Winds of War (64 page)

Byron’s answer was as sharp and short as his father’s had been apologetic and strung-out. “Yes, you helped. She’s gone. I’ll never forget, dad.”

Red Tully emerged from the conning tower, looked and waved. “Hey, Pug? Ready to go ashore?”

Victor Henry said rapidly to his son, “You’re in this now, Briny. It’s the toughest school in the Navy. What’s past is past.”

Byron said, “Let’s get off this thing,” and he walked toward the gangway.

On a hot beautiful evening early in June, when the newspaper headlines were roaring of the British evacuation from Dunkirk, and Churchill on the radio was promising to fight to the end, on the beaches, in the streets, and in the hills, Victor Henry left for Europe. Rhoda stayed behind, because of the worsening of the war, to make a home for Madeline in New York. Pug had suggested this and Rhoda had rather enthusiastically agreed. Madeline, a busy and happy young woman, put up no objections.

Pug found it surprisingly easy to get a plane ticket at that time into the warring continent, as Natalie had. The hard thing was to get out.

Chapter 29

Natalie tried for five days to fly from Lisbon to Rome. She finally obtained a plane ticket, but at the last minute it was voided when a large party of boisterous, laughing German army officers, obviously full of lunch and wine, streamed through the gate, leaving twenty excluded passengers looking at each other. This soured her on the airlines. Railroad passage across collapsing France was far too risky. She booked passage on a Greek freighter bound for Naples. The wretched voyage took a week. She shared a hot tiny cabin with a horde of black roaches and a withered Greek woman smelling of liniment; and she scarcely left it, humid as it was, because on deck and in passageways the ship’s officers and rough crewmen gave her disquieting looks. She could scarcely eat the food. The pitching and rolling kept her awake at night. En route, her portable radio squawked the BBC stories of the French government’s flight from Paris, of Italy’s jump into the war, and of Roosevelt’s words, “
The hand that held the dagger, has stuck it into the back of its neighbor
.” Natalie arrived in Italy nervous and exhausted, with a strong feeling that she had better get Aaron out of Siena at once, forgetting books, clothes, furniture – everything except the manuscript.

But once on dry land, after a decent meal or two with good wine, and a long luxurious night’s sleep in a large soft hotel bed, she wondered at her own panic. Neither in Naples nor in Rome was there much sign that Italy was at war. The summer flowers spilled purple and red over stucco walls in bright sunshine, and in crowded streets the Italians went their lively ways as usual. Jocular, sunburned young soldiers had always abounded in Italian trains and cafés. They appeared as unbuttoned and placid as ever.

After the long, hot, filthy train ride to Siena, her first distant glimpse of the old town, rising out of the vine-covered round hills, gave her a stifled bored feeling, almost as Miami streets did. “God, who ever thought I’d come back here?” she said to herself. The hills outside the town already showed the veiled dusty green of midsummer. In Siena nothing had changed. The after-lunch deadness lay on the town; scarcely a dog moved in the empty red streets in the sun. It took her half an hour to find a working taxicab.

Aaron, in his broad-brimmed white hat and yellow Palm Beach summer suit, sat in his old place in the shade of the big elm, reading a book. Beyond him, over the ravine, the black-and-white cathedral towered above the red-roofed town. “Natalie! You made it! Splendid.” He came stumping toward her on a cane, with one foot in a metal-framed cast. “I called and called for a taxicab, but when it was time for my nap none had come. I did have a wonderful nap. - Come inside, my dear, you’ll want some refreshment. Giuseppe will see to your things.”

The house looked the same, though the heavy foyer furniture now wore its green chintz slipcovers. In his study, the pile of manuscript, the pile of notes, the array of reference books, were all in the same places. His writing board lay on the desk, with the yellow pages of his day’s work clipped to it, awaiting morning revision.

“Why, Aaron, you haven’t even begun to pack!”

“We’ll talk about it over tea.” he said, with an embarrassed smile. “I suppose you’d like to have a wash first?”

“But what’s the situation, Uncle Aaron? Haven’t you heard from Rome? Didn’t word come from Washington?”

“Word came from Washington. That was fine of Leslie.” He sank into a chair. “I really can’t stand on this ankle yet for more than a few minutes. I stupidly fell again when it was almost healed. What a nuisance I am! But anyway, I reached page 967 today, and I do think it’s goodish. Now go and have a wash. Natalie, you look positively boiled, and you’re caked with dust.”

* * *

The young consul in Florence received her affably, rising from behind a heavy carved black desk to escort her to a chair. The room reeked of the rum-flavored tobacco he was smoking in a curved rough briar pipe. The Sherlock Holmes prop looked odd in his small hand. He had a pink-and-white face, gentle bright blue eyes, and a childish thin mouth with the lower lip pulled in as though at some permanent grievance. His blond hair was thick, short, and straight. His gray silk suit, pinned white collar, and blue tie were elegant and neat. His desk nameplate read AUGUST VAN WINAKER II.

He said in a quavering voice, clearing it of hoarseness as he talked, “Well! The eminent author’s niece, eh? What a pleasure. I’m sorry I couldn’t see you this morning, but I was just up to my ears.”

“Perfectly all right.” Natalie said.

He waved his little hand loosely. “People have been scurrying home in droves, you see, and just dumping everything on the consulate. There’s an awful lot of commerce still going on, and I’m stuck with the paperwork. I’m becoming a sort of broker and business agent for any number of American companies - unpaid, of course. I was in the most unbelievable snarl this morning over - of all things - a truckload of insecticide! Can you bear it? And, of course, there still are Americans in Florence. The screwier they are, the longer they stay.” He giggled and rubbed his back hair. “The trouble I’ve been having with these two girls, room-mates, from California, I can’t mention names, but one of them is from a rich Pasadena oil family. Well! She’s gotten herself engaged to this slick little Florentine sheik, who calls himself an actor but actually is nothing but an overgrown grocery boy. Well, this oily charmer has gone and gotten her
room-mate
pregnant, my dear! The three of them have been having all-night brawls, the police have been in, and - oh, well. You don’t get rich in this work, but there’s never a dull moment.” He poured water from a tall bottle into a heavy cut-glass goblet, and drank. “Excuse me. Would you like some Evian water?”

“No, thank you.”

“I have to drink an awful lot of it. Some stupid kidney thing. Somehow it gets worse in the spring. I actually think Italian weather leaves a lot to be desired, don’t you? Well! His inquiring bland look seemed to add - “
What can I do for you
?”

Natalie told him about the new wrinkle in Jastrow’s situation. The day Italy had entered the war, a man from the Italian security police had visited Jastrow and warned him that as a stateless person of Polish origin, he was confined to Siena until further notice. She mentioned, as cordially as she could, that the OVRA undoubtedly knew this fact from intercepting Van Winaker’s letter.

“Oh, my God, how perfectly awful,” gasped the consul. Is
that
what’s happened? You’re quite right, I didn’t have a thinking cap on when I wrote that letter. Frankly, Natalie - if I may call you that - I was floored when your name came in today. I figured you’d have come and by now and taken your troublesome uncle home. He has been a trial, you know. Well! This is a pretty kettle of fish. I thought the visa solved everything and that I’d seen the last of the Jastrow case.”

“What do we do now?” Natalie said.

“I’m blessed if I know, just offhand,” said Van Winaker, running his fingers through his hair upward from the back of his neck.

“May I make a suggestion?” Natalie spoke softly and sweetly. “Just renew his passport, Mr. Van Winaker. That would stop the statelessness business. They couldn’t hold him back then.”

Van Winaker drank more Evian water. “Oh, Natalie, that’s so easy to say! People don’t see the screaming directives we get, warning us against abuse of the passport system. People don’t see departmental circulars about consuls who’ve been recalled and whose careers have gone
poof
! because they were loose about these things. Congress makes the immigration laws, Natalie. The Consular Service doesn’t. We’re simply sworn to uphold them.”

“Mr. Van Winaker, the Secretary of State himself wants Aaron cleared. You know that.”

“Let’s get one thing straight.” Van Winaker held up a stiff finger, his round blue eyes gone sober. He puffed his pipe and waved it at her. “I have had no instructions from the Secretary. I’m extremely glad we’re doing this face to face, Natalie, instead of on paper. He couldn’t go on record as intervening for one individual against another in matters involving equal treatment under law.” The eyes relaxed in a sly twinkle. “I did hear from Rome, between you and me, that his office asked us to expedite your uncle’s departure. I was stretching way over backwards, honestly, issuing that visa, jumping him to the head of a list of hundreds and hundreds of names.” Van Winaker knocked his pipe into a thick copper tray, and went on in a different, gossipy tone. “Actually, I think time will solve your uncle’s problem. The French are already asking for an armistice. The British won’t fight on very long.” They’d be mad to try. If they do, the Luftwaffe will pound them to a jelly in short order. No, I fear me this round goes to Fritz. No doubt they’ll have another go twenty years hence, when I devoutly hope to be out to pasture.”

“But we can’t count on the war ending,” Natalie expostulated.

“Oh, I think you can. I expect peace by July first, if not sooner, Natalie. Then these wartime exit regulations will lapse and your uncle can just pick up and go home. Actually, this gives him the leisure to sort and crate his books. He seemed so concerned about his books.”

“I want to take Uncle Aaron home tomorrow, and abandon books and everything. Please give him the passport.”

“My dear, the contradiction in dates is right there in your uncle’s expired book. It’s incredible how those things used to slip through, but I’ve seen a hundred such cases if I’ve seen one. People used to be mighty careless! Now that it’s been detected and made a matter of record, he has no more claim to American citizenship, technically speaking, than Hitler does. I couldn’t be sorrier, but it’s my duty to tell you the law.”

This man was getting on Natalie’s nerves. The use of Hitler’s name disgusted her. “It strikes me that your duty is to help us, and that you’re not really doing it.”

He opened his eyes very wide, blinked, drank more Evian, and slowly stuffed his pipe, staring at the tobacco. “I have a suggestion. It’s off the record, but I think it’ll work.”

“Tell me, by all means.”

He pushed his hair straight up. “Just go.”

She stared at him.

“I mean that! He’s got his visa. You’ve got your passport. Hop a bus or train, or hire a car, and scoot to Naples. Ignore the confinement to Siena. The Italians are so sloppy! Get on the first boat and just leave. You won’t be stopped. Nobody’s watching your uncle.”

“But won’t they ask for an exit permit?”

“It’s a trivial formality, dear. Say you lost it! Fumbling for it, you happen to take out a few thousand lire and put it on the table.” He blinked humorously. “Customs of the country, you know.”

Natalie felt her self-control giving way. Now the man was advising them to bribe an official, to risk arrest and imprisonment in a Fascist country. Her voice rose to shrillness. “I think I’d rather go to Rome and tell the Consul General that you’re thwarting the desire of the Secretary of State.”

The consul drew himself up, smoothed his hair with both hands, put them on the table, and said slowly and primly, “That is certainly your privilege. I’m prepared to take the consequences of that, but not of breaking the law. As it happens, I’m exceptionally busy, several other people are waiting, so -”

Natalie understood now how her uncle had fallen foul of this man. With a quick change to a placating smile, she said, “I’m sorry. I’ve been travelling for two straight weeks, I’ve just lost my father, and I’m not in the best of shape. My uncle’s disabled and I’m very troubled about him.”

At once the consul responded to the new manner. “I entirely understand, Natalie. Tell you what, I’ll comb his file again.” Maybe I’ll come up with something. Believe me, I’d like nothing better than to see him go.”

“You will try to find a way to give him a passport?”

“Or to get him out. That’s all you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll give it my serious attention. That’s a promise. Come back in a week.”

* * *

Chapter 30 - Eagle and Sea Lion

(from WORLD EMPIRE LOST)

The False Legend

The British have always been brilliant at war propaganda. Their portrayal of the so-called Battle of Britain was their supreme triumph of words. For uninformed people, their propaganda has hardened into history. A serious military discussion has to start by clearing away the fairy tales.

After the fall of France, Germany was incomparably stronger than England on the ground, about equally matched in the air, and gravely inferior at sea. Our surface navy was weak and meager; only the U-boat arm had real weight. The whole problem in the summer of 1940 was to force a decision across a sea barrier. In a set-piece invasion campaign, therefore, the British held the crucial advantage.

I have already stated, in my outline of Case Yellow, my belief that had we improvised a surprise crossing in June, when the disarmed British land forces were reeling home from Dunkirk, and their fleet was on far-flung stations, we might have conquered England in a short fierce campaign. But Hitler had passed up that chance. The resilient English had caught their breaths, instituted drastic anti-invasion measures, and marshalled their power navy to block a Channel crossing. At that point, Germany could only attack in the air, either to force a decision or to blast a path for invasion.