This tobacco king knew all about the projected invasion of Russia, and didn’t mind discussing it. Serrano Suñer, Franco’s son-in-law and Spain’s Foreign Minister, had made a deal with the Nazis, pledging his country to raise a million volunteers to fight the Reds. “They will be the same sort of ‘volunteers’ as the Führer and Il Duce sent to us,” remarked Señor Juan glumly, and Lanny said: “That won’t be very popular with the Spanish people, will it?” The reply was: “It will start the civil war all over again.” The visitor gathered that his host didn’t think much of Suñer, who was the most ardent of Falangistas and a reckless talker.
“By the way,’ said the Señor, “I mentioned to the Generalissimo your point that the word ought to be Falangita, because the falangiste is a small tree-climbing animal of Tasmania.”
“And what did he reply Señor?”
“He said that nobody in the Party had ever heard of Tasmania, so it wouldn’t matter!”
IX
A stout middle-aged German gentleman in what they call a “tourist’s” costume came to Lanny’s hotel and addressed him in precise English: “I have a message for you, Mister Budd.” Lanny took the note, and with an apology, opened it and read: “I want to see you. Kurvenal.” Lanny said: “Thank you. How shall I go?” The answer was: “We have a car, just around the corner. Be so good as to follow me at a little distance.” So Lanny strolled out, and got into the car. They didn’t offer to blindfold him, but drove him to one of the great mansions near the Palacio Real and took him in by a side door.
There was Rudi, in a pepper-and-salt civilian suit, the first time the American had seen him out of uniform. He started up, exclaiming: “Hello, Lanny!” And then, abruptly: “That damned Englishman hasn’t come! I’ve been waiting here for two days.”
“Too bad,” responded Lanny. “I can’t say anything, not knowing who he is.”
“I’ll tell you, if you’ll promise not to pass it on.”
“Of course not, Rudi.”
“Lord Beaverbrook.”
“The devil you say!”
“That surprises you, no doubt.”
“If he has changed his mind about Germany and the war, you have certainly made a great conquest. But how could you imagine that the Beaver could come to Madrid and have it a secret? He is a queer-looking little duck, and everybody knows him.”
“He could be here but not have it known that he was meeting any Germans. The British have any number of agents here.”
“What is your reason for thinking he would come?”
“I had a definite appointment; but I suppose he lost his nerve. Certainly it can be nothing that I have done.”
There was a pause. Lanny waited, feeling sure that more was to come. “Sit down,” said the Deputy, and drew a chair close. “Old man,” he began in a low voice, “I need help badly. I am going to take you into my confidence, if you will let me.”
“Surely, Rudi. Anything that I can do.”
“I count upon our long friendship. This is ultra-secret; there is no telling how important it may be.”
“You have my solemn word.”
“I wonder if you know about ‘The Link.’”
“I have a vague impression of it.”
“The secret has been well kept. It is a group of Englishmen who are working for friendship with us. You probably know some of them; the Duke of Hamilton is one of the most active. I have been in correspondence with him for more than a year.”
“That is indeed important. This date with the Beaver is the outcome?”
“A part of it. I wish I could tell you all. You know Kirkpatrick, who used to be counselor to the British Embassy in Berlin?”
“I have met him once or twice at social affairs. I can’t say that I really know him.”
“He is the one who arranged this date. His letters have been so encouraging—I really thought the deal was going through. Won’t you see him in London for me and find out what the devil has gone wrong?”
“Why, of course, Rudi, But how shall I reach you?”
“I will have a man call upon you in London. He will say: ‘I am from Kurvenal,’ and you can give him any information you have got.”
“You are asking me to take a considerable risk, but the matter is so important that I don’t mind. Wouldn’t it save time if I were to see the Beaver and find out just what has happened? I met him several times on the Riviera, and I’m fairly sure he’ll remember me.”
“That is good of you, Lanny. Damn it! I am in a state of exasperation. You know how it is when you wait and wait for something. The Führer was pretty sure I wouldn’t get it.”
“That makes it worse,” agreed Lanny sympathetically.
“He doesn’t trust the British; he doesn’t trust any foreigners—excepting you, Lanny.” This was an obvious afterthought, a courtesy. Lanny’s feelings weren’t hurt, for he had had no idea that the Führer trusted him, except when it was necessary in order to get something the Führer wanted.
The Deputy was in that position now. He wanted something quite frantically, so much so that he got up and paced the floor like a wild creature in a cage. If Lanny had been a less cautious secret agent he might have suggested that Rudi should tell him what he wanted said to the British newspaper proprietor. But Lanny was sure that if he waited, Rudi would have to tell him; and it was better never to display the least curiosity.
“The devil of it!” burst out the Nazi at last. “These fellows say they want a reconciliation, but they back and fill and you can’t get anything definite out of them. What do they really want? What are they up to?”
“They’re playing a pretty dangerous game, Rudi. If Churchill finds out what they’re doing he’ll chop off their heads—I mean, their official heads, and he might even put them in quod.”
“Well, how can they expect to get anywhere with us unless they take a risk?”
“It may be they are holding back to make you state your terms.”
“But damn it all, we are the men who hold all the cards!”
“I know that, and they doubtless know it too; but they don’t want to admit it.”
“The only sensible thing for two people who have a dispute is to sit down and talk things over, man to man.”
“Yes, indeed, and I wish to heaven I could bring about such an event—I would be a proud art expert.”
“Lanny, I have to take you still further into my confidence. The Führer authorized me to say that he would agree to withdraw entirely from Western Europe. That means Norway, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and France—exclusive of Alsace-Lorraine, of course.”
“That is certainly a generous offer. I don’t see how the British could expect more.”
“That was supposed to come as the climax of negotiations, and to settle the matter.”
“Then you don’t want me to hint at that to the Beaver?”
“I’m not sure about it. What do you think?”
“God forbid that I should butt in on matters of state, Rudi. If I were to make a mistake the Führer would never forgive me, and neither would you. Decisions like that are for statesmen.”
“All right then, tell him that’s our offer. Damn his soul! I can’t forget the things he said about us in his filthy papers.”
“They don’t take things like that too seriously in the pluto-democratic world, Rudi. The papers are printed for money and what goes into them is what they think the rabble wants.”
X
This man who was not trying to make money, but to make the world over in the image of his Führer, wanted to hear about all the people whom Lanny had met in Madrid and what they had told him. Lanny reported what General Aguilar had said about the state of Spanish nutrition and transportation, and what the General’s daughter had said about the state of the Spanish soul. Hess, it appeared, had had a highly secret meeting with Franco on the previous day, and Franco had said the same things, only more of them. “He insists that Spain could not possibly take Gibraltar by herself.”
> Lanny smiled. “But he is willing for you to come and do it, I can guess!”
“I wouldn’t say that exactly; he knows that we have the power, and the moral right—considering what we did for him, and the debts he owes us.”
“You wouldn’t really have much trouble with the Rock, I should guess. Warfare has changed. They have almost no room for aviation and what they have you could knock out in one night. When you got it, the Mediterranean would be your sea—that is, unless you chose to share it with Il Duce.”
The Deputy made a face. “Leave him out! The Italians are a liability, except for the munitions they produce. But we have to resist the temptation to scatter our forces in too many fields. Look at what the British did in Greece—the most frightful military blunder, for which they are paying now. To have sent two whole divisions in a perfectly futile effort to save that miserable little country! As a result, they have weakened their forces in Libya, and, we are driving them in rout and probably will not stop until we have taken Suez. If we do that, the Mediterranean will be ours; for what use will it be to the British if they cannot get to India by it?”
All that was high strategy, and Lanny expressed his admiration for it, and his willingness to accept the Führer’s judgments. He sang the praises of this man of miracles—the sure way to warm the heart of the man’s Deputy, as well as of the man himself. Rudi said: “What a difference between a commander of great vision and one of small! I argued with Franco for an hour: ‘You are thinking about the safety of Spain, and of yourself; but where will Spain be, and where will you be, if the British win this war?’ Franco smiled slyly and replied: ‘But they’re not going to win, Herr Hess; you cannot afford to let them.’ You see his idea: we are to fight his war for him, while he trades with both sides, and takes care of his food supply and transportation.”
“He doesn’t stop to think what your attitude will be toward him when the war is over.”
“Oh, he’s thinking about it now, you can bet!” exclaimed the Deputy. “I put it to him straight that we should have learned who were our friends, and who were the ingrates of Europe.”
“And he took that?”
“Took it? What else could he do? I gave him the dressing down of his life, the miserable, cringing little renegade.”
“Well, that is good to hear. But he isn’t going to take Gibraltar?”
“Not until we can spare troops enough to do the work and let him take the glory, as he did last time.”
XI
For two days more the Deputy stayed in the Madrid palace, waiting for his Beaver, who showed none of the eagerness attributed to that creature. Each day Rudi sent for his friend and adviser, Lanny Budd and each day in his impatience he revealed a few more of his secret. He had had the extraordinary idea to send an airmail letter to the Governor of Gibraltar; he had somehow got the idea that this Lord Gort was a member of The Link, and Rudi had offered to fly to Gibraltar for a meeting. He was startled by the reply he received—to the effect that he was free to fly to Gibraltar, but that if he landed there his lordship would have him shot!
So there was nothing for the chief of the National-Socialist German Workingmen’s Party to do but fly back to Berlin. He was in a fever of vexation about it; and after Lanny had said good-by to him one evening he summoned him again in the morning, and poured out his soul anew. This was the greatest disappointment of his life, and he was not a man to accept failure; he was a man who drove through failure to success. In the evening he had begged Lanny to get to work in London and produce results. An American art expert was to end the war between Britain and Germany, where all the intrigues of half a dozen Nazi secret services had failed! But now in the morning Hess had another and even more bizarre idea—one which he said had been haunting his mind for a long while, and which he had been keeping the closest of secrets.
“Matters of high policy simply cannot be discussed at long range, Lanny; they call for personal contacts, and the give and take of discussion. But Churchill will not send anybody, nor permit anybody to come. So it is my idea to fly to England.”
“You mean—Churchill will receive you?”
“I mean to go unannounced; just fly in an unarmed plane and land at some carefully chosen spot.”
“But, good God, Rudi! You would be shot down on the way!”
“I would take my chances. I am a pretty good pilot, you know.”
“But, can you find a landing place that is without ack-ack?”
“If it came to the worst, I can parachute.”
“But, then, they would shoot you for a spy!”
“I would wear my uniform, so they couldn’t do that.”
“But, at best, you would be a prisoner of war.”
“I doubt it. They would give me diplomatic status, once they realized what I had come for. Surely it is permissible for a man to ask for peace!”
Lanny hesitated for quite a time. He knew that this was one of the critical moments in his job. “What do you say?” asked the Number Three, and Lanny replied: “You are putting a frightful responsibility upon me, Rudi. If I should guess wrong, you would never forgive me as long as you lived, and neither would the Führer.”
“I do not have to tell him that I have spoken to you about it. As a matter of fact, I may not tell him if I decide to do it. He has given me a free hand to do whatever I think will help get Britain out of the war; and he might prefer to be spared the responsibility of knowing.”
“Well, you can’t expect me to feel any differently from the Führer, Rudi. How in the world can I guess what the British would do? If you succeeded, of course, it would be one of the greatest coups in history.”
“That is the way I see it. I have reasons for believing that the British people don’t like this war any better than we. My action would tell them, in striking and dramatic fashion, that the Germans want peace, and who is blocking it.”
“That is undoubtedly true. But, my God, I can’t tell you to go!”
“I don’t ask for that. All I want is your frank opinion. What would Wickthorpe do if I landed at the Castle?”
“I can’t imagine. He would be stunned, and probably wouldn’t know what to do.”
“Wouldn’t he get his friends to meet me and talk things over?”
“He might want to try. But in the first place, Rudi, there is no airport there; and it’s so close to London, a settled district—there are few big fields as you have in Germany, and if there are any, they have perhaps been cut with ditches to keep planes from landing.”
“I might decide upon some remote place. Hamilton has an estate in Scotland. I could just as well fly there, coming in over Norway.”
“Ceddy has a shooting box in Scotland; but nobody shoots in springtime.”
“The Scotch highlands must be worth a visit at this season. Couldn’t Ceddy and his wife take a trip just for pleasure? Couldn’t you think up some excuse to get them there—say for the pleasure of your little daughter?”
“I don’t know; they are both very busy in their own way, trying to end the war. I could suggest it, of course.”
“If you could arrange it, I could find the shooting box. You wouldn’t have to bother with the details—my agents would attend to it, and I’d have a good map—that part would be no trouble at all. I could be hidden at some remote place like that, and a few trusted people could come to see me, one or two at a time so as not to attract attention.”
“You’d be taking a tremendous risk, Rudi.”
“Herrgott, what does that matter? I am a soldier, trying to serve my cause. If I die, there are trained men who could take my place as head of the Party. The Führer would miss me, but he would know that I had done my best.”
This proved to be a long visit. The Deputy was in deadly earnest, and he raked his friend’s mind, asking a string of questions. He named persons, some of whom Lanny knew, and others whom he guessed must be members of that mysterious organization, The Link. Evidently the collaborationist movement was far stronger tha
n he had guessed. Neville Chamberlain was still alive, and his spirit was even livelier!
The P.A.’s last words were: “This would be a colossal sensation, Rudi; it would shake the world. I’ll do what I can to help, but don’t for one moment forget: I haven’t advised it, and I don’t take any responsibility.”
“On that basis auf Wiederseben!” said Rudolf Hess, and added, turning the verses around:
“Oh, ye’ll tak’ the low road
And I’ll tak’ the high road,
And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye!”
15
Oh, to Be in England!
I
There were many persons waiting in Madrid for airplane accommodations to Lisbon; but Lanny Budd did not have to wait, he merely had to mention the matter to Hess, who mentioned it to one of his agents. Arriving in the Portuguese capital, Lanny cabled to his father’s London solicitors, and then identified himself at the Bank of the Holy Ghost and took steps to draw on his London bankers. Tourists were sometimes surprised to learn that the Holy Ghost had gone into the banking business in Lisbon; also, when they went for a stroll in the city’s most showy boulevard, they wondered why it was called Avenida da Liberdade—in a city and country ruled by an iron-handed dictator.
The soil of Portugal was at the mercy of the Nazi armies, and its harbors at the mercy of the British Fleet. Therefore the government was carefully and systematically neutral, and this attitude was tolerated because both warring powers found it convenient. Passenger and cargo planes flew in from all points of the compass, and military aviators from Britain and Germany drank at the same bars, eying one another but not speaking. Spies of every sort swarmed in the city; and the air or ether or whatever it is that carries radio messages in secret codes got no rest day or night. In the poverty-stricken countryside laborers toiled for fifty cents per day, but in Lisbon cafés and brothels and gambling casinos money flowed like water in the river Tejo, which the English call Tagus.