One Clear Call I

by Upton Sinclair

  But Raoul had his own form of dignity and thought just as well of himself as Charlot did of Charlot. They were like two Indian chieftains smoking a peace pipe—only Raoul did not smoke. What they did was to talk business, and soon they forgot everything else. Lanny said that Charlot was a man of honor and that when he gave his word he could be trusted to the death. That was enough for Raoul, and after a while he offered to go back to the hideout where he had met Lanny and try to persuade the leader of the Resistance in Cannes to come to the hotel for a conference. Raoul himself had been working in Toulon and had in Cannes no contacts which would enable him to transmit information to the Allies.

  IX

  The one-time school director went away, and the capitaine and the presidential agent talked about their families and about the war. After an hour or so Raoul returned in the company of another man, swarthy and dark-haired, who spoke with a strong Provençal accent. He was stocky and had once been powerful, but now, like nearly everybody on the Riviera, he hadn’t had enough to eat for some time. Raoul introduced him as Ribault, which might, of course, be a name for the occasion. His manner was guarded and suspicious, and he did not offer to take the hand of this hated policeman of the Vichy gangsters. He spoke directly and to the point, and the substance of what he said was that the lamp still held out to burn and the vilest sinner might return. (Not that a leader of the maquis had ever heard the hymns of Isaac Watts!)

  The capitaine replied with dignity that hitherto he had seen no possibility of getting rid of the Germans, but that now, when the possibility appeared, he was ready to do his part. Actions would speak louder than words, and if Monsieur Ribault would make notes, the capitaine would tell him everything he could. Raoul volunteered to do the writing—perhaps the other man’s heavy fist was not adapted to the task. Charlot proceeded to pour out information about the number of troops in the garrison and near by, who commanded them, and what weapons they had. He gave the facts about fortifications, the number of the guns, their caliber and range; the location of oil and other stores, and of radio-ranging stations not yet bombed. He said that the Germans had seven divisions in Southern France, two of them armored; only three were at the coast, but others were on the way. He said that all the best troops had been taken to the north; many of those left behind were badly trained divisions, older-age groups, and convalescents; the way to deal with them was to attack boldly and push on, not worrying about your flanks. He answered every question promptly—and Ribault was in a position to judge the answers, for it had been his business to gather such facts and no doubt he had many.

  When the session was over he got up and shook Charlot’s hand. “Monsieur le Capitaine, vous êtes un camarade,” he said, and that was meant to settle it. The leader took the paper and hid it in his jacket, saying that he would get the information to the Allies before the night was over.

  What were the others going to do? Raoul wanted to return to the neighborhood of Toulon, his post of duty, and he had a way of getting there. Lanny’s problem was more complicated; not knowing how long his job in Cannes might take, he had made no arrangement with the OSS to be taken out of France. He had told them that he knew where he could hide out in the hills and wait in safety until the invasion was over. He asked Charlot to drive him to the neighborhood of this place, and Charlot agreed.

  First the Provençal left the hotel room, followed by the Spaniard. Then Charlot went down to his car, telling Lanny where it was. After a short interval Lanny put his razor, his comb, and his toothbrush into his pocket—all he had in the way of luggage—and slipped out of the Hotel Métropole unobserved. He had already paid for his room and for the food. It was then after midnight, and Lanny could have used some sleep, but he dared not stay longer in the hotel without registering with the police. He stepped into the car, and after that he was safe, for not even the Germans would have held up the car of a captain of the Francs-Gardes.

  On the way Lanny explained that his destination was the home of a peasant family, several of whose members had been servants at Bienvenu in past years. He didn’t want to be driven there, because the sight of Charlot’s uniform might trouble them; all peasants fear all authorities. Charlot agreed; he didn’t want to be seen with Lanny any more than Lanny with him.

  They drove on a road which led up into the mountains; it was lined with the gates to fine estates, and after they had gone a considerable distance Lanny said, “I think this is far enough to be safe.” Charlot assented, saying that he must get back to his duties so as not to excite suspicion. They exchanged a warm handclasp and words of friendship and trust. “You were right,” said the Frenchman, “and I am sure I shall never regret it.” They were the last words that Lanny was to hear from his friend.

  X

  The P.A. climbed for a while, and then his breath began to come hard, and he realized that he was short on food as well as sleep. Bordering the road was one of the forests of pine trees which cover the slopes of the mountains, and he found a smooth place and sat down to rest. It is chilly on the Riviera as soon as the sun goes down, and when you climb it grows even more so; but he didn’t wish to approach his destination in darkness, so he curled up into a ball for warmth and with one arm for a pillow fell fast asleep.

  When he wakened dawn was spreading, and he was stiff with cold. He listened to the tinkle of sheep bells, then got up and started climbing again. But presently came another sound, one that stopped him. Thunder? No, bombing! He had been hearing it off and on for some eight years—the first time having been in Barcelona. He was an expert and could tell the difference between big ones far off and little ones near by. These were distant, but not very.

  He looked about, and as the light grew brighter he found a spot on the mountainside that was clear of everything but brush. He pushed his way into it and stood looking down upon a scene veiled in early morning mist. Through the mist were flashes of orange-colored fire, quick and sharp, like the gleam of fireflies. Here, there, all along where Lanny knew the coast would be, he saw these firebursts, one after another, so many that the sounds were incessant. He stood fascinated while the light spread and the sun came up. He knew the view from boyhood: beautiful white villas below him, their grounds planted with ornamental trees from all over the world; orange groves of dark green and olive groves of silvery gray; and beyond them a rough and rocky coast with white stretches of sand here and there, and the Midland Sea, green in the shallows and deep blue all the way to the horizon’s edge.

  The mist lifted, but its place was taken by a cloud of smoke, so Lanny could not see the coast. What he saw was a swarm of planes, flying high, and diving down, dropping their deadly loads and then turning out to sea. He had expected to observe ships, but this was an air bombardment; so he knew that D-day wasn’t yet. The fire flashes extended from Cannes as far to the westward as his vision could reach, and this told him, as it told everybody in the world, the general location of the coming invasion. His heart ached for the beautiful city of Cannes, which he loved in spite of its corruptions. He wondered, was it getting an area bombing, like Berlin and the other German cities? Hardly likely, for this was France, and the Air Force was doing what it could to spare the civilians; the planes would be spotting military targets, and Lanny wondered, had they received the information from Ribault in time? It was possible, for a radio-sending set didn’t take long to work, and everything in this war was faster than ever before.

  XI

  Lanny watched for the smoke to rise; but there were fires, and more smoke from them. The sun came and warmed him, and he waited for hours before he was sure there were no fires on the Cap d’Antibes, and that the familiar buildings which stood out in Cannes were apparently undamaged. Then he climbed into one of the small side valleys, where lay the little farm of Leese and her family.

  This capable Provençal woman had been the cook at Bienvenu when Lanny was a child, and she had risen to the post of majeuse-dome, a word which the playful Lanny had coined for the occasion of her twenty-fifth ann
iversary. Now she was old, and might be dead for all he knew; but her numerous relatives would be at the place, and the Budd family held royal rank in their eyes. In the early days of the war, before Beauty had fled from Bienvenu, they had been her bootleggers by exclusive appointment, keeping her supplied with every sort of farm produce. No doubt the money she had paid them was still hidden in mattresses or buried in some pot at the foot of a tree on the farm.

  An unpaved road led into the little valley where the farm stood on a steep slope. Tiny gardens had been terraced, every cupful of soil was saved, and vegetables grew in plots no bigger than your handkerchief. The house was built of rocks—so plentiful, alas; the house was mainly kitchen, having a great fireplace of rocks, made tight, like the house, with plaster. There was the inevitable French manure pile, but reduced in size because the Boches had left them only one old cow and one tiny donkey. But the ancient olive trees stood, and the apricot and peach trees and the vines; everything perfectly tended despite the fact that there was only one old man left in this family, and one middle-aged man with his right arm and part of his shoulder lost; there were three women, two of them with husbands at war, and half a dozen children, all of whom worked.

  They had heard the bombing; but would they stop work for that? No indeed! They had been hearing such sounds from the Mediterranean off and on for almost five years. Such sounds, in their view, concerned the people in the cities, the great and powerful who lived by collecting taxes and drafting young men into armies. What peasants did was to keep alive and get the highest prices they could for what products they could spare. Every hour there was work that had to be done, and no time to think about matters that were far away and beyond understanding.

  The arrival of a stranger was no novelty just now, and they hardly looked up from their labors. But when this city man smiled and said, “Don’t you know me?” they looked, and then cried, “Monsieur Lanny!” Everybody came running, and shook both his hands, and patted him on the back, and introduced him to the children, most of whom were too young to remember him. They wanted to hear about Madame Detaze—so they called Beauty—and Monsieur Dingle and the little boy, where and how were they and would they come back? They took him in, and there was Leese, shrunken but still alive, bedridden but propped up, doing the family mending and knitting, and giving all the orders for the place. He kissed her toil-worn hand, just as if she had been a grande dame, and she patted him, as if it had been the good old time when he was a little boy, racing about the estate or learning to pound the piano.

  So much there was to talk about, and so many people! He had a little daughter, a big girl now; he had a new wife and a baby boy, and when would he bring them to Bienvenu? When les Boches were gone, he told them; the Americans were coming to drive the evil ones out. So that was what the shooting was about! Well then, they would be glad; they knew how the Americans had come last time, and had paid for produce with good money, whereas les Boches paid with money that lost its value fast. But they came and made you take it and you didn’t dare to say a word, but hid all the produce you could, and ate as much as you wanted. You got fat to spite les Boches!

  Lanny said, “Don’t say a word about my being here. It would be very bad for me. I came up to hide until the Americans have got ashore.” They all promised, even the children promised, pas un mot! They had hidden some of the Maquis now and then, their own sort of people, fighting the harsh-voiced foreigners who came to search the peasant’s huts and storerooms and carry off his grain and olives and fruit and poultry, all the means of life he had laid up for the coming winter.

  That was what war meant to peasants all over Europe, to those fortunate ones who happened not to be in the line of march of armies or on the ground chosen for battles. It meant lugging your produce out into the forest and hiding it in caves, or in hollow trees, or in pits dug and bricked in. It meant the children keeping watch, and when the alarm was given, the women fleeing into the mountains and being hunted like wild animals by lustful men. It meant paper currency that presently became worthless, so that peasants learned to take only hard money, and change it into gold, and put it in a sock and bury it under a loose board or hearthstone.

  XII

  Also, it meant refugees, pitiful people fleeing from towns and villages, from battles and bombardments. That was what it would mean this very day; they knew it and discussed it with somber resolution. Les pauvres gens, of course one was sorry for them, but there had been too many of them, and farm people had to survive if farms were to continue to be worked. “Thousands have come, Monsieur Lanny, and we have given more than we can spare. What good will it do if we starve in the winter and are unable to work the fields in the spring?” It was a cruel world, and perhaps only the hardhearted were fit to survive in it.

  The flood began to arrive late in the morning. People had leaped out of bed, for city people do not get up with the dawn. Some wore pajamas; they had not even stopped to put their clothes on. Others rolled bundles in baby carriages or children’s carts. One woman had nothing but a gilded cage with her pet canary. They had toiled up the foothills and spread into the valleys, and one and all seemed to think that farm people had nothing to do but take care of them. They were exhausted, terrified, helpless; they begged and pleaded, with tears in their eyes. Surely they could sleep in the barn, in the half empty storeroom, or with the cow or the pig! Any place but out in the wild forest among the rocks, and only le bon Dieu knew what sorts of wild beasts! They held out money, the paper money printed for les Boches; the peasants had no idea how that money had come into existence, but they knew it would buy less and less, and they wanted less and less of it. “Non, non, madame, monsieur, rien, rien! Il faut partir!” The wretched ones didn’t want to go, for where was there to go to?

  These scenes went on, day and night, all the time that Lanny stayed on the place. There was an incessant stream of refugees, and they had to be scolded before they would move on. They wanted water, and you couldn’t refuse water, but you tried to make them understand that wells in these hills often went dry and that water was as precious to a farmer as food. They begged to sleep under shelter, and would swear that they had no matches or tobacco. But you couldn’t believe them; the old man declared that many a farmer who had done so had lost his barn for his kindness. Lanny observed the deeply rooted mistrust of the peasant for the city person. The city was a parasite upon the farm; the bourgeois slept late and wore fine clothes and did no real work, but charged the peasant high prices for tools and clothing and all the things he had to have.

  Against this would be the claims of common humanity. A mother wept and pleaded for a little milk to save her baby’s life. They gave her a little milk, even though their cow was going dry and there was not enough for their own children. And then, of course, the mother wanted to stay; she had found kind people, she had made a dent in the hard crust of this cruel world! An old man, apparently a gentleman, fainted from exhaustion, and what would they do about him? Who was to tell if he had really fainted, or if he was only pretending, as so many of these clever folk had learned to do?

  Lanny’s food choked him, but he ate a little, because he too had to survive; each person thinks there is some special reason why he should do so. To these Provençal peasants Lanny was a privileged being, an old friend, besides being heir-apparent to the Bienvenu estate. He had climbed here as a boy and a youth, loving these mountains and the country sights. He had come to the festivals and learned the songs and danced with the girls to the music of fife and drum and tambourine: a quick little waltz, and a jerky polka, and the farandole. He had sung “Oh, Magali, ma tant amado,”—Provençal being a cross between Italian and French. He had learned a lot of their words and had not forgotten them now; he would amuse them by exclaiming, “Name of a good little man!”

  They locked him and themselves inside the house so that others might not see them eating. They cut him a slice of wholewheat bread, and put on it a slice from a large onion. With a handful of dried olives that was
a meal for any farm worker, and it was a meal for Lanny. A cup of wine went with it, and they drank the wine exactly as the sun crossed the meridian. He didn’t know why they did that, and they couldn’t tell him; it was a custom. They kept him out of sight, for there might be spies among these refugees, or there might be Boches running away from the Americans. Later the Boches would be licked and would surely come then—and the peasant women would join the refugees and sleep in the forest. C’est la guerre!

  25

  Le Jour de Gloire

  I

  Every morning Lanny would hear the sounds of bombing, and walk out to the mountainside and look for ships. But he saw only planes and the line of shell bursts and clouds of black smoke ascending. Three days he watched that sight and noted that the most numerous bursts and the heaviest smoke were to the west. He decided that that was where he wanted to be, and he made a bargain with the one-armed peasant to escort him to the farm of one of Leese’s nephews, who had worked at Bienvenu as gardener and would surely be glad to welcome his former employer. The one-armed man, a son-in-law, didn’t want any of the paper money, but was glad to take Lanny Budd’s check on a New York bank; that would be good for dollars, and he knew the day would come when he could cash it.

  The mistral had started blowing, that cold wind which comes from the north and spoils the joy of tourists on the Riviera. The pair set out early and took the whole day. The streams have cut their way down to the sea in gorges, and it is not always easy to cross them; but a man who has lived here all his life knows the trails and the fords and how to keep out of sight. The mountains had suddenly become full of people, and how they were going to subsist was a mystery. Lanny and his guide walked all day toward the west, and spent the night safely in a cabin in the forests of the red Estérel mountains, behind which Lanny had seen the sun set all through his boyhood and youth. The owner of the cabin was a cork worker, small, black-haired, and swarthy, his features recalling the fact that the Saracens had many times invaded this land.