Page 13 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm
“Wars usually are.”
They’d found their way to a bar. “Martini, please,” Churchill told the barman. “Very light on the vermouth.”
“Same,” Bell said and turned his attention back to Churchill. “I had drinks with Secretary Daniels’s chief confidant a while back. The man practically drowns his martini in vermouth. Good to see you have taste.”
“Josephus mentioned him. A relative of your former President, Teddy Roosevelt.”
“Franklin Roosevelt is T.R.’s cousin.” Bell paused, considered something, and nodded to himself as he came to a quick conclusion. “Franklin is a lot like you, strong-willed and driven to succeed. I think you’d like him.”
“I hope to meet him one day.” Another gentleman approached. Churchill welcomed him over with a gesture. “Valentine, good tosee you, old boy. I thought you were in France. How’s Evelyn? Wait, more important, how’s your son? Did he get the books I sent over?”
“Winston, hello,” the newcomer said. He was a bit younger than Bell, but had gray in his mustache and a receding hairline. “He’s almost back to full strength, and yes, he got the books. He especially loved the Kipling one about spies in India.”
“Kim. One of my favorites. I knew he’d like it,” Churchill said. “Val, this is an American envoy I’m helping out, Isaac Bell. Mr. Bell, may I present Major Valentine Fleming, my regiment mate in the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars, as well as a fellow MP.”
“Former,” Fleming clarified.
“His son, Ian, has been laid up for a month with a pneumonia the doctors feared would become tuberculosis. Glad to hear he’s doing better. Stand you for a peg?”
“Scotch,” Fleming said and greeted Bell with a handshake. Churchill relayed the order to the barman, who handed over a cut-crystal tumbler of thirty-year-old Balblair single malt.
“Of what or who are you an envoy, Mr. Bell?” Fleming asked after taking an appreciative sip.
“The President of the United States, actually,” Bell said, drawing raised eyebrows from the man.
“I just had an idea,” Churchill interjected before Bell could add anything further.
He ushered them out of the public spaces and into a room that hadn’t yet been converted to electricity. The four wall sconces were all gaslit and glowing at their very lowest settings. Churchill turned up the brass knobs on the two lamps along the right wall. The room was decorated for a more feminine taste, with much lace and embroidered fabrics. The walls above the chair rail were covered in pale pink watered silk.
“Val, I said earlier that I thought you were in France,” Churchill said.
“I was. I’ve only been here for two days, some regimental business. I’m shipping out in the morrow.”
Churchill nodded through a wreath of smoke from the cigar he’d just lit, heedless of the fact this was a ladies’ drawing room. “Mr. Bell here has been tasked with reporting the frontline situation directly to President Wilson. Their Navy secretary reached out to me to see if I could facilitate his visit. And it looks like I can if you’re willing to play tour guide for a couple of days.”
Valentine Fleming looked more than a little uncomfortable.
Churchill understood right away. “You’re worried about the spring offensive.” Hearing this, Fleming’s face lost color. “Relax, Val. Everyone knows we’ve planned a springtime attack. It’s not exactly a surprise when the guns start blasting away to soften up the German lines. The Boche will know exactly where and when our lads are going over the top.”
Fleming saw the logic even if it went against strict military protocol. “I, well, yes I suppose that’s true.”
“We need this, old friend,” Churchill went on. “We need the Yanks in this fight, or this never-ending conflict is going to make the Seven-Years War look like a skirmish.”
“What is it you need to see?” Fleming asked Bell without committing himself.
“My instructions were vague, to be honest. Wilson fears we’re going to get into this scrap before long. Unlimited submarine warfare all but guarantees it. I think he wants to understand what exactly our soldiers will face. It won’t change his mind, but I think he needs to personally appreciate the risk and sacrifice his decision will have on those he sends to fight. I think my presence here has more todo with his conscience than any tactical or strategic necessity. That said, I would like to get as close to the front line as possible, as well as make an aerial reconnaissance of as much of the battlefront as I can manage.”
“Without giving away any military secrets, my regiment isn’t going to be in the thick of things even after the balloon goes up, so you can come with me for a couple of days. Have you nose about and I can send you to a British aerodrome about ten miles behind the lines.”
“Crabby’s outfit?” Churchill asked.
“Yes,” Fleming replied and added for Bell’s sake, “Captain Geoffrey Crabbe was once in the Queen’s Own Oxfordshires with Winston and myself. That is until he swapped his horse for a plane and took to the sky. Made ace in just six weeks. ’Course that was back before the Germans deployed their new Albatross D.IIIs.”
“You’ll do it, Val,” Churchill said with a deep chuckle. Bell could tell that he was a man accustomed to getting his own way.
“I don’t know,” Fleming prevaricated.
“Sod it, Val. It’s an opportunity to single-handedly help shorten the war.”
