But just now Vorsak was being baronial. Only for a moment, however, for his manner wilted into deference as the baron himself appeared — or anyway, someone who was clearly higher up the Security scale than Vorsak. This was a tall, good-looking man in his middle-sixties who came through big double doors on my right and stood for a moment without speaking. Just looking at us, with a slightly whimsical smile on his face. It was an aristocratic face, with a high, intelligent forehead. Undoubtedly one of the old sort, and genuine. A renegade, perhaps, a former Top Person who had seen which side his bread was buttered in the new society.
Vorsak and his companion, the thug, waited for this man to speak and after a moment or two, he did. Speaking in Czech he asked, “This is Shaw, Vorsak?”
“Yes, Comrade General.”
I saw the shadow that flitted so briefly across the Comrade General’s face. Then he turned to me and spoke in faultless English, as faultless as Vorsak’s. “Welcome, Commander Shaw. It is good of you to come, and I am grateful.”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it, he was so damned gracious and courteous and sounded as if he really did believe I’d just dropped in as a result of a phone call asking for my advice, or something. I answered in the same style, very straight-faced: “Really it’s nothing, General. My pleasure. Only too glad.”
I saw the twinkle in his eye then; he was human enough. He smiled and said, “Perhaps you’d care to join me in a glass of sherry, Commander?”
“Thank you, General.” I was becoming more and more astonished, suffering badly from the complaint known as being uncertain whether you’re on your arse or your elbow. It can be an unnerving complaint and one that is often used by the “other side” to soften you up or just to get you rattled. Anyway, I was on guard. The General made a dismissive gesture at Vorsak and the thug, and they went out of the front door, back into the snow — back to the peasants’ humble cots? My host murmured, “Just remember Vorsak will be handy, won’t you, my dear fellow,” and then he took my arm and led me across the hall, through another door, into a wide, stone-floored passage and then into a long, comfortable room, furnished as a study in old, dark leather and with bookcases filled with beautifully bound and tooled volumes. Here again a log fire burnt cheerily, and this time warmly, and in front of it stood two vast leather armchairs, with a walnut occasional table beside each. The General gestured me to one of the chairs and went himself across to a cupboard from which he brought crystal glasses and a decanter of a fine, light sherry. I think it was Tio Pepe. Whatever it was, it turned out to be excellent.
The General lifted his glass. “To Czechoslovakia,” he said.
“To Czechoslovakia,” I repeated, getting to my feet and drinking also. The General drank all his, so I followed suit and he poured two more glasses. I’d been surprised at his toast, really; I’d have expected him, if he proposed any toast at all, to propose more explicitly the Party, or Drakotny, or maybe Racilek, or even the happy memory of Joe Stalin — but then, it was really fairly obvious this man hadn’t been born a Commo. I was even more astonished at his next toast.
“Her Majesty the Queen of England,” he announced, and I half expected to see her coming through the door. I repeated this and once again we both drained our glasses, though we didn’t dash them in the fireplace afterwards. Then we sat down. For a moment or two the old General stared into the red heat of the burning logs, then he looked up and faced me. “You will be wondering why you have been brought here,” he said.
“It crossed my mind,” I said. “Well, at least we seem to be getting to the point of honesty and reality. I mean, all that unction about thanking me for coming! Shall we go on calling a spade a spade, Comrade General?”
Again he winced at the title; I wasn’t quite sure why, but guessed that the “comrade” part jarred. He said with a touch of asperity, “Present times, and present necessities, are no excuse for bad manners. I have always been accustomed to welcome people to my home. Remember, I am not Vorsak.”
I felt a complete boor; a real ill-mannered pig. I said, “I’m sorry, General. Please accept my apologies.” He inclined his head graciously, and made a gesture of shrugging it off, and then he smiled kindly and I went on, “Do I understand this castle is your home, General, your own home?”
“Why, of course —”
“Not a military or police establishment … or an interrogation headquarters?”
“None of those, Commander. Simply my own home. This is not to say that I may not have to ask questions — but you have not been brought before the Security Police, this I promise you.”
I gaped, stupidly; I felt stupid that day. “Then what the devil —”
“Allow me to explain from the beginning, please, in my own way.” The old man, whose name I didn’t yet know, leant back in his chair, clasped his hands over his stomach, and closed his eyes. I could have overpowered him with the greatest of ease. I could have smashed his delicately-boned head in with his own sherry decanter. I could have set fire to his study and his castle with those glowing logs. I suppose he knew I wouldn’t do any of those things. He started talking in a low and rather monotonous voice, and he told me the story of his life. In pre-War days he had been a very young subaltern in the Austrian Cavalry: in those youthful days he had, as many a young man had done the world over, embraced Communism. Just for a short time. This time had been so short that it had never come to the notice of the army or the civil authorities of the day, and he had in fact fought the war with the armies of the Third Reich, fighting for Hitler in a panzer division and serving under Rommel in the Afrika Korps in the Western Desert. He had escaped via Cap Bon in Tunisia after the victories of the British Eighth Army, had fought through Italy, and then in France after the invasion had been mounted across the Channel. But all the time his home, his physical home, had been in Czechoslovakia, in that part of the former Bohemia that had once been Austrian territory — it was, he said, because his family were Austrian by birth that he had entered the Austrian Army. After the war he returned to Czechoslovakia and his home. In 1948, the Communists under Gottwald had taken over. There was shame in the old man’s voice when he said he had joined them; his earlier connection with the Party in Austria stood him in good stead when he made that decision, which, he said, he had made because he knew he could be more use to his country alive than dead, and still more use if he could get himself into some official position of ultimate power.
“Which you did?” I asked, congratulating myself on being so right about him.
“Yes,” he said. “I had a good war record, ending with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Although I had fought for the Nazis, I was able to convince Gottwald’s men that I had returned to my former allegiance to the Communists. I can only pray for God’s forgiveness for so many lies! If you know anything of Communism, Commander, you will know that its devotees suffer from a curious form of snobbery. As heaven rejoices over the repentant sinner, so Communism rejoices over the converted aristocrat. A former Austrian officer of rank and birth joining the Communists was a most excellent propaganda lever, and once they had put me through a re-indoctrination course, and had decided they could trust me — and when indeed I had proved this — I was given the rank of major in the Czech Army. In time I became a lieutenant-general. My home, which had been seized from my family many years earlier, was restored to me when I retired from the army. I have it now for my lifetime.”
“This same castle?”
He nodded. “Yes. It has been many things during its seizure by the State. A hospital, an officers’ mess, an offshoot department of the State Planning Commission. For the last five years it has been mine again.”
I coughed and said, “May I know your name, General?”
“Of course. I am Lieutenant-General Rudolf Heilersetz.”
I said, and I couldn’t help it, “Are you, by God!” I was rocked; the Comrade General must be the world’s finest actor, and how could I be sure which side the performance was on? I said, “In Britain, yo
u’ve the reputation of being the reddest general outside Peking!”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I know this, of course. I told you, I set out to convince. I did convince.”
“And along the way,” I said, “you did a little steam-rollering. You did a little killing.”
He looked uncomfortable. “Sacrifices,” he said. “Such things are regrettable, but they must happen.”
Suddenly I felt damned weary and fed-up. An agent’s life was rotten, was hell. All lies and subterfuges — and sacrifices. I’d had to make them, too — of other people, of course! The tools, the fools, the pawns, the unsuspecting, the over-ridden, the people who will always be the ones who are made use of, no matter what the political set-up. I’d killed too, and had connived at killing. It was only a matter of degree. I think Lieutenant-General Rudolf Heilersetz, formerly of the Cavalry, aristocratic Communist, had wiped out a couple of villages and had ordered his troops to fire into a body of rioting students. You would never think so to look at him. He was blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked, with a small fair moustache — just like an old English squire who would never dream of firing even at a fox.
Still, that’s politics. I dare say his philosophy was: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
I said, “All right, point taken. Go on, General. You were saying?”
“I was going to say, I have now to convince you, Commander.”
“You bet you have! But what of, for heaven’s sake?”
“That my own ambition is still, as it has always been, to help my country. There is no thought of myself. I wish to see my country happy and settled, with an end to bitterness and terror, an end to interference from beyond our frontiers and an end to the fear of invasion.”
“So you sent for me?”
He nodded, but didn’t speak.
I asked, “But why? What’s the idea, General Heilersetz?”
For a moment the old man closed his eyes again and put his fingers up to his forehead as if to soothe away pain. Then, opening his eyes and looking straight at me, he said in an oddly humbled voice, “Commander, we need your help. We need the help of all men of goodwill. We —”
“Explain this ‘we’,” I said.
“Those of us,” he answered, “and there are many, who want to see an extension of the liberalization started by Racilek. Now do you understand?”
“I think so — yes. I think so. You’re the anti-Drakotny faction. I dare say you’re the leader of it. Am I right?”
He inclined his head in assent. “I have that honour, but you must remember I am strictly under cover. As an ex-officer, I have no politics. My allegiance is to the men in power.”
“Which surely means Racilek, in fact?”
“Yes, when he returns. You, being of the West, may not fully understand our politics. There is, of course, only the one Party. Officially, Racilek and Drakotny are one. Yet there is much difference between those two men, Commander. At the present time, it is Drakotny who has my official allegiance. It is he who has the power, it is he who currently and effectively heads the executive, and in the time Racilek has been in Russia Drakotny has managed to reverse so many of his plans. So many! Now, we know — and you will forgive me if I do not go into details as to how — we know that you have been sent to Czechoslovakia in connection with a threat to the life of Drakotny.” He paused, looking expectant, or anyway hopeful. “Have you anything you wish to say about this, Commander Shaw?”
“Nothing at all,” I said. “Just nothing. I’m not confirming anything.” It was no use trying to bluff this man with a flat denial. He knew, all right! I hadn’t any doubts about that. I did what I could to counter his attack. “Is there a threat to Drakotny’s life?” I asked.
“I think there is always a threat to the life of anybody in Drakotny’s position.”
“That’s not a very precise answer, General.”
“No? And you have not answered my question at all.”
“That’s true,” I said. “It looks like an impasse, doesn’t it?” But what he had just said about men in Drakotny’s position was pretty much what I’d said myself to Nada Strecka. The girl could have been quite wrong; she could have picked up one of those vague, general rumours that are always floating around. On the other hand, she was a trained agent; she would surely be able to differentiate. But then, there were the drugs. Hallucinations, delusions — delusions even of the grandeur, of the acclaim — from some quarters — that would attend upon the salvation of Drakotny? Somehow I doubted that. She wasn’t too far gone and I was certain she really did love Drakotny. Then I remembered Vaclav Vorsak and the thug, who had temporarily slipped from my mind until now.
I asked, “What about Vorsak? Where does he fit? Isn’t he working for your Government? Whose side is he really on, General Heilersetz?”
Heilersetz smiled. “Mine,” he said quietly. “Vorsak was once in the Czech Army also — he respects the military mind, he is himself basically a militarist.”
“Then he’s genuinely a Racilek man?”
“Yes, he is. Officially, it is true, he is on Government service as an agent. Unofficially, he reports to me. He is one of my movement — call it an underground movement if you wish, Commander. Vorsak —”
“So when he was looking out for me this morning, it wasn’t on behalf of the State, but —”
“But of me. This is correct.” Heilersetz got to his feet, stiffly, then bent to poke around at the logs on the fire. In the pause that followed while he did this, I thought of what Vorsak had said back in the cottage beyond Dartmoor. He had said then that he was Racilek’s man, and I hadn’t entirely believed him because it had been evident Nada Strecka knew his deviousness. Maybe he was fooling Heilersetz who, though certainly he looked intelligent enough, and had clearly possessed all it took to thread his way safely through the labyrinth of the post-War years, could by now have developed the rigidity of mind that comes with age and a lifetime spent in the army. But Vorsak, on that West Country evening — long ago it seemed now, though it was not so far back in time — had also said something else: he had come to get hold of Nada Strecka and keep tabs on her until Racilek was back from Moscow. She was not to be allowed back into Czechoslovakia so that she could collaborate with Drakotny. Now, sitting in that schloss while its hereditary owner prodded at the fire, I wondered just how much Heilersetz knew about Miss Strecka. The lot, presumably, via Vorsak if by no other channels. But it was just possible he didn’t know where she was currently, or that I had been in contact with her in Prague. So I decided it would be better to leave her out of the conversation unless and until Heilersetz himself dragged her name in.
Finishing with the fire, the General straightened and stood for a moment resting his hands on the chimneypiece, where there was a splendid, and no doubt valuable, French clock, all gilt and blue enamel. The time, I noticed, was twelve-forty-five. Getting on for the lunch break, I thought, and the Tio Pepe had made me hungrier than I had been already. Heilersetz brought his hands down and clasped them behind his back, standing very straight.
He looked down at me. The fire flickered and outside, beyond the tall study windows, snow was falling again. A peasant plodded across a distant field, beetle-like, shapeless beneath a sack. Heilersetz said, “I have been speaking the truth, you know. I will add to it. There is a very concrete plan to kill Drakotny, and this you know very well. It would save much time if you would admit this, and then we can speak usefully together, I think.”
I said, “Well, suppose there is a plan. Do you support it, or oppose it, General?” When he didn’t answer, I went on, “If you know of this plan, why not warn Drakotny so as to protect Racilek in Moscow? Or is the reason that you do not, simply that you are yourself part of the plan; and you are acting in your own interests and not Racilek’s?”
That went home. Heilersetz flushed; but he denied the cruel charge. “I know none of the details of the plan — that is my difficulty. It has nothing to do with my movement, I assure you. Nevertheles
s, I must admit that the thought pleases me — the thought of being rid of Josef Drakotny! Yes, it pleases me.”
“You can’t visualize ahead?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “The risk to Racilek, the riots in our country.”
“Exactly. As a patriot, General, can you approve of that?”
“A patriot must get rid of Drakotny,” he answered stubbornly.
“Patriotism takes other forms than your brand image of it, surely?”
“A man must still do what he thinks right.”
“Condone assassination, General Heilersetz?”
“Even that, yes.”
“At such a risk?” We were starting to come round in a circle now and we both realized it. Heilersetz gave a short laugh like a bark. He said, “You know, Commander Shaw, I would so much like to have you on my side. Yet you are here because you are on the other side, the side that wishes to preserve Drakotny. Come, you must do me the courtesy of admitting this!”
“Courtesy?” I repeated, looking back at him blankly. “Why? What courtesy was shown to me, when I was seized by Vorsak and brought here? Can you tell me that, General Heilersetz?”
The old man gave a deep shrug and looked apologetic. “I am sorry. It was necessary. This, after all, is my country. It is not yours. It is you — forgive me — who is the trespasser. Not I.”
I laughed. It was true enough! What could I say? I could plead duty, obedience to orders. So, in his own way, could he. He thought of himself as a patriot and I dare say he was. Just one thing was certain, dead certain now, and that was that he knew the score — or anyway, such of it as applied to me. This, I had to accept as a plain fact of life.
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