Slovaks trying to cross. Well, it was worth a try. Even if I fell and was killed, the excitement at the post and the recall of the patrol should give the hermit and Moshe time to get away. In the fading light I took another look at that cliff on the western side. The roll of wire was hanging over the edge, so was a large chunk of cliff top, which indeed was stopped from falling only by the wire itself. It was just possible to follow the cleft under the wire, provided I pushed the rifle in front of me.
Wriggling on elbows and toes, I played the rabbit. At any rate I did not make a sound. Earth and pebbles dislodged fell into the tapering bottom of the cleft. The worst moment was when the back of my coat caught on the barbed wire. No backward wriggle would free it. I had to adopt the antics of a guru without muscles in order to get my hands behind my back and tear each barb separately out of the cloth.
The far end of the cleft opened on to blank nothing without a handhold, but there the Mannlicher helped. Asking silent pardon of Casimir’s father, I reached up and dug the barrel into a crack. With a toe-hold on the wire itself, that allowed me to pull myself up into Slovakia. I cleaned the barrel with a stick as well as might be and squinted along it. No damage. That was as well, for I intended the rifle to provide the diversion necessary to keep that patrol away from Moshe and the hermit.
The belt of tree stumps was narrower on this side of the frontier, and it was simple in the dusk to crawl through to better cover. There I waited until the searchlight began to throw a beam down the eastern side and then for good measure played on the trees behind me. I shot it out. High and right, I guessed, but it was difficult to tell. I loosed off two more rounds into the watchtower, of which one, ripping through the planks, struck another target, for I heard a howl of agony. A nasty wound it would be if the bullet had turned on a nail.
The only thing now was to be ready in the darkness for any chance the gods might offer. The guard house erupted. A Verey light went up, showing them nothing but burning long enough for me to see that the guards had split up and were going to attack from both sides of the ridge. There were few of them to do it and I reckoned that every man left in the place must be engaged. In their commendable dash they had left the gate open. Under the circumstances the safest place, offering escape from encirclement as well as easy return to Poland, was the garrison.
I fired one more shot to encourage them to continue their search of the forest and ran for the guard house. I had trouble in finding the gate on the Polish side through which the earlier patrol had set out, and had just got my hand on it when I heard them doubling back to take part in whatever night operation was going on. A garbage can stood by the gate ready for emptying down the hill in the morning. I crouched behind it. Looking back, I think that was the most outrageous gamble which I took. Only one of them had to look round and give me a burst from his automatic, but I was prepared to bet that in their hurry to reinforce their comrades none of them would. One of them, after running a few yards, did turn back to shut the gate but by that time I was outside it and lying flat.
I found my party completely unaware that a patrol had been anywhere near them, and of course alarmed by my long absence and the sound of shots coming from the darkness where the frontier must be. Moshe, who knew me best, was certain that I would not have crossed and gone on alone, but that I might well be dead. The hermit, inspired by Casimir’s exaggerations, thought that if any killing had been done I had done it. They had decided to wait for me till first light and meanwhile to drop down a little from the top of the ridge into thicker cover.
That move was a disaster. The hermit had sprained an ankle stepping on a stone which had rolled away under his foot. He blamed himself and couldn’t think what to do for us since he was no more use as a guide. Hugging the poor ankle, he said – at least I thought he said, ‘Age! Age! And once I was as sure-footed as a goat.’
To be landed with two cripples was a reminder that luck cannot last for ever. His intention was to slide down the slope from tree to tree until he reached the bottom of the valley and the track that we had quickly crossed. There he would stop and bathe the ankle in a stream. Eventually some peasant with a cart might pass; if not, he would hobble on to a village where he was known.
‘And I shall leave Wanda with you,’ he said.
I protested that we could not deprive him of his little animal, who, he had said, was dear to him as a daughter. He replied that she could not dive directly down the slope and that he was incapable of walking down in the long zigzags by which we had climbed to the summit of the ridge. Certainly it was near impossible on one leg without long and painful rests, and he would be unable to escape or to account for himself by any credible story if the guards decided to investigate the Polish side of the frontier. All the same, I think that from a sense of guilt he exaggerated the problem.
‘No, you must take her,’ he insisted. ‘Moshe’s need is greater than mine.’
He was sure that, since this old smugglers’ route had been blocked, the regular valley passes would be controlled even more tightly. He thought we ought to aim for the plateau where Moshe could easily manage short marches over the turf and we could see trouble from far off before we walked into it. The best plan – short of going back into the foothills, civilization and roads alive with military – was to drop down into the eastern valley, cross another ridge and valley and then strike up a fairly easy escarpment until we came out of the forest on to the uplands where we should meet only shepherds. Without Wanda Moshe would never do it.
‘I could tow him or carry him myself.’
‘Not for long, strong though you are. And you have seen how Wanda can sense the easiest path.’
‘But how can we ever return her to you?’
‘I have thought of a way.’
It was difficult to get from him exact spoken directions, but with two fingers he drew a map in the pine needles which, as he patted the furrows into shape, turned out to be an intelligible relief map. After questions in English and answers in Latin, I had a clear picture of what he proposed. When we had crossed the next ridge and valley and had completed what he called an easy climb, we were to go eastwards until the Peak of Dukla came in sight. We should then see a church tower rising from the trees not far below us. The priest’s house was on our side of it, the last house in the village. At the side of the house was a walled paddock, probably with a few sheep in it.
‘The priest is an old friend who has never condemned me. Leave Wanda with him. He knows her and will recognize her. In a few days I will borrow a horse and cart and go out to fetch her home. When you are back on the upland, circle round Dukla. All is then downhill, and with God’s help you will arrive in Slovakia.’
It was wisest for all of us to get off the ridge at once. To the hermit, darkness made little difference. He could continue sliding and creeping like a lizard over the dead leaves, with gravity doing all the work, until he arrived at the bottom. He said an affectionate goodbye to Wanda, who wanted to follow him but could not face a slope where her tail was so much higher than her head. We assured both of them that we would see they were reunited – I say both, because by this time we knew Wanda capable of such human devotion that it was mere prejudice to deny her some human understanding. Her velvet nose sought comfort from Moshe, to whom she had become attached by more than the rope between them.
We crossed the ridge to its eastern side and then felt our way down through the pines, very slowly traversing the slope until we came to a flat terrace where the darkness was darker than the night, indicating thick cover overhead. There we ate the last of our food supply and slept a little, while waiting for enough light to be able to choose a path down to the bottom of the valley. On arrival we spent the rest of the day by the stream, Moshe cuddling the soft green turf, Wanda cropping it around him and I wandering in search of game.
The hermit and his pine needles had given us unmistakable directions for continuing our march to
the east. The next ridge took us a full day to climb and descend, with of course frequent stops for Moshe and Wanda. Next morning we started on the easy march up through the dappled world of the broad-leaved forest. East it was, but pathless and seemingly endless, except perhaps to Wanda who plucked and chewed while walking. Where the pines began I spotted a young roebuck, which evidently had never seen a donkey before and stayed a second too long to satisfy curiosity. I grilled the steaks and chops, setting aside the latter for next day. I had to warn Moshe, who hadn’t tasted meat for over a year, to go easy. He slept fitfully but woke clear-eyed. Our mountain sanatorium was doing him a world of good and helpless collapse was growing rare.
At dawn we left the forest below and came out on to a rolling plateau which reminded me of my beloved English downland though six times as high and still with pockets of snow where sun could not reach the drifts. After the security of the trees, I felt exposed in this no-man’s land, but the hermit had been right; we never met a soul. If we were observed, the observer was as anxious to keep out of the way as we were. There were signs of fighting, which seemed from scraps of uniform and ironmongery to date from the last stand of fragmentary Polish troops in 1939, rather than the retreat of the Russians two years later. Searching the waves of highland to identify the Dukla Peak some twenty miles or so distant, I caught a quick glimpse of horsemen quickly disappearing over a skyline.
In the early afternoon we saw the little bell tower of a church poling up from the trees and hoped it was the right one. After another mile, we came to a wide beaten track crossing the range and dipping into the black woods. I left Moshe and Wanda in the cover of a cluster of rocks and went down to see if there was a house and paddock which fitted the hermit’s description. There was, and better still a narrow path by which we could lead Wanda down under cover of darkness without taking the track or disturbing the villagers. We had to be cautious, for I heard two voices singing in German with more heartiness than tempo. A tavern probably. Fraternization could be ruled out. The frontier must be near enough for guards off duty to slip down to the village and flaunt their superiority over sullen peasants who, for the sake of their families and houses, dared not kill them.
Since the songsters might at any time decide to return to their post, I could not show myself in the open; so I lay under the trees by the side of the track and waited. Soon afterwards two German infantrymen well primed with vodka passed me on the track, and when they were safely out of sight over the brow of the hill I made for the rocks where I had left Moshe and Wanda. They were not there.
Moshe came running up from behind the scattered iron bones of a burned-out truck among which he had hidden, and quickly explained. He had let Wanda graze freely and she had wandered off towards the track where the two soldiers had spotted her. Unarmed there was nothing he could do, and guessing that they would search the rocks for the owner of the donkey, and pull him in for questioning, he had very wisely crawled into the debris of the truck. Since all Poland belonged to them, the soldiers had seen no reason why they should not acquire an abandoned donkey, even though her owner might merely be drinking in the village. They were still in sight. I regret to record that Wanda was giving them no trouble. It may be that they were kinder to animals than to the conquered.
I had promised to deliver Wanda safely and that had to be done. Without time to work out the consequences, I could only vaguely foresee a mist of problems, ranging from the difficulty of stalking those arrogant marauders over open ground to our defencelessness against any punitive expedition and possible reprisal on the village. They were now the best part of a mile ahead but casually strolling along.
A shallow dry valley running roughly parallel to the track gave me a chance of catching up. Racing along it, I found that the track swung left across the depression, so that the party would be nicely lined up for me. But the range was too long. I could not kill them both without the risk of hitting Wanda. And both it had to be. If there were a survivor, he could tuck himself in behind a rock with his automatic and could not be stalked or rushed.
I took the risk that when they were at the bottom of the dip they would not be able to see anyone running into position on the far side. It took good timing to manage this and I was panting so hard when I dropped flat that I feared I couldn’t hit a haystack. But either I had run faster than I thought possible or they had stopped for an instant to light a cigarette out of the wind. As soon as the first head and shoulder appeared, with Wanda still behind the edge, I killed with the second shot – second because I had forgotten that the Mannlicher should be aimed a trifle low and left. The next head quickly and properly vanished behind waving grass on the lip of the depression. He could see me and gave me a burst from his Schmeisser, which at that range was optimistic.
I dashed off a little further, twisting like a snipe, and lay down to think. My opponent vanished. I could not tell whether he had slipped down the slope and was running for his life or whether he was crawling along just below the edge to close the range. Wanda’s movements were no help at all. She had bolted back to the opposite side of the dip and was quietly grazing.
He soon left me in no doubt what he had done, bobbing up and down and squirting the position where he believed me to be – and he wasn’t far wrong – with his blasted hosepipe. I didn’t dare to show anything of myself above the grass. He had seen some fighting, this man. It looked like stalemate until dusk, when one of us would attack, and succeed or not.
I saw that Wanda had stopped grazing and was interested in something out of my sight. When the object stood up and quickly crouched again, it turned out to be Moshe. Having had a clear view of both of us, he realized that we were unlikely to take our eyes off each other for a moment and walked with astonishing courage quietly down into the dip where I lost sight of him. I provided some covering fire, which was returned with interest. Then to my horror there was another burst which was not aimed in my direction. Moshe walked calmly over the edge. Thank God the bit of head which first appeared was bare, dark-haired and recognizable just in time.
‘You can get up,’ he said. ‘That was me.’
He had silently taken the Schmeisser from the dead guard. He explained that he knew how to use it because he had watched me.
We had a look at the body. The nape of the neck had been blown clear away. A cleaner wound would have been a kinder initiation.
‘I have killed a man. God forgive me! I thought I was above vengeance.’
I assured him that it was not vengeance, that he had risked his life to save a friend.
‘Then it should have been my own death, not that of another.’
That called for a lecture to my very promising pupil.
‘Moshe, you want to reach Palestine, or Israel as you call it. To settle your people there has meant war with the Arabs for us. To stay there will mean war for you. How about Joshua, David and Co.?’
He did not attempt an answer. We recovered Wanda and sat down to discuss how on earth to get rid of bodies on open grassland without a spade. That was our obvious duty for the sake of the hermit’s friend, his church and his village.
With the Mannlicher and one of those machine pistols, I was now well armed for long or close distances. Moshe was unwilling to pick up the other until I pointed out that he was under no obligation to use it and that when slung with arms like a Balkan bandit I could neither move freely nor fire any one of them without delay.
For the time being we left the dead where they were and led Wanda back to the shelter of the rocks to wait for sunset. When the green of the plateau had turned to dark grey, we entered the trees by the path I had found and passed round the stone wall of the paddock. No sheep were inside. It looked as if the priest had turned his pocket of land into a kitchen garden. He would start his morning with a strong prejudice against Wanda if he found his spring cabbages eaten up, but for our own sakes we could not call on him and let him know that she was there. M
oshe solved this absurd problem, remembering that when the hermit gave her a gentle wallop behind – which we had never presumed to do – she would bray in protest; so as soon as we had opened the gate he gave her a deserved hug and kiss And then destroyed romance. The resulting bray from the direction of his house and garden could be heard by the priest wherever he was.
We made for the open downs, following the track for the sake of speed and Moshe’s failing legs. At the edge of the tree-line, we dived for cover, for we had been fiercely and unmistakably challenged in Polish. I replied in French and English saying that we were fugitives from Cracow. A horseman crashed through the undergrowth towards us while another threw light on us. Finding that we did not understand Polish, he gestured to us to come out with our hands behind our heads. We were marched off into the open, where I saw a shadowy group of four more mounted men and a baggage horse carrying a light machine-gun.
The commander of this band demanded in German – good Viennese German of the old empire – to know our names and our business, I told him that we were trying to cross into Slovakia and that for the present we thought it best to have no names. Then why had we left behind a hee-hawing donkey which could arouse all the Tatra? I replied with another question: had he ever heard of a certain man named Casimir?
At once the atmosphere of suspicion was changed. I was allowed to explain the presence of Wanda in a district where apparently there was no other donkey and that we had been told to deliver her to the priest. There had, however, been a small incident en route and I hoped he could tell us how to get rid of two German bodies so that their disappearance would remain a mystery.
Rogue Justice Page 8
