James Benn: Billy Boyle

Daphne smiled a little, and I noticed she was wearing makeup and lipstick. She looked really beautiful all dolled up. The real trick was that she’d also looked beautiful in that WREN uniform with no makeup.

“Very well, Billy. I won’t yell at you. But you should know General Eisenhower kicked a colonel out of that room for you. He wanted to have you close by. He also has rooms here. Even for Americans, the Dorchester is exclusive real estate these days.”

Kaz refilled our glasses. “For myself, Billy, I must admit that I’ve always had a weakness for the Dorchester. I stayed here with my parents when it was new in 1932. When I was at Oxford, they would visit once a year and they always stayed here, in this very suite. We spent Christmas 1938 in this room, with my two sisters.” His eyes drifted away and focused on something that I couldn’t see.

“Where are they now? Still in Poland?”

No response. Kaz just seemed to be in a dream. Daphne reached out to touch his arm. He came back from wherever he was.

“They are dead. All of them.”

He set down his champagne at his place and sat. I realized it was the first time I’d met anyone who had actually suffered from the war. Back home it was all newspaper headlines and here it had been file folders, coffee, and drinking buddies so far. I felt bad about asking, but I could tell he had his pain carefully stored in that faraway place. So I asked.

“How?”

“The Nazis decided to eliminate anyone who might resist them. The intelligentsia, officers, government officials. And the aristocracy. We do not have a monarch, but the ancient clans had their leaders, their barons and counts. Or had them.” He was quiet for a minute. Daphne and I sat down, and she filled in the rest.

“Piotr was at Oxford, doing graduate work in foreign languages when the war broke out. He volunteered for the Polish Free Corps when they organized here.”

“So how did you end up with Eisenhower?”

“The Polish Army was gracious enough to grant me a commission. I have a heart condition that would normally keep me from active service, but I know a number of European languages, a talent that is suddenly in great demand.”

“And all this?” I gestured around the room.

“My father had significant land holdings and investments. He was a very shrewd businessman, and knew that sooner or later Poland would be overrun from the east or the west. He was right, except it was from both directions. He kept most of the family fortune in Swiss accounts. I am now the sole beneficiary of his wisdom.”

“So you stay here where you have good memories.”

“It is all that is left, Billy. In my country, there is even less.”

“I hope you’ve got plenty stashed away. This place must cost a fortune. Hope your money lasts longer than the war.” Daphne shot me a glance that said, shut up. Maybe you didn’t talk about other people’s money in England. Then I saw a sadness in Kaz’s eyes as he looked at Daphne.

“That is of little concern. Now, let us talk about Norwegians before the food is brought up.” It didn’t take a Beantown detective to figure out all that money would probably outlast his heart. I was glad of the change of subject.

Kaz gave me the lowdown on the meetings with the Norwegians. Major Harding was going to Beardsley Hall to give the king and his advisers a top-secret briefing. Kaz was to be his interpreter, although most of the Norwegians spoke English to one degree or another. I was to go as-well, let’s just say I was going, too.

The briefing was about Operation Jupiter. When he mentioned that name, Kaz lowered his voice and looked around as if we were standing on a Berlin street corner. Operation Jupiter was the plan for the invasion of Norway. It had been created by the British, but they hadn’t had the resources to carry it out until we entered the war. Now it was going to be the Allies’ first offensive against the Third Reich. Before winter set in, we were going to invade Norway. British and American forces, along with the Norwegians, were going to take Norway back. This would protect the Murmansk convoys bringing supplies to the Russians, and give the Allies air bases within fighter range of Berlin. It sounded like we were about to win the war.

The Norwegians had been lobbying for Operation Jupiter, and now they were going to be told it was on. We were going to deliver the news jointly with a British delegation headed by a Major Charles Cosgrove. The Norwegians were going to have their government officials there, along with officers from the Norwegian Brigade and commando units. It sounded like we would be heroes.

“Should be a breeze.”

“Breeze?” Kaz asked quizzically.

“He means it should be easy,” Daphne explained.

“Ah! Yes, I understand, but actually it may be more like heavy winds. Ciekie wiatry, my friend.”

There was a knock at the door. The food came in, two carts’ worth of covered plates and bowls. It smelled great, and we never got back to why it wouldn’t be such a breeze.

The alarm rang. It was 6:00 a.m. Oh six hundred hours, I thought, as I suddenly remembered I was in the army. What a disappointment. It was dark as a dungeon in my little room, and I had to turn on the bedside lamp to make sure I didn’t walk into a wall. It was raining. I could tell by the greasy streaks of water on my tiny dirty window.

Ten minutes later I was dressing and packing for a few days in the country with the Norwegians. I put on a pair of freshly pressed olive drab wool serge pants and a starched khaki shirt with the mohair olive drab field scarf tucked in between the second and third buttons. I bent over to tie my shoes, brown laces on brown oxfords. I was a properly drab soldier, and thought about how dull the olive green and khaki brown were in comparison to police blue. Cops in uniform stood out in a crowd, it said, Here I am, a man in blue. I guess soldiers preferred to fade into the forest instead of standing out. That first day on the job in Boston, my badge had felt solid and weighty as I pinned it on my new blue shirt. It was everything I had ever wanted. Dad had been called out on a homicide during the night, so it was only Mom and little Danny to see me off. Danny had shined my shoes for me, getting more black shoe polish on his hands and nose than on the shoes, but they still sparkled. They both stood at the door and waved, and more than a few neighbors stood on their porches to watch the Boyles send off their second generation to serve with Boston’s finest.

Funny thing, it was the First World War that had gotten Dad and Uncle Dan jobs with the department. After the police strike in 1919, none of the strikers got their jobs back. Governor Coolidge saw to that, and it got him into the White House. The city needed new cops fast, and what better source than the veterans, just back from the war, jobless, trained, and in need of dough? Dad and Uncle Dan signed up, along with plenty of their buddies, and that bunch of recruits stuck together, looked out for each other, did favors for each other, protected each other. For more than twenty years. That’s a lot of favors, and now some of those guys were pretty high up in the department. Some were dead, too. Being a cop wasn’t all about favors, you know.

Now, it was another world war that was taking me away from the cops. Funny. One generation gets in, another gets pulled out. Like war was a tide that washed over us, leaving some on the high ground and dragging others out to sea.

I stood up, shoes laced tight, and pulled my army-issue Colt. 45 caliber automatic pistol out of the duffel bag along with its holster, belt, and spare clips. The damn thing weighed a ton. I was used to my Smith amp; Wesson. 38 Police Special revolver, a piece you could wear snug under your shoulder or in your back belt and not feel like you were lugging around an elephant gun. But that was back in Boston and here I was in London with this cannon. There was a war on, so I didn’t see any sense in leaving it behind. I put it in my overnight bag along with a few other things and grabbed my field overcoat, olive drab, of course.