White Eagles Over Serbia

by Lawrence Durrell

  Yet all the time at the back of his mind there was an irritating feeling that he already knew the nature of the King’s treasure, that he had already heard, or read somewhere, something which would give him the answer. What was it? “It’s clear, too,” he added aloud, “that the leather-men have also discovered something. There is going to be a most almighty battle about it.”

  He crossed the first shoulder of mountain beyond the monastery and could not help stopping to admire the soft undulating mountain lawn through which his way led by a maze of paths, through fir plantations and groves of mulberry trees. The fresh smell of hay was delicious and in the middle distance he saw the higher slopes dark and feathery with beeches. It was quite hard to imagine that once he crossed the crest he would be far from towns and human habitations. The landscape had the premeditated air of a great formal park and one half-expected to see the gables of some Elizabethan country house peeping through the screen of green foliage at every corner.

  The sun was sinking though its warmth still drugged the windless air and on this side of the mountains the flowers and foliage grew more and more luxurious, while the woods were full of tits and wrens and blackbirds. The woods were carpeted with flowers, sweet-smelling salvia, cranesbill, and a variety of ferns. Here and there, too, bright dots of scarlet showed him where wild strawberries grew, and in these verdant woods the pines and beeches increased in size until he calculated that he was walking among glades of trees nearly a hundred feet in height. He could not help contrasting all this peace and beauty with the grim errand upon which he was bent, and which might lead him to sudden death.

  He crossed the western slopes of the ridge and began to climb steeply through a pine plantation—pines with long wrinkled arms and shaggy beards of lichen, like patriarchs, awakening in his mind memories of Lapland. Then once again, on the sunny slopes beyond, the pines gave place to beeches—cheerful avenues of sun-dappled arches opening into glades where butterflies fluttered—commas, whites and clouded yellows. He thought of Dombey and smiled grimly. How envious of him Dombey would be if he could see him: Dombey chainsmoking in his gloomy office above the London traffic.

  The track he was following now began to ascend rapidly once more and followed a long curve which looked as if it marked the beginning of a water-shed. On the other side stretched the backbone of the mountain-chain, the colour of elephant-skin in the evening light. There was Rtanj, and somewhere in the golden mist beyond it was the Janko Stone. This latter he had heard of on his earlier journey but had never visited it; indeed only the shepherds with their flocks ever ventured up on to the roof of the mountains, and there were no roads to tempt a traveller.

  He rested for a while in the woods, pleased with his progress, for he reckoned to reach the crown of Rtanj well before midnight, which he presumed must be the rendezvous time for the mule-train. At any rate if he were late they must wait for Marko, he told himself; and since Marko was dead.… He surveyed the whole range through his glasses but could see nothing of interest. A flock of sheep grazed on the nether slopes of the mountain but he could see no sign of the shepherd, if shepherd they had.

  The sun rolled behind a crest and all of a sudden the prospect darkened and flushed red. He set out once more, feeling as if he were the last man on earth, walking in a dream landscape towards a destination he might never reach. Yet he was heartened by his own good spirits and by the fact that as yet he hardly felt tired by the long journey he had made that day. His body was getting into the swing of things, he reflected with relief and pleasure.

  Darkness fell as he reached the edge of the great bare upland pasture which marked the beginning of Rtanj, and here he found the whole backbone of the mountain deeply carpeted with a kind of grey-mauve heather of great density. It was as thick as a mattress and though he rejoiced in its beauty he was annoyed to have to slacken his pace, for the going had become much harder. Despite this, however, he calculated that he would reach the crown of the mountain with time to spare.

  Once or twice in the eerie half-light he thought he caught sight of figures moving to his left, and he went out of his way to investigate: hoping to meet the mule-team. But each time he was mistaken. A thin slice of new moon came out to keep him company but gave little light. The night was windless though the very lack of wind seemed to create a great rushing vacuum of emptiness up here which teased the ears, making them imagine they could hear the sound of distant voices, or water falling, or the calls of birds which had long since returned to their nests.

  From time to time he came upon the great smooth stones, remains of the ancient wall, which had once separated two kingdoms, and touching their smooth surfaces with his hands he could not help thinking that there was something eerie about them. They seemed left over from some forgotten Cyclopean age. He was reminded of Stonehenge. The wall followed the crest up the hills until it reached the final obelisk which had been called the Janko Stone—heaven only knew why. It was a useful marker for him, however, and he was glad to be able to orient himself by these great shattered blocks which loomed up at him through the darkness.

  It was well after eleven before he reached the crest of Rtanj and stood looking round him at the dim chain of shadowy mountains around. Ahead, at an even higher elevation, lay the second peak where the Janko Stone stood, and here he descried a fitful beam of light, as from a camp fire. “Well,” he said, “the rest is up to the mules.” And sitting himself down on a fallen boundary stone he shed his equipment and settled down to a well-earned dinner. He had not realized how ravenous he was, and he made serious inroads upon the small supply of food he had brought with him; worse still, he had made no provision for water, as he had counted on operating in the river country, while this bare upland lacked springs or rivers. He hoped the muleteers, whoever they might be, would be carrying water, and would let him quench his thirst.

  Midnight came and went. He stood up on the stone from time to time and raked the darkness with his glasses—which were indeed admirable night-glasses and had been owned by a U-boat captain during the war. But the darkness offered him no clue as to the mule-team. He was worried by the thickness of the grass too: for even a mule-team would be completely muffled by so thick a carpet, and perhaps it might pass him by during the night.

  The stone was cold, and the heavy dew penetrated his duffle coat. The hand of his watch pointed to half-past one before he heard—not without incredulity, for it might be a trick of the wind—the creak of girths and the snort of some animal—horse or mule perhaps—in the darkness. He immediately started in the direction of the sound, walking swiftly and bending double so that he would not be seen against the sky.

  One hundred yards away from his resting-place there was a deep depression in the ground and here he heard the champing of mules and the low voices of men. He did not quite know in what terms to hail them so he lay on the ground and coughed loudly. At once there was silence, and then after a slight pause a deep voice said: “Ho!” drawing out the sound in a solemn and impressive manner.

  “Ho!” replied Methuen, drawing the word out for a full second and letting his voice sink down the register in the same impressive manner. He lay on the ground and waited. Presently a voice quite near him said hoarsely: “Marko? Where are you?” Methuen licked his dry lips and said: “Marko is dead. He sent me to guide the team.” There was a sudden click of safety-catches in the darkness followed by silence. Methuen went on: “The soldiers found him near the valley of the Studenitsa river. They shot him.”

  A second figure must by this time have moved forward towards him in the darkness, for another voice said harshly: “Have you light?”

  “Yes.”

  “Light your own face so that we can see you.”

  His torch was pretty feeble but it gave light enough; he was still lying down and in the yellowish beam he saw that his interlocutors had been standing up addressing the darkness over his head. Now they knelt and stared long and earnestly at him. “Who are you?” said the deep-voiced one. Meth
uen rose to his knees and gave his cover-name, adding that he had been sent out by headquarters with a message for Black Peter; on the way he had met Marko by accident, had witnessed his death, and was on the way to deliver both messages to the White Eagles. He himself was a Yugoslav who had emigrated to Paris fifteen years before, he added, and had recently been infiltrated to help with the battle.

  The men withdrew and muttered together, while Methuen turned off his torch and waited; he took the extra precaution of moving a dozen paces to his right in the dark. Presently the voices approached again and one said: “Very well. We should get going.” Methuen scrambled to his feet and came out to meet the muleteers. He found to his delight that a number had brought water-bottles and other more powerful drinks—plum brandy, the ubiquitous rakia of Serbia—and more than one smelt strongly of it. There seemed in all to be about a dozen muleteers and they seemed a fairly well-disciplined lot despite the smell of shlivovitz which clung to some of them, for there was hardly any talking and chatter among them.

  The mules formed up in a long straggling line and the man who seemed to be in charge of the party came to join Methuen. He was a bulky-looking Serbian wood-cutter (and Methuen later was to learn that he was the brother of the dead Marko): “You must lead now”, he said simply, “and become our eyes.”

  While the daylight held Methuen had taken the precaution to take a bearing on the Janko Stone with the help of his tiny oil-compass and Capella which was clear and high in the northwest. It was to be presumed that the terrain, like that which they had already traversed, offered no difficulty, being grassy and soft. Nevertheless it is always nerve-racking to be responsible for the direction of a pack of mules and twelve men, when you have never traversed the road before: when you are not certain of the reception you will receive on arrival: moreover when you have no idea what the password is.… So Methuen rambled on to himself as he climbed into the uncomfortable wooden saddle of the foremost mule and urged the column forward with a great show of certainty. Most of the men walked beside their animals, and after half an hour of torture Methuen decided that their choice was the right one, and followed suit.

  The leader of the party drew up beside him and walked along, talking amiably in the darkness as they sweated and stumbled upwards towards the clouds. He lived beyond Rashka on the mountain range which runs eastwards in the direction of Nish. “Difficult country to hide in,” he said. “We lost many men to the Communists.” (He spat expressively into the darkness at each mention of the word.) Methuen set himself to draw the fellow out and was delighted by the ease with which the peasant, having once given his confidence to him, felt no further need for reticence.

  “Do you think”, said Methuen, “the mules will be enough to transport it?” The peasant shrugged his shoulders and said: “If it is carbon or wood or tea, I can give you an answer. But for gold who can say? Is it big? Is it small? Is it dust?” Methuen stopped in his tracks and gave a snort of sheer surprise which was succeeded by a spasm of furious anger against his own short-sightedness. For he had really known the answer to the problem all the time. Only blind stupidity had kept him so long in the dark. For now, at the mention of the word “gold” he remembered the mysterious disappearance of the gold reserves belonging to the National Bank of Yugoslavia at the outbreak of the war with Germany.

  When Hitler’s troops poured southward into Serbia some sort of attempt had been made to get the gold reserves away to safety. Those belonging to the largest bank in Yugoslavia, however, had been taken somewhere into south Serbia and—by all accounts—lost. At any rate, during the war both Chetnik and Partisan hunted feverishly for the treasure which both believed to be buried somewhere in the mountains of Serbia. The Germans, and later the Russians, had both shown considerable interest in the matter; but without any result. After the so-called liberation—which turned out to be a worse slavery than ever—the government tried to trace the group which had been put in charge of the bullion when it was taken south in a lorry. But it seemed that they had been murdered by Partisans during the war. Not a soul knew the whereabouts of this large sum of.… Methuen whistled to himself. “It must be the key to the whole thing,” he told himself triumphantly. “At any rate it is the only key which unlocks every door.”

  Still staggered by his own stupidity he went back over every stage of his inquiry and tested against a single hypothesis: if the White Eagles had located the treasure what would they be likely to do? The answer followed very naturally: try and guard it, try and tell the exiles about it, try and get it out by submarine.… The gnomic verses which had been broadcast returned to his mind in the light of this new knowledge and he had no difficulty now in deciphering what the message was which lay behind the words.

  But as the corollary of the first question one should ask another; namely, what would the Communists do if they found out about the treasure? The answer was short and ugly: surround the place, wipe out the Royalists, and get it.

  “You can see, too,” said Methuen to himself sleepily, “that the size of it makes it important. I seem to remember a figure of about fifteen or twenty million being quoted in the newspapers. The Royalists would be rich enough to found their movement on something stronger than faith. One could buy arms and agents.…” He understood now the importance that Vida had placed upon the discovery; and understanding that he felt once more how dangerous was his own position, for people with so much to lose would stick at nothing—as witness Vida’s own death. Presumably she had been considered a dangerous person, perhaps a traitor.…

  “I suppose,” said Methuen to himself, “I should really go back to Belgrade at once.” He turned and watched the dark strings of mules on the mountain-side behind him for a moment. “Mission accomplished. Thank you very much.” He imitated Dombey’s voice congratulating him on having cleared up the mystery and smiled. “A good agent would clear out now,” he admitted, “but there is no transport back.” He was committed to the adventure.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  At the Janko Stone

  They marched onwards until nearly four o’clock, along the back-bone of the range. Then Methuen called a halt for half an hour for he was not only very tired himself by this time: he was also a trifle anxious about the nature of their reception at the Janko Stone. In the darkness, without the right password, they might easily be mistaken for Communist troops and ambushed. He judged it wiser to arrive in the early dawn light when one would be able to see and be seen. Besides, he had no clear idea about the headquarters of the White Eagles; they could not maintain a group on this exposed situation—a plateau open to aerial reconnaissance. There must be somewhere a huge depression in the crown of the highest hill—or perhaps a disused quarry.

  The air of dawn was chill, but he slept sweetly enough in his heavy duffle coat, while the mules cropped the grass around his head. Half an hour of sound sleep makes a great difference, and he had trained himself to sleep anywhere, at any time. He woke in time to see the first milky dawn light begin to paint in the furthest range of mountains, and looking back along the way they had come, he felt a mild self-satisfaction at the accuracy of his night navigation. About a mile ahead of them rose the final summit of the range, still wreathed in a thick pinkish mist. They were nearly at their journey’s end.

  His long low whistle woke the muleteers, and the straggling line formed once again behind him. They set off at a smart pace now, encouraged no doubt by the thought of a comfortable camp awaiting them with fires and hot food. “You know the password of course,” said the old peasant, drawing his mule up alongside Methuen in order to offer him a cut of chewing-tobacco. “That is what is worrying me,” said Methuen. “I was given the word ‘Wings’; but Marko as he was dying said that they had changed the password again.” The man looked at him in consternation. “Aieel” he said, making a long face. “Will we be shot at?”

  “Not if they see the mules.”

  “The Communists use mules.”

  “Patience. Let us see.”


  The ground had levelled off now and become much more broken and boulder-strewn with patches of rough ground breaking through the grass cover, like patches of baldness on a human head. The view from here was indescribably lovely, with mountain-peaks stretching away in all directions, softly coloured by the approaching sunlight and packets of coloured mist. “Soon we will be there,” said Methuen, and the cavalcade entered the misty fringe of the crown. From the east, like a premonition, came the drone of aircraft.

  Visibility now shrank to a dozen paces, and Methuen stopped every two minutes and gave a long-drawn cry: “Ho!” before moving forward. Apart from this they walked in silence punctuated only by the creaking of girths and wooden saddles.

  After a quarter of an hour they heard a sharp whistle repeated three times and from behind a white jutting rock came a hoarse bark of command: “Halt.” Methuen halted the cavalcade and walked forward a few paces until the cry repeated and the clicking of safety catches warned him that further enterprise of this kind might prove costly. He accordingly stood still and watched a small band of singularly wild-looking ruffians materialize around him in the mist like spectres. They were all clad in white sheepskin jackets and moth-eaten hats. Some were barefoot. But he could not help noticing that they were heavily armed with efficient and obviously well-maintained tommy-guns.

  They said nothing at first but prowled around Methuen and the little knot of muleteers like savage mastiffs, sniffing at them suspiciously. It took them perhaps twenty seconds to finish their examination of the mule-train and then one, wild and bearded, came up and demanded the password. “I don’t know,” said Methuen, “I come from headquarters and Marko died before he could tell me. Take me to Black Peter, he will understand.”

  To his surprise this answer seemed to satisfy them for they turned, and with a series of sharp barks and yelps—the noises that shepherds make on the hills to guide their flocks—they led the way through the mist towards the summit. “So far so good,” thought Methuen as he surrendered himself to this pack of wild creatures, “at least I shall meet Black Peter.”