I
IT was the morning of Friday, January 28th, 1938.
The long facade of the new ministry, stone-white in the winter sunshine, looked out on the breadth of the great square that was now mantled with salt-white snow.
It looked across at the Cathedral of St. Vitus at the Palace of Wallenstein, at the Castle of ancient kings. It looked down on the black, twisting, bridge-barred ribbon of the ice-cold Moldau, and on the narrow, age-old streets, the rich antiquity of museum and church and palace, which were the priceless jewel of Prague.
"The big house for the little Minister," so the people had called it, as it had risen in solid assertion of the city's freedom from the old yoke of the Austrian's power.
They spoke half in pride, and half in envy, if not derision of him whom they placed so high. For was he not also a Czech, and of peasant blood? In their hearts they found it hard to suppose that a Czech could be worthy of such a power, or so lofty a state. The brand of long centuries of servitude was upon their race, and twenty years of half-frightened freedom had been insufficient to wear it off. It might have been different had they been hardly oppressed in the recent past, had there been scars of shackles upon their limbs. But they had been tolerated in the easy Austrian way; they had been allowed some measure of freedom, even to individual places of power. Only, it had been understood that, if they would stand well in the land, they must ape the Austrian ways, they must talk with the German tongue.
They had been tolerated by their Hapsburg lords: plainly too inferior for envy, obviously too weak to fear.
Now, if a stranger should ask them the way to the next street in the German tongue, they would reply with no more than a silent stare, though they knew it well. If he spoke no Czech, let him ask in French, which is a language for every land, or in English, of which they would have pride in showing any knowledge they had. But the German tongue, which they had learned in their younger days, was a sound they hated to hear. They might have been more generous in their moods had they been more sure of themselves, had they been more secure in a freedom that they had not been single to win.
But the new republic of Czechoslovakia was so young that it still walked on unsteady feet. . . . and it was ringed about with covert or open foes.
It lay like a lamb surrounded by dogs which waited to share its limbs if their master's eye should be turned a moment aside; or like a well-cooked joint with those who hunger seated around.
And in the spacious dignity of the reception room of the new Ministry, the man who, except one only, had done most to steer the land to freedom and prosperous days through twenty perilous years stood listening, with a quiet expressionless face, to that which was not easy to take in a patient way.
They both stood, for the German Minister had disregarded the offered seat.
He was a tall, upright man, still exhibiting some military stiffness, though good living had hung much flesh on an ample frame. His face, and the folds of flesh that his collar creased, were of the pink of a sleep-flushed child.
His almost colourless hair was cropped so close, in the Prussian style, that it was not easy to see where his baldness ceased. He spoke in a somewhat guttural voice, but, so far, with a slow precision of chosen words, as one repeating a lesson already learned. Now he went on in a higher tone:
"I have to inform Your Excellency that we do not seek proof, of which we already have more than enough. . . . Had we been worse served by our own police, the plot could not have failed. There must have been such a crime as would have shocked the ears of the world, and stirred every German heart with a passion to take vengeance on those who had given shelter to men so base, in which to ripen their bloody schemes."
The Czech Minister was not quick to reply. He considered, behind expressionless eyes, that it was a real emotion which had raised the speaker's voice to that higher note. He must make allowance for that. He saw that the peace of Europe might be weighed in a scale which trembled to what they said.
The risk of assassination is ever present to all who rule. It is part of the price of power. Dr. Dollfus - the Yugoslavian King - there had been many before them. Doubtless there would be others to come. But he saw that, to the German mind, there was a special sanctity in the person of the present head of their own State, a special horror in the idea of his violent end, causing them to regard it differently from that of another - himself, for instance - being the victim of knife or bomb.
"If you will supply us," he said slowly, "with the proofs that you say you have, you will not find us slack to search for the authors of such a plot, or tender to root them out."
"I must remind Your Excellency," the reply came, in a voice which had become formal again," that we have had such assurances more than once before."
"Which have been sincere. You cannot tell me you doubt - - "
The German Minister avoided direct reply. "Yet this has happened again. . . . We must be better assured that it is the last time."
"I have said that, so soon as the evidence is supplied - - "
"I regret that it is a matter that cannot be longer left. We are too fully informed; and too firmly resolved that the nuisance be rooted out."
"Then what is it for which you ask?" The question was quietly put, but the Czech looked up as he spoke. The eyes of the two men met, and the German was aware that he was faced by a cold anger, hardly controlled. But his instructions were clear; his self-assurance remained.
"We ask," he said speaking with deliberate separate words, "for the expulsion from Czechoslovakia of all active Communists, whether of German or other alien blood, including any of your own citizens who are suspected of plotting against the peace of the German lands, within seven days of this date."
There was a long minute of silence before the reply came. "They have the sound of men whom we are not anxious to keep. It may not be more than we should be willing to do with goodwill, if you will leave it to me; or if you will make request in such a way that it is easy to grant."
The German did not respond. He said stiffly: "It is a matter on which we must be precise. I have a list here - - "
He drew from his breast-pocket a folded foolscap paper. He opened it, showing many names.
It was accepted in a silence as hostile as any words could have been. The Czech Minister looked it down; he turned over the first sheet.
He said: "It is a long list."
"Its length is the measure of the grievance of which we have been too patient in our complaints. . . . I do not call it complete."
"There are Germans here whom we could not expel, except to your own land."
"They are men we should not refuse to take."
The eyes of the two men met again, as the German went on: "We should require that they be put over the frontier in such a way that they will pass into the charge of our own police."
"If there be nothing against them that you can show?"
"It will be for us to decide."
"It is a request which, as you know, is beyond my own right to grant. . . . You have my assurance that it shall be fully considered without delay. You can inform your Government that I am resolved that no reasonable satisfaction shall be denied."
The words might be variously taken. The voice was controlled to a toneless quality. The German Minister found the list returned to his hand, which he did not like.
His eyes turned to the window. Facing them were the four spires of the cathedral which King Wenceslaus may have commenced to build, when Prague was a city of royal power.
Three of them were Gothic. The fourth was incongruously in the Baroque style. It had been shot down, as they both knew, by German artillery, nearly two hundred years before, and rebuilt in the newer mode. . . . and it had been a misunderstanding - no more - that had waked the guns.
"A mistake," he said, "is soon made; but its results are of longer date."
He found himself equalled in the reply: "It is the common weakness of men to teach that which they do not learn,"
He went out with no more than the formal courtesy that The etiquette of his position required.
II
IT was at the end of the same day that Caresse Langton lay awake in Lady Walford's flat, which had been lent to her for that night, so that she could meet Perdita there, and they would both be on the spot for the shopping they had to do on the following morning. They were leaving for Ostend by the night boat, for a holiday which was to be taken together, and was to be spent mainly in Prague.
Perdita had come up from her parents' home in Warwickshire on the previous day. Now she lay in the twin bed, divided by two feet of space, and eight years of youth, and by the dovetailing differences of brain and temperament which made their friendship fit like a worn glove.
It was for Perdita's sake they were going to Prague. Lawrence Norton was first secretary at the Legation there, and it was he whom Perdita Wyatt would marry, if her parents could have their will, with her own inclination supposed to follow the same track.
It had been arranged in an indirect, casual way. Caresse had written to Lawrence that she would be wandering east, as she might do (being five years married now) with no implication at all, she having known him in earlier years; and after that she had asked Perdita to come.
As she considered the matter now, she was less than clear as to the motive that had led her to fix it up. Was it a desire to do Perdita a friendly turn, or from her own wish to see Lawrence again? Was it she, or Perdita's mother, who had contrived it, in their oblique feminine ways?
Caresse had married Gerald Langton five years before, and it was an act she had no cause to regret, though he was her elder by eighteen years. He had, she knew, a responsible position in the Foreign Office at Whitehall, though it would have puzzled her to say just what it was. There were some things she understood very well in her vivid way, but there were boundaries to them beyond which her ideas were vague and unsure. She was one of those who go through life with no sense of direction. She seldom counted her change. She would not trouble to enquire when the boat-train would leave. There were always others who could be trusted to fuss over such matters as that - as she was trusting Perdita now. . . .
They had been to dinner at the Framptons'. There had been talk at the meal - light, idle talk - about the danger of war which had lain over Europe for the past three years, a sombre shadow that would not lift. It was the growing intimacy of France and Italy - or was it the growing alienation? She was not sure which, nor did it seem a point deserving exactness of memory - that was the moment's concern. But such talk would change with the days. It was like the rumbling of subterraneous forces in a volcanic land, now here, now there, and none could say where the eruption would come at last, or that there might not be a century of uneasy peace. . . .
But it was sure that Caresse would not have been kept awake by such thoughts as these. Her mind was seldom vexed by matters more distant than the next street.
She was too young to remember much of the last war that had shaken the world. Her one clear memory was of a night when she had been waked from sleep to sit with mother and aunt, and two nervously giggling maids, on the cellar steps. She could recall how obstinately she had refused her mother's urgency of command till she had slipped on the best dress she had, and straightened disordered hair to a style in which it would be seemly to die.
It was an episode that she had narrated at times in a jesting mood, but which she had learned of late to leave in silence with growing care, for it dated her now beyond the remedy of making herself younger each time that the tale was told. It gave her a sense of fretful annoyance that the war had occurred at all. Providence had been inconsiderate in an almost inexcusable way. . . .
But it was not the thought of wars that kept her awake, whether of one that was distant now, or might be speedy to come. Nor (she would have said) was it the thought of seeing Lawrence Norton again. But it was a rough night, and an east wind swept through the trees of the Green Park, so that the upper part of the window rattled loudly to every gust. . . . And so, being kept awake, she played with dangerous thoughts in a way she had, doing that in dreams which must be shunned in the waking day.
She had been near to indiscretion (or so she told herself as imagination reconstructed the past) with Lawrence Norton six years before. She did not think that she had ever told Gerald of that, although she knew she had moments of casual, incredible frankness, at which she would be annoyed with herself in the next hour. But yesterday, when they were near to parting, and she had thought him to be less concerned than her pride required, she had made an audacious, teasing remark, which he had taken with disconcerting gravity, not easy to smile away. . . . That was how provoking Gerald could be.
So her thoughts wandered loose in the night, while Perdita slept, having few cares in a pleasant world. Had she made complaint, it would have been to call it one in which she waited for adventure which never came. Caresse had no such grievance as that, for adventure was poured for her from a full cup.
Even now, was she not kept awake by a creaking sash, so that she lost the sleep on which her looks might depend on the next day? What could be more momentous than that?
III
A CLERK entered Gerald Langton's office. He placed a decoded telegram at his side.
"I thought, sir, you should see this at once."
Gerald considered it for a moment. He said, "Quite right, Beeston; you had better take it on to the Chief."
He initialled it, and handed it back.
When he was alone, his thoughts turned to Caresse. . . . Trouble stirring in Prague. . . . It would be a foolish, needless risk for her to go now. . . . He had been watching the cauldron of Eastern Europe every day for the last three years, waiting for the moment when it would boil. . . . Steele was not one to be easily scared. He would not warn them without evident cause. . . . Caresse must be stopped. . . . But how?
She would not cross till the night boat. There was ample time. But he saw that he was likely to be kept late. And that which he had reason to fear was not a matter to be spoken abroad, even to her. Still less could he telephone a warning of such a kind, or write in explicit words. Yet a note was the only way.
He remembered that it was her habit to lunch at Forster's when she was shopping in that neighbourhood, as she was almost certain to be today. A note would reach her there, if he lost no time. Yet what was there that he could say? He wrote hurriedly:
DEAREST,
I hear that the weather is likely to be getting worse, and the crossing tonight may be very rough. Reports of conditions in Central Europe are very unsatisfactory. Will you ask Perdita to come home to Redlands with you tonight, and stay with us for a few days, till the prospect improves? Please do this. You know I would'nt suggest it at the last moment without good reason. I will explain more when I see you.
Much love,
G.
. . .They lunched at Forster's, as he had guessed that they would. Caresse had finished, and lit the cigarette for which she must find time though the heavens fell. Perdita was near the end of a better meal. She watched the clock, and the shortening length of the cigarette, so that she might not give excuse to her companion for lighting another. She knew Caresse to be indifferent to the procession of time, and that she would be unmoved by recitation of those things they still had to do.
As she ate, she discussed the intricacies of foreign coinage, concerning which she had been diligent to enquire.
Caresse listened, faintly interested, slightly amused, fully appreciative of the advantage that her companion's mental energy would be to her own comfort and purse, but with no idea that her digestion should be disturbed by a similar effort.
"It's no use trying to get me to understand such muddles as that," she said cheerfully. "I never should, and I should be silly to try. I know what a shilling is, and it's always the same. But if a franc's worth twopence in one country, and twice as much in the next - well, why don't they take them all where they are worth more?"
"It's not quite as simple as that."
"I expect it's simple enough if you've got the sense not to let people muddle you up. . . . It's like algebra, that they tried to teach me at school. You had x and y, and at first no one knew what they were, and then it turned out that x had been a flock of sheep all the time, or the number of spadefuls of earth you'd need to bury a cow. I said, everyone knew x isn't a flock of sheep, and it never was, and I stuck there, and wouldn't move till they gave it up."
Caresse's lips curved to a faint reminiscent smile as she recalled the demonstration of blank stupidity with which she had foiled attempts to teach her that which she had thought useless for the prizes of life that she sought to win.
It seemed that a second pleasure of memory followed the first as she crushed down the stump of her cigarette and added: "They tried to teach me to sew."
She said in a brisker voice: "I suppose you'll want to go on," and as she rose a page-boy was at her side.
"I think this is for you, madam."
She opened Gerald's note carelessly, seeing by the writing from whom it came, and then exclaimed in startled surprise:
"Now, how absurd! . . . Gerald doesn't want us to go - - "
The words roused the younger girl from the half-attention that she had given to her friend's chatter before. She looked at her with amazed, incredulous eyes.
"Doesn't want us to go? Why on earth not?"
"He says he's heard that the sea's rough, and there's bad weather in Central Europe. What did he think January would be likely to be?"
As she answered, she saw the feebleness of the excuse, and the incredulity in Perdita's eyes. The shrewd clarity of her mind perceived that there must be more cause for the letter than it contained, and became active to guess the truth.
With a sharp annoyance she recalled the indiscreet audacious remark of the previous day. Had Gerald brooded on that? Had he been roused to a jealousy she had sometimes wished he had been quicker to show with a higher cause? Would he, perhaps, propose to get leave, and come with them on a later date?
She saw, as she thought, an explanation she could not give, and one which resolved her mind that their plans should not be so absurdly changed at the last hour.
"Oh," she said lightly, it's how husbands fuss You'll find it out soon enough. . . . Of course, we can't put it off now. It wouldn't be fair to you. I'd better send him a note."
She went to the writing-room and scribbled a few half-loving, half-jesting lines, putting his request aside as one which he could not have thought seriously that she would obey.
He returned to his Surrey home to find that they were not there, and when Caresse's letter reached him by the next morning's post she was looking down somewhat fretfully from the window of the breakfast-car of the smooth, swift, eastward train, on the sodden flatness of a Belgian landscape that she considered an inadequate recompense for the hardships of the previous night.
They had not reached the hill-country beyond Liege, now dressed with a thin garment of winter snow. They looked down on a level land, where rain fell on the red tiles of the narrow steep-roofed houses: on the muddy squalor of the farm-yards: on the wide monotony of the hedgeless fields.
"Considering," she said, "how much trouble it is to get here, I think they might have something more worth seeing when we arrive."
"I expect," Perdita answered cheerfully, "we shall see a lot of different things before we get back."
IV
THEY stayed two nights in Berlin, which Caresse approved.
"I like it," she said, "better than Paris. Somehow it is - it is more like home. It is less foreign than France."
It was much praise, coming from one who was half French in her own blood, though of English birth, and who could speak the French tongue like her own.
Perdita, saying little and seeing much, agreed that there were some aspects of German life in which they are more akin to English ways than are those of the Latin lands. . . .
But though they dined at the British Embassy, they heard no warning, no menace of coming doom. . . .
Even in London, Gerald Langton's first anxiety had found little on which to thrive. It was public knowledge now that Germany had made complaint against the harbouring of Communist plotters in Prague, though its immediate cause - the plot against its President's life - had been closely concealed. But it was a satisfaction which (as was commonly thought) the Czech Government had not refused. . . . England, being regarded at the moment as the one among the great Powers whose voice would be heard in Berlin, had been asked to mediate on its behalf, which it had been active to do.
The English Foreign Office had been able to assure the Czech Minister that it had information upon which it could safely rely that there were no preparations for punitive action in Germany. In particular, the great aerodrome at Nürnberg - large before, but enormously increased during the past two years - was quiet, and the number of men on leave was unusually large. It had urged that there should be a similar discretion on the Czech side. War may spring from so small a spark!
It received reassurances about that. Czechoslovakia had no wish to be the occasion of such a war as might soon spread through the breadth of the civilised world, nor would it do anything that could be misinterpreted thus. The German request, discourteous, and naturally resented as it had been, had not been weighted with any threat, such as an ultimatum will bear. . . . Doubtless a formula would be found.
Gerald Langton, who had drafted a wire which would have reached Caresse on her arrival at Prague, and was intended to bring her back, considered it for a time, hesitated, and tore it up.
"I expect," he said to himself, "we get too easily scared, knowing what we do. . . . Even the Stock Exchange hasn't taken alarm. . . . And, anyway, I don't Suppose she would have come, unless I said more than I ought."
V
IT was on Wednesday morning they left Berlin. Caresse had destroyed unanswered a wire from Lawrence offering to meet them on their arrival at Prague.
"After that journey," she asked, "how does he suppose we shall look? . . . We'd better leave him to guess when we shall get there, and ring him up from the hotel."
Perdita, to whom the objection might not have occurred, whether from greater indifference to her own appearance, or greater confidence in its ability to endure the ordeal of long hours in an overheated train, assented cheerfully.
"We can manage all right," she said, "if he won't think it rude not to reply."
Caresse had no concern on that score, being accustomed to her own way, and to put inconsistencies lightly aside with a smiling evasive word. "We can say," she answered, "that we weren't sure which train we should take."
Perdita did not discuss the inadequacy of this excuse for a journey of such length, being accustomed to observe her friend's triumphant rejection of inopportune fact in a comprehending silence. . . .
The time of year was reason enough for the fewness of the passengers with which the Prague express left Berlin. The first-class coach was almost empty, and the hotel porter had no difficulty in finding an empty compartment in which to deposit their lighter luggage.
They were in the dining-car when the train steamed into Dresden station, and the somewhat obese gentleman, with the aspect of a prosperous business man, who mounted the train there, hesitated in the corridor between a vacant compartment and that in which their luggage was evident witness to its occupation. Then he stepped in, examined their luggage-labels, and took a vacant corner, depositing a heavy portfolio upon the opposite seat.
A moment later a tall and much thinner gentleman, with a more professional aspect of face and manner, followed him into the coach, and paused at the door of the same compartment.
There was no word or sign of recognition between them, but the first arrival lifted the portfolio, as though offering the seat on which it had lain, which was taken, though not without a glance of puzzled annoyance at the evidence of other occupation which had been left on the window-seats.
It was not till the train was moving again, and they were clear of any possible observation, that the second-comer remarked in Magyar, which he changed to German as the conversation proceeded: "I can't see why you came in here, when we could have been alone, probably all the way."
"Nein?" his companion replied. "Yet it may be that we shall find less hindrance than help. Have you seen of what nation they are?"
"English ladies?" he replied. "And what help is there in them?"
"Perhaps none. . . . But it is wise to be ready for every chance. There will be close search, and we shall do well if we get through"
"We?" The intonation of the word protested against being joined thus, either in personal intimacy, or as one concerned in a common risk. But his protest had its rebuke in the German's reply: "Count, you mean it is a risk which you do not share? But it is as much to your land as to mine that I do not fail. . . . And I may yet ask your help; for you will be less suspected than I."
There was no answer to this, for the ticket-inspector was already at the door of the compartment. They gave each other no word or glance till he had passed on, and their conversations with him were in different tongues.
Then the Hungarian asked: "Do we speak English, or not?"
"It may be best that I should, if not you. . . . But we must judge that when we see of what kind they are."
There was no time to say more, for those of whom they spoke came along the corridor at the same moment.
The German considered them with satisfaction They were young, attractive, probably wealthy Obviously English Not in the least likely to be suspected as Nazi agents. He resolved, if the opportunity should come, that he would attempt that which he had done with success before, when the occasion had been less urgent, and the unconscious object less appropriate for his design.
He was in no haste to open conversation, being content to listen to the self-revealing chatter of the girls, but he knew that there was a potential importance in establishing such friendliness as the occasion allowed.
The ventilators which had been closed when he entered the compartment were an easy pretext. Would they like them opened? The English were notorious for their love of the outside air. And, in that case, the door closed?
The first question, asked in German, having been received with hesitation, he had turned to English, of which he had sufficient conversational knowledge. The exchanges proceeded smoothly. Central heating - English habits and hardihood - impressions of Germany - his own knowledge of London, which he had visited five years earlier. On pleasure? No. He was a manufacturer's agent Johann Schmit. He offered a card in evidence He travelled much. They were going to stay in Prague? They would find it very different there. A beautiful country? Yes. But different.
They had liked Germany? Mutual admirations followed. He praised London. Caresse was kind to Berlin. He mentioned, as though it would be a mitigation of the strangeness of Prague, that many Germans were still there.
But many others had left. He did not say in explicit words that they had been exiled by the hostilities of those who had usurped control of the land, but the implication was there. He mentioned the large number of his country-men who still lived in the western part of the new republic. The Bavarian frontier, he said with some truth, was little more than a political fiction. "For they are friends on both sides."
Adroitly, he drew the fourth occupant of the compartment into the conversation. Speaking pure English, in slow, carefully chosen words, and with a better accent than the German could reach, the Hungarian admitted similar conditions at the farther end of the land. He spoke of villages which were alien alike from Slovak and Czech. Quietly, faintly satirical, he concluded: "They speak Magyar still. It is the only language they know."
Together, they vaguely outlined a picture of political oppression, endured with patience, if not resignation, by those who had the better right to the land.
The conversation went on till a waiter opened the door, to announce the serving of tea. Should he bring trays? The German translated. Caresse said with decision "No. We'll go along to the car."
"Rather," Perdita agreed. They were glad of the opportunity for movement and freshness of air. They went out at once.
When they were gone, Herr Schmit opened his portfolio, looking through the papers which it contained, without drawing them out.
"Count," he said, "would you mind strolling along the corridor, and letting me know if anyone's coming?"
The Hungarian looked doubtful. "You feel sure," he asked, "that it's the best way?"
"Yes. . . . I was going to tell you that Hansel didn't get through last week. We don't know what's become of him. We don't know what they suspect, or what kind of search they're likely to make. But I can't risk having anything they're not meant to see. . . . I was going to ask you to take charge of - - "
The Hungarian made no further demur. Without waiting to hear the conclusion of the sentence, he rose, and stood looking out of the corridor window, his aspect that of one who smoked in a listless indolence, his senses alert for sound or sight of anyone approaching from either end.
The German selected a number of papers from the portfolio. He knew that one of the suitcases on the rack was unlocked, having seen Caresse open and close it carelessly, but there was another, more substantial, the contents of which were probably less likely to be turned over by its owner in the next hour. He found that its fastenings were somewhat complex, but it proved to be unlocked. After some patient manipulation, the latch sprang open.
Low down, among Perdita's most intimate garments, and carefully concealed from anything less than a detailed examination of the contents of the case, he inserted the papers, and closed it again.
VI
"PASSPORTS ready, please. . . . All passports ready." The cry announced that the frontier station was reached, and the elaborate formalities, hostile in implication and manner, which had been in regular practice for several years between the two countries, had commenced.
This first inspection was by two German officials. It was deliberately careful but politely conducted towards those who were obviously neither Czechs nor Communist refugees.
They were followed by others, whom the English girls took to be customs officers till they were otherwise informed. They were Czech police, searching the train for German newspapers.
It was a futile gesture, significant of the bitterness between the two nations, which only fear or politic delay had held back from each other's throats during the past five years. The Germans responded by confiscating all Czech newspapers on the returning train. It was a mutual irritation, obviously barren of result. The frontiers were too long, the means of transit and concealment too numerous for any newspaper to be excluded which there might be sufficient reason for smuggling over. . . .
But they passed on with no more than a perfunctory glance at a compartment destined for different investigation, and were succeeded by another cry for passports to be in readiness, and more officials, this time of Czech nationality, were at the doors, and credentials must be scrutinised again from an opposite angle.
The English girls found their passports returned with no more than a casual-seeming glance, a polite word. . . . The Magyar passport was examined with greater care, recognised as being that of a well-known member of the Hungarian Government, and returned with outward respect if without cordiality.
That of Herr Schmit was examined, passed from hand to hand, and disappeared down the corridor. If its owner were surprised or perturbed at this, he concealed his feelings with an air of passive indifference.
Following the passport inspections, there was a fresh warning that customs officers were approaching.
Caresse, smilingly conscious that their own inquisition was of the lightest, so that she had a feeling of looking on at a scene which she did not share, asked "Do they never end?"
Herr Schmit did not appear to heed. He may have had mental occupation enough, without attending to idle words. The Hungarian shrugged his shoulders lightly. He answered with a slight, indifferent smile: "It is routine; it is always so."
He drew an attache-case, which was all the hand-luggage he had, on to his knee, and unlocked it, in readiness to display its contents.
A customs officer entered, another standing watchfully at the door. The first man's hand dived into the Hungarian's case, his eyes keenly observant, his fingers moving rapidly, He asked a question in a strange tongue. Receiving a coldly polite reply, his inspection abruptly ended. His eyes went on to the occupants of the two window-seats, and the suitcases on the racks over their heads.
Perdita had risen, and was making a motion to pull one of them down. She asked: "I suppose you want to see these?"
He raised a restraining hand. He asked a question in three languages which she did not know. The Hungarian came to her aid: "He asks, have you anything to declare?"
"No. We've only got our own things, that we brought from England."
The reply, translated somewhat freely, was accepted as satisfactory. With a smiling word, a gesture of dismissal, the officer turned to Herr Schmit, whose effects were subjected to a very different ordeal. Every paper in the port-folio was scrutinised, and then passed as though with reluctance, if not surprise, that it should be of an innocent kind. Then a handbag, containing clothes and other articles, received an equally minute examination. Its contents were tumbled on to the seat, and finally left for its owner to repack, without even perfunctory apology for the treatment they had received.
But it was over at last. . . . Slowly the heavy train commenced to move forward again. . . . The frontier was crossed, and Germany left behind.
"It seems," Perdita said lightly, "that they've decided to let us through."
"It's a silly business," Caresse replied. "Why shouldn't people be friends?"
They had no personal unfriendliness of which to complain, either from Germans or Czechs, but the whole long-drawn episode had had an atmosphere of hostile tension, a complexion political rather than economic, through which it had been unpleasant to pass, even in a semi-detached way.
Their remarks were unheeded, if not unheard, by their male companions, on whom it seemed that an added gravity had descended. Once or twice, when the corridor was clear, they exchanged remarks in an unknown tongue. . . . An hour went by, and a call that dinner was ready passed through the train.
The girls rose with alacrity, but the two men, who should have been more hungry than they, made no motion to follow. They sat still, the German looking at Perdita's suitcase with doubtful eyes.
It was the time at which he had planned to regain his property: the only opportunity he might have. But his passport had not been returned. What could be the significance of that? Perhaps nothing. At any moment it might be brought. After that, it would seem a less risk to have those papers back where they had first been. . . . At the worst, might it not be possible to call on Perdita at her hotel, and confess as much as it would be necessary for her to know? The papers would be nothing to her. She could not read them. If he should tell her that his life hung on her silence, he was inclined to think that the risk would not be great. . . . If he should attempt their recovery now, he would require the Count's help to watch, as he had done before. But the Hungarian made no motion to rise. He must have the same doubt. . . .
So he had. The eyes of the two men met. The Hungarian said, in a low voice: "I should wait. There is time yet."
The sequel justified the delay. One of the customs officers came to the door. He asked: "You are Herr Schmit? Your passport has not been returned? . . . If you will come with me, you can have it now."
The German rose, puzzled, uneasy, but self-controlled. He was ready to follow, but the man did not move. He said: "You should bring that which is yours." He looked down as he spoke.
Herr Schmit made no protest. What use could it have been? He might have received no more than friendly advice. Its significance was not easy to see. He put on hat and coat. He picked up his bags. He found himself being led to the rear of the train.
There was a van in the rear, in which was an armed guard of Czechs, who must have joined the train at the frontier station. Herr Schmit found himself in the hands of those who would not scruple in what they did. He was stripped to the skin, and his clothing searched. His baggage was examined again, even the linings being torn out of the bags. He protested with the more confidence because he knew that there was nothing that they could find. But they shook their heads, as at a language they did not know.
When he was allowed to resume his clothing, an officer addressed him who did not affect to be unable to speak his tongue. He asked: "Will you say where they are hidden? . . . It will be much better for you."
He answered stubbornly: "I have nothing hidden. You can see that. You have examined everything that I have."
The officer said no more. He handed his passport back. He said: "I cannot let you go on. I have an order for your expulsion. You can take your bags if you will."
The train was slowing down as he spoke. As it stopped. Johann Schmit was hustled roughly toward the door. He faced a cold wind and a driving snow. He looked down to see that snow was deep on the track. He saw no lights through the gloom. A pine-forest bordered the line.
He said: "You cannot put me off here. The frontier is far behind."
The officer said coldly: "I have orders for what I do. . . . You will have no trouble for that. We will set you on the right way."
They followed him into the snow - the officer and four men. The train remained still, blowing off steam.
When they had gone twenty yards from the track, along a path under the trees the officer said: "I must halt here. Your way will be straight on."
Herr Schmit said nothing to that. What was the use? He went on through the snow. He was not ten yards away when he heard a sharp order to fire. It was the last sound that was destined to reach his ears.
VII
THE dinner was well cooked and well served: the waiters deferential, smiling, eager to please: the shadow of the frontier was left behind. In less than two hours they would be in Prague, and the journey done.
Toward the end of the meal, the train stopped, and remained stationary long enough for them to become curious to enquire the cause. Their waiter, who had a little English, and better French, was vague but cheerful in his reply. Perhaps snow on the line. At this time of year. . . . Doubtless they would soon be going forward again.
But the train had not moved when the leisurely meal was done, and they returned to their own compartment, more relieved to observe that the ventilators had not been closed in their absence than concerned that Herr Schmit and his belongings had disappeared.
Caresse said: "We shall be late getting in. I wonder what's keeping us here?"
The tone was casual, unconcerned. She had just had an excellent meal. What did it matter when they arrived by an hour, either more or less?
The Hungarian did not reply, and the next moment there came the dull sound of a volley of rifle-shots, somewhat deadened by the snow, but at no great distance away.
With a quickened interest, Perdita asked "What was that?"
She had a thought of brigands attacking the train, as she had seen portrayed in a recent film, but it was too vague and unreal to occasion more than a faint, pleasant excitement. It was an idea which her mind entertained, refusing belief.
The Hungarian answered with a quiet gravity: "It is, I suppose, the death of a brave man." The explanation was enigmatic, the tone chilled. He said no more, and Perdita became silent. Caresse was less willing to leave a mystery unprobed. She asked: "You mean someone's been killed?"
He was not quick to reply. When he did, it was little satisfaction to hear.
"I said more than I should. . . . I know no more than yourselves. . . . There may be things which it is imprudent to see or hear. . . . You will remember that you are not in your own land."
A few minutes later, the train whistled and commenced to move forward again. In the rear coach there was now the body of a dead man. It was that of one who had been arrested on suspicion of being a German spy, and the official report would state that he had been shot while attempting escape. The German Government would be unlikely to make open trouble for that. On its own side of the frontier, it disposed of too many unwanted Czechs in the same way.
VIII
AT the same time that the body of Johann Schmit sank in the reddened snow, the Ministers of Czechoslovakia were gathered in council in the President's private room in the Vladislavsky palace at Prague.
The President spoke suavely, for he sought to bring peace among angry men. He said: "There is no question of acceding to the German demand in the form in which it was presented five days ago. We are, I think, so far agreed. But" - his voice took its most persuasive tone, and his eyes were directed upon the Minister of Defence, whose protest had stirred the storm - "there is a wide difference between that and the blunt rejection of a request which was rudely made."
The War Minister was a spare, elderly man, who had seen service in the Russian Army during the last war. He was of bellicose moods, and of a temper easily frayed. In his secret thoughts, he would sometimes count his advancing years, grudging the time that passed in an indecisive and restless peace. He had an army of 150,000 men trained and equipped as efficiently as any force of its size that Europe could array on a field of death, and his own fierce spirit had been a fire to exalt its ranks. It was a bitter thought that the war to which he looked as to an unavoidable end might come so late that he would not be at that army's head.
He looked back at the President now, and his anger did not abate.
"Those who seek," he said, "for courtesy in reply should cast their requests in the same mould. . . . That should be the answer to give to them. Would they have spoken so to England or France? Are the Czechs dogs, to wag tails to a German kick?"
He looked round on men who either murmured approval or remained silent, and broke out again: "Do you think when your bellies have rubbed the dirt that you will stand erect again upon the next day? You will be the scorn alike of the Teutons whose boots you have bent to lick, and of every nation of Slavs who will be partners to share your shame."
The Air Minister, whose blunt pessimism had aroused his wrath, was the one man there who remained unexcited and unconvinced. He was not one whom it was easy to call a coward. . . . He had escaped from Austria as a youth of eighteen, twenty-two years before, and enlisted in the Italian Air Force, where he had become famous as the twice-wounded victor of a score of duels among the clouds. At a later date, he had dragged a wounded comrade from a wrecked and burning plane, though his own face had been caught in a gust of flame, by which its left side was still scarred in an ugly way.
"Such words," he said, "are easy to speak, but they are foolish, unless we can make them good on the field of war. If we should be attacked, as might be in an hour's time, will you say how you would save Prague?"
"In an hour's time? And will you say how that could be, unless they would strike from the air alone, as it would be mere folly to do. . . . I tell you they have not a division equipped to move."
"It is the air which you have reason to fear."
"Then it is your own charge, which you should be last to say is unequal or unprepared. Will you tell us you are unready in your defence?"
"I have been too cautious to move a plane, or to fill a tank. Would you show steel in a storm, to draw the lightning about your head?"
The War Minister looked at the younger man with an impatience hard to control
"Janda," he said, "you are a brave man, as I do not doubt; but you are obsessed with the importance of that which yourself commands.
"Germany would not strike from the air alone, if she should take the hazard of war, but with all the strength that she has. We know that her armies are not called up, and, while that is so, we are secure from a blustering word, unless we be the fools of our needless fears.
"Can you think only of what they would do, rather than we?
"If their planes should come, would our guns be useless to bring them down? Would our own planes be impotent in the air? Why do you talk only of Prague? Is not Dresden as bare to a swift attack?
"At the worst, have we not trained our people that they shall be equal to such a day? They have masks to the last child. The shelters that have been built in the last two years are the best that Europe can boast. For what gain have we spent and trained, if we are to lie flat at the first sound of a rattled sword?"
He looked round for approval, which came in a murmur from many tongues.
"Janda, you forget that Europe would not stand by to see us destroyed."
"You forget the friendship of France."
"Germany would not dare to wake such a war."
"In ten years, perhaps. But not now."
"What would Yugoslavia have to say?"
"Even Poland might not endure to see us attacked on so light a cause."
"They have Russia always to fear."
But the Air Minister remained unshaken in his opinion amid the storm.
"Whom the gods would destroy," he quoted, "they first make mad."
The Minister of Justice, a small bald-headed man, with restless eyes, and hands that were seldom still interposed before the War Minister could reply. "Gentlemen, I do not boast what is still to do. I had not meant to speak now. I am on the track of a Nazi plot, I will not say of what kind till the proofs are here, but I have a hope that such documents will be in our hands by tomorrow noon that Germany will have but one thought - to make sure that we do not publish them to the world."
His words had the effect of a diversion from that which had assumed the aspect of quarrel rather than of sober debate, and the President was adroit to seize the opportunity of breaking up the meeting.
"It appears," he said, "that the feeling is general that we must not fail to act with the dignity of a sovereign State. But, within that limit, I suppose we are all agreed that we should give Germany any satisfaction that she is entitled to claim. We need not forget that even now England is making representations on our behalf, which Berlin surely cannot ignore."
The President shook hands with the others as they went out and asked the Air Minister to remain.
"Janda," he said, when they were alone, "do you wish me to think that Prague is without defence? That the Act of 1935, and all the expenditure which it entailed, are of no avail?"
"I said less than that. Against gas attacks I think you are well prepared. If only I could be sure that it is on gas-bombs that they depend! But suppose they should come dropping high-explosive bombs, or some of a nature we have not guessed, from five thousand planes? - hour after hour, every few minutes, a fleet of fifty out of the clouds?"
"And your own planes could not hold them back, nor your guns avail?"
"We might destroy scores - even five hundred planes. It would be a most sanguine guess. But it would still be the same end."
"It is clear that our Minister of Defence does not agree. Do you think him a fool?"
"Far from that. I should say that he is about equally
good, but they are turned the wrong way."
"Then we must rely on pacific words, and on the support of the stronger Powers. Having the sympathy both of England and France - - "
"Both of whom, for the past two years, Germany has ceased to regard."
"You would not say that they are impotent too?"
"I could answer both no and yes. England desires peace. She is sincere. I will grant you that, and that there is none other of whom we are equally sure in the same way. If she be forced to war, and have time to collect her strength, she has always proved a most stubborn foe. . . . But can we say that she is all that she was of old, when her outward ships were filled with cargoes of living men? Egypt - Ireland - India - one by one she lets them slip from her grasp, as from the hands of one who is growing weary of power. . . . And her Air Force is no more than a gallant jest. Has it not always been her weakness to make a sport of the deadly business of war? To suppose that it will be played by the rules of an ordered game? . . . If she should hear that the Germans were bombing Prague, would she not keep her planes closely at home, seeing that the peril of London is little less?"
"And of France?"
"Would Germany pause for her? Or could we trust what she would do at a sudden pass? Would she not have gone down in three months in the last war if England had not come to her aid - as she went down forty years before? Her Government is ever unstable, and half corrupt. Her population has ceased to grow. Has she not been sick of soul, between fear and greed, every day since the Versailles Treaty was signed? And now that her armies in Algiers and Syria are so largely engaged - - "
The President looked thoughtfully at the youngest member of his Ministry - the only one who would not face this crisis with bold and confident words. He said mildly: "You have hard words for our friends."
"That is not how it is meant. I face facts. But there is another, which is of more moment for us. If they should come to our aid, as you hope they would, they would be too late. They would be no use to the dead."
"You have a most cheerful mind. . . . But I would trust you to do your part, if the need should rise."
The President shook hands cordially, and was left alone. He felt as one shadowed by a very imminent cloud. But it was one that would be likely to pass, as so many had passed before.
IX
COUNT GEYSA looked at his two travelling companions hesitating between silence and speech. In an hour they would reach Prague, and his chance of intervention be gone. His own destination was Buda-Pesth. It was vital that he should communicate to his Government without delay the terms of a most secret agreement with Germany which he had signed less than twelve hours before.
That could be only verbally done. He had left the document at the Hungarian Legation in Berlin. It was not of such a nature that it would have been prudent to bring it the way he came.
As to this matter of Herr Schmit, and the papers now in Perdita's case, he recognised the importance of the event, but he felt that it was one in which he must not be further involved. His interference might do no good, and, if suspected, might jeopardise even greater things.
He could not tell what the consequences might be, even to himself, if he should become suspect of complicity in Herr Schmit's activities before he had passed the further frontier and regained the safety of Hungarian soil. . . . He could make no more than a vague guess of what those documents were, or how much they told.
He knew that Johann Schmit had been used by the German Government for several years as a means of communication with its secret agents in foreign States, on occasional matters only, of too great importance to be entrusted to the ordinary channels.
He was a man well known, and of good repute in the world of commerce, with substantial business interests in several countries. His movements had legitimate occasions, openly known, He appeared to have no political interests, beyond promoting the international commerce on which he thrived.
His services had been sparingly used, and it was believed that no suspicion had been aroused. Until now, at this moment of greatest need, there had been some indiscretion or more probable treachery, and his life had paid. . . . And the documents for which he had died lay, unknown to any living, except Count Geysa himself, in the suitcase of the English girl.
How would they be discovered, by whom, or when? And what consequences would there be?
It was hard to guess, and it might be no more than fair to herself, and even decrease the probability that the documents should come into the hands of the Czech police, if she were given warning of what they were. But her reaction was difficult to foresee. She might insist on handing them over at once, either to himself, which he did not desire, or to the officials on the train, which would be the worst fate they could have.
He had that disposition which is inclined to do nothing when in a doubt, and his hesitation was justified by the event when two officials appeared at the door of the compartment, with a tale which he must not appear to doubt.
It appeared that the German gentleman had been taken ill, as was feared, of some infectious disease. There was a hint of plague, though the word itself was not said. It was imperative that the compartment should be fumigated at once. Would he be so kind as to explain to the English ladies, and in such a way that they would not be unduly alarmed? There were attendants at hand by whom their luggage would be removed to a further carriage with the minimum inconvenience to them.
Count Geysa considered with satisfaction that, had they known more, they might have received the news in a less natural way. Caresse, who had an active dread of infectious disease, was quick to rise, and Perdita showed no inclination to linger behind her.
Neither of them displayed any concern for the integrity of their luggage, which they appeared content to leave for the attendants to handle. The Count was not surprised when his own attache-case was drawn from his hands with polite insistence. He yielded it readily to the attendant's obsequious urgency, and, as he expected would be the case, he had been seated for some minutes in his new location before he saw it again.
His surprise was that the baggage of the English ladies was not subjected to similar treatment, but the intelligent Czech police had rightly regarded them as outside suspicion. The whole object of the manoeuvre had been to clear the compartment, so that it might be subjected to intensive search.
The suitcase in which the objects of all this trouble were hidden was handled with such expedition that when Perdita seated herself again, it was already on the rack over her head.
After that, the question of warning, or of request, had ceased to be a practical issue, for there were other occupants of the compartment.
With no more than the perfunctory courtesies of leave-taking which long-distance travelling companions will exchange, he watched the English ladies descend from the train. He observed their luggage pass into the hands of an hotel porter, who had obviously been watching for their arrival. They were lost in the crowd as he followed them to the platform, where he was met by a secretary from his own Legation.
The two men strolled along the platform, talking at first of matters of minor importance; but when he was assured that he was free from unwelcome observation, he changed to a lower and more serious tone.
"Anton," he said, "listen carefully, for I am telling you that on which your lives may depend. I believe His Excellency has a good car? Yes? It is one which would hold you all? . . . That is well. . . . You will inform His Excellency that he may receive a wire from our Foreign Office on Friday next. It may say other things which he will regard in a literal way, but if it should conclude with the words we hear that flour is likely to rise, then he will arrange to vacate Prague within six hours of the time that it will have been issued at Buda-Pesth. He will not attempt to return there, nor will he delay to take formal leave of the President here. He will leave by car for the Bavarian frontier, where he will be expected and well received. . . . If no such wire should arrive, you will forget that these words have been ever said. That is clear? . . . Very well. There is a smaller matter. Our friends in Berlin sent a secret agent on this train, with instructions to the Nazi organisation here, as to what they shall do under certain circumstances which may occur in a few days. Two hours ago this agent was arrested and shot. But, before that he had secreted the papers in the suitcase of an English lady, Miss Wyatt, one of two who are staying at the Ambassador Hotel. She does not know they are there. You must let this information reach those concerned in a secret way, without risk that we may be supposed to have knowledge thereof, or have intervened. Is that also clear? . . . I must go."
He ended abruptly, for the train, half an hour late in its arrival, was already signalled to leave.
X
CARESSE laid down the receiver of the bedside telephone with a puzzled frown. She said petulantly: "He wants to come tonight."
"And you told him not to, of course?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well, what's wrong about that?"
Perdita went on unpacking her suitcase the while she talked. She was in a cheerful mood, and she was accustomed to hear Caresse complain of the conduct of those around her with an unruffled serenity.
"Nothing. It was the way it was said. It sounded almost as though he wasn't glad we were here."
"Well, perhaps he isn't. . . . But if he wanted to come at once? . . . Perhaps he'd got someone with him."
"That may have been it."
"What was it he really said?"
"Nothing really. . . . only he sounded - well, queer."
"Queer?" Perdita's voice had become toneless, as though her mind were on other things. She added: "Well, so's this." Herr Schmit's bundle of papers was in her hand. She looked at it with wondering eyes, and then threw it over on to the bed to which Caresse had retired.
"Can you tell me what that is?"
Caresse looked at the papers carelessly. . . . "No. You know I can't read Czech, if that's what it is. It may be Russian for all I know. Anyway, it's not German. What's the bother?"
"Someone must have put it into my case."
"It doesn't sound likely. You must have pushed it in with other things by mistake."
"But I'm sure I didn't. I found it between these."
Perdita held up the articles among which Herr Schmit had inserted the documents. Caresse waked to a more vivid interest.
"You're quite sure you didn't pack it yourself?"
"Absolutely certain."
"It must be that liftman at the Central. I told you he'd gone so crazy about you he wouldn't sleep for a week. . . . He seems to have a good deal to say."
"Don't be absurd."
"Well, then, give a better guess."
"I wish I could. The case hasn't been out of my sight except for about three minutes when the porter brought it up here;. . . . Oh, and when we were in the dining-car - - "
Her voice paused as her mind went back to the events of the day, seeing them in a new and more sinister light. She remembered the chilling atmosphere of the frontier inspection, as of criminals in transit from jail to jail: the disappearance of Herr Schmit: the previous unmannerly way in which the contents of his bag had been turned out on the carriage seat: the gravity of the Hungarian's warning that they were not now in their own land, and that there were things which they should not see.
With a sudden intuitive perception she exclaimed: "I don't believe he was ill at all. They turned us out so that they could search again under the seats. . . . I believe they killed him for these, because he wouldn't say where they were hid."
Caresse said: "What a dreadful idea! They wouldn't do a thing like that. They wouldn't be let."
But her tone was without conviction. The idea, being born in their minds found the circumstances too consistent to be rejected lightly.
"They must be very important," Perdita said. "I don't feel oversafe while we have them here. . . . I wish you'd ring up Mr. Norton again."
"I don't see why we should do that. They can't have guessed where they are, or they wouldn't have let us bring them away."
"If we knew who they are, or how many theys there may be, I should feel more sure about that."
"Well, if anyone wants them, we don't object. They're not ours. . . . I think, if there were a good fire in the room - - "
It was an impulse which, had there been means of fu filling it, might have saved many lives on a later day; but the open grate has no place in the guest-room of a Prague hotel.
Perdita, holding to her point, said again: "I wish you'd ring Mr. Norton up. I expect he'd be able to read them, and he'd tell us what it would be safest to do."
Caresse did not accept this suggestion with alacrity. She considered the effort of dressing again; of how long it would take to prepare to her own satisfaction for such a meeting; she even considered (and rejected promptly) the idea of Perdita going down to see him alone. In the end her hand stretched out to the telephone.
"That you, Lawrence? Yes, it's Caresse again. You never know when your troubles end. We want you to come round tonight. . . . Well, we've changed our minds. Women do. . . . But not for half an hour - quite. Rather late, I know, but I don't suppose you'll mind that. . . . Yes, of course. . . . Thanks. You'll understand when we've explained.
"So that's that," she said, as she threw back the single quilted blanket, and her silk-pyjama'd legs came to the floor, "and I only hope that Lawrence won't think we've called him here for a child's game. . . . I wish I knew just how silly we are."
XI
HALF an hour? And the Ambassador Hotel was less than two miles away. Outside, there was no more than a light sprinkle of snow. There would be time to walk, which would suit his mood.
As he was crossing the river-bridge, a small shabby saloon-car drew up to the pavement, and the door swung open. A voice from the interior said: "Mr. Norton, sir, if you'd like a lift?"
The man who spoke was a hanger-on at the British Legation, engaged at times as a second chauffeur, or as a waiter when extra help was required, in which occupation he had a reputation for nervous awkwardness and the dropping of plates. He was of English birth, but had a female Czech cousin with whom he lodged. She kept a huckster's shop in the lower town. An insignificant man, over whom even the keen eyes of the Czech police might pass as of no account, and the Nazis would be unlikely to notice at all.
Lawrence hesitated. "I suppose you saw," he said, "that I was going the opposite way."
There was no reply, but the door remained open, and seeing that, he got in.
When the car started, the man spoke again. "I was coming to ask your help. I hope you've got the night
He spoke as an equal now, for Lawrence knew him as one of the foremost members of the British Intelligence Department - Secret Service Agent, No. 973.
"I had an appointment with two ladies."
"I'm afraid they won't see you tonight."
"Urgent as that? Then you'd better pull up while I 'phone."
"Much better not. Listen to me. I was out last night, and I'm nearly sure that I've found one of the secret German aerodromes that we've suspected but couldn't prove. . . . If the snow keeps off, I mean to see more tonight."
"Where do I come in?"
"I shall want the help of a better man than myself."
"Which you certainly haven't got."
"We won't argue that."
After this there was silence. The car may have needed all the driver's care, on a slippery uphill road that climbed clear of the town; but Lawrence knew that Steele always hated to speak more than the fewest of unavoidable words. He knew that, in due time, he would be told anything that he needed to know.
Four miles out, the car stopped on a lonely road. There were no houses in sight. They were on high ground, level and bare.
From a clump of roadside bushes a Czech soldier stepped.
"All quiet, Karel?"
"Yes, sir. No one about."
The man swung open a field-gate at the roadside. The car turned in, and bumped along a rough path. It passed through a narrow fir-wood, and emerged to an open field.
The moon shone, cold and high, through the broken clouds, and showed the dark form of an aeroplane at the upper end of the field. Lawrence approached it with some surprise. He said:
"This isn't yours?"
He knew that, with the secret aid of the Czech Air Minister, Steele had been making a number of solitary night-flights over the German frontiers, using one of the newest patterns of frail, swallow-swift scouting planes, in which everything was sacrificed to silence, and a speed which claimed to be almost incredibly high.
"No, I've got to risk going slower tonight. Janda knows what I'm after. He promised to have this one flown here for me after dark tonight, and to have a silencer fixed on the engine. I'd got to have one able to carry three, which the scouts won't."
"Three?"
"That's the idea. You'll see when the time comes."
They climbed into the cock-pit without further words, and the aeroplane rose smoothly into the night.
XII
FOR two hours they flew steadily west. The pilot spoke no word, but Lawrence could guess, by the direction they took, and by the mountainous desolation of the moonlit landscape that showed through the snow-squalls' gaps, that they looked down on the bleak solitudes of the Rhöngebirge, a waste of high, flat-topped Bavarian mountains on which the snow lies unmelted for half the year.
So far, they had flown too high to be endangered by peak or cliff, even though they should be caught in a blinding squall, but now they began to slant down like a settling bird.
The snow-white summits rose up to meet them, and then, as Lawrence wondered what landing they would be likely to have, they dived into the murk of a narrow gorge.
Here they flew perilously, with little more, it seemed in the dim light, than wing-clearance on either side, and then came out to skirt the side of a black cliff with a far valley below, in which there was the twinkle of scattered lights. Then, banking sharply as they swung round, they turned, it seemed, into the very face of the cliff, and the next minute had come to ground on a level space in a recess of the mountain-side.
"And now," Lawrence said, when they had climbed stiffly out, and no sound of life had come to their listening ears, "perhaps you'll say what you want me to do."
No. 973 was concise and explicit in his reply.
"This," he said, "is supposed to be a Government mine. Cobalt - copper. Rich deposits recently discovered. Guarded by a ring of sentries five miles round. There's a village of miners down below. They're inside the ring. So are we.
"What I want to know is, why they can't mine for copper without a platform two hundred yards long. And why the entrance to the mountain-side requires such enormous doors."
"The answer seems obvious."
"So it does; even without some other evidences that can be best seen in a better light. . . . But details are what we want, and there's only one way we can get them."
"If you'd like to leave me here till tomorrow night - - ?"
"Thanks. It's a sporting offer, but too big a risk for anything you'd be likely to see without being seen yourself. I thought we'd do more by getting hold of someone who knows, and taking him back with us."
Lawrence looked round. He was aware of silence - solitude - snow. The valley-lights twinkled a thousand feet beneath.
"Kidnapping?" he said. "Well, I'm game for that. But I hope we haven't got to carry him up here, if he's over ten. Or perhaps you've got your eye on a girl?"
He spoke lightly, his spirits rising to the adventure, and the intoxication of the keen night air, but there was no answering levity in No. 973's reply.
"There's no need to go far. There's a hut at the dump-head, where a man sleeps. He seems to be quite alone."
"Sleeps?"
"That's what he was doing last night."
Steele led the way down a path that was rough and steep, with wooden steps inserted at the sharpest declines. At their right hand, a few feet lower, there was a track with a single rail.
They came to a cliff-edge, where the trollies would be tipped, and to a little hut at its side. They looked through a narrow pane, and saw a stove glow, and a half-dressed man sprawling asleep on a pallet bed.
He was of muscular build, largely made, and did not look an easy capture to make, unless taken at the disadvantage of sleep, and Lawrence saw that there had been reason to ask his aid. Had the door been barred - - But No. 973 lifted a noiseless latch, and they went in quietly.
In fact, the man was not easy to wake, and when his senses returned he seemed to take their presence in a dull way, not simply to understand.
When told he must come with them, he made no demur, only asking if he could put on his coat and boots, which he was permitted to do, Lawrence covering him the while, and Steele standing by with a short rope which was intended to bind his hands. It was evident that the final trussing could not be done till he had been persuaded to climb into the plane.
Looking at his stolid, apathetic movements, which were without haste, but did not seem dilatory of design, even Steele did not guess that the man had pressed a bell as he took his coat from the wall. Yet he had a feeling of uneasiness in his mind. It all seemed too smooth in the way it went; too absurdly simple. And yet he had experienced before how much audacity may achieve, if it be sufficiently sure of itself. . . . The searchlight moved steadily along the edge of the pit, and settled upon the hut.
It took but a second for No. 973 to see that the plan he had was a lost hope. To save themselves - to regain the plane - to take back word of what they had seen and found - must now be their utmost aims.
He felt that he could not kill an unresisting prisoner, neither could they now attempt to take him away.
"I will bind his hands," he said; "there's no time for more. . . . They won't see us while we stay here."
In a moment the knot was tied. The next, they were outside, in the white glare of the light which had settled upon the hut, as though waiting for them to leave.
They were none too soon, for a patrol of soldiers, four or five, were already within the searchlight's range, advancing along the level edge on which the hut stood. Seeing the two emerge, they shouted and came on at a run.
"Halt!" they cried, "Halt!"
Steele said: "Quick; down here. They're going to fire." He jumped down to the rail level, with Lawrence a short second behind. The bullets passed harmlessly overhead.
If they raised their heads, they could see their pursuers, and the path from which they had jumped. If they stooped, they were safe from the following shots. The wooden sleepers, less then two feet apart, gave them firm footing up which to run.
It seemed that the first searchlight was unable to follow where they now were, but a second, at right angles to it, was feeling to pick them up.
In the moment's darkness, they raised themselves, and looked back. The soldiers were nearer, making better progress than they.
With a common purpose they pulled out their guns. They fired deliberately, taking steady aims. The soldiers halted, returning their fire, and the mountains became loud with the echoed shots.
They were two to five, but they had the advantage of light, and they were hidden except for their heads and their lifted hands. Soon, three of those who had pursued had fallen wounded or dead, and the other two had withdrawn to the best shelter they could obtain. When the second searchlight found them, they could run on again with the assurance that they had checked immediate pursuit.
"But for this cursed light," Steele began, and then went on in another tone, as one who saw hope recovered: "Lawrence, could you pilot the plane?"
"I suppose I could. Why?"
"Then, when they fire at us again, will you fall as though hurt? You can run on when I have led the light in another way."
"Do you mean I should go alone, leaving you here? I think not."
"Then you are unfit to have come. Do you think you play in a boys' game? It is the one way you can help. . . . And I may contrive escape, as you could not do."
As he spoke, there was an outbreak of shots on their left, from some distance away. Steele's voice became urgent: "Now! Now!" He did not wait to see whether Lawrence would do that which he had proposed. He was slightly behind. He caught an ankle, pulling with so sudden and sharp a jerk that Lawrence slipped down for some feet. Steele went ahead, increasing his pace.
Lawrence half raised himself in a first impulse to refuse a part that he had not chosen or liked, and then thought of the stake beside which their lives were no more than a feather's weight, and lay still.
To those who watched him move thus in the searchlight's glare, it must have seemed the abortive struggle of a wounded man who saw his comrade leave him behind. The light hovered over him for one hesitant moment, and then followed the man who was still active to move.
A minute later Lawrence rose, and made his dark, unmolested way to the waiting plane. . . . almost silently, unseen and unguessed, it glided upward into the night, while the searchlights played and shots still echoed among the hills.
XIII
IN the lounge of the Ambassador Hotel, two impatient girls sat watching an entrance through which traffic had ceased to pass, in a gradually dying expectation of one who did not appear.
Not for the first time, Caresse was emphatic in denial of possibility that Lawrence had not had the name of the hotel with an unmistakable clarity, and in refusal to telephone again to enquire why he had not come.
"Well," Perdita said at last, "it's past midnight now. So if you won't, I will."
"Then, let's do it upstairs."
This being agreed, they returned to their own room, and rang up the British Legation, to be informed that Mr. Norton had gone out more than an hour ago, and had not returned.
"Then it's bed for us," Caresse said, yawning. "When he looks us up tomorrow, he'll have a bit to explain. . . . You might open the window before you get in. . . . Double windows? I wonder what for. Well, I suppose you can open both. . . . I'm always frightened of burglars. Simply terrified. I don't suppose I shall sleep a wink. But I can't stand these heated rooms."
She fell asleep even before Perdita had ceased to look out on a street two stories beneath her, which was whitening under a thin indolent downfall of frozen snow, and opened her eyes again at a later hour, to gaze into those of a man who pushed the casement window somewhat farther aside as he entered the room.
He showed black against the faint diffused lights of the street beneath and the moon above, and she could see that he was a small man, but little more, for his face was shadowed. He flashed a torch round the room, and into her eyes. He said, in low careful English: "You will have no harm if no sound you make." He found the light, which he switched on.
Caresse, who had lain many times with a quick-beating heart and head under the clothes from no greater cause than a board's creak in the night, found that she was only faintly excited, and not frightened at all. She said: "You have no business here. What do you want?"
"I want nothing of yours."
He saw the suitcases, to which he went, disregarding some scattered jewellery on a table beside him. His object was beyond doubt, and while he subjected the cases to a rapid but thorough search she had time to consider what she should do.
Had the papers been where he looked, she would have been well content for him to take them and go, but she knew they were not. Perdita had put them under her own pillow, from an impulse no more definite in its origin than the thought that they had cost a man's life a few hours before, and must have a value she could not guess.
Caresse thought: "When he finds they are not where he thinks, he will search the room. He will wake Perdita. I cannot tell what she will do, or what violence may result." She lay turned away from the man, but there was a mirror through which she could watch every movement he made. He had a face which she did not like. In a hip-pocket, an evident weapon bulged.
There was a small disc on the bedside table with three bell-pushes, each marked with a figure of the attendant whom it would call. She did not know whether they would all be on duty during the night, but she took the chances she had. Noiselessly, deliberately, her hand went out, and pressed the three down. So she kept it for twenty seconds, and withdrew it unnoticed before she spoke: "If you don't want to get caught, you'd better clear out. I believe the porter's coming up now."
The man raised a scowling face from his futile search. He may not have understood what she said, and what he might have done on that realisation she was not destined to know, for at the same moment a whistle shrilled from the street.
Quick as a startled cat, the man made for the window, and scrambled out on to the ladder by which he had climbed. He did not pause to switch off the light.
There was the sound of a shot in the street below. A night-porter's voice came from outside the door: "Madam. did you ring?"
Perdita lifted a sleepy head from her pillow to ask: "Is anything wrong?"
She heard Caresse answer the porter rather than her: "Thank you, it's all right now." She watched her switch off the light.
Caresse said: "It's a row in the street "
There could be no doubt about that The shots were more frequent now. A scream came, and was repeated, as though from unendurable pain. It fell to a lower note, gradually dying away.
Caresse, looking out from the window of the now-darkened room, saw the ladder being withdrawn, and guessed that the would-be robbers had held their own, at least long enough to remove the means by which the room had been reached. She closed the windows, securing them in indifference to whatever temperature might result.
As she did so, there was a fresh outburst of shots, this time from farther along the street, and less loud through the double glass of the casements.
Perdita's hand went under her pillow, where the causes of this uproar remained. "Cheerful place to be in," she said sleepily. . . . They did not wake till the late February daylight had invaded the room.
XIV
IT was half-past nine next morning when Lawrence called at the Ambassador Hotel, and, on enquiring for Mrs. Langton and Miss Wyatt, was informed that the ladies were not yet down.
He thought: "Caresse running true to form" and had a wish that the world's beds had been more equally occupied during the past night. He yawned with the good excuse of a man whose own night had been spent in a flight of some hundreds of miles, and a vigilance that must not relax for an instant's rest either of mind or eye. But there was no weariness in his voice as he answered: "Well, you might let them know I am here, and ask them how long they will be."
Caresse, sitting up in bed to consume rolls and coffee with excellent appetite, while she regaled Perdita with a picturesque account of the night's adventure, was just saying: "Frightened? I should think I was! Out of my wits. I thought you wouldn't wake if the ceiling fell, when the telephone bell rang at her bedside, and her voice went on: "Tell him to come up. Yes, at once." And then to Perdita's exclamation of startled protest: "Yes, it's Lawrence, of course. And about time, too. . . . Yes, why not? It's not as though you're alone, or me either." She considered a bed-jacket that suited her too well to be seen by none but feminine eyes, and that the tale she was telling deserved a larger audience than it now had. A moment later, Lawrence Norton entered the room.
"Hello, Lawrence!" Caresse said cheerfully, "don't look so surprised. I suppose you thought we should still be waiting for you downstairs. We might have had a quieter night if we had. . . . You don't want to be introduced? You've met Perdita before, although I daresay you'll say you've forgotten that."
Perdita said: "That was ages ago. I don't suppose he remembers me." She looked up, as she shook hands, at a man whom she remembered as largely made, but who seemed to have grown in bulk, and surely was of a gravity very different from her memory of him as a guest in her mother's house four years before. He had been twenty then, and she a girl of sixteen. He had been secret hero to her, but she supposed that to be a fact that she had not exposed, for she had always been reticent of her own emotions, more disposed to listen to others than to reveal her feelings to them.
He said: "I have not forgotten at all." Their eyes met in the old friendly way, but his went on to Caresse, as she exclaimed: "What's the matter, Lawrence? Anyone'd think you'd had no sleep for a week."
"I haven't had much. . . . I went out with a friend."
"Did she keep you all night?"
A smile chased the weariness from his face. "It was not a she."
"Then it's more difficult to forgive."
He made no reply. The former gravity had come back to his eyes.
Perdita interrupted Caresse's persiflage in a more serious tone: "We 'phoned you last night because we were in a jam, and we thought you might help."
"That is," Caresse interposed, "if you can read Czech."
"Probably I can, if it's clearly written." It was proficiency in languages by which his position in the diplomatic service had been obtained, and the many tongues and hybrid dialects of Eastern Europe had been his special study during the two years that he had held his present appointment.
Perdita said: "They're not written, they're typed. We don't know that they're Czech. . . . That's a guess. . . . Mr. Norton, you might put this on the table."
"Lawrence, please."
"Very well; Lawrence."
As she spoke, she had passed him the breakfast-tray from her knees, and twisted round to draw the bundle of papers from under her pillow.
He took them casually, but as he saw what they were, his expression turned to an added gravity, and then to a puzzled frown. During the moment's silence, the telephone rang at Caresse's side. She said: "Telegram? Yes. Send it up." And then to Lawrence: "You're not going to tell us they're beating you?"
"The first sheets," he answered, "are plain enough, though what they mean is harder to say. They are lists of men, mostly German, to judge by their names, and all Nazis at a good guess, by a few I've heard of before. The other sheets, being written in cipher, may be Persian or Japanese for anything I could tell. . . . But how, in God's name, did these things come into your hands? Did you find them here?"
They were interrupted by a page-boy's knock at the door. He gave a telegram to Caresse's hand.
She stared at it for a moment, and when she looked up Perdita had commenced the narrative of their adventures in the train, and during the night.
She did not interrupt except once or twice to give a more vivid tone to her friend's descriptions, and that was rather because Lawrence's eyes were on Perdita's face as she spoke, which she did not like, than that the younger girl failed to make the narrative clear. But when it came to the events of the night, Perdita said: "Caresse can tell you best about that. I just slept like a fool," and so Caresse took the stage's centre again, as it was normal for her to do.
When the tale was done, Lawrence said: "I want you both to go back by the next train. It is not only because of this. It's what I meant to say when I came in."
Perdita said: "We shouldn't like to do that. Not unless we know why."
Caresse laughed: " 'Two minds with but a single thought.' . . . . Look at this." She passed over the telegram.
It read:
"COME BACK NEXT POSSIBLE TRAIN VIA VIENNA GENOA NETHERLAND BOAT FROM THERE SERIOUS REASON DON'T FAIL LOVE GERALD."
Lawrence, reading it, showed no surprise. He said: "That about settles it. They often know more in London than we do here." He seemed to be thinking aloud, rather than talking to them.
Caresse said sharply: "It doesn't settle anything. Why, our tickets wouldn't be any use! Are we to throw them away? Perhaps you will tell us what you both mean."
"I don't think you ought to need telling more than you've seen for yourselves already. . . . It's not a very safe time for foreigners to be here."
"I thought English people were liked in Prague?"
"So they are. But - - "
"Then I think we've had enough of crossing frontiers for a few days. I don't see - - "
"I'm afraid you'll have to."
He spoke curtly, and with a tone of command which she remembered of old, and half-resented and half-approved.
Perdita said: "I suppose you mean there'll be war." Her tone indicated a mild excitement rather than apprehension of any evil to fear.
"I have said nothing of such a kind. You must please be clear upon that. It is not our business to start scares and that is a word that is best unsaid. . . . I say that conditions here are such that you should get home while you safely can."
"And you think crossing frontiers about twice a day - - " Caresse began (was he likely to think of how many dresses were in her trunks, or that there are no hairdressers on the trains?), but she was interrupted by a light knock on the door.
The man who entered was dressed in civilian clothes, but his manner was military, both in speech and gesture. He spoke English well, with a German accent.
He said: "Pardon, ladies," in a tone that was brusque rather than apologetic, and then looked his surprise that there was another visitor in the room. The next instant his eyes fell on the papers that lay on Perdita's bed. "I see," he said, "you have found that which is mine."
Lawrence said: "Which shouldn't have been here."
"It is a trouble which I regret. But it is one that is ending now."
"Herr Müller, if you will take your hand from that gun, I will do the same. This is a matter which can be settled best in another way." The man drew his hand from the hip-pocket to which it had gone when he perceived that Lawrence was in the room, and Lawrence's own hand came from his jacket-pocket to which it had fallen in a careless-seeming movement, as instant as his.
"If you know who I am, you will know that I ask for that to which I have the best right."
"And if you know me, you will know that my first concern must be to avoid association with the intrigues of a country which is not mine. . . . But I will neither yield to a threat, nor let it be said that I have been the medium of handing over those papers to you, which should not be here, and which we are unable to read. They are nothing to us. If you take them away, we shall neither hinder nor help."
The man came quickly across the room. He gathered up the papers, and went. Lawrence said: "You are well out of that. The man you saw is the secret head of the Nazi organisation here. That he should have come himself, and after he must have heard of Herr Schmit's fate, is an indication of how important they were. . . . You are clear of them now, but I must still urge you to get out of Prague with the least delay."
Caresse gave no direct answer. "Suppose," she said, "to begin with, you get out of this room. And if you like to ask us to lunch - - "
"To dinner, if you don't mind. The fact is, I've got to get a few hours sleep"
"I suppose it's no use asking why you don't sleep at the usual time?"
"Not the least. . . . Suppose I call for you at six-thirty, and we fix up for you to leave tomorrow?"
"Six-thirty will do for us," Caresse replied, avoiding the larger issue. . . .
Lawrence found the lift on the point of descending, and in a few seconds he was at the hotel door. But as the porter swung it open for him to leave, a page-boy was at his side.
"If you please, sir, Mrs. Langton wants to know if you can see her for a moment again."
He went back to find that the trouble with Herr Müller might be less completely over than he had supposed.
Perdita held out a sheet of paper. "If you know Mr. Müller's address," she said, "you can send him this."
"She found it under her pillow," Caresse explained, "when she was hopping out."
He took the sheet with an inward curse at the perversity of the event, and yet with a thought that it might be worth while to discover what secrets the cipher held.
XV
No. 973 had a reputation for calculated audacities which was not excelled by that of any member of the service to which he belonged. It was a reputation of narrow bounds, for the secret agent must work without hope of public applause.
He must live and die unknown to those for whom he goes in peril by night and day. He must avoid publicity as anxiously as it is sought by others, dodging it as he now twisted and paused and ran to escape the searchlights that chased him and did not tire; for if it find him, his use is done.
His first aim, as he left Lawrence, had been to divert attention from him, and from the path he meant to take to the waiting plane. But with this object achieved, his mind became active to save himself, and to contrive that he should not fail to take full advantage of the opportunity which had been forced upon him.
Yet, cool and active though he might be, and adroit to take any advantage that was offered by the nature of the ground over which he fled, it is improbable that he could have escaped the hunt that was converging from every side, or the bullets that were frequent and swifter in their pursuit, had not the two searchlights ceased to assist the chase.
As though tiring of so petty an occupation, they swung upward at the same moment, lifting parallel bars of light to the southern sky.
It was evident that they had abandoned him for an object of greater or more urgent importance, and if it implied no hope that his human foes would relax their efforts, it gave the moment's respite which the situation required.
He saw that his worst enemy was the snow, which lay deep on the open hills, and would delay every step he took and record it for the guidance of those who would be eager in his pursuit. There was the poor choice of so hard a flight, or else to keep his feet on the trodden paths where he could have little hope of avoiding those who would seek to bring him to capture and speedy death.
He had the hunted creature's instinct for flight, but he controlled it to the adoption of the second course, both because he judged it to be a slender chance against none, and because it would offer the better opportunities of the observation for which he came.
But he saw that, if he were to remain in this secret camp, a disguise was his vital need, and, as the searchlights ceased their pursuit, he was instant to double back to the one spot where he hoped that it might be found.
On the cliff-edge path, a hundred yards from the hut which was empty now, he came to a place where two dark shapes were fallen upon the snow. He did not need to risk flashing his torch to know that these sprawling forms would be useless to him. He was not a small man, but their uniforms would have hung upon him loosely enough to tickle a scarecrow's mirth.
He moved to the tumbled rocks that bordered the path, seeking a place where he could crouch await for any who should come single along: and, as he did so, his foot sank in that which was smooth and soft, and which gave way differently from the crunch of the frozen snow. Under his tread, a man squirmed with a coughing grunt.
No. 973 flashed his torch down on one whom his hand had shot in the last hour, and who had crawled there, and fainted from loss of blood.
The man asked, with a sharp doubt in his voice: "Who are you?" and not getting a quick reply, his hand moved to a pistol against his side. Steele had had time to see that his clothes were likely to be of the right size. He would not withdraw, nor could he let the man shoot, nor risk the noise of a shot from his own gun. Seeing the hand move, he threw himself forward upon one who was not too wounded or weak to make a fight for the life that is dear to all.
Steele's fingers were on his throat: he thrust his knee between the gun and the seeking hand. He knew that it must be a fight to the death, whether with weapons or naked hands.
He felt the man's hand struggling desperately to reach the pistol against his side, and he could oppose this only with the knee he had thrust between. He might have been able to wrest the gun from the weaker man, but it would have been useless to him, for it was on silence that he relied. To kill and run would have been no service to him. He must remain there unsuspected amidst those who were searching on every side.
The man twisted and strove, and struggled for failing breath until there came a doubt even to his assailant's resolute mind of whether his strength would be the longer to last. But against one so wounded and underneath there could be but one end. There came a time when the man must forget all else in futile efforts to tear off the hands that denied him breath. . . . Breathless himself, No. 973 rose at last, as he withdrew his grasp from the throat of a strangled man.
The death of Johann Schmit was no more than one of those frontier incidents that had been constant in Eastern Europe since the Trianon Treaties had kennelled discordant elements within boundaries that had no reality beyond that of the barbed wire and loaded rifles that held their lines. But the death of this German soldier cannot be placed in the same homicidal schedule.
The world slept unconscious of the shadow which advanced upon it, but, with the fall of this man, and his two comrades upon the path, it may be said that the War of 1938 had commenced. . . . .
No. 973's reputation for successful audacities had not been won by mere temerity in the taking of hazardous ways. To gain such a name and live, a man must be prudent and thorough to the last detail of all he does. As he had created the nervous, ineffectual personality of Richard Steele, the Legation hanger-on, with such artistic completeness that even the keen eyes of the Czech police had passed him over as not worthy of their regard, so now he was not content with any superficiality, but he must strip every article that the dead man wore, he must discard every possession he had himself, even to the torch which the contents of his new pockets did not replace.
In every detail he sought to adopt the identity of him whose uniform he had put on, and that which his pockets held must be the things that he needed now. Among these, he found an envelope which gave him the name that must now be his, and the regiment to which he belonged.
He lifted the stripped body of the man that his hands had killed, carried it across the path, and dropped it over the sheer side of the cliff. Listening for its fall, he thought he heard a cracking of boughs, as though it broke through bushes, or found its rest in a wooded place. Hoping that they would not be revealed with the coming day, he dropped his own clothes and possessions at the same spot. He searched the other two men, but took no more than some food that their pockets held. He stood up Eugene Gumpert, private in a Franconian infantry regiment.
While he had been busy in these ways, he had raised his eyes from time to time to observe the searchlights that remained motionless, pointed aloft to the southern sky. Down the dark lane between those channels of light, one by one, there came a succession of aeroplanes, which dropped out of his sight where he then stood, but which were obviously descending to enter the wide doors at the end of a long platform that opened into the mountain-side. They were guided by a great light which rose to meet them from a source that he could not see, but which he guessed correctly to come from the opened doors. If, he thought he could get through them before they closed, if he could see what that subterranean cavern held - - ? It was an attempt to be promptly made, if at all, for each plane that arrived might be the last to come, and the lights might be cut off, and the doors closed. So he stepped out from the shadow in which he had stood a moment to form his plans, with Eugene Gumpert's rifle under his arm, and was aware as he did so that a man came up the path in a hurried and furtive way rather than as one of those who searched for himself, or was otherwise there with a good cause.
He stepped boldly across the path.
"Halt!" he cried. "Who goes there?"
The man stopped abruptly. He faced the moonlight, which brightened as the clouds broke. He was unarmed, and wore the uniform of a pilot of the German Air Force.
He gave his name in a hurried way, as one who would be glad to be gone. He added: "It is all right. I had six hours' leave. I have been down in the camp."
He spoke nervously, making it seem probable that he lied, though less easy to guess what the lie might be.
Steele said boldly: I do not know you. I know most who are stationed here."
"Neither do I know you."
"I am Eugene Gumpert, of the 22nd Franconian Infantry. Now will you say who you claim to be?"
"I only came yesterday. I am one of those who have been transferred from the Nürnberg corps."
That was easy to believe, and suggested explanation of why Nürnberg was said to be very quiet, and to have many away on leave. But it was Steele's posture to doubt. He said: "That may be true. But I am searching for two spies who have been seen during the night. You are strange to me, and it is a risk that I dare not take. . . . You must come back with me."
The man expostulated in a way that showed the proposal to be unwelcome, from whatever cause. In fact, he had slipped down to the valley camp without leave, and would have been sooner back had he not thought it prudent to hide for a time when there had come a sudden clamour of cries and shots, and the searchlights had descended upon the road.
But he pleaded in vain. The only concession Eugene Gumpert would grant was that he would not take him to his own officer. He need not consider himself under arrest. Private Gumpert's military conscience would be satisfied if it saw him return to his proper station, and observed him to be recognised by his comrades. He said, "You can go first, but you will be wise if you do not hurry your pace; for, if you run, I shall fire."
On this bargain, the man went ahead, feeling that it might be worse than it was, and that, with good luck for friend, he might avoid the observation of those who would punish his fault.
No. 973 had secured both a guide into the aerodrome, and an excuse for his own entrance there which might otherwise have been hard to find.
XVI
THE man looked up anxiously. He was naturally reluctant to run, with the muzzle of Eugene Gumpert's rifle about three feet from his back. He was only less urgently reluctant to be shut out, with the inevitable exposure which it entailed. He looked back to ask: "If I go on a bit faster, you won't think I'm running away?"
"I might make a mistake."
Steele thought that his prisoner was going fast enough now. The path was steep and rough, and the winter uniform and accoutrements of a private in the Franconian infantry were weighty arguments for a more leisurely pace.
Airman Witz did not like the reply, yet his pace hastened rather than slackened. He said: "I only want to get in."
Private Gumpert considered that there might be advantages in the man using his tongue more and his legs less. He asked: "What's the hurry now?"
Witz looked up again as he replied: "That's the last plane coming in."
No. 973 would have given more heed to the skies had he not needed his eyes for a path that he did not know. Now he looked up to see a large plane of the night-bomber type that glided smoothly down the dark lane between the search-lights' parallel beams. He asked: "That's a Zeus, isn't
"Yes, of course," the airman answered. There was impatience in his tone, as of one who agrees to a thing too well understood for the waste of words. He came back to that which engaged his own mind: "In two minutes, they'll have it in."
"And when that happens, you're anxious to be inside? Well, go ahead."
The man went on at a pace that was not favourable to further words. Private Gumpert made no demur, for he was equally anxious not to be shut out. He saw that there might be even more to learn than he had supposed a moment before.
It was a Zeus, "of course," that came down from the sky. . . . And the whole world had known that Germany had abandoned the manufacture of that type of plane nearly two years ago I And yet, he remembered, the German Government had made no such assertion. They had even gone the length of officially denying the rumours of the unsatisfactory performance which had been whispered through the world of aviation regarding the new night-bombers which they had commenced to manufacture so largely after their open denunciation, in the spring of 1935, of the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty.
But they had allowed it to be one of those secrets which all men know that they had turned to the manufacture of the new Vogel type of night-bombers, of which six hundred had been employed in the aerial manoeuvres of 1937, at which attachés of other governments had been present, according to the custom of outward frankness which now prevailed.
The German Government was said to consider the Vogel to be equal to the newest type on which the British relied or to any of the patterns which had been produced by the fertile genius of French engineers, and which were sufficiently numerous to make a fleet of samples of the great Air Force of France. But it was an opinion with which aviators outside Germany were not disposed to agree. They said the Vogel was heavy, powerful, but rather slow.
Now, he wondered, were the Vogels little more than a monstrous bluff, or a second line? Had the rumours of bad performance on the part of the Zeus pattern been deliberately set afloat? Had the formal denial of the German Government been no more than a clever ruse that was to succeed by its simple truth, which those who read it would be too shrewd to believe? Especially when they heard that a new type had been put in hand.
He had always been sceptical of the rumours of a huge subterranean German aerodrome which had been circulated during the past year. Not that he doubted the existence of such retreats. More or less, they had been openly known. Subterranean petrol reservoirs, and even aerodromes that would take in a substantial number of planes, had been known to exist for the past three years. That was the point. They had been known. The secret one, constructed on a scale that would be of military importance, had seemed too difficult to believe. The extent of the required excavations - other more technical difficulties - these still remained. But he saw that there might be more to discover than he had feared, or expected, to find.
It had become of tenfold importance that he should not fail to enter those open doors, of tenfold importance also that he should not be detected in what he did. . . . But on that point he had some confidence in himself; and, at the worst, he did not run quite the danger that might appear. He had good reason to hope that, even if he were discovered for what he was, he might have something to put forward which would protect him from condemnation to instant death.
With these thoughts in his mind, he hurried on, making no further protest against the pace that his companion set. They were side by side, in a final spurt, when they joined the miscellaneous group of soldiers, airmen, and artisans who were gathered round the aerodrome entrance. As they passed through them, the great doors were already commencing to move together along their smooth oiled grooves.
Private Gumpert, still keeping his eyes upon the man who must be the explanation of his presence there, was yet vaguely aware of a cavern, vast in extent, though not in height, sufficiently lit by arc-lamps that hung above, and with a floor covered with heavy night-bombing planes, as though a horde of gigantic beetles had settled with open or folded wings.
It was with a natural satisfaction that he looked round and observed the absence of any who wore the uniform of the regiment that he had so recently joined. He supposed himself to be secure from detection for a few hours, if he could avoid meeting with those who would have learnt to attach his name to another man, and providing that he could give sufficient explanation of why he was in a place where he had no evident business to be.
But while the absence of other members of his battalion made the detection of his personation less probable, it rendered his uniform sufficiently conspicuous to make it a poor hope that his presence would pass unnoticed.
Deciding, therefore, that the bolder course was the safer, he approached an officer whose eyes he observed to be already directed upon him, drawing forward the reluctant Witz.
He saluted, and with the brevity that the occasion required, and a Bavarian accent worthy of his new nationality, he stated the duty on which he had been engaged, and the doubt that had brought him there.
"I suppose him to be whom he says," he concluded; "but he was a man whom I did not know. Having been ordered to watch for spies - - "
"Did you see anything of those spies?"
"I saw two men run, with whom we exchanged shots. Two of my comrades were killed. I followed those who ran, till the searchlights lifted, and they made off in the dark. I think that I hit one."
"You have done well." The officer gave instructions to one of his own men to accompany Airman Witz, and to verify whom he was. He appeared to regard the incident as complete, but Private Gumpert saluted again to ask: "Herr Captain, have I your leave to return?"
It was a bold risk, but it could be seen that the great doors were closed, and they were not likely to be reopened for him. While he wore the uniform of Private Gumpert, he must act as that man would have been likely to do. And he saw that his position would be improved if he could obtain a direct authority for remaining within the aerodrome during the night.
The officer was decided in his reply. No one could leave till the next day, now that the doors had been closed. But he was considerate to one whose conduct he thought worthy of praise. He ordered that a message explaining his absence should be telephoned to the military barracks in the valley below. He gave instructions for his accommodation in the meantime.
XVII
PRIVATE GUMPERT was soon seated among a group of airmen who were to go on duty during the night (though night and day were alike to them, where the sunlight would never reach, and work went on unceasingly under the arc-lamps' glare). They sat round a long table eating what was breakfast to them. As they ate they talked, and he found that he could learn much, even without speaking himself.
He saw Witz take a seat nearly opposite himself, at which he was less than pleased, though he thought that there could be little danger from him. The man appeared to have been able to slip back into his place without incurring the censure of his superior officers. Doubtless, he would wish it to be supposed that, like his comrades around him, he had been asleep in the last hours.
The talk of airmen naturally centres round that with which their own lives are concerned. These men had been recently drafted from different camps, of which they exchanged news. Much was naturally left unsaid, as being commonly known. Often more could be learnt by inference than by actual statement. Among idle chatter, badinage, and trivial gossip, there were allusions to the recent movement during the night of a large air force from the Baltic coast, to reinforce the great Sakrow aerodrome near Berlin. Exact numbers were not mentioned, but the impression given was of the movement of many hundreds of planes.
There was a joking allusion to the time, three years before, when the German Government had half flouted, half bamboozled Europe with the Luft Hansa training of naval pilots, and the innocent activities of the Air Sport League. It appeared that the "Air Sport League" was still used as a jesting name for the greatest of the military air forces which the nations of Europe had contrived grotesquely for their own destruction.
The one fact of supreme importance which was implicit in the remarks around him was that this was only one of a number of secret subterranean aerodromes, though he could learn nothing of how many there were without a question too direct to be risked. But this was No. 7. There might be no more than six others. There might be twenty. He had already formed a vague guess that the vast cavern held not less than two hundred planes. The difficulty he had always felt in imagining a secret depot large enough to accommodate a great fleet was resolved in this way. The depots were not one but many. The secret air fleet might amount to several thousand planes, in addition to those that were openly known, and which were considered equal in themselves to any air force which the world held, excepting only that of the United States.
And it appeared that these concealed planes were all of a single pattern - the Zeus night-bombers.
The Zeus was not adapted to carry so heavy a load as could several of the patterns of bombers which the nations of Europe built with grim haste that their children might go to death by a shortened road. Its distinctive features were great speed and defensive strength. It was a streamlined, all-metal monoplane, with folding wings and retractile wheels. It had a crew of two only. Its bombs were dropped by the pilot, by a lever which his foot moved. It had the usual gun-ring, but no turret. Its four engines were of a design which was the most closely guarded secret of all. Its speed was 330 miles per hour, and its range, with a full load, about 1,200 miles. Against these qualities, what disadvantage was it that the single machines carried a lighter load than those of the latest designs of either England or France?
In building a great fleet of single pattern, the German Air Ministry had pursued the same policy which had guided the construction of the air fleet which it openly showed. It had observed the principle, long recognised by naval commanders, but not yet equally appreciated in the air, that a fleet can be manoeuvred to better purpose, either for attack or defence, if its units be equal in strength and speed. . . .
Private Gumpert listened, and learned. He might have avoided trouble, had he not been drawn into the talk by an allusion which Witz made to the Hanover petrol depot, which he did not follow, and of which he would have been glad to hear more. He spoke in a natural way, and all would have been well had not Witz used his name when he replied.
When he did it a second time, another man said: "Gumpert? This isn't Gumpert. You give our friend the wrong name."
Steele smiled easily, it being a trouble he had feared, and which he met with a ready mind. He asked the last speaker: "Whom do you think I am?"
"I don't know that. I only know you're not Eugene Gumpert."
"You're wrong there. It must be my cousin you know. We happen to have the same names. It's the only point on which we're not about as different as any two people are."
The man agreed that the difference was not small, but he accepted the explanation readily, as he was likely to do.
But Witz became silent. A strange doubt stirred in his mind. He looked across at his recent captor with suspicious eyes. If spies were about, who could tell in what guise they would be? He remembered that puzzling exclamation of surprise when the Zeus plane had appeared, and his doubt grew.
And with this doubt there came a fear as to how far he might be involved, either if he spoke, or kept quiet. It was clear that he could say nothing without exposing his own breach of discipline. It was almost equally certain that, should the spy, if such he were, be ultimately discovered by other means, the question of how he had established himself in the aerodrome would arise, and perhaps in a way that would be even worse for himself.
On the whole, duty and personal safety seemed to point the same way. If a spy he were, Airman Witz was the only one by whom he should be denounced. But a false accusation, which would have no result but to draw attention to his own fault, would be a folly he would not risk.
While he pondered thus, the man who had spoken before said: "I was at Retzbach last summer. I met your cousin then. He was with Wilhelm Reichert, the miller's son. You will know him?"
"I'm afraid not. I have not been in Retzbach for many years. It is my native place, but I have lived long in Berlin."
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