The Winds of War

by Herman Wouk

  Being an ex-beauty, and remaining pretty, she had always drawn and enjoyed the attention of men, so she had not lacked opportunities for affairs. But she had been as faithful to Pug Henry as he had been to her. She liked to go to church, her hymn-singing and prayers were heartfelt, she believed in God, she thought Jesus Christ was her Savior—if she had never gone deeply into the matter—and she was convinced in her soul that a married woman ought to be true and good. In the old Navy-wife pastime of ripping apart ladies who had not been true and good, she wielded well-honed claws.

  Setting aside a trivial kiss here and there, only one episode in the dim past somewhat marred Rhoda’s otherwise perfect record. After an officers’ club dance in Manila, where she had soaked up too much champagne—Pug being out at sea in a fleet exercise—Kip Tollever had brought her home and had managed to get her dress off. Madeline, then a child troubled by bad dreams, had saved the situation by waking and starting to cry. By the time Madeline was comforted, Rhoda had sobered up. Relieved to be back from the brink, yet bearing Kip no malice, she had donned a proper housecoat and had amiably shooed him out of the house. That had been the end of it. No doubt Kip the next morning had been just as grateful to Madeline. Victor Henry was practically the last man in the Navy he wanted to risk angering.

  Thereafter, Rhoda was always somewhat kittenish toward Tollever. Now and then she wondered what would have happened had Madeline not awakened. Would she really have gone through with it? How would she have felt? But she would never know; she did not intend to get that close to trouble again; the wine had been to blame. Still, there had been something titillating about being undressed by a man other than old Pug. Rhoda preserved the memory, though she buried it deep.

  Dr. Palmer Kirby was a shy, serious, ugly man in his middle-fifties. After the dinner party for him, discussing the guests with Sally Forrest, Rhoda had dismissed him as “one of these ghastly BRAINS.” Just to be sociable, she had vainly tried her usual coquettish babble on Kirby over the cocktails. “Well, since friend husband’s away, Dr. Kirby, I’ve put you on my right, and we can make HAY while the sun shines.”

  “Um. On your right. Thank you.”

  That had almost been the end of it. Rhoda detested such heavy men. But he had happened to say at dinner that he was going next day to a factory in Brandenburg. Rhoda offered to drive him there, simply because she had long wanted to see the medieval town, and Kirby in a sense was her husband’s guest.

  On the way they had a dull, decorous lunch at an inn. Over a bottle of Moselle, Kirby warmed up and started to talk about himself and his work. At an alert question she asked him—living with Pug, Rhoda had learned to follow technical talk—Palmer Kirby suddenly smiled. It seemed to her that she had not seen him smile before. His teeth were big, and the smile showed his gums. It was a coarse male smile of knowledge and appetite, far from disagreeable, but startling in the saturnine engineer.

  “Do you really care, Mrs. Henry?” said Dr. Kirby. “I’d be glad to explain the whole business, but I have a horror of boring a beautiful woman.”

  The smile, the words, the tone, all disclosed that the man had missed none of her coquetry; that on the contrary, he liked her. A bit flustered, she touched a hand to her hair, tucking the waves behind her small white ears. “I assure you, it all sounds fascinating. Just use words of one syllable as much as possible.”

  “Okay, but you brought this on yourself.”

  He told her all about magnetic amplifiers—“magamps,” he called them—devices for precise control of voltages and currents, especially in high power. Asking one adroit question after another, Rhoda soon drew out the key facts about him. At the California Institute of Technology he had written his doctoral thesis on electromagnetism. At forty he had decided to manufacture magnetic amplifiers on his own, instead of settling for an executive post at General Electric or Westinghouse, and security for life. The long struggle for financing had all but sunk him; it was just now paying off. War industries demanded magamps in quantity, and he was first in the field. He had come to Germany because the Germans were ahead of the United States in the quality of some components. He was studying their techniques and buying their nickel-alloy cores.

  She also learned that he was a widower and a grandfather. He talked about his dead wife, and then they exchanged long confidences about their children’s faults and virtues. Like most men, Kirby loved to talk about himself, once over his shyness. His story of back-breaking money troubles and final big success so enthralled her that she forgot to be coy, and spoke pleasantly and to the point. Rhoda was most attractive, in fact, when she made the least effort to be. She was the kind of woman who can dazzle a man at first acquaintance by piling everything into the shop window: none of it forced or faked, but in sum nearly all she has to offer. Victor Henry had long since found that out. He had no complaints, though he had once imagined there must be much more. Palmer Kirby was hit hard by this maximum first impact. He ordered a second bottle of Moselle, and they got to Brandenburg almost an hour late. While he went about his business Rhoda strolled through the picturesque old town, guidebook in hand; and her mind unaccountably kept wandering to her little misconduct long ago with Kip Tollever. She was a bit dizzy from the Moselle, and it wore off slowly.

  When they returned to Berlin toward evening, Kirby offered to take her to dinner and to the opera. It seemed quite natural to accept. Rhoda rushed home and began raking through her dresses and shoes, pushing her hair this way and that, wishing she could have gone to the hairdresser, hesitating over her perfumes. She was still at it when Kirby came to call for her. She kept him waiting for an hour. In girlhood she had always kept boys waiting. Pug had harshly cured her of the habit, for Navy social life began and ended by the clock, and he would not tolerate embarrassment by Rhoda. Keeping Palmer Kirby waiting while she fussed over herself was a delicious little nostalgic folly, a lovely childish self-indulgence, like eating a banana split. It almost made Rhoda feel nineteen again.

  The mirror told her a different story, but even it seemed friendly to her that night: it showed shiny eyes, a pretty face, a firm figure in the sheer slip, and arms that were round and thin all the way up, instead of bagging above the elbow as so many women’s did. She sailed into the living room wearing the pink suit with gold buttons that she had bought to please Hitler. Kirby sat reading one of Pug’s technical journals. He took off big black-rimmed glasses and rose, exclaiming, “Well, don’t you look grand!”

  “I’m awful,” she said, taking Kirby’s arm, “dawdling so long, but you brought it on yourself, asking the old girl out after a hard day.”

  The opera was La Traviata, and they enjoyed discovering that they both had always loved it. Afterward, he proposed a glimpse of the notorious Berlin night life. It was nothing he’d ever do by himself, he said; still, Berlin night life was the talk of the world, and if it wouldn’t offend Mrs. Henry, she might enjoy a peek at it.

  Rhoda giggled at the notion. “Well, this seems to be my night to howl, doesn’t it? Thank you very much for a disreputable suggestion, which I hasten to accept. Let’s hope we don’t run into any of my friends.”

  So it happened that when the telephone rang in the Henrys’ home at two in the morning—the long-distance call from New York, via the U.S.S. Marblehead in Lisbon—there was nobody to answer. Rhoda was sipping champagne, watching a hefty blonde German girl fling her naked breasts about in blue smoky gloom, and glancing every now and then at Dr. Palmer Kirby’s long solemn face in thick-rimmed glasses, as he smoked a long pipe and observed the hard-working sweaty dancer with faint distaste. Rhoda was aroused and deliciously shocked. She had never before seen a nude dancing woman, except in paintings.

  After that, until her husband returned, she spent a lot of time with Kirby. They went to the less frequented restaurants. In her own vocabulary, she never “did anything.” When Pug returned, the adventure stopped.

  A farewell lunch at Wannsee for Palmer Kirby was Rhoda’s idea, but she got Sally Fo
rrest to give the lunch, saying she had already sufficiently entertained this civilian visitor. If Sally Forrest detected an oddity in this she said nothing. With the end of the Polish war at hand—only Warsaw was still holding out—the two attachés felt able to take off some midday hours. Berlin wore a peacetime air, and there was even talk that rationing would soon be over. Byron drove them all out to the resort in an embassy car. Along the broad sandy beach on the Havel river, people strolled in the sun or sat under broad gaily colored umbrellas, and a number of gymnasts braved the fall breezes to exercise in skimpy costumes.

  In the luncheon the Forrests ordered, rationing was not much in evidence. The pasty margarine tasted as usual like axle grease, but they ate excellent turbot and good leg of lamb. Midway during the lunch a loudspeaker crackled and whined, and a voice spoke in firm clear German: “Attention! In the next few minutes you will hear a report of the highest importance to the fatherland.”

  The identical words boomed all over the river resort. People stopped on the promenade to listen. On the beach the small figures of the gymnasts halted briefly in their tumbling or running. An excited murmur rose all through the elegant Kaiserpavillon restaurant.

  “What do you suppose?” Sally Forrest said, as the music resumed, thin gentle Schubert on strings.

  “Warsaw, I’d guess,” said her husband. “It must be over.”

  Dr. Kirby said, “You don’t suppose there’s an armistice coming up? I’ve been hearing armistice talk all week.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t that be marvellous,” Rhoda said, “and put an end to this stupid war before it really gets going!”

  Byron said, “It’s been going.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Rhoda with an apologetic smile, “they’d have to make some decent settlement of that hideous Polish business.”

  “There’ll be no armistice,” said Pug.

  The buzz of talk rose higher on the crowded terrace and in the dining room. The Germans, eyes bright and gestures animated, argued with each other, laughed, struck the table, and called from all sides for champagne. When the loudspeaker played the few bars of Liszt’s music that preceded big news, the noise began to die.

  “Sondermeldung!” (Special bulletin!) At this announcement, an immediate total stillness blanketed the restaurant, except for a clink here and there. The loudspeaker randomly crackled; then a baritone voice spoke solemn brief words. “From Supreme Headquarters of the Führer. Warsaw has fallen.”

  The whole restaurant rang with applause and cheers. Women jumped to their feet and danced. Men shook hands and hugged and kissed each other. Brass band music—first “Deutschland Über Alles,” then the “Horst Wessel Lied”—came pouring out of the loudspeakers. To a man the diners in the Kaiserpavillon rose, all except the American party. On the beach, on the promenade, wherever the eye turned, the Germans stood still, most of them with arms thrust forward in the Nazi salute. In the dining room, about half were saluting and singing, a discordant swell of voices in the vulgar beery National Socialist anthem. Victor Henry’s skin prickled as he looked around, and he felt at this moment that the Germans under Adolf Hitler would take some beating. He then noticed something he had not seen for many, many years. His son sat still, face frozen, lips pressed in a line, white-knuckled hands clasped on the table. Byron had almost always taken pain and punishment dry-eyed since the age of five, but now he was crying.

  The American party, sitting in a restaurant full of people on their feet, was getting hostile glares.

  “Do they expect us to stand?” Sally Forrest said.

  “I’m not standing,” Rhoda said.

  Their waiter, a roly-poly man in black with very long straight blond hair, hitherto all genial expert service, stood bellowing with arm outstretched, visibly sneering at the Americans.

  Byron saw none of this. Byron was seeing dead swollen horses in the gutter, yellow plywood patches on rows of broken buildings, a stone goose bordered with red flowers in a schoolyard, a little girl in a lilac dress taking a pen from him, orange starshells bursting in the night over church domes.

  The song ended. The Germans applauded and cheered some more, and began toasting each other. The string orchestra switched to drinking songs, and the whole Kaiserpavillon went into a gay roar of

  Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen,

  Du, du, liegst mir im Sinn—

  Byron cringed to hear it, and to recall that a full belly and a glass of beer had brought him to join German soldiers in this song, not six hours after he had escaped from burning Warsaw.

  Ja, ja!

  Ja, ja,

  Weisst nicht wie gut ich dir bin…

  At the Americans’ table the waiter started removing plates with a jerky clatter, spilling gravy and wine and jostling them with his elbows.

  “Watch what you’re doing, please,” Colonel Forrest said.

  The waiter went on with his brusque sloppy clearing. Sally Forrest gave a little yelp as he struck her head with a plate.

  Pug said to him, “Look. Call your headwaiter, please.”

  “Headwaiter? I am the headwaiter. I am your head.” The man laughed and walked off. Dirty dishes remained scattered on the table. Wet purple and brown messes stained the cloth.

  Forrest said to Henry, “It might be smart to leave.”

  “Oh, by all means,” Sally Forrest said. “Just pay, Bill, and we’ll go.” She picked up her purse.

  “We haven’t had our dessert,” Pug Henry said.

  “It might be an idea to knock that waiter on his behind,” Dr. Kirby said, his face disagreeably contorted.

  “I volunteer,” said Byron, and he started to get up.

  “For God’s sake, boy!” Colonel Forrest pulled him back. “An incident is just what he wants, and what we can’t have.”

  The waiter was striding past them to another table. Henry called, “I asked you to bring your headwaiter.”

  “You’re in a hurry, honorable sir?” the waiter jeered. “Then you’d better leave. We’re very busy in this restaurant.” He turned a stout back on Henry and walked away.

  “Stop! Turn around.”

  Pug did not shout or bark. He used a dry sharp tone of command that cut through the restaurant gabble. The waiter stopped and turned. “Go call your headwaiter. Do it immediately.” He looked straight into the waiter’s eyes, his face serious and hard. The waiter’s glance shifted, and he walked off in another direction. The nearby diners were staring and muttering.

  “I think we should go,” Sally Forrest said. “This isn’t worth the trouble.”

  The waiter soon approached, followed by a tall, bald, long-faced man in a frock coat, who said with a busy, unfriendly air, “Yes? You have a complaint?”

  “We’re a party of Americans, military attachés,” Pug said. “We didn’t rise for your anthem. We’re neutrals. This waiter chose to take offense.” He gestured at the table. “He’s been deliberately clumsy and dirty. He’s talked rudely. He’s jostled the ladies. His conduct has been swinish. Tell him to behave himself, and be good enough to let us have a clean cloth for our dessert.”

  The expression of the headwaiter kept changing as Victor Henry rapped the sentences out. He hesitated under Henry’s direct gaze, looked around at the other diners, and all at once burst out in a howl of abuse at the waiter, flinging both arms in the air, his face purpling. After a short fierce tantrum, he turned to Pug Henry, bowed from the waist, and said coldly, “You will be properly served. My apologies.” And he bustled off.

  Now a peculiar thing happened. The waiter reverted to his former manner without turning a hair, without a trace of surliness, resentment, or regret. The episode was obliterated; it had never happened. He cleared the dishes and spread a new cloth with deft speed. He smiled, he bowed, he made little jokes and considerate little noises. His face was blood red, otherwise he was in every respect the same charming, gemütlich German waiter who had first greeted them. He took their dessert orders with chuckles and nods, with arch jests about calories, wi
th solicitous suggestions of wine and liqueurs. He backed away smiling and bowing, and hastened out of sight.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Colonel Forrest.

  “We hadn’t had our dessert,” Pug said.

  “Well done,” Kirby said to Pug Henry, with an odd glance at Rhoda. “Beautifully done.”

  “Oh, Pug has a way about him,” Rhoda said, smiling brightly.

  “Okay, Dad,” Byron said. Victor Henry shot him a quick look. It was the one remark that gratified him.

  The Americans rushed uneasily through their desserts: all but Victor Henry, who was very deliberate about eating his tart and drinking his coffee. He unwrapped a cigar. The waiter jumped to light it for him.

  “Well, I guess we can shove off,” he said, puffing out a cloud of smoke. “Time’s a’wasting, and the colonel and I are cheating the U.S. Government.”

  That night after a late dinner, as they were having coffee on the terrace, Rhoda said, “I see you’ve brought home a pile of work. I thought we might see that new Emil Jannings movie. But I can get one of the girls to come along.”

  “Go ahead. I’m no fan of Emil Jannings.”

  Rhoda drank up her coffee and left the father and son sitting in the gloom.

  “Briny, what about that report? How’s it coming?”

  “The report? Oh, yes, the report.” Byron leaned forward in his chair, legs apart, elbows on knees, hands clasped. “Dad, I’d like to ask you something. What would you think of my joining the British navy? Or the RAF?”

  Victor Henry blinked, and took a while to answer. “You want to fight the Germans, I take it?”

  “I enjoyed myself in Warsaw. I felt useful.”

  “Well, this is one hell of a change, coming from you. I thought a military career was o-u-t out.”