by Vic Robbie
‘Stop, for Christ’s sake, stop,’ Sebastian shouted, slamming a hand down on the bonnet as he hung on for dear life.
Alena and Freddie’s screams and an angry grating noise assailed his senses. They were slipping sideways and he realised the earth beneath them was falling away. Again, he tried turning the wheel and pulled on the handbrake, but nothing could stop the Bentley’s inexorable slide towards the drop.
Almost as soon as they’d started, it came to a juddering halt. It was tilting at a precarious angle, and he feared they had slipped off the edge of the track and between them and the ground far below was only air.
Lying flat out on the bonnet, Sebastian’s face had turned almost white and he peered at Ben through the windscreen. ‘Don’t move a muscle,’ he shouted. ‘Stay still.’
He did as he was told as Sebastian slipped off the bonnet and set about examining the damage. He sat there for what seemed an eternity, not daring to blink, and with every shift and groan and creak of the chassis the level of panic rose within him. Now he couldn’t care a damn about the Bentley and whether it went spinning off into the valley taking the platinum with it as long as he wasn’t in it. He’d tried, he’d given his best and Bernay had nothing to reproach him for. The desire to get out of the car as soon as possible increased, but he knew any movement could dislodge it and it kept him clinging to the wheel.
Sebastian reappeared on the passenger’s side of the car with a grim smile. ‘You can get out now. On this side. Slow now.’
He took his hands off the wheel and waited; there was no movement. He levered himself out from behind the wheel and moved into the passenger seat. The car shifted with a squeal of protest. He froze not daring to breathe, and sweat streamed down his face and down his back making him itch. After what seemed forever, he plucked up courage and swung his legs out onto firm ground. There was no further movement. He held out his arms and Sebastian pulled him clear.
‘The good news,’ said Sebastian, ‘is it’s not going to slide down the mountain. It’s wedged on a large boulder and as long as it holds, the car is safe. But on our own we can’t move it.’
‘What can we do?’
‘I’ll have to go back down the mountain for help.’
Although they were safe for the moment, the deadline in Estoril was fast approaching.
Sebastian turned to go and he caught his arm. ‘You’ll come back?’ he asked and wished he hadn’t.
As if it were an insult, Sebastian grunted and spat in the dirt. ‘You have my word.’
He stood and observed as Sebastian made his way back down the track, the lantern swinging with the rolling gait of his walk. He watched it until it grew smaller and smaller and for a time was just a pinprick of light then nothing.
41
THE landing at bilbao had been smoother than Weber believed possible and he alighted from the plane feeling relieved and extricated his cigarette case and lit up another smoke. A visiting committee of two officers and a civilian awaited him. The officers, standing to attention as if their lives depended on their posture, greeted him with the respect his mission demanded. They saluted and the civilian shook his hand and ushered him into a Nissen hut in which there were couches and tables and some hot coffee was served. Outside a car, its engine running, waited for him, and his six soldiers and their armoury were shepherded onto a covered truck.
Although the civilian looked Spanish, he spoke perfect German with a Berlin accent and Weber noticed the man didn’t offer a name and neither did he ask him for one.
‘What have you for me?’ Weber took a swig of the strong aromatic liquid. He loved their coffee. The one good thing that could come of this war would be if they could assimilate all the best of the cuisines of occupied countries into the German diet. If it were true an army marched on its stomach, then the Fatherland’s cause was surely lost.
‘I’ve been to the border near Hendaye,’ the civilian said, joining him with a coffee. ‘All the French refugees were stopped at the border and turned back. There was a long queue of traffic and some refused to disperse. The gendarmes went down the line ordering people to leave and a car pulled out of the line and instead of turning around it went up a lane heading for the foothills of the mountains.’
‘The car?’
‘It resembled your description although it was hard to tell the colour because it was covered in mud and was damaged. They said it could have been a Bentley.’
‘Aha!’ He doubted the border guards could tell a Bentley from a horse and cart. ‘Perhaps we’re getting somewhere.’
‘But...’
‘What?’ he snapped.
‘It got away. The gendarmes couldn’t follow the van; the lane was too narrow.’
‘Weren’t they ordered to track it down?’
The civilian spread his hands in apology. ‘We can’t order them... yet. They said it wasn’t their business if someone wanted to drive into the mountains.’
He gave the impression of being angered by this incompetence yet in reality he was relieved. If they’d taken them into custody and asked too many questions, it would have delayed the outcome of his mission. And if they’d discovered the platinum it would have made it difficult for him to get to the woman and her son.
‘So what do we have? Is there a route over the mountains?’
‘Yes, of course, smugglers have been using them for centuries.’
‘Ah, so...’
‘However, it would be impossible to get a car through.’ The civilian shook his head to emphasise it. ‘Impossible.’
Weber didn’t necessarily care about the car or its bullion. The woman and her child were his targets and he had to be careful what he told the civilian and the soldiers. They believed he was after an American driving a Bentley and Peters, who had important information, was to be seized at all costs. Weber wondered what decision they’d made. Of course, they could ditch the car and attempt to make their way into Spain on foot. It would make them much harder to find.
He tried to quell his impatience.
‘What if he’s found a route for the car?’
The civilian flashed a look of annoyance.
‘Just humour me,’ he snapped.
‘Then whoever is helping him must be in the pay of Juan Callas Garza.’
He stared at him with his cold eyes demanding more information.
‘He’s a local bandit who reckons he’s the Count of Pamplona. He controls everything around there.’
‘So!’ He sighed beginning to foresee complications. ‘The American with or without the car gets over the mountains. So he’s in the hands of this Garza. Will Garza help him to escape to Portugal?
‘Possibly. Garza only does things for money or for more power. The American needs to have money to get his help.’
‘Oh, I believe he has.’
‘Okay.’
‘Can we strike a deal with this man?’
‘That’s all he exists for,’ said the civilian.
‘So we offer him money and, if we have some influence with Franco, perhaps his claims to the area could be legitimised.’
The civilian nodded, thinking through the possibilities.
Weber clapped, signalling it was time to move. 'Good, Garza can hand over the American and the car –’ he raised an arm to acknowledge it was doubtful the car would make it ‘– and the Count gets what he wants. That way everyone wins.’
‘Apart from the American,’ the civilian said and wished he hadn’t as Weber just glared at him.
42
ICE spread through her brain and froze all impulses. She was cold and only a wetness from beneath provided any warmth. She couldn’t move and yet there was no pain. A metronomic drip of water from above nagged at her consciousness and the cold whispered at her to surrender. She had to choose although the decision was made for her in the end
A faint rustling of the wind whispered along the grooves in the rock on which she lay before dying away. Seconds later, another noise, growing louder
and louder. A scraping and scrambling as hundreds of tiny feet struggled for purchase on the slimy rock walls. Peering into the darkness, she thought she saw their sharp button-like eyes marking her out for the kill. Still their squeaking, almost a hungry screeching like metal being dragged across metal, grew louder and she tried to block it out.
Out of the gloom, the advance guard darted. Running halfway up the rock face, it stopped, watching her, its head cocked to one side and its nose and whiskers twitching as it identified the alien scent of a human. With a whisk of its tail, it disappeared back into the blackness, shrilling its report to the host that responded with excited eagerness. Another one scuttled out, bigger and with a black sheen to its short round body, its pink tail curled high above it like an antenna. Then another, and another, growing bolder in their numbers. One lost its grip and fell into the water with a splash and swam towards her. The water was now up to her neck and her arms were trapped. The rat made good headway and kept on coming straight at her face. Dirty water lapped into her mouth and she spat it out in disgust. She fixed her stare on the swimming rodent and didn’t see the two that had crawled along the other side of the rocks. They jumped down onto her bare shoulders, their claws digging into her flesh as they struggled for purchase. The rat’s eyes and face were all she saw, and behind it came others, and behind them came even more...
Ben shook Alena awake.
Sweat soaked her clothes as she came to, her eyes blank at first as she took in her surroundings followed by a smile of recognition and relief.
‘You were crying out in your sleep...’
‘Sorry.’ She reached out for his hand and squeezed it. She’d learned to live with this nightmare visiting her often during her captivity. Perhaps only when she was free and safe would it disappear forever.
The moon slipped behind a bank of interminable cloud and it was dark and still on the mountain as they waited for Sebastian to return. Freddie slept covered by jackets on the rock ledge and they sat with their backs to the cliff wall, their closeness generating the welcome warmth of intimacy.
He became aware she was watching him and turned to look at her. At first she offered a little smile, the corners of her mouth barely lifting, and her unblinking eyes devoured his face. He whispered ‘are you okay?’ and the smile widened and her eyes joined in, graduating to a full smile before she blinked and averted her head as if to break the spell.
Then she glanced back at him with welcoming eyes. ‘I thought we were going to lose you,’ she said, touching the side of his face with the back of her hand.
He put an arm around her and she rested her head on his shoulder.
‘Do you think we’ll ever get out of France?’ Her voice was on the verge of breaking.
‘We’ll get out,’ he reassured her. ‘I promised Bernay I’d do it.’
‘What if Sebastian and his helpers can’t move the car, what will you do?’
He was in no doubt now. ‘If we can’t get the car moving I’ll leave it.’
She made to speak, but he stopped her.
‘We’ll go on foot if necessary. The most important thing is to get you and Freddie to Estoril and on to England.’
‘Are you sure after all you’ve been through?’
‘It’s a simple choice – you and Freddie or the car.’ He shrugged. ‘No contest.’
‘You’d do that for us,’ she said, reaching up to put her arms around his neck.
He didn’t get the chance to answer as she peppered his face with kisses. And she found his mouth and kissed deep and hard and it felt good and as it should be. And as her tears flowed down his cheek, he held her close.
‘What’s so special about the car anyway?’ She broke away, dabbing her eyes dry with a lace handkerchief.
‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Let’s just say the Nazis would love to get their hands on it. Perhaps if it were stuck up here in the mountains, it would be the next best thing. They might never find it.’
She nodded as if she understood and traced a pattern on the gravel with her boot.
‘What’s going to happen to our world now?’ she asked. ‘I love my country, but the France I knew is gone forever. I’ll never be able to return and for the rest of my days wherever I am there will be something missing, and I won’t ever be able to replace it.’
‘You and Freddie could come with me to America.’ And he knew it was the wrong thing to have said.
Her face hardened and she pulled her hair away from her eyes.
‘I don’t want to be a refugee – someone just living in a country because they have nowhere else. I want to feel I belong where I’m living.’
‘Did you feel a sense of belonging in Germany?’
‘Never. Well, perhaps a bit at first.’
‘You lived well there?’
She shook her head and turned to look at him as if she couldn’t expect him to understand. ‘We did, although I wasn’t allowed to leave. I was a prisoner in a castle.’
‘What were you doing in Germany?’
She looked down at the ground, her head nodding, debating whether to tell him. ‘I went there years before the war to work at the French embassy. I was excellent at languages. French, naturally –’ she chuckled ‘– English, Russian, my grandparents were Russian, and especially German.’
She swept her hair back and found a cigarette, taking a long time to light up as she formulated what to tell him next.
‘We didn’t know then what we know now. We’d lots of contact with the Germans as you’d expect – some of them were very polite and charming – and they were impressed by my linguistic skills. They asked for me to act as the liaison between the embassy and the Nazi party headquarters. At first it seemed harmless, then I was required to do more and more and it turned much more sinister so much so it put my life in danger. In the end, the Nazis were determined to kill me.’
She raised a hand as she caught her breath.
‘How did you manage to escape?’
‘In Germany, there is an underground movement against the Nazis. You know many ordinary Germans are against what is happening in their country. They were alerted to my position and were told it would be in their best interests to get me out of Germany. It almost didn’t work out.’
‘How?’
‘We were hidden under sacks in this farmer’s old van and we were stopped at the castle’s gate. One of the soldiers was ordered to search the back of the van and he’d a bayonet on his rifle and stabbed into the sacks. Some fell away and he froze when he saw us. He was one of the soldiers who’d played football with Freddie in the gardens and he told me Freddie reminded him of his son, who’d died of meningitis around the same age. His corporal asked him if there was anything there and he just stared hard at me and shouted ‘all clear’ and slammed the doors shut.’
‘So you made it, yet you’re still running?’
‘Yes, because of what I’ve done I cannot stay in France. We won’t be safe until I get to England and even there we might not be safe.’
She lay back on the rock and exhaled, sending out clouds of smoke into the cold air as if excising the remnants of those memories, and he wondered where Freddie came into her story. He was sure there was something she was not telling him.
43
SEBASTIAN’S disappearance over the edge almost made Ben throw up. It was a sheer drop and nothing could prevent his fall apart from a few shrub-like trees growing out of the cliff-face several hundred feet below. The Bentley had come to rest on a large rock and the guide leapt down onto it as if stepping onto a boulder in a stream.
Their guide had returned just after first light and even the beauty of a pristine dawn had done little to lift their flagging spirits. Accompanied by the innkeeper, who was leading a couple of Pottok ponies, he set about fixing ropes to the car’s front axle and attaching them to the horses’ harnesses.
The rear of the car’s chassis was grounded on the rock with one wheel hanging out into space and the other just t
ouching the track. Kneeling on the stone, Sebastian attempted to insert the end of a long iron bar as a lever underneath the car.
Ben held his breath hoping the guide didn’t discover the bags of platinum fixed to the chassis rails. He couldn’t imagine what would happen then and wondered if they would die on the mountain.
After much swearing in a combination of French, Spanish and Basque, Sebastian seemed satisfied with his work and climbed back up onto the track and flashed a confident smile at Alena and Freddie.
‘Can you handle horses?’ Sebastian asked.
Ben nodded; he’d try anything.
‘I need you to hold their heads and lead them away from the car when I give the word. My friend will use his strength to lever the bar under the back and try to raise the car. I will push from the rear. You must keep the horses moving, if they stop we’ll fall backwards.’
The horses were roped up and he took hold of their harnesses in each hand. They grinned at him with broken yellow teeth and their breath smelled foul and they shook their heads as if they believed it was crazy to even attempt it.
‘Right, now,’ shouted Sebastian, and Ben tugged on the horses’ halters trying to pull them towards him.
They didn’t budge.
Sebastian picked up a long stick and threw it to him.
‘Just hold the lead horse’s halter, this one. Give him a sharp whack on the rump and pull him at the same time. When he starts walking, the other will follow.’
They tried again and he hit the horse hard on its hindquarters and thought he heard bones rattle. The pony stumbled forward bringing the other one with it and in the background he saw the innkeeper’s immense biceps bulging as he used all his strength to force the iron bar down. The Bentley lifted a fraction, and he redoubled his efforts with the animals and they shuffled forward and he felt the strain. Behind them, the car made a groaning sound like an old ship before it goes under for the last time and then came a loud scraping of metal on stone.
