“That can happen to any of us, mon ami,” said the younger.
Again a pause, and then the elder asked: “What else happened at the seance?”
Lanny couldn’t refer to Trudi, so he began to tell about the Bhikkhu and the monastery on the palm-fringed shore. Thinking that it might embarrass his host to be looked at, he watched the dog, and saw the old head drooping and the old eyes closing. When he realized that he had put the dog fast asleep, he stole a glance at the master and discovered that he had done the same for him. The proud head which had once ruled the secret councils of Europe now hung as far forward as it could, and the eyes which had seen so many chances of profit were shut tightly.
Lanny allowed his voice to sink lower, and when it had died away completely he arose and stole from the room. Neither master nor dog stirred, and Lanny opened the door to the passage where the attendant sat waiting, “Le maitre s’est endormi,” he said.
“Oui, Monsieur,” replied the man. “C’est sa coutume. Il est devenu tres faible.”
The visitor tiptoed to the front door and went to his car.
BOOK SEVEN
A Hangman’s Whip
26
PERILS DID ABOUND
I
Among the clients whom Lanny had acquired in Madrid was a certain Senor Sandoval, an exporter of various Spanish products to the Americas. He owned half a dozen examples of the French Impressionist school, and being worried about tax increases and other financial troubles he wanted to dispose of the paintings; but his idea of their value had been such that Lanny had not been interested to handle them. Now the Senor had fled to Paris and had written to Lanny at Bienvenu, saying that he was ready to cut his prices in half. Receiving this in Paris, Lanny went to call, and discovered the Spanish gentleman in a state of anxiety too great to be concealed.
The armies of General Franco, marching on Madrid, had begun sending bombing-planes ahead, and one of them had dropped a messenger of death into a house directly across the street from the Senor’s mansion. The result was that he wanted to sell, not merely half a dozen French paintings, but all his objets d’art, his antique furniture, and even the mansion itself! He was an ardent Franco sympathizer, but it wasn’t going to do him any good, because the Loyalists meant to fight, France was secretly sending in arms, and so Madrid was going to be destroyed. Such, at any rate, was the conviction the Senor had got out of reading different sorts of newspapers in Paris. Suppose his butler was a coward, and had already run away instead of protecting his master’s property! Suppose he was a traitor and had turned the property over to the government! The master hadn’t heard from him for a week, although his orders had been to write every day.
Lanny hadn’t set out to become a gambler in art works; but he had got a kick out of what he had been able to do with the Comendador, and therefore could be tempted. He had seen how easy it was to take pictures out of Spain. As a dealer in art, he resented the law against exportation as a form of false patriotism, a bar to the diffusion of culture. More people would see old masters in America than in Europe, so they would do more good! And anyhow, he meant to use the money for the Spanish cause. If he had been able to explain that to the government, they would have given their consent. Since in this crisis he couldn’t do that, he would take the liberty of acting for them—a characteristically American point of view.
He wanted to visit Madrid anyhow, and the upshot of the discussion was that he made the merchant a proposal: a cash purchase of the six paintings for three hundred thousand francs, exactly one-quarter of the price asked at first. The offer was conditioned upon Lanny’s being able to reach Madrid and get the paintings into his possession. He drew up a contract by which he agreed to set out within three days, and have a week in which to arrive. The Senor gave him an order for the butler, and from the time he got the paintings into his possession they would be his risk and he would be obliged to pay for them.
This middle-aged and well-padded Spanish gentleman had his family cooped up in a small apartment and was in a state of distress, hardly able to pay his rent. There in Madrid under the bombs he had a variety of treasures, such as a gold and ormolu clock which had once belonged to King Philip IV; he offered this clock to Lanny for a thousand francs, about forty dollars, in cash. But Lanny said the picture deal would take all the money he could raise without inconvenience, and he wouldn’t attempt to bring out anything that had value to marauders. The ordinary person wouldn’t guess that the paintings had any special value—indeed might consider them as slightly demented works.
Lanny knew from days of old what opportunities of quick money-making were offered by a war. He had heard Johannes Robin tell about the sums he had made importing electrical apparatus through Holland into Germany, and he knew how the firm of “R and R,” Robin and Robbie, had made fortunes buying up American military supplies in France after the armistice. Lanny had watched Zaharoff, Sir Vincent Caillard, Sir Henri Deterding, and others whom he had been meeting since childhood; now he would profit by the lessons—but doing it for a cause. He would become a sort of Robin Hood Schieber; a war profiteer who robbed the rich for the benefit of the poor. He believed that his cause was going to win; and so, when he came to be an old gentleman warming his bones in front of a fire, he wouldn’t have to say with the pessimistic Preacher that all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
II
Beauty had considered it quixotic of Lanny to be taking Alfy and his friend to Madrid; but Lanny had learned in Paris how the recruits for the International Brigade were getting to the war, being hidden in barns by day and escorted over the Pyrenees by peasant guides at night. A grueling trip, for they stumbled and slipped in mud and perhaps slush, and it was easy to go over a precipice in black darkness. Men who were prepared to spend what was left of their lives in the trenches did not complain of such risks; but men who had special education and training, whose services depended upon delicate reactions, might fairly be regarded as too precious to be exposed to November storms in high mountain passes.
They had written that they were ready, and now Lanny wired them to come; the reply was that they would take a passenger plane from Croydon in the morning. He went to meet them, and the sight of the youngsters, eager though properly repressed, wrung his heart in secret. They were repeating the ancient pattern of man; they were in search of adventure, and thought they were going to have their way with it. But fate would have something to say, and Franco’s airmen, it might be. Each had his belongings in a duffel-bag, and Lanny made certain that warm sweaters were included, against the bitter cold they would encounter in Madrid.
“Everybody topping at home,” they reported, and without further preliminaries got down to the problem of procuring visas for the forbidden land. You had to get French permission as well as Spanish, and for the Spanish permission you had to convince the authorities that you were Loyalist, while for the French you had to be ostensibly neutral, but with many of the officials it would help if you were believed to be a Franco sympathizer. For the French, Lanny had assembled a collection of business documents: his receipt for the motorcar commandeered in Barcelona, his contract with Senor Sandoval, and a letter from Senora Villareal saying that she would be glad to have him dispose of more of her paintings if he could obtain permission to bring them from Seville. This last would help him if by ill chance he and his party should fall into the hands of the Franco forces; for Seville was Franco territory and the Senora was known there.
The Spanish side of the trick was turned by Lanny’s Red uncle, deputy of the French Republic. Lanny explained his wish to keep the role of a neutral, as always, and Uncle Jesse undertook to send his secretary to the Communist party agency which was smuggling volunteers into Spain. The secretary would state that two young English fliers wished to serve and had found a bourgeois person, a sort of fuddyduddy who bought and sold paintings and had agreed to take them as his assistants; when he got to Madrid he would find himself left to his own bo
urgois devices. Such ruses are a part of war, and it is always war for the Communists. The three passports were stamped for Spain without their owners even having to put in an appearance.
III
Lanny spent the last night with his inamorata. He told her his plans, and promised to write often, using safe open postcards; everything vital would be in a code referring to paintings. Alfy would be Romney, because of a portrait of his great-grandfather which hung in his home, and Laurence needed a change of only one letter to make him a painter. The journey was dangerous and both lovers knew it; but danger had been a part of their bargain, and Trudi was not supposed to shed any tears. “Love makes it better when you are here, but worse when you are leaving!” she exclaimed. She gave him a last embrace in the doorway and then fled into the studio and shut the door.
Grim news in the papers at the beginning of this month of November; the rebel armies were within ten miles of Madrid at the south, and at about the same distance on the west; to the northwest the line ran out to the Guadarrama mountains, some thirty miles away, and around them made a great loop to the north and thence eastward all the way to Huesca and Saragossa. The main rebel forces were approaching from the south and southwest, and here the Loyalists had made a heavy counterattack and driven back the Moors, in spite of the fact that these turbaned defenders of Christianity had all the tanks and most of the planes in their support.
The three travelers didn’t want to think about anything but these military operations. Alfy, who sat beside the driver, turned the dials, saying “Damn!” at jazz music, and freezing to attention whenever there was a news period. But the reports were confused and unsatisfactory; if the source was the rebel side, then Franco was sweeping everything before him, while if it was on the government side, the enemy was being stopped with heavy casualties. The only thing on which there was agreement was the weather, which was delightful Indian summer.
Lanny traveled the route nationale he had used all his life between Paris and the Riviera. They would follow the course of the River Rhone as far as Avignon, and then swing off toward the southwest. There were three drivers, so they would take turns and keep going day and night, dozing in the car if they felt like it. But mostly they didn’t; they wanted to talk about the war and what they were going to do when they got to it. They didn’t even stop for meals, but bought food to eat as they rolled along. The sands of time were running out, and Madrid might be lost for lack of two capable fighter pilots!
They were going into a strange land and needed a new language. The two students had been working at it, but weren’t sure of their pronunciations. Just as Lanny had done with Raoul, they now agreed to speak only Spanish, and with the little books they had brought they diligently learned sentences: “Es esta la carretera para Madrid?” and “Quiro una habitation para dos personas.” The books didn’t give any Red or Pink sentences, but Lanny had learned the crucial ones, and taught them: “Sah-lood!” which was the greeting of all Loyalists, “Vee-vahn los trah-bah-hah-do-rays!” which meant “Up with the workers!” and “Moo-ay-rah Franco!” which meant the opposite. All three were used to studying, and put their minds upon it, even while they had fun.
For Lanny it was a chance to study the new generation. Life renews itself perpetually, but never quite the same. The old fall behind—and it appeared now that thirty-seven was old. However, the two youngsters were deeply grateful for Lanny’s help and treated him as an equal. He perceived that world events which had so profoundly depressed him had produced in Alfred Pomeroy-Nielson and Laurence Joyce a moral and intellectual revulsion; they wanted a clean sweep of old ideas and old people; they wanted a complete social change—peaceably if possible, but any way it came was better than no way. They weren’t Reds, but they weren’t afraid of the Reds, especially not in a time like this when men of action had to take charge. They didn’t say it, because it might sound like heroics, but they hated the old world so intensely that they were willing to die rather than see it go on; they had looked each other in the eyes and discovered that determination, and now they took it for granted, quietly, even gaily. Watching and listening to them, Lanny thought: “The social system is producing antibodies against Fascism.”
IV
They reached the coast just after sunset, in time to see the blue water and the fisher-boats with red sails, and dingy cargo-boats of many sizes, trailing black streamers. It was night when they arrived at the border, and on the French side they were told that the fall of Madrid was expected at any hour, and did les messieurs wish to go in under such circumstances? Lanny showed the crudely written receipt he had got when his car was seized in Barcelona; he would go at least that far, and the young messieurs would drive it back. Most Frenchmen would understand such an errand and wish it success.
On the Spanish side, the little fishing-village of Portbou, it was different. Here the officials were highly suspicious of this invasion. To be sure, the extranjeros had proper visas; but such things can be forged, and often are. By the looks of them they might be Franco agents; and even when Lanny said americano, it didn’t help so much, for there were reactionary americanos, especially periodistos, that is, journalists, who had sent out hateful reports about the people’s government and the Frente Popular.
They were admitted, and set out for Barcelona. But in less than half an hour they were stopped by the milicianos of the road control and put through an inquisition. Very annoying, and dangerous, too, for it was night, and by the dim light of lanterns extranjeros look even more sinister than by day. Bourgeois persons coming to claim money from the Republic in its hour of direst peril—certainly that wasn’t the way to make headway in Red Catalonia. After they had started again Lanny said to his passengers: “This won’t do; we’ll have to tell your story instead of mine.”
“But won’t that interfere with your work?” asked Alfy.
“Not seriously. These fellows by the roadside won’t remember names, and so long as I become neutral when I get to Madrid I think it’ll be all right.”
So at the next post all three put on their most cordial expressions, raised their clenched right fists, and exclaimed “Salud!” Lanny announced in his most polished Castilian: “Companeros, I am an americano simpatizante, taking two English aviators to the defense of Madrid.” All faces beamed, all voices became exclamatory, and a succession of toil-hardened and sweaty brown hands were stretched out to be shaken.
Lanny inquired for the head of the political organization or the local trade union. To that personage he stated their errand and produced the credentials with which the two young men had provided themselves: certificates from the English aviation school, and letters of recommendation from the secretary of the Socialist party group in their home neighborhood. Nothing better could have been asked, and they were supplied with a proper salvo-conducto which would spare them further annoyances.
Saving only those of hospitality! It was hard for Spaniards to realize that people were really in a hurry, even in wartime. “What is the news, Senores?” the milicianos would ask. “Can it be that Madrid is in danger?” Lanny avoided mentioning that he had a radio in the car, otherwise courtesy might have required them to provide a broadcast. They were urged more than once to stop for a meal, or at least a glass of wine; but they kept saying: “The time is short, companeros.” If the guards were youngsters they would answer: “Buena suerte.” The older ones would speak more ceremoniously: “Le deseo a Vd. toda felicidad.”
V
The route from Barcelona to Madrid was closed, because the rebels held Saragossa, the city where the Comendador had sustained his wounds. So they had to continue along the coast to Valencia. From there northeastward through the heart of the country, the government held control. This third largest city of Spain had been saved by hard fighting, of which many traces were to be seen. It was the port through which supplies were being taken to Madrid—such supplies as the Loyalists were permitted to purchase with their seven hundred million dollars worth of gold. Alfy said: “I su
ppose the capitalist nations feel there is something immoral about a workers’ government having so much money.”
“Any money,” said the red-headed “Laury,” with a gleam in his mischievous blue eyes.
On the outskirts of this city of oranges and flowers they were escorted into the headquarters of an army officer who spoke some English and enjoyed practicing it. Lanny’s two reckless young friends explained their desire to fly for Spain, and presented their credentials. The officer gave them a pass to the capital, and for Lanny to return. They asked him for news, and he told them that a fleet of Junkers cargo-planes with German pilots were carrying Moors and supplies from Ceuta to Cadiz. He told them that the Alfonso XIII, the largest hotel in Seville, was given up entirely to Italian officers; at first they had worn civilian white duck, but now wore their uniforms openly. He told them that a ship from Russia had arrived in Cartagena, bringing pursuit planes which were being assembled by Russian technicians and would be flown to Madrid by Russian aviators. It was to be hoped they would arrive in time to save the city. The two Englishmen asked technical questions about the planes; the army man could say only that they were single-engine fighters, and that on account of their snub noses they had been dubbed “chatos.”
The three travelers were immensely cheered by this news about Russia. At last the silly bluff of “non-intervention” was being called. The Soviet representatives on the Committee had made formal announcement that if Franco’s pipe-lines through Portugal and Morocco were not plugged, the Soviet Union would establish a line of its own; and now they were making good this threat. “It may bring Britain and France into the war,” remarked Lanny, and the stocky Laurence, who had a sharp tongue, responded: “On which side, do you think?”
Wide Is the Gate (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 64
