One Clear Call I

by Upton Sinclair

  An argument started, and to this new arrival it was like being taken back to his youth, when he had listened to arguments about World War I and how it was going to be fought and what was going to come out of it. It was like being at the labor school in Cannes, which Lanny had helped to support, and where he had met youngsters who could hardly be distinguished from these, except that they had spoken French with a Provençal accent, while here they spoke Italian with a Tridentine accent. And in Berlin there had been a labor school where Lanny and the Robin boys had met youth groups who had yet another language, but who had the same hopes and, alas, the same disagreements as to how they were to be realized.

  Lanny had no trouble in making a place for himself in this camp. He told about these labor schools, and also about what he knew of the Partisans of France, who called themselves Maquis, a word meaning underbrush, where they hid. He told how “Bruges,” onetime director of a school, had gone to Toulon to help organize the workers there, and what they had done to make sure that the French Fleet did not fall into German hands. He told of visiting a group of these Partisans in the hills back of the great naval base, and again in a cellar of the town. He told about two brothers, whom he had known since their boyhood, who had split over the problem of their country’s destiny and were now in armies on opposite sides. All this was in accord with the experiences of these Italian patriots, and they no longer had any doubt of the good faith of their mysterious guest.

  He had twice the years of most of them, and they adopted him in the role of professor of world affairs; they thronged about him, plying him with questions, and in the evenings, when most of them were in the dugout, he would find that he was addressing the entire group. It did no harm for them to know that he had traveled all over Europe, and that he had visited America, and had been around the globe. He could solve problems for the lads, many of whom had but limited education.

  IV

  How eager they were for knowledge and how quickly they grasped whatever came their way! They knew that there was something desperately wrong with their world, and with all the power of their hearts they meant to change it. To the last man they had this determination: there was going to be a new Italy and they, collectively, were going to be masters of it. Never again were they going to be made fools of by any dictator. Lanny gave them American phrases, a “stuffed shirt” and a “sawdust Caesar”—uno Cesare di segatura—and they received these with delight. Mai piu!

  An old-time Socialist was heartened to discover that this new world was going to be his. Much as these lads differed about tactics, to a man their thinking was collectivist. There were going to be no more cartelli in Italy, and no more merchants of death, buying up politicians and preparing wars to enrich themselves. Even the Catholics, the most devout among them who wore scapulars and said their prayers, were strongly tinged with Pink. They would cite the encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII dealing with the rights of labor and the evils of inequality of wealth—those same authoritative documents which F.D.R. kept on his desk to read to archbishops who came to protest against this or that New Deal extremism.

  There was agreement as to the goal, but the question of how to get to it was an open one. Lanny heard all the old arguments and discovered the same antagonisms that had so troubled him in both the schools. No matter in what language—French, English, German, or Italian—the Socialists argued with the Communists, and never could they agree. Lanny had done his best to reconcile them; but how could you reconcile people who believed in the democratic process and the deciding of all questions by popular vote, with people who believed that the democratic process was a snare of the capitalist class and that the only way you could end capitalism was by the revolutionary action of an intelligent minority? Listening to the disputes, Lanny had decided that the Communists hated the Socialists even more than they hated the capitalists. The average Communist rarely saw a capitalist and knew him and his world only from pictures in the papers; but the Communist had the Socialists before him all the time, arguing with him, and blocking his success with the workers.

  Among the Partisans, here as everywhere else, the discussions led to quarreling and to splits. Lanny was told that many groups had been wrecked by this controversy, and as a result there were some Communist groups and some Socialist groups which refused to co-operate. But Arnaldo, a lawyer and man of firm will, had laid down the law that political controversy was barred in this camp, and anyone who came in had to accept that restriction. One thing they could agree upon, to drive the Nazis out of Italy, and to hang or shoot the spies and traitors who had helped them. After that the Italian people would decide what they wanted for their future. To this Lanny could say amen, and he would answer questions of fact and turn aside questions of theory with a smile.

  V

  It must not be assumed that this group had nothing to do but talk: far from it. They had to keep the camp in order, to carry water and cut wood and bring it to the fireplace which they had built of local stone, with cement carried up from the valley on the backs of men. They had to maintain strict sentry duty day and night on the trails which led to their camp. And since there was very little food in the mountains, they had to tote it up. In addition to such tasks of maintenance, parties large or small would go down to the villages to perform those secret tasks which justified their existence.

  When the leaders became sure of Lanny’s sincerity, they explained their problem. They couldn’t do much open sabotage as yet, for they were too weak; the Germans could send a military force into these mountains and drive them up beyond the snow line, where they would freeze or starve to death. But soon now the American planes would be coming over, dropping weapons and supplies. Arnaldo pointed to the gun rack by the door; there were a dozen different kinds, and for some of them they had only a handful of cartridges. But when the Americans would supply them with tommy guns—they used this American name—then they would be able to raid the enemy and to fight him if he ventured into the highlands.

  Meantime, day by day, they were training themselves according to American Army instruction. They were learning to creep and crawl, and to move silently in the night; to use the knife and the cord or wire to strangle an enemy; to set dynamite and make roadblocks to wreck trains and trucks. Meantime they were going into the towns to distribute leaflets and paint slogans on walls, to maintain the morale of the population; they were stealing supplies from the Nazis, boring holes in their tires, and otherwise causing unpleasant things to befall them. The leader said, “If you will send us enough hand grenades, we can make it impossible for their trucks to travel on these highways; and if we have enough ammunition, we can make a stand and keep their raiding parties from coming into the hills.”

  Lanny promised, “I will report the situation; and I’m sure it won’t be long now. You must remember that America is fighting two wars, on opposite sides of the world, and has had less than two years in which to convert its machinery of production to war purposes. There are thousands of groups clamoring for supplies, and questions of priority are the gravest the General Staff has to decide.”

  “Don’t forget this,” continued Arnaldo; “most of the supplies the Germans fight with in Italy have to come on these highways and railroads.”

  The P.A. responded, “Take my word for it, Compagno, our staffs have good maps.”

  This unbidden guest was careful not to ask questions that bore upon the group’s means of communication. He could come near to guessing what the process would be. They would send a courier to some near-by town to communicate with an American “post office.” Sooner or later word would reach some agent who operated a radio sending and receiving set, used rarely, and only at night, and for a few minutes at a time; then it would be packed up and moved quickly, perhaps in a peddler’s cart, perhaps in a secret compartment of a truck, perhaps in a doctor’s automobile or a fisherman’s boat.

  The weak message from this set would be picked up by some more powerful set, perhaps a naval vessel cruising in Italian waters,
or apparatus which would undoubtedly be in operation in Naples or Foggia. From there it would be relayed to Algiers, and thence to Casablanca and Washington, by radio or cable. The message would be in code and would not have to be long: “Traveler, Arctic, Hades,” or something like that. In the secret book of OSS, Traveler would be Lanning Prescott Budd, P.A. 103; Arctic would be the “post office” in the Dolomite Alps; Hades would be the radio sending set that had started the message. In the old brick building by the gasworks in Washington men would jump into action, for that was what they were there for, to get their agents into enemy lands and to get them out when they were ready to come. The proper officers of Army, Navy, and Air Force would be consulted, and a way would be devised and a message sent: “Hades, Arctic, Traveler”—plus whatever instructions were to be given.

  VI

  Lanny spent five days in the idyllic surroundings of Campo Coraggio, Camp Courage, as this outpost was called. He was magically provided with a pair of new boots that fitted him, and that was all he really needed for the time being. He took part in the singing which was one of this company’s ways of passing the long evening hours. He watched the magnificent scenery of the Alpine mountains in late autumn, and had the pleasure of seeing the first blanket of pure white snow laid down upon the land.

  Then, on the sixth day, at early dawn, there came shouts from a sentry and a wild uproar: the sentry had heard a signal, six shots in three pairs at two-second intervals, which meant that the enemy was coming up the trail. “Pack up!” shouted Arnaldo, and there followed a scene of confusion, or so it seemed, but as a matter of fact it had all been rehearsed, like a fire drill, and every man knew what he was doing. Portable possessions were wrapped, tied tightly in blanket rolls and thrown over shoulders, guns were taken down, and within twenty minutes after the alarm was given the entire band was ready. A sentry came running in to report that the Germans were coming in force with a pack train; so the band set out, on a trail that led upward along the mountainside and into heavier timber. The snow was bad for them because it made the trail easier to follow; but they were young and could climb as fast as the Germans; they knew all the paths, and if necessary could go down into the open and scatter into the villages, to reassemble later. They would have been willing to stand and die, but the Americans had told them to run away and live to fight another day.

  All this was explained to Lanny by the leader, who brought up the rear. The P.A. had the uncomfortable thought that the raid might be due to his presence; but it was impossible for the Partisans to suspect him of complicity since he had not once been out of their sight. He asked if it would make a difference in his chances of getting a message, and Arnaldo said that when a message came he, Arnaldo, would have a way to receive it, and all Lanny had to do was to keep in touch with the band.

  They moved at top speed, and the trip was a test of wind and muscle, not so easy for a man in his forties who had been too busy to play tennis for a long time. He had no choice but to keep up, for even if he were able to evade the Germans, he would not be able to survive in these mountains alone. When darkness came they took shelter in a cave, where they found other Partisans already in hiding. Sentries were posted a mile or two back on the trail, and no one could know whether the band would be routed out and forced to flee in darkness; the enemy would have plenty of flashlights and, of course, guns and ammunition.

  At the first signs of morning Lanny parted from his friends. Arnaldo had decided to send him down to be hidden in a peasant hut, under the escort of two lads who knew the way. The leader said, “Stay there; or if you have to hide, the boys will keep in touch with the place.” Lanny set out with his guides, and when he left the trail it was in a stream which came tumbling out of the high snow-covered mountain. He walked a quarter of a mile over slippery boulders, the three of them helping to hold each other up. That was to make certain that the enemy did not get their trail and follow them down.

  VII

  So once more the elegant son of Budd-Erling was quartered in a dugout shed on the side of a mountain, in the company of the family goat and the family pig. He slept on a pile of straw, and his food was brought to him on a wooden platter. He was forbidden to go out except at night, and the two young fellows took turns doing sentry duty farther down the trail; they had been told that he was precious, and that there was a possibility of the enemy raid having him as its objective. The Gestapo had its counterespionage service, and no system of communication could ever be proof against the possibility of a leak.

  The days were long, and the fleas were active. Lanny had only two means of recreation: the first, an Italian peasant boy of six or so, dark-eyed and melancholy in appearance, a fit subject for a painter of the poor. He was fascinated by this bearded stranger, who told him all the tales and legends he could remember, out of Grimm and Aesop, Uncle Remus and the Arabian Nights; he told about Europe and America, and surely those were crowded hours in the life of a peasant child on the side of a lonely mountain. A high mountain it was, having a sharp-pointed peak; the Dolomites are all like that. They are made of a kind of limestone, having streaks of color as if a celestial painter had worked upon them after the Creator had pushed them up.

  The other means of passing time was a small paper-backed volume which one of the propagandists of Campo Coraggio had slipped into Lanny’s hand—an Italian translation of Lenin’s State and Revolution. Here was the authentic gospel, and the P.A. took the opportunity to make certain that he knew what his Communist friends were driving at. It was a program for social transformation, as carefully worked out as a series of theorems by Euclid; there was no escaping its rigid logicality, provided that you admitted the basic premises. But Lanny Budd had the advantage of four decades over Nicolai Lenin; the latter had been predicting what would happen, whereas the former knew what had happened.

  So he could say that a Russian refugee in Zurich had erred in laying too great stress upon economic processes, failing to allow for human ingenuity and personality, and the creative forces which these might release in the world. He had underestimated the resilience of the capitalist system, and the psychological devices it would produce in its own defense. Above all, he had forgotten about genius; he had failed to foresee the arrival of three masters of the arts of mass betrayal, whom the big businessmen of Italy, Germany, and Spain would employ to flatter the collective egotisms of their peoples. A melancholy reflection, indeed! This chilled and flea-bitten refugee from Nazi-Fascism now took his turn at trying to pierce the veil of the future. He saw General de Gaulle, fully equipped and ready to play the role of dictator in France; as for the great democracy overseas, could anyone doubt that Messrs. Hearst and McCormick and other lords of press and screen and radio would manage to find themselves a new Huey Long, to save the system of their personal and private free enterprise?

  VIII

  Four days passed, and four nights, and at dusk there arrived a sturdy peasant lad bearing a scrap of paper with a single word: “Mazzinni.” That was the code name which Arnaldo had given to Lanny at parting, and he had added, with a smile, that he would put in the extra letter “n” to make doubly sure the message was from him and none other. Lanny emerged from his goat shed, bade good-by to little Paolo and his mother and sisters and grandfather, and presented the worn copy of Lenin to one of his guardians. Then, following the peasant lad, he made his way carefully down a trail in darkness, and in the middle of the night came to a small town of which he never knew the name.

  He was escorted through dark streets to what appeared to be a fair-sized residence and was taken in by the rear door. He found himself in the study of a scholarly person, perhaps a doctor, for there was an anatomy chart on the wall, two cases full of books, a pile of magazines and papers on the center table, and a globe of the world under a floor lamp. More important, there was an elderly gentleman with a gray mustache and goatee, wearing spectacles, a black linen duster, and an amiable smile. “Signor Traveler?” he asked, and that, of course, was code. “I am Dr. M
oscichi,” and that, of course, might be his real name or not.

  From first to last neither of them asked an unnecessary question. The doctor said, “I have been asked to escort you to the coast not far from Venice. This is by no means an easy feat to perform, and we shall have to take precautions. We shall take a train tomorrow night; I shall be feeble and in need of help, and you will be my servant. I have papers for you in the name of Guillermo Forli, and since we appear to be of about the same height, you will be able to wear a suit of my clothes. You are in my hands and I am in yours, and we shall have to consult carefully as to what stories we are to tell and what steps we are to take in various emergencies.”

  “I am deeply grateful,” replied the P.A., “and will do my best to follow your suggestions.”

  “I know nothing about you, Signor, except that you are an important person, and that I am urged to do everything in my power to get you out of the country. I might add that ample funds have been provided.”

  “Grazie, Dottore. As it happens, I also have funds, more than I need to get back. It would be a good idea to leave some of them with you for the help of the next man who may come along.”

  “That I am willing for you to do. And now, first, you will wish to clean up.”

  “I have not had a chance to bathe in six weeks, and I am sorry to confess that I have fellow travelers.”

  “It could not be otherwise,” said the old gentleman with a smile. “We will put your clothing into the fire, and I will help you to get your head clean. Also, I will provide you with a razor; your whiskers are camouflage, I presume, but they will need trimming up, so as to look artificial instead of primitive.”