At Waterloo Reggie nudged him and said, ‘Shall we share a cab? You could drop me at the Savoy and then take it on to Claridge’s.’
Cal demurred. He’d trust to the cabman’s sense of geography. Reggie would tell him the Savoy was on the way to Claridge’s even if it wasn’t.
In the back of the cab as they crossed the Thames Reggie handed Cal a card with his name and the Savoy’s address and telephone number on it and said, ‘We’ve got tomorrow off. I suggest you get some rest, see a bit of the town and report to your blokes at the embassy on Monday. I’ll see my chaps and give you a bell before noon.’
‘My blokes?’
Reggie stuck his hand into his jacket pocket and brought out another of his many-folded bits of paper.
‘A Major Shaeffer and a Colonel Reininger. D’ye know ‘em?’
‘I’ve met Shaeffer. On my last visit in ‘39. I’ve known Frank Reininger all my life. When I was a teenager he was based in Washington. My father sat on one of the House Defence Committees-Frank liaised. I guess you could call him my father’s protégé. E pluribus unum.’
‘Well he’s the chap you report to.’
‘Reggie-you could have told me that in Zurich.’
‘Need to know, old boy, need to know. If Jerry had nabbed you, the less you knew the better.’
Cal was getting used to the jolts, the sudden reversals of tone and timbre-the instantaneous way the fact of war came home in a blunt sentence. Now, Reggie swung back the other way.
‘Uncle Sam does you proud doesn’t he? Claridge’s. Pretty damn swanky.’
‘You’re staying at the Savoy!’
‘No, old boy. I’m living at the Savoy. And I’m paying for it. It’s not the same thing at all.’
And back again.
‘Had a nice little house in Chester Street, round the back of Buck House. Got blown to buggery just before Christmas.’
The cab swung off the Strand into the north forecourt of the Savoy. Reggie stepped out and took his bag from the front.
‘Do you fancy a nightcap?’ he said.
‘Thanks Reggie, but I’d rather hit the sack.’
‘Are you sure? You’ll find a lot of your countrymen knocking about the place. I saw that newspaperman the other day-Quentin somebody or other. And wotsisname Knickerbocker. And Clare Booth Luce stays here too. You know, the woman from Time. Or is it Life?’
As if by magic, another cab disgorged Mrs Luce exactly as Reggie spoke her name. Cal saw him wave to her. She waved back. A smile. A glimpse of those familiar high cheekbones and too-prominent upper lip. That clinched it, if tiredness had not-the last thing Cal wanted was to while away an evening being Congressman Cormack’s son once more for the benefit of the American press. He’d rather face a Panzer unit than the barbed tongue of Mrs Luce should it turn out that his father was currently out of favour with America’s other First Lady. He told the cabbie to drive on and left Reggie lugging his bag, in search of porter, reporter and a stiff drink.
§ 11
Claridge’s put Cal on the sixth floor-a large, comfortable room-table, chairs and a small sofa at one end, a big bed at the other, and its own bathroom. And all for four dollars a day. The window gave a good view of the western sky and, if the building opposite had been a tad lower, a better view across Grosvenor Square to Hyde Park. He could see a barrage balloon floating serenely over the square. Cal dumped his suitcase-in the absence of able-bodied bellhops (there’d been dozens last time, all in little red waistcoats, now all in khaki, he assumed) he’d lugged his own bags-and threw open a window. It was May 10th-it wasn’t exactly summer, it wasn’t even spring, it was plain chilly, but he wanted air, fresh and cool. There was a full moon in heaven tonight-he rather thought this was what the English meant by a bomber’s moon. He’d no clear idea of what to expect in an air raid, but he found out soon enough.
He’d kicked off his shoes, thrown his jacket across the room and lain back on the bed. He was too tired to sleep, besides, the London air carried a whisper of anticipation on its wings. Forty-five minutes later he heard the wail of the air-raid sirens. He slipped on his jacket, grabbed his shoes and stepped into the corridor. He’d read about this. Wasn’t this where everyone headed for the cellar until it was all over? Sang songs and drank sweet tea?
A maid was dashing along outside his door. He caught her.
‘What happens now?’ he said.
She stared at him. ‘Sorry, sir, I don’t follow…’
‘I mean do we all get directed to the shelter?’
‘Well… if you like… I can do that… but most people don’t bother.’
‘What do they do, then?’
‘Well, sir, the women mostly put in earplugs and go to bed, and the men use it as an excuse to gather on the ground floor and play pontoon and drink half the night.’
Cal had no idea what to do now. He hadn’t brought any earplugs and he’d never played pontoon.
‘Is it safe up here?’
‘God knows, sir. It’s a modern building. Steel ribs an’ all. But if Jerry’s got your name on a bomb, well, goodnight Vienna. Look-you’ll be as safe here as anywhere. Just don’t use the lifts, eh? Takes an age to get people out of lifts if the electric goes off.’
She continued her dash and vanished down a rabbit hole. Cal put on his shoes and looked around for the stairs. It might at least make sense to find the shelter. He pushed open a swing door at the end of the corridor. The wallpaper and the wooden moulding vanished and he found himself in a shaft of concrete stairs, painted walls and steel railings, looking down the pit. He looked up. A glint of moonlight. There must be a door or a window up there. He climbed the stairs.
The door to the roof was open. He stepped out. A voice cried, ‘Shut the goddam door! Don’t want the whole goddam world to follow you up here, do you?’
A short, bald man sat on a folding canvas chair. A US Army greatcoat draped over his shoulders. Striped flannelette pyjamas and slippers peeking out from under it. On his shoulders two stars glinting in the light of the full moon. It was General Gelbroaster-General William Tecumseh Sherman Gelbroaster. In his mouth was an unlit cigar of a length to make Winston S. Churchill jealous, and across his knees a rifle of a length to make William F. Cody jealous.
Gelbroaster scanned the skies.
‘You ever shoot buffalo, boy?’
‘No, sir. A few ducks in the Ozarks. Nothing bigger than that.’
‘I shot buffalo. When we had buffalo to shoot, that is. My daddy took me hunting with him the first time in ‘99. Nebraska. I was fourteen. Gave me this gun when I was sixteen.’
He paused, hoisted the gun and drew a bead on some imaginary object in the sky.
‘How far up do you reckon these Nazis are?’
‘I really don’t know, sir. Ten thousand, maybe twenty thousand feet.’
Gelbroaster kept the gun tucked into his shoulder, his cheek along the stock, his finger delicately wrapped around the trigger.
‘This gun’ll fire a bullet more’n half a mile. What’s that come to in feet?’
‘About three thousand.’
Gelbroaster lowered the rifle.
‘Damn. Damn damn damn!’
He looked straight at Cal for the first time.
‘Have we met?’
‘Yessir.’
‘Washington?’
‘Zurich, sir. Captain Cormack. Zurich consulate.’
‘Cormack?’ he looked Cal up and down. It felt to Cal like am inspection.
‘You old Senator Cormack’s grandson?’
‘Yessir.’
That dated the general as far as Cal was concerned. A younger man, a man under fifty, would have been much more likely to ask if he were Congressman Cormack’s son. His grandfather had retired in 1922.
‘You new in town?’
‘Got in less than two hours ago, sir. As a matter of fact, you sent for me.’