Mysterious Aviator

by Nevil Shute

  I found that I had to stoop when I wanted to draw a breath then; it was impossible to stand erect and breathe at the same time, owing to the pain of my bruised ribs where the belt had caught me and held me in the seat at the moment of impact. But that soon passed out of my mind when I sat down upon a stump and set to work to put my fingers into splints.

  The middle one had the best part of an inch of bone sticking out through the skin. I didn’t quite know what to do with that, but decided that it had better go back inside again if I could persuade it to do so. I got up and moved round the crash, stooping painfully to pick up any little splinters of wood or twigs that I thought might do for splints, and then I went back to my stump and set to work to pull my two handkerchiefs into strips by treading on them with my foot and pulling with my right hand.

  By the mercy of God that flask of brandy was unbroken, and was still half full. It was empty by the time I’d done that bandaging.

  I made a pretty good job of the fingers, but I could do nothing at all with the shoulder. It stuck out backwards into my coat in such a manner that the arm couldn’t lie along my side, and it hurt too vilely for me to try and shift it. My scarf was a very long one and I made a sort of sling of that, and had enough of it left to take a turn of it round my body to lash the whole arm securely to me, with my helmet and goggles beneath the shoulder as a pad. I don’t know how long it took me to do all that, but I can see now that it must have been a long time.

  At last I finished, and rose unsteadily to my feet. The empty flask was lying by the stump on which I had been sitting, but I hadn’t the courage to stoop down to pick it up, and so I left it there on the ground. Then I fell to searching in my pockets for the large-scale map of the Lanaldo district. It was time I got about my business; I had wasted time enough in sitting still and licking my wounds.

  The map showed me that I was about four miles from Lanaldo, and five as the crow flies from the point on the road that I should have to reach if I wanted to intercept Lenden on his way to the town. I looked at my watch, and then back to the map. It was a quarter-past one; I had none too much time if I was to get down to the road in time.

  On the map the way looked pretty straightforward. I had to find my way down the ridge on which I was then standing into the valley below—a distance of perhaps three miles. There was another ridge to be crossed, and then I should be on the hill-side above the road. It should be simple then. The woods ran straight down the hill-side into the valley and the road; from the look of the signs upon the map it seemed that they might be olives. I put the map back into my pocket, and started.

  It was easy going. The trees in that oak grove were thin and sparse, and there was smooth walking between them. I left the Breguet and began to make my way along the ridge towards the open patch of grass where I had tried to land. That walk was then, and will remain to me, a dream. My bruised ribs made every motion a sharp, slight twinge of pain—not great in itself, but very wearing. In the shoulder there was a dull, throbbing ache. I’d made the fingers pretty comfortable, and I didn’t get much trouble with them until I fell down.

  I stopped near the edge of that grassy space, and was very sick. I felt better when that was over, and went on.

  From the edge of the scree I could see my way clearly. The hill sloped sharply down from there, and a little way below the pines began. I paused there for a minute or two with the map, and conned my path. It was pretty clear which way I had to go; I put the map away again and began the descent. About seven miles away, over the foothills, I could see a wide expanse of sea gleaming very silvery and blue in the sunshine of that afternoon.

  It was rough going down the ridge. Once or twice I found a goat track leading in the direction in which I wanted to go, but for the most part it was a cross-country walk. The side of the hill among the pines was littered with great boulders, and under foot there was a carpet of pine needles and rosemary. It was intensely hot. I was thickly muffled in the flying clothes that I had put on for leaving England in that March dawn, and I could do little to open or remove them without unsettling my shoulder. And so I went plodding on down the hill till I had gone perhaps a couple of miles and was getting down towards the bottom of the valley. It was there that I put my foot upon a loose stone, staggered desperately for a moment, and fell down.

  I was able to twist a little as I went down, to avoid falling on the shoulder, and I fell with my bandaged forearm and broken fingers beneath me. That shook me properly; I can remember that I began to weep with the shock of it, and with the pain. I lay as I had fallen for a minute shedding buckets of tears, and when I managed to sit up again I found that the bandages had come off my fingers and the splints were loose and broken.

  It took me a very long time to do them up again—I don’t know how long. I was very tired and in a lot of pain, and I had no brandy to help me through it this time. I dare say it was twenty minutes before I was on my feet again and plodding on more carefully down into the valley.

  In the bottom of the valley I came to a spring, that welled out of the hill-side and ran away in a little trickle down the path. Someone had dammed it up to make a little pool. I was getting frightened at the passing of the afternoon by that time, but I stopped there for a minute and sluiced my head, washing away the dried blood from my mouth and nose with my uninjured hand. It was a sound thing to do, in spite of the loss of time, I think; I went faster afterwards. I put my lips down to the water and took a long, satisfying drink. Then I left the well and crossed the valley towards the opposite ridge.

  I went faster, although it was uphill. By the map I had covered three miles out of the five, and it was a quarter to three. I pressed on up the hill, and came presently to the top in a drip of sweat and a dull throb of pain. Before me lay the valley of the Roja. I could see the little grey town of Lanaldo almost immediately below me, and away at the end of the valley there was the blue gleam of the sea.

  The pines came to an end here, and were succeeded by olive trees arranged on terraces. I found paths winding down here, and before I had gone far I passed a sort of châlet, with a litter of ragged children round the outbuildings who looked at me curiously as I passed. I pressed on down the hill through the groves, and presently I came to the end of the olives. The terraces continued, and were filled with rose bushes and carnations in neat rows, all very well tended and watered from great circular cement tanks stuck about all over the slopes. I had noticed these things from the air, and wondered what they were.

  I struck a paved mule-path then that led straight down the hill to the road, and pressed on down it. Now and again I passed a peasant trudging up; occasionally they spoke to me but mostly they let me by without a word and stood in the path when I had gone, staring after me. And so, at about half-past three, I came down on to the road.

  That road ran in thick, white dust along the very bottom of the valley, winding along beside the dry bed of the river. Only a trickle of water ran over the round white stones that made the watercourse; it was a river that only ran full once a year. I was terribly thirsty. About a quarter of a mile down the valley a bend of the stream approached the edge of the road; I went on till I reached that place, stepped aside from the road, and lay down and lapped the water like a dog.

  I was fresher after that. The place that I had reached was quite a good one for my purpose; I could see the road for the best part of a mile down the valley. Olives lined the hill that ran down to the roadside; I crossed into the shade of these and sat down near a great bush of mimosa in flower. To wait.

  There wasn’t much traffic on that road. The first thing to come was a one-horse diligence from Ventimiglia, a little covered thing like a pill-box on wheels and full of women. A farm-cart, drawn by a dejected-looking horse yoked with a donkey, followed that, and flowed on slowly past me. Several peasants came by on foot, and a couple of priests in their black, flowing soutanes. And once there was a cart full of barrels, driven by a very bleary, merry gentleman who spoke to me, and, I think, offered m
e a lift.

  These, and a few more, all passed at long intervals throughout that afternoon. I sat there straining my eyes down the road, that white dusty road that ran down the flat valley with the white-stoned river beside it till a spur of the hill hid both from my sight. I sat there from half-past three till half-past five, shifting uneasily from time to time to find a less uncomfortable position for my arm and shoulder, and shuffling the white dust up into little heaps between my shoes. I sat there till the sun began to throw long shadows of the hills across the white stones of the river, till the bright sunlight turned to the softest gold and the little white clouds above the hills to crimson. I sat there, dumbly straining my eyes down the road, while the light lasted.

  I sat there till I knew that I had failed.

  It was about six o’clock when I gave up. I knew by then that Lenden must have passed before I reached the road; that I had missed him. I discovered afterwards that I must have missed him by about half an hour. He reached Ventimiglia at half-past two, and drove straight out to Lanaldo. If I had managed to land that Breguet properly, I should have had ample time to get down to the road in time to intercept his car. There’s no good crying over that. I did the best I could, and that must suffice.

  It was nearly dark in the valley. I got up from my seat, stiff and cold. I was in a strange country, without a passport and rather hurt; I didn’t know two words of the language and my French is that of the schoolroom variety. I had been in no great pain during the long rest, but when I got to my feet in the twilight and moved forward in the thick dust by the roadside, a wave of pain and sickness came over me quite suddenly, and I sat down again in a hurry.

  I had to make a plan of what I was going to do next, and from my experience of the moment before it seemed to me that I could do that more easily sitting down than standing up. I knew that by that time Lenden must be in the Casa Alba, and the Casa Alba must be close at hand—say within two miles. My original plan, if I missed him on the road, had been to find the house and trust to luck and my own strength and resource to get me into touch with Lenden among the Communists. I had only to get two words with him, and I should have done my bit.

  Luck I might still have—and I should need it—but I had neither strength left, nor resource. I was getting very tired by that time; the throbbing in my shoulder and the aching pain of my clothes pressing upon it were drowning all my power of action. I could carry on no longer by myself. I sat there by the roadside for a long time as the darkness fell, and in the end I got the rudiments of a plan thought out.

  I must have help in this affair. That was the first conclusion that I came to—that I must get allies. I was up against a Bolshevist organisation; the most obvious people in Italy to set against the Bolsheviks were the Fascisti. If I could get the local Fascisti to believe my story, if I could convince them that they had the chief agitators of their country right under their noses, then it might be possible to get them to raid the house. Such a raid would give Lenden a good sporting chance; in the confusion he might be able to escape, or get himself arrested with the plates. It would create a disturbance, perhaps a panic. In a panic a resolute man with his wits about him can do pretty well what he likes. Was Lenden a resolute man? In any case, it seemed to me that to try and create such a diversion was the best thing I could do.

  Lanaldo must be the starting point. It was the nearest town, and from what I had seen of it it was a fair-sized place. There was a road leading up to it, not shown on the map, that branched from the main road in the valley and wound in hairpin bends up the hill-side among the olives till it came to an end on an open terrace before the walls of the town. Inside the walls the streets were not more than six feet wide, mere passages for men and donkeys, and cavernously spanned with earthquake arches between the house fronts.

  That was Lanaldo as I saw it later; a rabbit warren of a place where every house was more or less in communication with its neighbour, with the stables on the ground floor, the high, vaulted living-rooms above, and the kitchens in little attics opening on to the flat roofs. At that time I knew nothing of it but that it looked to be a moderate-sized town with the buildings crushed together within walls; a solid block of masonry rising above the grey shimmer of the olives. There were other towns dotted about the hill-sides that I had seen in my descent from Monte Verde, but none so large as Lanaldo and none that was approached by a bona-fide road. That seemed to mark it out from the rest as an important place. I came to the conclusion that I should find all the material there for the diversion that I wanted to create, if I could find a means to set things moving.

  I sat there for a minute or two longer, piecing together phrases in my schoolboy French that I hoped would serve me in the town. In the end I got slowly to my feet again and stood there for a minute, trying my balance after the long rest, and shifting the sling and the pad under my shoulder. Then, when the first nausea was over and the world had stopped revolving round me, I moved off up the road towards Lanaldo.

  I had to go about three miles, I suppose, for the road that led away up the hill wound interminably in its rise of a few hundred feet. I didn’t have much in the way of sharp pain on that journey, but I was growing infinitely tired. I went plodding up that hill mechanically; I didn’t count the hairpin bends on the road, but from my impression of that night I should say that there were about forty-seven of them between the main road and Lanaldo. It was half-past seven when I arrived on the terrace before the town.

  There were people moving about there, strolling up and down and taking the air, for it was a wonderful moonlit night. They stared at me curiously, but I went straight on and up into the town through an old masonry gateway approached by a sort of cobbled ramp. Inside the walls the place was cavernous and badly lit; I went on towards the heart of the town through an acrid, vegetable smell. That street was about six feet wide. I had to stop once and shrink into a doorway while a string of donkeys felt their way carefully past me over the slippery cobbles, their backs piled high with bundles of wood fuel. And once a peal of music from some mechanical instrument streamed out from a brilliantly lit room above my head, and I heard a burst of laughter and paused for a minute wondering.

  That alley led me straight into the central square of the town, an irregular open space between the tall flat-fronted houses, and paved with stone blocks. One side of this square was occupied by a great church, painted pink and yellow, very bright. Another side gave on to a sort of bowling alley; there were many people there, and a clear view of the hills in the moonlight above the roofs of the houses. The third side had little shops all along it, and one large one with the branch of a tree hanging over the door and the legend “Ristorante delle Monte” painted with many flourishes across the front.

  The fourth side of the square was occupied by a great barrack of a house in a severe style, the ground-floor windows heavily barred. In one of these windows there was a light. In the light of the solitary street-lamp that stood in the middle of the square I saw a great shield above the door of that house, with the Royal Arms of Italy emblazoned on it.

  I crossed the square, and went into that house beneath the shield. On my left was the room that had the light in it. I felt for the handle of the door, opened it, and went in.

  There was a man in there, a seedy-looking sort of clerk, sitting at a very dirty table and working among a litter of buff forms. The room was thick with the smoke of his cigarettes. He looked up as I went in, and said something sharply that I didn’t understand.

  There was a second chair by the wall. I crossed the room to it, moving a little heavily, dragged it forward to the table opposite him, and sat down with a sigh. That annoyed him very much. He got up, leaned across the table, and began shooting off Italian at me nineteen to the dozen.

  I raised my head and smiled at him. “D’you speak English?” I inquired.

  Evidently he didn’t.

  “Parlez français?”

  He checked his flow of oratory at that, and took thought. And the
n he began to speak in a language that I recognised as French, though not the sort of French I was taught at school. I had reckoned that it was pretty safe to assume that all these people could speak French. The border must be within a couple of miles of that town.

  I shook my head. “Pas comprends,” I said. “Attendez un moment.” He stopped talking, and stood there watching me curiously as I searched laboriously for my notecase with my one sound hand. I had had the forethought to bring plenty of money.

  I extracted a pound note and tossed it across the table to him. “Ça vaut cent francs, français,” I said. “C’est pour vous.” His eyes became as round as pennies; I had at last succeeded in establishing a means of communication with the people of the country. He began to speak again, but I stopped him.

  “Maintenant,” I said, “attention.” He sank down into his chair again and sat there fingering the note, his eyes fixed on me.

  Very carefully I laid my left arm on the table in front of me and took the sling off it, shifting my body to get it into a comfortable position. As I did that I took the helmet and goggles from under my arm and tossed them across the table to him. They would help my explanation.

  “Suis aviateur anglais,” I said heavily. “Tombé sur la montagne, et un peu blessé. Comprenez?”

  He did, and rose quickly to his feet making a little clucking noise of sympathy. I scowled across the table at him. “Assyez-vous, monsieur, un moment,” I said, and he sat down again.

  I raised my heavy head and stared at him, leaning forward so far as the strained position of my body would allow. “Je désire reconter—désire voir, ici—le capitaine des Fascisti de Lanaldo. Comprenez?” I couldn’t make out if he did or not. “Vous m’apportez le capitaine des Fascisti. J’ai des nouvelles les plus importanes des communistes dans ce pays-ce Comprenez communistes?”