I called him back and said, “Listen. Sir. Do you want him or don’t you? I respectfully remind you that there is no way on God’s earth of getting him except for you, or at least a colonel, to speak to him and tell him what you want.”
“Damn him. Let me talk to him.”
I buzzed the plant room extension, got Wolfe, was told by him to listen in, and did so. It was nothing new. All Fife would say on the phone was that he must have a talk with Wolfe, together with Tinkham and Lawson and me, without delay. Wolfe finally said he’d go. When he came downstairs ten minutes later, I told him, on the way out to the car, “One item you may want, in case you’ve got it entered that it was something that was said this morning that made Ryder decide to go to Washington to see Carpenter. He already had his suitcase there packed.”
“I saw it. Confound the blasted Germans. Don’t let it give that jerk when you start. I’m in no humor for pleasantries.”
We were in the lobby at 17 Duncan Street at 8:55, a few minutes ahead of time. Absent-mindedly, from force of habit, I said “ten” to the elevator man, and it wasn’t until after we had got out at the tenth that I woke up. Fife’s office was on the eleventh. Wolfe was starting the usual rigmarole with the corporal. I said, “Hey, our mistake. We’re on the—”
I never finished, because it came at that instant. The noise wasn’t loud, certainly it wasn’t deafening, but there was something about it that hit you in the spine. Or maybe it wasn’t the noise, but the shaking of the building. Everybody agreed later that the building shook. I doubt it. Maybe it was something that happened to the air. Anyhow, for a second everything inside of me stopped working, and, judging from the look on the corporal’s face, him ditto. Then we both stared in all directions. But Wolfe had already started for the door leading to the inner corridor, barking at me, “It’s that thing. Didn’t I tell you?”
I beat him to the door with a skip and a jump, and closed it when we were through. In the corridor people, mostly in uniform, were looking out of doors, and popping out. Some were headed for the far end of the corridor, a couple of them running. Voices came from up ahead, and a curtain of smoke or dust, or both, came drifting toward us, pushing a sour sharp smell in front of it. We went on into it, to the end, and turned right.
It was one swell mess. It looked exactly like a blurred radiophoto with the caption, Our Troops Taking an Enemy Machine-Gun Nest in a Sicilian Village. Debris, crumbled plaster, a door hanging by one hinge, most of a wall gone, men in uniform looking grim. Standing in what had been the doorway, facing out, was Colonel Tinkham. When two men tried to push past him into what had been Ryder’s room, he barred the way and bellowed, “Stand back! Back to that corner!” They backed up, but only about five paces, where they bumped into Wolfe and me. Others were behind us and around us.
From the commotion in the rear one voice was suddenly heard above the others: “General Fife!”
A lane opened up, and in a moment Fife came striding through. At sight of him Tinkham moved forward from the doorway, and behind Tinkham, from within, came Lieutenant Lawson. They both saluted, which may sound silly, but somehow didn’t look silly. Fife returned it and asked, “What’s in there?”