The Last Heroes Read online

Canidy focused his attention back on his father in time to catch the tail end of his discourse on the Bible.

  ‘‘It is a lovely book, Dad. When you write to Eric again, make sure you tell him I said hello.’’

  ‘‘I’ve kept him abreast of your activities,’’ his father said. ‘‘He’s asked about you.’’

  ‘‘Well, tell him I said hello,’’ Canidy repeated. He was not actually surprised that Fulmar had succeeded in ducking the German draft. If nothing else, Fulmar was resourceful. Even as a little boy, he had had to learn to take care of himself, for with the exceptions of the Reverend Dr. Canidy and the lawyer, Stanley Fine, who had gotten them out of the arson episode, no adult had ever really given a damn about him.

  In the morning, the Reverend Dr. Canidy drove them to the airfield in Dick’s car.

  He insisted on offering a prayer for their safe journey, and they stood for a moment with their heads bowed beside the Devastator.

  As he looked up at his father after the prayer, Canidy was surprised that his eyes were watering and his throat was constricted.

  3

  The parade for the graduating pilots was held at 0930 Friday morning. The prescribed uniform for the staff (the IPs) was dress whites, with swords and medals. Neither Canidy nor Bitter had any medals yet, but the brass, particularly the older brass, had rows of them. From the World War, Canidy thought. The last World War.

  The swords were absurd. No naval officer had ever used a sword in the last war, and now they were getting ready for another war, and they still wore them. He was amused that he would be taking the sword (because he had forgotten to pack it with the things he had taken to Cedar Rapids and didn’t know what else to do with it) to China.

  The parade was over at 1100 hours. They put their swords in the trunk of Bitter’s Buick, where they had previously packed overnight bags, and left the base in their dress whites. They took off their uniform caps as soon as they were out of Pensacola, put the roof down, and headed toward Mobile.

  They crossed the causeway at the upper end of Mobile Bay, and as they approached Mobile, they came to the Mobile Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. A dozen ships— cargo ships, tankers, and what looked like the hull of a light cruiser—were on the ways in various stages of construction.

  ‘‘My cousin Mark works there,’’ Bitter said. ‘‘He’ll be at The Plantation. He’s the assistant superintendent of construction. ’’

  That was not how Chesty Whittaker had described Mark Chambers’s role at the shipyard. Chesty said he owned it.

  ‘‘I’m impressed,’’ Canidy replied.

  He feared again that he was opening some Pandora’s box by going where Sue-Ellen was.

  But then he decided to hell with it. What he would do would be the perfect gentleman, faithfully pretending that he had never seen her before. If that made her a little uncomfortable, that was probably an appropriate punishment for a married woman who went around screwing strange sailors.

  4

  The deeper the Crescent moved into the Deep South, the more convinced Sarah Child felt that the trip was a mistake. Sarah was slight, with dark eyes, light complexion, and black hair; she was nineteen years old, a Bryn Mawr sophomore, and a New Yorker. Her father, a banker, was the grandson of a banker who had been sent from Frankfurt am Main to open a New York branch. The grandfather and his son, and Sarah’s father, had been more successful in the New World than anyone in Frankfurt had dreamed. Frankfurt was thus now considered one of several overseas branches of the New York bank.

  Her best friends at Bryn Mawr, Ann Chambers and Charity Hoche, were what Sarah thought of as ‘‘healthy’’ (that is, taller, heavier, and larger-bosomed), blond, fair-skinned, Southerners and Protestant Christian.

  Bryn Mawr was one thing, and entertaining the girls at the Child apartment on East Sixty-fourth Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan was one thing, but coming south with them to a ‘‘plantation’’ was another.

  Sarah could not put her finger on precisely why she was scared and uncomfortable, but that didn’t change anything. Partly, she knew, it was because her mother (a woman with what was called—to be nice—a nervous condition) was opposed to her coming down here, and partly it was because Sarah hadn’t really had much experience with these kinds of people. Her first night at Bryn Mawr had been the first time she had been separated from her parents overnight. And then later Ann and Charity had become the first friends she’d ever made who weren’t Jews.

  They got off the Crescent in Montgomery, Alabama (‘‘Heart of Dixie,’’ a sign proclaimed. ‘‘See the first capital of the Confederate States of America"), at 5:20 P.M. on Thursday. An enormous, very black man named Robert met them with Ann Chambers’s mother’s Lincoln. Ten minutes later, they were driving out of town down a narrow, winding macadam road at seventy-five miles an hour into a seemingly endless forest of pine trees. An hour and a half later, the Lincoln stopped before the white columns of a huge house.

  The Chamberses had held dinner for them, and they’d eaten—off fine china, with ancient silver, served by servants in aprons—in a huge dining room under the portrait of a man in a Confederate colonel’s uniform.

  Afterward, they sat on rocking chairs on the veranda of the mansion while hordes of noisy insects battered themselves against a hanging light.

  Ann’s mother announced there were some boys coming down from the university with Ann’s brother Charley tomorrow afternoon.

  ‘‘And your cousin Eddie, Ann,’’ Jenny Chambers told her daughter. ‘‘He and his friend from the Navy will be here for the weekend.’’

  She went on to say that Ann’s older brother and his wife would also be coming up from Mobile. Sarah knew perfectly well what that meant. There would be two simultaneous parties at The Plantation. One for ‘‘the young people,’’ she, Charity, Ann, and the young men being imported for them by Charley Chambers, who was twenty-one and an Alabama senior. And a second party for everybody else—everybody who’d be older and more interesting.

  At half past ten, Sarah went to her room. It was furnished with antiques, another oil portrait of a Confederate officer, and a bed with a canopy.

  It was so quiet that Sarah took a long time to go to sleep.

  The next morning, an enormous breakfast was served in what they called the morning room. There were three kinds of eggs, and biscuits, and ham, and bacon, and sausage.

  Afterward, the girls put on bathing suits. Ann and Charity wanted to take advantage of what they called real sun.

  By noon, Sarah knew that she had had enough sun. She tanned too easily, even under the shade of an umbrella. So after lunch, when the girls went back to poolside, she went instead into the library and looked around until she found something with pictures: Hincker’s Illustrated Chronicle of the Army of Northern Virginia, an old, huge volume of etchings of the Civil War. She fell asleep with it on her lap.

  She woke to the sound of an automobile horn tooting ‘‘Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits’’ and looked out the French windows to the drive in front of the house.

  A shiny Buick convertible, with roof down and red leather upholstery, was pulling up. Two good-looking men were in it, wearing white uniforms that seemed very bright in the sunlight. And, she noticed, gold aviator’s wings were pinned to their breasts. The driver got out, reached into the backseat, and picked up a white uniform cap. Sun glinted off the insignia and gold strap. Then he walked around the front of the Buick and came up onto the veranda, moving with muscular grace. She was disappointed when he disappeared.

  He was the best-looking young man she had ever seen. He must be Ann’s cousin, she thought, or Ann’s cousin’s friend.

  Then the door to the library opened, and there he was.

  ‘‘Hello,’’ he said. He smiled. He had beautiful teeth. ‘‘I’m Ed Bitter. Where is everybody?’’

  Sarah felt naked in her bathing suit. Naked, she thought, but not ashamed, even when she saw him looking at her legs and chest.

  Ann’s mother
appeared, then Robert and one of the maids.

  ‘‘We were all upstairs, trying to bed down the army . . . or should I say, the Navy . . . we’re going to have,’’ Jenny Chambers said, giving Ed Bitter her cheek to kiss. She saw Sarah. ‘‘I see you’ve met Sarah. Sarah, this is Edwin Bitter, my sister’s son.’’

  ‘‘How do you do?’’ Ed Bitter said. The flicker of interest in his eyes died . . . she’d become only a friend of Ann’s— which is to say, a kid.

  ‘‘Go out by the pool,’’ Jenny Chambers said, ‘‘and I’ll send some beer out, and I’ll sort out who’s going to sleep where. Sarah, take him out and introduce him to Charity, will you?’’

  ‘‘Yes, ma’am,’’ Sarah said, furious with herself for her polite, little girl’s response. She should have said something adult: ‘‘I’ll be happy to,’’ or ‘‘Certainly,’’ or something like that.

  The other man in the car came in. He was taller, but not nearly so good-looking as Ann’s cousin.

  ‘‘Welcome back, Dick,’’ Jenny Chambers said. ‘‘Follow Sarah to the pool. There’s beer.’’

  ‘‘Yes, ma’am,’’ the other one said. ‘‘Hello, Sarah. I’m Dick Canidy.’’

  She smiled, but she didn’t say anything. She walked past the good-looking one into the foyer and led them through the house to the pool.

  Bitter went to a galvanized washtub full of ice and beer and took out two bottles. He tossed one to Canidy, who snatched it out of the air. They sat down on folding canvas lounge chairs. Bitter unfastened the snaps of the high collar of his white uniform tunic. The way he was sitting on the lounge chair, with his legs extended and crossed, his white trousers were drawn taut at his crotch.

  ‘‘So tell me, Ann,’’ Bitter said, ‘‘how’s Bryn Mawr? You catch a man?’’

  ‘‘Drop dead, Eddie,’’ Ann said.

  ‘‘Isn’t that the whole idea of going to college? To catch a man?’’

  There was a timbre in his voice that Sarah felt in her belly.

  Thirty minutes later, Charley Chambers arrived with his friends from the University of Alabama.

  They were boys, Sarah thought, even though they were only a couple of years younger than Ed Bitter and his friend. Immature boys. Ed Bitter and his friend thought so, too, for just about as soon as the introductions had been made, he made a signal to his friend, and they left ‘‘to get out of the uniforms.’’ Sarah really hated to see them go.

  One of the boys who had come with Ann’s brother said something to her.

  ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ Sarah said. ‘‘I was woolgathering.’’

  ‘‘I said I’m David Bershin,’’ he said.

  Sarah smiled at him.

  ‘‘Sarah Child,’’ she said, giving him her hand. ‘‘I guess that you’re at the University of Alabama, too, David?’’

  ‘‘Yes, but call me Davey,’’ he said.

  ‘‘That sounds Irish, not Jewish.’’ She laughed. And so did he. He had a sweet, open laugh.

  He was a nice boy, she thought. She knew she should try to like him and not Ed Bitter the sailor. But . . .

  ‘‘Can I get you a beer?’’ Davey Bershin asked.

  ‘‘When in Rome,’’ Sarah said. He smiled his sweet, open smile at her and went quickly to the galvanized tub full of ice and beer.

  Forty-five minutes later, a single-engine biplane flew over The Lodge at about five hundred feet.

  ‘‘That’s Daddy,’’ Ann said. ‘‘Let’s go get him.’’

  When they went through the house and onto the veranda, Ed Bitter and his friend were about to get into Ed’s Buick. Both were dressed for tennis. Sarah saw that Ed Bitter’s muscular legs were lightly covered with pale hair.

  ‘‘Where are you going?’’ Ann called to him.

  ‘‘To get your father,’’ Ed replied.

  ‘‘We were going to do that,’’ Ann complained.

  ‘‘This car is here, dummy,’’ Ed said. ‘‘Come along if you want to.’’

  ‘‘All right,’’ Sarah heard herself say, and started down the veranda steps. Ann and Charity did not follow her.

  ‘‘That’s all right, you go get him,’’ Ann said. Sarah felt like a fool. She started to turn around, then decided she would look like more of a fool if she stayed.

  ‘‘I’m interested in airplanes,’’ she said to Dick Canidy.

  ‘‘Me, too,’’ he said. ‘‘This one is supposed to be special. ’’ He opened the passenger door for her and motioned her inside.

  ‘‘What’s special about this one?’’

  ‘‘It’s a stagger-wing Beech with a big, fat Wasp engine,’’ he said. ‘‘Makes it go like the hammers of hell.’’

  She had no idea what that meant. Ed Bitter was now beside her on the hot leather seats, his hairy leg beside her smooth one, his knee brushing gently against hers as he pushed on the starter mounted on the accelerator pedal and turned the engine over.

  When they reached the airplane three people were standing beside it, two men and a woman. Sarah recognized one of the men as Ann’s father. And besides, Brandon Chambers was very hard to forget, for he was very large—280 pounds—and very present wherever he was, with a bellowing, almost always laughing voice that dominated his hearers more powerfully—though usually more cheerfully—than a great preacher’s. He sailed up to the car and gave his enormous hand to Ed Bitter.

  ‘‘We have,’’ Ann’s father said significantly, ‘‘just been talking about you, Ed.’’

  ‘‘Have you?’’ Ed replied.

  ‘‘Hello, Sarah,’’ Brandon Chambers said. ‘‘It’s nice to see you, honey.’’ And then he looked at Ed’s friend. ‘‘You must be Lieutenant Canidy,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Yes, sir.’’ Canidy reached across Sarah to shake his hand. ‘‘How do you do, sir?’’

  ‘‘I was doing a lot better, frankly, Lieutenant,’’ Brandon Chambers said, ‘‘before I found out about this China insanity. I’m glad you’re here.’’

  Sarah wondered what the ‘‘China insanity’’ could mean.

  Ann’s brother Mark walked up to the car and shook Ed’s hand.

  ‘‘You’re out of your mind, you know, Ed,’’ he said. ‘‘I thought you’d be smarter than that.’’

  ‘‘And it’s nice to see you, too,’’ Ed replied. ‘‘Dick, this is my cousin Mark. Mark, Dick Canidy.’’

  ‘‘The other crusader,’’ Mark Chambers said dryly. ‘‘How do you do, Lieutenant?’’

  ‘‘And the lady, Dick,’’ Ed Bitter said, ‘‘is Mark’s wife, Sue-Ellen.’’

  ‘‘How do you do, Mrs. Chambers?’’ Dick Canidy said.

  She walked to him and gave him her hand.

  ‘‘Please call me Sue-Ellen,’’ she said. ‘‘Any friend of Eddie’s, et cetera.’’

  ‘‘That’s very kind of you,’’ Dick Canidy said.

  ‘‘I’m Sue-Ellen,’’ the woman said to Sarah, giving her her hand. ‘‘Why don’t I get in the back with you and Lieutenant Canidy and leave the front seat to the broad-bottomed lairds of the manor?’’

  Sarah slid across the seat and got out the driver’s side, and then climbed in the back. Sue-Ellen Chambers got in the middle, and Canidy got in beside her, while the other three men took suitcases from the plane and put them in the trunk.

  ‘‘Is my leg bothering you, Lieutenant?’’ Sue-Ellen asked. ‘‘I’m sorry. I didn’t get the first name.’’

  ‘‘Dick,’’ he said. ‘‘No. I was afraid my leg was in your way.’’

  ‘‘There’s never enough room in the backseats of convertibles, ’’ Sue-Ellen asked, ‘‘is there?’’

  ‘‘Nice flight?’’ Ed asked as they drove off.

  ‘‘While we waited for you,’’ Brandon Chambers said, ‘‘I figured it out. I made two hundred thirty-five miles an hour from Nashville to Mobile and then two hundred thirty from Mobile here.’’

  ‘‘That’s faster than an F3F-1,’’ Ed replied.

  Sarah noticed the hairs on Ed
Bitter’s neck, and wondered what they’d be like to touch.

  Sue-Ellen Chambers pushed herself off the backseat with a hand on Dick Canidy’s leg.

  ‘‘Sorry,’’ she said to him, and then to Ed, ‘‘I don’t remember this car, Eddie. Is it new?’’

  ‘‘I’ve had it just over a month,’’ he said.

  ‘‘It’s very nice,’’ she said, then slid back, wiggling her hips.

  At the house, they all went back to the pool, where they sat around a large, umbrellaed, round cast-iron table.

  Robert appeared with what looked like a pitcher of tomato juice and glasses for all of them.

  Sarah took a sip of the tomato juice. There was a bite to it. There was something alcoholic in it, gin or vodka, and Worcestershire, too, and some other flavors.

  ‘‘Sarah, honey,’’ Mr. Chambers said. ‘‘Would you excuse us? We’ve got a little private family business to discuss with these two innocents.’’

  ‘‘Oh, certainly,’’ Sarah said, flushing. ‘‘Excuse me.’’

  ‘‘Excuse us,’’ Mr. Chambers said, ‘‘but this just won’t wait.’’

  She went to the far end of the other side of the pool and sat down in an unusual wicker chair. It had a funny little parasol to shade whoever was sitting in it from the sun. She pushed herself all the way into it.

  She could hear Mr. Chambers’s voice, of course; but she was surprised that she could hear Ed’s too, faintly but clearly, like at Carnegie Hall. She had once gone to Carnegie Hall when there was nothing going on, and her father had demonstrated that it was possible to stand on the stage and whisper, and the whisper was audible in the very last row of seats. Something like that was happening now.

  ‘‘If you don’t mind my asking, Lieutenant,’’ Mr. Chambers said, and was interrupted by Ed Bitter.

  ‘‘You’re making him uncomfortable, Uncle Brandon,’’ he said.

  ‘‘My question, if you don’t mind my asking,’’ Brandon Chambers went on, ignoring him, ‘‘is how your parents reacted when they learned you were going to China.’’

  ‘‘We’re not supposed to discuss any of this,’’ Ed Bitter said.