Presidential Mission

by Upton Sinclair

  The packages containing the paintings were light, and the bags still lighter, so Lanny could carry them all. He went out into the dark hallway and heard the ladies emerging from their room. “Are you all there?” he inquired.

  Hilde’s voice replied: “Mother is not coming. She is tired of air raids.”

  “Don’t you think we ought to bring her?” he asked. The answer was: “There is nothing to be done.” He could guess that there had been family arguments, and that an old woman who had outlived her time had gone on strike against sitting in a cold basement.

  The servants had come from the floor above, and five people groped their way down the stairs. The cellar room to which they went was next to the furnace-room where Lanny had committed his “perfect crime.” It was a storeroom and contained trunks and boxes. Lanny lighted a feeble gas jet, and they sat, not talking much, because cold and boredom and fear are not conducive to sociability. The crack of the anti-aircraft guns began, and presently it was near, and you could feel the earth shaking. Berlin boasted itself the best-defended city in the world, and the firing mounted in intensity until it became like the rattle of machine guns. This meant that the air was filled with flying fragments, all of which had to come down, and many civilians would be wounded by them. Some shells failed to explode, and when these fell they might penetrate the roof of a house.

  There came the bombs, a heavier and more massive sound. Lanny had been under bombing in cities all the way from London to Hongkong, and was something of an expert on the subject. He could tell small ones that were near from big ones that were distant, and he said that these must be the one- and two-ton bombs. Every time one exploded you felt as if someone had taken you by the wrist and shaken you. The crumping sounds became louder and the shakes more violent, and it was evident that the bombers were overhead or near. When that happened, it meant, as a rule, that soon they would be gone; but this time they appeared to stay on, and the clamor and shocks mounted to a bedlam. “Why don’t they go?” Hilde cried. And Lanny answered: “More keep coming.”

  That was undoubtedly the explanation. This was no ordinary air raid, this was one of the big ones that the Allies had been promising and at which Doktor Goebbels had scoffed. They had been experienced by Cologne, Essen, Hamburg, Bremen, all the great ports and centers of industry; and now it was the turn of the Hauptstadt. Alfy had told Lanny about the preparations for these thousand-plane raids: the lines of Lancasters and Blenheims taking off from a score of different fields and falling into formations, a sky train one hundred, two hundred, three hundred miles long. A train of three hundred miles would take an hour and a half to pass a given spot; and now an unkind fate had brought it about that Lanny was sitting on that spot!

  It was the most nerve-racking experience of his life. It reduced the human creature to an animal, cowering in a hole, utterly powerless against the calamity that surrounded and possessed him. He was shaken until his teeth rattled, and the sounds, even in an underground basement, deafened his ears. The women were moaning and weeping; the woman servant began to scream and had to be ordered to silence by her mistress. Lanny sat with his nails dug into the palms of his hands, waiting, waiting, and thinking that it must surely end now, but each time it started up again, seeming nearer and more deadly. He learned later that nine hundred tons of explosives had been dropped that night.

  Hitherto the bombing of Berlin had been aimed at the war plants, which were all on the outskirts of the city; but this time, evidently, the enemy had made up his mind to go after the government, the bureaucrats, those leaders who were making the world sick with their vaunting and their lying and their crimes. It was plain that these bombs were falling in the heart of this cold proud capital, among the public buildings, the centers of administration. They were being aimed at the brain of Nazism.

  XIII

  The missiles screamed as they came; but there were so many that the sounds made one continuous uproar. So it was that the particular one that had the name “Donnerstein” on it gave no warning. The door of the storeroom, which had been closed, was suddenly burst in and hurled across the room. Blast has the speed of light, and also the hardness of steel. The five people were knocked off their seats and half stunned by a deafening concussion, an all-enveloping roar. Every door in the building had been burst outward, and many doors in near-by houses burst inward; there was not an unshattered pane of glass within two or three blocks.

  The five victims, stunned and bruised, some of them bleeding, lay on the floor until their senses began to return and they realized that they were still alive. The first thing they became aware of was a pungent odor of chemical smoke, and the next was that they couldn’t see at all, the dust was so thick in this basement room. Was it dust of half a century that had accumulated here, or was it plaster and masonry blown to dust? Lanny staggered to his feet; then he thought about the others and began calling, but without much result, because the uproar continued; there were other bombs exploding and shaking the ground.

  He groped here and there and found the two sisters and helped them to their feet; he shouted into their ears: “We must get out! There will be fire!” He found the old man lying in a corner, able to get up when he was told to. The woman servant was unconscious and they had to carry her.

  They groped their way out of the storeroom. The place was littered with debris, but they climbed over it and reached the stairway. The door at the top had been blown down to the bottom; they stumbled over it, and up the stairs, choking, the ladies crying. The ceiling of the room above had come down, and the rooms were littered with wreckage; they climbed through it, and got to the front door, which had been hurled out into the street. They were just about overcome by the sulphurous fumes, but were revived by the fresh air.

  A man came running up the steps, an air-raid warden with a helmet on his head and an electric torch in his hand. Hilde started crying: “My mother! Save my mother!” The man ran into the house and Lanny followed, and stood looking up at what had been a marble staircase. The steps were still there, presumably, but they were covered with debris, and the opening at the top was plugged solid with beams and other parts of the upper stories; it appeared as if the explosion had tried to force all the wreckage down through one opening. “It will take a lot of time to get up there,” said the man, “and nobody could be alive.” Lanny had to agree.

  They went back to the door and reported the situation. The two ladies were weeping hysterically and wanted to make an effort at rescue, but the warden took one and Lanny the other, and led them through the rain of shell fragments to the house across the street. Getting in was a simple matter, for the front door had been blown inward. With the help of the warden’s torch they found the way to the basement stairs and went down and joined a group of people sitting in a shelter. Nobody said: “By your leave,” or made any apology; the situation was obvious, and it proved the old saying that “Misery loves company.”

  The fresh air had revived Lanny, and he bethought himself of Monck. It was about midnight, and his friend might be waiting. Lanny went up with the air-raid warden, and by the glow of the searchlights in the sky looked at the Donnerstein palace. The entire front of the upper stories had been blown into the street and the area and sidewalk were littered with debris. Taking chances on the steel falling from the sky, he ran over to the house and shouted: “Vetterl! Vetterl!” There came no answer, and the warden asked: “Is there somebody else in the house?” Lanny said: “There may be.”

  He bethought himself of those paintings, which might easily be saved. He said: “Let us make another search in the basement.” He tied his handkerchief over his mouth and nose to keep out the dust, and they went into the wrecked building and down the stairs—it didn’t take long when you had a light. Lanny made a pretense at searching for a man, and then in the storeroom he picked up his belongings—the two bags, which he handed to the warden, and the paintings, which he carried himself. They staggered outside again, and Lanny thanked the man and gave him a ten-mark
note, which made up handsomely for the risk he had run.

  XIV

  The bombing ceased, the All Clear sounded, and the burghers of Berlin came up from their cellars and bomb-proof shelters. The dead remained, and twenty thousand were homeless. Fires were blazing and new ones starting; there was hardly a block in the central part of the city that did not have one or more conflagrations, and it would be three days before a crippled fire department could extinguish them all. Lanny Budd, with a splitting headache, lay on a couch in the drawing-room belonging to one of the city’s wealthy families, and when he was told that the Donnerstein palace was blazing, he did not get up to look at the sight. He had done all he could for Hilde’s mother; that unhappy old lady who hadn’t wanted to live was having a magnificent funeral pyre. Peace to her ashes!

  Lanny thought about Monck, and about Erickson, and the car in which they were to travel. What might have happened to these? And what would a P.A. do if one or more of them were gone? To his new hosts he explained that he was due to leave Berlin at ten in the morning, and that he had an engagement to meet a friend here at seven; they gave him a bed and promised to waken him at six-thirty. So he slept for a while, twitching and starting now and then as he dreamed of dangers. It would be a long time before his subconscious mind was free of that night’s memories.

  In the morning he ate a little food, and then he tried to call the Adlon, only to learn that the telephone was out of commission. He went out at a few minutes before seven and found the palace still burning; the flames turned early dawn into daylight. Lanny strolled and watched, and when he saw the familiar figure in the clothing of the Fürst Donnerstein, he hurried toward him and led him to a darker neighborhood. “You are all right?” he asked. Monck replied: “I was in a part of the city that was not bombed. I have been able to get the passport and the exit permit, but not the Swedish visa. What shall we do?”

  Lanny had thought of this contingency and told him that they would go anyhow and take a chance on fixing it up with the Swedish authorities. The problem was Erickson and the car. The P.A. said: “I will go to the Adlon and find out. Where will you stay meantime?”

  An awkward situation: it would not do for this much-wanted man to be walking about the streets in daylight. Lanny decided to take him back to the house at which Lanny had just been a guest. It was easy of access, because there was no front door. A woman servant sat on guard, and Lanny explained that this was a friend who had been staying in the palace and had no place to go until the car came for him. Monck caused a sensation by offering to put the door back on its hinges if the woman would get him the tools. Men’s labor being all but unobtainable in Berlin, this was indeed welcome, and Lanny left him at the job.

  The traveler walked through streets littered with rubble and illuminated by fires. He saw the insides of many Berlin offices and homes, exposed to view by the blowing out of the front walls. He had to detour several times to avoid blocks roped off by the firemen. Everybody had his own troubles at that hour, and no one paid attention to a solitary pedestrian. He came to the Adlon and thought it was intact—until he got inside and discovered that one corner had been struck. He went up to his Swedish friend’s room and found him already dressed and breakfasted. “So glad to see you!” exclaimed Erickson. “We must start early. God only knows how long it will take us to get out of the city.”

  “The sooner the better,” was the reply. “Is the car all right?”

  “Everything is ready,” declared Erickson, and added that he had spent the hours of the bombing in the hotel’s comfortably appointed shelter. Lanny knew it well, having sat out an air raid there two years previously. “My ears are still ringing from the blasts,” said the oil man. Lanny told him what had happened to the palace.

  Erickson put his belongings into his bags and they went down to the lobby. So simple a thing as phoning for the automobile could not be done; the secretary had to walk to the garage to order it. Lanny, knowing the blocked streets, was able to tell them how to get to the Bismarckstrasse. There they found that Monck had just finished putting the house door on; they stowed the bags, and the paintings in the trunk of the car; the secretary rode in front with the chauffeur, and Lanny contrived to have Monck ride between Erickson and himself, the least conspicuous position. They started westward, to get out of the central part of the city where the bomb damage was; they turned northward and then eastward to the Autobahn which took them to the great port of Stettin.

  Berlin, viewed from several miles away, was covered by an immense pall of smoke, illuminated by flames on its under side. The oil man said: “By God, if ever I was glad to get out of a place, this is it!” Lanny echoed agreement. The mysterious Anton Vetterl didn’t trust himself to open his lips.

  BOOK NINE

  The End of This Day’s Business

  27

  ’Twas Heaven All Unawares

  I

  “Aber es ist strengstens verboten”—most strictly forbidden. The speaker was an SS Feldwebel, standing by a roadblock at the northern boundary of Berlin. A black-and-white painted barrier had been let down, and half a dozen armed men guarded it; one had a machine gun, another a motorcycle in case a pursuit might be necessary.

  “Aber, Herr Feldwebel,” said the son of Budd-Erling, “this gentleman’s exit permit was issued to him only yesterday.”

  “Ja, aber”—the everlasting BUT—“my orders were issued only this morning. No able-bodied man is permitted to leave the city unless he has a special permit, later than this date. Women and children, ja, aber kein männlicher Bewohner” In the old days he would have added “Mein Herr” to every sentence. But the Nazis were not polite.

  “Aber, Herr Feldwebel, this is most inconvenient. We have to catch a steamer for Stockholm.”

  “There is nothing to prevent your going. The orders do not apply to Ausländer.”

  “Aber this gentleman is my special assistant, and I cannot accomplish my mission without him.”

  “That is not in my province. Befehl ist Befehl.” If he had been an American noncom, it would have been the same: “Orders are orders.”

  “Herr Feldwebel, I warn you that you are delaying a matter of the utmost state importance.”

  “I shall be sorry to learn it, aber—”

  Lanny guessed that it would not be good tactics for an Ausländer to lose his temper. He put on his most winning smile and said: “Lieber Herr Feldwebel, did you ever meet the Führer?”

  The other, looking startled, replied: “I have never had that honor.”

  “Have you ever seen his handwriting in facsimile?”

  “Ja, gewiss.”

  “Would you be interested in seeing his actual handwriting?”

  “Freilich, mein Herr.” The Feldwebel had suddenly become polite.

  Lanny took the precious letter from an inside coat pocket, handed it to the man, and watched while he opened it and stared at its impressive superscription: “Kriegsleitung Oberkommando Hauptquartier.” He saw the man’s eyes go down to the signature, and then to the top of the letter again. Lanny gave him time to read, mark, and inwardly digest, and did not let any suggestion of superiority or triumph appear in a foreigner’s glance. It was a different Feldwebel who folded up the letter and returned it to the owner. “Natürlich, meirne Herren, das ist freilich ein ganz besonderer Fall”—an unusual case.

  “The Führer says ‘All courtesy,’” quoted Lanny. “You must surely admit that it would not be courtesy to cause me to miss my steamer, and therefore to fail in the mission with which the Führer personally has charged me. Heil Hitler!”

  “Bitte um Verzeihung, mein Herr,” replied the other. “Bitte zu passieren. Heil Hitler!” He saluted, and all his men did the same; they could not have done more if Lanny had been Reichsminister for the Extermination of Heretics and Unbelievers. The barrier rose, and the car sped onward to the north. The three men in the back seat permitted themselves to glance at one another and exchange smiles, but they did not speak a word, for this was
an official car and the chauffeur was an SS man.

  II

  For ten years the Führer had been building these Autobahnen, four-lane motorways that underpassed or overpassed all other roads, and on which one could drive at eighty miles an hour if the car would stand it. It was the great engineer Doktor Todt, now a general, who had planned them, putting them at exactly the places where the armies would need them when the time came. Robbie Budd had told his son that it was a mistake, for Hitler wouldn’t have enough gas or rubber and would have to fall back upon his railroads. He had plenty of coal, but, alas for him, he neglected the building of locomotives and freight cars. That was the reason he had been beaten at Stalingrad—he could not bring up enough supplies. He had lost there a hundred and twenty thousand trucks, something more serious to him than the loss of three hundred thousand men.

  The trouble did not show on this highway, for Stettin is the port for the Hauptstadt, and the great steamers came from Sweden, loaded with ore, wood, and products such as synthetic rubber, machine tools, and ball bearings, to pay for the oil and coal that Sweden had to have. Military vehicles shot past—diesel trucks, and some powered with the fumes of charcoal, a confession of the difficulty the Germans were having. They reminded Lanny of what the chemist, Doktor Stoffel, had told him, and because it was to the credit of the Fatherland, this was a proper subject for conversation. A Gestapo agent might find it suspicious if they sat in silence, so the three of them sang the praises of German science and the marvels it was achieving with wood.