Midnight Plus One

by Gavin Lyall

  It makes you feel old. Probably that’s the generals’ trouble, too.

  Harvey said: ‘Well?’

  ‘I think they’ll be coming in from Liechtenstein itself,’ I said. ‘They’ll have been waiting for us there: they couldn’t have banked on catching us anywhere before then, not until they knew where we’re crossing. And they’ll probably want to hop back into Liechtenstein afterwards. The Swiss side’ll be crawling with cops – butonly the Swiss side. Liechtenstein’s only got about fifteen cops: they couldn’t put two men on every frontier post for any time.’

  Harvey nodded. ‘So they’ll come just across the frontier -but only just?’

  ‘I think so. Most of the fortified zone isn’t fortified at all: most of it’s just headquarters buildings, artillery platforms -stuff like that. It’s only the last couple of hundred yards -the battle zone itself – that’s really built up. And that’s bang on the frontier.’

  ‘Plenty of cover,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘and just a short step home to Liechtenstein.’ He nodded again. ‘And what are the Swiss cops going to do when they hear shooting?’

  ‘Come running. But they’ll be half a mile away, up on the road, and they’ll be running through trenches. I think they’ll miss the big picture.’

  Maganhard said sharply: ‘They will know I am in Liechtenstein.’

  ‘They’ll guess it. But they can’t come chasing across that frontier. The Sûreté‘llhave to start all over again, asking Liechtenstein to extradite you. You – or Fiez – should have enough pull to hold that off for a-few days. By then-‘ I shrugged.

  The girl said quietly: ‘I think that’s Liechtenstein.’

  It was the lights of Mais and Balzers, the two little towns – villages – down just inside the frontier. Still miles away, across a river we hadn’t yet reached, but somehow very bright and close. All we had to do was be in those towns; by then, our troubles would be behind us.

  The Rolls trundled steadily on, angling away, turning its back on the lights as it ran down to cross the river where both banks were Swiss territory.

  We crossed at the first bridge, turned back north through Maienfeld, and started the climb up to St Luzisteig. The tank path would begin there.

  On our right was the steep mountain wall, turning to snow a couple of thousand feet up: that was the right wing of the St Luzisteig fortifications. Ahead on our left Was the long dark bulk of the Fläscherberg, the ridge that was the central anchor of the defences. By now, out there, the defences would be beginning: the old overgrown humps of the hundred-year-old stonework, mixed with the modern first-aid dugouts, artillery locations. But soon the real trenches, pillboxes, wire. Too dark to see. But there.

  It wasn’t easy to think of cold, waterlogged trenches and rusty barbed wire, not from the back of a Rolls Phantom II. It was too solid, warm, and imperturbable to imagine anybody stopping us. All I had to say was ‘Drive on, my man,’ and we’d bluff our way through at the frontier easily. Why bother with barbed wire?

  I was learning how the rich can get to feel – and why they suddenly wake up in such trouble. Maybe they wrap themselves up warm in Rolls-Royces, in mahogany and dark leather, and say ‘Drive on.’ It couldn’t happen to them. And that was why it did.

  Both kings and fieldmice would be showing their passports on the frontier tonight.

  We passed a handful of lights, the last village before St Luzisteig itself. Morgan slowed down, searching the roadside carefully. There was a notice saying that stopping and taking photographs was highly Verboten. We were in the right place. The Rolls drifted to a stop.

  We were just before the high point of the road; from a couple of hundred yards ahead, it sloped down to Liechtenstein, three kilometres away. The plan would be that tanks could get to here on the road itself, out of sight of the enemy over the crest. Then they’d swing off on to the tank path.

  Morgan switched off the lights, climbed down, and opened the left rear door. I had my hand on the Mauser, down in the briefcase, but he was still being the perfect chauffeur. It wasn’t his job to swing the axe; he just led us politely up to the chopping block. I climbed stiffly out and looked up at the sky.

  Inside the narrow valley the light had seeped away quickly, but the sky was more opaque than really dark. It was a stampede of broken, lumpy cloud hurrying south-westwards, jumping from peak to peak, and letting through flares of thin, nervous moonlight. A cold wind nibbled at me and I buttoned my raincoat. But there was another cold wind nibbling inside.

  Harvey came up between me and Morgan, took out his revolver, and checked the load. I’d never seen him do that before: a gunman always knows exactly how many rounds he’s got left.

  ‘Congregation will sing three choruses of Wir fahren gegen Liechtenstein and we’ll roll,’ he said. He turned to Morgan and pointed the gun. ‘Don’t try for that gun.’

  In the quiet, Morgan made a small sucking noise between his teeth. Then he looked past Harvey at me. ‘I never did trustyou,’ he said.

  ‘That makes it even.’ I walked round behind him and lifted a huge.45 Webley service revolver from under his raincoat. It must have given him ten sorts of rheumatism driving with that cannon back there.

  ‘You’ll be taking the Rolls, I suppose?’ he said gloomily. ‘You know they’ll arrest you, anyway, man.’

  ‘Not if we go down that tank path.’

  ‘But – after that they’ll think the General is involved!’ He sounded honestly outraged.

  ‘Wrong answer, Sergeant. Don’t you remember? – we’re not supposed to know it’s a tank path – or that something’s going to happen down there. And the General’s already involved up to his moustache; if he gets a bit of it up his nose, well – he shouldn’t have sold us out.’

  He just glowered at me, a little bent man searching his little bent brain to save the reputation of a crumbling old crook back in Montreux. Nothing to give three cheers for but maybe nothing to sneer at either.

  Then he said: ‘He’s sold out better men thanyou.’

  Behind me, Maganhard said: ‘I hope I’m not expected to take that as evidence of General Fay’s kind heart.’

  Morgan glanced contemptuously at him, then walked off back down the road to Maienfeld, moving with the last remnants of a military strut.

  I watched him out of sight, round a bend, then walked across to the left-hand side of the road and started looking at the fence.

  Twenty yards up I found what I was looking for: a thin place in the wire fence, guarded by a couple of barbed-wire strands. I waited for a flare of moonlight, then picked out a faint track beyond it leading off at the right angle.

  I found Miss Jarman just behind me. She asked: ‘Is that the path?’

  ‘That’s it.’ I hauled out Morgan’s big revolver, broke it open so that it couldn’t fire accidentally, then caught the top wire strand between the hammer and the breech, and started twisting quickly side to side. Not as good as wire-cutters, but it works in the end.

  The girl said: ‘It won’t be easy without lights. And it might be overgrown by now.’

  ‘They probably clear it every few years – and anything a small tank’ll knock down, so will a Rolls.’

  ‘Can you drive a Rolls?’

  I shrugged. ‘They’re rich men’s cars, not wild men’s. They can’t be difficult.’

  ‘You’re used to the ignition retard-and-advance and mixture controls?’ she asked sweetly. I stared at her. She said: ‘I’d better drive.’

  ‘Don’t be-‘ The wire strand broke. ‘Don’t be crazy. In case you didn’t know, you’re not even coming on this trip. You walk back to Maienfeld and get picked up tomorrow.’

  She said quickly and tonelessly: ‘My father had a Phantom II as official car when he was Governor-General. I learnt to drive on one. So I’d better drive.’

  I thought of asking where he’d Governor-Generalled, then decided I believed her, anyway. And she had a point about the driving; whatever I’d said about Rolls’s not being difficult, t
his one had been built for a style of driving more than thirty years old. I started to work on the second wire. She said: ‘It would let you and Harvey keep your hands free, as well.’ Which was another point.

  ‘Unless,’ she added, ‘you still think I’m on the other side.’

  ‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t think that. I don’t think you were trying to get yourself – and Harvey – killed. I just wasn’t sure you knew the danger of tapped phones – or just people talking. Somebody says “Maganhard’s secretary rang me today from Montreux,” and the word gets around. That could be just the same as selling us out.’ I waited a moment, then asked: ‘So who were you ringing?’

  ‘A man who has a… a sort of hospital, in the mountains near Chamonix. For Harvey. I know he cured another man who drank too much. I thought he might help.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘It seemed sort of… private. And I didn’t think you were taking me seriously.’

  And that was just about true. For the sake of honesty rather than tact, I said carefully: ‘Maybe I wondered if you were just playing at helping lame dogs over stiles.’

  ‘I can’t be sure myself,’ she said simply. ‘Lame dogs are very rare in our world, Mr Cane. Most of them are either wolves or overfed lap-dogs. All I can do is try and help him – and try and find out why.’

  ‘It’ll be a full-time job – even if you can get him to go with you.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I can. But I can go with him. I’ve told Mr Maganhard I’m leaving.’

  I nodded. Maybe I was getting convinced, after all. But there was one thing more to be said. ‘He’s the sort of man he is partly because he drinks. If he stops drinking, he’ll be a different man. You may not like the different man.’

  ‘I know. It’s a risk.’

  The second wire broke. She said: ‘Have you lost the wire-cutters we used at the airport?’

  And damn me, they’d been sitting in my briefcase all the time. I was in a marvellous state for starting a battle.

  She said: ‘So I can drive, then?’

  Somebody with some sense had better do something. I kicked the ends of the wire clear. ‘You can drive.’

  We walked back. Harvey said: ‘What the hell’s been keeping you?’

  ‘Short exchange of views on the political situation in the Balkans. She’s driving.’

  ‘She’swhat! We figured she’d be staying here.’

  ‘Changed my mind. She knows how to drive these cars. Cuts down the risk, when you think about it.’

  ‘Not for her, it doesn’t.’

  ‘True.’

  The girl climbed in the driving seat, which put her head higher than if she’d been standing on the ground.

  Harvey said: ‘Is this the old Resistance spirit? – equal opportunity for women to get killed?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  The starter whirred, the engine began its deep burble, like a gramophone record of a voice being played far too slow.

  I turned away. Harvey said doggedly: ‘I still don’t like it.’

  I jerked back. ‘D’you think I like it – any of it? If I’d known this job would end up running a Rolls-Royce through the Western Front, I wouldn’t have come within a thousand miles of it. But we came – so we’re going the last two kilometres.’

  ‘She could get killed.’

  ‘Talk her out of it, then.’

  I got into the back of the car, assembled the Mauser, and then remembered Morgan’s big Webley which was weighing down my raincoat pocket. I thought about it, decided I wasn’t a two-gun man, and handed it to Maganhard.

  He started to object. I said: ‘Nobody can force you to use it, Mr Maganhard. But if things go wrong, you may just feel like it.’

  When I got down again, Harvey had finished his conversation with the girl.

  I said: ‘Well?’

  He said: ‘I still don’t like it.’ But he swung up on the right-hand running-board, his arm wrapped around the door pillar. I climbed up on the left one. Miss Jarman shoved the lever into first gear, and we were on our way.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The first few hundred yards of track were in good condition; they must have been used as a farm path. We were passing through grazing meadows, past clumps of trees, past odd-shaped grassy humps that were part of the old stone fortifications.

  The girl could drive that car, all right. The engine sometimes slowed to a deep thumping like a pom-pom gun firing in a pillow factory – but she used the ignition retard instead of the gearbox, and kept in second gear. The faster, higher pitch of first gear would have carried a lot further. ‘ The path was angling gently away from the road above us, keeping more or less to the floor of the small valley, but wandering from side to side in a way that was meaningless until you remembered it was a military affair. Then you saw that it was taking advantage of every small fold in the ground, every clump of trees, to find cover.

  Abruptly we were in among pines, weaving along just inside the edge of a forest that stretched uphill to the Flascherberg on our left. More cover; logical. But very dark.

  Miss Jarman asked: ‘Can I use the lights?’

  I leant in through the window. ‘No. But if I shout for lights, I want the headlights on full, undipped.’

  ‘Is that a good idea?’

  ‘If I don’t think so, I won’t shout.’

  We crept on. The trees had no colour; just burned, black skeletons draped in tattered black robes. And you couldn’t see five yards through them.

  But nobody sets up gunfights among trees. Too narrow a field of fire, too dark, plenty of cover to jump behind… I remembered all that.

  But did they?

  I said: ‘Push it along. Fast as you can.’

  ‘I thought you said they’d wait until the very front,’ she said.

  ‘I still think so. I just got frightened.’

  She may have laughed to herself, but we speeded up. She was winding the big, almost horizontal wheel from side to side; either she’d been seeing too many gangster movies, or the steering was very light and high-geared.

  We cleared the trees, and the cringing feeling of waiting for a bullet passed.

  Then, just past the edge of the forest, there was a low, long square shape: the first of the modern fortifications. I leaned in and said: ‘Stop here for a moment.’

  She let the car drift to a quiet stop. I walked across, and Harvey came up behind me. Without saying anything, we moved to either side as we closed up on the door of the blockhouse.

  He asked quietly: ‘What are we looking for?’

  ‘Just studying the local architecture.’

  He glanced at me, then nodded and started studying.

  It was a very good blockhouse, if you happened to care about blockhouses, and the people who built this one had really cared. The walls at the loopholes were eighteen inches of solid concrete; the entrance was correctly cluttered with blast walls to keep out stray bullets or shell splinters; the loopholes were horizontal fan-shaped slits, wider at the outside. And the whole thing sunk several feet into the ground, so that only the top three or four feet showed.

  It wasn’t brand new any more. The camouflage paint had worn off, and the concrete had a damp and spongy feel, and came off in a gritty paste on your hands. But it was still eighteen inches thick.

  Harvey ran a finger down the wall and said thoughtfully: ‘Would have been a wonderful war.’ Then he looked at me. ‘You think the rest of it, up front, is like this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d been thinking of just holes in the ground, trenches. Like that.’ He turned away. ‘Would have been a wonderful war.’

  After that, the fortifications came thicker and faster. An occasional pillbox in among a clump of trees; concrete platforms for guns; mortar pits gaping like open graves. The track got rougher, became just two ruts with small bushes and four-year-old trees sticking up between. The Rolls swept over them and scrape
d them to pieces on its underside.

  I could have wished it any other colour but the one it was. In the drifts of moonlight the polished aluminium seemed to shine like a neon light.

  The track flattened out on the valley floor. Half a mile away, up on our right, headlights flickered silently along the frontier road and stopped… Your papers please… just a routine check… Thank you very much, a good journey to you. A different world.

  The car slowed. Harvey asked quietly: ‘Is this it?’

  I looked ahead – and it was.

  It was a bank, about seven feet high, right across the valley. It had an even, unnatural look, like the slope at the end of a lawn. Then a flare of moonlight showed me more. It wasn’t a bank, but a small plateau. The generals had decided that the higher the ground, the better fighting country it was – so they’d made it higher. The whole battle zone was set on a raised platform like a well-laid-out bowling green. It was all very logical, and all a little creepy.

  The girl lifted her foot and the car stopped gently at the foot of the bank. An extra advantage of the platform was that it made the land just behind it dead ground – out of sight of an enemy in front. Or anyone waiting in the battle zone itself. That must have been planned, too.

  Harvey and I stepped down and walked carefully up the slope and looked out across the battle zone.

  At first all I could see was an unnaturally flat plain covered with a dark sea of short bushes, waving stiffly in the wind. Then I began to see the hard, square shapes underneath – blockhouses, pillboxes, command posts, mortar pits, and the zigzag of communication trenches.

  It didn’t look like a battle zone. It still had a squared-off neatness that was only slightly worn by thirty years of wind and rain and creeping grass. It looked like an old, lost city, abandoned and gradually sunk seven feet into the earth. But you could never wonder what sort of people had lived here. Nobody had lived.

  But nobody had died, either. The clerks had typed out their little lists of Casualties to be expected – and the war had never come, nobody had fought, no casualties. Only the ghosts of men who had never died except on the clerks’ typewriters.