"Of course I'm right," the Old Man said.
"Jim and I talked about it," Martha said. "The way his will was written- and mine-the girls get the preferred stock, and that income, but you'll get Jim's and my voting stock, and control of the company."
"He never said anything about anything like that to me," Clete said. The conversation was making him uncomfortable.
"He thought there would be time, we both did, when you came home after the war."
There was a moment's silence, and then Clete decided to change the sub-ject. "You're talking as if you think Germany might win the war, Germany and Japan."
"Will German tanks roll down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington? Or will Jap soldiers bayonet people and rape women in Beverly Hills like they did in Nanking? That's highly improbable. But I'll tell you what is possible-an armistice. The First World War ended with an armistice, why not this one?"
"I never even thought about an armistice," Clete thought aloud.
"You know wha
t happened at Stalingrad?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"The Germans lost a whole army there. Six hundred thousand men and all their equipment."
"That many? I never thought about that, either. I don't think we had forty thousand Marines on Guadalcanal."
"Can you imagine what would have happened here if you had had to sur-render on Guadalcanal? If forty thousand Americans had been killed? Roo-sevelt would have been impeached-which might not be such a bad idea, come to think of it. And we're a hundred and eighty million people. There are about seventy million Germans. Six hundred thousand is almost one percent of sev-enty million."
"What's your point? You've lost me."
"My point is this," the Old Man said. "Somewhere, right now in Germany, there are people-important people, and whatever you want to say about the Germans, they aren't stupid-who are facing the facts. If they are losing one percent of the total population in just one battle, and the war is nowhere near over, then it's time to get out of the war."
"I don't think Hitler is in any danger of getting himself impeached," Clete said. "He's a dictator, remember?"
"You've read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. A lot of big-time dictators suddenly found themselves out of a job when their people had had enough." The Old Man drew his meat knife across his throat. "Remember that?"
"I think the word for that is 'regicide,'" Clete said softly. "Killing the king."
"Well, I'm impressed. Maybe you did learn something at Tulane after all."
I didn't learn that word at Tulane. I learned it in Buenos Aires, when Peter von Wachtstein translated the letter from his father, in which Generalmajor von Wachtstein announced that his officer's honor required that he commit the act of regicide.
You 're right, Grandfather. We 're not talking in the abstract here. We 're talk-ing about real people actually committing regicide.
"Always stand pat on sixteen, you mean?"
"I was trying to be complimentary," the Old Man said. "Sooner or later, and I think sooner, Hitler will be deposed. As soon as that happens, the Germans will seek an armistice, and we'll give it to them."
"President Roosevelt called for unconditional surrender at the Casablanca Conference."
"If the Germans offer an armistice, we'll take it," the Old Man said, dis-missing Roosevelt's pronouncement. "And once that happens, and the Japanese realize that they're all alone, they'll ask for one too."
"I don't agree with that at all. Japs don't surrender. We learned that on the 'Canal."
"If the Emperor tells them he's decided there should be an armistice, there'll be an armistice," the Old Man said flatly. "Anyway, for the sake of ar-gument, indulge me. The war is over. Germany wants to barter manufactured goods for Argentine crude. I would be happier if they were bartering with us, but that looks unlikely."
"Wait a minute, you're losing me."
"I would like to barter our crude to Argentina, our Venezuela crude-pre-serving our own oil reserves-for American manufactured products, but that's not about to happen."
"Why not?"