The Soldier Spies (Men at War 3)

“The reason I know is that Captain Douglass told me to get reports from the Navy on the progress of a flight of P-38s from Westover Field in Massachusetts tomorrow afternoon. They’re flying via Newfoundland to Scotland. Doug told me he’s going to Westover. I didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to put two and two together.”

“My God, if Ed found out, he’d kill me,” Sarah said, weakening.

“He won’t be home until Tuesday,” Charity argued conclusively. “You told me that yourself. And if you don’t tell him, I certainly won’t.”

“I’m going to take Joe for a walk,” Sarah said finally, feeling very much the sophisticated woman of the world. “Do what you think is right.”

And Sarah took Little Joe for a walk, although he didn’t need one. What happened between Doug and Charity while she was gone was none of her business.

But she hadn’t imagined they wouldn’t be finished when she came back. Or that they would keep it up for hours.

She concluded that the best way to handle the situation was to just go to bed and say nothing until after Doug left in the morning. Then she would really give Charity a piece of her mind.

It was a lucky thing Ed wasn’t home. Ed would have had a fit. But Ed had told her—with certainty—that his duty as aide-de-camp to Vice Admiral Enoch Hawley, USN, Chief Aviation Matériel Assignments Branch, BUAIR, would keep him out of town for at least the weekend and probably into Tuesday.

Lieutenant Commander Edwin Ward Bitter, USN, returned home three hours later, just before midnight.

When he found the baby’s crib in their bedroom, his curiosity was aroused. “Who’s here?” he asked when he crawled into bed beside Sarah.

Feigning a much deeper sleep than was the case, Sarah replied,“Douglass.”

“Good,” Ed said happily and went to sleep.

That bought her some time, Sarah thought, to consider how to handle the situation when it came up in the morning as it would as inevitably as the sun.

Being married to one herself, Sarah had come to understand that service academy graduates and career officers were just plain different from other officers. They saw things in another kind of light, they had more rigid codes of honor and standards of behavior than people like, say, Ed’s (and Sarah’s and Doug’s) friend Dick Canidy.

Sometimes these differing perceptions were evident. For starters, both Doug, who was a West Pointer, and Ed, who had gone to Annapolis, were not amused—and let him know it—whenever Canidy characterized the Army-Navy Club as “The Old Farts Home.” And both took offense whenever Dick or Jim Whittaker mocked the professional military establishment.

And now Doug Douglass had stepped over the professional line: It was another of those odd military customs that Sarah had so much trouble understanding. Ed certainly didn’t expect Douglass, who was a healthy young bachelor, to play the celibate. But he fully expected him to obey the hoary adage that an officer must keep his indiscretions one hundred miles from the flagpole.

An officer did not take his loose women under the roof of a brother officer’s house, much less sleep with them there. And by sleeping with Doug at all, Charity Hoche would lose her status in Ed’s eyes. She could no longer be a "lady,” even though she and his wife had gone to Bryn Mawr together.

In the morning when Ed got out of bed, Sarah pretended to be asleep. Fifteen minutes later, after changing Joe, he carried the baby into his and Sarah’s bed, his wholly transparent purpose being to wake her up.

“When did Doug come in last night?”

“Very late.”

“I’m getting hungry. Do you think I could wake him up?”

“I think you ought to let him sleep,” Sarah said, hoping to delay the inevitable just a little longer.

“To hell with it,” Ed said after a moment’s thought. “He and Canidy have blasted me out of a sound sleep often enough. Now it’s his turn.”

“Go ahead, then,” Sarah said. “I’ll have room service send up a breakfast buffet.” And stretchers.

She heard him go down the corridor to Joe’s room and call Doug’s name, happily, cheerfully.

She picked up the telephone and ordered a breakfast buffet for four.

When Ed Bitter called his name and banged on the door, Doug Douglass woke up snuggled against Charity Hoche, her back to his belly, his hand holding her breast.

He carefully withdrew his hand and rolled carefully onto his back.

Oh, my God, he’s home! Good God, he’s worse than my father. When he finds out we’re both in here, he’ll shit a brick!

He looked at his watch. Quarter past nine. He looked down at Charity Hoche.