The Winds of War

“Doesn’t War Plans have any information?”

“No. It’s still Jules Verne talk to us.”

“Unfortunately, it’s more than that.”

The rain was starting again, with a whistle of wind, a rumble of thunder, and a whoosh of raindrops through the porch screen. Pug dropped a canvas flap on the side, fastening it down as Kirby talked.

“The best present judgment Pug, is that the bomb can be built. It might take, with an all-out effort, two years or fifty years. Those are the brackets. But we’re not making an all-out effort. We’re making a good effort on the theory end, that’s all. Tremendous brains are at work, some of them driven from Europe by the Germans, for which we owe them cordial thanks. The big question is, how far ahead are the Germans by now? We aren’t even started. There’s no money available and no plan. Making uranium bombs will go in several stages, and some of us fear that the Germans have cracked stage one, which is to get enough of the isotope to start a controlled chain reaction.”

“What kind of weapon are we talking about here?” said Pug. “How powerful an explosive?”

Again, the answer is X. The power may be too much altogether. That is, the bomb may blow itself apart before it can really work. In theory one bomb might level New York City. Or even an area like Rhode Island. You’re dealing here with very large unknowns. There’s talk that it could start a process that could blow up the earth. The best men don’t take that too seriously. I frankly don’t know enough to be sure.”

“You’re talking about a pretty good bomb,” said Victor Henry.

“Hellooo!”

Rhoda Henry’s voice rang through the spacious house, and they heard heels clicking on the parquet floor. “Surprise! Anybody home? I’m DRENCHED. I’m a drowned RAT.”

“Hi! I’m out here,” Pug called, “and we’ve got company.”

“We have?”

“Hello, Rhoda,” said Kirby, standing.

“Oh my GAWD!” She froze in the doorway, staring. Rhoda’s purple hat dripped, she carried a sodden paper bundle, and her flowered silk dress clung wetly to her shoulders and bosom. Her face glistened with rain. Her eye makeup was blurred, her lipstick blotchy on pale lips. Wet strands of hair hung down her forehead and neck.

Pug said, “You finished up sort of fast in New York, didn’t you? I asked Fred Kirby in for a drink, because we happened -”

Rhoda vanished. Her scampering footsteps dwindled into the house and up a staircase.

“Dad, what a place! It’s a mansion!” Madeline walked through the doorway, as wet as her mother, shaking rain from her hair and laughing.

“Well, Matty! You too?”

“Look at me! Christ, did we catch it! No cabs in sight, and — hello, Dr. Kirby.”

“You’ll both get the flu,” Pug Henry said.

“If somebody gave me a martini,” said Madeline, eyeing the jug, “I might fight the infection off.” She explained, as her father poured the drink, that Hugh Cleveland had business at the War Department next morning. Rhoda had decided to come back to Washington with them. The girl took a quick practiced pull at the cocktail.

“Where’s your luggage?” Pug said. “Go put on dry clothes.”

“I dropped my stuff at the Willard, Dad.”

“What? Why? Here’s a whole big house at your disposal.”

“Yes. I came to have a look at it. Then I’ll go back to the hotel and change.”

“But why the devil are you staying at the hotel?”

“Oh, it’s simpler.” She glanced at her watch. “Christ, almost seven o’clock.”

Pug wrinkled his nose at his daughter, not caring much for her brassiness. But she looked pretty, despite her wet hair and wrinkled pink linen suit. Rhoda’s fear that Madeline would turn plain at twenty-one was proving flat wrong. “What’s the rush?”

“We’re having dinner with a big Army wheel, Dad, to try to sell him on a new program idea. Hugh visits a different military installation every week. We put on amateurs from the service, and do a tour of the base, and a pitch about preparedness. I suggested the idea, even the name. The Happy Hour. The network is wild about it.” She looked at the two middle-aged men, her eyes very bright, and held out her glass. “Can I have a little more? I’ll own stock in this thing if it goes through! Imagine! I actually will. Hugh Cleveland’s going to form a corporation and give me some stock. He promised me. How about that? Maybe I’ll be rich! Well, Dad?” she added with an arch giggle. “You look kind of sour.”

“To begin with,” Pug said, “come September we may not have an army. Don’t you read the papers?”

Madeline’s face fell. “You mean about the draft?”

“Yes. Right now it’s fifty-fifty or worse that congress won’t vote for renewal.”

“But that’s insane. Why, by September Hitler will probably have beaten Russia. How far is he from Moscow now? A hundred miles, or something?”

“I’m not saying the politicians make sense. I’m telling you the fact.”

“Christ, that would blow The Happy Hour sky high, wouldn’t it? Oh, well. We’ll see.” She stood, shaking out her skirt. “Ugh. I have rain trickling around inside, in odd little places. I’ll take a fast gander at the house. Then I’ll tool off.”

“I’ll show you around,” Pug said. “How about it, Kirby? Want to join the tour?”

“I guess I’ll leave,” said Kirby. “Rhoda’s back, and I don’t want to intrude, and besides I have a lot of—”

“You sit right down,” Victor Henry said, pushing Palmer Kirby into a wicker armchair. “Houses bore me too. Have one more shortie, and I’ll be joining you.”

“I’ve had plenty,” Kirby said, reaching for the jug.

Madeline went from room to room with her father, exclaiming with pleasure at what she saw. “Christ, look at the moldings in this dining room… Oh, Christ, what a stunning fireplace… Christ, look at the size of these closets!”

“Say, I’m no prude,” Pug remarked at last, “but what’s this ‘Christ, Christ,’ business? You sound like a deckhand.”

Rhoda called from her dressing room, “That’s right, Pug, tell her! I’ve never heard anything like it. You get more Christs from her in five minutes than in a church sermon an hour long. It’s so vulgar.”

Madeline said, “Sorry, it’s a habit I’ve caught from Hugh.”

“Oh, Pug” — Rhoda’s voice again, loudly casual — “where did you dig up Palmer Kirby? Did he telephone?”

“Just ran into him. He’s staying for dinner. Is that all right?”

“Why not? Madeline, you’re not really staying at the Willard, are you? It looks so PECULIAR, dear. Please go and bring your bags home.”

“Never mind, Mother. Bye-bye.”

Pug said, walking down the stairs with her, “We bought a big place just so you kids could stay here when you’re in town.”

She put a hand lightly on his arm and smiled. The condescension embarrassed him. “Really, Dad, I know what I’m doing. We’ll be up very late with the writers tonight.”

“This fellow Cleveland,” said Victor Henry with difficulty. “Is he okay?”

Her secure womanly smile broadened. “Daddy, if there were any hanky-panky going on, I’d be a lot sneakier, wouldn’t I? Honestly. Give me some credit.”

“Well, you’re grown-up. I know that. It just came on kind of fast.”

“Everything’s fine. I’m having the time of my life, and one day you’ll be real proud of me.”

“I’ll call a cab for you,” Pug muttered, but as he reached for the telephone in the marble-floored hallway, it rang. “Hello? Yes, speaking… yes, Admiral.” Madeline saw her father’s face settle into tough alert lines. “Aye aye, sir. Yes, will do. Good-bye, sir.”

Pug dialled Rhoda’s room on the intercom line. “Are you almost dressed?”

“Five minutes. Why?”

“I’ll tell you when you come down.”

He called for a taxicab. Madeline was used to asking no questions when Victor Henry’s face took on that look and he spoke in those tones. They returned to the porch, where Kirby lolled in the wicker armchair, smoking his