CHAPTER ▪ THREE
AS I LEFT UNCLE Ike’s office I asked a passing PFC where I could find Second Officer Daphne Seaton. He pointed toward a hallway and told me to go one flight down. The stairway emptied into one large room with about a dozen desks and countless file cabinets. Maps covered any spare wall space, and the paint job was a fresh coat of army green, with some brown trim for flair. I saw Harding standing next to one of the desks, talking with Daphne. He looked up, crooked his thumb in my direction, and without another word walked away in the opposite direction. I threaded my way between desks and a sea of uniforms, American, British, army, navy, all busy moving lots of paperwork around, the walls echoing with a constant murmur of low voices and the shuffling of files. A telephone rang and I had to dodge an RAF officer as he ran to grab it. I put on my best smile as I approached Daphne’s desk.
“Do you have time to show me around, Second Officer Seaton?” I asked.
“Please call me Miss Seaton if that’s easier for you; saves time all around.”
Harding must have said something to her because I actually felt the temperature rise above freezing. I guess he told her that Ike had asked for me, and what he had in mind. I mentally thanked him for the boost and tried to act modest, but it was a new experience for me, especially around a pretty woman.
“Well, Miss Seaton, the first place I’d like to see is the mess hall, and a pot of coffee, maybe some doughnuts.” Once a cop. . . .
She finally smiled, and that did me a world of good. I always felt better when I could get someone to smile, especially when they were inclined otherwise. If someone’s smiling—a genuine smile, not a leer or the phony grin of a two-bit grifter—then you can be pretty sure they’re not going to cause any trouble. And trouble wasn’t what I was after.
Daphne led me down to the mess hall, which took up most of the basement. There were long trestle tables, three in a row, and a few small round tables, probably reserved for Uncle Ike and the rest of the brass. Steam tables fronted the kitchen area, and the smell of cafeteria cooking, the clanging of pots, and the clacking of stacked plates all somehow made me feel at home. It was familiar. First thing I went for was the coffee urn. I grabbed a heavy mug and topped it off with joe that carried a faint whiff of eggshells. We picked a spot on one of the tables that wasn’t too crowded and sat across from each other. It was about lunchtime, but the place wasn’t exactly packed. Some people were just drinking coffee, or tea if they were Brits, while others ate breakfast or a lunch of sandwiches and some sort of stew. Daphne caught me eyeing the room.
“People pretty much work around the clock here. You can always find somebody looking for breakfast at the oddest times,” she said.
“You mean this place doesn’t run regular office hours?” I dropped two sugar cubes in the dark coffee and swirled the spoon around, not taking my eyes off her.
“Not anymore we don’t, not since General Eisenhower arrived, and thank goodness for that. It used to be a nine-to-five headquarters, with just a skeleton staff on weekends. It was as if the Americans—excuse me, I mean the previous general—didn’t take the war very seriously.”
“Ike does?” I blew on the coffee, watching her over the rim of the cup. She was animated, excited, explaining how things were to the new kid.
“Yes! Staff here works seven days a week, and long days are the rule rather than the exception. Every section is staffed twenty-four hours a day. General Eisenhower knows this war can’t be won on bankers’ hours.”
“How long have you been here?” I drank the coffee, bitter and sweet.
“I joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service—they call us WRENs—in 1940. My father was in the navy, so it seemed a good choice. I started at Portsmouth Naval Base, went through women’s officer training, and then went back to Portsmouth to do the same thing I had done before I was made second officer. File papers and make tea. I kept asking for assignments with a bit more purpose. I think all I really did was irritate my superior officers.”
“I knew we had a lot in common,” I said.
She ignored that opening. “As soon as the first American mission set up in Grosvenor Square, I was posted here. That was five months ago, and there really wasn’t much to do before General Eisenhower arrived. Now, things are different.”
“You’re making coffee as well as tea?”
That got a bit of a smile. “I’ve been taken off coffee duty, thank goodness,” Daphne said. “I always managed to make it too weak or burn it or something.”
“Pretty smart move on your part.”
She raised her eyebrows and tapped her fingernails on the table, a bit surprised. “You may be able to make yourself useful, Lieutenant Boyle,” Daphne said. “No one else ever suspected.”
“You never know,” I said, giving her a wink as I got up to get some food. I came back with a full plate of powdered eggs and toast that smelled almost good. We talked more, which means she spoke, I ate like a horse, listened, and learned. She and her sister had both joined up when the war broke out. Daphne chose the Women’s Royal Naval Service and her sister, Diana, went into something called the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, known as the FANYs. I asked her why they had enlisted, and with raised eyebrows, she just said, “One must do one’s duty, mustn’t one?” I just smiled and stuffed some eggs into my mouth.
Their brother was in North Africa fighting Rommel on the Egyptian frontier. She was worried about him. And she didn’t like being called a WREN, but there was nothing she could do about that either. She didn’t like lollygagging around the cafeteria with a guy on a long-term coffee break any better, and as soon as I finished my plate we were back on the tour. She gave me the layout of the place and introduced me to people I ought to know and whose names I forgot, one after the other.
Finally she showed me my desk, across the room from her own. It had a pile of books and briefing papers on it that looked like more reading than I did in all of high school. Then she showed her merciful side and told me to go home and sleep. She reminded me that the mess room of the U.S. Army HQ, European Theater of Operations, was the only place I could count on for coffee and “Yank food.” I told her that was fine, since we hadn’t had tea in Boston since we threw it all in the harbor. She looked blankly at me for a moment and then laughed. It was like sunlight hitting the water.
I thought about that laugh on the walk back to the hotel and forgot to look right instead of left and almost got run over by a London cab. Safely across the street, I decided it felt good to stretch my legs and I wouldn’t be able to sleep now anyway, after all that joe. I walked back to the hotel, just so I could trace my steps back to it, then crossed the street into Hyde Park. It was huge, with wide crushed-stone paths leading in all directions. The green spaces between the paths were filled with gardens, shoots of vegetable plants sprouting up everywhere: a giant Victory Garden. I crossed a bridge spanning a long, narrow pond and found myself on a wide pathway called Rotten Row, for some very old historical reason, I hoped. I followed it and found myself back at Hyde Park Corner, which I had seen from the jeep that morning. I wandered some more and ended up at the back of a crowd stacked up outside a tall wrought-iron fence. It was Buckingham Palace itself, and I caught the tail end of the changing of the guard, gray-coated British troops marching back to their barracks and looking very imperial. I followed them for a while through St. James’s Park, and ended up back at Big Ben and Parliament. I stood there like a tourist back home gawking at the Old North Church, waiting for the bells to ring. It was the half hour, and I let the sounds wash over me, almost feeling the vibrations in my feet. How could people just walk around me, talking to each other, and not stop and listen? I kicked myself mentally for being such a rube in the city and walked along the Thames until I noticed a side road marked Downing Street. Everyone had heard about Number 10 Downing Street, the home of the British prime minister. I turned the corner and all of a sudden there it was, a couple of bobbies and a Royal Marine standing guard. If I’d moved quick enough, I could’ve gone up and knocked. Instead, I turned around and went back the way I had been headed. No sense getting Winston all riled up.
Getting my bearings in London made me feel less isolated and alone. I had a hard time realizing that I was simply out for a stroll, passing by places I had heard of all my life, that lately had become even more important as symbols of the fight against fascism. I remembered Edward R. Murrow talking about brave Londoners under the Blitz. Now I was one of them. A temporary Londoner, anyway. I couldn’t help getting caught up in all that heroic last-stand stuff, but I wasn’t so sure about the brave part.
I thought about what Uncle Dan, with a good dose of Irish Republican reality, would have to say about the British Empire and its capital city, London. I walked on, my feet starting to ache and a gritty tiredness creeping up on my eyelids. It was still light out and too early to hit the hay, so I trudged on, wanting to case the layout of the city streets as much as I could.
I was on Whitehall Street, another famous name symbolizing the British government, a street that Uncle Dan would spit on with joy. Whitehall emptied out into a big square, with a large water fountain in the center and a big, tall column off to the right. Trafalgar Square and the column dedicated to Admiral Nelson. Traffic flowed around the fountain, and young girls, walking arm in arm with guys in uniform from half a dozen countries, craned their necks up and stared. I heard English, French, and other languages I guessed were Polish and Dutch. I heard a Brooklyn accent and a couple of southern drawls, too, but no Boston accents, no one to remind me of home. I put my head down, feeling alone and tired, and turned right, away from the gaiety and this symbol of English world dominance.
I wandered down a crowded wide street jammed with traffic and pedestrians for a while but took a left into a more interesting little side street, deciding to try to loop around and find my way back to the hotel. Wellington Street—geez, did the English name everything after generals and admirals? Anyway, Wellington Street reminded me a little bit of Boston with its shops and narrow, curved turns. Coming from the direction of the river, the smells and the small streets almost made me nostalgic for my waterfront beat in the North End of Boston. I used to patrol the wharves along Commercial Street, and then turn in on Battery Street to check the shops on Hanover, all the way down to Haymarket and city hall. That was my first assignment as a bluecoat outside of South Boston, and it made me feel like a man of the world.
I first worked out of Station 12, at the corner of Fourth and K Street in Southie. I could walk to work, and my beat took me along F Street, right past the five-and-ten and Kresge’s, where I used to beg my mom to take me to shop for toys when I was a kid. I’d walk by the big glass windows and practice twirling my baton, like Dad taught me, dreaming of the day I’d be a detective, just like he was. Some days, I didn’t feel that much older than the kid who used to press his face against those store windows and dream of buying one of those six-gun cap pistols with belt and holster, just like Tom Mix. But that was the beginning of the Depression, and those six-guns gathered dust, until one day just before Christmas. They were gone, replaced by a display of matching knickers, mittens, and wool cap. I remember thinking that my folks had to have been the ones who bought them, skipping home through dirty slush, counting the mornings left until Christmas.
But there was no gunfight at the OK Corral for me that Christmas. I can still remember my heart breaking when my mom proudly gave me my present, a shoebox wrapped in tissue paper, too small and light to hold a Tom Mix six-shooter. She had knitted me socks, thick wool socks in an argyle pattern, and a set for my brother, same thing but in different colors. His were green and mine were red. Christmas colors. I threw the box down and bit my lip, far too old at ten to cry. Funny thing was, my mom cried. Then I did, too, and finally Danny joined in, just for the hell of it, I guess, since he was too young to know what was going on. Dad sat there, gripping his pipe in his mouth, nearly snapping the stem in his teeth, but not saying anything. Next Christmas, I got a double set of cap pistols, silver with white handles, and the holsters even had those strings so you could tie them down to your legs. Danny got a train set, and I was jealous until I realized he couldn’t have it set up all the time, but I could strap on my six-shooters and blast rolls of caps anytime.
It was still the Depression, but something had changed in our house. Dad started bringing presents home, and not just for special occasions either. On a regular weekday, he’d show up with a new coat for one of us, or canned hams, or bottles of whiskey, maybe a toaster. Stuff like that could sit on store shelves for months waiting for somebody with cash left over after paying the rent and the coal bill and the grocery tab to come along and take a fancy to it. But at our house, it was more like the stuff took a fancy to us and just started showing up.
When I finally got a transfer out of Southie, after walking a beat for a couple of years after I graduated from high school, it meant that I could be trusted as a rookie cop, that my desk sergeant, who was my second cousin, thought I could work on my own without a dozen relatives checking up on me every day.
I loved the waterfront, everything from the smell of salt water, oil, and dead fish to city hall, tipping my hat to Mayor Tobin once in a while and then doing the loop again, watching the ships come and go, thinking about where they were bound. How many ships did I watch steam off that ended up docking in the Thames? I never would’ve thought I’d end up here, too. I made a motion with my hand as if I were twirling my old baton, walking my beat, familiar territory beneath my feet. I wondered about the question Harding had asked me. Would I run into a burning London house to save an unknown English life, or would I stand by, waiting for the bobbies to show up? There was nothing in it for me, but I had a hard time picturing myself on the sidelines. I whistled a jig and went back to pleasanter thoughts, smiling at the memory of carrying fish home on the trolley from the market on Fish Pier. Everyone wanted a patrolman around, and there’d be no end to the cod and mackerel wrapped in newspaper and smelling of brine and ice you’d have pressed on you of a Friday afternoon.
Memories made me feel lonely, so I looked around for a distraction, and saw the Coach & Horses Pub, the front painted in a deep, dark red and a hand-lettered sign in the window that said ALWAYS SOMETHING READY TO EAT and DRAUGHT GUINNESS. Now it felt more like Boston, and this was a memory I didn’t mind. I went in.
Inside the pub, dark wood paneling, the color of brown shoe polish, lined the walls. Small lamps every few feet provided the only illumination. Cigarette smoke dulled the air while loud voices and laughter from the rear floated up to lighten the atmosphere. Couples sat at tables in the back and two silent older civilians occupied stools at the bar, pints before them in various stages of consumption. I took an empty seat at the end, and then realized I still didn’t have any English money. I would trade dollars for pounds tomorrow, but I wanted a Guinness today.
“What’ll it be, Yank?”
“A pint of Guinness, if you’ll take American money.”
“You’ve got no pounds nor pence then?”
“I just got here this morning. I haven’t had time to exchange my money.”
“I don’t know. ...” The barman had an uneasy look, as if he thought I was pulling a fast one.
“Oh come on, Bert,” one of the guys at the bar said. “Give the lad a break and take his money. He’s come all the way from America just today!”
He smiled and winked at me, his grin showing gaps in his teeth. He wore blue coveralls, like I had seen on the workmen at the bombed-out building earlier that morning. His hands were rough and callused and his gray hair stuck out in wisps above his ears. He had an easy laugh that broke down into a smoker’s wheeze that he treated with a pull on his pint.
“A pint of Guinness costs a quarter back in Boston,” I said, trying to be helpful.
“A quarter of wot?” Bert’s face scrunched up as he tried to figure out what I meant.
“Quarter of a dollar. Twenty-five cents. How about I give you a dollar and that should be more than enough for a pint for me and one each for my friends here?” I nodded in the direction of my bar mates.
“Wot I’ll do with a Yank dollar I don’t know, but all right. I hope the rest of your lot don’t expect the same.”
Pretty soon we all ended up shaking hands—Bert, the barman; George and Henry at the bar, both deliverymen for the markets at Covent Garden, which is where I had gotten myself to. I ended up trading that dollar for a five-spot, and hearing stories of the Great War, London during the worst of the Blitz, and where their sons were serving. Bert had a kid in Burma with the army, and was worried since he hadn’t gotten a letter in a month. George had two boys, both of whom had signed up with the Royal Navy, one on a destroyer out in the Atlantic and the other a mechanic at Scapa Flow. Henry had a daughter in the WRENs, just like Daphne, and a boy who had been in France with the BEF but made it out at Dunkirk.
“Lucky we are they’re all in one piece still,” George said, and Bert made himself busy with the glasses.
“Aye,” said Henry quietly, nodding his head as if in prayer. The war was still young.
I told them about Boston and entertained them with stories of all the murders I had solved. If I overstated my contribution, well, it was the Guinness talking. Sometime after dark they led me out to Piccadilly Circus, steered me down Piccadilly, and told me to walk straight until I came to Hyde Park.
“Big bloody green thing, in the daylight anyway, filled with potatoes, it is! Can’t miss it,” George said. “And good luck, lad.”
We all shook hands, and Henry slapped me on the back like an old pal. It was as if I was standing in for all of their kids, and the act of befriending me would spread out all over the world and bring acts of kindness to their children. I thought about Dad, and realized it was the kind of thing he’d do, too.
I walked until I came to Hyde Park Corner again. I thought about everything I had seen today and everything I had been taught all my life about the English. I knew two things for sure: first, that Ireland had to be free and united, and second, that Bert, George, and Henry and the woman on the stretcher with her hand raised in a V sign weren’t people I had an argument with.
I was pretty tired now, the flight, the long day, and the Guinness making the slight slope up Hyde Park feel steeper than it should have. I stuck my hands in my pockets and hunched forward, thinking of bed and sleep. The image that came to me was of my room at home and the bed I had slept in every night of my life, until this war came along. The bed I woke up in every Christmas morning, the “socks” Christmas, and the ones after that with toys, jewelry, and sweets for all.
One of those years, Dad converted a small room upstairs into his den. It had been full of boxes and junk, but one day he cleaned it out and the next day a leather sofa and chair showed up. Real leather, with brass nail heads showing. He got himself a used rolltop desk and announced it was a den. I had never heard of a den, except as caves for foxes in stories, and it sounded great to me. But it wasn’t for kids. His buddies would come over after work, or to drop off groceries or some special present. Uncle Dan too, and sometimes he’d bring his friends, who were nearly all IRA men. They carried guns, but they weren’t all cops. Not gangsters either, but something in between.
Dad carried the key to the room on his watch chain, and the key to his desk, too. No one was allowed in there, except Mom when she cleaned. It smelled of smoke, and she’d empty the ashtrays, open the window, and mop down the woodwork. She always did it after school, and I’d stand outside the door and look in, curious, wondering what the men did in there. I wanted my dad to pull out that key and unlock the door, put his hand on my shoulder, and invite me in. But he never did. Not even when I joined the force.
“Stay away from here,” he said. “And don’t bother the men.”
The men. I was standing there, in my new blue uniform, home from the first day on the job. Two of his pals were clumping up the stairs in their heavy cop shoes, the first guy a sergeant from the Back Bay station, carrying a gym bag.
“How’s the rookie doin’?” he said, to my father, not to me.
“Come on in, Basher. The rookie’s none of your concern now. Billy, begone with you.”
So what? Big deal. Who cares about a bunch of old guys drinking Jameson and smoking cigars anyway? But it was funny. Dad would spend hours with me at a crime scene, calling me down when I was off duty, to show me how he did things, how he looked for evidence, looked at how a body lay. He had worked Homicide for ten years and had one of the best solve rates in the city. He’d tell me anything about a case. But never in his den.
I realized I’d almost passed the Dorchester. Thinking about home, I almost forgot where I was. It was like I’d slipped back to Boston for a few minutes, and the sidewalk under my feet was leading from the station to my house. I was ready to fall asleep on my feet, and if I did, maybe I’d wake up and see my house, climb the steps, and turn the key in the lock on the front door, inhale the smells of supper, and walk up to my room, past the den and the muffled sounds of talk and harsh laughter.
I spent the next day reading about Norway, drinking coffee, and watching for Daphne to pass by my desk. I was better at the last two, but I did manage to absorb a few things. The Norwegians had gotten beaten pretty bad in 1940 when the Germans invaded. Even though the British, French, and Poles sent troops to help them, they’d all ended up with their tails between their legs. King Haakon escaped to England, where he set up a government in exile. The Norwegians had managed to pull a good one over on the Germans. Just as the Nazis were about to march into Oslo, the Norwegians made a little withdrawal from their treasury, about eight tons of gold. They took it by train, trucks, and even small boats along the coast, until they met up with British warships that carried the king and the gold to England. In the past two years they had used this money to build up an underground network of civilians back home. They called it the Underground Army, but it hadn’t done much yet. There was also the Norwegian Brigade here in England, made up of men who had escaped from Norway. They were about three thousand strong and growing, and they were itching to be the spearhead of an invasion to liberate their country. The Norwegians had their own commando units that worked with the British Special Operations Executive. Together with SOE units, they were conducting hit-and-run raids along the Norwegian coast, blowing up fisheries and fish-oil-processing plants. That sounded pointless until I read that fish oil was a key ingredient in making nitroglycerin. War certainly is educational.
I hadn’t gotten much farther when I saw Daphne approaching my desk. I sat up straight and tried to look important, so I could pretend to be too busy to speak to her for a minute. My plan fell apart when I saw that she was with another guy and seemed to be stealing sideways glances at him and whispering as they walked toward me. A quick look told me he was an unlikely guy for me to be jealous of, but that didn’t really matter at the moment. My heart was broken.
“Lieutenant Boyle,” Daphne said, as if she were introducing two generals, “this is Lieutenant Piotr Augustus Kazimierz. He will be going to Beardsley Hall with you and Major Harding.”
I didn’t know what a Beardsley Hall was, but I did know my dear Daphne was smiling warmly at this Peter whatever-his-name-was. He was a slight guy, a few inches shorter than me, with thick glasses and a faint smile on his face. His hair was sandy and his eyes a grey-blue. He wore a British uniform with “Poland” stitched on the upper sleeve. He was half the kid you wanted to beat up in school and half Leslie Howard. I could tell which half Daphne saw. But my mother had taught me my manners. I stood.
“Glad to meet you, Lieutenant. . . .”
“Kazimierz. Call me Kaz if it’s easier. It is for most Americans.”
“OK, Kaz. I’m Billy. What’s Beardsley Hall?”
Daphne held up a hand. “Before you answer, Baron, Lieutenant Boyle has to sign something.” She fished through a file folder marked TOP SECRET.
“Baron? Like the Red Baron?”
Kaz looked embarrassed; his pale skin showed a red flush easily. I had almost said I didn’t know Polacks had barons, but was saved by Daphne.
“Piotr is a baron of the Augustus clan in Poland, not that I would expect you to know that,” Daphne said, as if I were the original colonial clod. “Now sign this.”
Polish barons, Norwegian royalty, and top-secret documents. Not my normal day, but I tried to hold my own.
“Sign what?” I asked.
“The Official Secrets Act. It means they can shoot one if one reveals any military secrets. We’ve all signed it,” she added casually, handing me a pen. Almost a little eagerly, I thought. I wrote my name, trying to keep my hand steady and look nonchalant.
“Don’t worry, Billy, they haven’t shot anyone yet,” Kaz offered helpfully. “But I hear there’s one chap who drew ten years’ hard labor.” He spoke the King’s English with a slight trace of an accent that was nothing like the heavily accented Polish I was used to hearing in a few Boston neighborhoods. I laughed to show him I knew he was joking. I hoped he was.
“I better be careful. I hate any kind of labor,” I said as I handed the pen back to Daphne.
“Do tell,” she said, snapping up the form as she turned on her heel and walked away, leaving me with the little Polish guy she’d been flirting with. Kaz smiled, barely able to suppress a laugh at my expense.
“What did I say?” I wondered.
“Daphne works very hard, and expects everyone to do so as well.”
“One must do one’s duty, right?”
“Well, well, Lieutenant . . . I mean Billy. I think it will be fun to watch you and Daphne work together. A real test of the Allied alliance.”
Behind those glasses I could see his eyes twinkle and one eyebrow raise. Most guys would get steamed at a crack about their girl, or at least jealous. Kaz seemed confident, like he knew Daphne could hold her own with me. Maybe even mop the floor with me.
“Have a seat,” I said, offering the chair next to my desk as I sat down. “Don’t pay me any mind, Kaz, I just like to ruffle feathers.”
“You like to pet birds?” Kaz asked, looking at me like I was nuts.
“No, no, it’s just an expression. Meaning that I like to stir things up, rile people up.”
“Ah,” he said, tapping his finger against his cheek as he looked up at the ceiling, as if committing the phrase to memory. “I am a student of languages, but there is always so much to learn, so many idioms that are not in the textbooks. Ruffling feathers, yes. So, where were we?”
“Beardsley Hall. What and where is it?”
“It is where the Norwegian government in exile holds court, and where we are going tomorrow. North of the city, on the coast. If you will be so kind as to join me for dinner tonight, I will explain everything to you, in more comfortable surroundings. We must enjoy a good meal before we dine with the Norwegians. They are sure to feed us pickled herring and other arctic delicacies. Okropny.” He made a face like a kid who was made to eat boiled spinach.
“Lousy?” I guessed.
“Terrible. Stusznie okropny.” Kaz had a pleasant smile, the kind that said he found just about everything amusing, including himself. Since I couldn’t see the advantage in taking things too seriously myself, I admired this attitude.
“Dinner sounds good, best offer so far today, Kaz. Where?”
“In my rooms at the Dorchester. At seven o’clock.” He got up, tossed off a mock salute, and left.
Rooms? Maybe his command of the English language wasn’t so great after all. I got his room number and went back to my pile of files. I finished the stack of papers on my desk and very carefully put them back in a filing cabinet and locked it tight, thinking about the Official Secrets Act and wondering if Daphne had been kidding about getting shot. I visited the HQ company clerk and exchanged my dollars for British pounds before calling it a day and heading back to the Dorchester.
I had no idea what the dress code was, but I had only one uniform jacket, so I brushed it and tried to shake out the wrinkles. Kaz had worn the standard-issue British wool battle-dress jacket, but it seemed to have been tailored just for him. For a little guy, he wore a uniform well. I put on a clean khaki shirt and knotted my tie—scarf—neatly. I thought I looked good. At seven I went down the stairs to the tenth floor. I walked down the hall, which was nicely carpeted and well lit. The doors were very far apart. I wonder if Kaz had his own private bathroom.
When I gave his door a sharp rap, I got two big surprises. Daphne opened the door. She wore a smile and the kind of evening gown I had only seen in movies, like the dresses Ginger Rogers wore when she danced with Fred Astaire. And her light brown hair cascaded over her bare shoulders, setting off a necklace that sparkled with more diamonds than I had ever seen, except for the time I caught Tommy Fortunato after that jewelry-store heist.
Three surprises, actually. Daphne and her attire counted as two. Stretching behind her was a wide wood-paneled hallway lit by a crystal chandelier. The triple surprise must have shown on my face. Daphne took my arm in hers and led me in with a smile.
“So glad you could join us, Lieutenant. I take it your clothes haven’t arrived yet?”
I almost told her I had all my socks and underwear with me. I almost said, “Yessir,” but that only worked with Harding. Was she was needling me or on the level? I had to say something and was stunned to hear myself ask, “Are you needling me or are you on the level?”
She giggled, covering her lips with two delicate fingers, and I got my answer. We finally reached the end of that long hallway. It opened into a wood-paneled sitting room with an even larger chandelier hanging from a domed ceiling. Kaz stood at the window, closing the blackout curtains. I caught a glimpse of Hyde Park across the street, visible in the lengthening evening shadows. My room came with a windowpane the size of my hat that looked out at the next building.
He turned and extended his hand. “Welcome, Billy, to my humble home.” He was dressed in a tuxedo that didn’t look like a rental. There was a table set for three and champagne on ice.
“Nice place, Kaz. Sure your roommates won’t mind us eating without them?” I always thought a wiseass remark was a good substitute for self-confidence.
“Very good, Billy. Roommates. Wspótlokatorzy. I like that.” Kaz laughed as he opened the champagne. That pissed me off and at the same time made me like him even more.
“Let us drink to the Dorchester Hotel, an oasis of civility within a world in chaos. Do you know they never closed the kitchens, even during the Blitz?” He poured three tall, narrow glasses, and I decided not to tell him I preferred Guinness on tap.
We clinked glasses, and this champagne tasted a lot better than anything I ever drank at a Boston wedding. I felt a little nervous, like I’d been invited to a swanky party in Beacon Hill by mistake, and had to fig-ure out how to act with the swells. I looked around, trying to think of something to say.
“OK, Kaz, I gotta admit it. This place is really something. How do you rate this while I’m stuck in the attic?”
“Listen, Lieutenant Boyle,” Daphne spoke sharply, “you—”
“Call me Billy, please. It will make me feel so much better when you yell at me.”
Daphne smiled a little, and I noticed she was wearing makeup and lipstick. She looked really beautiful all dolled up. The real trick was that she’d also looked beautiful in that WREN uniform with no makeup.
“Very well, Billy. I won’t yell at you. But you should know General Eisenhower kicked a colonel out of that room for you. He wanted to have you close by. He also has rooms here. Even for Americans, the Dorchester is exclusive real estate these days.”
Kaz refilled our glasses. “For myself, Billy, I must admit that I’ve always had a weakness for the Dorchester. I stayed here with my parents when it was new in 1932. When I was at Oxford, they would visit once a year and they always stayed here, in this very suite. We spent Christmas 1938 in this room, with my two sisters.” His eyes drifted away and focused on something that I couldn’t see.
“Where are they now? Still in Poland?”
No response. Kaz just seemed to be in a dream. Daphne reached out to touch his arm. He came back from wherever he was.
“They are dead. All of them.”
He set down his champagne at his place and sat. I realized it was the first time I’d met anyone who had actually suffered from the war. Back home it was all newspaper headlines and here it had been file folders, coffee, and drinking buddies so far. I felt bad about asking, but I could tell he had his pain carefully stored in that faraway place. So I asked.
“How?”
“The Nazis decided to eliminate anyone who might resist them. The intelligentsia, officers, government officials. And the aristocracy. We do not have a monarch, but the ancient clans had their leaders, their barons and counts. Or had them.” He was quiet for a minute. Daphne and I sat down, and she filled in the rest.
“Piotr was at Oxford, doing graduate work in foreign languages when the war broke out. He volunteered for the Polish Free Corps when they organized here.”
“So how did you end up with Eisenhower?”
“The Polish Army was gracious enough to grant me a commission. I have a heart condition that would normally keep me from active service, but I know a number of European languages, a talent that is suddenly in great demand.”
“And all this?” I gestured around the room.
“My father had significant land holdings and investments. He was a very shrewd businessman, and knew that sooner or later Poland would be overrun from the east or the west. He was right, except it was from both directions. He kept most of the family fortune in Swiss accounts. I am now the sole beneficiary of his wisdom.”
“So you stay here where you have good memories.”
“It is all that is left, Billy. In my country, there is even less.”
“I hope you’ve got plenty stashed away. This place must cost a fortune. Hope your money lasts longer than the war.” Daphne shot me a glance that said, shut up. Maybe you didn’t talk about other people’s money in England. Then I saw a sadness in Kaz’s eyes as he looked at Daphne.
“That is of little concern. Now, let us talk about Norwegians before the food is brought up.” It didn’t take a Beantown detective to figure out all that money would probably outlast his heart. I was glad of the change of subject.
Kaz gave me the lowdown on the meetings with the Norwegians. Major Harding was going to Beardsley Hall to give the king and his advisers a top-secret briefing. Kaz was to be his interpreter, although most of the Norwegians spoke English to one degree or another. I was to go as—well, let’s just say I was going, too.
The briefing was about Operation Jupiter. When he mentioned that name, Kaz lowered his voice and looked around as if we were standing on a Berlin street corner. Operation Jupiter was the plan for the invasion of Norway. It had been created by the British, but they hadn’t had the resources to carry it out until we entered the war. Now it was going to be the Allies’ first offensive against the Third Reich. Before winter set in, we were going to invade Norway. British and American forces, along with the Norwegians, were going to take Norway back. This would protect the Murmansk convoys bringing supplies to the Russians, and give the Allies air bases within fighter range of Berlin. It sounded like we were about to win the war.
The Norwegians had been lobbying for Operation Jupiter, and now they were going to be told it was on. We were going to deliver the news jointly with a British delegation headed by a Major Charles Cosgrove. The Norwegians were going to have their government officials there, along with officers from the Norwegian Brigade and commando units. It sounded like we would be heroes.
“Should be a breeze.”
“Breeze?” Kaz asked quizzically.
“He means it should be easy,” Daphne explained.
“Ah! Yes, I understand, but actually it may be more like heavy winds. Ciękie wiatry, my friend.”
There was a knock at the door. The food came in, two carts’ worth of covered plates and bowls. It smelled great, and we never got back to why it wouldn’t be such a breeze.