They saw that nothing could be done with that surf. Clark decided that they would not trap themselves in a cellar again; they would hide the boats in the underbrush and themselves in the woods. There was a new problem in military etiquette: the commanding officer couldn’t be left without pants, so the next in rank gave up his, and this politeness ran down the line until there was left a forlorn lieutenant who had to wrap himself in a blanket. The night was chilly, and now they were hungry and longed for the chickens. They sat in the darkness with carbines or tommy guns on their knees and debated what to do next.
At eleven o’clock came the lights of another car, and Lanny gave the alarm. This time higher officials had come, and the whole farce comedy was played over again. In spite of all protests, they insisted upon searching the house. The remains of the wild party had been left, but the wine cellar was found empty and there were no boats in the kitchen. Murphy stated that his guests had departed, and that was all there was to that. The police, of course, knew that there were woods close by, but they couldn’t have done much searching at night. They stated that they would return in the morning; and again Lanny wondered, did this mean that they didn’t want to find out too much?
Anyhow, it was notice to get out before day, and the raiders hiding in the woods were shivering with more than cold. One of the Britishers, trained to amphibious operations, roamed the beach and found a spot where there appeared to be a riptide, and he persuaded General Clark that an attempt might succeed there. So once more the tiny boats were made ready; the submarine was ordered to come still closer, and this time the commandos tried the method of posting themselves one on each side of the General’s kayak, running it out as far as they could go in the water, and then giving it a parting shove. By this means the little craft got enough headway to surmount the first comber, and it disappeared into the darkness. The second boat was overturned, but it got away on the next try, and the other two managed it with the help of Knight and the young Frenchmen.
Out by the submarine one boat was smashed to bits against the side. This presented a new problem, for it had contained uniforms and a bag with papers, and when these and the boat fragments were washed ashore it would be a dead giveaway. The sub signaled to Murphy to clean up the beach, and he and the vice-consul got the boat fragments and other debris, tore them to pieces, and buried them in the sand. They did not find the gold, but they did find General Clark’s pants, and wrung them out and wrapped them up and locked them in the trunk of the consulate car. When they climbed the bluff, Murphy was exhausted and deathly pale, and Knight’s feet were full of thorns and cuts.
They were just in time, for Lanny gave the alarm again; there were cars coming, two of them this time. The Americans had done their job, and a high diplomatic official felt justified in standing upon the dignity of his office. “Gentlemen,” he said, “since I am not free to entertain my friends without repeated annoyance, I retire from the field. The house is yours, and I am going back to Algiers.” The other two Americans were already in the car. The French lieutenants had betaken themselves to the woods.
Once out on the highway, Robert Murphy wiped from his forehead the mixture of perspiration and sea salt. A religious man, he permitted himself to exclaim: “Thank God!” As for Lanny Budd, he could hardly keep awake, but he ventured the opinion that what had been done in the last two nights would be told in the history books along with Paul Revere’s ride and that of General Sheridan. He added: “But leave me out of it!”
16
Thrice Is He Armed
I
Lanny wrote a report to the Chief about French co-operation and the various details that he had picked up in Algiers. He told him that the general belief was that there would be an expedition to Dakar; also, that the Vichy-controlled newspapers were predicting a Mediterranean expedition, having as its aim the taking of Crete. There was also a lot of talk about Norway, and what purported to be an inside story, that newspaper correspondents in London were providing themselves with fur coats and mittens. When Murphy read that he smiled and said: “They really are, you know. They have been told it’s Norway!”
Lanny added in his report that the French had apparently settled in their minds that D-day was to be the end of November. When Murphy read that he remarked: “Nobody here knows the date but myself, and I am under orders not to tell anyone until the proper time.” Lanny’s reply was: “I much prefer not to know any fact that I am not supposed to make use of.”
The Counselor asked what Lanny was intending to do now, and the P.A. said that he had in mind to fly to Casablanca and ascertain how his Dakar scheme was going. He said: “I’ll have, to come back here to file a report, as I don’t care to trust the mails. How long shall I stay?”
That was a “leading” question, and the other might have said that it was for Lanny to decide. Instead he smiled and replied: “I wouldn’t stay more than a week or ten days if I were you.” Lanny did not fail to make note of both the words and the manner.
“I’ll tell you something interesting,” the other continued. “The plans which the French had prepared for a proposed invasion of their territory correspond almost exactly with those which our Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff had worked out. General Clark didn’t tell them that, of course. There was only one important difference: they don’t think we can take Casablanca, and their plan was to take Oran, and then backtrack on land.”
“That is exactly what General Béthouart suggested to me,” replied the P.A. “I find very few who think that we can land on the Atlantic coast, because of the surf.”
“They don’t know the new devices we have prepared. They will be surprised, and so will the Germans.”
“I was told about the landing craft by my half-brothers, back in Connecticut,” said Lanny. “I am waiting on pins and needles.”
“We have all been waiting more than three years,” remarked the Counselor. And Lanny exclaimed: “I have been waiting ever since the day Hitler took power, and that lacks only a couple of months of being ten years. I am indignant when I think how that man has dominated my life!”
II
The plane to Morocco went via Oran, and it flew along the coast, over the town of Cherchell, and almost directly over the house where the “wild party” had been given. Lanny saw it as if it were a map, one drawn in indelible ink on the tablets of his memory. He looked down on the gray thread which was the route nationale, and in his mind were yet other images, stamped by that faculty known as imagination. He saw that sixteen-foot-wide highway crowded with tanks and trucks, and with long thin files of G.I.’s marching at the side. And they weren’t backtracking to Casablanca, no indeed! On all the roads of French North Africa their faces were turned toward the rising sun. They wouldn’t be aiming to occupy two million square miles of territory; they would be heading for Tunis, the great German supply base, and for the armies of General Rommel, intending to smash them and surround them and force them to surrender. Lanny didn’t need to ask any military man about that; he had learned the technique of war by watching the Germans, who had done it in a couple of months in France, and had been doing it continuously for sixteen months in Russia—only now they had come to Stalingrad!
In Casablanca, Lanny sat down with his old friend Jerry, who was in a state of delight over the job he was doing. He had disliked the “Heinies” in World War I and now he heartily loathed the “Krauts” and enjoyed a chance to thwart them. He reported that the Chicago archeologist had done a perfect job; he had been accepted as a Nazi sympathizer and spy, and was feeding them whatever the vice-consuls wanted them to get. “Of course there’s no telling till the showdown comes, but if the German wolfpacks aren’t heading for Dakar I’m a lobster and ready to be boiled.”
Jerry had a mass of information which he himself had collected; most of it had been turned over to the vice-consuls and had gone to Washington by the diplomatic pouches. The conscientious Lanny made mental note of a few items which he thought might be of special interest to the Go
vernor. Lanny had adopted the practice of numbering the items, and every night before he went to sleep he would go over them in his mind. If he forgot one he would be greatly distressed, and would give powerful commands to his subconscious mind to return it to him.
Hajek always followed, for the Moor was not only perfect camouflage, but also an errand boy and a fountain of gossip. It was permissible for an American gentleman of wealth and nothing special on his mind to be interested in all the rumors that were circulating in the souks. Not all of them were true, but a large percentage were, and the rest were what the different governments were giving out; it was important to see what effect they were having. Everybody “knew” that the Americans were heading for Dakar, and it was generally expected that the U-boats would sink most of their ships; everybody “knew” about the Sahara railroad heading for that port, and “knew” that it was about three times as near to completion as it actually was. Everybody “knew” that the British and American warships were already at Gibraltar for this expedition, and no doubt they were.
The pair were driven up to Marrakech, and Lanny made sure that his family was getting along contentedly. Beauty, too, had heard about Dakar, but she wasn’t so sure, having lived through some seven years of war and forty years of propaganda on the old Continent of Europe. She wanted Lanny to tell her, but he said that he didn’t know, and if he did he wouldn’t be free to say. He had a séance with Madame, to see if the “spirits” had anything to contribute; but the only “spirit” was old Zaharoff, getting the two World Wars mixed in his mind and being blamed for them both. Lanny looked at some mosaics and some fountains, and had another private chat with Herr Theodor Auer and a couple of his friends. Oddly enough, he discovered that the souks knew that this gentleman was at odds with his own government and was not averse to being captured by the Americans if they didn’t delay too long.
Lanny played a few sets of tennis to keep in condition, and played the piano for some of Beauty’s friends who enjoyed it. With his Moorish friends he drank many more cups of mint tea, which most white people considered a horrid concoction. Then he went back to Casablanca, and after another conference with General Béthouart, returned to Algiers. He wrote his report, and the Counselor came as usual to read it.
Lanny said: “Murphy, I am thinking of following this report personally. I am supposed to return every two or three months. And I have a personal reason, too: my wife is expecting a baby, and I’d like to be at her side.”
“Of course you are the one to decide,” replied the nervous and overstrained official. “But you will want to consider the news which I am now free to tell a few of our most trusted people: D-day for Operation Torch is next Sunday, and H-hour is one A.M.”
Lanny said: “Holy smoke!” Of course the news knocked his little plan completely out, and he could do nothing but write a letter of apology to Laurel.
III
That was Thursday afternoon, so Lanny had some fifty-six hours of suspense to pass. He was told the names of the men who had so far been trusted with the secret: General Juin, and his subordinate Mast, who, because he was very thin, was known in the American code as “Flagpole.” Lemaigre was “Crusoe,” and his henchman Rigault was “Friday.” Lanny was told that he might impart the secret to his friend Denis de Bruyne. It was being released to persons who had specific jobs to do in advance. One of the vice-consuls, Kenneth Pendar, had set out on an automobile expedition through French Morocco to impart it to officers of the French Army and Navy who were known to be on the Allied side. Murphy said: “We figure there won’t be time for submarines to come up from Dakar now.”
“Don’t forget the planes,” warned Lanny, and the other exclaimed: “Surely not! The Germans sent a thousand over our last convoy to Malta. But fortunately their bases are not so near to our landing points.”
“Unless they fly from Spain,” warned the P.A.
He had an interesting contribution on that subject. Just before leaving Casablanca he had got into a chat with a Spanish consular official who was obviously desirous of pumping him. Lanny had taken his pose of old-time Fascist sympathizer, a friend of General Aguilar; so the Spaniard had talked and revealed that El Caudillo was being pulled this way and that by his advisers, as to whether the Spanish armies should seize the moment to march into French Morocco, block off the Allies, and take the rich territory for their own. So simple it seemed, and then they could take the Rock, with German help if necessary. Some of those magnificent big guns which Marshal Göring had set up had been sitting there idle for more than a year, covered with grease and with their muzzles plugged!
“What have they decided?” inquired the anxious Counselor; and the answer was: “My Spanish informant felt certain that they will wait and see the result of our efforts. If we are thrown back, it will be the chance of a lifetime for them.”
“We are not going to be thrown back,” declared Murphy. He was an American, and so was Lanny, and Americans have the habit of thinking that their country can never fail in what it sets out to do. Battles can be lost, mistakes can be made, long delays can occur, but once America gets going she will not be stopped. Once that huge armada had set out from her many ports, once the sealed orders had been opened and read, the tremendous job would be put through, in spite of everything that Vichy French and Nazi Germans and Franco Spaniards could do.
IV
The turn of the tide was beginning, and not only in Algeria. Murphy confirmed the fact that the British had won a tremendous victory at El Alamein. Lanny had been afraid to believe it; he had been disappointed so many times in that three-year seesawing back and forth along a thousand miles of African coastline. But the new tank-killers had really killed; the German armies had been routed and were in full retreat out of Egypt, harried day and night by swarms of British and American planes. The Desert Fox himself wasn’t there; he had gone to Berlin to be feted and have decorations pinned on him. By the time he got back, he would have only part of an army. The P.A. heard with delight about the war bulletin which the Nazis had published, stating that “Rommel’s forces are advancing westward according to plan and without opposition”!
Also, the Russians were holding at Stalingrad; they had been backed up against the Volga on a long front, and were clinging there desperately, reinforced and supplied across the river by night. The city and its giant factories were one vast line of ruins, extending for twenty miles along the west bank of the Volga. The discovery had been made in this war that concrete and steel buildings, hammered into ruins, become fortifications. Men can hide in cellars and shell holes while bombardment is going on, and when it stops they come up and hide behind steel girders and concrete blocks and defend their fortress with rifles and machine guns and grenades.
They can fight in tropical jungles, too, in a tangle of vegetation so dense and so full of thorns and diseases and poisonous insects and snakes that it had been thought no man could penetrate it. But soldiers could camouflage their clothing and faces and hide there and fight. The Americans were proving it in New Guinea, which was a way of defending Australia; the handful of marines that had been put ashore on terrible Guadalcanal were holding on in spite of Japanese bombing every night. Lanny had been there, just a year ago, and had learned about “Solomon sores,” which were all but impossible to heal; half of the G.I.’s had them, but they were sticking it out, and the ships in “the Slot” and the flyers overhead were fighting deadly duels night after night.
In short, it was the turning point of this dreadful war. Now the greatest assemblage of ships in the world’s history was approaching the shores of Africa, to establish bases for an attack upon the “soft underbelly” of Europe. The Russians declared that they would refuse to consider this a “second front,” and that was their privilege; to the Americans it was a “first front,” the first American front. It was their first large-scale action, and they would learn here, and making their mistakes in places where they would not be so costly. By the time they had conquered North Africa they wou
ld be veterans and would no longer make mistakes. That had been the decision, the result of the meeting of many minds, both British and American. Now came the time for action, for the carrying out of the unimaginably elaborate plans. The Americans who shared the secret were like children who can hardly bear to wait for Christmas morning.
V
Lanny would have liked nothing better than to throw off his camouflage and take part in this high adventure in Algiers. But that wasn’t his job; he had to keep out of the way, and meet secretly with his friend Denis and learn from him what the conspirators were doing. Denis would pop in like a jack-in-the-box, so excited that French words rolled off his tongue like bullets out of a tommy gun. He wanted advice, because he had looked up to Lanny from boyhood, and besides, Lanny knew the Americans and what they would be apt to do in this or that contingency.
The center of the intrigue was the home of the Jewish professor-doctor on the Rue Michelet. He was seventy-eight, a big man, with a leg hurt in World War I; he could not get about without a cane. He was wise, and had money, and also courage, so the others listened to him. Robert Murphy had come there and imparted the secret to a dependable half-dozen, and they had agreed upon all the things that were to be done on the Saturday night before D-day. As it turned out, a great part of the program was dependent upon the Jews; they were the people who hated Vichy to the point where they were willing to risk their lives to get rid of it. The reason was the odious anti-Semitic laws which the Nazis had forced upon Vichy and which Vichy had forced upon all France, including the colonies.