Joe held his breath until the last of them had ground past. Then he finished fixing the second chain. He worked fast. It seemed to him that there mightn’t be a lot of time to lose.
Even with chains that side road was almost impassable. First it dropped steeply to the river, then it started climbing and twisting. A track of a sort had been cleared, but Joe realized that if anything was coming down it he was finished. It was not a moment for half measures. He engaged low gear, muttered a prayer, and put the car at the hill. Three nightmare minutes later he was at the top.
He tried to make a quick survey. The trouble was that he dare not stop. Chains or no chains, if he once stopped it was going to be a toss-up if he started again.
The road, as he could see, ran level for some distance, skirting a sharp drop to the right, down to a tributary of the Drava. Away ahead of him a cluster of red roofs marked the village of Kartitsch. He would have liked to get beyond Kartitsch before abandoning the car, but the contours on his map showed the road rising steeply through it. The worst thing of all would be to get stuck in the village street under the eyes of the inhabitants.
To his left, a short way off the road, he saw what he needed: a barn, standing by itself. He swung the wheel round, scudded through the narrow opening, and bumped his way up the track. The big doors of the barn were shut, and padlocked, but he managed to wedge the car between the end wall and a stack of cut wood. It was snowing quite hard now. The tracks he had made would soon be covered.
Joe looked at his watch again. It was half past three. He had two hours of daylight, and he was going to need it all. He put on boots and skis, took a quick nip at the brandy in his haversack, pulled his woollen helmet thankfully over his head, and started out.
The first part was comparatively simple, a rough but uncomplicated ski trek, across the road, down into the little valley, and across the stream, frozen bone hard and hidden under snow.
It was when he started to climb the other side that he realized just how out of condition he was. The reversed skins on the underside of his skis enabled him to get enough grip to keep at an upward angle of perhaps thirty degrees to the line of the slope. This meant plodding uphill in a long zigzag. In order to keep direction he counted his steps, fifty on a left tack, reverse, fifty on a right tack, reverse.
If the slope had been smooth or the snow had been deeper it would not have been so bad. But two or three times outcrops of rock forced him to make a detour. Soon his breath was coming in gasps and the sweat was trickling down inside his woollen helmet.
After twenty minutes of it he was forced to stop. He was alone in a silent, white, drifting, whirling world. His only guide was the gradient. If he went up far enough he must reach the top. Along the top ran the frontier. Across the frontier was Italy. His mouth was dry. He tried to drink some brandy but it made him feel sick.
In the short time he had been standing, the sweat on his face had started to freeze. It was time to get going again. Fifty left. Fifty right. It was at this point that he struck the track.
Joe blinked the snow out of his eyes and stared. Across his front, at an angle of forty-five degrees, ran a freshly beaten ski track. With the snow falling as it was, it could not have been made more than half an hour ago.
A considerable party of skiers coming down from a mountain hut, he guessed. The broad, firm track they had left would be a help to his weary legs; and he judged, from the direction it was going, that the hut to which it led would be on, or near, the frontier.
Ten minutes later he heard the voices. Then, as a gust of wind blew aside the swirling snow for a moment, he saw above him and to his left the hut, stacked skis in front of it, and a group of soldiers in uniform. It was a mountain patrol he had been following; going up, not down.
Without troubling to turn, he pushed himself backward, down the track. Just as he needed it most, the snow seemed to be thinning. A stronger gust of wind blew it clear. The track turned, and he was out of sight of the hut. He stopped and tried to think.
In an hour it would be dusk. But if he hung about for an hour he would certainly be frozen and might easily be spotted. Now that he was so near, his instincts told him that it was safer to go forward.
The slope above him was too steep for skis, but there was plenty of outcrop, and he thought he might manage it on foot. He unbuckled the skis and laid them carefully along a ledge of rock. Then he started to climb.
Damn it, he had been right. The snow was stopping. There followed half an hour of slow scrambling, much of it on hands and knees, in and out of drifts, up exposed ridges of rock, which got steeper as he went up.
Dusk was falling, and Joe was close to the end of his endurance when he reached the spine of the hogback and peered over.
It was an awe-inspiring sight. Away to the left rose the towers of the Hochspitze and the Steinwand, and running down from them the great vertical gash of the Valle Visdende. In front of him the slope fell so steeply that it was almost sheer, to the San Stefano motor road, a streak of jet across the white. Beyond were the lights of Auronzo.
He saw something else too. Twenty yards ahead of him, in the gathering dusk, leaning on his sticks and peering away from him down into the valley, was a uniformed figure on skis.
12
A State of Emergency
Breakfast at the consulate was not a social meal. Charles ate first, with a copy of one of Trollope’s political novels propped up against the toast rack, and he had usually left for the consular offices, three streets away, before Laura put in an appearance.
On this particular morning, he had just poured out his second cup of coffee when he heard the key in the front door; and a moment later Evelyn came in. He was unshaven, and looked as if he had been up all night, which was not surprising, since indeed he had.
“I could do with some of that coffee,” he said.
“Frau Rosa’s bringing some more. Any news?”
“Lots and lots of news,” said Evelyn. “And all of it’s bad. In fact, I don’t know when I’ve encountered such a stinking mess before. In the good old days, if Gladstone heard that a diplomat had got shot up in a hostile capital, he’d dispatch a column of all arms to help him out. Now they could skin us alive and boil us in salt water, and all we’d get would be a strong minority protest in the UN. What an epitaph! The Afro-Asian bloc took grave exception. Come to think of it, that would make rather a good last line for a Ballade of Diplomatic Difficulties. Good morning, Frau Rosa. You look remarkably blooming this morning.”
“Will you have eggs?”
“I will have eggs.”
“I will cook them for you.”
“Did you pick up anything definite?”
Evelyn waited until Frau Rosa had gone, and then said, “Yes, I did. And you’d better finish your breakfast before I tell you, because it’s not going to improve your appetite.”
“Go on.”
“The Socialist Radler and Hammerle were tried by a military tribunal last night, on charges of sedition and fomenting resistance to the regime. They were both found guilty.”
“They have a right of appeal to Vienna.”
“In their case,” said Evelyn, “the right is a bit theoretical. They were shot at six o’clock this morning.”
“So?” said Charles bleakly.
Unconsciously he had been expecting something of the sort. Not quite as bad. But something like it. The claws were out now. The beast had smelled blood. He would soon be rooting and snuffling for more.
“Something’s happened,” said Evelyn. “I can’t find out what it is, but it’s having the effect of making everyone move faster than they want to. It could be that they have news that the passes are being cleared – a thaw coming – something like that. It doesn’t seem very likely.”
“Or Humbold may have had a peremptory message from Vienna.”
“Messages won’t stop him now. He’s got the bit between his teeth. And his timetable’s fixed. Whatever’s happened has had the effect of accel
erating it, that’s all. Auxiliary troops are moving up toward the frontier. He’s got half a dozen standing camps in the mountains just this side of the border. As soon as he’s ready he’ll have no difficulty in provoking a border incident. Shots will be exchanged with an Italian patrol, the Lienzers will go down the mountainside like an avalanche, and the Tyrol will be reunited. And once it’s been done, it’s going to be a bloody bold Austrian government that tries to undo it.”
Frau Rosa reappeared and said, “I have boiled both eggs to moderate hardness, and have toasted you some bread.”
“You understand my tastes to a T, dear girl.”
“You desire tea? I had made coffee.”
“Coffee will do splendidly.”
“I can quite easily make tea. The lady drinks it.”
“Don’t let’s get into a snarl about it,” said Evelyn. “Make a pot of each.”
Frau Rosa departed. Charles said, “When they are ready? Have you any idea what they’re waiting for?”
“I think the idea is to dispose of Boschetto first. His trial starts tomorrow. It won’t last more than two days – probably only one.”
“Forty-eight hours before they move.”
“Forty-eight hours before who moves?” asked Laura. She was wearing a dressing gown and looked a bit pale.
“Consols,” said Evelyn. “We confidently expect them to go up.”
“Stop trying to be funny,” said Laura. “I’ve been listening to you two through the wall. I heard most of it. Boschetto. Troop movements.”
“What a shameless girl.”
“I think we ought to keep her in the picture,” said Charles. “Things really are shaping for a bit of a bust-up. Boschetto goes on trial tomorrow. Once Humbold has disposed of him, he plans to grab the South Tyrol, quick, and sit on it.”
“Will he get away with it?”
“It’s a sad thing,” said Evelyn, “that in this enlightened age a man who is prepared to do something – to take some positive action, however outrageous – still has a terrific advantage over people who are only prepared to talk about it.”
“Does that mean yes?”
“It means I think he has a fifty-fifty chance.”
“One thing sticks out,” said Charles. “And that is that you must sit tight. While the trial’s on you’ll be the most unpopular girl in Lienz.”
“Consul’s sister torn to pieces by mob,” said Evelyn.
“Thank you,” said Laura. “I wasn’t thinking of going out anyway.”
Charles drove to the office. It might have been his imagination but it seemed to him that the streets were emptier than usual.
The consular office occupied three rooms on the first floor of a block in the Tiergartenstrasse, a district of professional offices. The staff consisted of two Lienz girls, one of whom had some pretensions to typing and shorthand, and Gerhardt.
Gerhardt was Charles’ clerk. He had friends, relatives, and contacts in every quarter of Lienz and was the source of most of Charles’ confidential reports to his superiors.
As he climbed the stairs he was struck by the silence.
His subordinates were usually careful to arrive at least five minutes before he did, to present him with a scene of virtuous activity. Typewriters would be clacking in one room, Gerhardt talking on the telephone in the other. This was the first occasion that he could remember arriving first.
He unlocked the outer door and went in. There was no obvious confusion, but it seemed to him that someone had been through the rooms. Things were not quite in their familiar places. A set of directories which usually stood on the window-sill had been shifted onto one of the tables. A filing cabinet had been moved from the wall and put back not quite straight.
Charles went quickly across to the inner room. The big safe in the corner seemed intact. He opened it with his key, and saw, at once, that the safe too had been searched. The codex machine, which he had put back himself, had been shifted, and the personnel file had been taken out and replaced upside down. Since the safe had not been forced, someone else must have a key. This was not surprising. Most foreign powers managed, sooner or later, to equip themselves with keys of their resident diplomats’ safes. What was a great deal more serious was the careless way in which the search had been carried out. It suggested that they didn’t mind his knowing that his safe had been rifled.
He was considering the implications of this when the telephone rang. It was Colonel Crocker.
“Just thought I’d ring up to see if you were all right,” he said.
“Very good of you, Colonel. Has someone been suggesting that I’m ill?”
“Not ill, but I thought you might need a bit of help.”
“Help?”
“Friends of mine in the town tipped me off last night. The Hofrat seems to be stirring up some sort of hate against the English.”
“I’ve heard nothing of it.”
“Probably all hot air. However, I just wanted to let you know that I had a word with Commander Muspratt and Dr Grant. We’ve all got rifles, and we could be at the consulate by car in a matter of ten minutes.”
“It’s very good of you,” said Charles. “I’m sure the whole thing’s a propaganda move of Humbold’s.”
“The Commander tells me he can probably raise half a dozen more men at the club.”
“If anything happens,” said Charles, “I’ll let you know at once. But I’m quite sure it’s a false alarm.”
As he rang off he heard footsteps running up the stairs. It was Gerhardt. His brown, wrinkled monkey face was alive with apprehension.
When he saw Charles, some of the anxiety disappeared.
“You are here, Herr Konsul?”
“Certainly.” Charles looked pointedly at his watch. “I am here.”
“My regrets that I am late. I have been round to find out what was wrong with the girls.”
“And what was wrong with them?”
“Gertrud has a migraine. Risa has boils.”
“I’m sure they’ll both be all right in a day or two,” he said soothingly. “Suppose we get on with opening the post.”
He realized, as he said it, that it was no use. Gerhardt was brimming with news. He was brimming and overflowing with it. It would have been cruelty to impose any further restraint on him.
“My cousin,” he said, “who works at police headquarters tells me that an American criminal committed yesterday a murder in the Oberlienz suburb.”
“An American criminal?”
“He has been masquerading as a newspaperman. He killed a photographer named Hoffracker, in his shop. It is thought that there was a dispute about money. In an endeavour to conceal the crime he set fire to the shop.”
“Do you happen to know his name?”
“His name was Keller.”
“I see,” said Charles. “That’s very interesting. Very interesting indeed. I presume he’s been arrested.”
“No. He escaped the police. He was thought to have been helped by the gendarmerie. There is, as you know, a certain rivalry.”
“I knew they were touchy about their rights. I didn’t know they helped each other’s prisoners escape.”
“That part of the story is, at present, obscure.”
There were further footsteps coming up the stairs. Not the light steps of Gertrud and Risa; heavy male steps, which came to a clashing halt outside their door.
“Better go and see what they want.”
He listened to the sound of the argument: gruff, official voices; Gerhardt protesting, in a voice which rose to a squeak. If something really was going to happen, he wondered whether he would have time to ring up the Colonel.
Gerhardt reappeared and said, “It is Inspector Moll, with some men. He asks you to go with him to government headquarters.”
“Asks or orders?”
Gerhardt managed to smile. “It is difficult to say,” he said, “but he was most insistent. The message came from Humbold himself.”
“I am alwa
ys at the disposal of the Hofrat,” said Charles, collecting his coat and putting on his soft brown hat at the correct Foreign Service angle. He toyed with the idea of taking a rolled umbrella but thought this might be overdoing it.
“When I am gone,” he said, “lock the door, and let no one in until I get back. If there is any trouble, you can ring Colonel Crocker, at the English Club, and let him know.”
He followed Inspector Moll down the stairs. An armoured car was standing in an otherwise deserted street. The inspector gestured politely toward it.
“Thank you,” said Charles. “I’ll go in my own car.”
“My orders–”
“They’re your orders, Inspector, not mine.” He turned about and made for his car. The inspector hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders and climbed into the armoured car.
Government headquarters was in turmoil, but it was turmoil backed by some degree of order and purpose. Steel-helmeted motorcyclists were coming and going. A squadron of armoured snowcats was parked in the square. The barbed-wire entanglements had been lifted, and command vehicles drawn up on both sides of the entrance were humming with life. When he had visited the building before, it had been a beleaguered fortress. Now it was the headquarters of an army poised for the offensive.
He drove in without trouble and parked his car. Inspector Moll showed him into a small ante-room. He had only two minutes to wait, when the door opened and Colonel Julius Schatzmann looked in.
His great bulk swaying as he walked, the Grey Bear came across the room and lowered himself in silence into a seat opposite Charles. There was a half-smile on his face, but his black button eyes were as hard as steel and as devoid of meaning.
“Good day, Herr Konsul.”
“Good morning,” said Charles. “Is it you or your master that I have been brought here under armoured escort to talk to?”
“The Hofrat asked for you–”
“Asked is one way of putting it.”
“But I am glad you have arrived in good time, since it enables me to have words with you first.”
After the Fine Weather Page 13
