But here the damned things were at last! In spite of all the bombing of launching sites, the enemy had got enough of them ready so that some three hundred could be sent over in the first twenty-four hours. A period of stormy weather had been chosen, so that British flyers would have trouble in finding the objects in the sky and couldn’t see the sites on the ground. But the people on English ground could see them, and hear them too. They made a loud hissing noise, and a sort of put-put-put like an old Ford engine, but much bigger. So long as you heard the sound you were all right, for the thing was going overhead; but when the sound ceased, as it did suddenly, then look out for yourself! It meant that the power was shut off and the thing was coasting down; you had about two seconds in which to dive into a ditch or a foxhole before it hit the ground and exploded.
What you saw in the air was a plane fifteen or twenty feet across and twenty-five feet long. It had no propeller, but shot out a streak of flame behind. Its speed was about three hundred miles per hour, and only the fastest pursuit planes could catch it; often the thing was over London before they shot it down, and what good did that do—since it exploded just the same? It had the force of a one-ton bomb, and Londoners knew what that meant: houses blasted, fires blazing, people having to be dug out of ruins, dead or dying. It meant women cowering all night in damp and chilly shelters, and children having to be sent out into the country again—all the miseries that Londoners had been enduring for four years and a half.
Laurel said, “You were right about Frances”—and that was some satisfaction, but not enough. Lanny had called Irma on the telephone and told her about the child. He hadn’t offered to see her, and she hadn’t asked him to come. When his daughter was there he had a right to visit the Castle, but when she was not there it would have been bad taste—besides being a bore. Apparently the new weapons were all aimed at London, but many of them went astray, just as Lanny had predicted, and nobody in the southern half of England could feel safe for a moment.
Rocket planes, robot planes, flying bombs, buzz bombs, doodlebugs, junebugs—the British people had many names for their new tormentors. It didn’t take the authorities long to gather up fragments and learn just what was hitting them: steel-bodied, pilotless planes, jet-powered and not radio-controlled. Search planes and bombers would have to be sent after the launching sites, and pursuit planes would have to patrol the coast day and night, find the objects by radar, and get on their tails in
BOOK EIGHT
Action in the Tented Field
22
Thou Hast Great Allies
I
Lanny was flown by the familiar northern route, Prestwick to Newfoundland. The earth was at its summer solstice, and afforded an all-daylight trip. When he was set down on Long Island, the first thing he did was to phone Baker and tell him to call back at the New York apartment; then he made haste to inspect that wonderful baby, now twenty months old, who toddled about and gazed with wonder at this big tall man who came in so suddenly, smiled at you so agreeably, tossed you into the air, and taught you new fascinating sounds. The big man went to the telephone and kept his promise to his wife, sending her a cablegram saying that everything in the world was perfect. Then he called his father to report on his own family and ask about the father’s. Having performed these duties, he sat down in front of the radio to hear what Raymond Swing and H. V. Kaltenborn and the rest had to report about progress on the Cotentin.
Lanny’s appointment gave him several days, time enough to get a car from his father and to call on some of his clients and report on the state of the arts in Spain; time to write a lot of letters and have a talk with Zoltan and consent to another raise in the price of Detazes. Shameless profiteering, but then, what is the value of a painting except what people are willing to pay? The supply was getting lower, and Beauty Budd had to live, and Marceline would need money if ever she got out of Germany alive. Art was art, but it was also business, and objects of beauty were surrounded by hordes of speculators, talking eagerly about prices, and the changes in taste which unaccountably swept over the world and made some things “the rage” and others “old hat.” You had to guess; if you had guessed Cézanne and van Gogh you rode on a wave of prosperity, and if you had guessed the Barbizon school you were sunk.
Alston was passing through New York, and somehow he always knew where Lanny was. They spent an evening together, driving up the Hudson on a lovely moonlit night, talking secrets for which the Nazis would have paid many millions of dollars. The old gentleman was beginning to feel his years; he looked tired, as everybody did who was carrying the burdens of this war. Lanny’s heart was sad and he wished he could do more. Alston said he helped by being cheerful and keeping a clear view of the ultimate goals. Perhaps also he had been the means of persuading Rundstedt to hold an extra division or two in Holland—who could say?
The slugging match was continuing, and, as always, it wasn’t going as fast as you wanted it, as you had dreamed it. They were having the worst June weather in some forty years, high winds and heavy overcast making co-operation between land and air forces almost impossible; the Phoenixes were shifting their positions and the Corncobs were breaking up; the American artificial harbor was about half ruined. Cherbourg, although surrounded, was still holding out, and Monty had been beaten back from Caen. More than a million men had been put on shore, and the efforts to get them what they needed was breaking the back of SOS—Services of Supply. It was by accident that the designation of this Army branch happened to be identical with the emergency call of ships at sea, but the ex-geographer said it fitted exactly in this crisis.
II
Lanny motored to Washington, with the memory of Laurel in the seat beside him; he missed her, but kept himself happy thinking of the service she was rendering. He had brought a carbon copy of her manuscript in his bag, by way of precaution; he called up her editor—not saying that he was husband but just friend—and learned that her copy had arrived and was thought well of. He imagined her under the buzzbombs, talking to wounded men in improvised hospitals—schools, theaters, any sort of place that would give shelter. She would suffer poignant grief, but then she had to suffer in order to write. He recalled the remark of Liszt concerning some woman with a voice lacking in temperament. He had said he would like to marry her and break her heart in order that she might be able to sing.
Highway I was crowded with trucks, never so many. They went loaded to the ports, to Philadelphia and Baltimore; they were emptied in record time and came back with raw materials for the factories. Great clouds of smoke poured out from tall stacks all along this route; America was maintaining this greatest war on a hundred fronts all over the earth. Americans were proud of it, and few stopped to reflect that we were exhausting the resources of a continent, sinking the products in the sea or scattering them over the earth—wrecked planes, trucks, tanks, guns, not to mention countless billions of shell fragments that would never be collected.
He put these melancholy thoughts behind him; he bathed, shaved, dressed, and ate a delicious dinner of soft-shell crabs fresh out of the Chesapeake, and lettuce, tomatoes, and strawberries from Maryland—“Anne Arundel strawberries!” he had heard a hawker call as he passed through Baltimore. He sat and read the evening papers; Cherbourg had fallen. The port had been badly smashed by the Germans, but the American engineers wouldn’t take long to clear the entrance and rig up some makeshift docks. The American armies were turning south, to keep the Germans from sealing them in the Cotentin. “Keep them moving!” was General Ike’s formula.
So the P.A. wore his most cheerful smile when he was escorted to the upstairs bedroom in the White House; he found his Boss grinning like the Cheshire cat. “We did it, Lanny! We did it, and it can’t be undone!” They exchanged a strong handclasp on that, and Roosevelt went on, “I can’t tell you what a struggle I had over it—more than two years. Winston is the British bulldog, he never lets go.”
“But now it’s Rommel he’s got by the nose,” chuckled Lanny.
Then he added, “And Rommel is throwing pepper into his eyes.” He meant the buzzbombs, and of course the President wanted to know what his agent had seen and heard in London. He had before him a report on a launching ramp which had been captured near Brix, on the way to Cherbourg; it was covered by from sixteen to twenty feet of reinforced concrete, and the engineers declared that a twelve-thousand-pound bomb wouldn’t penetrate it, even by direct hit. “The infantry will have to take them all,” said F.D.R.
It was a long session, because there was the whole story of Spain to be told: the attitude of the Franco regime, and the extent to which they would keep their word, if at all. “Portugal has just signed up to send no more wolfram concentrates to Germany,” the Boss revealed. “We are convincing them, step by step.” Lanny said that the taking of Cherbourg would help, but a better persuader would be the taking of Paris. He described the state of shellshock in which the Spanish people lived; one businessman had remarked that he would rather have another hundred years of Franco than another hundred hours of civil war.
The best story was of Robbie’s letter, which Lanny hadn’t risked mentioning in his reports. He had no copy of it, but he could recite it pretty nearly by heart, and the President slapped the bedcover and gave his favorite exclamation, which was “Golly!” When Lanny said he would never know whether his trick had worked, the other said it was very significant that Rommel had held off and made no real counterattack. Lanny was pleased, but at the same time wasn’t sure how much of this Roosevelt really meant; he was such a kindhearted Boss and so liked to make people feel good!
III
“What do you want me to do next, Governor?” Lanny took it as part of his duty not to take up the time of this busiest man in the world.
“Something has turned up that is right up your alley,” was the busiest man’s reply. “We are organizing a team to handle the works of art that we recover from the Germans. I don’t need to tell you what a tremendous job that is going to be; they’ve been plundering the Continent, and we shall have tens of thousands of priceless objects to dig out of hiding places, and protect, and restore to their rightful owners. I’ve appointed a commission, and it occurs to me that you might be the man to take charge of the field work.”
“Governor, you’re paying me a great compliment, but I’m surely not the man. I’ve never had any experience in managing other people—I’ve had all I could do to manage myself. That job calls for an executive, a fellow who knows how to open an office and pick a staff and assign duties and see that people do them. I don’t know anything about giving orders. I’d hate it so much I couldn’t be a success.”
“I hate it too,” confessed the head of the United States government. “It hurts me to find fault with people, and when I find that a man I like isn’t equal to his job, I lie awake nights agonizing over how I can tell him. Generally I wiggle out of it by writing him a letter.”
“Or by kicking him upstairs,” suggested the P.A. “Giving him a job with a bigger title and fewer duties.” This brought a chuckle, and the P.A. went on, “You know, I’d do anything on this earth for you, but it’s no good starting on a job that I know I’m not fit for. You find a big, strong-jawed, hard-fisted businessman to run the team, and let me go along and whisper into his ear. I can be a good adviser. I know the languages and the people. I know the salt mines and the castles where the pictures will be hidden, and I know the Germans who have the secrets. I know the threats that will scare them and the bribes that will tempt them. All that might be a lot of fun; but running an office and keeping records and signing checks would worry me to death.”
“All right, Lanny. I’ve already asked the advice of some of the people at the Fogg Museum, and no doubt they’ll suggest the right director. I’ll give you a card to them, and you can get their ideas and give them yours. But don’t say anything about the secret work you’ve been doing.”
“Of course not, Governor. But, may I take a minute or two more of your time? I’ve an idea of my own that I think might be important.”
“By all means. Shoot!”
“I’m not asking any secrets, but I take it for granted that we’ll be landing in southern France sooner or later and going up the Rhône valley. That’s the country I know best in all the world; I lived most of my life on the Riviera, and I am certain I could be of use and help prepare the way for the Army.”
“You mean to go in ahead of the landing?”
“It wouldn’t be as risky as it sounds. I have so many friends there, and some would shelter me. There is one special situation that has fascinated my mind: I think I have told you about the de Bruyne family, whom I have known intimately. The old man is in Paris and I saw him there the last time I came through. There are two sons, who are practically my godchildren—their mother commended them to my care on her deathbed. The elder, Denis fils, is on our side, and is now in hospital in Algiers; the younger, Charlot, went with the Vichy crowd and is now a captain in the French auxiliary force which helps the Germans to keep order. The last I heard he was quartered in my mother’s old home at Juan-les-Pins, and sent me word that he was keeping it safe. I want to get to him and persuade-him to do a Darlan.”
That was a phrase which had come to be current in the war; it meant coming over to the Allied side, in the nick of time, just fast enough to keep out of jail or away from a firing squad. “But suppose he won’t do it, Lanny?” asked the Boss.
“I think I know how to fix it so that he will. It is my idea to get a letter from his father, ordering him to come across. You know how it is with these St. Germain French, the family and the Church rule their lives. The old man made the boy’s marriage for him, and he’ll make his Darlan for him.”
“What is the old man’s attitude?”
“Denis père is a businessman, and the last time I visited him I could see that he was ready to come over; he’s a heavy investor in Budd-Erling stock and can’t possibly want to be on the losing side. By now he must know that National Socialism is fini.”
“But how can you get to him, Lanny?”
“The Air Force is putting little planes down in cow pastures all over France now, and I can draw them a map of a field not more than a mile from the Château de Bruyne, which is in Seine-et-Oise close to Paris. I was a member of the family, to all intents, and I know the country so well that I could get to the château on the darkest night. The old servants know me and would never give me away. If Denis is in Paris, they can call him home. I’ll get the letter to Charlot, and incidentally a lot of information, and the OSS can pick me up and fly me out. It sounds like a dangerous stunt, but it’s routine for them and easy compared to some that they do. The point is, Governor, I might not merely bring over Charlot, but all the officers in his group. If he throws his lot in with us, he won’t stop there, for he’s a bold man, and something of a fanatic. It’s my guess he’s been in the Nazi service long enough to hate their guts; and even if he won’t take my advice, he surely won’t betray me. His mother’s ghost would rise up before him.”
“Well, you know, Lanny, I hate to risk losing you—”
“You won’t lose me, Governor. I promise. And anyhow, I’ll meet your Fogg Museum people first and unload everything I have, so nothing will be lost. After that, I’ll be expendable.”
“All right, old man, if that’s what you want, I can’t say no. When would you want to go?”
“I figure that I ought to be in Juan about a week before the landing. No use going too early, because any plot is bound to leak in course of time. I learned in Algiers that it’s a mistake to strike too early.”
“I would tell you the date of the landing, but I don’t know it. Everything depends upon landing craft—how soon we shall be able to spare them from the Channel. We’ve lost a number of them, and there’s a continuing clamor for them from the Pacific. All I can tell you is, we shall invade France from the south on the day we can get the ships and the planes there. I’m having my continuous fight with Winston—he wants to take us ove
r to the Balkans, but I’m just not picking any quarrels with the Russians in the present state of world affairs. We shall go into France by the Mediterranean if we have to do it alone.”
Said the erudite Lanny, “The Rhône valley has been the gateway of all conquerors of Western Europe ever since the beginning of history.”
“Exactly so; and when we get to the top we’ll just walk around Switzerland and into Bavaria, and block the Nazis’ little plan to hole up in the mountains there and make them into a fortress.”
“OK, Governor, it’s a date!”
“What you do is to talk the whole thing out with OSS, make your plans, and let them call you when the time for action comes. I won’t be here, because I’m going to take a long trip.” (It was to the Pacific, as Lanny learned later.) “Meantime you can be helping the art people. Also, maybe you can give some tips to another outfit we’re getting together—a bunch of young scientists who are going to dig out everything about the German secret weapons, atomic fission and jet propulsion and the rest that you know about. OSS will put you in touch with them too.”
The P.A. said, “You make my heart jump up and hit me under the throat!” He jumped up himself and held out his hand. “I’ve no right to take any more of your time, Governor. I’ve got my career laid out for the rest of the war!”
One Clear Call I Page 62
