On the same Monday morning Cal reported to the Embassy, a short walk from his hotel, just around the corner on the eastern side of Grosvenor Square. It had changed much since he was last there. It was changing as he watched. Teams of carpenters moved in and out with pre-fabricated partitions, carving larger rooms into smaller ones, desks were wheeled in and out on trolleys, metal chairs carried in in stacks. A face he knew met him-Captain Henry Berg. They’d been through West Point together, risen rank for rank together, and never found enough common ground to like one another. Berg was a born desk man. Cal nurtured secret dreams that, bifocal eyeglasses notwithstanding, he might be a man of action as well as a man of analysis. Even as Berg spoke the carpenters were erecting a new office around him.
‘You gonna be here long?’
‘I really don’t know, Henry.’
‘The colonel’s asked for you to have a desk in here. Take the one by the wall. It’s a pity we have to share, but as you can see, things are really hotting up. The staff has doubled since Christmas.’
Cal could see that. He didn’t recognise half the faces that had passed in front of him. And he couldn’t escape the sound of pique in Henry’s voice as he used the word ‘share’.
‘I’ve got you an In-tray and an Out-tray. I’ve issued a request for a Pending, but really nothing should be pending long enough for you to need it.’
Cal stopped listening. Any minute now Berg would show him how the pencil sharpener worked and give him a key to the executive washroom. He wondered if this hive of activity spelt out the same message to Berg as it did to him-a nation gearing up for war.
‘Can I use the phone, Henry?’
Berg pushed the telephone across the desk to him. Cal rang the Savoy and was told that Colonel Ruthven-Greene had already gone out. They didn’t know when he’d be back. Odd, thought Cal, he’d’ve expected Reggie to be raring to start.
He found himself staring into nothing across the bent back of a workman, busy hanging the door. Then the figure on the other side came into focus. A tall, gangly, middle-aged man. Frank Reininger.
Reininger grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously. Only Berg’s presence saved him from the usual bear hug.
‘Good to see you, Calvin. Henry here showing you around?’
‘Yes sir-big changes, I see.’
‘You’re well? And your daddy?’
Reininger and his father went back a long way. Frank had always been a little blind to the tensions between father and son.
‘Oh, he’s fine,’ Cal lied, without a clue as to his father’s well-being.
‘Come into my office. This isn’t really my show. Deke Shaeffer just wants a quick word. He’s in charge of security now-did I tell you that?’
Reininger steered Cal into another, far less makeshift room. FDR’s portrait on the back wall, Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt on the sides. Major Shaeffer sat behind an expensive, imported, antique desk. Reininger had paid for it to be shipped from Paris. It went where he went. Plywood was strictly for the other ranks.
Cal had never known Frank to be anything but the soul of bonhomie-but he’d never known Deke Shaeffer to smile and mean it. They were like chalk and cheese, a garrulous, thin man and a surly oaf built like Tarzan of the apes, but everybody said they were a first-class team.
‘I just want to spell out the security implications of what you’re doing,’ Shaeffer said. ‘And don’t volunteer anything just because the pleasure of the chat carries you away. The general’s playing this one close to his chest. All we’ve been told is that you’re being loaned to the British. If the General sees fit not to tell us why, that’s fine by me. Got it?’
This was obtuse in the extreme. They both knew what Cal did. He ran the Tin Man, whoever he was. He doubted it was true of Frank-but Shaeffer was putting official distance between himself and Cal.
‘I’ll put it as plainly as I can. I don’t want any incidents.’
Cal looked at Reininger, but Reininger said nothing.
‘Incidents?’
‘Any incident. Especially as in “diplomatic incident”.’
‘Diplomatic incident? Major, the British asked, dammit, escorted me here. What could they possibly construe as a diplomatic incident?’
‘I wasn’t thinking of the British,’ Shaeffer said. ‘They’re not the only ones in this war. And until we’re in it, whatever the reality, let’s at least have it look like we’re neutral. You get yourself in trouble Captain and you’re on your own. Capiche?’
‘Absolutely,’ Cal said. ‘I capiche.’
Shaeffer flickered up a phoney smile, the merest flash of pearly teeth, got up and left-the audience, which was what it felt like to Cal, was clearly over. Reininger stayed. Got up, stretched, and sat himself down in the chair ShaefFer had vacated.
‘He can’t mean that, sir. He can’t possibly mean that?’
Reininger sighed, a sigh meant to sound knowing and worldly.
‘Calvin, I’ve known you since you were a boy. Behind closed doors I’m Frank. You don’t have to call me sir or Colonel. And yes-Deke means exactly what he said. You’re going to have to be very, very careful.’
‘Sir… Frank… I find it very hard to believe that anyone in this embassy or the War Department in Washington seriously gives a damn what opinion in Berlin thinks of what we’re doing. If they did, then perhaps we shouldn’t be spying on them in the first place?’
‘Well… that’s just Deke’s way. The guy’s a frustrated diplomat at heart. But you’re wrong all the same. What we do here matters mightily back in Washington. Not in the WD maybe, but up on the hill. Calvin, you just ask your daddy.’
Cal knew Reininger was right-every letter from the old man (old him that-but the remark rankled.
‘These days I tend not to ask my father quite as much as I used to.’
Reininger grinned.
‘We all grow up. Eventually. And-you should understand this. Deke has a way of overstating things, but the embassy’s been through turmoil since you were last here. We’ve had a clerk busted by the British for spying-I can’t emphasise too strongly the effect of Tyler Kent’s arrest on Anglo-Am relations. It was a transatlantic disaster. And we’ve had an ambassador practically demand to be recalled-and a new man appointed who’s something of an unknown quantity. And on top of that-and strictly between the two of us-we have the General. Bright as a button and ornery as a jackass. Gelbroaster hates Joe Kennedy. And he doesn’t care who knows it… if Kennedy hadn’t gone back home I hate to think what might have blown up between the two of them.’
‘I know,’ said Cal. ‘He told me.’
‘You’ve seen him already?’
‘At the hotel on Saturday night. Just sort of bumped into him.’
‘Then you don’t need me to tell you-as far as Gelbroaster’s concerned we’re already at war. Don’t be misled by that. It’s his policy-it can’t be American policy. Right now, from now until the day FDR goes to Congress and asks to declare war… we are neutral and we act neutral. Which kind of brings me to the point. Calvin, you can’t do this in uniform.’
Cal was nonplussed. From the global to the downright trivial in three sentences.
‘I don’t have anything else. They left me no time to pack. I’ve the uniform, a spare pair of pants and the usual stuff.’
Reininger stood up again. Stuck his left hand in his inside pocket.
‘That’s easily fixed,’ he said. ‘Take these and go to a fifty shilling tailor.’
Cal took a small bundle of printed paper strips from him.
‘What are they?’
‘Clothing coupons. Should be enough there for a suit. Can’t get one without ‘em. Everything’s rationed now. Try Soho-one of those narrow little streets the other side of Regent Street. If there’s one shop there doing suits at ten bucks apiece there must be a hundred.’