Hitler's peace

Roosevelt turned to the Negro valet standing behind him. “Wheel me over to starboard, Arthur,” he said with the air of a man asking for a mirror to see himself in a new suit. “I want to take a look for myself.”

Meanwhile Agent Rowley drew his pistol and leaned over the side of the flag bridge as if to shoot the torpedo. I might have laughed if the possibility of being hit amidships and sunk had not seemed so likely. Suddenly the previous evening’s predicament of the Porter ’s man overboard seemed more immediate. Just how long could a man survive in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean? Half an hour? Ten minutes? Probably less than that if he was seated in a wheelchair.

The Iowa, taking evasive maneuvers, increased speed and began turning to port and, a long minute later, an enormous explosion threw up a mountain of water behind the battleship. The ship seesawed underfoot as if Archimedes had sat down in his bath and then got up again to answer the phone, and I felt the spray hit my face hard.

“Did you see that?” exclaimed the president. “Did you see that? It went straight by us. Couldn’t have been more than three hundred yards off our starboard side. My God, that was exciting. I wonder if it’s one sub or several.”

As a display of sangfroid, it ranked close to Jeanne d’Arc asking her executioner for a light.

“If it’s several, we’re screwed,” King said grimly and stormed his way to the bulkhead door, only to find Captain McCrea appearing on the flag deck in front of him.

“You’re not going to believe this, Admiral,” said McCrea. “It was the Willie D. that fired on us.”

Even as Captain McCrea spoke, the Iowa ’s big 16-inch guns were turning ominously in the direction of the Willie D.

“Commander Walter broke radio silence to warn us about the fish,” continued McCrea. “I’ve ordered our guns to take aim at them just in case this is some kind of assassination plot.”

“Jesus Christ,” snarled King, and, taking off his cap, he rubbed his bald head with exasperation. Meanwhile, Generals Arnold and Marshall were making a hard job of not smirking at the now obvious discomfort of their rival service. “That fucking idiot.”

“What are your orders, sir?”

“I’ll tell you what my goddamn orders are,” said King. “Order the commander of the Porter to detach his fucking ship from the escort and make all speed for Bermuda. There, he is to place his ship and his whole fucking crew under close arrest pending a full inquiry into what just happened here today, and a possible court-martial. And you can tell Lieutenant Commander Walter personally from me that I consider him the worst fucking naval officer commanding a ship I’ve come across in more than forty years of service.”

King turned toward the president and replaced his cap. “Mr. President. On behalf of the navy, I should like to offer you my apologies, sir, for what has happened. But I can assure you that I intend to get to the bottom of this incident.”

“I think we all nearly got to the bottom,” Marshall said to Arnold. “The bottom of the ocean.”

Back in the cabin I found Ted Schmidt sitting crapulously on the edge of his bunk, wearing his life vest and clutching a new bottle of rye. What do you do with a drunken sailor, I asked myself wearily. Giving him a taste of the bosun’s rope end, shaving his belly with a rusty razor, and even putting him in bed with the captain’s daughter were, all of them, solutions that came musically to mind.

“What’s happening?” hiccuped Schmidt. “I heard firing. Are we under attack?”

“Only by our own side,” I offered, and explained what had happened.

“Thank God.” Schmidt collapsed back on his bunk. “It would be just my luck on top of everything else that’s happened to get killed by my own side.”

I took the bottle from Schmidt and poured myself a drink. After the cold air of the flying bridge I needed something warm inside of me. “Would you care to talk about it?”

Schmidt shook his head, miserably.

“Look, Ted, this has got to stop. Getting tight is one thing. Getting shit-faced is quite another. Maybe the Russians at the Big Three will forgive you smelling like a bootlegger’s glove, but I don’t think the president will. What you need is a shave and a shower to scrub the sideboard off your breath. Every time you whistle I swear I’m halfway up Mount Vernon. After that, we’ll go find you a cup of strong coffee and some fresh air. Come on. I’ll hold your toilet bag.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Sure I’m right. If this were dry land, I’d feel duty bound to smack you in the mouth and confine you to your cabin. But since this is a ship, we’ll say that you’re seasick. That’s a perfectly respectable thing to be at sea. Besides, there are men, sober men, in command of destroyers, who are more incapable than you, Ted.”