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The Sword of Fate

Page 33

by Dennis Wheatley


  As I finished speaking I advanced to within two feet of him and threw the wide noose of electric flex over his bald head. The moment I had done so I had an awful thought: I was still wearing Mondragora’s raincoat.

  If he missed it when he reached his car he might come back for it; then I should be caught between the two of them. As I had acted immediately upon Mondragora’s leaving the house barely two minutes could have elapsed since he went out of it; but even that was time for him to have reached his car. Fortunately the raincoat had been lying on the back seat, so there seemed a good chance that he might not notice that it was gone.

  The possibility that he might reappear at any moment was damnably unnerving, but if he once drove off in his car, owing to his extreme tiredness, I doubted very much if he would trouble to come back again; so I tried to put the matter out of my mind by assuring myself that two or three minutes having elapsed the worst risk of his returning was already over.

  With a none-too-gentle jerk I drew the noose of wire tight about von Hentzen’s neck, and once that was done I felt a little more certain of myself. No man can fight his best with a heavy standard lamp attached by a piece of wire to a tight noose round his neck.

  Carrying the lamp several feet nearer to him, I transferred the gun to my left hand and made a loop out of the slack of the wire with my right. I then ordered von Hentzen to hold his right hand behind him.

  As he demurred I thrust the cold steel of the gun-barrel into the soft puffy ridge of fat at the back of his head, and that caused him to comply at once. Slipping the loop over his wrist, I pulled the slack up again, made him put his other hand behind the chair and looped that also, so that his two hands were now caught behind his back and attached to the loop of wire that went round his neck. Placing my foot on the base of the standard lamp, I gave the wire a sudden pull and wrenched it from its terminal. Then, as von Hentzen could still not see what I was up to, I felt that I now might risk putting the gun down for a minute.

  Having placed it on the floor within easy reach, I secured his hands more thoroughly, and by reaching between the chair-legs took the wire first round one ankle, then round the other, so that as the result of a little hard work and twenty feet of electric flex I had him securely tied to his own chair.

  As he was sitting opposite the window, I had had to work fast in case anyone came into the garden, but the job was done under two minutes. With a sigh of relief I picked up my gun, drew the curtains, switched on the light and went round in front of him.

  “Well,” he said calmly, “this is quite clearly your round. What do you want to know?”

  “The present whereabouts of the German Field Headquarters,” I replied.

  His large mouth twisted into a grin. “So you are anxious to save that young woman of yours? Well, she’s no good to us, and if you care to risk your own neck by trying to get through the German lines to reach her, good luck to you! As far as I know, Marshal List is at present at Koziani.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m very glad that you appear to be behaving so sensibly; but I shall want a little proof of that. Have you some document which will bear out what you say?”

  “Gott in Himmel, nein!” he exclaimed. “Is it likely that I should have a list of the places provisionally selected as German Field Headquarters?”

  “Yes,” I replied, “it is. Otherwise you would not be able to get such information as you can collect through to them with any rapidity.” I let an ominous note creep into my voice as I went on: “There seems good reason to suppose that you’ve been established here ever since you escaped from Egypt; so I expect you’ve got quite a lot of interesting documents hidden in this place somewhere. Are you going to talk or must I make things uncomfortable for you?”

  “Go to hell!” he snapped, and his hard, blue eyes flashed defiantly.

  I took another look round the comfortable little sitting-room, and my eye fell on some long wooden spills for cigar- or pipe-lighting, which were stuck in a vase on a small table beside the sofa. Taking one of them, I lit it, and walking up to von Hentzen from behind I placed the lighted spill without warning under the lobe of his left ear.

  He let out a bellow of pain and tried to spring out of his chair. Of course he could not because he was lashed to it; but he managed to get on his feet with the chair attached to his back and almost bent double, which gave him something of the appearance of a tortoise endeavouring to walk on its hind legs.

  “Now, now! Sit down again or it will be the worse for you,” I threatened, and as he swung round towards me I jabbed the lighted taper under his nose. The instantaneous result was that, with another yowl of pain, he flung his head back, overbalanced and was promptly sitting down again.

  “Why waste time?” I asked. “You know well enough that I’ve no cause to love you, and I’m not going to let up if I have to burn your flesh inch by inch off your body. Sooner or later you’ll have to tell me where your papers are, so why not do it now?”

  As he maintained his stubbornness I held his nose until he was forced to open his mouth and stuffed his handkerchief into it. I told him that he could nod his head when he was ready to talk, then I set to work on him in earnest.

  I don’t think I should make a very good professional torturer as, although I was applying persuasion to one of the men who had done me an irreparable evil and whom I regarded as my most deadly enemies, I did not enjoy the next ten minutes. I was damned nearly sick from the smell of burnt hair and faintly singeing flesh. How the German managed to stick it for so long I cannot think, and I’m certain that I should never have been able to hold out for half that time. At last he nodded, so I removed the gag. He gave a gasp, then whimpered:

  “All right damn you! That board on the right-hand side of the bookcase, the second one from the wall—it’s loose. Pull it up and you’ll find some maps there which will give you what you want to know.”

  I found the maps with a mass of other papers. Having spread them out I saw that the third I opened had a number of cryptic signs marked on it in ink against which there were certain dates, and one lot of signs, all of the same character, ran in a chain from Sofia through Southern Yugoslavia right down to Athens.

  Koziani, although in the centre of Greece and practically on the line, was not one of the places marked; but fifteen miles south-south-west of it Ventsa was, and against it was the date, 23-26.4.41. It was no good asking von Hentzen if my assumption was correct about these markings as there was no guarantee whatever that he would reply truthfully; but I felt pretty confident that I had found out what I wanted to know, and of course he had given me the wrong town in the first instance, because although he had said that Daphnis was no longer of any use to them, he had purposely glossed over the fact that she could be extremely useful to his enemies. If only I could get her back she might have information of the most vital nature which she could pass on to us.

  There was a large attaché-case beside the desk, and after a quick glance through its contents I threw most of them out, then proceeded to fill it instead with all the papers that were in the cache under the loose floorboard.

  Von Hentzen fumed and swore, but there was nothing that he could do about it. I next went through his pockets. He tried to bite me, but I held his nose with one hand while searching him with the other, and I acquired a fine collection of passes, among which was one issued by the German General Staff and signed by von Keitel, which I reckoned would get me into most places between Narvik and Tripoli.

  When I had done I said to him: “I hope this won’t be our last meeting. In fact I’m sure it won’t, because I mean to get you sooner or later even if I have to swing for it. That goes for Mondragora, too, as you might tell him from me next time you see him.”

  He regarded me with a curious stare for a moment and said with considerable bravery, “If you feel like that about it why don’t you kill me now?”

  “Because,” I replied, “I told you soon after I first entered this room that I did not mean to kill you t
onight. I had to do that otherwise you would never have allowed me to tie you up without a struggle, and I might have had to kill you before I had a chance to get the information that I wanted. Subconsciously, at least, you must have trusted me, though why you should God only knows! Still, you were right about that.”

  Seizing his nose again, I stuffed the handkerchief back in his mouth, as I added, “I can’t afford to have you rousing the neighbours with your shouts, so you’ll have to stay here until someone finds you.” I then pocketed my gun, picked up the attaché-case, and, switching out the light, left him.

  Out in the alleyway I spent a couple of minutes bundling the trussed and gagged servant into the scullery. Having shut the back door upon him, I let myself out through the wooden gate. The washerwoman was still outside, and she asked me with considerable curiosity if I had succeeded in doing whatever it was that I went in to do.

  I told her that I had given the two Germans an exceedingly tough time and that I had left them tied up in there because I did not want them to follow me. The good soul was delighted, but wanted to know what I had done with her laundry basket.

  I said that I would go in and get it for her if she wished, but I thought that it was much better to leave it there, as when the man who had let me in had asked why she hadn’t brought it, I had said that I was her nephew. To retrieve it now would only lead any inquirers to suppose that she had been my accomplice, so she had best say that the basket of linen had been stolen from her; but I added that in case she did not get the basket back I would like to pay for it, and I produced a thousand-drachma note, which is something under £2.

  However, she flatly refused to take it and said that the basket was well lost to her if it had helped an English soldier to give a bad half-hour to two of those dirty Nazis.

  Having retrieved my cap, tin hat and gas mask from her, I took off Mondragora’s mackintosh and laid it down on the pavement where any passers-by, who thought they might find it useful, could pick it up. Then I parted from the washerwoman with a good hearty handshake and set off towards the centre of Athens.

  Already my mind was working desperately fast on the steps it would be necessary to take in order to get to Ventsa and find Daphnis. A car was one thing I must have and ample Greek money another. If Diamopholus had not yet left the Grande Bretagne to join his ship in the Piraeus I felt sure that he would provide me with both, and I hurried forward as fast as my legs would carry me.

  I then realised that not only was I going back into the battle area, but that I would have to pass right through the German lines and that I could not possibly do so in the uniform of a British officer.

  As I was thinking of the immense difficulties of the journey that lay ahead of me, I put my hand in my pocket to make certain that I’d got the passes and it came in contact with a flimsy piece of paper. I did not need to take it out to see what it was. I knew, and my heart sank like lead to my boots at the thought of it. That paper was the order that I had been sent only an hour earlier to rejoin my regiment at the earliest possible moment. If I failed to do so—if instead I endeavoured to save Daphnis—if I changed into a civilian suit … I should be a deserter.

  Chapter XXII

  Dark Journey

  The thought appalled me. It had been decided that I should go into the Diplomatic because as a child I had shown such an unusual flair for languages; but I came from a family of soldiers. From my earliest days I had heard the stories of courage and endurance by which older, or dead-and-gone, members of the Du Crow-Fernhurst clan had achieved high rank and coveted decorations. It had become with me an accepted article of faith that desertion at any time is cowardly, criminal and absolutely without justification, however great the extenuating circumstances may appear to be.

  Yet Daphnis’ life almost certainly hung upon my speed of action and an immediate decision to throw all that overboard. I continued my way, but thinking more furiously than ever as I went.

  From conversations with other officers over lunch at the Club I knew that the British Front was now rapidly dissolving; certain units were being embarked at night, wherever a favourable opportunity offered to get them off, while others were gallantly covering their retreat in a series of desperate rearguard actions. If I made my way up towards Thermopylae I might run into the New Zealanders some time during the next forty-eight hours; but there was quite a possibility that I would fail to locate them or that they had already been evacuated.

  I asked myself then what help I could give if I did find them. A spare officer could always make himself useful, either in directing some small local operation or holding the men together during a retreat; but in a day or two at most the party must be over now, and I felt that I was playing absolutely fair in regarding it as only a fifty-fifty chance of my being able to get back to them at all before they were out of Greece.

  It seemed then that this was not a question of my deserting a post or a command that had been entrusted to me and abandoning my duty in a crisis on account of my private affairs, but rather as if I was to occupy the next few days before it became imperative that I should leave Greece, if I was to avoid capture, by looking for the New Zealanders or endeavouring to save Daphnis, There was also the indisputable fact that I should not technically be a deserter unless I was absent without leave for more than seven days.

  Finally I decided that what really mattered was one’s intentions. Desertion in the ordinary sense is an endeavour to escape further military service; but in my case there was no intention of that kind at all. Far from running away, I was about to take on about as desperate a job as one could imagine. No less than an attempt to penetrate to the Field Headquarters of the German General Staff, and if I got away with my life I did not intend to lose a moment in reporting back for routine duties just as soon as I could reach any British military authority.

  While facing up to this harassing dilemma I had been hastening along as fast as my legs could carry me towards the Grande Bretagne. When I entered it I felt now what a ghastly blow it would be if old Diamopholus had already left; but the hall-porter relieved my fears by telling me that the shipping magnate was still upstairs in his suite, and after a telephone inquiry I was asked to go up at once.

  As I had never told him anything about Daphnis’ relations with Mondragora I did not think there was any point in going into that now, particularly as time was so precious.

  He was packing when I arrived, and he told me that, although the ship in which he intended to sail had been twice hit by bombs during the day, she was still considered seaworthy. Owing to the constant air raids on the Piraeus, intending passengers had been asked to remain in Athens until ten o’clock, but the evacuation authorities hoped to have them on board and the ship under way by midnight.

  I thought that the easiest line to take was that I had learned, purely by chance, from a friend in the British Intelligence Service, that a girl answering Daphnis’ description had been living at German Field Headquarters for the past three weeks and moving with it every time Marshal List advanced. I said that the description tallied so well that I had made up my mind to go there and find out, and if it was Daphnis persuade her to come away with me; but that for the purpose I should need a car, a good sum in Greek money in case it was necessary to bribe people, and an outfit of civilian clothes.

  Nicholas raised his eyebrows and shook his white head with amazement at my story; but it tied up to some extent with Daphnis’ old pro-Italian feelings which were known to him and the fact that on running away she had gone to Sofia, which was in Axis hands.

  He said that I was a brave fellow to take such a risk, and he would willingly help me in every way possible. It would be easy for him to go down to the Piraeus in a taxi so I could have his car, and although he feared it would fit very badly I was welcome to a suit of his clothes and any other things of that kind that I required. As for money—he pulled out a fat pocket-book and insisted on giving me notes to the value of a hundred thousand drachma, which is roughly about a hun
dred and eighty English pounds.

  I gave him the attaché-case containing the papers I had taken from von Hentzen, and without saying what they were I impressed upon him that they were important, and asked him to undertake their personal delivery to the duty officer at the British G.H.Q. in Athens. He promised to hand them in before going down to the Piraeus, and the thought that there must be the clues to at least some valuable enemy secrets amongst them made me feel that on account of this coup alone I had more than earned the ‘French’ leave that I was about to take.

  Among Nicholas’ things I found a plus-four suit of a heather mixture which reeked of Scotland, and I decided on that as, owing to its natural looseness, the disparity between his figure and mine would not be so apparent as if I had worn one of his lounge suits.

  While I was packing it with a shirt, shoes, socks, tie, etc., in a spare handbag that he gave me for the purpose, he telephoned the hotel garage giving orders that his car was to be made ready for a long journey, then brought round as soon as possible.

  In two stiff whiskies we drank a solemn toast to the downfall of the Axis and the resurrection of Greek independence. Then he accompanied me downstairs. His car proved to be an open six-litre Bentley, and the chauffeur obligingly showed me where the maps, tools, etc., were kept before handing it over. I said goodbye to them, thanked old Nicholas for his help and promised I would do my utmost to let him have news as soon as I possibly could if I succeeded in finding Daphnis.

  I had returned to Athens by the railway which runs round Mount Parnes and enters the city from the north-east. The road that follows that route would, I knew, be one of the main lines of retreat used by the British Army. The road to the north-west was much more mountainous and would doubtless also be crowded with retreating troops, but it was the more direct route to Central Greece, so I decided to take it.

 

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