Master of the Game

BOOK 3 – KURGER-BRENT, LTD. 1914-1945

They were in the library, where Jamie had once liked to sit with his brandy glass in front of him. David was arguing that there was no time for a real honeymoon. “Someone has to mind the store, Kate.”

“Yes, Mr. Blackwell. But who’s going to mind me?” She curled up in David’s lap, and he felt the warmth of her through her thin dress. The documents he had been reading fell to the floor. Her arms were around him, and he felt her hands sliding down his body. She pressed her hips against him, making slow, small circles, and the papers on the floor were forgotten. She felt him respond, and she rose and slipped out of her dress. David watched her, marveling at her loveliness. How could he have been so blind for so long? She was undressing him now, and there was a sudden urgency in him. They were both naked, and their bodies were pressed together. He stroked her, his fingers lightly touching her face and her neck, down to the swell of her breasts. She was moaning, and his hands moved down until he felt the velvety softness between her legs. His fingers stroked her and she whispered, “Take me, David,” and they were on the deep, soft rug and she felt the strength of his body on top of her. There was a long, sweet thrust and he was inside her, filling her, and she moved to his rhythm. It became a great tidal wave, sweeping her up higher and higher until she thought she could not bear the ecstasy of it. There was a sudden, glorious explosion deep inside her and another and another, and she thought, I’ve died and gone to heaven.

They traveled all over the world, to Paris and Zurich and Sydney and New York, taking care of company business, but wherever they went they carved out moments of time for themselves. They talked late into the night and made love and explored each other’s minds and bodies. Kate was an inexhaustible delight to David. She would awaken him in the morning to make wild and pagan love to him, and a few hours later she would be at his side at a business conference, making more sense than anyone else there. She had a natural flair for business that was as rare as it was unexpected. Women were few in the top echelons of the business world. In the beginning Kate was treated with a tolerant condescension, but the attitude quickly changed to a wary respect. Kate took a delight in the maneuvering and machinations of the game. David watched her outwit men with much greater experience. She had the instincts of a winner. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. Power.

They ended their honeymoon with a glorious week in Cedar Hill House at Dark Harbor.

It was on June 28, 1914, that the first talk of war was heard. Kate and David were guests at a country estate in Sussex. It was the age of country-house living and weekend guests were expected to conform to a ritual. Men dressed for breakfast, changed for midmorning lounging, changed for lunch, changed for tea—to a velvet jacket with satin piping—and changed to a formal jacket for dinner.

“For God’s sake,” David protested to Kate. “I feel like a damned peacock.”

“You’re a very handsome peacock, my darling,” Kate assured him. “When you get home, you can walk around naked.”

He took her in his arms. “I can’t wait.”

At dinner, the news came that Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, had been slain by an assassin.

Their host, Lord Maney, said, “Nasty business, shooting a woman, what? But no one is going to war over some little Balkan country.”

And the conversation moved on to cricket.

Later in bed, Kate said, “Do you think there’s going to be a war, David?”

“Over some minor archduke being assassinated? No.”

It proved to be a bad guess. Austria-Hungary, suspecting that its neighbor, Serbia, had instigated the plot to assassinate Ferdinand, declared war on Serbia, and by October, most of the world’s major powers were at war. It was a new kind of warfare. For the first time, mechanized vehicles were used—airplanes, airships and submarines.

The day Germany declared war, Kate said, “This can be a wonderful opportunity for us, David.”

David frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Nations are going to need guns and ammunition and—”

“They’re not getting them from us,” David interrupted firmly. “We have enough business, Kate. We don’t have to make profits from anyone’s blood.”

“Aren’t you being a bit dramatic? Someone has to make guns.”

“As long as I’m with this company, it won’t be us. We won’t discuss it again, Kate. The subject is closed.”

And Kate thought, The bloody hell it is. For the first time in their marriage, they slept apart. Kate thought, How can David be such an idealistic ninny?

And David thought, How can she be so cold-blooded? The business has changed her. The days that followed were miserable for both of them. David regretted the emotional chasm between them, but he did not know how to bridge it. Kate was too proud and headstrong to give in to him because she knew she was right.

President Woodrow Wilson had promised to keep the United States out of the war, but as German submarines began torpedoing unarmed passenger ships, and stories of German atrocities spread, pressure began to build up for America to help the Allies. “Make the world safe for democracy,” was the slogan.

David had learned to fly in the bush country of South Africa, and when the Lafayette Escadrille was formed in France with American pilots, David went to Kate. “I’ve got to enlist.”

She was appalled. “No! It’s not your war!”

“It’s going to be,” David said quietly. “The United States can’t stay out. I’m an American. I want to help now.”

“You’re forty-six years old!”

“I can still fly a plane, Kate. And they need all the help they can get.”

There was no way Kate could dissuade him. They spent the last few days together quietly, their differences forgotten. They loved each other, and that was all that mattered.

The night before David was to leave for France, he said, “You and Brad Rogers can run the business as well as I can, maybe better.”

“What if something happens to you? I couldn’t bear it.”

He held her close. “Nothing will happen to me, Kate. I’ll come back to you with all kinds of medals.”

He left the following morning.

David’s absence was death for Kate. It had taken her so long to win him, and now every second of her day there was the ugly, creeping fear of losing him. He was always with her. She found him in the cadence of a stranger’s voice, the sudden laughter on a quiet street, a phrase, a scent, a song. He was everywhere. She wrote him long letters every day. Whenever she received a letter from him, she reread it until it was in tatters. He was well, he wrote. The Germans had air superiority, but that would change. There were rumors that America would be helping soon. He would write again when he could. He loved her.

Don’t let anything happen to you, my darling. I’ll hate you forever if you do.

She tried to forget her loneliness and misery by plunging into work. At the beginning of the war, France and Germany had the best-equipped fighting forces in Europe, but the Allies had far greater manpower, resources and materials. Russia, with the largest army, was badly equipped and poorly commanded.

“They all need help,” Kate told Brad Rogers. “They need tanks and guns and ammunition.”

Brad Rogers was uncomfortable. “Kate, David doesn’t think—”

“David isn’t here, Brad. It’s up to you and me.”

But Brad Rogers knew that what Kate meant was, It’s up to me.

Kate could not understand David’s attitude about manufacturing armaments. The Allies needed weapons, and Kate felt it was her patriotic duty to supply them. She conferred with the heads of half a dozen friendly nations, and within a year Kruger-Brent, Ltd., was manufacturing guns and tanks, bombs and ammunition. The company supplied trains and tanks and uniforms and guns. Kruger-Brent was rapidly becoming one of the fastest-growing conglomerates in the world. When Kate saw the most recent revenue figures, she said to Brad Rogers, “Have you seen these? David will have to admit he was mistaken.”

South Africa, meanwhile, was in turmoil. The party leaders had pledged their support to the Allies and accepted responsibility for defending South Africa against Germany, but the majority of Afrikaners opposed the country’s support of Great Britain. They could not forget the past so quickly.

In Europe the war was going badly for the Allies. Fighting on the western front reached a standstill. Both sides dug in, protected by trenches that stretched across France and Belgium, and the soldiers were miserable. Rain filled the dugouts with water and mud, and rats swarmed through the vermin-infested trenches. Kate was grateful that David was fighting his war in the air.

On April 6, 1917, President Wilson declared war, and David’s prediction came true. America began to mobilize.

The first American Expeditionary Force under General John J. Pershing began landing in France on June 26, 1917. New place names became a part of everyone’s vocabulary: Saint-Mihiel…Château-Thierry…the Meuse-Argonne…Belleau Wood…Verdun…The Allies had become an irresistible force, and on November 11, 1918, the war was finally over. The world was safe for democracy.

David was on his way home.

When David disembarked from the troop ship in New York, Kate was there to meet him. They stood staring at each other for one eternal moment, ignoring the noise and the crowds around them, then Kate was in David’s arms. He was thinner and tired-looking, and Kate thought, Oh, God. I’ve missed him so. She had a thousand questions to ask him, but they could wait. “I’m taking you to Cedar Hill House,” Kate told him. “It’s a perfect place for you to rest.”

Kate had done a great deal with the house in anticipation of David’s arrival home. The large, airy living room had been furnished with twin sofas covered in old rose-and-green floral chintz. Matching down-filled armchairs were grouped around the fireplace. Over the fireplace was a Vlaminck floral canvas, and, on each side of it, doré sconces. Two sets of French doors opened out onto the veranda, which ran the entire length of the house on three sides, covered with a striped awning. The rooms were bright and airy, and the view of the harbor spectacular. Kate led David through the house, chattering away happily. He seemed strangely quiet. When they had completed the tour, Kate asked, “Do you like what I’ve done with it, darling?”

“It’s beautiful, Kate. Now, sit down. I want to talk to you.”

She had a sudden sinking feeling. “Is anything wrong?”

“We seem to have become a munitions supplier for half the world.”

“Wait until you look at the books,” Kate began. “Our profit has—”

“I’m talking about something else. As I recall, our profit was pretty good before I left. I thought we agreed we wouldn’t get involved in manufacturing war supplies.”

Kate felt an anger rising in her. “You agreed. I didn’t.” She fought to control it. “Times change, David. We have to change with them.”

He looked at her and asked quietly, “Have you changed?”

Lying in bed that night, Kate asked herself whether it was she who had changed, or David. Had she become stronger, or had David become weaker? She thought about his argument against manufacturing armaments. It was a weak argument. After all, someone was going to supply the merchandise to the Allies, and there was an enormous profit in it. What had happened to David’s business sense? She had always looked up to him as one of the cleverest men she knew. But now, she felt that she was more capable of running the business than David. She spent a sleepless night.

In the morning Kate and David had breakfast and walked around the grounds.

“It’s really lovely,” David told her. “I’m glad to be here.”

Kate said, “About our conversation last night—”

“It’s done. I was away, and you did what you thought was right.”

Would I have done the same thing if you had been here? Kate wondered. But she did not say the words aloud. She had done what she had for the sake of the company. Does the company mean more to me than my marriage? She was afraid to answer the question.