Presidential Mission

by Sinclair, Upton;

“I have been listening to some of the fishermen and others who know this coast,” added his friend. “They say that the swells from the Atlantic make it impossible to land most of the time. They say it would be only by a fluke that we could have several days of good weather, and that after the middle of November it would be impossible. Nobody but a bunch of amateurs would try it.”

  “Well, we have plenty of amateurs in the Army, Jerry, but I think our weather men and our Planning Board know their business. There’s always an element of luck, and we shall have to take our chances.”

  Jerry had learned through Faulkner and the vice-consul about Mr. Robert Murphy’s recent air journey to Washington and from there to London; he had returned to Algiers, and all the Americans were agog, believing that this meant action—and oh, how tired they were of waiting! The British forces in Egypt were beginning a huge bombing campaign against Rommel’s forces, an indication that there also an attack was impending.

  Lanny came to a decision: “I have several matters to attend to in Algiers, and I will put the situation before Murphy and see what he advises. I will write you a letter from there, saying that you may expect me back in Casablanca to look at a mosaic on such and such a date. That will be the date which Faulkner is to give the Germans as the date when the convoys will be leaving the United States. If I say that I have already seen the mosaic in question, it will mean that the sailings have begun.”

  “I’ll remember,” promised the ex-tutor. He repeated the words, to make sure.

  II

  In Algiers it was still summer, hot and sultry; the rainy season was soon due, but it was hard to see how the air could carry any more moisture. The white office buildings and apartment houses on the hill slopes gleamed in the sunshine, and were pretty to look at from the air or the sea, but not so pleasant when the hot pavements and walls were giving you a perpetual Turkish bath.

  Lanny shut himself up in a hotel room and typed out a report about conditions in Morocco. He addressed an envelope: “To the President, Personal from Traveler,” and put the report in the envelope, but did not seal it. Instead he went outside to a telephone and called the American Counselor. When he heard the friendly Irish-American voice he said: “This is the party whom you met at lunch with Lemaigre-Dubreuil. I have something of first-rate importance to tell you, but there are reasons why I should not come to your office. Would you be willing to come to my room in the St. George Hotel.”

  “Why certainly, Mr.—” the Counselor stopped just in time.

  “I’ll be sitting in the lobby waiting, and if you will follow me into the elevator, the visit will not attract any attention. I will explain this to you.”

  Mr. Murphy said that he would come at once, and Lanny went back and waited. When the pair were safely shut up in his room, Lanny took the envelope from his pocket and put it into the other’s hands. The Counselor glanced at it, then stared at the giver. “Where did you get this?”

  “I wrote it,” Lanny said.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed the other. “So you are ‘Traveler’?”

  “Didn’t you have any idea of it?” inquired Lanny with a grin.

  “To be frank, I did; but I could never feel sure. Why are you telling me now?”

  “The President left me free to tell you some time ago, but I make it a rule never to tell anything unless it is necessary. Even my parents and my wife have not been told.”

  Lanny took from his pocket the visiting card which he had unsewed for the occasion. Murphy took it and read: “My friend Lanny Budd is worthy of all trust. F.D.R.” He handed the card back, remarking: “Of course that settles it. What can I do for you?”

  “First, transmit this report to the President. I have left it open so that you may read it.”

  “There is no need to do that.”

  “There are items in it which may be of use to you, and anyhow, I wish you to know what I am saying. I have to explain that the President sent me here to do one particular job. Did he say anything to you about it?”

  “He didn’t mention you.”

  “I’m not sure whether you saw him after I did, or before. Anyhow, here is the story.” Lanny told about Jerry Pendleton and Dr. Faulkner and the stolen codebooks and other devices.

  Murphy listened attentively, and when he had heard it all he said: “Very ingenious, and of course if we can succeed it will be tremendously important. I heard about this Faulkner matter while I was in London, but nobody has taken the trouble to report the truth to me.”

  “I doubt if anybody in Algiers knows the facts, and it isn’t a matter to be entrusted to a letter. I hope you won’t feel that I have been butting in on your vice-consuls. At the President’s suggestion, I talked it over with the O.S.S. outfit in Washington, and they gave their approval.”

  The Counselor held out his hand and shook Lanny’s. “Here is a bargain,” he said. “You need never worry about protocol. What I want is to lick the Nazis, and everybody who can help is my friend. Keep me informed as much as you can, so that we won’t be treading on each other’s toes.”

  III

  It was by dealing with men on this heartwarming basis that Robert Daniel Murphy had risen from a humble post-office clerk to a position of responsibility for his country’s affairs in a territory of nearly two million square miles and containing some seventeen million inhabitants. He had no jealousy or pettiness, and he really believed in his job. Lanny was prepared to be fond of him, and he in turn did his best to make this possible. They agreed that for reasons of secrecy they had better not adopt the American custom of addressing each other by their first names. Each would trust the other with the information necessary to success, and if either had any fault to find with what the other was doing, he would have it out face to face and not behind the other’s back.

  This career diplomat had come up the hard way; he had been born in Milwaukee, and his father had been a railroad sectionhand; he was, as he told Lanny, “sod” Irish, not “lace-curtain.” He had worked his way through college and law school, an experience which fills some youths with rebellious egalitarian feelings, and others with respect for the privileged classes and a desire to join them. Lanny had already made up his mind that the genial Bob Murphy belonged in the latter group; it was obvious that he could not have had a career in the most snobbish branch of the United States government on any other basis.

  Lanny had had opportunity to watch this phenomenon from boyhood. Whenever he had met an American diplomat or consular official he had found a gentleman who called himself “conservative,” and believed wholeheartedly in the “free enterprise” system, as it had come to be called; to Lanny it was the “capitalist” system, but that was a term rarely heard among respectable people. Under that system America had become the richest and most prosperous country in the world, and when a diplomat talked about making the world safe for democracy, he meant safe for that system, and was certain that it was the destiny of his country, under God, to establish and maintain it throughout the world. That was why Robert Murphy could get so much help from Lemaigre-Dubreuil and others of that sort; Lemaigre was capable, he was accustomed to command, and he was quite sure that men like himself would be restored to their property and power when the victory was won.

  Lanny guessed that some day he would find himself in opposition to Robert Murphy’s policies in North Africa and elsewhere; but that time was not now. First, the Nazis had to be licked, and for that purpose this genial yet determined Counselor was a tower of strength. What the diplomat’s heart was set upon was keeping the French Army and Navy from fighting the Americans, and for this purpose he needed the support of the “best” people, the people who had influence in a colonial community, those who could entertain Army and Navy officers and persuade them that the Nazi-Fascists were not the only people who knew how to hold down the Reds, that the Americans had a method at once more polite and more permanent. Look at Mr. Murphy and his twelve vice-consuls, such fine gentlemanly fellows, all of them admirers of Fren
ch culture, and surely not one of them offering any threat to the established social order!

  The railroad sectionhand’s son talked frankly about these matters with the son of Budd-Erling Aircraft. It never occurred to him that this scion of wealth might have any views different from his own; and of course Lanny gave him no reason for questioning. Lanny was a lover of the beaux arts, who had been picked up by the President of the United States and put to work for his country, just as thousands of others, indeed millions, had been picked up and given jobs in this desperate emergency. Lanny was “right” in every way; he knew the “right” people, and could be trusted to say the “right” word and do the “right” thing, whether it was winning a war or merely holding a knife and fork.

  IV

  The problem they had to settle at present was what Faulkner was to tell the Germans. Murphy said: “The date of D-day is the most precious secret in the world. We aren’t telling it even to the Frenchmen who are helping us. Surely we can’t give it to the Germans!”

  Lanny countered: “On the other hand, the President has given me a commission to try to get the U-boats to Dakar. And I have to tell them some date to be there. We can’t just say, go and stay until something comes along.”

  They discussed this dilemma from various angles. Lanny admitted that he should have thought to put this question to the President; he wondered now if he would have to fly back to Washington and have instructions sent to the Counselor in code. He was afraid to let Murphy cable the details and ask for instructions.

  Roosevelt had mentioned to Lanny that the expeditions to Mediterranean ports were sailing from Scotland, while those to the Atlantic ports were sailing from America. “I suppose that means New York, Boston, Baltimore,” Lanny said, and Murphy replied that it might also mean Savannah and New Orleans, the railroads were heavily taxed. Lanny added: “I suppose they will have different sailing dates and meet at sea. Does it seem possible that all those convoys can sail without the German agents getting some message through by way of Spain or Sweden or Switzerland?” When the Counselor admitted that this seemed hardly likely, Lanny continued: “Then suppose we give the Germans an approximate sailing date. I don’t mean necessarily the correct one, but one which would put the convoy close to Dakar at the time we want the subs to be there.”

  But, really, it would be the date! Distances from American ports to Dakar and to Casablanca were not so different—about four thousand miles—and the speed of convoys could be estimated; it was always, of necessity, the speed of the slowest vessel. Lanny was prepared to have Murphy give a flat no to his suggestion. After all, it would be possible for a crook to have a visiting card engraved with the name “Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” and to imitate that important person’s handwriting. But Lanny was a “gentleman,” and the genial Bob assumed that he was behaving as one; the Counselor assumed the same thing about Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil, and about that gentleman’s Man Friday, who had been notorious in Paris as a member of the Cagoule. Lanny had met in Algiers a score of men who had records as partisans of the cartels, the Two Hundred Families, the royalist pretender—and all looking to Mr. Murphy for their future. Lanny wanted to say: “Watch your step, Bob!”

  V

  Lanny sent the code letter to Jerry, giving him the date. Then he dropped a note to young Denis de Bruyne, and they had one of their quiet meetings and long talks. Lanny told about his visit to the States and about his father and his mother, both of them known to the Frenchman from boyhood. Lanny couldn’t say anything about the scheme he had cooked up, but he could say that the Yanks were coming, and before the end of the year. Denis said: “I hear a lot of talk about Dakar, Lanny, and that worries me; it is too far away to do us any good.” Lanny could only answer: “It might be that we would feel it necessary to keep the Germans from getting that port, so close to South America.”

  The capitaine also had news. He and his group had been diligently working and had made a great deal of headway. Many officers, as well as many influential civilians, were coming to the opinion that things would be better if the Americans came; this was true even from the business point of view, for, while the Germans took all the products of French North Africa and paid high prices for them, what could you buy with the money? The Germans sent no goods, and very little could be sent from France because the Germans bought the French goods, too. People were beginning to say that if the Americans came, trade would be open, and the soldiers would spend money—no French man or woman would ever forget those wonderful free-spenders of World War I.

  The really important news was about the French officers. The continued killing of hostages by the Nazis in France was troubling their consciences, while the stand the Russians were making at Stalingrad was impressing their professional minds. A deadly battle had been waged on the banks of the Volga for weeks, and the Germans could not keep the truth about it from spreading. If now the British could actually drive Rommel out of Egypt, and if the Americans would actually come and not talk just about it, Frenchmen might be able to hope again. General Juin, commander of what was left of the French Army in North Africa, and General Mast, who commanded under Juin in the region of Algiers, were both now committed to welcoming the promised invasion. Denis was exultant about this, because he had been working on these top men. “You understand, Lanny,” he explained modestly, “in military terms I am a mere capitaine, but because of my father’s position I enjoy a sort of civilian rank.”

  The art expert was again invited to the home of Professor Aboulker, and here he found the same atmosphere of eagerness mixed with anxiety. There was a half-open conspiracy to turn Algiers over to the gay legions of the New World; but it was a tremulous conspiracy, for if the Vichy elements became sufficiently aroused, they might recall Juin and Mast, as in the past they had recalled Weygand; they might send some of their terrorists over to take charge and jail all the disaffected ones and submit them to torture. “Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anybody coming?” had been the cry of Bluebeard’s wife in the fairytale, and that was the mood of the anti-Nazis in Algiers. What were the Americans waiting for, and why would nobody set a date so that people here could make plans? And what was this talk about Dakar, and how did they expect to get to any place from a peanut port down near the equator?

  All that M. Budd could say was: “You will have to believe, gentlemen, that the Joint Chiefs of Staff know what they are doing, and that it takes time to turn peacetime industry to war production.”

  VI

  Lanny received a note from Jerry, saying that he looked forward with pleasure to showing his friend the wonderful mosaic on the twenty-first inst. That meant that the plot was going according to schedule, and that Lanny had nothing to do but wait. He was by this time so tired of mosaics that he wished never to see another; but he had to go and view some in Algiers, and to start Hajek at some negotiations, even though he had no more purchasers in sight. He devoted a couple of days to this, and then came a note from Denis requesting to see him. The arrangement there was that Lanny would be at a retired spot in the showy gardens of the hotel, and Denis would stroll through, first having made sure that he was not being followed. In such a spy center as this it was likely to happen at any time, and Lanny had thought once or twice that it was happening to him.

  Denis had a lot to report about the success of the underground work that he and his friends were doing. He said that everyone he talked to kept repeating one word: “When? When? When?” Saying it in French, “Quand? Quand? Quand?” with the nasal “n” and the “qu” pronounced as “k,” it sounded exactly like the cawing of crows; but Lanny had no food for these hungry crows and could only say: “I wish I knew.”

  The capitaine had one truly exciting bit of information. Said he: “Here is something you must keep absolutely to yourself. Some of your top Army officers are coming secretly to meet Juin and Mast in the next day or two, to work out plans for letting the Army in without resistance.”

  “That is indeed news,” replied the
P.A. “How did you come to hear it?”

  “In a very simple way. It is D’Astier de la Vigerie who was asked to arrange a meeting place. He recalled a house on the coast, beyond the town of Cherchell, a lonely spot. One of our friends, an ardent Gaullist and former mayor of Algiers, owns the house; it is off the highway, on a bluff almost over the sea, and it is an ideal place for such a meeting. This will show you that our officers really mean to cooperate. You see, they are afraid that the Germans may come first, and that Franco may help them. Also, I think it means that your Army must be coming soon, or they wouldn’t take such a risk. It would certainly mean shooting for our Army friends if the Laval gang should get wind of the meeting here.”

  “Do you know who the American officers are, Denis?”

  “We have not been told that. We only know that they are coming in a submarine, which will surface after dark and put them ashore. The water is deep in front of the house I speak of, and I suppose the sub will bring little boats.”

  “That is surely an important story if it is true,” said Lanny. His old friend assured him that there could be no doubt about it, the French generals had this appointment and were going to this rendezvous. Whether the Americans would show up was of course another matter. Presumably they would fly to Gibraltar and board the submarine there.

  VII

  Lanny prepared another report for F.D.R., this time on conditions he had observed in Algiers. He left it unsealed, as before, and called the Counselor’s office. He had another nom de guerre now, “Mr. Merriweather”; Murphy, who liked to make jokes as much as the President of the United States, had assigned this name on a particularly hot and muggy day. He would instruct his secretary that when Mr. Merriweather telephoned, the call was to be put through to him at once. Lanny would say: “I have some cigars,” and Murphy would come to the hotel. Since his car was so well known in the city he would park some distance away, take a stroll, enter the hotel by an inconspicuous door, and come up the stairs, not using the elevator; he would come directly to Lanny’s room and enter unannounced, and he would leave in the same quiet way.