Once an Eagle (78 page)

“It means—” Laszlo's lined face assumed its sly, roguish look, his eyes bulged. “It means: As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations.”

“Hey, that's pretty good.” MacConnadin laughed; he had recovered his bluff, hard jocosity. “You worrywarts!” he jibed the officers. “The way to swing it is study the angles and then act accordingly. The Japs have got no more idea of going to war with us than they have of flying to the moon. In the first place they haven't got the stuff to take on an outfit like the U.S.A.—”

“Yes, they have,” Damon heard himself say all at once, “—and you're one of the people who've been giving it to them.”

There was a sudden little silence. Laszlo was staring out to sea, his lips pursed, whistling inaudibly. MacConnadin was glaring at Damon, rednecked and uncertain, hands on his hips. The General had glanced at him once, not sharply, and turned to study the lie of the balls. Well, the hell with it. Damon put out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe, scattered the tobacco and rolled the tiny wad of paper in the tips of his fingers. He'd been discreet, amenable, deferential at gatherings such as this for twenty years—Jesus! was it
twenty years?
—and now all at once he was sick of it. He didn't give a damn. He'd say what he thought, once in a while; and the chips could fall where they might. Conscious of the silence, of Hélène's and Tommy's voices coming clearly down to them from the terrace, he walked over to where his ball was lying in the rich, soft grass, thinking of Lin Tso-han in the peasant's hut at Tung Yen T'o.

“All right, Sam.” MacConnadin was twisting his neck inside his open collar. “Now let me get this straight. You're predicting we're going to war with Japan. Is that right?” The Nebraskan nodded. “Okay. Suppose you're right. Just suppose, now. When's it going to happen?”

Damon paused. The General was watching him now, his fine, alert face perfectly expressionless. “Soon,” he said. “Sooner than you think.”

“Like when?”

“Three weeks,” he said briskly; thinking, They'll wait to see whether the Germans can take Moscow, and if Rommel can contain the new British counteroffensive against Tobruk and Benghasi. “Six at the most.”

“And what's your opinion, George?”

Caldwell pursed his lips, squinting. “I'd say that's a trifle pessimistic. I'd say three to six months. Maybe eight.”

“Uh huh.” MacConnadin nodded. “Well, that's the future. When you're running a corporation all by your lonesome, six or eight months can be a long time. The fact is, I'm not a hell of a lot interested in a war coming half a year from now.” He sipped at his drink, replaced it on the iron filigree table at the edge of the lawn. “I've never been to Europe or China or all these God damn National Geographic places. I've just stayed at home here and tended to business.” His eyes glinted in the morning light. “It's easy for you guys to say. You've always had security. You weren't sweating it out, back there in '31, trying to keep your head above water. You've never had to meet a payroll and nothing in the till, the house mortgaged to the attic, fifty creditors bearing down … I built Bay City Car and Foundry up from a motheaten old shop over in Oakland, and now I've got a payroll of forty-two hundred, and four plants and a fleet of six ships … and what
I'm
interested in is a return on my investment. Now. Today. Get what I mean?”

“Somebody's got to worry about these things,” Laszlo remarked, “—and who is going to if you don't, Bert?”

“You said it.” MacConnadin grinned at him; he had caught the note of sarcasm and chosen to indulge it. He bent over and stroked the ball—a fine shot; picked up two wickets, using the General's ball, drove him back within three feet of Laszlo and positioned himself superbly. Damon watched him with an inflamed sense of admiration and contempt. He was so sure of himself: so sure! He knew what he knew—and he understood so little. It was terrifying. For a moment, standing casually on that broad, immaculate lawn beneath California's perpetual springtime, Sam wanted to snatch the industrialist up by the hair of his head and drag him out over the limitless watery leagues of the Pacific and the purple hills of Shansi to a crumbling stone building where men—even as he and MacConnadin—were dying of gangrene because there were no adequate medications or operating facilities; spirit him on across deserts and lonely, inland seas to where hostages picked at random in a village square—even as he and MacConnadin—were crumpling in windrows before the Spandaus and Schmeissers; still further to a country of narrow tiled roofs and crooked little chimney pots, where children wailed in the smoking ruins far below the fading drone of bombers …

Then the impulse passed. He'd already said enough: more than enough. It was his turn again. The General was dead on him, and out of position as well. He would have to take the wicket cleanly and roll at least thirty feet beyond it in order to reach MacConnadin with one shot. It was the only hope. He took a deep, slow breath and bent over, all his concentration focused on the blue-striped ball at his feet.

 

Reclining on the
padded deck chair, smiling vaguely at Hélène's indolent chatter, Tommy had been listening to the argument down on the croquet lawn with increasing resentment. Ever since he'd come back from China Sam had been like this—silent and contained, and then all of a sudden he'd say something that made everybody furious. He was—he was like a man with a murder on his conscience; and every now and then, in spite of himself, it would burst out and turn the atmosphere all tense and unpleasant. Ridiculous. At one point she was on the verge of calling out, even going down there to break it up, but then she thought better of it. If Bert won the game he'd be in a good mood; if he didn't she could probably jolly him out of it at lunch, smooth things over a bit. But if Sam thought people would take an unlimited amount of this kind of carping—

“—I mean really insufferable,” Hélène MacConnadin was saying in her rich, husky voice. “One of the founding families here—you know, like the Kearneys and the McAllisters, and how she loves to give herself airs, hoity-toity, my God! Wanted to know if I'd be interested in serving with her—get that,
serving
with her—on this new Golden Gate Performing Arts Council. By which of course she meant would I give her a check for a thousand dollars—”

Making sounds of agreement Tommy watched Sam bent over his ball in that attitude of easy grace and taut concentration he brought to anything he did. Janice, the younger of the MacConnadin girls, had come out on the terrace, calling something excitedly, and Bert, still looking a bit vexed, told her to keep her voice down, but Sam heard nothing. Perfectly rapt, he swung. The ball went through the wicket and rolled on and on, curving faintly, and just knicked the yellow ball.

“Bull luck!” MacConnadin hollered. “Just shot with it … ”

Sam was grinning at him, wiping his palm on his trousers. Irritated, Tommy glanced at her father. But the General had no interest in the game; he was staring up at Janice, who was saying to them all: “I don't care what kind of a gag it sounds like, it's true—they're dropping
bombs
…”

She turned her head in sudden fright.

“Now sweetie,” Hélène was saying, “you mustn't play games with these neurotic old Army people, you know how gullible they are—”

“Mother,” the girl said, shaking her head violently, “it's not a joke, I mean it!”

She came erect in her chair. But the General was already running across the lawn, was bounding up the steps to the terrace, taking them two at a time, Sam right behind him; their faces looked smooth and alien—the faces of younger, harder men. Their eyes passed over hers, moved on. There was a commotion at the long glass door to the living room. Margaret, the colored maid, was standing at the edge of the breezeway gripping a towel in her hands calling, “Some of you better hear this …”

She was on her feet without knowing it. The children skylarking around the diving board were staring at them; Hélène's face was tilted up toward her in amused outrage, saying: “What's the matter with everyone—have they all gone crazy?”

Tommy looked at her an instant, wordless and fearful, then half-ran across the shaded terrace, through the breezeway and into the long, cool living room with its two grand pianos placed back to back at the far wall, its built-in bookcases littered with Kachina dolls and Inca figurines, the bright orange sectional couches grouped around the Italian marble coffee table; hurrying toward the group clustered around the radio, which was innocently playing dance music, and now a girl with a lovely deep contralto was singing, “—when you held me tight, it all seemed so right, but it was only a summer dream …” The music went on, dreamy and sad, and they all stood there staring at one another like imbeciles while the others trooped in from the terrace and Janice was saying defiantly:

“Well it
was,
he
was
saying all that about bombing. At Pearl Harbor.”

Her father reached down then and turned the dial and there was the voice—the old, crisp, authoritative tone overlaid with a new tension, a little unsure. Listening, she felt her nails cutting into her palms. This was bad. As bad as it could be. The voice chattered and clattered, filled the room with its terrible news; then there was music again, Percy Granger's “Country Gardens,” and Bert MacConnadin was saying:

“What's the matter with them—weren't they on guard or whatever the hell they're supposed to be doing?—”

The radio was of teak, with ebony dials; an ebony panther was crouched on its surface: a wonderfully smooth, powerful panther, snarling at nothing in particular. She felt sick; physically sick, as if her belly had been poisoned by bad food. It was over. Again. A line had drawn through their lives again, through all their lives, that could never be recrossed. Gazing out into the bright light of the patio she saw Peggy drying her hair; she was talking to the Elkins boy, smiling up at him and drying her hair absently with a towel, fluffing it, her head tilted charmingly. Donny, she thought with a pang of pure terror.
Donny
—

“Why, the bastards,” MacConnadin was saying hotly. “Those little yellow monkeys—why for Christ sake, they can't even
see
straight!” He gazed at them all, his face choleric and red. “And they got away with it! What's the matter with those people out there—don't they even know their business? Probably boozed up and sleeping late, with a—”

“There's no sense knocking the Navy,” her father said sharply; he looked the way he did when he was very angry and trying to suppress it. “We're all at fault here …”

“
Somebody's
at fault, that's for sure!”

“Bert—” Hélène said, but wagging his head balefully he ignored her.

“By Jesus, if something like this happened over at the plant there'd be hell to pay, I can tell you that!”

The General looked at him. “Oh, heads will roll—if that's what's bothering you.”

“Well, isn't it bothering
you?
I should think it ought to … Jesus, you even called it!” he exclaimed, pointing to Sam. “You knew it was coming, all of you! Why in hell didn't you do something about it, take some measures, if you knew—?”

“—
We wanted you to have a good return on your investment,
Mr. MacConnadin,” Sam's voice broke in the room. He was shaking with wrath, and his face was terrible. Tommy had never seen him look like that: it frightened her into silence. “Now. Today. Just part of the return.”

MacConnadin, taken aback, for all his angry bluster, by the sheer, obdurate menace in Sam's face, muttered: “What do you mean by that—?”

“Exactly what I said.”

“All right,” George Caldwell said pleasantly; in the pause he smiled at his son-in-law—a sad, worn, weary, indomitable smile. “Let's get moving, Sam.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hélène said, “Oh, you're not leaving …”

“I'm afraid we must, yes,” the General answered, turning toward her. “And at once. I hope you'll forgive our hurrying off—”

Everyone was talking at once now. The children had come in from the pool and were arguing excitedly near the couch; their wet feet made crazy, barbaric footprints on the bright tan carpeting and Tommy stared down at them, thinking again of Donny, walking now under the elms or sitting in his room in slacks and a pullover, his long legs extended, reading—maybe listening to these same bulletins. She shivered. The hot, tight nausea was gone, but in its place was a worse sensation—of boundless fear, no solid earth beneath one's feet. How bad was it? If Hawaii were under attack—

Her father and her husband were talking to each other in low, even voices. The radio kept repeating the same announcement over and over again. Hélène was shouting at the kids to stop dripping water all over the rug.

“Bert,” Laszlo Perenyi was saying, “about the portrait—do you want to set a time for tomorrow?”

“Portrait—!”
MacConnadin glared at him, wide-eyed with outrage. “For Christ sake—with
this?
” He jabbed one fat finger in the direction of the radio. “Don't be an ass!—”

Laszlo faltered. “I see—I only thought—”

“It's out! Forget it. I may be sleeping at the plant tomorrow, for all I know. Portraits! Jesus, man—haven't you got any sense of
proportion?
”

“Of course, Bert.” Perenyi's head went up. All his roguish levity was gone; his face was all at once very smooth and impassive. “Of course.”

“Tommy,” Sam was saying to her; he had hold of her arm. “Come on, now. Let's go.”

“All right.” She nodded, called: “Peggy, we're going …”