Washington, DC
February 6, 1944
On my way to work I stopped to watch the man and boy play. The day was as frigid as all the days in February had been, but the sun was out and the man had broken a big hole in the ice of the Reflecting Pool so he and the boy could play with a toy boat. The man had taken off his gloves to wind it up. It was a Liberty ship; I could tell by its silhouette. The boy, who was wearing a sailor’s cap and looked to be about four years old, was so excited he was jumping up and down in anticipation.
‘OK,’ the man said, handing the boat to the boy. ‘Put it gently in the water, then turn the switch on.’
The boy took the boat and set it carefully in the pool and flipped the ‘on’ switch. The boat took off valiantly across the pool, phony smoke rising from its stack, the tiny motor making a satisfying chugging noise. The little boy shrieked with excitement, and I felt like doing the same thing. I’d be crossing the ocean in a Liberty ship myself soon. Ever since I’d gotten my new assignment, I’d catch my heart beating erratically, or my breath coming shallowly and quickly, or a headache developing in my temples. I was thrilled, but I couldn’t tell anyone outside the office where I was headed. After all, I still worked for the Office of Strategic Services and I had to keep my mouth shut.
I watched the man and boy enjoying the toy boat’s voyage. Then it all went wrong.
The little boat hit a chunk of ice, spun about and hit another, then tipped over, sinking, leaving just a few bubbles on the surface of the pool. The child burst into tears.
‘Don’t worry,’ the father said to his son. ‘These things can happen on a sea voyage. Sailors have to be very brave.’ The boy nodded, wiping his eyes with his gloved hands.
I went up to them. ‘Can I help?’ I said. ‘I could find a long stick or something.’
The man grinned at me. ‘I came prepared,’ he said. Rolling up his pants legs, he revealed a tall pair of Wellington boots. He climbed over the edge of the pool and waded out to the last known location of USS Toy Boat, took off his gloves, rolled up his sleeves and felt around under the water, bringing up the dripping boat. Back on shore, his son wrapped his arms around his father’s legs. ‘Let’s go home, sailor,’ the man said. ‘You can help me take the boat apart and we’ll dry it out. It’ll be fine, I bet.’ I watched the two of them go off hand in hand, the little boy taking three steps to each one of his father’s.
The episode unnerved me. If my own ship had trouble on the ocean, no giant man in wellies would appear to lift it out of danger. Since the Nazi submarine wolf packs had retreated, the Atlantic wasn’t as dangerous as it once was, but there were still lone wolves prowling about, fierce winter storms, and as any ship drew closer to land, Axis airplanes determined to sink any Allied cargo ships they could.
When I got to work, I relaxed a bit since everyone there knew where I’d been reassigned, so it was no secret. That had its drawbacks, though, as I became the butt of every British joke in the OSS joke book. As I walked through the artists’ workroom, one of the guys looked up at me, smiling. I waited for the expected ribbing. ‘I hope you like boiled mutton,’ he said. ‘That’s all those Limeys ever eat.’
‘And don’t forget the potato sandwiches,’ one of the others piped in. ‘Cold potato sandwiches. With Marmite gluing it all together.’
‘Don’t you worry about me,’ I answered. ‘I’m packing plenty of Spam and peanut butter.’
No sooner had I gotten into my drafty office and hung up my coat and hat than Merle came in with a cup of hot coffee and a strawberry-jam-filled biscuit for me. Merle heaved himself up on my desk, dangling his cowboy boot-shod feet. Merle was a Texan through and through. He’d been a newspaper artist before the war, but now he was one of our best forgers.
My office was clean and tidy, ready for its next occupant, except for the shoebox that held the few personal things I could take with me. It was already taped shut.
‘This your last day?’ he asked, noticing the box.
‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘But please, please don’t tell anyone else. I don’t want a lot of fuss. I’m leaving as soon as I get my last briefing from Miss Osborne. I should sail a few days from now; I don’t know when exactly yet.’
‘How far can you swim under a field of burning oil?’ he asked, winking at me as he slid off my desk.
‘Very funny,’ I said.
He reached out to shake my hand. ‘In case I don’t see you again before you leave.’ He didn’t let go of my hand, but leaned forward and kissed my forehead. ‘Be careful.’
‘I will, I promise.’
‘Write us occasionally.’
‘I will.’
After Merle left, I glanced around my office to see what else needed to be done, but even my inbox was empty. I felt as if my life in DC was already over.
Miss Osborne, whom I admired as much as any person I had met in Washington, went over a checklist with me.
‘You have your passport and your AGO card?’ The Adjutant General’s Office card identified me as a member of the United States military. As such, I couldn’t be tortured if I was captured. Supposedly.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘I’ll call you with your orders a day before its time to leave. It shouldn’t be more than a few days from now. Your ship will be carrying a mixed cargo but also a number of “casual passengers” such as yourself, going to the United Kingdom for various reasons. You don’t have a specific cover; use your real name and associate with the passengers as you naturally would. You’re just a file clerk and a former supervisor of yours now stationed in London has requested you for his office typing pool, that’s all. But I don’t have to tell you how to handle yourself.’ Then she looked up from her list and smiled at me. ‘I wish I wasn’t losing you,’ she said. ‘But with invasion imminent, our Morale Operations station in London will become the front line of this branch.’
The London office of the Office of Strategic Services, the United States’ espionage agency, was located smack in the middle of London, at 70 Grosvenor Square, quite close to the US Embassy. Colonel David K.E. Bruce, scion of a wealthy Maryland family, was its Director. With an invasion of Europe imminent, every branch of OSS in DC was now represented in its London office. My office, the Morale Operations Unit, was responsible for what we called ‘black propaganda’ – that is, outright lies and misinformation distributed to the German people.
I struggled to express myself adequately. ‘Alice,’ I said, using her given name. ‘Thank you for everything. For recommending me. And for allowing me to go.’
‘You always seemed to me to be a woman in search of adventure. London is not the happiest place to be these days, but there will still be plenty for you to do, at work and at play. Oh, and here.’ She rummaged in the papers stacked on her desk and handed me one with several names and addresses on them. ‘Don’t be shy – contact these people. They are friends of mine; they’ll show you around and they know not to ask questions.’
She pulled a square tin out of her desk and handed it over to me. It was a box of airmail stationery, with square envelopes and onionskin paper. ‘Write occasionally, OK?’ she said.
‘Of course.’ It looked as if I was going to spend most of my free time writing letters home.
Even she couldn’t resist a final quip. ‘I hope you know how to row a lifeboat,’ she said, grinning at me.
I went straight back to my office, grabbed my shoebox and slinked out a side door during the afternoon coffee break without giving anyone a chance to make a fuss.
I contemplated my packing. I’d been working on it forever, it seemed. I was permitted to take a footlocker, a large suitcase and a musette bag, a small backpack that I could carry over my shoulder. The footlocker would be stored in the hold where I couldn’t reach it during the voyage, so I needed to make sure all my essentials were in the two other cases. I’d requisitioned the footlocker already, and Phoebe led me to the attic where she offered the largest suitcase I thought I could carry on my own from her worn set of navy-blue leather Lady Baltimore luggage. ‘Milt and I went to a lot of swell places before the Depression,’ Phoebe said. ‘Sometimes I took all seven pieces.’
So now the three pieces of luggage lay open in my bedroom.
I couldn’t tell anyone at my boarding house where I was headed, but from what I was packing it would be obvious I wasn’t going anywhere comfortable. Some of my footlocker space was reserved for non-perishable food. Mostly jars of peanut butter, cans of Spam and Vienna sausages. Without any guilt at all, I’d bought two pounds of sugar and some coffee on the black market. I’d been advised to pack several packages of sanitary napkins and rolls of toilet paper. Liquor was terribly expensive in London, but alcohol couldn’t be transported in the hold, so I unhappily settled on one bottle of Gordon’s gin, which I’d carry in my musette bag. I had no room for vermouth. After this bottle was empty, I supposed I’d have to learn to drink warm beer.
I’d requisitioned an arctic parka, lined boots, heavy gloves and thick socks, and to my surprise had received them in the correct sizes. I cushioned the contents of my footlocker with them. I wouldn’t need such heavy clothing on board the ship. I included a set of flannel sheets and a blanket in case my future digs were short of linens. My wool coat, one set of long underwear and a pair of flannel pajamas went into my suitcase.
I added a small photo of Joe in a silver frame to the personal items tucked into the musette bag.
A wave of emotion crashed over me and tears started down my face. I sat down on the bed to collect myself. Joe Prager was my lover. He was a Czech refugee with a British passport who had been a boarder here when I arrived. Ostensibly, he taught Slavic languages at Georgetown University, but I discovered that he was working undercover for the JDC, an organization struggling to get Jewish refugees out of Europe. We fell in love and spent time alone together whenever we could. We never discussed marriage. That was impossible. I mean, I didn’t know who he really was! He’d been reassigned overseas, and I had no idea where he was stationed or if he would ever return to the United States. I guessed he was in Lisbon, a neutral port, where a JDC operative had been murdered, leaving an opening that needed to be filled.
What if Joe returned to DC while I was overseas? I could hardly bear the thought. I had no reason to think he would, especially as the Allies geared up for an invasion that would displace even more refugees. I knew Joe well enough to be sure that wherever he was he would be focused on the job at hand, not on a future impossible to predict. I had decided to do the same thing. Instead of fretting over him, I would accept the job that was offered me, no matter where it took me. Besides, if Joe did return to DC, he would come straight here, to my boarding house, and Phoebe would be able to give him my APO address to write to me. So I would know if he was safe, and that was all I could hope for.
Phoebe’s soft knock sounded at my door. I so hoped she wasn’t going to cry again. I didn’t think I could bear it. I would miss my life here in my boarding house and my friends, but except for my worry over Joe, I was so excited that I hadn’t shed a single tear myself. When I opened my door, I was glad to see that Phoebe was dry-eyed and collected.
She glanced over at my packing. ‘England,’ she said, guessing correctly. Just the word made my heart soar. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever thought I would live and work in Europe. It was Europe in the midst of a terrible war, but still. England! London! Westminster Abbey! Big Ben! None of which I had ever dreamed I would see.
‘You know I can’t say,’ I said, but I was sure my smile betrayed me.
‘You really want to go, don’t you?’ she said.
I admitted that I did.
Phoebe sat on the edge of my bed next to me. ‘I just don’t understand,’ she said. ‘It’s so dangerous.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ There were bunkers under all the American offices that ringed Grosvenor Square where OSS and the US Embassy could operate for days if they had to. ‘Someone has to go,’ I continued. ‘We have to win this war.’ Of course, I didn’t mention the invasion which was still secret.
‘That we do.’ Both of Phoebe’s sons had enlisted in the Navy. Milt was back home, missing an arm, but Tom was still stationed in the Pacific.
‘I want to give you a little something,’ Phoebe said, holding out a tiny package of tissue paper with a thin pink ribbon tied around it.
‘But you’ve given me so much,’ I said. ‘The necklace, this luggage, and, well’ – and here I drew in my breath, feeling sadness for the first time – ‘a second home.’
‘I don’t have a daughter,’ Phoebe said. ‘So I’d like you to have it.’
I took the tiny package from her and opened it. Like all Phoebe’s jewelry, the ring was art deco from the twenties, a tiny diamond surrounded by even smaller blue stones in a square filigree white-gold setting. ‘It’s not much,’ Phoebe said. ‘The diamond is real, but those are zircons, not sapphires. You know I had to sell all my good jewels during the Depression. But I hope it reminds you of us.’
The ring was darling. And it matched the lavaliere Phoebe had already given me. I slipped it on my right hand.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Write us,’ she said.
‘You know I will.’
She left without her usual lecture about what was proper and appropriate for a single woman to do, even in wartime. Thank goodness.
Dellaphine was at her range in the kitchen, hovering over two cast-iron skillets with chicken bubbling in hot lard. I loved her fried chicken. I was pretty sure they didn’t fry chicken in England.
‘Oh, Dellaphine, thank you for fixing chicken today,’ I said. ‘I don’t know when I’ll have it again.’
‘Miss Phoebe said to cook your favorite things for Sunday dinner,’ Dellaphine said, keeping her back to me as she turned the chicken with her granny fork. ‘But why someone who won’t even tell her friends when she is leaving them or where she is going should get a special dinner is beyond me.’
Her daughter, Madeleine, looked up from the kitchen table, where she was browsing through the colored newspaper, and said, ‘Momma, you know Louise can’t tell us where she’s headed. It’s secret.’
Dellaphine turned away from the range and glared at the two of us, one hand on a hip, brandishing the fork. ‘We should let those foreigners fight for theyselves,’ she said.
Madeleine just shook her head as she turned the newspaper pages, knowing there was no point in arguing with her mother.
‘Once I get to my posting, I can write you, tell you where I am and give you my APO address to write back to me,’ I said.
‘I ain’t got no time to write,’ Dellaphine said.
I started to speak, but Madeleine gave me a warning look. Best slink away, I thought, moving toward the door.
‘Wait,’ Dellaphine said. She turned and picked up a round tin and handed it to me. It had to weigh two pounds. ‘I made you some pralines for your trip,’ she said. ‘They don’t melt and keep real well. Don’t worry if you start to see little white spots on them after a few weeks. They’re still good. That’s just the sugar crystallizing.’
For the first time all day I felt a lump in my throat.
‘Dellaphine, thank you so much.’ It must have taken all our sugar and butter and extra hours in the kitchen for her to make these.
‘It was nothing,’ she said, turning back to the range, stabbing a chicken breast to turn it. ‘Go on and set the table now. And Miss Phoebe say to set out the champagne glasses.’
I found Ada in the dining room throwing one of Phoebe’s lace tablecloths over the table. She was better put together than she often was on Sundays, wearing a caftan and matching turban. Ada’s gig as a clarinet player in the Willard Hotel band kept her up late most Saturday nights. She smoothed out wrinkles in the tablecloth as I went to the china cabinet to get plates.
‘Done packing?’ she asked.
‘Mostly.’
‘I can tell you’re excited. Aren’t you at all scared?’ Ada lived most of her days scared. She was married to a German Luftwaffe pilot who’d left her and returned to Germany when the Nazis took power. She didn’t dare try to get a divorce for fear some nosy government bureaucrat would notice the paperwork and send her to a German-American internment camp.
‘I should be, I guess,’ I said. ‘But I’m just not.’
Ada collected silverware from a drawer and followed behind me as I set down the plates.
‘February is not a great time to cross the Atlantic,’ she said.
‘Thousands of people are doing it,’ I said.
‘Yeah, and hundreds don’t make it.’ She caught my eye, which I’d been trying to avoid. ‘Is it too late to change your mind? You’re a civilian. No one can make you go.’
‘I want to go.’
‘That’s just wacky, honey,’ she said. ‘You can serve your country right here.’
‘Someone has to staff our offices overseas.’
‘I guess so. You know how much I’ll miss you, don’t you? Heaven knows who Phoebe will rent your room to next!’
We were unnaturally quiet at dinner. I was the only one who appeared to have an appetite. I greedily worked my way through fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans. The green beans were canned, but we’d put them up ourselves with beans from our Victory garden, so they were still darn tasty. No one else – Phoebe, Ada, Milt or Henry – was doing justice to the meal. And they were avoiding meeting my eyes. I didn’t know whether to be grateful they were so fond of me or annoyed that they were spoiling what might be my last Sunday dinner with them for a very long time.
Phoebe broke the silence. ‘Do your parents know where you’re going?’ she asked.
‘Not exactly, but they know I’m going overseas,’ I said. ‘But I’ll write them just as soon as I can, of course.’ I’d gotten leave to spend a long weekend with my family in Wilmington, North Carolina, so I could say goodbye. It was about the longest three days I’d ever experienced. My mother and father were appalled that a single woman would even dream of accepting an assignment that took her across the Atlantic Ocean in February to live in a foreign country for who knew how long. I responded patriotically, reminding them that this was war and young women were being asked to do all sorts of things that would have been unheard of a few years ago. We had to make sacrifices. I didn’t remind them that I was thirty years old, had been living for two years in DC by myself and made a salary they wouldn’t believe if I told them. And that I was thrilled at the prospect of living in London. I was so relieved to board the train to go back to DC that I went straight to the bar car and ordered a Martini.
‘I’ve got something for you,’ Milt said. He pulled an item that clinked out of his pocket and handed it over to me. ‘It’s my lucky charm,’ he said. We had to chuckle, since he’d lost his left arm in a jeep crash on a Pacific Island. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘it could have been my right arm.’
It was a cheap St Christopher’s medal with a four-leaf clover stamped on the other side, threaded through with a chain. It was tarnished and dinged up, maybe from damage that had occurred during Milt’s accident.
‘My pals gave it to me before I shipped out,’ Milt said. ‘And I got back home, didn’t I?’
‘Thanks,’ I said, pulling the chain over my head. ‘I’ll bring it back to you.’
Henry was a middle-aged crusty sort, awfully straight-laced, and I don’t think he approved of me or Ada – single women working and doing pretty much what we wanted to. Ada and I thought he had a crush on Phoebe, but as far as we could tell he’d never acted on it. He was sort of a sad sack really.
‘I’ve got a gift for you, too,’ Henry said to me, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out two coins that glinted in the candlelight and dropped them into my hand. Two twenty-dollar Liberty Head gold pieces, worth much more than their face value since Roosevelt had taken the country off the gold standard. I hardly knew what to say. I just stared at them, gleaming in my hand. I had no idea what these would be worth on the black market, but it would be plenty.
‘Henry,’ I said, ‘I can’t accept these. They’re worth too much money.’
Henry shrugged. ‘I bought them a long time ago,’ he said. ‘At face value. Look here,’ he said, ‘you know I don’t approve of you leaving the country; I don’t know where you’ll be going or what you’ll be doing, but it could be dangerous. Gold gets you out of a lot of situations that nothing else will. So carry them with you all the time.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I will.’
Ada had already given me her gift in the privacy of my bedroom, a set of pink long underwear. ‘Just because you need to wear layers of clothes in this weather doesn’t mean you can’t have feminine unmentionables,’ she’d said to me.
Talking openly about my departure seemed to have loosened everyone up. Milt reached for the bowl of mashed potatoes and soon my friends were tucking into their meal with more enthusiasm. Dellaphine brought out one of my favorite desserts: apple pie.
Phoebe served me a large slice. I ate every crumb of it.
‘Let’s have our champagne in the lounge,’ Henry said, ‘where the fire is.’ We trooped down the hall and settled into our usual seats. Milt stoked the fire while Henry popped the champagne cork and filled our glasses. Phoebe took two glasses into the kitchen for Dellaphine and Madeleine. I was toasted by all and felt myself blush.
‘Please, stop,’ I said. ‘Enough.’
The telephone rang. Henry went out into the hall to answer it.
Milt made the most of his absence. ‘Don’t pay attention to Henry,’ he said. ‘Or’ – and here he winked at his mother – ‘what other people say. I think it’s swell what you’re doing. I wish I was shipping out somewhere.’ With his one hand, he pulled a cigarette out of his pack of Lucky Strikes, stuck it in a corner of his mouth and lit it with a Navy Zippo.
Henry came back into the lounge. ‘It’s for you,’ he said to me.
I went out into the passageway and picked up the receiver. It was Alice.
‘It’s time,’ she said. ‘Are you packed?’
‘So soon? I thought it would be a couple more days.’
‘You’ll be picked up at five thirty tomorrow morning and taken to the ship,’ Alice said.
‘OK.’
‘Are you packed and ready?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Bon voyage, then. Take care.’
‘I will.’
She hung up, and I stood in the hall for a few seconds, still holding the telephone receiver.
This was it. It was really happening. I was crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a flimsy cargo ship in the dead of winter during wartime to take up a job in London, a city almost destroyed by German bombings, where shortages of almost everything made living there a constant challenge. I walked back into the silent lounge and met my friends’ eyes.
‘So,’ Phoebe said, ‘did you get your orders?’
It would be stupid to dissemble at this point. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow.’ I didn’t tell them how early. I hoped to slip away without having to make any more goodbyes. ‘Milt, Henry, could you take my footlocker downstairs tonight?’
‘Of course,’ Henry said. He examined the height of the champagne left in the bottle. ‘I think there’s enough for us all to have one more swallow,’ he said.