2

THE HOUSE ON Q STREET, NW
1715 HOURS
AUGUST 3, 1942

 
When he heard the sliding door to the library open, Lieutenant Colonel Edmund T. Stevens, a tall, thin, silver-haired man in his late forties, looked up from a first-edition copy of Lee in Northern Virginia he had found on the shelves.

A young man walked in, raised his eyebrows when he saw Stevens, and said, “Good afternoon, Colonel,” then walked directly to a cabinet that contained—hid, Stevens thought; I had no idea that was there—not only an array of liquor bottles but a small refrigerator and a stock of glasses.

The young man selected a bottle of Scotch. “Can I fix you something, Colonel?” he asked.

Colonel Stevens, who was usually self-assured, was now surprisingly hesitant. He was on alien ground. He didn’t know how to behave. There was to be a “working dinner,” he had been told, with Captain Peter Douglass, and he wondered if he should appear at that with liquor on his breath.

He decided that whoever this young man was, he was probably part of the establishment—he certainly showed no uneasiness about helping himself to the hidden liquor—and that suggested that alcohol was not proscribed in a place where everything else seemed to be.

“Yes, if you’ll be so kind,” Stevens said. “Some of that Scotch and a splash of water will be fine.”

The young man did not offer his name, and Stevens did not offer his.

Cynthia Chenowith came into the room.

“They told me you were here,” she said.

“In your voice there is an implication I should have marched into your office, stood to attention, saluted, and announced my arrival formally,” the young man said.

“Colonel Stevens,” Cynthia Chenowith said, in control of herself but tight-lipped, “this is Major Canidy.”

They shook hands. Colonel Stevens had heard a good deal about Major Canidy in the past few days. He knew he was scheduled to meet him, but was surprised by the civilian clothing.

“Dinner will be at seven,” Cynthia said. “The others will be here shortly.”

“Is it a command performance?” Canidy asked. “If so, what others?”

“If by that you’re asking if you are expected to be there, Dick, the answer is yes, you are.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Canidy said. “I’ll look forward to it, Ma’am.”

She walked toward the door and had just about reached it when Canidy said, softly but loud enough for her to hear, “Nice tail, wouldn’t you say, Colonel?”

Cynthia spun around.

Canidy was stroking the tail feathers of a cast-bronze pheasant sitting on a bookcase shelf. He smiled at her benignly.

“Something else, Cynthia?” he asked innocently.

She turned around again and marched out of the room.

Canidy looked at Colonel Stevens, his eyes mischievous.

“Sometimes, if I’m lucky,” he said, “I can get her to swear. You’d be surprised at the words that refined young woman has in her vocabulary.”

Although he wasn’t sure why, Stevens heard himself laugh. He wondered what was behind the exchange.

“She implied that you’ll be at dinner,” Canidy said.

“Yes, I will be,” Stevens said.

“Does that mean you’re one of us?”

“Yes, I suppose I am,” Stevens said. “A very new one, however.”

“I would ask what they have you doing,” Canidy said, “and what the dinner is all about, but if I do that, tight-lipped little men will suddenly leap out of the woodwork, crying, ‘Shame on you, you broke the rules,’ and confiscate the booze.”

Stevens laughed again. When he’d seen Bill Donovan, Donovan had told him not to be put off by Canidy’s irreverent attitude, and that he was where it counted a very good man. Stevens had also been told both about Canidy’s exploits in the air and that he’d completed a secret mission in Morocco.

This irreverent young man, Stevens thought, is a veteran.

 
When the Second World War had started, Stevens himself had been a civilian. And his somewhat sad judgment at the time was that he would not serve at all. Even if they scraped him from the bottom of the barrel and put him back in uniform, they’d make him a troop morale officer, or some such, at a remote training camp in Arkansas or South Dakota. He had made inquiries in 1940, and it had been made quite clear to him that he was persona non grata at the War Department.

In 1937, after sixteen years of commissioned service following his graduation from the Military Academy at West Point with the class of 1921, Edmund T. Stevens resigned from the Army. He had risen only, in a decade and a half, to captain in the Coast Artillery Corps.

From the beginning, his wife never liked the service, and there had been constant pressure from her, from her family, and from his own family for him to give it up. Clearly he was not destined for high rank or important command. The pay was very low, and the environment not right for the children. Subtly and bluntly they put it to him that he was no longer a child; and, as it says in the Bible, it was time for him “to put away childish things.”

Bitterly disappointed when he did not find his name on the majors list in the spring of 1937, he submitted his resignation. He took his family from Fort Bliss, Texas, to New York, where a place was quickly found for him in his wife’s father’s business, the importing of European canned goods and wines.

By the fall of 1938, by dint of hard work, and, he joked, because his wife had inherited controlling interest in the firm, he had been elected vice president for European operations and sent to London. The Stevenses had a splendid year before the war started. The boys loved their school despite the absurd hats and customs, which left Debbie and him alone together in London on what was almost a second honeymoon. On their first, there hadn’t been much they could afford on his second lieutenant’s pay.

When war came to England, they sadly boarded the Queen Mary for New York.

Shortly before Pearl Harbor, Edmund T. Stevens ran into William J. Donovan in the bar at the Baltusrol Country Club in New Jersey. Donovan asked him how he planned to spend the war, and Stevens, somewhat stiffly, told Donovan that he thought he could qualify for a commission in the Quartermaster Corps.

“You’re going back in the Army?” Donovan asked, surprised.

“If they’ll have me,” Stevens confessed. “It’s been made rather clear to me that I have let the side down. I don’t think I could get a commission in artillery again, but perhaps, if there’s a war, maybe in the Quartermaster Corps. I now know a good deal about how to store canned goods.”

“Don’t be surprised if I get in touch,” Donovan said, and then something happened to interrupt the conversation.

By the time war came, Stevens managed to get a reserve commission as a captain, QMC. This was based more on his canned-goods experience than on his West Point diploma and previous service, but there had been no telegram ordering Captain Stevens of the Quartermaster Corps (Reserve) to arrange his affairs so that he could enter upon extended active service. Disappointed but not really surprised, he put military service from his mind, forgot the Baltusrol Golf Club conversation he had had with Colonel Wild Bill Donovan, and went back to the family business.

And then one day, wearing a look of utter confusion on her face, his secretary put her head in the door and said there was an Army officer on the telephone, asking for Colonel Stevens.

“This is Edmund Stevens,” he said when he had picked up the telephone.

“Hold on, please, Colonel, for Colonel Donovan,” a woman on the line said.

“Ed,” Donovan asked without preliminaries, “how soon can you get down here? I need you right now.”

Despite a surprisingly emotional reaction—Pavlovian drooling at the sound of a military trumpet, he told himself—Stevens could not, as Donovan wanted, catch the next Congressional Limited for Washington. Stevens wasn’t able to get to Washington until eleven-thirty the next morning.

His wife was furious: He was simply too old to go running off the moment Bill Donovan blew his bugle. He considered his wife’s arguments on the ride to Washington. They were reinforced by his uncomfortable awareness that he was wearing a uniform that no longer fit.

It was worse in Washington. As he walked across the waiting room at Union Station, a military policeman stopped him and informed him that the leather Sam Browne belt he was wearing had been proscribed for more than a year. He was sorry, he said, but he had his orders, and would have to issue Stevens a citation for being out of uniform. He then asked for Stevens’s ID card, and of course Stevens didn’t have one.

Stevens had resigned himself to arrest for impersonating an officer when a man walked up, asked if he was Edmund T. Stevens, and then flashed some sort of identity card. The MP backed off immediately.

“I’m Chief Ellis, Colonel,” the man said. “Captain Douglass sent me to fetch you. I must have missed you on the platform.”

“It’s Captain Stevens,” Stevens insisted.

“Yes, Sir, whatever you say, Sir,” Ellis said.

He then took Stevens to the dining room in the Wardman Park Hotel, where Colonel Donovan and Captain Peter Douglass were about to take luncheon.

That afternoon was the first Stevens heard of the Office of Strategic Services. Over broiled scrod Donovan told him that he wanted Stevens to go to London for that organization and serve as sort of secretary-treasurer of the office he had established there. What was needed over there right away, Donovan said, was someone with enough military experience to deal with the military from whom OSS was drawing ninety percent of its logistical support, as well as someone familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the “natives.” Since Stevens obviously met both criteria, Donovan felt certain he would accept the job. Stevens of course agreed.

“Buy yourself some silver leaves, Colonel,” Donovan said, handing him a War Department general order, four consecutive paragraphs of which promoted Captain Stevens, Quartermaster Corps, U.S. Army Reserve, to lieutenant colonel; ordered Lieutenant Colonel Stevens to extended active duty for the duration of the war plus six months; detailed him to the General Staff Corps for duty with the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and further reassigned him to the Office of Strategic Services.

Stevens spent the next several days in briefing, most of which he didn’t understand, and, honor-bound, told Captain Peter Douglass about it.

“Once you get over there, it will all fall in place,” Douglass had said. “And tomorrow night there will be a working dinner, and things should be a lot clearer after that. If you’d like, you could take the day off and go home. Just be back here by, say, half past five tomorrow afternoon.”

“I will have some sort of leave before I actually go to London, won’t I?”

“I don’t think that will be possible right now,” Douglass said. “But you’ll be coming back and forth, I’m sure, and we’ll work something out then.”

His wife was furious and heartsick when he announced he was leaving for overseas practically immediately. But his private reaction—though he was careful not to show it—was exultation, as if he had been pardoned from prison.

 
As Canidy made himself—Stevens politely declined—a second drink, a muscular young first lieutenant in Class-A uniform—pink trousers and green blouse and glossy jump boots—arrived, soon after followed by a somewhat better-looking young man also wearing pinks and greens, but with no insignia except for parachutist’s wings on the breast.

“What’s he dressed for, Martin?” Canidy asked.

“His commission came through, Sir,” Martin said.

“Where’s his insignia?”

“He hasn’t been sworn in yet, Sir,” Martin said. “I thought it best to wait for that before pinning on his insignia.”

“If I didn’t know better, Martin,” Canidy said, “I would mistake you for a West Pointer.”

Martin, Colonel Stevens thought, isn’t sure if he has been complimented or insulted. And Major Canidy, come to think of it, certainly wouldn’t have made that crack if he suspected that this middle-aged retread warrior marched in the Long Gray Line.

“Do those little silver wings mean what I think they do?” Canidy asked. “That you have willingly been jumping out of airplanes?”

“Why don’t you lay off me, Dick?” the handsome young man snapped.

“Eric, if you are going to be an officer and a gentleman, you will have to learn to treat your superior officers with much greater respect.”

The man glared at him but said nothing.

“Is Captain Whittaker with you?” Canidy asked.

“Yes, Sir,” Martin said. “He went to say hello to Miss Chenowith.”

“I don’t think saying hello is exactly what he had in mind,” Canidy said. “Oh, excuse me, Colonel. These gentlemen are Lieutenant Martin and about-to-be-Lieutenant Fulmar. They jump out of airplanes.”

The announcement was not entirely necessary. As part of his briefing, Stevens had read both officers’ dossiers. But now, he thought, he could put faces with names.

“My name is Stevens,” he said. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

Captain Douglass, Captain Whittaker, and Miss Cynthia Chenowith came into the library together a few minutes later, trailed almost immediately by Charity Hoche pushing a butler’s tray loaded with hors d’oeuvres.

They also serve, Canidy thought, who pass the canapés.

“I thought a small celebration was in order,” Douglass said, “to mark this momentous occasion.”

“What momentous occasion?” Canidy asked.

“The swearing in of Eric Fulmar as a commissioned officer,” Douglass said. “I thought that I would ask Colonel Stevens, as the senior Army officer present, to do the honors.”

“I’d be honored,” Colonel Stevens said.

And Fulmar put his hand on the Bible, took the oath, and stood silently as Stevens and Douglass pinned the gold bars of a second lieutenant to the epaulets of Fulmar’s tunic.

Then everyone solemnly shook Eric’s hand and congratulated him, during which time Canidy had a premonition that Fulmar was somehow once again getting the shaft—even if he couldn’t figure out how.

Charity Hoche, meanwhile, gave Fulmar an unusually intimate kiss, and Canidy supposed that if she was half as casual with her favors as Ann claimed she was, the kiss was only a sample of what Eric would get in the way of a present later tonight. That didn’t surprise him. What did was that when they went in to dinner, a place at the table had been set for her.

Douglass began the business part of the dinner by offering a flattering résumé of Lieutenant Colonel Stevens’s military and civilian experience. He followed that with an announcement: On their arrival in London Stevens would assume the duty of deputy chief of station.

“On whose arrival in London?” Canidy asked.

“Yours,” Douglass said. He inclined his head slightly toward Charity Hoche. Now she really surprised Canidy.

“The aircraft arrived at Anacostia at 1530,” she said. “The crew was sent over to ONI. They will be here in about an hour.”

“What aircraft?” Canidy asked. “I guess I’m not too bright, but I don’t understand what she’s talking about.”

“We have borrowed a C-46 from the Navy,” Charity Hoche went on, completely in charge of the situation. “They were about to put it in service as sort of a VIP transport, flying Navy brass hats between the West Coast and Hawaii, but we had a higher priority, of course. They’re more than a little miffed, Dick. It may be necessary for you to smooth their feathers a little.”

“Why have we borrowed a C-46?” Canidy asked.

“To take Admiral de Verbey and his staff to England,” Captain Douglass said, “in a manner fitting a very senior French naval officer. And for other purposes, which you and I will get into a little later.”

Canidy knew what the “other purposes” were. It was obvious that the Navy C-46 was the backup aircraft for the African flight. But he did not understand the business of moving Admiral de Verbey to England.

“Barring objections from you, Dick,” Charity went on, “you’re scheduled to depart Anacostia at 0845 hours tomorrow. The admiral and his staff will be waiting for you at Lakehurst from 0915. That should put you into Newark by 1030, with departure for England sometime tomorrow afternoon. That means you will have to leave here no later than 0800 tomorrow. It will take two cars to carry all of you and your luggage. I’ll drive the station wagon and Chief Ellis the Buick. I checked just a few minutes ago, and there will be no problem with the weather, either here or in New Jersey.”

“Got all that so far, Dick?” Captain Douglass asked. “Any questions so far?”

When Canidy looked at him, Douglass’s eyes were smiling. He was enjoying Charity Hoche’s briefing—and Canidy’s reaction to it.

“No questions so far,” Canidy said.

“London has been alerted to your arrival, and I’ll reconfirm, of course,” Charity went on, “once we have your departure time from Newark. You’ll be met at Croydon and taken to the Dorchester, where you’ll be put up for at least two days before going on to Whitby House.”

“Whitby House?” Canidy asked.

“The Dorchester?” Stevens asked simultaneously, obviously surprised.

Canidy made a gesture, deferring to Colonel Stevens.

“Colonel Donovan thought you would like that, Colonel,” Captain Douglass said.

“What’s the Dorchester?” Canidy asked.

“It’s arguably the best hotel in London,” Stevens said.

“What’s behind this touching interest in our physical comfort?” Canidy asked.

“We want to make sure that Admiral de Verbey is comfortable,” Douglass said, “and that his arrival in England is not missed by certain people.”

“And what’s Whitby House?” Canidy asked.

“It’s been considered necessary,” Douglass said, “for us to set up a close working relationship with what the British call the Special Operations Executive, SOE being much like the OSS—except, as Colonel Donovan points out, they know what they’re doing.

“They operate what they call SOE Research and Development Station IX on a requisitioned estate near London. It’s sort of a combination of Summer Place and the estate; it houses their agent-training facilities and serves as a hotel or billet. It is our intention to set up a similar facility as soon as possible. Another estate—they call them country houses—has been made available to us. It’s called Whitby House. It is the ancestral home of the dukes of Stanfield.”

“And you’re going to move the admiral there?” Canidy asked.

“You’re going to move him there, Dick,” Douglass said. “He remains your responsibility. You will report to Colonel Stevens. You know what is needed in the way of security and communications, and Colonel Stevens will arrange for you to get what you need. While you and Captain Whittaker are doing that, Lieutenants Martin and Fulmar will go through the SOE agent school at Station IX. SOE has also agreed to make available some of their staff to help us set up and operate our own training course—at least for the time being.”

“Charity,” Douglass said after dinner was over, “do you think you could amuse Captain Whittaker and Lieutenants Fulmar and Martin while Cynthia and I go over some details with Colonel Stevens and Major Canidy?”

When they had gone, Douglass said, “There are some things the others don’t have the need to know.”

“No kidding?” Canidy asked in sarcastic innocence.

Cynthia gave him a dirty look. Douglass shook his head in resignation, but Stevens smiled. Canidy saw it and smiled conspiratorially at him.

“Are we going to let the admiral try to steal the Jean Bart?” Canidy asked.

“There has been no decision about that,” Douglass said, taking Canidy’s question at face value. “What we’re up to is a little political blackmail. General de Gaulle is giving General Eisenhower fits. More than fits. Eisenhower believes that de Gaulle can cause enormous mischief during Operation Torch. If he gets away with that, Ike is certain he’ll raise even more trouble when we are ready to invade the European landmass. And if we decide to make the landing in France . . . Jesus! Eisenhower, therefore, wants very badly to get de Gaulle off his back. He has recommended that we withdraw our support from him entirely. The British rather strongly object.”

“May I ask why? What do they recommend? Do they side with de Gaulle?” Colonel Stevens asked. “If that came up in the briefings, I’m afraid I missed it.”

“The British completely agree that de Gaulle spells more trouble than he is worth,” Douglass said evenly. “They suggested that it would be most convenient if de Gaulle were to have a fatal accident.”

“My, my!” Canidy said. “Would they do it?”

“Certainly,” Douglass said. “But neither Eisenhower nor the President is willing to go that far. At least not yet. Eisenhower has suggested—and Roosevelt has approved—another tack. If General de Gaulle learns that we have ‘secretly’ brought the admiral to England, perhaps he will find it in himself to be a bit more cooperative. He just might realize that he is only the self-anointed head of the French government in exile.”

“Why bring in the admiral secretly?” Canidy asked.

“If we officially imported the admiral, that would be a confrontation,” Douglass explained. “Eisenhower doesn’t want that confrontation if it can be avoided. If we secretly import him, while taking pains to make sure de Gaulle knows, that’s something else. And, of course, the threat to replace de Gaulle with Admiral de Verbey will not be entirely a bluff. If Roosevelt decides that de Gaulle has to go, we’ll have de Verbey in place.”

“So we continue to let the admiral believe we’re going along with his steal-the-battleship idea in order to make him behave in England?”

“It really is still under consideration,” Douglass said. “It has gone from ‘impossible’ to ‘possible, but probably not worth the effort.’”

“What about the plane? Is that just to make sure de Gaulle doesn’t miss the admiral? Or is there anything else?”

“I’m impressed, Dick,” Douglass said. “You’re learning that simply asking questions often gives things away. In this case, your concern is not necessary. Colonel Stevens knows all about the African flight. To answer your question, yes, the Navy plane is the backup aircraft for the African mission. As soon as you land in England, it will be taken to a guarded hangar and stripped of its seats, the way the Pan American plane has been. We hope that de Gaulle will believe the airplane has been reserved for the admiral’s exclusive use and put in a hangar to await his pleasure. De Gaulle’s been after Eisenhower to get him a personal C-47, and Eisenhower hasn’t elected to give him one. We think de Gaulle’s monstrous ego will be bruised.”

“You are a devious man, Captain Douglass,” Canidy said, chuckling.

“Somehow, that sounds like a compliment,” Douglass said. “I guess around here it really is.”

“Right up there with chicanery, fraud, and false pretense,” Canidy said.

“There’s one thing,” Douglass said, “that I don’t want you to think of as simply another stage prop in this scenario.”

“What’s that?”

“We have arranged for a battalion of infantry to guard Whitby House,” Douglass said.

“There are twelve hundred men in a battalion!”

“I thought a battalion was a bit excessive,” Douglass said. “But Eisenhower overruled me. He seems to feel that de Gaulle couldn’t help but be impressed with the admiral’s importance if we chose to guard him with that large a force.”

“I could use maybe a company,” Canidy thought aloud. “The others could just be there and do what they normally do.”

“Rather than make an issue of it, I decided just about the same thing,” Douglass said. “But I’d like to make the point that you’re really going to have to guard him, Dick.”

Canidy looked at him curiously. “You’re suggesting something,” he said.

“The admiral didn’t pose a real and present danger to de Gaulle so long as he was in New Jersey,” Douglass said. “He will at Whitby House. You’ll have to keep that in mind. More important, you will have to impress it upon the commanding officer of the infantry battalion.”

“This Brigadier de Gaulle seems to be a charming fellow,” Canidy said.

“I think he really believes God appointed him to save France,” Douglass said. “People who take their orders directly from God are often difficult and dangerous.”

“How much of this can I tell Whittaker, Martin, and Fulmar?” Canidy asked.

“When you think Whittaker should know, you are authorized to tell him there is a bona fide threat to Admiral de Verbey’s life.”

“And the others?”

“I’ll leave it up to you, but I can think of no reason they have to know.”

“Then why are you sending them along in the first place?” Douglass and Stevens exchanged glances.

“Tomorrow morning,” Douglass said, “Chief Ellis will deliver to Colonel Stevens a small suitcase. It will contain a little over one million dollars in American, English, French, and Swiss currency. Most of it will be used for other purposes by the London station, but possibly two hundred fifty thousand dollars of it—Murphy is still negotiating with Sidi el Ferruch—will be sent to Morocco. Fulmar and Martin will take it in.”

Canidy looked at Douglass for a long moment considering that. The money didn’t surprise him. Fine was carrying a hundred thousand dollars in cash. Something else bothered him.

“And you’re not going to tell me, are you,” he asked, “why you just don’t send it in the diplomatic pouch?”

“Not in specifics,” Douglass said.

“How about philosophically?” Canidy asked.

“Before you ask someone to do something important, it’s often necessary to ask him to do something somewhat less important, to see how he handles it.”

“You mean to see if he can be trusted,” Canidy said, and then he understood. “You’re not talking about Fulmar,” he said. “You’re talking about von Heurten-Mitnitz. You’re going to put Fulmar on his plate like a bone in front of a dog, and see if he can resist it.”

“That’s your scenario,” Douglass said.

“Oh, Christ!” Canidy said. But that was all he said.

Donovan was right, Stevens decided. Canidy is, where it counts, a very good man.