Upton Sinclair - Dragons’s teeth

But then, a still more startling possibility—the executions might mean the success of the rebels. The fact that Hugo Behr had been killed didn’t mean that the S.S. had had their way everywhere. Perhaps the S.A. were defending themselves successfully! Perhaps Stadelheim had been taken, as the Bastille had been taken in the French revolution, and the persons now being shot were those who had put Lanny in here! At any moment the doors of his cell might be thrown open and he might be welcomed with comradely rejoicing!

Delirious imaginings; but then the whole thing was a delirium. To lie there in the darkness with no way to count the hours and nothing to do but speculate about a world full of maniacal murderers. Somebody was killing somebody, that alone was certain, and it went on at intervals without any sign of ending. Lanny remembered the French revolution, and the unhappy aristocrats who had lain in their cells awaiting their turn to be loaded into the tumbrils and carted to the guillotine. This kind of thing was said to turn people’s hair gray over night; Lanny wondered if it was happening to him. Every time he heard footsteps he hoped it was somebody coming to let him out; but then he was afraid to have the footsteps halt, because it might be a summons to the execution chamber!

He tried to comfort himself. He had had no part in any conspiracy of the S.A. and surely they wouldn’t shoot him just because he had met a friend on the street. But then he thought: "Those banknotes!" They would attach a still more sinister meaning to them now. They would say: "What were you paying Hugo Behr to do?" And what should he answer? He had said that he hadn’t known what Hugo wanted of him. They would know that was a lie. They would say: "You were helping to promote a revolution against the N.S.D.A.P." And that was surely a shooting offense-even though you had come from the sweet land of liberty to do it!

Lanny thought up the best way to meet this very bad situation.

When he was questioned, he would talk about his friendship with the great and powerful, and wait to pick up any hint that the questioner had made note of the bills, or had found out about Freddi Robin. If these discoveries had been made, Lanny would laugh—at least he would try to laugh—and say: "Yes, of course I lied to those S.S. men on the street. I thought they were crazy and were going to shoot me. The truth is that Hugo Behr came to me and asked for money and offered to use his influence with the S.A. in Dachau to get my friend released. There was no question of any bribe, he said he would put the money into the party funds and it would go for the winter relief." One thing Lanny could be sure of in this matter—nothing that he said about Hugo could do the slightest harm to the young sports director.

Footsteps in the corridor; a slot at the bottom of Lanny’s door was widened, and something was set inside. He said, quickly: "Will you please tell me how long I am to be kept here?" When there was no reply, he said: "I am an American citizen and I demand the right to communicate with my consul." The slot was made smaller again and the footsteps went on.

Lanny felt with his hands and found a metal pitcher of water, a cup of warm liquid, presumably coffee, and a chunk of rather stale bread. He wasn’t hungry, but drank some of the water. Presumably that was breakfast, and it was morning. He lay and listened to more shooting off and on; and after what seemed a very long time the slot was opened and more food put in. Out of curiosity he investigated, and found that he had a plate of what appeared to be cold potatoes mashed up with some sort of grease. The grease must have been rancid, for the smell was revolting, and Lanny came near to vomiting at the thought of eating it. He had been near to vomiting several times at the thought of people being shot in this dungeon of horrors.

A bowl of cabbage soup and more bread were brought in what he assumed was the evening; and this time the warder spoke. He said:

"Pass out your slop-pail." Lanny did so, and it was emptied and passed back to him without washing. This sign of humanity caused him to make a little speech about his troubles. He said that he had done nothing, that he had no idea what he was accused of, that it was very inhuman to keep a man in a dark hole, that he had always been a lover of Germany and a sympathizer with its struggle against the Versailles Diktat. Finally, he was an American citizen, and had a right to notify his consul of his arrest.

This time he managed to get one sentence of reply: "Sprechen verboten, mein Herr." It sounded like a kind voice, and Lanny recalled what he had heard, that many of the permanent staff of these prisons were men of the former regime, well disciplined and humane. He took a chance and ventured in a low voice: "I am a rich man, and if you will telephone the American consul for me, I will pay you well when I get out."

"Sprechen verboten, mein Herr" replied the voice; and then, much lower: "Sprechen Sie leise." Speaking is forbidden, sir; speak softly! So the prisoner whispered: "My name is Lanny Budd." He repeated it several times: "Lanny Budd, Lanny Budd." It became a little song. Would that it might have wings, and fly to the American consulate!

For three days and four nights Lanny Budd stayed in that narrow cell. He could estimate the number of cubic feet of air inside, but he didn’t know what percentage of that air was oxygen, or how much he needed per hour in order to maintain his life. His scientific education had been neglected, but it seemed a wise precaution to put his straw sacks on the floor and lie on them with his mouth near the breathing hole.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday—he could tell them by the meal hours —and during a total of some eighty-two hours there were not a dozen without sounds of shooting. He never got over his dismay. God Almighty, did they do this all the time? Had this been going on ever since the National Socialist revolution, one year and five months ago? Did they bring all the political suspects of Bavaria to this one place? Or was this some special occasion, a Nazi St. Bartholomew’s Eve? "Kill them all; God will be able to pick out His Christians!"

Lanny, having nothing to do but think, had many and varied ideas. One was: "Well, they are all Nazis, and if they exterminate one another, that will save the world a lot of trouble." But then: "Suppose they should open the wrong cell door?" An embarrassing thought indeed! What would he say? How would he convince them? As time passed he decided: "They have forgotten me. Those fellows didn’t book me, and maybe they just went off without a word." And then, a still more confusing possibility: "Suppose they get shot somewhere and nobody remembers me!" He had a vague memory of having read about a forgotten prisoner in the Bastille; when the place was opened up, nobody knew why he had been put there. He had had a long gray beard. Lanny felt the beginnings of his beard and wondered if it was gray.

He gave serious study to his jailers and their probable psychology. It seemed difficult to believe that men who had followed such an occupation for many years could have any human kindness left in their systems; but it could do no harm to make sure. So at every meal hour he was lying on the floor close to the hole, delivering a carefully planned speech in a quiet, friendly tone, explaining who he was, and how much he loved the German people, and why he had come to Munich, and by what evil accident he had fallen under suspicion. All he wanted was a chance to explain himself to somebody. He figured that if he didn’t touch the heart of any of the keepers, he might at least get them to gossiping, and the gossip might spread.