aircraft had been in repair shops, the pilots had been scattered over the countryside, and there was no sense of urgency anywhere. Getting all-night work on the disabled planes, dragging those pilots out of their wives’ arms or from their fishing trips had been a struggle. Some commandants had asked rough questions. Jiggs Parker at Great Lakes Air Station, another classmate of his, had put up a fight to get a written record of the transfer, until Pug had told an outright lie about new top-secret equipment to be tested on the planes, which might be expended in the process. Jiggs had eyed him for a long silent minute, and then given in. Well, white lies were part of security, Victor Henry thought, and Jiggs knew that.
Byron caught up with his father and the commandant in the forward torpedo room of the
The harsh voice, the look on Byron’s face, told Pug something serious was wrong. “Happened to be not far from here, so I thought I’d mosey over. You met Byron yet, Red?”
“Not yet. I know he passed the physical and he’s in the new class.” Captain Tully offered his hand. “Welcome aboard, Byron. You’re in for a rough couple of months.”
“I’ll try to survive, sir.”
At the almost contemptuous words, Red Tully’s eyes shifted disapprovingly to the father. Byron followed along on the tour without another word, his countenance white and angry.
“Say, what the devil’s the matter with you?” Victor Henry snapped as he and his son came out of the conning tower on the breezy slippery black deck, leaving Captain Tully below talking to the skipper. “You’d do well to watch your tone toward your superiors. You’re in the Navy now.”
“I know I’m in the Navy. Read this.”
Pug saw Natalie’s name on the envelope Byron thrust out. “Isn’t it personal?”
Still Byron offered the letter. Victor Henry held the flapping pages in both hands and read them there on the submarine deck. His face was flushed as he handed them back to his son. “Quite a girl. I’ve said that before.”
“If anything happens to her over there, I’ll hold you responsible, Dad, and I’ll never forget it.”
Pug frowned at his son. “That’s unreasonable. She’s gone to Italy because of her uncle.”
“No. You scared her off by saying I might not get admitted here if I were married. It wasn’t true. A lot of the students are married men. If you hadn’t come to Miami I might be one by now.”
“Well, if I misled her, I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure of the criteria, I thought that for hazardous duty they preferred single men, and for all I know, they do, and simply can’t get enough. Anyway, this is what you should be doing. She’s dead right about that, and I give her credit for realizing it. Possibly I should have butted out, but the decisions you’re making now will shape your whole life, and I wanted to help.”
It was a wordy speech for Victor Henry, and he spoke without his usual firmness, disturbed by his son’s fixed hostile expression. He felt guilty, an unfamiliar sensation: guilty of interfering in his son’s life and possibly of driving off the girl. Even if Natalie had been wrong for Byron, her sudden flight was a blow that he could feel almost as his son did. Suppose she had been the best thing in the world for the drifting youngster? Suppose, despite all good fatherly intentions, her being Jewish had made a difference?
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, “
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 cafes. 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
