Gregory had crossed frontiers clandestinely before; so he knew, only too well, that Leon was not exaggerating the difficulties. Had he been on his own he would have backed himself to get through; but he realized now that during the past twenty-four hours his thoughts had been too distracted by more pleasant matters for him to give due weight to the handicap that having Sabine with him must prove. The abrupt awareness of what it would entail came as a very nasty shock. Now he was seized with a sudden fear that to do as he had planned would prove next to impossible.
Journey into Trouble
Chapter 20
With a sinking feeling Gregory faced up to the gulf that lay between crossing the frontier on foot and, as they had originally intended, in a car. It would mean a whole night of desperate strain and endeavour; perhaps more, as dawn might catch them before they were across, and that would mean having to lie up for the day. For hours they would have to crawl flat on their stomachs through scrub and along ditches; and if they were spotted they would have to run for their lives to the nearest cover. Sabine had plenty of courage, but she was just not the sort of girl that Girl Guide Captains are made from. Physically she was incapable of standing up to such a gruelling ordeal. Uneasily, he admitted:
'You're right. The dice will be loaded against us. But it seems there is no alternative.'
Leon leaned forward. 'You remember our first talk at the cafe? I mentioned to you then that Eichmann had already set up an office for so called 'Jewish Emigration' in Budapest. For us Jews that is the red light. We still pray that Hungary will protect us and that there will be no great persecution here. Most of us feel this to be so much our home that we prefer to take a chance on that, rather than give up everything and face a new life abroad almost penniless. But some, who have money or relatives in foreign countries, are already leaving from fear that the Nazis will force Admiral Horthy to abandon us to them. For those who wish to go it is not easy; because in wartime the Government will grant no exit permits, except in very special cases. In consequence, those who are leaving have to do so in secret. Some of them are doing as you suggest and attempting to cross the frontier at night. But for those who are rich enough there is an easier way. They are smuggled out in the big barges that go down the Danube to Turkey.'
'By Jove!' Gregory's eyes lit up. 'Do you mean that you could arrange for us to get out like that?'
'These barge masters are rapacious. It would cost you two thousand five hundred pengoes each.'
'That is not much more than we should have to pay for a car.'
'No. If you agree then, I will see what I can do. But it will probably be several days before the people I approach would be able to find a barge that will take you, and is due to leave.'
'In that case, unless you know of anywhere else we can go, it will mean our continuing to accept your hospitality, and I feel that we have already trespassed…'
Holding up a plump hand, Leon cut him short. 'Please don't let that worry you. Huldah and I are glad to help. My mother-in-law may prove a little tiresome, but for our sakes she will not breathe a word about your being here.'
'No, no!' Huldah put in. 'I am sorry that she was not more cordial to you at dinner. But you need not have the least fear that she will be indiscreet. From tomorrow, I have arranged for my little boys to stay for some days with my sister; so it is only of my woman, Rosa, that you will still have to be careful. If it were not for her you would be able to move freely about the apartment all the time. As it is you will have to spend the days in your bedroom, and keep very quiet there; but if you can put up with that…'
They 'put up with that' without any grief or pain at all. In fact they greatly preferred it to having to sit in the lounge with' Mrs. Klitzberg, or even the kind but gushing Huldah; and, as Gregory remarked, it was almost as if they were having the Spanish peasants' honeymoon of which they had talked although it transpired that instead of a full week it lasted only five days.
Now and again thoughts of Erika drifted into Gregory's mind, but he came to dismiss them with angry resentment. He had been faithful to her for over two and a half years, and he had never remained faithful to any other woman for more than six months. Her life before he had met her had been as hectic as his own and neither of them had ever subscribed to the 'one man for one woman' Christian ethic. He was still at the height of his manly vigour and for him to have suppressed it would have been, he decided, entirely against both the laws of nature and common sense.
During those days they emerged only to use the bathroom each morning, while Huldah sent her cleaning woman off on some errand, and in the evenings for a hot meal with the family; except for once after dinner on the second night, and then they ventured down into the street. Their reason was Sabine's anxiety about her jewels and her wish to get hold of them to take with her if she could.
The risk of telephoning from the Levianskis' fiat was small, but there was just a chance that police had been installed in the Tuzolto palace and the call might be traced back; so Gregory accompanied her to a telephone kiosk some two hundred yards away. Her call was answered by Magda, who was able to assure her that the jewels were safe. But there was no possibility of getting them to her as, on the Monday morning, Pipi had lodged them at her bank, and it was certain that the bank would not let them be withdrawn again without her own signature. For her to call there herself would have been much too dangerous, and to have sent an order for their collection by anyone else might easily have led to their being traced; so she had to resign herself to leaving them behind.
However, with the large sum she had drawn in cash from her bank on the Saturday, and the considerable amount Gregory carried on him, even after paying for their transport down the Danube and their new clothes they still had over three hundred pounds between them; so they had no immediate anxieties about money.
It was on Thursday, after lunch, that Leon came to their ' room to say that he had unexpected good news for them. His friend had just let him know that the man of a Jewish couple who had planned to leave had been stricken with appendicitis; so the couple had had to cancel, leaving two places free on a barge that was sailing that night.
As they had few things to pack and there was ample room in their suitcase, it suddenly occurred to Gregory that he could, after all, take some foie gras back to England; so he asked Leon to buy for him three of the biggest tins he could find.
That evening, after dinner, they sat about rather anxiously until eleven o'clock. When at last the time came to say goodbye Sabine handed a plain envelope to Huldah and said, 'In this is a message that I am particularly anxious should reach a friend of mine tomorrow evening, when we are safely on our way. Will you please keep it and telephone it to her; but not till then.'
Actually in the envelope there was a slip of paper on which was written:
Etienne and I will never be able to repay you and Leon for your courage and kindness, but will you please buy something for your little boys with these, and 'these' were two five hundred pengo notes.
Leon took them as far as the Customs House and on a corner nearby handed them over to a small hook-nosed Jew, whom he recognized from a description that had been given him. The little man said quickly:
'It is unnecessary that we know one another's names. Just call me Ike. Please show me your money.'
Gregory produced his wallet; they exchanged a final hearty handclasp with Leon and then set off with Ike. For over half a mile they walked in silence, mostly in the shadow of tall dark warehouses and across seemingly endless railway sidings, until they came to a gate in a tall corrugated iron fence. There was a watchman on duty there, but at a word from Ike he let them through and they found themselves on the riverside near a row of towering grain elevators. Alongside the wharf lay a string of immensely long barges, at least three times the size of those in use on the Thames. A dim light was showing from the stern hatch of one of them. Following Ike, they scrambled aboard her and he called down the hatch, 'Szabo!'
A huge, untidy, h
airy man lumbered up the ladder and greeted them in Hungarian. The Jew told Gregory to produce the passage money and he paid it over into the leg-of-mutton hand of the barge master. Szabo thumbed it through then peeled off notes to the value of a thousand pengoes and thrust them at Ike. With a quick grin the Jew pocketed them. Next moment, without a word, he had slipped back on to the wharf and was disappearing in the darkness.
Szabo spat and muttered in Hungarian. Sabine translated for Gregory. 'He says that little runt takes no risk and does nothing except guide passengers to the barge, yet he insists on a twenty per cent commission; and that all Jews are scum.'
'The Levianskis prove how wrong he is about that,' Gregory replied. 'But there are plenty of them like Ike, and it's his kind that gets the whole race into its troubles.'
Meanwhile Szabo had beckoned them to follow him, and led the way below to quite a big cabin. It was clean with bright chintzes as curtains and covers and a row of brilliantly polished kitchen utensils hanging in one corner over a cooking stove. In a rocking chair a fat, jolly faced woman of about forty was sitting knitting. She struggled to her feet and gave them a smile of welcome.
'This is my wife Yolande,' said Szabo, with a happy grin. 'She is the best cook on the whole Danube; so you are lucky to be travelling with us. My two hands, Dem and Zoltan, have cabins forward. They get a cut so you need not be afraid that they will split on you. Now, it is understood that we ask you no questions, but we must call you something. What shall it be?'
Again Sabine translated, and Gregory suggested, 'Joseph and Josephine.'
'So be it!' the big man nodded. 'And now a drink to a lucky voyage.'
Turning, he took a bottle of Baratsch and four glasses from a cupboard, then poured four generous rations. It was immature fiery stuff, but they drank the toast no less enthusiastically.
Their cabin was down a short passage. That too was clean, and more comfortable than they had expected. The bunks were one above the other and the springless mattresses in them much harder than the beds to which they had been accustomed; but each was quite wide enough to hold two people cuddled together, so they put the two mattresses one on top of the other in the lower bunk. As they undressed, although they had not yet sampled Yolande's cooking, they were already prepared to endorse Szabo's opinion that they were lucky to be travelling in his barge.
When they woke next morning the barge was in motion, although they would hardly have known it had it not been for the fast rippling of water against her sides. Having washed and dressed they went through to the big cabin. Yolande was there and cooked them a good breakfast of eggs and ham, but there was no tea or coffee, so they had to wash it down with light beer. She told them that there was nothing against their sitting on deck all day, except when the string of barges lay moored in a riverside town for the tug to refuel and the women of the crews to buy fresh provisions; and then they must remain under cover in case someone asked awkward questions.
When they had fed they went on deck and found big Szabo at the tiller. They had passed the large factory covered island of Cespel in the early hours of the morning, and the flattish green plain now stretched away into the distance from both banks of the wide river. Their barge was the last of three being towed by a powerful tug, and Gregory estimated that she must be doing a good six knots.
Very soon they settled into a routine more peaceful than anything that either of them had ever experienced. Day after day, and night after night, the great barge ploughed almost noiselessly through the turgid green water. The only halts were those at the larger riverside towns, in which Yolande did her shopping. The current was with them and they covered anything from a hundred to a hundred and thirty miles a day. Yolande's cooking of unpretentious dishes was as good as her husband had promised, and neither of them was ever rude or surly.
Occasionally some scent, or sight or sound, reminded Gregory of Erika, but in this new world of blissful peace, England, the War, and Erika all seemed infinitely far away. It was a little difficult to realize that he was now on his way back to them and that, sometime, he would have to put his 'love life' as for lack of a better word he decided to term it in order; but there was no hurry and no sense whatever in worrying about that yet.
On the fourth day they reached Belgrade. Gregory had contemplated leaving the barge there. He and Sabine both had passports visa'd for Yugoslavia, so a week earlier they would have met with no difficulty in catching the Orient Express and being twenty-four hours later safely in Switzerland. But the Germans were in control in Yugoslavia, so Grauber's writ ran there.
By now he would have ordered a lookout for them to be kept on every possible escape route; so, although Gregory knew it to be his duty to get back to England by the quickest possible means, he had decided that to attempt going through Yugoslavia, with the risk of riot getting home at all, was too big to be taken.
To remain in the barge all the way down to Turkey meant at least a fortnight longer, but the risk while passing through enemy held territory was almost negligible and when they did reach Turkey they would be in a neutral country; so in this case there was ample justification for a policy of hastening slowly.
Early on the morning of the 10th they came in sight of the great black rocks called the Iron Gates, which towered up on either side of the Danube and formed the frontier between Hungary and Rumania. For Gregory and Sabine this was the one real danger spot of their journey, but Szabo showed not the least uneasiness. He told them to pack all their belongings in their suitcase, then he set his crew of two to dig a hole amidships in the flat sea of grain that formed the cargo of the barge. After half an hour's hard shovelling Dem and Zoltan got down to a flooring of short wooden planks. The centre one was lifted to reveal a tiny room, no more than five feet square and four feet high. It was actually a large packing case, which had been put into position on the bottom boards of the barge before the grain was loaded into her.
Sabine and Gregory climbed down into it with their suitcase, the plank was replaced, and eight feet of grain shovelled back on top of them. Their prison was unlit, only just large enough for them to sit side by side, and as silent as the grave. Their only danger of discovery lay in one of the customs officers striking the top of the little wood walled room while he searched for contraband with his plunging rod; but the area of grain was so great compared with the surface of their roof, that this was very unlikely.
All the same, they spent an anxious and extremely uncomfortable four hours. It was dark as pitch, and soon very stuffy, towards the end the air was almost unbreathable and they both had splitting headaches. Had either of them been alone he or she would have suffered from appalling claustrophobia. Even as it was they found difficulty in keeping out of their minds nightmare thoughts that Szabo and his crew might be arrested, which could lead to their dying from suffocation before they were found. It was with infinite relief that round about midday they heard the rasp of shovels above them, and soon afterwards were pulled up by willing hands, half fainting, into the fresh air.
Once more they settled down to lazy untroubled days in the September sunshine. On the 15th they left the Danube at Cernavoda for the canal which enters the Black Sea at Mamaia, a few miles above the great Rumanian port of Constanta. There they again had to suffer a few hours' imprisonment in the big packing case while the Customs cleared the barges to proceed to Turkey, but it was such a routine business that the search was only perfunctory.
On the last three days of the journey the barge lost its charm for them. There were no longer pretty villages, wooded hills or lush water meadows with cattle peacefully grazing to be seen on either hand. Instead the stalwart tug drew the great lumbering barges through choppy seas, driven spray made the deck untenable, and meals were no longer a joy to which to look forward.
Mentally as well as physically they both came gradually to realize that, without knowing it, they had been driven out of paradise. They were now only a day or two from Istanbul, and what was to happen then? Gregory had said noth
ing to Sabine about his future plans, and she was beginning to wonder anxiously what he meant to do about her. For his part, he needed no telling that Istanbul was no more than two days by air from London and in his mind London was now synonymous with Erika.
He did not blame himself for his affaire with Sabine." Seeing the people they were and the way in which events had marched, it was hardly possible for them not to have become lovers. And, for a love affaire she was everything that any man could desire. But he certainly did not want her as a permanency.
Erika was the only woman he had ever wanted as a permanency; and he still wanted her that way. They had long since decided that when the war was over and she could get a, divorce from Von Osterberg they would marry. Owing to Sir Pellinore's generosity they had already tentatively begun to look for a house in the country in which to settle down. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with that.
He felt reasonably confident that if Erika had to be told about Sabine she would be broadminded enough not to hold his lapse against him; but he had no intention of letting her know anything about it that could be avoided. In his view, people who unnecessarily gave pain to others, supposedly beloved by them, by pouring out mawkish confessions were guilty of the most cowardly self-indulgence. But Erika was certainly not the woman to countenance his having an intimate friendship with another woman. So something must be done about Sabine; and that 'something' could not be delayed much longer.
It was on the evening of the 18th, when they were actually entering Turkish waters, that he said to her, This has been a wonderful fortnight, and I'm sure we were right not to mar it by talking about the future. But you must have thought about it quite a bit, and we'll be in tomorrow morning. When we get ashore, what do you intend to do?'
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