The Death Instinct (6 page)

    'This morning you said it didn't make sense that men are so willing to die.'

    Younger knew Littlemore was trying to draw him out; that was all right with him. 'You should have seen France in 1918,' said Younger. He got up and lit a cigarette with one of the Littlemores' long stove matches. 'The Brits, the French - they were sick of it by then. Just wanted to survive. Couldn't believe their eyes when the Americans came. Like we'd lived our whole lives starved of the chance to die.'

    'I would've been there,' said Littlemore. 'If not for Betty and the kids.'

    'It's not just war either,' said Younger. 'Give people a taste of terror, and they lap it up. Why are there roller coasters on Coney Island?'

    'Not so people can die,' answered Littlemore.

    'So they can feel the terror of death. Rich men, with comfortable lives, kill themselves climbing mountains. Flying aircraft for sport. Do you know what happens when newspapers report that someone died on a Coney Island roller coaster? More people come out to ride the next day.'

    'Well, I don't ride coasters.' Littlemore refilled their glasses. 'Why would somebody bomb a street corner? It doesn't figure.'

    'Because you're thinking like a policeman. Looking for a motive.'

    'Sure am,' said Littlemore.

    'What if they just wanted to kill people?'

    'Why?'

    'Whom do you assassinate,' replied Younger, 'if you hate a whole country? In the old days, it would have been the king. Attack the King of England, you attack England itself. But a president? A presidents just a politician who will be gone in a few years anyway. With a democracy, you have to take assassination out of the palace. You have to assassinate the people.'

    Littlemore thought about that. 'Why would they hate us?'

    'The whole world hates us.'

    'Nobody hates us. Everybody loves America.'

    'Germany hates us because we beat them. England and France hate us because we saved them. Russia hates us because we're capitalist. The rest of the world hates us because we're imperialist.'

    'That's not a motive,' said Littlemore. 'Say, you never asked me why I needed Colette today.'

    'Why did you?'

    'There's this guy, Fischer, okay? Couple a days ago, he sends a warning to a banker pal of his telling him to stay out of Wall Street after the fifteenth. Fischer works at some French outfit a few blocks from Wall. So I went there. Took Colette to translate. Now get this: the French got a letter from Fischer yesterday too, warning them to get everybody out because something was going to happen on Wall Street.'

    Younger whistled: 'Who is he?'

    'Question is
where
is he. Seems he went AWOL from the French about a month ago. Looks like he's in Canada somewhere. We'll find him: I told the press. A million people will be looking for this guy in a few hours. Know what's funny? Fischer's French boss tore his letter up and threw it away. We had to pull the pieces out of a wastepaper basket. Nobody took this guy seriously.' Littlemore corked the whiskey bottle, laid it on one side, and spun it on the table. 'They're trying to cut us out.'

    'The French?'

    'The Feds. They're trying to take over the investigation. Big Bill Flynn's here already. Palmer's coming up too.'

    A. Mitchell Palmer was the Attorney General of the United States, William J. Flynn the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

    'The whole Bureau's coming up to New York,' Littlemore went on, looking like he had a bad taste in his mouth. 'Plus Treasury guys, Secret Service guys - dozens of them. The investigation is "in the hands of the federal government": that's what Big Bill told the boys last night. Flynn. Tell you what - he's no Teddy Roosevelt. Big Bill used to be chief of detectives here a couple years back. Nobody liked him. You know, when I was a kid, all I wanted was to become a federal agent. My dad and I used to talk about how it would be. Still do. I'd work my way up in the Department, then go to DC and work for Roosevelt. Guess it's a good thing I didn't make it. With Palmer and Flynn running the show down there, and the Congress passing Prohibition, I don't know what they're doing in Washington anymore.'

    'Too bad about Roosevelt,' said Younger. Unlike the detective, who said
Roos-velt
, Younger pronounced it
Rose-a-velt
, as did the Roosevelts. 'What killed T.R. - the bullet they never got out of his chest?'

    'No,' said Younger. 'It was his malaria.'

    'You ever meet him?' asked Littlemore.

    'Once or twice,' said Younger. 'He was a cousin.'

    'Everybody's your cousin.'

    'Not by blood. And very distant. I'm better acquainted with his i la lighter Alice. That is, I was - briefly - acquainted with her.'

    'Don't tell me.'

    Younger said nothing.

    'Darn it, Doc - Roosevelt's daughter?' cried Littlemore. 'And a beauty girl? Why didn't you marry her?'

    'For one thing she had a husband.'

    'Doc, Doc, Doc,' said Littlemore. 'T.R.'s daughter. Was this before or after you and Nora?'

    'A notorious philanderer,' added Younger. 'You're no philanderer.' 'I meant Alice's husband. But thank you.' 'You're more of a womanizer.'

    'Ah. A fine distinction,' said Younger. 'I'm not a womanizer. I don't sleep with them. Unless I like them. Which is rarely. You don't - stray?'

    'Me?' Littlemore laughed. 'I always ask what my dad would do. He would never have done something like that, so I don't.'

    'How is he - your dad?'

    'Good. I still visit with him most every weekend.' Littlemore drummed his fingers on the table. 'What kind of name is Drobac anyway?' Colette had told the police that the kidnapper who escaped - the leader of the three men - had been called Drobac by his confederates. 'And why'd he ask us, "Where are they"? Where are what?'

    'Why did he kill his own man?' rejoined Younger.

    'That's easy - to keep him from talking.' Littlemore put his heels up on the table, and his voice changed tone. 'But you know what I really don't get?'

    'What exactly I'm doing with Colette,' said Younger.

    'You bring her back from France,' said Littlemore, warming to the theme, 'but you got her living in Connecticut. You go crazy when she disappears, but you act, I don't know, all proper when she's around.'

    'You're wondering when I plan to propose.'

    'Why'd you bring her across the Atlantic otherwise? Unless you plan to ruin her.'

    'You seem anxious about my marital prospects tonight.'

    'Well, are you or aren't you?' asked Littlemore.

    'Planning to ruin her? Tried that already,' said Younger. He took a long drink. 'Want to hear about it?'

    'Sure.'

Chapter Five

    In October 1917, Lieutenant Dr Stratham Younger was transferred to the American field hospital in Einville, not far from Nancy, where US Army troops had finally been deployed in the front lines. At that time American soldiers served under French command; Younger ended up treating more Frenchmen than Americans. Throughout the harsh winter and the following spring, attached to the First Division and later to the Second, Younger traversed the Western Front, assigned wherever the need was greatest: the Saint-Mihiel salient, Seicheprey, Chaumont-en-Vexin, Cantigny, the Bois de Belleau.

    It was there, near the woods of Belleau, on the outskirts of Chateau- Thierry, that he met Colette.

    Dawn was breaking. With a reddening sky came a lull in the savage bombardments of the night. Younger, on foot, emerged from the woods into an open field, dragging a wounded old French corporal to the medical compound. The compound was intact - white tents, tables, and instrument chests all in place - but not a doctor or orderly was III sight. The medical staff had obviously decamped in a hurry.

    Noises came from across the field. French infantrymen had gathered at a Red Cross truck. They reminded Younger of children crowding around an ice-cream van, except for an air of male wildness about them.

    With the corporal's arm draped over his shoulder, Younger crossed the field through pockets of mist clinging to the rutted soil. A young woman stood outside the truck, hemmed in by a semicircle of boisterous men. Her back to them, she leaned through a window into the cab of the truck. The men called out - in French, which Younger understood invented maladies and mock pleas for treatment. One of them, with a particularly raucous voice, begged the girl to reach inside his shirt; his heart, he said, was pounding and swelling dangerously.

    The girl emerged from the cab, a brown bag in her hands. She was slim, graceful, dark-haired, about twenty years old, chin held high, eyes unnaturally green. Dressed in a plain wool skirt and light blue sweater, she was evidently not a nurse.

    She spoke to the men. Younger couldn't hear what she said, but he saw her toss her bag to the loudmouthed one, who caught it, dropping his rifle in order to do so, which provoked laughter from the others. The girl spoke again. One by one the men fell silent and, abashed, began skulking away. She had no air of triumph. She looked - weary. Beautiful, distracted, and weary. As the infantrymen dispersed, only Younger was left standing, the wounded corporal resting heavily on a shoulder of his filthy uniform. The girl saw Younger, staring at her. She brushed a lock of hair from her face.

    Laying the corporal on the grass - an ancient-looking fellow, with a leather face and grizzled hair, one hand clutching his stomach - Younger strode toward the girl, who drew back a step instinctively. He passed her without a glance and opened the truck's door. Inside he saw two things that surprised him. The first was a boy, no more than eight, sitting in the rear of the cabin, reading a book in the shadows. The second was a complex radiological apparatus, complete with a large glass plate, heavy curtains, and gas ampoules.

    Younger turned to the girl. 'Where's your boyfriend?' he asked in French.

    'What?'

    'Where's the man who operates this X-ray machine?'

    'I operate it,' she answered in English.

    He looked her up and down: You're one of Madame Curie's girls.'

    'Yes.'

    'Well, get to work. Unless you want this corporal to die.'

    'It's pointless,' she said. 'There's no surgeon. They're all gone.'

    'Just make him ready by nightfall.' Younger went to the corporal, said a few low words in the man's ear, and disappeared into the woods the way he had come.

    The moon had risen when Younger returned. He found the encampment as it had been that morning: intact but deserted. One of the tents was illuminated by electric light. The truck was parked next to it, engine on, a set of cables running from the vehicle along the ground into the tent. The girl was using the truck's motor for power.

    Younger lifted the tent's flap and walked in. All was prepared. The old corporal, whose name was Dubeney, lay asleep on an operating table, face washed, hair combed. Instruments were neatly laid out. Basins of water were at hand. The girl rose from a chair. The little boy was at her feet, still reading. Without a word, she retrieved a set of radiograms and mathematical computations, which she handed to Younger.

    He held up the plates to one of the bare electric bulbs. Against a background of white bones and grayish viscera, small black dots and balls stood out with remarkable clarity. When a man took shot in the gut, the greatest danger was not organ damage; it was blood poisoning. In the old days, recovering every fragment of shot was virtually hopeless, and the man was likely to die. With a good set of radiograms, properly computed, any competent surgeon could save him.

    Younger washed his hands, wrists, face, and forearms. He took a long time at it, rinsing the dirt and blood from his mind as well as his skin. Meanwhile the girl applied more chloroform to Corporal Dubeney, who pushed at her hands ineffectually until slipping off again. Younger set to work, the silence broken only by his requests for instruments and, a short time after his incision was made, the occasional
pla
nk of a metal fragment dropping into a ceramic bowl.

    Sweat began to form on Younger's brow.

    'Wait,' said the girl in English. It was the first word she had spoken.

    While he held his knife aloft, she mopped his brow, then applied the cloth to his cheeks, his jaw, his neck. Younger gazed down at her delicate but serious features. She didn't once look into his eyes.

    'What was in the bag?' asked Younger.

    'I beg your pardon?'

    'You threw the soldiers a bag.'

    'Oh. Just groceries. Cheese, mostly. They don't get enough food; they're all hungry. Like a band of mice.'

    'What did you tell them?'

    'That they should be killing Germans instead of bothering a French girl.'

    Younger, nodding, returned to his patient. 'We say mischief.'

    The girl frowned as she rinsed the soiled cloth.

    'In English,' he said, 'it's a "mischief" of mice. Was it Madame Curie herself who trained you?'

    'Yes,' said the girl.

    'What did you think of her?'

    Her reply was immediate: 'She's the noblest woman alive.'

    'Ah, an admirer. Personally, I'm surprised they allow it.'

    'What do you mean?'

    'An adultress, after all, training young girls-'

    'She did not commit adultery,' said the girl sharply. '
He
did. Monsieur Langevin is the one who was married, yet he is not blamed. They do not call for
him
to leave the country. They do not stone his house. Now he has another mistress. Einstein has an illegitimate child - everyone knows it. Why should Madame Curie lose her chair, why should she be threatened with death, when they do the same or worse?'

    'Because she is a woman,' said Younger complacently. 'Women should be pure.'

    'Men should be pure.'

    'And because she's a Jew. Scalpel.'

    'What?'

    'Scalpel. And a Pole.'

    'What does that have to do with it?'

    'And her worst crime of all - she won the Nobel Prize not once, hut twice.'

    She frowned again. 'I can't tell when you mean what you say.'

    'If you want the truth,' said Younger, 'I'm only honest with men. With women I can't be trusted.'

    She looked at him.

    'Women teach men to lie,' he went on. 'But we're never as good at it as they want us to be. How did you meet Madame Curie?'

    After a while, the girl answered: 'I walked into the Sorbonne and told them I wanted to apply in chemistry. I was seventeen. They all laughed at me, because I had no baccalaureate. By chance - or providence, who knows? - Madame came in at that moment. She had overheard. How she terrified them. She looks so old, but very kind. I don't know why, but she took an interest in me when she heard that my father had tutored me in math and science. She asked me questions, so I was able to show her what I knew. She arranged for me to take an entrance exam.'

    'Which you passed?' asked Younger.

    'I received the highest marks of the year.'

    'You should be in class then, not taking X-rays of wounded soldiers.'

    'I did to classes, for two years. But then I found out what Madame Was doing for the soldiers. These trucks, they were her idea. She was the first to see how many lives could be saved if we had radioscopes in the field. Everyone said it was impossible, so she designed a unit that could work inside a truck. The government, because they are so stupid, refused to pay, so Madame raised all the money herself. Then the army said it could not spare any men to operate the trucks, no Madame trained girls to do it. Then the government announced that women could not be permitted to drive, so Madame operated the first one herself, daring the government to stop her. She learned to drive; she changed tires; she took the X-rays. When they saw she was saving lives, they finally relented. Now there are over a hundred fifty of us - and our only problem is with the men.'

    'The men?'

    'Some of them become very - aggressive - in the presence of a woman.'

    'They're at war.'

    'That's no excuse. We're not the same as the filthy Germans.'

    Younger looked at the girl from the corner of his eye. A hardness had come to her face; he had seen a glimmer of it before, when she was speaking to the soldiers, but now it was impenetrable. He went on with his laborious work.

    After a long while, she spoke again: 'He is very sweet, this corporal. How did he come to be in your care?'

    'Not by my doing,' replied Younger. 'He got lost in the night. Crossed to our line by mistake. Threw himself on me, the poor blighter.'

    'Don't listen to him, Mademoiselle,' murmured Corporal Dubeney.

    'What - are you awake?' said Younger. 'Nurse, the chloroform.'

    'He came into no-man's-land and pulled me out,' said Dubeney. 'In the thick of it.'

    'Hallucination,' said Younger.

    'He sleeps at the front,' said Dubeney.

    'Where's the blasted chloroform?' asked Younger.

    'No need, no need, I can't feel a thing,' said Dubeney.

    Younger made a sound of annoyance through closed lips. No one spoke.

    'I could hardly let my best experiment go to waste,' said Younger. 'Look at his right knee.'

    The girl, curious, asked Corporal Dubeney if he minded. When he.' shook his head, she rolled up one of his trouser legs and saw a nasty; wound. 'This needs antiseptic,' she said.

    'I've put antiseptic on it,' said Younger. 'Every day. Now look at the other knee.'

    When the girl got Dubeney's other pant leg over his knee, she let out a gasp. This knee too was wounded, but there was a seething movement on it. 'What are they?' she asked.

    'Maggots. What else do you observe?' asked Younger.

    'The wound is clean,' she said.

    'Identical wounds, inflicted at the same time on the same man by the same causes. Yet one has healed, while the other has festered. And the wound that has healed has been treated only with maggots. It's not my idea. Men in the field have been using them for years. And this old buzzard, knowing how important his knees are to science, goes and gets himself shot in the stomach. No sense of duty whatever.'

    Younger noticed that the little boy had silently taken up a position beside the girl, eyeing raptly Corporal Dubeney's maggoty knee.

    'My brother,' she said to Younger. 'His name is Luc.'

    The boy had dirty blond hair, quite unlike his sister's, unkempt, and for a boy quite a lot of it, down to his shoulders. His skin was much less white than hers - or perhaps simply much dirtier - but his brown ryes shared a similar severity, equally intelligent but more watchful than the girl's, less distracted. Younger had the feeling the boy saw everything. 'And how old are you, young man?' he asked.

    The boy neither looked at Younger nor answered.

    'Luc, you are very poorly mannered,' said the girl. 'He doesn't like to speak. So you are the one.'

    'I beg your pardon,' said Younger.

    'The men have been telling stories of an American doctor who refuses to leave the front lines. Who treats wounded men on the field.'

    'I'm not treating them. I'm conducting experiments on them.'

    'And who fights, they say.'

    'Rubbish.'

    'Like the devil,' said Dubeney.

    The boy looked up at Younger with interest.

    'Can't feel a thing, eh?' said Younger to Dubeney, repositioning his knife and prompting a howl from the old corporal.