World's End (The Lanny Budd Novels) Page 11

  II

  The steamer was warped up to the quay, and there was Robbie waving, looking brown and handsome in a white linen suit. Presently they were settled in the back seat of the car, both of them beaming with happiness and the boy talking fast. Robbie wouldn’t discuss business until they were alone, but Lanny told about his visit to Germany, including even the Social-Democratic editor, now six weeks in the past. Robbie took that seriously, and confirmed his son’s idea that Social-Democrats were fully as reprehensible as anarchists; maybe they didn’t use bombs, but they provided the soil in which bombs grew, the envy and hatred which caused unbalanced natures to resort to violence.

  “I’m on another deal,” the father said. “There’s a big man staying on the Riviera and I have to convince him that the Budd ground-type air-cooled machine gun is the best.” That was all he would say until next day, when he and his son went sailing. Out in the wide Golfe Juan, with little waves slapping the side of the boat, “That’s my idea of privacy!” laughed the representative of Budd Gunmakers Corporation. Anchored here and there in the bay were the gray French warships, also keeping their own secrets. Lanny would keep his father’s, as he had been so carefully trained to do.

  There was another crisis in the affairs of Europe, Robbie reported; one of those underground wars in which diplomats wrestled with one another, making dire threats, always, of course, in polished French. It didn’t mean much, in the father’s opinion; the story of Europe was just one crisis after another. Three years back there had been a severe one over the Agadir question, and that had broken into the press; but now the wise and powerful ones were keeping matters to themselves, a far safer and more sensible way.

  It was a game of bluffing, and one form it took was ordering the means to make good your threats; so came harvest-time for the munitions people. When Russia heard that Austria was equipping its army with field-guns that could shoot faster and farther, the Russians would understand that Austria was getting in position to demand that Russia should stop her arming of Serbia. So then, of course, the munitions people, who had sold field-guns to Russia and Serbia two years ago, would come hurrying to St. Petersburg and Belgrade to show what improvements they had been able to devise since that time.

  It was most amusing, as Robbie told it. He knew personally most of the diplomats and statesmen and made it into a melodrama of greeds and jealousies, fears and hates. They were Robbie’s oysters, which he opened and ate. Sometimes he had to buy them, and sometimes fool them, and sometimes frighten them by the perfectly real dangers of having their enemies grow too strong for them.

  Robbie’s talks to his son were history lessons, repeated until the lad understood them thoroughly. He told how in the last great war Germany had conquered France, and imposed a huge indemnity, and taken Alsace and Lorraine with their treasures of coal and iron ore. Now whenever French politicians wanted to gather votes, they made eloquent speeches about la revanche, and the French government had formed an alliance with Russia and loaned huge sums of money for the purchase of armaments. The secret undeclared wars now being waged were for support of the near-by smaller states. “The politicians of Rumania sell out to France and get a supply of French money and arms; so then the Germans hire a new set of Rumanian politicians, and when these get into power you hear reports that Rumania is buying Krupp guns.” So Robbie, explaining the politics of Europe in the spring of 1914.

  Britain sat on her safe little island and watched the strife, throwing her influence in support of the side which seemed weaker; it being the fixed policy of the British never to let any one nation get mastery of the Continent, but to help strengthen the most promising rival of the strongest. Just now Germany had made the mistake of building a fleet, so Britain was on the side of France and had made a secret deal to render aid if France was attacked by Germany. “That has been denied in the British Parliament,” Robbie declared, “but the British diplomat’s definition of a lie is an untrue statement made to a person who has a right to know the truth. Needless to say, there aren’t many such persons!”

  So the armaments industry was booming, and anybody who could produce guns that would shoot or shells that would explode could feel sure of a market. But an American firm was at a disadvantage, because it got practically no support from its own government. “When I go into a Balkan nation to bid against British or French, German or Austrian manufacturers, I have to beat not merely their salesmen and their bankers, but also their diplomats, who make threats and promises, demanding that the business shall come to their nationals. The American embassy will be good-natured but incompetent; and this injures not merely American businessmen and investors, but workingmen who suffer from unemployment and low wages because our government doesn’t fight for its share of world trade.”

  This situation was now worse than ever, the father explained, because a college professor had got himself elected President of the United States, an impractical schoolmaster with a swarm of pacifist bees in his bonnet. As a result of his preachments American business was discouraged, and the country was on the way to a panic and hard times. Somehow or other the businessmen would have to take control of their country, said the representative of Budd Gunmakers.

  III

  Robbie mentioned to his son that the deal he had made with Rumania was in danger of falling through, and that he might have to go back to Bucharest to see about it. “Is it Bragescu?” asked Lanny—for he considered the captain as his man, in a way.

  “No,” replied the father. “Bragescu has played straight, at least so far as I can judge. But politicians have been pulling wires in the war department, and I’ve just learned that Zaharoff is behind it.”

  Once more this sinister figure was brought before Lanny’s imagination. Zaharoff was “Vickers,” the great munitions industry of Sheffield; and “Vickers” had the Maxim machine gun as their ace card. It wasn’t as good as the Budd gun, but how could you prove it to officials who knew that their careers depended upon their remaining unconvinced? Robbie compared Zaharoff to a spider, sitting in the center of a web that reached into the capital of every country in the world; into legislatures, state and war departments, armies and navies, banks—to say nothing of all the interests that were bound up with munitions, such as chemicals, steel, coal, oil, and shipping.

  Basil Zaharoff believed in the “rough stuff”; he had learned it in his youth and never seen reason to change. He had been born of Greek parents in Asia Minor, and as a youth had found his way to Constantinople, where he had been a fireman and a guide, both harmless-sounding occupations—until you learned that the former had meant starting fires for blackmail or burglary, while the latter had meant touting for every kind of vice. Zaharoff had become agent for a merchant of Athens, and in a London police court had pleaded guilty to misappropriating boxes of gum and sacks of gallnuts belonging to his employer.

  Returning to Athens, he had represented a Swedish engineer named Nordenfeldt, who had invented a machine gun and a submarine. War was threatened between Greece and Turkey, and Zaharoff persuaded the Greek government that it could win the war by purchasing a submarine; then he went to Constantinople and pointed out to the Turkish government the grave peril in which they stood, with the result that they purchased two submarines. Said Robbie Budd: “Forty years’ adherence to that simple technique has made him the armaments king of Europe.”

  New instruments of death were invented, one after another, and the Greek would seek out the inventor and take him into partnership. Robbie laughed and pointed out that a thing had to be invented only once, but it had to be sold many times, and that was why the ex-fireman always had the advantage over his partners. The toughest nut he had to crack was a Maine Yankee of the name of Hiram Maxim, who invented a machine gun better than the Nordenfeldt; the latter gun took four men to handle it, while the Maxim gun took only one and could shoot out the bull’s eye of a target just as Bub Smith did with the Budd automatic.

  Many were the stories concerning that duel between New
England and the Levant; Robbie had got them directly from the mouth of his fellow-Yankee, and so had learned to fight the old Greek devil with his own Greek fire. More than once the devil had got Maxim’s mechanics drunk on the eve of an important demonstration; it appeared that in those days it was impossible to find a mechanic who could have any money in his pocket without getting drunk. Later on, Maxim demonstrated his gun to high officers of the Austrian army, including the Emperor Francis Joseph, and wrote the Emperor’s initials on the target with bullet holes. Basil Zaharoff stood outside the fence and watched this performance, and assured the assembled newspaper men that the gun which had performed this marvel was the Nordenfeldt—and the story thus went out to the world! Zaharoff explained to the army officers that the reason for Maxim’s astonishing success was that Maxim was a master mechanic, and had made this gun by hand; it could not be produced in a factory because every part had to be exact to the hundredth part of a millimeter. This news held up the sale for a long time.

  The result of the duel was that Zaharoff learned respect for the Maxim gun, while Maxim learned respect for Zaharoff. They combined their resources, and the Nordenfeldt gun was shelved. Later on Maxim and Zaharoff sold out for six and a half million dollars to the British Vickers; Zaharoff was taken into the concern, and soon became its master. The combination of British mechanical skill with Levantine salesmanship proved unbeatable; but that was all going to be changed, now that the president of Budd Gunmakers Corporation had been persuaded to let his youngest son come over to Europe and show what a Connecticut Yankee could do in the court of King Basil!

  IV

  When the head salesman of a large business enterprise took time to explain such details to a boy, he pretended that he wanted to unbosom himself; but of course he was following out his plan of preparing the boy for his future career. Robbie Budd had for his son a dream which was no modest one; and now and then he would drop a hint of it—enough to take away the boy’s breath.

  Basil Zaharoff was sixty-five now, and couldn’t last forever. Who was going to take his place as master of the most important of all trades? And where was the industry of the future to be situated? In Sheffield, England? In the French village of Creusot? In the German Ruhr, or at Skoda in Austria, or on the Volga, as the Russian Tsar was daring to dream? Robbie Budd had picked out a far safer location, up the Newcastle River in Connecticut. “It’ll not be an extension of Budd’s,” he explained; “but a new and completely modern plant. No enemy can ever get to it, and when it’s in operation it will mean three things: American workingmen will supply the world, an American family will collect the money, and America will stand behind its ramparts, able to defy all the other nations put together. That’s what we’ll some day have to do, so why not get ready?”

  Robbie went on to explain what Zaharoff was doing in France. The country’s armament trust was known as Schneider-Creusot, and for years the old Greek devil had been intriguing to get control of it and share the profits of the rearming of Russia. He had bought a popular weekly paper so that he could tell the French people what he wished to have believed. He had endowed a home for retired French sailors and been awarded the rosette of the Legion of Honor. He had bought a Belgian bank, so as to become a director in Schneider’s; and when his rivals had kicked him out, he had proceeded to tie up Europe in a net of intrigue in order to bring them to their knees.

  First, he had gone to Turkey, and as “Vickers, Limited” had signed a contract to provide that country with warships and arsenals. This had frightened Russia, whose dream was to get Constantinople; so the old rascal had proceeded to that country, and pointed out to its officials the grave danger to them of remaining dependent upon foreign armaments. Zaharoff offered, through his British Vickers, to build a complete modern plant at Tsaritsyn on the Volga, and to lease all the Vickers patents and trade secrets to Russia. This, in turn, had frightened the French; for they could never be sure of the position of Britain in any future war, and if Russia got help from Britain, it would no longer need help from France. To make matters worse, Zaharoff had spread the story that the German Krupps were buying the Putilov arms plant in Russia. All this had broken the French nerve, and Schneider had had to give way and let Zaharoff have his share of the money which France had just loaned to Russia.

  “That’s why you have to watch the papers,” said the father, and showed an item he had clipped that very day. Vickers had received orders from the Russian government for thirty-two million dollars’ worth of armaments. “More than one-fourth the whole French loan!” sighed Robbie—deeply grieved because his country had no part in it. America’s arms plants were pitifully small, and the business they could pick up in Europe was the crumbs that fell from a rich man’s table. “But you and I are going to change all that!” said the salesman to his son.

  V

  They let down their anchor for a while and caught some fish, and Lanny told about Mr. Elphinstone, and got teased about his new English accent. Then Robbie mentioned that he had to go to Monte Carlo the following day, having an appointment with a Turkish pasha who was interested in buying ground-type, air-cooled machine guns. Robbie had found out that France was lending money to Turkey, with which to pay Zaharoff for his warships and arsenals; so the Turkish officials had plenty of cash. “It’s a queer mix-up,” Robbie said; “I’m not sure if I’ll ever understand it. Even though the French are lending money to Turkey, they appear to distrust it, and don’t want it armed too fast; but the Germans seem to want Turkey armed—at French expense, of course. I am dealing with Turkish officials who are secretly in German pay, or so I have reason to believe.”

  Lanny said he was getting dizzy at that point.

  “Yes, it’s funny,” the father agreed. “The minister I talked with in Constantinople said that our guns were too cheap; they couldn’t possibly be good at that price. Of course he wanted me to put the price higher, and give him a Rolls-Royce, or sell it to him secondhand for a hundred dollars. Finally I was advised to take up the matter with another minister who is disporting himself at Monte Carlo.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Lanny, “I saw him at the motorboat races; he wore a large striped necktie and yellow suede shoes.” The father smiled and remarked that Oriental peoples all loved color.

  Robbie told a sensational story about what had happened on board the ship. A few hours before reaching Marseille, the door of his cabin had been jimmied, and a portfolio of his papers, relating to this Turkish deal, had been stolen. Fortunately the most secret letters, which might have cost the life of that minister in Constantinople, had been sewed up in the lining of Robbie’s coat—he patted the spot. But it was highly inconvenient to lose the drawings of the gun. “Of course it was Zaharoff,” the father added.

  “You mean that he was on that ship?” asked Lanny.

  The other laughed. “No; the old wolf did that sort of thing when he was young, and belonged to the tulumbadschi, those firemen of Constantinople who were really gangsters. But now he’s an officer in the Legion of Honor, and when he wants a burglary done he hires somebody else.”

  Lanny was excited, of course. “You need a bodyguard!” he exclaimed; and then, a marvelous idea: “Oh, Robbie, why don’t you take me with you to Monte?”

  The father laughed. “As a bodyguard?”

  “If you have something you want taken care of, they wouldn’t suspect me; and I’d hang onto it, believe me!”

  Lanny’s fervor mounted, and he began a campaign. “Listen, Robbie, I stayed home and didn’t go to school for fear I’d miss seeing you; and then you come and only stay one day, and maybe you’ll be called to Bucharest as soon as you get through at Monte. But if you’ll let me go with you I can see you a lot—you’re not going to be with that Turk all day and night. When you are, I’ll keep out of the way—I’ll get things to read, or go to a movie, and I’ll stay in the hotel room at night, honest I will. Please, Robbie, please, you really ought to have somebody with you, and if I’m ever to learn about the industry—yo
u just can’t imagine what it’ll mean to me.…”

  And so on, until the father said: “All right.” Lanny was so happy he stood on his head in the stern of the boat and kicked his bare legs in the air.

  VI

  Beauty insisted upon lending them her car, so that Pierre would go along to help take care of Lanny. They would have a Budd automatic in the car, and Pierre knew how to use it—he couldn’t fail to learn in a household where boxes of cartridges lay around like chocolates in other homes. Robbie laughed and said he didn’t think Zaharoff had had any murder done for some years; but anyhow, it gave a fourteen-year-old boy more thrills than all the movies produced up to February 1914.

  The road from Antibes to Nice is straight and flat, and there were advertising signs and a big racetrack, many motorcars, and in those days still a few carriages. When you pass Nice you travel on one of three roads, called corniches, which means “shelves”; if you wanted scenery you chose the highest shelf, and if you wanted to get there you chose the lowest, but in either case you kept tooting your horn, for no matter how carefully you made the turns, you could never tell what lunatic might come whirling around the next one.

  Monaco is a tiny province with a ruler of its own. The “Prince” of those days was interested in oceanography, and had constructed a great aquarium; but this wasn’t such a novelty to Lanny, who had learned to expel the air from his lungs and sink down to where the fishes live. “Monte,” as the smart people call it, is a small town on a flat rocky height which juts out into the sea. There are terraces below it, carved out of the rock, and you can look over the water from your hotel windows; down below you hear incessant shooting, for next to playing roulette and baccarat, the favorite amusement of the visitors is killing pigeons. The tender-minded comfort themselves with the thought that somebody eats those that fall, and presumably the hawks end the troubles of those that fly away wounded.