by Herman Wouk
After a moment of crackling static, the announcer sounded awed: “You have been listening to an address by the President of the United States, speaking from the East Room of the White House in Washington.”
“That’s terrific! It’s far more than I expected.” Pug snapped the radio off. “He finally did it!”
Rhoda said, “He did? Funny. I thought he just pussyfooted around.”
“Pussyfooted! Weren’t you listening? ‘We are placing our armed forces in position… we will use them to repel attack… an unlimited national emergency exists…’”
“What does all that mean?” Rhoda yawned and stretched on the chaise longue, kicking her legs. One pink-feathered mule dropped off her naked foot. “Is it the same as war?”
“Next thing to it. We convoy right away. And that’s just for starters.”
“Makes me wonder,” said Rhoda, flipping the negligee over her legs, “whether we should pursue those houses any further.”
“Why not?”
“They’ll surely give you a sea command if we go to war, Pug.”
“Who knows? In any case, we need a place to hang our hats.”
“I suppose so. Have you thought any more about which house you’d want?”
Pug grimaced. Here was an old dilemma. Twice before they had bought a bigger house in Washington than he could afford, with Rho-da’s money.
“I like the N Street house.”
“But, dear, that means no guest room, and precious little entertaining.”
“Look, if your heart is set on Foxhall Road, okay.”
“We’ll see, honey. I’ll look again at both of them.” Rhoda rose, stretching and smiling. “It’s that time. Coming to bed?”
“Be right up.” Pug opened a briefcase.
Rhoda swished out, purring, “Bring me a bourbon-and-water when you come.”
Pug did not know why he was back in her good graces, or why he had fallen out in the first place. He was too preoccupied to dwell on that. His arithmetic on merchant shipping was obsolete if the United States was about to convoy. Transfers of ownership and other roundabout tricks could be dropped. It was a whole new situation now, and Pug thought the decision to convoy would galvanize the country. He made two bourbon-and-waters, nice and rich, and went upstairs humming.
The yeoman’s voice on the intercom was apologetic. “Sir, beg your pardon. Will you talk to Mr. Alistair Tudsbury?” Victor Henry, sweating in shirt-sleeves over papers laid out on every inch of his desk, was trying—at the urgent demand of the office of the Chief of Naval Operations—to bring up to date before nightfall the operation plan filed months earlier, for combined American and British convoying.
“What? Yes, put him on…. Hello? Henry speaking.”
“Am I disturbing you, dear boy? That’s quite a bark.”
“No, not at all. What’s up?”
“What do you make of the President’s press conference?”
“I didn’t know he’d had one.”
“You are busy. Ask your office to get you the afternoon papers.”
“Wait a minute. They should be here.”
Pug’s yeoman brought in two newspapers smelling of fresh ink. The headlines were huge:
NO CONVOYS—FOR
and
PRESIDENT TO PRESS: SPEECH DIDN’T MEAN CONVOYS “Unlimited Emergency” Merely a Warning; No Policy Changes
Skimming the stories, Pug saw that Franklin Roosevelt had blandly taken back his whole radio speech, claiming the reporters had misunderstood it. There would be no stepped-up United States action in the Atlantic, north or south. He had never suggested that. Patrolling, not convoying, would go on as before. No Army troops or marines would be sent to Iceland or anywhere else. All he had been trying to do was warn the nation that great danger existed.
Tudsbury, who could hear the pages turning, said, “Well? Tell me something encouraging.”
“I thought I understood Franklin Roosevelt,” Pug Henry muttered.
Tudsbury said, “What’s that? Victor, our people have been ringing church bells and dancing in the streets over last night’s speech. Now I have to broadcast and tell about this press conference.”
“I don’t envy you.”
“Can you come over for a drink?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Please try. Pam’s leaving.”
“What?”
“She’s going home, leaving on a boat tonight. She’s been pestering them for weeks to let her return to Blighty.”
“Let me call you back.”
He told his yeoman to telephone an old shipmate of his, Captain Feller, at the office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
“Hello, Soapy? Pug. Say, have you seen the papers about that press conference?… Yes, I quite agree. Well, now, next question. This Convoy Annex Four. Do you still want it by tonight?… Now, Soapy, that’s a rude suggestion, and it’s an awfully bulky annex. Moreover I hope we’ll use it one day…. Okay. Thanks.”
Pug hit the buzzer. “Call Tudsbury. I’m coming over.”
“The funny part is,” Pug said to Tudsbury, “Rhoda said he pussyfooted around. I was taken in.”
“Maybe it needs a woman to follow that devious mind,” said the correspondent. “Pam, where are your manners? Pug’s here to say goodbye to you. Come in and have your drink.”
“In a minute. My things are all in a slop.” They could see Pamela moving in the corridor, carrying clothes, books, and valises here and there. They sat in the small living room of Tudsbury’s apartment off Connecticut Avenue, hot and airless despite open windows through which afternoon traffic noise and sunlight came streaming.
Tudsbury, sprawling on a sofa in a massively wrinkled Palm Beach suit, with one thick leg up, heaved a sigh. “I shall be alone again. There’s a girl who is all self, self, self.”
“Family trait,” called the dulcet voice from out of sight.
“Shut up. Please, Pug, give me something comforting to say in this bloody broadcast.”
“I can’t think of a thing.”
Tudsbury took a large drink of neat whiskey and heavily shook his head. “What’s happened to Franklin Roosevelt? The Atlantic convoy route is the jugular vein of civilization. The Huns are sawing at it with a razor. He knows the tonnage figures of the past three months. He knows that with Crete and the Balkans mopped up, the Luftwaffe will come back at us, double its size of last year and howling with victory. What the devil?”
“I’ll have my drink now,” said Pamela, striding in. “Don’t you think you should be going, governor?”
He held his tumbler out to her. “One more. I have never been more reluctant to face a microphone. I have stage fright. My tongue will cleave to the roof of my mouth.”
“Oh yes. Just as it’s doing now.” Pamela took his glass and Pug’s to the small wheeled bar.
“Put in more ice. I’ve caught that decadent American habit. Pug, the Empire’s finished. We’re nothing but an outpost of yours against the Germans. But we’re a fighting outpost of forty millions, with a strong navy and a plucky air force. Why, man, we’re your Hawaii in the Atlantic, many times as big and powerful and crucial. Oh, I could make one hell of a broadcast about how preposterous your policy is!”
“Thanks, Pam,” Pug said. “I agree with you, Tudsbury. So does the Secretary of the Army. So does Harry Hopkins. They’ve both made speeches urging convoy now. I have no defense of the President’s policy. It’s a disaster. Cheers.”
“Cheers. Yes, and it’s your disaster. This is a contest now between Germany and the United States. If you lose, God help you and all mankind. We were too slow, too stupid, and too late. But in the end we did our best. You’re doing nothing, in the last inning.” He swallowed his drink and pulled himself to his feet. “We expected more from the United States Navy, anyhow. I’ll tell you that.”
“The United States Navy is ready,” Pug shot back. “I’ve been working like a bastard all day on a general operation order for convoy. When I saw those
headlines, it was like my desk blowing up in my face.”
“Good God, man, can I say that? Can I say that the Navy, before this press conference, was preparing to start convoying?”
“Are you crazy? I’ll shoot you if you do.”
“I don’t have to quote you. Please.”
Pug shook his head.
“Can I say your Navy is ready to go over to convoy on a twenty-four hours’ notice? Is that true?”
“Why, of course it’s true. We’re out there now. We’ve got the depth charges on ready. All we have to do is uncover and train out the guns.”
Tudsbury’s bulging eyes were alive now and agleam. “Pug, I want to say that.”
“Say what?”
“That the United States Navy is ready to go over to convoy and expects to do it soon.”
Pug hesitated only a second or two. “Oh, what the hell. Sure, say it! You can hear that from anybody in the service from CNO down. Who doesn’t know that?”
“The British, that’s who. You’ve saved me.” Tudsbury rounded on his daughter. “And you told me not to telephone him, you stupid baggage! Blazes, I’m late.” The fat man lumbered out.
Pug said to Pamela, “That isn’t news.”
“Oh, he has to work himself up. He’ll make it sound like something. He’s rather clutching at straws.”
She sat with her back to the window. The sun in her brown hair made an aureole around her pallid sad face.
“Why did you tell him not to phone me?”
She looked embarrassed. “I know how hard you’re working.”
“Not that hard.”
“I meant to ring you before I left.” She glanced down at her intertwined fingers, and reached him a mimeographed document from the coffee table. “Have you seen this?”
It was the British War Office’s instructions to civilians for dealing with German invaders. Pug said, leafing through it, “I read a lot of this stuff last fall. It’s pretty nightmarish, when you start picturing the Germans driving through Kent and marching up Trafalgar Square. It won’t happen, though.”
“Are you sure? After that press conference?”
Pug turned up both hands.
Pamela said, “They’ve updated that manual since last year. It’s calmer, and a lot more realistic. And therefore somehow more depressing. I can just see it all happening. After Crete, I really do think it may.”
“You’re brave to go back, then.”
“Not in the least. I can’t stand it here. I choke on your steaks and your ice cream. I feel so bloody guilty.” Pamela wrung her fingers in her lap. “I just can’t wait to go. There’s this girl in the office—would you like another drink? no?—well, the fool’s gone dotty over a married man. An American. And she has a fiancé in the RAF. She has nobody to talk to. She pours it all out to me. I have to live with all this maudlin agonizing, day in, day out. It’s wearing me down.”
“What does this American do?”
“That would be telling.” With a little twist of her mouth she added, “He’s a civilian. I can’t imagine what she sees in him. I once met him. A big thin flabby chap with glasses, a paunch, and a high giggle.”
They sat in silence. Pug rattled the ice in his glass, round and round.
“Funny, there’s this fellow I know,” he spoke up. “Navy fellow. Take him, now. He’s been married for a quarter of a century, fine grown family, all that. Well, over in Europe he ran into this girl. On the boat actually, and a few times after that. He can’t get her out of his mind. He never does anything about it. His wife is all right, there’s nothing wrong with her. Still, he keeps dreaming about this girl. All he does is dream. He wouldn’t hurt his wife for the world. He loves his grown kids. Look at him, and you’d call him the soberest of sober citizens. He has never had anything to do with another woman since he got married. He wouldn’t know how to go about it, and isn’t about to try. And that’s the story of this fellow. Just as silly as this girlfriend of yours, except that he doesn’t talk about it. There are millions of such people.”
Pamela Tudsbury said, “A naval officer, you say?”
“Yes, he’s a naval officer.”
“Sounds like somebody I might like.” The girl’s voice was grainy and kind.
Through the automobile noises outside, a vague sweeter sound drew nearer, and defined itself as a hand organ. “Oh listen!” Pam jumped up and went to the window. “When did you last hear one of those?”
“A few of them wander around Washington all the time.” He was at her side, looking down five stories to the organ grinder, who was almost hidden in a crowding circle of children. She slipped her hand in his and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Let’s go down and watch the monkey. There must be one.”
“Sure.”
“First let me kiss you good-bye. On the street, I can’t.”
She put her thin arms around him and kissed his mouth. Far below, the music of the hurdy-gurdy thumped and jangled. “What is that song?” she said, the breath of her mouth warm on his lips. “I don’t recognize it. It’s a little like Handel’s Messiah.”
“It’s called ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas.’”
“How moving.”
“I love you,” said Victor Henry, considerably surprising himself.
She caressed his face, her eyes looking deep into his. “I love you. Come.”
On the street, in the hot late sunshine, the children were squealing and shouting as a monkey on the end of a light chain, with a red hat stuck fast on its head, turned somersaults. The hurdy-gurdy was still grinding the same song. The animal ran to Victor Henry, and balancing itself with its long curled tail, took off the hat and held it out. He dropped in a quarter. Taking the coin and biting it, the monkey tipped the hat, somersaulted back to his master, and dropped the coin in a box. It sat on the organ, grinning, chattering, and rapidly tipping the hat.
“If that critter could be taught to salute,” said Victor Henry, “he might have a hell of a naval career.”
Pamela looked up in his face and seized his hand. “You’re doing as much as anybody I know—anybody, anybody— about this accursed war.”
“Well, Pam, have a safe trip home.” He kissed her hand and walked rapidly off, leaving her among the laughing children. Behind him the barrel organ wheezily started again on “Yes, We Have No Bananas.”
A couple of days later, Victor Henry received an order to escort to the Memorial Day parade the oldest naval survivor of the Civil War. This struck him as strange, but he pushed aside a mound of work to obey. He picked the man up at a veterans’ home, and drove with him to the reviewing stand on Pennsylvania Avenue. The man wore a threadbare uniform like an old play costume, and the dim eyes in his bony, withered, caved-in face were cunningly alert.
President Roosevelt’s white linen suit and white straw hat glared in the bright sun, as he sat in his open car beside the stand. He gave the tottering ancient a strong handshake and bellowed at the box of his hearing aid, “Well, well! You look better than I do, old top. I bet you feel better.”
“I don’t have your worries,” quavered the veteran. The President threw his head back and laughed.
“How would you like to watch the parade with me?”
“Better than—hee hee—marching in it.”
“Come along. Come on, Pug, you sit with me too.”
The veteran soon fell asleep in the sunshine, and not even the booming and crashing of the brass bands could wake him. Roosevelt saluted, waved, put his straw hat over his heart when a flag went by, and smiled obligingly for the newsreel men and photographers crowding around the slumbering veteran beside the President.
“The Navy’s my favorite,” he said to Victor Henry, as blue Annapolis ranks swung by with set young faces under the tall hats. “They march better than those West Point cadets. Don’t ever tell any Army men I said so! Say, Pug, incidentally, whom can I send over to London to head up our convoy command?” Pug sat dumbstruck. Ever since the press conference, the Preside
nt had been sticking firmly to his no-convoy stance. “Well? Don’t you know of anybody? We’ll call him a ‘special naval observer,’ of course, or something, until we get things started.”
The President’s voice did not carry over the blaring brasses to the chauffeur, nor to his naval aide in front, nor to the Secret Service men flanking the automobile.
“Sir, are we going to convoy?”
“You know perfectly well we will. We’ve got to.”
“When, Mr. President?”
The President smiled wearily at Pug’s bitter emphasis. He fumbled in his pocket. “I had an interesting chat with General Marshall this morning. This was the upshot.”
He showed Victor Henry a chit of paper scrawled with his own handwriting:
Victor Henry read these frustrating figures while American flags streamed past him and the marine band blared out “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Meanwhile Roosevelt was searching through more chits. He handed another to Pug, while taking the salute of the marine formation as it stalked splendidly past. This was in another handwriting, in green ink, with the last line ringed in red:
“I’ll take that,” Roosevelt said, retrieving the chit. “Those are the figures, Pug, for the day after my speech.”
“Convoying would be a Navy job, sir. We’re all ready.”
“If we get into war,” said the President through a broad smile and a wave at schoolchildren cheering him “—and convoying might just do it—Hitler will at once walk into French West Africa. He’ll have the Luftwaffe at Dakar, where they can jump over to Brazil. He’ll put new submarine pens there, too. The Azores will be in his palm. The people who are screaming for convoy now just ignore these things. Also the brute fact that eighty-two percent, eighty-two percent of our people don’t want to go to war. Eighty-two percent.”
The Navy veteran was sitting up now, blinking, and working his bony jaws and loose sunken mouth. “My, this is a fine parade. I still remember marching past President Lincoln,” he said reedily. “There he stood, the President himself, all in black.” The old man peered at the President. “And you’re all in white. And you’re sitting, hee hee.”