Dragon Harvest

by Sinclair, Upton;

  Lanny was used to typewriters, and could lift his eyes occasionally as he wrote; he could even look behind him while the clicking went on, and thus he observed the proprietor of the establishment strolling casually up behind him. When he was near, the clicking stopped, and Lanny laid his forearm across the writing, looked around, and smiled at the stoutish, round-eyed gentleman his most amiable society smile. “C’est un beau jour, monsieur.”

  “Oui, oui,” assented the other, the statement being beyond dispute.

  “C’est une lettre d’amour,” explained the writer, still graciously.

  Such an appeal to French gallantry was beyond resistance. “Pardon, monsieur,” said the man, chuckling, and passed on.

  Lanny removed his sleeve and the clicking continued: “The writer of this letter dares not sign his name, because his life might be forfeit if he did. Do not fail to warn your government, and advise them to search thoroughly all vessels of whatever character which have come from the south and from the Baltic within the past couple of weeks.”

  He signed this “A Friend,” and addressed it to the Norwegian ambassador in Paris, a gentleman whom he had not had the honor to meet. He sealed it tightly, stamped it, and dropped it into a postbox; and that was all he could do in Paris.

  II

  At the Croydon airport Lanny telephoned to Rick at The Reaches. They had agreed upon their place of meeting, and all Lanny had to say was: “I want to see you.” Rick had agreed not to tell even members of his family when such a call came. Lanny was motored to the city, and within a couple of hours was closeted with his friend in the room which the latter had taken in an obscure hotel.

  Lanny wouldn’t say: “I have just come from Switzerland, and there I learned such-and-so.” What he said was: “I have this information and it is to be trusted. What can we do with it?”

  The problem was complicated indeed. Rick couldn’t take any action in his own name, for there were too many persons who knew that he was Lanny’s friend, or had been. Nowadays Rick spoke rarely of his American friend, and then in a tone of sorrow; but even so people thought of them together, and for all they knew, some, Gestapo agent, planted in London years ago, might be meeting Rick’s friends at tea parties and collecting odds and ends of data about him. For six years he had been serving as a source of anti-Nazi information; and could he expect to go on with this forever? There can be such a thing as a perfect crime—but surely no series of them!

  Someone had to be trusted; and after canvassing a score of different personalities, they decided that Sir Alfred Pomeroy-Nielson was the best bet. Rick’s father was an incurable dilettante, and getting old and talkative; but he was a man of honor, and if he gave his son his word not to reveal a certain matter, he would keep it. His heart was deeply engaged in this war, and in the struggle over the issue of Norwegian neutrality which now filled the newspapers and the airways. Out of his large circle of acquaintances he would pick some member of the Cabinet or influential member of Parliament to whom he could take the information and who might go about ringing an alarm bell.

  Rick wouldn’t mention Lanny, or even that Lanny was in town. Since his father might guess that Lanny was the source of his information, it would be necessary to say that it came from a member of the German underground who had just arrived in England. Excusing himself, Lanny said: “I have been a member of the German underground for many years; and so have you! Therefore your father can say that he got it from a member of the underground, one that he has known for a long time—and he won’t be telling any lies.”

  Rick’s reply was: “If a man’s conscience does not permit him to make up harmless stories, he is surely out of place as a secret agent in wartime.”

  III

  Lanny rang up Ceddy at the Foreign Office. “I have come from Madrid and the Riviera, and have some impressions that might be of interest.” The reply was: “We’ll have dinner at the club.”

  So, in a private dining room of the Carlton Club, Lanny sat with Wickthorpe and Albany and a couple of their colleagues who had learned that this casual American had the knack of meeting the right people. Food was rationed, but not the more expensive sorts, so wartime made little difference to the important classes. Lanny talked about Spain and Italy and the Vatican, and the various eminent personalities who had traveled and stopped off at the Côte d’Azur. His own role was of modesty walking around in trousers. He would say: “I can tell you what Schneider said, and what de Wendel said, and Renault, and Duchemin; but don’t ask me for an opinion, because I am just an art expert, and honestly, I am bewildered by the complexity of the world situation.” He would stop in the middle of a discourse, and say: “Don’t take this as my assertion; this is what Pétain said, and it is what his crowd is working for in Madrid. Naturally, you have to allow for the fact that they may not have spoken all their thoughts. This may be what they want me to report, and it’s your job to guess what is really in their minds.”

  The person to whom Lanny Budd was talking was always the final authority, the one to be deferred to, the one to explain events and solve problems. In his life he had met few who did not enjoy that role and appreciate a deferential auditor. He would say: “May I repeat this to the Premier, or the Prime Minister, or the Führer?”—and there were few who were not flattered by the idea of having their words ascend to these exalted regions. After he had made himself agreeable for an hour or so, rarely asking any questions, the other person would become confidential, sometimes without meaning to.

  Of these Foreign Office men, Ceddy had been the truest appeaser, the one who was willing to concede most to Adolf Hitler’s inordinate demands. As an English gentleman, he had to be indignant at the Führer’s manifold crimes in Poland; but Lanny knew from close watching, and from Irma’s conversation, that his indignation was far outweighed by his fear of Red Russia. So Lanny mustn’t be too patriotic for England, or for Poland, or for international law and order; he must be patriotic enough to satisfy the other men, but not enough to keep Ceddy from trusting him with confidences in the privacy of Wickthorpe Castle!

  IV

  Lanny didn’t say anything about having been to Geneva. He couldn’t afford to let these men know that he was in touch with the underground, or that he was a source of information about German military plans. There were bound to be German agents in London—not so many as in Paris, but one would be enough to ruin Lanny Budd forever, and possibly even cost him his life. When he reported what Hitler had told him to say, that was one thing, but it was quite another to report the most precious secrets of the Generalstab. Lanny might do it once, but not twice, and he had better wait until he was ready to give up his career.

  Opinions, however, are different; any man can have opinions, even one who has just declared that he is not competent to have any. The conversation turned to the all-important question of where the enemy was going to strike, if at all. A fascinating problem, strategical and also psychological; the Nazis kept making threats, now here, now there, and each time you had to speculate: is that just another bluff, or do they mean it this time? Surely they wouldn’t tell you what they had in mind! But then, that might be exactly what they would do, counting upon the fact that you would believe anything but that.

  Just now the Nazis were pouring out threats against Norway, and saying what they would do if that country, small in population though not in area, should yield to the insolent threat of the British government to mine waters along the Norwegian coast. “The dirty egotism of England and France,” had been the phrase of the Völkischer Beobachter; this being contrasted with the perfect altruism of National Socialism in all its international relations.

  Said the guest: “I am surely no military authority, but it seems to me that Germany’s best move right now would be to seize Norway.”

  “But Lanny!” exclaimed his lordship. “That would just be taking on another war!”

  “They wouldn’t count the Norwegians, because they are a peaceful people, not very heavily armed, and I supp
ose they could be surprised. The Nazis would figure that wherever they went to fight, you would have to follow them.”

  “Yes, but that would be our kind of war—a naval war.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. If they seized the Norwegian airports, it would be an air war, and they would have land-based aviation against your ships. If they got settled in those fjords, and got them mined, you’d have the devil’s own time rooting them out. And think what submarine harbors they would make!”

  “The Germans have their hands full in front of the Maginot Line,” announced Gerald Albany. “They’re not going off on any side adventures.” Gerald’s father was a clergyman, and spoke as God’s deputy, without fear of contradiction. This attribute was not supposed to be hereditary, but it might be “catching,” and Gerald had caught at least a mild form of it.

  V

  Lanny went out to Wickthorpe Castle by train, this being a safe and agreeable vantage point from which to observe the world plunging to its doom. He took up his residence in the ancient cottage, comfortable, even though he had to stoop slightly to get in. It had been made over with decorations in the modernist style, a bathroom attached, and a fireplace in which lumps of soft coal sizzled and bubbled, giving off blue and purple and golden flames in which you could imagine that you saw all sorts of faery shapes.

  A maidservant came to wait on him now, the man having gone to war. She was no faery shape, but solid and substantial, with cheeks so rosy as to seem almost apoplectic. If he had offered to kiss her, no one would have objected, but he didn’t; he was a serious gentleman who was usually to be found with his nose in a book, or else with his ear glued to a small radio set, listening to news, often in foreign languages. He was generous with his gratuities, and everybody gave him a good reputation. He rarely went to the castle unless his lordship invited him, for he was being careful not to have any gossip concerning her ladyship and himself. Her ladyship was kind to everybody, and so free with her riches that people said only good things about her. She was “expecting” again, and that was according to her Christian duty. The fact that she was a divorced woman and kept another man’s child in the castle was something you had to call “American.”

  Frances came every day, after her lesson periods. They rode together, and danced to the music of a phonograph. Lanny read stories to her, and answered questions about the great world outside. The war, naturally, was cutting a deep groove in her consciousness; she wanted to know all about it and why it was, and this made difficulty for her father. He ventured the guess that neither mother nor stepfather would expect her to understand the subtleties which plagued their minds; she would have to be taught what every proper little English girl was taught at this time. He told her that Germany was a great nation which had fallen into the hands of evil men, and would have to be fought until those evil men had been driven out. He found her eager to listen to the story of Budd-Erling Aircraft, and to look at the pictures in a handsome pamphlet which her grandfather had prepared for his stockholders; her mother was one of the largest.

  The refugee children had by now been fitted into the pattern of English country life. Scrubbed and deloused and supplied with underwear, they had learned the uses of cows and sheep, and also of manners; they went to school, and some of the more presentable had been invited, a few at a time, to have tea at the castle with Frances. They sat for the most part silent, and not knowing what to do with their hands; they stared at wonders which they knew only from the motion-picture screen. When they were alone they played noisy games, and Frances would have liked nothing better than to join them, but that, alas, was not to be thought of She wasn’t so rich as formerly, but still she was one of the richest little girls in the world, and it was almost as if she carried these riches on her person and might spill them out of her pockets.

  VI

  Ceddy came out for the week-end, and Lanny was invited to dinner. Afterwards they chatted, and the noble earl remarked: “By the way, you may have made a lucky hit. One of our intelligence groups has become convinced that the Germans are planning some move against Norway.”

  “You don’t say!” exclaimed the guest.

  “The idea seems to have gained currency in the House, and there may be interpellations.”

  “That is interesting, Ceddy.” Lanny listened to his friend’s renewed expressions of disbelief; meantime he thought, was that Sir Alfred’s friend at work, and who would he be, and how far would he go? It ought not to require a great amount of warning to put the Norwegians on their guard. Lanny would have liked to send a telepathic message to commanders of air and sea and land forces in every harbor from Oslo to Narvik; but, alas, he had not been able to develop this technique in time.

  He listened to the conversation of the week-end guests, which had to do entirely with the war and the world situation. He missed certain faces and voices, and gradually realized that there were shifts taking place in English social life. Politics and its controversies were breaking up lifelong friendships. People who were hot for the war didn’t care to hear the opinions of those who were comparatively cool; and this made a tremendous difference to Irma, who, until recently, had been hostess to the majority, and now found herself hostess to a dwindling minority. Some of Ceddy’s oldest friends pleaded previous engagements, and some told him frankly that his attitude was unworthy of an Englishman. Irma was worried, for she had visioned a splendid career for her handsome hardworking lord, and now, apparently, he had been led into a blind alley. She even asked the advice of her ex-husband about it, something which seemed to him slightly gauche; but then Irma had always seemed to him an insensitive person. He answered with most careful courtesy that he would have been glad to advise her, but these cruel events were every bit as bewildering to him as they were to her.

  Controversy centered about the personality of the Prime Minister. Neville Chamberlain had voiced his indignation at German treachery, and declared his determination to punish international crimes; but there were many who didn’t trust him, who refused to believe that his heart was in this war, or ever would be in any war. He was a trader, not a fighter; the thoughts of the rebels turned more and more to Winston Churchill, who really hated that ole ’Itler and meant to smack him down. Stormy scenes were occurring in the House, for some were convinced that the government was preparing, not for all-out war, but for some new and more infamous “Munich.”

  Here at Wickthorpe was the place to find out about it. By invitation of his host, Lanny repeated to a choice gathering the story of his visit to Madrid, and his talks with Marshal Pétain and those to whom the aged ambassador had introduced him. They had named Englishmen among the appeasers, and some of those named were here, and confirmed the idea that this was real statesmanship, this was what British diplomacy ought to be about in a crucial hour. Herr Hitler was difficult, and some of his aides were rowdies, nobody could deny; but at his worst he was better than the Bolshevists, and to destroy him and his partner, Mussolini, would be to deliver Europe up to Red revolution. Who but a blind man could fail to see that?

  VII

  The eminent ones went back to their posts of duty, and Lanny wrote out a report, and took a walk to a near-by town, where he could mail a letter to U. S. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy without attracting attention. A lovely country to walk in, with winding roads lined with hedges coming into bloom in early April. “O, to be in England!” the poet had sung—but you had better take your raincoat and hat on your strolls, for the sun kept no promises. The young men were gone from the landscape, and the middle-aged did the work; the very old men watched the sheep on the commons and the children brought in the cows from the meadows. There would always be an England, with lovely gardens, and quiet homes, and people reserved, never telling you their troubles unless they knew you well.

  Lanny came back to his retreat. There was nothing more he could do, and he might as well be comfortable while he waited to see which way the world was going. He knew of books worth reading, and was fortunate enough to be ab
le to buy them. The papers came regularly, and the magic radio was free for the turning of a couple of dials. One morning he went for a courtesy call on his ex-mother-in-law, and played a rubber of bridge with these people who found boredom the worst of all problems. There was Uncle Horace, now showing his age, and a niece who was visiting Fanny and served as an unpaid companion. They played a game, and while Horace was recording the score—they played for a penny a point and he hated to lose—Lanny suggested: “Let’s try the BBC.”

  Nobody could object, in these times. He turned the dial, just in time to catch a bulletin: at five-fifteen that morning German troops had crossed the border of Denmark unresisted and were occupying the country. At the same time German warships and transports had entered the principal harbors of Norway and were taking possession of them. At Narvik a dozen destroyers had entered in a snowstorm, had torpedoed two Norwegian gunboats with the loss of all on board, had seized British vessels in the harbor and landed troops. At Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger and Kristiansund it had been much the same. At Oslo the invaders had seized the harbor and also the airport, and were believed to be taking control of the city. The surprise had been complete, and the resistance gallant but probably ineffectual.

  Words of sympathy followed, but these did not reduce the effect of the blow upon Lanny Budd’s spirits. The rubber of bridge remained uncompleted and the debts unpaid; since Uncle Horace had been behind, there was no objection.

  Such was the beginning of a period of heartache, almost of heartbreak, for the son of Budd-Erling. He had to sit, perfectly helpless, perfectly voiceless, and watch in the columns of newspapers and hear over the radio the murder of a nation and its culture: those quiet, inoffensive and decent people, about as near to a free democratic way of life as any in the world; a people whose ever-recurring task it was to conquer a harsh and inhospitable climate, to build homes on rocky shores and wrest a living from cold and stormy seas. Lanny had visited the country on his honeymoon with Irma; the yacht Bessie Budd had poked her prow into these fjords and her passengers had exclaimed over the beauty of the towering mountains. That had been summertime, when the waters were blue, the clouds white, the shores green; ladies and gentlemen of the luxury class had shuddered at the thought of how it would be in winter, when almost perpetual daylight would be turned to almost perpetual night. They had admired the sturdy fisherfolk, and had gone ashore and ridden up to the saeters, the high mountain-meadow farms.