“I understand that. What can be done?”
“Charlot is in the most dangerous position imaginable. All those Frenchmen who have helped the Germans with arms will be treated as war criminals, and either shot out of hand by the Partisans, or else court-martialed by the French Army that is fighting now in Italy. That applies especially to the officers, and Charlot has been one of the most active among them. He is a marked man.”
“It is a dreadful situation, Lanny, and I have not failed to realize it.” Tears came into the old financier’s rheumy eyes, and his little white goatee quivered. His voice was muffled because of his missing teeth, but he was seemingly too agitated to realize it. “What can I do?”
“Charlot is a man with real power, and he is the one who must be induced to act. I tell you in strict confidence—the Allied Armies are about to land on the south coast. I do not know the time or the place, but the event is certain and cannot be more than a week off. The German defenses there are inadequate, and the entire Riviera will surely be in Allied hands. Charlot and his little force will be surrounded and captured. That is my father’s judgment, and you must take his word that he knows.”
“I have taken his word before and never been misled.”
“Robbie has become one of the most powerful men in America. He is turning out planes by the thousands, and the Air Forces are dependent upon him. The sums that will be due you on your Budd-Erling stock when the war is over will be many millions of dollars, and that is a stake worth playing for.”
“Naturellement, Lanny, but what can I do here?”
“You must use your authority and bring it about that Charlot comes over to the American side at once. You know how it was in North Africa—the men who joined us not merely escaped with their lives, but have kept all their property. I was present in Algiers when Darlan made his choice; and now there is exactly the same situation. It is the hour of decision for your whole family.”
“Speak, Lanny, I am in your hands.”
“I know how set Charlot is in his opinions, and how proud and stubborn. I am afraid that he would not heed my pleading. So I want you to write him a letter, not advising, but commanding. Use your authority as père de famille and tell him what to do. He respects you and will obey as a dutiful son.”
The old man’s hands were trembling so that he had to clasp them together to stop it. “Mais, Lanny! That might be suicidal for all of us here. If that letter fell into German hands, we should be taken out and shot.”
“That is true, mon ami, and I wouldn’t ask you to take such a risk. What I want you to write is that Charlot shall take my advice in the matter. Tell him to obey me, and I’ll take the risks.”
“You have a way to reach him, Lanny?”
“My father has arranged everything. I will get to him and put the facts before him. He won’t like them, but unless he is entirely out of his mind he will see that he has no other choice.”
“God grant that it may be so. But what are we here to do about our own situation?”
“Your helping Charlot will make all the difference. My father will tell the Army Intelligence people what you have done, and they will inform the Partisans. So, when they come to your door it will be to crown your heads with flowers instead of putting them on pikes.”
V
With trembling hands the père de famille wrote under the visitor’s dictation. Just two lines, on a plain sheet of paper, and with no names: “Mon fils: Faites ce que notre vieux et cher ami désire. C’est un commandement de votre père.”
Lanny pledged himself not to reveal the names to anyone, and least of all to the Germans if he should have the ill fortune to be caught. He did not stop to discuss his own change of front or any other news. He said, “It might help if Eugénie were to add her word,” and le père assented. He got his skinny shanks out of bed—Lanny considerately looked away until he had put on his silk dressing gown. Seeing that he was a bit wobbly, the visitor took his arm, and they went out to the drawing-room, where the wives of the two sons sat in a dim light, waiting patiently for whatever the head of the household might see fit to tell them.
The doors were closed, and the agitated old plutocrat briefly told them his decision. Lanny wasn’t called upon to say anything; he left France to the Frenchmen—it was the Army’s program. To Annette, wife of the elder son, the announcement came as a shock, for she had political convictions of an intensely reactionary sort. If her signature had been asked, she might have refused. But Eugénie, the younger woman, was the old-fashioned sort; all she wanted was to get her husband back, with no bullet holes through his body. She gladly wrote under her father-in-law’s words, “C’est aussi ma prière.”
So the P.A. had what he wanted, and he stayed only a few minutes to tell the agitated ladies what he knew, about their husbands. They offered him food, but he said no, he was exposing them to danger every minute he stayed in their home. He folded up the paper and put it with the other documents of Henri Jean Marie Girouard, and pledged the three de Bruynes not to mention his visit to servants or children or anyone else. He went out by a side door, and they closed it silently behind him; he stood for a while, waiting for his eyes to get used to the darkness. Neither friend nor foe appeared, and he walked quickly by a path which he knew well to the stile where Julie Palma was waiting.
VI
When the former school directress came out of the shadows he told her, “Everything is done. What next?” She told him that a comrade would be coming soon. He had got through more quickly than they had expected.
They talked in whispers, a man and a woman in the darkness of a warm summer’s night, but it was not the sort of talk that was to be expected under such circumstances. Julie told him that she had a job with an importing firm which had offices in Paris and Marseille, so she had a pretext for traveling and had been a sort of liaison officer for the Free French. She had made a score of trips, carrying messages, always in her head. She reported that Raoul was well and exultant over the events of the past two months. Apparently she did not know that Lanny was expecting to go south and to meet him, and Lanny didn’t tell her that. He said, “I have been able to help a little, and I’m still trying.”
What Julie wanted to know, most of all things in the world, was when the Americans were coming to Paris. He warned her, “Do not be disappointed if they pass you by. Remember, the goal of this battle is not Paris but Berlin. I have heard talk that we may go through the Orléans gap and straight across France to the Rhine.”
This horrified the Frenchwoman, who exclaimed, “Oh, Lanny, Lanny! You mustn’t fail Paris!” just as if he had been the head of the Allied Combined General Staffs! She went on to point out what the Nazis might do to that most beautiful of all the world’s capitals; and how simple it would be to take it, just a few tanks and armored cars flying the American flag! When Lanny ventured to doubt if it would be quite that easy, she went into detail about the situation: three million people, burning up with hatred and ready to explode, just needing some one to give the signal, to speak the word. And they weren’t helpless; some had managed to save weapons from the days of their great disaster, and many of the young fellows had managed to steal weapons from the Germans or to get them from the Allies. All that was needed was to see the Stars and Stripes coming down the Champs Elysées, and Paris would rise to the last man and woman. But they must know that the enemy couldn’t come back!
This nervous, high-strung little woman—she was at the age where women are like that—came near to forgetting the danger of her position and Lanny’s at that moment. She couldn’t accept his statement that he had no influence with the military authorities; she was sure he must at least know people who had. Hadn’t he given Raoul and his friends proof of the fact that he knew President Roosevelt and was able to get to him? All right then, let him give the great President—hero to the French as well as to the Americans—this report from one who was living and working with the Free French in Paris and knew all the groups and the parties�
��the Gaullists, the Socialists, the Communists, and the plain humble people who had no one to speak for them.
They had suffered such indignities, such horrors, and above all shame, that they would be willing to die by the thousands in order to wipe out the disgrace of having had to surrender, and to live under the hated Boches and see them strutting in the streets, pulling wads of paper money out of their pockets and buying up the best of everything in the city. The Nazis had kept the Parisians down by the most abominable system of hostages, a thing that had not been known in Europe since the Middle Ages. Men and women would be seized, perfectly innocent persons, just because they were respected and beloved, and would be held in prison, and ten would be shot if some Frenchman lost his head and stabbed or shot a Nazi in the streets.
“Oh, Lanny, you must liberate Paris! Think of the prestige, the moral effect! All the world will know it, all France will rise up and go into action. For all the rest of our history they will tell how the American Army did it, and our gratitude will become a national tradition!” Raoul’s wife became so excited over this chance to send a message to President Roosevelt that her voice began to rise, and Lanny had to whisper, “Prenez garde.” He told her he agreed with her and promised that he would find a way to pass on the information. She said, “We have comrades who can tell you exactly what strength the Germans have, and what we of the Resistance can assemble.” Lanny answered, “By all means let them do so.”
VII
There came a low whistle from near by, and Julie said, “We must go.” She led the way, and presently there was a man walking in front of them, just near enough to be followed. They walked on cross-country paths and came to a patch of woodland, and in it was a hut. The man had disappeared, and the woman said, “This won’t be very comfortable, Lanny, but it will be safe. You will find sacks to make a bed, and you can fasten the door on the inside. Food and drink will be brought to you, and the password will be Bienvenu.”
“Fine,” he replied. “How long do I stay here?”
“Until tomorrow night. Of course if a plane does not arrive you will have to wait longer. Bonne nuit, camerade.”
By the light of the stars, to which his eyes had grown accustomed, Lanny could make out that this was somebody’s wood hut and that it was nearly empty. He hoped the farmer had no dogs. He found a pile of sacks, and he wondered how many saboteurs and agents had slept on them in the course of four years. He locked the door and lay down and thought over his problems; he was just making up his mind to sleep when he heard footsteps. There was a tap on the door and the password was whispered low. He got up and opened the door. The form of a man was outlined against the faint light. The man held out a bottle and a package wrapped in newspaper. Lanny said, “Merci,” and took them.
“Monsieur,” said the man very politely, “I should like to talk with you if it would not be any trouble.”
“Certainly not,” said the P.A. He backed into the hut and sat down on his sacks, and the man sat beside him.
“Monsieur,” continued the visitor, “I am a man of the Fighting French, a follower of General de Gaulle. I have two comrades, one a Socialist and the other a Catholic democrat. There are some things we think you ought to hear, and if it is not too late and you are not tired—” He stopped, and Lanny answered: “I am not at all tired, and I shall have all day to sleep.”
The man whistled, and two others came in, closed the door, and fastened it. Evidently they knew the place and took seats on the piles of wood. Lanny never saw their faces; they did not strike any light, perhaps because they had no tobacco. They spoke politely, yielding to one another, and Lanny identified them by their voices as Tenor, Baritone, and Bass. Baritone was the one who had come first, and he was evidently an educated man, a doctor or lawyer. Tenor was apparently a slight and nervous person, and young; Lanny identified him with Montmartre and imagined a bow tie and a beret, except that he knew the Nazis had banned the wearing of berets, which was classified among “demonstrations harmful to the state.” Bass had a country accent, and Lanny thought that he might be the owner of the property on which this odd réunion took place.
The P.A. guessed that Julie Palma had told these men that he was a person of influence, a friend of the great; their first concern was to defend the honor of la patrie, letting the outside world know that Frenchmen were daily risking their lives and many giving their lives in resistance to the hated foe. They had no means of knowing whether this fact had reached the outside world, and they hoped this important Monsieur Bienvenu might find some way to make their voices heard.
The world must not suppose that this Resistance had begun only since the Americans had landed; non, pas du tout, it had been going on from the first hour of defeat. Thousands of young Frenchmen had wrapped their weapons and buried them, and later had dug them up and taken to the mountains or the maquis. The French word for underbrush, maquis, had come to be the name for the men who hid in it and came out to carry on sabotage against the enemy. “Monsieur,” said Baritone, “we have the enemy’s own figures that more than forty thousand Frenchmen have been executed during the occupation, and a hundred thousand are in concentration camps in Germany. This in addition to the quarter million who have been deported.”
Lanny assured them that the news of this heroism had not failed to reach America. He listened to dreadful stories of Nazi repression, and to figures as to the number of bridges which had been blown and trains which had been derailed in the neighborhood. Just now the whole population was holding its breath, expecting the arrival of the American troops. Evidently Julie had told them that Paris might be bypassed, for this was the subject they talked about most. They knew Paris, they knew the mood of the people, and that nothing but machine guns and grenades and tanks and artillery kept them in subjection. All that was needed was a small armored force at the city’s gates, and the population would rise and barricade the streets behind the Germans and hurl building stones upon their heads. “Monsieur,” said Tenor, “I was in Paris only three days ago, and I know on authority that there are now only two German divisions there; but one is armored, and that is our trouble.”
No use for Lanny to plead that he had no authority, that the military would decide this question on military grounds. The three voices trembled as they plead: there were three million people in Paris, including the refugees, and they all wanted to work for the liberators. They would produce goods for the Army; they would restore bridges, rebuild railroad track, repair damaged vehicles, be a colossal force behind the armies. “Three million friends are not to be by-passed, Monsieur!” And Lanny assured them that Paris would not be forgotten, Paris would be delivered just as quickly as military security would permit. No use to drive the enemy out and then have him come back and blast the city in a siege.
VIII
The P.A. slept, and only the hedgehogs disturbed him. He slept through most of the day, and then thought about his plans, which had gone well thus far. He waited patiently, and after twilight had fallen in the woods he ventured to open the door and peer out; there was no one in sight, and he locked himself in again. It was about ten before he heard a step, and then a voice whispered the password. He opened the door. It was Baritone. Lanny followed him without a question, and they walked on country paths for perhaps half a mile. Then they came to a pasture, and on the edge of it they hid in some bushes—the maquis. “Ne parlez-pas,” the man whispered, and they made not a sound.
Suddenly Lanny’s escort sat up and cupped his hands behind his ears. The sound of a plane. Instantly the maquis sprang into life, the flashlights began to wink up toward the sky and down again. The roar of the plane came near; it dipped fast and came to rest on the meadow. The flashlights went off; the men ran out, and there was the same business of taking off packages and turning the plane about and backing it to the limit of the field. It was one of those tiny cub planes, perhaps the same which had brought Lanny, but the pilot was different.
Baritone had escorted the passenger and given the
password; now he said, “Montez,” and then, “On les aura.” The engine started up, and Lanny held his breath; it was truly a frightening thing in darkness—suppose the field wasn’t long enough or the trees too tall? But no doubt the field had been measured and photographed, and possibly the trees had been topped; anyhow, the plane rose. The mysterious silent man at the throttle knew what was below him and what was in front; the passenger had nothing to do but sit there and hope that no wandering Heinkel or Junker night fighter would swoop down upon them, a hawk upon a carrier pigeon.
IX
Not that kind of bad luck, but another! They were flying west, toward the American sector. Black clouds loomed ahead, hiding the stars—one of those sudden thunderstorms which come from nowhere on summer nights. Lanny didn’t hear the thunder for the noise of the plane, but he saw lightning flashes and realized that they were heading straight into the heart of the storm. The pilot swerved and shouted into the passenger’s ear, “We have to keep out of that!” He began talking into his radio telephone, and Lanny couldn’t hear what he was saying; he knew enough to be sure that the pilot of an unarmed plane would never call the ground except in an emergency.
The P.A. had been in a plane wreck once before and surely didn’t want another. He had no parachute, and apparently the pilot had none; they flew too close to the ground to make such recourse possible. Lanny could only sit and wonder. Did the pilot plan to fly around that heavy black storm, or was he looking for a place to land? They were headed toward the south, and he guessed they were looking for that strip of la belle France which the American forces had taken in their eastward drive.
The helpless passenger thought that there must be some routine for situations like this; surely these little cubs couldn’t stand heavy weather. The plane came lower, and suddenly bright lights flashed forth, directly ahead, and there was a field, with planes lined up on each side of it. The pilot dived, and down he came, and in half a minute they came to rest on the ground. The instant the wheels touched, the lights went off again. The glimpse Lanny got suggested another cow pasture but a bigger one; and so it was. The moment the Army made sure of a new district, their first procedure was to clear an “airstrip,” so that “flying boxcars” might bring in supplies and fighter planes might be that much nearer to the enemy.
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