Lanny delayed meeting him in Rome until he had made sure what role to play with him. Grandi had broken with his master and was no longer Minister of Justice; people who were in the know talked freely about his desire to replace the head of the government. His rival for that honor was Badoglio, and one of Lanny’s tasks was to make up his mind which of this pair would make the safer ally for Lanny’s country. If it were Grandi, Italy would keep its Fascist form; if it were the old Marshal, the monarchy would get back its power. The idea that the Italian people might want to try something new would hardly appeal to Admiral Leahy and Admiral King and the other elders who were the President’s advisers.
X
The P.A. did not have to feel too greatly honored because important persons came to meet him instead of summoning him to their offices or homes. They did this because Rome was a boiling caldron of intrigue, and few persons were sure whom they could trust. Everyone guessed that a Franco-American art expert must have some political purpose, but no one had been able to decide what he represented, and important persons with dark secrets locked in their bosoms deemed it the part of discretion to meet him at the house of someone else, where it could be called an accident if things went wrong.
Count Dino Grandi came to have coffee at the home of the Marchesa di Caporini. He had graciously sent her some real coffee in advance—he could do that because he had become one of the richest men in Italy. He had set to work at the moment the Fascists took power; he had got the oil monopoly as his perquisite, and the enormous graft of this had been one of the things which Matteotti had been exposing when the five gangsters had closed his lips. A palace, servants in livery, a Mercedes limousine, a private black market—these had been the stakes for which the “March on Rome” had been undertaken. Just so Caesar had behaved in Egypt, Alexander in Persia, Genghis Khan in large parts of Asia and Europe.
Dino Grandi was a tall, bulky, football-player type; stouter since Lanny had last seen him, but his face was still young though he was nearing fifty. He wore a small mustache and beard, the beard cut square across the bottom, as you see it in Assyrian sculpture; it was so black that it seemed to have a tinge of blue. His voice was soft and his manner most agreeable, especially to the ladies. They chatted about the wonderful iced coffee while they drank it, and then Lanny told the news about the Countess of Wickthorpe and other friends.
It developed that the Count had had Lanny’s youthful indiscretion looked up, and he made a joke about it, but it was one of those jokes which have a serious purpose behind them. Lanny related how he had become a Socialist in boyhood, and how Hitler had converted him to National Socialism. That went in Italy too, because they called their regime a form of Socialism; they had a “corporative state,” and the labor unions were supposed to be a part of the government. It looked fine on paper, and the fact that it had no relation to reality was never mentioned in polite conversation. Lanny told how he had been lectured and scared by Generalissimo Italo Balbo, and the Count commented upon the sad fate of that able soldier, who while flying to Tobruk in the previous summer had been shot down by mistake of his own anti-aircraft gunners.
XI
The hostess discreetly withdrew and left the pair of conspirators to make what they could of each other. Grandi spoke English—he knew the language perfectly and liked to display the fact. He chose the role of friendship, saying, “Let us speak frankly, Mr. Budd. Tell me your purpose here in Rome.”
Lanny did not say “I am here to buy paintings.” He knew that wouldn’t go down. He replied, “It has happened in the course of my work as an art expert that I have made friends in different countries and have lived so long in half a dozen of them that I count them all as home. This war drives me to distraction; I can see no end to it but the laying open of Europe to barbarism from the east. I do not see myself in the role of statesman, but I am a friend to some of them, and I have tried to serve by taking messages from one to another—always quietly and in the strictest confidence.”
“You are protected by the Germans here, I am told. You enjoy the friendship of Hitler?”
“I have visited him now and then over a period of fifteen years. Both he and Göring have invited me to enter their service, but I have declined. I would like you to understand that I have never taken one cent from either of them. What Hitler means to me is that he stands as a bulwark against invasion from the east, and if he goes down I cannot see who else will save us. Whom can you suggest?”
That put it up to Grandi. Let him be frank for a while! Having met Lanny at Wickthorpe Castle, and knowing all about Budd-Erling Aircraft, he knew that whichever side the visitor was on, Dino might be on that side before the war was over. They talked about the methods by which Italy might be removed from the war, and by which Italy’s present masters might save their necks. Grandi revealed that Il Duce had gone to the border for a conference with Hitler, a meeting in which history might be made. He was due back soon, and then the pot might boil over, for Hitler’s demands would be likely to drive the Italians to desperation.
The conversation lasted a goodly time, for the shrewd Fascist wanted to extract every item of information he could. Lanny, for his part, talked freely, because the more he revealed, the more quickly the Italians would realize that they were on the losing side. He dropped a hint: he feared that the Duce’s health was breaking under the strain and that he was no longer equal to the demands of this crisis. To this the Count replied that he, Dino, was still a member of the Fascist Grand Council and had made up his mind to demand a meeting of that body and bring up the subject of a change. No modern state could endure to be governed by such a group of incompetents as Mussolini had taken into his cabinet. That was indeed talking turkey, and Lanny thanked his powerful friend and promised to watch these historic events with prayerful attention. “I wish I could help you,” he said; and the other replied, “You may be able to; we shall see.” That was more than a hint and gave a P.A. plenty to think about.
XII
Late on Sunday evening Lanny was called to the home of Commendatore d’Angelo. There were no secrets in Rome, it appeared; the old gentleman knew that Lanny had had a meeting with Grandi and wanted to find out what had happened. Lanny told him, with seeming frankness, but kept back what he thought might involve himself too greatly. In return he learned that the Army was going to stand by the King, and the King was going to put Badoglio at the head of the government; at least that was the program. Mussolini was expected back from Feltre, scene of the conference with Hitler, in the morning; already the Badoglio partisans knew, or claimed to know, that Hitler was demanding more Italian troops for the Russian front, and was proposing to give up the whole of the Italian boot to the Allies and base his defense line on the River Po. It was to be hoped that Mussolini had refused the demands; certainly, to accept them would mean his own downfall.
Next morning Lanny arose late and had his breakfast in a sidewalk café under an awning; very agreeable, except that people whose daily bread ration was one-third of a pound stopped and followed with their eyes every forkful of food he put into his mouth. But he had lived through two wars and several depressions and had put the necessary hard shell about his feelings; you can help one or two people in trouble, but when there are one or two hundred millions all over the earth you have to practice to do your best in the world as it is. Lanny read the morning news, in the leisurely fashion of the Mediterranean lands, and noted that the Americans had reached the north coast of Sicily, thus cutting the island in two; they were being “victoriously repulsed” from Palermo with its fine harbor.
The P.A. was preparing in his mind a report to Hitler, and meant to take a stroll and think it out; but the sun was hot, and he decided that his room would be a better place. He paid his bill and was about to rise to his feet when he heard the scream of sirens. Some patrons ran to the inside of the restaurant, leaving their food; others went out to the sidewalks and stood staring up into the sky. Presently Lanny heard a distant murmur which he knew well
: planes were coming. The sound grew louder, and he knew that it was made by many planes, and could be only the Americans. There were few if any air-raid shelters in this Holy City, and one place was about as safe as another.
Lanny knew that the freight yards lay some two miles to the south of where he stood, and he had that much confidence in his country’s Air Force. Undoubtedly the pilots had been carefully briefed, had studied maps of the city, and knew every detail of the targets. Reconnaissance was in charge of one of the President’s sons, Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, and the maps his men brought in were said to be marvels; they were studied under a stereoscope, which caused every detail to stand out as if you were just above it. The millions of Catholic voters in the Democratic party were guarantee enough that the Air Force wasn’t going to hit the Vatican or any of the famous shrines.
The planes were Liberators and Flying Fortresses, great four-engine bombers painted a uniform olive-drab. They flew in small V formations, each V behind the next, making a long train, as far back as you could see. They were four miles up in the air, yet the sound was like the roar of freight trains close by. To this was added the racket of anti-aircraft guns and the bursting of their shells; this was dangerous for the people in the streets but apparently did no harm to the bombers; they came on majestically, varying not an inch. There were half a dozen Italian fighter planes darting here and there overhead, but they manifested no stomach for the fight, and from first to last did nothing but fly. It was the first time in history that a large flight of bombers had come unescorted in broad daylight, and some Americans had had misgivings, but they proved to be unjustified.
Fragments from the bursting shells injured some of the people below, yet many stayed out of curiosity. The planes passed directly over the heart of the city; perhaps that was a bit of propaganda, or perhaps a way to make sure of not hitting the city. It made a wonderful show, and in the two and a half millenniums of its history the city of Romulus and Remus had surely seen nothing like it. The great gliding birds passed, and a second or two later you saw the bomb-bay doors of the first flight open and the gray bombs shoot out; each carried five hundred pounds of a new and deadly explosive, but they looked very small and pretty; they came, twelve from each plane, in a graceful parabola, gradually straightening out. You felt the earth shake beneath your feet a couple of seconds before you heard the explosions, heavy, crumping sounds. They became unceasing, and the ground under your feet trembled even as did your knees and your spine. Huge clouds of smoke and dust arose from the bombed district.
There were some two hundred planes in the first flight, and everyone knew what they had hit, the San Lorenzo railroad yards. The crowds started in that direction, but again the sirens sounded, and there came another flight, this time farther to the east; the target was the Littorio marshaling yards, and again there was a tumult, and a cloud of destruction, and curiosity seekers starting in that direction. A third warning and another flight, this time of Marauders and Mitchells, smaller planes, flying lower; they were after the Ciampino airdrome, which lay to the south of the city; they would smash many planes on the ground, and those planes would never again fly to attack American ships on the way to Sicily and American-captured airfields on the island. Altogether the “show” lasted over two hours, and of nearly six hundred bombers which passed over the city only five failed to return to their bases.
XIII
It was Lanny’s business to observe the reaction of the Roman populace to this peace hint, and he spent the rest of the day wandering about, using his eyes and ears. He found that with few exceptions the people had got its meaning; he heard cries of terror and of grief, but few of anger, and no desire for anything but an end to this senseless war. Just as Marshal Badoglio had predicted, the raid had destroyed the tenement homes all about the railroad yards, and the people in the neighborhood were in a pitiable state; many were digging frantically in the ruins, trying to rescue the survivors—a sight that Lanny had witnessed in many cities of this old Continent, beginning with Barcelona seven years before.
While Lanny was there he came upon a strange sight, the Holy Father’s visit to these panic-stricken people. The P.A. stood and watched him, a small, scholarly figure in a white dress, scattering his prayers and blessings in every direction; the people bowed their heads and were comforted, for they were certain that he had some magic power; he could forgive their sins and save them from Satan if not from Air Chief Marshal Tedder. Lanny bowed his head with the rest and kept silent. Never was there a better time for applying the ancient adage, that when you are in Rome you must do as the Romans do. Some four thousand of them had been killed, and it was Lanny’s countrymen who had done it.
Two churches which were near the railroad yards had been damaged; and back in his hotel Lanny listened to the Nazi radio denouncing what it called “a barbarous assault on a sacred shrine.” He could smile over this, knowing that the Nazis had bombed more than four thousand British churches. But he wouldn’t let anybody see that smile, and he would be careful to agree with everything that everyone said. In the evening he paid another visit to Signor d’Angelo, and there he agreed that the American flyers had done an excellent job. They hadn’t hit a single palace, but they had suggested to the Roman aristocracy that they might hit some palaces next time, just as they had done in Berlin.
Mussolini had come back from his border conference; and what a beehive of gossip the city had turned into! For a long time “the Duck” had been kept on a diet of rice and milk; but in the presence of Hitler and his staff, whether from bravado or greediness, he had eaten everything that was put before him, and as a result, on the way home, he had rolled on the floor of his private car in agonies of acute indigestion. “Sometimes it kills people,” said the elderly landowner, “but, hélas! he seems to be getting over it.”
More important was the news concerning the demands which Hitler had served upon his partner. He wanted to withdraw the Hermann Göring division from Sicily and let the Italians defend it as best they could. The same for the whole Italian boot—he proposed to abandon Rome and destroy the huge shipment of ammunition which had just been delivered there. And Mussolini wouldn’t say what answer he had made to these proposals; he wouldn’t even confirm the reports of Hitler’s demands, which had been derived from members of his staff. Apparently the Duce had given in to the Führer and wanted to conceal the fact even from his dummy cabinet.
So, in the morning, Lanny had to prepare another report for his Boss in Washington, and then, at another place, one to his Boss in Berlin. He was playing a dangerous double game and meant to keep it up as long as he could; each message that got through was that much gain for his side. He wondered whether his call for the bombing of Rome had had any effect. Of course the airmen must have been training for weeks; but the last word had to come from higher up, and it might well be that Lanny’s advice had tipped the scales. Anyhow, he wrote now that the moral effect of the raids had been excellent and that the railroad yards would be out of service for several weeks. He told about the plight of Il Duce—using his code name, of course. He expressed his belief that the victor in the struggle would be Andrew, that being Badoglio.
Then he wrote to the Führer, saying that the effect of the bombing had been to infuriate the Romans and make them more determined to resist. He pictured the Duce’s collapse, both physical and moral. The political pot was boiling fast, and no one could be sure what would come out of it. He expressed his fear that Badoglio might be the next premier, a weak and indecisive leader. He told of his talks with Grandi, a man who knew what he wanted and might try to seize it. From this the Führer would know that this devoted friend was meeting important people; but no mention of the son of Matteotti up in the mountains!
XIV
The Italian boil was coming to a head, and it took no skilled physician to see that it was going to burst very soon. If the two German divisions were withdrawn from Sicily, the defense would collapse overnight; and if the Allies got into Rome, they woul
d surely use the airfields, and the Germans would begin bombing them, and without much regard for sacred shrines. Lanny went daily to call on his carefully chosen friends and collect the gossip. He hadn’t told anyone definitely, but they apparently assumed that he had some way of getting the news out; perhaps they thought he had a radio sending set in his room at the Regina-Carlton Hotel on the Via Veneto!
As a matter of fact, he kept his room without a scrap of evidence in it and left it unlocked for the convenience for the OVRA whenever they chose to call. He carefully fixed his small suitcase so that he could tell if it had been opened, and he came to the conclusion that somebody was looking his things over on a twice-a-week schedule. They had a chance to inspect a list of the paintings he had looked at, the names and addresses of the owners, and the prices quoted, if any. It was highly educational, because there was a description of each painting by an expert whose opinions cost a lot of money. Lanny was careful to add to the data now and then so that his inspectors would know that he was not wasting his time in this storehouse of old masters. Two of the art lovers on Lanny’s list told him they had received visits from the police, and the art lovers had praised the French visitor’s international reputation. This, Lanny didn’t have to be told, would increase the price he was expected to pay for the paintings belonging to those good friends.
Dino Grandi carried out his threat to demand a session of the almost-forgotten Fascist Grand Council to hear and consider the demands of Hitler upon the country. Grandi had a copy of the demands, and instead of trying to hide it he went boldly to the Duce and told him what he was going to do. That was indeed bearding the lion in his den; and afterward the bold Count visited the homes of other members of the council to discuss the problems with them. Police kept watch while these sessions were being held, but they did not interfere. Mussolini had his uniformed bodyguard, known as the Moschettiere del Duce, and he also had three hundred and fifty plain-clothes men who kept watch over the Palazzo Venezia where he lived, and over the palaces occupied by his family and the various ladies whom he visited. These guards would obey any orders he gave, and Roman society buzzed with speculation as to when he would use them, and how.