The pilot stepped out and his passenger followed, and in a jiffy the little plane had been run off the field into one of the waiting rows. The pilot said, “That storm will blow over in a few minutes, and we’ll go on.” Lanny replied, “OK.” But then, as a field officer came out to get the pilot’s report, another idea occurred to him. He asked the officer, “Where are we?” And the answer was, “Air headquarters of the 117th Division, Third Army.” Then Lanny asked, “Are the general headquarters near?” And the answer was, “We don’t give that information. What is it you want?” Lanny said, “I am an OSS agent, and I have some news that might be of immediate interest to your commanding officer. Could I have a telephone?”
The officer escorted him into a tent. There were several phones on a folding table. The officer took one and gave a number, just as if he had been calling in town; he reported what Lanny had said, listened, and then hung up. “This way, please,” he said, and took Lanny outside and put him into a jeep with a soldier. “Take this man to General Young.” Lanny stepped in, and they went bumping down a road without any lights; how it was done he couldn’t figure, but presumably no one minded if the jeep turned over, because it was so light that you could set it back on its wheels, anywhere except on the side of a house or in the ocean.
X
They came to gates and turned in to what evidently was a fine estate, with a gravel drive and a double line of trees; unfortunately a number of the trees had been either shot down or cut, and pushed off to the side. They halted at a large mansion; many staff cars were parked before it. The mansion loomed high in the starlight, but large sections of it were missing and you could see the stars where the walls should have been. They went up some steps partly blocked with rubble; two sentries stopped them, but passed them when the soldier said, “The General’s orders.” They went into an entrance hall and then into what had been an elegant drawing-room. There were two or three candles burning inside, giving just enough light to see rugs and tapestries, upholstered armchairs and well-polished tables, and also that one corner of the room had been shot away and the wreckage dumped back against the wall.
Seated at a table, with maps spread before them, were two officers, one a two-star general and the other a colonel, both tired-looking overworked men who hadn’t time for a bath or a shave. Lanny was aware that he himself didn’t look like the glass of fashion; he was purposely ill dressed and had had no chance to wash his face or hands. The officers introduced themselves, and Lanny gave his real name and explained that he had been to the outskirts of Paris on a confidential mission and had talked with four members of the Resistance there, one of whom had just come out of the city. He repeated what they had told him about the strength of the German forces and the attitude of the population.
After they had asked some questions the superior officer said, “The Chief ought to see this man.” The other assented and remarked to Lanny, “General Patton is here on an inspection trip. He’ll see you if he isn’t asleep.”
Lanny replied, “If necessary, I’ll wait, because it’s important. My plane can go on without me, and you can send me to England when you have a spare bucket seat.”
The colonel rang for an orderly and gave him a message. The man went away and came back with a report that the General would see Mr. Budd. Lanny followed the orderly to a part of the mansion which the shells had missed and was escorted into a very elegant lady’s boudoir, all fixed up in French fashion with ormolu and pink silk, double curtains at the windows, ruffles and lace on the bed, and perfume and rouge bottles on the dressing table. In the middle of these incongruous surroundings sat the khaki-clad warrior, on a gilt Louis Quinze chair with spindly legs, in front of a table of the same super-elegant period. He was reading, and the binding and shape of the volume told Lanny that it was a Bible; his quick eyes took in the fact that it was open at the last third, and he wondered if Georgie Patton was preparing himself for the conquest of Germany by reading the Sermon on the Mount.
XI
Fully accoutered, and wearing the two pearl-handled revolvers, the commander of four hundred and fifty thousand men looked up but did not rise. He was nearly sixty, and his hair was white and sparse; his face was long, and in repose somewhat melancholy. Without any preliminaries he demanded, “Well, what have you to say to me?”
He was one more tired man, and Lanny made allowances for him and came at once to the point. “General, I was sent on an OSS errand into Seine-et-Oise, close to the suburbs of Paris, and I have learned that the Germans have only two divisions in Paris, that the whole population is ready to rise the moment the first American troops appear.”
“Who told you this?” snapped the commander.
“I talked with four active leaders of the Free French—”
“I don’t pay any attention to those bastards. They are a bunch of Reds.”
“The one who gave me the firsthand information, General, is a Catholic.”
“It don’t make any difference; they’re all yellow. They quit cold, and we’re not counting on them. We’re winning this war with Americans.”
“I understand, sir, that the French have been doing very well in Italy—”
“Goddamit, man, who sent you here to argue with me?” The warrior’s lined and tired face took on the color he so intensely disliked.
“I’m not trying to argue with you, General; I’m telling you facts. I have lived most of my life in France and I know the people. The moral effect of taking Paris would bring you millions of allies—”
“Goddamit, man, I tell you we’re not taking Paris, we’re taking Germany!” Georgie was an old-fashioned cavalryman, and his every sentence contained a mention of either the First Person of the Trinity or the Second; Lanny observed that he never mentioned the Third—perhaps he had overlooked it, or perhaps he was afraid of it. He had a great variety of invocations and expletives, and two modes of speech, or dialects, one of which he employed in the presence of men and the other in what was called mixed company. Lanny had been about the world enough to know that this was supposed to be the way of a “he man,” and he thought it rather silly. Also, he knew that he was poorly dressed, and unshaven, and that this declassed him.
“General,” he continued patiently, “it would take an armored force not more than three hours to drive from Orléans to Paris; and Paris is nearer to the Rhine than Orléans.”
“Jesus Christ, man! Have you come here to tell me how to run my Army?” The warrior hit the spindly table a thump with his heavy fist.
“No, General, I’m just telling you that if you don’t send a task force to take Paris you will be making the worst blunder of your career.”
Patton leaped to his feet. His face was purple now, and he called Lanny a very bad name indeed, and didn’t smile while he said it. But Lanny smiled, for he thought he knew his man, and that it was essential to stand up to him. “Keep your temper, General,” he said. “I am here as a friend, trying to save you from a humiliating experience. If you don’t take Paris of your own impulse, you will be made to.”
“You are an insolent dog and I ought to have you shut tip in the guardhouse.”
“No, sir, you won’t do that, for you’re not a Nazi, even though you try to appear one. I have risked my life going into enemy territory with false papers in order to get information, and I bring it to you free of charge. I make allowances for the fact that you are carrying a heavy burden, and perhaps are overstrained and short of temper. That is why I do not resent your bad manners and report you.”
“Report me? Who the hell would you report me to?”
“You command the Third Army, General. Don’t forget that there is General Bradley, and General Eisenhower, and General Marshall, and finally a Commander-in-Chief.”
Such were the steps in the military ladder; and there was something in Lanny’s tone which caused this half-soldier and half-actor and whole-boy to stop and reflect. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
“My name is Budd, General.”
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“Budd, what Budd?”
“You have heard of Budd-Erling no doubt. I think some of our planes are overhead now.”
“So you’re telling me that you’re Budd-Erling?”
“It happens that my father, Robert Budd, is president of that company and its founder.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t know what to expect, General. I was surprised to discover that you had so little self-control. In the book you’ve been reading it is set down that he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.”
“Now look here, Budd.” The warrior’s tone had changed with surprising suddenness. “How am I to know when a man comes in on me without any credentials and starts telling me my business—”
“I point out to you, General Patton, that a secret agent going into enemy territory does not carry credentials. I have none on paper, but I have some in my head. Suppose I tell you that on one of my recent visits to President Roosevelt I told him about a letter he had sent you to be delivered to the Sultan of French Morocco, and how you insisted upon revising that letter without the President’s knowledge or consent.”
“The hell you say! May I ask how you knew that?”
“It happens that I am a friend of one of our vice-consuls in Morocco, who brought the letter to you. I am sure you must remember the incident.”
The blood had gone out of the warrior’s face, and it looked even more drawn and tired. Lanny waited, with malice aforethought, to compel him to reveal the curiosity he felt. “And what did the President say?”
“He wasn’t amused, General. But I think he will be amused when I tell him about this interview. Also, I haven’t the slightest doubt that he will agree with me that it would be a grave error of strategy to leave the people of Paris at the mercy of the Nazis an hour longer than necessary. The city is like a boiler with the safety valve tied down; there is bound to be an explosion, and perhaps a frightful massacre, and not merely all France but the whole world will ask why we didn’t prevent it when we so obviously had the chance. Be sensible, General, and listen for a few moments: you naturally think about military power, but the President has to think about moral power too—prestige, morale, whatever you choose to call it. He is playing a game of world politics and knows what it is to electrify our friends and to depress our enemies. Paris is not merely a center of romance, of beauty, la ville lumière; it is a great manufacturing center; the enemy is getting the products now, and we can have them for the taking. You will have to fan your armies out—they can’t all move on one road—and if you fan a hundred miles to the north and go through Paris, that involves very little delay. Believe me, you won’t have to hold the city or to govern it; the French are all ready to take over, as I saw them do in North Africa. And the road from Orléans to Paris is a fine highway; I have driven it scores of times from my home on the Riviera.”
There was no more cursing. “All right, Budd,” said the two-gun warrior. “I’ll think it over. And no hard feelings, I hope.”
“None whatever. Perhaps I was tactless in my approach.”
“I like you, Budd. I respect a man who stands up to me.” He held out his hand and they exchanged a clasp.
“Thank you, General,” said the P.A. and started to leave. He was stopped by a word from the fighting man. “And by the way, Budd, do you have to tell the Cominch about the bad reception I gave you?”
Lanny was tickled, and a grin spread over his features. “Patton, I’ll make a deal with you. I love Paris. I have a host of friends there, the real people, not those who live by preying on tourists. I hate to think of what those Nazi beasts might do to the city. You send a few tanks there and save it, and I promise to sing your praises for the rest of my life, and never say one word that isn’t glory.”
The whole-boy Georgie Patton had a sense of humor too. “Go to hell!” he said. “I’ll do my duty, and you goddam highbrows can make what you please of it.”
XII
The pilot of the cub plane had waited. The time was nearly up, for his orders forbade him to be caught over the Channel by daylight. But he had been told that Lanny was with the commander of the Third Army, and he was impressed. The storm had long since passed. The plane took off without incident and flew low toward the west, and then north, retracing the path which the famed Third Army had taken in its victorious rush. No enemy planes appeared, and Lanny was set down on a secret American field near London—we had built them all over the “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” and when the war was over they would be a problem, because the English people would need potatoes more than planes.
The P.A. wrote out his report and entrusted it to the OSS men to forward; it would be in Washington in twenty-four hours, they assured him. Then there was another briefing; he was to be flown at once to the Mediterranean—he had barely time to telephone to Laurel and let her know that he was alive and well and sorry that he couldn’t come to see her.
Since he was going back into France, the clothes he had on would serve; he wouldn’t need his passport, because OSS would give him a special card that would save him questioning and would be taken up at Ajaccio, on the island of Corsica, the last Allied point at which he would call. He wasn’t allowed to write his instructions down but had to learn them; and while doing this he had a chance to take a bath and shave. He was flown to the Bovingdon airport, and with an armful of newspapers and magazines he settled in a comfortable chair on a DC-4 transport, strapped his belt around him, and absorbed himself in the latest news of what the Third Army had been doing. Oddly enough, the news was two days behind what he had seen with his own eyes, for the Army never gave out the names of places until after the enemy had broadcast them. What the enemy didn’t know wouldn’t help him.
A wide swing to the west to avoid the perils of Francoland, and the plane came to the Rock of Gibraltar. It had once been a symbol for security, but now, with its crowded harbor and still more crowded airport, it would have been a “sitting duck.” Göring had known that and had been ready to put it into his bag; the Führer had broken his Number Two’s heart by changing his plans suddenly and attacking Russia instead. Most of the powerful guns which Der Dicke had installed on the land side, in Spanish territory, had been taken away and set up on the Channel coast, where they hadn’t been good enough. The wild monkeys which hopped about in the trees on top of the Rock were still alive, so, according to the tradition, the British title to the place remained valid.
Lanny changed planes and was flown to Algiers, a hot and sultry spot in August, and a place for him of many memories. A wide ample harbor, ringed with tall white houses, and a background of green hills and high barren brown mountains, it was now a great Allied air and naval base, a distribution center for several fronts. Lanny had just time for a visit to Denis fils, who was now moving about on crutches, waiting for strength to come back into his damaged leg.
The P.A. was not free to tell Denis where he had been or where he was bound for; but for the capitaine’s peace of mind he made up a story to the effect that le père had managed to get a letter smuggled out to Robbie Budd, saying that he and all the family were well. This, of course, did Robbie no harm and did Denis a world of good. He said, “You wouldn’t tell me if you knew, Lanny, but I have learned from many signs that an invasion of France from the south is impending. I am praying God that poor Charlot may find some way to escape.”
XIII
The plane that took the traveler to the island of Corsica was another bucket-seat job; it carried freight, laced tight with a spider-web of ropes, and passengers were a superfluity. Fortunately the trip took only a couple of hours. With Lanny there rode two other civilians, both young; one gave it out that he was a specialist in citrons, a sort of large thick-skinned lemon which was grown on the island, and the other said he was a specialist in the various disease-bearing parasites which interfered with work at the harbor. From the first moment Lanny had a different idea about them both, and he was not surprised when
they turned up to continue the journey to the mainland.
The P.A. had never been to Corse, as the French call it, and knew only two facts concerning the island—that it was the birthplace of the Bonaparte family which he did not admire, and that its high mountains were inhabited by bandits. When the plane came over the harbor of the capital he discovered a well-enclosed bay, and a city crowded into a small corner of it. Amazing how human creatures like to pack themselves together! Here were buildings as tall as those in Algiers, and streets so narrow that Lanny saw two laden donkeys unable to get past each other. Ajaccio was a place of laziness and poverty, but like all other places in the war zones it was enjoying plenty now; there was a market for everything it could produce, and ships crowded its docks. There was a swarm of the new American landing craft, and the P.A. didn’t need to ask anybody what that meant.
The new arrival was in the hands of the Navy. A wide-awake Intelligence officer took him into a small cubicle in an office building and informed him that he was to be taken in one of the fast motorboats and put ashore west of Cannes at approximately midnight. The distance was about two hundred miles, and they would leave an hour before sunset, the first part of the journey being in waters well guarded by American land-based planes. His further instructions were contained in a sealed envelope, marked “Bienvenu,” which the officer gave him. When he opened it he found some well-worn French money, and orders to report to an address in the Old Town of Cannes with which he was thoroughly familiar—it was less than a block from where the labor school had been conducted in an old warehouse.