World's End

by Upton Sinclair

  So Lanny didn’t go to church. Instead he studied arithmetic, algebra, and modern history with his new tutor, Jerry Pendleton, a happy-go-lucky fellow whom Beauty Budd had met in the way she met most persons, at a party for tea and dancing; she liked him because he had red hair, a gay disposition, and good manners. He had come to Europe with a chum, working their way, and had got caught, first by the war, and then by a mademoiselle whose mother conducted the pension at which he was staying. Instead of going back to finish his senior year in a fresh-water college, Jerry had lingered on, and a job as tutor presented itself as a happy solution of several problems.

  The young man’s account of education in the United States was not exactly favorable; he said that the main thing you learned was how to get along with other fellows, and with girls. He confessed, as Mr. Elphinstone had done, that he had forgotten all the subjects he was going to teach, but he and Lanny could read together, and there was that magnificent encyclopedia which could never go wrong. Jerry would at least keep the kid out of mischief—and at the same time Mrs. Budd could give him kindly advice about the most bewildering love affair he had ever run into. Mlle. Cerise, it appeared, was being brought up in French fashion, which meant that she couldn’t see a young man without her mother being close by, and he couldn’t even bring her to one of Mrs. Budd’s tea parties without a chaperon. At home you took a girl motoring, or if you didn’t have a car, you bicycled and had a picnic in the woods; but here they were all nuns until after they were married—and then, apparently, you could pick them up in the gambling rooms at the casino.

  “Not quite all of them,” said Beauty, beginning the education of her son’s tutor.

  VI

  Once again, for a day, Marcel Detaze was free from the censor. He was on his way to his post of duty, and poured out his heart to his beloved. This time he didn’t hide from her the dangers to which he was going. The hour had come when she had to steel her soul.

  Marcel was gay, as always; that was the way you had to take life, if you didn’t mean to let it get you down. Make a work of art of it; put your best into it; play your little part, and be ready to quit before the audience got tired of you. Marcel described a “sausage balloon” as a grotesque and amusing object, in rebellion against the men who had created it and obstinately trying to break out of their control. It was huge and fat, and assumed changing shapes, and danced and cavorted in the air. A net of cords imprisoned it, and a steel cable bound it to the earth. The cable was on a pulley, and two stout horses or oxen plodding across a field let the balloon up or pulled it down.

  All this for the sake of an observer who sat in a bulletproof basket underneath the balloon, equipped with field glasses and measuring instruments, and a telephone set. It was his task to spy out enemy entrenchments, and the movements of troops and guns. He had to have a keen eyesight, and be trained to recognize the difference between branches growing on trees and the same when cut down and made into a screen for a heavy gun. He had to know Birnam Wood when it was removed to Dunsinane. Also, he had to be a man who had traveled to the fiords of Norway and the Isles of Greece without getting seasick; for the winds which blew off the North Sea would toss him around like a whole yachtful of soap kings—so wrote the painter, who had been sorry for poor Ezra Hackabury, but couldn’t help finding him funny.

  Of course such a balloon would be a target for the enemy. Airplanes would come darting out of the clouds at a hundred miles an hour, spitting fire as they came. “We have guns on the ground to stop them,” wrote Marcel; “guns with high-angle mountings designed especially to shoot at planes, but I fear they are not very good yet, and Lanny should tell his father to invent better ones for my protection. The shells from these guns make white puffs of smoke when they explode, so that the gunner can correct his aim. The English call the guns ‘Archies,’ and I am told that this comes from some music-hall character who said: ‘Archibald, certainly not!’ It is wonderful, the humor with which the English fellows take this messy business. I have had one as an instructor and he has explained their jokes to me. The heavy shells which make an enormous cloud of black smoke they call ‘Jack Johnsons,’ because of a Negro prize fighter who is dangerous. Also they call them ‘black Marias’ and ‘coal boxes.’ Doubtless there will be new names by the time I get to the front.”

  Beauty broke down and couldn’t read any more. It seemed to her horrible that men should make jokes about death and destruction. Of course they laughed so that they might not have to weep; but Beauty could weep, and she did. She was certain that her lover was gone forever, and her hopes died a new death every time she thought of him. Lanny, talking with M. Rochambeau, learned that his mother had cause for fear, because the job which Marcel had chosen represented just about the peak of peril in this war. A single correct observation followed by a well-placed shell might put a battery of guns out of action; so the enemy waged incessant warfare upon the stationary balloons. This far the French had managed to keep the mastery of the air, but the fighting was incessant and the death rate high. “Women must weep,” a poet in Lanny’s anthology had said.

  VII

  Mrs. Emily Chattersworth wrote the news. Learning of the dreadful sufferings of the wounded after the great battle of the Aisne, she had lent the Château Les Forêts to the government for a hospital. Then she had been moved to go and see what was being done, and had been so shocked by the sight of mangled bodies brought in by the hundreds, and the efforts of exhausted doctors and nurses to help them, that she had abandoned her career as salonnière and taken up that of hospital director. Now she was helping to organize a society in Paris for the aid of the wounded and was asking all her friends for help and contributions. Would Beauty Budd do something? Mrs. Emily said that Marcel might some day be brought to Les Forêts; and of course that fetched Beauty. Despite her vow to economize and pay her debts, she sent a check to her friend.

  Then Lanny began to observe a curious phenomenon. Having given her lover, and then her money, Beauty could no longer refuse to give her heart. So far she had been hating war; but now little by little she took to hating Germans. Of course she didn’t know about Weltpolitik, and didn’t try to discuss it; Beauty was personal, and recalled the hordes of Teutons who had come flocking to the Riviera in recent winters. The hotelkeepers had welcomed them, because they spent money; but Beauty hadn’t welcomed them, because she loved the quiet of her retreat and they invaded it. The women were enormous and had voices like Valkyries; the men had jowls, and rolls of fat on the backs of their necks, and huge bellies and buttocks which they displayed indecently to the winter sunshine. They drank and ate sausages in public, made ugly guttural noises—and now, as it turned out, they had all the time been spying and intriguing, preparing huge engines of destruction and death!

  Yes, Beauty decided, she hated all Germans; and this made for disharmony in the little island of peace which she had created at Bienvenu. Sophie didn’t want to hate the Germans because it might start her Eddie off to be a hero, like Marcel. M. Rochambeau didn’t want it because he was old and tired, and liable to heart attacks if he let himself get excited. “Dear lady,” he would plead, “we in this crowded continent have been hating each other for so many centuries—pray do not bring us any more fuel for our fires.” The retired diplomat’s voice was gentle, and his manner that of some elderly prelate.

  Lanny agreed that things were going to be harder for him if his mother became warlike. He would remind her of Kurt, and of great Germans like Goethe and Schiller and Beethoven, who belonged to all Europe. He would repeat to her the things which Robbie had told him—and of which the father kept reminding him, in carefully veiled language. When Beauty burst out that Robbie was thinking of the money he was going to make out of this war, Lanny was a bit shocked, and withdrew into himself. It wouldn’t do to remind his mother that it was Robbie’s money on which they were both living, and which she was giving to Mrs. Emily.

  VIII

  Jerry Pendleton was being a good companion. He liked
to do the things that Lanny liked, and they climbed the hills and played tennis and swam and fished, and Jerry cultivated the mother of Mlle. Cerise by bringing in more seafood than the pension could consume. They enjoyed torch-fishing especially, and made themselves expert spearsmen, and got many a green moray, but never one as big as Captain Bragescu’s. One night a strange adventure befell them—oddly enough the very thing that Beauty had been worried about, and for which everybody had laughed at her. It was to be that way all through the war; truth would outrun fiction, and if anybody said that a thing couldn’t happen, then right away it did.

  A still night, something not so common in the month of December, and two young fellows in fishing togs and sweaters, because it was cold in spite of the lack of wind. They had a torch set in the bow of the boat, blazing brightly, and were lying, one on each side, with their heads over the gunwales, looking down into the crystal-clear water. The sea growths waved gently to and fro, and it was like some enchanted land; the langoustes poked their heads out from the rocks, and fish idled here and there, many of them camouflaged, just like the Germans. Lanny thought about Marcel, doing the same kind of work, but high in the air instead of on top of the sea.

  The Cannes lighthouse was flashing red and green. Not many lights on the shore, for the night life of the Golfe Juan was dimmed that winter. Not many sounds, just the murmur of distant traffic, and now and then the put-put of a motorboat. But suddenly a strange sort of splashing, the movement of a great bulk of water, and a series of waves rushing toward them, rocking their little boat so that they could no longer look into the depths. They stared toward the sound, shading their eyes from the torchlight, and gradually made out something, a dim shape. Impossible to believe it and equally impossible to doubt it—a round boxlike object arisen from the depths of the sea, and lying there, quite still!

  “A submarine!” whispered Lanny; and his companion exclaimed: “Put out the torch!” Lanny was nearer, and grabbed it and plunged it into the water. A hissing sound, then silence and darkness, and the rowboat rocking in the swells.

  The two listened, their hearts thumping. “They must have seen us,” Jerry whispered. They waited and wondered what to do. They had both read stories about submarines sinking vessels, and not even bothering to save the crews. This might be an enemy one, or again it might be French or British.

  Sounds travel clearly over smooth water. They heard footsteps, people moving; then came splashing and, unmistakably, the sound of muffled oars. “They’re coming after us!” exclaimed Lanny; and his tutor grabbed their oars and began to row for dear life for the shore, less than a hundred feet away.

  Would the people on the submarine turn on a searchlight and open fire on them? It was something they both thought of, and they had a good right to be scared. But nothing of the sort happened. They got to the shore and crept out of the boat; then, safe behind rocks, they listened again, and heard the muffled oars, undoubtedly coming nearer—but a little farther down the shore. Very plainly they heard the rowing stop, and after a minute or less it began again—the boat, or whatever it was, was going back to the submarine.

  “They came to get somebody,” whispered Jerry.

  “Or else to put somebody ashore.”

  “It must be an enemy. No French boat would behave like that.” A moment later the tutor added: “Somebody on shore may be looking for us.” That called for no argument, and the pair got up and started to climb toward the road.

  “Look here,” whispered Jerry, suddenly; “this may be very serious, and we ought to tell the police or the military. If anybody was put ashore, he’d be armed, and he’d mean business.”

  “That’s right,” answered the younger boy, in a delightful state of excitement.

  “Do you know where there’d be a telephone?”

  “In almost any of the villas along the road.”

  “Well, let’s go quietly; and if anyone tries to stop us we’ll bolt—you go one way and I’ll go another. They can hardly get us both in the dark.”

  They tiptoed down the road, and presently came to a house with lights, and asked permission to telephone the nearest police station. The police ordered them to wait right there, which they were glad to do, and meanwhile told their story to a family of English people who were greatly excited. A car with gendarmes arrived soon, and another with military men a little later. They took the Americans down to the shore and asked them a hundred questions. There was no sign of any submarine, only Lanny’s boat, which the tide was about to float away. Launches came, and men searched the shore, finding no trace of anything—but would there have been, on those masses of rocks? The two young fellows managed to convince the authorities of their good faith, and one of the army men said that it must have been an Austrian submarine from the Adriatic.

  That was all they said. A curtain of silence fell about the matter; nothing was published—but there was a lot of patrolling by torpedo boats and “aérohydros” in the neighborhood. M. Rochambeau, who knew about military matters, said that the enemy’s purpose must have been to put ashore some important agent who was too well known to come in with a neutral passport. Doubtless he would have a place of refuge prepared. The secret service of the Allies would be trying to find out who he was and what he had come for.

  Besides the open war of arms, there was this underground war of spying and sabotage always going on; both sides had their agents in all the services of the enemy, and were spending fortunes to corrupt and undermine. The French had gathered up the known enemy aliens in the Midi and interned them on the Ile Ste.-Marguerite, which lay just offshore from Cannes, and had been the peaceful home of some fifty nuns, and a place where tourists came to sit under the big pine trees and have tea. But of course there must be many Germans at large in France, posing as Swiss, or Danes, or citizens of the United States, or what not; they would be watching troop movements, perhaps planning to blow up railroad bridges, or to put bombs upon merchant vessels, or even warships. If they were caught, you wouldn’t hear anything about it; they would be taken to some military fortress, and stood against a wall blindfolded and shot through the heart.

  IX

  The dread news came for which Beauty had been waiting many weeks. It was written by a comrade of Marcel’s, a “ground man” whom he had pledged to this duty. The comrade regretted to inform Madame Budd that her friend had been severely injured; his “kite balloon” had been attacked by two enemy planes, and had been hauled down, but not quickly enough; some fifteen meters above ground it had caught fire, and Marcel had leaped out, and had been badly smashed up, also burned. He had been taken to the base hospital at Beauvais, and the writer could not say as to his present condition.

  After her first collapse, Beauty’s one idea was to get to him; she couldn’t stop sobbing, and was in the grip of a sort of convulsion of shuddering—but she must go, she must go—right now, come on! She wouldn’t even wait to put clothes into a suitcase. She had visions of her lover mutilated, defaced—he would be in agony, he might be dying at that moment. “Oh, God, my God, help me, help my poor Marcel!”

  It happened that Jerry and M. Rochambeau were in the house, as well as Lanny. They tried to comfort her, but what could they say? They tried to restrain her, but she wouldn’t listen to reason. “You must find out if you can get on the train,” argued the diplomat. But her answer was that she would motor. “Then you must arrange to get essence”—but she said: “I’ll find a way—I’ll pay what it costs—you can always get things if you pay.”

  “But, my dear lady, you may not be able to get near the town—it’s in the war zone, and they never allow relatives or visitors.”

  “I’ll find a way. I’ll go to Paris and lay siege to the government.”

  “There are many persons laying siege to the government right now—including the Germans.”

  “I’m going to help Marcel. I’ll find a way—I’ll take a job as nurse with Emily Chattersworth. She’ll get me there somehow. Who will come with me?”

&n
bsp; Lanny had learned to drive a car, but hardly well enough for this trip. Jerry Pendleton was a first-class driver, and knew how to fix carburetors and those other miserable devices that were always getting out of order. Jerry would go; and the terrified maids would rush to pile some clothes into suitcases—warm things, for Madame was declaring hysterically that if they wouldn’t let her into the town she would sleep in the car, or in the open like the soldiers. None of her pretty things—but then she changed her mind, if she had to call on government officials she would have to look her best—nothing showy, but that simplicity which is the apex of art, and which costs in accordance. A strange thing to see a woman, so choked with her own sobs that she could hardly make herself understood, at the same time trying to decide what sort of dress was proper to wear in approaching the war minister of a government in such dire peril of its existence that it had had to move to a remote port by the sea!

  Lanny packed his suitcase, taking a warm sweater and the overcoat he had worn in Silesia; a good suit also, because he too might have to interview officials. Beauty sent a wire to Mrs. Emily, asking her to use her influence; M. Rochambeau sent a telegram to an official of his acquaintance who could arrange it if any man could. “Only woman can do the impossible,” added the old gentleman, parodying Goethe.

  They piled robes and blankets into the car, filling up the seat alongside Beauty, who sat now, a mask of horror, gazing into a lifelong nightmare. They drove to the pension where Jerry stayed, and he ran upstairs and threw some of his things into a bag. Downstairs were Mlle. Cerise and her mother and her aunt, all shocked by the news. The red-headed tutor grabbed the proper young French lady and kissed her first on one cheek and then on the other. “Adieu! Au revoir!” he cried, and fled.