One Clear Call I

by Upton Sinclair

  Once the truck came to a halt, and Lanny held his breath. It was a roadblock; he couldn’t see the lights, but he could hear every word that was spoken. “Ihre Papiere!” The driver would be handing out his papers and an SS officer would be inspecting them. Other men with flashlights would be looking into the driver’s compartment and under it, peering under the tarpaulin and perhaps under the body of the truck. Would they have a ladder and climb on top? If so, it would be all up with Lanny Budd, and with the driver too.

  But perhaps the man knew that they didn’t take that much trouble. Lanny heard the blessed words, “Alles in Ordnung.” The engine of the truck started up and it began to move; then faster, and soon it was humming, and the P.A. murmured a message of thankfulness to that Providence to whom a thousand years are as a day.

  The next time the truck halted there was silence for a while. Lanny heard the driver get down, and then he realized that the man was untying the cover. Perhaps they were at their destination; or perhaps the driver was making sure that his human freight was still alive. It was, but not much more. When the man whispered for Lanny to slide down one of the ropes, his joints were so stiff that he had to ask for help. His knees threatened to buckle under him when he stood on the ground, and the man helped him to what appeared to be a small cottage. Dawn was near.

  Inside, the man lighted a lamp. There was no one else in sight, and Lanny guessed that it was the man’s home. He was led to a small closet underneath the stairs; the man unlocked it, and Lanny saw a clothes closet which had been partially cleared. There was a pillow for him to sit on, and another presumably for him to rest his head on. The man said, “You will be safe here. The woman will bring you food.” When asked if there would be air, he replied that there were holes in the floor and ceiling. “But be very quiet,” he added.

  Lanny ventured to ask, “Wo sind Wir?” and the reply was, “Regensburg.” The man closed the door and locked it—which might have been alarming, except that Lanny could guess there must be members of the family who were not supposed to know of his presence. Children, perhaps, who might tattle, or who might be victims of the Nazi propaganda and betray their parents.

  IV

  Regensburg! Lanny knew the city, with its tall, many-gabled houses dating from medieval days. Motoring through, soon after the Nazis had taken power, he had been witness of one of the early pogroms against the Jews; it had seemed barbarous and dreadful, but of course it was nothing compared to what was now going on, the deliberate extermination of a race. The city was the site of the greatest ball-bearings plant in Germany and recently had been the scene of one of the heaviest of the American daylight raids. Dr. Goebbels had claimed that more than half the bombers had been shot down, and that was all Lanny knew about it. It might be a good thing if, in passing through, a P.A. were to pick up some information as to what damage had been done.

  But not in a clothes closet. What had to be done now was to rest his sore bones, and not to fall asleep for fear that he might snore. Presently there were footsteps and voices, and he could follow the life of a German truckdriver’s family; the children were being fed and got ready for school; when they were gone the woman unlocked the door and handed in a pitcher of water, some bread and cheese, and, most wonderful, an apple. When he said that he was afraid to sleep, the woman told him that the little ones would not return until afternoon, and she would tap on the door and waken him before that happened. She said nothing else, and he was struck by the silence in which this underground railroad was working. He could understand it, of course—the people were terrified at what they were doing, so much so that ordinary human curiosity was suppressed. They knew that he wouldn’t want to tell who he was, and they were afraid to tell who they were. Better that he should move on quickly and be forgotten.

  He slept; and then the woman brought more food and told him that the children were due soon. He offered money for the food, and she didn’t want to take it, but he persuaded her to do so for the children’s sake. All this in whispers, and then she locked him in until night. He sat fairly comfortably and thought about his problems. He was about two hundred miles nearer to his goal, and the woman had said that somebody would come for him after dark.

  V

  The children were put to bed and the place was still. Then a car came to the door, and the woman unlocked the closet, put a sandwich wrapped in a newspaper into Lanny’s hand, and led him outside. “This is Dr. Franz,” she said. “He is going to Munich.” Lanny got into the car, a small two-seater, and they drove away.

  This was the first of the underground people who wanted to talk. The doctor didn’t ask anything about his passenger, but told that he had come to a hospital in Regensburg to attend some of the people who had been injured in the bombing raids; now he had been called back to the Bavarian capital because there had been a more terrible raid there. He told what dreadful things these raids were; Lanny might have said, “I have seen a lot of them,” but he didn’t. The doctor—a young man by his voice—remarked what a hideous thing all war was, and how he longed for the end of this one. His passenger agreed with everything, but apparently had no opinions of his own; so presently the doctor fell silent.

  Thus far all the luck had been with Lanny Budd, but perhaps it was being charged against him in the book of fate. They had driven about an hour at a fair rate of speed, and Lanny guessed that they must be within ten or twenty miles of Munich. There was heavy traffic on this Autobahn, for it was the route to Italy by way of the Brenner Pass, and Hitler was pouring in troops and supplies in a never-ending stream. None of it could go by sea and not much by air; the great bulk was divided between railways and motor highways. They were passing through a stretch of forest, as you could tell by the echoes of the car’s motion from the trees. Suddenly the car began to bump, a sound and a feeling familiar to the motorist, and bringing dismay to his soul: a flat tire!

  Quickly the driver drew up alongside the highway, as far off the paving as he could get, for the heavily laden trucks came roaring, and sometimes the drivers were tired and careless. The doctor got out, and Lanny too prepared to help; but the man said, “You must not be seen. Go into the woods and hide until I call.” There could be no argument about the matter; Lanny groped his way and found a seat behind a clump of underbrush and munched his sandwich. This seemed as good a time as any.

  Then it was that fate presented its bill for the good fortune this P.A. had so far enjoyed. A few minutes passed, and the doctor had just got fairly started at his work when two men in soldiers’ uniforms came striding down the side of the Autobahn, in the same direction as the car had been traveling. Lanny was close enough to hear every word of the conversation; they offered to help, and when the doctor answered, not too cordially, that he didn’t need help, they laughed good-naturedly and told him that of course he did—he was a gentleman and this was a dirty job. Without another word, one of them proceeded to crawl under the rear end of the car and place the jack, and the other picked up the wrench and proceeded to remove the wheel with the damaged tire. Evidently they knew the job, and put it through in a jiffy, that being the way of Army men. There was nothing for the doctor to do but to stand and watch—which is what any “Herr” would have done under the circumstances, and paid them with a coin.

  But, as it turned out, that wasn’t what these men wanted. When the work was completed and the tools stowed away, one of them said, “We are going your way; you might kindly give us a lift.” When the doctor explained that he wasn’t going very far, the answer was that they would ride as far as he was going. When he started another protest, they just got into the car, one sitting in the other’s lap, so as to make it plain that they would not crowd or inconvenience him. Such a thing would never have happened in the old Germany, but this was Nazi Germany, and wartime besides. They were quite good-natured about it, taking it as a bit of fun. “Come on, we are good fellows, and we have done something for you. We are late and out of money.”

  What could the doctor say? If he
had said flatly, “I do not desire your company,” they might have become ugly. They were fighting for the Fatherland and surely were entitled to consideration from any civilian. They had no weapons visible, but might have some hidden; anyhow, they were two to his one. They might take his car, they might even kill him—such things had happened, and there was much talk about a crime wave. They might be simple fellows on furlough, and again they might be deserters, doing what Lanny was doing, heading for the Swiss border, and in a mood of desperation. Certain it was that the night was cloudy and dark, and there were no cars in sight at the moment.

  All this Lanny could understand as well as the doctor, and his heart sank as he saw the doctor get into the car and drive away. The doctor couldn’t very well call, saying, “I will come back.” He could be sure that Lanny would hear the talk and understand the situation. He would drive the men for a while, until he came to a village; then he would say, “This is my destination,” and so would get rid of the undesired passengers and then come back for the desired one. Meantime, the latter would wait.

  VI

  Lanny waited. He crept closer to the highway and watched the cars passing in both directions, for the doctor, returning, would have to travel some distance back to the next underpass or overpass, so that he could get on Lanny’s side of the Autobahn—built for cars that know where they are going, and not for those that change their minds and want to turn around! The doctor might have a hard time finding the right spot in the forest; Lanny, realizing that, took the newspaper in which his sandwich had been wrapped and stuck it on a forked stick and set it in the ground close to the edge of the paving. Fast cars wouldn’t notice it, but the doctor would surely be going slow.

  Lanny waited the rest of the night. He saw hundreds of cars go by, but didn’t see a single one going slow. None stopped, and no driver got out to call “Yoo-hoo” for a lost passenger. Lanny comforted himself with the thought that perhaps the doctor had had to take the two intruders all the way to Munich. Even so, that couldn’t have taken him more than an hour or two. Could it be that he had failed to make sufficiently careful note of the locality? But surely he would note the distance on his speedometer as he went south, and then the distance when he came back! Could it be that the soldiers had slugged and robbed him? Or that he had some engagement in Munich that he could not break? Would he have to wait and come back the following evening? Or would he break faith with his passenger and just forget him?

  Lanny would never know the answer to that riddle. He waited until dawn, and then he found a clump of underbrush in which he could lie and wait all day. He had no food or water, and missed the latter especially. He waited until the middle of the next night; then he decided that he had been deserted and got up and started to walk. It wasn’t long before he came to a stream and quenched his thirst. He didn’t mind walking; what worried him was the fact that he had lost contact with the underground. He couldn’t just go into Munich and ask for its headquarters; he was on his own now, without a friend in all Germany that he knew, unless he went back to Berlin and started over again with Johann Seidl.

  VII

  He kept on south, and worried every time a car swept by him. Sooner or later one of them would stop, and it would be a police or Army car, and they would ask to see his papers, and what he was doing there, and why wasn’t he in the Army? At the first crossing he got off the Autobahn on a country road. But he found that that too had its disadvantages, for the dogs at farmhouses were antisocial, and some were not content with barking, but rushed at him. It was not easy to find anything in the dark, but Lanny managed to find a dead tree branch and to break off a stick. He had never been a tramp before, and he was surprised to realize how many drawbacks the life had.

  Walking, he thought of all the persons he knew in Munich, and whether there might be one whom he could trust. Wealthy people nearly all, lovers of art; he hadn’t been to the city since the war broke out, and couldn’t be sure who was alive or dead. He could think of several who would surely be sick of the conflict now that their capital city was being plastered with bombs, but he couldn’t think of a single one who might be willing to risk his neck for the sake of an American Kunstsachverständiger, be he ever so competent. No, there was just no sense in going into Munich at all, it would be pretty nearly as bad as Berlin.

  The fugitive belonged out in the country, in spite of the dogs. Not many Gestapo cars roamed country lanes; and he had money in his pocket and could pay for food at farmhouse doors. He had a good story, prepared in advance; his home had been bombed out in Berlin and he had come back after a week’s absence to find his wife and children gone. They were reported to be—wherever Lanny decided that he wished to head for. As he thought it over he began to lose interest in Switzerland; he knew how closely the Germans guarded that border, and how many people had lost their lives, either by falling in the dark or being shot in the daylight while trying to get across by mountain paths. It needed an expert guide, and how would a tramp office clerk find one on the German side?

  Austria was nearer, and Lanny guessed there would be no border, it being part of Naziland; but he dared not count on this, for old habits hold. After that it was only a short way across to Italy, and since Northern Italy was in German hands, its border would be less closely watched. Lanny knew that in Italy the underground would be stronger; all he would have to do was to climb into some high mountain pass and say to a woodcutter or a young peasant, “I am a friend of the Partisans, and where are they?” They would soon come to look him over and hear his story, and then they would pass him on to some OSS man, and Robbie and Laurel would get a message that Lanny was alive and well.

  On the road to the Brenner there was one person of whom Lanny bethought himself; that was his old friend Hilde, Fürstin Donnerstein. Hilde was in somewhat the same classification as Oskar von Herzenberg, that is, a member of the Prussian aristocracy who looked down upon the Nazis as canaille, and who, after four years of war and one year of incessant defeats, must be wholly sick of them. Lanny had stayed in the Donnerstein palace in Berlin, and had brought Monck there and hidden him for a couple of days, but without telling Hilde the truth about either of them. Now he would have to tell at least part of the truth about himself; he felt quite sure that as a lady she would not betray a gentleman, and she might be able and willing to give him advice. He had done that for her, telling her to come to her summer camp on the Obersalzberg and make it fit for winter occupation. Bombers were not apt to come there, and food would be easier to get. It hadn’t occurred to Lanny that he might be coming along to get some of the food.

  VIII

  The traveler walked until sunrise and then went to a farmhouse and told his story to a sympathetic woman. It was a good story, and he was invited in to a warm breakfast with the family; he was provided with a lunch in a bundle, and when he tried to pay for it they told him there was no charge. Such kind, good people they were, and Lanny had known so many all over this land; he went away reflecting upon the mystery of how they kept falling into the hands of one set of military masters after another. Armies marching and fighting all over Europe, all through the centuries—and Lanny could not recall ever having met a single peasant or workingman who liked war or expected to gain from it. War was a sport of ruling classes!

  He went his way and came to a strip of woodland and lost himself in the middle of it. He was tired and craved sleep; a chilly wind was blowing, and the best shelter he could find was on the lee side of a great rock. The ground was covered with dead leaves, and he gathered armsful, and then slept as soundly as the babes in the wood. When he opened his eyes again the day was far gone, but still chilly, and he got up and stretched his legs and then ate his lunch. He thought about his problems, and then about Marceline, and what might be happening to her. He imagined her in the hands of the Gestapo, and that was so terrible he had to put it quickly out of his mind. Instead he made for her an outdoor adventure story like his own; a Rosalind-in-As-You-Like-It story, for once in amateur th
eatricals at Bienvenu she had tied a bandage over her breasts and put on boy’s clothing and played a young apache to the great amusement of an audience.

  Lanny was resolved to do his traveling at night, for he had got at the farmhouse a hint that troubled him greatly. They had asked how he had managed to escape service in the Army, and he had to think quickly and say that he had been rejected on account of serious heart trouble. Up to that moment his thoughts had been fixed upon the notion that if the police were to get him they would discover that he was an American spy; now for the first time he realized that his papers might satisfy them, in which case they would induct him into military service without a day’s delay. To be sure, they would take his fingerprints, and they already had the fingerprints of Lanning Prescott Budd in Munich, where they had arrested him and thrown him into Stadelheim Prison for the offense of having been in the company of Hugo Behr, Sturmabteilungsmann shot down in the Blood Purge. That that been nearly ten years ago, but fingerprints do not grow old, and neither do police records. However, the bombings might well have disorganized the system, and they were in such a hurry for able-bodied recruits that they wouldn’t bother to look up records. The age limits had been expanded again, and now stood from sixteen to sixty.

  Lanny’s active imagination saw himself being picked up in a Razzia and submitted to a medical examination, and they surely wouldn’t find anything wrong with his heart! They would send him to the German equivalent of a “boot camp,” and he would put on a uniform that had been taken from a dead man, and a Nazi Feldwebel would drill him and kick him about for a month or two. Then he would be loaded into a cattle car and shipped off in the dead of winter to the Russian front, or perhaps to the Gothic line, as the Germans were now calling their front in Italy. Lanny saw himself doing sabotage to that line, and then escaping into the American lines with a lot of valuable information. It made a grand story, but somehow he found difficulty in making himself believe it.