The Lights of Skaro

by David Dodge

  A contact I had made at the post office saw that I got it according to instructions. I was reading about Djakovo’s escape in his own words before anyone in the Republic, with the exception of Bulič, a few of his rokos, Yoreska, and possibly Danitza, knew that he had slipped through their fingers. I think Danitza knew because Cora heard about the escape before any other reporter except me.

  The railroad junction at Varya Banya, where Djakovo was pocketed, used to be an important switching point on the main east-west line between the Republic and what later became Free Territory under the U.N. Along about 1946, when the Curtain began to function, Varya Banya became a railhead, the north-western end of the Republic’s train system. The double tracks leading westward from the junction were blocked off with a heavy barrier made of bolted ties and railroad steel, solid enough to stop a locomotive. The true border was eight kilometers farther out, five miles across a security zone patrolled by armed guards with dogs, guns, and orders to shoot on sight. Although there were three roads and one rail line open through the western security zone at other points, and commercial planes could fly over it through certain channels, no traffic of any kind was permitted in the Varya Banya area, for reasons satisfactory to the Party psychology. The railroad tracks were not torn up. But at the frontier itself they were closed off by an ordinary plank fence, enough to keep the West out. At Varya Banya junction the East was kept in by the heavy barrier across the tracks and a high wire fence around the whole railroad yard, with Army guards posted at the gates to stop such subversives as the peasant who got by them.

  The peasant’s excuse for entering the yard was a donkey-load of firewood which had been ordered by the yardmaster. He had a pass for himself and the donkey, properly signed. The Army guard who let him in was shot just the same. Underneath the firewood there were dynamite, a pinchbar, and a machine-pistol. The rokos found evidence how all three had been used.

  Djakovo was already in the yard when, just after dark, the peasant drove his donkey across the tracks towards the yard-master’s house, which was within a few feet of the track barrier. Djakovo would never say how he got as far as the yard except that it had been difficult – an understatement. Security knew he was in the immediate area, had blocked every escape, or so they thought, and were patrolling streets and roads as they closed in on him. He avoided them somehow, got by the yard guards and made contact, according to instructions he followed blindly and faithfully without even knowing whose they were, with the driver of the yard’s only switch engine, a creaky, pre-war teapot that was more than adequate to handle the little switching necessary at the railhead.

  There was no switching to be done that night. But the engine had steam up, and Djakovo and the engine-driver waited together in the cab. Djakovo wore a fireman’s cap, a sweat-rag around his neck, and smears of coal-dust on his face to disguise it.

  He didn’t know where he was going or how his escape had been arranged. He thought at first that it was Allah’s work, an answer to his prayers. The instructions had reached him while he was on his knees, facing Mecca. He was a gentle, trusting man who wanted to live and carry on his work, but he swore to Oliver that he would have given himself up rather than accept such a means for escape if he had known what the scheme was. It is another indication of the cleverness of the mind behind the scheme that Djakovo, unalterably opposed to violence of any kind, was forced into a violent escape, his only chance and the last one to be expected of him, as Gorza, a timid man, was tricked into a bold escape, the last one to be expected of him.

  The driver of the switch engine knew where they were going and how they were going to go about it. He thought Djakovo was a crackpot visionary, but he had his own reasons for wanting to leave Varya Banya permanently and had been promised success if he took Djakovo with him. He told Djakovo that much, nothing more. He was tightmouthed and nervous, waiting for his signal. He swore at Djakovo when Djakovo kept asking his gentle questions.

  “Shut up and feed some coal into the firebox,” he said angrily. “The steam will drop as soon as I open the throttle. Keep it high, and shovel like the devil as soon as we start. That’s all I ask of you.”

  “But where are we going? How are we going to leave the yard?”

  “With wings, preacher. How else? Like angels.”

  Djakovo shoveled. He was a small man, slightly built. He was clumsy with the heavy coal scoop. What he didn’t spill landed in a lump in the middle of the firebox instead of fanning out over the coals.

  The driver said, “Take smaller scoops. Twist the scoop when you pitch it. You’re not shoveling gospel now.”

  “It isn’t chaff, either,” Djakovo answered mildly. “When will we start?”

  He asked other questions, none of which was answered. The driver was peering anxiously into the night, his fingers closing and unclosing on the throttle. To open the throttle committed them both inevitably to freedom or death, and the moment for it was approaching. The engineer had seen the shadows of the peasant and the loaded donkey pass in front of the light from the yardmaster’s windows, on their way into darkness beyond.

  Djakovo saw the shadows as well, without knowing their significance. But because of the driver’s sweating attention to the shadows as they disappeared in the direction of the barrier, he began to suspect what was going to happen. Not the details, only the idea.

  He had no intention of leaving the Republic and the struggle he led. He was prepared for martyrdom, if martyrdom was necessary. He said, “If the way out is across the border, I will not go. Is that the plan?”

  “Stop quacking at me! Do your job and let me do mine.”

  The driver’s face was streaming. He mopped his forehead with the sweat-rag, leaning out of the cab window in a vain attempt to see what could not be seen.

  Passive resistance was Djakovo’s weapon. Until his question was answered he refused to shovel coal. He leaned on the coal scoop, waiting; for five minutes, ten minutes, while the driver hung from the cab window straining his eyes.

  The old engine wasted a lot of pressure through steam leaks. The gauge was dangerously low when the driver, in the strained voice of a man watching his executioner approach, said, “Here he comes! Get ready!” He turned away from the cab window, looked automatically at the steam gauge, cursed, jumped from his seat, pulled the scoop from Djakovo’s hand and began to throw coal frantically into the firebox. He paid no attention at all to Djakovo’s demands for an answer to his question. He was back in his seat at the throttle when the peasant, unhurriedly leading the now-unloaded donkey, reached the points that marked the connection of their track with the main line. The red eye of light from the switch lamp was pointed at them, a green glow from the other eye on the peasant as he pushed his pinchbar into the lock, twisted a couple of turns of the donkey’s lead rope around the bar and kicked the animal’s rump.

  The donkey’s lunge cracked the lock of the points. In a moment the lights changed; green eye for them, red glow on the peasant. The track was open at the precise moment that the barrier went up with a roar and a spouting blossom of flame which illuminated, for an instant, the whole yard.

  They saw broken pieces of ties and rail suspended in midair, the peasant beckoning from the switch, the startled donkey squatting in fright, his ears back and his mouth open in a bray of terror that was lost in the rolling thunder of the explosion. Then it was dark again, except for low flames where the barrier had been.

  The cranky old engine began to move, steam whooshing from its cylinders as it gathered speed. The driver groaned,

  “Shovel, preacher, shovel!” Djakovo, as dazed and frightened as the donkey, brayed his own bray of protest:

  “Violence solves no problems! Dynamite will never break the barriers to man’s freedom of mind!” but shoveled under the compulsion of the moment. His words were drowned in the noise of debris raining down on the roof of the cab, the donkey’s terrified hee-haws, the clack of points under their wheels, the hiss of steam in the cylinders.

 
The engine began to rock as it turned into the disused main line, gathering speed. At the points the peasant came swarming up the cab steps, his weapon slung from his shoulder. By that time shouts were coming from the darkness around them, then spurting streams of bullets that pinged and whined from the metal of the engine and its tender. Sprawled out on the coal of the tender, the peasant answered the fire. The driver, with the first shots, had cut in his headlight, illuminating the track ahead of them and the burning debris of the barrier. In the beam a figure ran out of the yardmaster’s house, shouted something in a voice half of despair, half of fury, and fired a single shot at the cab as they passed. The man had ducked back under cover before the forward movement of the engine brought him within range of the peasant’s fire from the tender. They crunched bumpily through the remains of the barrier and rolled into the night beyond the yard limits, shots and shouts fading behind them.

  The engine was still gathering speed and an increased rocking movement on the poor track. The rock made it difficult for Djakovo to shovel. He did not know why he wasshoveling. His arms and shoulders worked at it clumsily while his mind said stubbornly in time to the rhythm: All violence is wrong. All violence is wrong.

  The peasant crawled back from the tender, stood his weapon in a corner and took the coal scoop. Bulky and sweating in his heavy sheepskin coat, felt trousers, and skullcap, his booted feet braced wide to steady himself, he took over the job that was to bring Djakovo to safety in spite of himself.

  Djakovo said, “Violence is never an answer.”

  The peasant ignored him.

  The engine was rocking dangerously now. They were travelling much too rapidly for the condition of the track. The peasant growled over his shoulder, ‘Too fast, driver. Cut it down.”

  The driver neither answered nor moved. He was leaning head, chest, and shoulders from the cab window. His body swayed loosely, his arm hung limp. When the peasant, reaching impatiently to ease the throttle himself brushed against him, he still made no move. The yardmaster’s single shot had smashed his throat.

  Instead of moving the body, the peasant propped it higher in its seat, using the dead man’s sweat-rag to tie his hand to the throttle bar.

  Djakovo said, “Why do you do that?”

  “There’ll be more shooting at the frontier. They’ll waste bullets on him instead of you.”

  “A man should be allowed some dignity when he is dead.”

  “Save your sermons for someone who will listen to them, Anton Djakovo. He was unimportant, alive or dead. You are not.”

  “Why am I important to you? You are not one of my followers?”

  “No. Who follows a fool?”

  “Then why—?”

  “Save your wind.” The peasant pointed at the coal scoop. “Use it to shovel after I get off. You’ll have to keep steam up for six or seven minutes. They’ll have word of you at the frontier, but no time to block the rails. There’s nothing but a board fence across the track. When you see it coming, get down on the floor.” The peasant smiled, or sneered, his teeth gleaming briefly in the light from the open firebox. “And pray, of course. A prayer helps stop stray bullets.”

  “Why are you doing this? Who are you?”

  The peasant had picked up his gun. He slung it from his shoulder and bent to expose his face to the direct glare of light from the open firebox.

  “Look for yourself, preacher.”

  Djakovo wet his lips and shook his head.

  “I know who you are not,” he said. “You are not the man you want me to think you are. I am sure of that.”

  “Are you?’ The peasant mocked him. “Are you sure of anything, preacher?”

  “I am sure of who you are not,” Djakovo repeated stubbornly. “If you will not tell me who you are, tell me why you do this.”

  “So you can live and preach.”

  The peasant, without touching the set throttle under the engineer’s dead hand, reached across the body to move the brake lever. Brake blocks ground against the wheels. The rock of the cab changed as they slowed, the drivers pulling against the drag of the blocks. When their speed had been reduced to a crawl, the peasant freed the brakes. As the engine began again to pick up speed he swung down the steps of the cab until he stood on the last step, holding to the handrail with his face at the level of Djakovo’s knees and clutching his skull-cap against the rush of wind. He took only a single quick look up the track to pick his dropping-off point.

  “Now shovel like hell, Djakovo,” he said mockingly. “When you are free, preach. Tell the world what it is you have escaped, and how, and who it was that helped you. See how many will believe you, preacher.”

  He swung wide from the engine by the handrail. Still clutching his skull-cap, he dropped into the dark.

  There was more to Oliver’s story; the crash of the runaway engine through the border fence and an ineffectual, hurriedly-built barricade; a volley of shots that riddled the dead driver and left Djakovo unharmed on the floor of the cab, praying; his reception and identification by the U.N. command in Free Territory. Oliver’s hunch, because of the rumor I had mentioned and Djakovo’s stubborn insistence that he could not identify the man who had helped him, had been to ask flatly if the peasant looked like Bulič. Djakovo denied it, too strongly. He would not, could not, blacken his escape with even a remote suggestion that Bulič had been involved. Oliver was morally certain that the peasant had Bulič’s face, and that the skull-cap he was so careful to keep on his head hid the fact that he did not also have Bulič’s scars. Oliver didn’t know what it all meant, and was too experienced to inject a mystery into a news story. But he did add a scribbled postscript to the copy of the manuscript he sent me, for general information and such use as I could make of it.

  I didn’t repeat any of Oliver’s conjectures, or my own, to Piotr. For him I thought the story should end where the peasant left it and his leader was safe.

  When I finished he stared into the fire for a while before he said, “Why did the peasant insist on showing his face? What did he want Djakovo to believe?”

  “I could only make a guess. It’s better for you not to hear it.”

  He nodded gravely.

  “You are a sensible man, gospod. I have no more questions. Thank you for telling me what you have. Now tell me about the goats, and where you got them, and the clothes. Only what is necessary, so I will know what we have to face.”

  I was reminded, by that, of the ewe he had left tied to a root. I went to get her where he said I would find her, while Cora told him about our thefts from the collective, and what had happened since.

  When I found the ewe I left the string around her jaws until I had milked her lean bag, then ungagged her and penned her, bleating, in the cowshed with the others. They lost interest in her the minute she got there and went soundly to sleep while she was still nuzzling them.

  Piotr drank the small cupful of milk I brought back. He would not eat the meat we offered him, but took a piece of bread and another cigarette when he left us for the night. He slept with the goats, refusing to share either our fire or the blankets.

  “Na, na, gospodična,' he told Cora when she suggested that the removal of more rubble would give us all room to stretch out in front of the fire. “The goats will do for me. You do not want a smelly peasant in your bedroom.”

  We both objected. He was cleaner than either of us, and smelled better. But he insisted that he should sleep with the goats so that he could take them away in the morning, before light, and return with a new and better cover for us. He wouldn’t tell us what cover he had in mind.

  “But I’ll find one,” he promised. “Wait here for me until I come back, and don’t worry if it takes a little time. I won’t run off, nor let the rokos have me.”

  When he had gone and Cora and I lay in the flickering dark enjoying the comfort of a blanket apiece and dry earth to sleep on instead of a chilly ditch, I felt a new confidence. Piotr had been the greatest stroke of luck that could have happene
d to us. As a member of the underground opposition, he could bring an effective organization to our help. We might — I tried to shut my mind to optimism, but it kept coming back — we might even have a reasonable chance of escape. I had never believed until then that it was more than a remote possibility.

  Cora was thinking the same thoughts. From the dark, she said, “Are you still pessimistic?”

  “We’re not out of trouble yet, by a long way.”

  “We’re better off than we were.”

  “A lot better off. I didn’t have any idea what we were going to do in the morning.”

  “You would have thought of something. “

  “Thanks. I’m still glad Piotr came along.”

  There was a long silence. The fire burned lower.

  She said, “Have you thought of any possible reason to explain him?”

  We had begun to establish a kind of rapport, Cora and I. I knew she was thinking about Bulič, not Piotr. I said, “No sensible reason.”

  “If we could solve him, Jess – if we could see what it is that makes him do what he does – we know what he hopes to accomplish, but it doesn’t explain the Gorzas, or Djakovo. They’re his enemies, as we are. Maybe he even wants us to escape, for some reason we don’t understand. Maybe—”