The Secret Warriors

Captain the Duchess Stanfield, WRAC, was not at all surprised when wakened by the sound of a whistle, and then a cheerful voice bellowing, “Awright, awright, drop your cocks and pick up your socks, it’s that time, haul your ass out of the sack!”

There had been an essentially identical announcement the night before at 10:00 P.M., shortly after she had gone to sleep on an American Army folding canvas cot in a nine-by-twenty-foot room that had been, she recalled, her downstairs housekeeper’s broom closet.

Similar whistle blowing and picaresque admonitions to the guard came at midnight and at 2:00 A.M. The racket lasted about five minutes. The whistle blowing and obscenities—some clever, some simply vulgar—roused the thirty-odd men of the guard relief from their cots in tents erected close behind her window.

After they were up, the guards were formed in ranks and loaded aboard two large trucks. The trucks were then driven off with loud clashes of gears and roaring whines of transmissions. Ten minutes or so later—just long enough for her to begin to fall asleep—the trucks returned with the just-relieved guard, who, following another picaresque announcement from the sergeant, entered the tents, exchanged colorful obscenities as they removed their boots, then slept.

The difference between the British Army and the American Army, she concluded afterward, is that the British Tommy suffers the obscene exhortations of his sergeant in silence, while the American GI, to the delight of his peers, is quick to exchange obscenity for obscenity, and he apparently does it with impunity. She could scarcely imagine a British sergeant accepting a suggestion shouted from the ranks that he “knock off the fucking bullshit!”

Captain the Duchess Stanfield, WRAC, whose Christian names were Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, knew by now she would probably not get back to sleep. She usually was a sound sleeper. But once woken it was hard for her to get back to sleep. This was the third time she had been awakened.

She was naked between the American Army sheets. It had either been that or sleep in her underwear. She did not like to sleep in a brassiere, and her slip was standard issue, which meant it was skimpy and abrasive. One of the supplemental benefits of her new assignment would be access to her own linen, presuming she could find it.

When Whitby House had been requisitioned, the staff had of course carefully packed away all her personal things. But the staff was now gone, and she had not a notion where in the house her trunks had been stored.

And because I wasn’t able to go looking for them last night, she thought, I was forced to sleep naked in the broom closet while a young and distinctly unpleasant American major slept in my husband’s bed.

But then she came to realize that there was no reason why she could not turn her wakefulness to her own advantage. She would start looking for her things right now. In seconds she was standing on the balls of her feet on the cold, gritty stone floor and reaching for her discarded underwear.

Then she decided to ignore the soiled undergarments. In five or ten minutes she would have her own fresh, clean, soft underwear. In the meantime, all she had to do was pass the officer of the guard in the adjacent room and head down the corridor to the rear stairs. It was entirely likely that he would not even come out of his little office.

She slipped her bare feet into her oxfords and tucked her shirt into the waistband of her khaki skirt. She was reminded of what she thought of as the “bloody sexual injustice in women officers’ uniforms.”

Despite the shortages, prewar-quality material was somehow made available to gentlemen’s tailors. Male officers had at least several uniforms of prewar quality, while officers’ uniforms of the Women’s Royal Army Corps came from the same manufacturer who made uniforms for enlisted men, and were of much lower quality and fit.

It had been possible for a seamstress to tighten her uniform skirts where they bagged over her rear end, but there had not been enough material to let out her shirts and tunics to make room for her bosom. Unless she wore a tight brassiere, she strained buttons.

She looked down at her shirt now. The buttons looked about ready to pop.

That’s something else I can do, now that I’m assigned to Whitby House. I can go into the village and find some seamstress who could take care of my uniforms for me. Somewhere in the house—and I will find them if it takes me two weeks—are a half dozen or more of Edward’s uniforms. I’ll have them cut down for me, even if every stitch has to be taken out of them and the uniform started from scratch.

With her nakedness now more or less covered, she carefully opened the door, found no one in the foyer, and slipped out, walking quickly down the corridor toward the kitchen. From there stairs led upstairs.

With no one in it, the kitchen seemed enormous. The six huge black stoves—now cold—were larger than she remembered them. The Americans apparently were not going to trouble themselves with coal stoves, as there were now two stainless-steel field ranges where the butcher blocks had been. And still in a crate addressed to Quartermaster ETO—European Theater of Operations—was a huge, restaurant-size refrigerator. Beside it, the Whitby House refrigerator looked incongruously small.

She gave in to the temptation to see if there was something to eat in the old refrigerator. She had missed supper the night before, and she would be damned if she would ask Major Canidy for a meal.

Inside she found an almost unbelievable cornucopia of foodstuffs. There were, for starters, at least six dozen fresh eggs. The British ration was one fresh egg per week—when available. There were two-gallon containers of milk marked “Container Property US Army Quartermaster Corps.”

Only children under four, pregnant women, and nursing women were given a milk ration.

There were steaks, chickens, two enormous tinned hams, pound blocks of fresh butter “[Butter, 1 lb Block, Grade AAA, Schmalz’s Dairy, Oshkosh, Wisc. USA],” and, the most incredible thing of all, a wooden crate marked “Sunkist Florida Oranges.”

My God, there must be eight, ten, twelve dozen oranges!

Captain the Duchess Stanfield could not remember the last time she had had an orange. They were rationed out to British children even more strictly than eggs and milk.

No wonder, she thought as she slammed the door angrily, our refrigerator is inadequate for their needs.

When she was in the stairwell she began to consider the most likely place the staff would have put her clothing. The answer was immediately obvious. There were two small rooms just above what had been her own apartment where her personal maid—now a Leading Aircraftswoman, Royal Air Force—had lived.

Just as she had hoped, a neatly lettered sign was thumbtacked to her personal maid’s door:

And the door was not locked.

The small room was crowded with steamer trunks, ordinary luggage, and even some paper cartons, all neatly labeled.

She was lifting a cardboard box labeled “HG Personal Summer Linen” when an automobile horn blared. It was cheerfully tooting “Shave and a haircut, two bits.” She wondered what peculiarity of American culture that represented. When the horn sounded again, she grew more curious. When it sounded a third time, she went to the window and looked down.

An American army car, a Ford, had pulled up to the house. As she watched, a young American Air Corps captain stepped out.

A rather good-looking one, Captain the Duchess Stanfield thought.

He had his cap, with its crown crushed, on the back of his head. For some reason, American pilots felt that was chic. His jacket was open, his tie pulled down, and he wore the self-pleased look of someone in his cups. He went to the trunk and opened it, then returned to the driver’s door and blew the horn again, this time a long, steady, almost angry blast.

At the same moment the duchess was noticing that the Ford’s left front fender was crumpled, a window below her, Edward’s window, opened and Major Canidy looked out.

“I thought you were in the stockade,” he called down.

The duchess remembered Canidy had said something about Lieutenant Jamison being off “stealing a car in London.”

“We ran off the road and hit a stone post,” the captain called up, “and we couldn’t get it out of the ditch in the dark. Aside from that, it was worthy of John Dillinger.”

“Does anyone know you stole it?” Canidy asked. “Are you a half mile ahead of the MPs?”

“I told you, Dick, it went like clockwork.”

“Until you ran it off the road.” Canidy chuckled. “Where’s Jamison?”

“We also stole some whiskey,” the captain reported. “He drank some of it.”

At that moment, a lieutenant stumbled out the other side of the car. Since he was deeper in his cups than the captain, the duchess concluded that this one was Lieutenant Jamison, the man to whom she was supposed to report.

“You can’t leave the car there,” Canidy said. “Not out in the open.”

My God, they did steal it!

“I stole a tarpaulin for it,” the captain announced, then went back to the trunk and hauled out a huge canvas tarpaulin. Lieutenant Jamison went into the backseat of the car and began to unload cases of whiskey and beer.

“Did you steal that from the OSS, too?”

“No,” the captain said. “We found it in the middle of the road.”

“Jimmy, behave yourself and come in,” Canidy called. “That English captain we’ve been waiting for showed up. It’s a female, a real tight-assed bitch. I’m sure she’s been sent to spy on us, anyway, so keep your hands off her and your mouth shut. That applies to you too, Jamison.”

Deeply offended, her face coloring, the Duchess of Stanfield stepped back from the open window and very carefully closed it.

She rummaged through her summer linen for suitable underclothing, then went through the steamer trunks until she found nightgowns. She wrapped one of the nightgowns around everything else and descended the stairs to the kitchen.

When she pushed open the door, she startled Major Canidy, the captain, and Lieutenant Jamison, who were sharing various breakfast-preparation tasks. One of the unused stoves was littered with what they obviously planned to eat; this amounted to a week’s ration for a British family of six, not counting the oranges.

“Up early, aren’t you, Captain?” Canidy asked sarcastically.

“Tight, all right,” the rather good-looking captain observed, “but not too tight.”

That was a reference to my fanny!

“I told you to watch your mouth,” Canidy snapped.

“I was gathering some personal possessions,” the duchess blurted, and exhibited her nightgown bundle.

“You’ve been here before, then?” Canidy accused.

“Yes,” she said, “I have.”

Obviously, he has never even looked at my orders. If he had, he would know who I am.

“The captain has been sent by the War Office to ‘liaise’ with us,” Canidy said. “Apparently, ‘to liaise’ means to roam through the place before anybody is up.”

“I’m Jim Whittaker,” the rather good-looking captain said, advancing on her with his hand extended. “I think I should warn you that I am a pervert and find females in uniform terribly exciting.”

He was looking at her with great fascination, and she flushed.

“I’m not going to tell you about your mouth again, Jimmy,” Major Canidy flared.

“I didn’t catch the name, Captain,” Whittaker said. He had her hand now and seemed reluctant to let it go.

“My name is Stanfield,” the duchess said.

“Like the duke?” Canidy asked.

“I am the duchess,” she said.

It did not produce the reaction she expected: Major Canidy, she saw, was more annoyed than awed.

“You should have told me that last night,” Canidy said.

“You didn’t give me the chance, Sir,” she said.

Jim Whittaker bowed deeply, with an accompanying sweep of his arm.

“How’s that, Duchess?” he asked. “Is that the way to do it?”

She had to restrain herself from smiling at him. The rather good-looking young captain was drunk. A happy young man who is drunk can almost be expected to stare at a female bosom. Major Canidy was the unpleasant one.

A question of protocol occurred to Lieutenant Jamison.

“If you’re the duchess,” he asked somewhat thickly, “what are we supposed to call you? Captain or Duchess?”

“I had a dog named Duchess one time,” Captain Whittaker announced. “You remember her, Dick? Great big Labrador bitch?”

“I am ordinarily addressed as ‘Your Grace,’” she said. “But I think that would be a bit awkward, wouldn’t it? My Christian name is Elizabeth.”

“Isn’t that the other extreme?” Canidy asked.

“Please,” she said softly. “You and I seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot.”

He’s thinking that over, the insufferable bastard!

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll start all over. Put your package down and have some breakfast. The cooks don’t show until half past six, so I’m afraid it’ll have to be an omelet.”

A sudden rage swept through her, unstoppable. “My God, you Americans are something! ‘Since there’s nothing decent to be had, we’ll have to make do with an omelet’!”

He looked at her curiously.

“Is there something wrong with an omelet?” he asked.

“Do you know what the British egg ration is?”

“No, and I don’t really give a damn,” Canidy said.

They locked eyes for a minute, then she gave in.

“Sorry,” she said.

“No,” Canidy said. “Sorry won’t wash. Let’s have it out in the open.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t like your attitude, Duchess,” Canidy said. “I may have to put up with those arrogant bastards at SOE, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to put up with you. I don’t like the way you came in here last night, playing captain without letting me know this is your house. And I have no intention of putting up with a litany of ‘what’s wrong with you Americans is’ from you, duchess or no duchess. Whittaker here ate cavalry horses in the Philippines until the horses ran out—”

“Hey, Dick—” Whittaker tried to interrupt, but Canidy was not to be stopped.

“—and neither of us needs any lectures on short rations from the likes of you. If you feel uncomfortable eating our fresh egg omelets, Your Grace, I think you should ask to be reassigned. As long as I’m running this place, I’m going to get my hands on and pass out to the people here all the goddamned luxuries—from fresh eggs to high-class whores—that I can. And I don’t want you standing around with a corncob up your ass looking down your aristocratic nose at us.”

“Jesus Christ! Dick!” Whittaker said.

The duchess of Stanfield took a moment to find her voice. Then she said, “Perhaps it would be best if someone else were assigned to liaise with you, Major Canidy. And now, if you’ll please excuse me?”

She marched out of the kitchen and down the corridor to what had been the downstairs housekeeper’s broom closet, closed the door, threw herself on the folding cot, and with a great deal of effort managed to keep from crying.

She thought she was going to look like a bloody fool when she had to report back to the War Office that she had immediately gotten into it with the man she was supposed to liaise with over something as bloody silly as how many eggs the Americans had.

She could also report, of course, that they apparently spent much of their time drunk, and that they considered it great fun to steal automobiles from one another. The problem was that the War Office didn’t give a damn about such things. They would simply see that she had failed.

What I am going to have to do is go to the bastard and apologize. And sound as if I mean it.

She pushed herself off the bed.

And be properly dressed when I do it.

She picked the bundle off the floor and unrolled it on the bed. She picked out underwear, then started to take off her shirt.

There was a knock at the door.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“Room service,” a voice she recognized as Captain Whittaker’s called cheerfully.

She went to the door and pulled it open.

He had found a butler’s cart somewhere. It was covered with food: ham, eggs, toast, and what certainly—since it was American—was genuine strawberry marmalade.

“No matter what,” he said, “you have to eat.”

“I made a fool of myself in there, didn’t I?” she asked.

He rolled the cart to a chair at the far end of the bed and stood behind it like a waiter.

“I don’t know what happened between you two last night,” he said. “But I know what’s generally wrong with him.”

“Generally wrong with him?”

“For the first time in his life, he’s in love,” Whittaker said, “and almost immediately upon getting jabbed with Cupid’s arrow, they shipped him over here.”

“Being in love produced that tirade?” she asked.

“That, and knowing that a mission he set up is under way,” Whittaker said. “Despite what he says, he really thinks he should be doing it.”

“You seem to know a great deal about the major,” she said.

“We’ve been pals since we were kids,” Whittaker said.

“What did he mean about you eating cavalry horses in the Philippines?”

“Eat your ham and eggs, Duchess,” Whittaker said. “After which, Friendly Jim Whittaker will take you to Nasty Dick Canidy so that you can kiss and make up.”

“But you were in the Philippines?” she pursued.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was in the Philippines.”

She looked down at the huge slice of ham and the four fried eggs on her plate. And saw that her shirt was unbuttoned halfway to her navel. She felt her face color.

He was still behind her, which meant that he was almost certainly looking down her dress. She was not furious with him. He was, she reminded herself, in his cups.