I added, on the spur of the moment, that I thought if Michael would send them in the Range Rover to the nearest army check-point in the foothills, the Count would undertake to send the car and driver back and indeed make a permanent gift of the car to Michael. True, it was damaged goods and in practice he owned the thing already, but I had the feeling this would tip the scale and it did. Michael had probably never actually owned a decent car in his life and he couldn’t conceal his greedy delight.
When Vakisch and I visited the tower to convey the good news and I mentioned my improvised bribe, the Count looked pained for a moment and then gave a huge smile:
‘With all my heart!’ he said. ‘I would never care to be seen in such a badly used car, but we have found the perfect owner for it.’
Now Vakisch looked pained, but neither he nor I mentioned the Count’s comment to Michael and early the next morning the car took Vladek and the Count away to freedom.
With the Count’s approval, I moved into the tower and so did Yelena. She was not at all well. The guerrillas had one or two paramedics with minimal knowledge of first-aid and how to use a thermometer, but seriously ill soldiers were simply packed off back to their homes or to Chostok Hospital as civilians.
I visited Yelena, lying glassy-eyed and feverish in the Count’s four-poster bed, but she hardly seemed aware of me. Magda brought her water and aspirin and tried to tempt her to eat without success. I told Michael she ought to be seen by a proper doctor, then rang the hospital at Chostok and asked to speak to Dr Moritz. He was unavailable but the telephonist said he’d ring back.
Who shall I say rang?’
‘Karl.’
‘Karl who?’
‘Just Karl - at Previce Castle. As urgently as possible.’
Dr Moritz rang back after about ten minutes and when he heard my voice said with heavy sarcasm:
‘Sir! What can I do for you?’
I explained the problem, but he wasn’t at all sympathetic.
‘Tell her to come and see me, if she cares to!’
‘Dr Moritz,’ I said, ‘I’ve arrange for our mutual friends here to return to Strelsau. They went early this morning in the Count’s own car, so we are left without any comfortable form of transport. Won’t you, please, come and see her here?’
‘You must absolutely guarantee on your personal word of honour,’ he said, ‘that if I come I shall not have to meet any of the terrorists nor be detained by them nor under any circumstances have any of my property - neither car nor medical equipment - stolen.’
‘You talk as if they were just bandits.’
‘In my opinion they are.’
‘I will guarantee all those things, of course.’
‘Then I’ll be with you in an hour or so.’
I went to tell Michael of the promises I’d made. Michael unwillingly agreed to have nothing to do with the doctor but warned me not to allow him to administer any medicine to Yelena.
‘Then how is he to cure her?’
‘Let him prescribe and we’ll fetch the stuff ourself from Chostok.’
‘You think he’d try to poison her?’
‘This man is one of our worst enemies.’
It was perhaps the first time I’d realised quite how bitter the personal hatred was between the two sides - Englishmen tend to think this sort of thing only happens in Ireland or the Middle East.
Before Moritz arrived I had a visit from the regular army corporal and the driver of Colonel Maggerling’s 4X4. They were ready to leave for Kapitsa but wanted to say goodbye to Yelena first. No one but Michael, Vakisch, Magda and presumably Fisher (whom I’d not set eyes on since he’d tried to murder me), had been told Yelena was ill, so I asked the two soldiers to wait.
The doctor arrived in an up-market Skoda and, after a moment’s hesitation, consented to shake my hand.
‘You did well to get our friends out. It was high time and just in time.’
‘Just in time for what?’
‘That is my conjecture. Where is the patient?’
He examined her and then joined me in the sitting-room for coffee.
‘A schnapps?’ I asked.
‘No thank you.’
‘It comes from the Count’s own drinks-cabinet.’
‘Then I will. The patient needs to be moved.’
‘Moved where?’
‘To hospital. It may be only anaemia, but it could be worse. She needs tests and I’m afraid Chostok is not properly equipped to carry out such tests.’
‘Bilavice?’
‘No. It’s possible they could do them in Kapitsa, but really I’d recommend Strelsau.’
‘You know that’s impossible.’
‘The only alternatives, then, are Kapitsa or Vlod.’
‘But how are we to get her there?’
‘You have the full resources of the Ruritanian Army of the True Faith - isn’t that what these bandits call themselves? I will write out an admission chit for her and you can pick up some medicine in Chostok to tide her over, but I’m afraid, Mr . . . Karl, you will either have to get her to one of those hospitals or put your trust in heavenly powers, which it must be said she shows little sign at present of possessing.’
He drank his schnapps and stood up.
‘May I offer one further word of advice? Non-professional. If you could shake off your association with these people, I believe you’d find a lot of support. You might even have mine. We Catholics are natural royalists, but the bloody True Faith - that we can’t stomach. As for your journey with her ladyship . . .’ He waved his hand at the ceiling. ‘She may or may not survive it, but she’s unlikely to survive by staying here.’
After the doctor had gone J passed this grim message to Michael and Vakisch and when they’d visited Yelena and got some sort of consent - or at least not dissent - from her, they finally agreed to the journey. The two soldiers would have to take her in the colonel’s 4X4 and since it was already late in the day they agreed to postpone leaving until first light. I offered to go too, but Michael wouldn’t even consider the idea: they couldn’t risk losing two of their major assets at once, he said. I was pleased he considered me a major asset, but, with or without his permission, I was determined to go.
The only reason I had for not leaving was Magda. She was a sweet girl and already devoted to me; and although I was, of course, very upset by Yelena’s illness, the pleasure of sharing the nursing with Magda partly made up for it. We agreed to take turns sitting up with Yelena through that night. My turn was first, so that I could get some sleep before concealing myself, with the corporal’s connivance, under the luggage at the back of the 4X4. But when Magda came to take over I was reluctant to leave her. It was a long and large bed and Yelena’s legs didn’t reach all the way down. Magda and I sat either side at the foot of the bed and talked in low voices:
‘I wish you were coming too, Magda.’
‘Who would look after the castle?’
‘Your mother.’
‘She only knows how to cook.’
‘You could shut the tower. The rest of the castle is being looked after anyway by the soldiers.’
‘Looked after!’ she was scandalized. ‘What would happen if they got into the tower?’
‘Can you keep them out, all on your own?’
‘They don’t frighten me. They’re just farm-boys, dressed up.’
‘I should think they fancy you.’
‘They’ll none of them have me.’
‘Who will have you, Magda?’
‘Whoever I choose.’
‘What will he look like?’
She was silent.
‘Fair or dark hair?’
She still said nothing, then giggled and quickly covered her mouth with her hand and glanced anxiously at Yelena.
‘Come on!’ I said, ‘What colour hair?’
‘Dark. Maybe red.’
She giggled again.
‘You like red hair?’
‘Some sorts.’
�
��Not very common round here.’
‘Not common at all.’
‘What colour eyes?’
She stared into mine, her lips tightly pressed together.
‘Greenish, I should think.’
‘Greenish. That doesn’t sound very exciting. What about blue?’
She stared some more.
‘No, not blue.’
I reached my hand across the duvet and touched hers. Yelena stirred slightly and her foot moved under the duvet near our hands.
‘You’re laughing at me, Magda.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘I heard you.’
‘I wasn’t laughing at you.’
‘Who were you laughing at?’
‘Myself- because it’s obvious who I meant.’
‘Who did you mean? I can’t guess.’
‘You can.’
I edged my bottom further on to the bed and stretched across to touch her hair.
‘I’ll tell you the colours I like,’ I said.
‘Oh yes?’
‘Fair hair and brown eyes. Can you guess who that is?’
‘No. Not at all.’
‘We’re both very bad at guessing.’
I leant across and kissed her. She responded with enthusiasm, but as I moved closer still I sat on Yelena’s foot. She groaned, opened her eyes and said something very confused:
‘Your solution,’ she said. ‘Borgia’s betrayal.’
Magda and I sprang apart and Magda stood up. I remained where I was - men are more inconvenienced than women on these occasions.
‘What did you say, Yelena’ I asked. ‘Did you mean Caesar Borgia?’
‘We didn’t mean any harm,’ said Magda, very pink and flustered, pulling her blouse straight and smoothing down her long skirt.
Yelena’s eyes closed again and she seemed to go back to sleep. Magda looked at me fiercely and I got up and went to the door. Magda joined me there.
‘We shouldn’t have done that,’ she said.
‘I’m not married to her,’ I said. ‘ Betrayal is going too far. She doesn’t even love me.’
‘You love her, don’t you? Or why are you going to Kapitsa with her?’
Good question, to which I had no answer, especially since I didn’t want to discourage or hurt Magda. Instead I kissed her again, just outside the door, for a short minute or two, and then tore myself away:
‘Goodnight, beautiful Magda! Wake me in four hours!’
We didn’t reach Kapitsa the next night - the roads were too slow - but stayed in a farm-house with one of the corporal’s legion of relations. Yelena slept most of the way on the back seat, her head on my lap after I’d emerged from my hiding-place among the luggage, and seemed better for the medicine we’d picked up when it was still barely light at Chostok Hospital.
We pushed on again the following morning well before sunrise -I was afraid Michael might find some way of pursuing us when he discovered me missing - and arrived in sight of Kapitsa more or less at dawn. As we descended the last hill, with a view of the airfield, we saw an aircraft take off, rise and circle. It was followed by a second and a third, then all three disappeared in formation towards the mountains.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked the corporal.
He was staring up through the top of the windscreen at the disappearing aircraft and didn’t reply at once.
‘Could be a training flight,’ said the driver.
‘At this hour?’ said the corporal.
‘Were they military aircraft?’ I asked.
‘They were,’ he said. ‘That must have been just about the whole Kapitsan airforce we saw there - all of it that’s operational.’
‘Some sort of reconnaissance?’
‘They were carrying bombs.’
‘Bombs?’
We were in the outer streets of Kapitsa. heading towards the hospital, which the corporal said was on the far side of the town, near the barracks and the airfield, when there was an enormous noise of firing - not hand-guns or even machine-guns, but big explosives. Yelena sat up suddenly and looked around.
‘It’s what I dreamed. Your Borgia solution.’
‘What do you mean, Yelena?’
‘You told me how you’d solve the problem at Kapitsa and that’s what they’re doing.’
The streets were empty and the town not all that large, so we’d almost reached the neighbourhood of the hospital by the time the first outbreak of firing was followed by a second. Then a sheet of flame rose suddenly behind the buildings in front of us and as we turned a corner the driver braked suddenly. Through a brown cloud of foul-smelling exhaust we saw two tanks trundling along the broad street that ran beside the perimeter fence of the Second Regiment’s barracks. Their turrets were turned away from us and gently rocking, as the guns pumped shells into the burning and disintegrating huts nearest to the fence. Beyond that we could hear explosions and see flames shooting up from other parts of the barracks. Our driver took us straight back round the corner in reverse.
On our way out of Kapitsa we ran into a company of infantry. Their column of lorries, led by an armoured personnel carrier, had stopped along a street leading to the barracks. The corporal thought they must be part of the force assigned to seize the barracks, but, because the infantry was mainly Slav, were being kept out of the way until the tanks and artillery, mostly manned by Germans, had done their worst. We passed most of the column without trouble but the last lorry was beside a parked car and blocking the road and we had to pull up while it manoeuvred to let us past. I pushed Yelena down on the floor and tried to look as much as possible like an officer in civilian dress; the driver and corporal made friendly gestures towards the sergeant who was standing in the road guiding the lorry and the one in front of it into new positions. As the road became free and we started to move again, this sergeant suddenly became suspicious or perhaps just officious and stooped down to peer at me.
‘Thank you, sergeant,’ I said in a lordly way, raising my hand to shield my face. ‘Carry on!’
He looked puzzled and, as the driver accelerated away, began to wave and shout.
‘He’s only just noticed we’ve got Second Regiment flashes on the car,’ said the corporal. ‘What a dozy fellow! But he’ll be wiser to keep quiet about it or they’ll strip him of his stripes.’
The thought that we were so easily identifiable and that the next column we met might be more alert, made the driver cautious and at one point we stayed under a bridge for a good ten minutes while a helicopter circled overhead. Yelena was sitting up in the seat now, very white and tense, but conscious and composed.
‘Are you feeling better?’ I asked.
‘How could I feel better? Unless it’s better to know the worst than to dread it.’
‘You really expected this to happen?’
‘Ever since they released the prisoners at Christmas. You were right and I knew you were right. They should not have released them without the President’s personal guarantee.’
‘Didn’t they have that?’
‘Not in writing. They had a promise on the telephone.’
‘I don’t see what difference it makes. This was done by the President’s government. He’s ultimately responsible for what’s happening.’
‘It was I who advised them to release the prisoners against the promise on the telephone. I am responsible.’
We could still hear tank and artillery fire in the distance and imagining what it must be like for our friends in the barracks made us all silent and morose. It was certainly then, thinking about the young officers who had saved me from execution and received me so enthusiastically in their mess, desperately racking my brain for some way of getting back at the treacherous bastards pounding them into oblivion, that I decided my family motto had served me long enough.
‘There must be something we can do,’ I said.
‘Just get the hell out,’ said the corporal, ‘unless you mean suicide.’
‘Vlod is two or three hours
away,’ said the driver, ‘and we’ve got about a gallon of fuel. We have to do something about that.’
We found a petrol station, but it was still early and although the whole town must have been woken by the bombardment, the people were staying indoors. The petrol-station looked completely deserted, but there were living-quarters above it. The corporal went round the side and hammered on a door and I thought I saw a curtain move.
‘Shoot it open, corporal!’ I shouted for the curtain to hear, ‘or put a grenade through the letter-box!’
‘I wish we had a grenade,’ he said.
‘Then at least pretend you have!’
I took his gun and fired a short burst in the air. A thin, terrified man with a coat wrapped round his pyjamas quickly came to the door and we got our fuel, but while the tank was being filled and I was pacing up and down near the office, I got something even more valuable: a fresh idea, or rather an old one in a new light.
Ruritania is still way behind western Europe in the matter of ads and this anyway was a repair garage with a couple of pumps rather than a filling-station with a shop in western style. But there was one small ad - more of a sticker - attached to a corner of the grimy office window. The ad showed a big black tyre against a red background and in big white letters across the bottom: ‘COSSACK TYRES’.
Leaving the petrol-station we saw the three aircraft again, returning from the mountains; but we only discovered that evening, after we’d left Yelena at Vlod Hospital and found rooms for ourselves in the town, that the Ruritanian Army had not only gloriously recaptured the barracks of the mutinous Second Regiment in Kapitsa, but also destroyed the dam and hydro-electric plant at Sebrikov. The province of Karapata would have to survive the rest of the winter without power-supplies. Given the nature of the people we were up against I don’t think anyone can blame me for taking the action I did.
23 Eastern and Western Approaches
The province of Plotla is mostly flat - part of the northern European plain extending from Britain to the Urals. In theory you could take a telescope up to Highgate and pick out the mountain behind Ekaterinburg, where Lenin had the Tsar and his family murdered. In practice you’d only see a yellow cloud of bad air over the ex-Soviet empire.
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