White Eagles Over Serbia

by Lawrence Durrell

  The car rambled out towards the wooded residential area of the town and after exploring a number of leafy and ill-paved roads stopped before a villa on the balcony of which sat a young fair-headed man taking his breakfast. “That’s the Major,” said Methuen’s companion as the young man rose from the table and came out to the gate.

  “I’m Judson,” said Methuen, shaking hands.

  “I know,” said Carter with a twinkle in his eye as he led the way across the garden to the terrace where breakfast for two had been laid. “We’ve had a series of signals about your coming to inspect the accounts. Will you breakfast first or have a bath?”

  Methuen chose to have a bath and a shave. While he was unpacking his suitcase Carter came and sat on a chair in his room. “Can one talk freely here?” asked Methuen. The young man nodded. “Servants ate at the other end of the house. There’s a microphone in the drawing-room down which I sometimes shout obscenities, but this place is not wired for sound.”

  “I gather”, said Methuen, shaving, “that a distinctly chilly reception awaits me. I saw all the telegrams from the Ambassador.”

  “Yes. He was dead against your coming. Afraid of creating further trouble. And frankly I myself wondered what the point was unless of course.… But you would be mad to try and explore the territory that Peter broke into. It’s probably alive with police. I wanted to go but was refused permission.”

  “You see,” said Methuen, “SQq thought I might be of use as I know that stretch of mountains awfully well indeed; and I can speak the language quite well.”

  “So did Peter.”

  “I know.”

  “Have they discovered that he was using the duty run to Skoplje as a ferry?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a place in the road where the police car drops behind owing to the dust. Sometimes as much as a quarter of a mile. Plenty of time to slow down and drop somebody off. As a matter of fact Peter made a habit of dropping off duty cars on their consular runs. He explored the area around Nish—we have a consulate there too, in the same way.”

  “He was lucky to get away with it.”

  “It was risky certainly; but you see we were working to find out something about the Royalist underground. I suppose you’ve seen the detailed summaries of all the arrests, and the lists of equipment which they claim to have taken.”

  “What can be behind it?”

  “Come and have some breakfast. We can talk about it when you’ve made your number with the Ambassador.”

  “If and when,” agreed Methuen.

  They walked out on to the sunny terrace to take their breakfast.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Ambassador Doubts

  “The Ambassador doubts very much—he very much doubts whether you will be of any use to the Mission,” said the portly first secretary, joining the tips of his fingers together and pouting. “Nevertheless he has asked to see you. I feel I must warn you, however, that he very much doubts.”

  “Yes. Yes,” said Methuen mildly. “I understand.”

  The first secretary pressed a bell and lifted his desk-telephone. “Marriot here, sir,” he said. The receiver cracked shrilly. “I would like to bring Mr. Judson up to you.”

  In silence they walked across the large carpeted Chancery where the six young secretaries bent to their work in silence, across a dismal looking hall-way, to the lift. As they began the slow ascent the first secretary hummed a little tune under his breath. He led the way down a series of well-lit corridors lined with hunting scenes and into a magnificent room where the Ambassador stood in an attitude of deep dejection before a rippling log fire.

  “Colonel Methuen, sir,” said the secretary, retreating and shutting the door on his charge.

  “Come in,” said the Ambassador.

  “Good morning,” said Methuen.

  There was a long and chilly silence. Sir John was a tall and graceful figure of a man, in his early sixties, and with a fine head of silver hair which he wore closely cropped. He was dressed in a black coat and striped trousers with a collar of old-fashioned cut. He regarded Methuen for a while in silence with an absent-minded air before asking him to sit down and offering him a cigarette which he lit for him. “Colonel Methuen,” he said quietly, “I know the work of your people and admire it very much.” It was an unexpected compliment but none the less pleasing for a soldier. “I don’t doubt you’ve seen my telegrams,” went on Sir John in the same quiet tone, and Methuen admitted that he had. “I must say, sir,” he said, “I fully appreciate the delicacy and difficulty of your mission here; and I sincerely hope that you won’t find me any trouble to you.”

  Sir John sat down and sighed, and Methuen could see his face become suddenly tired and old-looking. “Peter Anson is a great loss to us,” said the old man, joining his hands together. “I can’t disguise the fact. He was not only charming and intelligent. He was a first-class officer. But he had no business to exceed his brief by exploring the country illegally. The mere fact of a man attached to a diplomatic mission doing that brings discredit on us. It makes our work infinitely harder, it ruins confidence in us. You will understand that.”

  “I do, sir,” said Methuen.

  “I am anxious that you should not add to the burden by doing the same thing. You may think it a selfish view. You see our work is based on confidence. It is not done in a day but over a period of years. One incident like this can destroy confidence which has taken us a year or more to build up. Now Dombey seems to think—”

  “As a matter of fact, sir,” said Methuen, “Dombey ordered me to stay here in Belgrade. It was my own idea to follow Anson to try and discover how he met his death. I know the area well. And as a matter of fact, quite apart from anything else, I was hoping to fish a river I knew many years ago.”

  “Fishing?” the Ambassador pricked up his ears. “My dear chap, how on earth can you hope—?”

  “I was proposing to go native for a week or so and explore the mountains where Anson went to fish. There are three or four small rivers there packed with trout. I know it sounds silly.”

  A new and purposeful gleam lit the Ambassador’s tired eyes as he heard this. “Fishing,” he said, under his breath, and Methuen saw a smile beginning to dawn in his eyes. “You solemnly intend to go fishing?” He patted the blotter on his desk with a white hand and his eyes twinkled.

  “After all, sir, I gather Anson managed a few illicit weekends. It should not be impossible. The mountains hereabouts used to be quite deserted. They can’t have changed so very much.”

  “I must say,” said Sir John, and note of envy crept into his voice, “it is maddening to live here and be unable to fish. This limitation on our movements is galling. I fish myself, you know.”

  “Splendid. Then perhaps you won’t think my idea quite mad. You see,” Methuen went on in a burst of confidence, “I think I could easily pass as a Serb at a pinch, and I wouldn’t really feel more out of place in this area than you would in your home county in England. The whole thing has been most carefully considered, sir—the mission, not the fishing—and it is nowhere near as foolhardy as it sounds.”

  “I see,” said Sir John, and thought profoundly for a moment. Then he got up abruptly and walked over to the great wall-map hanging behind his desk. “Where exactly would you go if I gave you permission to?” Smiling, Methuen followed him and with a brown finger touched the mountain range in question. “Exactly,” said the Ambassador triumphantly. “So would I. These tributaries up here for example. They—”

  “The rivers form great pools here—”

  “What tackle have you?”

  The reader must be spared the details of a conversation which now lasted for nearly an hour and a half, between two enthusiasts of the rod. Sir John was a bachelor and fishing for him was almost a religion: at any rate Methuen found that Who’s Who had been guilty of an error in describing his passion for the sport as a “hobby”. It was a good deal more than that. Together they explored almost every lake and river
in Yugoslavia, crossing and recrossing the great wall-map to dwell, now upon the merits of the great trout of the Vrba river, now upon the difficulties of fishing some of the Slovene rivers. The old man listened with the greatest eagerness and delight to Methuen’s exposition of the fishing conditions in the country. “I shall put all this to good use one day,” said Sir John. “You say the Olive Dun is not much of a draw? I should have thought in the muddier ones, at the late springtime when the snow melts—”

  “Not in my experience,” said Methuen who had lost his nervousness of this august figure by now and was delighted to find a fellow fisherman. The Ambassador now unlocked a compartment of his desk and took from it a book of flies whose beauty and ingenuity made Methuen envious. Some of these he had made himself, and he drank in Methuen’s enthusiastic praise with the delight of a schoolboy. The conversation now reverted to cases, and Methuen told his story of the fourteen-pounder which he had lost after a long battle on a tributary of the Spey. The Ambassador capped this with an experience of his own. Types of rod were discussed. The Ambassador rang for coffee, and over it they expanded their range to cover nearly the whole field of fishing.

  “My goodness,” said Sir John, “how I regret this silly ban on travel. Methuen, if I let you go on this trip you must promise me to be careful. It’s not only the danger that worries me. I don’t want the authorities to have another excuse to protest to H.M.G. And yet: the whole thing is so foolhardy I shouldn’t really countenance it.”

  “Well, the decision is yours, sir,” said Methuen.

  The Ambassador walked up and down the room for a moment with his hands behind his back. “It isn’t really,” he said, and there was a touch of sadness in his voice. “I’ve been overruled by the F.S. I can’t disguise from you the fact that his decision is extremely galling. We Ambassadors are paramount chiefs in our territories. But I suppose that special considerations were at stake. Your personal safety is the Awkward Shop’s affair, of course. But I’d like you to give me your word, as an officer and a fisherman,” he smiled slowly, “that you will bear my preoccupations in mind, and won’t cause us any trouble on the diplomatic front.”

  “Of course I will,” said Methuen.

  Sir John pressed a bell and asked for a telephone number. “Carter,” he said, “come up and see me, please.” He added as an aside: “My dear Colonel. I am beginning to envy you,” but then some afterthought of the dangers and hazards of the trip must have crossed his mind for he shook his head and frowned. There was a tap at the door and Carter came in.

  “Ah, Carter. I’m afraid Colonel Methuen has talked me into his scheme. It sounds a good deal more reasonable than it did at the beginning. I’ve changed my mind. He is going to follow Anson. Will you arrange the details for him and see that there are no slip-ups?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Carter with a certain obvious astonishment. “I certainly will.”

  “I can’t thank you enough, sir,” said Methuen, “and believe me I shall try not to cause any trouble.”

  Sir John shook hands with warmth. “When you come back,” he said, “we must spend an evening together. It gets rather lonely, you know. I’ve no one on my staff who fishes. And by the way, if you would care to … I’d be honoured, Colonel …” and with a gesture which was almost shy he placed his cherished book of flies in Methuen’s hands.

  In the corridor outside Methuen could not resist a chuckle at Carter’s look of blank amazement. “Is it really on?” said the young soldier with excitement. “What on earth have you done to His Excellency? He was dead against the trip when Dombey hinted at it.” Methuen sighed, and as they stepped into the lift he said: “He’s a fisherman.” Carter grinned. “I see.” Then he went on more seriously. “Frankly you know the assignment is a risky one. I’m not altogether convinced of your wisdom in going, sir. And I do hope that you won’t take it too lightly.” Methuen smiled at him. “Because I am taking a trout-rod?” he said. He was turning the book of flies over in his fingers, mentally selecting those which he thought might suit his purpose. Carter added once more, as if alarmed by these signs of abstraction. “I hope you won’t take it too lightly.”

  “No,” said Methuen thoughtfully. “You need not worry on that score. I don’t make an uninsurable occupation more dangerous than it is by taking it lightly.”

  Carter’s office was a long pleasant room with a certain austere bareness, due perhaps to the unpolished trestle tables which lined one wall. Here a huge sectional map of the country was laid out in pages. A celluloid grid and a magnifying-glass lay on it. Carter cleared his throat and sat down after fetching his guest a chair. “I expect you know as much as I do, sir,” he said. “Peter bunged himself off in the car with a light bed-roll, a fishing-rod, and a couple of tins of Spam. He was fully dressed when they brought him in; shot through the head at point-blank range. But he was also very badly bruised, perhaps from a fall. Oh! one or two other small items of gear have not yet reappeared: glasses, an oil compass. Frankly, anyone would pinch them off a body. But what is curious is that the only book he took with him was still in the pocket of his coat. Here it is.” He took a small volume of Serbian folk-songs out of his desk and passed it to Methuen. “He picked it up second-hand. As you will see from the names in the front it has been used by several schoolboys who are most probably responsible for the marginal comments.”

  Methuen turned the ugly little book over in his hands. “Go on,” he said.

  “Funny thing,” said Carter. “Probably has nothing to do with the case, but I found one passage which looked as if it might have been marked by Peter. Let me show you.” But he could not find it immediately. “It’s about white eagles. Now there is something else which is baffling. Peter did tell me that he was making some progress, and that he had discovered an underground Royalist opposition which called itself Society of the White Eagles. You know of course that the white eagle is the old Serbian Royalist emblem. But he wouldn’t tell me anything or write anything down until he had it all cleared up.”

  “White eagles,” said Methuen reflectively. “May I keep this book awhile? I suppose you have no clue as to where he slept? Did he mention a cave? There is a network of caves along the gorges of the Studenitsa river which would make an excellent hide-out.”

  “No. I gathered he slept in a forest. There were pine-needles stuck in his clothes. His wallet with some money and a few flies was also in his clothes when they brought him in.”

  “Anything else that struck you?”

  “Nothing at all. For once I think the authorities are telling the truth. I think they did find him. As to who shot him up—it’s anyone’s guess. He was unarmed.”

  Methuen ruffled the pages of the little Serbian book and stared at the carpet for a moment, lost in thought.

  “When is the next bag?” he said at last.

  “This afternoon.”

  “And when is the next duty run through this area?”

  “Day after to-morrow. You’d better meet Porson, he is in charge of the bag and usually drives it down with him. I’ll ring the Chancery.”

  Porson proved to be a lanky and extremely youthful secretary, whose tousled head suggested that he had spent all morning grappling bodily with matters of state. In fact, as sixth secretary he had spent an hour trying to make a placement for his Ambassador’s dinner-party. It had been a baffling and exhausting task, and he had finally been driven to the end of endurance. He had been trying to accommodate twelve couples round the Embassy dining-table in such a way as to give each person the seat most appropriate to his or her rank. It was a very burdensome problem: but then, he reflected, to be the junior secretary among six inevitably meant that he had the chores to deal with. There was however one great compensation for his lowly rank. It was he who was allowed to drive the courier down to Skoplje every week—a journey which virtually gave him three days’ leave in every seven. Although he was disposed to complain about the trials of his post, nothing would have induced him to surrender the one real
privilege which went with it. Despite the air of diffidence with which he greeted Methuen now the latter decided that there was a becoming touch of irreverence about the young man which would make him an amusing companion. “I’ve read about you, sir,” he said.

  “Methuen,” said Methuen.

  “Colonel Methuen,” amended Porson, putting his monocle in his eye and gazing innocently around him. “I must say,” he said, “from the telegrams I thought that the Ambassador would never agree to your mission.”

  “I know. But he has now.”

  “And you want to do exactly what Anson did?” Porson sighed. “Well, I wish you luck.”

  Methuen smiled and thanked him. “A few days in the mountains might teach us something,” he said. “When do you go?”

  Porson explained carefully. “We start from here every Wednesday and reach the Ibar valley by about four. There is a white milestone by the road which is the point of rendezvous. There’s a deep ditch into which you will have to hurl yourself. At least that’s what Anson did. We make the return run on Saturday night, reaching the same point of rendezvous at about dawn on Sunday morning. We get back here about ten usually.”

  “That’s excellent,” said Methuen, “but the time is rather short. That only gives me Thursday and Friday actually free to explore. I should like to stay a whole week if possible and walk around a bit.”

  “Well,” said Porson, “come down on Wednesday and back Saturday week.” Methuen nodded and agreed. “That would be perfect. Meanwhile, of course, if I run into trouble and need to get out you will be passing the rendezvous point twice, won’t you, going back and forward? Is there any way I can get a message back to you, for example, even if I don’t want to return myself?”

  “Yes,” said Porson. “We never used this method but Anson thought it out. About fifty yards beyond the milestone in question there is an enormous fig tree which overhangs the road. If you were to drop anything out of it we could easily field it as we went past. At least that’s what Anson thought.”