Partisans
Page 3
‘Thank you, Colonel.’ Petersen pointed to two fairly large, canvaswrapped packages on the floor. ‘Your radios, I take it. British?’
‘Yes,’ Michael said. ‘Latest models. Very tough.’
‘Spares?’
‘Lots. All we’ll ever need, the experts say.’
‘The experts have clearly never fallen down a ravine with a radio strapped to their backs. You’re British-trained, of course.’
‘No. American.’
‘In Cairo?’
‘Cairo is full of them. This was a staff sergeant in the US Marines. An expert in some new codes. He taught quite a few Britishers at the same time.’
‘Seems fair enough. Well, a little cooperation and we should get along just fine.’
‘Cooperation?’ Michael seemed puzzled.
‘Yes. If I have to give some instructions now and again I expect them to be followed.’
‘Instructions?’ Michael looked at his sister. ‘Nobody said anything –’
‘I’m saying something now. I must express myself more clearly. Orders will be implicitly obeyed. If not, I’ll leave you behind in Italy, jettison you in the Adriatic or just simply abandon you in Yugoslavia. I will not jeopardize my mission for a couple of disobedient children who won’t do as they’re told.’
‘Children!’ Michael actually clenched his fists. ‘You have no right to –’
‘He has every right to.’ Lunz’s interruption was sharp. ‘Major Petersen was talking about garden parties. He should have been talking about kindergartens. You’re young, ignorant and arrogant and are correspondingly dangerous on all three counts. Whether you’ve been sworn in or not, you’re now members of the Royal Yugoslav Army. Other rankers, such as you, take orders from officers.’
They made no reply, not even when Petersen again regarded the ceiling and said: ‘And we all know the penalty for the wartime disobedience of orders.’
In Lunz’s staff car Petersen sighed and said: ‘I’m afraid I didn’t quite achieve the degree of rapport back there that I might have. They were in a rather unhappy frame of mind when we left.’
‘They’ll get over it. Young, as I said. Spoilt, into the bargain. Aristocrats, I’m told, even some royal blood. Von Karajan or something like that. Odd name for a Yugoslav.’
‘Not really. Almost certainly from Slovenia and the descendants of Austrians.’
‘Be that as it may, they come from a family that’s clearly not accustomed to taking orders and even less accustomed to being talked to the way you did.’
‘I daresay they’ll learn very quickly.’
‘I daresay they will.’
Half an hour after returning to his room, Petersen was joined by George and Alex. George said, ‘Well, at least we know their name.’
‘So do I. Von Karajan. What else?’
George was in no way put out. ‘The reception clerk, very old but sharp, told us he’d no idea where they’d arrived from – they’d been brought there by Colonel Lunz. He gave us their room number – no hesitation – but said that if we wanted to see them he’d have to announce us, ask permission and then escort us. Then we asked him if either of the rooms next to the number he had given us was vacant and when he told us those were their bedrooms we left.’
‘You took your time about getting back.’
‘We are accustomed to your injustices. We went round to the back of the hotel, climbed a fire escape and made our way along a narrow ledge. A very narrow ledge. No joke, I can tell you, especially for an old man like me. Perilous, dizzying heights –’
‘Yes, yes.’ Petersen was patient. The von Karajans had been staying on the first floor. ‘Then?’
‘There was a small balcony outside their room. Net curtains on their French windows.’
‘You could see clearly?’
‘And hear clearly. Young man was sending a radio message.’
‘Interesting. Hardly surprising, though. Morse?’
‘Plain language.’
‘What was he saying?’
‘I have no idea. Could have been Chinese for all I knew. Certainly no European language I’ve ever heard. A very short message. So we came back.’
‘Anyone see you on the fire escape, ledge or balcony?’
George tried to look wounded. ‘My dear Peter –’ Petersen stopped him with an upraised hand. Not many people called him “Peter” – which was his first name – but, then, not many people had been pre-war students of George’s in Belgrade University where George had been the vastly respected Professor of Occidental Languages. George was known – not reputed, but known – to be fluent in at least a dozen languages and to have a working knowledge of a considerable number more.
‘Forgive me, forgive me.’ Petersen surveyed George’s vast bulk. ‘You’re practically invisible anyway. So tomorrow morning, or perhaps even within minutes, Colonel Lunz will know that you and Alex have been around asking questions – he would have expected nothing less of me – but he won’t know that young Michael von Karajan has been seen and heard to be sending radio messages soon after our departure. I do wonder about the nature of that message.’
George pondered briefly then said: ‘Alex and I could find out on the boat tomorrow night.’
Petersen shook his head. ‘I promised Colonel Lunz that we would deliver them intact.’
‘What’s Colonel Lunz to us or your promise to him?’
‘We want them delivered intact too.’
George tapped his head. ‘The burden of too many years.’
‘Not at all, George. Professorial absent-mindedness.’
TWO
The Wehrmacht did not believe in limousines or luxury coaches for the transportation of its allies: Petersen and his companions crossed Italy that following day in the back of a vintage truck that gave the impression of being well enough equipped with tyres of solid rubber but sadly deficient in any form of springing. The vibration was of the teeth-jarring order and the rattling so loud and continuous as to make conversation virtually impossible. The hooped canvas covering was open at the back, and at the highest point in the Apennines the temperature dropped below freezing point. It was, in some ways, a memorable journey but not for its creature comforts.
The stench of the diesel fumes would normally have been overpowering enough but on that particular day faded into relative insignificance compared to the aroma, if that was the word, given off by George’s black cigars. Out of deference to his fellow-travellers’ sensibilities he had seated himself at the very rear of the truck and on the rare occasion when he wasn’t smoking, kept himself busy and contented enough with the contents of a crate of beer that lay at his feet. He seemed immune to the cold and probably was: nature had provided him with an awesome insulation.
The von Karajans, clad in their newly acquired winter clothing, sat at the front of the left-hand unpadded wooden bench. Withdrawn and silent they appeared no happier than when Petersen had left them the previous night: this could have been an understandable reaction to their current sufferings but more probably, Petersen thought, their injured feelings had not yet had time to mend. Matters were not helped by the presence of Alex, whose totally withdrawn silence and dark, bitter and brooding countenance could be all too easily misinterpreted as balefulness: the von Karajans were not to know that Alex regarded his parents, whom he held in vast respect and affection, with exactly the same expression.
They stopped for a midday meal in a tiny village in the neighbourhood of Corfinio after having safely, if at times more or less miraculously, negotiated the hazardous hair-pin switch-backs of the Apennine spine. They had left Rome at seven o’clock that morning and it had taken over five hours to cover a hundred miles. Considering the incredibly dilapidated state of both the highway and the ancient Wehrmacht truck – unmarked as such and of Italian make – an average of almost twenty miles an hour was positively creditable. Not without difficulty for, with the exception of George, the passengers’ limbs were stiff and almost frozen, they cli
mbed down over the tail-board and looked around them through the thinly falling snow.
There was miserably little to see. The hamlet – if it could even be called that, it didn’t as much as have a name – consisted of a handful of stone cottages, a post office store and a very small inn. Nearby Corfinio, if hardly ranking as a metropolis, could have afforded considerably more in the way of comfort and amenities: but Colonel Lunz, apart from a professional near-mania for secrecy, shared with his senior Wehrmacht fellow-officers the common if unfair belief that all his Italian allies were renegades, traitors and spies until proved otherwise.
In the inn itself, the genial host was far from being that. He seemed diffident, almost nervous, a markedly unusual trait in mountain innkeepers. A noticeably clumsy waiter, civil and helpful in his own way, volunteered only the fact that he was called Luigi but thereafter was totally uncommunicative. The inn itself was well enough, both warmed and illuminated by a pine log fire in an open hearth that gave off almost as much in the way of sparks as it did heat. The food was simple but plentiful, and wine and beer, into which George made his customary inroads, appeared regularly on the table without having to be asked for. Socially, however, the meal was a disaster.
Silence makes an uncomfortable table companion. At a distant and small corner table, the truck-driver and his companion – really an armed guard who travelled with a Schmeisser under his seat and a Luger concealed about his person – talked almost continuously in low voices; but of the five at Petersen’s table, three seemed afflicted with an almost permanent palsy of the tongue. Alex, remote and withdrawn, seemed, as was his wont, to be contemplating a bleak and hopeless future: the von Karajans who, by their own admission, had had no breakfast, barely picked at their food, had time and opportunity to talk, but rarely ventured a word except when directly addressed: Petersen, relaxed as ever, restricted himself to pleasantries and civilities but otherwise showed no signs of wishing to alleviate the conversational awkwardness or, indeed, to be aware of it: George, on the other hand, seemed to be acutely aware of it and did his talkative best to dispel it, even to the point of garrulity.
His conversational gambit took the form of questions directed exclusively at the von Karajans. It did not take him long to elicit the fact that they were, as Petersen had guessed, Slovenians of Austrian ancestry. They had been to primary school in Ljubljana, secondary school in Zagreb and thence to Cairo University.
‘Cairo!’ George tried to make his eyebrows disappear into his hairline. ‘Cairo! What on earth induced you to go to that cultural backwater?’
‘It was our parents’ wish,’ Michael said. He tried to be cold and distant but he only succeeded in sounding defensive.
‘Cairo!’ George repeated. He shook his head in slow disbelief. ‘And what, may one ask, did you study there?’
‘You ask a lot of questions,’ Michael said.
‘Interest,’ George explained. ‘A paternal interest. And, of course, a concern for the hapless youth of our unfortunate and disunited country.’
For the first time Sarina smiled, a very faint smile, it was true, but enough to give some indication of what she could do if she tried. ‘I don’t think such things would really interest you, Mr – ah –’
‘Just call me George. How do you know what would interest me? All things interest me.’
‘Economics and politics.’
‘Good God!’ George clapped a hand to his forehead. As a classical actor he would have starved: as a ham actor he was a nonpareil. ‘Good heavens, girl, you go to Egypt to learn matters of such importance? Didn’t they even teach you enough to make you realize that theirs is the poorest country in the Middle East, that their economy is not only a shambles but is in a state of total collapse and that they owe countless millions, sterling, dollars, any currency you care to name, to practically any country you care to name. So much for their economy. As for politics, they’re no more than a political football for any country that wants to play soccer on their arid and useless desert sands.’
George stopped briefly, perhaps to admire the eloquence of his own oratory, perhaps to await a response. None was forthcoming so he got back to his head-shaking.
‘And what, one wonders, did your parents have against our premier institute of learning. I refer, of course, to the University of Belgrade.’ He paused, as if in reflection. ‘One admits that Oxford and Cambridge have their points. So, for that matter, does Heidelberg, the Sorbonne, Padua and one or two lesser educational centres. But, no, Belgrade is best.’
Again the faint smile from Sarina. ‘You seem to know a great deal about universities, Mr – ah – George.’
George didn’t smirk. Instead, he achieved the near impossible – he spoke with a lofty diffidence. ‘I have been fortunate enough, for most of my adult life, to be associated with academics, among them some of the most eminent.’ The von Karajans looked at each other for a long moment but said nothing: it was unnecessary for them to say that, in their opinion, any such association must have been on a strictly janitorial level. They probably assumed that he had learned his mode of speech when cleaning out common rooms or, it may have been, while waiting on high table. George gave no indication that he had noticed anything untoward, but, then, he never did.
‘Well,’ George said in his best judicial tones, ‘far be it from me to visit the sins of the fathers upon their sons or, come to that, those of mothers upon their daughters.’ Abruptly, he switched the subject. ‘You are Royalists, of course.’
‘Why “of course”?’ Michael’s voice was sharp.
George sighed. ‘I would have hoped that that institute of lower learning on the Nile hadn’t driven all the native sense out of your head. If you weren’t a Royalist you wouldn’t be coming with us. Besides, Major Petersen told me.’
Sarina looked briefly at Petersen. ‘This is the way you treat confidences?’
‘I wasn’t aware it was a confidence.’ Petersen gestured with an indifferent hand. ‘It was too unimportant to rate as a confidence. In any event, George is my confidant.’
Sarina looked at him uncertainly, then lowered her eyes: the rebuke could have been real, implied or just imagined. George said: ‘I’m just puzzled, you see. You’re Royalists. Your parents, one must assume, are the same. It’s not unusual for the royal family and those close to them to send their children abroad to be educated. But not to Cairo. To Northern Europe. Specifically, to England. The ties between the Yugoslav and British royal families are very close – especially the blood ties. What place did King Peter choose for his enforced exile? London, where he is now. The Prince Regent, Prince Paul, is in the care of the British.’
‘They say in Cairo that he’s a prisoner of the British.’ Michael didn’t seem particularly concerned about what they said in Cairo.
‘Rubbish. He’s in protective custody in Kenya. He’s free to come and go. He makes regular withdrawals from a bank in London. Coutts, it’s called – it also happens to be the bank of the British royal family. Prince Paul’s closest friend in Europe – and his brother-inlaw – is the Duke of Kent: well, he was until the Duke was killed in a flying-boat accident last year. And it’s common knowledge that very soon he’s going to South Africa, whose General Smuts is a particularly close friend of the British.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Michael said. ‘You said you’re puzzled. I’m puzzled too. This General Smuts has two South African divisions in North Africa fighting alongside the Eighth Army, no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Against the Germans?’
George showed an unusual trace of irritation. ‘Who else would they be fighting?’
‘So our royal family’s friends in North Africa are fighting the Germans. We’re Royalists, and we’re fighting with the Germans, not against them. I mean it’s all rather confusing.’
‘I’m sure you’re not confused.’ Again Sarina’s little smile. Petersen was beginning to wonder whether he would have to revise his first impression of her. ‘Are you, George?’
‘Nobody’s going to argue with that,’ Petersen said. He looked at the girl. ‘Speaking – as George has been doing at some length – of royalty, you mentioned last night you knew King Peter. How well?’
‘He was Prince Peter then. Not well at all. Once or twice on formal occasions.’
‘That’s about how it was for me. I don’t suppose we’ve exchanged more than a couple of dozen words. Bright lad, pleasant, should make a good king. Pity about his limp.’
‘His what?’
‘You know, his left foot.’
‘Oh, that. Yes. I’ve wondered –’
‘He doesn’t talk about it. All sorts of sinister stories about how he was injured. All ridiculous. A simple hunting accident.’ Petersen smiled. ‘I shouldn’t imagine there’s much of a diplomatic future for a courtier who mistakes his future sovereign for a wild boar.’ He lifted his eyes and right arm at the same time: the innkeeper came hurrying towards him. ‘The bill, if you please.’
‘The bill?’ Momentarily the innkeeper gave the impression of being surprised, even taken aback. ‘Ah, the bill. Of course. The bill. At once.’ He hurried off.
Petersen looked at the von Karajans. ‘Sorry you didn’t have a better appetite – you know, stoked the furnaces for the last part of the trip. Still, it’s downhill now all the way and we’re heading for the Adriatic and a maritime climate. Should be getting steadily warmer.’
‘Oh, no, it won’t.’ It was the first time Alex had spoken since they had entered the inn and, predictably, it was in tones of dark certainty. ‘It’s almost an hour since we came in here and the wind has got stronger. Much stronger. Listen and you can hear it.’ They listened. They heard it, a deep, low-pitched, ululating moaning that boded no good at all. Alex shook his head gravely. ‘An east-northeaster. All the way from Siberia. It’s going to be very cold.’ His voice sounded full of gloomy satisfaction but it meant nothing, it was the only way he knew how to talk. ‘And when the sun goes down, it’s going to be very very cold.’