The Burning Sky

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘Nothin’ amiss wi’ the proletariat, Mr Lanchester.’

  ‘I could take issue with you, Vince, but I fear we might be too busy.’

  ‘Did it start OK?’

  ‘First time, guv. I’ll get back on the handle.’

  Two swings of the starting handle and the engine was running – not purring, but fairly even with only the occasional misfire. Everyone aboard, the map open on Lanchester’s lap, Jardine double-declutched into gear and took off, soon establishing that, whatever else it was, this motor was no racer.

  ‘I hope we are not pursued by the forces of law and order, Cal: this bugger would not outrun them if they are on bicycles.’

  ‘Just read the map, Peter.’

  At night the marshalling yards were brightly lit by arc lamps, and not just the working areas; the perimeter fencing was illuminated as well, and it took some time, driving round, to find a place where they could both park and force an entry, and also that would give them sight of the freight wagons they had visited earlier that day. Vince volunteered to do the fence cutting while Jardine kept the engine running, with Lanchester in the back so Vince could dive, if need be, into the car for a hurried getaway.

  ‘I am becoming accustomed to this sort of endeavour, Cal, it seems to go with being in your company.’

  Aware it was just the man being jocular, as a way of steadying everyone’s nerves, Jardine replied in the same vein. ‘You sound like you’d rather be a desk-wallah, Peter.’

  ‘I desire nothing more than to be a desk man, old chap, with a warm fire, an ashtray to hand, not too much work and, of course, a secretary with no morality and legs up to her armpits.’

  Vince signalled he had made a gap big enough to get through and Jardine killed the engine, got out with the starting handle and located it ready. He and Vince changed into the overalls and flat caps they had bought as a general disguise in the flea market, the ex-boxer with his knife handy and Jardine ensuring he could easily get to his Colt, this while Vince cut a couple of lengths of twine. As Jardine had explained, if the perimeter was patrolled, and it might be, then an obvious gap would not be missed, one joined by twine might, with the additional benefit that if they had to make a hurried exit, it would not much impede them.

  ‘Peter, the first sign of trouble, let fly with your gun and shoot to kill if you must.’

  There was no need for further explanation as Lanchester handed over the torch. Easing through Vince’s gap, Jardine did the lacing-up with the twine and they headed away from the fence into the interior, passing through pools of light, then areas of relative darkness, making for the wagons containing the cargo of weapons, walking upright and with confidence. If they were spotted creeping it would arouse more suspicion than two people acting normally.

  ‘Bit like old times, guv,’ said Vince as they stepped across empty steel rails. ‘Night patrols.’

  ‘No Arabs,’ Jardine said as he flashed the torch at his watch, which showed half past ten.

  ‘That’s a blessing.’

  Approaching the wagons they had to be careful: there had been no guards earlier in the day but that might not apply now. Fully expecting to be challenged – Jardine’s pistol grip was once more as warm as the holding hand – it said something about this part of the world and its lax attitudes that he was not. Looking towards the distant gate and the main buildings, which included offices and what he had supposed earlier that day to be a rest room and canteen for the railway workers, he was sure he saw the outline of a lorry that looked to be military, but there was no one by his carriages.

  ‘Let’s do it, Vince.’

  Slowly and quietly they took the destination plates out of their slots, then went to the other side of the wagons so only their legs were visible from the gate side.

  ‘No chance of me having a fag, is there, guv?’

  ‘How can you be a boxer and smoke, Vince?’

  ‘I’m an ex-boxer, or ain’t you spotted that? How long?’

  ‘Depends on whether we are working to German time or Rumanian time.’

  ‘What’s the odds?’

  ‘One is punctual to the second, the other not even to the day. Let’s move up and down: two pairs of legs doing nothing might get someone asking what we’re doing.’

  Like a pair of sentries they marched to and fro in a silence broken by an occasional shouted voice and some activity going on around some of the petrol bowsers. There was some distant screeching and clanging as an engine backed up to a set of carriages – passenger trains used this yard too – and they were dragged out, no doubt heading south towards the Gara de Nord, the main Bucharest station.

  ‘Can you hear it?’ Jardine whispered, looking north.

  The slow puffing was unmistakeable, that chuff chuff of a steam engine moving slowly, then the distinctive sound of it easing through various sets of points. Ducking under the train, Jardine saw the single central light that lit up the track, as well as the glow of the fires heating the boilers reflected on the cab roof. The train pulled slowly towards them; someone was pulling on a points lever quite far off and the train came on to a track that ran parallel to the one on which stood Dimitrescu’s freight. The men watching it arrive were holding their breath, eased for Jardine when he heard a shout in German: it was the right train.

  ‘How in the name of Christ did you know it was going to be stopped here?’

  ‘Easy, Vince,’ Jardine replied, which was a lie: it had been a hope rather than a certainty. ‘Our wagons are where they are, well away from anything else, because they have a dangerous cargo.’ He had to raise his voice to finish: the sound of the train – engine and screeching wheels – was loud. ‘So does this one. Where else are they going to park it when it is not due to be pulled to the armoury till tomorrow? Those were the questions I needed to ask Israel Goldfarbeen.’

  There was an escort, a platoon of soldiers who jumped down from a passenger carriage and were lined up by a shouting officer, who, spotting Vince and Jardine, demanded to know where was the party who had been sent to take over the duty of guarding the weapons. Jardine replied, in what he hoped was a Rumanian accent, that he thought they were in the canteen, this as another quartet alighted, men in long leather coats and big fedoras. The army officer barked an order at what had to be his NCO, and then marched off towards the office block and main gate.

  ‘Now, guv,’ Vince whispered.

  Jardine was eyeing the clutch of what he was sure were Gestapo; could they possibly recognise him dressed as he was? The choice was simple, to do what he had come for or cut and run, which was not his style. ‘Better now than never.’

  Casually they approached the German train and removed the plates saying ‘Bucharest’, replacing them with those saying ‘Constanta’, while the German plates went back into the vacated slots on Dimitrescu’s wagons. That completed, they wandered off, Vince whistling tunelessly, as behind them the engine which had brought in the wagons was uncoupled and moved off. They got to their gap in the fence unchallenged and slipped through, retying their twine, to sit in the car and watch, while behind them in the distance, the German officer, who it was hoped knew nothing about freight trains, punctiliously handed over to a set of Rumanian army guards who ought to be equally ignorant.

  ‘You can have a ciggie now, Vince, but open the bloody window, and don’t throw your fag ends out: we don’t want them finding stubs saying “Craven A” in the morning.’

  To say that waiting for hours, as they had to, was agony came under the heading of understatement. The guess was that if their ploy was discovered it would be put down to the inefficiency, possibly even the malice, of a Communist railway worker. If it was not discovered, it was housey-housey, a full card, all the numbers and the jackpot!

  Work went on right through the night, trains moving and arriving, so the engine designated to take their weapons to Constanta was not spotted right away, only becoming an object of interest when it got close, all three getting out to stand by the fence and watch. Th
ey could see the puffs of smoke lit up by the arc lamps, yet it was impossible to tell, from a distance, which set of freight wagons it had backed up to. Breath was held as a steady jet of steam and smoke was ejected from its funnel, indicating it was beginning to pull, that turning to yelps of delight as the set of wagons that had pulled in earlier were now being towed out.

  ‘Time we made for Constanta, I think.’

  ‘Bit bloody rich, Cal, fetching the Gestapo in another country, don’t you think? Cause a diplomatic incident, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  They had been discussing the possibility of them turning up here in Constanta, but Jardine thought that unlikely until Dimitrescu alerted them. ‘He will come with enough bods to take me, because he will want to hand me over as a present, and he will only do that when he is certain his money is in the bank.’

  ‘If we get away with this he’s going to come a right cropper.’

  ‘He might, but it would not surprise me if he manages to shift the blame. Slippery buggers have a habit of doing that.’

  ‘You going to enlighten him?’

  ‘No, Peter, let him think it was the Communists or his political opponents that did the dirty. Right now we have to locate your contact, then get him to find some dockers to work overtime.’

  The Constanta agent, a man named Antonescu, had so little English it was a wonder a non-linguist like Lanchester had managed to deal with him, but, like most of his fellow countrymen, he did speak German, so the task of asking for his help fell to Jardine, who found him a pleasure to deal with, he being brisk, businesslike and eager to please. First he sent a messenger to the Turkish captain to be ready to load cargo. MS Tarvita, displacing three and a half thousand tons, was tied up at the quayside. She had been hired by a British shipping line, one that Lanchester declined to name when asked.

  Lanchester had a little surprise for Cal Jardine, one he had kept quiet about, but an act that served to show he was not just a gofer on this job. He had got Antonescu to bespeak a cargo of grain, enough to provide a visible cover for the amount of goods Tarvita was going to be transporting. His ship’s manifest would say the whole cargo was that, a product produced in abundance round the Black Sea, and he had independently decided the captain should also state the vessel’s destination as the island of Madagascar.

  Jardine enquired about how difficult it would be getting out through the Sea of Marmara into the Med, the response from Antonescu a rubbed finger and thumb; the captain being Turkish would bribe the customs inspectors, with further elucidation indicating it would not be expensive as they were not landing goods on Turkish soil.

  Asked about finding stevedores to load late in the day also proved easy: with the port run down they were in need of work. Antonescu sent for one of the men who led the union, not forgetting to add, with no great pleasure, that the man was a rabid Communist and troublemaker.

  Captain Erdogan arrived to be introduced – not easy, as there was another language barrier, given his English was eccentric – then to be told by Antonescu that they would be loading immediately a train arrived and to get his holds open, which had Jardine referring to the conversation Lanchester must have had with him on his first visit.

  ‘Ask awkward questions, Cal? No, he did not. Something tells me this is not the first time our Mr Antonescu has indulged in moving contraband. Whoever found him for us did well.’

  ‘I can’t help wondering how you dealt with him.’

  ‘It was murder, given I dare not use an interpreter.’

  Respect for Peter Lanchester was rising; Jardine had always known he was not an idiot, but he was showing signs of being a very smart operator too. Reverting to German he asked Antonescu what the dock workers liked to drink and where to get hold of it, money being produced and handed over for the procurement of a large quantity of booze, to include food as well as music.

  Jardine and Vince were at the rail freight yard when the train pulled in – Lanchester having gone off to do a bit of prearranged business. Again Antonescu proved an asset: he instructed the local railway manager that it was to be sent straight on through to the quayside for loading, though the engine driver required to be squared with an extra payment for him and his footplateman for what they insisted were extra duties.

  The dockers, three dozen in number, had been assembled, and as soon as the canvas covers were removed from the wagons the crates of weapons were loaded by crane onto the ship. Trucks full of grain sacks came alongside within the hour and they, too, were loaded on and laid over as cover, bottles of the fiery local brandy produced on completion.

  Unseen by Jardine, Vince and Peter Lanchester, a late-afternoon ceremony was taking place at the main arsenal buildings, located not far from the headquarters of the Rumanian army. The line of wagons had been pulled in by a train bedecked with the flags of two nations: the red, white and black swastikas of Nazi Germany vying with the blue, yellow and red tricolour of Rumania. King Carol II was present, his mistress Magda Lupescu too, as well as generals, admirals and ministers, and, of course, Colonel Ion Dimitrescu.

  The German ambassador represented Hitler, while the officers and men who had escorted the train south provided an honour guard from the Wehrmacht. Speeches were made, bits of paper made up as scrolls exchanged and a band played the national anthem, followed by ‘Deutschland über Alles’ and the ‘Horst Wessel Lied’, before the dignitaries climbed into their cars and went off to the Royal Palace to make toasts and dine in the splendidly decorated staterooms.

  A snatch squad, four members of the Gestapo, were no longer sitting outside the Athénée Palace in a car, while, inside, Obersturmbannführer Gottlieb Resnick paced the lobby, for the time of the train to Prague had long passed and he had discovered his bird had flown. They were at the Ministry of War, not well staffed given what was happening elsewhere, demanding that an urgent message be sent to the Royal Palace for Colonel Dimitrescu to return to his office, a message he received and, being angry that the Germans had jumped the gun against his wishes, one he ignored.

  The next message he got made him move: at the arsenal they had just examined the markings on the first packing cases, and on opening them had found what they contained.

  The lengths to which officialdom will go to avoid embarrassment knows no bounds; Dimitrescu had to tell his minister, who, after going white and downing his drink in one go, ordered him to solve the problem before anyone else, like the king and the prime minster, found out. Now it was not about money, it was about saving face as well as quite possibly his skin, and the least number of his fellow countrymen involved the better. Thus the notion of sending a message ahead to the authorities in Constanta to impound the train risked too much exposure: questions would be asked as to why.

  But he had to hand a party of Germans he could use and no need to tell them why he wanted their help. Speeding back to his office he gathered up Resnick and his party of five, the man who had tailed Jardine being the fifth, and they set off for Constanta at high speed, on a journey down a good highway that should take no more than three hours. As long as he got to that cargo before it was loaded he would be saved and the Germans could shoot Jardine if they so wished.

  It was dark long before the last of the grain was loaded under arc lights, at which point Jardine took his dock workers to an empty warehouse he had found, where both food and drink in abundance had been laid out on trestle tables. Before indulging, each man was invited up to receive a very generous payout for their services and then it was a time for toasts.

  Thanking them he could not do in German: these men were at the very minimum militant socialists, with a visceral hatred of fascists, so Vince was given the task, this done in a stumbling combination of Italian and Rumanian followed by a toast, which turned into not just one, but dozens, often with linked arms.

  Jardine felt he would be in need of hollow legs, drinking water as often as he could to remain sober and not always getting away with it. Then the band arrived, a group of lively fiddlers, and the merrime
nt increased in a part of the world where men dancing together was a commonplace.

  The dock workers were soon drunk, while on board the MS Tarvita the captain had covered his holds, got his engines started and his crew alerted to weigh, which he did as soon as permission came from the unsuspecting harbour master. The ship exited the actual port through a narrow entrance too easy to close, anchoring in the outer roads of the Black Sea, the motor boat sent back in for the passengers.

  A fretting, furious Dimitrescu arrived with his Germans – they were told to stay in the car – while the railway manager was dragged from his home and threatened with death unless he told the colonel the whereabouts of the wagons. Dimitrescu’s heart nearly stopped when he was told they had been passed straight through to the quayside for loading. Back in the car they raced to the docks to find the named ship gone.

  The noise of the fiddlers in the warehouse was audible on a warm night with the doors open and, leaving the car, all seven of the new arrivals walked towards the sound, to see before them flat-capped men drinking and spinning as they danced, clearly either drunk or well on the way. So dense was the crowd it took time to catch sight of Jardine at the back; they did not see either Vince or Peter Lanchester, who had detached themselves from the dancing much earlier and taken up station on either side of the doorway, out of sight.

  ‘Jardine!’ Dimitrescu yelled; it did not silence the music but it did interrupt the flow. It was the man he had shouted at, approaching the players and holding up his hand, who brought the fiddling to a stop.

  ‘Colonel Dimitrescu, how pleasant to see you, and of course you too, Herr Reisner.’

  There was a temptation to call him by his real name and rank; it had to be suppressed: he was bound to wonder how Jardine had acquired it and it was sound policy never to give anything away that you did not have to. The SS man produced a pistol and his subordinates were in the act of doing the same when Lanchester shouted out for them to stay still, aiming his Colt at the head of the leading German.