Night Journey (10 page)

But even the streets were not dark. A full moon was rising mistily after a perfect day. It made a pale corona of light silhouetting the hundred and thirty spires of the great marble and granite cathedral. Considering it was not late there were few people about.

I decided to walk back to the hotel.

It was no distance, a kilometre or so, and would have been a pleasant walk if only, half way, I had not become certain I was being followed.

Nerves, of course. Nerves can do so much. It is like trying to convince oneself that the half-felt pain is not there at all. Footsteps on the shadowy half-lit pavements. Why not? Other people lived here. This was not a town of the dead.

Are there some footsteps connected with me and some footsteps unconnected? (After all it is simply that the pain has been in that place before, even though that was before the operation.)

The single-decker trams clanged past, and once I almost climbed aboard at a stop. But I was playing a game in which one could not afford to be stampeded. It was now a matter of pride. One can be stiff-necked, whether Austrian or English. Plod on. Keep your nerve.

I thought how beautiful Venice would look in the growing moonlight, and wondered about Jane Howard. Already I had thought so much of our meeting and of our last parting that there did not seem to be any true emotion left; every bit had been squeezed dry. I needed to see her again to renew even my memory.

I came to a stop and bent over a shoe-lace. Somewhere behind me footsteps stopped also.

So it was true, the worst had happened. The dead man had not been alone in Venice. When his compatriot did not turn up the second man would have reported him as missing to some secret
Polizeihauptwachtmeister
higher up, who would telephone instructions that I should be picked up in Milan as I left the train. What more simple?

My throat was thick and dry as I straightened up, glanced casually behind, walked on. At the last corner a group of three men were talking. They had not been there when I passed.

I lengthened my stride. A hundred metres to the first of the blocks of modem flats at the corner of the square from which opened the Viale Vittorio Veneto. Five minutes to the hotel. If they were so disposed they could pick me up in that time, or, if they felt like it, with a rifle pick me off. My back already felt the sharp pain.

Across the square. If they were going to move it would have to be now. Another tram. In the moonlit sky three searchlights came secretly into existence, moved backwards and forwards among the faint stars. The great moon showed suddenly like as eye between the blocks of flats. Women were chattering here. Almost safety.

As I reached the hotel the three searchlights winked one by one and disappeared.

I entered and went straight upstairs. My bedroom was undisturbed.

Before getting into bed I slid the bolt across the door, switched off the light, parted the curtains to look out. There was the square-built figure of a man standing near the entrance to the hotel waiting for a tram. But I saw three trams draw up and he did not board them.

I woke with the rumble of trams still in nay ears. It was pitch dark in the room because the blackout was drawn, and the thick curtains made the room heavy with warmth. Having gone to sleep uneasily I was immediately and sharply awake wondering if the sound was inside the room. But all was quiet now.

Not a tram: too heavy for that. Thunder, probably; one of those sharp electric storms that brew over Milan. There was a flicker of light through the curtain arid I got up to make sure. Half way to the window I heard the drone of an aeroplane.

I stepped out on to the balcony.

The sky was alive with searchlights, moving, probing, flicking here and there. In the distance was the great orange glow of fire. It was the flashes of the anti-aircraft guns I had seen, and perhaps it was this noise that had wakened me. Over all the moon, now fully risen, and shrunk in size, flooded the earth with its cold light. The man who had been waiting for the tram was no longer there. It was two o'clock.

Somewhere overhead, presumably, were men who spoke my mother's tongue, who had flown seven hundred miles to make this attack and, if fortunate, would fly the same distance back again.

The focus of the raid appeared to be on the outskirts of the city. The night was mild and I got my dressing-gown to watch. Some other people were doing the same, but presently the ack-ack fire grew more intense and a big gun opened up in the gardens opposite. People melted away rapidly as pieces of shrapnel began to fall.

In the corridor voices were raised. A man shouted, urging the others to “take shelter in the trenches!” Another was shouting something quite different, and an argument and hysterical voices grew up. Then close above us came the fierce drone of an aeroplane swooping low and climbing away again. When it had gone the voices had stopped. I looked out and saw a magnesium flare burning whitely on the tramlines.

In the corridor a woman screamed: “
Per vergognal Non lo posso tollerare di piu
!”

After a few minutes things died down. The searchlights were still sweeping the sky and the fire still burning but the guns had stopped. Their first salvoes must have wakened me. Since I had slept through any air-raid warning there might have been, I waited to see if there was an all clear. But in half an hour the distant drone of planes could be heard again. During this second attack I sat on the bed and smoked a cigarette. Although this brief raid was nearer, I felt no fear. I expected, perhaps, that the bombs would be able to discriminate on whom they fell …

I tried to guess the number of planes from the sound. I should have estimated about six or seven in each flight. I decided to get dressed, for pyjamas are not the best sort of shelter suit. Then I smoked another cigarette.

The gun-fire ceased, this time it seemed for good. I waited twenty minutes, then began to untie my tie. As I did so the telephone on the table rang. I took off the receiver thinking it likely to be some inquiry reassurance from the management.

“I wish to speak to Captain Bonini,” said a voice.

I hesitated. “Captain Bonini is not here.”

“Who is that?”

“Captain Bonini's private secretary.”

“Where can I get in touch with him?”

“He is in Venice. Who is that, please?”

“Professor Brayda's secretary. I understood Captain Bonini was in Milan.”

Professor Brayda. The man whose work I was to have the privilege of … “He is travelling up by the early train in the morning. Can I give him a message for you?”

There was a pause on the wire and it seemed to go dead.

“What is wrong?” I insisted. “ I am completely in Captain Bonini's confidence.”

This time I could hear whispered voices at the other end.

“Hullo.”

“Hullo.”

“This is Professor Brayda's secretary. Why is Captain Bonini not in Milan?”

“He had business which kept him in Venice. He is coming by the morning train. What is your message?”

“It is not a message. Professor Brayda's house and laboratory have been destroyed by a bomb. We are anxious to get in touch with those who were to have attended the conference.”

Who
were
to have attended? “That is tragedy!” I said. “ Is Professor Brayda safe?”

“No. Seriously injured. Good-bye.”

“One moment!” I said sharply.

“Well?”

“I shall be glad to come myself. Perhaps I can be of use.”

“You can be of no use. Professor Brayda wishes only to get in touch with the principals. Thank you.”

“I was to have attended the conference,” I shouted, “ I am fully empowered in every way … Hullo!”

The line was dead.

In the distance aeroplanes were droning again.

I groped a way downstairs into the wide vestibule of the hall. The light of the moon falling through the big glass porch showed the hall grey-white and deserted. The guns were firing again but raggedly as if more from routine than from conviction.

A figure moved suddenly in the shadows behind the counter, and I saw it was the porter, a lithe dark elderly man with greying sidewhiskers and sleek greasy hair.

“
Madonna!
” he exclaimed. “I thought everyone was sheltering in the basement,
signore
.”

I wondered what his business was behind the reception desk.

“Are the trams stil running?”

“Trams,
signore?
No, no.”

“Would there be a taxi to be found?”

He made a face. “Most unlikely. Why should anyone wish to go out in this? You should go into the basement like the rest.”

“I have just heard that a great friend of mine has been seriously injured. I must go to him at once.”

He clicked his tongue several times. “I feel as you feel,
signore
. But why become a casualty yourself?”

“The air-raid is over. Is there a hotel car I could hire?”

“There is the hotel bos. But I have no authority to loan you that. If you were to ask the proprietor——”

“There is no time. This is most urgent. Have you the authority to drive me?”

The whites of his eyes showed. “If I had the authority I should not have the inclination. Thank you.”

“There would be a hundred lire for yourself.”

He turned his head and listened. “Perhaps the air-raid
is
over. I will go amd see.”

I waited. He came back. “I will pick you up at the front door in three minutes.”

Another wait in the warm grey hall. There was no one else at all about. The faint purr of an engine among the other noises took me down the steps. An old Fiat with a box-shaped body to convey guests to and from the station.

Searchlights were sweeping the sky, circling the face of the moon. I climbed in beside the man.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Where would they take air-raid casualties?”

“Oh … it would depend on the district. The Ospedale Maggiore. Or even the military hospital.” He stopped and stared at me in the dark. “But
signore
, do you not
known
where your friend is?”

“The people who telephoned rang off before I could ask.”

“Do you tell me we are to go from hospital to hospital inquiring, while overhead——”

“No, we'll go to his house. That is close to the Fatoni works. You know the way?”

He jumped. “Mother of God! You ask me to drive just where they are dropping the bombs? You can keep your hundred lire!”

I grabbed his arm as he moved to get out. “Two hundred for a successful drive. It is nothing. The raid is over.”

“I do not know the direction by night,” he said sulkily.

I smiled unpleasantly in the darkness. “All you have to do is make for the fire.”

We sat together in silence. The last gun had ceased. A great silence reigned.

“Very well, if you insist. I do not know what the manager will say, risking his bus.”

We drove off. The man used only sidelights and mainly stayed in third gear, with his foot hard down on the accelerator and his finger on the horn. On any straight road we went flat out. Even in the moonlight there was much that was deceptive.

We roared through deserted streets, tyres screeching at corners, horn blaring our coming. We narrowly missed an ambulance and a fire-engine. At least it seemed unlikely that anyone could possibly follow us. Unless, sneaking fear, the message was a decoy.

We flashed into open country, whirred between vineyards down a wide white autostrada, cleft with a sensation of impact the next mound of shadow. We were among villas again. Ahead lay the straggling bulk of the great Faroni works. On the right was the fire.

A steel-helmeted policeman barred our way. We squealed and jerked so a standstill.

“No way through. Make a detour by way of——”

“Professor Brayda's house!” I shouted. “Which way is that?”

“Professor Brayda's house has been bombed. You can't come through.”

“I must see Professor Brayda at once. Is he still here?”

The policeman cocked a wary eye at the sky. “ They're coming back again. What is your business?”

“Urgent message from Captain Bonini of the Naval Staff.”

“Very well. Go on. Sharp right at the next turning, and then on the left twenty yards from where the road is blocked.”

My chauffeur lifted an eyebrow at me as we drove on. “ Is it true? About this Captain you know——”

“Of course it's true. Careful!”

We passed a group of people and then, turning left as directed, came on imposing gates, of which one was open. My driver was inclined to stop, but I prodded him to drive on, and no one came out to interfere. The blaze was over on the right; a group of buildings was burning separate from the main factory. Ahead were more houses.

Our car came to another screeching halt. “ We cannot go on. The road is thick with glass.”

The drone of aeroplanes. I gave the man a hundred lire note and got out. “Draw in to the side and wait for me. I'll not be long. If bombing starts shelter under the car.”

He began to protest but I left him there, ran across to the houses, the glass crunching like ice underfoot. Two of the houses were not much more than heaps of rabble, a third had the roof and one wall missing.

Fireman carrying a length of hose: I caught his arm. “Professor Brayda's house?”

His face gleamed yellow in the fire-glow; he nodded without speaking to the third house. I ran towards it. No one about. Now the guns were opening up afresh; it would soon be unhealthy out of doors. The last house on the left was undamaged except for broken windows. A mas answered my heavy knock.

“Can you tell me where they have taken Professor Brayda?” I asked.

“He's here. What do you want?”

Lack. “I want to see him.”

“Nobody can see him. He's badly injured.”