After a little, I picked up the line of the road.
This descended by zigzags into the valley below and promised an easy passage, dark though it was; for its course had been ordered by man and not by Nature, and so should present no feature which a cool head might not expect.
Very thankful that I had happened to stop the Rolls where I had – for, had we rounded the corner and shown our lights, anyone looking from Vogue must surely have noticed their glare – I made my way back to my lady and told her that all was well.
A moment later we had started to steal down the pass.
Now the brink was upon my right hand, but the Grand Duchess sat on my left, and, since I gave the depths as wide a berth as I could, not until we had rounded a bend was she afforded a view of the light below.
When she saw it she caught her breath.
“It’s hopeless,” she cried. “Hopeless. Look at that light.”
“I’m going to,” I said quietly. “But not from here. I shall stop the car this side of the last of the bends. And then we’ll walk on together and see what it means.”
“You are very – imperative,” she murmured.
The rebuke brought me to my senses, and I set my foot upon the brake.
“I beg your pardon,” I said, “with all my heart. I should have told you my plan. You know that I did not mean it – but I am used to working with Hanbury, and he and I do each as the other says.”
“I am in your hands,” she said slowly. “You – you think that we should go on.”
“My dear, what else can we do? If this little post is lively, the others will be broad awake. I have thought of the train, but God knows when there will be one, and Bell and I have left our passports behind.”
“I am in your hands,” she repeated. “Do as you will.”
I let the car go forward…
Our passage was very slow, for I dared not show any light that was fixed to the car, and as luck would have it, neither Bell nor I had a torch; and though I had often driven without any lights and met with no accident, that was always upon a road that I knew and never upon one so perilous, upon which the slightest error would cost so dear.
At last, however, we were down, and though I could not be certain which was the last of the bends, I judged us to be near enough and brought the car to rest by the side of the road.
I bade Bell stay where he was and handed my lady out.
One thing I marked in our favour.
Somewhere, not far below us, there was a waterfall. No ordinary sound that we made could rise above its dull roar: if we were careful, therefore, we had nothing to fear but the light, unless, of course, a sentry were posted in the midst of the road.
The next bend was the last of the zigzag, but when we had rounded this, we still could not see the guard-room, for the road now followed some water, and after two hundred yards curled sharp to the right. It was when we had made this corner that we saw the style of the gauntlet we had to run.
Fifty yards away stood the guard-room, on the left of the way. It was built with a long porch or loggia fronting the road, to which three steps descended in a line with the guard-room door. From the roof of the loggia was hanging a powerful electric lamp whose light a reflector was throwing full on to the road. And in the road stood a trestle, some ten feet long, with a lantern standing upon it and showing red…
This side of the guard-room was a bridge, beneath which went roaring the water which we had heard, and the road was falling sharply the whole of the way. Nature was dead in our favour. We could have started the engine, attained a high speed and been gone before any sentry had time to turn his head – but for the barrier standing in the midst of the road.
I touched the Grand Duchess’ arm.
“Will you go and get Bell?” I said. “Bring the Rolls down to this corner and wait for me?”
“What are you going to do?”
“See if there’s a sentry,” I said.
“Promise me you will do no violence of any kind.”
“I promise,” I said.
The next moment she was gone.
Now, though I had not said so, I had a high hope that the trestle was there to serve a lazy guard.
The post was plainly too petty to warrant an officer’s presence, and day after day the guard could have little to do but while away the time. Such things do not make for discipline… I would have laid a small fortune that they were all asleep.
I should have lost my stake.
The sentry was standing in the porch on the farther side of the light.
His back was towards me, and he was leaning on the loggia’s wall – which was, upon the inside, waist high – gazing down the valley which led to the Vigil road. His rifle stood up beside him against the wall. The door of the guard-room was open, and all was dark within.
Standing there, in the shadows, I could not think what to do.
The trestle, the sentry and the powerful electric light were working together for evil, and working extremely well. Any two of the three I could, I think, have eluded without any fuss: but the three together were presenting an obstacle which I could not see how to approach, much less surmount.
The trestle had to be moved. It did not look very heavy, and I had no doubt that I could put it aside without any noise: but the road where the trestle was standing was as bright as though it were lighted by the midday sun.
I had promised to use no violence: I must therefore suffer the sentry and any armed interference the fellow might make. This was serious. With the Grand Duchess in my charge, I dared take no such risk.
I must not meddle with the sentry, and, lest the sentry should turn, the trestle I dared not touch. Only the light remained.
I slunk as close as I dared. Then I lifted my head to look over the loggia’s wall.
By the side of the guard-room door was a dirty switch. From this ran a flexible cord, loosely stapled to the wall and rising to the roof of the loggia, where I could see it no more. That switch and wire were serving the powerful lamp no one could have doubted for an instant. The thing was patent as the nose upon a man’s face.
At once I saw the value of darkness – of sudden, blinding darkness to our attempt.
If that powerful lamp were to fail – fail suddenly, silently and for no obvious reason, as is the common way of electric lamps, not only would the sentry be embarrassed, but, what was far more important, his attention would be so much distracted that a caravan of cars could steal by and he know no more of their passing than the peasants asleep in their beds.
Now I cannot foresee, as can some, the action which, faced with certain conditions, another will take. I have always coveted such foresight as being a precious faculty and one which has won more battles than anything else: but though I have tried to acquire it, my efforts have failed, and I fear it is a sense we are born with or born without and one which no manner of striving can ever produce.
Being, then, very conscious of this failing, I hastily reviewed the position which I meant, if I could, to set up: but, always provided that the failure of the lamp aroused no sort of suspicion, I could find no fault in my plan.
When he had tested the switch, the sentry would grope for a chair, with the object of reaching the lamp. Until he had removed and replaced this and then again tested the switch, I did not believe that he would arouse his sergeant, for no one likes being awakened without just cause, and the ordinary army sergeant is no sucking-dove.
Of moving the lantern from the trestle I had no fear. Its light was feeble, and, since its sides were not glazed, but only its face, and since its face was looking towards the bridge, no one that stood in the loggia could have told if it were burning or no. I could therefore move it wherever I pleased, so long as I kept its face turned from the guard-room porch.
With an earnest prayer that the sentry would stay where he was, I stole back the way I had come…
This simple reconnaissance took much less time to make than it has taken to tell, and I waited
five minutes at the corner before I was aware of the Rolls. Of her approach I heard nothing, and when I saw her first she was only six feet away. This looked well for our venture, for the guard-room was no further than the corner from the turbulent fall, and moreover, while the sentry was unready, I had been expecting the car.
At once I told Bell to find me a pair of wire-cutting pliers, and, whilst he was getting them out, I told the Grand Duchess my plan.
“But if the sentry sees you,” she said. “What if he turns and sees you when you are cutting the wire?”
“I shall go on and cut it,” I said. “Plunged into sudden darkness, what can he do?”
“He can call the guard,” says she.
“Let him,” said I. “And make the confusion worse. They’ll only fall over each other, and I shan’t wait. You cannot fire at a man if you can neither see him nor hear where he is.”
She put a hand to her head.
“I do not like it,” she said. “I am afraid. I know you will do no violence, because you have promised me so. But you are inviting violence, and the trigger of a sentry’s rifle is very light. If he makes a mistake he is always forgiven for firing, but never for withholding his fire.”
“I give you my word,” said I, “that I will wait for my chance. I will wait for my chance if I have to stand there for an hour.”
“And that, if your chance does not come, you will not make the attempt.”
“Yes.”
Here Bell gave me the pliers, which seemed to be fairly sharp.
Then I told him to enter the car and to bring her around the corner, until he could see the trestle from end to end. He did so carefully.
“Now,” said I, “I am going to put out that light. The moment it disappears, take the car over the bridge. Wait there and watch the lantern. If it moves, you’ll know that all’s well: and when you see it down on the edge of the road, but not before that, take the car past the guard-room as quick as you can. When you’re fifty yards by, switch on your side and tail lamps and let her go. If need be, use your engine. When you’ve gone about half a mile, put out your lights and wait by the side of the road. Now is all that perfectly clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bell.
I turned to the Grand Duchess.
“Will you come with me?” I said.
Together we crossed the bridge.
“Now,” said I, “I would like us to go together up to the loggia’s wall. When the moment comes, I shall leave you and go over that wall. The instant the light goes out, slip past the steps. I shall be on the steps myself, and I shall not move from them until I have heard you go by. The moment you are clear of the guard-room, run like the wind: but keep close against the wall until the car has gone by. Don’t look back for the lantern, for its face will be turned from you, and there will be nothing to see.”
A moment later we were standing beneath the loggia’s wall.
The sentry was as I had left him, with his back towards us and his arms on the top of the wall. The man was short of stature, and I think that the height of the wall must have suited him very well, enabling him to rest his body so far as it could be rested without he sat down. That this was the reason why he maintained his posture I have no doubt, but at the moment I had no room for speculation, but only for thankfulness.
As I was peering, I felt the Grand Duchess’ hand slip into mine.
For a moment I held it close.
Then—
“I shall stay on the steps,” I breathed, “until you go by.”
An instant later I was up and over the wall. It was an anxious moment, for the switch was some twelve feet distant, and had the sentry turned, I do not know what I should have done. But Fortune was with me. The man stood still as death, while, pliers in hand, I covered the fateful distance as smoothly as any shade.
A foot above the switch was a staple pinning the wire to the wall. Above this the wire hung slack. I cut it clean directly above the staple, and almost leaped with surprise at what I had done.
As the sentry swung round with an oath, I slipped to the steps, and, as he made for the switch, the Grand Duchess went by.
I heard the snap of the switch and then a grunt of disgust. Then the fellow fouled the door of the guard-room, and somebody spoke.
And that was as much as I heard, for at that moment I took up the little lantern to set it down in the road.
Its case might have been red-hot.
I have no excuse to offer, for only a fool would have done such a foolish thing, but at least I paid for my folly in anguish of body and mind.
I do not know how I held it, except that the pain was less dreadful than the fear of letting it fall, but I smelled my own flesh roasting, and my fingers were scarred for months.
The trestle was very heavy, but I think that I could have moved it had it been twice its weight.
Then I returned for the lantern and, wrapping it in my handkerchief, removed it to the edge of the road.
As I looked up, the sentry lighted a match.
He was standing upon a chair, and I think he was wishing to find the electric lamp.
The match flared for a moment and then went out. As it did so, the Rolls swept by with the swoop of a bird.
I thought the man must have noticed the movement of air, but he uttered no sound, and, as I turned to follow, he lighted another match.
I was sorry for the fellow, for I knew it would go hard with him when the trestle was found to be moved, and, after all, he had fairly done his duty, and I had only passed him by means of a trick. Indeed, for his sake, I would have put back the trestle, but that would have been to run a wanton risk and, even so, I could not have mended the wire, which must presently speak for itself.
Perhaps twenty yards from the guard-room the village began. As I passed the first house, a slight figure fell in beside me without a word.
“Much ado about nothing,” said I, dropping into a walk. “And, by the by, if you had obeyed your orders, you’d be a furlong from here.”
“Did you think that I would leave you?” she said.
We passed through the tiny village and into a widening valley with mountains on either side. Far in the distance there was a pinprick of light.
The Grand Duchess raised her arm.
“That’s the level-crossing at Vardar. We turn to the right there, and five miles further we’ll strike the Vigil road.”
At her mention of Vigil my heart sank down like a stone.
That this was out of all reason I know very well, but yet I think it was natural, because I loved her so much. For twenty-four hours I had had sole charge of my darling: for twenty-four hours I had been her familiar friend: I had sat beside her, seen her smile flash for me, breathed the breath of her lips. And now all that was over. Within the hour we should be back in our places, and God alone knew whether we ever should leave them again.
“I took you,” I said suddenly. “I should have been ashamed if I could not have brought you back.”
“Is that why you risked your life?”
“I never did that,” said I.
“We won’t argue the point,” said she. “Is that why you climbed the wall and cut the wire?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I suppose so. We had to get by. But, now that we’ve done it – well, you try to break out of a prison, but we seem to have broken in.” I laughed rather wretchedly – I do not know why. “Of course it’s all part of the game, but I – I wish to God I was taking you, instead of bringing you back.”
The Grand Duchess stopped in her tracks.
“Oh, my dear, why didn’t you?” she said.
For a moment we looked at each other. Then my world seemed to stagger, and when it was steady again, I was holding her close to my heart, and her arms were about my neck…
“Oh, Leonie, I love you,” I breathed. “I—”
“I know. I’m so glad, my darling. Why didn’t you take me away?”
“Because I’m a fool – a madman. Becaus
e—”
“Because you’re honest,” she said. “I tried so hard to make you – twice I tried. Once when we’d left the bridge and again at the top of the pass. A thousand men out of a thousand would have done it, but because you’re so honest it never even entered your mind.”
What I said I cannot remember, but I know that I tried to show her that she was doing me honour that I did not deserve and that, after a little, we seemed to be in agreement that, cost what it might, my duty was to bring her to Vigil, and that when I burst out in the orchard I was not myself.
When I had kissed her, she took my face in her hands.
“Why do you love me?” she said. “You know that I am out of your reach and you cannot tell why I am fighting to save Paul’s throne.”
“I love to serve you,” said I. “The future can take thought for itself.”
“Ah,” says she. “The future.”
A shiver ran through her body and I held her more close than before.
“But you will remember,” she said, “that if you had taken me away, I should never have loved you so well.”
“I will remember, Leonie.”
“Always – whatever happens – for the rest of your life.”
“Always.”
Then she gave me her lips, and, after a little, we made our way to the car.
Forty-five minutes later we stood in the hall of the house of the Countess Dresden of Salm.
That lady was speaking.
“Yesterday, just after lunch, the Prince had another stroke. Everyone thought he was dying: but at three o’clock he rallied. He’s still himself, but very much shaken and changed. Sully is greatly perturbed. It seems that, when he rushed to the palace, the sentries didn’t know him or something, and he had great difficulty about getting in.”
There was nothing to be said, and after a moment or two I took my leave.
Blood Royal Page 13
