She glanced up at me. “Oh, so you’ve noticed that.”
She paused as we slowly entered a cutting. It was here that two carriages had been derailed. Gangs of men were busy in the twilight clearing the debris. It was some time before we were quite alone again.
“Beyond Lugano,” she said, “ you know the climb up to the San Gotthardo tunnel and the twisty descent at the other side … There are a number of little stations where even the expresses stop. At this time of year there are always climbers or skiers who want to take advantage of the fist snow. They take the trains up to one of the higher station, spend their day up there, and in the evening catch a train down again.”
She tailed off as a man passed us.
“Yes?”
“Well … there are two extra skiers to-day.”
“Oh,” I said.
“They’ll join the train at one station and leave it two or three stations later. Nobody will take any notice of them. Nobody will know—until later—what they’ve done.”
I smiled grimly at the darkening landscape.
“And Fräulein Volkmann?”
“She’s our responsibility still.”
There was a long silence between us until Jane had finished her cigarette, “ I’ll see if I can locate them,” she said. “ Von Riehl might recognise you.”
We reached Como just as it went dark. The night was a deep cloudy moonless dark, and the absence of lights in the countryside made it blanket-like and oppressive. On the train the corridor lights were dimmed and the blinds pulled in all the carriages.
I wondered if this delay in the train might upset Andrews’s plans as well as ours. Instead of the express reaching the Alps shortly before nightfalls the time would be about eight-thirty. Most of the skiers would have caught the earlier trains.
Jane returned to the compartment before we reached Chiasso. She nodded her success.
The gaunt frontier statics was cold and draughty. We had already climbed from the Lombardy plain, and this was a first breath from the snows of Switzerland. The halt was a long one. Restrictions had recently been tightened up, and currency difficulties added to the delay. We all had to get out and stand in queues by the light of shaded blue lamps to have our money checked and our passports and visas scrutinised and stamped. I did not notice von Riehl or his red-haired girl friend, so perhaps they were exempt from the formalities.
I took a chance and declared less money than I carried, since I still had a fair amount left and did not want to have it confiscated. The Swiss wanted to know my business in Switzerland, and I said I was visiting my daughter who was at school there and that my stay would be only three days.
At last it was over and we climbed back into the train, grateful for the warmth of the carriages. Jane had only her thin summer coat and skirt. We were first back in our compartment and she said:
“They’re going to have dinner shortly, I hope Versos reckoned on that.”
“It may be over by the time he gets on.”
“I’m not sure. These train meals take a long time, and they haven’t started yet.”
I stared speculatively at the empty seats opposite. “ Do you imagine that perhaps this might be our chance, this dinner they’re having?”
“To deal with her?”
“Yes.” One’s mind baulked at its own suggestion.
“Not unless we see Vernon and Dwight first. We can’t move without their agreement. But what did you think of doing?”
I was preheated from replying by the return of the rest of the passengers. I was not sorry, for the idea was still too vague—and in any case it was too renegade an idea for me. Possibly Andrews’s example was bearing fruit.
I decided to reconnoitre for myself. This was a train of twelve coaches, and I went from one end to the other.
Few people were standing in the semi-darkness of the corridor, except in the third class. This darkness would work to our advantage.
Although electric, the train was making no apparent effort to catch up on its lost time. Two coaches behind ours was the dining-car. Here, as one passed down the centre of the coach, with the blinds drawn on either side, lights were mach brighter. I avoided a waiter who wished to show me to a sea and another with a steaming bowl. Many were already dining, but not the two I sought.
Another carriage. Then the “ first”. The blinds of all were of course compulsorily draws, but outside one marked “ reserved” two men were standing. One was a reedy little man with eye-glasses and close-cropped hair, the other a tall powerful young man in the black and silver uniform of the Schützstaffel.
As I passed I rested my hand on the door handle of the engaged compartment for a measurable few seconds. At once the S. S. guard clicked his heels and said in a metallic voice:
“Ein reserviertes Coupe. Kann ich Ihnen kelfen?”
If I had not moved my hand he would have struck it away.
“Nein, danke schön,” I said, and went on.
The prey was located. But in so strong a defensive position as to be almost invulnerable. My bowels twisted in fear.
So as not to arouse suspicion I stayed at the end of the train for some time before beginning the long return. The situation had not changed. I wondered what was going on behind the drawn blinds. Two people were there instead of the one that Dwight and Andrews expected. In view of the fact that— presumably—von Riehl’s secretary had been sent to stand in the corridor with the S.S. man, were the doctor and his girl making love in the privacy of the compartment? Kraft durck freude. I would not have put it past them.
Lugano at last. Sitting quietly in the train, I began to slip the bandages from my hands in spite of Jane’s reproving looks. Scabs were forming over the cuts; better with hands free. I also explored the bump on the back of my head. This was very sore still, but did not hurt at all unless touched.
Jane was chain-smoking and I think the woman next to her found it troublesome. It is odd, the blockages in the memory: I can remember every face on the Verona-Milan train, scarcely anyone who was in our compartment of the Milan-Basle express.
Jane finally got up and went out again. When she came back she made no sign but presently scribbled on the margin of a magazine that “ they” were now at dinner but had only just begun.
At last we stopped at Bellinzona; and here the tension really began, for at any station now two skiers might join the train, and in the blackout it was almost impossible to see.
We took up a permanent stand in the corridor; here, at least, since we were in the front of the train, it was possible to scan each platform as we slowed to a stop.
Two stations whose names I could not see, sad I began to lose a sense of distance. Somewhere, possibly at Chiasso, our engine had been changed for a more powerful one, and you could feel it pulling up the increasing gradients. Tunnels were becoming more frequent. We took wide curves on banked rails, the carriages tilting, doubling our tracks as we climbed in loops.
A third stop. Jane gripped my arm. Two mess in heavy ski-clothes, carrying sticks and skis. Then a damp of three men, then five.
“Careful,” I said. “Are you certain?”
“It was the first two. The fat one. They’ll get is at the end of the train.”
“There’s time,” I said. “ They can’t move at once.”
“We shall have to pass through the dining-car to reach them,” she said.
“Wait here,” I said. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes come through to meet me.”
I opened the near-by door and climbed down the three steps to the platform. A whispered protest followed after me.
Colder than ever out of the train; the ice wind might have come straight from Golgotha. I began to walk as fast as possible down the platform: the guard whistled: I was opposite the dining-car when the train began to move. I sprinted down to the next carriage, climbed the steps, pulled at the door handle. It was locked.
I dropped off. Instead of running one way I bad to run the other. The guard shouted a w
arning. I jumped at the next steps and clutched the rail: the unexpected acceleration of the train wrenched at my sore hands. “Lieber Gott!” I said, and tamed the handle of the door. It opened sad a friendly hand helped me inside.
“Dangerous to cut it so fine, monsieur,” said a voice in French. It was one of the skies. I was glad it was not Andrews.
I thanked him, wiped stinging hands surreptitiously on a handkerchief. Only a smear of blood came away.
I began to walk towards the rear of the train; but it was hardly possible to open every carriage door; one just hoped for the best.
Through two third-class carriages. Outside one were some skis and ski-boots. I pulled back the door, peered in, then apologised and shut it again. Total strangers, all staring.
On again. In the next coach two men were standing in the corridor talking. So this was it: Jane had been right.
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 …”