The Last Frontier

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ the Count said coldly. ‘Get your hat and coat and return immediately.’

  The man was back in a matter of moments, pulling a fur cap on to his head. He made to speak, but the Count raised his hand.

  ‘We wish to use your house for a short time, for a purpose that is no concern of yours. We are not interested in you.’ The Count pointed to the road leading south. ‘A brisk walk comrade, and let an hour elapse before you return. You will find us gone.’

  The man looked at him unbelievingly, looked wildly around to see what the trap was, saw none and scuttled round the corner of the house and up on to the road without a word. Within half a minute, his legs going like pistons, he was lost to sight round a corner of the road.

  ‘Putting the fear of death in one’s fellow-man becomes, as a pastime, increasingly distasteful with the passing of the days,’ the Count murmured. ‘I must put an end to it. Bring Jansci inside, will you, Sandor?’ The Count led the way through the little lobby and into the ferryman’s living-room, paused at the door, expelled his breath gustily and turned round.

  ‘On second thoughts, leave him in the lobby. It’s like a damn’ furnace in this room – It’ll only send him off again.’ He looked closely at Jansci as Sandor propped him in a corner with coats and some cushions taken from the living-room. ‘See, his eyes open already, but he is still dazed. Stay with him, Sandor, and let him come out of it by himself … Yes, my boy?’ He raised an eyebrow as the Cossack came rushing into the lobby. ‘You are perturbed about something?’

  ‘Colonel Hidas and his men,’ the Cossack gasped. ‘They have arrived. Their two trucks have just pulled up at the water’s edge.’

  ‘Even so.’ The Count screwed one of his Russian cigarettes into his holder, lit it and sent the match spinning out through the dark oblong of the open doorway. ‘They are punctual to a degree. Come, let us go and pass the time of day with them.’

  THIRTEEN

  The Count walked the length of the lobby, stopped abruptly, and barred the doorway with his arm.

  ‘Remain inside, Professor Jennings, if you please.’

  ‘I?’ Jennings looked at him in surprise. ‘Remain inside? My dear fellow, I’m the only person who is not remaining here.’

  ‘Quite. Nevertheless, remain here for the present. Sandor, see that he does.’ The Count wheeled and walked quickly away, without giving the professor opportunity for reply. Reynolds was at his heels, and his voice, when he spoke, was low and bitter.

  ‘What you mean is that it requires only one single, well-directed bullet into the professor’s heart and Colonel Hidas can retire, complete with prisoners, well satisfied with his night’s work.’

  ‘Something of the kind had occurred to me,’ the Count admitted. His feet ground on the shifting shingle, then he halted by the boat and looked about the dark, cold waters of the sluggish river. The truck and each individual figure, each man, were easily seen against the white background of snow, but it had already grown so dark that it was nearly impossible to distinguish features or uniforms, just black, empty silhouettes. Only Coco was recognizable, and that by virtue of his great height: but one man stood in advance of the others, his toes by the water’s edge, and it was to this man that the Count addressed himself.

  ‘Colonel Hidas?’

  ‘I am here, Major Howarth.’

  ‘Good, let us not waste time. I propose to effect this exchange as quickly as possible. Night, Colonel Hidas, is almost upon us, and while you’re treacherous enough in the daylight, God only knows what you’re like when darkness falls. I don’t propose to stay long enough to find out.’

  ‘I shall honour my promise.’

  ‘You shouldn’t use words you don’t understand … Tell your drivers to reverse till they come to the wood. You and your men are also to fall back as far as that. At that distance – two hundred metres – it should be quite impossible for you to distinguish any of us in any way. From time to time guns are accidentally discharged, but not to-night.’

  ‘It shall be exactly as you say.’ Hidas turned, gave some orders, waited till the two trucks and his men had started to move back from the river bank, then turned to face the Count. ‘And now what, Major Howarth?’

  ‘This. When I call you, you will release the general’s wife and daughter, and they will start walking towards the ferry. At the same moment, Dr Jennings will get into the boat here and cross over to the other side. Once there, he will climb up to the bank, wait there till the women are close, pass by them as they approach the river, then walk slowly towards you. By the time he’s there, the women should be safely across and it should be, by then, too dark for anyone, on either side, to achieve anything by indiscriminate shooting. The plan, I think, is foolproof.’

  ‘It shall be exactly as you say,’ Hidas repeated. He wheeled, scrambled up the shelving bank and started to walk back towards the dark line of trees in the distance, leaving the Count gazing after him and thoughtfully rubbing his chin.

  ‘Just that little bit too compliant, just that little bit too eager to please,’ he murmured. ‘Just a little … Tchah! My endlessly suspicious nature. What can he do? The time has come.’ He raised his voice. ‘Sandor! Cossack!’

  He waited till the two men had come out from the cottage, then spoke to Sandor. ‘How is Jansci?’

  ‘Sitting up, still swaying a bit. His head hurts very badly.’

  ‘Inevitably.’ The Count turned to Reynolds. ‘I want to say a few words to Jennings, alone – Jansci and I. Perhaps you understand. I won’t keep him a minute, I promise you.’

  ‘Be as long as you like,’ Reynolds said dully. ‘There’s no hurry for me.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ The Count hesitated, made to say something, then changed his mind. ‘You might launch the boat, will you?’

  Reynolds nodded, watched the Count disappear into the house, and turned to give the others a hand to pull the boat down the shingled beach into the water. The boat was heavier than it looked, they had to pull it gratingly across the pebbles, but with Sandor’s help it was in the water in a matter of a few seconds, tugging gently on its rope as the sluggish current caught it. Sandor and the Cossack walked back up to the top of the bank, but Reynolds remained at the water’s edge. He stood there for a few moments, pulled out his gun, checked that the safety-catch was on, and thrust it in his coat pocket, his hand still round it.

  It seemed that only moments had elapsed, but already Dr Jennings was at the door. He said something that Reynolds couldn’t distinguish, then came Jansci’s deep voice, and then the Count’s.

  ‘You – you will forgive me if I remain here, Dr Jennings.’ The Count was hesitant and unsure for the first time that Reynolds had ever known. ‘It’s just – I would rather –’

  ‘I quite understand.’ Jennings’ voice was steady and composed. ‘Do not distress yourself, my friend – and thank you for all you have done for me.’

  Jennings turned away abruptly, took Sandor’s arm to help him down from the high bank, then stumbled awkwardly down the shingle, a stooped figure – until this moment Reynolds had never quite realized how stooped the old man really was – with his collar turned high against the bitter chill of the evening and the skirts of his thin raglan coat flapping out pathetically about his legs. Reynolds felt his heart go out to the defenceless, gallant old man.

  ‘The end of the road, my boy.’ Jennings was still calm, but just a little husky. ‘I am sorry, I’m terribly sorry to have given you so much trouble, and all for nothing. You came a long way, a long way – and now this. This must be a bitter blow for you.’

  Reynolds said nothing, he couldn’t trust himself to say anything: but the gun was coming clear of his pocket.

  ‘One thing I forgot to say to Jansci,’ Jennings murmured.

  ‘Dowidzenia tell him I said that. Just “dowidzenia!” He will understand.’

  ‘I don’t understand, and it doesn’t matter.’ Jennings moving towards the boat, gasped as he walked
into the barrel of the gun held rigidly in Reynolds’ hand. ‘You’re not going anywhere, Professor Jennings. You can deliver your own messages.’

  ‘What do you mean, my boy? I don’t understand you.’

  ‘There’s nothing to understand. You’re just not going anywhere.’

  ‘But then – but then, Julia –’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But – but the Count said you were going to marry her!’

  Reynolds nodded silently in the darkness.

  ‘And you’re willing – I mean, you will give her up –’

  ‘There are some things even more important than that.’ Reynolds’ voice was so low that Jennings had to stoop forward to catch the words.

  ‘Your final word?’

  ‘My final word.’

  ‘I am well content,’ Jennings murmured. ‘I need now hear nothing more.’ He turned to retrace his steps up the shingle, and, as Reynolds made to thrust his gun back in his pocket, pushed him with all his strength. Reynolds lost his footing on the treacherous pebbles, fell heavily backwards and struck his head against a stone with force enough to leave him momentarily dazed. By the time he had shaken his head clear and risen dizzily to his feet, Jennings had shouted something at the top of his voice – it wasn’t until much later that Reynolds realized that it had been the signal for Hidas to send Julia and her mother on their way – scrambled into the boat and was already half-way across the river.

  ‘Come back, come back, you crazy fool!’ Reynolds’ voice was hoarse and savage, and, quite without realizing the futility of what he was doing, he was tugging frantically at the rope which stretched across the river, and then he dimly remembered that the rope was fixed and the boat completely independent of it. Jennings paid no attention to his call, did not even as much as look over his shoulder: the bow was grinding on the pebbles of the far side, when Reynolds heard Jansci calling him hoarsely from the door of the ferryman’s cottage.

  ‘What is it? What’s happening?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Reynolds said wearily. ‘Everything is going just according to plan.’ He climbed up the bank as if his legs were made of lead and looked at Jansci, looked at the white hair and face and the blood that caked one side from temple to chin. ‘You had better get cleaned up. Your wife and daughter will be here at any moment – I can see them crossing the field now.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Jansci pressed his hand to his head.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Reynolds fumbled a cigarette into his hand and lit it. ‘We’ve kept our side of the bargain, and Jennings is gone.’ He stared down at the cigarette glowing in his cupped palm, then looked up. ‘I forgot. He said I was to say “dowidzenia” to you.’

  ‘Dowidzenia?’ Jansci had taken his hand from his head and was staring in perplexity at the blood on his fingers, but now he looked strangely at Reynolds. ‘He said that?’

  ‘Yes. He said you’d understand. What does it mean?’

  ‘Farewell – the Polish “Auf Wiedersehen.” Till we meet again.’

  ‘Oh, my God, my God!’ Reynolds said softly. He spun his cigarette into the darkness, turned and walked quite slowly along the lobby into the living-room. The sofa was over in the far corner, by the fire, and the old Jennings, hatless, coatless, and shaking his head from side to side, was trying to prop himself into a sitting position. Reynolds crossed the room, with Jansci now just behind him, and steadied the old man with an arm round his shoulders.

  ‘What happened?’ Reynolds asked gently. ‘The Count?’

  ‘He was here.’ Jennings rubbed an obviously aching jaw. ‘He came in, and took two grenades out of a bag and put them on the table, and I asked him what they were for and he said, “If they’re going back to Budapest with these trucks, they’re going to have a damned long shove.” Then he came across and shook hands with me – and that’s all I remember.’

  ‘That’s all there is, Professor,’ Reynolds said quietly. ‘Wait here. We’ll be back soon – and you’ll be with your wife and son within forty-eight hours.’

  Reynolds and Jansci went out into the lobby, and Jansci was speaking softly.

  ‘The Count.’ There was warmth in his voice, something that touched on reverence. ‘He dies as he has lived, thinking never of himself. The grenades end the last chance of our being cut off before the border.’

  ‘Grenades!’ A slow, dull anger was beginning to kindle deep down inside Reynolds, a strange anger he had never felt before. ‘You talk of grenades – at this hour! I thought he was your friend.’

  ‘You will never know a friend like him.’ Jansci was filled with a simple conviction. ‘He is the best friend that I or any man could ever have, and because he is that to me I would not stop him now if I could. The Count has wanted to die, he has wanted to die ever since I have known him, it was just a point of honour with him to postpone it as long as possible, to give as many suffering people what they wanted of life and freedom and happiness before he himself took what he wanted of death. That is why risks did not exist for the Count, he courted death every day of his life, but not openly, and I have always known that when the chance came to seize it with honour, he would grasp it with both hands.’ Jansci shook his blood-stained head, and Reynolds could see from the light streaming out of the living-room that the faded grey eyes were misted with tears. ‘You are young, Meechail, you cannot possibly conceive of the dreariness, the purposelessness, the dreadful emptiness of living day after interminable day when the wish to live has long since died in you. I am as selfish as any other man, but not so selfish as to buy my happiness at the expense of his. I loved the Count. May the snow lie softly on him tonight.’

  ‘I am sincerely sorry, Jansci.’ Reynolds spoke with genuine regret, and in his heart he knew he was deeply sorry, but for what or for whom he could not at that moment have said: all he clearly knew was that the fire of anger within him was slowly increasing, burning more brightly than ever. They were at the front door now, and he strained his eyes to pick out what he could on that white expanse of snow on the other side of the river. Julia and her mother he could clearly see, making their way slowly towards the river bank, but, at first, he could see no signs of the Count. But the pupils of his eyes were now widening steadily since he had left the brightness of the room behind him, and he finally picked out his moving figure, no more than a half-seen blur against the dark line of the trees beyond him – and, Reynolds suddenly realized, far too near the trees. Julia and her mother were as yet hardly more than half-way across the field.

  ‘Look!’ Reynolds grabbed the elder man’s arms. ‘The Count’s almost there – and Julia and your wife are hardly moving. In the name of heaven, what’s the matter with them? They’ll be caught, they’ll be shot – what the devil was that?’

  A loud splash, a thunderclap of a splash in the silence of the night, had startled him with its unexpected suddenness. He ran to the bank and saw the cold dark waters of the river churning to a foam as unseen arms thrashed through them: Sandor had seen the danger even before he had, had flung off his overcoat and jacket and now his great arms and shoulders were carrying him across to the far bank like a torpedo.

  ‘They are in trouble, Meechail.’ Jansci too, was on the bank now, and his voice was tense with anxiety. ‘One of them, it must be Catherine, can hardly walk – you see how she drags her steps. It is too much for Julia …’

  Sandor was at the other side now, out of the water, up the shingled shore and over the three-foot bank beyond as if it didn’t even exist. And then, just as he cleared the bank, they heard it – a sharp, flat explosion, the unmistakable crack of a grenade, from the woods beyond the field, then another even while the echoes of the first explosion were still rolling away, through the trees, and then, immediately afterwards, the harsh staccato rattle of an automatic carbine – and then silence.

  Reynolds winced and looked at Jansci, but it was too dark to see the expression on his face, he could only hear him murmuring something over and over again to himself, but Reyn
olds could not distinguish the words, they must have been Ukranian. And there was not time to wonder, even at that very moment Colonel Hidas might be stooping over the man whom he had thought to be Professor Jennings …

  Sandor had reached the two women now, had an arm around each of them, and was plunging back through the frozen-crusted snow towards the river bank as if he had been leading two fleet-footed runners by the hand instead of virtually carrying them, which he was. Reynolds wheeled round, to find the Cossack standing just behind him.

  ‘There’s going to be trouble,’ Reynolds said quickly. ‘Get up to the house, stick the submachine-gun through the window and when Sandor drops below the level of the river bank …’ But the Cossack was already on his way, his feet churning up the gravel as he raced for the house.

  Reynolds turned round again, the fists by his side clenching and unclenching in his anxiety, his frustration at their helplessness. Thirty yards to go now, twenty-five, twenty, still a strange absence of all sound and activity from the woods in the background and Reynolds was just beginning to hope against hope when he heard the excited shouts from the trees, a barked command and at once an automatic carbine opened up with its harsh staccato cough, the very first shells whistling by only inches from Reynolds’ head: he dropped to the ground like a stone, dragging Jansci with him, and lay there with his open hand beating at the pebbles in his impotence while the bullets whined harmlessly overhead, but even at that moment he found time to wonder why only the one man was firing – one would have expected Hidas to bring his entire arsenal to bear.

  Then, muffled though the sound was by the thick snow, there suddenly came to his ears the thud, thud of pounding feet and a moment later, in a waist-high flurry of flying snow, Sandor came over the top of the far bank like a charging bull, literally lifting Julia and her mother clear off their feet, and landed with a grating, sliding crunch on the pebbles at least ten feet beyond and below, and even while he was still stumbling, still recovering his balance on that treacherous footing, a machine-gun with a different cyclic rate had opened up – the Cossack had timed it without the loss of a second. It was doubtful whether he could see anybody against the dark background of trees, but the AVO machine-gun was pointing directly at him and must have betrayed its position, flash-cover or not, by the red fire streaking from the mouth of the barrel. In any event, the firing from the wood stopped almost immediately.