if incongruous sweetness here: a bunch of violets as it were, on a pile of mimeographed memoranda. He said gruffly, “Well, what’s the dope on Ted Gallard?”
I received a letter from his squadron commander only yesterday. It’s quite a long story. The nub of it is that three RAF prisoners in his hospital escaped, made their way to the coast, and got picked up and brought home. Teddy was supposed to break out with them. But after your visit he got a room of his own and special surveillance. So he couldn’t. They think that by now he’s been shipped to Germany and put in a camp for RAF prisoners. That’s the story. He’ll be well treated, simply because we’re holding so many Luftwaffe pilots. Still, you can see why I’ve no particular desire just now to go to posh supper-dances.”
Victory Henry glanced at the wall clock. “It was my doing, then, that he couldn’t get out.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s a fact. I hesitated before talking to the Luftwaffe about him, you know. I figured it would call attention to him and give him a special status. I wasn’t sure whether that would be good or bad. Sometimes it’s best to leave things as they fall.”
“But I asked you to find out what you could about him.”
“Yes, you did.”
“You relieved me of a couple of months of agonizing.”
He said, “Anyway, it’s done. And now you know he’s still alive. That’s something. I’m very glad to hear it, Pam. Well — I guess I’ll go along.”
“Where to?”
With a surprised grin, he said, “You know better than that.”
“You can always just shut me up. You’re not leaving the country?”
He pointed at the small suitcase. “Hardly.”
“Because we’re finishing up here very soon,” she said, “and in that case I might not see you for a long while.”
Pug leaned forward, elbows on knees, clasping his hands. He felt little hesitation in confiding to her things he never told his wife. Pamela was, after all, almost as much of an insider as he was. “The President’s had a bad sinus condition for weeks, Pam. Lately he’s been running a fever. This Lend-Lease hubbub isn’t helping any. He’s taking the train to Hyde Park to rest up for a few days, strictly on the q.t. I’m to ride with him. It’s a big surprise. I thought, and sort of hoped, he’d forgotten me.”
She laughed. “You’re not very forgettable. You’re a legend in Bomber Command, you know. The American naval officer who rode a Wellington into the Berlin flak for the fun of it.”
“That’s a laugh,” said Pug. “I was crouching on the deck the whole time with my eyes tight shut and my fingers in my ears. I still shudder to think what would have happened if I’d been shot down and survived. The U.S. naval attache to Berlin, riding over Germany in a British bomber! Lord almighty, you were angry at me for going.”
“I certainly was.”
Pug stood, buttoning his coat. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ve been yearning for coffee ever since I had to skip it to put on my monkey suit.”
“It was a splendid dinner. Your wife’s wonderful, Victor. She manages things so well. The way she picked that bowl out of the air, like a conjurer! And she’s so beautiful.”
“Rhoda’s all right. Nobody has to sell Rhoda to me.”
Pamela put on her glasses and ran a sheet of paper into the typewriter.
“Good-bye, then,” Pug said, adding awkwardly, “and maybe I’ll see you before you go back home.”
“That would be nice.” She was peering at scribbled papers beside the typewriter. “I’ve missed you terribly, you know. More so here than in London.”
Pamela slipped these words out in the quiet manner peculiar to her. Victor Henry had his hand on the doorknob. He paused, and cleared his throat. “Well — that’s Rhoda’s complaint. I get buried in what I’m doing.”
“Oh, I realize that.” She looked up at him with eyes glistening roundly through the lenses. “Well? You don’t want to keep the President waiting, Captain Henry.”
Chapter 40
In the dark quiet railroad station, two Secret Service men lifted the President from the limousine and set him on his feet. He towered over them in a velvet-collared coat, his big-brimmed soft gray hat pulled low on his head and flapping in the icy wind. Holding one man’s arm, leaning on a cane, he lurched and hobbled toward a railed ramp, where he drew on gloves and hauled himself up into the rear car, jerking his legs along. Victor Henry, many yards away, could see the huge shoulders heaving under the overcoat. A tall woman with a nodding brown feather in her hat and a fluttering paper in her hand scampered up and touched Victor Henry’s arm. You’re to go in the President’s car, Captain.
Climbing the ramp, Pug realized why the President had put on gloves. The steel rails were so cold, the skin of his hands stuck to them. A steward led Victor Henry past a pantry where another steward was rattling ice in a cocktail shaker. “You be stayin’ in heah, suh. When you ready, de President invite you join him.”
The room was an ordinary Pullman sleeper compartment. The strong train smell was the same. The green upholstery was dusty and worn. Victor Henry hung coat and cap in a tiny closet, brushed his hair, cleaned his nails, and gave a flick of a paper towel to his highly polished shoes. The train started in a slow glide, with no jolt and no noise.
“Sit down, sit down, Pug!” The President waved from a lounge chair. “What’ll you have? Whiskey sours are on the menu, because Harry drinks them all night long, but we can fix up almost anything.”
“Whiskey sour will be fine, Mr. President. Thank you.”
Harry Hopkins, slouching on a green sofa, said, “Hello, Captain.”
Though Roosevelt was supposed to be ill, Hopkins looked the worse of the two: lean, sunken-chested, gray of skin. The President’s color was high, perhaps feverish, his black-rimmed eyes were very bright, and a perky red bow tie went well with the gay relaxed look of his massive face. He bulked huge in the chair, thou his legs showed so pitifully skeletal though the trousers. It crossed Pug’s mind that Washington and Lincoln too had been oversized men.
“How are you on poetry, Pug?” said the President, in the cultured accents that always sounded a bit affected to the Navy man. “Do you know that poem that ends, ‘There isn’t a train I wouldn’t take, no matter where it’s going?’ Golly that’s the way I feel. Just getting on this train has made me feel one hundred percent better.” The President put the back of his hand to his mouth, and harshly coughed. “Well, ninety percent. If this were a ship, it would be one hundred percent.”
“I prefer a ship too, sir.”
“The old grievance, eh, sailor?”
“No, sir, truly not. I’m quite happy in War Plans.”
“Are you? Well, I’m glad to hear it. Of course, I haven’t the faintest notion of what you’re cooking up with those British fellows.”
“So I understand, sir.”
Eyebrows mischievously arched, the President went on, “No, not the foggiest. When your draft that the Secretary of War got yesterday bounces back to Lord Burne-Wilke, and he sees corrections in what looks like my handwriting, that will be an accidental resemblance.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Yes, indeed. On the very first page of the forwarding letter, if you recall, there’s a sentence that begins, ‘
