To All Eternity

by Christopher Nicole

  “Bah!” said the officer. “Now you, return to your room and stay there. With your man.”

  He seemed to have forgotten his enquiry as to what Lockwood had been doing in the room. Berkeley jerked his head and Lockwood followed him across the corridor and into their rooms.

  Hedda Harlinger, or was she really Anna Slovitza? stared at them with enormous eyes, the sheet still held to her throat. “That shooting . . .”

  “Was your husband being killed,” Berkeley said. “But I gather he wasn’t your husband.”

  “He was my partner,” she said. “But . . . you mean he is dead?”

  “I would say he is dead. He stopped several bullets.”

  “Poor Otto.” She did not seem terribly upset.

  “So . . .” Berkeley sat at the foot of the bed, while Lockwood stood by the locked door, “I think I am owed an explanation.”

  “I am sorry you have become involved,” she said. “If I may just stay here until the hussars leave, then I will leave too, and you can forget all about me.”

  “I think that may be rather difficult,” he said, realising that he meant it in more ways than one. “I’m afraid I’m a man who likes to know just what he’s involved in. Your name is really Anna Slovitza, which I would say is neither Austrian nor Hungarian, but Serbian, perhaps.”

  She gazed at him with wide eyes.

  “That was told to me by the Austrian captain,” he explained. “He also said that you were far more dangerous than your so-called husband. Please, madame, I am assuming it really is madame, just what are you wanted for?”

  She licked her lips. “Surely that is no concern of yours.”

  “Madame, you happen to be in my bed.”

  “Please . . .” she started as there came a knock on the door.

  Berkeley and Lockwood looked at each other. But there was no way of concealing the woman, and at the moment Berkeley was not sure he wanted to take any more risks on her behalf, however attractive she might be.

  He nodded, as the knock came again, and Lockwood unlocked the door. The officer came in. “I forgot to ask . . .” He gazed at the woman, who had sunk down until only her nose was visible; her hair however, remained exposed. “Well, well,” he said. “You have been lying to me, Englander.”

  “You know how it is, Captain. Beauty in distress . . .”

  “How romantic.” He went to the bed, seized the covers and jerked them away. Anna Slovitza drew up her legs.

  “We have an understanding,” Berkeley said.

  “Quite so. And your ladies always go to bed with their clothes on?”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “You?” The captain gave a brief laugh. “No, no, Englander. You are not involved. The outrage was committed last week, and you were up in the mountains, looking for some legend. I have no doubt at all that this woman sought to become romantically involved with you. We will just remove her and save you a great deal of trouble. But let me give you a piece of advice: falling for a pretty face is not always a wise thing to do. You. Up.”

  Slowly Anna Slovitza swung her legs out of the bed and stood up. Once again Lockwood and Berkeley exchanged glances. But two of the hussars were standing just outside the door, their carbines in their hands.

  “Did you say outrage?” Berkeley asked.

  “Of course. Did you not realise that anarchy is this woman’s trade? But it will soon end. Outside.”

  “My dress.” Anna said.

  The officer grinned. “You will not need that.”

  Anna looked at Berkeley. “You know what they are going to do to me?”

  “I am sorry,” Berkeley said.

  She went through the door, followed by the officer. One of his men closed it behind them.

  “Whew!” Lockwood said. “I thought we were for it.”

  “She is certainly for it.”

  “Well, sir, I think we have done all we can for her. And if she really is wanted for some criminal act . . .”

  He checked as a scream echoed through the inn. It came from very close at hand.

  “Damn,” Berkeley said.

  “Sir . . .”

  There came another scream.

  Berkeley opened his bag, took out the Browning, checked the magazine. He had only ever fired it on the range and would have far preferred his service revolver. But the magazine did hold nine cartridges.

  “Sir,” Lockwood protested. “We were sent here to do a job of work. We have to get those sketches back to England.”

  There was a third scream.

  “You take the shotgun,” Berkeley said.

  Lockwood swallowed, but he knew nothing was going to stop his master now. He picked up the shotgun, inserted two cartridges.

  “Bring spares,” Berkeley said, and opened the door.

  A hussar stood immediately outside, leaning against the wall, but straightened as he saw the Englishman. “You are to stay inside.”

  “I need the air,” Berkeley told him, and swung his hand, holding the pistol, into the soldier’s midriff. He doubled up, and before he could straighten Lockwood hit him on the head with the shotgun. He went down with a thump.

  “That’s torn it,” Lockwood commented.

  “Good man,” Berkeley said.

  The door of the bedroom opposite opened. “Hans?” asked the hussar who emerged. He took in the situation at a glance, and leapt backwards. But Berkeley had followed him and now he kicked the door in while the hussar was trying to shut it. The man tumbled into one of his comrades, and Berkeley charged into the room. Anna Slovitza occupied the very centre of the space, suspended by her wrists from the rafter above her head. She had been stripped to her stockings and boots, and was being whipped by the officer, who was using his riding crop; there were red weals on her back and buttocks.

  The captain dropped the crop to reach for his revolver holster, and Berkeley shot him in the chest. His white tunic flared red and he went down without a sound. The three other men in the room, who had been watching the woman being tortured, all reached for their carbines and met the full blast of Lockwood’s shotgun, as he fired twice.

  Berkeley drew one of their swords to slash the rope holding Anna Slovitza, and she collapsed into his arms, sobbing.

  From below there came shouts.

  “Cover the stairs,” Berkeley snapped. “Madame, I know you’re in pain, but put something on.”

  He released her, somewhat reluctantly, and she sat on the bed, then hastily stood up again.

  Berkeley leant over the shattered men. Two and the officer were dead; the other two were badly wounded.

  “Company,” Lockwood called.

  “Stop them.”

  “Halt there,” Lockwood shouted.

  For reply, there were several shots, followed by the heavier explosion of the shotgun. Then there were shouts and clattering noises.

  Anna Slovitza was dragging on her underclothes. “What can we do?”

  “For the moment, keep your head down.”

  This was madness, he knew, and a complete dereliction of duty, but how his brain sang with an exultation he had not known since the Sudan; he had still been hobbling on crutches when the Boer War had started. Too long.

  The two wounded men were groaning and writhing. They were terribly cut up by the shotgun blast at close range, and there was nothing he could do for them. He went into the corridor, at the end of which Lockwood crouched. There was no way anyone could get at him, save one at a time round the last bend in the stairs, and Berkeley guessed that, lacking an officer, they would be less keen on risking their lives. Besides, Lockwood had been trained as a machine gunner before becoming his batman, and knew all about controlling fields of fire.

  Behind him the hussar who had been guarding his room was sitting up, rubbing his head and groaning. Berkeley nudged him with his toe. “Get up.”

  The man staggered to his feet, looked for his carbine.

  “Leave it,” Berkeley said. “Tell your comrades that you are coming down,
with two wounded men. Tell them to send Dittmann up to help you. Only Dittmann, mind.”

  The hussar licked his lips, staggered to the end of the corridor and shouted as instructed down the stairs.

  Anna Slovitza came out of the bedroom, fully dressed

  “How much do you trust Dittmann?” Berkeley whispered.

  “He will help us if he can.”

  Berkeley nodded, listened to feet on the stairs. “If it is Dittmann, let him through,” he told Lockwood. He gave Anna his pistol. “I assume you know how to use this, madame?”

  “Certainly I do.”

  “Then keep our friend covered, and if he tries anything, shoot him.”

  He went into his own bedroom, looked down on the front yard. There were several hussars down there, looking up, and when they saw him they began firing at the window. He stepped back hastily as the bullets splattered into the ceiling. Behind the soldiers, quite a crowd had gathered at the inn gate and on the street beyond, but he felt they were more hostile to the Austrians than to the foreigners. More important, the evening was drawing in; it would be dark in half an hour.

  Then, as he watched, a horseman came out of the stables and the gate was opened for him. The crowded parted, and he cantered down the street and on to the road leading south. Berkeley wondered how close the possible reinforcements were.

  He returned to the corridor, to see Dittmann emerging up the stairs. The innkeeper looked into the back bedroom, his jaw dropping as he saw the bodies.

  “Come in here, Herr Dittmann,” Berkeley said.

  Dittmann came into the front bedroom.

  “What is happening down there?”

  “There is much confusion, much argument. Some are for rushing the stairs, regardless of the casualties. Others are for waiting. One even wishes to set fire to the building. My inn, Herr Smith.”

  “But they are not going to do that?”

  “The sergeant is against it. He has sent for help and instructions.”

  “How soon can help reach here?”

  “I do not think before tomorrow morning.”

  “We must be away by then. I wish you to prepare a knapsack of food, food that will keep for a few days.”

  “But they will see me and arrest me.”

  “Not if you do it as part of preparing their dinner. They must be hungry by now. Talk them out of any further action until they have eaten. Do not fail me in this, Dittmann. If we are taken, Frau Slovitza will implicate you.”

  Dittmann licked his lips. “I had nothing to do with what happened in Budapest. I was here.”

  “But you gave shelter to the anarchists,” Berkeley reminded him, “knowing who they were. Now hurry. Put the sack of food outside the back door.”

  Dittmann returned to the back bedroom, where Berkeley removed the dead and wounded men’s cartridge belts, and stacked their carbines. Then the innkeeper and the remaining hussar heaved up the two wounded men and carried them to the stairs. Covered by Lockwood, they got them round the bend and down to the taproom.

  “What happens now, sir?” Lockwood asked. “I reckon they still number about fifteen.”

  “With more on the way.” Berkeley went into the back bedroom, looked out at the fields and the woods, and the mountains. He had come to know those mountains very well over the past three weeks.

  “Once we are in the open, they will hunt us down,” Anna said at his shoulder. “They will use dogs.”

  “They’ll need a lot of them.” Berkeley checked the weaponry. They had four carbines and nearly a hundred rounds of ammunition, together with his pistol, the shotgun, and the captain’s revolver. Cartridges for these were limited – he had only the two spare magazines, and Lockwood perhaps half a dozen shells left, but the captain’s pouch contained a dozen bullets, apart from those still in the chamber. Resolutely used, there was sufficient firepower to discourage any close pursuit not equipped with a machine gun.

  “And anyway,” Anna said, “the mountains . . . there is only Russia on the other side.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather face a Russian than an Austrian right now?”

  She sat on the bed, glanced at the dead man sprawled across it, shuddered, and stood up again.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a dead man before?” Berkeley said. “He described you as an anarchist.”

  “I planted a bomb,” Anna said sulkily.

  “Which I assume went off. How many people were killed?”

  “I do not know. It had a timing device.”

  “So you were well away when it exploded. Do you not think that is a cowardly way of doing things?”

  “They are many, we are few. They are tyrants, we are—”

  “Assassins.”

  “Yet you are helping me.”

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully.

  She caught his hand. “I wish you to know that, should we escape, I shall be forever in your debt.” Her eyes were enormous. “My life will be yours. You may ask anything of me, and you shall have it.”

  “We will escape,” he said.

  “Well, then . . .” her tongue circled her lips.

  “Let’s do it first.”

  *

  He returned to the front bedroom to look down. There were still a dozen men in the yard, but as he watched several went inside, called in by Dittmann to be fed. The street remained crowded with people awaiting the denouement of this strange intrusion of violence into their lives; and they probably did not yet know that at least three men were already dead.

  With how many to follow? And what then? The woman? He was being a complete fool. Were he sitting in the smoking room of his club in London, reading The Times, and he came across an item regarding a Serbian woman arrested and probably hanged after planting a bomb in Budapest, he would undoubtedly say to himself, serves the creature right. She would have no actuality to him; how she looked and smelt and talked would have no meaning. Now, because this woman had meaning and reality, he was acting like . . . an officer and a gentleman? But he was no longer an officer and a gentleman, in real terms. He was a spy; really the lowest form of human existence.

  Lower than a professional assassin?

  But as he was a spy, he folded his drawings into a small satchel, in which he also placed the spare magazines for his pistol, as well as his travel documents. During the week he had spent in the village before his expedition into the mountains he had become fairly well known, so there was no hope of concealing his identity, even if it was a false one, but he would need some form of identification to get into Russia.

  He also packed his belt of gold sovereigns, which would probably be even more important.

  It was now nearly dark. He put on his coat and hat, fetched Lockwood’s from the adjoining room, as well as his passport, and went into the gloomy corridor.

  “Any movement?”

  “Just a lot of chat, sir. They’re eating. And drinking,” he said sadly.

  “Put these on and be ready to move.”

  “Our gear?”

  “We’ll have to abandon it.” He tapped the satchel. “I have what matters.” He went into the rear bedroom. “Hat and coat. Nothing else, I’m afraid. You have travel documents?”

  She nodded.

  “Give them to me.”

  She hesitated, then obeyed. He stood at the window to look at them. “Are these real, or forged?”

  “They are real enough,” she said.

  “Well, the Russians are your friends, are they not?” He added them to the contents of the satchel.

  “Dittmann has put out the food,” she said.

  Berkeley looked out of the window, saw the sack lying beside the back door. There was no way of knowing what was in it; the innkeeper had to be trusted.

  It was now dark enough to make the wood an indistinct blur. “Time to leave, I think. While they are eating.”

  “Do you not think they will be keeping a watch?”

  “I doubt it. They’ll reckon we’ll feel safer up here.” He went
into the corridor, touched Lockwood on the shoulder. “You first,” he said in a low voice. “It’s about twenty feet to the cobbles. Use the sheets from the bed. Then wait for the lady.”

  “And you, sir?”

  “I’m the rearguard. Now, Harry, should anything happen to me, you take the lady across the mountains and into Russian Poland.” He gave the valet his satchel. “Everything you need is in there.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but shouldn’t you go with the lady?”

  “I intend to do that, Harry, as soon as we’re out of here. Now be a good fellow and do as I say.”

  Lockwood went into the bedroom, and Berkeley took his place, one carbine on his lap the other at his side; both were repeaters. He listened to some good cheer from downstairs; the Austrians might have lost three of their people and had two more wounded, but they were enjoying their food and wine. He guessed, knowing what he did about the Austrian army, that they hadn’t been all that fond of their officer, anyway.

  Anna knelt beside him. “You are sending me away with your servant?”

  “Briefly. Do get on with it.”

  She hesitated, then kissed him on the cheek and returned to the bedroom.

  He waited, listening, heard the scrabbling sound as she climbed out of the window on to the rope of sheets. The noise below him was increasing as the hussars tackled the wine. Then someone wagered he could get upstairs. Berkeley levelled his carbine, listened to the steps, and as a face peered round the corner fired three times. He did not aim at the face, as he felt he had done enough killing for one evening, but the man disappeared, and could be heard tumbling back down the stairs to the accompaniment of roars of laughter from his comrades.

  Now was the best time. Berkeley slung both carbines and retreated into the bedroom. There had been no noise from the back of the inn. Now he swung himself out of the window, down the sheet-rope, landed on the cobbles. Lockwood and Anna had already disappeared into the gloom.

  He ran behind them and had covered about half the distance when he heard shouts from behind him, followed by shots. But he knew the Austrians couldn’t see him; they were shooting blind.

  “Here, sir,” Lockwood called.

  He panted up to where they were waiting, at the first of the trees.