“We’ll find her,” Thornley said quietly.
Richard didn’t waste any more time. He spread the map before them.
“We’ll meet here,” he said, pointing to a part of the road as it touched the Berg Isel. “Bring a car, and all your things packed. And take this parcel and pack the things in it into your case. It’s our stuff for Italy.”
“I’ve arranged about the car,” said van Cortlandt. “That radio man agreed to an exchange. He’ll keep his mouth shut. He’s going to Vienna this afternoon, and is travelling the Jenbach road. I’ve already told the hotel I’m going back to Pertisau to look for my friends. It all fits in nicely.”
Richard looked at the American with respect. “That’s a pretty good effort, Henry. Well, that’s about all. Meet me at that place any time after four o’clock. That will let me get out there safely. And bring some chocolate and cigarettes.”
“Say half-past four,” said van Cortlandt. They shook hands.
“We’ll be seeing you,” he added, and followed Thornley back into the shop. Richard waited for Anni. She hurried into the store-room, and unlocked the back door.
“Goodbye, Herr Professor, and give the gnädige Frau my…” She bit her lip. “Please let me know when she is safe. Please.”
“Yes, Anni.”
“Please hurry, Herr Professor.”
“Yes, Anni.” What could he say to thank her enough for what she had done? Anni, sensing his difficulty, smiled sadly.
“I am only repaying your kindness in Oxford. The gnädige Frau was always so good to me.” She opened the door and motioned him out.
“Auf Wiedersehen, Anni.” He gripped her hand and held it.
“Auf Wiedersehen.” Her smile was quivering. And then the door closed behind him, and already his steps had taken him far enough away to keep Anni safe.
Here was the street corner, and the crowds. He loitered with them until he saw Thornley and van Cortlandt leave the shop. They were carrying two or three parcels. He watched them until they were lost in the crowd.
He felt suddenly hungry, but he had just enough money to take him to the Berg Isel by tramcar. That would save his legs for tonight’s climb. He and Thornley could get Frances over the frontier, and van Cortlandt could take their clothes by car, and meet them in Italy. On the Berg Isel, as he waited for the others, he would memorise that map which Anni had given him, and compare it with his own. He felt safe enough, partly because of the number of people on the streets, partly, because von Aschenhausen would be the only person in Innsbruck who could recognise him—and von Aschenhausen was with Frances. The German was playing a deep and subtle game. If he had taken Frances to Dreikirchen it was because her arrest must be unofficial until he had got the information from her which would help him to retrieve his failure. Frances knew enough to compensate him for the escape of Smith, and even that might be made temporary, if Frances could be persuaded… If Frances could be persuaded…
The journey to the Berg Isel, although dull and safe enough, was one which Richard would never forget.
21
APPROACH TO DREIKIRCHEN
Van Cortlandt and Thornley made their way as quickly as they could through the crowd. They stopped twice: once to buy some biscuits and chocolate and one to buy oranges. Van Cortlandt already had some brandy. In this matter-of-fact way, they quietly discussed their plans as they walked along to van Cortlandt’s hotel. Thornley, with unexpected pessimism, had not unpacked his bag and in any case he always travelled light. Van Cortlandt, although most of his belongings always remained in his trunk or suitcases, had a lot of odds and ends to clear up in his room. So it was Thornley who would have the job of ’phoning van Cortlandt’s broadcasting friend and of telling him the time they would meet him. He already knew the place where they were to exchange cars. Van Cortlandt had thought that out, this morning. Thornley was also to telephone Cook’s agent, and have him collect van Cortlandt’s heavier luggage, with the directions that it was to be sent on to Geneva.
Van Cortlandt was quite philosophic about it all.
“It was coming,” he said. “I’ve got to the stage when I can’t write at all. I’ve developed a sort of censorphobia. Every word I get down begins to look as if it won’t get through anyway. And it’s about time I changed my beat. If there are any surprises coming in the world’s history it won’t be from this direction. They are all set for Poland. I’d do better to go there myself. See it from the other angle.”
“I had a letter this morning,” Thornley said unexpectedly, and his tone made van Cortlandt look at him. “I’ll tell you about it later. It was from Tony, on his way home.”
“The girl?”
Thornley shook his head.
“Alone.”
Van Cortlandt was startled. He had never imagined that Thornley’s face could have such an ugly look.
“Pretty bad?” he asked.
Thornley only nodded.
They finished the journey in silence.
When he left van Cortlandt Thornley’s voice was normal again.
“I’ll see you at four,” he said.
It was four o’clock exactly when Thornley arrived at the garage. Van Cortlandt was already there, examining his car. The mechanic had lost interest and was busy with some other work. He had overhauled the car this morning and had found nothing seriously wrong although they seemed to have had a lot of trouble last night. These Americans! If only they’d take the trouble to learn about the insides of a machine, they would save themselves a lot of money… But then they were all millionaires and that ruined them. Now, it was said, they were all starving in the streets. What people had to suffer in other countries! Anyway, the car was perfect now; and he had been paid; and he had other work to do, plenty of it what with all the others at the parade. He had advised the American not to miss the processions: that was something to see. That was something to impress anyone. But the American had only smiled and nodded. Perhaps he couldn’t understand German. And now the American was pottering around his car pretending he knew all about the engine, looking for anything that had been left undone. Let him: there was plenty of more important work to be done. The money had been paid. The job was over.
Van Cortlandt motioned Thornley into the motor-car, but he himself didn’t enter. He kept his eyes fixed on the entrance of the garage. When a boy appeared carrying two suitcases van Cortlandt had the money read in his hand. The boy was gone as suddenly as he had arrived, the suitcases were in the car, and they were driving smoothly out of the door.
“Quick work,” said Thornley approvingly. “That was rather a brain wave of yours.”
Van Cortlandt grinned as he guided the car expertly through the traffic. “How did you manage?”
“It was easy enough,” Thornley said. “You know what a rabbit warren my hotel was—no lift, just staircases and passages. Well, I paid the bill, said I was leaving for Pertisau round about five, and went back to my room until then. I came down another staircase and took one of the back exits. I wasn’t even followed.”
“If I was, I lost him in the crowds. Processions have their uses. Helluva lot of uniforms today. They seem to crawl out from under every stone. Wonder what’s it all about?”
“Just any old excuse. It depresses me.”
“That was the Myleses’ reaction.”
“Isn’t it yours? It looks as if we shall all just have to learn to march too. No one can stop that spirit with arguments or good deeds.”
“Well, I must say I think it needs stopping. But I don’t think there’s a democracy left with the guts to do it. We are all tied to our mothers’ apron-strings—and big business keeps bleating about peace and prosperity. Between the apron-strings and the bleating, we’ll all hesitate until it’s too late. That is what depresses me.”
Thornley said nothing to that. There were things stronger than apron-strings and bleatings, he felt. But it was no good talking about courage: you could not prove it by talking about it. It was like a pudding: the
proof was in the eating. He contented himself with watching the way in which van Cortlandt drove. The timing at the corners of the streets was perfect. If any car were following them it would be jammed by the traffic from the cross-streets. Van Cortlandt had forgotten his depression and was enjoying himself. He seemed particularly pleased when they crossed the bridge and turned west towards the Jenbach road. The two uniformed men on the bridgehead had noticed the car; this amused van Cortlandt particularly. By the time they had reached the beer garden the traffic had thinned and they could see that no car was following them.
Van Cortlandt’s eyes searched the few cars parked beyond the entrance to the garden. They widened suddenly.
“Good man,” he said with some satisfaction. “Space for us, and all.” He drove neatly in beside a dark-blue car. Its subdued colour made it almost invisible beside van Cortlandt’s. Its doors were unlocked, and Thornley slipped into the back seat. He found himself calmly handing out the suitcase he found there to van Cortlandt, who gave him their cases in exchange. The easiness of the whole business took his breath away.
A thin man in an American suit and hat was walking leisurely towards them. He threw his cigarette away as he reached his new car and gave van Cortlandt a sardonic grin as he opened its door.
Van Cortlandt got into the blue car. “Drive like hell,” he said to the steering-wheel.
“Sure,” the man said to himself. He backed the car smoothly in a half circle, so that it faced in the direction of Jenbach. Thornley looked after the speeding car and watched it disappearing round the trees. Anyone who might have been watching would have difficulty in knowing just what had happened. The only way in which he could see what man had got into what car would have been to walk past them. And no one had.
Van Cortlandt watched his car until it was out of sight, and then he swung back on the road by which they had just come.
“He’s all right,” he said, reading Thornley’s mind. “We are just two Americans who traded cars. So what? If there is anything phoney about that, then we just act dumb. He doesn’t know much about our game. He was a newspaperman himself, once, and he guessed I was on to a story. And he hates the Nazis’ guts. What’s more, he got a bargain in cars. We’re all happy.”
Thornley guessed that van Cortlandt was putting a very good face on the whole business. He had been proud of that car. He was a strange mixture, thought Thornley: just as strange and unpredictable as van Cortlandt himself found the British. That would surprise him. Thornley smiled. Van Cortlandt saw it in the mirror.
“What’s the joke?” he asked. “I could do with one myself.”
“The Nazis’ guts. It is funny that it should be one thing on which most Americans and Britishers can agree wholeheartedly, without any reservations. The average Frenchman hates the Nazis, too; but half, or at least part, of it is due to the fact he is a dangerous neighbour. Now you and I don’t hate the Nazis because they are German. We hate the Germans because they are Nazi. And if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be driving a strange car to God-knows-where into God-knows-what this afternoon. You’d be standing at a street corner shouting ‘Heil!’ with the rest, and feeling all uplifted and mystic. You like the Myleses, I know, but if the Nazis didn’t curdle you up inside, you wouldn’t be doing all this. In fact, we’ve got to the stage where anyone who opposes the Nazis is worth helping. Isn’t that it?”
Van Cortlandt grinned. “About. I didn’t tell you how I felt when I arrived here? I was going to be the complete neutral observer. My stories were going to be a model of detachment. Can you imagine that? My angle was that the Germans had had a tough time of it. If they only had gotten a square deal… all that hash. It only took me a few weeks to find out that every deal was square if it benefited Germany, and to hell with the rest. Now I don’t mind them looking out for their own rights; we all do. But what got me down is the way no one else has any rights, unless they say so. That’s the rub. They are always in the right, and the rest of us just misunderstand them. Criticism is just another stab in the back from Jews and Communists. They’ve kidded other people so long now that they’ve started kidding themselves.”
“Perhaps it is because they’ve developed two standards,” suggested Thornley, “one for Germany, one for the others. They really believe that anything which is good for them can’t be evil. That is how they can lie and commit all kinds of treachery. If it is for the benefit of the Fatherland, then it doesn’t seem a lie or a piece of treachery to them: it makes everything moral.”
“But then there are the exceptions.”
“Yes, and they should be thanking God for the exceptions instead of driving them into exile or putting them into concentration camps. If it weren’t for them, after the next war Germany might be blotted from the map.”
Van Cortlandt shook his head. “You can’t destroy a whole nation.”
“Can’t you? Just wait to see how Germany will try it with some of her neighbours. She will give the rest of us a few tips. And it worked with Carthage too. Don’t look so worried, Henry, the exceptions will get Germany her second chance. Or is it a third?”
Van Cortlandt shook his head. “God knows,” he said wearily.
They had circled round Innsbruck to the west. That avoided the main streets, which were crowding up once more. They passed several formations of uniformed young men. It seemed as if they were all marching their way to some meeting place. Neither the American nor the Englishman said anything, but as they passed one set of exhibitionists in goose-stepping precision their eyes met in the mirror above van Cortlandt’s head.
On the road which led to the Berg Isel (the road which led to the Brenner Pass eventually, as van Cortlandt carefully pointed out) three large black cars passed them in quick succession. They were filled with young men sitting uncomfortably erect, their faces white blurs under the uniform caps. Van Cortlandt heard a quick movement behind him, and turned to see Thornley looking through the back window of the car. He was repeating something to himself.
“Yes?” asked van Cortlandt. Thornley was clearly excited.
“One of these cars—that’s it, one of them.”
Van Cortlandt smiled. “Your grammar does your feelings proud,” he said. “What about it, anyway?”
“One of these cars is the same one I saw this afternoon with Frances in it. Don’t you see, Henry, if they have left Dreikirchen it will be all the better for us?”
Van Cortlandt thought over this for some moments. “If they left Dreikirchen,” he said. He was probably right, thought Thornley gloomily. And yet pieces of luck both good and bad had the oddest way of turning up. Whichever way you added up your plans, you should always leave a margin on either side for luck.
“Any time now,” said van Cortlandt. He had slackened the speed of the car as they approached the small railway halt; there were a few passengers waiting on the small platform. Richard had said he would be near here. Their eyes anxiously watched the road ahead and the paths which led into the surrounding woods, but it wasn’t until they were round a bend in the road which hid them from the halt and its inn, and the car had stopped completely to let Thornley get out, that Richard stepped from behind some trees.
“I was beginning to think that we had missed you,” van Cortlandt said, worry sharpening his voice, as the car moved on.
“Sorry,” said Richard. “I forgot to ask you the colour of the car and I wasn’t sure. Couldn’t risk anything. Sorry. How did everything go?”
“According to plan.”
“Good. Now we’ve about five minutes more on this road, and then ten minutes more to the right. I did some map studying while I waited and there seems to be a small road or track of some kind just before we get to the Dreikirchen road. If we follow that track then we can approach the place from the back. If it had been dark we could have risked the Dreikirchen road itself. But we’d better not wait for darkness. We haven’t time.”
Thornley looked at Richard’s white, set face. There was a gauntness about it which w
orried him.
“Had anything to eat?” he inquired casually. Richard shook his head and then took the slab of chocolate which Thornley handed him. He ate it with his eyes fixed on his watch. He doesn’t know or care what he s eating, thought Thornley; it might be linoleum for all he knows; he’s all shot to pieces.
“Brandy?” he asked.
“We’ll need it later,” Richard said. He was still looking at his watch. Thornley began to guess the kind of time he had been having while he waited for them to arrive. Shouldn’t have left him alone, thought Thornley.
“This is the track,” Richard said, and the car turned from the Brenner road into a wood. Richard was still looking at his watch. He held up a hand to silence Thornley just as he was about to say something… And then Thornley realised that Richard was timing the distance they had to drive.
“Now,” he said, and the car swung off the track on to the lawn.
“I’ll turn while the going’s good,” van Cortlandt said, and manoeuvred the car until it rested on the grass, hidden from the track by a clump of bushes, its bonnet pointed back towards the Brenner road. Van Cortlandt unscrewed his flask, and handed it to Richard.
“Bob’s right,” he said. “We all need it. I’ve plenty more.”
“Rum ration,” suggested Thornley.
“Any of you got a gun?” van Cortlandt asked.
They shook their heads. Thornley produced a strong-looking clasp-knife and his souvenir torch. Richard had nothing. There might have been the shadow of a smile on the American’s face, but his voice was serious enough.
“Well, I have, so if we get into a tight spot…” He didn’t finish, but tapped his pocket thoughtfully. “Anything else, before we leave the car?”
They waited in the quietness of the trees while van Cortlandt locked the car methodically. When he joined them the three men looked at each other for some moments. Then Richard turned, and led the way up the wooded hillside.
It was a short climb. They paused on the crest, sheltered by the pines. Below them the hill sloped gently to Dreikirchen. They could just see three spires above the last trees.
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