“Are you trying to say you think Rich or anyone else in the Navy would count four years of undergraduate study at Annapolis as more important than the many more years of service since?” Laura put down her tea, leaned forward. There was no help for it. Maybe going over it one more time would do some good. Anyway, it would be mercifully short. “I happen to know Rich thinks Keith is tops. You’ve heard him say so, too. Many times. Keith can go as far as anyone else in the Navy. It’s really up to him, his ability I mean, and you, because you’re his wife and have a greater effect on him than anyone else.”
“I know you believe it’s all fair, Laura, but I’ve heard different from a lot of people.”
“What sort of people? In the Navy?”
“Sure. In the Navy and out of it. In the sub force, too.”
“The people who count aren’t saying that.”
“Are you kidding?” Peggy’s eyes were turned unblinkingly on Laura. “If you mean the admirals running the Navy, of course not. But they’re not the whole Navy anyhow. There’s a lot more of it out there, a lot more than some of those admirals ever heard of. You learn a lot from just listening to those others.” Peggy’s whole expression was triumphant. She had found her entry point. When Laura did not immediately reply, she pressed her advantage. “I’m not saying this kind of thing doesn’t affect the Annapolis boys, too. Ever hear of the Green Bowlers?”
“Sure,” said Laura, “but that was years ago, before the war, and its importance has been blown up a lot. The membership was secret. That’s why there’s been so much talk about it.”
“Right, except there’s more to it than you think. It’s not the only one, anyway. Most of them never did get found out. The whole game was to help each other, the other members of their own private little club, I mean. What I’m saying is that with in-groups like these looking out for each other inside the big Annapolis in-group, how can Keith ever make out when he’s not in any of the groups at all?”
“Look, Peggy, if you want Keith to retire from the Navy, that’s your business. Yours and Keith’s. I can’t help, either way.” Laura’s impatience showed in her voice and manner. It must have given Peggy exactly the opening she had been waiting for.
“Joan. Joan Lastrada. She helped Rich. Didn’t she, Laura? He knew her pretty well during the war, you know. She was in some kind of intelligence work then. Now she’s with Admiral Brighting. Didn’t Rich tell you he’d seen her there?” There was a silence in Laura’s mind, a blockage in the conversation process. There was a full tick in time before the words fell into place and conscious reaction was possible.
Peggy’s large, innocent eyes were turned full on. Laura saw the pupils dilate. There was the breath of unknown danger. Fight for control. Show nothing. Keep her own pupils from dilating. Another tick and tock of time. “Oh, sure. Joan was a wartime romance of Rich’s, before we were married, but of course I’ve never asked about her. He’d lost sight of her entirely, and then she turned up in Brighting’s office. But why bring her up? She can’t help Keith with this problem.”
“No, but you could. That’s what I mean.” There was something furtive, veiled, in Peggy’s expression. Her eyes were hidden now, her hands — the manicured fingers suddenly resembled red talons; perhaps she was pressing them together with greater than usual force — clenched together in her lap.
Danger. Treacherous path ahead. Caution flags flying. Forget what you’d decided to say. Don’t make any positive statements. Ask questions. At least, asking a question doesn’t commit anything. “What do you mean, Peggy?” Smooth, that’s it. Stay cool. This is a fencing match.
“It’s just — you know — he thinks so much of Rich. I’m sure the only reason he’s still in the Navy today is because of Rich. He wants to be like him. Probably he wants me to be like you, too, though he’s not said so.”
“I’ve already told you how much Rich thinks of Keith. But what does this have to do with me?” Laura was genuinely puzzled.
“Maybe Rich could talk to Keith when he comes back from this trip and explain how the Navy really works. Keith will believe it, then. He’ll have his twenty years this month. He should retire while he’s still young.” Peggy’s eyes were lifted, bored into Laura’s. “We women have to stick together,” she almost whispered.
The words were distinct, and they were said with deliberation. Suddenly Laura realized she knew nothing whatsoever about the mind behind Peggy’s too smooth face and studied demeanor. Peggy had controlled the conversation, driven it in the direction she wanted, and there was a clear hint of some kind of a threat behind her sudden words. Why had she brought up Joan so unexpectedly?
Laura had never told Rich how much she really knew, how well she actually understood the forces driving Joan, Rich and Jim Bledsoe, her first husband, during those tense war years. He had never discussed that phase of it, had never mentioned Joan. It was one of those basic understandings between men and women that have existed since the beginning. Intuitively, Laura knew his reticence was at least partly because of Jim, just as hers was. She would never forget how hard it had been to keep silent after that busybody wife of a senior officer, shortly after she and Rich had been married, told her that Joan had been involved with both of them.
Thankfully, she had managed it, and Rich had never suspected. Then, a few years later, she had got on a train alone in New Haven and found herself by chance sitting alongside Joan, of all people. There had been some strangeness at first, but that passed, and Laura evermore treasured that fortuitous, completely private, encounter. Years, prejudices and misconceptions had fallen away, and although their paths had not crossed again, she knew it sufficed for both of them for all time.
Not so with Peggy Leone. More properly, just the reverse. Something was wrong with her, with her thinking. Laura was secure with Rich, had always been. Why had Peggy brought up Joan? What lay behind her strange words about women sticking together? How much did she know or imagine of Joan’s wartime romance with Rich? Did she know there had also been an affair with Jim? What was she saying now?
“… thought a lot of Captain Blunt to name his son after him — why do some people say it’s because of his guilty conscience? I don’t see anything for Rich to feel guilty about. People ought to be forgetting those old rumors after all these years…”
Something congealed within Laura. “What are you talking about, Peggy?” Her voice was deeper than usual, nearly throaty. Of course she had heard the rumors about Blunt’s death aboard the Eel. There were always rumors when something unusual happened to people. Blunt had been Rich’s idol as a young naval officer. During Rich’s first years of submarine service in the Octopus, then later when Rich commanded the S-16 and the Walrus, and finally when he was given the Eel, Blunt had been strongly supportive. Rich had told her all about it. Then, during the latter stages of the war, Blunt had inexplicably changed. He had behaved irrationally, endangered the Eel during a near disastrous depth charging, had hurt his neck and then had suddenly died while inactively sitting in the wardroom during a furiously fought surface gun action. The Eel had brought his body back to Pearl Harbor, and the autopsy disclosed a brain tumor, aggravated by the injury and the stress of combat. The neck injury itself had been ruled out as the proximate cause of death, but there were those who said the Navy might have been covering up the true cause. Someone aboard the Eel might have done something to him during that terrible depth charging. Perhaps even Rich.