by Alan Bardos
The noise outside started to change pitch, with the low murmur of crowded streets becoming cheering, accompanied by what Johnny thought was a military band playing the Radetzky March.
'I wonder what's going on out there,' Johnny said, half interested.
'It must be that tiresome Royal visit,' Libby replied, stifling a yawn.
'What?' Johnny's world tilted. The Archduke's visit hadn't been cancelled and it was his fault. He pushed Libby off and charged to the window. Franz Josef Street was lined with people, clearly waiting to see the Heir. Johnny started to get dressed.
'Johnny, what are you doing? Get back into bed at once!'
'Breitner was supposed to have cancelled it. I should have gone to meet him,' Johnny tried to explain as he struggled into his trousers, which still didn't fit.
'I take it this means you won't be getting your commendation now?' Libby asked, mildly amused by the spectacle he was making.
'To say the least!' Johnny replied, as he finished dressing and charged out.
*
Ilic met Mehmed Mehmedbasic at his position, outside the Mostar Café's garden. The motorcade was late and the veteran seemed tense. Ilic wondered again if Mehmedbasic might have lost his nerve that day on the train back from Toulouse, panicking when he saw the policeman searching the train.
He pushed the idea to the back of his mind - Mehmedbasic was the linchpin, the trigger. When he threw his bomb, the others would join the attack. Cheering could be heard from the direction of the station; it wouldn't be long now and he needed to get back to his short-sighted comrade. If Jovo wasn't going to act as Popovic's eyes then Ilic would do it.
“Be strong, be brave,’ Ilic told Mehmedbasic and started to work his way back through the crowd. He passed Vaso Cubrilovic just before the corner of Cumurija Street, but before he could cross the road, the man Apis had sent came out of the shadows and blocked his path.
'Have you seen the English spy?' he asked.
*
Johnny was frantic as he pushed his way through the crowd. He didn't know where to start. There wasn’t time to go to City Hall and find Breitner - the Royal couple were here.
He thought about going to the place Ilic had assigned for the assassination and stopping Popovic from acting, but Popovic was only one of the conspirators. There were five others, plus Ilic himself, for all the good he was, Johnny reasoned. He considered approaching a gendarme, but it would have taken too long to explain himself and even if he was believed he'd probably end up getting arrested.
Johnny was furious with himself for being so easily led by Libby. He knew that it was all too late and it was all his fault. Then Johnny saw the onion spire of the triangular doctor's surgery, on the corner of Cumurija Street, and he started to pull himself together. He wasn't being fair - any right thinking man would have behaved in exactly the same way as he had. ‘Play up and play the bloody game!’ he reminded himself, and decided that this wasn't much different to the time he had won the inter-house cup, leading the comeback to overturn a twenty eight nothing lead.
He could take two of them out of the game. He knew where Cubrilovic would be, and Popovic was too short-sighted to be of any danger to anyone apart from the people immediately around him.
*
Breitner watched as Franz Ferdinand and the senior regional commanders finished the tour of Philippovich Barracks without any incident.
An unseemly scramble ensued as the Archduke's security detachment and the local police argued over seats in the first car. The motorcade began to leave and Breitner saw, to his horror, that the Archduke's special security detectives had been pushed out.
The motorcade turned onto Appel Quay and in compliance with the Archduke's request, proceeded at a steady ten miles an hour along the embankment. Breitner scanned the crowds that had gathered under the shade on the city side of the embankment, which he thought would be the most likely place the assassins would strike from. Not that there was much that he could do to help, squashed next to the Colonel in the front of the car. To all intents and purposes he was merely a passenger.
*
Franz Ferdinand was gratified that black and yellow bunting had been hung across Appel Quay and that the Imperial flag was flying from every building - some even had photographs of the Archduke himself in their windows.
The Governor, sitting opposite Franz Ferdinand, pointed out the Herren Club and the new post office, magnificent examples of Austrian culture and architecture. The Archduke waved at the crowd, enjoying the prestige he and Sophie were receiving. It wasn't a huge crowd but they were cheering enthusiastically enough, actively demonstrating their appreciation of what the Monarchy had done for them. Franz Ferdinand wondered whether given time, the people in this wild and remote place could be tamed and fully absorbed into the Empire.
He turned to his wife and whispered, 'At last you're receiving the respect you deserve, my Sopherl.' It had been fourteen years to the day since he'd taken the Morganatic Oath that had allowed their marriage. Sophie smiled and brushed his jacket; he had also worn the uniform of a cavalry general for their wedding ceremony.
She suddenly jumped at the sound of an echoing explosion and Franz Ferdinand put a reassuring arm around her.
'A twenty-four cannon salute,' Governor Potiorek said, pointing ahead of them to a small, round tower overlooking the city, surrounded by tell-tale gun smoke. 'The Yellow Bastion, Your Highness,' he explained and indicated a fort behind it. 'That is the newly enlarged Prince Eugene Barracks, headquarters of Fifteenth Corps.'
The Archduke inclined his head to show that he understood the information. Fifteenth Corps had taken part in the manoeuvres he had been attending.
*
Johnny found Vaso Cubrilovic at his position under the onion spire of the doctor's surgery, on the corner of Cumurija Street.
'You're late, Jovo,' Cubrilovic snapped.
'So is the Archduke, by the look of it,' Johnny said, trying not to sound relieved.
'What are you wearing?' Cubrilovic eyed him suspiciously. Johnny looked down and realised he'd put on the evening dress from the previous night.
Johnny shrugged, 'I don't want the tyrant to think we're peasants.'
Cubrilovic nodded, accepting Johnny’s explanation. He was also smartly dressed, with a clean collar on his shirt. 'Why aren't you with Cvjetko? My eyesight is fine.'
Johnny sensed that the schoolboy was trying to hide his nerves with bravado. He had seen it a hundred times before big games and he drew strength from it.
'Ilic said we could stand where we wished if...' Cubrilovic motioned for Johnny to be quiet; they could hear cars approaching and the cheering of the crowd was intensifying.
*
Mehmedbasic prepared himself as he saw the Royal motorcade. He took the bomb from his belt, turned to look for something to strike the primer against and stopped still.
A grey-uniformed gendarme had appeared from nowhere and was standing behind him. If he attempted to use the bomb the gendarme would stop him and it would give the game away before the others had a chance to act.
He'd counted seven cars approaching. He had no idea which one the tyrant was in. Ilic had told him only to act if he was sure he recognised the Archduke, otherwise he should wait until the tyrant made his return trip. Mehmedbasic turned back and watched the motorcade cruise past.
*
Nedjo was feeling hot and exposed on the river side of Appel Quay, away from the crowd and the shade. He'd taken the cap off the bomb, ready to prime it, and was holding it under his jacket.
He had a clear view of the Royal motorcade as it rounded a slight bend in the road, past a mock Moorish building that housed the State Girls High School and a grey neo-classical building.
His father’s accusation that he was betraying his people still burnt, along with the lack of faith his friends had shown in him. He started to move away from Cumurija Bridge, knowing that he must be the first to throw his bomb on Vidovdan.
The lead c
ar in the motorcade was only a few yards away, but he didn't know which car the tyrant was in. He saw a policeman watching the approaching procession and asked him.
'The third car,' the policeman answered, as excited by the scene as everyone else. Nedjo could see lime green feathers above the third car and knew it was the tyrant. He took the bomb from under his jacket and aimed for the feathers. Today he would prove that he was no traitor.
*
Johnny stood with Cubrilovic, watching the motorcade as it appeared around the bend in the road and went past the picket fence of the Mostar Café without being attacked. Johnny guessed that the most experienced man wasn't all he was cracked up to be.
Cubrilovic seemed captivated by the spectacle as the great ocean liner of a car came nearer, the Imperial eagles of its flags clearly visible. On the river side of the car, the Duchess held a parasol, reminding Johnny of Libby, and a black fan. The Archduke was closest to them; he'd rested his arm on the car's folded back roof. The sun was reflecting on his medals and the gold braid of the red insignia on his collar. It was the perfect picture of royal pomp.
'Is that them?' Cubrilovic asked, coming out of his daze.
'Yes,' Johnny answered.
Cubrilovic unscrewed the cap of his bomb and moved to strike the primer against the striped wall of the surgery.
'Vaso, have pity. You'll kill his wife,' Johnny said, trying one last attempt at reason.
*
The motorcade came onto a long straight section of Appel Quay and for a fleeting moment, Franz Ferdinand had the sensation of being a roebuck driven through the traps towards a waiting hunter.
Governor Potiorek pointed across a steel bridge to a grand Imperial building on the other side of the river. 'If Your Highness would care to observe - Franz Josef Barracks, headquarters of the Gendarmerie Corps.'
Franz Ferdinand turned to wave at the couple of people on the river side of the quay and looked straight into the eyes of a tall, skinny youth in a grey suit. The car suddenly lurched forward as the chauffer accelerated.
*
Cubrilovic hesitated and pulled up short, unsure how to act now that Johnny had planted the seeds of doubt in his mind. 'This is hopeless. We are too badly positioned,' he said.
Johnny smiled agreement and breathed a deep sigh of relief, but just then a loud crack like a pistol shot cut through the noise of the crowd. A tall man across the street was banging his pipe against a tramway mast. Johnny wondered for a brief moment why someone would do something so strange, as the heir to the throne drove past. Then he realised it was Nedjo Cabrinovic. He'd just struck his bomb against the mast, to prime it.
*
Ilic heard the crack and unsure what it was, he searched the crowd for some sign of action. Something was going very badly wrong - neither Vaso nor Mehmedbasic had attacked. Apis's man couldn't blame him for their failure; Ilic had stayed next to him on the corner of Cumurija Street so he could see that he hadn't tried to interfere.
Ilic saw Jovo standing a few yards in front of him with Vaso. It wasn't his assigned position and it looked as if Jovo was talking Vaso down. The doubts that he’d had about Jovo began to crowd back into Ilic’s mind and he tapped Apis’s man on the shoulder.
'That's him - Jovo - he's the English interloper!' Ilic shouted. At that moment Jovo started to tear through the crowd trying to get onto the road. Apis’s man set off after him.
There had always been something about Jovo that had never sat right with Ilic. Despite supposedly studying in Paris he showed little interest in anything intellectual and he was always sneaking about asking questions, ready to point the finger to throw suspicion off himself. Ilic had been so focused on trying to talk Gavro out of the plot that he hadn't given much thought to his distrust. Jovo had always done what he was told and Ilic had made sure that Jovo wasn't armed today or privy to the full plan.
*
Johnny pushed his way onto the road and started to sprint towards the Archduke's car, madly waving his arms, before tripping on a huge foot which some idiot had stuck out in front of him. As he fell, he locked eyes with the Archduke’s chauffeur, a tough- looking, stocky man, who instinctively accelerated to avoid him.
Johnny hit the ground with a thud and tasted blood in his mouth. A shooting pain ran up his leg and for a brief moment he thought he was back on the playing fields of his school.
The Archduke turned his piercing blue eyes on Johnny, looking directly at him, then turned back towards Cabrinovic as he hurled his bomb at the car and dropped to the ground.
Franz Ferdinand put his arm up to protect his wife, but the chauffeur’s increase in speed caused the bomb to curve over them by inches and hit the folded-back roof of the car. Everything slowed down, as Johnny prayed, 'Please be the spiked one. Please be the spiked one!'
The bomb bounced off the canvas roof and landed on the road without going off. Johnny began to breathe again and felt the same sort of elation he had experienced when scoring the winning try in the inter-house cup.
The bomb continued to bounce along the road, smoking. Johnny thought it was odd; the bomb shouldn't have been smoking if it had been spiked and he watched as it disappeared under the next car along in the motorcade.
*
Cvjetko Popovic waited with growing apprehension; he could hear the motorcade getting closer. The people around him started to cheer and push to the front. Popovic put the cyanide in his mouth and waited with the bomb ready in his right hand and the pistol in his left.
He was in a trance, rhythmically repeating the words of the people around him under his breath. 'Now they're coming, now they're coming, now...' The first car in the motorcade went past.
As the crowd crushed in, the enormity of the situation started to weigh on Popovic's sixteen year old shoulders. The people around him began to shout, 'Long may he live! Long may he live!’ Popovic heard a dull crack and a second car drove past - then an ear splitting explosion, followed by pandemonium.
His nerve left him and he bolted. His only thought was to get rid of his weapons and he turned and ran down to the cellar of Prosvjeta Palace to hide them.
*
Nedjo Cabrinovic swallowed his potassium cyanide and jumped over the embankment wall into the Miljacka River. It was a fifteen foot drop and he landed heavily in the inch deep water. Ignoring the pain, he tried to submerge himself in the effluent, red mud of the river, in a bid to drown himself if the cyanide didn't take effect.
There was no time - several policemen and a number of spectators were on him and started to beat and kick him as they dragged him under Cumurija Bridge.
Nedjo coughed and retched; the cyanide had just made him sick and he couldn't get away. The group got to the low riverbank on the other side of the bridge and someone demanded to know who he was. Nedjo replied as proudly as he could, 'I am a Serb hero.'
*
Franz Ferdinand ordered his car to stop and instructed von Harrach, the transport officer, to investigate the scene of the explosion.
'Sophie, are you hurt? the Archduke asked.
'Something hit the back of my neck,' she replied.
'You've been grazed,' Franz Ferdinand said with concern, examining her.
'We'll get you attended to, Your Highness.' Potiorek was mortified and clearly wary of how the Heir would react.
Franz Ferdinand was too stunned to be angry. He wished that he’d listened to his last intuition about the trip to Bosnia, when he was at Konopiste. 'I always thought that something like this would happen,' he growled.
*
Princip was running with the crowd along Appel Quay towards the site of the explosion. He'd heard the blast of the bomb and could see that a car had stopped. He couldn't tell who was inside it, because of the mob, but he knew that the plan must have worked and his heart filled with triumph. He saw no need now to throw his bomb and shoot at the car, as had originally been planned when it was forced to stop.
A commotion across the river drew Princip's attention. Nedjo w
as being pulled out of the river, alive, into the park where Princip had been walking earlier with the prosecutor's son.
*
Von Harrach hurried back to the Royal car and reported to the Archduke. 'Your Highness, no one was killed. Two people from the car, one of them the Governor’s ADC, have been wounded and some spectators were injured.'
Breitner the Magyar staggered up to the car, cradling a wounded arm. 'Your Imperial and Royal Highness, might I suggest you continue to City Hall, immediately. You're extremely vulnerable stopped in the middle of the road like this.'
Franz Ferdinand turned to von Harrach, 'Very well - the fellow must have been a lunatic. Let us proceed.' He’d been subject to an ambush of this kind at the King of Spain’s wedding. All that could be done was to carry on.
Breitner climbed onto the running board next to the Archduke as the car set off. Franz Ferdinand wasn't overly pleased with his presence, but Breitner had been correct about the threat to his life. If the Archduke had been wrong about people, he tried to make things right. He regarded everyone he met as being a scoundrel at first, and then let them gradually change his opinion, if they could. Breitner had changed his mind and Franz Ferdinand decided he would reinstate Breitner's commission in the army.
*
Princip watched as the police dragged Nedjo through the park, then he looked at his gun, deciding what to do. For a brief moment, Princip thought that he would kill Nedjo and then shoot himself. They had agreed that even if they were successful they should take their own lives.
The car that had been stopped in the middle of the road suddenly came to life and sped past Princip and to his dismay, he realised that the attempt had failed. He returned to his position on Lateiner Bridge, where he heard conformation that the bomb hadn't killed the tyrant.
*
Trifko Grabez stood by the Emperor’s Bridge, in some turmoil. After the pastry shop he'd gone with Ilic to the boarding house to get his weapons and poison, but Ilic had still tried to persuade him not to take part in the assassination. Trifko had been so desperate to get away from Ilic that he'd forgotten to ask him for his potassium cyanide. It was probably still in Ilic's pocket, he reflected. He would have to use his pistol now to take his life.