrial activity in graphite, heavy water, uranium, -and thorium. I know the Army's working on a uranium bomb, with a blank-check triple-A priority power. That's why I'm here. The landing craft program needs those couplings I mentioned over the telephone."

  "How do you know we've got them?" Peters leaned back, clasping his long arms behind his head. A harder professional tone came into his voice.

  "You haven't got them. They're still warehoused in Pennsylvania.

  The Dresser firm wouldn't say anything except that they're on Army order. The prime contractor, Kellogg, wouldn't talk at all. I ran
into a blank wall at the War Production Board, too. The fellows there just clammed up.

  The landing craft program hasn't conflicted with the uranium bomb before. I figured it couldn't be anything else. So I called you.

  "What makes you think I'm in the uranium bomb business?"

  "General Connolly told me in Tehran that you were working on something very big. I took a shot in the dark."

  "You mean," Peters asked, tough and incredulous, "that you telephoned me on a guess?"

  "Right. Do we get the couplings, Colonel?"

  After a long pause, and a mutual staring contest, Peters replied, "Sorry, no."

  "Why not? What are you using them for?"

  "Jesus Christ, Henry! For a manufacturing process of the highest national urgency."

  "I know that. But is this component irreplaceable? All it does is connect pipes. There are many ways to connect pipes."

  "Then use another way on your landing craft."

  "I'll tell you my problem, if you'll listen."

  "Sure you won't have coffee?"

  "Thanks. Black, no sugar. is a fine cigar."

  "Best in the world." Peters ordered coffee over the intercom.

  Pug was liking the man better as he toughened up.

  This rapid exchange over the desk was a little like a long point in tennis. Peters's returns so far were hard but not sneaky or tricky.

  "I'm listening." Peters leaned back in his swivel chair, nursing a knee.

  "Okay. Our shipyards have gotten so jammed that we've subcontracted some construction to Britain. We're sending sections which can be put together by semiskilled help and launched in a few days. That is, if the right components are on hand. Now, these Dresser couplings go in faster than welded or bolted joints. They require little experience or strength to install. Also, uncoupling them to check faulty lines is simple.

  The Queen Mary sails Friday, Colonel, with fifteen thousand troops aboard, and I've reserved cargo space for shipping that stuff. I've got trucks standing by in Pennsylvania, ready to take the lot to New York. I'm talking about components for forty vessels. If they're launched on schedule, Eisenhower will hit the French beaches with more force than he'll have otherwise."

  "We hear this kind of thing all the time," Peters said. "The British will connect up those lines, one way or another."

  "Look, the decision to put these vessels together in England turned on hard specifications for speed of assembly.

  When we shipped the sections those couplings were available.

  Now you've overridden our priority. Why?"

  Peters puffed at his cigar, squinted through the smoke at Pug, and replied, "Okay. For a very large network of underground water lines.

  Our requirements for speed and simplicity are the same as yours, and our urgency is greater."

  "I have an idea for solving this," Pug said, "less messy than going to the President, which I'm also prepared to do."

  "Let's hear your idea."

  "I checked all the stuff Dresser has on hand. They could modify a larger coupling to meet your specs. Delivery would be delayed ten days. Now, I have samples of that substitute coupling. Suppose I take them to your plant, and talk to the engineers in charge?"

  "Christ, not a chance."

  "Why not? Peters, the fellows on the spot can clear this thing up, yes or no, in-'a few hours. President Roosevelt has other things on his mind, and anyway, General Groves wouldn't appreciate being overruled by him. Why not try to avoid that?"

  "How do you know what the President win do?"

  "I was at Tehran. The landing craft program is a commitment not only to Churchill but to Stalin."

  "Clearing you for such a visit-if it could be done at all-would take a week."

  "N.G Colonel. Those trucks have to load up and leave Bradford, Pennsylvania, Thursday morning."

  "Then you'll have to go to the President. I can't help you."

  "Okay, I will," Pug said, grinding out his cigar.

  Colonel Peters- stood up, shook hands, and walked out with Pug into the long hallway. "Let me look into one possibility, and ring you before noon."

  "I'll wait for your call."

  Peters telephoned Pug about an hour later. "Can you come with me for a little trip? You'd be away from Washington two nights-"

  "Meet me at Union Station at five to seven, track eighteen.

  I'll have the Pullman berths."

  "Where are we going?"

  "Knoxville, Tennessee. Fetch along that substitute coupling.

  Match point, thought Pug.

  Oak Ridge was a huge backwoods area on a little-known Tennessee river, cordoned off from the world, where a secret industrial complex had sprung up to effect mass murder in a new way, on an unprecedented scale. Some would therefore argue today that it was comparable to Auschwitz.

  Nobody was being murdered at Oak Ridge, to be sure. Nor was there any slave labor. Cheerful Americans were working at very high pay, constructing enormous buildings and installing gigantic masses of machinery, with no idea of what it was all for. The secret of Oak Ridge was better kept than that of Auschwitz. Inside, only very high-level personnel knew. Outside, few rumors leaked.

  As in Germany it was bad form to talk about the state of the Jews, so in Oak Ridge it was antisocial to discuss the purpose of the place.

  In Germany, people did know that something ghastly must be happening to the Jews, and the Germans in Auschwitz knew exactly what was happening; whereas the Oak Ridge workers were in the dark until the day the bomb fell on Hiroshima. In beautiful wooded country they drudged by day in ankle-deep mud, and amused themselves as they could by night in rude huts and trailers, asking no questions; or they passed jocular rumors, such as that they were creating a plant for mass-producing front ends of horses, to be shipped to Washington for assembly.

  Still, the postwar argument goes that when one contemplates the results of Auschwitz and Oak Ridge, there is little to choose between the Americans and the Nazis; both were equally guilty of the new barbarism. It is a challenging point.

  After every war there is a great and sensible revulsion at the whole horrible bloodletting. Distinctions tend to blur. All was atrocity. All were equally criminal. That is how the cry runs.

  It was in truth a nasty war; so nasty that mankind does not want another; which is a start, anyway, toward abolishing this old human craziness. But it really should not be seen in remembrance as a mere blur of universal guilt. There were differences.

  The Oak Ridge effort, to begin with, broke new ground in physics, chemistry, and industrial invention by producing uranium-235. As a feat of applied engineering and of human scientific genius, it was remarkable, possibly unique in scale and brilliance. The German gas chambers and crematoriums were not brilliant innovative works of genius.

  Again, once one is attacked in war one can either give up and submit to looting, or one can fight. To fight means to try to frighten.the other side, by a lot of murder, into stopping the war.

  Political conflicts between states must occur; and certainly, in an age of reason and science, they should be resolved by some more sane means than wholesale murder.

  But that was the means the German and Japanese politicians chose, thinking it would work, and they could only be dissuaded by the same means. When the Americans began their race to make uranium bombs, they had no way of knowing that their attackers would not make and use them first- It was a scary and highly motivating thought.

  So on the whole, the analogy between Auschwitz and Oak Ridge seems forced. Resemblances exist. Both were stupendous secret wartime improvisations for slaughter; both opened terrible new problems in human experience that remain unsolved; and if not for National Socialist Germany, neither would have existed. But the purpose of Auschwitz was insane useless killing. The purpose of Oak Ridge was to stop the global war unleashed by Germany, and it worked.

  However, when Pug Henry came to Oak Ridge in the late spring of 1944, the Manhattan Project loomed as a vast wartime bus
t, the boondoggle of the ages. The whole thing was uneconomical to the point of lunacy. Ordy the rush for a decisive new weapon could justify it.

  Fear was fading in 1944 that the Germans or Japanese might beat America to the bomb; the new goal was to shorten the war. So on three different theories, the Army had built three different giant industrial complexes for making bomb stuff. The Hanford plant on the Columbia River was striving to produce plutoniUM, u enough venture, it was a bright hope compared with the two colossal installations at Oak Ridge intended to separate uranium-235 by two different methods, both still sputtering and failing.