by Nevil Shute
Stenning spoke rapidly to Fazzini. The Italian answered him at some length. Then Stenning spoke to the prisoner.
The man smiled, and said nothing.
For a minute Stenning and the Italian stood there motionless, staring threateningly at the prisoner. The deadlock was evident. Then Fazzini said something, apparently in explanation.
“By God,” said Stenning harshly, “then we’ll ruddy well make him talk.” He spoke rapidly with Fazzini for a minute. The Italian smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. I don’t think physical violence to a prisoner was much in his line, though he was willing to give us all the assistance that he could.
Stenning stepped forward threateningly, and spoke to the prisoner again. I heard the words “Il Capitano Lenden, l’Inglese,” followed by a few more words. He paused for a moment, and repeated the question very slowly and distinctly.
The man gave a little contemptuous laugh—and Stenning’s fist crashed straight into his face with the whole weight of his body behind it. The prisoner was thrown backwards with his guards against the wall, coughing and streaming blood. I have never seen a more brutal blow struck.
Fazzini stirred uneasily, and said something in Italian. Stenning turned to reply, and if ever I saw the devil in a man’s eyes it was then. He said something harshly to Fazzini, who seemed to acquiesce, and then he swung round on Sheila and myself.
“You’d better get out of the room if you don’t like it,” he snarled. “We can’t stay here all the bloody night. I want to know what’s become of Maurice, and this fancy man’s going to tell me in a minute.” He turned to me, and jerked his head to the door. “Get the girl out of the room.”
He swung back to where the prisoner was still spitting by the wall. I turned to Sheila. “Come on, dear,” I said. But she stood rigid in the doorway, her face very white and set.
“That beast!” she said. “Peter, you can’t let this go on.”
I met her eyes. “Yes, I can,” I replied. “If he won’t tell us what’s happened, it’s probably something pretty sticky. Stenning’s quite right. We can’t wait all the ruddy night.”
She wavered, and I took her by the arm and led her away down the passage to that empty dining-room. There was a bottle of some red wine there, half-emptied; I poured out a glass for her and made her drink it. We said nothing to each other, but after a little she began to busy herself with re-arranging the coat about my bandaged arm.
In an incredibly short space of time Stenning was with us again, followed by Fazzini and one or two of his men. “That fancy man wants a new arm,” he said harshly. “I’ve gone and broken that one for him.”
I felt Sheila stir beside me, but I touched her on the shoulder. “What about Lenden?”
He wiped his bleeding knuckles absently upon his trousers. “Lenden got away about an hour ago,” he said. “An hour to an hour and a half. He took the plates with him—managed to get hold of them in the confusion, when they had the safe open. And shot off for the hills.”
“D’you know which way he went?”
Stenning jerked his thumb eastwards. “That way. Fazzini says there’s a hill path over to Rocchetta that way—in the next valley to this. That’s the way he’s gone.”
“D’you know that?”
“Yes. Half an hour after he’d got away they got news here that someone had seen him on that path. A couple of these Russians went after him then—maybe three-quarters of an hour ago. They’re not back yet.” He paused. “Manek—a chap called Manek was one of them. That’s the name that Trades Union bloke was talking about, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “A big chap with a fat white face, I think. He’s a gunman.”
“Probably,” said Stenning. “Anyone here got a gun?”
I tugged my old automatic clumsily out of my pocket. “You’d better take this thing,” I said. “It’ll be more good with you than with me.”
He took it, and stood for a moment in thought. “We’ll get Fazzini to wake up the Rocchetta crowd on the telephone,” he said. “Then we’d best push on up the hill after Mr. Ruddy Manek, and have a look what he’s up to.”
He swung round to Fazzini, and they talked rapidly together for a minute. One of the officers joined them, and then we were all back in that room with the safe, where a weeping man with a hideously battered face and helpless arms was being roughly tended by his Fascist guards. One of the officers stood to the telephone on the wall. In a minute or two he said something.
“Still working,” said Stenning. “That’s all right. Now we’d better get away up that hill, and pretty damn quick.” He swung round on me. “What about you and Miss Darle? D’you think you can keep up?”
Sheila broke in. “We’ll try. Give us a man as a guide to stay with us in case we drop behind.”
“Right,” said Stenning, and swung round into a brisk conversation with Fazzini.
With Sheila’s help I slipped off my overcoat and jacket, and started on that walk in my cardigan. Sheila left her overcoat. Already the light was growing in a cloudless sky; in another hour the sun would be up. It was going to be a hot day on the hills.
We started from the house immediately—six Fascists and ourselves. Stenning and Fazzini marched at the head, Sheila and I brought up the rear. They set the devil of a pace up that hill. All the Italians were as hard as nails; Stenning was in fine training, and Sheila can outwalk most men that I know. I was the one who felt it most. I dare say I was as fit as any of them normally, but I was very tired and the exertion played hell with my arm and fingers. Still, I managed to keep up.
The track led straight up the hill-side from the Casa, winding up among the olives and the carnations. We went straight up at a five-mile-an-hour walk, and as we went the dawn lightened upon us so that in half an hour it was light. By the time we had left the terraces and were pressing on up one of the spurs of Monte Verde the path had shrunk to a foot-track that made us walk in single file.
That country was all pine trees and rosemary. It was cool walking in the early morning, and we made fine speed over the ground. Presently we topped one of the spurs and got a view of the mountainous country to the north and east; it was at this point that the sun rose upon us. Over the foot-hills to the right there was a wide expanse of steely, misty sea, just beginning to show up.
I had thought that we should dip down into the opposite valley for Rocchetta there, but the path went winding on up the side of Monte Verde in a more gentle incline. Soon we came to a place of grassy slopes, and the path began to wind along the hill on the edge of a set of miniature precipices, thirty or forty feet deep. It was sinuous here, so that one would round a spur with no knowledge of the path ten yards ahead.
I was getting very tired by then, and the arm was hurting me more than a little. I was plodding along in the rear, intent only on keeping up, when there was a sort of scuffle from the front of the line, a burst of Italian and a good round oath from Stenning. Pressing forward in the clamour, I saw what had happened.
Standing against the rock wall of the path, their hands crooked above their heads, there were two men. A Fascist was standing by them and going through the contents of their pockets, while Fazzini and Stenning held them covered by their automatics and interrogated them in Italian.
They had been coming down the path towards us, and we had run straight into them.
One of the men was very broad in build, but I should not have called him fat. He had a broad, white Mongolian face; a powerful man of his type and something of an athlete. The other one was plainly Italian; I found later that he was a local man.
The Fascist who was searching Manek took from him an automatic pistol; the Russian eyed it phlegmatically as it passed from hand to hand. Stenning slipped out the magazine and glanced into the breech.
“About four shots fired,” he said quietly. He smelt the barrel. “And not so long ago.” He turned to Fazzini. “You must make the little one talk, Captain,” he said in Italian. “This one is no talker.”
Faz
zini stood closer to the little Italian and began speaking to him, automatic in hand, the barrel pressed close to the prisoner’s stomach and waggling a little. I do not know what he was saying, but they were townsmen and one can see the trend. I was watching Manek as he stood there covered by Stenning and I saw his head turn anxiously, perhaps threateningly, to the man beside him. Stenning said something harshly, and the man looked stolidly to his front again.
But by now the little man was talking and gesticulating volubly.
I saw Stenning’s face harden to a mask as he jerked his head for me. “They’ve shot up Maurice,” he said curtly. “Shot him up, and left him on the hill. We’ve got to get on. This chap says he’s alive, all right.”
There was a sudden cry from one of the Italians who had gone ahead a little way up the path. He was coming back with a black case in his hand, a rectangular black box made of some oxidised metal. I reached out my sound hand and took it from him as he approached. It was closed and intact.
The Russian’s eyes were fixed on it intently. “What’s that?” asked Stenning.
“The plates,” I said. “They must have dropped them back there when they heard us coming.” He glanced at me inquiringly, and I shook my head. “They’ve not been touched, so far as I can see.”
“We’d better get along,” said Stenning. He jerked his pistol at the Russian. “Get on up that path. And, by God, you give me half a chance and I’ll put a bullet in your guts. Get on.”
We pressed on up the path, Manek leading with Stenning’s pistol hard against the base of his spine. Behind them came Fazzini with the Italian prisoner, walking free and talking all the time. The rest of us followed in a tail. By that time the sun was getting up above the hills and clearing away the mists. In another hour it would be hot.
We carried on like that for half an hour or so longer. Then we came out upon the true shoulder of the hill; before us lay the valley of the Nervia with Rocchetta below. The path went level here and crossed a couple of little grassy swards among the pines. And in this place we came to a little ten-foot cliff below the path that dropped down to a glade of rosemary and brush, a little sort of cup with a grass floor that trended away down the hill below. The guide stopped, and said something.
“This is the place,” said Stenning quietly.
And there, at last, we found him.
He had been shot upon the path, because we found blood there. And then he had rolled, or they had tipped him over the edge of this little cliff into the bushes below. He had crawled forward a little way from the rock face and he was lying face downwards on a patch of grass. I saw him raise his head and stir a little at the sound of our voices, and the clatter of the two Italians who were scrambling down to him.
Stenning swung round to the remaining Fascists and pointed to Manek with his gun. “Guard him well,” he said harshly in Italian, “for, by the Mother of God, if that man dies he hangs for it.”
Then we went scrambling down into the little glade.
He had been shot from behind at very close range; each of the three bullets had passed through the upper part of his body. He was fully conscious, and knew us all. Very gently we turned him over and began cutting his clothes away to get to his wounds, and while we were doing that he spoke to me.
“Manek’s been to the pictures,” he said thickly. “He did it with his little gun.”
Sheila sat down beside him, lifting his head and making a pillow for him with a coat that one of the Italians offered her. And then she began wiping the blood and dirt from his face with her handkerchief, brushing the long black hair back from his forehead.
“Manek won’t use his little gun again in a hurry, old boy,” I said. “We’ve got him safe up top there.”
And as I spoke there was an uproar from the cliff above our heads, and Stenning and I started from the glade. Manek had kicked his guard in the stomach and made a dash for it. He came leaping down the hill towards the valley, some twenty yards from where we stood.
There was a sharp report beside me, and I swung round.
Stenning was leaning against a tree, his face hard set. I saw the smoke curling from the barrel of my automatic, as he steadied his hand against the trunk, and I saw him fire again. That shot flicked the ground by the feet of the running man, but he never stayed.
Stenning fired three shots more, three shots in very quick succession. I saw the fugitive check for an instant. He seemed to stumble; it was as if he had put his foot on a loose stone. Then he pitched forward on to his face and went slithering face downwards down the steep slope of the hill, till the curve of the ground hid him from our sight.
There was a long sigh beside me. Stenning stood up from the tree and glanced at me.
“That’s the end of Mr. Ruddy Manek,” he said brutally. And with that, he handed me my gun. He had done with it, and he went back to Lenden in the glade and knelt down beside him.
“Cheer-oh, Maurice,” he said quietly. “How’s ye’re wattle?”
He made a quick examination of his friend, and stood up. He spoke for a minute to Fazzini; I think he was telling him to send a man down to Rocchetta for a doctor. Then he slipped off his golf jacket, took off his shirt, and began very methodically to tear it into bandages.
“Stenning,” said Lenden painfully. The other stooped towards him, but did not stop his work. “I don’t see how you come in on this.”
“Flying for Airways now, old son,” said Stenning. “I brought Miss Darle out here yesterday. In a Fifty.”
Professional interest flickered for a moment. “Where did you put down? This is the hell of a place for landing.”
“Racecourse at Nice,” said Stenning. “You want to be careful there, if you’re ever using it. They’ve gone and cut it all up with little drains. You want to put down at this end, right by the rails.”
One of the Italians came up there with a little earthenware pot of water that he had got from some spring on the hill. Sheila dipped her handkerchief in it and wiped Lenden’s face again, brushing back the long hair that curled down over his forehead. “That’s awfully good of you,” he said. “It’s nice.”
His eyes wandered to me. “What’s up with your arm?”
I grinned at him. “It’s only sprained. I came out here in your Breguet and piled her up on landing. I’m sorry about that.”
“You’ve crashed my kite?”
I nodded. He thought about it for a minute, and then:
“When did you fly last?”
“In the war,” I said.
“And you got out here on that Breguet?”
I nodded again. “She got off the ground quite easily. That’s the part I had the wind up of, but once that was over I’d only got to sit still till we got here.”
He stared at me with wrinkled brows. “Born to be hanged,” he muttered weakly. “That’s what it is.”
He had to stop talking then, because Stenning got busy with his dressings. I was no good in that business with only one hand, and so I stood aside and left it to the others. Then, while that was going on, I walked over the hill to where Manek had been shot.
There were a couple of Fascists beside the body; they said something to me, but I shook my head. He must have been killed instantly. I wondered if in Italy that would be a manslaughter against Stenning.*
When I got back to the little glade the dressing was done. Stenning was on his feet again, his bare hairy arms smeared with blood which he was trying absently to remove with a pad of grass. I walked a little way aside with him. “We’d better get a stretcher of some sort,” I said. “He’s all right to move?”
He stopped wiping his arms for a moment, and looked me in the eyes. “I wouldn’t try it.”
There was no wind that morning. On the hill-side it was very still; I could hear the two Italians talking down by Manek, fifty yards away. I can remember standing there and noticing a great scent of rosemary and pines in the warm summer of that day.
“He’s dying?”
Stenn
ing didn’t answer for a minute, but stood there wiping his arm mechanically, studying the spots of blood upon his skin.
“Yes,” he said heavily at last, “he’s dying. I don’t think he’s got a hope in hell unless it’s to keep still. And he knows it himself.”
And then he told me what was wrong, and what he had done about it. And I agreed with him, and we went back together to the dying man in the glade. Sheila was leaning over and speaking to him, and she motioned me to him as we approached.
He was very much weaker then. I stooped down beside him so that he wouldn’t have to raise his voice.
“I’m damn sorry to have let you in on this, Moran,” he said: “you shouldn’t have come out.” And then he said: “You ought to have put me down at the station that night, like I asked you.”
“Couldn’t do that, old boy,” I said quietly. “Not on a night like that.”
He shifted a little on his back, and in an instant Stenning was stooping anxiously to help him move. “It’s been a rum show,” he muttered when he was comfortable. “You’ve got crashed, and I’ve got shot up. And nothing gained. The whole thing a ruddy failure.” … There was a catch of disappointment in his voice. He was getting very weak.
I glanced anxiously at Sheila. Behind the range of his vision she shook her head.
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “We’ve got the plates you took of Portsmouth, you know. We took ’em off Manek.”
For one moment, I thought he was going to sit up. “You say you’ve got the plates?”
“You lie still,” I said, and reached out for that black case. One of the Italians handed it to me. “They’re here, quite all right. The case hasn’t been opened.”
I put it into his hand so that he could feel it. He lay there fingering it for a moment, and then he handed it back to me.
“Open it up,” he said.
I could not have met Sheila’s eyes at that moment. I had all that I could do to keep a steady face myself. “D’you want me to expose these chaps?” I asked.
He inclined his head painfully. “There’s a little spring catch … on the end,” he said. “A little button.”
