Early in last November, Lucky Forward had had the Germans on the run, and Georgie had wanted to drive to the Rhine and cross it and keep the enemy from reorganizing. But SHAEF had ordered a sitdown, and Georgie had sat and made the air blue with his rage. Again, just recently, while Georgie had been on the point of taking Trier, the goddam down-sitters had tried to take his 10th Armored away from him—the very spearhead of his striking force—because CCS had decreed that SHAEF must keep a reserve against the possibility of another Bulge. Patton was sure the Germans didn’t have the forces for another Bulge, and the way to prevent it was to keep them on the run, goddam ’em.
It was really funny, if you could keep your sense of humor while so much blood was being poured out. The two-gun General’s little private war with SHAEF was being waged with such infinite subtlety; he would wangle another division the way a small boy wangles another cookie. He would lure SHAEF into giving him permission to “probe” the enemy, and he would turn a probe into the taking of Trier; he would get his superior, General Bradley, to admit that of course if a “break-through” should occur, it would be his duty to take advantage thereof; and now he was making the “break-through,” and would use it to drive all the way through the Eifel Mountains to the Rhine. He would keep out of reach by telephone in order that nobody might stop him.
VI
Right at this juncture, as if to help Lanny with his arguments, came one of the most picturesque developments of the war. He had told Furtwängler that the Americans would get across the Rhine, and he had imagined a mighty battle to achieve it; never had it occurred to him that they might get across by accident. A detachment of the 9th Armored, heading for the river at the town of Remagen, on the far side of the Rhine, came over the ridge and were astounded to discover a great bridge intact. Hitler’s orders had been that every bridge was to be blown under penalty of death; but no bridge should be blown until all the troops were across—that also under penalty of death; it was a trifle confusing. This time someone had blundered; charges had been set, and two had gone off but weren’t big enough, and the Ludendorff Bridge, as it was called, was still usable.
The order was given, and the Americans charged across; the engineers, trained in demolition work, knew wires when they saw them, and had cutters in their belts; there were no more explosions. There was no German armor in sight and the German engineers had no means of resisting tanks; the tanks proceeded to clear the town and the shore both north and south—the beginning of a bridgehead. Field telephones carried the magical tidings, and more troops came racing to the scene.
When General Eisenhower got word of the lucky strike he ordered five divisions to the spot, two of them armored. An American armored division is quite a show. It consists of fourteen thousand men, with some three thousand vehicles and four hundred and fifty heavy armored vehicles, tanks and tank-killers, halftracks and self-propelled guns. That makes a procession the like of which you do not often see. Traveling on highways, the rule was fifty yards between the heavy vehicles, to avoid piling up, and that would make a column a hundred miles long. This, however, was an emergency, and the only rule was to get across fast and make room for the next fellow. Day and night for ten days that bridge roared and rumbled with vehicles and fast-running infantrymen. Then the Germans succeeded in knocking it out with artillery, but it was too late; the engineers had built pontoon bridges, which served even better.
The Germans had no Panzers in that neighborhood and very few reserves, for they had had to send everything up north to stop the British and Canadians. By the time they got troops there the American First Army had built a strong bridgehead, ten miles along the river and five miles back into the hills. Plenty of room to maneuver, and to set up depots of supplies, and to get ready to charge out and capture Frankfurt, and to form the right side of a pair of pincers to surround the Ruhr, with Germany’s greatest coal mines and steel mills.
Lanny took this news to his friend the General-Major and remarked, “There is one point at least that we no longer have to argue.”
VII
Lanny had asked for information about works of art because that would be the easiest way to get Furtwängler to talking. After his tongue was loosened, after he had told all the hiding places of Göring’s treasures, then it might be possible to lead him gently into another line of revelation. Asking permission to make notes, Lanny listened while the General-Major told how the fat Reichsmarschall’s cherished paintings of naked ladies and velvet-clad great gentlemen, Spanish and Italian, French, English, and Dutch, had been removed to an immense bunker especially built near the old hunting lodge on the Karinhall estate. At least ten thousand paintings, including all those from the Museum of Vienna, had been stored in one of the great salt mines, that at Alt Aussee, in Austria. Lanny remarked, “I went through one of those mines some time ago.” He didn’t say that it had been less than six months ago, in the course of his escape from the clutches of the Gestapo.
The art expert plied his friend with questions about the various persons who had had to do with the accumulating of these art treasures. Baron von Behr, corrupt aristocrat who had put himself in the service of the Nazis and become head of the Einsatzstab, the “task force” which was charged with the seeking out and appropriating of art treasures in all the conquered lands—what had he done with the share he had kept for his own? And Herr Hofer, Göring’s shifty-eyed “curator”? And Dr. Bunjes, art authority who had justified the seizure of the art works in Paris museums on the ground that they “might be exchanged for planes or tanks”? And Bruno Lohse, handsome young Nazi zealot, one of the few really sincere ones Lanny had met—what was he doing now and where would he be hiding? Lanny pretended to have a human interest in the various persons he had met at Karinhall, and that was easy enough, for they were interesting from various points of view. Esthetics dissociated from ethics has produced some of the most extraordinary human types, of concern to psychiatrists and criminologists as well as to secret agents.
Der Dicke himself was such a type. He was one of the greatest criminals in history, and at the same time one of the most passionate lovers of great art. His crimes did not trouble him in the slightest; on the contrary, he was one of the most self-satisfied of men, vain to the point almost of lunacy; a showman displaying himself and everything he had, and certain that it was the greatest spectacle ever offered to the world. At the same time he had a keen sense of humor, and would even be capable of laughing at himself, provided the comment was offered by one of the few persons he considered his equals. One of these was the rich and well-informed son of Budd-Erling, and at some of Lanny’s “kidding” Göring would throw back his head and burst into a bellow of laughter. He would stuff himself with food, and then belch, and then guffaw over that—and yet never doubt that he was one of the most elegant of persons.
“How do you suppose he will take defeat?” Lanny asked; and the former staff member—really a higher servant—replied, “He is a sensible man and will manage to enjoy whatever comes. As you know, most of his power has been taken from him already; he has had very little to do with running the Luftwaffe for some time. He has retired to Karinhall, which your airmen have left alone.”
“We do not bomb art galleries,” Lanny said. “The last time I saw Hermann he was terribly depressed. I was able to cheer him up by telling him that the Führer had spoken kindly of him.” Then, after a pause, “Tell me, how did they come to give you a command?”
“My wife is related to General Keitel,” explained the General-Major; “and I suppose they have a hard time finding officers who are party members and can be trusted. I had never had a command before and was frightened by the responsibility. I did the best I could, but, as you see, it wasn’t good enough.”
“Nobody in the world could have done better,” replied the American soothingly. “It was a fundamental mistake to try to hold west of the Rhine. You were bound to lose a large part of your troops; and you must admit it is better to be captured than killed.”
VIII
This amiable conversation went on for a couple of days, and, just as Lanny had thought, the more Furtwängler talked, the easier he found it. He had told so much, he might as well tell the rest and reap the benefit of his frankness. He told of an enormous collection of art works in Neuschwanstein Castle near Munich. The treasures of the great Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin had been hidden in the Merkers copper mine in Thuringia; and so on for a long list. Lanny collected everything that could be of use to Monuments, and then he went to work for Alsos and plied his old friend with questions about the newest jet-propulsion engines and planes. Göring was no longer running the Luftwaffe, but he knew about these matters, and members of his staff had picked up bits of conversation and had talked freely among themselves. Yes, there was a tremendously fast new jet, expected to knock the Americans and British out of the skies, if only it could be produced fast enough. Also, there was a multiple rocket gun that would discharge one hundred of the V-1½s in ten minutes. Lanny said, “We captured one of those in the Bulge, I am told.”
Such things as “Schnorkel” submarines and “booster” guns a hundred yards long were outside the General-Major’s province; but he might have heard some talk, or taken a look at some “GeKdos” (top secret) report. Atomic fission must never be mentioned by the P.A.; but it was possible to skirt the subject carefully, and perhaps the captive officer would say, “We have something even more deadly, which will give us the victory if we can get it in time.” But he didn’t say that.
He did tell about the V-3, the immense rocket that would leap into the stratosphere, travel several thousand miles, and deliver a load of explosives that would destroy most of London or even New York. There was Peenemünde, where these deadly experiments were being carried out. It wasn’t far from Karinhall, and officers in charge had come now and then as guests, and had been disposed to make friends with a staff officer of the man whom Hitler had designated his successor. Even though he had put Göring on the shelf, he had never withdrawn that designation; with the well-known breakdown of the Führer’s health, the Nummer Zwei went to sleep every night with the knowledge that he might wake up in full command of Germany’s war effort.
Then there was the subject of the German forces confronting the Americans: the Second SS Mountain Division and the nth Panzer, known to the GIs as the “Fireman Division” because it showed up in place after place where there was trouble for the Hun. Furtwängler revealed that Army Group B, fronting this part of the Rhine, had just been placed under the command of Field Marshal Walther Model. Lanny didn’t know this, and didn’t know if the CP here in Luxembourg did. He knew that Model was on the list of war criminals for the killing of prisoners of war and civilians; he was the most fanatical of Nazi generals, known as “der kleine Hitler.” Lanny remarked, “I suppose that means war to the finish,” and Furtwängler replied, “It does.”
10
Die Wacht am Rhein
I
Monuments in Versailles telegraphed Lanny; they would like to see him as soon as he could be spared. His work for Third Army was done, and Third thanked him cordially and invited him to come again whenever the spirit moved him; he replied that it might be soon, whenever they got deep enough into Germany to uncover either art or scientific treasures. He turned his Nazi friend over to their tender mercies, and they promised to handle him as if he were made of damp tissue paper. With new developments might come the need of new information, and Furtwängler agreed to give it. Theoretically, that didn’t mean “immunity” for anything, but in practice it probably would.
Lanny was put into a plane for Paris, and then by staff car to Versailles, and there in the Royal Stables he found his friends wanting to know if he would be willing to travel to Rome for them. Art treasures had been stolen by the Nazis in Italy, and some had been left behind and hidden. There was a Monuments group looking for them, and it was a problem, because some Italians had been bribed to keep them concealed, and might be planning to keep them permanently in the event of a German collapse. Somebody had come on the trail of an American art expert who had been in Rome less than two years ago and had met numbers of artists and collectors of art. Everybody was sure he was an agent of some sort, but nobody was quite sure whether he was Nazi or American. His name was Lanny Budd, and could Paris Monuments find out anything about him?
Paris Monuments had a good laugh over this letter and over the fact that they had got a bit of a scare themselves and had taken the precaution to refer the question to OSS Washington, which had put the stamp “OK” on this man of mystery. So now they wanted to know if Lanny would be willing to fly to Rome and give the people there advice about their problems. It promised to be exciting, and several of the young Fogg Museum lads were eager to go along; but a call might come from the Rhineland or the Saar at any moment, and nobody could be spared.
It was one of those roundabout air trips, like flying to Africa and Brazil when you wanted to get from Washington to London. The direct route would have taken him over enemy territory; so it was Marseille, Algiers, Tunis, Naples, Rome. Army and Air Force planes were shuttling between these places day and night, so there was never any trouble in getting a lift if you had proper credentials. Lanny read his mail and answered it—including a note to Laurel, who wrote that she would soon leave for Paris. He got himself a load of London and New York newspapers and magazines—very expensive—and when he had read them he could get all sorts of favors by giving them to mentally starved American officers along the route.
He had flown most of these hops before and hadn’t much to see. Dingy and crowded Marseille was being restored as by magic. White Algiers on the hillslopes had been turned into an American naval, military, and airbase. Tunis had been rebuilt, and white-robed Moors were working hard for American dollars. Naples and its beautiful bay with a smoking volcano for background was full of ships from many ports being unloaded at newly restored docks. As for the Eternal City on its Seven Hills—Lanny was set down at the Ciampino Airport which he had seen bombed into hills and craters by several hundred Marauders and Mitchells in July of 1943. Now it was in perfect order, lined by rows of big Liberators and Flying Fortresses, taking off every day for raids on Vienna and Budapest and Munich.
II
Victory is a pleasant thing, for which men strive mightily. When Lanny had been here before he had been playing a dangerous double role and had cringed in his heart; he had walked warily, fearing the worst at every moment. Now he wore the uniform of an American Army officer, and all Romans were his friends, some of them real and more pretending. He could meet his old acquaintances, worldly, cynical, corrupt, but cultivated and agreeable. He wouldn’t go into explanations, but just smile, and everyone would understand that what he had been doing was war. “Cosi fan tutte” was a common saying, as well as the title of an opera; it means “Everybody does it,” and excuses everything, provided that you have good manners and spend money freely.
He reported first to the Monuments, who welcomed him gladly. Scholarly and naïve young Americans, they could hardly conceive of the sophistications and intrigues of Roman society; it was like a shell of translucent pearl, iridescent and lovely, through which they could not chip their way. They had come here for the altruistic purpose of restoring property to its owners, without price and without bribes; they had a hard time persuading anyone that this was so, and persons to whom they told it began at once to figure how to get some advantage from this unprecedented situation. How could well-bred boys and girls from Boston know how to set about persuading a red-ribboned commendatore to betray the criminal secrets of an aged ex-minister of state?
The Monuments were installed in the mansion of a nazified Italian wine merchant who had fled with his friends to the north. The place was elegant, with spacious rooms and high ceilings, but fuel was hard to get. There was no bathroom in the building, and Lanny had goose pimples all over him while he bathed and shaved with cold water in an elegant crystal hand basin. Meantime his uniform was pr
essed by an Italian woman servant; then, spruced and elegant, he went to have coffee with his friend Julie, Marchesa di Caporini—not failing to bring the coffee.
The Marchesa, French-born cousin of the deceased Marie de Bruyne, was married to a Roman proprietor of landed estates and slum tenements, and was a dissatisfied lady of fashion at the “dangerous age.” She had been pleased to introduce an American art expert posing as a Frenchman into her social set, and now she was delighted to have him come down out of the sky to relieve the boredom of her days. Italy was crushed and poverty-stricken, “society” was dead, and the only compensation for Roman ladies was the presence of elegant, conquering gentlemen in American, French, British, and Canadian uniforms.
While coffee was brewing they chatted, and while sipping it they went on chatting: all the latest gossip concerning the many ladies and gentlemen Lanny had met at the oddly named Acquasanta—Holy Water—Golf Club. Who was loving whom and who was hating whom; who was in power and who was struggling to oust him—such are the subjects of conversation among ladies of fashion all the way from Rome to Tokyo, and back by way of Hollywood and Washington. “And you, Lanny? What are you doing in a uniform—in which you look so very handsome?”