The Winds of War

offering a dispatch board. Pug switched on his dim bunk light.

DESIRE CAPTAIN VICTOR HENRY TRANSFER WITH ALL GEAR TO AUGUSTA PRIOR TO 0500 TODAY FOR FORTHCOMING EXERCISE X

KING

“What time is it?” Pug muttered, scribbling his initials on the flimsy sheet.

“0430, and the OOD says the captain’s gig is standing by for you, sir.”

Pug tried to pack quietly, but a squeaky metal drawer woke the colonel. “Hey, skipper, leaving me? Where are you off to?”

“The Augusta.”

“What?” The colonel yawned, and snuggled under his blanket. Even in midsummer, the morning air was cool in Nantucket Bay. “I thought that boat’s only for big brass and the President.”

“I guess the admiral decided he needs another typist.”

“Would that be Admiral King? The one who shaves with a blowtorch?”

Henry laughed politely. “Yes, that’s the one.”

“Well, good luck.”

A brisk wind was tumbling and scattering the fog in the twilit anchorage, and the choppy water tossed the slow-moving gig so that the bell clanged randomly and Henry had to brace himself on the dank leather seat. After a dull rocky ride the Augusta loomed ahead through the mist, a long dark unlit shape. The cruiser was not even showing anchor lights, a serious and strange peacetime violation. In the breaking fog the President’s yacht and the dunes of Martha’s Vineyard were barely visible. As Captain Henry mounted the cruiser’s ladder, a faint pink glow was appearing in the east. The cleanliness of the old vessel, the fresh smooth paint, the pale gleam of brightwork, the tense quiet gait of sailors in spotless uniforms, marked it as King’s flagship. Peculiar long ramps on the decks, and freshly welded handrails, were obvious special fittings for the crippled President.

Admiral King in starchy whites, lean legs crossed, sat in his high bridge chair querying the captain of the Augusta about arrangements for Roosevelt. He took no notice whatever of Henry’s arrival. The captain, a classmate of Pug, was answering up like a midshipman at an examination. When King dismissed him, he ventured a subdued “Hi, Pug,” before leaving his bridge.

“Henry, the President will want a word with you when he comes aboard.” Fitting a cigarette into a black filter holder, King turned cold eyes on Pug. “I just learned that, hence this transfer. We’ll be under way before you can get back to the Tuscaloosa. I trust you’re prepared with any reports or information he may desire.”

“I have my work papers here, Admiral.” Pug touched the dispatch case which, in the transit between cruisers, had not left his hand.

King, with chin high, looked down at Victor Henry through half-closed eyes, puffing at the cigarette. “As I told you last week, the President asked to have you along on this exercise. He didn’t mention that he wanted you at his beck and call, however. Are you by any chance a distant relative or an old family friend of Mr. Roosevelt?”

“No, Admiral.”

“Well — you might remember, when occasion offers, that you work for the United States Navy.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Virtually nobody saw the crippled man hoisted aboard. The ship’s company in dress whites was mustered on the long forecastle at attention under the main battery guns. No band played, no guns saluted. The yacht Potomac came along the port side, out of sight of Martha’s Vineyard. Sharp commands rang out, a boatswain’s pipe squealed, the Potomac churned away, and the President appeared in his wheelchair, pushed by a Navy captain, with an impressive following of civilians, admirals, and Army generals. As on a theatrical cue, the sun at that moment came out and sunlight shafted down the decks, illuminating the grinning, waving President. The white suit and floppy white hat, the high-spirited gestures, the cigarette holder cocked upward in the massive bespectacled face, were almost too Rooseveltian to be real. An actor would have come on so, and Pug thought FDR actually was putting on a little show for the crew, perhaps responding to the burst of sunshine. The wheelchair and its entourage passed across the castle and went out of sight.

At once the two cruisers weighed anchor and steamed out to sea, with a destroyer division screening ahead of them. The morning sun disappeared behind the clouds. In dreary gray North Atlantic weather, the formation plunged northeast at twenty-two knots, cutting across main ship lanes. Victor Henry walked the main deck for hours relishing the sea wind, the tall black waves, and the slow roll of iron plates under his feet. No summons came from the President. That scarcely surprised him. His chief in the War Plans Division was aboard the Tuscaloosa; they had intended to do a lot of work en route. Now when the two cruisers reached the rendezvous, they would need an all-night conference. The separation was probably pointless, but the President’s whim had to be endured.

He was finishing bacon and eggs next morning in the flag mess, when a steward’s mate handed him a sealed note on yellow scratch paper:

If you’re not standing watch, old man, you might look in about ten or so.

The skipper

He folded the note carefully away in his pocket. Pug was preserving all these communications, trivial or not, for his grandchildren. At the stroke of ten he went to flag quarters. A rugged frozen-eyed marine came to robot attention outside the President’s suite.

“Hello there, Pug! Just in time for the news!” Roosevelt sat alone in an armchair at a green baize-covered table, on which a small portable radio was gabbling a commercial. Dark fatigue pockets under Roosevelt’s eyes showed through the pince-nez glasses, but the open shirt collar outside an old gray sweater gave him a relaxed look. He had cut himself shaving; a gash clotted with blood marred the big chin. His color was good, and he was snuffing with relish the wind that blew in through a scoop and mussed his thin gray hair.

He shook his head sadly at a Moscow admission that the Germans had driven far past Smolensk. Then the announcer said that President Roosevelt’s whereabouts were no longer a secret, and he perked up. FDR was vacationing aboard the Potomac, the announcer went on. Reporters had seen him on the afterdeck of the yacht at eight o’clock last evening, passing through the Cape Cod Canal. Roosevelt’s eyes darted cunningly at Captain Henry. His smile curved up, self-satisfied and wise. “Ha ha. And here I was at eight o’clock, out on the high seas. How d’you suppose I worked that one, Pug?”

“Pretty good deception, sir. Somebody in disguise on the yacht?”

“Darn right! Tom Wilson, the engineer. We got him a white suit and white hat. Well, that’s just grand. It worked!” He tuned down another commercial. “We didn’t want U-boats out gunning for Churchill and me. But I admit I get a kick out of giving the press the slip, Pug. They do make my life a misery.” Roosevelt was searching through piles of paper on the desk. “Ah. Here we are. Look this over, old fellow.” The typewritten document was headed “For The President — Top Secret, Two Copies Only.”

Turning up the radio again, the President slumped in his chair, and the mobile face went weary and grave as the announcer described a newspaper poll of the House of Representatives on the extension of the draft, predicting defeat of the bill by six to eight votes. “That is wrong,” the President interjected, his heavy black-ringed eyes on the radio, as though arguing with the announcer. In the next item, the German propaganda ministry ridiculed an accusation by world Jewish leaders of massacres of Jews taking place in German-held parts of the Soviet Union. The Jews were spreading Allied atrocity propaganda, the ministry said, and the Red Cross was free to come in at any time to verify the facts. “There’s another lie,” the President said, turning off the radio with a disgusted gesture. “Those Nazis are the most outrageous liars, really. The Red Cross can’t get in there at all. I think, and I certainly hope, those stories are terribly exaggerated. Our intelligence says they are. Still, where there’s smoke -” He took off his pince-nez, and rubbed his eyes hard with thumb and forefinger. “Pug, did your daughter-in-law ever get home with her uncle?”

“I understand they’re on their way, sir.”

“Good. Very good.” Roosevelt puffed out a long breath. “Quite a lad, that submariner of yours.”