"Are you kidding""
"No. I am not. Knox will be there. And Admiral Leahy. No one else, I'm told."
"What's that all about?"
"I have no idea. When the President's secretary calls me and asks if I am free for drinks and supper, I say, `Thank you very much." I don't ask what he has in mind."
"I had hoped to be well on my way to Florida by half past five tomorrow."
"You'll have plenty of time to see Pick. One more day won't matter."
"He is liable to be on orders any day. Considering the shortage of pilots over there, they may not give him much of a pre-embarkation leave, possibly only three or four days. I don't have plenty of time." A knock at the door kept Fowler from having to reply. He went to answer it, and Pickering went into the bathroom and wrapped a towel around his middle.
Or tried to. It was a difficult maneuver with one arm in a cast.
"Hello, Fleming," Dr. Selleres, the house physician, said. He spoke with a slight Spanish accent.
"How are you, Emilio? You brought your bag, I hope? I seem to be leaking all over the Senator's floor." Dr. Selleres walked to him, took a quick look, and shook his head.
"I'm surprised you were discharged from the hospital," the doctor said.
"These wounds are still suppurating."
"They can suppurate as well here as they could in a hospital," Pickering argued reasonably.
"Did you get the cast wet, too?" Selleres said, feeling it. "I don't suppose you've heard of this marvelous new medical technique we have called the sponge bath?"
"I needed a real bath," Pickering said.
"Or so you thought," Selleres said. "Lie down on the bed and I'll do what I can to clean up the mess you've made of yourself." Once he had Pickering down, the doctor checked his heart and blood pressure and peered intently into his eyes. Fowler was surprised that Pickering didn't protest.
Selleres then swabbed the wounds with an antiseptic solution and applied fresh bandages.
"If you don't kill yourself falling down in a shower or doing something else equally stupid, you can have those sutures looked at in four or five days," Dr. Selleres said.
"I love your bedside manner," Pickering said, smiling at him.
"If I wasn't in love with your wife, you could change your own bandages," Selleres said. "Shall I give her any kind of message when I talk to her?"
"You're going to talk to her?"
"Patricia called and made me promise to check on you in the morning. The Senator had told her you were passed out and wouldn't stir before then. Now I can call her tonight and tell her, unfortunately, that you're going to live."
"Do what you can to calm her down, will you, please?"
"Don't I always?" Selleres said. He put out his hand. "Welcome home, Flem. It's good to see you. And I heard about the Silver Star. Congratulations."
"Thank you," Pickering said. Fowler saw that he was embarrassed.
When he had gone, Pickering got off the bed, tried to fasten the towel around his waist, failed, swore, and walked naked out of the bedroom to the bar in the sitting room.
"Not that it seems to bother you," Fowler said, "but would you like some help getting dressed?"
"I can handle everything but a towel," Pickering said. "Towels having neither rubber bands nor buttons."
He made himself a drink and carried it back into the bedroom. Fowler, after making himself a drink, went to the doorway, leaned on the jamb, and watched Pickering dress. He did not offer to help, although it was obvious that Pickering was having a hell of a hard time pulling his cast through the sleeve of a T-shirt and then forcing it over his head.
"Would you please put braces on my trousers?" Pickering asked as he pulled on boxer shorts.
Fowler went to the dresser and picked up a pair of suspenders.
"If you manage that without too much difficulty, I'll let you put the garters on my socks," Pickering said.
"How do you cut your food?" Fowler asked.
"The same way I tie my tie," Pickering said. "I have some kind soul do it for me."
"We don't have to go out to eat, you know. There's room service."
"Tell me about what Leahy's doing," Pickering said, ignoring the offer.
"What do you want to know?"
"I'm just curious. His role seems to fascinate all the admirals."
"You ever meet him?" Pickering nodded.
"A couple of times. When he was Governor of Puerto Rico. Interesting man."
"A good man," Fowler said. "The first time I met him was when he was Chief of Naval Operations. If it wasn't for him, the way he fought for construction funds, made Congress understand, we would have a very small Navy right now to fight this war."
"So what's he doing now?" Pickering asked, sitting on the bed and pulling black socks over his feet.
Fowler dropped to his knees and strapped garters on Pickering's calves.
"His title is Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States..." Fowler said.
"Which the Navy brass in the Pacific thinks means that he's the senior uniformed officer of the Armed Forces, Army and Navy. Is that the situation?"
... which sounds very impressive," Fowler went on, ignoring the question. "There was an initial perception that he was to rank above both King and Marshall." Admiral Ernest King was the Chief of Naval Operations; General George C. Marshall was the Chief of Staff of the Army. "He had seniority over both officers, having retired from being Chief of Naval Operations in 1939."
"But?" Pickering interrupted again.
"But Roosevelt quickly torpedoed that," Fowler went on, note the Naval symbolism-by saying that Leahy is going to be his legman. His legman only. "
"I am just a simple sailor," Pickering said. "Unversed in the Machiavellian subtleties of politics. I don't know what the hell you're talking about."