Пользователь - WORLD'S END

Time passed, and the two men of business did not appear. Lanny didn't want to be a nuisance to his hostess, who must have other things to do than to entertain a casually met youth. He told her he was used to getting along by himself, and she offered to take him to the library. He had seen many large rooms in fine homes, having walls lined with volumes de luxe which were rarely touched save to be dusted. The munitions king's were all behind glass, but on the table were magazines, and he said he would be happy with those. So the gentle lady excused herself. Lanny understood that she was far too rich to ask him to call again; and besides, maybe this was all just a matter of business, as Robbie had said!

VIII

At last the two emerged from their conference; both suave as ever - but you couldn't tell anything from that. The father and son strolled down the street, and Lanny said: "Well, what happened?"

Robbie answered, with one of his grins: "I thought he was going to cry, but he didn't quite."

"Why should he cry?" The boy knew that he was supposed to be naive, so that his father would have the fun of telling it.

"I hurt his feelings by suggesting that we should require observers in the Vickers plants, to check their production under our licenses."

"Is he going to let you?"

"He said it was a very serious matter to admit strangers to a munitions factory in wartime. I answered that they wouldn't be strangers very long; he would know how to become acquainted with them." Robbie began to laugh; he enjoyed nothing more than such a battle over property rights - especially when he held the good cards close to his chest. "They really need our patents," he said; "and, believe me, they won't get them without paying. Why should they?"

Lanny didn't know any reason, and said so.

"Well, the old devil thought he knew a number of them. He was horrified at the schedule of royalties I put before him; he said he had been given to understand that America wanted to help the Allies, not to bleed them to death, or drive them to bankruptcy. I said I hadn't heard of any bankruptcies among the hundred and eighty Vickers companies in England, or the two hundred and sixty of them abroad. He said they had cut their prices to the bone as a patriotic duty to the British and French governments. I told him it was generally understood that his companies were getting the full twenty percent profit allowed them by British law.

You can see it wasn't a conversation for a duquesa to hear. Was she nice to you?"

"Very," said Lanny. "I liked her."

"Oh, sure," said the father. "But you can't like the consort of a wolf beyond a certain point."

Lanny saw that his father was not going to like Basil Zaharoff under any circumstances. He said so, and Robbie replied that a wolf didn't want to be liked; what he wanted was to eat, and when it was a question of dividing up food with him, you had to have a sharp-pointed goad in hand. "We have paid out good American money, financing inventions and perfecting complicated machines. We're not going to give those secrets to Zaharoff, not even in return for a tea party and a smile from a duquesa. We're going to have our share of the profits, paid right on the barrel-head, and I'm sent here to tell him so, and to put before him a contract which our lawyers have constructed like a wolf trap. I said that very politely, but in plain language."

"And what did you decide?"

"Oh, I left him the contracts, and he'll weep over them tonight, and tomorrow morning I'm to see his French factotum, Pietri, and he'll plead and argue, and demand this change and that, and I'll tell him to take it as it's written, or the Allies can get along with a poorer grade of machine guns."

"Will they, Robbie?"

"Just stick by me the next few days, son, and learn how we businessmen pull wires. If they turn down my contracts, I know half a dozen journalists in Paris and London who will make a story out of it for a reasonable fee. I can find a way to have the merits of the Budd products brought to the attention of a dignified and upright member of Parliament, who wouldn't take a bribe for anything, but will endeavor to protect his country against the greed of munitions magnates and the bungling of War Office bureaucrats."

IX

Robbie's next conference was with Bub Smith, the ex-cowboy with the broken nose who had come down to Juan three or four years previously and demonstrated the Budd automatic for Captain Bragescu. Bub had given up his job in Paris to work for Robbie, and had made a couple of trips to America in spite of the submarines. It was he who had brought letters for Lanny into France.

Now Robbie told his son that Bub had proved himself an "ace" at confidential work, and "was going to have the job of keeping track of the lessees of Budd patents. "Of course Zaharoff himself is a man of honor," said Robbie, with a smile. "But there's always the possibility that some of the men who run his companies might be tempted to try tricks. Bub is to watch the French plants for me."

"Can one man keep track of them all?" asked the youth.

"I mean that he'll be the one to watch the watchers."

Robbie went on to explain that it wasn't possible to carry on an industry without workers; and there were always some of these glad to give information in exchange for a pourboire. Bub would build an organization for knowing what was going on in munitions factories.

"Isn't it a rather dangerous job?" asked Lanny. "I mean, mayn't they take him for a spy?"

"He'll have a letter from me, and the embassy will identify him."

"And won't the munitions people find out about him?"

"Oh, sure. They know we're bound to watch them."

"That won't hurt their feelings?"

Robbie was amused. "In our business you don't have feelings - you have cash."

1 8

Away from All That

I

A TELEPHONE call for Lanny at the Crillon. He answered, and let out a whoop. "Where are you? Oh, glory! Come right up." He hung up the receiver. "It's Rick! He got leave!" Lanny rushed out to the lift, to wait for his friend; grabbed him and hugged him, then held him off at arm's length and examined him. "Gee, Rick, you look grand!"

The young flying officer had grown to man's stature. His khaki uniform was cut double in front, making a sort of breastplate of cloth; on the left breast was a white badge, indicating that he had a flying certificate, and high up on both sleeves were eagle wings. His skin was bronzed and his cheeks rosy; flying hadn't hurt him. With his wavy black hair cut close and a brown service cap on top he was a handsome fellow; and so happy over this visit - they were going to see Paris together, and Paris was the world!

"Gee, Rick, how did you manage it?"

"I had done some extra duty, so I had it coming."

"How long have you got?"

"Till tomorrow night."

"And how is it, Rick?"

"Oh, not so bad."

"You've been fighting?"

"I've got two boches that I'm sure of."

"You havent been hurt?"

"I had one spill - turned over in mud; but fortunately it was soft."

Lanny led him to the room, and Robbie was glad to see him, of course; he set up the drinks, and Rick took one - they all drank in the air force, too much, he said, it was the only way they could keep going. Lanny drank soda, but said nothing about it. He sat, devouring that gallant figure with his eyes; so proud of his friend, thinking that he, Lanny, would never do anything as exciting and wonderful as that; his father wouldn't let him, his father wanted him to stay at home and make munitions for other men to use. But at least he could hear about it, and live it vicariously. He asked a stream of questions, and Rick answered casually, not much about himself, but about the squadron and what they were doing.

Of course Rick knew what was in his younger friend's mind, the adoration, the hero-worship; and of course it pleased him. But he wouldn't give a sign of it, he'd take it just as he took the job; nothing special, all in the day's work.

Rick could tell now what the censor wouldn't let him put on paper. He was stationed with General Allenby's Third Army, which lay in front of Vimy Ridge. He belonged to what was called the "corps wing," the group of fliers who served a particular body of troops. Observation planes equipped with two-way radios, or with photographic apparatus, went out to observe enemy positions, and fighting planes went along to protect them. Rick flew a machine known as a "Sopwith one-and-a-half strutter." It was a single-seater, such planes being lighter and faster, and the competition of the German Fokkers had forced it. Both sides now had what were called "interrupter gears"; that is, the action of the machine gun was synchronized with the propeller, so that the stream of bullets went through the whirling blades without hitting. So you didn't have to aim your gun, but just your plane; your job was to get on the other fellow's tail, and see him straight through your sights, and then cut loose. You would see two fighting planes maneuvering for position, darting this way and that, diving, rolling over, executing every sort of twist and turn. That sight was seen over Paris pretty nearly every day, and Lanny hadn't missed it.

His friend told many things about this strange new job of fighting in the air. In the sector where he flew, it was hard to distinguish the trenches, for the entire ground was a chaos of shell-craters. He flew at a speed of ninety miles an hour, and at a height of twelve hundred and fifty feet. When you came down suddenly from that height, you had headache, earache, even toothache, but it all passed away in three or four hours. The most curious thing was that you could hear the whine of the bullet before it reached you, and if you ducked quickly you might dodge it. Somehow that gave Lanny the biggest thrill of anything he had heard about the war; a mile and a half a minute, a quarter of a mile above the earth, and playing tag with bullets!

II

England and France were getting ready for the big spring "push"; everybody knew where it was to be, but it was a matter of good form not to name places. "Be silent," read the signs all over Paris; "enemy ears are listening." Rick said the air push was on all the time; the two sides were struggling incessantly for mastery. The English had held it pretty much through 1916; now it was a local matter, varying from place to place and from week to week. The Fokkers were fast, and their men fought like demons. The problem of the English was to train fliers quickly enough; they were used up faster than they could be sent across.

Rick stopped after he had said that; for it wasn't good form to reveal anything discouraging. But now and then he would mention a name. "Aubrey Valliance - you remember that fellow with the straw-colored hair you raced with, swimming? He was downed last week, poor chap. We don't know what happened - he just didn't come back." Lanny got the picture of those bright-cheeked English schoolboys, eighteen or nineteen, some younger, having told a fib about their ages. They would volunteer, and have a few tests of eyesight and sense of balance, and then be rushed to a training camp, listen to a few lectures, go up a few times with an instructor to be taught the rudiments, then go up alone and practice this and that, maybe a week, maybe less, thirty hours of flying, or even as-few as twenty - and then off to France.

"Replacements," they were called; half a dozen would arrive in a truck at night and be introduced to their fellows; you hardly had time to remember their names. They would look on the bulletin board and see themselves scheduled to fly at dawn. They would have a drink, and a handshake, or maybe a salute. They would say: "Very good, sir," and step into their seats; the propellers would begin to roar, and away they would go, one after another. Maybe eight would go out, and only six would come back; you would wait, and listen, trying not to show your concern; after a certain period there was no use thinking about them any more, for the plane had only so much petrol, and no way to get any more. If the chap was down in enemy territory, you wouldn't know whether he was alive or dead; unless he had put up an extra-good fight, in which case an enemy flier might bring a bundle containing his boots and cap and pocketbook, and drop them onto the camp.