The Young Lions

When Michael and Louise entered, someone was playing the piano in the back room. Two English sergeant pilots were singing softly at the bar. An American WAC corporal was being helped, drunk, to the lavatory. An American Lieutenant-Colonel by the name of Pavone, who looked like a middle-aged burlesque comedian and who had been born in Brooklyn and had somehow run a circus in France in the 1930s, and had served in the French cavalry in the begi

"Two whiskies, please," said Michael to the British Lance-Corporal who served behind the bar when he was in London on leave.

"No more whisky, Colonel," said the Lance-Corporal, who had no teeth at all, and whose gums, Michael thought, must be in sad shape from British Army rations. "Sorry."

"Two gins."

The Lance-Corporal, who wore a wide, spotted greyish apron over his battledress, deftly and lovingly poured the two drinks.

From the piano in the other room, quivering male voices sang: My father's a black-market grocer, My mother makes illegal gin, My sister sells sin on the corner, Kee-rist, how the money rolls in!

Michael raised his glass to Louise. "Cheers," he said. They drank.

"Six bob, Colonel," said the Lance-Corporal.

"Put in on the book," said Michael. "I'm busted tonight. I expect a large draft from Australia. I have a kid brother who's a Major there in the Air Force, on flying pay and per them."

The Lance-Corporal laboriously scratched Michael's name down in a gravy-spotted ledger and opened two bottles of warm beer for the sergeant pilots, who, attracted by the melody from the next room, drifted back that way, holding their glasses.

"I wish to address you in the name of General Charles de Gaulle," said the Frenchman, who for the moment had given up chewing on martini glasses. "You will all kindly stand up for General Charles de Gaulle, leader of France and the French Army."

Everyone stood up absently for the General of the French Army.

"My good friends," said the Frenchman loudly and with a thick Russian accent, "I do not believe what the newspapers say. I hate newspapers and I hate all newspaper-men." He glared fiercely at the four correspondents around Colonel Pavone.

"General Charles de Gaulle is a democrat and a man of honour." He sat down and looked moodily at a half-chewed martini glass.

Everyone sat down again. From the back room, the voices of the RAF clattered into the bar. "There's a Lancaster leaving the Ruhr," they sang, "bound for old Blighty's shore, heavily laden with terrified men,… scared and prone on the floor…"

"Gentlemen," said the proprietress. She had been asleep on a chair along the wall, with her glasses hanging from one ear. She opened her eyes, gri

"What I like about this place," Michael said, "is the atmosphere of sleepy old England that is so strong here. Cricket," said Michael, "tea being served in the vicar's garden, the music of Delius."

A stout Major-General in Services of Supply, who had just arrived in England that afternoon from Washington, entered the bar. A large young woman with long teeth and a flowing black veil was on his arm. A drunken Captain with a large moustache followed him carefully.

"Ah," the Major-General said, heading straight for Louise, with a wide, warm smile on his face, "my dear Mrs M'Kimber." He kissed Louise. The woman with the long teeth smiled seductively at everyone. She had something wrong with her eyes, and she blinked them, quickly, again and again, all the time. Later on, Michael found out that her name was Kearney and that her husband had been a pilot in the RAF and had been shot down over London in 1941.

"General Rockland," Louise said, "I want you to meet PFC Whitacre. He loves Generals."

The General shook Michael's hand heartily, nearly crushing it, and Michael was sure the General must have played football at West Point at one time. "Glad to meet you, Boy," said the General. "I saw you at the party, sneaking out with this handsome young woman."

"He insists on being a Private," said Louise, smiling. "What can we do about it?"

"I hate professional Privates," said the General, and the Captain behind him nodded gravely.

"So do I," said Michael. "I'd be delighted to be a Lieutenant."

"I hate professional Lieutenants, too," said the General.

"Very well, Sir," said Michael. "If you wish, you can make me a Lieutenant-Colonel."

"Maybe I will," said the General, "maybe I will. Jimmy, take that man's name."

The Captain who had come in with the General fumbled through his pockets and took out a card advertising a private taxi service. "Name, rank and serial number," he said automatically.

Michael gave him his name, rank and serial number and the Captain put the card back carefully in an inside pocket. He was wearing bright red braces, Michael saw, as the tunic flipped back.

The General had Louise over in a corner now, pi

"Ring me up. I'm in every morning until eleven," Mrs Kearney said, smiling without ambiguity at him. Then she wheeled away, her veil blowing, and went from table to table, distributing cards.

Michael got another gin and went over to the table where Colonel Pavone was sitting with the correspondents, two of whom Michael knew.

"… after the war," Pavone was saying, "France is going to go left, and there is nothing we can do about it and nothing England can do about it and nothing Russia can do about it. Sit down, Whitacre, we have whisky."

Michael drained his glass, then sat down and watched one of the correspondents pour him four fingers of Scotch.

"I'm in Civil Affairs," Pavone said, "and I don't know where they're going to send me. But I'll tell you here and now, if they send me to France, it will be a big joke. The French have been governing themselves for a hundred and fifty years, and they'll just laugh at any American who tells them even where to put the plumbing in the city hall."

"I raise you five hundred pounds," said the Hungarian correspondent at the other table.

"I'll see you," said the Air Force Major. They both wrote out IOUs.

"What happened, Whitacre?" Pavone asked. "The General get your girl?"

"Only on a short lease," said Michael, glancing towards the bar, where the General was leaning heavily against Louise and laughing hoarsely.