“Just think” — Dirk Heims leaned across him and pointed out of the wide window of the Pullman — “today that soldier told me that along all the northern border they have no forts, not one. Because with their neighbor they have had no wars. What could we not do if we did not always have to guard our frontiers?”
“It is,” Sub-Lieutenant Kip Vorst replied with the vast wisdom of his twenty years, “because they are both very rich, you understand. So neither wants to take from the other. All Americans are very rich. Did you not see what happened at the railroad station? Cigarettes they gave us, and that chocolate which is so very sweet, and all the picture magazines. Such costly things, and to strangers they give them!”
Lorens shook his head. “Americans aren’t all rich. But when they like a man they open their hearts and their pockets to him. And always they are friendly — ”
“Ja,” Dirk nodded eagerly. “That they are yet. The captain said that we had been invited to eat dinner with some American families, if so we wished. I said that I would like to go — although the English I do not speak very good — because Marta wanted to hear how they live over here, these American girls. My Marta” — he beamed on his listeners — “always she is interested in how live other peoples. Sometime I say she will try to write a book about that.
“So I take this paper with on it written the address of these kind Americans. And I show it to the driver of the taxicab. He says, ‘Sure thing, bud, I’ll get you there okay.’ And then when he comes to the house he says, ‘You’re one of them Dutchies come over to train in the Air Force?’
“And I said that I am no Dutchie, but Netherlander, and how much of this money does he want. And he says, ‘Forget it. This is on the House.’ Then he drives off before I can ask what ‘on the House’ means. That,” Dirk laughed, “never did I learn.
“When I push the little button of the doorbell a pretty girl, like Marta only with brown hair, comes and lets me in, making happy talk all the time, though I do not understand her much. Comes in then the father and the mother and the big brother yet. And the big brother is in the American Army. He goes to flying school, too, but is on leave. And he has many questions to ask.
“Then we eat.” Dirk rolled his eyes toward the roof of the coach and patted his belt buckle. “Not since I left Harlaam have I eaten such food. And, my, but it was good! Afterwards we play funny American games. The flyer and his father they bring me back to the hotel in their car. Here” — he produced a slip of paper from his tunic pocket — “I have yet their names and address and they say I must write and maybe come to them again if I have leave. They were all ways like good Harlaam people and so kind!”
Lorens remembered the hasty letter he had sent off from the port. Lawrence would be surprised to hear that he was at last in America. Perhaps, if there was time, he could meet this friend he had never seen. How far was Lawrence’s home from this training field in Mississippi toward which the train was carrying them? The great distances which these Americans accepted without question amazed him. Journeys of several hundred miles were nothing in their estimation. But perhaps Lawrence wouldn’t be that far away. If he replied to that letter at once, that answer might be waiting Lorens at the post now.
At the post was where Lorens had no intention of remaining. He smiled quietly out of the window at the tall telegraph poles sliding by with hypnotic regularity. Let Piet avoid him and pretend that he, Lorens, didn’t mean what he had said. Capt. van Norreys would discover soon enough that the Jonkheer’s famed stubbornness had not yet died out of the family. And that single-hearted determination which had ruled a jewel empire in the old days would bring another Norreys to triumph in the new.
Jewels — he had known and accepted them as part of his life always. Why, he couldn’t have been older than five when the Jonkheer had had him brought in and seated facing him across those velvet-lined trays, a cushion to bring him to the proper level above the table edge. He had known the greasy feel of an uncut diamond when other boys were plumbing the mystery of tops, had watched the Jonkheer design works of sparkling art before he could read his letters.
Pearls from the Arabian Gulf, from the Straits, strung, unstrung. Opals, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, the hard wealth of the Far East. The Jonkheer had always disdained the common diamonds coming from a market carefully controlled to keep the price up. But a perfect ruby, an unflawed emerald, a sapphire of the first water, and cut, or historic gems of legend, those his grandfather had caressed with both finger and eye. Lorens could imagine himself back in that high dim room where thin yellowed fingers pushed about chips of living fire and a voice told tales —
“This was taken from the ear of a Burmese queen when Thebaw’s kingdom fell. Mark the depth of color, the sheen. Pigeon blood that is called. Only once in jewel history was a white ruby found, and then the expert to whom it was shown refused to believe his eyes. So it was sold for a pittance and lost. Some day a buyer will find what seems to be a strange bit of crystal in an antique shop — maybe here in Rotterdam, maybe in London or in Paris, and then will we see that wonder again. But remember that lesson, never say ‘This is against nature and so it cannot be.’ For every discovery in the world there is a first time, for every act a first performance.”
“For every act a first performance — ”
“Pardon?” Dirk asked politely, and Lorens realized he had repeated those words aloud.
“It is nothing,” he explained. “Only an old family saying which I must remember to repeat to my cousin. It may help him to make up his mind on a troubling matter.”
For every act in the world is a first performance — even when a lopsided, crawling cripple dared to venture into a very wide-awake wolf’s den. And maybe come out of it, too, with a bit of the wolf’s prey in his hands! Let Piet try to stop him now!
10
LETTERS AND MORE LETTERS
“And why is this American sergeant so much more interesting as a companion?” Dirk balanced precariously on the arm of a cane porch chair. “Three days together now you must go off with him when Kip wanted us to try his new car and the American girls a picnic had planned. Always they ask us where is this adventurous Mr. van Norreys — ”
A carefully aimed cushion not only silenced him for the moment but sent him flying backwards to the rather hard floor of the clubhouse veranda.
“But that was an excellent shot!” applauded Kip Vorst. “Any time you wish to be my rear gunner, Lorens, just say so! Smack, right in the middle and you have him — so neat!”
“Neat is it?” flared Dirk, rubbing parts of his person tenderly. “And I full of splinters! Neit, Lorens, you we do not want with us after all. You play too rough! For a week, me, I shall not sit with comfort. And neither have you the subject changed. Why do you go out with this sergeant every afternoon?”
Lorens emptied a coke bottle into his glass. “I am going to school.”
“School?” Both of them were interested at that. “But what school? Where?”
“I am learning to walk.” He did not miss Dirk’s hasty glance at his legs or the way Kip carefully avoided looking at them at all. “Charles Kowana — ”
“Charles — who? That does not sound like an American name.”
“But it is, more so than most. That sergeant is a full-blooded Sioux Indian.”
“An Indian! But he looks like — like you or me!” Dirk protested. “Indians have long braids of hair and paint their faces and — and — I tell you, I know, I have seen them many times in the American cinema!”
Lorens laughed. “Surely by now, Dirk, you should have learned that American life is not really like what we have seen of it in their cinema. It has been many years since Indians have worn paint and feathers in their hair. Now some in the Army are having Commando training as has Sgt. Kowana. But he is going to the gunnery school here now. And here” — he looked down the gravel walk — “comes Sibolt with the mail.”
That magic word was enough to drive all thought of Indians from
their heads, as he hoped it would. For he was still reluctant to explain the full nature of those afternoon lessons. Even a man with complete control over every muscle might have found them tiring; Lorens knew them to be exhausting. But there was so little time now, and there was so much the sergeant knew which might mean life or death overseas — how to walk without making a sound, how to crawl unseen, taking advantage of every possible scrap of cover, and just how to silence a man — the grip — the twist — !
He might be labeled cripple, but he would not be utterly useless. As Piet told him, two eyes, two hands, two feet, all in good working order, were a lot to be thankful for. And now he was learning to use them as he never had before.
“One for you, Lorens. No, two, and who is the fair lady?” Dirk held a pale gray envelope just out of reach until Lorens made a sudden snatch for his property.
He read the return address on the back flap, then nodded. “She is a lady and fair. For once you are right, Dirk.” But to the other’s disappointment, he then promptly thrust the unopened missive into his shirt pocket and tore open his other letter.
This was postmarked from Lawrence’s town, that was true, but he did not recognize the writing. Swiftly his eyes followed the lines down the page.
...so sorry that your letter did not arrive here a day earlier, for I judge from the postmark that you have at last reached this country in safety. But Lawrence had already left for camp. I have sent it on to him. In the meantime if you come within visiting distance of Freeport, please do not hesitate to come to us, in fact we shall be hurt if you do not After all these years of friendship between you and my son, I feel as if we are already very well acquainted.
I trust that that cousin of yours, Mr. van Oster, who came to see Lawrence last month, has at last managed to get in touch with you. He was so disappointed when we could supply no recent address or give him any clue to your whereabouts.
‘That cousin of yours, Mr. van Oster’. Yes, it really said that. He reread the paragraph twice. Who was van Oster and why had he been trying to reach Lorens through Lawrence? He must write Lawrence at once — yes, here was his army address at the bottom of the page. But who was van Oster?
It was almost twelve and Piet would turn up for lunch now. Maybe he would have some clue to the mysterious van Oster. As far as Lorens could remember, they certainly had no kin of that name. But he was not an expert on family affairs. And life with the Jonkheer had walled him off from much contact with his own generation. An orphan child in a house of adults was generally treated as an adult — when he wasn’t overlooked altogether. Van Oster might possibly be a cousin of whom he had never heard. After all, he couldn’t remember the Jonkheer ever discussing family affairs. But Piet should know.
Unluckily Piet was already deep in shop talk with an American wearing wings and a captain’s silver bars. So Lorens’ role was to keep quiet and appear to listen intelligently to a flow of technicalities of which he understood very little. The captain seemed unable to tear himself away until dessert was only a memory. Then Piet announced that he had only time for one cigarette before he had to get back to the field.
Lorens plunged. “Do you know any van Oster?”
“Van Oster?” Piet assumed the expression of a man rummaging through untidy memory drawers. “Van Oster — that sounds familiar, but I can’t place the name. Is he one of ours?”
“Not here, no. I heard of him today. He comes from back home.”
“Van Oster — odd, I’m sure I should know that name. If I can remember, I’ll tell you. And have you answered that Kruber letter yet?”
Lorens smiled and moved the saltshaker on the table with the care of a man moving a chess piece across a board. “Yes. I may have to go to New York to see about the matter near the end of this month.”
“Fine, fine!” Piet shook his shoulders as if some burden had just fallen from them. “By all means go. It is an excellent opening, and your luck seems to be in. Go ahead any time you want to. See you later.”
Lorens watched him go out the door and head down toward the hangars. Piet had his mind mostly in the clouds nowadays. But it was rather odd that he didn’t suspect Lorens’ almost suspicious agreement about the Kruber affair. Let him go on thinking that his troublesome cousin was on his way to New York to accept the very minor post in that well-known jeweler’s firm. There was no use explaining now about that courteous letter of refusal already in the mail and the other letter to a certain address in New York which might result in a much more important appointment being made.
In fact there was no reason for Piet to know the truth at all until all arrangements were made and Lorens was on his way. Odd about van Oster, though. The name seemed to stick in his mind. He felt much as Piet did, that there was a very good reason why he should remember that name and the man who bore it. Well, the best thing to do was to write Lawrence and get a full account of that interview from him.
But that letter was not to be written as he had planned. And long afterward he was to wonder if it would have made any difference if it had been and he had received an answer to it before he left the United States. Could Lawrence have told him anything which might have changed the course of events in an old cellar several thousand miles away?
It was another letter which drove van Oster from his mind, or rather reduced the new ‘cousin’ to one of the relatively unimportant things which had no present value. For that afternoon he read the all-important note he had been waiting for ever since he had arrived in Jackson. On the half sheet was typewritten a date, an hour, the address of an office building, and the number of a room. At least they thought that what he had to offer was important enough to allow him the first step.
And if he took that step there would be no going back ever. But this was what he wanted, had wanted since Rotterdam, since Salabania, since those black hours in the Australian desert. This slip of paper might well be his commission in an army whose name is never mentioned, whose numbers are never known, whose officers are men without faces or identities.
There was such an army, all the world knew that. And with Wim Smits he had once marched a few steps along its route. This was the Jonkheer’s sort of war, wits against wits, secret force against violence. And how the Jonkheer would have enjoyed its devious attacks and retreats!
Lorens sat watching the sun drop down the western rim of the sky. There were still planes aloft, the hum of their motors filled this slice of the world. That was one way of fighting.
He rolled the note into a long tube of paper. This signified another.
Scratching a match on the table, he touched the flame to the tube and watched it flare up to flimsy ash. He would not forget what was written there. Now there was no reason to destroy it, but it was excellent training to do so. No marks, no slips, no forgetting, nothing ever left to chance on the back trail. Sgt. Kowana had shown him how to discipline his body, he himself must discipline his mind.
He blew the bits of black ash away. And then laughed at his own solemnity. Spy stuff, kid stuff — hadn’t Lawrence once called it that? Here looking out over the hard-baked earth of Mississippi in a land untouched by war, all that had just passed through his mind seemed suddenly a little silly.
“Lorens, Lorens van Norreys!” Kip steamed toward him, Dirk in tow. “We have a pass” — he waved the slip of paper in the air — “for town visiting. And this time you cannot say that you are too busy to go, for we shall kidnap — kidnap you! Take that arm, Dirk, and, if he turns stubborn, push!”
They refused to listen to his protests, bundling him into the roadster to sit on a pair of extremely bony knees and be held in the vise of two skinny arms locked about his middle. For when the roadster moved off, it carried a double row of seat passengers as well as a load on both front fenders and the running board.
“We shall say” — Dirk’s voice arose shrilly above the rest — “see here, young ladies, at last we bring him — the mysterious one from the Sumatran jungles. And at once they will gather about —
”
“Shut your face!” ordered Lorens rudely. “If I ever get out of here — ”
He squirmed ineffectively in the octopus grip of his captor. “I have more important things to do than flit about town with you — you — ”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Kip yelled to be heard through the hooting chorus which answered that. “We have a man of affairs with us, we should keep a respectful silence, we should — ”
“Pie him!” shouted at least three voices. “And we will. Just you wait, Mr. van Norreys! And rev her up, Kip, we want to get into the bright lights while these passes are still good.”
Lorens hoped that the “pieing” was not to be a feature of the evening’s entertainment. Perhaps if he kept strict silence they would forget that suggestion for his discomfort Pieing was just what it sounded, the application of a fresh pie, preferably juicy or gooey, to the face of some temporarily unpopular individual. A messy process for all concerned.
But they were singing now, student songs with ringing choruses which had first echoed in the university halls in Leyden or Utrecht, sentimental songs which they roared out with fine disregard for sugary words, and army songs, mostly rude. Dirk, who had an ear for a new tune, sang some he had picked up from the Americans, and the rest had listened enough to the radio to be able to add at least part of a verse or chorus.
Kip brought the car up to the curb in a side street. “All out,” he announced. “And I return to the field promptly at ten, remember. If you are not here at that hour, you walk! Also this car holds the same number of passengers on the return trip. More I will not add at the last minute, so bring no others by promising a free ride.”