Eagles at War (27 page)

"That simply cannot be true."

Goering crumpled into silence, slumping in the huge elk-skin-covered chair next to the couch, staring into the fire with an unbearable melancholy. Josten started to speak, but Hafner signaled him to be silent.

Almost five minutes passed, then Goering suddenly roused himself.

"Come, let's talk of something else. It's my fiftieth birthday today, you know. Let me show you what the people have sent me."

Goering turned on his heel and walked with unexpected speed to a room at the side, motioning them to follow.

The room had been divided into a series of aisles by long linen-covered tables. Each table was heaped with gifts, each one with a card carrying birthday wishes and a prominent identification of the giver.

"Look at this! A golden sword from Mussolini! Can you imagine what this is worth actually? And historically? And this, a twenty-four-hundred-piece set of Sevres! What a banquet I'll give with this!"

"I saw a man at Stalingrad make a banquet of raw horse brains. The horse's skull was the platter and his hands the spoon, no fancy porcelain for him. I guess it all depends upon how hungry you are."

Hafner rolled his eyes upward as Goering's face flushed red.

"Are you being insolent, Major? Don't pull your veteran's role on me. I fought at the front, too, you know, and in the streets of Germany as well."

"I don't mean to be insolent, Herr
Reichsmarschall,
but men are dying of starvation right now in Stalingrad. If you were there, they would shoot you and eat you without a qualm."

There was a blanket of silence, broken only by the gurgle of Goering's breathing, and the click of his adjutant's holster being opened.

Hafner hissed, "My God, Josten, shut up."

Goering stood, uncertain how to play the next round of this insane game. He could see that Josten was not dangerous, not an assassin; he couldn't shoot every messenger bringing bad news, no matter how insubordinate they were.

"I guess I'd feed a platoon at least. Maybe that is the best thing that I can still do for poor Germany."

His expression changed abruptly and tears poured down his cheeks. Goering slumped into a chair, pale and breathing in shallow gasps. The adjutant raced to bring him some tiny pills. When he spoke his voice was ragged.

"It's a heart condition; not too serious, but I'm not supposed to get too excited. Or too depressed." He glanced quizzically at Josten, adding, "Or too insulted."

"Herr Reichsmarschall
—"

"No, I'm too tired and ill for formalities. The young man here thinks I have no feeling, that my heart doesn't ache for the people. He has no idea how deeply I feel that the Luftwaffe's failure is
my
failure. Let's relax, and give me a chance to recover. For tonight at least, let it be Hermann and Bruno again."

"If we leave the new jet's development to Messerschmitt, it will be late 1944 before we get an operational unit. I can put an operational unit in the air by November of this year, perhaps earlier."

"I can get the engines running so that they don't melt down like lead soldiers on the test stand, for one thing. That's something the famous Junkers motorworks can't do. And I can build airplanes without a million changes. Hermann, remember during the last war, when Fokker created the D VII in a matter of weeks? Now it takes five years to get a prototype flying."

"Airplanes were simpler then."

"Yes, but so was the bureaucracy. The goddamn staffs have gotten bigger and more complex than the airplanes." Hafner paused, then lowered his tortured body into a kneeling position before Goering.

"I beg you, Herr
Reichsmarschall,
give me a chance. What will it cost you? I've already got the airframes, discarded by Messerschmitt because of design changes. I can have the engines in just a few months. We can have an airplane that will wipe the British and the Americans from the skies. Without air superiority, there will be no second front—we know that from 1940. And if they can't invade, maybe we can settle with Russia."

"That was before Stalingrad. He can't hide the loss of the Sixth Army from the world; he can't hide it from himself. If the British and the Americans get a beachhead next year, it's all over."

Goering was silent, his hand thrust into a bowl. It took Josten a moment to realize that the bowl was filled with cut stones—emeralds, rubies, diamonds; he would lift them and let a cascade of faceted brilliance reflect the flames of the fireplace.

"The Fuehrer always says that he
would
negotiate, but only after a victory."

"It would be a magnificent victory to drive the English and the Americans from the skies; it would be a fantastic triumph to repel an invasion. And it would be a Luftwaffe victory, a Goering victory. Things would be as they were in May of 1940."

Goering looked thoughtful. "Perhaps. But I'd prefer the Fuehrer not to know until you're successful. Then we can spring it on him, and he'll force Messerschmitt and the others into line."

"We won't fail you, Hermann."

"You may call me
Reichsmarschall
now; this interview is at an end."

As they were putting on their coats and hats, Josten laid his hand on Hafner's arm.

"Congratulations, Bruno, you got your way. But you are playing Hitler and Goering against each other. Is this how business is done in the Third Reich?"

Hafner, warmed by an inner glow, thought for a moment. Then he said, "Doing business here is like doing business anywhere—you do it any goddamn way you can, just so you get it done."

***

Chapter 8

Nashville, Tennessee/January 31, 1943

A bleak and palpable cold, no mere lack of heat but a fierce thermometer-crunching enemy of life, invaded the city, cracking its windows, bursting pipes, and freezing wandering strays into furry lumps of ice. The winds staggered the few pedestrians still brave enough to troop along Union Street, then whipped chattering on across the hills to sail southeast toward the glow of Berry Field. There, Sunday night or not, the skylights of the new and roughly built factory buildings gleamed against the winter: McNaughton aircraft were pouring off the assembly line, shiny bright and looking deadly as cobras.

Troy McNaughton, enthroned behind a huge Tennessee walnut desk, its polished top ornamented with a glittering onyx pen set, models of McNaughton aircraft, and a four-inch stack of papers worth untold millions of dollars.

"Absolutely amazing, Henry—you've really gotten the goods this time! The 262 is a beauty—we'll scale up the wing a little and put it on our next fighter."

He riffled greedily through the blown-up prints of the microfilm Hafner had sent Caldwell.

"And this A-4 or V-2, or whatever it is, that's the weapon of the future. If we can get development started on this now, we'll have a five-year jump on the rest of the industry. We won't have to worry about peace breaking out—we'll be ready for the next war."

Caldwell sat staring at the floor, roaring earthward on his psychic roller coaster. He knew he should be congratulating himself on a coup, one that could mean U.S. military dominance for the next fifty years. Instead his obsession with Elsie filled him with shame.

He had briefed Hap Arnold on the microfilm in Washington only four days before. It had been the worst meeting in Caldwell's life. Arnold, notorious for his irascibility and his grudges, had leaned on him as if he were humbling a recruit, starting off with a series of reprimands on the status of the B-29 and long-range fighter programs.

"Goddamnit, Henry, you've got the most important programs in the Army Air Forces and you're not delivering. I want to bomb the shit out of Germany and Japan—and I can't do it if your programs don't materialize."

Then Hap Arnold had gotten down to business.

"I'm coming directly to the point, Henry. I hear stories that you're fooling around with a woman who works for a contractor."

"General Arnold, with respect, that's my personal business."

"Goddamnit, Caldwell, I'll tell you what's your personal business and what's not! It's my personal business when one of my key people is accused of favoritism."

"That's not fair, Hap; I've never been influenced by this woman." It killed him to call Elsie "this woman."

Arnold did not look well; his once boyish face was haggard and drawn. Normally crisp in his movements, he was hesitant, as if overwhelmed by the weight of command.

"Henry, I'm leveling with you. You've got to stop seeing her. We can't afford to sacrifice an entire aircraft plant to some middle-age romance. For Christ's sake, you were married for twenty years, weren't you? What the hell are you acting like a schoolboy for?"

Caldwell, bruised into silence, looked at Arnold's choleric face, veins bulging, red-rimmed eyes wide. They'd warned Caldwell that the Chief was surrounded by a whole new group of staff ass-kissers who kept him isolated, playing on his irritability with rumors.

"I'm not giving you advice, Caldwell, I'm giving you an order. You
will
stop seeing this woman. If you were someone else, I'd ship you off to India or somewhere, but I can't do that. I need you. But I can't have people saying you're favoring McNaughton because you're screwing a secretary there."

"She's not just a—"

"At ease! Do you think I've got time to worry about your love life?"

There was a long silence, Arnold twitching, riveting Caldwell with his gaze, as if daring him to protest, so that he could physically attack him. A clock was ticking in the background; Caldwell hadn't heard it before.

Finally, Arnold said, "You've heard me. Say no more about it. What else have you got?"

It was a relief to talk about his triumph, the meeting with Hafner, the inside news on the jet engine and the "wonder weapons."

Arnold listened to him with diminishing attention. Halfway through the briefing he fumbled in his drawer, took out a tiny pill, and placed it under his tongue. When Caldwell, nervous and less convincing than usual, finished, he wasn't certain Arnold was even listening.

Finally, almost as if he wanted to get rid of him, Arnold said, "Your job is to get the B-29 and the long-range fighter going. Don't come to me with all this Buck Rogers crap, rockets and jets. The war will be over before any of that stuff will be developed."

"No, Hap, listen—"

Arnold's tone was less rigid. "We've got all the first-rate manufacturers loaded down. Douglas is overtaxed already, Lockheed and Republic have all they can handle, Boeing is straining to give us B-17s and B-29s; North American is pumping out B-25s and P-51s. We could spare Curtiss, but they're so fouled up I won't even bother. That leaves McNaughton. Why don't you give this stuff to them to see what they can do with it? They haven't helped us much so far in this war—maybe this is more their line. And if it doesn't work out, at least it won't do the war effort much harm."

Caldwell looked at him. One minute he was forbidding him to see Elsie, the next he was thrusting McNaughton back on him.

"I didn't pick McNaughton out of the air, Henry. I'm covering for you. I owe you too much. If the Truman Committee digs into the problems at McNaughton—the Sidewinder is over-cost and under-performance—you're in trouble, I'm in trouble. This way, I can say that we're using McNaughton for research and development."

Caldwell nodded dumbly.

"I know how you operate, you must have some smart young officer you can assign to the plant to get things going. But don't spend any time there yourself—you stay the hell away from that woman!"

When Caldwell brought up the amnesty for Hafner that had been worked out with Allen Dulles and the State Department, Arnold had flatly rejected the idea. "Why are you fooling with that guy? He's betrayed us once, he'll do it again. You're losing your grip, Caldwell!"

With that, he had been shown out of the office.

Caldwell knew that he'd drawn his last ounce of credit with Arnold. One more foul-up and all the efforts of the past would be forgotten; he'd be assigned to command some training base, watching cadets do close order drill.

Now, Troy McNaughton slapped his hand on the table. "Damnit, General, snap out of it. It's not like you're giving this to the enemy! We'll do a better job on this than anybody else. You're doing exactly what Arnold told you to do, and you're saving time getting started."

McNaughton persisted with his salesman-style encouragement. "We'll get jets over to Europe before Messerschmitt does, and we'll have long-range rockets before anyone else, too. If we don't invade pretty soon, the Russians will push the Germans all the way to the Channel. Then it will be our turn to fight them."

It was an uncanny replay of his own rationalizing—he was actually doing the country a service by getting the data to McNaughton. If he'd turned it in at Headquarters, the material would probably have been sent to Wright Field to be studied until it was obsolete. This way, at least, it would do some good.