The peasants from whom he had bought his horse had pressed some raisin cake and fruit upon him so, getting them and the bottle of Slivowatz out of the suitcase, he made a picnic meal, sharing the food with his tired mount. Then he scooped a hole among the pine needles for his hip, covered himself with the civilian clothes he had taken from Dimitriyevitch’s wardrobe, and tried to sleep.
It seemed a long time before he dozed off, owing to his intense worry about the Archduke and his anxiety that he should not sleep too long. That morning he had been too exhausted to impress his brain before sleeping with the necessity to be on the road again by mid-day; but, normally, his soldier’s training enabled him more or less to fix his hour of waking, and it worked on this occasion. At five o’clock he woke to find it a lovely summer morning: and, there, in the gorge below him, lay a swirling river that could only be the Drina.
He waited only to take off his uniform, throw it under a bush, and put on the civilian riding clothes that he had used for cover during the night. Then he was off. He considered it unlikely that the Archduke would make his official entry into Sarajevo before ten o’clock and, if that were so, he still had five hours to work in. He could no longer hope to get to Sarajevo in time, but by hard riding he ought to be able to reach the railway, and from there he could send a telegram of warning.
Now that daylight had come he soon found a steep but possible way down into the gorge, and it consoled him a little to think that losing his way had enabled him to cross the frontier without difficulty. To prevent smuggling, guards were, he knew, stationed along it at intervals, and he had feared that if he ran into a patrol they might hold him up. But that risk of further delay had now been averted.
On reaching the river, he watered his horse, knelt down to drink himself, and, remounting, took the track southward along its bank. When he had decided to attempt crossing the mountains to the Drina on the previous evening, his map had shown him that its course would not lead him to Yardiste, but to Visegrad, a small junction one station down the line which also served another short branch to a place called Uvac. That was all to the good, as he would now strike the railway almost ten miles nearer to Sarajevo. But the river twisted most maddeningly and he dared not attempt short cuts across its bends in case he lost his way again, or found it blocked by unforeseen obstacles.
Soon after six o’clock, he entered a village, but as it was Sunday few people were yet astir, and those he saw had the same flat Slav faces as their brethren on the other side of the frontier. They waved to him and shouted greetings in the same incomprehensible tongue, so he waved back to them but did not pause to ask them if he was on the right road. He felt certain they would not be able to understand him, and was now obsessed with the necessity of not wasting a moment.
By seven o’clock he reckoned that he had covered over twenty miles and began to be worried by the thought that, after all, he might be following the course of some river that was not the Drina. The nightmare idea came to him that during the previous evening he might have doubled on his tracks, and now be cantering along the bank of the Morava, back to Užice. But a quarter of an hour later he came in sight of a single track railway line and a small town which was certainly not the one he had driven through in the Rolls just twenty-four hours earlier.
A glance at the map and the surrounding heights confirmed his belief that it must be Visegrad, so he pushed on into it and made straight for the station. It was shut, but a name-board above the entrance to the building showed him to be right, and a few minutes later, to his ineffable relief, he saw a man dressed in the uniform of an Austrian postman.
All Austrian civil servants, whatever their race and however lowly their degree, had to possess at least a rudimentary knowledge of German. With a sigh of thankfulness, De Richleau found that he could once more make himself understood. The postman proved both friendly and intelligent. He said that on Sundays the telegraph office did not open, and that there was only one train from Visegrad to Sarajevo. It left at eleven-thirty, so that after church people could set off to whichever village up the line happened to be celebrating its summer Saint’s day, and dance there in its beer gardens during the afternoon. At the same hour a train left Sarajevo for Visegrad to convey people coming in the opposite direction. Then at eight in the evening the two trains left their termini to pick up people who had gone to these village fêtes, and convey them home.
A pleasant manner and a handsome tip swiftly secured the postman as a guide to the postmaster’s house. That official was just getting up but, unshaven and bedraggled as the Duke was, he had not lost his natural air of authority. Within ten minutes he had the man at his office. A telegram was promptly written out and dispatched to the Mayor of Sarajevo. It ran:
Have positive information that attempt will be made to assassinate Archduke on his arrival in Sarajevo this morning stop Imperative that you should prevent his entering city stop Am proceeding there by first train stop Königstein Count and Colonel Archduchess Ilona Theresa’s regiment Imperial Hussars.
At the thought that he had, after all, succeeded in getting a warning through in time, De Richleau felt a warm glow of elation. But his night in the woods had been far from the type of rest he needed. His twenty-three miles’ ride had taxed him severely and his wound was now making him a little feverish, so he gladly accepted the postmaster’s offer to look after him.
His kindly host, greatly excited by the alarming tidings he had brought, took him back to his house, sent for a doctor to dress his wound, provided him with shaving things and a good breakfast, changed some of his Serbian pieces into Austrian coin, and finally saw him into the train at eleven-thirty.
It was a tinkel-bahn affair which stopped at every station to collect country girls and their bucolic swains who were going to the fête which, as this Sunday was St. Vitus’ day, and St. Vitus the patron saint of Sarajevo, was in the Bosnian capital itself. Normally the distance would have deterred some of the pleasure seekers, but the visit of the Archduke was an added attraction, so the train soon filled up with young people. Their healthy pink faces, gaily embroidered local costumes and shy tittering would, normally, have aroused in the Duke a sympathetic feeling of happiness and well-being; but he was much too concerned with the thought of what might be happening, or have already happened, in Sarajevo, to pay any attention to them.
With maddening slowness the little train chugged its way along the valley of the Praca. The journey seemed interminable, but at last it completed its fifty miles’ trip and, at half past two, puffed into Sarajevo.
Although the town was not much more than half the size of Belgrade, it was far more beautiful. It had for many centuries been an outpost of the Turkish Empire and had not yet lost the oriental imprint through cheap and shoddy modernization. The river, which was broad enough here to be navigable, ran through it, and from the valley bottom in which it lay rose the minarets and domes of its hundred mosques, many of which were set in groves of tall cypress trees.
As soon as De Richleau reached the barrier of the station platform he asked the ticket collector if the Archduke had arrived that morning. To his relief the man answered, “No sir. I do not think he is expected till about three o’clock.”[i]
The Duke, having expected Franz Ferdinand either to enter the town before mid-day, or, if his telegram had had the desired result, not enter it at all, thought the reply cryptic but at all events it was clear that no tragedy had yet occurred.
Hurrying outside, he got a cab and told the driver to take him as quickly as possible to the Town Hall. The way lay through streets decorated with flags and gaily coloured rugs hung from balconies and windows; and De Richleau was considerably perturbed to see that along the side walks there were crowds of waiting people. Evidently, if the Archduke’s visit had been cancelled, the fact had not yet been made public.
At the Town Hall he inquired for the Mayor and was informed that His Worship had gone out with the Military Governor, General Potiorek, to welcome the Archduke at the
limits of the city. That could only mean that the warning telegram had either not been delivered, or had been ignored in the belief that it had been sent by some irresponsible practical joker. Now, frantic with anxiety, De Richleau ordered his jehu to drive him at full speed to the spot where the city officials were waiting to receive the Archduke.
As the carriage moved at a fast trot through the main streets the Duke noticed that among the banners hanging at intervals across them were some bearing the words ‘Welkommen zu uttser Erzherzog und die Herzogin von Hohenberg’; which informed him for the first time that the Chotek was expected as well as her husband. He also noticed that the streets were not lined with troops and that there were very few police about. Many of the men in the crowd wore the turban or fez of Mohammedans, but the majority had on the flat round hats of Serbs or cheap caps manufactured in western Europe. As they stood lining the route in the bright sunshine they appeared cheerful and well-behaved, but in view of the known political hostility of the Bosnian population to the Austrian regime it seemed that the authorities had been extremely lax in not taking even reasonable precautions to keep order.
After a moment De Richleau guessed the explanation. Potiorek was von Hötzendorf’s rival and the Emperor’s favourite soldier. Naturally he would do anything he could to curry favour with his aged master. As the military Governor of Bosnia he would be responsible for all arrangements, and he must have taken deliberate steps to put a slight upon the Chotek. In accordance with the Emperor’s expressed wishes no function to which she accompanied her husband need be regarded as an official one, so that was an ample excuse for the General to have refrained from ordering any troops to be paraded.
A few minutes’ drive brought the Duke to within two hundred yards of the bridge across the river, over which the procession was expected to enter the centre of the town. There was a policeman there who halted the cab, told the driver that he could go no farther, and diverted him into a side street. Realizing that it was useless to waste time arguing with an underling, or attempting to explain matters, De Richleau jumped out, thrust a coin into the cabby’s hand and hurried forward on foot. When he was half way to the bridge a cheer broke out beyond it.
Thrusting his way through the bystanders, he got into the open road and broke into a run. The bridge was lined with spectators on both sides. Between them he could now see some cars approaching. A policeman tried to stop him, but he dodged the man and ran on. The first car was an open six-seater yellow and black Mercedes with a low flat bonnet. To the left of its windscreen was tied the Imperial flag, a square of bright yellow with a black eagle and a border of black triangles. In its back seat were sitting Franz Ferdinand and his wife. He was wearing the cocked hat crowned with black cock’s feathers of an Austrian Field-Marshal, and she a wide-brimmed, floppy straw decorated with pink roses. The car was moving at little more than walking pace. Waving wildly, De Richleau shouted to its driver to halt, but the man took no notice. Another policeman ran at the Duke, but he dodged again. Next moment he was level with the car bonnet. At that instant he glimpsed a movement in the crowd lining the side of the bridge. A shabbily dressed youth had raised his arm. In his hand he held a black object the size of a cricket ball. He was just about to throw it.
Swerving violently, De Richleau leapt at him. As he grasped the young man’s upraised arm the bomb shot from his hand. But his aim had been deflected. Instead of landing in the car, it bounced off the hood at its back, fell into the road, and exploded with a loud bang.
The Duke felt a violent pain in his right leg, and, almost at the same instant, a sharp blow in the side of the head. For a second he heard the screams, shouts and roaring of the crowd about him. Then he fell unconscious among it.
When he came to he found himself in hospital. Through a mist of pain he wondered how he had got there. But after a few moments the pains localized themselves. There were three: his old wound in the shoulder, a new one in his right leg, and his head bandaged and aching. The scene on the bridge flashed back into his mind. He had succeeded in diverting the bomb from the Archduke’s car, but as it had exploded two fragments of it must have hit him.
As he struggled up into a sitting position a pretty young nurse came over to his bedside.
“The Archduke!” he gasped.
“You needn’t worry,” she replied in German. “The bomb rolled off the back of his car and exploded in the road. Two of the officers of his suite were wounded by splinters, and yourself: but he was not even scratched. Lie down now, or you will increase the bleeding of your leg.”
De Richleau’s brain was now working quite clearly, so he knew that his head wound was not serious. It could have been only a glancing blow from a piece of flying metal that had temporarily knocked him out. Tankosić had spoken of ‘those crazy boys’ and ‘pistols’. He had said nothing of bombs. That meant that there must be more than one assassin, and that the other, or others, were armed with automatics. The Archduke had not been shot at but, as long as he remained in Sarajevo, he might be at any moment. Pushing back the sheets, the Duke began to get out of bed.
The young nurse tried to stop him. Thrusting her aside, he insisted that he must get up to warn the Archduke that another attempt might be made upon him. Thinking him delirious, she abandoned her efforts to prevent his getting out of bed, and ran from the ward to fetch the doctor.
The Duke’s clothes had been neatly folded and temporarily laid on a chair beside his bed. The chairs of the two beds next to his had uniforms similarly folded on them; so he knew that the occupants of the beds must be the wounded officers. One was watching him from dull eyes and moaning a little, the other was unconscious: so it seemed they had fared worse than he had.
When he put the foot of his wounded leg to the floor and tried his weight on it, the stab of pain made him break out into a cold sweat. But he knew that mind was the master of matter and that, providing the bone was not completely severed, even fractured limbs could be made to fulfil their function in an emergency.
Breathing heavily, he began to struggle into his clothes. When the nurse came hurrying back with a rather wooden-faced man of about his own age, he was already half dressed.
“You can’t do this! I forbid it!” cried the doctor.
“Do you think I am doing it for fun?” the Duke grimaced with pain. “As I told your nurse, a second attempt may be made at any moment to kill the Archduke. He must be warned immediately.”
“My poor fellow, you are delirious.”
“I am nothing of the kind.”
“I fear you are. If you refuse to return to bed at once I shall have to send for assistance to make you.”
“On the contrary, you are going to get your hypodermic and give me an injection in the leg to numb this damn pain. Then you’ll find me a crutch and get hold of an automobile to take me to the Archduke. If you refuse I shall charge you with having obstructed me in my duty as a Colonel of the Austrian Army. What is more, should the Archduke be assassinated through your preventing me from reaching him, I shall hold you publicly responsible for his death.”
De Richleau’s grey eyes were feverish and his face chalk-white; yet his cold, level voice was not that of a man suffering from delirium. The doctor did not know what to make of him, but blanched at the idea of assuming such a terrible responsibility.
“You—you really have reason to think—?” he hazarded.
“Damn it, man! I know! Don’t stand there gaping, but do something. You must have a telephone here. Where is the Archduke?”
“He drove on to the Town Hall. He is still there, I expect.”
“Then for God’s sake telephone! Send a message that in no circumstances must he leave the building. Use my name. Say you are telephoning for Count Königstein, and that I’ll get round there as soon as I can to inform him of this plot.”
The doctor was convinced now that his patient was in his right mind. With a nod he turned to the nurse and said, “Help him to get his clothes on.” Then he ran from the room
.
Six minutes later he came hurrying back. Except for his right boot, the Duke was now fully dressed, and the nurse was preparing a syringe for the injection.
“I’m sorry, Count,” said the doctor quickly. “The Town Hall number is engaged. With His Highness there I expect it’s extra busy. But I’ve left a colleague to give your message as soon as he can get through. Don’t worry, though. I’ve got an automobile outside. It’s no distance, and we’ll be round there in five minutes.”
Swift and efficient now, he gave the injection. The nurse found a slipper for the patient’s foot and a crutch to go under his arm. The alarming news had already spread and the doorway of the ward was now filled with an excited group of nurses and students; but they promptly made way and some of the men helped the doctor get De Richleau downstairs.
With a bang and a jerk the auto started. The side streets were almost clear of people, but the doctor hooted his horn without ceasing, and took the corners regardless of the rules of the road. Good as his word, he had the Duke at the Town Hall in less than five minutes.
Among the crowd a solitary policeman was standing outside it. Bracing himself to leave the car, De Richleau shouted, “Is the Archduke still in the building?”
The man shook his head. “No. You’ve just missed him.”
“Which way did he go?”
“To the hospital, to visit the two officers who were wounded.”
Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 Page 34
