Night Journey (20 page)

I tapped a thick round back on the shoulder. “ Excuse me, there are seats in the middle of the train.”

A big, bearded man turned and scowled. I thought I had made an insane blunder but the other man mattered: “Mencken!”

Both wore beards. How genuine these would have looked in the daylight I do not know, but they were convincing in the half dark.

‘What in Hell are you doing here?” Andrews muttered.

“Our contrivance failed,” I said, “ because this train was thirty-five minutes late leaving Milan. The German woman is here. Also Jane.”

Andrews's expression did not alter much, but I felt like a subaltern reporting some inexcusable failure to a commanding officer.

“What were you doing on the other train? I told you to stay in Garda.”

I told him.

“So that's how you obey instructions …”

I explained briefly further. He of course was entirely in the right and I in the wrong.

“And now, why are you both on this train?”

“We had to warn you. And perhaps in some way—we can help.”

“How can you help?”

“I don't know. Four are better than two.”

“Who told you that? Whoever did was a fool.”

I held my tongue and no one spoke for a while.

Andrews granted. “ Where are your glasses, man? You haven't a vestige of disguise!”

I told him I had had to become Edmondo Catania again.

“And what if you were followed? What if you were picked up again on Milan station?——”

“I was not. I saw them but they did not see me.”

“This is no place for Jane Howard,” Dwight muttered.

“I know that,” I said angrily. “But I have no authority over her! We could only act as we thought best.”

Two people passed us, and Andrews began to discuss the relative disadvantage of short skis. He used the Swiss-Italian dialect fluently. The train was steadily climbing.

“What is then position in the train?” Andrews asked grudgingly. “I presume you have discovered that.” He struck a match and I glimpsed his profile, the short fleshy nose, the curved forehead under the navy-blue woollen cap. The profile was what one would chiefly recognise, even though the little plump chin was hidden … The match went out and the end of the cigar glowed.

“Jane is in the front coach. Von Riehl and the girl are in the sixth from the front, in a first-class compartment marked reserved. His secretary and an S. S. guard stand outside in the corridor. At the moment von Riehl and the girl are having dinner in the dining-car, which is the fourth far from the front. They are as yet barely half-way through.”

“It's what comes of the delay. But it may not be altogether a disadvantage.”

“Jane will be coming through to join us soon. She'll be able to report on how quickly the meal is going.”

“Stay here,” Andrews said. “I want to see the first-class carriages for myself.”

I put a hand on his arm. “ Before you go, I have an idea—just an idea for the—for the temporary disposal of Fräulein Volkmann. I don't know if it will fit in with your other plan but——”

“What is it?”

We created to a stop before a little mountain station. Some people got out. We moved off again. I told them my idea.

Andrews said: “You're learning, Mencken. It's as good a makeshift as any. What station was that, Dwight?”

“Farola.”

“In fifteen minutes we shall be in the St. Gotthard tunnel. It all depends … Wait here.”

He was gone, slipping away suddenly for all his bulk among the rumbles and shadows of the train.

We stood in silence staring our into the darkness. Sometimes fir trees could be seen, their branches reaching towards the windows, sometimes rocks part-covered with snow, a house, a rushing stream.

Dwight said nothing at all. Now it was nearing the point of action I began to wonder whether I could go through with it. It was no longer the principle of the thing that I gagged at. This was a matter of heart and blood and stomach and the most primitive secretions.

I kept saying to myself: remember Dollfuss slowly bleeding to death on the Chancellery floor while the soldiers watched. Remember Calinescu and Roehm and a hundred others. Remember a hundred
thousand
others, packed in death trains for the concentration camps, bombed helplessly in their homes, machine-gunned as they struggled with their pitiful belongings on the roads of France. Remember your own father. This is total war. This man, this von Riehl, is as much an apostle of frightfulness as any of his breed. If this gas can be manufactured he will not hesitate to use it on London I ought to be aghast at my own squeamishness.

I was, but I could not dispel it.

Dwight stirred beside me. “It's quite a while since I felt like this, old man. Real going-over-the-top feeling. You know. First light in the sky, just enough to see the hands of the old ticker. One minute; half a minute;
now
! …”

The sound of his race was a help to me. Some community of feeling was established. We were closer together mow in sympathy than we had ever been.

Dwight said: “ D'you know, it's funny, when I was waiting to go over the top I always used to think about horses. Riding a chestnut mare across the Sussex downs, for instance. Feeling the air biting your cheeks, feeling the ripple of her muscles under your legs. Or comin' in to breakfast after a ride, sweating a bit and fairly glowing with the exercise, ready to eat a side of bacon …”

We went into another tunnel.

“Is this the St. Gotthard?”

“Doubt it … Or wiping the mare down, or hearing her whinny with pleasure when she heard your footsteps; the smell of the stables, the creak of harness. Or out across broken country—takin' a fence in your stride, giving her her head, easing her to make the best of a tricky hillside … I always used to thick of that sort of thing waiting for zero hour. Dunno why. Sort of escape, I suppose.”

A railway official passed. The secret police, who travelled on almost every important train in Italy, had left at Chiasso.

Dwight sighed “D'you know, old man, it's fanny to think chaps like me will soon be unique. The first and the last trench war. There was only one and there'll never be another. Back to the war of movement again. A crying pity the cavalry have had to be mechanized——”

Andrews came back, big and ominous.

“I've seen Jane.” To me, accusingly: “You hadn't told her your idea.”

“I did not suppose you would approve it!”

“Well I've told her. Act on it. Go along and make contact with her, Mencken: she's in the carriage between von Riehl's and the dining-car. When they come through, there should be a fair chance. It's a toss-up, of course … They should be out any minute mow so there's no time to lose. As soon as you can, come along to us in von Riehl's carriage. We shall wait until you come before we act.”

“Very well” I think my voice quavered in the middle.

“After it's over,” Andrews said, “be ready to leave the train at the next station. That's all. And good luck.”

I began a nightmare journey through five carriages to meet Jane. There were griping pains in my bowels as if I'd been struck with enteritis. My legs would hardly hold.

In the first-class carriage the S.S. guard still stood in the corridor. He was chewing something. The door of the compartment was a couple of inches open, and through the nick the little secretary could be seen with a typewriter on his knee. The compartment next door was also part open and was empty, and light flooded out. Now that we were in neutral territory the black-out precautions were not so stringent. I shut this door as I went past it and could fancy the Black Guard's suspicions stare.

As I entered the next carriage I came face to face with Dr von Riehl.

Fortunate that the only time we had met in a good light was in the bedroom in which Professor Brayda lay dying and when he had had attention only for the man on the bed. Later in the hall the light had been poor.

He stared at me as if conscious of some latent recollection, then squeezed past. That high-coloured, choleric face with the half-moon glasses, the tall broad-shouldered stoop, were very familiar to me, brought our task down to its rock-bottom reality. But at least he was alone …

Jane was waiting half way down the next coach. She was pulling on her gloves.

“Thank God you've come! I thought we'd be too late. It's madly difficult—so many people are coming back from the dining car.”

“Remember, two raps,” I got out, touched her hand, turned back, entered the lavatory at the end of the carriage, bolted the door.

She was right—we were only just in time. So now there was no more waiting.

The two raps on the door came after only a couple of minutes and I unbolted the door again, squeezing behind it. Jane came in and turned one of the taps on. Then she slipped out again, leaving the door half ajar.

“Do forgive me,” I heard her say in halting German. “ This hot-water tap will not stop running. Could you please help me to turn it?”

“What is it you want?” came a strange woman's voice.

“This hot-water tap. See. It will not stop …”

The tall figure of Fräulein Volkmann came into the lavatory. With utter incredulity in my soul I put a hand over her mouth and my knee behind her knees, and pulled her back against the wall.…

In my romantic, sheltered life I had, I suppose, come to look on women as frailer, gentler creatures than men … This was my disillusioning.

Fräulein Volkmann reacted with the violence of a wrestler, thumping her head against my jaw, biting at my hand, jabbing with her elbows. I almost lost her.

Jane had squeezed in, bolted the door after her.

“Right pocket!” I snapped.

The German girl fought her mouth half free, gave a scream which was stifled as Jane thrust a glove in her mouth. In the tiny space there was no room. Volkmann twisted, pulling Jane with her, thrust her knees against the wall and kicked. At that moment in self defence I forgot she was a woman, and hit her hard somewhere about the kidneys, at the same time throwing my whole weight on her so that she gave at the knees. My shins were scarified with her high heels. Twice I hit her again, while Jane dragged from my pockets the bandages that had been round my hands, and began to tie her ankles, then a tough gag with her gloves.

Somebody was sobbing for breath: it took time for me to realise I was making the noise myself. It was as if my civilised, logical brain was sobbing for something lost. A skin of reason shed.

I watched her and held her while Jane tied her hands and elbows and knees. She went on struggling, her green eyes like daggers while she fought.

“You go on,” Jane said breathlessly. “I can do the rest.”

“She may get free. She's—very strong.”

“She won't! Hurry! Every second …”

I straggled upright painfully in die confined space. My hands were bleeding again, but this time where they had been bittern. Jane would have to stay here all the time. It was the only solutions, for the lavatory door could no: be locked from the outside. At least she would be out of what was to happen next.

I listened, carefully opened the door, slipped out. The door clicked behind me. There was no one near. A man was moving away up the corridor.

The train whistled and we rushed into the St. Gotthard tunnel.

There were two people in the first-class corridor. One was the S.S. guard, standing legs apart and hands in pockets, swaying with the train. The other, at the far end, was Andrews, beared in his ski clothes, a haversack still belted across his shoulders. The S.S. guard turned suspiciously as he saw me come into the corridor but was just too late to catch the nod I gave Andrews. I stared out of the window; a lantern now and then flashed past in the tunnel.

How long was the tunnel: ten minutes?

When I looked again Dwight was there too. They spoke to each other and Andrews laughed. They started moving down the corridor towards the Black Guard, Dwight some way behind Andres.

The corridor was not wide, and as Andrews reached the German he excused himself and evidently made some joke about his bulk. The German did not smile but drew back against the door of the compartment, his hand on the pistol holster at his side. Then Andrews hit him, with a knuckleduster, so quickly that I could not follow the blow. With one hand the S.S. man took out his revolver and with the other flung up an arm in a reflex action to fend off the blow that had already landed. He gave at the knees, blood spurting from his mouth.

Andrews caught him. As he did so Dwight slid past, thrust aside the door of the compartment and went in. There were two thuds, half smothered by the entombed rattle of the train, then quite distinctly the report of another revolver.

Andrews swung round and into the compartment. I was about to follow, intending to drag with me the body of the S.S. man slumped on the floor, when the door of the next compartment slid open and a middle-aged grey-bearded Swiss looked out.

“Was that—I thought I——” He stopped at sight of the unconscious man.

We stared at each other. He retreated into his compartment. I followed and was just in time to pull him out of reach of the communication cord. Losing all restraint and half blind with fear, I twisted at his collar until his face went purple, then relaxed the grip and felt in his pocket for something to gag him. He shouted, but I lifted my hands in such a manner that the cry died in his throat. In my memory now was the sound of a dry cracking noise—it might have been another pistol shot.

Someone was standing in the door. Andrews: a revolver with a silencer tube in his hand: perhaps that sort of expression was in my eyes too.

“Who is the man?”

“He heard the shot.”

“Bring him next door. Wait. The S.S. man first.”

I waited. In a minute he was back, sweat dewing round his nose and beard.