“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was really worried.”
The gesture was so unexpected and the memories of the last forty-eight hours so fresh that she began to cry. Ike fished out a handkerchief and handed it to her. She blew her nose loudly. She had been torpedoed and survived. It had all happened so fast. One minute they were asleep and the next struggling up narrow gangways to the lifeboat stations.
The lifeboat had been overcrowded. They had not been able to pick up many of the survivors swimming around them. Members of the crew had used oars to fend off those trying to climb aboard for fear of capsize. She had lost all her clothes. All she had left was a lipstick and a comb.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
She dried her eyes, smiled and said, “What for? It wasn’t your fault we got torpedoed. Anyway I feel I’m a part of the war now.”
She fished a compact from the bag and looked in the mirror. “God. I look like a tramp.”
“The Germans didn’t leave much behind but there’s a good tailor in town,” he said. “I’ll get him to run up a couple of new uniforms for you.”
She sniffed. “Thank you, sir.”
There was a knock on the door and Tex’s head appeared.
“Your 10 o’clock is waiting, sir.”
“I must go,” said Kay.
Eisenhower walked back to his desk, sat down, frowned at the document in front of him, then looked up with a smile. “I’m glad you made it. I need you out here,” he said.
The next day a tailor came to fit her for the new uniforms. Two days later she wore them to his office. Ike was pleased. He faced her, looking up and down, then put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around.
“Sleeves are too long and the skirt a little short but I guess the tailor can fix that,” he said.
“I think it’s fine, sir.”
“Kay, if it’s fine by you it’s OK by me.”
He was smiling as he gently ran a finger down the side of her cheek. Then he turned and sat down at the desk. It was as if the sinking of the Strathallen had awakened something in him that he had been unable to recognise on his own.
From that moment in 1943, in a mid-winter campaign that brought initial disaster upon the American forces, Eisenhower insisted on her presence at his side from daybreak to nightfall, whether at headquarters or at the front line with shellfire bursting not far away.
Kay felt far closer to him now that she had in London. She attended military briefings and visited hospitals with him to talk to the wounded. She trailed behind him taking notes of soldiers’ names and addresses after he had talked to them.
“Every man I talk to or shake hands with gets a letter – got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Then the armoured Cadillac arrived with a bonnet that looked long enough to launch an aircraft, darkened windows and tail fins sprouting aerials. Camouflage added to the impression that it was a creature that had recently escaped from a zoo.
“It looks like a dragon,” murmured Kay as Ike lifted the bonnet to show her the armour-plating over the engine.
“She’s all yours,” he said. “Take her out and drive her around.”
The next day Kay drove the Cadillac close to the front line. It was a winter’s day with cloud and mist shrouding the taller dunes in the distance and the desert churned to mud on all sides. The destination was the Kasserine Pass, where Rommel was attacking American forces in the first wartime confrontation between the two nations.
Sandwiched in a convoy of armoured vehicles, Kay drove the big car with one eye on the sky for enemy aircraft. Eisenhower was jammed between two officers in the back. They were also craning their necks skywards.
“If we get strafed I just want you all to get out of the car and run like hell – every man for himself,” said Eisenhower.
“And don’t expect me to hang around and open the door for you,” said Kay.
She looked back in the mirror. Back in England she would never have said something like that. Now it was different. Ike flashed her a smile in the mirror.
“Every man for himself,” said Kay. “Fair enough, but what about the women?”
“You do your best to keep up with us,” he said.
“You won’t see me for the dust in your eyes,” she replied.
The battle for the Kasserine Pass was a disastrous defeat for the Allied forces. American forces retreated some fifty miles towards their rear base, cursing the name of Rommel every mile of the way.
Without sufficient supplies and with Montgomery’s Eighth Army to his rear, Rommel was unable to exploit his success. But the battle sharpened Eisenhower’s respect for the German. Intuition told him they would meet again on the battlefield.
The Kasserine battle also brought Kay the surprise of a late Christmas present. The festive season had come and gone a few weeks earlier amid the gloom of endless rain and the misery of military defeat. But when Ike finally assembled his staff for a celebration lunch at his villa in Tunis, he did so with style.
There was turkey on the table provided by the ever-resourceful Mickey McKeogh. There were Christmas crackers and carefully wrapped small gifts on every placemat. Glasses of champagne had already been poured and placed beside small candles.
Each guest in turn opened their gifts to find bars of perfumed soap, miniature bottles of cognac and silk scarves. Then it was Kay’s turn. She tore the wrapping off her present to find a small wooden box carrying her initials. The room went quiet. Everyone was watching her. She suddenly felt nervous. She looked at Ike.
“It’s not going to bite me, is it?”
“It might bite somebody else. Open it.”
She did so and gasped. Inside, in velvet inlay, gleamed a silver pistol.
Eisenhower was immediately at her side, anxious to explain a gift that had silenced the room.
“It’s a Beretta 418. Nickel plated. Semi-automatic. Fits nicely in a handbag. Pick it up,” he said.
She eased the gun out of the inlay and held it with the barrel down. It was light and fitted comfortably in her hand. The grip was a brown grained wood, probably rosewood, she thought.
Tex led a round of applause at the table until Eisenhower raised his hand.
“Boss, that’s wonderful,” she said. “Thank you. But I don’t know how to use it.”
“You told me you were using a shotgun as a kid in Ireland.”
“That was different.”
“Same idea. You load, aim and pull the trigger. Here, let me show you.”
He was at her side. “Hold your arm out straight like this.”
He stood behind her with his right arm beneath hers, holding it out so that the Beretta was pointing at the door.
“Now use your left arm to support the gun arm.”
He took her left hand and leaning into her placed it beneath her right arm.
“There, you see! Now close one eye and squeeze the trigger.”
Kay was aware everyone was still looking at her. She and the boss were standing almost as one. She could smell the cologne he dabbed on his face after shaving.
“It’s not loaded, is it?” she said, half turning.
The room collapsed in laughter.
“No, it’s not,” said Ike, “but it will be when Tex takes you on the range tomorrow.”
She wanted to give him a kiss, even if only a peck on the cheek, but the watchful eyes were waiting for just such a gesture. Instead she held out her hand, shook his and said, “Thank you, boss. This is the best Christmas present I’ve ever had. What a lovely surprise.”
“There’s not a man here who hasn’t got a sidearm. You’re one of us. Why should you be different?” he said. Everyone applauded politely, although they knew that wasn’t the reason for such an unusual gift.
The opinion among the staff, one that Kay shared, was that
Ike had given her the weapon, just has he had ordered the two new uniforms, for a simple reason: guilt. He had had no right to ask her to join him in North Africa and risk her life crossing the Mediterranean on a troopship.
She was a Motor Transport Corps driver and should never have left London. Indeed the MTC had strenuously opposed her departure. Somewhere in the backwoods of bureaucracy there had been a row.
Kay had been summoned to explain herself and merely said she was obeying orders. Objections to her transfer were overruled because Eisenhower was the supreme commander and if he wanted his London driver beside him in the desert who was to question that?
Kay was delighted at the promotion. She also enjoyed Charlotte’s jealousy.
“You’ve got your bum in the butter dish, doll, you are just so lucky,” her friend said.
She had guardedly told Charlotte that she would be going overseas on operations. Failing to conceal her envy but anxious to trump this information, Charlotte said she knew all about Torch.
“You’re going to be in the desert, doll, among all those sheiks in their tents with long daggers in their belts trying to get their hands up your skirt.”
Kay couldn’t help laughing. They were whispering across a greasy table in the Red Lion with the usual watery wartime beers. The smell of stale beer, cheap cigarettes and old sweat, a smell peculiar to every pub in wartime London, the drab surroundings and the slanting rain outside did something to Charlotte’s imagination.
“He’ll come riding out of the sunset, sweeping down a steep dune on a white mount, bend low and sweep you onto his saddle and spur his steed back to the tent.”
“Who?”
“Rudolf Valentino, of course.”
“Then what happens?”
“You get ravished, doll. You could do with a bit of ravishing – mark you I wouldn’t say no either.”
Kay laughed again. “Someone should bottle you and sell you as a tonic.”
Charlotte looked around.” God, get me out of here. I’m just so jealous.”
“I wouldn’t be. It could be quite dangerous. There’s going to be a lot of fighting out where I’m going.”
“Dangerous, my elbow,” said Charlotte. “You’re going to be in the five pound seats watching the lions eat the Christians. I suppose he’s going to fly that bloody dog out as well?“
Kay said Telek was not being flown anywhere. She did not mention that her own transport was to be a troop ship. Charlotte would have laughed out loud at that. It was annoying. At the very least she should have been given a seat on a military plane out to join him.
But that would have meant authorisation, documentation, signatures. And that would have widened the circle of those who knew that Kay Summersby was receiving special treatment from the Allied commander.
His immediate staff were all too aware of the way Eisenhower treated his driver. He had broken regulations to enable her to join him in Africa. He had quite openly given her a fancy gun. He had replaced her ruined uniform with two new tailored outfits run up by the best tailor in Tangiers.
Everyone around Eisenhower knew also that there were plenty of other drivers who could just as easily perform all the duties that Kay dealt with: his mail, the phone calls, the daily diary, and mixing the evening cocktail.
Later in her room that day Kay took the Beretta out of the box, held it up and aimed it at the mirror. She liked what she saw, a woman with a gun in her hand. It made her feel confident and strong.
He had given it to her in front of everyone at lunch that day. He didn’t give a damn what they thought of the present or the way he had put his arms around her to show her how to use it. That was Eisenhower.
He could do that even if he couldn’t look deep in his heart and admit she had been torpedoed because he had broken all the rules. Kay Summersby shouldn’t be anywhere near the front line. Now he had given her a gun. That was probably against the rules too.
6
March 1943
Mamie Eisenhower could remember the exact date and time when Kay Summersby entered her life. She had picked up a copy of Life magazine after breakfast and sat down with a fresh cup of coffee to read it. A friend had told her the magazine had run a story about Ike which she should read.
It was 9 November 1942 and her husband had been away for almost six months. In that time she’d read many stories about him in the press and carefully kept the cuttings in an album to show him on his return.
Following his promotion to commander, European Theater of Operations and his third star in June of that year, Eisenhower had become a household name. For Mamie that meant not just stories in the national press but regular attention from the Washington press corps. They sent her bunches of roses, boxes of chocolates, anything to get into the apartment she shared with another army wife in the capital.
She knew what they wanted: human interest stories about the wife the general had left behind. She never let them into the apartment, but the gambit when they called on the phone was always the same and often from women feature writers.
“How are you doing, Mrs Eisenhower? We’re all so proud of your husband doing a great job over there, and you must be very proud too, so would you care to share some thoughts with our readers about life with Ike – that’s what we thought we would call it, a big two-page feature – ‘Life with Ike’ by the wife he left behind. Oh, and by the way, Mrs Eisenhower, we know army regulations forbid any payment, but we would make a handsome donation to a charity of your choice.”
She turned them all down, but that didn’t stop the calls, which became more personal and more hurtful the more she refused to cooperate.
It was male reporters now too, digging for dirt.
“Excuse me, Mrs Eisenhower, for mentioning this, but we would like to give you the chance to refute some unpleasant gossip going around. It is all rumour, of course, but we would like to give you the opportunity to nail this nonsense.”
“What are these rumours, exactly?”
There was always a pause at this point in the conversation, of which there were several, all remarkably similar, as the reporter concerned tried to phrase his accusation in a way that would present him as a friend rather than an accuser.
“Well, Mrs Eisenhower, I am sure these are just nasty rumours and we would like to help you deny them, but people do say you quite like your cocktails in the evening and that you never attend official events at night or dine with friends because you are, how shall I put this ...”
“Because I’ve had too much to drink?”
“Your words not mine, Mrs Eisenhower.”
“That is despicable and I shall let the general know to what depths you people can descend. What was the name of your paper again?”
“Good night, Mrs Eisenhower.”
It was true that she hardly ever went out in the evening, for the very good reason that when her husband was preparing to send young men into battle, perhaps to die, she didn’t think it appropriate to be seen drinking and socialising in public.
It was equally true that when friends came over in the evening for games of mah-jong or just for cosy suppers, cocktails were generously provided. That was the American way and what was wrong with that?
She knew what Ike would say: The hell with them all.
She smiled at the thought of him taking a call from one of the reporters. She turned to the magazine, flicked through the pages, and stopped smiling.
The article was headed “General Eisenhower and his ‘family’ in theater”. There was a large picture of Ike and a photo montage of those who worked closely with him, including Lieutenant Commander Harry Butcher, naval aide, Mickey McKeogh, orderly valet courier, and Kay Summersby, “a pretty Irish girl who also drives for General Eisenhower”. That was how Life described their relationship.
It was the word also that jumped out at Mamie. She had heard vaguely that t
he Brits had given Ike a driver and thought nothing of it. Now she learnt that the driver was a pretty Irish woman who apparently did other tasks as well. That begged several questions.
The woman, Kay Summersby, was undoubtedly pretty, as the caption said, rather strangely, Mamie thought. She looked again at the photo, which showed an apparently young woman wearing military uniform facing the camera with a slight smile. She was wearing a service cap which concealed her hair, and yes, she was pretty.
The story had jolted Mamie. Why had Ike not thought to tell her about his driver? He must have known that Summersberry, or whatever she was called, would feature in stories about his team. He had warned her to pay no attention to press stories, but the Life magazine story was cold, hard facts. He had also warned her not to expect him back until the war was over. And that could take years. Years he would be spending with his pretty Irish driver.
That had been nearly a year and a half ago, sixteen long months during which the Summersby woman had been at his side almost constantly. Her photograph appeared in newspapers and magazines with her standing behind him, sometimes at the wheel of the Packard as he was getting out, sometimes in official photographs, but always there at his side – always.
The woman had appeared with him again in Life magazine a week ago, this time on the front page. There she was, in full colour, on the cover of a magazine read by every woman in America, standing right behind him with that tight jacket and forage cap. She was wearing lipstick and what looked like eyeliner, and her hair had been carefully coiffured to look tousled. Kay Summersby, a thirty-five-year-old civilian driver, was wearing a military-style uniform tailored to her figure. Rumour had it that Ike had ordered it for her.
From the moment she had first seen her in Life magazine, Kay Summersby had not looked much like a driver to Mamie. Her army friends in Washington agreed, and so did every rumour that spiced conversations in the bars, restaurants and bedrooms of Washington DC that summer of 1942. It was a well known, if tightly held, confidence among the power elite that General Patton and others in high command had taken mistresses while campaigning abroad. It seemed an accepted military tradition for American commanders overseas. But General Dwight Eisenhower?
Ike and Kay Page 7