This was puzzling at first because it had been a clear night. Now the air was heavy with a smoky fog so thick that you could reach out and grab a piece of it in your hand. When you let it go your hand was full of soot. Then you realized that this was a manmade fog, a smoke screen thrown over Paris to hide the railroad stations from the bombers. But for the first time in its history Paris had no dawn.
The restaurants and the hotels were all closed. For nearly a week there had been no way of hearing from or communicating with the outside world. A reporter without means of communication is a jockey without a horse. No matter what story you wrote now, you would be its only reader. And now the Germans were pounding on the gates of Paris. Already their mechanized forces had encircled the city on three sides. Within a day the thing that couldn't happen was inevitably going to happen. They would be in Paris.
It was time to say farewell to Paris. Virtually everyone else had left. The Government had left. The cable office and the wireless had moved south. With the exception of a few newspapermen who had been assigned to the deathwatch the entire press had left. They had to leave. They had to follow their communications. Hotels were closed. There were no telephones, and not a taxicab on the streets. Today Paris was a lonely old lady completely exhausted. The last of the refugees were leaving, some on bicycles, some on foot, pushing overladen handcarts.
I had stayed behind to write the story of the siege of Paris, confident that the army would hold out in the north. Now it developed that there would be no siege of Paris. A lonely old lady was not a military necessity. She was to be reluctantly abandoned. The problem of how to leave Paris was solved by one of those incredible bits of luck that come only to fools who have waited too long. The Grand Boulevard was almost deserted this morning. One middle-aged woman was sitting at a table at a sidewalk cafe, one of the very few where one could still get coffee and bread. She was telling a few bystanders of her plight. She had driven into the city that morning in her small one-seated car. She had the car and two hundred francs, that was all. She would stay in Paris but she needed money. With money one could buy food even from Germans. She wanted to sell her car. Sell her car? For weeks people had been combing Paris, looking for cars. Offering fantastic prices, offering anything for means of leaving when the time came. I bought the car on the spot. She gave me the key,
I gave her five hundred dollars, which left me with five. No signing of papers, no transferring of ownership. I don't know her name yet, but I had the car.
Now I was mobile. Now I, too, could follow the Government, follow the wireless and the cable offices. My car was a Baby Austin, no bigger than a minute. Its tank was full of gasoline, enough to carry me a few hundred miles. There was room in it for a knapsack, a mattress, a typewriter and a steel helmet. And so the tiny car and I said farewell to Paris and headed south.
We didn't catch up with the great army of refugees until we passed the city limits. From then on we were a member of this army. It is one thing to see thousands of weary refugees in the newsreels; it is something quite different to be one of them. We moved slowly, sometimes we would be held up for as long as three hours without moving. The road stretched from Paris to Bordeaux four hundred miles away and it was packed solid that entire distance. Thousands of these people had come from the north, many had been on the road for two weeks. They had only one thought: move south. Move away from terror that swooped down from the skies. Move away from the serfdom that would be theirs under German rule. Few had any money. Few knew where they were going.
Some rode in open trucks and large, open wagons drawn by horses. Inevitably the sides of these would be buttressed by mattresses. These were not for sleeping. These were protection against machine-gun bullets. Refugees coming from Belgium and from Holland and refugees who had come from the north had been machine-gunned by Messerschmitts not once or twice but repeatedly. This is not rumor; it is fact.
Thousands in our army of refugees rode bicycles and they made the best time. Often a military convoy came down the road against our tide of traffic. Then we would stop and wait interminably until it passed. Those on bicycles managed to keep going, winding in and out of the massed traffic.
Thousands were walking, many carrying huge packs on their shoulders. This was a quiet, patient army. There was little talk. The hours passed slowly. My uniform and military pass gave me priority. And yet in eight hours I had only covered fifty miles.
It started to rain as night fell. Now we began to be held up by trucks and automobiles that had run out of gasoline. There was no gasoline to be had. Women stood on the roadside crying to us for gasoline as we passed. We could only look ahead and drive on. The rain continued to fall softly and the night grew very dark, which made us breathe easier. Even German bombers can't see through a pall of blackness.
Individuals would emerge from the mass when we stopped. Here on the roadside was a woman lying asleep. Her head pillowed on her bicycle. Here was a farm wagon that had broken down. A man and woman with their three children, the youngest in the mother's arms, looked at the wreck. The rear axle had broken and when the wagon collapsed its weight had completely smashed one wheel. They stood there looking at it, their faces empty of everything but despair. The road was completely jammed now. A man went from car to car asking: "Is my wife there? She has lost her mind. She has lost her mind."
He asked me and I said: "No, she isn't here." And he looked his amazement at hearing his mother tongue. He was English, had owned a bookstore in Paris. We heard a strange laugh and he ran toward it quickly. I followed. He had found his wife. She had left their car and now she had returned to it. She kept laughing.
Their car had run out of gasoline. They had no food. The woman laughed and then cried a little and said, "Help us."
I took the man back to my tiny car. I showed him my gasoline meter. I had less than three gallons left. There was no room in my car for anything. I had no food, I couldn't help. People around us looked on, saying nothing. There was nothing to be said. Thousands were in the same predicament. But this woman had cried. That was breaking the rule a little bit. No one else was crying.
Our army went on through the night. Hours later a whisper ran back: "Alerte . . . alerte." It had started perhaps miles ahead and had come back to us. The very few cars that had been showing lights snapped them off. Boche bombers were somewhere overhead in that black, unknown world above us. We were very quiet, thousands of us. I stepped out of my car. I flashed my light once to see where we were. I was in the middle of a bridge. Not a good place to be with German bombers overhead. But there was no place to go.
We stood on the bridge, kept from going either backward or forward by the press of cars and trucks and wagons and bicycles and people and by the blackness of the night. Far to the right we could see occasional flashes and now and then hear the sound of the guns. Faintly now we heard the hum of a plane. It may have been the drone of fifty planes, flying high. It's hard to tell at night. Then it stopped. It may have been a French plane or fifty French planes.
Our army resumed its weary, tragic march. Now some turned off the road. We were in a beautiful part of France. It was raining too hard to sleep in the fields that bordered the road. I drove as long as I could but the intense blackness of night strains your eyes as effectively as strong light does and when I had gone off the road twice I gave up.
Occasionally a car crawled by or a silent bicyclist or a few on foot passed. From the thousands and thousands ahead and behind came an overwhelming silence that somehow had the effect of terrific, overpowering noise. This silent symphony of despair never stopped. It was impossible to sleep. We sat in our cars and our wagons and waited for the dawn. It took hours for it to come and when it arrived it was a murky dawn. Without food or drink, we set forth south, always south.
We passed through small towns. Streams of cars half a mile long would be lined up at a gasoline pump that had run dry days before. Now we passed stranded cars every few minutes. Sometimes people pushed their cars, hoping that there would be fuel in the next town. There was no fuel in the next town. There was no fuel and there was no food. We were the stragglers in this army. For more than a week it had been passing this road.
At one town we passed a railroad station. A long freight train was just pulling in from Paris. The doors of the freight cars were open and humanity poured out, spilled, overflowed. These were the cars on which the famous sign, "Forty men, eight horses," was scrawled during the past war. Forty men. There were at least one hundred men and women and children in each of these freight cars. At each station the doors were opened for five minutes. This train had been on the road nearly three days from Paris. Once the train had been machine-gunned. Not one, but everyone I spoke to, told me the same story., It had been machine-gunned by eight German planes. French fighters had come and driven them off. Had anyone been hit? No one knew.
The congestion increased the farther south we went. People looked even wearier. Thousands of them had walked from. Paris. We were a hundred and fifty miles from there now. Finally I arrived at Tours.
There was no rest for weary wanderers in Tours. The bombers came, aiming for an airport on the outskirts of the city and for a bridge that led south.
The huge square in front of the city hall was packed with tired refugees. They ran when the bombs crashed. When bombs fall close to you, your only thought is to get somewhere else. They ran but their heavy feet rebelled and when they fell they lay where they had fallen, shapeless bundles of apathy and despair. Three times within an hour the Germans came and the horrible, shrill noise of tearing; silk that the bombs made as they screamed earthward and the shattering explosions a second later drained whatever small vitality there was left in the pain-racked bodies of these miserable children of ill fortune.
They had to move on. They stumbled on south, bearing the cross of their despair with the same courage and stoicism with which another had borne a cross nearly two thousand years ago.
Ken Downs and his International News Service crew had arrived in Tours three days before. There wasn't a hotel room to be had or a pint of gasoline to be bought in the city. I unrolled my sleeping bag on the floor in one of Downs' rooms in the drab Hôtel de l'Univers. I had a story to send so I hurried to the Town Hall where the Ministry of Information and the censor had set up offices. So had the incredible Louis Huat who was in charge of Press Wireless. Most of us sent our stories via Press Wireless. It was cheaper than the other services and then we knew that somehow Louis would get them through. I saw him work fifty hours in Tours without a break and not one complaint ever came from New York about the condition of our stories when they arrived.
I brought my story in to the censor. He was a Colonel and new to me. He sat behind an untidy desk. I gave him my story.
"I'm very anxious to get this right off," I told him.
""Parlez français s'il vous plaît," he said curtly.
""Est-ce que vous n'êtes pas le censeur pour la presse américaine?" I asked in amazement.
""Oui, oui," he said sharply, "je ne parle pas l'anglais mais je peux le lire."
I winced at this and wondered again about that thin red line of red tape. I was beginning to remember everything that Colonel Fuller had said in Paris. This man was a censor---ergo---he could censor any copy. It was typically beautiful illogical French logic. What if he didn't know English? He was the censor, wasn't he? I sat down in front of him, much to his annoyance, while he read the story. It's a trick I've always used. I find (it's true even in London where I am now) that a censor hesitates to use his blue pencil if you are sitting right next to him. Anyhow it worked on this non-English-speaking Colonel.
He got to the last page, stamped it, nodded, said, ""Bon," and handed it back to me. I doubt if he had understood twenty words of it. I rushed across the hall to Louis Huat's office. He was there. When I handed him my story I knew that it was in New York. We all had the most fantastic confidence in Louis---none of which was misplaced. As long as Press Wireless operated we'd all stay in Tours. It wasn't comfortable, but for the moment it was the news center of the world.
I went back to the bar of the Univers. Bob Casey of the Chicago Daily News was there. It was Casey who managed to write grand stuff all during the dull months of the "phoney war" which ended on May 10th. All winter long Casey sent beautiful stories to his newspaper. In our craft we have a lot of respect for Casey. He looks like a fat leprechaun who has lost most of his hair---but he writes like an angel.
"I picked him," Casey was telling the bartender. "The only one in Philadelphia to pick him."
"What did you pick, Bob?" I asked him after telling the bartender to give me a drink on Casey's bill.
"I picked Tunney to beat Dempsey in their first fight," Casey said stoutly. "And I bet on Tunney. The only one who picked him to win and who bet on him."
"I know another guy who picked him, sweetheart," I told Bob.
"Who?" Bob asked truculently.
"A guy named Gene Tunney," I told him gently. "Then there was another named Bernie Gimbel and a man you never heard of named Jack La Gorce, editor of the National Geographic and Ed Van Every, who is now with the Sun, and. . . ."
The scream of the siren interrupted me. I defy anyone, even Hitler or Coughlin, to speak above the Tours siren. It sounded like a dentist's drill that had been wired for sound. There were about five women in the bar and six or seven men. We all stiffened a little. You do, you know. You can't be casual about a bombing any more than you can about a wedding. Whether you like it or not it's one of the biggest things that'll ever happen to you.
The bombs were landing close. Too close. The bartender ran from behind his bar. There were three large windows in the bar facing a courtyard. The bartender hurriedly closed the windows.
"That'll keep 'em out, pal," I told the bartender. He smiled happily.
"In the last war I used to be with the artillery," Casey said mildly. "We learned about a thing they call 'concussion.' If your windows are open and a bomb falls close, there is a good chance that the windows won't even break."
"Don't tell the kid, Bob, it'll only make him unhappy."
Bob and I had another drink---of course it was a whiskeyless day and we had to drink champagne orange, which strangely enough is half champagne and half orange juice. The explosions were near enough to make us wince at every crack, but they didn't bother Casey. Casey has a supreme belief in two things---his wife and his luck. Take him all around and Casey is quite a hunk of man. In our trade I never heard anyone say a mean thing about Casey and that's quite a tribute.
Ken Downs came running in with a rumor that there was a gas station less than five blocks away which had just been given a consignment of gasoline. I had about a pint of gasoline left in my baby car which was sulking outside the hotel. I practically leaped into it and headed for this oasis. When I got there I found a line ahead of me. I counted the cars. There were thirty-nine. I was the fortieth. I stayed there two hours getting nearer to the sacred font every little while. By the time I reach the gas pump there were at least a hundred cars behind me.
"I'm afraid there is none left." The buxom woman who ran the place was sweatingly turning the pump.
But she put the end of the hose in my gas tank and of course there was some left. Each of us was only allowed ten litres---that's about two gallons---enough to take me sixty miles in my little pushcart. There were just ten litres left. She pulled the hose out and shrugged her shoulders.
"And that, my pretty one, is what we call Reynolds luck," I told her. She didn't know what I was talking about but I did. I was mobile again. I could go halfway to Bordeaux, if I had to.
No one slept much that night. Rumors crawled around the streets of Tours like cats chasing their own tails. Sometimes the rumors caught up with themselves. Paris had fallen. Paris hadn't fallen. America had come into the war. America hadn't come into the war. It was like that all night and not much fun. All night long we heard German bombers flying over us. We actually thought it was a tough night. I'm glad we couldn't see ahead. I'm writing this in London in my lovely apartment. The only drawback is the fact that two hours ago a bomb landed across the street and knocked all of my windows out again----the third time. Yes, there must have been a dozen German bombers up over Tours that night. Tonight there are probably four hundred over London. But we'll let that pass. Let's get back to Tours.
The next morning I went to the good old Town Hall first thing to see good old Louis Huat, to see if my message had gone through. It had gone through. I went into the censor's room once more. The censors weren't there but the painters were. Then a horrible and incredible rumor swept through the building. The Government had left secretly at five A.M. for Bordeaux. The Government hadn't told anyone. Tours was useless now. Louis Huat, his eyes bloodshot, a four-day beard on his tired face, said, "I'll get to Bordeaux somehow. I'll be ready for you boys when you get there."
The painters kept on painting. I told them that the Government, the censors, the Ministry of Information, the wireless, had all moved or were about to move to Bordeaux so why in hell were they keeping on with their painting. They kept solemnly stroking the dingy walls of the room with nice oyster-white paint.
"We got orders two weeks ago to paint the inside of this building," one of them said. "Government orders. So we're going to finish the job."
"I hope Dr. Goebbels will like it," I said and left. It was as good an exit line as any.
DOWNS, KNICKERBOCKER AND I held a council of war. We decided to evacuate Tours---but immediately. By now we knew enough about the Blitzkrieg tactics of the Germans to make plausible the rumor that kept leaping from pub to pub, that they were on the way to Tours. If we were caught in Tours it wouldn't have been good for any of us. Knick and I were on their black list. Downs had been accredited to the French Army. Even if, they didn't kick us around they would make us immobile. They certainly wouldn't let us file stories. And then there was the fairly well substantiated rumor to the effect that Bill Bullitt had told friends that America would be in the war within eight days. If America came in we would be enemy aliens. It seemed the better part of valor to run like hell. We ran.
It was dark when we left and the German bombers were chipping away at the city. We decided to spend the night at the Château de Cande, which was the headquarters of that portion of the American Embassy which had been sent out of Paris. It was a lovely estate. It was here that Mrs. Simpson had married her silly English lover. Or, to put it the other way: it was here that the Duke of Windsor had married that silly American woman. Never were so many thousands of words cabled about less, as were cabled about the solemnizing of that holy union. When they die, on their tombstone should be engraved, "They Deserved Each Other."
But it was a lovely estate. The outer gate was locked. We rang and rang, and finally an ancient bundle of plumpness arrived to ask sharply what we wanted. Downs had covered the Simpson-Windsor imbroglio and she remembered him. He told her what we wanted---room on the lawn to sleep. She grumbled that she'd have to get permission from the American Embassy which occupied the house. She went away and didn't return. We were in no mood to dicker. We'd all had a tough seven days and we wanted a night's sleep. Knick and Downs climbed the iron picket fence and walked the mile and a half to the house. They aroused a sleepy and very junior member of the Embassy staff. Reluctantly he came back with them and opened the gate.
He brought us to the stables and said that we could have all the blankets we wished. We were a bit put out, because our relations with the Embassy had been excellent. We had been accustomed to the effusive friendliness of Ambassador Bullitt, the genial companionship of Maynard Barnes, the press attaché, and of Colonel Fuller. Any of them would have said,
"Here's the house, boys. Come in, have a drink, and make yourselves at home." But this very junior member was very sleepy and not at all interested. So we took the blankets and rolled up in our sleeping bags on the closely cropped lawn sanctified by the fact that once it had been trod upon by the high-heeled shoes of La Belle Simpson. However, happily none of us heard those aristocratic footsteps and we all slept as comfortably as one can sleep on a dew-wet lawn.
The sun woke us early and we decided to ask the junior member of the Embassy for a few gallons of gasoline. We threw pebbles against the high windows of the lovely house. No one awoke. There was of course only one thing to do. We went to the garage, found a short length of hose and siphoned a few liters of gasoline from the Embassy cars which were standing there. We comforted ourselves with the excuse that had Bullitt been there he would have given us all the gasoline we needed. Afterwards in Bordeaux we met some of the American Embassy lads who told us that the theft of the gasoline had made the junior members of the staff very angry. Our replies were more vigorous than polite. I still know that Bullitt would have said, "Come in, boys, the place is yours. Gasoline? Take all you want." Junior members of an Embassy are apt to take themselves more seriously than do their bosses.
And so we headed for Bordeaux. Mickey Wilson had planned a route that took us by way of back roads. We had the roads entirely to ourselves and it was for the moment grand fun. Now and then we'd find a bistro open and we'd gorge ourselves with bread, cheese and wine. Then we'd push on. My Baby Austin never faltered. And in small villages we found gasoline pumps which gave us all the fuel we needed.
Then we arrived at chaos and Bordeaux. The incredible Louis Huat had set up offices in a large loft building. It had been a labor union headquarters and it was all concrete and steel. The censor was here and what was left of the Ministry of Information. We found a large empty office and put "Official" on the door. This was our home. We unrolled our sleeping bags, put our typewriters on desks and did everything but put drapes on the windows. Bordeaux was normally a City of 250,000 people. Now there were three million of us in the city. Bordeaux was bulging at the seams. Bordeaux was an overfilled sack of flour tied too tightly around the middle. It was night and thousands were standing in front of restaurants. When they were told that there was no food left they continued to stand there. Wild rumors chased one another along the dark, packed streets. The Cabinet had resigned; Reynaud was out; there was talk of capitulation. Added to the pain and misery stamped, perhaps permanently, on the faces of these homeless, there was now bewilderment. This thing couldn't be. This country their ancestors had built could not die. They and their fathers before them had tilled the soil, had nursed vineyards and had watched green leaves grow into sturdy vines and had seen the wonder of grapes being born and living and growing. Then they had turned the grapes into pure wine.
What crime had they committed that they should now lie miserably in fields and in city streets? Had they placed too much faith in their rulers?
I sat in a crowded restaurant. The alerte sounded. Lights were put out and service ended. A trembling voice cried: "Fifty Boche planes are coming over Bordeaux. I heard it. I know it is true. Fifty planes will kill us all." The voice came from the woman who ran the restaurant. No one moved. No one said anything. We were all a little bit embarrassed for the woman. Then an officer laughed. "Stop talking nonsense, Madame. Go back to your kitchen and find fifty eggs. We are all hungry." The woman stared ahead for a moment, brushed the hair back from her forehead and turned into the kitchen. The night was soft, trying perhaps to make one forget the helpless misery of three million homeless who were on the streets of Bordeaux. But no one looked up. The magic of the night was ignored. People were too tired. The English journalists hurried to a ship that had been sent for them. They had to get out quickly. We Americans were safe enough for the moment. We crawled into loft buildings to sleep. It was easy to sleep even on hard floors. The flight from Paris had been a long one and a tiring one.
In the morning the homeless again started their pathetic trek to the south. Many left cars on the streets. There was no gasoline. Many abandoned broken wagons and cars and smashed bicycles. Where were they going? They didn't know. For days and for weeks they had endured this agony. It was not a pleasant sight to watch, this twentieth-century Gethsemane.
Then came the incredible rumor, quickly verified, that the Reynaud Cabinet was out; that Pétain was in. People clutching at straws of hope, cheered wildly. Pétain and Weygand would run things. Two tough army generals---they'd stem the tide of defeat. Pétain, the hero of Verdun---he'd rally the army.
Sitting in the darkness of our loft building retreat, Downs and I weren't so sure. Neither was Knick, or a couple of French correspondents whom we knew.
"Foch was always the man of action," one of them said cautiously. "Pétain was his assistant. Pétain was the careful calculating one. Foch was the strong one. Foch and Clemenceau. Pétain is a strategist ... but wait."
We didn't have long to wait. The next day Pétain made his incredible speech of capitulation which sickened us all. He called upon the army to stop fighting. We knew that Winston Churchill had come to Bordeaux and promised Pétain a division a day if he'd hold out a bit longer. We knew that Bullitt had talked to Pétain and had told him that America would help in every way.
That day Downs and I had lunch in the Chapon Fin, one of the world's finest restaurants. I think that only Horchers in Berlin and the Colony in New York compare with it. We only got in by showing our military passes. It was an incredible gathering. Pierre Laval was at one table gnawing on his moustache. Keen-looking Georges Mandel was at the other end of the room looking tense and white. Genial Anthony Drexel Biddle was at another table, urbane, smiling, jocular, although he was under a terrific strain. Parenthetically it might be added that he, deputizing for Bullitt, did a magnificent job getting American and English refugees out of Bordeaux.
France was falling to bits around our heads, but Downs could talk solemnly to the wine steward about what kind of Bordeaux we should have with our hors d'œuvres; what kind of Burgundy with our meat. And for the moment that was the most important thing in the world to the sommelier. And of course to us. We hadn't slept in a bed for a week and we hadn't had a bath. Our uniforms were filthy---but we had Nuits- Saint-Georges, 1923, and we had sole Marguery, and after that steak with a wine sauce. And then Napoléon brandy---that probably really was Napoleon brandy.
"The condemned man ate a hearty meal," Downs said happily.
"I wish we were condemned to this for a month," I said.
Mandel arose and walked by Laval's table without saying a word to him. A French newspaperman Downs and I knew, stopped Mandel and talked briefly to him. When Mandel went out, our French colleague came and sat with us.
"What did Mandel say?" I asked him.
"He said, 'If my name were Du Pont I could still save France. But it is Mandel.'"
It was a rather horrible statement, but of course true. Mandel was magnificent. He was a protégé of Clemenceau. They called Mandel the Tiger's Cub. He was one lone voice crying aloud in the wilderness but even his fine honest voice could not be heard above the rustle of red tape; above the clink of gold that found its way to the pockets of the men in power; above the confused babbling of incoherent minds.
Mandel will soon be dead, I suppose. The Germans would be fools to let him live. As long as there is breath in his body, Mandel will go on screaming to his people to fight. Mandel had only two faults which prevented him from controlling the Cabinet. He loved his country too much to be a clever politician and he was unlucky enough to have been born in the faith of Jesus.
That was a bitter night in Bordeaux. People finally realized that it was all over. As dusk fell, Downs and I sat at a table outside a café. We felt as bad as the thousands of weary refugees who passed ghostlike in the gloom. Now and then we heard mutterings as people noticed the "American War Correspondent" on the shoulders of our uniforms. America had promised so much---and had done so little. Speeches by prominent Americans promising help for France had been printed every day in the papers. The French people were foolish enough to have believed them. There were a few soldiers now passing, a little drunk, filled with despair and hatred and disgust. It was hard to blame them.
"We'd better get out of these uniforms," Downs said quietly.
I agreed. We climbed into my ridiculous car and went to our loft building. It loomed large and dark .and deserted-looking. Practically everyone had left. We climbed the stairs wearily.
"I'm not very proud of being an American tonight, Ken," I said.
"I'm not either." Downs had been stationed in Paris for several years. He'd gotten to love the country and the people. We sat on the floor of our dreary office not saying anything much. We felt as if we were attending a wake. I fumbled around on the desk and found a bottle of wine and half a loaf of bread. We ate the bread and passed the bottle back and forth and tried to rationalize what had happened.
Why did France collapse? By now everyone has written about that, and given reasons. André Maurois in his excellent articles in Collier's, "What Happened to France," told the story. Downs and I that night could think of but two reasons why France was now dead. First of all there was the Maginot Line. That extended, you'll remember, from the Swiss frontier to Montmédy; that is, to the Belgian frontier. At first it was proposed to build the line right through to the sea. King Leopold of Belgium, however, suggested mildly that he would consider it an unfriendly act if the Ligne Maginot were built along the French-Belgian border. Brave Belgium would be barrier enough if an invader were to come. The French believed it. The biggest and most costly white elephant in history stood there blinking in the sun while the fighting all went on miles away. Had the Maginot Line been extended to the sea there would have been no Sedan, no Abbeville, no Dunkirk.
And then Mandel's name was not Du Pont!
That's what Downs and I decided that night in Bordeaux, sitting on the floor in the darkness, drinking wine and eating stale bread. Nothing that has happened since has altered our opinion. We decided another thing that night. We decided to get the hell out of Bordeaux. The next day we did.
AND NOW WE'RE RIGHT BACK where we started from, on the dock at Pointe de Graves. Downs and I had heard that a Dutch freighter was to leave for England from Pointe de Graves. We got passes from the Embassy which entitled us to a passage on the ship. Then we headed for the harbor. Reluctantly I left my Baby Austin in front of the Café Suisse in Bordeaux, hoping that someone would provide it with a good home. It had been a friendly little car.
Downs decided to evacuate his whole staff to England. Mickey Wilson had gone two days before with Knick and the English newspaper men. But we still had a formidable group to get on that ship. There was Merrill Mueller, John McVane and his wife, Lucy, William the office boy and the Comtesse Jacqueline de Moduit. Jackie was the office secretary. She was French of course and she had worked for Downs for several years. A few days before she had left Paris she received news that her husband and her brother were both "missing." Jackie bore up beautifully Convinced that both were dead and that France too was dead, she wanted to go to England. But she had no passport. We couldn't get her a pass to board the freighter. However, she decided to drive from Bordeaux to Pointe de Graves with us.
We all slept on the dock or in the fields adjacent, waiting for the dawn. It was a long time coming. Then a brisk English naval officer appeared on the scene. He was in charge of getting refugees out to the ships.
"You are all going on the S.S. Benekom," he said. "The ship is supposed to wait for a train load of people coming from Bordeaux but I have a suspicion that the captain may get the wind up and just leave. I'd better get you out there now."
He had a tender waiting at the end of the dock. Downs handed him the key of his car.
"It's almost new. I can't take it with me," he said. "Maybe you can find a use for it."
The officer shook his head wearily. "I've been offered two hundred cars in the past week. Sorry, I have no use for a car."
Downs asked him if he wanted our passes. He shook his head impatiently. Obviously he didn't want to be bothered with any red tape. Jacqueline stood there looking at Downs. Ken tried to look away. We all stood there awkwardly. We had all been through a lot together and the thought of leaving Jacqueline alone in France made us all miserable. However, she had no passport, no pass for the ship, and legally had no right to leave France. But Downs was the boss.
"Come on, Jackie," he said, and for the first time in a week, Jackie smiled.
We climbed into the tender. The dawn was just beginning to come over the horizon. The Benekom was a sturdy, ten-thousand-ton freighter, and she looked awfully good to us. The Chief Engineer met us as we climbed aboard. He was all smiles and he spoke English. He verified what the British naval officer had said. The captain was getting a bit worried. During the night the Germans had dropped bombs all around the ship but had missed. Then they had returned and swooped low and had machine-gunned the Benekom. The captain would be very happy to get to sea. There was hot coffee waiting for us in the galley, the Chief added.
A tarpaulin had been spread over the aft hatch, and this was to be our home. We unrolled our sleeping bags and unpacked. We had been told that each of us could bring aboard only what could be carried in a knapsack. I had two bottles of brandy, two cans of tongue, a toilet kit, a half dozen handkerchiefs and my typewriter. Downs had about the same.
"This is going to be a difficult trip, mon Général, I suggested to Downs. "We'd better start working angles right now."
We always called Downs "The General." He had a genius for organization. The fact that his whole staff was here on board proved that.
"I'm the General," he said a little wearily. "I only function on land. How about you being the Admiral? What angles can we work?"
"I will love up the Chief Engineer," I said. "A Chief Engineer always has a nice cabin. Somehow or other we have to end up with that cabin of his. Then we have no cigarettes---none at all. Maybe he has some. I'll start by giving him a bottle of brandy."
I went to the Chief and asked his permission to look at the engine room. I told him that I'd been to sea for years and had always worked in the engine room. Actually I had made one trip as a wiper on the K. I. Luckenbach when I was sixteen. But the Chief's face lighted up. He was proud of his engine room, as well he might have been. I admired everything I saw. Then he offered me a cigarette. I almost swooned when I saw what it was. It was a Chesterfield. I hadn't had one since leaving Paris. I practically forced the bottle of brandy on him. He protested weakly and then suggested that we drop into his cabin for a drink. It was just six A.M. No man ever had more of a fuss made over him than that poor engineer. I lit his cigarette. I poured him drinks. His cabin was roomy and very comfortable. Finally he asked me shyly if I'd like to look at a picture of his wife and children, and then I knew I had him hooked. I squeezed a crocodile tear out of my eye when I saw the picture of his fat, healthy-looking children.
"That girl is so lovely. My little one had she lived." I couldn't go on.
"Ah yes," the Chief said, putting his arm on my shoulder. "It is like that. I know how it is."
"My pal Ken Downs would love to see this picture," I said, sprinkling my voice with a dash of Hearts and Flowers. "He has two children just about the same age."
"Would he join us in a drink?"
"I'll get him," I said, and practically ran to the hatch. General Downs was testing out the sleeping possibilities of the hatch.
"Awfully hard," he said. "I don't think we'll get much sleep here."
"The Admiral would like to report that the Chief Engineer is well in hand," I told him. "Come along and see our new cabin."
"Is the Chief giving us his cabin?" Downs asked.
"He doesn't know it yet, but he is," I said and brought Ken in to meet my man. Downs went into proper rapture over the picture of the youngsters. I thought he overdid it a bit when he said that the Chief's wife reminded him a little bit of Myrna Loy, but the Chief lapped it up. I thought it was time to really get down to business.
"Chief, I'd give anything for another one of your cigarettes," I said. He opened a drawer and there, lying on top of shirts and socks, were two cartons of Chesterfields.
"My God," Downs breathed.
"Looks like we struck oil, pal," I muttered to him. The Chief gave us each a pack of cigarettes. Within a half hour he had dug up a cabin for Lucy McVane and Jacqueline. We, of course, could use his cabin any time we wished. Just make it our home, he said. It wouldn't be such a bad trip after all, we decided.
We walked out on deck feeling pretty well satisfied with ourselves. It was one of those south of France mornings. Once upon a time Scott Fitzgerald wrote a book called Tender Is The Night. It was about the south of France. He described those incredible mornings. For a description of this particular morning, pick up Tender Is The Night. I reread that book once every year. It was like that this morning, soft as the neck of a kitten.
Then we had a rude interruption. Fifty yards from the ship a geyser of water shot into the air to the accompaniment of sound effects. It was one of the loudest explosions I'd heard up to that time. The big ship swayed gently, the geyser fell slowly, the water bubbled angrily---and then everything was silent. This was a magnetic mine. The bombers had dropped it during the night. It had fallen between our ship and another large freighter lying perhaps two hundred yards away from us. Apparently the steel attraction from both ships was fairly equal, so that the mine couldn't make up its mind which way to go. It must have spent a miserable night shifting back and forth. Then its frustration found outlet in its own destruction. I found I was sweating a little.
Then we heard the buzz of airplanes. We couldn't see them at first, and then we discovered a dozen of them, silver white, flying high. Red Mueller had joined us at the rail and we kept looking at the planes which seemed to be directly headed for us. What were they? Then Mueller said, "It's all right. They are French Moranes."
We relaxed. Mueller was the only one of us who knew about airplanes. In addition to being a fine reporter, Red was a fine pilot. If he said they were Moranes, they were Moranes. At that time I couldn't tell a Flying Fortress from an Autogyro. Since then Goering has educated us in London. Now we listen for a moment, don't even bother looking up, and say blithely, "There's a Boulton Defiant on half throttle." Of course we are practically never right, but we think we are. There is only one infallible test to determine whether a plane above is a German or an English bomber; stand there and if it drops a bomb on you, then you are fairly safe in assuming that it is a German plane.
The little Moranes flew over us and why they didn't keep right on flying to England I don't know. They'd come in handy these days. But they didn't. Then somewhere aft we heard a heavy grating noise; the anchor was being lifted.
The Chief Engineer came out and said, "Yes, the Captain has had enough. We are off."
"Well, we've had a hell of a farewell party," I said.
"I will be on duty for the next four hours," the Chief said. "If you care to take a nap in my cabin ......
Downs and I were in a sleeping mood. We couldn't remember when we'd had a decent night's sleep. We crawled into the Chief's bunks and if the harbor was full of floating mines and if the sea outside was infested with submarines, they'd have to function without our help. We slept.
The trip from Pointe de Graves to Falmouth was very dull, which pleased us enormously. There were only thirty-five of us on board so there was enough food for us all. It was pretty dreary food and we had potatoes and soup twice every day, but even that didn't bother us. It was quiet. The reaction of the past few weeks had set in and we were all a bit nervous and irritable. We needed a rest and we got it. We even peeled potatoes every morning and liked that. I was excused when the cook discovered me absentmindedly saving the skins and throwing the potatoes away. Jacqueline and Lucy McVane, who should have been miserable and unhappy at the rather difficult cramped quarters and dull food, were the brightest of us all. The war has shown us one thing; women can take a beating much better than men can. The two girls had even miraculously made their hair attractive. Two great troupers---those girls.
Twice during the trip we were told that submarines were in the vicinity. But we were bored with bombs and with guns and with killing, and we yawned, stretched out on the hatch and slept. The Chief Engineer's cigarettes held out and the ship's store yielded six bottles of sherry. It had nothing else, but we were happy with the comfortable cabin belonging to the Chief and the Chief's cigarettes. Then one morning we sighted land. The trip had taken four days. Because we were alone and unconvoyed, our Captain had done a lot of zig-zagging, which made the trip much longer than it would have been ordinarily. Falmouth harbor looked mighty nice to us. It was filled with ships---we counted ninety-five. Many were refugee ships, others freighters from South Africa or Australia. They were battered-looking ships, dingy in their war paint. Most of them had the white line painted around their hull showing that they had been De Gaussed---made immune to magnetic mines.
We hoped that we could get off that day but no one came from shore. No one came the next morning either and we began to think that we were a forgotten ship. Downs and I went into a huddle. We decided to send a wireless message to Joe Kennedy asking him to facilitate our landing. We wrote a nice long cable, but then found that the ship's operator could not send it. It was forbidden to send messages while in port.
That afternoon a launch drew up alongside. Two naval officers, looking mighty smart, climbed aboard. They looked at the ship's papers and then cheerfully told us that we probably would have to wait another day or two.
"Falmouth is crowded with refugees," they told us. "The dock is packed with people who have been waiting twenty-four hours just to get into town. Then the line at the customhouse is half a mile long. You may as well stay here."
Between us we managed to scrape up ten dollars. By that I mean that Downs and I managed to get a ten-dollar bill which Red Mueller had been hoarding. We gave that to one of the naval officers with our cable. He sent it and the next morning a boat came to take us off. It was a dreary, rainy day, the first rain we'd seen in weeks. The boat tied up alongside. A couple of officers scrambled up the side. We all leaned over the rail looking down below at the tidy little craft, at the Union Jack flying proudly from it. A grizzled old sailor looked up at us. We were a dreary-looking crew, Dutch, Belgian, English refugees and our Americans. Refugees as a class are the most unattractive- looking people in the world. But the old sailor smiled and waved a cheery hello to us.
"There'll always be an England," he shouted up complacently.
We thought our troubles were over now. We realized that we had been over-optimistic when the tender brought us to the dock. It was a big dock, perhaps seventy yards long. It was absolutely packed with a seething, miserable mass of men, women and children. There were at least three thousand on the dock. There was an iron gate at the shore end of the dock. Every fifteen minutes or so they let ten refugees through. At this rate we'd be here for eight or ten hours at least. The rain had increased. There was no shed over the dock. There was no place to sit down.
Then came a cheery voice calling for the "American journalists." It was from a messenger from the Foreign Office. Joe Kennedy had really gone to work.
"The Foreign Office instructed me to get you right through," the messenger said, and we breathed happily again. We gathered our knapsacks and our typewriters and our messenger, escorted by a policeman, led us through the envious but apathetic crowd. Finally we reached the iron gate which was guarded by a huge Sergeant.
"I have a message from the Foreign Office to let these American journalists right through," our messenger said importantly.
"Well," the Sergeant smiled, "if you'll just show me the message I'll let them through."
"The message was phoned from London," our man said. "I haven't it in writing."
"Sorry," the Sergeant said briskly. "I have my orders. Every one takes his turn unless there are written orders."
We stood there, soaking wet in body and mind. Freedom was only a step away and this obdurate sergeant was blocking it. The messenger argued loudly but ineffectively. There was nothing to do but to go back to the end of the dock. It was getting dark now and the rain had increased. Everything else having failed, I thought as a last resort I'd try something.
"Sergeant," I said, speaking low and confidentially. "If I could explain perhaps you'd understand. We don't want any special privileges, in fact we wouldn't accept them even, but in Bordeaux the English Ambassador called us in and asked us if we would hurry to England. He put us on a special boat," (here I lowered my voice and the Sergeant, attentive at least, bent an ear) "and we must get to Fleet Street because Winston Churchill wants us but it's confidential and I know you won't after all." (Here I raised it) "What the Foreign Office wants us to do I don't know, but Duff Cooper cabled us to, as soon as landed, well, he wants and I suppose it's some sort of propaganda as Winston Churchill says," (here my voice trailed right off the dock but I looked him straight in the eye) "well, you know the pornus is strictly a thing and you can't go around talking branf about sarong and Mr. Churchill. God knows we don't" (good and loud) "want special privileges but if Mr. Churchill ... you see how it is."
The Sergeant nodded thoughtfully, "In that case, of course," he said heartily, "anything at all. Go right through, gentlemen. You'll find a taxi right down there."
We walked proudly down the dock. Downs, Mueller, McVane, the two girls and William the office boy were looking at me with awe. We got into the taxicab. The Foreign Office messenger was with us.
Downs said, "What the hell did you tell that cop? I couldn't understand a word you said."
"That, my pet," I told Downs, "is what we call double talk. It doesn't mean a thing. It wasn't a very good example," I said modestly, "because I had to improvise very quickly. But I have learned under the masters. Eddie Moran and Charlie Butterworth and John McClain and John O'Hara in Hollywood; Milton Berle and Mark Hanna and Jimmy Cannon in New York. Thank them, my lads, for having gotten us through."
"That's probably the first time," Red Mueller said, "that double talk ever took the place of passports."
"Now, we'll see how it works at the customhouse. Remember Jacqueline and William have no passports."
William was the son of an English father and a French mother. Although he had been born in France he was technically a fifteen-year-old British subject. His mother was dead and his father was somewhere in Switzerland. He was just another one of Ken's responsibilities. It would be difficult to prove to the custom officials that William was English. The only English he knew was a phrase I had taught him "Nuts to you, sweetheart." I told him that was English for "Merci."
"Warn the kid not to answer any questions when we get in there," I told Ken. Ken did and the kid grinned and said, "Nuts to you, sweetheart," and looked at me for approbation.
"'Bon, William, bon," I told him.
"If you'd stop giving English lessons maybe we'd get to London without being arrested," Downs said.
The custom people proved very tractable. Just a dash of Eddie Moran double; a few plaintive bleats about the trials and tribulations we'd been through; a few airy references to Joe Kennedy, Duff Cooper, Lord Beaverbrook and Winston Churchill and we each had a little slip giving us uninterrupted passage. to London. We were officially labelled "refugees" and as such could change our French money into pounds at the excellent rate of 176 francs to the pound, almost normal exchange.
"Where," I asked one of the custom men, "could we put up for the night?"
He looked us over thoughtfully, "You'd be most at home at a pub called the White Hart down by the docks. Yes, that's about the best place in town."
It was too late to get a train to London so we tiredly got back into two cabs and headed for the White Hart. But I hadn't liked the way that custom man had said, "You'd be most at home at the White Hart." I asked the cab-driver what it was like.
"A good rough and ready place," he said. "It's used mostly by the dock workers."
"I'd like to go back and slug that custom guy, Ken," I was storming,
"Maybe if we could take a good look at ourselves," Downs said drily, "we'd understand what he meant. Remember, we've been living in these clothes for many a day."
The driver told us that the best hotel in town was the Falmouth. We headed for there. It was a large, sprawling wooden building with a tidy lawn stretching down to the water. The lawn was dotted with blue and white flowers, It looked too good to be true., We walked in and, almost trembling, asked for rooms. They had plenty of rooms if we didn't mind doubling up.
Ken and I doubled up in an enormous room complete with bath. We pulled back the covers of the beds and fingered the beautiful white snowy sheets.
We tossed to see who would bathe first. I won. We began to peel off our clothes. They were cracked and muddy. Downs, the General again, now that we were on land, stalked briskly to the phone and ordered a bottle of Scotch and another of soda. I dove into the bathtub which was about the size of Billy Rose's Aquacade pool. I lay back and stretched and went right under the hot water. I hated even to put my head out.
The waiter came. Ken fixed a drink and brought it to me. Mind you I would have done the same for him but I had won the toss. He looked with distaste at the water. It had gradually assumed a dull, gray color.
"Ken, I promise never to darken your bathtub again," I said. "Give me that drink."
I lay back again, the water steaming and the Scotch and soda cold. Without any doubt I'll always remember that as the happiest moment of my life.
I yelled in to Downs, "Ken, I want to ask you a very important question."
"What is it?" he said.
"What can heaven have that we haven't got here right now?"
Downs thought awhile and then he called back, "No typewriters."