Final Flight

2

The USS United States and three of her escorts, two guided-missile frigates and a destroyer, anchored in the roadstead off Tangiers around noon after completion of the voyage across the Atlantic. Due to her draft, the carrier anchored almost two miles from the quay where her small boats began depositing sailors in midafternoon. By six that evening almost two thousand men from the four gray warships were ashore.

In twos and threes and fours, sailors in civilian clothes wandered the streets of the downtown and the Casbah, snapping photos of the people and the buildings and each other and crowding the downtown bars, which were relatively abundant in spite of the fact that Morocco is a Moslem nation. Fortunately, downtown Tangiers had been built by the French, a thirsty lot, and the pragmatic Arabs were willing to tolerate the sinful behavior of the unbelievers as long as it was profitable.

In the “international bars” barefoot belly dancers slithered suggestively. The sailors didn’t stay long with beer at the equivalent of four U.S. dollars a glass, but when they saw the belly dancers they knew they were a long way from Norfolk, and from Tulsa, Sioux Falls, and Uniontown and all the other places they had so recently left behind. Properly primed, they explored the streets and loudly enjoyed the respite from shipboard routine. The more adventurous sought out the prostitutes in the side streets. Veiled women and swarthy men watched the parade in silence while their offspring gouged the foreigners unmercifully for leather purses, baskets, and other “genuine” souvenirs. All things considered, the sailors and their money were welcomed to Tangiers with open arms.

Just before sunset the Air France flight from Paris touched down at the local airport. One of the passengers was a reporter-photographer from J’Accuse, a small leftist Paris daily. The French government was considering a port call request from the U.S. Naval Attaché for a United States visit to Nice in June, so invitations to a tour of the ship while she was in Tangiers had been liberally distributed to the Paris press.

The journalist, a portly gentleman in his fifties, took a taxi from the airport and directed the driver to a modest hotel that catered to French businessmen. He registered at the desk, accompanied his bags to his rooms, and returned to the lobby a quarter of an hour later. After an aperitif in the small hotel bar, he walked two blocks to a restaurant he apparently knew from prior visits to Tangiers. There he drank half a bottle of wine and ate a prodigious expense-account dinner. He paid his bill with French francs. He stopped in the hotel bar for a nightcap.

Within minutes an attractive young woman in an expensive Paris frock entered and seated herself in a darkened corner of the room away from the bar. Her hair looked as if it had been coiffed in a French salon. She had a trim, modest figure, which her colorful dress showed to advantage, and the shapely, muscular legs of a professional dancer or athlete. She ordered absinthe in unaccented French and lit a cigarette.

Her gaze met the journalist’s several times but she offered no encouragement, or at least none which caught the bartender’s eye. When it became apparent she was not waiting for an escort, the reporter took his drink and approached her table. He seated himself in seconds. The couple talked for almost twenty minutes and laughed on several occasions. There were only two other men in the bar, both of whom were apparently French businessmen; they discussed sales quotas and prices the entire time they were there. Around 11:30—the bartender was not sure of the time — the reporter and the lady left together. The reporter left French francs on the table sufficient to cover the price of the drinks and a modest tip. At midnight the two businessmen departed and the bartender closed up.

The following morning the J’Accuse press pass was handed to an American naval officer on the quay as he assembled a group of thirty journalists, about a third of whom were women. At ten o’clock the group was loaded into the captain’s gig and the admiral’s barge for the ride out to the great ship, which was visible from the quay. The journalists had a choppy ride in the invigorating morning air.

As the boats approached the ship the photographers were invited to the little amidships quarterdecks, where they snapped pictures of the carrier and watched the coxswains steer. The gray hull of the carrier appeared gigantic from a sea-level perspective, a fifth of a mile long and rising over six stories from the water. As the boats neared her she looked less and less a ship and more and more like a massive cliff of gray stone.

At the officer’s brow the journalists found themselves under the overhang of the flight deck. Sailors assisted them from the bobbing boats to a carly float, and from there up a ladder to the ceremonial quarterdeck where they were met by several junior officers. Several journalists were struck by how much alike these men, all in their early to middle-twenties, looked in their spotless white uniforms. Of various sizes and racial groups, these half dozen trim, smiling young men still looked as if they had been punched from the same mold as they saluted and welcomed the tour group aboard.

The journalists were led down a series of ladders in groups of five and through mazelike passageways to a large, formal wardroom deep within the ship. Spread on tables covered with white cloths were plates of cookies, a pile of coffee cups and glasses, and several jugs of an orange liquid. “It’s Kool-Aid,” one of the young officers informed a Frenchman after he sipped the sugary orange stuff and stood looking at the glass as if he had just ingested a powerful laxative.

“Good morning.” The speaker was an officer with four gold stripes and a star on each of his black shoulder boards. His white shoes, white trousers, white belt, and short-sleeved white shirt were accented by a yellow brass belt buckle and, on his left breast, a rainbow splotch of ribbons topped by a piece of gold metal. The touches of color made his uniform look even whiter and emphasized the tan of his face and neck. He stood a lean six feet tall. Clear gray eyes looked past a nose which was just slightly too large for his face. His thinning hair was cut short and combed straight back.

“I’m Captain Grafton. I hope you folks had an enjoyable ride out to see us this morning.” Although he didn’t speak loudly, his voice carried across the group and silenced the last of the private conversations. “We’re going to give you a tour of the ship this morning when the cookies are gone. We’ll break you up into groups of five. Each group will go with one of these young gentlemen who are standing over there watching you eat cookies. They had some before you arrived, so don’t feel sorry for them.”

Several of the journalists chuckled politely.

“Captain, why was this group invited to tour the ship?” The question was asked by a woman in her late twenties with a hint of Boston in her voice. She wore a bright red dress and carried an expensive black leather purse casually over one shoulder.

“And who are you, ma’am?”

“I’m Judith Farrell from the International Herald Tribune.”

“Well, we often entertain groups aboard, and starting this Mediterranean cruise with a tour for you ladies and gentlemen of the European press seemed appropriate.”

“Are you saying the invitations had nothing to do with the American request for a French port visit for this ship in June?”

The gray eyes locked on the woman. “No. I didn’t say that. I said a tour of the ship for you folks of the European press seemed appropriate.”

“This ship is nuclear-powered?”

“Yes, it is. You may wish to examine the fact sheet that Lieutenant Tarkington is handing out.” An officer immediately entered the crowd and began distributing printed leaflets.

“What assurances can you give to the people of Europe in light of the recent revelations about the extent of the Chernobyl disaster?”

“Assurances about what?” The captain glanced from face to face.

“That your reactors are safe.” Judith Farrell replied as she tossed her head to flick her blond hair back from her eyes.

“The Russians didn’t build these reactors. Americans did. Americans operate them.”

Judith Farrell flushed slightly as her fellow reporters grinned and nudged each other. She was inhaling air for a retort when a well-dressed woman with an Italian accent spoke up. “May we see the reactors?”

“I’m sorry, but those spaces are off limits except to naval personnel.” When he observed several people making notes, the captain added, “Only those sailors who actually work in those spaces are admitted. I might add that, outside of the Soviet Union, you are far more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to become a victim of a nuclear accident.”

“Captain …,” said Judith Farrell, but Grafton’s voice was covering the crowd: “Now if you folks will break up into groups of five, these officers from the air wing will show you around.” Everyone began talking and moving toward the door.

“Captain,” said Judith Farrell firmly, “I do not appreciate that evasive answer.”

“Mister Tarkington, include Miss Farrell in your group.”

“It is ‘Ms.,’ not ‘Miss.’”

“Please come with me, Ms.,” said a drawling voice at her elbow, and she turned to see a tan face framing perfect teeth. The grin caused his cheeks to dimple and deep creases to radiate from the corners of his eyes. The innocent face was topped by short, carefully combed brown hair.

“I’m Lieutenant Tarkington.” The captain was walking away.

In the passageway she asked, “Lieutenant, who is that captain? He’s not the ship’s commanding officer or executive officer, is he?”

“He’s the air wing commander, ma’am. We call him CAG.” Tarkington pronounced “CAG” to rhyme with “rag.” It was a fifty-year-old acronym from the days when the air wing commander had been known as Commander Air Group, and it had survived into the age of jets and supercarriers. “But let’s talk about you. Whereabouts over here on this side of the pond do you live, ma’am?”

“The pond?”

“Y’know, the puddle. The ocean. The Atlantic.”

“Paris,” she said in a voice that would have chilled milk.

“I sure am glad you’re touring this little tub with me this morning, ma’am. All my friends call me Toad.”

“For good reason, I’m sure.”

Lieutenant Tarkington smiled thinly at the other members of his group, all men, and motioned for the little band to follow him.

He led them through pale blue passageways with numerous turns, and soon everyone except Tarkington — who frequently looked back over his shoulder to ensure his five were following faithfully — was hopelessly lost. They passed fire-fighting stations with racks of hose and valves and instructions stenciled on the bulkhead. Above their heads ran mazes of pipes, from pencil-thin to eight inches in diameter, each labeled cryptically. Bundles of wires were threaded between the pipes. Every thirty feet or so there was a large steel door latched open. When asked by one of the men, Tarkington explained that the doors allowed the crew to seal the ship into over three thousand watertight compartments. He paused by a hole in the deck surrounded by a flange that rose about four inches from the deck. Inside the hole was a ladder leading to the deck below. Above it a heavy hatch on hinges stood ready to seal it.

“When the ship goes into battle,” Tarkington said, “we just close all these hatches and this ship becomes like a giant piece of Styrofoam, full of all these watertight compartments. The enemy has to bust open a whole lot of these compartments to sink this bucket.”

“Just like the Titanic,” Judith Farrell muttered loudly enough for all to hear.

“A bucket?” one of the men murmured in a heavy French accent.

Tarkington led them on. The smells of food cooking assailed them. They looked into a large kitchen filled with men in white trousers, aprons and tee shirts. Each wore a white cap that covered his hair. “This is the forward crew’s galley.” Huge polished steel vats gleamed amid the bustling men, several of whom smiled at the visitors. “They’re fixing noon chow. The ship serves eighteen thousand meals a day.”

Beside the galley was a cafeteria serving line with steam tables, drink dispensers, and large steel coffee urns. Huge racks of metal trays stood at the entrance. “The men go through here and fill their trays,” Tarkington said as he led them into the mess area, which was filled with folding tables and chairs. “They find a chair and eat here.” The overhead was a latticework of pipes and wires. Around the bulkheads were more fire-fighting hoses and numerous buttons and knobs to control machinery which wasn’t visible. Large doors formed the forward bulkhead.

“What are those doors?” Judith Farrell asked.

“Weapons elevators, ma’am.”

“Does the entire crew eat here?” one of the men asked in an accent Tarkington took to be German.

“Couldn’t be done. There’s fifty-six hundred men on this ship. We’ve got another galley and mess area back aft. The crew eats in both mess areas in shifts. The officers have two ward-rooms and the chief petty officers have their own mess.” The group just stood, looking. “It isn’t exactly eating at the Ritz, but the chow is pretty darn good,” Tarkington added and waved his hand for them to follow.

He led them outboard from the mess area to a ladder that rose steeply. They ascended one deck and followed him through another open watertight door out into the hangar bay.

The hangar was a two-acre cavern crammed with aircraft. The group threaded their way around the myriad of chains that secured each plane to a clear walk area that meandered down the center of the hangar between the planes. Tarkington stopped and the visitors gawked.

“Sort of takes your breath away, doesn’t it?”

“All these planes …” the Frenchman marveled. F-14 Tomcat fighters, A-6 Intruder attack bombers, and F/A-18 Hornet fighter-bombers, all with folded wings, were crammed in so that not a square yard of space was empty. Tarkington led them to a clear area that divided the space laterally.

“Now this space right here is always kept open, so we can close these big bombproof doors.” Massive doors that were as tall as the bay was high — about twenty-five feet — were recessed into each side of the bay. “There are two of these doors, this one and the one back aft. By closing these we can separate this bay into three compartments and isolate any fire or bomb damage. Up there,” Tarkington pointed at a small compartment with windows visible near the ceiling, “is a station that’s manned twenty-four hours a day. The man on duty there can close these doors from up there and turn on the fire-fighting sprinklers at the first sign of fire or a fuel spill. You will notice we have three of these stations, called CONFLAG stations, one in each of the three bays.” In the window of the nearest CON-FLAG station, the face of the sailor on duty was just visible. He was looking down at them.

One of the reporters pointed at some racks hanging down from the ceiling which held large white shapes pointed at both ends. “Are those bombs?”

“No, sir,” said their guide. “Those are extra drop tanks.” When he saw the puzzlement on the reporter’s face, he added, “Drops are fuel tanks that hang under the wings or belly of an airplane that the pilot can jettison if he has to.” The lieutenant stepped to an A-6 and patted one that hung on a wing station. “Like this one, which holds a ton of fuel.”

The German pointed his camera at the lieutenant. Tarkington shook his head and waved his hands. “Please don’t take any pictures in here, sir. You can get some shots up on the flight deck. I’ll show you where.” He herded them around the planes to a large opening in the side of the ship. A greasy wire on stanchions was the only safety line. About twenty feet below them was the sea. On the horizon the group could see the city of Tangiers and the hills beyond. The spring wind, still raw, was funneling into the hangar through this giant door. Above, a large roof projected out over the sea and obstructed their view of the sky. Tarkington nodded to a sailor on the side of the opening and instantly a loud horn began to wail. Then the huge projecting roof began to fall.

“This is one of the four aircraft elevators that we use to move planes and equipment back and forth to the flight deck. We’ll ride it up.” As the platform reached their level, the safety stanchions sank silently into the deck. When all motion stopped, Tarkington led them out onto it.

The elevator platform was large, about four thousand square feet, and was constructed of grillwork. Several of the journalists looked down through the grating at the sea beneath them as the elevator rose with more sounding of horns, and several kept their eyes firmly on the horizon after a mere glance downward. The wind coming up through the grid swirled Judith Farrell’s dress. As she fought to hold it against her thighs she caught Lieutenant Tarkington looking at her legs. He smiled and winked, then looked away.

On the vast flight deck, they walked around a row of aircraft to a clear area. Their guide stopped at a giant hinged flap that projected out of the deck at a sixty-degree angle. “This is a jet blast deflector, a JBD. The plane on the catapult sits in front of it,” he gestured forward to the launching area, “and this thing comes up and deflects the exhaust gases up and away from the planes behind. The JBDs are cooled internally by salt water.” He showed them the water pipes on the back of the unit, then strolled forward to the catapult hookup area.

He pointed out the slot in which the shuttle traveled. The slot ran forward to the bow of the ship. “The catapult is about a hundred yards long and accelerates the planes up to flying speed.”

“What moves ze shuttle?” a Frenchman asked.

“It’s driven by steam. See, the catapult is right here under these steel deck plates. It’s like a giant double-barreled shotgun. There is a piston in each tube and they are mated together,” he sneaked a glance at Farrell, “and the shuttle sticks up through this slot. The airplane is hooked to the shuttle. Steam drives the pistons forward and tows the plane along.” He held up a hand and slammed it with his fist. “Pow!”

“What is that?” Judith Farrell pointed to a glassed-in compartment between the two bow catapults that protruded eighteen inches out of the deck.

“I’ll show you.” Tarkington led them over and they looked in the windows. “This is the bow catapult control bubble. The cat officer sits at this console facing aft and operates both bow cats. That console facing forward is where the man sits who monitors all the steam and hydraulic pressures and electrical circuits. He’s sort of like a flight engineer on a jetliner.”

The group proceeded to the bow where they looked back down the length of the ship. The view was spectacular. The island superstructure over two hundred yards aft looked like a goatherder’s cottage. Here, Tarkington suggested, was a good place for photographs. Everyone except Judith Farrell began snapping pictures. She turned and stared forward, out to sea.

“That’s east,” Tarkington told her. “You can’t see it, but not too far in that direction is the Strait of Gibralter, the entrance to the Med. We’ll be going through there in a few days.”

“I know my geography.”

“I’ll bet you do, ma’am. Just where in Paris do you live?”

“The Left Bank.”

“Where all those ol’ hippies and crackpots hang out?”

“Precisely there.”

“Oh.” He was silent for a moment. “Is this the first carrier you’ve been on, ma’am?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what do you think of her?”

“It’s a waste of billions of dollars when there are people in the world starving.”

“You may be right, ma’am. I always figured that maybe somebody said something like that to Joshua when he was standing there looking at the walls of Jericho and thinking about tooting his horn. But my suspicion is that the folks in Jericho were thinking they hadn’t spent enough bucks on the walls. I reckon it all depends on your point of view.”

She glanced at him with her brows knitted, then turned and began walking aft. Tarkington followed slowly, and the rest of the group lowered their cameras and trailed after them.

They passed the bow catapult control bubble and the upright JBD and approached the island. It had looked small and unobtrusive from the bow, but as they neared, it took on the aura of a ten-story building festooned with radar dishes and radio antennae.

The lieutenant led his five through an oval door — they had to step over the combing — and into a ladderwell. Their footsteps echoed thunderously against the metal walls as they trudged up flight after flight of steep stairs (ladders, the sailors called them), swimming against a steady stream of people trooping down. The ship was so stupendously large, yet the passageways and ladders were narrow, with low ceilings, and crammed with pipes and wires and fire fighting gear; the ship’s interior was incongruously disconcerting to visitors unfamiliar with warship architecture. Some people found themselves slightly claustrophobic inside this rabbit warren of bulkheads and ladders and people charging hither and yon on unimaginable errands. Toad paused on several landings to let his charges catch up and catch their breath.

Six stories up they exited onto a viewing area their guide quaintly referred to as Vulture’s Row. Several other groups of journalists were also there. Everyone with a camera snapped numerous photos of the planes parked neatly in rows on the deck below and the junior officers answered technical questions as fast as they were posed. Several of the tour guides were pilots who expounded with youthful enthusiasm on the thrills associated with flying off and onto the carrier.

“Are you a pilot?” the Frenchman with a Japanese camera asked Lieutenant Tarkington.

“No, sir. I’m an RIO — that means Radar Intercept Officer — on F-14s. Those are the sharky-looking jobs down there with the wings that move backwards and forwards.”

The Frenchman stared. “Ze wings?”

“Yeah, the wings move.” Tarkington pretended to be an airplane and waggled his arms appropriately. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Judith Farrell roll her gaze heavenward.

“Oui, oui. Formidable!”

“Yep, sure is,” the irrepressible Tarkington agreed heartily.

When their turn came, Tarkington led his followers into “Pri-Fly,” a glassed-in room that stuck out of the top of the island over the flight deck and offered a magnificent view. Here, he explained, the air boss, a senior commander, controlled the launch and recovery of aircraft. As Tarkington drawled along a helicopter came in to land, settling gently onto the forward portion of the landing area. Several of the group took pictures of the air boss standing beside his raised easy chair with all his radios and intercom boxes in the background.

Tarkington’s group then packed themselves into the minuscule island elevator for the ride down to the flight deck level. Somehow the lieutenant ended up jammed face-to-face with Judith Farrell. He beamed at her and she stared at his Adam’s apple. The machinery was noisy and the whole contraption lurched several times. “Nobody’s died in here since last week, ma’am,” he whispered.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me ‘ma’am,’” Farrell said, refusing to whisper.

“Yes, ma’am.”

When the door opened, they went down another ladder to the O-3 level and then through a myriad of turns to a ready room. The tourists were greeted by an officer who gave a little explanation of how aircrews planned and briefed their missions in ready rooms like this throughout the O-3 level. He showed them the closed-circuit television monitors around the room on which the only show playing during flight operations was the launch and recovery of aircraft on the “roof,” the flight deck. And he got some laughs with his explanation of the greenie board that hung on one bulkhead. Every pilot in this squadron had color marks recorded for each of his carrier approaches, which his squadron mates witnessed in glorious detail on the television monitors. Green was the predominate color and symbolized an OK pass, the best grade possible. Yellow was a fair grade and a few red spots recorded no-grade or cut passes. Apparently a pilot’s virtues and sins were recorded in living color for all to see.

Back in the passageway one of the reporter-photographers delayed the group almost three minutes as he repeatedly snapped an apparently endless, narrow passageway that ran fore and aft. At this level the openings in the frames that supported the flight deck were oval in shape and only wide enough for people to pass through in single file. “Knee-knockers,” Tarkington called them. The passageway appeared to be an oval tube receding into infinity. The photographer got a shot of a sailor in the passageway over a hundred yards away that later appeared in a German newsmagazine. The picture demonstrated visually, in a way words never could, just how large, how massive, this ship truly was.

“It’s very noisy,” one of the visitors said to Toad, who nodded politely. The hum and whine of the fans inside the air conditioning system was the background noise the ship’s inhabitants became aware of only when it ceased.

“What is that smell? I’ve noticed it ever since we came aboard,” Judith Farrell said.

“I don’t really know,” Toad replied as he examined her nose to see if it crinkled when she sniffed. “I always thought it was the oil they used to lubricate the blowers in the air-conditioning system, or the hatch hinges, or whatever.” All the other visitors were inhaling lungfuls. “You don’t notice it after awhile,” Toad finished lamely.

The photographer was finished. They went down another set of ladders and back to the wardroom where they had begun the tour.

“I sure am glad you folks could come out today for a little visit,” Tarkington said as he shook hands with the men. “Hope we didn’t walk you too much or wear you down. But there’s a lot to see and it takes a little doing to get around.” He turned and gazed into Judith Farrell’s clear blue eyes. “I just might get up Paris way sometime this summer, ma’am, and maybe you could return the hospitality and give me a little tour of Gay Paree?”

She favored him with the smallest smile she could manage as she ensured he had only her fingertips to shake.

“I hope you enjoyed your tour,” Captain Grafton said to the group.

“Very much,” the Italian woman replied as heads bobbed in agreement.

“There’s more Kool-Aid,” Grafton gestured toward the refreshment table, “if you’re thirsty. Please help yourselves. The boats will be leaving in about five minutes to take you back to the beach. Your tour guides will escort you to the quarterdeck. If you have any unanswered questions, now is the time to ask them.”

“Are nuclear weapons aboard this ship, please?” The question came from one of the Frenchmen.

“The American government can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard any ship.”

“But what if a war begins?” Judith Farrell asked loudly.

Grafton’s face showed no emotion. “In that event, ma’am, we’ll do the best we can to defend ourselves in accordance with American government policy and our commitments to NATO.”

“Isn’t it possible the presence of this ship in these waters adds to international tension, rather than lessens it?” Farrell persisted.

“I’m not a diplomat,” Grafton said carefully. “I’m a sailor. You should ask the State Department that question.” He glanced at his watch, then at the junior officer tour guides. “Gentlemen, perhaps it’s time to take these folks to the quarterdeck.”

As his group prepared to descend the ladder from the quarterdeck to the carly float Lieutenant Tarkington again shook each hand. To Farrell he said, “I sure am glad I had the chance to get to know you, ma’am. It’s a small world and you just never know when or where we’ll meet again.”

She brushed past him and was three steps down the ladder when she heard him say loudly, “I’m sure you’re a fine reporter, Judith, but you shouldn’t work so hard at playing the role.” Teetering on her heels, she turned and caught a glimpse of Tarkington’s face, dead serious, as the man behind her on the ladder lost his balance and almost sent her sprawling.

“Don’t forget the Toad, Judith Farrell.”

A week later the Tangiers police received an enquiry from Paris about the J’Accuse reporter. He had not returned from his trip nor had he filed a story. At the hotel where he had reservations, the bartender, a retired merchant mariner from Marseilles, identified the reporter from a black-and-white photograph which pictured a middle-aged man with thinning hair and heavy jowls. The bartender gave a tolerably accurate description of the young woman to the police, but he had not overheard any of the couple’s conversation. The reporter’s bed had not been disturbed and his luggage was missing when the hotel maid entered the next morning. The bartender ventured the opinion that the woman was not a prostitute, and this professional observation caused police to make fruitless enquiries at every other hotel in Tangiers that catered to foreigners. Where the pair had gone after they left the hotel bar was never established.

An official of the French government asked the American embassy in Paris if the J’Accuse press pass to the United States had been used, and was informed several days later that it had. Two weeks after the event a photo of the missing journalist was shown to the naval officers who had guided the tours. The ship was then at sea in the Mediterranean. None of those who viewed the picture could recall the individual, so that information, for whatever it was worth, was passed via the embassy to the French authorities.

The American embassy CIA man reported the disappearance to his superiors, and U.S. Naval Intelligence was routinely informed. Apparently the incident was too unimportant to be included in the summaries prepared for the National Security Council. After all, the group had not been shown anything classified or anything that was not shown as a matter of course to any visitor to the ship. Notations were made in the appropriate computer records and within a month the incident was forgotten by those few persons in the intelligence community who were aware of it.

The reporter was never seen again. Since he was divorced and his only daughter lived in Toulon with children of her own, his disappearance caused scarcely a ripple. Within six weeks his mistress had another regular visitor and J’Accuse had another reporter at a lower salary.