One Clear Call I

by Upton Sinclair

  Before sunrise Lanny again sought a view of the sea, and there, looking down from a clear spot amid a forest of rugged cork oak trees, he saw at last the sight he had been expecting. The ships! The whole sea was spotted with them as if they had been sprinkled out of a pepper pot; they extended in all directions as far as the eye could reach. He did not try to count them, but later he learned that there had been more than eight hundred. And all headed toward the Côte d’Azur!

  Ahead came the tiny PT-boats and destroyers, darting here and there, on the lookout for the subs. Then came the majestic battleships and heavy cruisers; they turned in lines parallel to the shore and at once opened up with their big guns, the mightiest cannonade that Lanny had ever heard or imagined. He saw the tongues of yellow flame shoot out, and saw the shells burst on the shore before he heard the report from either explosion. But it was only a few seconds before all the reports had become a blur, a roaring as of all the thunder in the world. All the warships of all sizes were bursting with flames, and swarms of planes over the shore were adding to the racket. Even through the smoke Lanny could see that the shell bursts were bunched at certain spots; he was glad he was not on any of those spots, and wondered how many of them had been listed in the information which Raoul and Charlot had furnished.

  This bombardment went on for so long that the observer couldn’t guess the time. Here and there through the smoke he could see other kinds of ships coming in from the sea and knew that what the Armed Forces called H-hour was at hand. The transports and other vessels came in and halted, and the swarms of landing craft set to work. Some that were big came to the shore with the loads they had brought; smaller craft were let down from the transports and the men came swarming down on rope nets on which scores could move at the same time. Lanny knew that everything had been rehearsed over and over, so that every man who took part in the enterprise knew exactly what he had to do.

  The mistral which was still blowing made no trouble for them because it was a lee shore. Very soon the swarms of boats were moving in toward the beaches, and when batteries on land which had survived the bombardment opened up on them, the guns of the warships opened on the batteries, and planes overhead dived down on them with bombs. Surely an unusual sight, and worth crossing an ocean and climbing a mountain to see; Lanny hoped that none of the spotter planes would call the attention of a battlewagon to two civilians sitting on a mountainside!

  II

  The P.A. kept count and observed seven waves of men coming ashore in the space of a couple of hours. They were entering a little bay, full of fishing boats. He said, “That is St. Raphael, is it not?” The guide confirmed his guess. Lanny knew the town; a lovely place, especially favored by the art lovers who wanted to live cheaply and away from the fashionable atmosphere of Cannes. “The GI’s will like it,” he remarked.

  He was joking, for he knew they wouldn’t stay long. The other man replied, “They may be driving the Boches this way, Monsieur.” Lanny took the hint, broke off his sojourn, and went back to the cork worker’s hut and spent a night among the fleas and the refugees. The latter were nearly as thick as the former; the cork worker didn’t mind their sleeping in his back yard, for he had no farm and nothing that would be of use to them. They wanted to keep out of the cold wind.

  Early next morning Lanny got up and listened. There was still a lot of shooting, but not so much as on the previous day. He decided that it was time for him to move and said good-by to his friendly host. He went out to the place of observation and saw that there was resistance in the direction of Cannes, and some toward the west, but in other places the ships were shooting into the hills, doubtless at enemy tanks and transport. In front of him there was no sign of trouble; the ships were not bothered by the offshore wind, and the landing craft were gliding to and fro like ferryboats. The wonderful Navy put a hundred thousand men ashore in two days, on a seventy-mile front between Cannes and Toulon.

  The cork man had pointed out an obscure path which led down along the mountainside and would take the traveler into St. Raphael. Lanny started down; there were refugees toiling up, and he was no longer afraid of them. He asked some of them for news, but found that their only idea was to get away from news. There came German soldiers, laden with their packs, and Lanny stood aside respectfully and let them file by. No Gestapo any more; nobody requiring French civilians to show their papers. He observed a baby carriage standing by the path, empty; somebody had found the going too steep, and he or others had emptied it of contents. Farther along was what had been a gun emplacement; its concrete had been knocked to pieces, and one gun was standing on its nose, the other sticking up at a crazy angle. The traveler got by that spot as fast as he could, lest one of the hovering planes should not be entirely satisfied with the job.

  III

  The nearer he got, the better he could see that show, and it was one to remember and tell his grandchildren about. The big LST’s came up to the beach and opened their huge jaws; tanks came rumbling out, or tractors towing heavy guns. Pack-laden soldiers looked like waterfalls pouring down the sides of ships. Every sort of little boat was bringing them in, and the tiny harbor of St. Raphael appeared to be solid with craft. Lanny would stand and look for a few minutes, and then descend to a lower level and a closer view.

  Presently there was some sort of structure on the slope that he took to be connected with the waterworks of the town; there were several men guarding it, and, glory hallelujah, they were GI’s! Lanny stopped and spotted their leader, a private first-class. “Hello, soldier,” he said.

  It was a little dark fellow, sprightly of mind, and Lanny guessed that he was from Brooklyn. “Hello,” he replied. “You American?”

  “Happily, yes.”

  “Seen any Jerries up where you come from?”

  “A dozen or so, getting away as fast as they could. Tell me, where shall I find your command post?”

  “What’s your business, Mister?”

  “I’m an OSS man.”

  “What the hell’s that? They dish up so many of these initials.”

  “Intelligence Service.”

  The “pfc” appeared suspicious. “What’s your name, Bud?”

  “That’s my name,” said Lanny with a smile, “Budd.”

  “Yeah?” The tone indicated that this was taken for fooling. “Any relation to Budd-Erling?”

  “My father is president of the company,” said Lanny, amused.

  “Zat so? My name is George Washington, and this guy here is Abe Lincoln.”

  “Pleased to meet you, George and Abe. But tell me where to find your commanding officer, because I have information that I was sent to get.”

  “Abe, take this Mister Budd-Erling to the Captain; and make sure he ain’t Benedict Arnold.”

  IV

  So Lanny went on down the path to the highway, and, glory hallelujah again, here was the Army! All over the place, and none waiting around to see what was going to happen; all moving out into the countryside to make it happen. Dispatch cars, trucks, and jeeps all along the Route Nationale; wicked-looking tanks and motorized guns—everything loading up and starting after the Jerries. By the roadside, under a pepper tree, on the ground covered with its berries, were several folding tables and camp chairs with officers sitting in them, studying maps, reading dispatches, listening to telephones. The command post, no doubt, and Lanny prepared to tell his story in the fewest possible words.

  But he didn’t get to it, for on the way he ran into another kind of Jerry; ex-tutor, ex-lieutenant, ex-pension-manager, ex-travel-bureau-manager, ex-OSS agent Jerry Pendleton! Jerry in uniform, a second lieutenant again! They were so glad to see each other that they hugged and almost wanted to kiss French fashion. “What on earth are you doing here?” asked Lanny, and the answer was, “Franco appears to be on the shelf, so they took me for an interpreter. What are you doing?”

  “They sent me to Cannes on an errand, and after it was done I decided to get up into the hills. A lot of other folks, includin
g Germans, had the same idea. Tell me, has Cannes been taken?”

  “No, the garrison is holding out.”

  “That’s bad news for my friends. I tried to arrange for an uprising. When are we going in?”

  “They don’t tell things like that to interpreters, Lanny. Let me introduce you to our Intelligence man.”

  The P.A. was led to one of the tables and introduced to a Captain Harris, who heard his story and inspected his forged papers. Since Lieutenant Pendleton vouched for him so emphatically there was no question as to his good faith. The Captain said he didn’t know the plans concerning Cannes; since Lanny was urgent, he called his superior on the phone and told the story. As a result, Lanny was put into a jeep and whirled down into the fishing village and tourist resort of St. Raphael.

  He had a chance on the way to observe an Army in the process of getting itself in order. Already an airstrip had been cleared, and scout planes and small fighters were coming back from pursuit of the enemy; no doubt the site had been picked in advance and everything needed had been rushed to the spot. Gasoline, packed in square tins to save space, came ashore by the ton as soon as combat troops had cleared the beaches. Thus planes could be flown from carriers, and refueled and worked at short range; and thus a jeep could hustle an OSS man into the headquarters of the Thirty-Sixth Infantry Division of the Sixth Corps of the Seventh Army, Major General John E. Dahlquist commanding.

  Lanny talked with the General, who looked very handsome in a uniform belted with a gold buckle and a trick scarf around his neck on which was printed a map of Southern France. Lanny talked fast, urging the importance of Cannes as a harbor and prestige point; but he couldn’t insist, as he had done with Patton, because Cannes was not Paris, and the life of one French captain was surely not as important as the lives of many American soldiers the Army’s strategy meant to save. The General didn’t say why he hadn’t taken Cannes or when he would take Cannes; he just said politely that Mr. Budd’s information was of interest and that full use would be made of it. Lanny was free to go off and worry about Charlot all he pleased; he couldn’t do a thing in the world to help his friend.

  V

  The P.A. had promised to return and have lunch with Jerry on the outskirts of the village. A cloudy day, and the mistral was still blowing, but they sat outdoors; they were leaving in a few hours, and it wasn’t worth while to put up shelter. An orderly brought hot soup out of a can, and then pork and beans, and while they ate Jerry asked, “What are you going to do next?”

  The answer was, “I have finished my assignment, and I suppose I’ll go back to Washington and report.”

  The ex-tutor had a better idea. “Why don’t you come with us? The Army’s always looking for interpreters, especially one who knows French and German and a bit of Provençal. You’d have a grandstand ticket to the show.”

  “What would they do with me, Jerry?”

  “Give you a temporary rank and put you in uniform, as they did me. I’ve already spoken to the Captain about it. You know how it is, they all think it’s rather wonderful to be the son of Budd-Erling. They’d make you a captain, and you could boss me.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Jerry. I’d need you to tell me what to do.”

  “My own briefing was short and sweet. They wanted me because I know French and a little German—you learn everything in the travel business. Think about it seriously, Lanny. We have the idea this is going be a parade; we have the stuff, and the Germans down here are third-raters. We’re going up the Rhone valley—we’ll be on our way this afternoon. Unless I miss my guess, you could be in Paris in a month, and there’ll be nothing to prevent your getting word to OSS meantime, and if they have another job for you they’ll let you know.”

  “Would the Army let us stick together?”

  “Sure they would. I’ve told them how we worked together on the job before the Casablanca landing. This is a tiptop outfit, and you are the very guy to interview German prisoners, the maquisards, the peasants, and all the other sources of information.”

  That was the way the next stage of Lanny Budd’s life was determined. The procedure was unusual, but the need for interpreters was extreme; the bag of prisoners was so heavy, it suggested the complete collapse of the enemy. So a man who had come into the camp with only a safety razor, a toothbrush, and a comb, was fitted with a brand-new field uniform with various objects in its many pockets and a holster which contained, appropriately enough, a Budd automatic; Budd Gunmakers was still working for the Army, even though Robbie and his family no longer owned it. They gave him a physical examination, which took only a few minutes because he was sound. They gave him some shots against disease, which soon made him feel as if he had all the diseases and more. They put a “dogtag” around his neck with a number on it—a number up in the ten millions. They gave him identification papers, and let him keep his forged French papers on the chance that they might come in handy. So far he hadn’t had to show them to a single enemy person.

  They also gave him time to write several letters: one to the President’s man, saying where he was; one to OSS in Washington, one to Robbie, and one to Captain Laurel Creston in London—she would exceed him in seniority, which would give pleasure to a feminist! The letters would go by V-mail—that is, assuming that the censor approved them. By that time Lanny would be—he didn’t know where, but the Army would know, and the answers would find him.

  VI

  The new captain had been told that he would move out immediately, but the orders were changed. There were so many prisoners, and so much to be learned from them! He and Jerry were escorted to separate rooms in a commandeered inn, and Germans and a few Frenchmen were brought to them one at a time; a stern GI stood guard and a male stenographer took notes in English as Lanny told him what to put down. The Army had been taken by surprise by the suddenness of the enemy’s collapse; ten thousand prisoners had already been taken with losses of only five hundred. The “shell” had been broken, and it appeared to be empty. Everybody had to improvise, and an interpreter was put to work with not more than half a dozen sentences of briefing.

  The son of Budd-Erling, who had said that he didn’t like to give orders, had to put on all at once a stern and terrifying look. He remembered the Feldwebel he had seen, the Prussian drill sergeants barking orders, ready to kick the lout who failed to respond fast enough. He had a threat as alarming as any Feldwebel had ever employed: “Do you want to be turned over to the Russians?” Of course that wouldn’t be done, but the prisoner wouldn’t know it until later. On the other hand to “Do you want to be sent to America?” they would answer eagerly, “Ja, ja, mein Herr!” He would say, “If you tell me the truth I will have you sent to America, and if you lie to me I’ll send you to the slave camps in Siberia.”

  He would start asking, “Where do you come from?” and “What is your unit?” and “Who is your commanding officer?” and “Where has the rest of your outfit gone?” and “How many tanks have they?” and so on. Generally the prisoner would tell what he knew, but now and then one would say that it was verboten to speak. Lanny would look his grimmest and reply, “Im Gegenteil, jetzt ist es Befehl”—now it is commanded. Incredible as it might seem, that would work in case after case; orders were orders, regardless of who gave them. This was true especially of the peasant Burschen, most of them from Bavaria; Lanny knew their dialect—it had helped to save his life and now it helped the Army. The soldier’s face would light up, and he would talk eagerly.

  The Prussians were tougher, and Lanny didn’t waste much time on them; there were so many more, and time was racing. Now and then came an intelligent man who really knew things and would tell them. “I hate the Nazis,” he would declare, and Lanny would ask, “Sind Sie Sozial Demokrat?” If the man answered that he was, Lanny would say, “Ich auch”—me too! But he wouldn’t tell that to the stenographer. He would add, “There is going to be a democratic Germany. Help us with everything you know.”

  An amusing circumstance: Lanny was pe
rmitted to question enlisted men, noncommissioned officers, lieutenants, and captains, but under the Geneva Convention he was not permitted to question anyone of rank higher than his own. The German officers were always informed as to their rights and would refuse to answer. After a few days Lanny’s own officers realized that his knowledge of languages was exceptional, and so they put him in a colonel’s uniform; thus he was able to deal with majors and colonels. But no generals—it was against regulations for him to wear any stars!

  He was not invited to be present when the high brass digested the data he had collected; but he could see for himself what the conclusions would be. The enemy had known for weeks that the invasion was coming but had not been able to prepare. Whole divisions had been drawn off to try to stop the attacks in the north, and there was no way to replace them. Fortifications had been begun but not finished, and few of the guns had enough ammunition. A good part of the troops were Poles, Czechs, and even Russians, and these had no stomach for the fight. One and all, they desired not to fall into the hands of the Partisans, who were infuriated and might shoot them; what they wanted was to be politely taken by the fabulously wealthy Americans and given hot coffee that wasn’t ersatz and three meals a day of American canned food. Lanny mentioned these things frequently, and he could see the light in dark Bavarian eyes and sometimes even in blue Prussian eyes.

  VII