Flight From Honour

by Gavin Lyall

  She stood up again. “Gabri, be quiet. This silly child is just trying to cause trouble, saying anything to get you angry. Don’t let her. Giancarlo will explain everything when he gets here.”

  D’Annunzio gave Corinna a sullen glare. She said brightly: “But I know, don’t I? D’you think the British Secret Service knows less?”

  D’Annunzio’s look swivelled to Signora Falcone, who said icily: “If you can’t remember your manners as a guest, Mrs Finn—”

  “You’ll lock me in my room? I’m just making conversation, as a good guest should. About how the British Secret Service helped you get that airplane, lent you the pilot, approved the idea of recruiting d’Annunzio as a secret agent—”

  “It’s lies! She’s making it up!”

  Well, yes, she was, of course. But d’Annunzio had already detonated. “I do not work for the English! You have sold yourself come una puttana to the Secret Service, but I, d’Annunzio, mi rifiuto! I tear up my tracts! Non parto più!”

  There were shadows behind the pillars beneath the gallery, the major-domo and Matteo, drawn by the shouting. Perfect poise recovered, Signora Falcone turned to them: “Per favore accompagna il Signor d’Annunzio nella sua stanza e chiudilo dentro.”

  D’Annunzio stared at her. But whatever their past had been, it was long dead now. She was in total, icy command, ordering him locked away like a soldier with dirty boots. He had sense enough not to challenge her on her own stage, and let himself be escorted up the stairs and presumably to his room.

  Signora Falcone remembered the threat to the leaflets and called after them: “E porta giù un pacco di volanti.” She turned back to Corinna. “I know Gabri: he will feel differently in the morning, with Giancarlo to reassure him.” She sat down again. “Or if he does not, it is his words, not some figure in mask and goggles throwing them out, which matters. As long as he is not free to spoil the event, all will be well.”

  Could a woman use a man so coldly unless there were some great hatred, and consequently love, in their past? Corinna shivered.

  “And that also applies to yourself,” Signora Falcone smiled. “Now, I think we need some fresh coffee.”

  31

  Novak came with Ranklin in the carriage, first to the hotel, where he threw his baggage together and picked up a cablegram from ‘Finn’, then to the Meridionale station. He didn’t bother to read the cablegram: he didn’t want to remind Novak of the Sherring connection.

  “Do you know Venice?” he asked as they rolled along the lamplit waterfront.

  “Do you not?”

  “I haven’t been there for years and I certainly don’t recall any aerodrome.”

  “Ah, yes. They have made one at the north end of the Lido, on the old San Niccolò fort drill ground.”

  Ranklin paused to visualise this and the problem of getting there. He would need to find a steam-launch still in business in the early hours. But some were sure to meet any arriving train.

  Novak said: “You will go first to the aeroplane, then?”

  “Give me thirty seconds with a hammer and all bets for tomorrow are off.”

  “Most direct,” Novak approved. He stayed with Ranklin at the station, saw him into his seat and was obviously going to wait until the train left. The uniform made it look as if Ranklin were being deported, but perhaps Novak didn’t mind that.

  “Tell me,” Ranklin asked on an impulse, “are you in touch with the other assassin?”

  Novak said nothing.

  “I mean, if Falcone’s fit enough to go back to Italy, is your bandit likely to turn up, too? He’ll probably remember me.”

  Novak examined the glowing end of his cigar carefully. “Do you really think I am close to a man like that? I light his fuse – then I throw him far away. But for me, he is another chance to stop this madness. So if, for some reason I cannot predict, you should fail . . .” He shrugged, and then smiled widely.

  When the train was moving, Ranklin took out Corinna’s cablegram. Now thirty-six hours old, it simply said she was going to Venice and gave Falcone’s address there.

  The train rolled on at its own . . . well, you couldn’t say “speed”; perhaps “pace”. It was 140 rail miles and a frontier crossing to Venice, but he had time. Surely nobody was fool enough to try to fly in the dark.

  * * *

  Long after midnight, Corinna still sat in the hall. There was nothing stopping her going to bed, save lack of tiredness and knowing that if she went to her room she’d be locked in. “You can, if you want, jump from the window,” Signora Falcone had pointed out. “It’s over thirty feet down to a stone terrace, and quite frankly, I don’t care if you do.”

  Corinna now believed that. “Then what are you going to do with me? – and d’Annunzio?”

  “Giancarlo may have other ideas, but as far as I’m concerned, you stay as guests until – say – noon, and then you can go where you will and say what you like.”

  “Because by then Trieste should be in flames and it’ll be too late to care why?”

  Signora Falcone may have given the faintest shrug.

  “But why?” Corinna demanded. “Why rock the whole international boat? You must know—”

  “Did you think Gabri’s leaflet was just fine words? Oh no, my dear, he’s a spoilt child, but he speaks with the true voice of Italy. An Italy that deserves to be great again, not living in shame. Not hawking our favours in the streets of Europe, as that pimp of a prime minister Giolitti’s been doing. As he’ll go on doing, if he wins the November election. Giancarlo has been saying this in the Senate for years. Now—” She broke off, shaking her head. “You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you? No American can understand what Italy’s been through.”

  “I understand what a full-blown riot in Trieste could start. But why? – you weren’t born an Italian yourself, come to that.”

  “No, my dear, I was born Irish. And watched my parents and their friends jostling to kiss the nearest pure English boot – does that tell you anything?”

  Corinna was silent for a while, then tried to rally her old anger. “But you were going to involve my brother Andrew.”

  “He’d have known what he was doing.” Signora Falcone dismissed the matter. “He could have refused. Si?” Matteo had come up beside her chair and begun talking quickly and quietly. Signora Falcone glanced at her gold wristwatch, gave a nodding reply, and Matteo headed for the front door.

  “It’s early,” she explained, “but we need to make sure they stop the sleeper at Mestre to let Giancarlo off. In his condition, I don’t want him rolling around in boats from Venice.”

  Corinna wasn’t really listening. She was thinking about O’Gilroy piloting the flight and Matt being in Trieste – did he know what was going on? Or was he just obeying orders? And would Major Dagner give such orders? From her brief conversation with him, yes, he might well . . .

  The doorbell rang, bringing Signora Falcone to her feet in surprise. “Surely not Giancarlo already, he may need help—”

  From where she sat, Corinna could see the big front door, and the servant hurrying to open it. And then take several quick paces backwards as two men with guns pushed their way in.

  * * *

  Soon after four o’clock, Ranklin found himself a dark empty mile from where the aerodrome should be. It was a clear, moonless night and Venice itself was a low shape on the horizon sparked with random lights whose reflections wavered in the wakes of an occasional slow-moving ship. A big port never sleeps, just retreats into havens of lamplit privacy.

  Getting a place on a steam-launch had been no problem; getting it to drop him at the northern jetty of the Lido, well away from the big hotels, had taken time and money. Maybe he should have got off at the main quay and found a cab . . . but what he was planning must be illegal. No witnesses. He tramped on alone.

  He couldn’t even be sure he’d found the aerodrome. What he had was a wall, obviously military, and not much higher than himself. The road led off to the right
, but he reckoned that any gate must be locked and it was easier to climb the wall, which was sloped so cannon-balls would bounce off. Getting down the far side, unsloped, took longer.

  But now what? He was on the edge of what could be a drill-ground-turned-aerodrome, but beyond that all he could see was vague dark shapes against a dark sky. Certainly nothing that looked like an aeroplane. Perhaps it was locked in a shed, that seemed the norm at Brooklands. The only solution seemed to be to walk around the edge of the ground, investigating anywhere that an aeroplane might be pushed off it. He began trudging again.

  Ten minutes later he had an extra idea, and lay down to peer from ground level, hoping the distinctive shape would show up against the sky. Still nothing. He started to get up – and a torch flared in his face, dazzling him.

  “Try standing up quick and ye’ll go down a sight quicker – Arseholes! What ye doing here, Captain?”

  Fright, relief and sheer blindness kept Ranklin where he was. He rolled on his back. “Turn that blasted light off. What are you— Is the aeroplane here?”

  “Sure it is, I was working on it ’til past midnight. Now, what was ye doing, sneaking around like . . . like a spy?” He hauled Ranklin to his feet.

  “Looking for the damn thing.” In the darkness, he didn’t notice O’Gilroy’s wince at hearing the Oriole called that. “But thank God I found you, too. Look, I’ve learnt in Trieste just what – roughly what – it’s supposed to do today—”

  “Sure and I know that. I’m flying it over to the Senator’s house at first light. He’ll be back by then.”

  “You’re flying it?”

  “Surely. Mr Sherring got himself banged about, we hit a bird . . . Anyways, I’ve been practising and—”

  “You’re actually going to fly the thing to Trieste?”

  O’Gilroy winced again but said patiently: “That’s the plan, isn’t it? Ye mean ye weren’t knowing about it?”

  “Of course I bloody well didn’t. Did you think I’d let you – anybody – go firing machine-guns over the—”

  “Hold on, now. Machine-guns? Where are ye getting machine-guns from?”

  Ranklin peered at him through the starlit gloom. Was it possible O’Gilroy didn’t know? But if he was doing the piloting . . .

  “All right.” Ranklin said, “all right. Let’s get this sorted out, Have you got a real cigarette?”

  O’Gilroy lit both of them. Ranklin breathed deeply, got a violent coughing fit, and said in a strangled voice: “Now: just tell me what the plan is.”

  “Me and the poet feller, d’Annunzio, we fly ov—”

  “D’Annunzio? The poet-playwright chap? – he’s mixed up in this?”

  “Surely. He’s written the pamphlets. He throws ’em out over Trieste, then we fly back. Only Mrs Falcone, she didn’t want us to start from here, but a field back near the house.”

  “Then where the devil do the machine-guns, the Lewis guns, fit in?”

  “Jayzus, don’t be asking me. They’re yer own idea entirely. And anyway,” he added, “ye’d need a mounting on the aeroplane – not that I’d be letting that feller fire a catapult from any aeroplane I’m flying.”

  Baffled, Ranklin regrouped himself on a known point. “But any dropping of leaflets is off, too. Have you seen the things?”

  “No, and they’ll be in Italian, anyways.”

  “Well, I bet they’re urging more than a shipyard strike. They’ve picked a day when the main garrison’s changing over, the best time for a real riot. Nobody seems to think that’ll actually happen, but we don’t want to be involved in either a riot or a fiasco.”

  O’Gilroy said nothing. In the sudden glow of his cigarette, Ranklin saw the lean face looking puzzled, undecided.

  “Tell me this, then,” he said quietly, “has Major Dagner been in touch, has he ordered you to be part of this?”

  “No-o. I’m thinking he doesn’t know ’bout me doing the flying at all.”

  “Then I’m ordering you not to.”

  He could almost hear the snap as O’Gilroy came to a decision. “Fine. Mind, I’d’ve liked the flight, but . . . whatever ye say. What are we doing now, then?”

  Get out of it all, was Ranklin’s thought. “You say you’re expected over there at first light? Say six o’clock . . .” By then, they could be at Venice station instead, maybe leaving the Oriole disabled – but also leaving Corinna behind. The Falcones could hardly do her any harm, but for all that . . . “Can we telephone the house from anywhere here?”

  “Surely. In the office yonder, I’ve got a key. I called to say the aeroplane was fixed and all jest a while back.”

  O’Gilroy had the number and what to say to the operator written out in careful phonetics, but Ranklin took over. He decided to be somebody from Sherring’s wanting to talk to Corinna.

  The telephone was answered remarkably quickly for a household that should have been asleep. A man’s voice said simply: “Si?”

  “Do you speak English?”

  Then, from the background, a woman’s voice yelling: “Giancarlo! Ne—” The telephone was cut off.

  Ranklin looked at O’Gilroy; he had heard the yell. “Mrs Falcone, most like. Something funny, d’ye think?”

  Ranklin called the operator to get the number again, waited, then put the instrument down. “He says the telephone’s disconnected. Broken.”

  O’Gilroy took it very calmly. “Sounds bad.”

  Novak’s second assassin.

  “Someone could be waiting for Falcone himself, holding the women as hostages – how quickly can we get there?”

  O’Gilroy shrugged and glanced out at the sky. “Twenty minutes. If ye don’t mind a broken neck.”

  32

  The takeoff, as O’Gilroy had promised, was only normally terrifying. The engine pulled well in the cool night air and they climbed in a wide circle over the sea and headed for the mouth of the Brenta. Perhaps awakened officials below were thumbing their law-books, but Ranklin was feeling the aeronaut’s heady and dangerous detachment from earthly regulation.

  “Will you know the house?” he called.

  “Mebbe. But ’tis the field that matters.”

  Ranklin looked around at the landscape and it wasn’t frightening, just totally unfamiliar. The dark shape of Venice was sparked with lights like diamonds on a dung-heap, then inland a spatter of sparks that must be Mestre, but beyond it lay nothing. For the first time he thought of night as something tangible, a black flood that had settled on the land.

  But at least he could see the coastline and river banks as the water dutifully reflected even the thin starlight. Just follow the river and they should wind up close to the house. Fairly close anyway.

  On his side of the cockpit, O’Gilroy was sweating. He’d managed to sound confident about flying at night, and the takeoff had fooled him into thinking he might be right. But the step from two dimensions into the freedom of three was never tricky. Now the glib conviction that he’d be able to see enough was dimmed; darkness made everything not only dark but fuzzy, like a thick coating of soot. The instruments didn’t matter; he could feel the speed and hear the engine revs. But he had to see the faint line of the horizon, and occasionally he lost it behind the wing and the aeroplane wavered as he fought a dreadful dizziness. If you couldn’t see which way up you were, you died. That was the law, as simple as gravity.

  And when it came to landing, to shedding that extra dimension . . . He’d made Ranklin carry a length of rag, soaked in both oil and petrol and wrapped around a stone, to light and throw out as a landing flare. And the man had trustingly accepted that that made everything all right, that now O’Gilroy could cope. Officers could be so gullible.

  Only now O’Gilroy had to cope . . . Officers could be so crafty.

  Quite unaware of all this, Ranklin called: “Have you got a pistol with you?”

  “No. Mrs Finn said ’twas a jailing matter in Italy. Have ye one yeself?”

  “No. A marvellous pair of secret agents
we are.” He thought about the possibilities. “Did Corinna leave hers behind?”

  “Not her.” No, Corinna believed laws applied only to others. It was infuriating how often she was right.

  “It should be in her room, then. She may be asleep there . . . Can we sneak in?”

  “Not so easy. And we’re not there yet . . .”

  The villas were strung along the north bank of the Brenta, and O’Gilroy was keeping well to the south so that he could see the river to the right without leaning over. At that range, only a line of occasional lights – wondrously sharp and unsooty – showed there were any houses at all. But the distance meant, he hoped, that nobody at the villa would hear the engine, particularly if they were in the central hall, where the telephone was.

  Trying to recognise the outlines of the landing-stages on the river was no help: they all had landing-stages. But now the white villas themselves showed as taint blurs of not-quite-darkness contrasting with the extra-darkness of tall trees around them. The Falcone villa had no tall trees.

  Ranklin was also staring. He turned to ask: “D’you think we’re there yet?”

  “Hope we’ve passed it.” O’Gilroy curved right, edging across the Brenta and then the line of villas, to reverse his course out on the tar side of them. Now he looked for the pasture where he should land, but without losing sight of the villa that might be the one—

  Ranklin said: “If they’re expecting Falcone back, there should be outside lights on.”

  Bless the man. Only two villas showed such lights. Which meant that that must be Falcone’s, and that the landing-field ahead. Now that he was heading east, the horizon was more distinct with just the slightest paleness of the new day. But real light was half an hour away, and twilight a treacherous time when you imagined more than you saw. This landing was going to be real, not imagined.

  “Right, Captain: light the flare.”

  He felt, more than saw, Ranklin lean down to strike a match. He himself kept his head turned away to save his eyesight, but turning the aeroplane to lean Ranklin towards the ground. He heard a curse as one match failed, then the cockpit exploded with light and he shut his eyes.