by Eric Ambler
In the east the sky became pale and smoky. The trees and a line of pylons sprang out in silhouette against it like scenery against a dimly lighted cyclorama. The sky yellowed. The silhouettes changed slowly into three dimensional figures. A slight breeze sprang up.
I peered at my watch. It was half-past five. We had been walking without a break for over six hours. I had on only thin “pavement” shoes, and the roads had been rough. My feet were sore and swollen. My eyes were smarting and I felt weak at the knees. Zaleshoff saw me glance at my watch.
“What time is it?”
I told him. It was the first thing either of us had said for several hours.
“What about a shot of cognac and a cigarette apiece?”
“I could do with both.”
In the half light I could see that we were walking along a narrow road between fields lying fallow. It looked very much the same sort of country as that we had landed in from the train. We sat on a pile of flints by the side of the road. Zaleshoff produced the brandy and we drank some of it out of the bottle. We lit cigarettes.
“Where are we?” I said.
“I don’t know. There was a signpost a kilometre or so back, but it was too dark to read it. How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad. And you?”
“Tired. We must have done about thirty-five kilometres or so. It’s not bad for a start. There should be a village or something a little way ahead. We’ll push on for a bit. Then you can hide up somewhere while I go and forage for something to eat. We’ve got to eat.”
“Yes and we’ve got to sleep.”
“We’ll think about that too.”
We finished our cigarettes and set off again. The cognac had done me good, but my feet were worse for the rest and I felt myself developing a limp. Somewhere, not very far away, a cock was beginning to crow.
We walked on for another hour and a half. Then we came to a stretch of road bounded by a wood of young birch trees. Zaleshoff slowed down.
“I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you stopped here. I think we must be pretty close to a village now and there may not be such good cover as this farther on. You’d better take the brandy. You may get cold and, anyway, I don’t want to take it with me. I may be gone some time. But don’t move away and don’t show yourself near the road. There’ll be farm labourers about soon now. Have you got plenty of cigarettes?”
“Yes.”
“All right then. I’ll see you later.”
He tramped off down the road. I watched him out of sight round the bend, then threaded my way through the trees to a spot sheltered by some bushes about twenty-five yards from the road. I sat down thankfully on the ground and prepared to wait.
Zaleshoff was gone nearly two hours. The sun had risen and was glancing through the trees, but it was still cold. Soon I gave up sitting on the ground in favour of a sort of sentry-go pacing between two trees. Fifty times I looked at my watch and fifty times I found that the hands seemed not to have moved. Once, a man passed along the road whistling. My heart was in my mouth until he had passed. I resumed my pacing. After a bit I drank some more of the cognac. My stomach was empty and the spirit made me feel sick. I began to wonder if Zaleshoff had perhaps been arrested until I remembered that there was no reason why he should be. Then I made up my mind that he had regretted his offer to get me out of the country and made for the nearest railway station and a train back to Milan. That, too, was absurd. He was probably, I decided, having a good breakfast of hot, crisp rolls with a great deal of ice-cold butter and scalding coffee. I suddenly became ravenously hungry. I could almost smell the hot yeastiness of those rolls. The swine! The least he could have done would have been to get me a bite to eat. Then I began to think of Claire. I ought somehow to let her know what was happening. Pelcher, too. Perhaps I could send them telegrams. No, that would be awkward. The Italian authorities might trace the telegrams back to the sending office and thus find out where we were. I must be careful, discreet. I could send them a letter each. That would be all right. Zaleshoff could not object to that. Better perhaps, though, not to tell him. But I had not got any note-paper or envelopes. I should have to tell him. As I paced up and down my mind wandered on. But of all the many reasons I had to feel sorry for myself, the one that made the others seem trifling was the lack of those hot rolls. It was, no doubt, just as well that it was so.
I was disturbed in these reflections by the snapping of a twig. I started violently. Then Zaleshoff hailed me softly. I pushed my way through the screen of bushes that hid me and found him struggling with a number of paper parcels.
“Oh there you are!” he said.
“You made me jump. Where have you been all this time?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. Help me with this stuff.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
He handed me two heavy parcels and we pushed our way through to the clearing behind the bushes. There he sat down with a sigh of relief. I saw that his face was drawn and tired. He looked up at me and smiled wearily.
“First,” he said, “I’ve got you some breakfast.”
From his overcoat pocket he drew a large bag of buttered rolls. As I took the parcel from him I felt that they were still warm from the bakery. I tore the bag open and started to eat ravenously. Hot rolls! You couldn’t help liking Zaleshoff!
From his other pocket he got out a bottle of milk. I extended the bag to him. He shook his head.
“No, thanks. I ate while I was waiting for the shops to open. Thank goodness, we’re in the country. They opened early. I’d have brought you some coffee, but it would have been cold by the time I’d got it here.”
“What’s the name of the place?” I said with my mouth full.
“Reminini. It’s small and a good half-hour’s walk from here. I…” He broke off suddenly. “Would you like to see what I’ve got in the other parcels?”
I nodded, and he opened the two heavy parcels and displayed the contents. I goggled at them.
“Boots?”
“Yes, a pair for each of us and some thick woollen socks. I noticed you had a bit of a limp this morning and when we stopped along the road I measured your foot against mine. We take the same size.”
I regarded the huge, hob-nailed soles and heavy uppers with some misgiving. He interpreted my look correctly.
“We’ve got a whole lot of walking to do and they’ll be less tiring than blisters.”
“I suppose so. What’s in the other parcel?”
“A muffler for one thing. You need one. And a hat.”
“But I’ve got a hat.”
“Not like this one. Have a look.”
I had a look and what I saw did not please me. It was a very cheap Italian soft hat, black, with a high crown and flat brim.
“What on earth is this for?”
He grinned. “To make you look less conspicuous. That hat of yours is very natty but it shrieks English to high Heaven. There’s nothing like a new hat for making you look different.”
I tried on the hat. To my surprise it fitted me.
He nodded. “I had a look at your size in hats last night.”
I felt it gingerly. “I can’t help feeling,” I said crossly, “that I shall look a damn sight more conspicuous in a low comedy affair like this than in my own hat.”
“That’s only because you’re not used to it. Here, give it to me.”
I gave it to him with pleasure. The next moment he was wringing it between his hands like a dish-cloth. He then proceeded to clean his shoes with it. Having done that he rubbed it vigorously on the ground until it was filthy. Then he shook the leaves off, punched it into shape again, dinted the top and handed it back to me.
“That’s a bit more like it should be. No, don’t dust it any more. Stick it on and give me your own.”
I obeyed him. He surveyed me critically.
“Yes, much better. It’s a good thing you’re dark. That unshaven chin goes swell with the hat.”
>
I lit a cigarette and yawned. The food had made me sleepy. My eyelids felt very heavy.
“Well,” I said, “I feel like a sleep. What about it? Shall we stay here or try to find somewhere else?”
He did not answer immediately and I looked up from my cigarette. He was looking at me steadily.
“There’ll be no sleep for us to-day,” he said slowly. “We’ve got to get on.”
“But…”
“I didn’t tell you before because I thought I’d let you eat your breakfast in peace, but we’re in a pretty tough spot here.”
My heart sank. “What do you mean?”
“There are patrols out on all the roads.”
“How do you know?”
“I ran slap into one just outside the village. Police and a couple of Blackshirt militiamen. We’re still in the Treviglio area, you see. I had to show my passport and permit, and they were suspicious. I made up a story on the spur of the moment about having started out early from Treviglio to get to a business appointment in Venice and having the car break down. It wasn’t very good, but it was the best thing I could think of to explain what I was doing along this road at this time and in these clothes. They let me by but they took a note of my name and the number of my passport. They also told me where the nearest garage was. I couldn’t very well go back along the road with all those parcels-that would have wanted a bit of explaining-so I had to make a detour through the fields. If they remember me and it occurs to them to check up with the garage man they’ll be beating the bushes before long. And there’s another thing.” He pulled a folded newspaper out of his inside pocket. “Take a look at this. It’s this morning’s.”
I took the paper and scanned the front page. It was an early edition of a Milan sheet. It did not take me long to see what he wanted me to see. There, in the middle of the page were two squared-up half-tones, each about three inches deep. Both were pictures of me.
Above them were the words, “A TTENTI, L. 10,000,” in heavy black capitals. Below, also in bold type, was the message, slightly altered, that had been given over the radio the previous night. I examined the pictures carefully. One had obviously been taken from the prints I had supplied for my permit. It had been a “flat” photograph with hard, sharp lighting. The result was a reproduction that, in spite of the poor paper, was almost as clear as the original. It was easily recognisable as a picture of me. The other was less clear but it interested me very much for it had obviously been made from a photoprint of the photograph on my “lost” passport. I could see faintly where the black impressions of the British Foreign Office stamps had been painted out. I looked up.
“Well,” said Zaleshoff; “now you know why I didn’t want the ticket collector to see your face yesterday. The other papers have got those pictures too.”
“Yes, I see.” I paused. Again I felt fear gripping at my stomach. “What the devil are we to do? If they’re patrolling the roads and everybody’s got these pictures, there’s nothing we can do. You know, I think…”
He interrupted me.
“Sure, I know! You think the best thing you can do is to give yourself up. Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, let’s waste our strength talking all that over again.” He got out the map. “We’re not done yet. All the roads are patrolled but they can’t patrol the fields as well. Now Reminini isn’t marked on this map-it’s too small-but according to my reckoning it’s just about here”-he jabbed the paper with his finger-“and that means that we’re only about thirty kilometres south of the railway line from Bergamo to Brescia. If you’ll look at the map you’ll see that all the major roads run almost due north in this area. In other words, if we go north crosscountry we ought to be able to reach the railway to-day without much risk of running into a patrol.”
“But in daylight…”
“I told you. The only roads we’ll have to worry about are those we cross and they’ll be secondary roads. As for the rest, all we’ve got to do is keep our eyes open.”
I pounced bitterly on the last phrase. “Dammit, Zaleshoff, I can hardly keep my eyes open now. I’m all in. And so are you by the look of it. We shall never do it. It’s no use your sticking your jaw out like that. It just isn’t reasonable to think that we can do it. Anyway, supposing we do get to the railway; what then?”
“We can jump a goods train that’ll take us to Udine.”
“Supposing there isn’t one?”
“There will be. It’s the main goods line from Turin. We may have to hide out until it’s dark, that’s all. And as for feeling tired, you’ll find that if you sprint a bit the tiredness’ll wear off.”
“Sprint!” I could hardly believe my ears.
“Yes, sprint. Come on, change your shoes for the boots and let’s get going. It’s not healthy here.”
I had not the strength to argue any more. I took off my shoes, pulled the coarse woollen socks over my own and then put on the boots. They were very stiff and felt like diving-boots look. My hat and shoes and the bottle and wrappings we buried under the leaves.
We walked through the trees to the fields on the opposite side of the wood to the road: then Zaleshoff produced a small toy compass he had bought in the village. After some trouble with the compass needle which, until we found that the glass was touching it, seemed willing to indicate north in any direction, we marked as our objective a group of trees on the brow of a slope about a kilometre away and set off.
For a minute or two we walked. Then, suddenly, Zaleshoff broke into a sharp trot.
“Race you to the end of the path,” he called back to me.
I detest at the best of times people wanting to race me to the ends of paths. I flung an emphatic negative after him, but he seemed not to hear. Feeling murderous, I picked up my heels and pounded after him. At length we slowed down, panting, to a walk.
“Feeling better?”
I had to admit that I was. The morning breeze had cleared away the remnants of the clouds. There was a suggestion of haze in the middle distance that presaged heat. We could hear a tractor working somewhere nearby, but we saw nothing on legs but cows. For a time we stepped out briskly. Then, as the sun became hotter, I felt my exhaustion returning.
“What about a rest?” I said after a while.
He shook his head. “We’d better keep going. Do you want some cognac?”
“No, thanks.”
We plodded on. It was open farming country with few trees and no shade. Swarms of flies, awakened by the heat, began to worry us. By midday I was feeling horribly thirsty and had a bad headache. For most of the time we seemed to be miles away from any sort of habitation. According to Zaleshoff we should have been near a secondary road running from east to west, but there was no sign of it ahead. The new boots had “drawn” my feet and become intolerably heavy. My legs began to feel shaky. The situation was not improved by our having to waste twenty minutes cowering in a dry ditch out of sight of a labourer who stopped to eat his lunch by the side of a cart track we had to cross. When at last we were able to push on, my feet and ankles had swollen. Our pace became slower. I found myself straggling behind Zaleshoff.
He waited for me to catch up with him.
“If I don’t have a drink of water soon,” I declared, “I shall pass out. As for these damn flies…”
He nodded. “I guess I feel that way too. But we should make the road almost any time now. Can you keep going a bit longer?”
“I suppose so.”
But it was two o’clock before we reached the road. It might have been an oasis in a desert instead of a dry strip of dusty flints. Zaleshoff uttered a husky exclamation of satisfaction.
“I knew we weren’t far away. Now you get among those bushes and lie low while I see what I can find in the shape of a drink. Don’t move away.”
The exhortation was unnecessary. Nothing but the direst necessity could have induced me to move. Through the pumping of the blood in my head I heard Zaleshoff’s footsteps crunch slowly away into the distance.
&n
bsp; Looking back now on those days with Zaleshoff one thing makes me marvel above all else-my complete and unquestioning belief in Zaleshoff’s superior powers of endurance. It was always Zaleshoff who coaxed me into making a further effort when no further effort seemed possible. It was always Zaleshoff who, when we were both at the end of our strength, would walk another kilometre or more to get food and drink for us both. That it was safer for Zaleshoff to do so was beside the point; and, in any case, it soon became as dangerous for Zaleshoff as it would have been for me. My acceptance of the situation was based on the tacit assumption that Zaleshoff would naturally be in better shape than me. It is only now that I realise that Zaleshoff’s was not physical superiority, but moral. I remember now, with a pang of mingled conscience and affection, the grey look of his face when he was tired, his habit of drawing the back of his hand across his eyes and one little incident that happened later. He had stopped suddenly to lean against a tree. With weary irritation I had asked him what the matter was. His eyes were shut. I remember now seeing the muscles of his face tighten suddenly. Then he looked angry and said that he had a stone down the inside of one of his boots. That had been all. He had pretended to extricate the stone and we had walked on. No, you could not dislike Zaleshoff.
