One Clear Call I

by Upton Sinclair

  But it didn’t happen; the rocking and splashing ceased, and the ship was airborne. After that Lanny was in the hands of the two aviators, who had maps and ingenious instruments by which they could find a certain stretch of shore in darkness. Lanny might sit and recite his Italian lessons in his mind, or he might spread the blanket on the floor and have a nap. He did a little of both, and was fast asleep when he felt a jar, and started up to discover that the plane had settled down upon the water. He asked, “Did you find the right place?” The reply was, “We said our prayers.”

  One thing was sure: the weather had been kind. There was very little sea, and the P.A. didn’t have to contemplate the prospect of having to swim for it, and perhaps lose his small suitcase. The seaplane was hardly rocking at all, and the pilot had shut the engine off and was letting her drift. Lashed fast to the struts was one of those collapsible boats called a kayak, because of its shape. General Clark and his fellow officers had used several to land on the shore not far from Algiers for a conference with French officers who were secretly favoring the American invasion. That time the sea had been high, and it had been all but impossible for the Americans to get away again.

  Now the two aviators untied the package with swift fingers and spread the hinged wooden frame with the attached waterproof canvas. The three men laid the tiny craft upon the water, and first the ensign and then the passenger got in, holding tight to the seaplane so as not to upset the kayak. There was just room for two, facing each other and with their legs drawn up close. Lanny rode backward, his suitcase in his lap. The ensign paddled vigorously, and soon they came to the shore.

  A ticklish moment when they touched the shore, for it was rocky, and to get out of this craft was as hard as to get into it. Lanny had explained his desire to keep his feet dry, not because of discomfort, for that wouldn’t have amounted to anything in warm weather, but because he did not wish to betray the manner of his coming. The ensign stepped into the water and managed to keep the kayak from capsizing; he dragged it up so that his passenger might step out safely. Lanny whispered “Thank you,” shook hands, and waited while the craft was launched again. He was prepared to strip and help if necessary, but the young fellow managed it alone and disappeared into the darkness.

  X

  There was the son of Budd-Erling with his little suitcase and a pocketful of Italian paper money of all sizes—mostly large, because the lira was even lower than the franc and going down fast. It was dark, but from the stars he could guess that it was after midnight; he couldn’t see the ground, but had to stumble along, ascending from the sea over rocks and weed patches. He had not brought a flashlight and would not have dared to use one. The success of his plans depended upon his getting to the German military authorities before he was picked up by the Italians. The Germans were the masters; but if the Italians got him first they might jail him as an ordinary spy, look up his past record, and never let the Germans know anything about him.

  Buildings loomed before him, outlined against the stars; he kept one hand before him as he walked, because barbed wire was to be expected. He kept waving his hand up and down in front of him, so that if he touched electrified wire it would be a quick stroke and might not be fatal. Every few steps he halted and listened for the footsteps of a sentry. It seemed most unlikely that any shore this close to Rome would be unfortified and unguarded; he knew what had been done to the beaches of Britain. But apparently hard-pressed Italy didn’t have any electrical power to spare, and not much wire; and they had an awful lot of rocky coast. Surely there should have been sentries along the shore; but although he held his breath and listened he heard nothing. Perhaps the sentry was taking a nap; anyhow, the invader, stepping softly and crouching low, came to a road, climbed onto it, and stood listening in the shadows of some sort of building.

  The entire shore was completely blacked out, and Lanny had no way to see his watch. By starlight a moving figure can be seen plainly enough for a shot, and Lanny’s heart was pounding; but he could gain nothing by staying in hiding. Apparently this was a summer cottage; it was unoccupied, the windows closed. What Lanny wanted was a taxi-cab or motorcar to take him to Rome; but how could he find a garage in the darkness? If he saw a person walking he would be afraid to speak to him, for fear it might be a policeman or a soldier; he had no papers that he could show, and his hope was to escape attention until he got away from the shore.

  What would he do if he were challenged in Italian? He had not failed to work out a course of action. He would demand to be taken to the highest police authority; there he would say that he was an American agent of Herr Hitler, desiring to be permitted to speak with the German authorities at once. He would not tell how he had got into Italy—he would say that Herr Hitler had arranged it and had forbidden him to reveal the secret. He would demand the right to telephone, at his own expense, to the Führer’s private number in Berlin. If the Führer was not there, he would call Air Marshal Göring, whose art adviser and agent he had been before the war.

  A most unlikely story, but the very boldness of it might cause its success. Great names would overwhelm any local official; and when it came to higher authorities, the son of Budd-Erling had a long record as a Fascist sympathizer to expatiate upon. He had been married to Irma Barnes, now Countess of Wickthorpe, whose home had been known before the war as a second Cliveden. In Paris he had been intimate in the home of Denis de Bruyne, wealthy industrialist who had helped to finance the Cagoulards; at the time this conspiracy had been exposed, Lanny had sought refuge in the palace of Graf Herzenberg, of the Nazi Embassy staff. The glib art expert could tell stories like that by the mile, and all the Italians would have to do was to ask their German friends about him. But suppose the Italians who got hold of him didn’t have any German friends and didn’t want any? Then indeed a double-crossing agent might wish that he had stayed on his own side of the war fence.

  XI

  The wanderer was in a settlement of some sort apparently. One shack fronting the highway had chinks of light behind black curtains; Lanny guessed it might be an all-night eating place and tapped on the door. A voice called, “Entrate.” He stepped in and closed the door quickly, as regulations in war-stricken lands required. There was a lunch counter with an elderly Italian behind it, and Lanny greeted him with his best German imitation, saying “Roma,” and then “Machina, automobile.” The proprietor, who was alone, pointed in a direction where he said there was a garage. Lanny took out a twenty-lira note and pointed to that, saying, “Come, show me.” The man, who wasn’t apt to make that much in the rest of the night, put out his light, locked his door, and escorted the stranger down the street.

  There was a garage, and apparently the proprietor slept in the rear. The café man knocked, and presently a sleepy voice called from inside, and the café man explained that a signor tedesco demanded to speak with him. So presently another old man opened the door—they were all old, because some four hundred thousand young men had been shipped to Naziland, and two or three million taken into the Army. When the man heard that a traveler wished to rent a car to take him to the capital, he threw up his hands in dismay; “Assolutamente impossibile!” he said; there was no petrolio, and besides, it was forbidden by the police; it was necessary to have a permit, and that took many days, and so on.

  Lanny invited himself into a bedroom which apparently had a large family who had awakened and were listening. He spoke large words: government, military affairs, state business, molto importante. Every time the man said “impossibile,” Lanny replied, “Quanto costa?”—how much? These, he knew, were black-market days, when anything could be done if you paid for it; but you mustn’t pay too much, because that awakens suspicion and exposes you to blackmail and even to crime. First he said “Mille lire,”—a thousand lire—and then, “Mille cinque,” which is fifteen hundred; he thought that should be sufficient for a forty-mile drive.

  When the proprietor said he didn’t have the gas, Lanny guessed that he was bidding for the passeng
er to buy it. When the man said two thousand lire, Lanny said, “E troppo,”—too much—and after arguing back and forth for a while he started to leave. The man, weakening, objected that it was forbidden to enter the city between the hours of ten at night and sunrise. To that Lanny replied that he didn’t want to enter the city, his destination was in the suburbs. He had studied a map and could specify the locality; the man said if that was the case he would take a chance, but it was molto, molto illegale and might get him a heavy fine. He wanted Lanny to agree to pay the police; but Lanny took his turn saying “impossible,” and stood by his fifteen hundred lire. At last the man said, “Bene, signor,” and proceeded to get into his pants and shirt.

  He unlocked his garage, and there was a battered yellow Renault which some tourist must have left behind ten years ago. It sputtered and spat, but it started, and the old man put it out on the street, locked the garage again, and invited the passenger and his suitcase inside. He drove through the deserted streets without lights, slowly but accurately, as if he had the eyes of an owl. Once out of the town, he turned on only the parking lights, and these were carefully hooded. He did not make any pretense of getting gasoline—that had been just a bargaining point. They drove at ten miles an hour, and that was all right, because Lanny could do nothing more until daylight. The road was a modern speedway, one of the gifts Il Duce had made to the Italian people out of their own money—this in the early days when he had been trying to please them. He had drained the swamps, killed the mosquitoes, built model houses, and caused the trains to run on time; so the tourists had spread his fame and his wonderful new ideas among the money-spending classes of all lands.

  Arriving at the suburb, Lanny picked out a dwelling at random and told the driver to stop there. He spoke his German-Italian thanks, paid his debt, and went up the steps of the building and pretended to ring the bell; he stood and waited, and the driver waited to see if anyone came to the door. Lanny’s patience was the greater, and finally the man drove away. Lanny was sure he would not report the strange episode to the police no matter how suspicious he might be; by his own admission he had broken several regulations and in all probability the Fascist police would bleed him white.

  XII

  The P.A. strolled and found a park with a bench, and there he sat. Dawn was coming, and soon people would be about, and then it would be all right for one more to join them. There was nothing suspicious about this traveler’s appearance; he looked like a gentleman, but not too elegant, his English-made tropical worsted suit was considerably rumpled and he would be needing a shave. He might have been an agent taking orders for sewing machines, had any such thing been available in war-tormented Roma Immortalis. More probably, he was a bill collector, or possibly a doctor. In a city of a million and a half inhabitants the police cannot question everybody on the street every day.

  Nor can they block all the roads and lanes and alleys that lead into such a city. It was the P.A.’s idea to stroll on obscure streets among plain people on the way to their jobs. He would keep watch ahead, and if he saw any signs of a roadblock or even a policeman, he would turn off to another street. So, with as many windings as the Tiber River, he would make his way among the Seven Hills and arrive at his destination, the Hotel de Russie—surely an odd name for the headquarters of the German High Command. He had to find it without delay, for he couldn’t stop at any hotel without being reported to the police, and he couldn’t buy food or even eat in a café without having a ration book. He might have asked the people at the OSS “post office” to hide him—but he didn’t want to be hidden, he wanted to get a legal pass and travel about.

  It all worked out according to his careful plan. He came to the wide Piazza del Popolo, where he saw the gray gun-metal cars of the German staff parked. The familiar SS men stood on guard at the door of the hotel, and Lanny knew how to deal with them. His hand shot up in the Nazi salute and he snapped out, “Heil Hitler!” The response was obligatory, and the effect semi-hypnotic; the dummies found it difficult to distrust anyone who had put them through the ritual. Lanny said, “I have business with Marshal Kesselring”; and the commander of the guard replied, “Ja, mein Herr,” and signed one of the others to accompany the visitor inside.

  At the desk where once had been an obsequious hotel clerk now sat a red-faced and severe-looking Feldwebel. Lanny approached and said, “Will you kindly oblige me with a small envelope.” He took a visiting card from the case in his pocket. “Mr. Lanning Prescott Budd,” it read, and with his fountain pen he wrote underneath, “Geheimer Agent des Führers, einen Bericht zu erstatten.” He put the card in the envelope, methodically sealed it, and wrote on the outside, “Dem Herrn Marschall Albert von Kesselring, oder dem Herrn General Enno von Rintelen. Persönlich.” He handed that to the Feldwebel and watched the man’s eyes pop. He tapped a bell, and a soldier came. “Neunzehn,” he said, and the man took the card and went to the elevator. Lanny picked up his little suitcase, went to one of the big leather chairs, seated himself, and crossed his legs nonchalantly. The SS man watched him discreetly from near by.

  XIII

  There emerged from the elevator a tall, monocled Prussian of high rank. He came toward the visitor, and the visitor rose and gave the Nazi salute. Many of these old-time masters of Germany hated having to return this salute, but they wouldn’t let a stranger know that. This one introduced himself as “Oberst von Horn,” and Lanny said, “Herr Budd,” and bowed. The Oberst said inquiringly, “You wish to speak to the Marshal or the Chief of Staff?” The visitor, knowing the exact measure of courtesy and coldness to use with these proud gentry, replied, “I sent them a written message, marked personal.”

  It was a challenge, and the officer would not fail to know it. Said he, “Will you be so kind as to give me an idea as to the nature of your business with these officers?”

  “Leider, Herr Oberst,” replied Lanny. “I am under strict orders that what I have to say is to be said to them alone.”

  “Under whose orders, may I inquire?”

  “I have told them that in my written message, Herr Oberst.” Lanny might have added, “Did you open it?” but that would have been rude, and when you are dealing with a haughty person you are as rude as he, but no ruder.

  “You must understand that they are very busy, Herr Budd.”

  “Selbstverständlich, but I will take no more of their time than they care to give me.”

  “And suppose they are not here?”

  “I don’t mind waiting until they come.” There was a duel of the eyes; Lanny stared straight into a cold blue Prussian pair, and wondered what they were making of a brown American pair.

  Apparently not much, for the Oberst said, “May I inquire of what nationality you are, Herr Budd?”

  “I trust that you will not take it as a discourtesy, Herr Oberst. I am under strict orders to give no information except to Marshal von Kesselring or General von Rintelen. You must surely realize that a man would not enter the Mediterranean headquarters of the Reichswehr unless he had something that would justify his intrusion.”

  The haughty one realized that he had met his match. “You confront me with an embarrassing responsibility,” he said, and his eyes moved to the suitcase on the floor beside Lanny’s chair.

  “I understand what you mean, Herr Oberst. The bag contains the few necessities of a traveler, and I shall be pleased to have you examine it. Since I have to ask the privilege of speaking in private to either the Marshal or the General, I expect that you will have me searched.”

  “Ausgezeichnet, Herr Budd,” said the other, obviously relieved. “Bitte, kommen Sie mit mir.” He signed to the SS man, then led the way to the elevator.

  XIV

  In a room which had once been a hotel bedroom, and now appeared to be a conference room, the SS man opened Lanny’s small suitcase, while the Oberst sat stiffly in a chair and stared through his monocle at each article as the other held it up. The man ran his hands over the lining of the suitcase, felt the seams, a
nd did a thorough job. He handed the Italian dictionary and the two Nazi pamphlets to the officer, who leafed through them without comment. A well-educated man, he doubtless thought the pamphlets were rubbish and realized that they might be a blind; but he said nothing. Lanny took off his coat, shirt, and trousers, and sat in his shorts while the SS man made an examination of the clothing and contents of the pockets. He took off his shoes and handed them over; he stood up and let the man pass his hard hot hands all over him. In these days science had constructed so many subtle poisons and cunning weapons that it was hard to distinguish between an innocent civilian and a deadly assassin. A fountain pen might shoot a poisoned bullet, so the SS man first made sure that it would write, and then he took it apart and made sure that it wouldn’t do anything else.

  He took a large wad of Italian banknotes out of the stranger’s billfold and another wad out of his back trousers pocket and handed them to the officer, who glanced at them, still without comment. Lanny’s passport revealed that he was an American, or at any rate that he was posing as one. When the Oberst had looked through this elaborate document he knew also that the stranger had come by way of North Africa; but still he kept silent. Lanny took the liberty of saying, “I suggest that you caution this man not to mention my name or to talk about anything he has learned.”