World War 2 Thriller Collection: Winter, The Eagle Has Flown, South by Java Head

‘It would be so easy for them to come here.’ She didn’t want to talk about her parents. It would make her feel guilty, and she didn’t want to feel guilty.

‘Dad’s not too fond of the Germans; you know that. And since the sudden death of the King of England, the Kaiser is determined to prove himself the master of Europe. Dad says he’s dangerous, and I agree.’

‘It’s just not fair,’ said Veronica. ‘Everyone blames the Kaiser, but all he wants to do is make Germany as strong as the other powers. What’s so bad about that?’

‘It’s the way he goes about it: he struts and rants and always wears that damned army outfit with the spiked helmet. That military posturing doesn’t go down well in Paris and London and New York. They like statesmen to wear dark suits and carnations and make speeches about peace and prosperity.’

‘Harry says that European armies are only suited for colonial wars.’

‘Suited, maybe. But they are fast becoming equipped for something far more destructive. What about these airships that can float right over big towns and toss explosives down on the city hall? Look out the window and see the guns on that dreadnought: one of those ships could shell a coastal city and remain out of sight while doing it. And what about these huge conscript armies that Prussia has had for over a hundred years? You don’t need conscript armies for colonial scraps. Right? Back home I’ve been down through the South…I walked through the ruined streets of Richmond, Virginia, and it’s enough to make you weep. The same goes for cities in the Carolinas and Georgia. What is it – fifty years back? And they still haven’t rebuilt everything that the fighting destroyed. And the bitterness remains…. It’s terrible, and that’s the kind of war that these damned Europeans are going to have, unless I miss my guess.’

‘You frighten me with such talk, Glenn.’

‘I promised Dad that I would have a serious word with you. Don’t you ever miss your friends and your folks and your family? How can you be happy with all these foreigners all the time?’

‘I don’t want to say anything hurtful, Glenn, but these “foreigners” are my friends and my family now.’ Glenn would never understand how much Berlin meant to her. She loved the city: the opera, the ballet, the orchestras, the social life, and the intellectual climate. She loved the crazy, uncomplaining, shameless Berliners, with their irrepressible sense of humour. She loved the friends she’d made and her husband, and her incomparable sons. How could Glenn expect her to abandon everything that made life worth living and start all over again in a cultural wasteland like New York City?

‘Do you mind if I smoke my pipe? I can’t think properly without a taste of Virginia.’ From the pocket of his double-breasted flannel jacket he took a tobacco pouch, safety matches, and a curly meerschaum pipe.

‘I don’t mind, but maybe it’s not permitted here. There’s a smoking room at the back of the restaurant.’

‘Baloney! People smoke everywhere nowadays. People smoke on the street in New York, even women.’

‘That sounds horrible.’

He lit the pipe, which was already charged with tobacco. ‘It was the flies that got me started,’ he said between puffs at the pipe. ‘I was working on a ranch in Texas, and the smoke was the only way you could keep them out of your eyes and mouth. I saw guys go crazy.’

‘I’d love to see New York again,’ she admitted with what was almost reluctance. ‘Just for a visit.’

‘You’d never recognize New York City these days, sis. I know your husband is reckoned a big shot in that automobile of his. But I stood in Herald Square and saw it jammed so tight with automobiles that none of them could get going.’ He laughed and puffed his pipe. He’d affected a pipe when he first came to see her in Germany, the year after Peter was born; Glenn was seventeen then. He’d tried to look grown-up but he’d choked on the tobacco smoke, and she’d brought him fruit when he went to bed feeling sick. She felt a sudden pang of regret that she’d left her family so young. They’d grown up without her, and she’d grown up without them.

‘And Dad and Mama like it in New York?’ she asked.

‘They don’t spend much time downtown any more. But, sure, Dad likes it. While your Harry was betting on airships, Dad was betting on the automobile. He invested in steel, oil and rubber and is getting richer by the minute.’ He puffed on his pipe again. ‘You didn’t mind my bringing Boy with me?’

‘Of course not, but if I’d known earlier, I could have had things better prepared. Those little rooms you have…’

‘The rooms are fine, sis, and I’m sorry we just descended on you. I didn’t realize how sick your mother-in-law is. It must make a lot of work for you.’

‘It’s good to see you, Glenn. Really good.’

‘Boy is stuck on you; you know that, don’t you?’ he blurted out. She had the feeling that he’d been trying to find a way of saying it ever since they’d first begun to talk.

‘Yes, I know he is.’

‘You get to know what a man’s like when you drink with him. And I’ve knocked around a bit, sis. I’ve met a lot of people since I last saw you. He’s a regular guy.’

She said nothing for a long time. He was her brother, and she felt she should respond. ‘He wants me to go away with him.’

‘Boy does?’ He was discomposed. He thought she’d just be flattered, and laugh. He wished he’d not mentioned it.

‘I don’t know what to do, Glenn. The children would never understand. Peter would feel I’d betrayed them, and Pauli just dotes on his father.’

‘Buck up, sis. It’s nothing to cry about.’

Glenn could not advise her; she’d known that before confiding in him. Glenn was her younger brother: their relationship precluded any chance that he could talk to her about such things and keep a sense of proportion. ‘Please don’t say anything to anyone, Glenn. I’m still trying to make up my mind. Boy wants me to bring the children, too.’

Glenn Rensselaer shook his head in amazement. ‘You’re a dark horse.’

‘I love him, Glenn. I don’t know how it happened in such a short time. I thought it was something that only happened in books and plays. But I love Harry, too.’ She turned her head away as the tears welled up in her eyes.

‘Divorced women are not received in our sort of society.’ He had to warn her. Glenn was a good man. He’d only wanted to make her happy, and now he found himself involved in her moral dilemma, the sort of thing he couldn’t handle.

‘I couldn’t go without the children, Glenn….’

‘It’s a big step.’ That bastard Harry, despite his philandering, would probably deny her a divorce: he detested the Englishman, Glenn could see that. So his sister would be living in sin in a society where such sinners were punished here on earth. The idea of that happening to his sister pained him. And yet Harry was a swine….

‘I couldn’t take Harry’s sons from him and give them to another man. That would be a sin, wouldn’t it?’ She wiped her tears away.

‘We only have one life. I’m not a priest.’

‘Hush! They’re coming in,’ said Veronica, catching sight of Piper and the two children coming up the path. As the doorman swung open the doors, the sound of a ship’s band playing on the sea front came to their ears. They were playing Sousa; such bold Yankee music sounded strange in these German surroundings.

Harald Winter’s final meeting with the representatives of the Imperial German Navy’s purchasing board had not left him in the best of moods. The meeting had ended with a gesture that Winter regarded as provocative. One of the civilians produced photographs of the army’s latest airship, the Parseval III, flying over Leipzig. Manufactured by Zeppelin’s brilliant rival, August von Parseval, it was a most efficient flying machine. It was big: its envelope contained five thousand cubic metres of gas. It had two hundred-horsepower engines and carried eight passengers. And yet the whole contraption could be deflated and taken away by horse-drawn wagon. This miracle was achieved by having no rigid metal framework. But the prospect of airships without a rigid metal framework had little or no attraction for Harald Winter. He left the meeting in a rage.

He snapped at the hotel staff and at his personal servants. When he was unlocking his decanters for a drink before dressing for dinner, he even found fault with the children.

‘They are getting out of control,’ he said.

‘How can you say that, Harry? Everyone remarks on how well behaved they are.’

‘They’re allowed to roam all through the hotel. And Pauli even pesters me when I’m working.’

‘And you snap at him. I wish you’d be more patient with little Pauli. He adores you so much, and yet you always reject him. Why?’

‘Pauli must grow up. He’s like a little puppy that comes licking your hand all the time. He wants constant attention.’

‘He wants affection.’ Harald Winter had never shown much affection to her or to the boys. He’d always said that earning money should be sufficient evidence of a man’s love for his family.

‘Then let him go to Nanny. What do I pay her for?’

‘Harry, how can you be so blind? Little Pauli loves you more than anyone in the whole world. You are his life. You hurt him deeply when you send him away with angry words.’ She didn’t want to pursue the subject. She tried to decide whether she could endure her corset as tight as this for the entire evening. Some women were abandoning corsets altogether – it was the new fashion – but Veronica still kept to the old styles.

Harald Winter poured brandy for himself and added a generous amount of Apollinaris soda water. He drank some and then turned his attention to the faults of their guests.

‘They act like a couple of spies,’ he complained. ‘Do you think no one notices them out on the promenade using their field glasses and making sketches of the warships?’

‘Spies?’ said Veronica. ‘You’re speaking of our guests; and one of them is my kith and kin.’