One Clear Call I

by Upton Sinclair

  “You have no idea who betrayed you?”

  “I had four different contacts; and I go over them in my mind, one after another. The gangsters must have seized one of them and broken the poor devil’s nerve. Some day I may know, but I have no way to inquire at present.”

  “Tell me about Plötzen. I found him a congenial person. Is there any possibility that he may be nursing hatred of the Nazis in his heart?”

  “I don’t doubt that he is doing just that. But I can’t believe that he would act on it. Plötzen is a coward, and also a snob. He is a man of wealth and means to hang onto it. He is proud of his ability to be a leading theoretical physicist and at the same time preserve his social standing.”

  “How funny!” said Lanny. “We have always been told that the Germans honor and glorify science.”

  “Yes, but not that solid-gold Berlin plutocracy, the Herrenklub crowd. To them a scientist is a higher sort of menial, useful and necessary, but kept in his place.”

  “You were a menial in Plötzen’s house. I wouldn’t expect a Social Democratic butler to love his master very ardently.”

  The German chuckled. “That might have something to do with it. But I wouldn’t advise you to put your life in Plötzen’s keeping—at least not until he has become sure that the Nazis are on the skids.” They were speaking German, but now and then Monck put in an American slang phrase. He had been a sailor and then a labor leader before the coming of the Nazis; he had become a captain in the International Brigade in Spain, and then had risked his life going more than once back into Germany. Americans had the idea that German Socialists were timid slaves of legality; they had no way to hear from the thousands who were sticking it out in Nazi concentration camps, or from the other thousands who were living double lives, helpless to rebel openly, but doing secret work in constant peril of detection.

  Monck gave his friend the name and address of one of these determined men. His name was Johann Seidl and he was a watchmaker and Nazi block leader in Berlin. He was one of a group of half a dozen Socialists who had seen the Nazi power on the way to victory, and had sworn an oath of loyalty and secrecy to one another, and then had pretended to be converted to the ideas of National Socialism. Thousands had done the same thing for various reasons; some because it was the easiest way, others because it was the hardest—so Monck phrased it. Three of these conspirators were no longer heard from, he reported; but if Johann was still alive, he could be trusted; he had had wide contacts in the past, and he might know someone who was working in the field of jet propulsion. It was not such a slender hope as it might at first seem, because you couldn’t go into mass production of any article without having thousands of workers, and these frequently knew more than they were supposed to. “The young Germans are no good to anybody,” said Lanny’s friend; “but when you get an old fellow who has had Socialist training you have someone to depend on.”

  “What shall I use for a password?” asked the P.A.

  “Tell him that you were married to Trudi Schultz,” was the reply. “He knew her, and he may have some of her drawings hidden away.”

  VII

  Early next morning Lanny took a sheet of the Grand Hotel’s grand stationery, and wrote in the German language a letter to the German Minister in Stockholm:

  “Exzellenz: The undersigned, a long-time personal friend of the Führer, by the Führer’s explicit orders, transmits to you the following requests: (1) No one is to be told about this letter and it is to be destroyed promptly. (2) You will oblige by telephoning personally to the Führer at Berlin 116191 informing him of my presence at this hotel. If the Führer is not available, you will inform his personal secretary, Ista Schröder. Further instructions may come from the Führer. You have no responsibility in the matter except to convey this information with all possible secrecy. Respectfully, Lanning Prescott Budd.”

  Lanny sealed this letter and addressed it to “Seiner Exzellenz dem Herrn Botschafter, Persönlich, Privat.” He carried it within a block or so of the legation, and waited until he saw a boy on a bicycle, stopped him, and made a proper-sized offer: fifty öre in advance, and another fifty after the performance of the service. Since the boy knew only Swedish, and Lanny only English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish, this took some gesticulating and pointing, but finally it was made clear. Lanny watched from a cigar store across the street and saw the boy admitted to the Legation; he purchased an evening paper, and when the boy came out, followed him, paid him, and went his way, fairly sure that his maneuver had not been observed by any Allied agent. His pretended treason made both sides his enemies.

  Returning to the hotel he read comfortably for a couple of hours. The Swedish newspapers gave the Allied communiqués, and fortunately the names of places were the same; also, the scientific and technical terms which have Latin or Greek roots could be read by a foreign visitor. Lanny learned that the signing of an armistice with Italy had been announced, and he could make out some of the terms. He looked in vain for anything about the landing of American paratroopers in Rome, and was left to speculate about the reason for this disappointment. His guess was that the old Maresciallo and his still older, pint-sized King had had a failure of nerve; later on he learned that this guess was correct. They had been afraid of that terrible armored division of the Germans and had preferred to sneak away to the Allied lines and leave it for the Americans to take Rome by the weary, grinding process of mountain by mountain for two or three hundred miles.

  VIII

  There came a tap on the door of the P.A.’s room, and there stood a mild-looking little man in civilian dress. “Ihre Name, mein Herr?” he said, and when Lanny gave his name the man placed in his hands an envelope sealed but without writing. Lanny found in it a ticket to an airplane that was scheduled to fly to Berlin that afternoon. He was not surprised, because he knew Adi Schicklgruber and knew that he had not got where he was by patience, but by its opposite. The man said, “I have a car to take you to the airport.” Lanny replied, “Danke schön,” and proceeded to put his belongings into his one suitcase—a larger one this trip, since he hadn’t had to come in a seaplane and land on a beach at night.

  The man spoke not one word on the journey. Doubtless he had his orders, and Lanny surely had his. He guessed the man to be of a humble sort, and offered him a tip, which he took with thanks; then he sat watching, presumably having orders to see the mysterious passenger off. Lanny sat in the sunshine at a great airport and watched planes arriving and taking off, and his own big liner warming its engines. His ticket had some initials on it, and these probably accounted for the fact that no questions were asked of him. Promptly on schedule the plane rose into the air and flew southward, and two or three hours later was set down on the immense Tempelhoferfeld—bombed every now and then by the Allies and promptly put in order again, all but the burned hangars and offices.

  Modern civilization has made everything easy for those who have the right pieces of paper. In peacetime these had been, for Americans, oblong and pliable, green in color and having the faces of old-time statesmen on them. In wartime they had changed in shape and character and had dates and other things put on with rubber stamps, also signatures of various functionaries. The Führer’s long-time friend was without anything of the sort, but he feared no trouble and had none. A snappy young SS officer met him and took him in charge, putting him into a car, and driving him at high speed to the New Chancellery building on the Wilhelmstrasse.

  That immense long ugly pile of granite had been hit by bombs and partly destroyed; this part included the upper section, where Lanny had been shown the marvelous models which the greatest architect in the world—name, Adolf Hitler—had designed for the glory of his thousand-year Reich. But Adi’s own offices had not been hit, and Lanny entered the familiar doorway, guarded by Leibstandarte men who saluted him and his escort. They went down the red marble hallway to the heavy doors with the initials “AH” in bronze letters.

  Inside the office Lanny was surprised to
see his friend Heinrich Jung seated, waiting. He leaped up, heiled, and explained quickly that the Führer had meant to be here but had been unfortunately detained—Heinrich didn’t say where, and Lanny was left to guess that it was at his headquarters in the Forest of Görlitz. Heinrich had been told to come and act as Lanny’s escort until the Führer himself was free. Lanny expressed his pleasure at meeting one of his oldest German friends, and Heinrich escorted him to a guest chamber which they were to share; it had two single beds and every comfort, for Adi took good care of his guests, even allowing them luxuries such as meat and wine which he denied to himself. But no tobacco inside his home!

  The visitor asked about Heinrich’s family and listened to all the details. He told about Irma, whom Heinrich had met as Lanny’s wife. He told about his last meeting with Kurt Meissner, whom Heinrich hadn’t seen for some time. Then they talked about this war. The devout and devoted Jugend official knew only what the Goebbels propaganda machine furnished him to be passed on to the young people of Germany; Heinrich believed every word of it, and couldn’t have been happy otherwise, for he was an honest fellow, though not very bright.

  It would be thirty years this Christmas since Heinrich Jung had met Lanny Budd, and in those thirty years he had become the perfect bureaucrat, with constantly increasing duties, and a family and a paunch of which the same could be said. He stood in awe of his American friend, not merely because Lanny was rich and elegant, but also because he was rendering important services to the Führer. Heinrich was made supremely happy by Lanny’s assurance that he, Heinrich, was the person responsible for Lanny’s having become a convert to the Führer’s cause.

  IX

  Four days and nights the pair spent renewing this friendship. They went for walks, and Lanny observed the bomb damage and the condition of the people; he made comments, and Heinrich answered with items of information. The hard-working bureaucrat didn’t know any military or industrial secrets, but he knew the everyday life of Berliners. They were a sophisticated and smart lot, as sure of their superiority to other Germans as Germans were of their superiority to other races. The average Berliner still had confidence, because the Führer had promised him a “wonder weapon” that was certain to bring victory. Wunderwaffe it was in their language, and in conversation they shortened it to Wuwa, pronouncing it German fashion, “voo-vah.”

  There were, Heinrich had to admit, a few weak ones who despaired, and even dastards who shirked their duties; the papers of soldiers who died were stolen or sold, and used by men who went about pretending to be on leave. Others caused it to be given out that they had been killed in bombings and then went into hiding and escaped the draft. How they managed to exist without food cards was a mystery, but it was known that they did. There was a black market, even in the Fatherland.

  The Führer was keeping one of his promises, that the Germans would be the last people in Europe to starve. Lanny saw no signs of undernourishment, but many signs that people had to stand long hours in queues to get the food alloted. Their clothing was neither new nor stylish, but was neatly patched and clean. The widows and the orphans were not permitted to appear in mourning, but you could see the grief in their faces, and you saw crippled men in large numbers. There was a gigantic sausage machine in the east, grinding up German manhood and making thousands of new widows and orphans every day.

  The newspapers published the official bulletins, full of ingenious double-talk to make defeats sound like anything else. There would be strategic retreats, elastic defense, the straightening of lines and advantages gained by such moves; all that may have served with the ignorant, but every thinking person must have known that the Reichswehr was being steadily driven back across the vast plains of Central Russia and the Ukraine. It had been that way all through the month of August, and now in early September it was the same, day after day: Konotop and Slavyansk, Stalino, Bakhmach, Mariupol, Nezhin, Novorossisk, Lozovaya, Romny, Novogorod-Severski—all of them odd-sounding names to Western ears, but you could find them on the map and measure the distances and figure how long it would take to reach the borders of the Fatherland. You weren’t told how many dead were left on each field, to be buried by the advancing enemy; but you knew there were windrows of them, and they were the Herrenvolk, the hope of the future. The world’s most precious blood was being poured out to fertilize the soil of barbarians, and it was difficult indeed to understand the ways of Providence.

  What was causing the Führer’s delay was a series of defeats in the Don Basin, the great coal region upon which the Soviets’ industrial progress had been based. The untimely rains had ceased, the steppes had dried, and there was ideal weather for the maneuvering of vast armies. The Germans were falling back ten miles a day, and manifestly the commander-in-chief of the German forces couldn’t leave his headquarters in such a crisis, and he wouldn’t have time to study the documents of his American agent. Anxiety pervaded the New Chancellery, like the miasma which arose when cool nights followed warm days on the many lakes and streams of the Berlin district.

  X

  There was nothing for Lanny to do but to wait, and go on wearing his breastplate of papers, regardless of the fact that the undershirt was in need of a washing. He explained the situation to the worshipful Heinrich, who was awed to be in the same room with such a secret, and thereafter was unwilling to leave Lanny alone, lest by chance someone might try to kidnap him or hold him up, even in the Führer’s official residence.

  The news that there was an American in the building could not be kept from spreading, and several visitors asked to see him. The first was an officer of the Führer’s staff, Major Feldmann, who had met Lanny at Berchtesgaden in the dear dead days before Munich. He had been a mere Leutnant then, one of three whom Lanny had driven to Nürnberg for the Parteitag, the “day” which had grown into a full week of speechmaking, shouting, singing, and parading. Lanny was glad to see him, and they talked about those wonderful times. With such a man Lanny of course talked only the official party line; when the Major ventured timid words of anxiety, Lanny had no means of knowing but that a trap was being set for him; he hastened to turn himself into another Heinrich.

  The second caller was more diverting. His name was Dr. Heubach, and Lanny had forgotten the name but remembered the man. He had been the physician at the Berghof when Lanny had taken Laurel Creston there in the critical days just before the outbreak of war. Then, as now, Lanny had had to spend a lot of time sitting around waiting, and the young doctor had taken a liking to him, and in strict confidence had invited him to his room, where they could sit with the door partly open and hear the dressing down the Führer was administering to the British Ambassador, Sir Nevile Henderson. A curious custom had come into existence in the Berghof: whenever there was reason to expect a Führer-fury, the guests in the main hall would quietly retire to their rooms on the second floor and listen to the shouts and yells echoing down the corridor from Adi’s private study.

  Four trying years had passed, and Dr. Heubach had grown flabby like his master. He was not the Führer’s personal physician, he explained; that was the great Dr. Morell—and Lanny wondered if there wasn’t a touch of sarcasm in the word “great.” Dr. Heubach was here to take care of the large number of persons employed in the New Chancellery. He enjoyed talking, and he wanted to know what it was like in the outside world. Lanny, in the presence of Heinrich Jung, mentor of Nazi youth and model of Nazi orthodoxy, thought of all the bad things to say about the Allied world. In Britain there was a shortage of everything, and in America there was political discord, so intense that the de luxe train which carried the Wall-Streeters from their offices to their suburban homes was commonly known as “the Assassination Special.”

  The three found a more cheerful subject in the scientific progress being made under the pressure of war emergencies. For a century Germany had led the world in this field, and Dr. Heubach was pleased to report that progress was continuing at a pace never before dreamed. For the first time in the modern wo
rld scientists were set free from the restraints imposed by Puritan and Jewish superstitions; for the first time rationality had become the criterion of research. Said this blond and bland Nazi physician, “For ages men have known that cattle and dogs and poultry should be bred only from the best males; but superstition has prevented this obvious course being taken with human breeding. Now for the first time we have a generation of young women trained to understand their highest service to the Fatherland; and the absence of men at the front need make no difference in our birthrate, because we can use the method of artificial insemination.”

  Lanny expressed interest in this point of view, and the doctor went on to point out that hitherto science had been compelled to get its knowledge of human physiology by experiments upon animals, all of which differed to greater or less extent from humans. But now, thanks to the Führer’s fervent belief in racial superiority, the scientists of the National Socialist world had an unlimited supply of human subjects, male and female, old and young, for whatever experiments might be useful to the state. The visitor from abroad said that that was a new idea to him and it seemed the most important that had yet come out of the Neue Ordnung; whereupon the doctor went into details about the wonders he had witnessed in the laboratories.

  Lanny had a hard time to keep from being sick to his stomach, but he managed to wear a look of proper scientific curiosity while Dr. Heubach told how men, women, and children of the sub-human Jewish and Polish races were being used to determine how long they could exist without food, without water, without air, and at what stages they could be revived from collapse induced by such deprivations. How much heat could they stand and how much cold? What would be the effect upon their metabolism of the removal of the gall bladder, of the large intestine, of the spleen. And so on.