The Winds of War

swell! Warm sun and ocean air. Just what the doctor ordered. Give me a hand, Pug.” The President eased himself into a blue leather reclining chair, in an angle of the deck structure sheltered from the wind. They were looking aft at the long gray guns and the foaming wake of the gently pitching cruiser. “I still say you’ll never find the shipyard or Navy Yard space for those landing craft, Pug. There are the merchant ships to build, the destroyer escorts, the carriers. You’re going to have to use factories where you can find them — on rivers and inland waterways — hundreds of little factories.” President Roosevelt cocked his head, staring out at the sea. “You know? This program could be a godsend to small business. Congress has given us all kinds of trouble about that. There’s a real thought. Money going out to small factories in many states — “ The president lit a cigarette, deftly cupping the match against the breeze. “Very good. Let me have your notes on that Army paper, Pug. Just write them up yourself, and give them to me today.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Now I’m extremely interested in that landing craft problem, but I don’t want you getting bogged down in it. Once the Victory Program is finished, let’s detach you from War Plans, and send you out to sea. You’re overdue.”

Victor Henry saw that he had scored with Roosevelt and that the moment was favorable. He said, “Well, Mr. President, for a long time I’ve been yearning for a battleship.”

“You think you can command one?”

Trying hard not to show emotion in face or voice, realizing that a lifetime might hang on the next few words, Henry said, “I think I can, sir.”

“Well, you’ve been delayed on the beach by unrewarding jobs. The Commander-in-Chief out to have a little say in this. Let’s get you command of a battleship.”

The President spoke lightly. But the ring in his cultured voice, the self-satisfied tilt of his head, the regal way he held the arms of his chair and smiled at Captain Henry, shoed his relish for power and his satisfaction in bestowing largesse.

“Thank you, Mr. President.’

“Now, Pug, you’ll find the Chief Yeoman Terry in the flag office. Will you tell him to come here?”

Dazed by the last turn of the conversation, Victor Henry walked back into the President’s suite, and interrupted a chat between General Marshall, Admiral King, Admiral Stark, and General Watson, sitting relaxed on a couch and armchairs in splendid uniforms. The four elderly awesome heads turned at him. Admiral King gave him a puzzled scowl. Pug crossed the room as fast as he could without running, and went out.

It was for this chat, lasting less than an hour, that Franklin Roosevelt had evidently summoned Victor Henry to the Augusta. Except at a distance, the Navy captain did not see the President again all the way to Newfoundland.

Pug no longer tried to fathom the President’s purposes. He did not feel flattered when Roosevelt summoned him, or put out when the President forgot he was alive. He was under no illusion that he held high place in the President’s esteem, or that anything he said or did influenced the course of history. The President used other obscure men. The identities and missions of some were fogged in secrecy. He himself knew of a marine colonel who ran presidential errands in Japan, China, and India; and an elderly Oregon lumberman, a friend of his own father, who specialty was buying up scarce war materials in South America, to deny them to the Germans. Pug counted himself among these small fry, and took the President’s use of him as the result of random impulse. Roosevelt liked him because he was knowledgeable, got things done, and kept his mouth shut. A lucky guess about the Nazi-Soviet pact had earned him more credit for acumen than he deserved. There was also the odd phrase Roosevelt had used: “When you talk, I understand you.”

Still, the President’s promise of a battleship command gave Victor Henry sleepless nights. Only two of his classmates had battleships. He went to the flag office and checked the Navy Register, to narrow down the possibilities. Of course, new construction — the North Carolina class or the Indiana class giants — was out of the question for him. He would get a modernized old ship. The deadline for delivering the Victory Program was less than a month off. Scanning the records, he noted that places might open up within a couple of months in the California or West Virginia. This was heady business for Captain Victor Henry, after thirty years in the Navy, checking over the battle ship roster to guess which one he might soon command!

He tried to crush down his elation. Henry admired the President, and had moments when he almost loved the gallant cripple with the big grin and the boundless appetite for work. But he did not understand Roosevelt or trust him; and he did not in the least share the unlimited devotion to this man of people like Harry Hopkins. Behind the warm jolly aristocratic surface, there loomed a grim ill-defined personality of distant visions and hard purpose, a tough son of a bitch to whom nobody meant very much, except perhaps his family; and maybe not they, either. It might be that Roosevelt would remember to get him a battleship command. It was equally likely that some new job would put the promise off until it faded. Roosevelt had taught Victor Henry what a great man was like; the captain thought time and again of the Bible’s warning, that the clay pot should keep its distance from the iron kettle.

* * *

Gray peace pervaded the wilderness-ringed Argentia Bay in Newfoundland, where the American ships anchored to await the arrival of Winston Churchill. Haze and mist blended all into gray: gray water, gray sky, gray air, gray hills with a tint of green. The monstrously shaped gray-painted iron ships, queer intruders from the twentieth century into the land of the Indians, floated in the haze like an ugly phantom vision of the future. Sailors and officers went about their chores as usual on these ships, amid pipings and loudspeaker squawks. But a primeval hush lay heavy in Argentia Bay, just outside the range of the normal ships’ noises.

At nine o’clock, three gray destroyers steamed into view, ahead of a battleship camouflaged in swirls and splotches of color like snakeskin. This was H.M.S. Prince of Wales, bigger than any other ship in sight, bearing the guns that had hit the Bismarck. As it steamed past the Augusta, a brass band on its decks shattered the hush with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Quiet fell. The band on the quarterdeck of the Augusta struck up “God Save the King.”

Pug Henry stood near the President, under the awning rigged at number-one turret, with admirals, generals, august civilians like Averell Harriman and Sumner Wells. Churchill was plain to see not five hundred yards away, in an odd blue costume, gesturing with a big cigar. The President towered over everybody, stiff on braced legs, in a neat brown suit, one hand holding his hat on his heart, the other clutching the arm of his son, an Air Corps officer who strongly resembled him. Roosevelt’s large pink face was self-consciously grave.

At this grand moment Pug Henry’s thoughts were prosaic. BuShips experts were disputing over camouflage patterns. Some liked this British tropical splashing, some preferred plain gray or blue horizontal bands. Pug had seen the mottled battleship through the mist before monochrome destroyers that were a mile closer. He intended to report this.

“God Save the King” ended. The President’s face relaxed. “Well! I’ve never heard ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ played better.” The men around him laughed politely at the presidential joke, and Roosevelt laughed too. The squeal of boatswains’ pipes broke up the dress parade on the cruiser’s deck.

Admiral King beckoned to Pug. “Take my barge over to the Prince of Wales, and put yourself at Mr. Harry Hopkins’s service. The President desires to talk with him before Churchill comes to call, so expedite.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Passing from the Augusta to the Prince of Wales in King’s barge, over a few hundred yards of still water, Victor Henry went from America to England and from peace to war. It was a shocking jump. King’s spick-and-span flagship belonged to a different world than the whipped British vessel, where the accommodation ladder was salt-crusted, the camouflage paint was peeling, even the main battery guns looked pitted and rusty. Pug was aghast to see cigarette butts and wastepaper in the scuppers, though droves of bluejackets were doing an animated scrub-down. On the superstructure raw steel patches were welded here and there — sticking plaster for wounds from the Bismarck’s salvos.

The officer of the deck had a neatly trimmed brown beard, hollow cheeks, and a charming smile. Pug envied the green tarnish on the gold braid of his cap. “Ah, yes, Captain Henry,” he said, smartly returning the salute in the different British palm-out style, “Mr. Hopkins has received the signal and is waiting for you in his cabin The