by Ronald Seth
At the edge of the copse, I went down on my hands and knees and crawled onto the grass which ran by the side of the road so that I could reconnoiter without being seen, in the unlikely event of anyone being nearby. It was a wide road and the safety of the great Vazon Forest lay a good thirty yards ahead of me, on the other side. It would take me perhaps five seconds to get across.
But as I was on the point of getting to my feet and making a dash for it I saw the headlights of a car come round a bend from the direction of Tredentz. The car moved so quietly that I could hear only the swish of it through the air as I buried my face in the grass until it had passed me.
Again I lifted my face from the grass and prepared to get to my feet to make my dash across the road, and checked myself only just in time. I had not heard the car stop only twenty yards from where I lay, and almost betrayed myself when I heard a man's voice say:
"You stay here, Eberhart, while I take Janez along to the road junction. When the truck comes, stop it, take off ten men, spread them out at twenty-yard intervals and be ready to move them into the forest when you hear my whistle, and not before. Stop when you hear my second whistle."
"Yes, major," came the reply. "Very well, I understand."
"The truck should be along in about ten minutes," he was told.
"Yes, major."
A young officer in a greatcoat had got out of the car and was bending down looking in through the open door. He now closed the door with a slight bang and straightened up as the car slid silently away.
The Tortoise, or his officer at the station, had moved much more quickly than the first confusion had led me to think they might. The truck must be bringing soldiers from a nearby post, I imagined. Whoever was in charge of them was no fool, either. Mind you, it was a fairly obvious move for anyone to do what I had done, to make for the Vazon Forest. But it is not always that the right countermove is made in an emergency.
Once in the forest, however, they would have a practically hopeless task trying to find me. I remembered Brian Grant's trick when he went to Poznia to get young Jan Vranczyk out of that country. If you remember, he climbed a pine tree, and a whole regiment passed backward and forward beneath him for hours without finding him. If pushed, I could always do that.
But it was all very well thinking how to avoid capture, when I was not yet in the forest, and when only a comparatively few feet away from me was a man who could raise the countryside the moment he saw me.
He began to walk down the road toward Tredentz—and toward me. Once again I buried my face in the grass, knowing very well that the whiteness of my skin must attract his attention if I did not hide it. I had to rely on my hearing to judge how far he was away from me. I was tensing myself to spring at him the moment he showed any sign of having seen me.
Nearer and nearer his slow, measured footsteps came until I was sure that he must see me or stumble over me. I pressed my knees and my hands into the ground to give me purchase for my spring.
With his foot crunching the gravel almost beside my ear, he stopped. For some reason, I did not spring, and the next moment, to my amazement, he turned on his heel and began to stroll back the way he had come.
I raised my face and looked after him for a moment. At the same time I noticed a patch of shadow thrown by a bush, and with a quick wriggle moved into it. There I crouched down on my haunches and watched him through the thin upper twigs of the bush.
When he came to the place where the car had put him down he stopped and turned round again. He stood where he was, looking toward Tredentz, listening, watching intently. He gave a perceptible start and began to walk toward me more quickly. He had seen something, I was sure.
I gave a quick glance behind me and saw what he had seen. Far down the road, round the bend, the brilliant headlights of a motor vehicle lit up the sky, it seemed, as it came at a fair speed toward us. If I were to evade being captured I should have to act quickly. He was almost level with me as the hum of a heavy engine came along the road to us. I let him go by me, and then I leaped.
With my arm around his throat, I brought my knee up sharply in the small of his back. He gave a little grunt of surprise as I pulled him backward off balance and jumped back a pace so that he might fall on his back on the ground. As he fell, he flailed wildly with his arms, but I was astride him with my hands at his throat before he could do anything to retaliate.
It was not my intention to kill him. If I were caught and had a murder on my record, they would have every right to execute me. Of course, they were likely to execute me in any case, but I could put up a fight if I were only accused of spying, which I would not be able to do if accused of murder.
I only wanted to knock him out and hide him long enough to give me a chance to get away. If everything had gone well I should have been in Gallonia only three or four days. I might still be able to keep to my program, and a man can easily survive three or four days without food. When I was safely out of the country I would send the secret police word where to find him.
But as I pressed at his throat he seemed suddenly to recover his senses, and with a quick movement of his body he threw me off him and rolled on top of me, his hands now at my throat.
He was not well trained in this kind of fighting, however, and had not pinoned my arms with his knees, so I was able to put my right hand to his chin. With the ball of my hand on the point of his jaw, I jerked back his head as far as it would go. At the same time, I thrust my spread fingers into his eyes. He gave a cry of alarm and pain, released my throat and put up his hands to his eyes. Within five seconds I had pushed him off me and with a well directed blow had knocked him out.
The truck was now only a couple of hundred yards away, raking the grass edges of the roadside with its headlights. Seizing my still and silent victim by the coat lapels, I dragged him as quickly as I could to the shelter of the copse and threw myself down beside him.
I was only just in time, for as I touched the ground the truck went by.
I gagged him with his own handkerchief, tied his wrists behind him with one of the two lengths of cord I always carry in my pockets, and bound his feet together with his greatcoat belt. Then I pulled him farther back into the trees, pushed him under a bush and covered him with dead undergrowth.
I knew that besides giving myself the opportunity of getting across the road into the Vazon Forest without being seen I should also have delayed the search they were planning to make for me. The truck would now go on until it met the car at the road junction. The officers in the car would be puzzled by the disappearance of their companion and if they did not begin to look for him immediately someone else would have to come back down the road with the soldiers and post them at intervals of twenty yards before they could begin beating the forest.
At the edge of the copse I glanced quickly up and down the road to make sure that no silent cars or trucks were creeping up on me and, seeing that all was clear, I dashed across the road into the forest.
CHAPTER THREE
A Pause for Breath
I have said that the great Vazon Forest runs due east and west from the frontier twenty-five miles toward Tredentz, and that it is two miles or so wide from north to south.
I had a small pocket compass with me, and a flashlight, and was reassured to find that neither had been damaged when I had left the train so precipitously. Taking a northeasterly bearing, I set off through the forest.
It was dark under the trees compared with the brilliant moonlight outside, but when my eyes had become accustomed to it I was able to move quite quickly.
It was twenty minutes to one in the morning when I set out, and at ten past one I judged I must be roughly in the middle of the forest. I then changed my direction to due east, making now directly toward Tredentz. If I could go the twenty-five miles through the forest I should have only another fifty to go to reach the capital.
You will probably wonder why, if Tredentz is only seventy-five miles from the frontier, it takes the train eight hours
to complete the journey. The reason is that the railway does not run direct to the capital, but wanders all round the industrial southern provinces of Gallonia, taking in the principal towns.
I kept walking until quarter to four, and estimated that by that time I had covered between six and seven miles. But the ground was very uneven, and the tree roots sticking out of the earth, and bushes, and a certain amount of undergrowth made it impossible to go more quickly, and also made it very tiring. So at quarter to four I gave myself a rest.
The forest was quiet except for the night sounds of which all forests are full. I had heard no whistles nor the sounds of men beating the forest in search of me.
Choosing a tree at whose base was some soft moss, I sank gratefully down onto it and taking out my map of Gallonia and my flashlight I began to try to pinpoint where I was and to study the lie of the land.
I must now explain what I was doing in Gallonia.
My name is Geoffrey Martel, and I hold the rank of captain. Like my friend, Captain Brian Grant, I belong to the British Secret Service, and have the same chief, who is known by the symbol F2.
Gallonia is one of those countries of Central Europe which got rid of its king at the end of World War II and became a Communist state, hidden away behind the Iron Curtain.
I have said that Gallonia got rid of its king. This is not quite true. It is a small country, and its ruler was an hereditary grand duke. One family had been grand dukes for more than seven hundred years.
In the south of Gallonia there are large coal and iron mines. This has made it a rich industrial country, and its output of steel places it among the eight largest steel-producing countries in Europe. From its steel and its great arms factory at Manovia it gains the greater part of its national income.
A month or two before my arrival in Gallonia we had learned that Gallonian scientists had invented a gun much lighter than a Bren gun, capable of firing a small projectile with an atomic warhead which could pierce the thickest tank armor, and with its radiation properties not only kill the crew but entirely destroy the mechanism of the tank. The gun was so light that by means of a special harness one man could carry and operate it.
The Western powers had nothing at all like it, and since a possible enemy can have his war teeth drawn by learning and acquiring his secrets, the British Secret Service had been allotted the task of getting the details of the Parva gun, as it was called. Since I am an expert on this part of the world and can speak Gallonian, F2 had sent for me and assigned me the task of getting the plans of the gun.
It was not quite such a difficult mission as it might seem at first sight. I had been told that the man I must contact was a doctor in the Central Hospital at Tredentz, a Dr. Anton Paranu. He had the plans and would hand them over to me.
Dr. Paranu belonged to a small secret underground organization who were opposed to the present government of Gallonia and were working secretly for the time when they would be able to overthrow it and put a better one in its place.
Now, you may be thinking that it would have been far easier for a member of the resistance to have escaped from Gallonia bringing the plans with him than for me to go to Gallonia to fetch them. The trouble was, however, that in order to guard the secret of the gun the plans had been drawn up by an entirely new method, known only to a few of the experts. It would require someone to explain the plans to our scientists.
The plans which I was to pick up had been provided by one of the six scientists who had worked on the gun. He was the only one of the six who belonged to the underground, and he was the only one who could explain the plans to an expert on our side. But if he disappeared from his own country the Gallonian authorities would at once know that their gun was no longer a secret and that there were people in the country who were working against them.
So they had insisted that an expert on our side must go to Gallonia to fetch the plans. But a scientist is not trained in the work of an agent, and F2 had decided that it would be quicker and safer for me to learn enough to understand the plans than it would be for an expert to be trained as an agent. I had, therefore, spent three weeks with an atomic weapons expert who had, he hoped and I hoped, given me enough information to understand what I should be told in Tredentz.
When I had reached the capital I was to go to Dr. Paranu's apartment on the Avenue Vannamagi at half past ten in the evening and identify myself with the pass phrase: "The snow on Mount Tana is blood red." He would then tell me when and where I should meet the scientist who would explain the plans to me.
I had also been told that if I got into difficulties and wanted help I might try to contact members of the resistance by saying in conversation with anyone I met: "The waters of Lake Tana are blood red."
Mount Tana and Lake Tana are in north Gallonia, and because of the red clay on the lake's bed, the water in it looks deep red. So if I said the phrase to anyone not in the resistance, they would not find it strange, but since the resistance had taken it as their pass phrase, a member would know at once that I was one of them—which I would be for the time being.
On the other hand, since the snow on Mount Tana is white, like ordinary snow, which it is, no one else but me would say, "The snow on Mount Tana is blood red," to Dr. Paranu. He would therefore know who I was at once.
Had I gone to Gallonia on a British passport I should have been followed wherever I went by the secret police, because although the Gallonian government does not prevent Englishmen from going to their country, they treat them all—and Frenchmen and Americans, too—as possible spies. The smaller nations of Europe they do not treat in this way, and so I had chosen to pose as a Dutch cigar merchant.
I had been provided with a Dutch passport in the name of Rudolf de Jong, and had gone to Holland, where a friend of mine is really a cigar merchant. Without asking any questions, he had made me a temporary traveler for his firm, giving me letters of introduction; and the Dutch Secret Service had given me a forged Gallonian visa with the forged stamp of the Gallonian Consulate General in Amsterdam, and I had set out from Amsterdam for Tredentz.
At Strasbourg I had caught the East Europa Express, and two and a half days after leaving Amsterdam had expected to be in Tredentz, meet Dr. Paranu the same evening, his scientist friend the next day, and be on my way home on the third day.
Instead, here I was, sitting at the base of a tree in the great Vazon Forest, fifty miles from the capital and with the army, the police and the secret police (the L.P.R.) all searching for me.
It might have been easier for me to try to get across the frontier out of the country while I was still within a few miles of the border and before a special guard could be set on it. But time was precious, and in any event I was in Gallonia. Since we are not encouraged to withdraw from our missions at the first difficulty we run into, and because I would have admitted failure by going back at once, it went without saying that despite all the forces which would be organized against me, I must go on to Tredentz.
Now, if I could keep to the Vazon Forest until I came to its eastern boundary, I might be able to find someone in the resistance to help me on my way. Not that I was going to count on it, but if I could only get to Tredentz and to Dr. Paranu, I still might have a chance of success.
As I saw my position, I was still at a slight advantage. The Gallonians would soon find out that my visa was forged, but they would have no means of knowing that my Dutch passport, like my identity, was false. I thought that the fact that an apparent Dutchman had come to their country on a forged visa and had disappeared dramatically when challenged, would puzzle them. I thought, too, that they might expect me to try to get back over the frontier and would give up their search for me when they had not found me in a day or two.
On the other hand, I was puzzled by the sudden announcement of decree 291/56. What had happened to make the authorities suddenly publish the decree making it necessary for all visitors to Gallonia to have a special entry permit, besides the visa? It looked as if they might have had
some knowledge that someone was trying to get into their country illegally; and at first sight it looked as if they might have been watching out for me. Yet, I could not see how that could be; and in any case I was quite certain that the Tortoise had not recognized either me or my name. I realized as I sat back against my tree that I might never be able to solve this puzzle and that I should gain nothing by trying to.
I looked at my watch and saw that it was ten past four. In less than two hours it would be light. It would be much safer for me to hole up somewhere during the daytime, and move only by night until I came to the outskirts of Tredentz, when I should be able to to get a bus or train into the city. I ought also to try to find some food.
According to the map rough cart tracks ran through the forest connecting various small clearings, in some of which, if I read the signs correctly, there might be cottages, or buildings of some kind. I might be able to hide in one of these, and even if I could not obtain any food, I should be able to last out the thirty-six hours I calculated it would take me to arrive at Tredentz.
But it was no good worrying, even about food and drink. I should just have to take what came. With these thoughts I put away my map and flashlight and stood up, ready to go on.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Cottage in the Clearing
The first light was just beginning to filter through the treetops when I came to the edge of the clearing a few minutes before six o'clock.
On the far side of the clearing was a low cottage built of logs. A small patch of ground near me was cultivated, and a few yards to my left was another log hut, which I recognized to be one of the storehouses in which hay is kept through the winter, and which are a very common sight dotted about the countryside in this part of Europe.
I saw at once that it would be just the place for me to hide in until nightfall. I would keep watch on the cottage, too, and if the occupants looked reasonable, I might ask them for food and something to drink. Even if I decided it would be wiser not to reveal myself, there might be vegetables to be found in another outhouse, and there must be a stream or a well nearby from which they obtained their water.