“I know, Lanny; but apparently it’s all that public sentiment will stand for at the moment.”
“Is it really public sentiment—or just pressure groups, small but noisy?”
“We have very few Congressmen and Senators who represent the public,” was the reply. “Most of them represent the interests which put up their campaign funds last time and are expected to do it next time.”
“Be careful what you say, Governor! Somebody might be tempted to quote you!” They jested back and forth; so a man who was burdened with the fate of a hundred and thirty million of his fellows kept up his courage and spirit.
VII
Lanny had come for instruction, and presently he began getting them. F.D. had received many reports as to what was coming in Europe, and they were highly contradictory. Since the collapse of Poland there had come a lull; and how long was that going to continue? Was Hitler meaning to wait out the winter? Was France planning to attack? Or were the appeasers going to have their way, and turn this war into an armed truce? Most important of all, from the President’s point of view, what were the cartels going to do? What plans were they working out behind the scenes?
A peculiar situation confronted the steel interests of France, the Comité des Forges, the real governing power of the country. They had the iron ore in Lorraine, but the coking coal came from the Ruhr. So they were dependent upon their German colleagues, and neither could get along without the other, neither could harm the other without suffering equal harm. That situation seemed to call for a compromise, unless, of course, it was the Führer’s idea to seize Alsace-Lorraine, something he had always firmly disavowed. Now he might consider that France’s declaration of war canceled all promises; but what would the steel men be thinking, and what would their secret messengers be carrying back and forth across the line? Would they be sparing one another’s properties, as in the last war; or would it be “all out,” as Hitler had threatened? These questions would determine American policy, including that of Budd-Erling.
The P.A. said that he would do his best; and he was pleased to be told that what he had done so far had won good marks. “Apparently,” said F.D., “people lie freely to those they know to be government officials, but sometimes they tell the truth to their friends.”
“To separate truth from falsehood is a subtle art,” explained an experienced listener. “It always depends upon circumstances, and I think I have fooled myself as often by being too skeptical as by being too trusting. Even a man like Papen speaks the truth now and then, if only to rest his mind.”
They had agreed upon some code names, and F.D. had the list in a portfolio which was always at his hand. Lanny, of course, had to have it in his memory, and they checked over it, and added a few names. Abetz would be “Bonaparte,” because he had lectured in Paris in a theater of that name, and Daladier would be “absinthe,” because of his breath. The President said he had made note of Lanny’s suggestions concerning Quadratt and Ham Fish, and, by golly, he would make these persons as uncomfortable as he could. Finally, an important detail, he told Lanny how to get his passports; his father was to call a certain man in the War Department, and whatever he asked for would be furnished without his having to come to Washington. Lanny would have passage on the Clipper, believed to be safer than the liners.
That was all, and they parted with a warm handclasp. F.D. pressed a button, and his Negro valet escorted Lanny down the back stairs and turned him over to the waiting agent. He was taken out by the wood-road and returned to his car, in which he drove, long after midnight, back to New York.
VIII
The car was Robbie’s, and next day, or rather later in the same day, Lanny drove it to Newcastle to say his farewells. He couldn’t tell Robbie what he was going to Europe for, but he could offer to do errands, and it turned out that what his father wanted was for him to interview Schneider and de Bruyne and de Wendel, and find out the very things which “That Man” wanted to know. Incidentally Lanny made the discovery that Robbie’s opinion of Roosevelt had undergone a sudden and surprising change. The man whom he had hated and despised so heartily for seven years had become a far-sighted statesman, doing his best to persuade a purblind Congress to let French and British freighters come into the Newcastle River and carry Budd-Erling fighter planes to the places where they could be of use!
“The bill is certain to pass,” Lanny reported; and the father replied: “The British and French have known it for a week or more, and they both have representatives here now.”
Rare indeed is the fortune of a man who likes to make money, and who suddenly discovers that it is his social obligation to make enormous quantities. Such had become the position of Robbie Budd, and he made no bones about revealing how much he enjoyed it. He was not given to introspection, and didn’t waste time examining the basis of this satisfaction. He had his formulas, prepared in youth and built into the very structure of his mind. Adoney made the mare go; money was power to do things, and he had got that power and was using it. He had foreseen the future of airplanes, and now he had them to sell, and was charging all he could get—because more money meant more power to make more planes.
Something like this had happened once before, twenty-five years and three months ago, when Robbie had been representing Budd Gun-makers in Paris. That time Robbie had had to send cablegrams in code and take the orders of his stern old father; but this time Robbie himself was the boss, and people took his orders. The town of Newcastle near the mouth of a small river flowing into Long Island Sound had suddenly become a place of importance to London and Paris. Persons who wore gold braid and bore tides got themselves flown to the Budd-Erling airport, put up at the swanky Riverside Inn, and asked for conferences. They wanted fighter planes, and Robbie showed them his schedules and revealed that he had orders it would take him six months to fill. His plant was working twenty-four hours a day and couldn’t make any more hours.
So then the visitors wanted him to expand the plant; and how quickly could he do it? Robbie told them the story of what had happened to the family property in the last war. His father had refused to expand, until the United States government had put it up to him as a patriot and practically forced him to do so; then, the moment the war was over, orders were canceled and the concern left to sink or swim as best it could. The result was, a Wall Street syndicate had taken Budd Gunmakers, and Robbie Budd had learned a lesson that he wasn’t going to forget.
Budd-Erling Aircraft would remain a little plant—that is, little according to modern standards; it had some bonds outstanding, and would issue no more. If any government—British, French, or American—wanted more planes, it could build a new and larger plant adjoining Robbie’s property, or Robbie would have it built for them, using their money. They could equip it, or Robbie would equip it, with their money. Robbie would run it and build planes for them, at a fair profit. When the war was over, Robbie would have an option to take the plant over at one-half cost, and if he had the money and thought it advisable, he would exercise the option; otherwise the government would have the plant and could do whatever it pleased.
A heartbreaking proposal to the British, and to the still more frugal French. They wanted American capital to finance production for them—that was the established way, and this war was going to cost them huge sums, perhaps everything they had. Robbie said: “If you can get American capital it’s O.K. by me; but that’s not my job, and I’m not telling any of my friends to gamble on this war.”
So the visitors replied: “It’s all off. Sorry.” But then they went back to their hotel and had long telephone talks with London and Paris, and London and Paris told them to go back and plead and argue some more. So it went, until Robbie told them that it was every nation’s privilege to lose a war if it wished. That hurt their feelings, and Robbie said he was sorry, but he had been dealing with governments all his life and found them lacking in foresight and tangled in miles of red tape; only when they were in trouble did they have any use for the manufac
turer, and it was necessary for one manufacturer to state plainly that their troubles were theirs and not his. So matters stood when Lanny arrived in Newcastle, and so they remained when he left.
IX
The same Clipper which had brought Lanny across the sea took him back again. It was the beginning of November, which in England is a month of rain and fogs with twilight in mid-afternoon. Now there was the blackout; you carried a tiny pocket flashlight, and getting anywhere became such a problem that you marveled how a city’s life could go on. The war was two months old and the expected bombing hadn’t yet come; but it might come at any hour, and everybody was supposed to carry gas masks, but had got tired of it.
Lanny found the Cockney his usual cheerful self. He and his forebears had lived on this foggy island for a long time, and had got used to having a million chimneys pouring black soot into the atmosphere he breathed. A few troubles additional didn’t make much difference to his spirit. The general sentiment was that ole ’Itler ’ad gone and put his foot in it this time. The army was being transported to France and lining up along the borders of Belgium and Holland—familiar ground to Britishers, who had fought there in the last war, and in the days of Napoleon, and in those of Queen Mary, who had had Calais written on her heart.
Lanny went first to Wickthorpe, for him a place of business as well as pleasure. No war was going to cause Englishmen to give up their week-ends, which were really the time for conference and quiet discussion. The formula “business as usual” included the business of gracious living, and no fear of bombing planes would ever keep an Englishman from dressing for dinner. The tone of social gatherings would become serious, of course, for everybody knew that England had taken on the most difficult task in her history, and few ventured to guess how many years it might take to complete it. Certainly longer than the four years and three months of the last time!
X
Lanny’s first talk was with Irma, and he discovered that she was accepting her role with the quiet dignity which became her station. He wondered, but forbore to ask, what was going on in the depths of her heart. Would she ever look back and wish that she was in her own palace on Long Island, safe from dangers and inconveniences? Maybe so; but she was proud, and not even her mother would be permitted to hear a complaint. She had made a failure of one marriage, and must surely not repeat. Having made over this ancient building, equipping it with modern conveniences and the fanciest plumbing gadgets, she was distressed to think what one large bomb might do to them; she asked Lanny—would the Germans waste even one bomb on a residence which was not a military objective?
She had saved this estate from being split up and sold—the fate of so many others in these days of taxation inspired by Leftist theorizers. But now a new form of desecration had fallen upon the place: a great part of the beautiful grounds had been plowed up and harrowed, and in the spring would be planted with potatoes, cabbages and Brussels sprouts. The word had gone forth that Britain must become self-sustaining in the matter of food, and now, as always, it was the duty of the ruling class to set a prompt example.
The most serious trouble confronting the mistress of this demesne was the children who had been evacuated from London. The carful which Lanny had brought had been followed by scores of others; they had been quartered in the village, and a spare building on the estate had been turned into a school. Some of the youngsters were quiet and decent, but others were little savages. The problem of keeping them physically clean was almost too much for the people of this staid community, where nothing of importance had been changed in a hundred years. Lanny heard about the widow of the former parson of the village who, in course of her Christian duty, had taken two of the most verminous slum lads into her home. She had escorted them to the bathroom, and turned on the water and told them to strip, then had decorously left the rest to their understanding, which was incomplete. A maidservant, listening at the door, heard one of them say: “Wot’s up now?” The other replied: “I think the old bitch is going to drown us.”
The refugees at the castle couldn’t very well be kept behind bars, and the more adventurous presumed to wander over the estate. This presented another problem for a mother of an heiress. To little Frances they were objects of intense curiosity; she asked endless questions about them, she watched them whenever she could, and they watched her. Irma was conscious of a powerful force drawing children toward one another; they were little gregarious animals, knowing nothing about class distinctions, good manners, or decent language; they were not shocked even by vermin, but rather curious about them, as another kind of gregarious animals.
Lanny said: “The war is making a lot of changes in the world, Irma. The fathers of these children will be in the same trenches with our friends.”
“Oh, but the words they use, Lanny!”
The ex-husband felt impelled to point out that words are artificial and conventional things; one sound is no more inherently wicked than another, and is not made wicked by taking away one consonant and substituting a different one. When Irma exclaimed that she couldn’t bear to have a child’s mind defiled, Lanny replied: “They are words the common people have been using for a thousand years, and that makes them interesting to students of language. You have learned them, and have managed to survive, and you might as well make up your mind that Frances will learn them sooner or later, and she, too, will survive.”
He was afraid to say anything more, for Irma might take this as an echo of his former “radicalism,” which he wanted her to believe he had entirely outgrown.
XI
The guests came to Wickthorpe by train now, and were met at the station by whatever number of cars were needed. When they had bathed and dressed they came down to the great hall where they had whiskies and soda, or American cocktails if they preferred. They listened to the latest news over BBC, and then went in to dinner, which was served by maids—another wartime revolution, since a quarter of a million men had gone overseas and a million more had been drafted and were now being marched over all the roads of England to toughen them. The dinner tables were still provided with New Zealand mutton and Argentine beef, but that was going to grow scarcer and be rationed before the history of England had unfolded much further.
In serious tones the ladies and gentlemen discussed the state of their world, and sought information from those who were reputed to possess it. One who had left New York only a couple of days ago could be sure of being heard with close attention. Word had just come that the Congress had passed the bill revising the Neutrality Act, and it was known that the President would not delay to sign it. This made for good digestion, and for pleasant remarks about “hands across the sea.” It was of especial importance to Irma, née Barnes, who had had the foresight to invest a chunk of her fortune in Budd-Erling Aircraft, and now could have the pleasure of helping her adopted country and at the same time increasing her private income. However, it wouldn’t do her much good; she would have to pay income taxes both in America and in England!
What a P.A. was interested in was the attitude of these people toward their allies and their foes. Most of them had been appeasers, for that had been the tone of Wickthorpe, and if you loathed the Nazis, you preferred putting your feet under some other dinner table. Now a number of the guests had changed their minds; they said that Britannia had put her hand to the plow, and must go to the end of the furrow. Others had decided to “pipe down,” and no longer sang the praises of the Führer as a bulwark of order and future liquidator of Bolshevism.
Ceddy was one of these, and his wife followed his lead, as a wife has to do if she wants her man to have a career. But when Lanny was alone with them he discovered that his lordship was a man convinced against his will, and that his wife was not convinced at all. Both considered this war the greatest blunder in British history, and a source of satisfaction to no one but Josef Stalin. That bloody-handed tyrant had planned it, and now was going to sit on the sidelines and watch the capitalist powers fight one another to exhaustion. Alre
ady he had got half of Poland, and before it was over he would have the whole of Central Europe, and perhaps the Balkans, who could say?
The pair talked to Lanny as a member of the family. He told them that he agreed completely, and so did his father, who hated the profits which the government forced him to make. Lanny was going to France, to get into touch with persons who held the same opinions there, and he hoped before long to make contacts by way of Switzerland with the friends of peace in Germany. He knew that neither Göring nor Hess had wanted this war, nor did they now want it fought to a finish. It was only a little group of rabid Anglophobes who had persuaded the Führer into the deal with Russia, the real foe and the real dread of the German people.
Interesting indeed was Lanny’s account of his meetings in New York and Detroit and Chicago with influential Americans who had this same point of view and were standing by it in the face of bitter opposition. Irma took her ex-husband into her confidence and explained that she and Ceddy could no longer speak with entire frankness in a mixed company, but they had a few special friends who shared their lack of enthusiasm for the coming slaughter, and would Lanny talk to these? This was what Lanny was in England for, and presently he found himself in the center of a group of irreconcilables whom Rick had described in his formula: “Class is more than country.” There were many of them in England, some in high positions, including members of the Cabinet. Ceddy reported the P.M. as being with them in his heart, although for reasons of state he could not admit it. “The first move ought to come from Hitler,” declared his lordship. “He holds all the cards now.”
“Yes, but he has a common border with Russia,” declared the son of Budd-Erling, with a little smile which the other members of this company understood. It was an unwritten assumption of European statecraft that when two great powers had a common border, they were bound sooner or later to fight over it. The problem was, how to get Russia into this war, and to get Britain out. Lanny listened, and thought to himself that with a Prime Minister and part of his Cabinet in this state of mind, the British Empire was going into a slugging match with one hand tied behind its back.
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