The Aquila Project

by Norman Russell

  ‘What’s the matter, Mr Box?’ asked Kershaw. ‘You’re not your usual chirpy self.’

  ‘I don’t like the feel of things, sir,’ Box replied. ‘Everything’s too easy, if you get my meaning. Nobody’s asked for our documents. Nobody seems curious about four foreigners travelling towards a restricted area. It’s as though somebody’s given the word to leave us alone, until—’

  ‘Until what, Box? What are you expecting to happen?’

  ‘Let me tell you a little story, sir. A couple of years ago, we got word at the Yard that a celebrated smasher – by which we mean a high-class forger of coins – had gone to ground somewhere in Bermondsey. We made our usual enquiries, and alerted a few choice informers that there was money to be made. Within the day, we were given six definite leads, each one following from the one before, like a chain of events. Those leads told us that our quarry was holed up in a house in Black Swan Yard, near Crucifix Lane. Towards dawn, three of us went to this house, forced the door, and rushed in with the darbies at the ready.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘We were rushed by a gang of ten real bruisers who were lying in wait for us. We were battered soft, the three of us, and the smasher got clean away. And that’s how it feels like to me, sir. I wonder if we’re being helped on our way into a trap.’

  Colonel Kershaw glanced at Box, and for a moment made no reply. He’s wondering whether to tell me something, Box thought, something unpleasant, I’ll be bound! Yes, he’s going to tell me.

  ‘Listen, Box,’ said Kershaw in a low voice, ‘I’ve no doubt whatever that we have been secretly observed ever since we docked at Danzig, observed, that is, by our enemies, and perhaps by our friends. When we were at Danzig station, I saw an agent of Count von und zu Thalberg boarding a train. It’s just possible that he had been sent to keep an eye on us.’

  ‘Count von und zu Thalberg’s a trusted friend, sir. No harm can come from being trailed by one of his people.’

  ‘True; but like you, I’m certain that our enemies will have seen us, too. Well, I planned this trip in such a way as to make surveillance by the enemy virtually inevitable. We are not dealing here with amateurs. The simplest way of coming face to face with poor Grunwalski and his captors – for that’s what they are – is to allow them to lead us to where he is. Let The Thirty do part of our work for us. It may be a counsel of desperation, or it may be a sound move on my part. Are you with me, or do you think I’ve made a wrong move?’

  ‘I’m with you, sir,’ Box replied. ‘I don’t mind telling you that I’m relieved to hear what you’ve just told me. For a while, I thought—’

  ‘You thought I’d lost my touch?’ Kershaw laughed. ‘Well, the fact that you thought so proves that I haven’t! Come, Mr Box, let us give all our attention now to the task at hand.’

  The four men trudged along the dusty path of beaten earth, which wound between overgrown hedges on its way to Limburg. Eventually they rounded a curve and came quite suddenly into a small village, larger than Sheinberg, and boasting a stone church and a high-fronted timber inn. Across a large field of root crops they could see some railway buildings surrounded by a wooden stockade.

  ‘That’s the fortified railway station we’ve heard so much about,’ said Kershaw to Box. ‘From there, a single-track line crosses the border into Russia half a mile from here. It stops at a customs control post, and then makes its way to the Russian town of Brest-Litovsk. But that’s not the route for us. Ah! I rather think that our contact is already waiting for us.’

  He motioned to a stocky man in the dress of a gamekeeper, who was standing near what seemed to be a market cross. He was smoking a curly pipe, and glanced from time to time at the church clock. As the four men emerged from the lane into the village street, the man joined them, and walked silently beside them, puffing away at his pipe, and looking fixedly ahead of him.

  As soon as they had left the village, and entered a straggling beech wood, he spoke to them in halting English.

  ‘Good day, Herr Oberst. Within another hour, you will have reached the spot where I can spirit you away from Germany and into the Polish territories of Russia. That is my task, you understand? It is for you to find a way to return when your business is done. Come.’

  It soon became clear to Box that the beech wood was never tended by a forester. The few paths were overgrown, and from time to time their way was blocked by a fallen tree. The atmosphere was dry and fetid. They were plunging into one of those desolate areas where the line of demarcation between two nations led to the creation of an untenanted wilderness.

  The guide all but ignored them. He had extinguished his pipe, and had taken to humming a rather mirthless tune to himself as he led them steadily to their destination. Box, by now tired himself, could sense the weariness of his companions. The two-mile walk from Sheinberg had been unlooked-for, and this further weary traipse through a wood added to the tedium of a journey that had begun early that day in far-off Danzig.

  Presently, they emerged into a clearing in the wood, a lonely, deserted place, containing a ruined hut, and the overgrown remains of a collapsed cottage. The ground was wild with sinuous creeper and rotting logs. The guide stooped low, and disappeared into the undergrowth. In a moment they heard him whispering to them to follow. They did so, pushing aside the clinging tendrils and massive dock plants, and found themselves all but crawling along a low tunnel hewn from the hard clay. It stank of foul water, which lay in yellow pools along its length.

  In a few minutes they emerged into another beech wood, equally deserted and neglected, and the guide began to talk rapidly to Kershaw in German. Then he bowed briefly to the four men, and plunged back into the hidden tunnel.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Colonel Kershaw, ‘we are now standing on the Polish territory of the Russian Empire. Soon, God willing, we shall be in Polanska Gory.’

  Although they had ventured no more than a few hundred yards east, they realized immediately that they had entered another country. Tilled fields seemed to stretch to the horizon across a flat, open plain. Lines of picturesque single-storey houses ran along the edges of some of the fields, forming what could be called linear villages. Here and there a church tower rose from a clump of trees, though near the centre of the plain they could see a typical Russian church, its gilded onion domes catching the rays of the declining sun. The Polish guide, Kolinsky, had seen it, too, and remarked that it was a symbol of Catholic Poland’s subjugation to Russia, and its Orthodox religion.

  Groups of peasants were labouring in the fields, their backs bent to the earth. The men wore long, white smocks reaching to their ankles, and tied at the waist with a cord. Their heads were protected from the sun by round fur hats. The women were clad in drab black dresses, and their heads were covered by scarves. One or two of the peasants looked up at the travellers without curiosity, soon bending their heads once more to their toil.

  ‘Those folk look very poor to me,’ said Box to Kolinsky.

  ‘They’re tied to the land, Mr Box, because they come from families who have never been able to adjust to freedom. One day. perhaps, things will be different here.’

  They had walked for nearly an hour along a rutted track when the landscape changed abruptly, and they found that they were walking along a defile between low, wooded hills. They could no longer see the wide fields and the toiling peasants, as the woods seemed to draw closer.

  Was it fancy, or were there fleeting figures running silently beside them among those trees? There! thought Box. Surely that was a man, wearing a bandoleer, and carrying what appeared to be a musket? He glanced at Kershaw, and saw that the colonel, too, had seen the silent runners. He half opened the flap of his jacket, and Box saw the butt of an Army revolver nestling in a concealed holster.

  The path began to climb upward, and soon they found themselves entering a kind of natural arena surrounded entirely on three sides by birch plantations. The fourth side of the clearing was occupied by one of the most fantastic buildin
gs that Box had ever seen. At first sight, it seemed to be a fort, a crenellated tower with a narrow gate fronted by a drawbridge spanning a rushing stream. But merging into the tower was an ancient and massive Romanesque church, from the roof of which rose a great image in stone of an angel holding a shield, upon which a carved eagle could just be discerned. Was it a church, or a fortress? Or was it both?

  By now, they were standing in a vast open space from which rose tall gravestones, some made of stone, and others of rusting iron. An enormous iron crucifix rose up among the tombs, leaning drunkenly towards the visitors.

  ‘St Mary of the Icon,’ Kershaw muttered, as though to himself, and at the same time several shots rang out. They flung themselves to the ground as one man, taking refuge in the long grass beside the tombs.

  ‘They’re firing high, Morrison,’ said Kershaw. ‘They’re warning shots.’

  ‘I agree, sir,’ the sergeant-armourer replied. ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘The best thing, I think, is for us to stand up, raise our hands in surrender, and back off. Kolinsky, if you tell them that we’ve simply lost our way, they may believe us. I don’t know who these people are – or who they think we are – but they’ve clearly got the advantage.’

  The four men rose to their feet, hands raised. By now, at least a dozen men had appeared in the clearing before the fortress-church. They wore peasant dress, but they all carried ancient muskets, which they pointed at the intruders. Each man’s face seemed devoid of expression, as though their action had been orchestrated by an intelligence superior to their own.

  Kolinsky addressed the men in Polish, but they angrily waved him away, and began to talk among themselves. A tall, fair-haired man, who seemed to be their leader, remained with his musket trained on Kershaw and his party.

  Arnold Box suddenly had an idea so brilliant that it almost took his breath away. He cautiously felt in his waistcoat pocket, and his fingers closed round the Polish coin that Bobby Fitz had found among Grunwalski’s effects. Stepping boldly forward in front or the others, he held the coin up, for the fair-haired man with the musket to see.

  The man started in surprise, and immediately bowed low. ‘Magnat,’ he muttered, then spoke rapidly to his companions before motioning to Box and the others to follow the band of defenders across the drawbridge.

  ‘Mr Box,’ said Kershaw in a voice that was tinged with awe, ‘you never cease to amaze me! They think you’re one of The Thirty.’

  Together they crossed the drawbridge, and entered the strange edifice known as St Mary of the Icon. The man who had addressed Box preceded them along a short passage to the right of the entrance, treating the inspector to little deferential bows, whilst scarcely acknowledging the presence of the others. He pushed open a door, and they found themselves entering an ancient, fantastic church.

  It was dark and decayed inside St Mary of the Icon, with festoons of cobwebs draped across dull brass chandeliers. The floor space seemed to be filled with half-collapsed box tombs, and the broken remains of pews. Fragments of medieval stained glass glowed in the windows, though many of the panes had been replaced by squares of wood. At the far end of the church they could just glimpse a carved stone reredos rising above an altar, where a dim red light burned. In a side chapel stood an ancient, smoke-blackened icon of the Virgin and Child, before which a number of candles burned. Although partly ruinous, the place evidently still functioned as a church.

  Their guide motioned to them to follow him through another door, which gave direct access to what was evidently the great hall of the fortress. It was a lofty room, with tall windows through which the late afternoon was pouring. Box glanced up at the high-pitched ceiling of elaborate carved beams, while noting the great coloured coats of arms, and images of the white eagle of Poland, arrayed along the walls. A long refectory table occupied the centre of the hall. The four men stood for a while to accustom their eyes to the brightness of the hall after the gloom of the adjacent church, and then they saw the figure of a man standing at one of the far windows, which overlooked a tangled garden. The man turned round, and greeted them in perfect English.

  It was Baron Augustyniak.

  13

  Baron Augustyniak Talks

  DRESSED IN A WELL-CUT morning coat, worn with fashionable pinstripe trousers, Baron Augustyniak looked as though he was standing in the drawing-room of his house in St John’s Wood. His mane of blond hair was swept back from his brow, and his fine beard jutted forward as he confronted the four men with an understandable air of triumph. There was a mocking expression on his face that was not entirely unpleasant. Enemy or not, thought Box, he was a fine figure of a man.

  ‘So, gentlemen,’ he said, carefully fixing his rimmed monocle in his right eye, ‘you have obligingly walked into my parlour! Well, it is the safest place for you to be at present, as this particular corner of Poland can be a trifle wild, as you’ve already found out.’

  ‘I take it,’ said Colonel Kershaw coolly, ‘that I am addressing Baron Augustyniak? I thought you’d come to settle in England; evidently, I was mistaken.’

  ‘Colonel Kershaw,’ the baron replied courteously, ‘I am indeed Augustyniak. You and I have not been formally introduced, but your fame has preceded you. And you were not mistaken about my taking up residence in England, but for the moment I have been summoned here by urgent business.’

  It was the turn of Arnold Box and his companions to be the subject of Baron Augustyniak’s wry humour. As he spoke, it became clear to all four men that all their movements since setting foot in Germany had been an open book to him.

  ‘Inspector Box,’ he said, ‘I believe I once glimpsed you through my little telescope while I was watching the stirring events on Tower Bridge last month. You were standing on top of some kind of warehouse. Mr Morrison – I hope that rifle you’re carrying has its safety catch on? Accidents can happen, you know. And finally, Mr Kolinsky – a fellow Pole.’

  The baron switched effortlessly from English to Polish, and spoke a few words to the Polish interpreter.

  ‘I’m very well, thank you, Baron,’ said Kolinsky in reply. ‘But while I’m here I prefer to speak in English, if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘Of course. I appreciate that you Englishmen will want to stick together. And now, gentlemen, as you have wished yourselves upon us, I suppose we shall have to accommodate and feed you. There are many rooms in this fortress, and if you will give me your parole not to make any silly attempts to escape, I will have my servants conduct you to your quarters. They will also bring you hot water, so that you can wash away the stains of your long trek through so many dusty lanes.’

  It all sounds very fine, thought Box, but somehow none of it rings true. There’s something very odd about Baron Augustyniak. He was acting a part, but it was impossible to divine what that part was.

  Colonel Kershaw said, ‘You are very kind, Baron, and I can speak for all of us when I say that there will be no foolish heroics. I take it that you knew we would come this way?’

  ‘You may indeed, Colonel. You were positively identified by one of my folk who’s a ticket collector at Posen Station. After that, there was always someone keeping a benevolent eye upon you. But I knew, before ever you left London, that you were on our trail.’

  The baron laughed heartily, and moved away from the window. The movement seemed to draw some of the tension from the air.

  ‘It was very clever of you, Colonel Kershaw,’ he said, ‘to send your little girl spy to watch my every move – I refer to Miss Susan Moore, my yellow-haired housemaid. Dear me, what a nice child! At first, I thought that Sir Charles Napier had sent her, but on reflection I realized that his agents aren’t normally assigned long-term tasks like infiltrating a gentleman’s household. A pretty maiden with a courageous heart was more in your line.’

  ‘I can assure you, Baron—’

  ‘I’m sure you can. Well, we’ll speak about Susan Moore later, after you’ve refreshed yourselves. I’ll give you half an hour
, and then my men will come to summon you here for a meal. It won’t be quite like the Savoy, but it’ll be wholesome fare.’

  Baron Augustyniak clapped his hands, and two of the surly retainers appeared at the door. He spoke to them in Polish, and they motioned to the prisoners to precede them from the great hall. Kershaw made to lead his party into the corridor, but one of the retainers pushed him curtly aside. The man turned to Arnold Box, bowed low, and muttered the single word, ‘Magnat’. Box bowed in return, and led the others out of the room.

  ‘Sir,’ said Box, ‘I can’t believe that this is happening. I don’t think we should relax our guard for a single moment. Baron Augustyniak is obviously a gentleman, but some of his colleagues in The Thirty are vicious thugs. Doctor Franz Kessler is a killer, and I’ve no doubt he’s about here, somewhere.’

  It was half an hour after their dramatic confrontation with the baron. They had been led to a row of cell-like rooms on the ground floor, each containing an iron bedstead with a straw mattress. Servants had appeared with cans of hot water and basins, and they had all been able to make themselves presentable. The very act of washing had banished much of their weariness. Box had been able to walk into Kershaw’s room without anyone trying to prevent him.

  ‘I don’t quite understand the situation myself, Box,’ said Kershaw. ‘In fact, I’m completely bewildered. I think we must continue to be polite and accommodating, as our apparent acceptance that we are prisoners here could possibly make the Baron talk. I’ve a shrewd feeling, from his performance back there, that he’s very fond of his own voice, and if we treat him in the right way, he’ll probably tell us all we want to know. It also helps a little that his servants are convinced that you are a baron. It was providential that you still had the magic talisman in your waistcoat pocket.’