The Winds of War

girl. I’d sweat out the three days and then see.”

In self-defense Slote said calmly, “Yes, she’s all right, but she used to be a lot prettier.” He dressed and hurried downstairs. In the dark bar there were only a handful of Germans, who turned suspicious faces to him. He went striding through the lobby.

“Here, Slote! Look behind you!” Natalie’s voice rang like joyous bells.

Half screened by potted palms, she sat on a green plush sofa with Byron. Before them on a coffee table, beside an open dispatch case, lay a pile of documents. The girl’s cheeks flamed, her eyes were gleaming, her whole face brilliantly animated. Byron Henry jumped up to shake hands. He appeared just the same, even to the tweed jacket in which Slote had seen him for the first time slouched against a wall in Siena.

Slote said, “Well, hello there! Did Natalie tell you we had some very wrong information?”

Byron laughed. “It wasn’t wrong, exactly, but anyway, here we are.” His glance swept the lobby. “Say, this place has a queer smell of Berlin. Isn’t it full of Germans?”

“They swarm, darling. Don’t say anything about anything.” Excitedly shuffling the documents. Natalie pulled at Byron’s hand. “I can’t find your certificate of residence.”

“It’s clipped with yours.”

“Then he’s got everything,” Natalie exclaimed to Slote. “Everything! All by the regulations, translated into Portuguese, notarized, and the notary seals authenticated by Portuguese consuls. The works.” As Byron dropped beside her, she put her hand in his thick hair and gave his head a yank. “I thought you were lousy at paperwork, you devil. How in God’s name did you manage this?”

Slote said, “Are you really sure everything’s there? I’ve never seen regulations as tough as these. Suppose I check that stuff over for you.”

“Oh, please, Leslie? Would you?” Natalie said, making room on the sofa and handing him the documents and the sheet Thurston had given her. Red ink check marks ran down the side of the page.

“How’d you assemble all this?” Slote said, starting to examine the papers.

Byron explained that as soon as he had learned of the scheduled cruise to Lisbon, he had obtained an emergency four-day pass, and had flown to Washington to find out at the Portuguese embassy what the marriage regulations were. The naval attache there, Captain D’Esaguy, had turned out to be a friend of his from Berlin; the captain had been his tennis doubles partner for a while, playing against his father and the Swedish attache. D’Esaguy had gone right to work. “It’s surprising what those fellows can accomplish in a few days when they want to,” Byron said. “I rounded up some of the papers, but the Portuguese consuls themselves did the hardest ones.”

“That’s the Foreign Service everywhere,” said Slote, methodically turning over one paper after another and glancing at the check list. “The wheels either turn glacially, or so fast you can’t see them whiz — well, Byron, I honestly think you, or this Portuguese navy captain, or both of you, did it. Everything seems to be here.”

“What now?” Natalie said.

“Will you marry me?” Byron said, very solemnly.

Natalie said, “I sure will, by God.”

They burst out laughing. With a melancholy chuckle, Slote slipped the papers into the folder which Byron had labelled in neat red block letter: MARRIAGE. “Suppose I telephone Thurston and ask him what you do next? Thurston’s my friend here in the legation, Byron.”

Byron Henry slowly, gratefully smiled, and Slote could not but see how appealing the smile was. “Thanks a lot. Will you? I’m not thinking too clearly at the moment.”

“No? On the whole, I’d say you’re doing all right.”

Returning a few minutes later, he saw them holding hands on the sofa, looking adoringly at each other and both talking at once. He hesitated, then approached them. “Sorry. Problems.”

Natalie looked up at him, startled and frowning. “What now?”

“Well, Bunky’s bowled over by what you’ve done, Byron, just impressed as hell. He’s at your service and wants to help. But he doesn’t know what he can do about that twelve-day requirement for posting banns. Then there’s the foreign Office’s authentication of the consuls’ signatures.

He says that usually takes a week. So -” Slote shrugged, and dropped the folder on the table.

“Right. D’Esaguy mentioned both those points,” Byron said. “He thought they could be gotten around. I stopped off at the navy ministry on the way here this morning and gave his uncle a letter. His uncle’s a commodore, or something. He was awfully nice to me, but he only speaks Portuguese. I think he’s working on those snags. I’m supposed to go back to the ministry at one o’clock. Could Mr. Thurston meet us there? That might be a real help.”

Slote looked from Byron to Natalie, whose mouth was twitching in amusement. She still held Byron’s hand in her lap. “I’ll call back and ask him. You’ve certainly been forehanded.”

“Well, I sort of wanted this to come off.”

With some stupefaction, Bunker Thurston agreed over the telephone to meet them at the navy building at one.

“Say, Leslie, I thought you called this ensign of hers a sluggard and a featherhead. He’s organized this thing like a blitzkrieg.”

“Surprised me.”

“You have my sympathies.”

“Oh, shut up, Bunky. I’ll see you at one.”

“You’re coming too?”

“Yes, oh yes.”

“You’re a glutton for punishment.”

A tall man in Navy dress blues leaned on the fender of an automobile outside the hotel, smoking a very black, very fat cigar. “Hey, Briny! Is the exercise on?”

“It’s on.” Byron introduced him to Natalie and Slote as Lieutenant Aster, his executive officer. Aster took in the girl with a keen, rather greedy glance of pale small blue eyes. He was broader and heavier than Byron, with thick wavy blond hair growing to a peak on his forehead, and a long face that looked genial because the corners of his mouth turned up. But it was a tight tough mouth. “Say, Natalie, that picture of you that Briny keeps mooning over doesn’t do you justice. Hop in everybody. I phoned the skipper, Briny, and told him you’d made contact. You’re off the watch list while we’re here.”

“Great, Lady. Thanks.”

Not sure she had heard this right, Natalie said, “Lady?”

The executive officer’s smile was a bit weary. “That happened to me in my plebe year at the Academy. With a name like Aster, I guess it had to. My name’s Carter, Natalie, and by all means use it.”

Driving into the city, the two submariners described how the S-45, a hundred fifty miles out of Lisbon, had in fact been ordered to Gibraltar. The captain, who knew about Byron’s plans, had expressed his regrets but altered course to the south. Within an hour reports came in to the captain that the number two main engine was down, the forward battery was throwing excessive hydrogen, and an evaporator had salted up, and a general plague of malfunctions was breaking out in the old boat, necessitating an emergency call in Lisbon for two or three days of alongside repairs. Aster, who brought in the reports, gave his opinion, which was backed by the Chief of the Boat, that it might be hazardous to proceed to Gibraltar. All this was done with a straight face, and with a straight face the captain accepted the executive officer’s recommendation and turned back to Lisbon.

“How can you possibly get away with that?” said Slote. “Won’t you all be court-martialled?”

“Nobody was lying.” Aster said with an innocent smile. “We have the engine records to prove it. These old S-boats gasp and flounder along, and at practically any moment you could justify an order to abandon ship. Coming into Lisbon was highly commendable prudence.”

Natalie said to Byron, “And you submerge in an old wreck like that?”

“Well, the S-45 has made four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-three dives Natalie. It should be good for a few more.”

“Diving is nothing,” said Lady Aster. “You pull the plug and she goes down; you blow air and she pops up. It’s going from one place to another that’s kind of a strain on the old hulk. But we manage. By the way everybody’s invited aboard after the ceremony.”