The Dream Merchants

by Harold Robbins

  Suddenly one peeled off from the formation and dove down toward the little gray Spad. The Spad veered off sharply. It flipped up one wing and banked into a sharp turn and the Fokker dove past it.

  Johnny laughed aloud. “The little frog fooled the Heinie.” They watched the Spad now fleeing toward the east. “I think he’s going to get away from them,” Johnny said.

  Another Fokker came tearing down at the Spad. They could hear the chatter of its guns over the roar of the motors. It reminded Johnny of the typewriters in the office. “Why doesn’t he turn and shoot back at them?” Johnny yelled.

  “That’s what they want him to do,” Rocco said. “Then they can box him in. He’s playing it smart trying to outrun ’em.”

  Again the Spad escaped and the Fokker shot below it. The first Fokker was climbing slowly, but it was far behind the Spad. It would never gain height in time to make another pass at it.

  “Only one to go,” Joe said. “If he gets away from this one he’s in the clear.”

  As he spoke, the third Fokker went into its dive. They held their breath as they watched. The planes were too far away for any sound to reach their ears now, the whole movement seemed to be enacted in pantomime. Again the Fokker shot under the Spad.

  “He made it! He made it!” Johnny was yelling. He turned to Rocco. “Did you see that?”

  Rocco didn’t answer. He touched Johnny’s arm and pointed.

  Johnny turned and looked at the Spad. A thin stream of black smoke was pouring behind it. It seemed to waver in the air like a stricken bird. Suddenly it turned on one side and began to slip toward the earth. They could see the flames licking along the wing. It began to rush toward the ground with frightening speed. A small black object detached itself from the burning plane and fell toward the ground.

  Johnny jumped to his feet. “The poor bastard jumped,” he said bitterly.

  Rocco pulled him back on the ground. “Stay down,” he said sharply. “D’yuh want the Heinies to spot us?”

  Johnny sank back on the ground. He felt oddly exhausted. He threw his hands over his eyes to keep the sun from them. Against the black of his lids he could see the small black object detach itself from the burning plane. He took his hands from his eyes and looked toward the sky. The Fokkers were circling in the sky over the spot where the Spad had gone down. After a few seconds they turned and went back toward the German lines and the sky was empty, a clear, tranquil blue. He began to feel the heat again, the weariness seeping through him.

  The shrill of the sergeant’s whistle startled him. “On your feet, men,” he heard the voices calling. He got wearily to his feet. Joe was lacing tight his shoes, Rocco was adjusting his pack. He turned and walked toward the road where the men were forming a column.

  Night was beginning to fall as they marched into the little village. The sides of the streets were lined with people who were watching them with quiet imperturbable eyes. Occasionally they could see someone holding a small American flag.

  They walked automatically, one foot falling in front of the other, their eyes straight ahead. They were too tired to be curious about the people, and the people were too weary to get excited over the soldiers. They were aware of each other, they felt warmth and sympathy and even understanding toward one another, but they were too tired to show it.

  Only Joe felt different from the others. At the first sign of a village he perked up. When he saw the people standing there, he looked at them. He smiled at some girls. He nudged Johnny. “Dames,” he chortled, “hot zig!”

  Johnny plowed along silently. He didn’t look up when Joe spoke to him. He was thinking about the last letter he had received from Doris. She had said that motion-picture folks were in the forefront of all the Victory Bond drives. Mary Pickford, Doug Fairbanks, and all the stars had gone out on tours to sell Victory Bonds. Others went on hospital tours. The women were rolling bandages. Peter had made shorts and pictures for the government plugging various home-front activities. Business was booming. Many new theaters had opened and now pictures were being shipped from Hollywood all over the world. In England and the rest of Europe, where the studios had been forced to close down because of the war, American pictures were being avidly demanded and enthusiastically accepted.

  Mark had grown a great deal in the past year. He had finished grammar school and Papa had sent him to a military school. He was hoping the war wouldn’t be over before he was old enough to go.

  Two new stages had been added to their studio and now it was one of the largest in Hollywood. Edison had demonstrated a talking film—a cylinder hooked up to and synchronized with motion-picture film. Papa, along with many other leading production men in the industry, had looked at it. It wasn’t practical.

  Johnny cursed to himself silently. This was a hell of a time for him to be away. They were crazy. Couldn’t they see that if pictures could be made to speak, they would completely achieve the level of the stage? He wished he were there so he could see this machine of Edison’s.

  They were in the center of the town now. It was a big, empty, cobblestoned square. The column drew up in ranks and halted. They swung their packs from their shoulders and rested their guns on the ground. Somewhere to the north they could hear a distant rumble of big guns. It sounded like thunder in the distance.

  Johnny’s hand on the muzzle of the rifle could feel the vibration coming up from the ground through it. He waited quietly. Idly he wondered whether they were going on through tonight or were going to stay here.

  A little French official bustled up to the captain importantly. They talked rapidly for a few minutes, then the captain looked up. “We’ll stay here for the night,” he announced. “We’re shoving off at four a.m., your noncoms will give you sleeping-quarters. Make the most of it. You’ll be lucky if you see a bed in the next few weeks.” He turned and walked away with the little French official.

  “The hell with that,” Joe said through motionless lips to Johnny, “I’m gonna get me a dame.”

  Rocco overheard him. “You’re turnin’ in,” he said to him. “This ain’t no picnic we’re goin’ on. This is business.”

  Joe scoffed at him. “I heard that before. All we’re gonna do is march up there an’ then they’re gonna march us somewhere else. This isn’t a war against Germany, it’s all a conspiracy against my feet.”

  A lieutenant was coming down toward them. “Shut up,” Johnny whispered, “the looey’s comin’.”

  The lieutenant gestured to Rocco. He stepped forward and the officer spoke to him quickly. He gave Rocco a slip of paper and went on down the line to the next platoon.

  A few minutes later they were dismissed.

  “Where can you get a drink around here?” Joe asked. There wasn’t a light visible in the town.

  No one answered him. A few seconds later they followed Rocco down the street. They stopped at a small gray house. Rocco knocked at the door.

  A man’s voice answered in French through the closed door.

  Rocco waited until the voice had finished. “We’re the American soldiers.”

  The door opened. A tall man with a swarthy black beard opened the door. The yellow light streamed out from behind him. He held his hands wide. “Les Américains!” he said. “Come in, come in.”

  They followed him into the house. He shut the door behind them. “Marie!” he called out. Some rapid words followed in French which they did not understand.

  They stood awkwardly just inside the room. Rocco took off his helmet and the other boys followed sheepishly. A girl came into the room carrying some large bottles of wine.

  Joe looked around him triumphantly. “I should have known the army would fix us up before we went into battle,” he crowed.

  The Frenchman smiled at him. “Fix,” he said, “yess, fix.” He opened the bottle of wine and poured it into glasses. Ceremoniously he passed them around. He held his glass toward them. “Vive l’Amérique!”

  They drank their wine. He refilled their glasses, then waited.
Johnny was the first to guess what he was waiting for. He smiled at the man. “Vive la France!” he said.

  Joe was already trying to talk to the girl.

  ***

  Rocco was shaking his shoulder. He awoke like a cat; one minute he was lying there asleep, the next moment he was awake. Actually he had been waiting for this moment all night. Now when it came, his first reaction was to stay in bed.

  “Where’s Joe?” Rocco whispered.

  “I dunno,” Johnny answered. “Isn’t he here?”

  In the dark Rocco shook his head.

  Johnny sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed. He laced on his shoes. “I’ll find him,” he said to Rocco.

  He walked quietly out of the room into the small hall. He stood for a second until his eyes became used to it and then walked to a door. He opened it and walked in. He went over to the bed in the corner of the room. As he walked toward it, a figure on the bed rolled over and gave forth with a loud familiar snore.

  He grinned to himself. He bent over the sleeping figure and suddenly shot a heavy hand down and grabbed Joe by the shoulder. With one tug he pulled him out of bed and onto the floor. “Voowolla,” he whispered in his best imitation of a French accent. “Zo thees iss what happen behin’ my back!”

  Joe struggled fiercely on the floor while Johnny held him there. “I’m sorry, mister,” Joe gasped. “I didn’t mean anything.”

  Johnny began to laugh. He let Joe get to his feet. “Come on, sleeping beauty,” he said. “We got a war waitin’!”

  Joe followed him out into the hall. “How did you know I was in there?” he asked.

  Johnny knelt at the door and picked up his shoes and handed them to him silently.

  Joe looked at him bewildered. Then he began to grin. “The French, they are a funny race, parley vous,” he half sung.

  Johnny motioned for him to be quiet.

  “I don’t care what happens now,” Joe said, still smiling. “I’ve had everything!”

  7

  It was early morning. The fog of night had not yet lifted from the ground and it rolled in heavy gray mists across the earth. The men stood silently, uncomfortably, in the deep long trench that honeycombed the earth around them.

  The new captain was talking. This morning as they had filed into the trenches they found out that they had all new officers. The old ones had been transferred and new officers had been assigned to them. “They’re afraid we’d plug some of them in the back,” Joe had said when they learned the news.

  “Bunk,” Rocco had answered. “These guys got experience in this business and they ain’t taking any chances with amateurs.”

  It looked as if Rocco was right. The new captain was young—much younger than the previous one—but there was an air of quiet competence about him that was reassuring. His young face was stolid, seamed with tired lines, and his deep-set brown eyes were continually alert. He seemed to see everything while apparently looking at nothing. His voice carried down the line; he didn’t raise it or speak loudly, yet every man could hear him distinctly.

  “My name is Saunders,” he said, “and I’m an easy guy to get along with.” His eyes looked down the line. Every man felt he was talking to him alone. “All you have to do to get along with me is to stay alive.” He paused again and looked at them. “From here on, you forget everything you ever heard except what you learned to stay alive. I want men, not heroes. Men, not corpses.

  “To stay alive you must remember a few simple things. One, keep your head down. By that I mean don’t get curious and try to look over the top of the trench to see what the Heinies are doing. Lookouts will be posted for that job. Don’t do it if it’s not assigned to you. Two, keep your weapons clean and in good working order. The guy who lets his gun get fouled up is generally a corpse before he can get around to cleaning it again. Three, do what you’re told and nothing else. What we tell you to do is designed with but one thought in mind: your safety or—as little risk as can be afforded.”

  He stopped talking and looked down the line again. “Do you understand me?” He waited for a reply. There was no answer. He smiled. “Follow those rules and we’ll all be on the same boat together going home. Don’t follow those rules and you might make the same trip home, but you won’t know it. Any questions?” he asked. There were none. He stood there for a few seconds looking at them; then he turned and walked to the edge of the trench.

  Silently he placed his hands on a block of wood and raised himself cautiously toward the top of it. Slowly his head appeared over the top of the trench. There was a slight ping and a mound of dirt jumped into the air near his head as he quickly dropped back into the trench. He sprawled on his hands and knees for a moment before he rose and faced them. There was a strangely mocking light in his eyes as he spoke.

  “See what I mean?” he asked.

  ***

  The three of them formed a little triangle as they squatted on the ground at the bottom of the trench. Their hands held little metal cups of coffee, and the steam from it rose in clouds up to their faces.

  Rocco lifted his cup to his lips and took a long sip of the inky black fluid. He put it down with a sigh. “I hear talk we’re goin’ over in the mornin’,” he said.

  “Crap,” Joe replied comfortably. “I been hearin’ that ever since we got here, and that’s more’n five weeks ago.”

  Johnny just grunted and drank his coffee.

  “This ain’t the crap,” Rocco insisted. “If it was, why would they be pilin’ all these guys in here every night? I think we might be about ready now.”

  Johnny thought it over. Rocco’s statement added up. Every night since they arrived more men had been coming up. Last night was the first night no new arrivals had come. Maybe they had their quota and were ready to kick off.

  “To hell with it,” Joe said, finishing his coffee and putting the metal cup down. He loosened his belt and leaned comfortably back against the wall of the trench and lit a cigarette. “I wish I was back in that little village where we were the night we came up. Those French babes know how to please a man. I could stand a little of that right now.”

  A soldier came up to them. Rocco, looking up, saw it was the lieutenant and started to get up.

  The officer stopped him with a gesture. He looked down at them. “Savold,” he said talking to Rocco, “get your platoon inspected. See that everything’s in shape and let me know what you need by tonight.”

  “Yes sir,” Rocco answered.

  The officer walked away. Rocco got to his feet. “It’s beginning to look like I was right,” he said.

  Johnny looked up at him. “Yeanh.”

  The officer came back. He seemed to be hurried. “Savold!” he called.

  Rocco turned to him. “Yes, sir.”

  “Take over as acting sergeant,” the officer said. “Johnson just got hurt. Got someone for corporal?”

  “How about Edge here?” Rocco gestured with his hand.

  The officer turned and looked at Johnny. After a moment he spoke. “All right. Edge, you’re acting corporal.” He turned back to Rocco. “Tell Edge what he has to do, then come down to meet me at the captain’s dugout.” He turned on his heel and walked away rapidly.

  Johnny turned to Rocco. “What did you go and do that for?” he asked.

  “You can use the extra ten bucks a month, can’t you?” Rocco grinned.

  ***

  There was a puddle of water at the bottom of the shell hole and they clung to its side to keep from getting wet. Not that it would make a great difference now. It had been raining all night and their clothes were soaked through and caked with mud. It was just instinctive—an inner desire to retain some degree of comfort.

  “Where in hell are those guys Rocco said would meet us here?” Joe grumbled.

  Johnny puffed at his cigarette in his closed palm. “I don’t know and I don’t care,” he answered. “I’m willing to stay here an’ wait for them for the rest of the war if I have to. I don’t like it
out there, it ain’t healthy.”

  Joe grubbed a cigarette from him. He lit it carefully from Johnny’s cigarette, shielding them so the glow would not reveal their sanctuary. The chatter of a machine gun rose in a crescendo over their heads. They could hear the whine of the bullets as they passed over them.

  “They’re gonna have to knock out that gun before we kin go any further,” Joe said, listening to its noise.

  Johnny looked at him. “Whatta yuh worryin’ about? In a hurry?”

  Joe shook his head. “Nope, but I was thinkin’ maybe they expect us to do it.”

  “What if they do?” Johnny asked. “We’re not mind-readers. Nobody told us to do it. Remember what the captain said? Just do what you’re told, no more. We did what we were told. From here on out, I stay until I’m told different.”

  Joe didn’t answer. He began to scratch his head reflectively under his helmet. Suddenly he swore. He pulled something from his hair and threw it into the water. “Those God-damn cooties are drivin’ me nuts,” he said.

  Johnny leaned back against the wall of the crater and shut his eyes. He was tired. For three days they had been pushing forward. No rest. Now he felt he could go to sleep right in the middle of no man’s land.

  Joe shook him. He opened his eyes. It was night again. When he had shut them it had been late evening and the last traces of daylight still hung around in corners of the sky. “I must have been sleeping,” he said sheepishly.

  Joe grinned at him. “I’ll say you were. You were snoring so loud I was afraid they could hear you in Berlin. I gotta hand it to yuh though, if you can sleep out here.”

  The chatter of the machine gun drowned out Johnny’s reply. They were silent for a while. Joe fumbled in his knapsack and took out a bar of chocolate. He broke it in two and gave half to Johnny. They chewed on it, letting the rich chocolaty sweetness fill their mouths.

  “I been thinkin’,” Joe said.

  “Yeah?”

  “They must expect us to get that gun,” he said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be waitin’.”

  “That ain’t our worry,” Johnny said. “Nobody told us.”