In the Light of Morning

by Tim Pears

  Sid Dixon appears, back from some trip with an air of subterfuge. He salutes the officers formally. ‘Permission to report delivery of essential supplies, sir.’

  ‘What the devil are you talking about, Corporal?’ Jack demands.

  From his knapsack Sid flourishes, like a conjuror, two hundred packs of Player’s, and three bottles of single malt whisky. ‘They was in one a the parachute containers.’

  ‘The Jugs gave them to you?’

  ‘I did a little persuading, sir. They’re a good bunch a lads.’

  Tom wonders how Sid bargained and chaffered using only the isolated Slovene words he knows.

  ‘Well done.’ Jack beams, slapping Sid on the back. His mood switches as his attention flips from one thing to the next. ‘I say, Freedman, you’re damned fortunate being able to speak the lingo. They invited us to a cultural evening for the villagers tonight. I’ve told them you’ll be honoured to represent His Majesty’s Government and to give a speech.’

  ‘Thanks, Jack.’

  ‘Pleasure, old chap. And while you’re there chucking back their rough brandy we’ll make a start on this Scotch for you.’

  The room is large, but it is no hall. Perhaps it was the mayor’s office, Tom surmises. There must be two hundred people packed in, sitting on the floor, most of them cross-legged. To judge by their uniforms, some were among those who’d been garrisoned here, with the Germans. Many are civilians. There is a black, battered Bechstein; scratched and splintered, it looks like it has been the target of an attack all of its own. A soldier plays Chopin, and though some of the keys are off, and wander, he wrings a disfigured beauty from the instrument: he coaxes the piano into summoning up its last reserves of musical strength for one final performance.

  A drama is staged, with acting that is little more than a read-through of dialogue theatrically overblown, about an elderly Slovene woman and her courageous granddaughters saved from death and worse by heroes of the Soviet Red Army.

  Jovan takes to the platform and speaks of the Slavic bond with mother Russia. He receives a loud yet clearly dutiful reception; Tom suspects that he cannot shake off his Serb background, that he still feels a mystic attachment that these Catholic Slovenes do not. The Soviet commissar then talks in a monotone, recounting the sacrifices on the eastern front, in the great cities of the Soviet Union, and urging the Yugoslavs to greater effort. He takes his seat apparently oblivious to the lukewarm response from all but the few Partisan soldiers present, some of whom yell, ‘Zivio Marechal Stalin,’ and ‘Zivio Rdecˇa Armada.’

  Jovan returns to the stage to introduce his Allied comrade. Tom gives his speech, in which he expresses his and his colleagues’ pride at sharing this great struggle with the National Liberation Front. The applause is loud and generous. As he returns to his seat by the wall, Tom finds questions hurled at him: what did he think of the play? Was the acting not marvellous? Could a play of such quality be found in London?

  A choir of crippled soldiers make their determined way to the front. They sing songs that rise and fall as boats on a swelling sea, an accordion creating the waves, lifting the audience with them. There are Partisan songs that start slow and melodious then leap into rousing choruses that make Tom’s heart soar. A dozen soldiers, men and women, form in front of the singers an interweaving line, a latticework of arms, and dance from side to side of the room. They rest, briefly, when someone takes advantage of a break between songs to cry out, ‘Nasa je Trst!’ and immediately the call is taken up, first by a few of those surrounding the initiator, and then by the whole room. ‘Nasa je Trst! Nasa je Trst!’ People stamp their feet to the beat of the chant.

  Eventually a member of the choir lifts one of his crutches and waves it to indicate, Enough. The chant subsides, voices fall to silence, and the choir begins again.

  There is a mood of jubilation and defiance in the room. Tom is cheered, but his mind wanders, and his stomach crawls with anxiety – when will the German planes come? And the army behind, flooding into the valley?

  The choir end with a song that within seconds of its opening words has everyone rising to their feet. It is ‘Hej Slavenia’, hymn to the Slavic spirit that Tom’s neighbour tells him has become the de facto Yugoslav national anthem. Soldiers throw their caps in the air. Suddenly there is Marija, working her way through the crowd towards him. Tom’s heart beats faster. Damn, damn! He wonders if it would be possible to avoid her, to slip backwards, away from her. No, he cannot. He shoulders between singing men and meets her. Their hands clasp, unseen amongst the jostling bodies. Each of them gazes into the other’s eyes. Tom plays his part. Until, at the end of the song, they are bumped apart in the crowd.

  August 13

  FOUR MORE PLANES are expected in the night. Two hidden hospitals have been cleared. Now Olga’s patients are brought down the wooded slopes to the road beside the Savinja river, where they are put onto ox-wagons and rolled along the bumpy road. The hospital lies beyond Luce, the village north of Ljubno, and the journey is five bone-shaking miles. Tom is at the landing field. He can hear the groans of the wounded as they trundle past him.

  Shortly before the appointed time Dixon receives a signal informing them that, due to poor weather, the Dakotas will not arrive. Containing his fury and dismay as best he can, Tom relays the bad news to the ground crews and to Olga and her staff. The ox-carts are turned around, the groaning injured begin the painful return journey to their hidden hospital.

  Over breakfast, a bowl of maize porridge, with warm milk, Tom tells his colleagues about the cabaret. Jack is incensed. ‘The Jugs never acknowledge Allied support in public. It’s shabby behaviour.’

  ‘But the people aren’t fooled,’ Tom points out. ‘They see British planes dropping British supplies.’

  ‘Yes, and they’re told that the Russians have paid for it. You know what else they’re told? That we’re going to make the Slovenes pay us back at the end of the war. That bowler-hatted gents will appear with a pile of chits itemising all they owe us.’

  The British are informed by a junior staff officer that they are to be given a liaison interpreter, and that from now on all communication with headquarters is to be channelled through him. Appointments must be made to see the Partisan commander or the commissar through the interpreter. ‘How the hell can I do my job?’ Farwell demands. ‘I’ll sort this out. And I’ll bet you, Freedman, the Soviets don’t need to make bloody appointments.’ He storms off.

  When the interpreter arrives it is none other than Pero. He and Tom share a smoke and catch up. Pero appears older; his voice is half an octave deeper than that of the youth Tom had met in Semic. Tom asks him about the new recruits, those captured in Ljubno who have changed sides and joined the Partisans.

  ‘They all claim that they were conscripted against their will,’ Pero tells him. ‘In action against us, they say, they always shot over our heads.’

  Pero also says that German reinforcements have been seen amassing in Celje. ‘They will be very keen to come back here,’ he says. ‘There is nothing fascists like less than to be laughed at.’

  When he leaves, Pero nods with great formality and shakes Tom’s hand. It strikes Tom as odd, for they have never done so before, until he feels not skin but paper in his palm.

  Some time after Pero has gone, Tom is preparing that day’s message to transmit to the firm, when Sid comes in to their house. He looks glum. There’s clearly something wrong.

  ‘You feeling all right?’ Tom asks him.

  Dixon doesn’t answer at first. It is as if there is a time delay between his brain receiving the sound of Tom’s voice and responding to it. Slowly he looks up. ‘I can’t find her, sir. Looked all over.’

  ‘Francika?’

  ‘Tracked down our old buddies; none a them’ll tell me nothing. Every one a them shrugs his shoulders. I don’t get it.’

  ‘I’ll look into it,’ Tom promises. ‘In the meantime, don’t brood on it. Here’s the message to send.’

  In the early
evening, after their caretaker has given them a heavy stew for their meal, with suety dumplings, Tom goes into the orchard outside the farmhouse. The sky is clear, the world is quiet. He would be happy to spend the evening inside, grappling with the high German of Elective Affinities, with a glass of damson brandy. This would not be a bad place to sit out the war. If only the war would stay away. He rereads the note Pero passed him. All it says, in dark pencil on a scrap of pale paper, in a flamboyant yet legible, upright script, is Do not despair. We shall be together. He studies the writing, as if the shape of the letters written in Marija’s hand might hold more meaning than the words themselves.

  Tom checks his watch, fetches his greatcoat, and makes for the valley. He trots down an incline through the woods. The night is cool and the air smells less of the resin of the pine trees than of the earth they grow from: peaty and sour.

  August 14

  THE NIGHT SKY is clear, and cool. Piles of wood are ready to be lit. Soldiers stand around the field, prepared to run forward to unload the planes. They have ox-drawn carts, wheelbarrows. Behind them are the wounded: in a few hours each one will be in an Allied hospital in southern Italy, receiving treatment that will save many of their lives. But what an ordeal it is for them to reach safety: passage down the mountain, the flight; every movement, for many, an agony.

  Jack Farwell is in a better mood, having extracted the assurance of a meeting tomorrow to discuss the British Mission’s position. ‘Look at that, Freedman,’ he says, leaning back. ‘The Jugs should have the finest astronomers on the planet.’ Tom gazes upwards. ‘Endlessly expanding, so they say,’ Jack continues. ‘No end and no beginning either.’ Tom looks at his colleague: Jack wears a grave expression as he considers these cosmological mysteries. ‘A lot of nonsense, of course,’ he decides.

  Tom is unable to suppress a chuckle. ‘In what particular way, Jack?’ he asks.

  Jack turns and looks at him, frowning, rather like a parent whose child’s intellect has developed, worryingly, overnight. ‘Science is all very well, Freedman,’ he says. ‘One day it will answer every question. Apart from the most difficult ones. Those we have to answer ourselves.’

  Before Tom can respond, there is a yell. A courier runs towards them. He has come from the British Mission, with a note from Sid Dixon. Jack snatches it from the courier. Tom can guess its content. The weight of the stew in his stomach makes him want to sit on the ground. The flights are cancelled. Poor weather in Italy. How can this be true?

  It is his job to pass on this news to the Slovenes. He tells the senior staff officer, who salutes Tom with what feels like contemptuous formality. Word is passed around. Soldiers disperse. The wounded are ferried back. A figure approaches in the starlight. A tall, slim woman. Olga, the doctor.

  ‘I must protest in the strongest possible terms,’ she says.

  Jack Farwell, discerning her mood, does not step forward for a translation but lets his junior officer deal with the confrontation.

  ‘I cannot allow my patients to be dragged up and down the mountain. Is this the British sense of humour? You think this is funny? Why do you not tell us before?’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ is all Tom can muster. ‘It’s a débâcle. I’m so sorry.’

  Olga turns and stalks off. Jack joins Tom. ‘Good show,’ he says. ‘You said a few anodyne words, I assume. The best one could do in the circumstances. It’s a sorry business, Freedman.’

  They walk back to the farmhouse. Tom feels an unpleasant mixture of impotence and shame. He cannot sleep.

  August 15

  SID IS PLUNGED in gloom. There is no word of Francika. Pero makes his daily visit, but cannot help. He knows nothing of her whereabouts. Tom sits over the scheduled wireless contact: despite his recriminations, there is no apology for the late message last night. Further flights are planned for the night ahead.

  The Partisan headquarters is in a large farmhouse surrounded by trees, close to a rockface: shelter to be reached in the event of an attack. The Englishmen are invited to sit at a table on the terrace. The first floor of the house is constructed from large stones; everything above is made of wood, from the thick rough-cut floor beams to the roof-shingles. There are window boxes in which bright red begonias bloom from their profusion of dull green leaves. A single bee buzzes dozily from one flower to another.

  They wait a long time. Jack, to Tom’s surprise, is calm. Patience, standard requirement for a soldier, had not appeared to be one of his attributes. The British army runs to a schedule; that schedule may be perpetually delayed or abandoned, but is always, immediately, redrawn. The Yugoslavs are less bothered about time-keeping – one of the reasons those British officers Tom had been briefed by in Bari affected a contempt for them.

  The afternoon is hot. Tom loosens another button of his shirt. He took off his tie some weeks ago, to secure a bivouac in the rain one night, and has not worn one since. His peaked cap, which caught in the branches, gave way long ago to a beret. But Jack’s khaki uniform looks as it did the day they arrived, as if a batman were pressing it daily.

  There is a good deal of coming and going. Everyone wears a red star in his or her side-cap. Some have silk shirts, sewn from Allied parachutes. They come with written or spoken reports, most of which cause uproar, and must be dealt with immediately.

  A long while after the time of the Englishmen’s appointment a door opens in the house, releasing what sounds like a recording of laughter. A moment later the Soviet liaison officer, a short, pugnacious-looking man, emerges on the terrace. He smiles at the Englishmen, revealing steel teeth. Then he trots down the steps and is gone.

  A further five minutes go by before they are summoned to the commander’s office. They find Jovan sitting beside him, on the other side of a trestle table that acts as a desk. The two men rise, and salute the British officers. No apology is given for their being kept waiting.

  ‘Now look here,’ Jack exclaims. ‘We’re pouring supplies for your army into this valley, and I’m told I have to make appointments to see you through an interpreter who’s not even an officer?’

  Tom begins to translate, but the commander raises his hand. ‘Please,’ he says, gesturing towards two wooden chairs. ‘Wait a moment. Let us not discuss these issues before we have offered you our hospitality.’

  He says nothing more, and so they sit in uncomfortable silence, waiting a little longer. Tom glances across at Jovan, offering the opportunity for eye contact, but there is no response. Jovan stares at the door, which eventually opens, and in comes a young, uniformed woman with a tray that she lays on the table. On the tray is a glass decanter filled with a pale liquid and four small glasses, and two plates: one with a loaf of bread, the other half a dozen sausages. The bread and a couple of the sausages have been cut into slices.

  Jovan pours the liquor, and gestures to the food. ‘Please help yourself: this is good pork. Engels regretted the idiocy of rural life, but the farmers here know what to do with their pigs.’

  The commander has thick black hair and eyebrows, and thin crooked lips. ‘How can we work with you,’ he asks, ‘when you support our enemy? Even after all the evidence of their collaboration.’

  Jack is at a loss to understand. Jovan flourishes what he calls a Chetnik press release: it praises the American president and people, now that a senior army officer has joined General Draža Mihailovic´ in Serbia.

  Jack shakes his head. ‘I find this hard to believe,’ he says. ‘The British government withdrew its liaison officers and ceased support of Mihailović more than two months ago.’

  Hearing these words, Tom has to restrain himself from staring, incredulous, at his senior officer. Instead he focuses on a dark grain in a wooden floorboard, as he wonders why Jack didn’t tell him this before? When he ordered Tom not to report seeing Chetniks in Slovenia.

  ‘The Yanks have their own ideas, but still…’ Jack protests, frowning at the piece of paper in his hand.

  ‘All right,’ Jovan says. ‘Forget the Americans. Le
t us talk only about the British. Tell us: what are you doing in Istria?’

  ‘Istria? Our army’s a million miles from there,’ Jack tells him. ‘Still bogged down in Italy.’

  ‘But you are planning an invasion, are you not?’ Jovan continues. With a wave of his hand he dismisses any forthcoming objection. ‘It is no secret, Major: Mr Churchill has told Marshal Tito. It is a good idea. But we ask you: for what, exactly?’

  ‘I know nothing about it,’ Farwell blusters. ‘All I know is that we are supplying you with the means to attack the Hun.’

  Tom translates. The commander watches. Perhaps he will keep his thin lips closed, let Jovan do all the talking.

  ‘The question is, Major, to what end?’ Jovan asks.

  As soon as Tom has translated, the commander says with calm politeness, ‘Please, have some more bread and sausage.’

  Tom chews the heavy bread. Jovan pours more slivovka. The sausage is tough, and spicy.

  ‘One day you want us to stop the German troops coming into our country,’ Jovan says. ‘The next day you want us to stop them leaving.’

  Jovan is sweating. The commander’s grim suspicious gaze is fixed on Jack Farwell. There is an atmosphere of paranoia in the room. It occurs to Tom that the lighting is all wrong, on this summer afternoon. The scene should take place in darkness; in black and white, like The Maltese Falcon.

  ‘We want evidence that you’re using the weapons we give you,’ Jack says. ‘And we want information on trains. It doesn’t seem so much to ask.’

  ‘Ah, but why? That is the question: why do you want this information? The same question that must always be asked of British intelligence in the Balkans.’

  ‘So we can bomb the Hun from the air.’

  ‘And then what, Major?’ Jovan enquires.

  Jack falters. ‘There’s a war to be won. It’s not won yet.’

  ‘Don’t think we don’t know,’ Jovan says, nodding. The commander’s lips are still sealed and crooked, but they surely betray a smile. As if Jovan has just played his trump in a four-handed game of cards. Outfoxing the British representative.