The last volume in the series, A World To Win, had ended in winter of early 1942 when U.S. was already at war, with Lanny coming out from the meeting with Stalin in Moscow, out in a city with the blackout due to war making it all dark except the stars above, and expected to be flown back to U.S. with Laurel via the Archangel route over North pole.
Presidential Mission begins, not by describing the journey, but Lanny driving to Palisades and appreciating the warmth and beauty, of not only the good car but the orchards in bloom.
"America had been at war for a matter of four months, and it had been one defeat after another, with not a single success. Bataan had just surrendered, and the Japanese were close to India; the Germans were close to Leningrad and to the Suez Canal."
Lanny drove to Hyde Park and Krum Elbow to meet FDR, and they spoke briefly about events leading up to the main point, what Stalin said to Lanny. FDR asked if Russia would stick it out in the war.
""They have seen too much of Nazi brutality, which is really quite insane. A Russian would as soon trust a Bengal tiger as take the word of a Hitlerite. Stalin’s reply to my question was prompt and decisive. They are in this war to the finish, and only beg that you will get help to them as quickly as possible.”
"“We will do our best, Lanny, but we have almost nothing at present. Our shortage of shipping is paralyzing, and the U-boats are playing the very devil with us. The Russians expect a heavy attack this spring, I assume.”
"“They do, and cannot be sure where it will come; that is the disadvantage of defensive warfare. The best guess is that Hitler will concentrate on the south because of the oil, which is his greatest need. It will be an overwhelming attack; he has not been nearly so heavily hit as the Soviet communiqués would have us believe. His retreat was strategic, to prepared winter positions, and not many of his troops were sacrificed. He will no doubt throw in everything he has as soon as the ground is dry. There are millions of Russians, now strong and happy, who will be food for the wolves and the kites when the steppes are dry.""
They spoke about China, and future after war, and U.S. policy. FDR asked about what Lanny wanted to do next, and proposed turning him over to Donovan in service, but Lanny said he preferred to keep on being on the same terms he'd been, without position or salary and reporting directly to FDR. They discussed his ability to pose as art expert, during war, in Europe, and the danger due to underground mistaking his stance for reality. Lanny said he assumed his reality was exposed when his plane crashed in North Atlantic and two passports were found on him, but he'd get a better idea when he contacted his underground contact in Switzerland, and another in Toulon, and he expected letters from them at home in Bienvenu.
FDR spoke about the coming invasion of Europe, which he said he preferred soon and via Cherbourg, but Churchill wanted across Mediterranean via Sicily and Italy to begin with, and the President asked Lanny to speak to people in Vichy and in underground. FDR said Lanny would be given a hundred thousand dollars in his N.Y. bank account for helping the underground with no accounting. Lanny said they'd need arms more than money, and FDR said he could give names of those willing to be known, and FDR would have them helped via Donovan.
They discussed a new code name for Lanny, since in a seance with other people present, Zaharoff had objected to his name being used, and Lanny was worried this might happen again. Lanny needed a couple of weeks for personal needs, family and so forth, and then he'd travel to Southern France and Northern Africa as asked by FDR. He was asked to have tea with family, and met Eleanor Roosevelt. She said she'd call on Laurel, and FDR had already invited Lanny to bring her to meet him.
He went home to the apartment his wife shared with a friend, Agnes, and Laurel told him she was expecting. He told her he'd met Eleanor Roosevelt and she was going to call on her, and Laurel said she should do so, being younger. Lanny suggested she drop a line. He informed her about his leaving for Europe after they spoke about visiting Newcastle next day, and he reassured her he wasn't going into Germany. They visited Newcastle, and Laurel met members of Budd family and clan, and was shown the plant. She was just the right person for Lanny, Esther judged, and told her to consider them as family and call for anything she needed.
Lanny contacted most of his clients by phone this time, and saw only Harlan Winstead who wasn't interested in art from Algeria which was in architècture, but thought a neighbour might be; Lanny met this Mr Vernon, inviting him to lunch and got a letter from him to the effect authorising purchase. Baker arranged his passport and passage on clipper, and Lanny made sure the passport covered all his itinerary. Alston said he was coming to N.Y., and meanwhile Lanny met Jim Stotzlmann and they discussed the boss's security. Jim said the group was still very much active, especially Harrison Dengue and the Chicago guys, and they couldn't stand being in the war on side of Stalin, and patriotism hadn't touched them.
"“You know, Jim,” said Lanny, “the story you told me has haunted me; I doubt if I’ll ever get it out of my mind. We’ve read about how the Roman Republic was overthrown, and so many others in history, but we just can’t bring ourselves to realize how easily the same thing might happen in this country. Just imagine that in the next industrial crisis the labor crowd, or what are called the ‘radicals,’ carried an election, and our big business masters wanted to keep them out; suppose there was an Army cabal, and these men backed it with their money and their newspapers and their radios; suppose they were to seize the newly elected President, hold him incommunicado, and issue orders in his name—what could the rest of us do?”
"“That is just what I keep hammering into my friends, Lanny. They all say: ‘The people would rise.’ But what can the people with shotguns and pitchforks do against modern weapons of war and modern organization? With bombing planes and poison gas a few men could wipe out a whole city; and I know men who are ready to do it—they have said so in plain words.”
"“I could compile a list of a hundred such,” responded Lanny. “It is a danger we shall not be free from so long as capitalism endures; and it is going to die a hard and nasty death.”"
Lanny met Forrest Quadratt and the latter swapped news of the interim months.
"“I have been indicted and convicted, and am under a jail sentence of from eight months to two years.”
"“Good Lord! What for?”
"“They framed me on a preposterous charge. I registered myself as in the employ of German magazines, and they undertook to prove that I was in the employ of the government.”
"“Herrgott, noch einmal! Don’t they know that German magazines are government institutions?”"
"It was hard for Lanny to put the proper amount of feeling into his tone, for he knew what would have happened to a German citizen in Berlin who had made a fortune by serving American magazines or American government agencies in circulating pro-Allied propaganda throughout the Fatherland. That was the advantage which the ruthless men had over the mild and honorable in this world, and how the balance was to be righted was a problem indeed! ... Lanny tried subtly and carefully to find out if there might not be another hope, that of replacing Franklin D. Roosevelt as Commander-in-Chief of the American Armed Forces. Lanny mentioned that he was getting in touch with that powerful personality, Mr. Harrison Dengue, but Forrest didn’t take the bait; he wasn’t going to discuss the junta, even if he knew anything about it.
"Could it possibly have occurred to him that the son of Budd-Erling might have changed his point of view when he discovered himself under the Japanese bombs and shells? Certainly Forrest must have known that Budd-Erling was now turning out a superior type of fighter plane, and he must have been warned that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was employing many sorts of agents and disguises in its secret war on American Nazism. It might be that Berlin had informed him that Lanny had visited Stalin. Lanny waited for some hint on the subject, but none came. He decided at last that he was wasting his evening. He excused himself, went home, and took his two ladies out to a late supper."
Lanny met Alston who wanted to know all about Lanny and his past half a year, too, and meanwhile had some things to tell.
"“We have to be sure that what we are sending the Russians actually reaches the front; for we are sustaining grave losses on the route to Murmansk, so great that we may have to discontinue it.” ....“Did they give any hint of the possibility of having to quit?”
"“All the way through China and Siberia and Russia proper, we never heard any word but of resistance to the last gasp. You can count upon that as a gift from Hitler. He is the most hated man that has appeared upon the stage of history for many centuries.”"
Lanny asked him if his last mission that had gone astray, when his plane had crashed off Nova Scotia, had really been completed, and U.S. had the information.
"“The rule still holds, that we never speak the words atomic fission except when it is absolutely necessary. But I can say this: we are ahead of the Germans and expect to keep ahead.” .... “Nothing can be absolutely sure in matters of scientific research. We know what the signs are at the moment, but nobody can know what some German physicist may have hit upon last night.” .... “The Chief was quite positive that he didn’t want to send you into Germany again, Lanny.”
"“He told me that. But I told him about my German contact in Geneva, and he was willing for me to go there.”
"“It would be foolhardy for us to risk taking any German into our confidence in this matter. The outcome of the war might depend upon it, and the whole future of humanity.”
"“Let me tell you a little about this man. I have known him since before Hitler. He was vouched for by the woman who later became my second wife. I have never told you about her; not even my mother or my father knows about her. She was a devoted Socialist Party member, and her first husband was murdered by the Nazis; she became a worker in the underground, and died in Dachau concentration camp, in spite of my best efforts to save her. The man I am talking about helped me in trying to rescue her; before that he was in Spain and proved his loyalty in the fires of that civil war; he rose to be a capitán. That surely ought to be enough evidence of his trustworthiness.”
"“I grant you that, Lanny. But what can he do now?”
"“He had quite an extraordinary contact in Germany, apparently someone in Göring’s own headquarters. He was able to give me the date of the invasion of Holland and Belgium, and later that of Norway, and I sent this information to the President. The last time I saw this man, about a year ago, he told me he had lost that contact but hoped to get another. He might have it now.”"
"“That is just where the trouble comes in, Lanny. He may have a new contact that he trusts, and it may turn out to be a Gestapo agent playing with him. We simply cannot take such chances with the atomic bomb.”
"“I grant you that, Professor. But let us consider whether there might not be some information my man could get without having to know what it is for.”
"“That would be difficult, for the reason that the information is so highly technical that any scientist would know at once what the man was after and could infer what stage we had reached in our research.”
"“Let me make a suggestion or two. If we could find out whether the Germans have increased their production of graphite, wouldn’t that tell us something?”
"“In the first place, the fact that we are using graphite to moderate the speed of neutrons is one of the most priceless of our secrets; and second, German production wouldn’t tell us much, because graphite is used for many war purposes and comparatively little of it is needed as a moderator.”
"“Well, then, how about heavy water? That, as I understand it, is difficult to produce and not much of it exists.”
"“That is true. If your man could find out if and where the Germans are making heavy water in large quantities, we should have a number-one bombing target.”
"“And how about Professor Schilling? Can his name be mentioned?”
"“I fear we have to say no to that. Schilling is a nuclear physicist and nothing else, and we know that the Nazis have him at that job. We cannot risk having anybody know that he is on our side.”
"“If I could find out where a number of such physicists are employed, wouldn’t that be important?”
"“We already have that information, I believe; but I do not know what use is being made of it. I am only admitted to the fringes of these ultra-secret matters.”
"“This is true, is it not, that the quantity production of fissionable material would require a large plant; and if my man could find out where such a plant is located, wouldn’t that be worth while?”
"“I have to admit that that would be a major achievement.”
"“This is the way it appears to me: the Germans must know that we know the possibility of atom splitting, and they would certainly expect us to try to find out about what they are doing. I don’t have to give my man any hint that we are working on the project. Can’t I just tell him what has been in the scientific journals prior to the war, and ask if he can find out any more on this subject?”
"“I should say there would be no harm in that; but it would be an exceedingly dangerous matter for your man and for his contacts.”
"“That is up to him. I will tell him the facts, as I have always done, and leave it to him to use his judgment. I suppose the same thing goes for jet propulsion, which Robbie tells me he is working on very secretly; and for rocket projectiles, and so on. The Germans are known to be working on these, and it surely wouldn’t be any news, to them that we are trying to catch up.”
"“If your man were able to get us real news about these matters, we’d award him a D.S.M. when the war is over.”
"“To award him American citizenship might be more to the point,” opined Lanny.
"“We shall see.”
"They talked about the presidential agent’s own job, what information he might get in Vichy territory, and what use was likely to be made of it. Alston said that he agreed with the Chief in thinking that they ought to open a second front across the Channel in the summer of 1942, if only for the sake of its effect upon the Russians. “Even if we could do no more than establish a bridgehead, it would pay us in the long run, however costly. But between you and me, Lanny, I don’t think we are going to be able to budge Churchill on this issue. I appreciate him as a propagandist, but he fancies himself also as a military strategist, and I fear he is somewhat vain on the subject. Certainly I have found him hard to argue with; he does all the talking.”
"“I can imagine it,” responded Lanny with a grin. “He was so glad to get his troops off that shore, no doubt the idea of sending them back again gives him nightmares.”
"“He argues that our American troops are utterly untested, and who can be sure they would stand the punishment they would get from the Panzers and from the overhead strafing?”
"“To say nothing of the subs on the way across, Professor. You can be sure that Hitler would throw in everything he has to make good the promises he has fed to his own people. It would be a life and death matter for him.”
"“I have listened to the arguments of the military men on both sides; there is very little agreement among them. We shift in our discussions from Cherbourg to Dakar, to Casablanca, Algiers, and Tunis. Then Churchill takes us to Salonika and the Vardar valley, and even to his old stamping ground of Gallipoli. Then we come back to Cherbourg. But this much I can tell you quite surely: no information that you bring us and no contacts that you make in Unoccupied France and in North Africa will be wasted. We shall surely be landing there before this war is over, and meantime we have to defend ourselves there, to the extent of keeping Laval out of power and Franco properly worried.”
"“The Governor seemed to think there was no longer any danger of a German attack upon Gibraltar.”
"“It would appear that the time for that has passed. Franco’s demands were more than Hitler was willing to meet; and now, I think, Franco has been brought to realize that we mean business, and he will continue to hold his precarious seat upon the fence.”
"“F.D.R. didn’t seem very clear in his mind whether I am to be an American patriot or a sympathizer with Fascism in my secret heart. It will hardly be possible to play both roles, at least not for long.”
"“Nobody can tell you about that, Lanny. You will have to go and find out what changes a year has made, and what your probable sources of information are, and then make your own decision as to which side of the fence to be on. A lot of Frenchmen will be doing the same, I fancy.”
"“No doubt about that!” agreed the P.A. with a touch of bitterness."
Last day before Lanny was to leave, Agnes thoughtfully kept herself away, with work and an evening out, but they couldn't say much. Lanny couldn't talk about work except that he'd likely travel to Vichy France, and they didn't want to show emotion. Lanny might be safely home by midsummer when Laurel was to give birth, and meanwhile she'd written an article about her visit to Red China which was not in accord with general thinking, but she was determined not to change it. She planned to visit her aunt, Mrs Holdenhurst, in Baltimore, after Lanny left, and tell her all they knew about the Oriole .
Lanny refrained from suggesting a seance, since Laurel's seance before his last trip to Europe had warned of danger, but Laurel wanted it so they went ahead with it. This time there was no such warning, but Otto Kahn battered with him, Zaharoff wanted him to pay the man and Marjorie came too, saying she was happy he had behaved better with her granddaughter; but when Lanny spoke, she was displeased and spoke directly, telling him he was being flippant. Laurel woke, and they were relieved about lack of warning of danger.
Robbie sent his man to drive the car back to Newcastle after seeing off Lanny and dropping Laurel back, and she cried later in her pillow.
"P.A. 103 had been placed in the care of “Pan-Am,” with his expenses mysteriously paid. He was not being routed by way of Bermuda because he was in the black books of the British government, which had become suspicious of his intimacy with Rudolf Hess and other leading Nazis. Lanny’s route was via San Juan in Puerto Rico, and thence to the port of Belém in Brazil; he would cross the ocean to a place called Bolamo in Portuguese West Africa, and from there go on to Lisbon. It wasn’t as roundabout as it looked on the maps, and anyhow, distances aren’t so important when you rise eight thousand feet into the air and there are no enemy planes to bother you.
"He was traveling in a million-dollar contrivance, one of mankind’s most surprising achievements. He was one of thirty-three passengers who were provided with every comfort and were looked after by nine young men and one young woman, all carefully trained and clad in natty blue uniforms. Each passenger had an upholstered seat, which at night was made into a bed. There was a buffet where you might help yourself to a variety of tasty foods; there were magazines to read, and a push button which would bring you the services of the good-looking young stewardess. The cabin was soundproof, so you might chat with your fellow passengers, or play cards, checkers, or dominoes. If you were restless you might stroll in the long corridor, and sometimes members of the crew would come down into the cabin and let you ask them foolish questions.
"When you travel on land planes you don’t see much of the places where you alight; you see only the airport, and each is much like the previous one. But on a seaplane you have a good look at harbors and their shipping, and the vast improvements being made in wartime. If the weather is at all rough, it may take a while to bring the rather fragile machine up to the dock; if the reports from the next station happen to be unfavorable, you may have a wait of a day or two and have time to stroll around. So Lanny learned about parts of the earth which he had never seen before; and while up in the air he diligently acquired information about Moorish art and architecture in their period of greatest flowering.
"The title of the book Lanny was reading attracted the attention of a well-groomed young gentleman who gave his name as Faulkner and said he was an instructor in archeology at the University of Chicago. He was on his way to Volubilis, to investigate new excavations which had recently been made there. Lanny doubted it from the first moment and guessed that he was working on “Operation Gymnast,” perhaps under the orders of “Wild Bill” Donovan. But a P.A. asked no questions, and they chatted about the traces of Carthaginian ruins which are to be found in North Africa. Possibly Dr. Faulkner, was as good in guessing about Lanny as Lanny about him; but he, too, kept away from dangerous subjects. When they parted in Lisbon, Lanny said: “My business may bring me to Volubilis before long, and if so, we’ll meet again.” And they did."
............................................................................
"The traveler had been told to report to the consulate in Lisbon, where arrangements were made for his plane passage, first to Madrid and from there to Vichy. He had to wait a couple of days, and this gave him time to observe what another year of neutrality had done to the spy center of Western Europe. The dictator who ruled Portugal was taking no chances, especially since the vast indefinite power of America had been thrown into the scales. The former college professor saw to it that his newspapers published an equal amount of Axis and Allied news, side by side, and he allowed all parties to spend their money in his capital, provided they did not call names or engage in fisticuffs. British and American and German and Italian planes came in at the same airport, and their flyers drank at the same bars, but without speaking. Refugees of all nations and all creeds ate in the cafés while their money lasted, and when it was gone they tried to find someone to take pity on them. Wages were fifty cents a day.
"Not a happy place, not a beautiful place, but one that was useful to a great many people. Lanny avoided the spies and played his own game, visiting the art museum and making inquiries as to private collections and old masters that might be on the market. As an art expert he was no pretender; he knew what to look at, and what prices should be; if he found anything good he might cable, and meantime he could be sure that careful note was being made of his activities and that word concerning them would go to Paris and Madrid and Vichy, London and Berlin and Rome. Dossiers would be compiled, and wherever somebody might wish to make use of him, his hobbies and his weaknesses would be known, and a list of his family connections and friends.
"Then to the great city of Madrid, which in Lanny Budd’s view was surely the most unhappy place in all Europe. Here had been committed the first wholesale murder of the modern age; the murder of a nation, of a free people and their hopes. ... In the best hotel in the city, where he spent the night, the hot-water spigot ran cold and the water was stained with rust. In the elaborately gilded dining-room the meal cost twenty-five dollars and was none too good, but the band played American jazz and the ladies were loaded with diamonds and pearls and the men with gold lace and jeweled decorations. The food choked Lanny, because he knew that in the back alleys of this phony capital the poor were dropping dead from malnutrition, and millions of the enemies of the regime were in prisons and concentration camps. More than three years had passed since the ending of the civil war, but the idea of amnesty was unknown to Franco, and wholesale shootings went on in the prison courtyards night after night. Soldiers were everywhere, and a surplus of swaggering officers and strutting armed Falangists, the Party gangsters."
Lanny called on art collectors he knew.
"General Aguilar would receive him even though his country was now at war with the General’s dear friends and patrons, Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini. Over the usual copitas de manzanilla the white-whiskered old conquistador told Lanny about a very beautiful Madonna and Child by Murillo, which a friend of his might be willing to part with; incidentally the General did his best to persuade Lanny to part with information about what America was planning to do in aid of the Bolsheviks and against the defenders of the Faith."
Lanny flew to Vichy, with spring making the country beautiful.
"Into this small watering place and summer resort a good part of the haute bourgeoisie of Paris and other cities of northern and northwestern France had been driven by bombing and terror. Here they pawned their jewels and furs and lived the same wasteful lives that had brought their country to ruin. Food was supposed to be rationed; but the black market ruled, and a corrupt and enfeebled government was powerless against it. The Germans left enough food for those who could buy it, for they wanted the help of that same haute bourgeoisie.
"Lanny found lodgings, not without difficulty, and surely not without price. He did not ask official favors, but set to work at his private business of exchanging American dollars for French works of art. He had established contacts on two previous visits and knew where to go; he could be certain that his arrival would be noted and that politicians and officials would seek him out. They might guess that he was there for ulterior purposes, but they couldn’t prove it and would treat him with French courtesy. Wonderful is that power called “social position”; the elegance, the aloofness, the assurance that come with the possession of wealth—and not crude wealth, but wealth that your family and your friends and your class have possessed for generations, so that it is like the air you breathe and do not have to think about."
Lanny heard his name called as he sat at a cafe, and turned to see M. Jacques Benoist-Méchin, journalist-snob and little brother to the rich. They had a chat, and the new minister thought that the only future lay in loyal collaboration with the new order established on the old continent. Lanny agreed, and knew that neither believed the other, but this was Darlan's man, and Lanny could use a meeting. Lanny got an invitation by messenger to call, and strolled over.
" ... they did not love France so much as they hated and feared the Soviet Union and the collectivist ideas which were spreading over Europe. It was a continuation of the political point of view which Lanny had heard expressed in a hundred French drawing-rooms prior to the outbreak of the war: “Better Hitler than Blum.”
"Now this policy was working itself out; Hitler was saving France from the Bolsheviks, and Frenchmen who didn’t like it were being thrown into concentration camps or shot at once. When an act of sabotage was committed, the Nazis would seize twenty or fifty perfectly innocent Frenchmen who had the misfortune to live in the neighborhood. A week after Pierre Laval took power, thirty such “hostages” were executed by a firing squad at Rouen, and the very next day twenty more were shot at St. Nazaire. A government of Frenchmen had to stand this, and even defend it! No wonder the land was a seething caldron of hate!"
Lanny told Darlan that he'd decided to come live in his home at Bienvenu and ignore the U.S. advisory to U.S. nationals, and ask his mother to do so.
"Lanny was wondering, with cold chills running over him: Does Darlan know that I have been to Russia and talked with Stalin? If this should be brought up, Lanny had his story ready—that he had promised his friend Rudolf Hess that he would try to use his father’s influence to get into the Red Empire and find out what he could about conditions there and the intentions and plans of its masters. Hess was one man with whom Darlan would be unable to check!
"When the Admiral asked if M. Budd had any idea where the Americans were planning to attack, Lanny tried no evasions, but answered quite truthfully that he had heard on good authority that the American military leaders were in a state of confusion, and that their discussions ranged all the way from the English Channel to Dakar and from there to the Vardar valley in Greece. The Frenchman said that was in accordance with his own information, and this, naturally, raised the value of Lanny’s stock.
" ... he said just what Benoist-Méchin had said, that France was going to have its own kind of New Deal, la Nouvelle Ordre, and from now on traitors and the dupes of traitors were going to have a hard time of it. This referred especially to the puppet government which the British had set up in London under that arch-traitor, Charles de Gaulle. “Seadogs” are supposed to have their own special brand of profanity, and Darlan produced it both in French and English when he named this abhorred personality.
"“You hear fools discussing what is going to be done with the French Fleet, M. Budd,” pronounced Admiral Darlan. “Well, you may tell them for me, its master, that the French Fleet is going to defend the honor and the glory of France. It is not going to be surrendered, and it is not going to run away, and it is not going to be scuttled. To the last vessel and the last man, it is going to fight whatever enemies may dare to interfere with it.”
"And there was something for “Traveler” to put into a report, marked “Personal for the President”!"
Being Darlan's friend made Lanny welcome for all collaborators, and he heard them.
"When they had taken the gamble of making friends with Hitler, they had assumed that Britain was done for and must soon quit; but Britain had refused to quit, and now, nearly two years later, had the help of the great new power overseas. What was that going to mean? The collaborators listened gladly to an American who told what they wanted to hear, that it wouldn’t be long before the American people awakened to the fact that in trying to oppose Herr Hitler they were merely helping Comrade Stalin."
So he was invited to their homes and heard buzz of gossip, which was convenirnt, since it made it easy for him to collect information he'd come for. Otto Abetz was fallen in disfavour with Gestapo and SS.
"Herr Hitler was demanding more food, more manufactured goods, more French workers for the factories of Germany, more fighters for his Anti-Bolshevik Legion. The good and kind Herr Abetz was about to be replaced by some such man as Jacques Doriot, one-time Communist agitator who had turned against his gang and was now the most ruthless of Fascist bullies. And instead of the noble-minded old Maréchal, Vichy would have a Gauleiter such as now was ruling Poland.
" ...They were going to make a thorough job of the “coupling” this time. There would be no more nonsense of trying to serve two masters, no more provocation to those upon whom the future of France depended. The French workers who were so desperately needed in the German factories would be forced there by shutting down great numbers of factories at home; and to keep them in order meantime, there would be a new police force, special troops trained by the Germans, who had learned the job with their own SA and SS. All this Lanny learned from Benoist-Méchin, another Secretary of State to the Premier, whom he invited to lunch and provided with a bottle of the best wine to be found in the town. This high cabinet member revealed that he was going to be entrusted with the presidency of a committee to organize the “Tricolor Legion” and put down once for all the traitorous movements which the puppet De Gaulle was seeking to spread throughout France. The nucleus of the new body was to be the already-existing “Anti-Bolshevik Legion” organized by Jacques Doriot and Eugène Deloncle. “Believe me,” said Benoist-Méchin, “these are fighting men, and they mean business.”"
Lanny said he'd met Deloncle at the De Bruyne home, and Benoist-Méchin told him Charlot was in Vichy France. They met and talked about family and politics, Lanny maintaining his art expert neutral stance. Charlot talked about the Tricolour Legion.
Lanny asked about Denis fils, the elder brother, and was told he'd gone South, hoping France wouldn't give up the fight. Lanny said he was going to Algiers and might look him up. Lanny didnt intend to see Pétain, and would have liked to escape to where he could make his report from, before attracting nazi attention.
"But just as he was making inquiries about travel accommodations to the south, he ran into Count René de Chambrun, descendant of the Marquis de Lafayette and husband of Pierre Laval’s only daughter."
He said the premier would like to see Lanny. Lanny called, and was invited to accompany Laval home to Chateldon.
"“I desire a German victory,” declared Pierre Laval. “Indeed, I consider that a German victory has been achieved, and that to reverse it would involve the total destruction of Europe.”
"Accordingly, he went on to declare, the government of French North Africa was furnishing food to the army of General Rommel in Italian North Africa and intended to go on doing so regardless of anything that America might say or do. Accordingly, the government had worked out elaborate plans for making the French workers want to go to Germany, and for sending them whether they wanted to or not. Pierre Laval clenched his hairy fists and used the language of a butcher’s son in expressing his hatred of the men who were secretly trying to thwart this policy and his determination to stamp their faces into their own excrement.
"The greedy and vulgar man with the dark complexion and the slanting eyes, which had caused his enemies to call him “the Mongolian rascal,” had not one word of reprobation concerning the wholesale murders of French men and women which the Nazis were carrying on all over the occupied portions of the country. He justified their scheme of compelling the French to print and give to them three hundred million paper francs every day, including Sundays and holidays. This was supposed to be for the upkeep of the German army of occupation, but the Nazi economic commissions were using it to buy up the most important industrial properties of the captive land. Laval was following his old practice of getting a rake-off on many of these—for his services in browbeating the owners into giving way.
"He had put Daladier and Reynaud and Blum, and the rest of his opponents in the prewar government of France, on trial for their lives. He had done it against his own judgment, for he knew how much he had to hide. Hitler and Abetz and others of his new masters had demanded it, hoping to prove these men guilty of causing the war. Instead, the trial had turned into an effort to prove the defendants guilty of losing the war, a different matter and no crime in Nazi eyes. They had put up such a vigorous defense of their public course that the trial had dominated the news of the world. The Nazis had ordered it stopped, and those too eloquent public men were shut up in fortresses—whether guilty or innocent."
............................................................................
Next morning Lanny typed his report and saw it personally delivered at the embassy door, and set out South.
"The trains were running again—it was the classic boast of Fascism that it caused the trains to run on time. They were jammed with people who were trying to get to some place where they hoped that life would be a little less hard than they had found it where they were. They squatted on the floors or in one another’s laps, and slept that way if they could. Lanny had learned in China that the conductor of a train keeps some compartment locked on chance that somebody will pay him a cumshaw for the use of it; in France it is called a pourboire—for a drink—and Lanny paid enough to keep any conductor properly alcoholized for a week. ... If he wanted to meet the rich and powerful he had to look like one of them, and they are watchful and severe in their judgments."
Beauty was there to receive him, glad and thankful to see him alive after the uncertainty she had more than once of seeing him ever again. They exchanged news. Beauty was happy about Laurel expecting, and said she was right for him. They drove home in the horse carriage Beauty used now.
Beauty knew her son well, and wasn't the dumb chatterbox concerned only with fashion et al that most people take beautiful woman to be, which few are, and the author describes it beautifully, movingly, from time to time. Beauty knew her son's heart and knew if he was ok live with a woman long before he did, if she met her, as in case of Marie De Bruyne and Laurel Creston, but sometimes even when she had never met her and didn't even know her name, as in case of Trudi.
"There was something that called Lanny away, and it hadn’t taken her shrewd mind many years to guess what the thing must be. Always the call came by mail; there were letters postmarked Toulon which took him westward, and others from Geneva which took him northward. Beauty had studied the handwriting and guessed that the former came from Raoul Palma, whom she had known for twenty years or more as one of Lanny’s Leftist friends; the other writing she did not know, but it had peculiarities which were German, and she had noted that Lanny generally went into Germany after getting one of these letters.
"She knew much more about this strange son than he guessed. She had become certain that he had never changed his political coloration, as he gave the world to understand; if he had, he would never have become a friend of Laurel Creston’s—to say nothing of marrying her. The idea that he was a secret Leftist terrified her, for she knew what danger it meant in times like these. The fact that he refused to take her into his confidence hurt her, but she had to accept his cryptic statement: “A promise is a promise, old darling.” She had kept these speculations hidden in the deepest corner of her mind, and even her best friends believed that she believed her son to be an art expert, traveling about the world only in search of beautiful paintings.
"Beauty’s instructions were never to forward his mail, because of the uncertainty of his movements and of communications in wartime. She put the papers and magazines on a closet shelf and locked the letters up in her escritoire. There was a considerable packet after a whole year, and she didn’t make him ask for them, but put them into his hands without delay. He would not look at them in her presence, but would take them off to his study to read and perhaps answer. He would never entrust the replies to the postman who delivered mail at the estate every day, but would find some excuse to go into Cannes and there presumably drop them into an inconspicuous box. All this she had observed for years and had tactfully pretended to observe nothing."
There were letters from Raoul Palma and Monck, which Lanny opened first when he went to his study.
"Alone in his study, Lanny set aside a number of unimportant letters and tore open those which had to do with a P.A.’s job. There were three which had come from Raoul, all mailed in Toulon and signed with the code name “Bruges.” According to their practice, the text had to do solely with the purchase of paintings; when Raoul wrote that he had located an especially fine Meissonier, it meant that he had important news about the war; when he said that the painting could be purchased for eighty thousand francs, it meant that he wanted Lanny to bring him that amount of money. In the last of his letters, mailed over three months ago, “Bruges” said that he had been distressed to hear about M. Budd’s plane accident and hoped soon to hear of his recovery. That didn’t surprise Lanny, for the Budd family was well known in Juan-les-Pins and near-by Cannes, and Raoul had many friends in the neighborhood who could tell him what members of that family were doing.
"There was only one letter from Bernhardt Monck, and that was six months old. He had discovered a fine work by the Swiss painter Hodler, and since this painter had done most of his work and attained most of his fame in Germany, Lanny could guess what that meant. Monck wanted only five thousand Swiss francs, but each of these was worth more than ten of the depreciated francs of Vichy. Lanny had no way to reach Monck by mail; he would have to go to Geneva, on chance that the old-time Social Democrat would still be doing research work in the public library there.
"Raoul’s last letter said: “I am still employed by the bookstore.” So Lanny wrote a note to “M. Bruges” in care of the Armand Mercier bookstore, Toulon, saying: “I am home again, and much interested in what you tell about having come upon a Meissonier painting. The price is reasonable, if you are sure of its genuineness. Let me know at once if it is available, and I will come.” He added: “I don’t want to take any chance of finding that it has already been sold, as happened in the case of the Daumier drawings.” That was asking Raoul whether there was any chance of Lanny’s getting into trouble, as had happened to him on his last visit to Toulon.
"According to Beauty’s expectation, Lanny came to her, saying: “I have to go into town to attend to some matters at the bank. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take the buggy, because I’ll buy some presents for our friends whom I have been neglecting.” The generous-hearted Lanny, so the friends would all think; but he didn’t fool his keen-minded mother, who had been Robbie Budd’s side-partner in munitions deals for a couple of decades and knew all there was to know about intrigue. She had observed this business of giving presents to people who needed them and to others who didn’t, and she had managed to figure out what it meant. Lanny must be needing money in small denominations which could not be traced through the bank, and this was his way of getting large bills changed. She had even noticed that his pockets were bulging when he came home! Now she said: “All right,” and didn’t offer him the pleasure of her company on the expedition. She knew that when he had got the money, he would be leaving shortly."
Lanny heard about his stepfather Parsifal Dingle's seances with Madame Zyszynski where the Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka was replaced by one Jain monk from ninth century from southern coast of India - the author is rather careful to even use the word India, and says Travancore, which was a small state, for instance comparable to Belgium in Europe. And perhaps for the same reason the author has racist prejudice agaisnt the mainstream Indian culture termed Hinduism by West, which is not that different from the name india given to the subcontinent by West. Lanny tried, but didnt succeed, and the suthor wonders if its because he was sceptical and tried to interpret spirits as subconscious minds of the medium and others, which the author does at length every single time there is any such phenomena.
Lanny finally heard from Raoul who asked him to come but be cautious, and got ready to go, getting more cash and ticket on a train to Toulon. As they drove to Cannes, Beauty got a letter from Marceline from a village near Berlin, which she gave Lanny to read. Marceline wanted to come home to visit when Oskar was back at the war front, and Beauty was worried that the daughter being involved with a German and living in Berlin won't endear her to Beauty's French and American and British friends.
............................................................................
Lanny went to the bookstore in Toulon and Raoul came out after a while, and told him where to meet later, after making sure no one would hear. Lanny was cautious and went to Grand Hotel for dinner instead of a workers cafe, but ran into Mademoiselle Richards who had lured him to buy paintings and helped the partisans kidnap him, while maintaining pretense that she was terrorised by them and they were unknown bandits.
Lanny decided to have fun and insisted she have dinner with him, and solicitously asked if she was all right. She was taken in with his naivete and accepted. He plied her with expensive dishes at dinner and went on asking about the art collection of Madame Latour that she'd lured him to go with her to see, and she didn't know what to say other than that she knew nothing of art. He assured her he was a serious art dealer building up art collections in the new nation he was from, and she wondered if that was to be interpreted as his cautious way of telling her he wasn't fascist. She wondered if hed run into her accidentally or knew she worked at the hotel and went home at this time.
Lanny went off to meet Raoul after dinner and they spoke of the abduction, and Raoul said he'd been sent away with an excuse since they knew Lanny was his friend and funded his school; Lanny told him about Mademoiselle Richards, and Raoul said Lanny must leave Toulon immediately, he was in danger. But Lanny refused to be worried, and said he had messeges and was supposed to get into touch with partisans, and Americans were coming. Raoul said French remembered St. Nazaire when French rose to help the British but they were only a commando raid, and Germans massacred the French after they left. Lanny offered credentials.
"I am authorized, at my discretion, to meet some of the underground leaders and put them in touch with our Intelligence service.”
"“But, Lanny, they are convinced that you are a Fascist agent. It won’t be easy to persuade them otherwise.”
"“It won’t be enough if you vouch for me?”
"“I am afraid not. It might work the other way and lead them to distrust me. I must tell you, the leader you tried to recognize is a Communist, and you know how it is between the Communists and the Socialists. We have a truce for the struggle against the Nazis and try to keep the agreement loyally, but it is very hard for a Communist to recognize any loyalty or faith except to his own Party. This man is suspicious of me and inclined to oppose any proposition I put before our group. Probably in his heart he suspects me of trying to take the leadership away from him.”
""Tell me this: will your leader respect credentials from President Roosevelt?”
"“Ah, mon Dieu, Lanny! If you have that, we can knock him cold!”"
Lanny told him about his being a presidential agent, known only to few people, and Raoul said he'd arrange for Lanny to meet them, and for safety until then they arranged Lanny to be in a movie theatre. Lanny purchased a ticket and settled to see a French crime and passion film.
"Germans didn’t care how degraded the French became, provided only that their films contained no ideas of liberty or democracy, or the glory of France past or present. They had tried offering newsreels showing Nazis troopers marching and Nazi propagandists speaking bad French, but the audiences had booed and rioted, and after a few experiments the Nazis had given up and just let the Vichyites feed themselves on their own native garbage."
Promptly at the time they'd set Lanny walked out and joined Raoul who said the partisans wouldn't reveal themselves until they were satisfied.
""What makes them suspicious is that you deserted the school and turned into a Fascist so long ago.”
"“But that was the way I managed to get information. Did you tell them how I brought it to you, and how you fed it to the Socialist press?”
"“I told them all that, and that it was on your money they have been operating most of the time. But it’s the old trouble—the Reds don’t want to have to believe anything good about the Pinks. They’d have a hard time not being pleased if it should turn out that I am a Fascist agent, spying upon them all.”"
Lanny met them in a dark room and was questioned, and told about himself, including about Trudi. They asked what President Roosevelt wanted of them, and he said the policy was different in occupied France where arms and ammunition were supplied, while in Vichy France they were free to deal with nazi agents. He said they could publish leaflets, which they said they did. He said he was instructed to get a name and put them in touch with Donovan who would send an agent, and he asked them to return his coat with least possible damage after they'd seen the card from President Roosevelt and return the card too. They allowed him to see them, and the leader, who had kidnapped him, asked him to call him Zed, but Lanny recognised him from Cannes, it was Jean Catroux. He was introduced to Mademoiselle Richards whose name was given as Mademoiselle Bléret, whether real or not, and she apologised profusely.
"“This we have to assure you,” put in Catroux, alias “Zed.” “Every franc of the money taken from you was used for the cause.”
"“I took that for granted,” Lanny said. “It appealed to my sense of humor that you expended so much effort to get what Comrade Bruges would have brought to you more quickly.”"
Catroux wasn't pleased and took charge, telling Lanny that name to be given was that of Bruges, which was Raoul Palma. Lanny impressed upon them that they were not to speak of him, even if he was heard of in Nazi company, and that the French fleet mustn't fall into German hands. They assured him on that point, and said the men will sink it before Germans could get it.
Lanny decided to have fun and insisted she have dinner with him, and solicitously asked if she was all right. She was taken in with his naivete and accepted. He plied her with expensive dishes at dinner and went on asking about the art collection of Madame Latour that she'd lured him to go with her to see, and she didn't know what to say other than that she knew nothing of art. He assured her he was a serious art dealer building up art collections in the new nation he was from, and she wondered if that was to be interpreted as his cautious way of telling her he wasn't fascist. She wondered if hed run into her accidentally or knew she worked at the hotel and went home at this time.
Lanny went off to meet Raoul after dinner and they spoke of the abduction, and Raoul said he'd been sent away with an excuse since they knew Lanny was his friend and funded his school; Lanny told him about Mademoiselle Richards, and Raoul said Lanny must leave Toulon immediately, he was in danger. But Lanny refused to be worried, and said he had messeges and was supposed to get into touch with partisans, and Americans were coming. Raoul said French remembered St. Nazaire when French rose to help the British but they were only a commando raid, and Germans massacred the French after they left. Lanny offered credentials.
"I am authorized, at my discretion, to meet some of the underground leaders and put them in touch with our Intelligence service.”
"“But, Lanny, they are convinced that you are a Fascist agent. It won’t be easy to persuade them otherwise.”
"“It won’t be enough if you vouch for me?”
"“I am afraid not. It might work the other way and lead them to distrust me. I must tell you, the leader you tried to recognize is a Communist, and you know how it is between the Communists and the Socialists. We have a truce for the struggle against the Nazis and try to keep the agreement loyally, but it is very hard for a Communist to recognize any loyalty or faith except to his own Party. This man is suspicious of me and inclined to oppose any proposition I put before our group. Probably in his heart he suspects me of trying to take the leadership away from him.”
""Tell me this: will your leader respect credentials from President Roosevelt?”
"“Ah, mon Dieu, Lanny! If you have that, we can knock him cold!”"
Lanny told him about his being a presidential agent, known only to few people, and Raoul said he'd arrange for Lanny to meet them, and for safety until then they arranged Lanny to be in a movie theatre. Lanny purchased a ticket and settled to see a French crime and passion film.
"Germans didn’t care how degraded the French became, provided only that their films contained no ideas of liberty or democracy, or the glory of France past or present. They had tried offering newsreels showing Nazis troopers marching and Nazi propagandists speaking bad French, but the audiences had booed and rioted, and after a few experiments the Nazis had given up and just let the Vichyites feed themselves on their own native garbage."
Promptly at the time they'd set Lanny walked out and joined Raoul who said the partisans wouldn't reveal themselves until they were satisfied.
""What makes them suspicious is that you deserted the school and turned into a Fascist so long ago.”
"“But that was the way I managed to get information. Did you tell them how I brought it to you, and how you fed it to the Socialist press?”
"“I told them all that, and that it was on your money they have been operating most of the time. But it’s the old trouble—the Reds don’t want to have to believe anything good about the Pinks. They’d have a hard time not being pleased if it should turn out that I am a Fascist agent, spying upon them all.”"
Lanny met them in a dark room and was questioned, and told about himself, including about Trudi. They asked what President Roosevelt wanted of them, and he said the policy was different in occupied France where arms and ammunition were supplied, while in Vichy France they were free to deal with nazi agents. He said they could publish leaflets, which they said they did. He said he was instructed to get a name and put them in touch with Donovan who would send an agent, and he asked them to return his coat with least possible damage after they'd seen the card from President Roosevelt and return the card too. They allowed him to see them, and the leader, who had kidnapped him, asked him to call him Zed, but Lanny recognised him from Cannes, it was Jean Catroux. He was introduced to Mademoiselle Richards whose name was given as Mademoiselle Bléret, whether real or not, and she apologised profusely.
"“This we have to assure you,” put in Catroux, alias “Zed.” “Every franc of the money taken from you was used for the cause.”
"“I took that for granted,” Lanny said. “It appealed to my sense of humor that you expended so much effort to get what Comrade Bruges would have brought to you more quickly.”"
Catroux wasn't pleased and took charge, telling Lanny that name to be given was that of Bruges, which was Raoul Palma. Lanny impressed upon them that they were not to speak of him, even if he was heard of in Nazi company, and that the French fleet mustn't fall into German hands. They assured him on that point, and said the men will sink it before Germans could get it.
............................................................................
Lanny stopped at Bienvenu, ostensibly to have his suit repaired and clothes laundered, but really to see if there was a letter from Monck. There wasn't, so he decided to take a chance and proceeded to Geneva, and having arrived by train along the Rhone valley and put up at Hotel Beau Rivage, wrote and mailed his report before setting forth to establish himself as art dealer, and through a connection met the editor of the Journal de Genève, which then had an interview with his photograph published. Thus he sent a message to Monck whose address he never knew, and went to the public library to wait, where Monck came later. They met late in the evening. Monck remarked about the delay in Lanny's coming, and Lanny explained the ordeals he had had, plane crash and Hong Kong, in the interim.
Monck said German attack in Russia in South was imminent, and Lanny assu6him U.S. was coming in in a big way. Monck had questions about U.S. capability Anand Lanny mentioned they mass produced everything, including ships, now, on assembly lines. He also mentioned recent invention of devices detecting submarines submerged, which could then be targeted by aircraft from aircraft carrier navy ships, and an army of eight to ten million men. Monck said it took years to train, and Lanny said not to worry, but rebuild the underground.
"“I am a German, but you know that I am a true revolutionist and am not seduced by any touch of pride in what the Nazi armies have achieved. But I have firsthand knowledge of their efficiency, and my mind is not equal to the task of imagining an army brought from overseas being powerful enough to drive the Nazis out of the strongholds they have taken, all the way from Kharkov to Bordeaux, and from Narvik to Tobruk.”"
Lanny assured him that U.S. was surging on strength of air power, which had proved the critical element of war. He told Monck about his reporting to the President, and that it would be more efficient if Monck was directly in touch, as was proposed by Lanny's boss. He convinced Monck to do so without taking his contacts into confidence. They spoke about Germany, which Monck had sources to know about since he lived close to border.
"Göring was not doing so well with his promise that no bombs would fall on German cities; they were falling faster and faster and doing great damage. But this had not suggested any idea of defeat to the population, so far as a former Social Democratic official had been able to learn; it merely made them rage at their enemies, calling them Barbaren and Mörder; they discovered that the bombing of cities was a dastardly and wicked practice. Said Monck: “You would think they had never heard of Guernica and Barcelona and Madrid, to say nothing of Warsaw and Rotterdam, Coventry and London.”"
Lanny said they'd seen only the beginning; American flyers were learning to fly british planes, and soon american planes would be coming over.
"Not even the British believed the Americans could make a success of their precision bombing by day; the British, too, would be shown, predicted the son of Budd-Erling. He said it was important to know the details of damage done to targets of the raids, and Monck undertook to get what information he could. Lanny was amused to note his phrase: “I will endeavor to establish a system.”"
Lanny asked about the all important question of whether Monck had, could establish, contacts with German scientists, and Monck said it was difficult, they wouldn't know how many had fallen or turned; Lanny said they only needed to know locations of heavy water production plants, which would be close to hydro electric power centres. Monck said he'd see.
"“Next, we understand the Nazis are working on a jet-propelled bomb which will carry great distances, perhaps one or two hundred miles.”
"“I have heard rumors of that, Genosse.”
"“Such bombs might do great damage in a city like London which covers an immense area. We want every possible kind of information about them: the structure of the bomb, where it is manufactured, the location of the launching sites. They will be camouflaged, of course, and difficult to get at. We have heard reports that the Nazis are putting some of their more important manufacturing plants under the ground, or in caves.”
"“We have many caves in our country. I am told that some of them have been turned into comfortable working places.”
"“We have saboteurs who are training to go into Germany, and no doubt we shall soon be dropping them from parachutes. Get us every scrap of information you can about war industries and their products, about military plans, about transportation, about German connections here in Switzerland—”
"“This is quite a task you are setting me,” said this Socialist Party member. He said it with no trace of a smile.
"“Get what you can,” said Lanny. “No one will ask more. Give me the name you are using here and where a note can reach you. That will be in President Roosevelt’s hands in three or four days. How soon there will be a man to contact you, I cannot say, but it should not be long. And above all, put anxieties out of your mind; you will have a new and fresh organization behind you, more powerful than anything the Hitlerites have ever dreamed. We Americans may be too confident, and we may get more than one bloody nose in this war; but it has never occurred to us as a people that we can fail, and I promise you that we won’t forget those who have helped us.”
"Backing up these confident words, Lanny transferred to his friend’s pockets a lot of Swiss banknotes of various denominations—he had established his bank credit here long ago for his purposes of picture purchasing. “I took the liberty of buying a diamond ring for your wife,” he added. “She will probably not wish to wear it under present circumstances, but it is a convenient thing to have hidden away in case of emergency.” He told Monck about his own marriage, and received his congratulations."
Lanny visited Bern and went about art business, and saw some private collections, after which he returned to Geneva and took the night train to Cannes.
Lanny stopped at Bienvenu, ostensibly to have his suit repaired and clothes laundered, but really to see if there was a letter from Monck. There wasn't, so he decided to take a chance and proceeded to Geneva, and having arrived by train along the Rhone valley and put up at Hotel Beau Rivage, wrote and mailed his report before setting forth to establish himself as art dealer, and through a connection met the editor of the Journal de Genève, which then had an interview with his photograph published. Thus he sent a message to Monck whose address he never knew, and went to the public library to wait, where Monck came later. They met late in the evening. Monck remarked about the delay in Lanny's coming, and Lanny explained the ordeals he had had, plane crash and Hong Kong, in the interim.
Monck said German attack in Russia in South was imminent, and Lanny assu6him U.S. was coming in in a big way. Monck had questions about U.S. capability Anand Lanny mentioned they mass produced everything, including ships, now, on assembly lines. He also mentioned recent invention of devices detecting submarines submerged, which could then be targeted by aircraft from aircraft carrier navy ships, and an army of eight to ten million men. Monck said it took years to train, and Lanny said not to worry, but rebuild the underground.
"“I am a German, but you know that I am a true revolutionist and am not seduced by any touch of pride in what the Nazi armies have achieved. But I have firsthand knowledge of their efficiency, and my mind is not equal to the task of imagining an army brought from overseas being powerful enough to drive the Nazis out of the strongholds they have taken, all the way from Kharkov to Bordeaux, and from Narvik to Tobruk.”"
Lanny assured him that U.S. was surging on strength of air power, which had proved the critical element of war. He told Monck about his reporting to the President, and that it would be more efficient if Monck was directly in touch, as was proposed by Lanny's boss. He convinced Monck to do so without taking his contacts into confidence. They spoke about Germany, which Monck had sources to know about since he lived close to border.
"Göring was not doing so well with his promise that no bombs would fall on German cities; they were falling faster and faster and doing great damage. But this had not suggested any idea of defeat to the population, so far as a former Social Democratic official had been able to learn; it merely made them rage at their enemies, calling them Barbaren and Mörder; they discovered that the bombing of cities was a dastardly and wicked practice. Said Monck: “You would think they had never heard of Guernica and Barcelona and Madrid, to say nothing of Warsaw and Rotterdam, Coventry and London.”"
Lanny said they'd seen only the beginning; American flyers were learning to fly british planes, and soon american planes would be coming over.
"Not even the British believed the Americans could make a success of their precision bombing by day; the British, too, would be shown, predicted the son of Budd-Erling. He said it was important to know the details of damage done to targets of the raids, and Monck undertook to get what information he could. Lanny was amused to note his phrase: “I will endeavor to establish a system.”"
Lanny asked about the all important question of whether Monck had, could establish, contacts with German scientists, and Monck said it was difficult, they wouldn't know how many had fallen or turned; Lanny said they only needed to know locations of heavy water production plants, which would be close to hydro electric power centres. Monck said he'd see.
"“Next, we understand the Nazis are working on a jet-propelled bomb which will carry great distances, perhaps one or two hundred miles.”
"“I have heard rumors of that, Genosse.”
"“Such bombs might do great damage in a city like London which covers an immense area. We want every possible kind of information about them: the structure of the bomb, where it is manufactured, the location of the launching sites. They will be camouflaged, of course, and difficult to get at. We have heard reports that the Nazis are putting some of their more important manufacturing plants under the ground, or in caves.”
"“We have many caves in our country. I am told that some of them have been turned into comfortable working places.”
"“We have saboteurs who are training to go into Germany, and no doubt we shall soon be dropping them from parachutes. Get us every scrap of information you can about war industries and their products, about military plans, about transportation, about German connections here in Switzerland—”
"“This is quite a task you are setting me,” said this Socialist Party member. He said it with no trace of a smile.
"“Get what you can,” said Lanny. “No one will ask more. Give me the name you are using here and where a note can reach you. That will be in President Roosevelt’s hands in three or four days. How soon there will be a man to contact you, I cannot say, but it should not be long. And above all, put anxieties out of your mind; you will have a new and fresh organization behind you, more powerful than anything the Hitlerites have ever dreamed. We Americans may be too confident, and we may get more than one bloody nose in this war; but it has never occurred to us as a people that we can fail, and I promise you that we won’t forget those who have helped us.”
"Backing up these confident words, Lanny transferred to his friend’s pockets a lot of Swiss banknotes of various denominations—he had established his bank credit here long ago for his purposes of picture purchasing. “I took the liberty of buying a diamond ring for your wife,” he added. “She will probably not wish to wear it under present circumstances, but it is a convenient thing to have hidden away in case of emergency.” He told Monck about his own marriage, and received his congratulations."
Lanny visited Bern and went about art business, and saw some private collections, after which he returned to Geneva and took the night train to Cannes.
............................................................................
The first thing he saw on a lighting the train was Marceline, since the telegraph he'd sent had arrived. They talked about their lives, Marceline going first, asking about Laurel and why he hadn't brought her, and why couldnt he sell more Detazes.
"“I am not going back into Germany,” she declared, and there her questioning of Lanny halted and his questioning of her began. Had she ceased to love Oskar? She made a sort of moue and said that she loved him as much as she was willing to love any man, but she couldn’t stand the Germans, especially since America had entered the war. Graf von Herzenberg, Oskar’s father, had used his influence to make it possible for her to go on dancing and to enjoy complete freedom, but he couldn’t keep the German women from making snide remarks whenever she came near them, and asking her how her countrymen dared to bomb the most beautiful cities in the world and to kill the most cultured people in the world.
"“You know, Lanny, I never had the least idea of being patriotic. I’m only half an American, and that by accident; nationalities meant nothing to me, and I hardly bothered to know where the countries were. This war has been horrid, I just didn’t want to know about it. But now some Germans have cut me dead, and Oskar can’t bring himself to blame them, and I’m not supposed to blame him, and I don’t—only I do.”"
In short, Marceline was tired of her Prussian aristocrat. Oskar was brave and had been wounded in the war, and Marceline was proud of him, but war was messy, not her business. She'd wanted to go to Moscow since Russians loved dance, but that wasn't possible now, and she asked about N.Y., was she an American citizen?
Social life of Riviera was pretty much at a stop. Americans had gone and the few British left were interned, and those French who attempted to mix with Germans were seen with suspicion by their fellow French.
"Marceline had a raging appetite for pleasure, and to be in what she called the “social whirl.” She hated the war, not because it was killing millions of men and reducing other millions to destitution, but because it was destroying that brightly shining world in which she had won a place by much effort of body and brain. To be an artist did not mean to the daughter of Marcel Detaze what it had meant to her father, to express the deep longings of the human soul for beauty and understanding; it meant to be “somebody,” to have a place in the world of wealth and fashion, to be talked about, and to have eyes turn to follow her when she entered a public place. Now the public places were mostly dark because fuel was so scarce, and a dancer at the height of her career was expected to be content with sitting at home and making up a bridge four with people who had formerly been elegant but now were dependent upon her mother for a place to lay their heads."
Marceline was enraptured to play with her little son who was named after her father, his name legally changed to Marcel Detaze when she divorced Vittorio, but she tired of it when he asked questions and decided it was a grandmother's job. She asked Lanny about all the people they knew, and wanted to know about only the fashionable circle. She wasn't political, but fascists were the only ones who'd take care of the reds.
The author seems to have set up the two half sisters of Lanny as counterbalancesto one another, representing extremes of types that did and do exist politically, and often in the same family. That they were not related to one another, but only to Lanny who is the balanced half brother to each, is the perfect representation, since it avoids the mess of families in agony divided due to such extremes. Also, since they are both sisters, and one brought up wealthy while other brought up in fashionable society and aspiring to that life, any possibility of actually coming to blows is neatly avoided, whether with one another or with Lanny.
"The idea had occurred to him that she might be an excellent person to go into Germany and collect secrets among the military and governmental classes. She would be paid well for it, and she would like that; but after watching her, he decided that he couldn’t trust her. Whether she went to Germany or stayed here on the Riviera she would meet some new man, and whatever his political coloration, she would adopt it, as the way to please him. Doubtless it would be some man of wealth; for after her experience with Vittorio di San Girolamo she had vowed that she would “make them pay.” If she broke with Oskar von Herzenberg she would surely decide that two “romances” were enough, and that next time it must be business."
All the same, it's this apolitical, non-thinker half sister whose love for her brother is exempt of any similarity of character, is the one that would save him at risk to herself at a critical juncture coming up.
The first thing he saw on a lighting the train was Marceline, since the telegraph he'd sent had arrived. They talked about their lives, Marceline going first, asking about Laurel and why he hadn't brought her, and why couldnt he sell more Detazes.
"“I am not going back into Germany,” she declared, and there her questioning of Lanny halted and his questioning of her began. Had she ceased to love Oskar? She made a sort of moue and said that she loved him as much as she was willing to love any man, but she couldn’t stand the Germans, especially since America had entered the war. Graf von Herzenberg, Oskar’s father, had used his influence to make it possible for her to go on dancing and to enjoy complete freedom, but he couldn’t keep the German women from making snide remarks whenever she came near them, and asking her how her countrymen dared to bomb the most beautiful cities in the world and to kill the most cultured people in the world.
"“You know, Lanny, I never had the least idea of being patriotic. I’m only half an American, and that by accident; nationalities meant nothing to me, and I hardly bothered to know where the countries were. This war has been horrid, I just didn’t want to know about it. But now some Germans have cut me dead, and Oskar can’t bring himself to blame them, and I’m not supposed to blame him, and I don’t—only I do.”"
In short, Marceline was tired of her Prussian aristocrat. Oskar was brave and had been wounded in the war, and Marceline was proud of him, but war was messy, not her business. She'd wanted to go to Moscow since Russians loved dance, but that wasn't possible now, and she asked about N.Y., was she an American citizen?
Social life of Riviera was pretty much at a stop. Americans had gone and the few British left were interned, and those French who attempted to mix with Germans were seen with suspicion by their fellow French.
"Marceline had a raging appetite for pleasure, and to be in what she called the “social whirl.” She hated the war, not because it was killing millions of men and reducing other millions to destitution, but because it was destroying that brightly shining world in which she had won a place by much effort of body and brain. To be an artist did not mean to the daughter of Marcel Detaze what it had meant to her father, to express the deep longings of the human soul for beauty and understanding; it meant to be “somebody,” to have a place in the world of wealth and fashion, to be talked about, and to have eyes turn to follow her when she entered a public place. Now the public places were mostly dark because fuel was so scarce, and a dancer at the height of her career was expected to be content with sitting at home and making up a bridge four with people who had formerly been elegant but now were dependent upon her mother for a place to lay their heads."
Marceline was enraptured to play with her little son who was named after her father, his name legally changed to Marcel Detaze when she divorced Vittorio, but she tired of it when he asked questions and decided it was a grandmother's job. She asked Lanny about all the people they knew, and wanted to know about only the fashionable circle. She wasn't political, but fascists were the only ones who'd take care of the reds.
The author seems to have set up the two half sisters of Lanny as counterbalancesto one another, representing extremes of types that did and do exist politically, and often in the same family. That they were not related to one another, but only to Lanny who is the balanced half brother to each, is the perfect representation, since it avoids the mess of families in agony divided due to such extremes. Also, since they are both sisters, and one brought up wealthy while other brought up in fashionable society and aspiring to that life, any possibility of actually coming to blows is neatly avoided, whether with one another or with Lanny.
"The idea had occurred to him that she might be an excellent person to go into Germany and collect secrets among the military and governmental classes. She would be paid well for it, and she would like that; but after watching her, he decided that he couldn’t trust her. Whether she went to Germany or stayed here on the Riviera she would meet some new man, and whatever his political coloration, she would adopt it, as the way to please him. Doubtless it would be some man of wealth; for after her experience with Vittorio di San Girolamo she had vowed that she would “make them pay.” If she broke with Oskar von Herzenberg she would surely decide that two “romances” were enough, and that next time it must be business."
All the same, it's this apolitical, non-thinker half sister whose love for her brother is exempt of any similarity of character, is the one that would save him at risk to herself at a critical juncture coming up.
Lanny would have liked to stay on, but had to go off for work, this time to Algiers and Morocco. He'd seen these places on the cruise as a boy on the Bluebird, Ezra Hackabury's yacht, in company of Marcel Detaze, along with Beauty and her friends.
"Marcel had made it not merely a pleasure cruise, but a culture cruise, a floating university. He had opened the sensitive lad’s mind to the mysteries of human existence on this planet, to awe as well as beauty. For Lanny’s then stepfather had been not merely a painter, but a student and thinker. When he painted the ancient ruins of Greece and Rome he tried to make you feel the sorrow of great things vanished forever. When he painted a Greek shepherd in his rags or a Biskra water carrier in his gray burnoose, Marcel was not just getting something exotic and unusual; he had a heart full of pity for lonely men who lived hard lives and did not understand the forces which dominated them."
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Lanny took a train to Marseille and a steamer to Algiers, which took more than one night, but was supposed to be safe.
"The Allies permitted a supervised trade between Vichy France and its African colonies because they didn’t want to have to fight the French Fleet; the Germans permitted this trade because they were secretly getting a part of the goods. However, you could never be sure that a submarine might not make a mistake; so Lanny spent the night in a steamer chair on deck with a life preserver strapped to one wrist to make sure that nobody else carried it off."
"In midmorning the mountains of the “Dark Continent” loomed up blue-gray on the horizon, and presently the traveler saw the well remembered white city spread out on rapidly rising hills. Most Mediterranean cities are like that, for the sea was formed by the dropping of the land in some geologic convulsion. That is the reason real estate in Mediterranean harbors is high in both altitude and price. It is one of the reasons that the workers live in closely packed tenements of anywhere from four to six stories, many of them centuries old, and which have been repaired about once in a century. The harbor seemed smaller than Lanny remembered it, but that was because Lanny had changed, not the harbor. The city had spread along the shore for miles in both directions. There had been a building boom after World War I, and there was now a modern residential district, with villas and hotels for tourists who came to enjoy the winter climate. The population of the city had been doubled by refugees from France."
Upton Sinclair puts it in quotes, realising it's racist character, but doesn't go further into the West calling the most sun-drenched parts of the world "dark" while in reality it's the Nordic latitudes of Europe that's dark for most of lives of ancestors of those that call themselves "white", since people must go about with a human biological clock and not hibernate like polar bears nor could they stay awake through summer, but do stay awake much of long dark nights of winter and call it evening until the are in bed; and its this living in dark that produces the pale skins that nature bestows on the unborn after centuries of deprivation of light, since absorbing what little sun they get is vital for health, but it isnt white. Unlije animals or birds, humans arent white unless all blood has left, and even then; no human ever gave the illusion of nudity when dressed in white, after all.
Lanny presented letters of introduction and established his credit at one of the banks, and made himself agreeable to the chateaux and villas society in Algiers.
"He was not surprised to find these people pro-Fascist in sentiment. It had been his observation that all colonial peoples are conservative, even reactionary. In Hongkong he had found the English more Tory than all but a small handful of diehards in London, and now he found the businessmen of French North Africa asking nothing but to be let alone."
Again, the author refrains from mentioning to begin with the fact that he isn't speaking of people of Algiers, or any other colony, but of colonial settlers, and so his next sentence wipes out, or reduces to slave or "coolie" status, all locals of every colony. And too, he either doesn't wish to understand or is merely not mentioning, the fact that it's the same racism that makes those colonial settlers pro fascist, for equal status across races is just as, perhaps even more, unthinkable for most of them than for him.
Lanny had met M. Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil at home of Schneider in Paris when such people were invited especially to meet him, and he came across him in Algiers. M. Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil invited Lanny to lunch at the Golf Club. They spoke about Schneider and about the De Bruyne men, and M. Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil told Lanny that Denis fils was in Algiers and was a Gaullist. They spoke of war and politics.
"French chiefs of the Comité des Forges had got their German colleagues and associates to help them with the Nazi officials. They had let these officials into their companies, and thus obtained permission to ship their wealth to their banks in North Africa. Lanny heard about it from one source after another, and some said that ten billion francs had come to Algiers, and others said twenty billion, and all agreed that it was still coming."
M. Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil asked Lanny if he knew Bob Murphy, who was now "Counselor To American Embassy Stationed At Algiers", and Lanny said he'd met the man in Paris when he was stationed there, but he might not remember Lanny. M. Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil said he was a good friend of his, and Lanny understood that while their aims were mutually contradictory, claims of friendship made publicly were just that, and did not necessarily amount to a compromise in duty for Bob Murphy.
M. Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil was interested in the war movement, and asked if Lanny thought the region would be the battleground. Lanny said that if he thought so he wouldnt be there looking at art, and his opinion didn't matter, but his father knew people in position to know, and decision hadn't yet been taken. Lanny brought up the question of what they might find, and his host answered at length, summing up.
M. Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil recommended an educated Arab assistant, named Hajek, for Lanny, and word spread that Lanny was looking for mosaics, fountains and so forth. They went to inspect a fountain, which was beautiful, and there was a long negotiation involving two to three weeks during which Lanny saw more such things and his art expert business identity was established. There was a chance to find another treasure at Constantine which was three or four hundred miles to the East, and they went by train.
"The road ascends along the slopes of the snow-covered Djurdjura Mountains, which form a distant background to the landscape of Algiers. The mountains are brown or gray against a deep blue sky; big trees line the roads, and on isolated points here and there are perched tiny villages of the Kabyles. Everything in this country tells of centuries of invasion and plunder, and the peoples sought safety in the most inaccessible places.
"It is this which had determined the building of the city, one of the strangest a world traveler had seen. It stands on a rocky plateau, surrounded by a chasm of something like a thousand feet, through which flows a roaring river; the plateau is four-sided, something more than half a mile on each side, and there is only a narrow isthmus connecting it with the surrounding land. The rocks are red.
"Ruins were everywhere in this countryside. Through the centuries they had been plundered to build peasant huts and storehouses. Lanny was shown a few stones which marked where a villa had once stood. He took a chance and offered the peasant owner of the land ten thousand francs for the privilege of digging and taking away whatever he might find.
"A couple of days’ digging sufficed to uncover a tessellated floor with a fine representation of the huntress Diana. Lanny stayed right there and saw it taken up piece by piece. With a borrowed camera he took pictures at the start, so it wasn’t necessary to mark each piece; but each had to be wrapped in cloth, and the packing boxes had to be small, and then half a dozen of them packed in larger boxes. This was a lot of work, and his commission would hardly pay for the time; but it was a novelty, and he learned a lot about Arabs which would be useful to him later on. Always he had in mind that the American Army was coming and would want every scrap of information."
This done, he went to see the ruins of the Roman city Thamagudi, built by the Emperor Trajan a hundred years after Christ, subsequently sacked and plundered by Arab invaders and recently resored by French, now called Timgad, in Aurès mountains.
Back in Algiers, Lanny got a note from Denis fils who came to call and they spoke in a private corner. He had escaped Paris with difficulty and had refrained from seeking refuge at Bienvenu since he was wounded soldier who'd fought Germans, and was now in Algiers. Politically he was now on opposite side from that of his father and younger brother.
"Mail between Occupied and Unoccupied France was restricted by the Germans to a postcard with various printed statements, of which you crossed out those which did not apply. It was a criminal offense to use any sort of code—it might even carry the death penalty if you conveyed political or military information. So Denis, fils, could tell his father and his wife and children that he was well, and he could get the same news from them, but he could not tell them what he was thinking or ask what they were thinking."
He was excited about Lanny meeting Charlot, but despaired when he heard of his activity, and wasn't cheered about prospect of Americans coming.
"“The French will shoot him, Lanny. They will call him a traitor, and he is a traitor! What defense can there be for a man who betrays la patrie into the hands of a fripon like Laval or for his apaches who seize French patriots and turn them over to the Nazis to be tortured and shot?”
"Lanny looked about him hastily. “Be careful,” he said, moving a little closer. “Remember, I am a foreigner, and I’m supposed to be here buying art works.”"
Lanny began cautiously by asking his advice, and Denise said he was in two minds about whether to join De Gaulle in Britain or wait in North Africa. Lanny asked if he could hear his broadcasts in Algiers, and Denis said it wasn't supposed to be done by officers and was treason, but he had even read his writings. Lanny sounded him out more on politics, and Denis said De Gaulle was going to have a democratic France, not red. Lanny found that defeat and enslavement of France hadn't changed Denis's political ideas. So Lanny would be reticent, but Denis could still be useful. He spoke to him about the Americans coming, and Denis was excited. Lanny asked him not to speak about Lanny except with permission. He spoke about Denis helping him with information.
"“What I wish,” declared Denis fervently, “is to drive the Nazi doryphores out of France, and indeed off the earth.”
"“Très bien!” agreed the American. “But tell me, what is a doryphore?”
"“Oh, you haven’t heard that? A doryphore is a potato bug, and we apply it to the Germans because they demand and get nearly all of the French potato crop. In our food-saving campaigns we send the schoolchildren out to pick the bugs off the plants, and they have had the bright idea of carrying signs reading ‘Mort aux doryphores!’ The Germans can do nothing about that, so it gives delight to our people, who have not yet been entirely deprived of their sense of mischief.”"
Denis said most of the officers hated Germans and often disliked British, but we're ok with Americans, and they regarded Pétain as the legitimate head of state. Denis asked if Lanny had met Robert Murphy.
"“Apparently,” said the capitaine, “your government has a prejudice against General de Gaulle which we, his admirers, do not understand and which no one will explain to us. Mr. Murphy would not admit it, and apparently he wanted me to believe that it was the policy of his government to maintain strict neutrality among the different factions of the French. But I happened to know from other sources that elaborate negotiations were carried on with ex-Premier Herriot, at his home in Lyon, urging him to come to North Africa and assume leadership of the Free French. When this plan did not succeed, they approached General Giraud, who just recently made his escape from the German fortress of Königstein. My understanding is that he is to come to Algiers for that purpose.”
"“I am trying to understand your point of view, Denis. What claim of that sort can General de Gaulle have? When I mention him to Frenchmen here, the response is: ‘A mere brigadier-general, self-proclaimed as head of our government.’”
"“I know that it is difficult to explain, Lanny. De Gaulle was first in the field and he has managed to get the ear of the people. He seems to us an inspired leader, one of the deliverers whom God has always sent to our nation when the need became extreme.”
"Lanny would have liked to say that legitimacy and inspiration were different things, and frequently opposite; but he didn’t want to hurt his friend’s feelings, he merely wanted the “lowdown” on the followers of De Gaulle so as to know how to deal with them, and to report them to the Boss—one who seemed to Lanny to possess both legitimacy and inspiration."
Denis told him that Bob Murphy had taken M. Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil as his right hand man, and it was the latter's idea to get Giraud and Herriot.
Lanny didn't want to risk there being a Nazi agent in the group, so Denis suggested they make it just three or four out of a dozen. Lanny sent off a report by paying someone to hand it in at the door of the embassy. He met Denis's group at home of a Jewish physician, Professor Henri Aboulker. There was José, son of the professor and a medical student; M. d’Astier de la Vigerie, and Abbé Cordier, a Jesuit. They said locals were chafing under the restrictions imposed by administration who were forced by Vichy, which were forced by nazis.
"American and British broadcasts to France were warning the population to do nothing until they received orders; and this applied to Jews more than to any others of the population."
M. d’Astier de la Vigerie was an organiser of "Chantiers de la Jeunesse", with four thousand members, and the organisation had fascist trimmings, but he assured Lanny it was window dressing. Abbé Cordier said this was well known to Robert Murphy and he counted on them. Lanny was startled to realise that the two were royalists, followers of Comte de Paris, and recalled what FDR said about French and Catholics in U.S., and his sending Admiral Leahy to Vichy and Bob Murphy to Algiers.
Newspapers in Algiers were more propaganda for Germany than news, and German victories were played up and vice versa. Rommel had begun a fierce attack and established West of Tobruk, while on East front attack against Ukraine was launched, hailed by newspapers in Algiers as beginning of the end.
"London issued the claim that eleven hundred bombers had attacked Cologne, and in the short time of an hour and a half had destroyed a great part of the city’s industries. Vichy said that claim was absurd on the face of it; there weren’t enough airfields in Britain to launch such a number of big planes at one time, and they would have bumped into one another in the sky. It was the same when the American Navy claimed to have destroyed a great part of a Japanese Fleet by air attack near Midway. Nobody from Vichy had been there to see it; nobody but Americans had been there, and it was obvious that they were making up stories to keep their public satisfied."
Lanny maintained his distance from the hundreds of nazis present, since he had nothing to gain from them, and maintained a non political art expert image, not easy to disprove. His art acquisitions were packed and shipment arranged, he set forth for Casablanca, partly because it was convenient place to jump off from and partly because there were finer objects d'art to be acquired there, and also any collaborateurs who had become suspicious might need to rethink when he went away some twelve hundred miles for more art acquisitions. He set forth after meeting Denis's group again where he had to explain why U.S. wouldn't recognise De Gaulle as the only representative French government.
In Casablanca everybody knew about him, and his buying art, grapevine from Algiers reached there before him. He met, through a letter of inttoduction from Denis, a Lieutenant-General Émile-Marie Béthouart who was a cousin of Marie De Bruyne, and they spoke after the Lieutenant-General made sure of privacy. As others did, Lieutenant-General Émile-Marie Béthouart too had the questions about when and where the Americans were coming.
"“This is the absolute essential,” declared Béthouart. “It must be enough. You must not fail, and you must not change your minds after you have started.”
"“That I am authorized to promise,” replied the P.A. “I am told that one of your high officers has declared that if we come with one division he will fire on us, and if we come with twenty he will embrace us.”
"“That was General Weygand, and it explains why he is no longer in command in North Africa. You understand that courage must be combined with discretion.”
"“Oui, trés bien, mon Général. Let me inform you that I expect to fly to America in a few days, and what you say will be reported to President Roosevelt personally, and to no one else except under his orders.”
"“Explain to your great President that the French armies here have not been demobilized as in Algiers; the Germans did not wish the task of controlling the Moors. I command a division, and if your forces land near Rabat they will find my forces lined up on the beaches, but withholding their fire. You must come ashore fast, because otherwise I may be court-martialed and shot. Our commander, General Noguès, does not agree with my point of view, and I doubt if he will let himself be persuaded.”"
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Lanny was negotiating for art purchase in Casablanca and heard of treasures to be had in Marrakech, and thought it worth a look, especially in view of negotiations in Casablanca. He drove through aloe and giant cacti along the road, similar to what he'd seen in and around his home in Provence and in California, respectively. The scenery was dominated by Atlas mountains to the SouthEast, taller than alps and perpetually snow covered. As it melted, streams cut great chasms through the land, and life of earlier civilisations had depended on bringing this water to cities and to land.
"Aqueducts were everywhere, built out of the stones of the earlier ones. Those in Marrakech were low and appeared like swift-moving brooks. Approaching the city you passed over a bridge a thousand feet long, with twenty-seven graceful stone arches built by the Almohades, rulers of this country some eight hundred years previously.
"Marrakech is a vast city, an oasis of palm trees, spread out so that it seems bigger than it is. It has immense estates with high walls, and the owners were living in comfort untroubled by war."
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The author here goes into paens to the co-abrahmic religion of the region, stating it's superior to the idol worship of prior era; he fails to realise that this statement is founded really on a twisted racism with no foundation whatsoever connecting the two parts of the statement.
The Greek and Roman civilisations that Europe is founded on and is proud of, with reason, weren't monotheistic, nor was the Egyptian civilisation, and the disdain or contempt or worse heaped on pre abrahmic religions by the phrase 'idol-worship' is as baseless, hypocritical and fraudulent as the usages of terms such as 'grotesque' for objects not placed in a grotto, whence the latter word originates.
There are no proofs of existence of any deities, nor of non existence thereof, nor can there be other than personal experiences that remain so; and to claim that your own faith in doctrines of a supposedly historical figure is faith justifying your own concept based on the said doctrine of a particular deity, while others about another or many other are all false and amout to worship of mere idols and devoid of deities, is the fraud perpetrated by faiths that were adopted by political powers as help towards subjugating the populations they conquered, breaking down their spirits by destroying their places of worship and everything contained therein, as evidence of non existence of the Gods and Goddesses of the conquered.
But burning a library does not disprove the knowledge contained in the books, or even destroy it, it merely reduces the generations who can no longer access the knowledge ignorant and illiterate, easy to subjugate. The same is true of destruction of temples and deities by various monotheistic conquistadores perpetrated against the lands conquered and subjugated.
Funny, the protestants do hold Catholic faith among the idol worshipping, and worse, since some of the non Catholics hold worship of any woman abhorrent, a doctrine of misogyny and little else that's deep embedded in all abrahmic faiths.
This fundamental chasm prevalent in general consciousness of people in West is not that different from the attitude almost forced about Santa Claus in U.S. or xmas in general in West - if you let anyone suspect you don't melt at the mention, you are a brunch without a heart, but if you let anyone suspect you aren't urbanely above any real belief therein, you are hopelessly stupid, ignorant, and incapable of bearing any real adult responsibility.
And it's even more openly, hopelessly entangled hypocrisy the author fails to see in himself, when he has his art expert protagonist think and himself state that such monotheistic faiths are superior to previous idol worshipping cultures, after Lanny has gone inspecting the ruins at Timgad and Constantine, of an impressive Roman civilisation left in ruins by Arabs who sacked and plundered and left it in ruins, by his own description, where his protagonist isn't exactly dancing on the ruins celebrating the destruction, but is gone to silently pay respect to the earlier civilisations and is generally an art dealer whose work, which he respects, is preservation of art and culture.
The author here goes into paens to the co-abrahmic religion of the region, stating it's superior to the idol worship of prior era; he fails to realise that this statement is founded really on a twisted racism with no foundation whatsoever connecting the two parts of the statement.
The Greek and Roman civilisations that Europe is founded on and is proud of, with reason, weren't monotheistic, nor was the Egyptian civilisation, and the disdain or contempt or worse heaped on pre abrahmic religions by the phrase 'idol-worship' is as baseless, hypocritical and fraudulent as the usages of terms such as 'grotesque' for objects not placed in a grotto, whence the latter word originates.
There are no proofs of existence of any deities, nor of non existence thereof, nor can there be other than personal experiences that remain so; and to claim that your own faith in doctrines of a supposedly historical figure is faith justifying your own concept based on the said doctrine of a particular deity, while others about another or many other are all false and amout to worship of mere idols and devoid of deities, is the fraud perpetrated by faiths that were adopted by political powers as help towards subjugating the populations they conquered, breaking down their spirits by destroying their places of worship and everything contained therein, as evidence of non existence of the Gods and Goddesses of the conquered.
But burning a library does not disprove the knowledge contained in the books, or even destroy it, it merely reduces the generations who can no longer access the knowledge ignorant and illiterate, easy to subjugate. The same is true of destruction of temples and deities by various monotheistic conquistadores perpetrated against the lands conquered and subjugated.
Funny, the protestants do hold Catholic faith among the idol worshipping, and worse, since some of the non Catholics hold worship of any woman abhorrent, a doctrine of misogyny and little else that's deep embedded in all abrahmic faiths.
This fundamental chasm prevalent in general consciousness of people in West is not that different from the attitude almost forced about Santa Claus in U.S. or xmas in general in West - if you let anyone suspect you don't melt at the mention, you are a brunch without a heart, but if you let anyone suspect you aren't urbanely above any real belief therein, you are hopelessly stupid, ignorant, and incapable of bearing any real adult responsibility.
And it's even more openly, hopelessly entangled hypocrisy the author fails to see in himself, when he has his art expert protagonist think and himself state that such monotheistic faiths are superior to previous idol worshipping cultures, after Lanny has gone inspecting the ruins at Timgad and Constantine, of an impressive Roman civilisation left in ruins by Arabs who sacked and plundered and left it in ruins, by his own description, where his protagonist isn't exactly dancing on the ruins celebrating the destruction, but is gone to silently pay respect to the earlier civilisations and is generally an art dealer whose work, which he respects, is preservation of art and culture.
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Lanny had a letter to a Moorish dignitary whose house he visited, was shown around the estate, and noticed a fountain and mosaics which he asked about. He was invited to stay for dinner, and there were young boys dancing after dinner so he talked about Dalcroze and eurythmics. Next day when he tried to discuss the purchase he was pressed by the host to accept the treasure as present, and when he saw that it would be discourtesy to insist otherwise, he accepted. They said they wished Americans to come soon.
Lanny cabled to Robbie from Casablanca that he was ready to return, and arrangement was Robbie called Baker and it was done. He arranged for packing and shipping of the treasures, and got communication that he'd be flown from Tangiers to Lisbon and thence forth.
Lanny had a letter to a Moorish dignitary whose house he visited, was shown around the estate, and noticed a fountain and mosaics which he asked about. He was invited to stay for dinner, and there were young boys dancing after dinner so he talked about Dalcroze and eurythmics. Next day when he tried to discuss the purchase he was pressed by the host to accept the treasure as present, and when he saw that it would be discourtesy to insist otherwise, he accepted. They said they wished Americans to come soon.
Lanny cabled to Robbie from Casablanca that he was ready to return, and arrangement was Robbie called Baker and it was done. He arranged for packing and shipping of the treasures, and got communication that he'd be flown from Tangiers to Lisbon and thence forth.
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Lanny called Laurel on arrival before meeting FDR late at night as usual, and the president wanted to hear everything in detail, including the matters to be handed over to Donovan. They discussed the situation regarding France, Pétain and Vichy and De Gaulle. They discussed Bob Murphy and the collaborateurs on his bandwagon, and whether their expectation of post war rewards were realistic. FDR explained that his priority, over and above seeing to democracy established in nations freed from axis occupation, was saving lives of American men fighting the war. The collaborateurs were not to be rewarded, but on the other hand management of the freed populace couldn'tby in American hands for long.
They spoke about the invasion. Obvious preference for two out of three allies for military reasons was across the channel, but Churchill had empire interests and preferred the Balkan route, and this would keep empire safe from Russian interference, except Roosevelt didn't want American mothers to be told their boys would be away for that long. He asked Lanny to stay on to talk with Churchill, and Lanny promised to come from N.Y. as soon as called.
Lanny called Laurel on arrival before meeting FDR late at night as usual, and the president wanted to hear everything in detail, including the matters to be handed over to Donovan. They discussed the situation regarding France, Pétain and Vichy and De Gaulle. They discussed Bob Murphy and the collaborateurs on his bandwagon, and whether their expectation of post war rewards were realistic. FDR explained that his priority, over and above seeing to democracy established in nations freed from axis occupation, was saving lives of American men fighting the war. The collaborateurs were not to be rewarded, but on the other hand management of the freed populace couldn'tby in American hands for long.
They spoke about the invasion. Obvious preference for two out of three allies for military reasons was across the channel, but Churchill had empire interests and preferred the Balkan route, and this would keep empire safe from Russian interference, except Roosevelt didn't want American mothers to be told their boys would be away for that long. He asked Lanny to stay on to talk with Churchill, and Lanny promised to come from N.Y. as soon as called.
Lanny met colonel Donovan next morning, who heard him out thoroughly before calling in stenographers and department heads to hear it again, and got the names and details of contacts of the various people Lanny told about, and then asked him before he took his leave whether he'd not like to run a department of his own there. Lanny spent most of the day late into evening talking with various groups of Donovan's people, and they couldn't understand why he wasn't working there. Very soon the name of the organisation changed to O.S.S..
............................................................................
Lanny arrived home next morning to the new larger apartment he'd insisted he'd pay for, where the three of them were to share it, Agnes staying on sharing home with them so Laurel wasn't left uncomfortably alone for uncertain amounts of time when Lanny travelled. They spoke first about Laurel and her occupation, and she asked about everyone at Bienvenu.
"He told about Marceline, whom Laurel had never met; a curious nature, quietly cold, pleasure-bent in a silent, incessant, almost vegetative way. Some day Laurel would meet her and probe her secret soul and put it into a story."
Here the author is being so horribly insensitive it's beyond comprehension.
Beauty's children were each brought up in Bienvenu, the big house on the estate in Juan Les-Pins, mostly by servants, while the mother was busy with various things apart from fashionable life with friends, and neither child went to school.
They were moreover eighteen years apart in age, so Marceline was lonely as a child, and perhaps this taught her to contain emotion and be self sufficient, and as to pleasure seeking, what other value did her family impart her other than bearing pretty was everything?
The one thing she did learn as a baby from the one sibling she met as a toddler was dancing, and while he was not that often around, this is one thing she did hold on to, rather than the more common theme amongst the society taught women, which was to find a rich match.
If she were more like Irma she'd be safe, accepting the match made for her by her family with Alfy and be a countless dome day, meanwhile with a home in each country and no worries to speak of.
But being half French and half American child of two people each of whom rebelled against their family and found their own way to one another, she is independent and is attempting to find her wings, asking but one thing from the world, to be loved for herself.
If Lanny doesn't understand all this, he is only a brother who hardly ever knew her. But the author commenting thus is truly callous.
............................................................................
Lanny arrived home next morning to the new larger apartment he'd insisted he'd pay for, where the three of them were to share it, Agnes staying on sharing home with them so Laurel wasn't left uncomfortably alone for uncertain amounts of time when Lanny travelled. They spoke first about Laurel and her occupation, and she asked about everyone at Bienvenu.
"He told about Marceline, whom Laurel had never met; a curious nature, quietly cold, pleasure-bent in a silent, incessant, almost vegetative way. Some day Laurel would meet her and probe her secret soul and put it into a story."
Here the author is being so horribly insensitive it's beyond comprehension.
Beauty's children were each brought up in Bienvenu, the big house on the estate in Juan Les-Pins, mostly by servants, while the mother was busy with various things apart from fashionable life with friends, and neither child went to school.
They were moreover eighteen years apart in age, so Marceline was lonely as a child, and perhaps this taught her to contain emotion and be self sufficient, and as to pleasure seeking, what other value did her family impart her other than bearing pretty was everything?
The one thing she did learn as a baby from the one sibling she met as a toddler was dancing, and while he was not that often around, this is one thing she did hold on to, rather than the more common theme amongst the society taught women, which was to find a rich match.
If she were more like Irma she'd be safe, accepting the match made for her by her family with Alfy and be a countless dome day, meanwhile with a home in each country and no worries to speak of.
But being half French and half American child of two people each of whom rebelled against their family and found their own way to one another, she is independent and is attempting to find her wings, asking but one thing from the world, to be loved for herself.
If Lanny doesn't understand all this, he is only a brother who hardly ever knew her. But the author commenting thus is truly callous.
............................................................................
They spoke of other friends from Riviera. Sophie had heeded the U.S. advice Anand returned, but Emily Chattersworth was unable to travel and was frightened of what was going on. Lanny had sought to reassure her. She said she was leaving part of her fortune to him, and he protested, but she said he could put it to good use.
"Lanny had decided that she was not long for this world and thought he ought to give her some hint that he was not just an ivory-tower dweller but was rendering service of importance to his government. She had told him: “I guessed that years ago. I have known you since you were a babe-in-arms, and I perceived that you were drawing out our near-Fascist friends. Don’t worry, I have never spoken of it.”"
They spoke about Laurel visiting her aunt in Baltimore, who hadn't yet given up hope that her daughter and husband might be alive.
"They spoke of other friends from Riviera. Sophie had heeded the U.S. advice Anand returned, but Emily Chattersworth was unable to travel and was frightened of what was going on. Lanny had sought to reassure her. She said she was leaving part of her fortune to him, and he protested, but she said he could put it to good use.
"“Did you tell her about your psychic experience?” Lanny asked.
"“I told her, and it disturbed her greatly. You know, she is a devout Episcopalian, but she was educated in a Catholic convent, and I think she has the Catholic attitude deeply buried in her mind—the notion that there is something dangerous and even immoral in dabbling with ‘spirits.’ She came back to the subject again and again and cross-questioned me. I had brought the notes you had taken down and I read them to her. You remember, the spirit of Lizbeth, or whatever it was, said that her childhood-rag doll in the old gray trunk in the attic had been used as a nest by mice. We went and found it was so, and I thought that Aunt Millicent was going to faint. An extraordinary thing, Lanny, and I don’t know how to account for it.”"
They decided to keep trying seances. They tried one that evening, and apart from Otto Kahn, this time Zaharoff came, and spoke, telling Lanny to go see his niece in London and get the thousand dollars from her that he was going on telling Lanny to give the man in Monte Carlo, after Lanny had found him, and Lanny said she'd have him arrested for fraud. Zaharoff said Lanny should arrange for a medium, and he would tell the niece, but Lanny pointed out this would be considered more fraudulent. The seance broke.
FDR had mentioned his wife meeting Laurel and being positively impressed, and now Laurel spoke about calling on Eleanor Roosevelt and being very impressed. They talked about Lanny's trip, and he told about the general impressions and about the art dealings, but not about the underground.
Robbie had sent a car and Lanny drove Laurel around the countryside, and they drove up to meet the Budds of Newcastle.
"They were a philoprogenitive tribe and paid all honor to a bride as a guardian of their tribal future. They found it hard to understand that a woman left alone should refuse shelter and protection in Robbie’s commodious villa on a hilltop overlooking the river and the distant Sound. But they had “queer” ones among them, and they accepted the fact that a literary lady might be another; some of them had read her stories and were a bit afraid of her, lest she some day make use of them as “copy.” In this they had good reason."
Lanny hired a stenographer and dictated letters to clients, and prepared a dossier with photographs of the art treasures from North Africa. He went to see Mr Vernon, who was pleased and astounded, and after hearing about it all insisted on doubling his commission. He asked how Lanny managed to travel, and Lanny attributed it to his father's influence, letting Vernon infer that Lanny worked for him on things he couldn't talk about.
Lanny took Laurel out to dinner, intending to go later for a drive, but he saw someone familiar at the next table, and got a good look before he asked Laurel to engage the mansomehow while Lanny went out to arrange to have him watched, for Lanny thought he knew he was an Englishman who was a Nazi agent. This was Branscome who had met Lanny in connection with Hess in London, and Lanny called FBI to trail him. They came, and Lanny caught Laurel's eye, and she excused herself and after Lanny made sure Branscome had left, he spoke to the head waiter who said he came often. Laurel said he had told her he was with the British mission. Lanny said it was possible he was deceiving his own government.
FBI had told him when he called to talk to them in the morning, and he went over to do so, telling them about what he knew of Branscome and the fact that he himself was at the moment unwelcome in Britain. When he came home he got a call with a dinner invitation to the White House that evening at seven thirty.
Lanny drove, and a room had been engaged, he had time to bathe and change and took a taxi so he wouldnt have to bother parking, so he walked in and gave the name decided on with FDR, his first and middle names but not using the Budd part so there would be no publicity.
Eleanor Roosevelt had invited an author whose book she had given to Churchill as a gift, to this small dinner, and the talk centred partly on the host and the hostess making everyone comfortable and partly on the difference between the two allies, where U.S. was dominated by Anglo Saxon heritage but had many streams of culture through its history, and not just English. Later, as the PM and the President retired, Eleanor Roosevelt took the other guests for a concert, telling Lanny she was bringing him back to White House after dropping the other guests after the concert.
This part of the account of the dinner is probably the one drawn from an actual event that the author credits on front page of the book.
............................................................................
After the concert, he was brought back and went to see Churchill whose nocturnal habits would exhaust FDR. Churchill remembered him from years ago when they had met on Riviera, where he was certain he'd been shelved as far as politics in Britain went. He questioned Lanny exhaustively on everything relevant. Lanny told him about Branscome after the topic of Hess was brought up and Churchill volunteered to rectify Lanny's status in Britain.
Lanny thought he could get something from Hess, although Churchill said nobody had so far; Lanny suggested a drama, whereby Lanny would be supposedly visiting him secretly after bribing a sailor, and propose to take a message to adi, and tell him that Lanny was speaking to people in Russia who were against the war and had brought a message from Stalin for adi to that effect.
Lanny called FDR next morning and got his instructions to return in a week or ten days, and also contact Alston in N.Y. in a couple of days after he returned from West. He drove to N.Y. and planned to take Laurel out dining, hoping they'd not run into any enemy agents any more.
Lanny went to FBI next morning, and they wanted his help in searching the apartment where Branscome, here going by name of Hartley, lived and spent most of his time. They suggested Lanny run into him accidentally and take him out on a drive, which would be only natural since Branscome or Hartley thought Lanny was a Nazi agent.
"If he declined to renew the acquaintance, he might give some reason, and that might be a clue. If he showed fear or embarrassment, a desire to get away, it might indicate that he had dropped his treasonable activities; on the other hand, it might indicate that he was up to something especially dangerous."
Lanny said he wasn't free to risk drawing suspicion on himself, especially if Branscome got arrested, and the FBI agent, Mr. Post, said it may not turn to that, but result instead in uncovering a network, and Lanny moreover could introduce him to various people in position of wealth who were sympathetic with his ideas. Lanny asked why they assumed Lanny would be in a position to do that, and the agent said he couldn't think they hadn't checked up on him. Lanny said he'd like to see the dossier they had on him, some day. Lanny spent the morning discussing this plan with Post, who suggested Lanny introduce Hartley to Miss Van Zandt and others. When Lanny asked if Post knew about her, he said FBI knew everything about the company she kept and also precisely which dates and times Lanny was entertained by her, and the conspiracy Lanny feared and who were involved; they knew far more than him and had tabs on everything and everyone.
Lanny agreed to the plan of running into Hartley at dinner, and went home and informed his wife, who had inputs.
"They agreed that he was certain to be a snob, and that Lanny’s best bet would be his intimacy with Lord and Lady Wickthorpe. He would pose as a rich man’s impecunious son and would suggest that Branscome might be introduced to the overpecunious Miss van Zandt, and the two men would divide whatever they could get from her."
Lanny dresses and waited, and the phone rang.
"It was the F.B.I. man informing him that their quarry was settled in the Oak Room of the St. Regis Hotel, a place frequented by the richest refugees and therefore good for spies."
Lanny accosted Hartley who looked startled, alarmed, and denied having met him after Lanny had assured him he could understand why he was uncomfortable. Lanny sat down and ordered a half salad, ready to leave when Hartley did, whose chops were half finished. Through the repeat Lanny talked urbanely, of meeting various people in Europe, of the recent shooting of Unity Mitford by herself due to her disappointment in love with the person he didn't name whose mountain retreat he had seen her at, and more. Finally Hartley agreed to go for a drive, and informed Lanny his name here in N.Y. was Hartley and that was his real name; Lanny thought otherwise. Branscome said He was in N.Y. because he didn't like bombs, denied knowing Hess, and wasn't giving an inch.
Lanny began with the scheme Laurel and he had cooked up, and talked of making easy money by meeting Miss Van Zandt. Branscome finally agreed, after hesitating on account of his other responsibilities, to have dinner at her place. Lanny met Post next morning, who said Hartley was into diamond smuggling to Germany via Scandinavia, his apartment was crawling with diamonds. He and Lanny decided Branscome would be furnished with a publication outlet complete with staff, and Lanny was introduced to "Cartier", Tom Cartier to play the role of the young man who was eager to spend money in anti red cause.
Invitation from Miss Van Zandt arrived, and Lanny had to wait for Branscome to call. He met Alston meanwhile and went through his queries about his last trip, and they discussed the project now given to Monck. Lanny told alston about him, and they came to the question of atomic fission. Alston said he'd arrange an appointment for Lanny to be refreshed on latest developments.
Lanny arrived at Miss Van Zandt home with Hartley who played his role perfectly, but the hostess wrote a check for five thousand dollars in Lanny's name and said it was because she had known him. Lanny proposed discussing rest later, but Hartley was uneasy and wished to settle the question of money. Lanny proposed a three hundreds per month for Branscome and two for himself and spoke about office etcetera. He told him about Tom Cartier who had rich relatives with real estate in N.Y. so he could get office for almost nothing, and a manager and secretary, and Tom would spend. Lanny dangled prospect of a quarter of million dollars before Hartley who had just voiced fear about Lanny spending all of five thousand on the office, and Branscome was hooked. They met Cartier next morning and he showed them the office, and Lanny wondered if Hartley would do his diamond business from the office.
After the concert, he was brought back and went to see Churchill whose nocturnal habits would exhaust FDR. Churchill remembered him from years ago when they had met on Riviera, where he was certain he'd been shelved as far as politics in Britain went. He questioned Lanny exhaustively on everything relevant. Lanny told him about Branscome after the topic of Hess was brought up and Churchill volunteered to rectify Lanny's status in Britain.
Lanny thought he could get something from Hess, although Churchill said nobody had so far; Lanny suggested a drama, whereby Lanny would be supposedly visiting him secretly after bribing a sailor, and propose to take a message to adi, and tell him that Lanny was speaking to people in Russia who were against the war and had brought a message from Stalin for adi to that effect.
Lanny called FDR next morning and got his instructions to return in a week or ten days, and also contact Alston in N.Y. in a couple of days after he returned from West. He drove to N.Y. and planned to take Laurel out dining, hoping they'd not run into any enemy agents any more.
Lanny went to FBI next morning, and they wanted his help in searching the apartment where Branscome, here going by name of Hartley, lived and spent most of his time. They suggested Lanny run into him accidentally and take him out on a drive, which would be only natural since Branscome or Hartley thought Lanny was a Nazi agent.
"If he declined to renew the acquaintance, he might give some reason, and that might be a clue. If he showed fear or embarrassment, a desire to get away, it might indicate that he had dropped his treasonable activities; on the other hand, it might indicate that he was up to something especially dangerous."
Lanny said he wasn't free to risk drawing suspicion on himself, especially if Branscome got arrested, and the FBI agent, Mr. Post, said it may not turn to that, but result instead in uncovering a network, and Lanny moreover could introduce him to various people in position of wealth who were sympathetic with his ideas. Lanny asked why they assumed Lanny would be in a position to do that, and the agent said he couldn't think they hadn't checked up on him. Lanny said he'd like to see the dossier they had on him, some day. Lanny spent the morning discussing this plan with Post, who suggested Lanny introduce Hartley to Miss Van Zandt and others. When Lanny asked if Post knew about her, he said FBI knew everything about the company she kept and also precisely which dates and times Lanny was entertained by her, and the conspiracy Lanny feared and who were involved; they knew far more than him and had tabs on everything and everyone.
Lanny agreed to the plan of running into Hartley at dinner, and went home and informed his wife, who had inputs.
"They agreed that he was certain to be a snob, and that Lanny’s best bet would be his intimacy with Lord and Lady Wickthorpe. He would pose as a rich man’s impecunious son and would suggest that Branscome might be introduced to the overpecunious Miss van Zandt, and the two men would divide whatever they could get from her."
Lanny dresses and waited, and the phone rang.
"It was the F.B.I. man informing him that their quarry was settled in the Oak Room of the St. Regis Hotel, a place frequented by the richest refugees and therefore good for spies."
Lanny accosted Hartley who looked startled, alarmed, and denied having met him after Lanny had assured him he could understand why he was uncomfortable. Lanny sat down and ordered a half salad, ready to leave when Hartley did, whose chops were half finished. Through the repeat Lanny talked urbanely, of meeting various people in Europe, of the recent shooting of Unity Mitford by herself due to her disappointment in love with the person he didn't name whose mountain retreat he had seen her at, and more. Finally Hartley agreed to go for a drive, and informed Lanny his name here in N.Y. was Hartley and that was his real name; Lanny thought otherwise. Branscome said He was in N.Y. because he didn't like bombs, denied knowing Hess, and wasn't giving an inch.
Lanny began with the scheme Laurel and he had cooked up, and talked of making easy money by meeting Miss Van Zandt. Branscome finally agreed, after hesitating on account of his other responsibilities, to have dinner at her place. Lanny met Post next morning, who said Hartley was into diamond smuggling to Germany via Scandinavia, his apartment was crawling with diamonds. He and Lanny decided Branscome would be furnished with a publication outlet complete with staff, and Lanny was introduced to "Cartier", Tom Cartier to play the role of the young man who was eager to spend money in anti red cause.
Invitation from Miss Van Zandt arrived, and Lanny had to wait for Branscome to call. He met Alston meanwhile and went through his queries about his last trip, and they discussed the project now given to Monck. Lanny told alston about him, and they came to the question of atomic fission. Alston said he'd arrange an appointment for Lanny to be refreshed on latest developments.
Lanny arrived at Miss Van Zandt home with Hartley who played his role perfectly, but the hostess wrote a check for five thousand dollars in Lanny's name and said it was because she had known him. Lanny proposed discussing rest later, but Hartley was uneasy and wished to settle the question of money. Lanny proposed a three hundreds per month for Branscome and two for himself and spoke about office etcetera. He told him about Tom Cartier who had rich relatives with real estate in N.Y. so he could get office for almost nothing, and a manager and secretary, and Tom would spend. Lanny dangled prospect of a quarter of million dollars before Hartley who had just voiced fear about Lanny spending all of five thousand on the office, and Branscome was hooked. They met Cartier next morning and he showed them the office, and Lanny wondered if Hartley would do his diamond business from the office.
............................................................................
Lanny got a call from Washington D.C., his appointment at Princeton was made in his middle name, and he met Braunschweig at the Institute For Advanced Study. This time he was allowed to make notes provided he kept them pinned to his inner pocket and destroyed them before leaving the country.
"Dr. Braunschweig had a list of data which had come in during the past ten months concerning German progress in atomic research, and what particular details might be useful to the Americans. It was pleasant to hear him say that they believed the Germans were far behind, mainly because the Führer didn’t believe in the possibility of atomic fission and had put his top physicists at other tasks. Lanny might have said: “He is concentrating on jet propulsion,” but he didn’t."
Braunschweig gave him a break after four hours and said they'd resume at eight, so Lanny called Alonzo Curtice and was invited over to dinner. He returned back to study at eight, and at ten thirty Einstein came over to take him home to spend the night, where they resumed their playing music where they'd left off the previous time. Next morning Lanny returned to spend another few hours to study with Braunschweig before taking leave of each of them.
Lanny drove to Maryland to where the President was now taking some respite at a mountain camp built in Blue Ridge mountains, and he met Harry Hopkins, this time formally. Hopkins remembered sharing a clipper passage with him. They shared a laugh, and FDR got down to business. He told Lanny to report to Harry in London, and same with Alston. He okayed meeting Hess but not going into Germany.
"“Professor Alston wants me to go to Switzerland and meet my old-time labor and Socialist friend there.”
"“That’s all right; Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, wherever you think there is information to be had, but not into any German-held territory. It is possible you might get some of your Nazi friends to meet you in Switzerland. What is the name of that musician?”
"“Kurt Meissner. He would come if I asked him, but I’d have to have something important to tell him, and something he could believe. It would be a dangerous game, because I’d be attracting attention to myself again, and they might comb the world to find out about me. It would be pretty hard for me then to continue as an art expert.”"
Lanny thought telling Kurt about progress in conspiracy against FDR would be a plausible excuse they'd accept, and the three discussed that. FDR okayed Lanny's suggestion. He told them to get acquainted in the next room, and the two spoke about the coming American forces arrival and choices, which Harry and Lanny both agreed was better in North Africa for logistics.
"The Germans had taken Sevastopol, and their plunge into the Ukraine had reached the Don River. The British were making a stand at a place in the deserts of Egypt called El Alamein, but it was uncertain if their line would hold. Hopkins said: “If the enemy gets to Suez, it may set us back for a long time. But don’t ever doubt it, Lanny, we are going to get the troops and the weapons and win this war!”"
They talked about the needs of people, particularly food, and also about people they knew in common, which included Irma.
Lanny was driven back to town by Baker, who had brought him as usual, and he told Lanny he'd be provided with a passport and passage, which Lanny chose to be a week later. He drove home, to N.Y., instead of spending night in town, and Laurel was distressed he had to leave, but he told her that soon there were going to be several thousands of women who, unlike her, would have no clue where their men were, and he was not going in an unsafe place.
Lanny met Post, who reassured him that the case will be prepared with care and discovery of Hartley would be credited elsewhere. Baker brought his passport and tickets, and Lanny had lunch with Mr. Vernon who was happy with his mosaics and encouraged Lanny to buy the beautiful fountain Lanny had liked. Lanny was thus equipped with letters and more as art dealer.
Before leaving he took Laurel on a holiday, driving via Newcastle and Berkshires to Green Mountains and Adirondacks, visiting Murchisons camp and returning via Albany and Hyde Park. He met Post before leaving, and Post said they were all set to get Hartley, and Lanny suggested he warn Hartley before leaving and say that he had to make a run, thus clearing himself, and they worked it so they got more of Hartley's contacts since he called one after another to warn them while they had routed his wires so he didn't get any. Lanny rushed off to the car while Hartley was thus busy, and Laurel drove him to the Clipper.
Lanny got a call from Washington D.C., his appointment at Princeton was made in his middle name, and he met Braunschweig at the Institute For Advanced Study. This time he was allowed to make notes provided he kept them pinned to his inner pocket and destroyed them before leaving the country.
"Dr. Braunschweig had a list of data which had come in during the past ten months concerning German progress in atomic research, and what particular details might be useful to the Americans. It was pleasant to hear him say that they believed the Germans were far behind, mainly because the Führer didn’t believe in the possibility of atomic fission and had put his top physicists at other tasks. Lanny might have said: “He is concentrating on jet propulsion,” but he didn’t."
Braunschweig gave him a break after four hours and said they'd resume at eight, so Lanny called Alonzo Curtice and was invited over to dinner. He returned back to study at eight, and at ten thirty Einstein came over to take him home to spend the night, where they resumed their playing music where they'd left off the previous time. Next morning Lanny returned to spend another few hours to study with Braunschweig before taking leave of each of them.
Lanny drove to Maryland to where the President was now taking some respite at a mountain camp built in Blue Ridge mountains, and he met Harry Hopkins, this time formally. Hopkins remembered sharing a clipper passage with him. They shared a laugh, and FDR got down to business. He told Lanny to report to Harry in London, and same with Alston. He okayed meeting Hess but not going into Germany.
"“Professor Alston wants me to go to Switzerland and meet my old-time labor and Socialist friend there.”
"“That’s all right; Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, wherever you think there is information to be had, but not into any German-held territory. It is possible you might get some of your Nazi friends to meet you in Switzerland. What is the name of that musician?”
"“Kurt Meissner. He would come if I asked him, but I’d have to have something important to tell him, and something he could believe. It would be a dangerous game, because I’d be attracting attention to myself again, and they might comb the world to find out about me. It would be pretty hard for me then to continue as an art expert.”"
Lanny thought telling Kurt about progress in conspiracy against FDR would be a plausible excuse they'd accept, and the three discussed that. FDR okayed Lanny's suggestion. He told them to get acquainted in the next room, and the two spoke about the coming American forces arrival and choices, which Harry and Lanny both agreed was better in North Africa for logistics.
"The Germans had taken Sevastopol, and their plunge into the Ukraine had reached the Don River. The British were making a stand at a place in the deserts of Egypt called El Alamein, but it was uncertain if their line would hold. Hopkins said: “If the enemy gets to Suez, it may set us back for a long time. But don’t ever doubt it, Lanny, we are going to get the troops and the weapons and win this war!”"
They talked about the needs of people, particularly food, and also about people they knew in common, which included Irma.
Lanny was driven back to town by Baker, who had brought him as usual, and he told Lanny he'd be provided with a passport and passage, which Lanny chose to be a week later. He drove home, to N.Y., instead of spending night in town, and Laurel was distressed he had to leave, but he told her that soon there were going to be several thousands of women who, unlike her, would have no clue where their men were, and he was not going in an unsafe place.
Lanny met Post, who reassured him that the case will be prepared with care and discovery of Hartley would be credited elsewhere. Baker brought his passport and tickets, and Lanny had lunch with Mr. Vernon who was happy with his mosaics and encouraged Lanny to buy the beautiful fountain Lanny had liked. Lanny was thus equipped with letters and more as art dealer.
Before leaving he took Laurel on a holiday, driving via Newcastle and Berkshires to Green Mountains and Adirondacks, visiting Murchisons camp and returning via Albany and Hyde Park. He met Post before leaving, and Post said they were all set to get Hartley, and Lanny suggested he warn Hartley before leaving and say that he had to make a run, thus clearing himself, and they worked it so they got more of Hartley's contacts since he called one after another to warn them while they had routed his wires so he didn't get any. Lanny rushed off to the car while Hartley was thus busy, and Laurel drove him to the Clipper.
............................................................................
Lanny called Irma first thing after landing, to ask if it would convenient for him to see Frances, and Irma said she'd been asking for him every day. Lanny found her waiting for him when he arrived, and was amazed at how tall she'd grown. She wanted to know where he'd been, and he said he'd rather hear about her first. At the castle he talked with Irma and Wickthorpe who were living a quiet country life and invited few people, since Ceddy had resigned and thought the war a mistake. They asked about his travels and his marriage, and he told about it omitting red China and Stalin and Mary Morrow.
"“How can it end,” asked Ceddy, “save in the ruin of Western Europe? France will be a battlefield, and Germany completely exhausted.” When Lanny said that Russia would be exhausted, too, the other answered: “Yes, but she will recover more quickly, because those people breed like rabbits. And she will have all the border states, and China, too, and how long will it take her agents to stir up revolution in India?”"
In London Lanny called Rick and the couple came over to meet him. Lanny could talk to them about everything except FDR, and did. They in turn spoke about the anti war set or the next lot who wanted to beat Hitler but not too badly, and so on.
They asked about Laurel.
Lanny was supposed to drop a note to Churchill via his secretary Martin, and didn't get a reply but a call, from Mr. Fordyce of B4 who wished to see him and came over. Forsyte apologised, and said he had had his suspicions, and Lanny put him at ease, saying he hadnt been free to talk. Fordyce said he'd also suspected Lanny was on his way home anyway, which Lanny agreed and thanked him for having made it easier by providing the passage. Fordyce said his instructions were to provide Lanny with anything he asked for, and Lanny proposed his supposedly clandestine visit to Hess by bribing a jailor, and suggested they place a dictaphone so he wouldnt have to trouble himself recalling every detail of what might be a long conversation. They arranged Hess receiving code messages in his bread so he'd already think Lanny was out there trying to help him, before he was brought in by Fordyce, pretending he'd bribed his way. Hess was in a hospital in a village, Abergavenny, near a Norman castle.
Lanny meanwhile saw Alfy who was in London. They talked about Alfy's experience with the planes, and how the British were doing well.
"“We’re going to hold the fort for you,” Alfy declared. And his friend could assure him: “The Yanks are coming! We’ll put enough weight on this little island to sink it!”
"Said the airman with a smile: “We must get more barrage balloons to hold it up.”"
Fordyce called him and communicated in code, and he was driven to Abergavenny in an Austin, while they talked about Hess.
"The Englishman told about his visit to the hospital and what he had found there. It was a fairly large place, new, and full of wounded men. Hess had a room at the extreme end of the “female wing,” opening onto a small lawn with iron railings. He was never alone, day or night. He would stroll about the countryside on parole. Being a wealthy man, with money in several banks in neutral countries, he could indulge his whims and was permitted to do so within limits; he chose to dress himself in a blue sports coat, gray flannel trousers, and flaring yellow boots.
"“That isn’t like the Rudi I knew,” said Lanny. “Then he wore a plain S.A. uniform.”
"“That was glory in those days,” replied the other. “Now he chooses to be an English country squire—but yellow boots rather spoil the effect! The people of the neighborhood refer to him playfully as the Kaiser of Abergavenny. They are used to the sight of him on the roads, or sitting somewhere in the sunshine; he will stay for hours painting or sketching. Time hangs heavy on his hands, we may be sure.”
"“He is a military student, Mr. Fordyce, and must know that victory for his side is a long way off. No doubt he fights against the realization.”
"“He fights against everything and everybody. He frightens the nurses with his scowls. He cannot bear to take orders, and while he has never offered physical resistance, he has made it necessary to have a force of thirty men, mostly soldiers of the Welsh regiment, to guard him. I suppose that counts as a military gain for Germany.”
"They talked for a while about what Lanny might find out. It was of great importance to know if Hess had any way of communicating with the outside, and it would be a master stroke if he could be led to name any confederate or agent in Britain. It was entirely likely that the Nazis, who had apparently foreseen everything, had established a system for meeting just such contingencies as now confronted their Nummer Drei."
They came to the hospital and Lanny was whisked into the home of the medical superintendent Major D. Ellis Jones, member of British army.
"Major Jones explained the peculiar responsibility which Rudolf Hess represented to his custodians. If Hess were to die, the Nazis would be certain to claim that it was the result of mistreatment, and they might take the lives of hundreds of the British officers whom they had at their mercy. Therefore the hospital was scrupulous in welcoming the Swiss Neutrality Commission which was charged with enforcing the Geneva Convention. They came whenever they wished and talked with the prisoner and made sure that he had everything to which he was entitled. Because of the fear that he might commit suicide in spite of the utmost watchfulness, the guardians babied him considerably, allowing him harmless little indulgences which were surely not in the convention. “As a rule he doesn’t have much appetite, and he has lost weight in spite of our best efforts.”
"Said Lanny: “I can understand the extreme humiliation he feels. It is hard for me to imagine that he would want to live if the Nazi cause goes down.”
"“That is what we fear, Mr. Budd, and why we have to be so careful in handling him. He is liable to fits of depression which may last for weeks.”"
Lanny spoke to Hess, and assured him on his own loyalty, and proposed that he get a message from Hess to his boss if he could, which Hess found was more hope than expected. He gave Lanny his wedding ring and the words adi had said when he'd given it to him, as evidence that Lanny was bringing a message from him. Lanny found Hess wasn't saying much, so either he knew nothing or wasn't convinced Lanny wasn't in on luring him into Britain, which Lanny had attempted to tell him he wasn't, by saying he'd told Branscome in detail and he thought Branscome was doubtful as a loyal agent. Lanny went off, planning to use the ring and the message to persuade FDR to let him go into Germany.
In London press knew about the military conference but wasn't allowed to publish it. Rick said the party included General Marshall, Chief of Staff, and Admiral King.
"Already in London was the newly appointed Commanding General of the American forces in the European Theater, whose name was Eisenhower. Lanny had never heard this name until the appointment was announced; he had to take it for granted that F.D.R. and his advisers knew their man.
"“General Ike” had set up headquarters in some “flats” in Grosvenor Square, one of the fashionable districts of London, and the playful Americans had taken to calling it “Eisenhowerplatz.” It seemed to them a charming stroke of fate that the new “C.G.” should be of German ancestry and carry a German name. The words mean “iron hewer,” and the word “iron” has been through the centuries a favorite of all military-minded German poets and orators. Now a hewer from the prairie state of Kansas had come to hew the German iron, beginning with the “blood and iron” of Bismarck and including the “iron soul” of Adolf Hitler."
Lanny got in touch with Harry Hopkins who asked if hed be in town, and Lanny said he was going to visit his daughter but would return as soon as Harry called or sent a telegram. Lanny went with Rick to Hampstead Heath and they talked on the heath.
"Rick had attended a press conference given by the “C.G.,” and reported him a straightforward and democratic fellow, a beneficent example to the brass hats of Britain. “The only thing is, I’m afraid he may be a little too kindhearted for a general.”
"“Don’t worry,” Lanny assured him. “Our fellows are really going to fight. I am told that our maneuvers in the Louisiana marshes were quite terrific.”
"“I know,” agreed Rick. “They are drilling like all-possessed in North Ireland and practicing landings all round our coast. The Germans send in a tip-and-run plane now and then and get photographs. They can’t find them very reassuring.”
"“I am told that Roosevelt is determined that American forces shall go into action somewhere this year. If it’s not to be across the Channel, then it must be the Mediterranean, or we’ll change our plans and concentrate first upon the Japanese. I don’t suppose your people want that.”
"“Hardly,” said the baronet’s son. “But from all I hear Winnie is dead set against any more Channel crossings until we have overwhelming forces. So I suppose it will be the Mediterranean, and the farther east it is the better it will suit our Tory leader. If he could invade through the Balkans he would consider that he was killing two birds with one stone, winning two wars with one expedition.”
"“The Second World War and the Third,” replied Lanny with a smile. They didn’t need to say more, for they had both been in Paris early in the year 1919 when the descendant of the Duke of Marlborough had come there and labored mightily to persuade the Allies to undertake a holy crusade to crush the cockatrice of Bolshevism, just emerged from its egg and not yet having had time to develop its poison fangs.
"“Winnie hasn’t had a new idea in a quarter of a century,” said the “Pink” journalist. “He wouldn’t get another in the next quarter of a millennium.”
"Lanny thought that was extreme, and replied, “He was a consistent supporter of the League of Nations, and of collective security.”"
Lanny visited his daughter at Wickthorpe until he got a telegram from Harry, and promised to write to Frances as he left, and to return as soon as he could.
Lanny called Irma first thing after landing, to ask if it would convenient for him to see Frances, and Irma said she'd been asking for him every day. Lanny found her waiting for him when he arrived, and was amazed at how tall she'd grown. She wanted to know where he'd been, and he said he'd rather hear about her first. At the castle he talked with Irma and Wickthorpe who were living a quiet country life and invited few people, since Ceddy had resigned and thought the war a mistake. They asked about his travels and his marriage, and he told about it omitting red China and Stalin and Mary Morrow.
"“How can it end,” asked Ceddy, “save in the ruin of Western Europe? France will be a battlefield, and Germany completely exhausted.” When Lanny said that Russia would be exhausted, too, the other answered: “Yes, but she will recover more quickly, because those people breed like rabbits. And she will have all the border states, and China, too, and how long will it take her agents to stir up revolution in India?”"
In London Lanny called Rick and the couple came over to meet him. Lanny could talk to them about everything except FDR, and did. They in turn spoke about the anti war set or the next lot who wanted to beat Hitler but not too badly, and so on.
They asked about Laurel.
Lanny was supposed to drop a note to Churchill via his secretary Martin, and didn't get a reply but a call, from Mr. Fordyce of B4 who wished to see him and came over. Forsyte apologised, and said he had had his suspicions, and Lanny put him at ease, saying he hadnt been free to talk. Fordyce said he'd also suspected Lanny was on his way home anyway, which Lanny agreed and thanked him for having made it easier by providing the passage. Fordyce said his instructions were to provide Lanny with anything he asked for, and Lanny proposed his supposedly clandestine visit to Hess by bribing a jailor, and suggested they place a dictaphone so he wouldnt have to trouble himself recalling every detail of what might be a long conversation. They arranged Hess receiving code messages in his bread so he'd already think Lanny was out there trying to help him, before he was brought in by Fordyce, pretending he'd bribed his way. Hess was in a hospital in a village, Abergavenny, near a Norman castle.
Lanny meanwhile saw Alfy who was in London. They talked about Alfy's experience with the planes, and how the British were doing well.
"“We’re going to hold the fort for you,” Alfy declared. And his friend could assure him: “The Yanks are coming! We’ll put enough weight on this little island to sink it!”
"Said the airman with a smile: “We must get more barrage balloons to hold it up.”"
Fordyce called him and communicated in code, and he was driven to Abergavenny in an Austin, while they talked about Hess.
"The Englishman told about his visit to the hospital and what he had found there. It was a fairly large place, new, and full of wounded men. Hess had a room at the extreme end of the “female wing,” opening onto a small lawn with iron railings. He was never alone, day or night. He would stroll about the countryside on parole. Being a wealthy man, with money in several banks in neutral countries, he could indulge his whims and was permitted to do so within limits; he chose to dress himself in a blue sports coat, gray flannel trousers, and flaring yellow boots.
"“That isn’t like the Rudi I knew,” said Lanny. “Then he wore a plain S.A. uniform.”
"“That was glory in those days,” replied the other. “Now he chooses to be an English country squire—but yellow boots rather spoil the effect! The people of the neighborhood refer to him playfully as the Kaiser of Abergavenny. They are used to the sight of him on the roads, or sitting somewhere in the sunshine; he will stay for hours painting or sketching. Time hangs heavy on his hands, we may be sure.”
"“He is a military student, Mr. Fordyce, and must know that victory for his side is a long way off. No doubt he fights against the realization.”
"“He fights against everything and everybody. He frightens the nurses with his scowls. He cannot bear to take orders, and while he has never offered physical resistance, he has made it necessary to have a force of thirty men, mostly soldiers of the Welsh regiment, to guard him. I suppose that counts as a military gain for Germany.”
"They talked for a while about what Lanny might find out. It was of great importance to know if Hess had any way of communicating with the outside, and it would be a master stroke if he could be led to name any confederate or agent in Britain. It was entirely likely that the Nazis, who had apparently foreseen everything, had established a system for meeting just such contingencies as now confronted their Nummer Drei."
They came to the hospital and Lanny was whisked into the home of the medical superintendent Major D. Ellis Jones, member of British army.
"Major Jones explained the peculiar responsibility which Rudolf Hess represented to his custodians. If Hess were to die, the Nazis would be certain to claim that it was the result of mistreatment, and they might take the lives of hundreds of the British officers whom they had at their mercy. Therefore the hospital was scrupulous in welcoming the Swiss Neutrality Commission which was charged with enforcing the Geneva Convention. They came whenever they wished and talked with the prisoner and made sure that he had everything to which he was entitled. Because of the fear that he might commit suicide in spite of the utmost watchfulness, the guardians babied him considerably, allowing him harmless little indulgences which were surely not in the convention. “As a rule he doesn’t have much appetite, and he has lost weight in spite of our best efforts.”
"Said Lanny: “I can understand the extreme humiliation he feels. It is hard for me to imagine that he would want to live if the Nazi cause goes down.”
"“That is what we fear, Mr. Budd, and why we have to be so careful in handling him. He is liable to fits of depression which may last for weeks.”"
Lanny spoke to Hess, and assured him on his own loyalty, and proposed that he get a message from Hess to his boss if he could, which Hess found was more hope than expected. He gave Lanny his wedding ring and the words adi had said when he'd given it to him, as evidence that Lanny was bringing a message from him. Lanny found Hess wasn't saying much, so either he knew nothing or wasn't convinced Lanny wasn't in on luring him into Britain, which Lanny had attempted to tell him he wasn't, by saying he'd told Branscome in detail and he thought Branscome was doubtful as a loyal agent. Lanny went off, planning to use the ring and the message to persuade FDR to let him go into Germany.
In London press knew about the military conference but wasn't allowed to publish it. Rick said the party included General Marshall, Chief of Staff, and Admiral King.
"Already in London was the newly appointed Commanding General of the American forces in the European Theater, whose name was Eisenhower. Lanny had never heard this name until the appointment was announced; he had to take it for granted that F.D.R. and his advisers knew their man.
"“General Ike” had set up headquarters in some “flats” in Grosvenor Square, one of the fashionable districts of London, and the playful Americans had taken to calling it “Eisenhowerplatz.” It seemed to them a charming stroke of fate that the new “C.G.” should be of German ancestry and carry a German name. The words mean “iron hewer,” and the word “iron” has been through the centuries a favorite of all military-minded German poets and orators. Now a hewer from the prairie state of Kansas had come to hew the German iron, beginning with the “blood and iron” of Bismarck and including the “iron soul” of Adolf Hitler."
Lanny got in touch with Harry Hopkins who asked if hed be in town, and Lanny said he was going to visit his daughter but would return as soon as Harry called or sent a telegram. Lanny went with Rick to Hampstead Heath and they talked on the heath.
"Rick had attended a press conference given by the “C.G.,” and reported him a straightforward and democratic fellow, a beneficent example to the brass hats of Britain. “The only thing is, I’m afraid he may be a little too kindhearted for a general.”
"“Don’t worry,” Lanny assured him. “Our fellows are really going to fight. I am told that our maneuvers in the Louisiana marshes were quite terrific.”
"“I know,” agreed Rick. “They are drilling like all-possessed in North Ireland and practicing landings all round our coast. The Germans send in a tip-and-run plane now and then and get photographs. They can’t find them very reassuring.”
"“I am told that Roosevelt is determined that American forces shall go into action somewhere this year. If it’s not to be across the Channel, then it must be the Mediterranean, or we’ll change our plans and concentrate first upon the Japanese. I don’t suppose your people want that.”
"“Hardly,” said the baronet’s son. “But from all I hear Winnie is dead set against any more Channel crossings until we have overwhelming forces. So I suppose it will be the Mediterranean, and the farther east it is the better it will suit our Tory leader. If he could invade through the Balkans he would consider that he was killing two birds with one stone, winning two wars with one expedition.”
"“The Second World War and the Third,” replied Lanny with a smile. They didn’t need to say more, for they had both been in Paris early in the year 1919 when the descendant of the Duke of Marlborough had come there and labored mightily to persuade the Allies to undertake a holy crusade to crush the cockatrice of Bolshevism, just emerged from its egg and not yet having had time to develop its poison fangs.
"“Winnie hasn’t had a new idea in a quarter of a century,” said the “Pink” journalist. “He wouldn’t get another in the next quarter of a millennium.”
"Lanny thought that was extreme, and replied, “He was a consistent supporter of the League of Nations, and of collective security.”"
Lanny visited his daughter at Wickthorpe until he got a telegram from Harry, and promised to write to Frances as he left, and to return as soon as he could.
............................................................................
Lanny met Harry, who looked very ill, but was working hard anyway. He remarked about Harry remembering him at all, and Harry said it was boss's wish Lanny was informed.
"The British refused positively to go in with us on a cross-Channel invasion this year. They say we couldn’t force the Germans to divert anything from Russia, because the Germans have enough forces in France to withstand anything we could put ashore this year. And another defeat would be a catastrophe. ... Now we have to change all our plans. It’s to be the Mediterranean. Churchill, of course, wants it to be the Balkans; he fought like a tiger for that. You should have been there—it was quite a drama. The first time he saw me he gave me the devil because I had talked to some of the generals before I talked to him. That’s not protocol, it seems. He gave me to understand that he was the master of the British Empire, and that he, not any of the generals, is running the British part of this war. He grabbed the law book in which this is written and read me the passages in the same tone as if he were making a speech in Parliament; when he finished each passage he ripped the page out of the book and threw it on the floor. A good show, as they say. ... We can’t go it alone, or even threaten to. We agreed to compromise. We gave up the Channel and the P.M. gave up the Balkans. We’re going to invade through French North Africa and put Rommel into a sack.””
"“The name of the operation is Torch. Eisenhower will command; it’s to be kept an American show, with the idea of riding easier with the French. The coast is long, as you know, a couple of thousand miles. We may take Dakar or Casablanca on the Atlantic, or Oran or Algiers on the Mediterranean. We leave the enemy to guess. Between you and me, it will be all, or most of, those ports.”"
Harry asked if Lanny was to travel there immediately, and Lanny said his first port of call was Vichy. Harry said he'd arrange the flights. He looked very ill, and Lanny said he ought to rest, but Harry informed him he was flying back to Washington D.C. to be married in the White House.
............................................................................Lanny travelled to Madrid via Lisbon, and spent an evening with General Aguilar, who responded to the information about Göring's acquisition of art from all conquered territory of Europe.
"“A man out of the old times!” he exclaimed admiringly, and went on to reveal the fact that a year or two ago this conquistador had assembled more than three hundred of the largest guns ever made in the world, with the intention of taking Gibraltar."
"“I suppose those guns have been taken to the eastern front now,” remarked the art expert casually.
"“No, they are still there,” said the General, who was in a mellow mood, having listened to much flattery. “They serve a useful purpose in protecting the neutrality of Morocco.”
"He didn’t say Spanish Morocco, but Lanny knew he meant that; he was refusing to acknowledge the existence of French Morocco.
"“Do you mean,” asked the American, “the guns are powerful enough to be effective across the Strait?”
"“They might be; but I mean that our ability to take Gibraltar will exercise a restraining influence upon hostile forces that might wish to land on the other side.”
"“I keep hearing talk of such expeditions,” remarked Lanny, “but of course a civilian never knows whether it is something real or just a smoke screen. From what I can gather, the most likely place for a landing appears to be the Vardar valley in Greece.”"
General Aguilar remarked about Americans repeatedly pulling chestnuts out of fire for British, and Lanny assured him that wouldn't last, by pulling out a leaflet of the American Christian League - the stuff arranged for Hartley by Post, Cartier and Lanny - out of his pocket. General was happy to hear about the mass meetings, millions of followers and the money collected.
"In return he talked freely about the “Blue Division,” which represented the first installment of El Caudillo’s promised million men to help the Führer put down the Red demon. These “Blues” were volunteers, in the same sense that the Germans and Italians who had come to fight in Spain had been—that is, they could volunteer or be shot. They had been meeting with heavy losses in Russia, but now the Axis armies were advancing rapidly toward the oil of the Caucasus, and it looked as if the dawn were breaking at last.
"Too bad this victory could not have been won by Christian armies, instead of by the Nazis, who were not exactly cordial to Holy Mother Church! But Marshal Pétain had the word of the Führer that the Church would be restored in France as a bulwark against the Reds."
Lanny was received by Maréchal Pétain, whom General Aguilar had known and respected, while he was French ambassador in Madrid, and also later in Vichy, so General Aguilar spoke freely with Lanny, who couldn't pretend to be Catholic but knew the hierarchy.
............................................................................
In Vichy Lanny was known, and established as art dealer who bought for rich clients in U.S..
"“A banana republic without any bananas,” some wit had called it, and yet, the smaller the prizes, the more bitterly men fought for them. Intrigue, jealousy, and hatred appeared to be staple foods at Vichy buffets. Lanny had never been in any place where secrets were so ill kept; you could hear all the crimes of all the world, except of the person who was talking to you, and you might hear about him from any of his associates. Bourgeois France was falling to pieces, and Vichy was the garbage can."
Lanny met Charlot, but saw that he couldn't get him to see that Denis had a different view, and just escaped an argument himself. He had met Darlan's man and got invitation to see him. Darlan was expressing outrage at the U.S. fear that his fleet would be turned over to Germans, but also said France would fight if U.S. troops invaded, and asked Lanny, who maintained that it would be Salonika and Vardar valley. Darlan spoke about British bombings and about French rejoicing, and more.
That evening while walking back Lanny was offered a leaflet and automatically took it, and read it in his hotel room. It was published by a group of protestant and Catholic priests who were against fascists and nazis. Lanny sent off his report.
Laval invited him to his office, with similar views and questions, and Lanny repeated the Vardar valley story.
"The Germans are almost at the Volga and the Caspian Sea. When they have reached those goals they will have cut Russia in half, and will stop her oil supply and bring all her machinery to a halt. And Rommel is at the gates of Alexandria and Suez, and then of what use will the Mediterranean be to the Allies? They will have to go all the way around Africa, and what means will they have to keep the Panzer forces from penetrating to India and meeting with the Japanese?”"
Laval wanted to know if the British and U.S. would be reasonable and stop the war, and accept the New world order, as desired by himself in accord with assurances of Hitler who had no designs against them. Laval asked him to take a note from him, and wished to pay for his services as messenger, which became a somewhat long debate with Lanny refusing to accept payment and tacitly also to change the itinerary that involved meeting his mother, daughter, and conducting art business. He offered a million to be paid in N.Y. in dollars. Lanny said he'd do anything for France, not for money, but time wasn't ripe, let Germans cross Volga.
............................................................................
Lanny arrived in Cannes by train met by Beauty driving her horse vpcarriage, both thinner. Marceline had returned to Berlin after getting a letter from Oskar, and Beauty wasn't happy. Lanny suggested bringing up Marcel better, and Beauty said he was still radical. After a couple of days he had a serious talk with her, telling her it wasn't to be talked about, and asked her to go with him on a vacation to French Morocco, bringing family and a maid but nothing a tourist wouldn't take. She'd buried money in the garden and showed him, and he said he'd use it and pay a cheque in her N.Y. bank. He told Jerry Pendleton next, asking him to accompany them as secretary, and not say anything to anyone. He arranged to travel to Geneva, and contacted Monck there the usual way.
Monck had been contacted by Donovan's man and was happy, he'd been given apparatus which Lanny guessed was radio set, and said he couldn't find out where the heavy water plant was, but jet propulsion was less secret.
Lanny sent off his report, and spent the day looking at art. He bought a Mary Cassatt painting of a little girl intended for Mrs Fotheringay of Chicago, and returned to Bienvenu. He visited Emily Chattersworth whom he couldn't take to Morocco since she was invalid and it would send a signal if Lanny took her too. He visited people who had paintings he could buy, and carried on negotiations. He went to Toulon and arranged to meet Raoul, and inspected art shops. Raoul said Donovan's man had met the group, and they were pleased.
"“You want to know about the Fleet. There is a civil war here, as everywhere in France. Partly it is the class war—three-quarters of the marins are for the Allies, whereas three-quarters of the officers are for tradition, that is to say, for obeying orders whatever they may be. Of course the situation is complicated by what the British did at Mers-el-Kébir; a good part of the men hate them heartily for that; but few hate the Americans, and if the common sailors could have their way, the Fleet would sail out tomorrow and put itself under American command.”
"“That is unlikely, of course. The question is, whether they will let themselves be put under German command.”
"“That surely cannot happen, Lanny. There would be a mutiny on every ship.”
"“What is the truth about the Germans being taught how to run the machinery?”
"“That is being done to some extent. The officers claim they cannot refuse to comply with German demands. There is an underground war going on over the issue. Wherever the Germans come, our marins of course know it, and they get together and agree to teach them wrongly as far as possible. They know what the Nazis want and hate their very guts. Naturally we make the most of the situation."
Raoul asked him to meet the group, and he did, telling them they'd to get ready for when American forces arrived, and not let anything fall into German hands. He set off next via Marseille to Algiers, and began the negotiations for the fountain and other things, and met Denis. They talked seriously about the war and the expected arrival of Americans, and Lanny corrected the impression created by axis that they would prevail. Lanny met Professor Aboulker and his group too, and learned that they too had been contacted by Donovan's man.
Lanny met Lemaitre-Dubreuil who took him to lunch at golf club, and later told him that Bob Murphy wanted to meet him.
"Lanny had been carefully keeping away from the Counselor and his twelve vice-consuls—one of whom, according to the gossip now going the rounds, had fallen under the spell of a French woman who was revealed to be a Nazi spy!"
Lanny had been keeping away from Bob, but couldn't say he didn't want to meet the ambassador of his nation. Bob was forwarding his reports to FDR in the diplomatic pouch, and couldn't have failed to notice they ceased when Lanny left.
"Lanny had been told by Roosevelt that he might reveal himself to the Counselor if he saw fit, but he had decided not to see fit just now. What the P.A. had on his mind were those six words which Hess had written on a scrap of paper, and the hope he was cherishing of taking them into Germany. If that should come about, the less he had had to do with American agents in North Africa, the better for him. He knew that the place was swarming with agents of the enemy’s Armistice Commission. Now and then one of them sought out Herr Budd, who talked volubly about the charms of Arab and Moroccan architecture, and the wonders of Timgad which he had seen and of Volubilis about which he had been told. He expressed also the conviction that war was a sad and cruel thing with which an art lover could not possibly have anything to do. And he was careful not to let any one of them get him alone in a dark alley."
The three launched at the Golf Club, and Bob asked about Lanny's top Nazi contacts. They spoke about a Jewish businessman in Nurnberg whose story was similar to that of Johannes Robin, except he was only put under house arrest, and paid a few thousand marks for his art collection.
Lanny flew to Casablanca and met his contacts, and went to Marrakech to arrange for arrival of Beauty who had written. He let the word out that he was interested in fountains, and his man Hajek negotiated. Beauty and entourage arrived, including Madame Zyszynski, whom Beauty refused to leave behind. They settled in, and locals were thrilled with Parsifal. Lanny tried a seance, and now Hugo Behr came. He was distressed about the deaths of thousands in the two front war.
Lanny took Jerry aside after the fountain had been packed and shipped, and talked to him. Jerry had guessed, as expected, that Lanny had been a U.S. agent. Lanny put Jerry on payroll, half his salary paid by Lanny. Jerry was soon ready, and told Lanny about meeting Faulkner whom Lanny had shared a passage with, who was archeologist and Lanny thought an agent. He arranged so Faulkner would be in touch with Jerry and so Jerry would send information through him when Lanny was elsewhere, and Lanny set forth for U.S..
............................................................................
Lanny was to visit the holiday camp of FDR next day, so he had a day at home. He met Post in the morning before setting forth to meet FDR, and was told that Branscome had been handed over to the Brits, and everyone had bought the accidental discovery by diamond dealer cover story.
He drove to Thurmont and was picked up by Baker. They were friends now, and talked about war.
"Russians were fighting like tigers, and the Americans were holding on marvelously in the Solomons. “How they can hit a ship ten miles away in darkness is certainly a miracle,” said Baker, and Lanny contented himself with commenting: “It must be a new invention.” Maybe the President’s man had heard the magic word radar and maybe he hadn’t; in any case, Lanny wouldn’t speak it."
FDR asked about the reception Americans should expect in France.
""Some will join us, others will wait to see what happens; some will fight, at least until their sense of honor is satisfied. That means a great deal to a Frenchman, you know.”
"“How many of their men have to be killed before their honor feels satisfied?”
"“That is why we are sending seven divisions, Lanny.”
"“If you send that many, and if the officers know it for sure, their honor will be satisfied more quickly. I might add that the Navy will fight harder than the Army. You know that their officers are as a rule much more conservative; they have their own little world, and they rule it by divine authority.”
"“Indeed I know it, Lanny. I have some Navy officers of my own, and you should hear the ideas they put before me!”"
Lanny hadn't reported about Hess, for there had been no information. He told FDR now, and showed the scrap. FDR questioned what he expected to do with it, and Lanny outlined his hope that he'd be sent for personally by adi with a plane waiting at the Swiss border, and meeting him could give information by just listening and watching, which could save lives of allied soldiers. FDR wasn't convinced that that was all.
"What’s in the back of your mind, to make contact with some atomic physicist?”
"“I just can’t be sure, Governor. I would have to watch for my chances and take them.”
"“And walk into some trap they had set for you! If any person came to you, even an old friend, pretending to be a sympathizer, that would certainly be a plant.”"
FDR said he had something else in mind for Lanny.
""Winston had just told me the terrible news that Rommel had succeeded in trapping and destroying the greater part of the British tank forces at El Alamein, and the British were almost helpless to defend Alexandria and Cairo. It was just a question of days before Rommel would realize the situation and begin an advance. Winston asked: ‘What could we do?’”
"“What did we do?” Lanny knew this overworked great man, who was still part boy; he wanted to tell a story, even though there wasn’t time.
"“We had just got our new tank-killer in production, a 105 mm. gun, self-propelled, mounted on an M-3 tank chassis; it can do thirty-five miles an hour and hit a target at seven miles. We sent out telegrams to plants all over this land where guns and carriages and engines and parts were being made, and men and women gave up their Fourth of July week end and worked ten-hour shifts, two a day, and foremen and superintendents worked eighteen-hour shifts, living on sandwiches and soda pop and sleeping in the plants. Believe it or not, in nine days we had enough destroyers and tanks at the docks to fill a whole convoy, and the stevedores worked day and night to load them. Those vessels sailed around South Africa and the subs got only one of them. Since that happened to be the most important of all, we sent more telegrams and the factories duplicated their feat; we put the stuff on a fast vessel that traveled alone and reached the convoy before it got round the Cape of Good Hope. General Alexander has everything he needs now, and if you’re watching the news you know that Rommel is a cooked goose.”"
FDR revealed that American forces were to sail for North Africa in a fortnight, and he wanted to minimise the death toll in water by Germans and Italians attacking them before landing, especially the massacre that could take place with a hundred u-boats converging on them in Mediterranean, by someone planting disinformation to the effect that Americans were going to take the easier way of landing at Dakar, which they'd believe easily because they expected it. Lanny asked why not give this disinformation to aid personally, and FDR said he was too valuable to him to risk his life by going into Germany.
Lanny drove to Washington D.C. to report to Colonel Donovan's outfit, now renamed O.S.S., and reported on everything regarding his travel.
"Lanny told them: “The first one of you who falls into hands of the Nazis will learn that there is nothing funny about it.”
"They answered gravely: “It has already happened, Budd.”"
Lanny came home and told his wife he had only two days, but his orders were to keep back and survive. They visited Newcastle, where he could give valuable inputs to Robbie and his younger sons, and drove next day to meet Mr Vernon and Harlan Winstead, thus keeping up art business which was doubly necessary for Lanny. They returned home to N.Y., and Lanny helped Laurel with insights into nazi characters for her book.
............................................................................
The clipper passengers were thrilled to see a u-boat, which dived speedily. Lanny went to Casablanca from Tangiers and looked for Jerry, and gave him the instructions and plot to get Faulkner to give disinformation to the Germans. The plot began to work, Faulkner was excited to do it, and Hajek brought the rumours to Lanny, saying all Moors knew.
" ... the Moors had got along very well with the large Jewish population along the North African coast, and only now, under the steady pressure of Nazi propaganda, were beginning to realize that the Jews were much better traders than the Moors, and had perhaps been accumulating more than their share of money, land, and business."
As per Lanny's thinking, Faulkner had only to wait, and he was contacted by nazis, some he'd known in other roles than agents. He offered to give them code books and messages worked out between Lanny, Jerry and the vice-consul, using those old codes, were sent. Lanny thought it better to distance himself and went to Marrakech, putting up in hotel Mamounia on the same floor as his family. Beauty was in the thick of fashionable set, refugees mostly of international mindset who waited for hostilities to be over and were meanwhile friends as before. There were agents too, and rumours circulated via servants, from Casablanca to the fashionable society. He began to hear rumours about goings on in Casablanca and about Americans coming.
"Among the Germans here were half a dozen of the old kind, who had been good Europeans in the past and who looked forward to the return of those more tolerant and agreeable days. They couldn’t do anything about it, but they would talk about it in low tones when they were in the right company. Some of them would tell you that they had come to French Morocco because it was a way to get as far as possible from the disagreeable Nazis."
Lanny met Theodore Auer, scion of German industry tycoon family, who was the German in charge in North Africa, and Lanny found him aping British aristocracy as many Germans did until WWI. He was homosexual like many of the circle of Kaiser, and his man Leutenant Schindler disappeared discreetly after Lanny arrived at Auer's invitation. Auer asked about Lanny's intimate relations with nazis, and Lanny told about Kurt and thence history. They spoke of common friends, Hilde Donnerstein and Graf Stubendorf. Auer disclosed that he had never been Nazi, but had an SS man here watching him. Lanny, uncertain about trusting Auer, took the art expert neutral pose. Auer said he'd become certain that Americans were coming, and he'd like to become American. He expected Lanny to help since a Budd would understand about Auer. Lanny explained that his father had no political influence, and he stayed off politics, since he had varied clientele. He promised to do all he could, since he cherished all his German friends.
"When the Americans took Morocco General Noguès smuggled most of the Armistice Commission into Spanish Morocco, and Herr Auer was flown to Berlin. Lanny heard a grim story of how the Nazis put him on trial for incompetence and treason as well. They found him guilty, and took him out into the courtyard of the building, removed his coat, tied his hands behind him, and made him kneel down and place his head on a large wooden block. A sturdy Henker, dressed in ceremonial black swallow-tailed coat and top hat, took a large broad-bladed double-bit ax, and with one swift stroke chopped off that well-shaped head with the rosy cheeks and the crown of properly barbered blond hair."
The clipper passengers were thrilled to see a u-boat, which dived speedily. Lanny went to Casablanca from Tangiers and looked for Jerry, and gave him the instructions and plot to get Faulkner to give disinformation to the Germans. The plot began to work, Faulkner was excited to do it, and Hajek brought the rumours to Lanny, saying all Moors knew.
" ... the Moors had got along very well with the large Jewish population along the North African coast, and only now, under the steady pressure of Nazi propaganda, were beginning to realize that the Jews were much better traders than the Moors, and had perhaps been accumulating more than their share of money, land, and business."
As per Lanny's thinking, Faulkner had only to wait, and he was contacted by nazis, some he'd known in other roles than agents. He offered to give them code books and messages worked out between Lanny, Jerry and the vice-consul, using those old codes, were sent. Lanny thought it better to distance himself and went to Marrakech, putting up in hotel Mamounia on the same floor as his family. Beauty was in the thick of fashionable set, refugees mostly of international mindset who waited for hostilities to be over and were meanwhile friends as before. There were agents too, and rumours circulated via servants, from Casablanca to the fashionable society. He began to hear rumours about goings on in Casablanca and about Americans coming.
"Among the Germans here were half a dozen of the old kind, who had been good Europeans in the past and who looked forward to the return of those more tolerant and agreeable days. They couldn’t do anything about it, but they would talk about it in low tones when they were in the right company. Some of them would tell you that they had come to French Morocco because it was a way to get as far as possible from the disagreeable Nazis."
Lanny met Theodore Auer, scion of German industry tycoon family, who was the German in charge in North Africa, and Lanny found him aping British aristocracy as many Germans did until WWI. He was homosexual like many of the circle of Kaiser, and his man Leutenant Schindler disappeared discreetly after Lanny arrived at Auer's invitation. Auer asked about Lanny's intimate relations with nazis, and Lanny told about Kurt and thence history. They spoke of common friends, Hilde Donnerstein and Graf Stubendorf. Auer disclosed that he had never been Nazi, but had an SS man here watching him. Lanny, uncertain about trusting Auer, took the art expert neutral pose. Auer said he'd become certain that Americans were coming, and he'd like to become American. He expected Lanny to help since a Budd would understand about Auer. Lanny explained that his father had no political influence, and he stayed off politics, since he had varied clientele. He promised to do all he could, since he cherished all his German friends.
"When the Americans took Morocco General Noguès smuggled most of the Armistice Commission into Spanish Morocco, and Herr Auer was flown to Berlin. Lanny heard a grim story of how the Nazis put him on trial for incompetence and treason as well. They found him guilty, and took him out into the courtyard of the building, removed his coat, tied his hands behind him, and made him kneel down and place his head on a large wooden block. A sturdy Henker, dressed in ceremonial black swallow-tailed coat and top hat, took a large broad-bladed double-bit ax, and with one swift stroke chopped off that well-shaped head with the rosy cheeks and the crown of properly barbered blond hair."
............................................................................
Lanny was called to Casablanca with Jerry sending a coded message about mosaics, and went there. Jerry said Faulkner was offered quarter of a million francs to find out about operation cornet, the name used in coded messages about the disinformation. Lanny told him to tell Faulkner to ask for half a million, to get them to respect it. Jerry said dates had to be plausible, and it was late October, Lanny said he could only say within the year. Moors said Atlantic swells made landing after mid November impossible, said Jerry, and Lanny assured him American authorities had studied all the relevant details.
"Jerry had learned through Faulkner and the vice-consul about Mr. Robert Murphy’s recent air journey to Washington and from there to London; he had returned to Algiers, and all the Americans were agog, believing that this meant action—and oh, how tired they were of waiting! The British forces in Egypt were beginning a huge bombing campaign against Rommel’s forces, an indication that there also an attack was impending.
"Lanny came to a decision: “I have several matters to attend to in Algiers, and I will put the situation before Murphy and see what he advises. I will write you a letter from there, saying that you may expect me back in Casablanca to look at a mosaic on such and such a date. That will be the date which Faulkner is to give the Germans as the date when the convoys will be leaving the United States. If I say that I have already seen the mosaic in question, it will mean that the sailings have begun.”"
In Algiers Lanny wrote his report but didn't seal it, and instead asked Bob Murphy on phone to visit him at the hotel, mentioning no names. He identified himself as agent once they were in his room, and talked over his mission. Bob said not to worry about protocol, and keep him informed. They discussed giving a date about Dakar.
Lanny met Denis, who also questioned about date, and about Dakar.
"The really important news was about the French officers. The continued killing of hostages by the Nazis in France was troubling their consciences, while the stand the Russians were making at Stalingrad was impressing their professional minds. A deadly battle had been waged on the banks of the Volga for weeks, and the Germans could not keep the truth about it from spreading. If now the British could actually drive Rommel out of Egypt, and if the Americans would actually come and not talk just about it, Frenchmen might be able to hope again. General Juin, commander of what was left of the French Army in North Africa, and General Mast, who commanded under Juin in the region of Algiers, were both now committed to welcoming the promised invasion. Denis was exultant about this, because he had been working on these top men. “You understand, Lanny,” he explained modestly, “in military terms I am a mere capitaine, but because of my father’s position I enjoy a sort of civilian rank.”"
Lanny met his group at Professor Aboulker's home and they too had questions, if Vichy heard and called Mast and Juin they might end up like Weygand. Lanny could only reassure them the best he could.
Lanny got a note about some mosaics from Jerry, which meant the plot was doing well, and he went and inspected some mosaics in Algiers and set Hajek to negotiate. Denis came with precautions and had a story to tell.
"It is D’Astier de la Vigerie who was asked to arrange a meeting place. He recalled a house on the coast, beyond the town of Cherchell, a lonely spot. One of our friends, an ardent Gaullist and former mayor of Algiers, owns the house; it is off the highway, on a bluff almost over the sea, and it is an ideal place for such a meeting. This will show you that our officers really mean to cooperate. You see, they are afraid that the Germans may come first, and that Franco may help them. Also, I think it means that your Army must be coming soon, or they wouldn’t take such a risk. It would certainly mean shooting for our Army friends if the Laval gang should get wind of the meeting here.”
"“Do you know who the American officers are, Denis?”
"“We have not been told that. We only know that they are coming in a submarine, which will surface after dark and put them ashore. The water is deep in front of the house I speak of, and I suppose the sub will bring little boats.”"
Lanny prepared another report and called Bob Murphy, who had given him the name Merriweather for code, and Bob came to the hotel entering via an inconspicuous door after parking away and walking, and walked up to Lanny's room. Lanny handed over the report and asked if Bob wanted to tell him about Cherchell, and Bob was startled. He asked what Lanny knew, and how, and Lanny reassured him on both counts. Bob looked at him, and asked him to join, not the meeting but the event. Lanny need not fight, there were British commandos who were bringing General Mark Clark and other American officers ashore.
"“You know French, Budd, and you know the French people. You understand the situation in this part of the world, and you possess that happy gift called savoir-faire. I can’t imagine that you would lose your head in any emergency. I would tell both the Americans and the French that I had brought a personal friend, who was going to keep watch, and you could stay out in the darkness, unidentified. If any persons approached the house you would know how to greet them and answer their questions and allay any suspicions they might have. I hope and pray that nothing of the sort will happen, but there are many things that might happen, and I would be grateful to be relieved of anxiety so that I could put my mind on the problems of the conference.”"
Lanny did not wish to compromise his role, but said that he'd come if Bob wished it, and Bob said he did. They proceeded accordingly, and the submarine arrived too late at dawn to surface, but they came ashore at night. Lanny stayed out at his post.
"Later on, when Murphy told him what had happened, he knew that they had really been making history. The new allies had given data beyond the dreams of any superspy: a complete set of military maps of all French North Africa, showing the ground, the elevations, the beaches, the airfields; charts of the waters, with soundings, and facts concerning military installations, fortifications, storerooms, and supplies; figures as to the airports, the length of the runways and materials of construction; figures concerning transportation, the number of engines and cars. Most important of all were complete plans for an invading army, including the various forms of co-operation the French might be able to give—the blocking of fortifications from the rear, the seizure of radio stations and airports, newspapers, public buildings, and records, and the protection of water power and transmission lines in Morocco."
Middle of next day the Moorish family appeared in a cart and wouldn't be put off , and while Lanny argued ineffectively since they didn't speak French, two youngsters ran to the house. The owner was contacted and he turned them around. Later came a warning by phone and Lanny saw French officers leave in a hurry in cars , so he went in. Police were coming from Algiers and it was now up to him to keep them from discovering the British and American military officers. They came, and between them Lanny, Bob and two French officers dealt with them, successfully preventing a search of the premises.
"In the doorway the reluctant official served warning: “My superiors will come, Messieurs.” He didn’t have to say that, and the thought flashed through Lanny’s mind: Can it be that he has guessed correctly, and that he is on our side in the situation?"
Lanny stayed at his post watching the road and learned later. The visitors had decided to brave it, signalled the submarine and set out despite the high rollers.
"The first to make a try was General Clark. He took off his outer clothing and rolled it into a bundle, and he and a British commando captain walked out into the surf. Clark, a powerful man, six-feet-three, got into the frail walnut shell; the other man followed, and they began paddling like mad. A tall comber came sweeping in, seized the tiny boat, turned it up on end, threw it over and back toward the beach.
"“Save the General’s pants!” somebody shouted, and the reply was: “Hell, no, save the paddles!” This they managed to do; but the pants were gone, and somewhere in the boiling surf was a musette bag containing six hundred dollars in gold. When this story reached the newspapers, the amount had been increased to eighteen thousand dollars—apparently nobody stopped to figure that such a quantity of gold would weigh about sixty pounds and would have been rather difficult to transport in a kayak."
They saw that they couldn't and decided to hide in woods rather than the cellar, and the general borrowed trousers from one below, and so on until the lowest rank was without trousers and wrapped in blanket. Police came late at night and searched everything in the house, and said they'd search the woods the next day.
"Lanny wondered, did this mean that they didn’t want to find out too much?"
This was notice and the guys decided to leave, found a spot with riptide and signalled the submarine to come closer, and managed.
"Out by the submarine one boat was smashed to bits against the side. This presented a new problem, for it had contained uniforms and a bag with papers, and when these and the boat fragments were washed ashore it would be a dead giveaway. The sub signaled to Murphy to clean up the beach, and he and the vice-consul got the boat fragments and other debris, tore them to pieces, and buried them in the sand. They did not find the gold, but they did find General Clark’s pants, and wrung them out and wrapped them up and locked them in the trunk of the consulate car. When they climbed the bluff, Murphy was exhausted and deathly pale, and Knight’s feet were full of thorns and cuts.
"They were just in time, for Lanny gave the alarm again; there were cars coming, two of them this time. The Americans had done their job, and a high diplomatic official felt justified in standing upon the dignity of his office. “Gentlemen,” he said, “since I am not free to entertain my friends without repeated annoyance, I retire from the field. The house is yours, and I am going back to Algiers.” The other two Americans were already in the car. The French lieutenants had betaken themselves to the woods."
Lanny wrote his report and handed it over, and Bob glancing noticed Lanny had said the French expected Americans to arrive by end of November, and Bob said only he knew the date. Lanny said he preferred to not know if he wasn't to give the information.
"The Counselor asked what Lanny was intending to do now, and the P.A. said that he had in mind to fly to Casablanca and ascertain how his Dakar scheme was going. He said: “I’ll have, to come back here to file a report, as I don’t care to trust the mails. How long shall I stay?”
"That was a “leading” question, and the other might have said that it was for Lanny to decide. Instead he smiled and replied: “I wouldn’t stay more than a week or ten days if I were you.” Lanny did not fail to make note of both the words and the manner.
"“I’ll tell you something interesting,” the other continued. “The plans which the French had prepared for a proposed invasion of their territory correspond almost exactly with those which our Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff had worked out. General Clark didn’t tell them that, of course. There was only one important difference: they don’t think we can take Casablanca, and their plan was to take Oran, and then backtrack on land.”
"“That is exactly what General Béthouart suggested to me,” replied the P.A.
"“I find very few who think that we can land on the Atlantic coast, because of the surf.”
"“They don’t know the new devices we have prepared. They will be surprised, and so will the Germans.”
"“I was told about the landing craft by my half-brothers, back in Connecticut,” said Lanny. “I am waiting on pins and needles.”
"“We have all been waiting more than three years,” remarked the Counselor. And Lanny exclaimed: “I have been waiting ever since the day Hitler took power, and that lacks only a couple of months of being ten years. I am indignant when I think how that man has dominated my life!”"
Lanny visited Casablanca, where Jerry was doing well and Faulkner was established, and Marrakech, where Beauty was doing well and everyone knew about Dakar and expected a massacre by u-boats, and too the souks knew that Theodore Auer, whom lanny saw once again, would prefer to be caught by Americans. Lanny returned to Algiers intending to follow his report, but Bob said the date expected was next Sunday, and this was Thursday, so he wrote to Laurel apologising. Bob now allowed him to tell Denis.
"Murphy said: “We figure there won’t be time for submarines to come up from Dakar now.”
"“Don’t forget the planes,” warned Lanny, and the other exclaimed: “Surely not! The Germans sent a thousand over our last convoy to Malta. But fortunately their bases are not so near to our landing points.”
"“Unless they fly from Spain,” warned the P.A.
"He had an interesting contribution on that subject. Just before leaving Casablanca he had got into a chat with a Spanish consular official who was obviously desirous of pumping him. Lanny had taken his pose of old-time Fascist sympathizer, a friend of General Aguilar; so the Spaniard had talked and revealed that El Caudillo was being pulled this way and that by his advisers, as to whether the Spanish armies should seize the moment to march into French Morocco, block off the Allies, and take the rich territory for their own. So simple it seemed, and then they could take the Rock, with German help if necessary. Some of those magnificent big guns which Marshal Göring had set up had been sitting there idle for more than a year, covered with grease and with their muzzles plugged!
"“What have they decided?” inquired the anxious Counselor; and the answer was: “My Spanish informant felt certain that they will wait and see the result of our efforts. If we are thrown back, it will be the chance of a lifetime for them.”
"“We are not going to be thrown back,” declared Murphy. He was an American, and so was Lanny, and Americans have the habit of thinking that their country can never fail in what it sets out to do. Battles can be lost, mistakes can be made, long delays can occur, but once America gets going she will not be stopped. Once that huge armada had set out from her many ports, once the sealed orders had been opened and read, the tremendous job would be put through, in spite of everything that Vichy French and Nazi Germans and Franco Spaniards could do."
"The turn of the tide was beginning, and not only in Algeria. Murphy confirmed the fact that the British had won a tremendous victory at El Alamein. Lanny had been afraid to believe it; he had been disappointed so many times in that three-year seesawing back and forth along a thousand miles of African coastline. But the new tank-killers had really killed; the German armies had been routed and were in full retreat out of Egypt, harried day and night by swarms of British and American planes. The Desert Fox himself wasn’t there; he had gone to Berlin to be feted and have decorations pinned on him. By the time he got back, he would have only part of an army. The P.A. heard with delight about the war bulletin which the Nazis had published, stating that “Rommel’s forces are advancing westward according to plan and without opposition”!
"Also, the Russians were holding at Stalingrad; they had been backed up against the Volga on a long front, and were clinging there desperately, reinforced and supplied across the river by night. The city and its giant factories were one vast line of ruins, extending for twenty miles along the west bank of the Volga. The discovery had been made in this war that concrete and steel buildings, hammered into ruins, become fortifications. Men can hide in cellars and shell holes while bombardment is going on, and when it stops they come up and hide behind steel girders and concrete blocks and defend their fortress with rifles and machine guns and grenades.
"They can fight in tropical jungles, too, in a tangle of vegetation so dense and so full of thorns and diseases and poisonous insects and snakes that it had been thought no man could penetrate it. But soldiers could camouflage their clothing and faces and hide there and fight. The Americans were proving it in New Guinea, which was a way of defending Australia; the handful of marines that had been put ashore on terrible Guadalcanal were holding on in spite of Japanese bombing every night. Lanny had been there, just a year ago, and had learned about “Solomon sores,” which were all but impossible to heal; half of the G.I.’s had them, but they were sticking it out, and the ships in “the Slot” and the flyers overhead were fighting deadly duels night after night."
Lanny saw the confusion, of the American forces landing at Algiers, going on for well over most of one night and day, and then they were there and French surrendered officially with honour. But the confusion continued for a while, with Darlan uncertain. Lanny met him, and suggested that siding with U.S. was a better way to fight red menace; he told Bob to be firm with him, and Darlan communicated to Pétain before capitulating to General Clark; but Pétain declared U.S. action hostile act and put General Noguès in Morocco in charge, declaring Darlan's surrender null.
"The only person who could solve that problem, it appeared, was Adolf Hitler; he broadcast an announcement that the German armies were occupying all southern France; and with this as a club, the American commander started beating Darlan once more. They argued back and forth for two days and nights, with Clark threatening to set up a military government and treat North Africa as conquered territory. Reinforcements were coming in, and the French could see them. In the end the matter was settled by General Noguès being flown from Morocco and formally handing back his authority to Darlan. Then they all embraced and kissed one another on both cheeks, and at last were ready to welcome les Américains bien aimés and join with them in making war upon les Boches maudits."
"Lanny Budd had had a vision of swarms of brown-clad men moving eastward over the roads of North Africa, and now that vision had become reality in a most satisfactory way."
British took ports a hundred miles East and raced to Tunis, and now that Darlan had surrendered French joined U.S. forces racing East against Germans; there was no underground resistance, which was immensely helpful.
"The entire land, a shelf between high mountains and the sea, was furrowed by a cross-hatching of gullies, called wadis, and this meant that every road was a series of bridges. The destruction of any of them might have delayed the advance, and to protect them would have required an army; but the French took care of them all, and the Americans raced over them; the French, too, as quickly as they could be equipped. ... French Army and the sailors of the Navy got a chance to fight the Germans, and it turned out to be what they had all been waiting for."
There was considerably larger number of French forces than had been allowed by Germans for North Africa, and considerable quantities of arms and ammunition had been hidden. Now this came out, and various populations of the land accepted willingly the draft ordered by U.S..
............................................................................
Lanny had to stay on to gather information, about who among the powerful and rich were really with allies and who would turn at first chance.
"It was as if the scum of Paris was swept off to Vichy, and then the sum of Vichy was swept off to North Africa."
Americans dealt with it as best as they could.
"They tried to get Tunis, and hounded Darlan until he ordered the French general in command there to resist the entrance of the Germans, but Vichy sent an agent to persuade him otherwise, and the agent had a good argument, for the Germans were just across the narrow sea in Sicily, some eighty miles, while the Americans were several hundred miles away.
"Then there was Dakar. The governor-general there was Pierre Boisson, a staunch Vichyite who had resisted De Gaulle’s ill-starred expedition and driven it off. Now, receiving Darlan’s order, Boisson sent a delegation of three officers to investigate the situation at the capital. Later he came himself and talked with Darlan and then with Clark. After long negotiations he decided to come over to the Allies. It was a tremendous gain, for Dakar was a great naval base, as well as an airport from which to hunt submarines trying to blockade the British lines to South Africa and the Near East; also there were three French cruisers, three destroyers, and thirteen submarines, plus the great battleship Richelieu, damaged but capable of being quickly repaired.
"Most important of all was the main Fleet at Toulon. The Americans wanted it to sail and join them, but they couldn’t persuade Darlan to order that move; instead he “suggested” it. Hitler had sent his troops, down to the French Riviera, but solemnly promised not to enter Toulon. Of course the whole world knew by now what Hitler’s word was worth, and the Allies waited in suspense to learn whether the French naval men were going to believe him, or pretend to believe him and let him get that Fleet."
Lanny got a card from Raoul to intimate in code that the fleet would be saved, and then the German army arrived at Toulon, so there was no further communication. Monck's message said he was in touch with the O.S.S., and had nothing for Lanny at present.
Lanny asked Bob what damage was done by enemy submarines, and Bob said it was minimal, Lanny's scheme had worked. Lanny wrote to Jerry telling him hed have something for him, and told Bob about his story. Lanny thought Jerry deserved another chance, and Bob agreed, and when Lanny saw Jerry next he was on U.S. army intelligence payroll, helping to keep track of enemy spies swarming across from Spanish Morocco.
Denis De Bruyne took to radio for cause of De Gaulle, whose agents were now in Algiers, as the sole leader for France.
"At the same time Denis’s friends, D’Astier de la Vigerie and the Abbé Cordier, also well provided with funds, took up the cause of their favorite, the Comte de Paris, darling of the Royalists. He had been raising pigs in Spanish Morocco, but now he moved into French territory and began raising ructions. His followers were getting ready a coup—that ended in the murder of Darlan. One of their steps was to have printed a quantity of manifestos and newspapers explaining their reasons for the murder and setting forth the claims of their pig raiser.
"One day Lanny read in the Dépêche Algériernne of the death of Eugène Schneider in Paris. Seventy-two years he had lived, carrying on the tradition of his father and grandfather, and had made himself the successor to Zaharoff as the “munitions king of Europe.” He had lived just long enough to confront the calamities that his policies had brought to his country and to the whole of Europe. To Lanny it was one more of those “sad stories of the death of kings.” He had seen this cultivated and agreeable French monarch in his home, and knew that he was one of those many who had adopted the motto “Better Hitler than Blum.” He had got his Hitler, and Lanny could guess that he had died of humiliation."
There was criticism of deal with Darlan in U.S. media, who didn't understand that U.S. forces had got North Africa without having to fight the French only due to such a deal. But Lanny came to see the other side.
"Darlan and his crowd were helping the American Army, but they were also helping to keep themselves in power, and they were using the chance to punish their political enemies. Some of those fellows who had been too eager to help the Americans ashore, and the ten thousand political prisoners who were in concentration camps, under truly infamous conditions—these people were going to stay where they were because they were dangerous to Darlan and his crowd. Many were fighters from the Spanish civil war; they had come into France to escape the Franco murderers, and the French reactionaries had thrown them into jail and now were afraid to turn them loose. Also, they were afraid to repeal the laws which the Nazis had forced them to pass against the Jews; by two years of propaganda they had made the people of North Africa fear the Jews, and it would be unpopular to tell them to stop fearing the Jews!"
Lanny spoke to Bob, but got a response that this was not the time, fighting Germans was priority. FDR issued a statement that the deal with Darlan was "a temporary expedient, justified solely by the stress of battle", which had Darlan protest that he was being treated like a lemon to be squeezed and thrown away. Bob had a hard time specifying him.
"The struggle over the French Fleet was settled when the Germans tried to rush Toulon, and the French scuttled the ships, in many cases standing on guard while the ships filled and sank. A few smaller vessels got away to the Allies, but all the large ones went down."
Lanny got a cablegram from Robbie that he had a son, and Esther was with Laurel. He decided it was time to go home, to report personally and to be with family. He celebrated with a dinner with Denis, and left for Casablanca where he cabled Robbie for passage arrangement and met Jerry.
"Things hadn’t been so easy in Morocco, for the stubborn General Noguès had stood out against the Americans, and General Béthouart in Rabat had been unable to accomplish anything except to get himself in jail, where he still was."
Lanny made a mental note to speak to FDR about General Béthouart.
They had landed at three points along the coast, and were resisted, and the worst was in Casablanca where Jerry was helping with radio and was helped by left wing French. Then a bombardment of Casablanca was ordered on morning of 11th and Jerry had gone with his co-workers into the mountains. But there was no shelling in the morning.
"They went down and saw the crowds welcoming the landing parties with wild cheering. This was the phenomenon which so greatly puzzled the G.I.’s; first they were killed and then they were cheered. The G.I.’s had been well trained in shooting, but nobody had troubled to explain to them the class struggle which existed in France; how the great mass of the people wanted peace and bread, while the higher officers of Army and Navy wanted la gloire and l’honneur."
Lanny spoke to vice-consul Pendar who told him about Noguès, Béthouart, Patton and the politics. Lanny received intimation that he was to be flown back from Marrakech in army plane, and Pender drove him to Marrakech where he had use of a fairy tale residence. Lanny met Beauty who was happy except they had left Emily Chattersworth behind, and Lanny explained why. It was two years before Lanny knew that Emily Chattersworth had passed away several days before Operation Torch.
Parsifal was busy healing people due to success in one case, and had established a clinic in home of a local gentlemen, and had trouble getting away due to number of people. Lanny tried a seance, and heard from uncle Phil who had been in Philippines and died in a Japanese concentration camp; his description was correct, so Beauty was affected, and tried it, but got her unborn daughter.
............................................................................
"“First of all, the Darlan outfit must restore to the Jews their civil rights in North Africa. Everybody took that for granted, and is puzzled that we don’t do it. The Jews were active in the crowd that kept the Vichyites busy on D-day, so busy that they had no time to resist us. And of course now the Vichyites are paying the Jews back in every way, both open and secret.”
"“Check,” said the Governor. “And what else?”
"“Almost as important is the release of political prisoners. There are about ten thousand in concentration camps, under shocking conditions. They include Jews, and of course Communists. That could be understood in 1939, when the Reds were opposing the war, but what sense does it make now, when they are all for the war and ready to work as hard as anybody? Many of the prisoners are liberals and democrats like you and me, and many have only one black mark against them, that they fought against Franco in Spain. I don’t need to tell you, Governor, that Franco and Laval are two worms out of the same apple.”
"“Check,” said the Governor a second time."
Lanny asked again about his idea about visiting Hitler, and FDR said he was making it a military order, Lanny was not to do this. They spoke about Lanny's immediate future, and his family. As a special honour, FDR informed him about first uranium pile having started operation, and fissionable material being made.
Lanny had a Xmas at Newcastle with his family, holiday cut short due to Darlan being shot dead, and he called Baker, who said he was to see for the next day. They drove back to N.Y. and Lanny caught his flight to Washington D.C., and met FDR, who indicated that he'd be in that region soon, and asked Lanny's suggestion for preferable location. Lanny suggested Marrakech, but army preferred Casablanca for reasons of security. Lanny flew Clipper this time.
Lanny had a Xmas at Newcastle with his family, holiday cut short due to Darlan being shot dead, and he called Baker, who said he was to see for the next day. They drove back to N.Y. and Lanny caught his flight to Washington D.C., and met FDR, who indicated that he'd be in that region soon, and asked Lanny's suggestion for preferable location. Lanny suggested Marrakech, but army preferred Casablanca for reasons of security. Lanny flew Clipper this time.
............................................................................
In Casablanca Lanny spoke to Jerry before going on to Algiers, where Bob didn't know, but Denis did, about back story of Darlan assassination. He told Lanny about the young boy told by the royalists to do this, and was shot at night himself in turn. Giraud was now in charge, but apolitical, he left that to the right wing intriguers.
U.S. forces had a much more difficult situation in North Africa than the enemy, the latter being established for years with better airfields and closer supply routes, apart from the forces being trained for over a decade.
"Lanny, who had centered his hopes upon Woodrow Wilson and his League of Nations, was now living in the faith that Franklin D. Roosevelt would be able to reap where Woodrow Wilson had sown, and that this time there would be an international police force with real power to enforce international."
Lanny had fun with Bob, saying he'd heard there were V.I.P.s expected, and Bob was startled, uncertain if Lanny knew, until Lanny told him. Bob said they were expected in second week of January and were to be in Anfa, and preparations were being made for security. Lanny returned to Casablanca with Hajek and resumed the art dealing, and met Jerry, who said enemy agents were swarming over across border from Spanish Morocco, and Lanny assumed it was murder attempt conspiracy, but Jerry said it was political. Juan March was there. Lanny said he'd met him and would try seeing him now.
Lanny wrote him and was invited to lunch, and Juan March thought it was a military conference to discuss the severe setback in Tunis. It was a peace offensive, Juan March had the Nazi line of talk:-
"Der Führer would guarantee the integrity of the British Empire forever, and would let America have all South America and all the Japanese Empire. What he wanted was Russia, Central Europe, and the Balkans, so that he could wipe out Bolshevism there for good and all. As a special concession he would let Britain and America assist him in this and have a share in the spoils of these conquered provinces.
"This last was something new, a sign of how the Stalingrad collapse and the defeat of Rommel had frightened the Nazi leaders."
The last time Roosevelt and Churchill met it was the darkest period of the whole war, whereas now sunrise had come and clouds were aglow with promise.
"The Germans had exhausted themselves in the ruins of that mile-long tractor plant, and their armies of some three hundred thousand men were surrounded and being chopped to pieces. As for Rommel, the Desert Fox, he had about run his legs off. Something like twelve hundred miles his armies had fled, westward along the Mediterranean shore. By now he was out of the desert and almost to Tripoli, the pride of Mussolini’s African Empire. The British meant to keep him moving, all the way to Tunis, and there to bottle him up, along with General von Arnim’s Tunis army of a hundred thousand men. That was the first of the problems these warmakers had to solve."
Two separate flights of navy seaplane brought the two leaders and their military and naval staff, while Nazi radios were blaring about Churchill visiting White House again, and Lanny wondered if this was due to Germans translating the name Casablanca. He met FDR, after waiting for his secret service to confirm with the boss that his papers were not to be searched, and told about Juan March who had been the richest man in Europe and used Franco to topple the republic in Spain. FDR quoted General Grant, about accepting only unconditional surrender.
"Lanny mentioned what Juan March had said about Peyrouton, and learned that it was true—this eminent Pétainist was on his way from the Argentine to run Algiers for the Allies. F.D.R. said he wondered how March had learned about it; the P.A. reminded him that the Argentine was the Nazi propaganda center for all South America and that Peyrouton had been sent from Vichy to do his share."
FDR and Lanny discussed the French political scene and what could be done to avoid a Vichy end without losing all management by French, and FDR said De Gaulle was coming, and he hoped Giraud and he could get together. He told Lanny to stay put, and accordingly he did, meeting Juan March and others and picking up tidbits. Thus he verified what hed told FDR before.
"Göring had been all set to take Gibraltar in the spring of the previous year. Lanny hadn’t realized how close to action Der Dicke had come; he had had his three hundred giant cannon all uncovered and aimed, and four divisions of paratroopers all set to fly. With Der Tag only one week ahead, Hitler had sent for him and informed him that he had decided to take Russia instead. The fat Reichsmarschall had been almost beside himself with vexation, and had spoken so plainly that his Führer had never forgiven him, and since then they communicated only in writing.
"The Number One Nazi had set one month, or two at the outset, for the taking of Russia; nineteen months had passed, and those four divisions of magnificent paratroopers were dead in the snows of Russia or prisoners in Russian labor camps. Their Führer had just proclaimed three days of mourning for the three hundred thousand heroes who had been cut to pieces in front of Stalingrad—after he had forbidden them to surrender. Also, Rommel had had to abandon Tripoli without attempting to defend it. Señor Juan took his American guest aside and confided that he thought things looked very black indeed for the Axis, and that he had sent word to El Caudillo that he must abandon any thought of a surprise attack upon the American armies."
Lanny reported this to FDR, who said he'd got it from another source and they were unclear if it was a plant. He spoke about problem of getting Giraud and De Gaulle to work together. Lanny had met Salzgutrer who was part owner of Skoda, and he asked if FDR could get someone to provide him with a few plausible mistaken lines about jet propulsion so that he could talk to Salzgutrer and if he was an agent, mislead him. Lanny was provided those next morning, and called Salzgutrer, who invited him over.
Salzgutrer brought up the topic during conversation about the war, mentioning that Germans were on verge of new discoveries that could turn the tide, and Lanny said if it was jet propulsion he was talking about, he was familiar due to his father's work, and rattled off the stuff. Salzgutrer was impressed and said Lanny sounded like his nephew who worked in thus, and Lanny waited with conversation going on, wondering if the old man was sparring, was it about money, and then the word came casually.
"“My nephew had to sign an agreement to stay on this research job until the war is over. Even his letters are not mailed from Peenemünde, but are taken to Berlin, and of course strictly censored.”"
Lanny went immediately to report, and FDR said this was confirmation of an O.S.S. report that had just come, and they were photographing it. He said he was going to Marrakech and invited Lanny to visit him there. Lanny visited his mother before joining the presidential party where he was kept hidden from others, with Harry Hopkins working with him, but FDR saw him before leaving and asked him to take a message to Stalin, explaining U.S. position and informing about U.S. plans for Sicily and Italy in spring.
Lanny went to Algiers, and while meeting Bob for arranging his passage to Moscow, was handed a letter from Raoul, which he opened later. Raoul was in a concentration camp in the desert, had information that he mentioned as paintings related, but signed his own name. Lanny went immediately to Bob telling him about this man who had worked for O.S.S., and Bob said he'd get him out.
Lanny sat with Raoul at a cafe and heard his story.
"Raoul was half starved, and his olive complexion was blanched; ... he said that the worst shock of his life had been the discovery that the Americans didn’t care enough about their friends here in North Africa to protect them against the scoundrels and traitors who had been shooting at American soldiers less than three months ago. Persons who had risked their lives to help in the landings had been picked up on the streets of Algiers by the pro-Vichy police agents and shipped off to be half baked by day and half frozen by night in the Sahara desert. And not a voice raised in protest, not a chance of any help for such victims!
"The Spanish Socialist told the story of his efforts to awaken the sailors of the Fleet to the danger of losing it to the enemy. “Cells” had been established and literature had been distributed under the noses of the Vichy authorities. Three days after the Americans had landed in Africa, the Germans had moved into Unoccupied France; they had pledged themselves not to enter Toulon, but Raoul and his friends had realized that this was nothing but an effort to gain time, so as to get airplane bases established on both sides of the harbor, to be in position to bomb the Fleet if it tried to escape. A strange situation, with the city and its semicircle of forts completely surrounded by the silent and unmoving German Army for nearly two weeks.
"“We did our best to persuade the sailors of the Fleet to make a try at escape,” said Raoul, “but the officers were divided among themselves and unable to do anything but argue and scold one another; and it’s hard for seamen to take action against officers whom they have been trained to respect. What we anti-Nazis did was to concentrate on watching the enemy and spreading the alarm the moment he showed signs of moving in.”
"Raoul described the wild scenes when the German advance began. “It was at four o’clock in the morning, nineteen days after your D-day. They came in by the Castigneau gate, and their planes dropped flares to illuminate the warships, and magnetic mines to block the entrance to the roadstead. We learned afterward that there were German and Italian subs outside, ready to torpedo any vessels that got out. The enemy headed for the arsenal, where the headquarters were; others had pontoons to take them out to the ships. But a signal gun was fired and it brought the whole Fleet into action.”
"A strange story this observer narrated about the order to sink the Fleet. It had been given more than two years ago, and all plans had been made. Now, when the Germans were ready to move, Hitler sent a letter to Pétain, demanding that the Fleet be surrendered, and threatening dire penalties if it resisted. The poor old Maréchal gave way and countermanded the order; but the stupid Germans had cut all the telephone and telegraph lines into the city, and there was no way for the countermand to reach the Fleet in time.
"“It was a scene like nothing this side of hell. All the magazines on seventy war vessels began to explode. I was on top of the Grand Hotel, with Catroux and Mlle. Bléret, and we thought we were going to be knocked off by the concussion. The first to go was the battleship Strasbourg, and after that there was a roar every minute or so. The sky was like the inside of a steel furnace. Many of the sailors stayed with the Fleet, to make sure the Germans didn’t get aboard to stop the sinking. Some turned machine guns on the German planes, and others fired big guns at the arsenal, to wreck that for the enemy. We succeeded in setting off its huge store of explosives, and the wreckage rained all over the city. There were ammunition dumps burning and exploding all the way around the port, at Cépet, at Sicié, over the Saron, at Cap Brun, Carqueiranne—everywhere you looked; all the big guns and mortars were destroyed, and their ammunition, too. When the Fleet officers had once made up their minds they did their duty, and stayed on the bridges of their ships until they rolled over or went down; some fought off the Germans while the job was being done. By ten o’clock in the morning all the big ships were sunk and only half a dozen small ones afloat. The whole harbor was a mass of black smoke, and you could hardly find your way about in town. Burning oil almost suffocated people.”
"He himself had made his way down the coast at night and found a sailor-comrade who helped him to stow away and get to Algiers. “I wanted to see you,” he explained, “and to make contact with the O.S.S. again. I didn’t know where you were, but I thought a letter in care of Mr. Murphy would reach you. Before I had a chance to write it I was picked up by the flics, and of course my papers were wrong. I suppose they had a complete set of fingerprints from France.”"
............................................................................
He was blindfolded after Nürnberg until he was inside what he guessed was a hunting lodge, with two SS officers who searched him, except the scrap of paper which he insisted was strictly for the eyes of the boss. They were steely, and he knew they'd never been happy about an American being close to boss. They took him to the boss, and handed over the scrap of paper. Lanny insisted adi see it only when they left, and so he did. It was the writing from Hess, and Lanny had to listen to a tirade about Hess being dead, until he presented the ring and aid was startled that this story was true, and then Lanny pitched the rescue idea.
Lanny spoke about atomic fission, and aid was decisive that it waste of time. He was definite that his jet propulsion weapons would be superior, and Lanny reciting the recently memorised material impressed him. Hitler finally relaxed and spoke, and he said Lanny could have his pass for the duration he required to see old contacts. Kurt was wounded by a falling building in Berlin after he'd joined the army again, and was now unable to play piano, and was in Stubendorf.
Lanny spent dinnertime with the kellner who was upset about his boss not consuming red meat, and when he played music later, singing Bavarian songs softly, they heard the boss roar. They realised it was at some General or more, about another defeat. Kellner talked about the situation.
"“Almost every day now we retire from places. The day before yesterday it was Rostov that was taken from us, and a few hours later it was Voroshilovgrad. What disagreeable names those Russians do give to places!”"
He went out and returned.
"“It is Kharkov,” he said. “It is awful, awful! Who can stand against these Russian hordes? We kill a million, and there is another million treading in their footsteps.”"
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Lanny was flown to Stubendorf and took a sleigh to Kurt's house. There were eight children now, his wife having performed her duty, all flaxen shared and blue eyed, five at school. Kurt could no longer play, but could compose and write.
"Here in Stubendorf the P.A.’s soul was torn in halves, because the old affection was still there, and pity for the hardworking devoted wife and the innocent little children. Over and over again Lanny recalled the saying of Trudi, also a German, that he and she and all of them had chosen a bad time to be born."
Lanny talked of adi mentioning conspiracies in Wehrmacht against him, which adi hadn't but Kurt knew about and Kurt talked to Lanny about. Lanny suggested Kurt get information for adi, and Kurt said Emil told him they had it under control.
Lanny went to Berlin on train via Breslau, but didnt go to Adlon, not wanting publicity, and didn't want to go to a pension, since it would be gossipy. Most convenient was to go to Hilde Donnerstein. He called her, and she was happy to hear but alarmed, and he said he had to see her, so she asked him to come. He took a hack and saw some buildings destroyed but no debris, since they considered it not good for morale.
Hilde was in mourning for her husband, and was living with her mother and sister, the former having list all grandchildren. Lanny said he was fine with a cold room, didn't expect meals, would be happy to pay, and showed her the pass in adi's own handwriting, which later impressed the police officials too. They exchanged news, and Lanny didn't tell her his wife's real name or age or occupation.
Lanny walked to Göring's office and spoke with him on telephone, making an appointment for a couple of days later, and made another at the chancellory to see Professor Salzmann, whom he then proceeded to read about in the library, repeating the library next dayand inviting Heinrich Jung out to lunch. Heinrich had steadily climbed and now had a bit more than a third of a million youth under him, and spoke about the new buildings of the new campus constructed East of Rhine.
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Lanny met Professor Salzmann who was reserved.
"Lanny was aware that many of Germany’s top scientists were not Nazis at heart; but nearly all of them were Germans before they were scientists, and if the head of their government told them to believe a certain story, they would believe it."
"Lanny talked about rocket cannon. He had seen a British creation, a fantastic thing that looked like a church organ, with twenty big barrels; it was mounted near the coast for the purpose of protecting ships in the Channel against dive bombers, by roofing them over with salvos of rockets. Lanny could be sure that the Germans knew all about this, for they had a six-barreled mortar which was fired like the chambers of a revolver and could shoot fifty-pound rockets at the rate of one every second. Lanny added: “I have heard my father talk about what is called a ‘Katyusha,’ a Russian device that is carried on a truck; they have a larger one with thirty barrels, so arranged as to cover an area where there are tanks.”
"“Ja,” replied the other, “we have captured many of them; but we were unable to get across the Volga, where the enemy had them lined up on the far bank, under the trees.”"
Lanny mentioned applying jet propulsion to airplanes.
"He explained in his father’s words the difficulty of planes, that it took twice as much power to get into the air as it took to stay there; and this had suggested the idea of auxiliary rockets, called “boosters,” to aid the take-off. This would have been a dreadful thing to reveal—but for the fact that the learned Prussian had written a paper about it in 1938. Lanny said that his father had an experimental plant where he was trying out such ideas. “Somewhere in the deserts of the Far West, Nevada, I believe.” The last two words were for Lanny’s protection, the plant being in New Mexico.
"“Do you know whether they are doing anything with the idea of jet-propulsion planes?” inquired the Professor. He tried his best to appear casual, but Lanny thought that as an actor he was a great physicist.
"“I know that they have passed the ‘mockup’ stage, if you know what our airplane men mean by that term.”
"“I do, Herr Budd.”
"“Whether they have a practical prototype, I do not-know.” “Do you know what speeds they are hoping to attain?”
"“I have heard them talk about five hundred miles an hour. They talk about supersonic speeds, but only as a speculation. The difficulty there will be the air friction, and the blacking out of the pilot on even the slightest change of direction. As you no doubt know, Professor, the British are far ahead of us Americans on this subject.""
The professor wasn't giving out any details, even with Lanny asking him what information he'd like about British and U.S. science, so Lanny turned to atomic fission and said adi had told himmto speak to professor Gerlach; he wasn't there, but Salzmann arranged Lanny to meet Professor Plötzen, who asked that Lanny visit him. Lanny arrived in dark at the home of Professor Plötzen, and found that his butler was Bernhardt Monck. Lanny and Plötzen spoke about having met at an abend at Graf Stubendorf's, then got to business.
"I was shocked to hear the Führer reveal his indifference to this important subject. I did what I could to bring him to a realization of the danger; but it appears that he has convinced himself that rockets and jet-propulsion planes will win this war.”
"“We are making great progress there; but I consider it a calamity that we cannot spare enough for a real program of nuclear fission. I have put up small sums from my own purse, in spite of having suffered great reductions of income. The trouble is that no money can buy the things we need. The approved war programs take all the materials.”"
Bernhardt Monck saw him out as a butler would, and Lanny found a note in his inner pocket with appointment next morning. They met with usual precautions, in a room. Monck said there were more political resistance now, and Lanny had just received a pamphlet on the u-bahn as he got out, so he knew. Monck was now Konrad Kraft and a real butler.
"“There are coming to be more and more such persons. Events are making them. Stalingrad was, I believe, the Gettysburg of this war.”
"“I agree with you.”
"“It is amazing what one hears people say, quite openly; and the jokes by the night-club entertainers.” “Perhaps that is why they have shut them up.”
"“No doubt of it. But literature gets circulated, and by people we have never heard of.”
"“A sample of it was put into my hands on my way here.”
"“So it goes. You may say outside that the German people are waking up.”
"“Have you anything you want me to take out for you?”
"“It is not necessary; there seems to be an excellent courier service. Sometimes it breaks down, but at present it is working. There was, I am told, a cell of opposition in the censorship office; eight people were shot. You wouldn’t find anything about that in the papers, of course. Nor the fact that when Admiral Doenitz took Raeder’s place at the head of the Navy, more than eighty officers were shot for ‘treasonable activities.’”"
Monck said he heard his boss talk but understood little, on the other hand he could photograph papers and did.
"The Germans have more than a hundred types of guided missiles in or near production, using every type of remote control—radar, radio, continuous wave, infra-red, light beams, magnetics.”"
Monck said Professor Schilling, whom Lanny was being sent to visit when his plane went down in North Atlantic, had been visited, and all he could tell was out of Germany, so Lanny knew he need not worry about contacting him or anybody else about fission.
Lanny met Göring for lunch at his office and Göring was thrilled at his adventure as told to Germans, and happy when Lanny said his boss still had high regard and great affection for him. He said they'd talk more on the way to Karinhall next day.
"“Have you been having a pleasant time in Berlin?”
"This may have been ironical, and Lanny replied: “How can I, when you have closed all the good cafés and night clubs?”"
Lanny was referring to cafe's and night clubs being closed by orders from above, due to jokes about the situation and war and more.
"“I have insisted that one be kept open for my officers. Tell Furtwaengler to take you to it.”
"“Do you think your officers would relish the company of an American?”
"“You won’t have to be introduced. I’d like you to be able to tell the outside world that we have not been intimidated by their bombings.” Apparently Der Dicke meant that seriously, for when the General-Major came into the room he said: “Take Herr Budd to the Fledermaus tonight, and put it on your expense account.”
"“I had been intending to invite Furtwaengler,” put in Lanny, “and introduce his wife to the Fürstin Donnerstein, who is my hostess.”
"“Bring them both along,” ordered the commander.
"“What you have been doing for the German people is worth a lot of money which you have never taken. Surely they can entertain you once.”"
Hilde dressed for the event, mourning was forbidden, but she only came because she understood Lanny was trying to cheer her, it wasn't her society at the night club Fledermaus.
"There was a floor show, with singing and dancing, sexy but not too crude. The orchestra played no jazz, and Lanny gave the Nazis their due meed of credit; it was the one completely good thing he knew about them. What astounded him were the comedians and their jokes, most of which were topical, and so many critical of the regime. For the past ten years there had existed in Germany a phenomenon known as the Flüsterwitz, the joke that no one dared tell publicly, but everyone whispered it to a friend whom he trusted, and thus it attained a circulation of tens of millions. Was there anyone in any German town who did not know the definition of the perfect Aryan, that he was as blond as Hitler, as slender as Göring, as handsome as Goebbels, and so on and on? Was there anyone who had not heard the story of the left-handed teacups—how Göring had told Hitler how much smarter the Jews were than the Germans, and had proved it by taking him into one china store after another, asking for a set of left-handed teacups. All the Aryans said they had never heard of such a thing; but the first Jew they applied to went into the back of the store, took a set of teacups and set them on a tray with all the handles turned to the left, and then produced them as a special treasure at a high price. Going out of the store, Göring remarked: “You see how much smarter the Jew was?” Hitler replied: “I don’t see that he was smart at all; he was just lucky to have that kind of set.”
"Now it seemed to Lanny that under the pressure of misfortune the Flüsterwitz had come out into the open, or at any rate, onto the floor of a leisure-class night club. There were no gibes at the Führer, but there were plenty at Göring and at Goebbels, and apparently nobody took it for Majestätsbeleidigung, not even the Number Two’s staff member and his super-elegant Frau. Werner Finck, the favorite comedian of this floor show, told how Göring and Goebbels were sent to Purgatory, where special punishments had been prepared for them. Die Nummer Zwei was handed one thousand new bright-colored uniforms, but no mirror; the Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda was presented with a thousand broadcasting stations, but no microphone.
"Then presently the comedian was telling about his side partner, who had been sent to prison for telling jokes about the Regierung; the judge had sentenced him to stay in prison until he had told all such jokes that he knew. “He has been there three months, and he’s still going strong.” The laughter of this audience revealed that they, too, knew many of the Flüsterwitze!
"So it went, about one aspect of the Nazi system after another. It was told that Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop’s idea of happiness was to have a suit of genuine English wool, and to be able to rub a real grease spot out of it! And then the story about the tiger that escaped from a traveling circus, and everybody was told to shoot the tiger at sight. One Jew remarked to another: “We had better get out of here!” When the other replied: “Why? We are not tigers,” the gag was: “Yes, but can we prove it to them?” And presently there were four comedians sitting at a table, presenting in pantomime an elaborate picture of grief and despair. One sighed, one groaned loudly, a third wiped the tears from his eyes; the fourth remarked: “Be careful, my friends, I beg you. It is not proper to discuss politics in this public place.”"
They saw Schacht who came over, and was invited to join, and later asked Lanny to meet him over lunch. Lanny said he'd call after returning from Karinhall. Hilde spoke to Lanny at home.
"“We have a saying in English that there is many a true word spoken in jest. Listening to those comedians, I kept wondering if that is the way they really feel. And the audience, that laughed so freely.”
"She answered with bitterness: “I won’t tell you how I feel. It would be putting a responsibility upon you.”
"He realized that this remark, made to a man who had a letter from Adolf Hitler in his pocket, was grim indeed. Not wanting to carry any such responsibility, he dropped the subject. “Get out of Berlin as soon as you can,” he advised. “It would be better in the Obersalzberg; you won’t freeze to death there, and you can meet terrible things here.” On that note he went to bed, and the Allies and the ladies mercifully allowed him a night’s sleep."
............................................................................
Lanny was picked up by Göring and the entourage had some civilians.
"One of the civilians proved to be Doktor Bunjes—pronounced Boonyez—director of the “Franco-German Art Historical Institute” in Paris. That high-sounding title meant that he was Göring’s chief plunderer in the conquered land. He had recently issued an elaborate manifesto in answer to Vichy protests against the looting of the national art treasures of la patrie. Lanny read this while in Karinhall, and learned that objets d’art had to be seized because they might be exchanged for tanks or planes, though how the French could have managed this was difficult to see. Also, the French efforts to protect art works might become espionage; and most of the works being “safeguarded” were of German origin anyhow, or at least “under the influence of the German spirit.”"
Another one Lanny had known.
"Curator Hofer, Lanny learned, had refused to take any salary, but worked only on commission, and never since the art of painting had been discovered in the caves of early Aurignacian France had there been such an opportunity to get rich out of that form of activity. All that Herr Hofer had to do was to tell Göring that a certain painting was no good, and he could have the painting for his own and sell it; all that he had to do was to threaten to discover that a certain collection was good, and the owner of that collection would be ready to pay him a fortune to say that it was bad."
At Karinhall he could bathe and have his laundry done, before joining others quickly.
"Others of the Reichsmarschall’s art staff were waiting for him at Karinhall. It was quite a convocation. Lanny had met one of them, Baron Kurt von Behr, who was head of the Einsatzstab office in Paris, the engineer who drove the powerful plunder machine. This nobleman was the criminal son of an old and honored family; he had had to give up a diplomatic post when his name became involved in swindles in Italy. Now, an old man, he had become head of the German Red Cross as cover for his collecting operations. He had been one of the swarm of locusts that had descended on Paris following the German armies, and Lanny had met him in Göring’s suite in the Crillon. The Baron’s first action had been to reserve a table at Maxim’s every evening for two years, and there he entertained distinguished French and international personages, giving them the best food and wine in return for hints as to the location of art treasures."
Göring was obsessed by a Vermeer he'd acquired by exchanging one hundred and fifty paintings with total value of one million, six hundred thousand Dutch builders, but there was talk that it was forgery, which was proved subsequently after the war; Göring wanted to know about the outside world from Lanny, but would interject with questions about whether he thought that the Vermeer was genuine.
Soon after word came about allied planes and Karinhall might be a target, so they were taken to an elaborate underground shelter - main drawing room of Karinhall, after Göring had extended the original hunting lodge, was a hundred feet by a hundred and fifty feet - where Göring sat on a stage, spoke to each guest in turn, and played with an elaborate toy train set.
Lanny met a guest Eric Erickson who was a Swedish oil man, born in Brooklyn; "he had been a “pipe-line walker,” his job being to clear the right of way and look after leaks, all the way from Negley, Ohio, to Bayway, New Jersey—quite a stroll. He had saved his money and put himself through college, and then had become assistant manager of an American oil concern in Japan. So it had come about that he was in the British-American Club at Yokohama on the first day of September 1923, ... one of the men standing at the bar of the Yokohama club had suggested going out to the veranda to watch the Empress of Australia leave the port. The group went out and stood facing the Bund, about thirty-five feet from the waterfront; they watched the tugs pulling the great liner toward the opening in the breakwater, and suddenly they saw one of the tugs sink down five or six feet in what seemed to be the calm waters of the bay. At the same time Erickson noticed a strange rumbling, and said to the man next to him: “Brother, this is no place for me!” He leaped over the railing to the street, and had hardly touched the sidewalk when the entire building of four stories collapsed behind him into a heap of rubble. More than ninety white men were killed and only three escaped. ... Since cooking in Japan was done with small charcoal stoves, tens of thousands of collapsed wooden houses burst at once into flame. Erickson ran to the American consulate and tried to persuade the vice-consul and his wife to come to the harbor with him; but they thought that a park would be safe, and subsequently he found their roasted and bloated bodies in this park.... He himself stood five hours, holding onto a pier with water up to his neck, obliged to dunk his head every few minutes against the intense heat. At last he had swum out to the Empress of Australia and been taken on board."
Eric said his friends called him Red, but Lanny retained formal address. He liked Eric and was suspicious because Eric didn't feel like a Nazi. He thought Eric might be similarly thinking about him, and spoke to him, and Eric suggested he visit Sweden.
"“Why don’t you come with me to Stockholm? I am one of those fortunate persons who will be furnished with a car to Stettin, and I’ll be glad to take you along.”
"“How kind to a comparative stranger! Unfortunately I have to go back to Berlin for at least a day or two.”
"“I have to go there for several days. Let us meet there. I am deeply interested in your ideas about the war and the peace. I should like to introduce you to some of my friends in Sweden. Prince Carl, junior, of Belgium, is a good friend of mine; he is the Swedish King’s nephew.”
"“I have heard of him,” Lanny said. “I have played tennis with your King on the Riviera. I’ll think the matter over and let you know. Unfortunately my passport doesn’t cover Sweden, but that, I suppose, could be fixed up.”"
Another art person came.
"The Einsatzstab man had just come back from a trip to Norway. Some wealthy collector had spirited his art treasures out of Oslo and hidden them in a hut on a mountainside. The secret had been betrayed, and Lohse had gone to see if the works were any good, and if so, to bring them to Karinhall. The best of them, including a Rembrandt, were on their way now, and the deputy told about them, and hoped they might arrive in time for Herr Budd to inspect them. It was near a town called Rjukan, he mentioned, and Lanny said he had never heard of it. Lohse described it as being in the southern part of the country, not far from the coast; a really lovely spot, on a little river, between two mountain lakes. Then he added one sentence: “They have lots of hydroelectric power, and it’s where we are making heavy water.”
"Lanny almost ruined himself by betraying his excitement. Only many years of practice enabled him to keep from catching his breath. “Heavy water?” he said. “What is that?”
"“I don’t know,” replied the young Nazi. “It’s something they do to water that makes it weigh more.”
"“Funny thing,” commented the American. “Modern physics and chemistry have gone so far these days that we laymen don’t even know the language. The Führer sent me to meet Professor Doktor Salzmann, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, and honestly, it was as if I were listening to a man from another planet.”"
............................................................................
Göring spoke to Lanny privately about the war, and handed over a thick document that was complete notes of meetings they'd had with Molotov when he visited prior to their pact, with instructions that Lanny could make notes but not carry them out of Germany. There was no need to make notes, for Lanny knew the map and the situation.
"What Molotov had put forward was the age-old Russian demand for access to warm water—both from the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. The Skagerrak and the Kattegat must be “open,” and the Dardanelles must be under Soviet control. All during the morning of November 12 the champagne salesman had listened patiently to these demands, and had insisted politely but firmly that the proper way for Russia to reach warm water was by the Persian Gulf. That meant the taking of Iraq and Iran, with all their vast treasures of oil—a very generous offer indeed, except that the oil now belonged to Britain and America, who would hardly give it up without war. During the afternoon of the same day Hitler had joined the conference and had listened, but not so politely. He was quite willing for the Russians to conquer Finland and to keep the Baltic states which they already had; but they must go southeastward, not southwestward into the Balkans, which he had marked for his own. Berlin to Bagdad!—the slogan of the Kaiserzeit.
"All the three-day arguments, pro and con, had been carefully recorded. Not merely what Ribbentrop and Molotov had said, but what their deputies had said, and what the German military, diplomatic, geographic, economic, and scientific specialists had reported and advised on the subject! There were also secret reports on what the Russians had done and said among themselves; for this conference, held in Berlin, had been fully covered by dictaphones, telephone-tappings, and other devices for spying.
"When Lanny put the black-bound tome into the Reichsmarschall’s hands, he said: “Why don’t you try making a deal with the Russians now?”
"“Between you and me, we have,” was the reply; “but there has been too much blood shed on both sides.”
"Afterward Lanny wondered: Would Göring regret having said that, and would he blame his guest for having heard it? Lanny decided once more that it was time for him to be getting out of Hitlerland!"
Göring spoke to Lanny privately about the war, and handed over a thick document that was complete notes of meetings they'd had with Molotov when he visited prior to their pact, with instructions that Lanny could make notes but not carry them out of Germany. There was no need to make notes, for Lanny knew the map and the situation.
"What Molotov had put forward was the age-old Russian demand for access to warm water—both from the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. The Skagerrak and the Kattegat must be “open,” and the Dardanelles must be under Soviet control. All during the morning of November 12 the champagne salesman had listened patiently to these demands, and had insisted politely but firmly that the proper way for Russia to reach warm water was by the Persian Gulf. That meant the taking of Iraq and Iran, with all their vast treasures of oil—a very generous offer indeed, except that the oil now belonged to Britain and America, who would hardly give it up without war. During the afternoon of the same day Hitler had joined the conference and had listened, but not so politely. He was quite willing for the Russians to conquer Finland and to keep the Baltic states which they already had; but they must go southeastward, not southwestward into the Balkans, which he had marked for his own. Berlin to Bagdad!—the slogan of the Kaiserzeit.
"All the three-day arguments, pro and con, had been carefully recorded. Not merely what Ribbentrop and Molotov had said, but what their deputies had said, and what the German military, diplomatic, geographic, economic, and scientific specialists had reported and advised on the subject! There were also secret reports on what the Russians had done and said among themselves; for this conference, held in Berlin, had been fully covered by dictaphones, telephone-tappings, and other devices for spying.
"When Lanny put the black-bound tome into the Reichsmarschall’s hands, he said: “Why don’t you try making a deal with the Russians now?”
"“Between you and me, we have,” was the reply; “but there has been too much blood shed on both sides.”
"Afterward Lanny wondered: Would Göring regret having said that, and would he blame his guest for having heard it? Lanny decided once more that it was time for him to be getting out of Hitlerland!"
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Lanny decided he might as well go out of Germany via Sweden, but alone, not advertising his connection with Eric Erikson, who kept his invitation open. Lanny was accompanied to Berlin in a staff car by a young scientist, Dr Stoffel, related to Göring, and he spoke about his speciality, wood, which Germany was converting into everything from sugar and cotton to more complex uses for industrial era. He said Germany had bought up forests everywhere in Europe.
In Berlin he wrote to Monck, and Hilde handed over a letter from Marceline who had heard he was in town. He called her, bought food with coupons saved due to visiting Karinhall, and went over for lunch.
"“Lanny,” she exclaimed, “what a terrible thing it is to love a man whom you don’t like!” A curious bit of psychology, but it was really true, she insisted. Oskar von Herzenberg, blond and handsome, was a Prussian aristocrat and a God-awful snob, by cultivation as well as by birth. He had despised the French half of his mistress, and now he had come to despise the American half still more. In addition, he was a Nazi, which meant that all women were dirt under his feet. Yet he loved Marceline, and she loved him, and so they had been having a cat-and-dog time of it.
"“He is fighting the Russians,” explained this spoiled child of fortune, “and under the most dreadful conditions you can imagine—ice and snow and freezing winds and men dying all around him. He has been wounded twice, and when he comes home he needs me, and how can I refuse to help him? How can I desert him, even when he says the most horrid things to me, even when he threatens to have me sent to a concentration camp?”
"“Does it go as far as that?”
"“It has gone so far that he has slapped me, and I have wanted to kill him. Love is a terrible thing, Lanny. I vowed I would never submit to it a second time, and yet here I am, a slave. I even admire his arrogance.”
"“And then if he comes back with another wound, what will I do? What if he gets a leave, as he writes me he may when the eastern front has been stabilized, as he calls it? I’ll come running back, right under the bombs.”
"“Have you enough money?” he asked, the one useful question he could think of.
"“I have a lot in the bank. But what will happen to it if the bank is hit by a bomb?” He could hardly keep from smiling at this somewhat primitive idea about money.
"“The Regierung won’t let the banks break,” he assured her, “but they may limit the amount you may draw out. You have plenty in New York, you know, and I might be able to smuggle some in to you in case of need.”"
Lanny would have loved to bring the precious information personally to FDR, but was a long way away, and war made it even more risky. He decided to send it via Monck through his connection with O.S.S.. Lanny met Monck and told him to memorise Rjukan, in connection with heavy water, and told him to look up any Jewish technicians from synthetic sugar factory in Hamburg, involved in making sugar from wood, who would now be in concentration camps.
Lanny called Schacht as promised and was invited to Herrenklub for lunch.
"He watched this tall, large, and odd-looking Prussian gentleman, reflecting that from his brain had come the ideas which had made possible World War II. It had been his glib tongue that had persuaded Wall Street bankers that there was big money to be made out of German reconstruction bonds, and these bankers had passed on the glad tidings to their investing public. The Herr Doktor and his friends had made some four billions of dollars in this way, and had built great railroad stations and hospitals, and also warships, munitions plants, and fighter planes.
"Then had come Hitler, providing the inspiration, and enabling Doktor Schacht to work quietly, as financiers really prefer. Out of his brain had come the “blocked marks,” whereby the neighboring lands were persuaded to part with their lumber, grain, cattle, and ores in exchange for money, which could only be spent in Germany, and when Germany had goods to spare. By a succession of such devices the Nazis had extracted from the neighboring lands a total of eighteen billions marks’ worth of goods, all of which had gone into the stomachs of the German Volk, or else into preparations for the conquest and subjection of the other lands. Now those peoples were working as the slaves of Germany, and Adolf Hitler was carrying out the promise he had publicly made, to see that all the other peoples of Europe starved before the Germans starved."
Schacht said the same things about ingratitude of those he'd served, but now Lanny knew he was playing a role. He asked what Lanny was doing in Germany.
"He didn’t suggest, as Hitler and Göring had done, that Britain and America should come in against the Soviet Union; no, something much slicker, just that Britain and America should go easy on the western front, so as to give Germany time to put the Bolsheviks out of the fighting. Just a little more of what they were doing now, at the end of February 1943! And if Lanny had said they were doing it, or that he and his father would advocate doing it, the Herr Doktor would have something he could report to the Russians, to increase their suspicions of British and American intentions in the matter of a second front!
"The knobby-headed and red-faced Prussian signed a memo for this lunch, and Lanny wondered: Would he put it on his expense account, and would the bill be paid by Ribbentrop’s Foreign Office, or by Goebbels’ Department of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda?"
Lanny called Baron von Behr as promised, and was invited to view the paintings Behr wanted Lanny to buy, impressionist work which was disapproved in Germany and valued highly in U.S.. Behr was running a black market deal using the shop of his Jewish art dealer bother-in-law. Lanny had told him he'd need certificates of ownership by previous owners. Behr had arranged so Lanny could inspect at leisure, a Monet, a Gauguin, a Van Gogh.
"Lanny might have these old masters—for so they had become in the year 1943—for approximately eighty thousand marks, which was about thirty thousand dollars at the official rate, but less at the real rate. He had no doubt that some of his clients would be glad to pay double the price.
"Buying paintings was Lanny Budd’s camouflage, and making money was the only way he could keep the rank-and-file Nazis from being suspicious of him. He had kept money in Berlin banks to cover such deals, and he would take the paintings out to Sweden and put them in a bank vault there. He would tell his Boss what he had done, and if the Boss approved, the all-knowing Baker would get the necessary permit, and the paintings could be brought to America and sold to Mr. Winstead or other collectors, and the profits given to the Red Cross.
"Lanny said that he would buy those paintings, provided that he could receive the necessary assurances as to their former ownership. The clerk said that had all been arranged for, and submitted for the customer’s inspection two documents, one a bill of sale signed by Baron von Behr, and the other a quit-claim deed signed by one Rosika Diamant, stating that she had been the former owner of the specified works, that the sale to Behr had been voluntary, and that for the sum of ten marks she hereby ceded to Lanning Prescott Budd any and all claims that she might have to the said works."
They brought into the room a beautiful young woman of upper class with large eyes, clearly Jewish, who told him her father was dead, and she needed the money and had no use for the paintings. He could have questioned her, but doing so in presence of nazis was dangerous. He accepted, and bought the paintings. He wrote a cheque on his Berlin bank account, which had been sequestrated, but this cheque would be honoured. He saw the paintings packed and delivered to Hilde Donnerstein's palace and stored them in his room, told her, and went our. When he returned, the servant said a young woman had called. He called, and Rosa Diamant avoided names. They met in Tiergarten and walked.
Rosa Diamant said her family had disappeared, and she did not know if they were alive. She begged Lanny to help her get out by marrying her, so she could escape the slavery she was forced into; Lanny assured her that he respected her, thought well of her, but couldn't marry her. She was ashamed, and felt hopeless. He sought to reassure her.
"“Tell people what is happening here!” she broke in. “They are exterminating our race. Not merely do they deprive us of our property and of the chance to earn our bread; but they are determined that there shall not be one of us left alive here, or in the lands that they have taken. They are shipping us away in cattle cars, to camps they have built for the purpose of wholesale murder. ... Thousands of our people are perishing every day. They are making Jewish bodies into fertilizer and soap. There has been no such horror since the beginning of history.” ... “Every Jew in Germany knows it. We no longer accept the tales that are told us, that we are to be taken to Poland to be settled on the land. We are taken to be killed wholesale in poison-gas chambers and then burned in furnaces or boiled in rendering vats. Jewish bodies become a choice kind of German soap. And the harder the war goes with Germany, the more determined these fiends become that there shall be none of our race left to share the benefits of victory.””
He couldn't promise, since he might very well be victim of a trap by Göring. He promised he'd remember. Lanny went to Göring's office to arrange for his transit through Sweden and papers to take out the paintings, and joined Heinrich Jung at his office for lunch having bought food. Air raid sirens forced them into a shelter, it was American planes. Lanny joined a queue in afternoon at a food store, most of those in line were women.
"When the women did not find what they wanted, they grumbled, and the things they said about the Regierung would have made Jüppchen Goebbels’ ears burn. Lanny was astonished by the violence of the complaints, and by the loud tones in which they were voiced."
He went by the crowded underground and saw wounded men brought in at the station. It was dark when he arrived at Donnerstein palace, and Monck was waiting for him, in trouble. Lanny took him to his room. Monck had been fortunate to be out in backyard when he saw Gestapo at front asking for Konrad Kraft, and had escaped. Lanny said they should wait until next night before Monck went to contact his contacts, and meanwhile Lanny would tell Hilde that he had found this old employee of Robbie in shell shock having seen his family die in air raid. Lanny decided he'd say the same to Eric Erickson and go with him after all, taking Monck with them. Lanny waited until late to burn Monck's clothes, all but underwear, and papers of Konrad Kraft.
In the morning he talked to Hilde Donnerstein and her sister, and Hilde agreed to let the man have clothes. Lanny went to Adlon after giving the clothes to to Monck, and arranged with Eric Erickson to have them both go with him, Eric having questioned if Vetterl was a political man. Monck asked him to call his contact so that they'd have half a day more to get the papers ready, and Lanny went to see Furtwaengler to get his papers, telling him that he was going via Stettin instead. Monck went after it was dark to get his papers, and they arranged to meet in front of the palace. It was first of March, 1943.
Lanny returned with food after a film and was talking to Hilde when air raid sirens sounded, and Lanny brought down his suitcase and paintings to the cellar, joining the sisters and servants.
"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!
"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."
Donnerstein palace was hit, and Lanny helped others across the street to another house, before returning to see if Monck had come; he hadn't, but Lanny rescued his belongings including the paintings.
"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 saw Monck outside in the morning and brought him in, and at Adlon Eric was ready, so they drove and collected Monck along with Lanny's suitcase and paintings, and drove to Stettin.
"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."
Lanny had to use the letter given by adi personally asking all officials to extend every courtesy to him, and threaten the one who wouldn't budge, in German fashion, before they allowed Monck to board the steamer. In Sweden, Lanny planned to take the American in charge to save the O.S.S. man. Accordingly, he met the American minister in Stockholm after checking into a hotel, and told him about himself and Monck, learning in the process that Eric was a U.S. agent.
Lanny befriended Eric next day, giving him his various addresses, and met Monck who had been allowed in, before he was informed his passage to England was booked, and he was flown, arriving safely.
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Lanny found Fordyce waiting for him, and he said the PM would like to see Lanny. Weekend was when it was arranged, and Lanny said he'd be at Wickthorpe. Fordyce said they'd reserved a room at the Dorchester, and Lanny told him about North Africa and Sweden. Lanny cabled Robbie about being safe and coming soon, and thought of cabling Beauty.
"The traveler telephoned the Castle to ask if his presence would be welcome. Irma said: “We have been terribly upset about you. Come as soon as you can. Frances is wild with joy that you are alive.” He told her: “I can hardly believe it myself. I’ll take an early morning train.” They made an appointment for him to be met at the station."
Lanny called Rick, and they too were thrilled he was alive, but when they met Lanny didn't think it was either useful or safe relating anything about his German adventure, and told him he couldn't talk about things other than North Africa. He could tell a lot about the invasion and the French politics, though, and Rick talked about Britain.
"Rick had to say that Winnie’s speeches were magnificent, and the fact that he tried them out on everybody he knew made no difference to the public that heard them for the first time. The radio had brought back the art of public speaking, which had seemed to be put on the shelf by the more powerful art of printing.
"Rick reported that the American forces were still pouring onto these small islands in spite of so many going to North Africa. They were training incessantly, and with the vigor they had learned on their football fields. Ways had been found to make them feel at home, and Rick said that the islands would never be the same after the long sojourn of these easygoing and free-spending visitors. In spite of the food shortages the British people were living better than ever in their lives before, the reason being that what there was got distributed more fairly."
Rick's younger son had taken part in the recent raid on Berlin, and Lanny wondered if his bomb had fallen on the Donnerstein palace.
............................................................................
"Lanny took the morning train, and there was Frances with her little pony cart and a groom riding behind for safety. She rushed into Lanny’s arms and burst into tears right there on the platform of the little station. “Oh, Father, Father! They wouldn’t tell me what had happened to you!” He soothed her down as soon as he could, for he knew that her mother disapproved of emotionalism. “I was where I couldn’t get word to you, dear; but I’m all right again and you have nothing to worry about.”"
"It was all right to thrill her by describing how it felt to come down out of the sky in a parachute, and how hot it had been in the desert, and how pleasant to hear the bells of a camel caravan, and how those great brutes had grumbled and complained. He didn’t say that the caravan had taken him into the German lines, but just that he had had a long way to travel with them and so had been delayed. That satisfied her, and it would be enough for everybody, both in Britain and America. He made up his mind that he wouldn’t tell even Laurel that he had been into Naziland; it would only terrify her and make it harder for her to be happy the next time he went away. Some day after it was all over—then she could write a novel about Germany in the midst of war!"
Nothing much had changed at Wickthorpe, Lanny had to take residence with Fanny Barnes, and the refugee children were still there since housing shortage in bombed cities was a problem.
"Lanny played bowls with his little daughter—he would have to learn to call her his big daughter now, and that delighted her. He met her governess and her music teacher and her playmates; she was at the age where girls have wonderful “crushes,” and Frances was in a state of rapture over the little daughter of Ceddy’s London lawyer, who was staying at the Castle. Patricia, called “Patty,” must be in on everything, and Lanny had to agree that her red hair and freckles were lovely."
Frances was thrilled to hear about his North Africa adventures, and later Lanny spoke to Irma and Ceddy and their company, letting everybody assume he'd come directly from North Africa. He spoke to Irma privately next day about a concern.
"“There is something serious that I ought to tell you, Irma. I know you have information that the Germans are preparing new weapons against Britain—jet-propelled missiles, rockets—that may develop a speed greater than any airplane and may carry a warload ten times as heavy as the present bombs. There will be no defense against such weapons, so far as I have been able to learn. I don’t know when they will begin coming, it may be a long time or it may be this year. One thing is certain, they will come suddenly, probably some night, and surely without warning. So I do not like to think of Frances being in England.”
"Irma’s face went white. “You think they will be aimed at places as unlikely as Wickthorpe?”
"“My guess is they will be aimed at the biggest target in this war, which is London. But they may be flying hundreds of miles, and they may not always be accurate. I think Newcastle would be a much safer place for our daughter than Wickthorpe. I am not proposing to take her now. I am asking you to think it over, as something to be done when I come again.”
"Irma drew a deep breath, and her voice betrayed her emotion. “Lanny, she has never been separated from her mother. I cannot bear the thought!”
"He tried to divert her with playfulness. “There is another aspect of the matter. If the bombs begin failing on London, you will have what you had before—hundreds of refugee children having to be put up and cared for here. You found that so inconvenient, you remember; Frances was associating with children of whom you disapproved.”
"Irma saw no humor in the idea. “All this is dreadfully hard for me to face,” she exclaimed.
"“Hard for you, Irma, but best for Frances. She would have Robbie’s and Esther’s other grandchildren for playmates. And it would please Robbie and Esther to have them all together for a while. She would have everything a child wants, just as she has here. It would be good for her in many ways, as you will realize once you have thought it over.”
"“But what about the danger of such a trip in wartime! It seems a terrible idea to me.”
"“The Germans are not troubling the planes to Lisbon—they need to use the same port themselves. From there to the Azores and Bermuda; hundreds of planes are making that trip every day; it is like one of the ferries across the Thames.”
"“You say that after having two crashes in a year and a half!”
"“In one of them I was shot down over enemy territory; and the other was in a storm near the Arctic. There is nothing like that to be expected by the southern route.”"
She had a fear of kidnappers and gangsters in U.S., but Lanny made light of it, and said she could write to Robbie and Esther, or to him.
Lanny found Fordyce waiting for him, and he said the PM would like to see Lanny. Weekend was when it was arranged, and Lanny said he'd be at Wickthorpe. Fordyce said they'd reserved a room at the Dorchester, and Lanny told him about North Africa and Sweden. Lanny cabled Robbie about being safe and coming soon, and thought of cabling Beauty.
"The traveler telephoned the Castle to ask if his presence would be welcome. Irma said: “We have been terribly upset about you. Come as soon as you can. Frances is wild with joy that you are alive.” He told her: “I can hardly believe it myself. I’ll take an early morning train.” They made an appointment for him to be met at the station."
Lanny called Rick, and they too were thrilled he was alive, but when they met Lanny didn't think it was either useful or safe relating anything about his German adventure, and told him he couldn't talk about things other than North Africa. He could tell a lot about the invasion and the French politics, though, and Rick talked about Britain.
"Rick had to say that Winnie’s speeches were magnificent, and the fact that he tried them out on everybody he knew made no difference to the public that heard them for the first time. The radio had brought back the art of public speaking, which had seemed to be put on the shelf by the more powerful art of printing.
"Rick reported that the American forces were still pouring onto these small islands in spite of so many going to North Africa. They were training incessantly, and with the vigor they had learned on their football fields. Ways had been found to make them feel at home, and Rick said that the islands would never be the same after the long sojourn of these easygoing and free-spending visitors. In spite of the food shortages the British people were living better than ever in their lives before, the reason being that what there was got distributed more fairly."
Rick's younger son had taken part in the recent raid on Berlin, and Lanny wondered if his bomb had fallen on the Donnerstein palace.
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"Lanny took the morning train, and there was Frances with her little pony cart and a groom riding behind for safety. She rushed into Lanny’s arms and burst into tears right there on the platform of the little station. “Oh, Father, Father! They wouldn’t tell me what had happened to you!” He soothed her down as soon as he could, for he knew that her mother disapproved of emotionalism. “I was where I couldn’t get word to you, dear; but I’m all right again and you have nothing to worry about.”"
"It was all right to thrill her by describing how it felt to come down out of the sky in a parachute, and how hot it had been in the desert, and how pleasant to hear the bells of a camel caravan, and how those great brutes had grumbled and complained. He didn’t say that the caravan had taken him into the German lines, but just that he had had a long way to travel with them and so had been delayed. That satisfied her, and it would be enough for everybody, both in Britain and America. He made up his mind that he wouldn’t tell even Laurel that he had been into Naziland; it would only terrify her and make it harder for her to be happy the next time he went away. Some day after it was all over—then she could write a novel about Germany in the midst of war!"
Nothing much had changed at Wickthorpe, Lanny had to take residence with Fanny Barnes, and the refugee children were still there since housing shortage in bombed cities was a problem.
"Lanny played bowls with his little daughter—he would have to learn to call her his big daughter now, and that delighted her. He met her governess and her music teacher and her playmates; she was at the age where girls have wonderful “crushes,” and Frances was in a state of rapture over the little daughter of Ceddy’s London lawyer, who was staying at the Castle. Patricia, called “Patty,” must be in on everything, and Lanny had to agree that her red hair and freckles were lovely."
Frances was thrilled to hear about his North Africa adventures, and later Lanny spoke to Irma and Ceddy and their company, letting everybody assume he'd come directly from North Africa. He spoke to Irma privately next day about a concern.
"“There is something serious that I ought to tell you, Irma. I know you have information that the Germans are preparing new weapons against Britain—jet-propelled missiles, rockets—that may develop a speed greater than any airplane and may carry a warload ten times as heavy as the present bombs. There will be no defense against such weapons, so far as I have been able to learn. I don’t know when they will begin coming, it may be a long time or it may be this year. One thing is certain, they will come suddenly, probably some night, and surely without warning. So I do not like to think of Frances being in England.”
"Irma’s face went white. “You think they will be aimed at places as unlikely as Wickthorpe?”
"“My guess is they will be aimed at the biggest target in this war, which is London. But they may be flying hundreds of miles, and they may not always be accurate. I think Newcastle would be a much safer place for our daughter than Wickthorpe. I am not proposing to take her now. I am asking you to think it over, as something to be done when I come again.”
"Irma drew a deep breath, and her voice betrayed her emotion. “Lanny, she has never been separated from her mother. I cannot bear the thought!”
"He tried to divert her with playfulness. “There is another aspect of the matter. If the bombs begin failing on London, you will have what you had before—hundreds of refugee children having to be put up and cared for here. You found that so inconvenient, you remember; Frances was associating with children of whom you disapproved.”
"Irma saw no humor in the idea. “All this is dreadfully hard for me to face,” she exclaimed.
"“Hard for you, Irma, but best for Frances. She would have Robbie’s and Esther’s other grandchildren for playmates. And it would please Robbie and Esther to have them all together for a while. She would have everything a child wants, just as she has here. It would be good for her in many ways, as you will realize once you have thought it over.”
"“But what about the danger of such a trip in wartime! It seems a terrible idea to me.”
"“The Germans are not troubling the planes to Lisbon—they need to use the same port themselves. From there to the Azores and Bermuda; hundreds of planes are making that trip every day; it is like one of the ferries across the Thames.”
"“You say that after having two crashes in a year and a half!”
"“In one of them I was shot down over enemy territory; and the other was in a storm near the Arctic. There is nothing like that to be expected by the southern route.”"
She had a fear of kidnappers and gangsters in U.S., but Lanny made light of it, and said she could write to Robbie and Esther, or to him.
............................................................................
Fordyce called asking Lanny if picking him up at nine was ok, and Lanny accepted, knowing Chequers was only half an hour by car.
"The B4 man entertained Lanny with talk about the submarine situation, upon which the whole war depended. The armies in North Africa were being supplied with very small shipping loss, only about two per cent; but this was at the expense of the rest of the Atlantic, where losses were running dangerously high. Fordyce said there were new detection devices; he didn’t claim to know about them, but those who ought to know declared that they were in production and soon would be in use, and they would give the U-boat crews a very unhappy summer. The wonders of radar were multiplying fast, and our technology was fast outstripping the enemy’s."
Lanny was taken to an upstairs drawing room to wait, so no guests saw him.
"Fordyce excused himself, and the other two settled themselves for a long chat. Churchill confirmed Lanny’s guess, that Roosevelt had mentioned him in one of those telephone chats that had become almost a nightly habit. “How the devil does a man get from the Sahara to Stockholm?” demanded the P.M., and when Lanny told him, he exclaimed that he would give up his present honors to be young enough to go and have an adventure like that. The son of Budd-Erling replied: “I’m really not young enough, and I only had it because I couldn’t help it. Now I try to apply Cicero’s principle, and look back upon my past pains with pleasure.”"
Quoting Cicero put Lanny on equal footing with with English aristocracy.
"Lanny was subjected to an elaborate inquisition as to whom he had met in Germany and what he had seen there. When he told about the Führer’s rage over the fall of Kharkov, the Führer’s antagonist chortled with glee and exclaimed: “We’ve got the bastard, worried!”
"When Lanny repeated the message he had been asked to deliver “if possible,” about how Britain was to come over to Adi Schicklgruber’s side and accept his permission to live, the Duke of Marlborough’s descendant snorted. “All that tripe all over again!”
"Lanny said: “Excuse me for mentioning it. It’s what he said, and of course I had to pretend to take it seriously and promise to do my very best to get it to you.”
"“Righto, you have done it,” said Winnie.
"Lanny went on to tell about Göring and then about Schacht. “That old rogue!” the Prime Minister called the former president of the Reichsbank, and seemed to know him well. “He wants us to go easy on the western front, does he? Well, we’ll oblige him—for a while! I have stood out for the principle that we shall not cross the Channel until we have such forces that we can drive and keep driving and not let up until we get to Berlin. That’s the schedule, Budd!”"
"“We have had the spot marked for the past year and a half, and have been working on the wrecking project for I don’t know how long. It was an inside job—sabotage—and don’t mention it to anybody, but we’re not through yet. I am sorry if you wasted time on it.”
"“As it happens, I didn’t,” said Lanny. “A young SS officer dropped the name by accident, and I caught it. That’s the way it goes if you stay around among the right people.”
"“You have shown discrimination in your choices!” remarked the head of the British Empire. He meant it for a compliment, and Lanny did not miss it.
"Winnie was deeply concerned about the oil in the Near East, and said it was a race with the Russians, and no use blinking the fact. He was troubled because Roosevelt kept trying to blink it, and wrapping it up in fine phrases about democracy and internationalism. It appeared as if he wanted this P.A. to help persuade his Boss to revise the country’s military plans and make some landings in the neighborhood of that oil, so as to be on hand when the time came for the dividing up. “You know how it is at the end of a war,” he said.
"Lanny replied: “Oh, yes, I was at the Paris Peace Conference. I remember how you came over to try to persuade them to go in and lick the Bolsheviks before it was too late.” A broad grin spread over the old gentleman’s face."
They talked about the dinner at the White House.
"Lanny quoted what the author had said to him, that some day he was going to publish an account of that dinner. The P.M. growled: “I ate the dinner, but I don’t have to read the book!”"
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Lanny was flown to Washington D.C. via Azores, and thought about his wife and son. He decided he'd earned a holiday. He called Laurel after calling Baker, and Laurel was in tears, she said she'd never given up on him. He told her he'd come next afternoon, to call Robbie and say they'd be visiting soon. Baker told him which hotel to go to, and Lanny had time to read newspapers after a bath.
"Russians were being slowly brought to a halt in the Ukraine, and that the British and Americans were holding on desperately in Tunisia, bombed incessantly in their muddy foxholes. The Germans had moved an army across from Sicily, and Rommel was holding fast to what was known as the Mareth line, near the seafront at the border of Tripoli. More than four months had passed since Lanny had seen the Americans come ashore, full of hope and determination; they had been learning the bitter lesson that war is not all victories, but tedious waiting, and seemingly endless toil, repairing roads and bridges, laying new airfields, and bringing up supplies, mostly in the night, to dodge the bombs. All the dirty work that men had done at home, but much more of it, and under conditions of exposure and discomfort such as they had never dreamed."
FDR remarked about how Lanny had got his wish after all, to go into Germany, and Lanny asked how he knew; he said Winston had told him the night before. FDR wanted every detail, and Lanny said he'd accomplished nothing except coming back alive, for they'd known about Rjukan already. He told about his German sojourn in detail, including Göring and others thieving art treasures through Europe. FDR spoke about war in Pacific.
"“First we sank or burned the greater part of a Japanese Fleet in the harbor of Kavieng, and a month later we destroyed a whole convoy trying to get to the same harbor. Those were air-versus-sea battles, and the significance lies, not so much in the number of vessels destroyed, as in the power we have established to do such damage at almost no cost. We did it first in the Coral Sea, and then at Midway, and now twice again. When we have built up our air forces, we can do it as often as necessary. The Japanese Air Force and Navy will be powerless against us.”"
Lanny asked if he was to go to meet Stalin, and FDR said someone else had been sent.
"“ I’m satisfied that he doesn’t intend to meet us until we have come through with the second front that he demands. You know how it is, we are pretty much at his mercy, because if he should choose to slacken up in his efforts, he might set the whole German Army free to come at us, and we couldn’t match it. I doubt if we could ever win the war alone.”"
They talked about North Africa, and Lanny told him what Schacht said.
"“When we came into North Africa you could buy a hundred and fifty francs with a dollar, which was fine for our troops. But our occupation authorities pegged the franc at seventy-five; and then Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil persuaded Murphy to raise it to fifty to the dollar.”
"“You must know the reason for that, Lanny. We wanted to make it possible for the people there to buy our goods. Those poor natives never had but one shirt to their backs, and now that one is in tatters.”
"“Yes, Governor; it’s like the talk about the widows and orphans that the insurance tycoons put out. The people who got the benefit of the deal were the big bankers and the Comité des Forges gang. Lemaigre has been the good friend of those fellows from away back, and they got the tip-off and shifted their money from Paris to Algiers. Schacht thought it was the joke of the century; he estimated the amount at twenty billion francs, and we raised the value of it to sixty billion, which meant forty billion net profit—that is about four hundred million dollars at one stroke of the pen.”
"“That’s terrible, Lanny. But you see how those economic royalists have us sewed up. We can’t do anything for the people, at home or abroad, that the speculators don’t get there first. I can’t solve that problem for the American people, let alone for the French.”
"“Yes, Governor, but here is something more. Schacht didn’t tell me, but I happen to know that the Germans own fifty-one per cent of all those companies, so we have made the enemy a free gift of a couple of hundred million dollars, which he will transfer to Spain and Switzerland and Sweden and use against us.”
"“I must admit I didn’t realize that, Lanny. That was State’s boner.”
"“Yes, and you may be sure that State isn’t going to let you do anything about it if they can help it. If you don’t mind my butting in, you might let Treasury have a go at the problem. Henry Morgenthau is one who really hates the Nazis—even when they are very rich.” Lanny had been a little dubious about making that suggestion, but the way the President chuckled over it let him know that he hadn’t gone too far."
FDR asked what he wanted to do, and Lanny said he'd like a holiday before returning to Germany. FDR was surprised, and Lanny said Hitler had ordered him to come and bring information about conspiracy against FDR. He brought up the matter of the paintings he'd bought, now stored in a bank vault in Stockholm, and said he'd like to return them to real owners if they were alive, which brought up the story of Rosa Diamant.
"“Some day we’re going to hang them, Lanny, every last one of them, as an example to the world for all time!”"
Lanny met Donovan next morning and talked about Raoul, Denis and Monck, suggesting they bring Monck to U.S. and use him as head of a department at O.S.S., training agents for Germany, which Donovan agreed. He spoke of the paintings and Donovan noted that Lanny was allowed to trade in art with enemy.
Lanny was flown to Washington D.C. via Azores, and thought about his wife and son. He decided he'd earned a holiday. He called Laurel after calling Baker, and Laurel was in tears, she said she'd never given up on him. He told her he'd come next afternoon, to call Robbie and say they'd be visiting soon. Baker told him which hotel to go to, and Lanny had time to read newspapers after a bath.
"Russians were being slowly brought to a halt in the Ukraine, and that the British and Americans were holding on desperately in Tunisia, bombed incessantly in their muddy foxholes. The Germans had moved an army across from Sicily, and Rommel was holding fast to what was known as the Mareth line, near the seafront at the border of Tripoli. More than four months had passed since Lanny had seen the Americans come ashore, full of hope and determination; they had been learning the bitter lesson that war is not all victories, but tedious waiting, and seemingly endless toil, repairing roads and bridges, laying new airfields, and bringing up supplies, mostly in the night, to dodge the bombs. All the dirty work that men had done at home, but much more of it, and under conditions of exposure and discomfort such as they had never dreamed."
FDR remarked about how Lanny had got his wish after all, to go into Germany, and Lanny asked how he knew; he said Winston had told him the night before. FDR wanted every detail, and Lanny said he'd accomplished nothing except coming back alive, for they'd known about Rjukan already. He told about his German sojourn in detail, including Göring and others thieving art treasures through Europe. FDR spoke about war in Pacific.
"“First we sank or burned the greater part of a Japanese Fleet in the harbor of Kavieng, and a month later we destroyed a whole convoy trying to get to the same harbor. Those were air-versus-sea battles, and the significance lies, not so much in the number of vessels destroyed, as in the power we have established to do such damage at almost no cost. We did it first in the Coral Sea, and then at Midway, and now twice again. When we have built up our air forces, we can do it as often as necessary. The Japanese Air Force and Navy will be powerless against us.”"
Lanny asked if he was to go to meet Stalin, and FDR said someone else had been sent.
"“ I’m satisfied that he doesn’t intend to meet us until we have come through with the second front that he demands. You know how it is, we are pretty much at his mercy, because if he should choose to slacken up in his efforts, he might set the whole German Army free to come at us, and we couldn’t match it. I doubt if we could ever win the war alone.”"
They talked about North Africa, and Lanny told him what Schacht said.
"“When we came into North Africa you could buy a hundred and fifty francs with a dollar, which was fine for our troops. But our occupation authorities pegged the franc at seventy-five; and then Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil persuaded Murphy to raise it to fifty to the dollar.”
"“You must know the reason for that, Lanny. We wanted to make it possible for the people there to buy our goods. Those poor natives never had but one shirt to their backs, and now that one is in tatters.”
"“Yes, Governor; it’s like the talk about the widows and orphans that the insurance tycoons put out. The people who got the benefit of the deal were the big bankers and the Comité des Forges gang. Lemaigre has been the good friend of those fellows from away back, and they got the tip-off and shifted their money from Paris to Algiers. Schacht thought it was the joke of the century; he estimated the amount at twenty billion francs, and we raised the value of it to sixty billion, which meant forty billion net profit—that is about four hundred million dollars at one stroke of the pen.”
"“That’s terrible, Lanny. But you see how those economic royalists have us sewed up. We can’t do anything for the people, at home or abroad, that the speculators don’t get there first. I can’t solve that problem for the American people, let alone for the French.”
"“Yes, Governor, but here is something more. Schacht didn’t tell me, but I happen to know that the Germans own fifty-one per cent of all those companies, so we have made the enemy a free gift of a couple of hundred million dollars, which he will transfer to Spain and Switzerland and Sweden and use against us.”
"“I must admit I didn’t realize that, Lanny. That was State’s boner.”
"“Yes, and you may be sure that State isn’t going to let you do anything about it if they can help it. If you don’t mind my butting in, you might let Treasury have a go at the problem. Henry Morgenthau is one who really hates the Nazis—even when they are very rich.” Lanny had been a little dubious about making that suggestion, but the way the President chuckled over it let him know that he hadn’t gone too far."
FDR asked what he wanted to do, and Lanny said he'd like a holiday before returning to Germany. FDR was surprised, and Lanny said Hitler had ordered him to come and bring information about conspiracy against FDR. He brought up the matter of the paintings he'd bought, now stored in a bank vault in Stockholm, and said he'd like to return them to real owners if they were alive, which brought up the story of Rosa Diamant.
"“Some day we’re going to hang them, Lanny, every last one of them, as an example to the world for all time!”"
Lanny met Donovan next morning and talked about Raoul, Denis and Monck, suggesting they bring Monck to U.S. and use him as head of a department at O.S.S., training agents for Germany, which Donovan agreed. He spoke of the paintings and Donovan noted that Lanny was allowed to trade in art with enemy.
............................................................................
Lanny went home, and Laurel was in tears. He told her about Africa but not a word about Germany, for many reasons. Her book was finished, and next day she signed a contract with publishers. Laurel wanted to finish working on the manuscript, so Lanny took a train to Newcastle and spoke to Robbie, visited Budd plants and drove a car back, with a book of coupons for fuel. He proposed a driving holiday, first stopping at Florida. They went to West Coast beyond Tampa and found a small place where they could fish, and a local small restaurant where they could dine. They listened to the radio, and Lanny could tell them about the places mentioned.
"British Eighth Army cut around behind the Mareth line, through the same country of baking-hot rocks and sand and salty shotts where he had traveled with the camels. They forced Rommel’s bedraggled Afrika Korps out of its last strong position, and northward up the coast, into the trap the Mediterranean had prepared at the northeastern corner of Tunisia. The Americans released their air cover and blasted the Luftwaffe out of those skies; and then began desperate fighting in the rain and mud, for the capture of one hill after another. British, French, and Americans were attacking along a line some two hundred miles long; the Germans were resisting furiously, and the Italians with considerably less ardor.
"Early in April an enemy force was cut off at a place in southern Tunisia called El Guettar, close to where the camels had brought Lanny in. A great number of Italians had surrendered, and Lanny listened to an American correspondent who had interviewed some of the prisoners. Standing near the microphone was II Maggiore Vittorio di San Girolamo; his voice wasn’t heard, but the correspondent quoted him as saying that the Germans had seized all the trucks and other vehicles and made their escape, leaving their allies in a trap."
Lanny told Laurel about him
"“If Vittorio is ever turned loose, he will come to me and try to borrow money.”
"The enemy was in a pocket, with no place to go but the sea, and the British and Americans controlled that with fighting ships and planes. Step by step the drive continued; resistance collapsed, and the enemy forces were driven back upon Tunis and the great naval base of Bizerte. There was another Stalingrad preparing—some three hundred thousand enemy troops being driven toward a peninsula called Cap Bon, where they would have to choose between surrender and destruction."
Laurel was worried about the political future, and Lanny had faith in FDR.
"It took no special gift of seership to foresee what was coming to the postwar world. There would be three great powers, the Communist, headed by the Soviet Union, the capitalist, headed by America, and the democratic Socialist, hoped for in Britain, France, and the Scandinavian lands."
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