At my right, the Old Man. His suit was wrinkled and his eyes were red-rimmed and tired. The large paper pad in front of him was covered with crisscross lines. On his right, a quite old man, bald and beetle-browed. His collar was open and wrinkled, his vest twisted under the lapel of his coat. I leaned toward Smith, and indicated his companion with my eyes.
"Morgan, Undersecretary of State," he said softly.
Morgan heard his name spoken, and shot a questioning glance my way. He realized what had been said and the beetlebrows slid upwards in a movement meant to be conciliatory. He bobbed his head with a cursory jerk and went back to staring across the table. I followed his glance.
The object of his affections seemed to be--yes, it was. Five-Star General Oliver P. Legree, not so affectionately called Simon by the men who served under him. I had been one of them. Trim and rigid and oh, so military he was, the very figure of a modern five-star general.
His poker-stiff back thrust the tiers of ribbons to a sparkling glitter under the tinkling glare of the ma.s.sive chandelier overhead.
His face--well, it"s been in enough rotogravures worldwide. The cigar was there, the big black cigar he never lit and never lost. His trademark was that cigar; his trademark was that and his jutting jaw that to everyone but his compatriots spelled determination and grit.
To his staff and his men--me--it meant an ill-fitting lower plate.
That prognathous jaw was tilted, aimed at Morgan, and Morgan knew it.
What had gone on just before I had come in? Just as I started to turn my glance away, the General threw his famous scowl directly at me. For one long second our eyes clung, almost glared. Then, without a sign of emotion or recognition he went back to staring at the Undersecretary with an intensity almost violent. Shaken back into self-consciousness by that grim stare I tried to fit together some of the other faces about the table.
Admiral Mason-Nason-Lacey--Admiral Lacey. I"d met him just a few days before, in that ill-fated conference in the White House. What was the other name? Jessop. He was there, too, alongside Lacey. But where was the Army, outside of Simon Legree? That was like Simon, at that. Let the Navy stick together; Legree was the _General_, and as such was himself the Army.
Who were the others? I knew none of them, certainly, although some trick of memory made me sure that I had seen or heard of them before.
Like faces in an old school alb.u.m they presented themselves to me, and for a long fraction of a minute I delved deep, trying to recall. A voice, that deep barking ba.s.s I had heard while waiting, boomed across the table.
"Mr. Morgan!" and the table seemed to quiver. "Mr. Morgan!" and the tenseness seemed to flow back into that huge room like a warm current.
The Old Man leaned over and answered my unspoken question.
"Senator Suggs, Foreign Affairs Chairman."
I eyed the redoubtable senator. Short, swarthy skin that belied all his ranted racial theories, hair that straggled by intent over his weak green eyes, and a chin that retreated and quivered and joggled in time with his twitching adolescent eyebrows. Six solid terms in the Senate; six solid terms of appealing to the highest in theory and the lowest in fact; six terms of seniority for the chairmanship of committees far too important for a bigot; six terms of Suggs, Suggs, Suggs. The ba.s.s rumbled on.
"We"re no further ahead, Morgan, than we were two hours ago. This, definitely cannot go on, if it has to be taken to the people themselves."
Morgan pondered well before he answered, and the room stilled.
"Senator," he said at last; "this is right now in the hands of the people, if you consider that you are one of the elected representatives, and the rest of us are chosen, with one exception, by those same elected representatives. The exception, naturally, is Mr.
Miller."
Five Star Simon snorted. His nasal voice carried well. "People?" and that brittle snap was only too familiar to me. "What have the people to do with it? This is no time for anything but a decision, and a quick one!"
Morgan agreed with that. "Correct, General. The question, I believe, is not that a decision be made, but the wording and definition of that decision."
"Bah!" and the cigar jumped to the other side. "Words! Definitions!
Decisions! Words, words, words! Let"s decide what"s to be done and do it!"
The Undersecretary coughed gently behind his palm. "Unfortunately, General Legree, for the sake of speedy action, and as unfortunately for the sake of all concerned, words mean one thing to one man, and another thing to a second."
A fine party this turned out to be. In the dark as to what happened before I came in, and equally at sea as to what was going on, I leaned toward the Old Man.
"What"s this?" I whispered.
He shot a quick retort. "Keep your mouth shut for the time being." He paused, and then bent in my direction. "You"ll get your chance to talk." He grasped my extended arm tightly. "I"ll nudge you when the time comes. Then talk, and _talk_! You know what I mean?"
Did I? I didn"t know. He saw my indecision and motioned for quiet.
Evidently he was expecting me to catch the trend if I waited long enough. I waited, and I watched, and I listened.
Simon had been right about one thing. Words, words, words. But I began to get some of the drift. They"d already settled the part of the problem I thought was supposed to be bothering them. They"d decided that since the news on me was out, the facts had to be faced--the way they understand facing them.
I should have been reading the papers or listening to the radio. It must have been something to hear when the news that I was a new secret weapon to end them all was confirmed; but they"d confused the issue by indicating that I was just one of the men with the new power, and that the country was now practically blanketed with it.
It was fine for them. It meant that the people were happy, and that Army, Navy and all the other departments were being openly and publicly adulated for the fine thing they had done for everyone.
The Undersecretary made an answer to one of Simon"s remarks. I hadn"t been listening for a few seconds while the scheme sank in, but this registered.
"You"re right, of course, General. Certain foreign information bureaus won"t be deceived by the confusion we"ve created. And that still leaves us with the unfortunate need for speedy action on the case of Mr. Miller."
Suggs rolled his ba.s.s across the room. It was the only characteristic he had favorable to eye or ear.
"Unfortunate, Mr. Undersecretary? Unfortunate is hardly the word to describe an event so favorable for the fortunes for all."
Favorable. Me? Was I good or bad? I came in just in the middle of the picture. Keep your ears and your eyes and your ears open, Miller, and catch up on the feature attraction.
Suggs licked his razor-sharp lips and hooked his fingers in his stained vest.
""Unfortunate," Mr. Undersecretary? Hardly!" He loved to hear his own voice. "This country, these great United States, these states have never in their existence been in such a favorable position as today...."
I would rather have read the Congressional Record. That, at least, I could have discarded when I became bored.
"No, never in such a favorable position; diplomatically, economically...."
The Undersecretary coughed politely. It"s nice to be tactful and know how to break in.
"To use your own words, Senator. "Hardly!" Diplomatically we are at the brink of one of the worst imaginable pitfalls."
The medals on Five Star clinked. "Bosh!"
Morgan went on. "Where would you like to live, gentlemen?" and his glance flicked around the table; "in the best liked or most hated country in the world?"
It mattered not to Five Star, nor to Suggs.
"What difference does it make, Mr. Undersecretary? Speaking for myself and my const.i.tuents, I can truthfully say that the opinion of the world matters not one good solitary d.a.m.n. Who cares what some other country has got to say, if words can"t be backed up with action? Right now, and you know it as well as you"re sitting there, Mr.
Undersecretary, right now Uncle Sam is known all over the world as Uncle Sucker, and Uncle Shylock. Europe and Asia have had what they wanted over my protests and those of my const.i.tuents, and now Europe and Asia can go hang, for all I care. That"s What they want us to do!"
He gave Morgan no chance to break in. That rolling ba.s.s rattled off the walls and crinkled my ears.
"Europe and Asia and the rest of the world could never affect us one way or another, favorable or otherwise, if it weren"t for the ninny-headed mouthings of a few influential morons. Fight, Mr.
Undersecretary, fight and murder and declare war and blow up millions of people and then run to Uncle Sam to pay the bills. I say, Mr.
Undersecretary, I say what I"ve said before and what I"ll say again; if Europe and Asia and the rest of the world don"t like what we do here in these United States, let Europe and Asia and the rest of the world go to h.e.l.l!"