A very elegant train of about a dozen cars, painted in camouflage, with an observation car at the rear; and after more investigations, Lanny was invited to enter. He did not forget Trinkgeld for the chauffeur and the guard. Französisches Papier,” he remarked, with a smile; “aber, in Paris wird es gut sein.” They appreciated the prophecy.
More than nine months ago the Führer of the Germans had told his tame Reichstag that he was putting on his old army coat and would not take it off until the victory was won. This coat was a short double-breasted jacket, gray in color, and with no decorations whatever—so different from Der Dicke and others of his entourage. A simple man of the people was Der schöne Adolf, and his thoughts were only of his beloved Volk, and the happiness he was going to bring them when he had made them safe from their foes; a frank and friendly man, not stiff and solemn like those who were unsure of their position and had to manifest it to the world. When he felt an emotion, he was not afraid to express it; and now of all times, when he saw all his prophecies coming true, his harvest being reaped, his glory spreading like a sunrise from the east.
VII
When his visitor entered the car he came forward with hands outstretched. “Herr Budd! Wie herrlich! Where do you come from?” Lanny thought that he had never seen him looking so well, or so radiant.
“You drew me like a magnet, mein Führer. I could not stay away. I came to tell you how pleased I am in your success.”
“It is only what I promised you. You know that.”
“Indeed I know it. There has never been anything like it in the world.”
“Aber—how did you get here?”
“I came to Dunkirk. I had what I thought was important news for you, and I thought your armies would have got there.”
“What is the news?” Impossible to wait a moment for information about enemy lands.
“Leider—it is all out of date. You see, it was a week ago. The British were still in Dunkirk, and I had to wait for your fellows to drive them out.”
“What did you do?”
“I holed up in a pension and took my chances. Believe me, I can testify to the accuracy of your artillery!”
“Jawohl! But tell me—what is it you have to report?”
“I had a conference with Pétain, and with the Premier’s mistress. You have heard of her, no doubt—Madame de Portes?”
“Indeed, yes. It is an excellent thing for us that our enemies are governed by women. What did they have to say?”
“They wanted peace. It was their idea to offer token resistance, and that you would then be gentle in your terms.”
The Führer burst into a laugh and slapped his thigh. “Token resistance? Ansgezeichnet! So that is why my armies have been moving so fast!”
“The French leaders are in a state of utter bewilderment, Exzellenz. They are frantic to save their beautiful ville lumière.”
“Tell them they do not have to worry. I am bombing only their airports and munition centers. I have my own purposes with Paris; it is to be our playground, our recreational center. I will send my able-bodied lads there, and presently there will be a new race of Frenchmen, understanding what discipline and order are. They will come to like it.”
“Quite so, mein Führer. They are hoping that you will do what you have done in Norway—set up a government of your own sympathizers. They have come pretty much to an agreement that Pétain is the man.”
“Ah, so that old Trottel is finding a soft berth for himself! Jawohl, it may be the thing to do. Abetz is keen for it; he insists that he can make use of them all. I shall make him my governor of Paris.”
“A sweet revenge for Otto, indeed.”
“Sweet for us all. Shall I tell you what I am going to do the first thing?”
“If it is not a secret. I have learned that secrets leak, and I prefer not to carry the responsibility.”
“It will all be over in a week or two. You remember that dining car in which we were compelled to sign the last armistice?”
“I remember it very well; they have taken it to Paris and set it up in the Invalides.”
“Also they have set up a monument to Marshal Foch on the spot in the forest of Compiègne where the car stood when the armistice was signed. Well, I am going to have the car taken back to that same spot, and there the French will come and sign my armistice; after which I will take the car to Germany and build an Invalides of my own for it. Will not that be a fair riposte?”
“An eye for an eye, Exzellenz!”
VIII
All his life Adi Schicklgruber had liked to talk; they had threatened to put him out of the home for the shelterless in Vienna because he wouldn’t stop talking, and many a time he had had beer mugs thrown at his head in Munich for the same reason. All he required was one auditor, preferably sympathetic; and Lanny Budd had come resolved to be the most sympathetic in the whole Third Reich. Really, it was incredible what this man had done; this one man, by his vision, his persistence, his driving daimon. There had been nothing like it in the world for more than a thousand years. Lanny reminded him of the talk they had had on the top of the Kehlstein, where Adi had his ultra-secret retreat; he had there confided to the American guest his admiration for an Arab shepherd named Mohammed, who had founded a new religion and had enforced it by the sword. That was the way to make it stick, and not the futile way of martyrdom which Jesus had tried. The religion of Mohammed was still practiced, exactly as he had laid it down thirteen hundred years ago, whereas the abortion called Christianity bore no resemblance to what the Jewish carpenter had wanted. That was all to the good, for it was a lot of fool stuff, the product of a degenerate race.
Now Adolf Hitler had laid down his religion, and as Führer of the Germans he was enforcing it by means of dive-bombers and tanks. He had forged a new weapon called the Panzer division, and by its means he was going to establish order in Europe for the next thousand years. He had dreamed it in the trenches of the last war; he had labored at it through humiliation and defeat; he had shouted it to several thousand audiences, constantly growing bigger, until now they included the entire civilized world. There had literally never been anything like it in all history, for the reason that modern technology made possible achievements, oratorical, political, military, which had never before been imagined. Adolf Hitler was the man who had had the wit to seize these weapons and put them to use, and now nobody could get them away from him. By them he was going to become master of the world.
So he told his audience of one, and his audience agreed with every word. Lanny had decided that this was the time to pile the flattery on; when he saw the glow on Adi’s cheeks and in his eyes, he decided that nothing would be too fulsome. He told Adolf Hitler that he was, beyond any question, the greatest leader who had ever lived, the chosen commander of the race which was destined to make over European civilization and cure it of its manifold diseases. He told how this realization had come to him, the first time he had heard Adi speak in the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich in the year 1923; how thereafter he had sung his praises wherever he went, and had sought the honor of his acquaintance through Heinrich Jung. Adi had converted him from a Socialist to a National Socialist, a different and truly practical thing.
That was the sort of thing Adi liked to listen to. Perhaps he had got a little tired of hearing it from his own court circle, and it came with a fresh flavor from an American who had become a world citizen. He was not the least bit shocked to hear that God had sent him to direct his armies through Holland, Belgium, and France—all in four weeks. He listened with pleasure while Lanny translated what an English poet had written about an angel who, by divine command, with rising tempests shakes a guilty land:
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast,
And, pleased the Almighty’s orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
IX
The Führer was a dreamer and an ecstatic, but he was also a practical man, with an immense job on his hands. He wa
s not leaving the direction of his armies to his generals; on the contrary, he was watching every step, and making the major decisions. Messengers came with despatches. The mechanized forces under General von Reichenau had broken across the Somme at Amiens. Guderian and Kleist were heading for Soissons. Hitler read these reports to his guest and compared the swift advances to the long siege of fighting over these same places in World War I.
Then he said: “Now to business, Herr Budd.” He wanted to know everything Lanny could tell him about the present attitude of high personalities in the French government, the women as well as the men.
Lanny talked freely, because that was the way he got Hitler to talk, and it still worked. He expressed his opinion that the French would soon evacuate Paris and seek refuge in Bordeaux; but he didn’t believe they would fight long from there. The dissension in the Cabinet was too great; there were too many politicians who saw their future in co-operating with Hitler rather than in opposing him. “I have worked hard to persuade them,” declared the American. “I hope I have not been wrong in giving them the assurance that you will know how to make use of them.”
“Absolut!” exclaimed the Führer. “What do I want to fight the French for? What do I want to fight any European people for?—once they have got rid of their Jews and their democratic dogs that keep snarling at my heels. I am a man of peace, a builder, and everything I do is to that end. Under my Neue Ordnung, all the peoples will be free, all will have their own National-Socialist culture, and only the demagogues and misleaders will be exterminated.”
There was only one fly in this sweet Nazi ointment, and that was “diese verdammten Engländer.” The poem which Lanny had quoted had been written about the Duke of Marlborough, the forefather of Winston Churchill—and this was the man whom Adi hated above any other now living, not excepting the Jew Rosenfeld in the White House. Churchill had made a report on Dunkirk to the House of Commons on the previous day, and the BBC had been broadcasting the text ever since. Hitler had had a recording made, and a translation for his own use. He told Lanny about it with a mixture of ridicule and rage: a lot of dummes Zeug about “fighting on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills.” Said the Führer: “What will they fight with? Don’t they know they have left all their equipment behind in Flanders? And don’t they know that I know it?”
Lanny explained to the best of his ability how a staunch Tory could fail to appreciate the advantages of National-Socialist Zucht und Ordnung. The British had been sailors, mostly in small ships, and each captain was a law unto himself, and that was the basis of their individualism. Also, the fact that there was a wide and rough Channel between them and Europe gave them a feeling of security and tempted them to insolence.
“But it is madness!” exclaimed the Führer. “What protection will the Channel give them against the fate of Rotterdam?”
“They know that the bombing plane has been created, Exzellenz, but they hate to face the implications of it. They are a stubborn people.”
“I will wipe out London, I will wipe out Birmingham and Sheffield and all their manufacturing cities. They challenge me, and make it impossible for me to spare them. I am getting barges ready, and transports, and will put an army on their coasts as soon as I finish with France.”
That was what Lanny had come here to learn; but he wanted to be sure it wasn’t just angry rhetoric. Said he: “If you say that you will do it, mein Führer, I know that you will. But it is bound to be a costly operation.”
“Everybody was sure it would be costly to breach the Maginot Line; but we breached it at almost no cost, and so we have plenty of expendables for the taking of Britain. I will show my generals how to save many lives—by putting down paratroopers who will paralyze all the brain centers of the island before the invasion starts.”
“I made up my mind,” said the worshipful Lanny, “that I will never question your promises again. Every time you have told me you would do something, it has been done.”
“Also, Herr Budd! I have told my enemies, too, but I am safe because they think I must be going to do something else.”
“An odd but most effective kind of secrecy!” smiled the visitor. “If I find myself back in England, shall I tell them what you have said?”
“By all means! They will straightway begin making preparations to resist me in Sweden or the Balkans.”
“They are making preparations in England now, I can assure you; I have seen some of them. I am not a military man and my opinion on such matters would be worth nothing; but I can tell you that there are many friends of your cause on that island, people who are not moved by fear, but by a genuine understanding of your program. They are doing their best to avoid further waste and destruction, and they beg you for time, so that the British people can realize the meaning of your tremendous victory in France, and the hopelessness of trying to stand against you.
“Jawohl!” exclaimed Adi, with a gesture of impatience. “If there are so many of them, let them make themselves heard. Let me have their proposals!”
“You are having them at this moment, Exzellenz. I am here at the urgent request of Lord and Lady Wickthorpe and their friends in the Foreign Office. They wish you to understand that they are working tirelessly, and making great headway. They have asked through their representatives in Madrid and in Stockholm to know your terms——”
“Zum Teufel! I have stated my terms again and again. I want no part of the British Empire—unless you count German East Africa and the Cameroons. The Belgian Congo will suffice, with these; but of course Il Duce must have a free hand in dealing with Spain, Yugoslavia and Greece. And of course I have a free hand in dealing with Eastern Europe. That I have won and no one can dream of taking it away from me.”
“Understand, Exzellenz, I am not speaking for myself—I am just an errand boy for my friends on both sides. The British want time—”
“Ja, ja, das weiss ich gut! They want time to recover from what I did to them in Flanders! Tell them they may have exactly this much time—what it takes me to resupply my armies and move them to the Channel ports. That much, and not one hour more, Herr Budd!”
X
Lanny had got what he wanted, and it wasn’t his job to argue or plead. He said: “I was thinking of offering to bring Madame to you again, and see what the spirits had to say. But you have taken matters out of their hands and are making the future for yourself.”
“The spirits had their turn, and did very well.” Adi dropped the subject, and Lanny guessed that he would not wish to recall Miss Elvirita Jones. This was no time for women; this was war, the business of men.
“Tell me what your plans are, Herr Budd.” This was a command, and Lanny replied promptly: “I should like to be in Paris to see the inauguration of your Neue Ordnung, and what it will mean to that city of elegance and fashion. I might be able to bring you some useful reports.”
“Assuredly; it would be appreciated, as always.”
“Prior to that, I don’t want to be in your way. I will find myself some agreeable resort, where I can read the newspapers and follow the course of the campaign.”
“It might interest you to know that Kurt Meissner is at Godesberg.”
“Oh, wie schön! I haven’t seen him since he left Paris. He is at the Dreesen?”
“Yes. He has promised to write me a march, for my bands to play when we have our parade under the Arc de Triomphe.”
“He will have to hurry,” smiled Lanny. “That is where I will go. Kurt and I are old friends, and he knows that I never interfere with his inspirations. When he wishes to be alone he tells me so, and I find a book to read.”
So matters were left. The Führer apologized because he could not invite Lanny to travel to Paris with him; he had no guest car, and, besides, his generals were very exacting. Even now, they would be fretting because he was not with them, poring over their large-scale maps of the valleys of the Somme and the Vesle. “Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Budd!”
32
I
Godesberg is a small health resort on the Rhine, not far above Cologne. Its Hotel Dreesen was owned by an old pal of Adi’s, who boasted that the Führer had been its guest no fewer than sixty-seven times—at least that was the number when Lanny had last heard it. The most conspicuous occasion had been the second visit of Prime Minister Chamberlain in the course of the Munich settlement. The man with the black umbrella had stayed on the other side of the river and come across on the ferry to argue and plead. It had been only twenty months ago, but already it seemed twenty years.
“Mountain of the Gods” is the meaning of the name in old German, and all this Rhine country is haunted ground to the worshipers of blood and soil. So it was a natural place for a great Komponist to choose, in the path of the triumphant armies—he had seen them going by, had sat by the roadside for hours, filling his soul with German glory; sometimes he had marched with them, to see how it felt. The hotel, which was not crowded, had given him a remote room with a piano in it, where he could pound to his heart’s content; he would go out and walk in the forests near by and see himself as another Wagner, with whom the little birds and the big dragons, the dwarfs and giants and Rhinemaidens came to commune.
No man can be inspired all day and all night, and so Kurt was pleased as well as surprised to see his boyhood chum. His long somber face lighted with real cordiality. When he heard the story of how Lanny had come to join the Wehrmacht, he exclaimed: “Ach, so! You are as crazy as you were the first day I met you!” He lost little time before taking Lanny upstairs to hear his new composition, which thundered monstrously. Lanny listened, and thought: “Good Lord, is this what he has come to?” Tum-tum, tum-ty-tum—he had heard one thousand and one German military marches, including the Badenweiler, Adi’s favorite to date. It seemed to Lanny that there were only a certain number of possible combinations of notes in this rhythm, and certainly Kurt had not found a new one. Compared with this, Sousa was really stirring, and Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance magnificent.
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