The cheerful sounds of the ax ceased, and after waiting a while Lanny took post behind a tree near the chopping place. Willi called him, and they started along a forest trail. It was hard walking, up and down the sides of mountains, but Lanny was well fed now and used to walking; the man knew the way and led off boldly. Lanny staying a few feet behind. They saw a few country people in the course of the afternoon, but no one showed any interest in them. There was some of the finest scenery in Europe; range after range of mountains, with breath-taking views. But Lanny needed all his breath to keep up with this mountain-bred man.
When dusk came they were in a deserted mountain meadow, and there in a low shed was what you might call the backdoor of a salt mine. Originally it had been the channel of a brook by which water had been led into the mine; now the water had been diverted, and the channel was used by a few workers who lived on the Bavarian side. Under an old treaty, they had a hereditary right to employment. The descent into the mine was by a slope, called a Schurf; it was a wooden toboggan slide for going down and small steps for coming up; but Lanny and his friend had to use the steps, because they had no Arschleder, as the miners called the heavy leather apron which you put on to protect your behind from the heat of the quick slide.
Before they went in Willi said, “You owe me twenty marks.” Lanny put the note into his hand and he looked at it and then stuffed it away.
The steps were dark, but apparently Willi had been there before; he went down without hesitation. Lanny, at his heels, couldn’t refrain from keeping both hands out in front of him. At the bottom of the steps was a tunnel about the width of an ordinary door and about as high, with timbers holding it up. There was hard-packed slippery clay underfoot, and from overhead came the ceaseless drip-drip of water. It seemed to Lanny they had walked two or three miles in this tunnel before they saw any light. He knew that these mines had been worked for two or three thousand years, but he didn’t know anything about the process and was surprised to see no white or crystalline salt, as he had imagined; there was only clay, called Kalkgestein, and the salt was in the clay. Immense basins were dug or dynamited into the mountains, and water was let in, forming lakes; the water soaked the salt out of the clay, and then the brine was led out to the valley and evaporated there. Such was the process, and there were mines having as many as five or six galleries, one under the other. There was a whole district, known as the Salzkammergut, meaning the salt-department-property; the mining and selling of salt had been for centuries a monopoly of the government.
They did not turn aside to watch the working, or to see the abandoned lakes, which were emptied of water, lighted with colored lights, and used for banquets, festivals, and shows. They went through tunnel after tunnel, lighted by widely spaced electric lights. They passed workingmen, who paid no attention to them, until Willi met one whom he knew. He stopped, and introduced his friend Hans, and then whispered to the fellow. Lanny produced a ten-mark note, and the miner hurried away and came back with two lanterns and two sets of miners’ costumes—white, and including a hat that was a small round dome, trimmed with a scalloped white band. Thus equipped, they could pass anywhere, and Willi would return the property to the miner’s home. Now they entered the wider concrete-lined tunnel which had a little mining railway and led to the main entrance. It was a mile or two long, and on the way was an old signpost having on one side the Austrian Imperial Double Eagle and on the other side the Blue and White of Bavaria’s former kingdom. That was the no-longer-existing border!
Presently it was time for the shift to leave, and they trooped toward the main entrance by what was called the Wolf Dietrich tunnel. Lanny expected a ticklish moment, but nothing whatever happened. The workers were weary, and one heard only a few muttered words from them. They were taken up in elevators, a score at a time, and nobody paid the least attention to a pair of strangers. Old men died and younger men were called to the wars; new men were taken on, and it was no concern of anybody but the boss. Lanny and his guide passed out through a marble portal bearing an inscription which they did not stop to read.
There was a long walk in darkness on a steep mountain road to the town of Hallein. On the outskirts of the town Willi asked which way his companion wished to go, and Lanny said, “Toward Salzburg,” which wasn’t true. The guide pointed towards the east, and then said, “Zwanzig Mark.” Lanny put the bill into his hand, and Willi struck a match and examined it; then he said, “Glück auf!” And taking the lanterns and the overalls, Willi disappeared into the darkness.
VI
The P.A. was in Austria, and that was a comfort, for the Austrians were characterized by what the Germans contemptuously called Schlamperei, that is to say, slackness, easygoingness. For example, they would rather be in a tavern, sipping their beer and singing songs about their Schätzl than standing out on the highway on a bad night, waving flashlights and stopping travelers to examine their papers, even if it was wartime and the Nazi overlords had strictly enjoined it! Let the Nazis do it themselves!
Lanny was bone-tired, and this was the coldest night he had yet encountered. Rain was starting to fall, and he decided that he must find shelter. He walked until he came to a farmhouse that was dark; he groped his way into the place, hoping that Austrian farm dogs would be more genial and more easily seduced with a bit of Wurst. He found a shed, and in the corner some sacks. He sat and devoured one of Hilde’s food packages, and then covered himself up and fell fast asleep.
Anxiety awakened him at dawn, and he stood up, stiff with cold. He got out quickly, for he didn’t want to have to make explanations. It was still raining, and this was a miserable prospect. He couldn’t even tell which way was south—the road signs had all been taken down. He knew that he was less than a hundred miles from the Italian border as the crow flies; but unfortunately he wasn’t a crow. When daylight came, he saw a farm woman in a barnyard, and he guessed that she wouldn’t be a very ardent Nazi; he asked her the way to Golling, the next town south. She pointed, and he walked.
He was in beautiful country, the “Austrian Switzerland.” It was the valley of the Salzach River, with low mountains on each side covered with pine trees, and behind them walls of taller gray mountains topped with snow. It was a historic land with many ancient castles; it was also a vacation land, full of mountain chalets and hotels for the rich, now for the most part turned into hospitals. Such a country is difficult for a fugitive, for there is frequently only one road through a mountain pass, and you cannot travel off it without a guide. How Lanny wished he might find a friendly truckman who would strap him on top of a load and cover him up, away from the rain.
A car raced by him, blowing a horn. It was a military car with Nazis in it, and they looked at him as they passed and worried him greatly. What if they notified the next miiltary post that there was an able-bodied tramp on the road? Lanny turned off and climbed the slope of a mountain. There was terraced land there and a peasant hut, and he decided to trust the peasants; he had never yet met one that liked being at war. Wars were made by people who went to live in cities and there acquired wealth and power and a taste for more.
In this place, Lanny discovered, there was not a single member of the male sex; just an old grandmother and a younger woman, pregnant, and with two little daughters. They were frightened at first by the arrival of this stranger, but he soon convinced them that he was a harmless person. He had heard Arthur Kannenberg sing scores of G’stanzln in the dialect of this country, so he could speak it blunderingly, of course taking his blunders playfully. He had changed his story; his bombed-out wife was now an Italian woman and had gone to seek refuge among her people in the town of Dobbiaco, or Toblach in German. He had decided that since he had lost contact with the underground he would not dare attempt to get through the much-traveled and well-guarded Brenner, but would try one of the passes farther to the east, but less infested with Nazis.
It was a touching story the traveler told, and the fact that he had managed to keep out of the Army did not
fill them with distrust, only with envy; their men had been taken. They let him dry himself by their fire, fed him a meal of potatoes, turnips, and goat’s milk, all they had, and consented to sell him two valuable properties, a pair of mittens and a muffler, both homemade. His shoes were pretty nearly gone, but they had none and couldn’t tell him where to get any. More important yet, they told him about a relative in the town of Werfen, a fellow who worked in an inn there, ein guter Bursch who would show the road and maybe help. They told him about a wonderful place near Werfen, known as the Eisriesenwelt, the ice-giant-world. It was an ice cavern, said to be the largest in the world, and it had frozen waterfalls, ice mounds, ice men, and other wonderful sights. These peasant women had never seen it and Lanny didn’t think that he would see it on this trip; he had found enough cold without going out of his way, and his choice at present would have been Hawaii, which was hot and hospitable all the year round.
VII
Warmed and fortified, the P.A. left the farm at dusk and walked all night to the town of Werfen. He had no trouble finding the inn, and the man there proved to be a good fellow indeed; in exchange for news about his relatives he introduced Lanny to a man named Blech who had spent the night at the inn and was driving on to Bischofshofen in a wagon. For the price of ten marks he was willing to have a passenger lie amid a load of newly made harness covered with a tarpaulin. It was a bumpy ride, but it took Lanny more than thirty miles on his way, and he was content to miss the fine scenery.
Here was your Austrian Schlamperei; this Blech didn’t care a hang whether a man got away from the German Army, he just wanted ten marks. If by an unlikely chance the passenger had been discovered, Blech could have said that he had crawled in unobserved. It was after dark when they arrived in the town, and the man was sorry for this poor devil who must have been pounded pretty nearly to a jelly, and took him into an eating place where there were gute Leute and saw him eat a hot meal. The talk in the place was excited, for Mussolini, prisoner of Badoglio, had been rescued by paratroopers sent by Hitler himself. Now Il Duce was in Milan, setting up a new government, which he was calling a “Republic.” If there was anybody in this Austrian inn who wished success to this government, he failed to lift his voice that night.
Lanny paid the check, and in return the man hunted up a map for him and showed him the shortest route into Italy. The road led to Schwarzach, and from there on to Bad Gastein. A bad place, Blech said. He was aware of no pun, because he was speaking German, and to him Bad meant bath, and the place was “ein schlechter Ort.” Very beautiful, in a gorge between two waterfalls, and magnificent hotels had been built there; but now they were hospitals for officers, and the place was lousy with the military—the man’s own phrase, lausig mit Soldaten.
This Blech had gray hair and talked as if he had had some education. On a sudden impulse Lanny remarked, “I am wondering if you mayn’t have once been a Socialist.”
The other looked at him sharply. “That is a question one doesn’t ask nowadays.”
“Suppose,” countered the traveler, “I were to tell you that I am one?”
“The answer is, I wouldn’t know whether to believe you or not.”
“Think a minute, mein Freund. Would a police spy be apt to ride all day on top of a load of harness?”
The other smiled. “What’s on your mind?”
“Just this: I’ve been taking a walking trip, and all the way the road is paralleled by a railroad. I couldn’t help thinking what a lot of trouble I could save if I could get in touch with some railroad man who would let me pay him a fare and open up a freight-car door for me.”
“You would be asking a man to risk his life, you know.”
“Yes, but you trusted me, and no harm has come to you so far. I’m going on my way, and neither you nor the railroad Genosse would ever see me again. Think it over.”
“Just where do you want to go?”
Lanny pointed to the map. “This place, Sillian, in the Pustertal, would suit me fine, and I would pay twenty marks to you, and twenty to the railroad man.”
VIII
So it came about that after darkness had fallen Lanny was led to the railroad station. A freight train rolled noisily up the grade and came to a halt. Blech whispered to the stationman, and he in turn to a trainman; one of the doors was opened, and Lanny was pushed inside and the door locked. There was just room for him to stand, or to sit with his legs drawn up; the freight was heavy boxes, doubtless war goods, and he hoped they wouldn’t shift as the train made its bumpy stops. Probably not, because it surely wouldn’t go fast climbing toward the Hohe Tauern. He could imagine that he felt the engine toiling, and he could certainly hear the car creaking and groaning. He did not know this region or how high the pass might be. His clothing was of the poorest sort, and he had begun to suffer from the cold even before the sun went down.
It wasn’t long before all Lanny’s thoughts were occupied with that cold. He hadn’t room enough for vigorous exercise; all he could do was to practice alternately tensing and relaxing the muscles of various parts of his body. Thus he kept his blood in circulation; and with his mind he speculated: How long would the trip take, and would the trainman forget him? A human life didn’t count for much in these days of worldwide slaughter, and the basis of Lanny’s hope was an extra ten marks he had agreed to pay this man. That, presumably, would be more than the man would get if he carried his illegitimate cargo to the border and delivered it to the guard.
All the ill-clad Lanny was asking of fate was to get through this alive. He might have lost some fingers if it had not been for the mittens, and a pair of ears if it had not been for the muffler which he tied over them. Fortunately he had had enough food, and of that food he had made blood, and kept it in circulation for the twenty-four hours the slow wartime trip required. He was just about exhausted when the train came to a stop and the door was unlocked.
That might have been the border guard, but he was too cold to care. He heard a voice, “Zehn Mark”; he had the bill in his overcoat pocket, and fumbled for it and passed it out. Then the man helped him down and into the station, where there was a warm stove. The traveler crouched by it and would have stayed there even if the place had been full of SS men in uniform.
But no, it was only the stationmaster, and he proved a kindly old fellow; they were all old these days—it was horrible to realize that wherever you went you found the countryside drained dry of men up to the age of sixty. Lanny fished out a five-mark note, and this entitled him to doze by the fire for an unspecified period. He ate the sandwich that had been in his overcoat pocket, and when the sun shone pink upon the highest mountains in Austria, he walked through the little town of Sillian and up the highway which runs through the high Toblacherfeld toward the Italian border, six or eight miles further on.
He had plied the stationmaster with questions concerning the road, and what he had to expect from both Italian and Austrian guards. They were few, but alert; you would have to have an exit permit to get by one set and an entrance permit to get by the other, and if you were seen on any of the mountain trails you would be shot, just as if you were a Gemsbock—that is, a chamois, or Alpine goat. Lanny hadn’t said what he planned to do; he just walked, and rejoiced in the warmth and in the magnificent sight, the sun shining upon a great glacier. He renewed his courage and hope, for just beyond this pass lay the goal of his long pilgrimage.
IX
The refugee walked until he could guess that he was within a couple of miles of the border. Then he picked out one of those peasant huts which cling to the snow-covered mountainside. There a family earns a bare existence by building rock walls and carrying in loads of earth in baskets to make one more tiny garden; that can go on for generation after generation, provided that the superfluous young males are shipped to America or the Argentine, or else are killed off in wars. Such is human fate in a Catholic land where birth-control is forbidden, and the consolation offered to the poor and lowly is a painted plaster image of the
Blessed Virgin set up on a corner of their home.
Lanny approached a hut. He had no stick, because you could not find such a thing in the inhabited parts of this land—they were all gathered up for firewood as soon as the winds blew them from the trees. However, there was small chance of there being a dog, for what would he eat? There was an old gray-bearded man spading in the snow, and an old woman and a young one bent over some task that Lanny couldn’t make out. Then he saw an unusual sight, a tall youth with health in his cheeks, and how could it have come about that the Army hadn’t got him?
The visitor made himself known, and discovered that this was an Italian-speaking family. Fine! He could practice the skill he had acquired in Rome, and if he used a few German words it wouldn’t matter, for they did the same. He told his sad story in this new language, and it proved equally effective. He explained that he could pay for a meal, and they invited him into the hut, where another lean and stringy woman was working over a fire. Here again were boiled potatoes and goat’s milk, and this time squash instead of turnips; also dried garlic, and as a special favor to a guest, a few dried olives, which must have come from the southern side of the border. Lanny observed that bread was hardly ever seen, and he could guess that the grains were compact and handy for the armies, and therefore had all been commandeered.
One Clear Call I Page 40
