by Gavin Lyall
“We’re running late,” he called to Andrew, “and being pushed north. Head due east a while.”
Andrew nodded and nudged the Oriole slightly to the right, glancing down at the compass and then, probably, finding some landmark on the horizon and steering for it. O’Gilroy began re-calculating on the basis of a stronger south-east wind than they’d assumed.
There weren’t, or shouldn’t be, any more cities until they passed Verona, an hour and a half ahead, and O’Gilroy tried to relax. He had never foreseen that so much flying would be like this: as dull as marching across the South African veldt. The engine droned steadily, a fine mist of castor oil condensed on the little glass windshield – it was really more an oil-shield; they both wore goggles against the wind – and Andrew corrected the little joggles in the air with minute movements of the stick. Getting rid of the bulky control wheel of earlier aircraft was one of the Oriole’s modern touches. And the stick was topped by a “blip” switch to cut off the ignition momentarily, so Andrew could leave the petrol and air levers alone once he had achieved the delicate balance needed. True, the switch worked (he said) by transferring the current from the ignition to his thumb, but it did work.
O’Gilroy looked at his wristwatch, checked the revised timetable scrawled on the edge of the folded map, and began looking ahead for a useful conjunction of river and railway that should pinpoint them at Pontevico. They trudged on across the wide veldt of sky.
* * *
This wasn’t the normal town jail for drunks and pick-pockets. That might be modern, light and airy, built according to the latest humanitarian theories of penal reformers. Ranklin doubted that, but it was still possible. Any theories about this Castello dungeon came from four centuries ago.
And at first glance in the dim light, so had the other occupant. Ranklin seemed to have strayed into popular romance, where jails always had a gaunt, bearded prisoner who had been there since forever. But as the man got up from one of the three army-style iron cots, Ranklin saw this one was merely dirty, ragged, tousle-haired – no beard – and possibly younger than himself. His smile showed even but stained teeth, and he said something in a crackling language that was probably Slovenian.
Ranklin dumped the armful of thin blankets and barely thicker mattress on a cot and said politely: “Buon giorno,” but that didn’t help. He tried German, French, and finally English without success. The man just smiled agreeably, then pointed to himself: “Pero.”
So Ranklin did the same: “James. Or Jim.”
“Jee-eem.” Pero smiled; he did a lot of smiling, and Ranklin wondered if he were simple-minded or just making the best of a bad job. Then Pero began a mime show: he had been painting on walls – slogans, presumably – had been arrested, slapped around, finally thrown in here. Meanwhile, his wife (kissing and cuddling the air) and child didn’t know where he was, would be weeping and starving . . . It was, Ranklin had to admit, very well explained and he was sorry he couldn’t reply in kind while staying in character. Private banking didn’t come across well in mime.
So communication languished, and Ranklin sat down and looked around. The dungeon itself was reasonably big, around twenty feet square, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, and made of roughly-dressed but close-fitting stonework that had been whitewashed not so long ago. The one window, sealed with glass and an iron grille, was in a tunnel at head height, showing the outer wall to be at least five feet thick, so he wasn’t going to scratch his way to freedom with a toothpick.
Apart from the cots, there was a wooden table, two chairs and a chipped, enamelled bucket. The uneven floor was felt-covered and slightly damp, but the atmosphere was muggy rather than chill. And that was it, apart from some old iron rings set into the walls, presumably from some penal theory that Ranklin hoped was long forgotten.
Putting suspected spies in a fortress was normal in many countries. Perhaps espionage was felt to be contagious, and nobody wanted to infect common criminals, or perhaps spies might be officers and thus deserve special treatment – though there were two ways of looking at that idea. But the police could have no automatic power to slap someone into a military prison – the Castello was an army HQ and the guards were soldiers – so Novak had at least the tacit approval of the Austrian authorities. Which would make it that much more difficult for anyone to get him out. The Bureau would miss him – eventually – but have to act discreetly.
He was, he reckoned, on his own. Well, that was spying for you.
Indeed, Novak might be trying a simple test: shove a man in jail, and if nobody complains, then you know you’ve caught a spy. He fished out his cigarette case – that, matches and his watch were all he had been left with – and wondered whether jail etiquette meant he had to offer Pero one. In the end he did, but luckily it was refused politely, so he lit one of the nine he had left and settled down to feel the seconds limp by.
* * *
They were lost, and it was O’Gilroy’s fault. He had made the mistake, which could be fatal, of warping what he saw to fit what he wanted to see: a distinctive bend and island in the Adige river followed soon by a railway crossing a smaller river. Oh, he had seen them all right – but the Adige had many bends and islands, and the country below was veined with small rivers and canals, half of them not on the map. If he’d been right, they would now be slap over the middle of Padua, and there was no sign of the place.
Moreover, the haze was thickening from a whitish blur that made the sky overlap the landscape to a grey-brown stain that subtly distorted what it didn’t hide.
He yelled his confession to Andrew, who nodded philosophically and called back: “Wind’s probably changed, we’re getting towards the coast. We know that much. D’you think we’re north or south?”
“Jest don’t know,” O’Gilroy had to admit.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of gas. But best to know . . . There’s a railway line: I’ll do a bit of Bradshawing.” And he tipped the Oriole into a gentle spiralling descent.
To ‘Bradshaw’, from the name of the British railway timetable, simply meant going down to read the name off a railway station. Hardly scientific, but very precise.
Andrew headed north along the line, down-sun where the visibility was better, then swerved and banked around a small village.
“Did you get it?” he shouted, curling away.
“No!” They’d banked towards Andrew’s side.
“Damned oil on the goggles.” Andrew pushed them up onto his forehead and wheeled the Oriole round and down for a second look.
O’Gilroy tensed: hadn’t he been told that if you frightened up birds on the first swoop, you might hit them on a second pass? But it was his fault they were having to do this anyway. He kept quiet as they straightened and flattened close to the ground – then black shapes flickered for an instant, there was a thump and bang and Andrew screamed.
He must instinctively have jerked on the stick, because the aeroplane leapt upwards. Then he hunched forward, blood masking his face. “Take it! Take it!” And O’Gilroy reached around him to seize the stick, suddenly conscious of a new wind in his face, a wind that was slackening . . .
He pushed the rocking, swaying aeroplane forward, down away from a near-stall, looking ahead and trying to position himself in the sky. Horizon level – blast it! there was almost no horizon in that haze – just as level as possible . . . can’t reach the engine controls; doesn’t matter, the engine’s running, God bless it; what had caused the thump, then? The windscreen’s gone . . . They’d hit a bird and Andrew had got a face full of broken glass.
He was making grunting, gasping noises, pawing at his face with now-bloodied hands.
“Best leave it alone!” O’Gilroy shouted. “I’ve got her safe!” But he wasn’t at all sure of that. They were crawling and rocking up in a wide and unintentional circle, because Andrew’s feet were still on the rudder bar. “Push right rudder!” O’Gilroy ordered.
Andrew heard and pushed.
“A bit less . . . f
ine. Hold that.”
“Can’t see a damned thing!”
“Then leave it, ye’ll make it worse. I think we hit a bird.”
“Damn. Stupid of me.” Andrew was leaning back as far as a big man could in that cockpit, speaking in gasps against the blasting wind. “Damn, damn, damn. How’s it look?”
O’Gilroy snatched a look at his face. It was streaked with blood like crazy warpaint, but barely flowing. “Not much blood. Keep yer eyes shut. Ye’ll be fine.” Certainly the bleeding wouldn’t kill Andrew; he himself might.
Suddenly that made him angry. So they expected him, the new boy, the bog-Irish amateur, to make a balls of it, did they? So he’d bloody well show them. Just knowing that he couldn’t do worse than expected buoyed him up. He began a cautious, gradual turn towards the east again.
“Are you landing?” Andrew croaked.
“Not yet.”
Perhaps he should, though. The land below was flat enough, the fields big enough – for an experienced pilot. But how near was any hospital?
Yet would he recognise the proper landing-field when he saw it? Andrew had had the instructions, he himself had concentrated on the navigation. Hadn’t someone said there was an aerodrome at Venice itself? At an aerodrome they were used to injuries, and in getting there he might learn to fly this thing.
He took a deep oil-laden breath. All the precision, the time-keeping, were gone. Now it was step by simple step, and the first step was to reach the coast. If they really were north of Padua, he should aim south of east. He tried another turn. The Oriole was both more sensitive than the Boxkite and yet, he began to feel, more predictable. And he skidded outwards on the turn, but they’d taught him to do that rather than risk a spin by over-ruddering (though Andrew had kept his turns perfectly balanced). When – judging more by the sun than the lazily-spinning compass – he reckoned he was on course, he flattened out of the turn. Then, leaning against Andrew’s shoulder to get a glimpse of the airspeed indicator and reaching left-handed across Andrew’s thigh to clutch the stick, he tried simply to fly straight.
Instead, the Oriole gradually developed a rocking, switchback movement. It was taking over. Maybe that bird had done more damage, maybe half the tail was fluttering loose – he daren’t look round – but then he realised he was over-controlling. He clamped the stick still and let the aeroplane sort itself out – in a slight downward turn – then corrected that. Moment by moment, it got easier.
“Not far now,” he said aloud. But perhaps he was talking to himself.
28
Time in the dungeon was very exact, no “abouts” or “nearlys”; there was nothing else to do but note exactly when anything happened. Fifty-three minutes after Ranklin had been locked up, a guard came in with a metal jug of water and a worn but clean towel. Pero thoughtfully gestured for Ranklin to have first go, then muddied the towel without making too much difference to his face and hands.
One hour and seven minutes later, the door opened and Captain Novak came in. “I must apologise for the overcrowding, but this is the high season,” he smirked in German. Then he reached behind him and effortlessly hauled the Conte di Chioggia past. “Auf wiedersehn.”
As the heavy wooden door slammed shut, the Count got his breath back, and spent nearly two minutes being outraged in alternate Italian and German. He promised to report everybody concerned to the Comandante (when he returned), the Chief of Police, and the Governor of Trieste. He was starting to list his connections in Vienna when a guard came back and shoved an armful of bedding at him. The Count dropped it, kicked it, but then seemed exhausted; he glared around.
“James Spencer,” Ranklin said. “We met – briefly – in the Café San Marco.”
“Ah? Then you know who I am. My humblest apologies for not recognising you immediately, but I had not expected . . . And our friend here?”
“His name’s Pero. He seems to speak only Slovenian.”
“My God! This is the final insult!” He swung round to tell the door, in German: “Police Captain Novak will be walking a beat in the sewers next week!”
Pero had been gazing at the Count with a loose smile. Now he got off the bed and stuck out a welcoming hand, along with a quick burst of Slovenian. The Count stared at the hand as he would at a plague rat, spat some insult that rocked Pero back on his heels, and sat firmly on a chair.
Then all the firmness vanished, and he was suddenly old and frail. Ranklin sat up, expecting him to slide to the floor, but the Count raised a thin, trembling hand. “Please, I am just a little tired. Do you have a cigarette? Ah, thank you, thank you . . .” Ranklin lit it for him. Now he had only five left. He mentally shrugged and took one for himself.
* * *
Abruptly, the way things seemed to happen from the air, the city was there. An unmistakable terracotta-coloured shape, split by the bold S of the Grand Canal, had magicked itself out of the haze. And this was one city that didn’t sprawl: where it ended, the sea began in swirled blue and green streaks of channels and mudbanks.
“I got Venice!” O’Gilroy shouted triumphantly. “Ye say there’s an aerodrome here? No – don’t try to look! Jest tell me!”
Andrew stopped struggling upright and, presumably, was trying to imagine the city below (actually, off their left wing). “On the Lido . . . big, long island . . . just east, out to sea, runs north–south . . . can you see that?”
The Oriole rocked as O’Gilroy craned to look. The blasted place was a spillage of islands . . . Then he realised the Lido was bigger than he’d thought, already stretching out on both sides of them.
“Got it. Bang over it.”
“Right at the northern end . . . Should be there.”
O’Gilroy began a cautious circle over the sea, peering down past Andrew. It must be there . . . yes . . . was it? That thing? Just a few sheds, a low line of what seemed to be fortification, and in the middle a patch of sun-baked mud.
“I’ve got the aerodrome,” he said more soberly.
“Does it look okay?”
No, it didn’t. But it was all he was going to get. “I’m going down for a look.”
“Try to touch down at forty.”
“Forty. Right.” Only he wouldn’t know, because when he was down on the edge of the stall he’d have no time to lean over and consult the indicator. And he still couldn’t reach the engine levers . . . “Can ye reduce the power a bit? By the sound of the engine?”
Andrew’s blind but experienced hand fell immediately on the levers and the engine buzz slowed fractionally. The Oriole sagged and O’Gilroy lifted her back. And a little more – the engine stuttered and so did O’Gilroy’s heart, but it caught again.
“Best I can do,” Andrew panted. “Should be around a thousand revs.”
As the Oriole slowed, her grip on the air became less firm. “It’ll do,” O’Gilroy called, and let the nose drift down. Chimney smoke showed the wind as coming from almost due south, so he came in a gentle swoop from the north, over the sea, blipping the engine to keep in a shallow dive. But each time the engine restarted, the nose came up unless he synchronised it with a downward push. And the wings rocked more in the uneven low-level currents, and she pulled right as she slowed . . .
“Left rudder!” he yelled, then, as the Oriole swerved wildly, had a better idea. “Get yer right foot off!” And managed to kick his left foot onto the rudder bar. Now he had more control, but was using his wrong foot – would he remember that in a moment of decision?
Suddenly his anger flared again. They’d expect him to get this right, think because he’d flown the thing for half an hour without crashing, he should at least be able to land safely . . . And then he shook his head, splattering sweat and oil. Self-pity was no help now. Who were they? Fuck they. He was a pilot, and he had a problem – just like any pilot. And whatever happened, pilots would understand. And that was what mattered.
But he was going to land off this attempt. Andrew would never get the engine revved up in time to drag them around
for a second chance.
“Keep yer foot pushing steady,” he ordered. So, in effect, Andrew’s foot spring-loaded the rudder into a left turn which O’Gilroy could override with his own foot.
“If we’re over the sea,” Andrew warned, “you’ll get an up-draught coming over the land.”
“Right.” He should have thought of that himself, but at least he was ready with a forward push and a final blip to cut the engine when the Oriole tried to rear. They rushed over a brief beach, a very solid line of wall and then floated, floated, a foot or two above the landing-field. Then fell with a thump and a swerve, rocking as O’Gilroy rammed his foot on the bar. And couldn’t relax in time when the swerve reversed. He heard the bang as a tyre blew, but then they were still. And upright.
“Beautiful,” Andrew croaked. “Just beautiful.” He sounded very loud in the silence, and O’Gilroy realised the engine had stopped. He reached across to pull back the levers and turn off the petrol and ignition. It took all the strength he had left. And he still had to try and explain to the running men . . .
* * *
The cell darkened gently in the silence, the tiny semicircle of sky beyond the window turned yellow, then quickly russet and slowly grey. At 5.05 a bugle sounded, then at 5.35 a guard came in with a lit paraffin lamp and hung it on a bracket on the wall, warning that if they fiddled with it and burned themselves to death, no pension would be paid to their relatives.
“So now we know a little history,” the Count observed. “Once such a thing happened and now it is in the regulations that such a warning must be given. Is there another cigarette?”
Ranklin noted that “is there”; the Count was truly democratic with other people’s property. “There’s two left. We’ll save them for after dinner.”
“Dinner?” The Count thought about it. “Yes. I imagine we will need a cigarette.” He looked sideways at Pero – they were all three lying on their cots – who seemed to be asleep. “I am sure he will find it a banquet. Do you know why he is here?”