The Air Commodore in command turned out to see the party on board. The American general instructed Sneiffel to take snapshots of the pair of them. He called Ritchie-Hook to join them. “Come along, general, just for the record.” Ritchie-Hook looked in a bewildered way at the little figure who squatted with his flash-light apparatus at the general’s feet; then with a ghastly grin said: “Not me. My ugly mug would break the camera.”
Lieutenant Padfield saluted General Speit and said: “Sir, I don’t think you’ve met Sir Almeric Griffiths who is coming with us. He is a very prominent orchestral conductor as no doubt you know.”
“Bring him up. Bring him in,” said the general. “Come, Griffiths, stand with me.”
The bulb flashed.
Ian resolved to make himself agreeable to this photographer and get prints of all his films. They might serve to illustrate a book.
As the last glow of sunset faded they boarded the aeroplane. The lights went out. It was completely dark. What had once been windows were painted out. The roar of the engines imposed silence on the party. Ian sat in black boredom and discomfort, until, after an hour, sleep came.
The aeroplane flew high over the Adriatic and the lightless, enemy-held coast of Dalmatia. All the passengers were sleeping when at last the little lights went up and the American general who had been traveling in the cockpit returned to his place in the tail saying: “All right, fellows. We’re there.” Everyone began groping for equipment. The photographer next to Ian tenderly nursed his camera. Ian heard the change of speed in the engines and felt the rapid descent, the list as they banked, then straightened for the run-in. Then unexpectedly the engines burst up in full throat; the machine suddenly rose precipitously, throwing the passengers hard back in their seats; then as suddenly dived, throwing them violently forward. The last thing Ian heard was a yelp of alarm from Sneiffel. Then a great door slammed in his mind.
*
He was standing in the open beside a fire. London, he thought; Turtle’s Club going up in flames. But why was maize growing in St. James’s Street? Other figures were moving around him, unrecognizable against the fierce light. One seemed familiar. “Loot,” he said, “what are you doing here?” and then added: “Job says the gutters are running with wine.”
Always polite Lieutenant Padfield said: “Is that so?”
A more distinctly American, more authoritative voice was shouting: “Is everyone out?”
Another familiar figure came close to him. “You there,” said Ritchie-Hook, “were you driving that thing?”
As though coming round from gas in the dentist’s chair Ian saw that “that thing” was an aeroplane, shorn of its undercarriage, part buried in the great furrow it had plowed for itself, burning furiously in the bows, with flames trickling back along the fuselage like the wines of Turtle’s. Ian remembered he had left Bari in an aeroplane and that he had been bound for Jugoslavia.
Then he was aware of the gaunt figure confronting him and of a single eye which glittered terribly in the blaze. “Are you the pilot?” demanded Ritchie-Hook. “Pure bad driving. Why can’t you look where you’re going.” The concussion which had dazed his companions had momentarily awakened Ritchie-Hook. “You’re under arrest,” he roared above the sound of the fire.
“Who’s missing?” demanded the American general.
Ian then saw a man leave the group and trot to the pyre and deliberately climb back through the escape-hatch.
“What the devil does that idiot think he’s doing?” cried Ritchie-Hook. “Come back. You’re under arrest.”
Ian’s senses were clearer now. He still seemed to be in a dream but in a very vivid one. “It’s like the croquet match in Alice in Wonderland,” he heard himself say to Lieutenant Padfield.
“That’s a very, very gallant act,” said the lieutenant.
The figure emerged again in the aperture, jumped, and dragged out behind him not, as first appeared, an insensible fellow passenger but, it transpired, a bulky cylindrical object; he staggered clear with it and then proceeded to roll on the ground.
“Good God, it’s Dawkins,” said Ritchie-Hook. “What the devil are you doing?”
“Trousers on fire, sir,” said Dawkins. “Permission to take them off, sir?” Without waiting for orders he did so, pulling them down, then with difficulty unfastening his anklets and kicking the smoldering garment clear of his burden. He stood thus in shirt, tunic and boots gazing curiously at his bare legs. “Fair roasted,” he said.
The American general asked: “Were there any men left inside?”
“Yes, sir. I think there was, sir. They didn’t look like moving. Too hot to stay and talk. Had to get the general’s valise out.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Yes, sir. I think so, sir. But I don’t seem to feel it.”
“Shock,” said the general. “You will later.”
The flames had now taken hold of the tail. “No one is to attempt any further rescue operations.” No one had shown any inclination to do so.
“How did any of us get out?” Ian asked the A.D.C.
“The general, our General Speit. He got both the hatches open before anyone else moved.”
“Something to be said for technological training.”
Gilpin was loudly complaining of burned fingers. No one heeded him. The little group was behaving in an orderly, mechanical manner. They spoke at random and did not listen. Each seemed alone, isolated by his recent shock. Someone said: “I wonder where the hell we are.” No one answered. Ritchie-Hook said to Ian: “You were not in any way responsible for that intolerable exhibition of incompetence?”
“I’m a press-officer, sir.”
“Oh, I thought you were the pilot. You need not consider yourself under arrest. But be careful in future. This is the second time this has happened to me. They tried it on before in Africa.”
The two generals stood side by side. “Neat trick of yours that,” Ritchie-Hook conceded, “getting the door open. I was slow off the mark. Didn’t really know what was happening for a moment. Might have been in there still.”
The aide came to report to General Speit: “All the crew are missing.”
“Ha,” said Ritchie-Hook. “The dog it was that died.”
“And six from the rest of the party. I’m afraid Sneiffel is one of them.”
“Too bad, too bad,” said General Speit; “he was a fine boy.”
“And the French liaison officer.”
General Speit was not listening to the casualty list. An epoch seemed to have passed since the disaster. General Speit looked at his watch. “Eight minutes,” he said. “Someone ought to be here soon.”
The place where the aeroplane had fallen was pasture. The maize field lay astern of it, tall, ripe for reaping, glowing golden in the firelight. These stalks now parted and through them came running the first of the reception party from the airfield, partisans and the British Mission. There were greetings and anxious inquiries. Ian lost all interest in the scene. He found himself uncontrollably yawning and sat on the ground with his head on his knees while behind him the chatter of solicitude and translation faded to silence.
Another great space of time, two minutes, by a watch, was broken by someone saying: “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Can you walk?”
“I suppose so. I’d sooner stay here.”
“Come on, it’s not far.”
Someone helped him to his feet. He noticed without surprise that it was Guy. Guy, he remembered, was an inhabitant of this strange land. There was something he ought to say to Guy. It came to him. “Very sorry about Virginia,” he said.
“Thank you. Have you got any belongings?”
“Burned. Damn fool thing to have happened. I never trusted the Air Force. Must be something wrong with people who’d accept me.”
“Are you sure nothing hit you on the head in that crash?” said Guy.
“Not sure. I think I’m just sleepy.”
> A partisan doctor went round the survivors. No one except Halberdier Dawkins and Gilpin had any visible injuries; the doctor made light of Gilpin’s burned fingers. Dawkins was suffering from surface burns which had rapidly swelled into enormous blisters covering his legs and thighs. He prodded them with detached curiosity. “It’s a rum go,” he said; “spill a kettle on your toe and you’re fair dancing. Boil you in oil like a heathen and you don’t feel a thing.”
The doctor gave him morphia and two partisan girls bore him off on a stretcher.
The unsteady little procession followed the path the rescuers had trodden through the maize. The flames cast deep shadows before their feet. At the edge of the field grew a big chestnut. “Do you see what I see?” asked Ian. Something like a monkey was perched in the branches gibbering at them. It was Sneiffel with his camera.
“Lovely pictures,” he said. “Sensational if they come out.”
*
When Ian woke next morning it was as though from a debauch; all the symptoms of alcoholic hangover, such as he had not experienced since adolescence, overwhelmed him. As in those days, he had no memory of going to bed. As in those days, he received an early call from the man who had put him there.
“How are you?” asked Guy.
“Awful.”
“There’s a doctor going the rounds. Do you want to see him?”
“No.”
“Do you want any breakfast?”
“No.”
He was left alone. The room was shuttered. The only light came in narrow strips between the hinges. Outside poultry was cackling. Ian lay still. The door opened again; someone stamped into the room and opened shutters and windows revealing herself, in the brief moment before Ian shut his eyes and turned them from the light, as a female in a man’s uniform, wearing a red cross brassard and carrying a box of objects which clinked and rattled. She began stripping Ian of his blanket and pulling at his arm.
“What the devil are you doing?”
The woman flourished a syringe.
“Get out,” cried Ian.
She jabbed him. He knocked the instrument from her hand. She called: “Bakic. Bakic,” and was joined by a man to whom she talked excitedly in a foreign tongue. “She’s de nurse,” said Bakic. “She’s got an injection for you.”
“What on earth for?”
“She says tetanus. She says she always injects tetanus for everyone.”
“Tell her to get out.”
“She says are you frightened of a needle? She says partisans are never frightened.”
“Turn her out.”
So far as anything so feminine could be ascribed to this visitant, she exhibited pique. So far as it was possible to flounce in tight battle-dress, she flounced as she left her patient. Guy returned.
“I say I’m sorry about that. I’ve been keeping her out all the morning. She got through while I was with the general.”
“Did you put me to bed last night?”
“I helped. You seemed all right. In fact in fine form.”
“It’s worn off,” said Ian.
“You’d just like to be left alone?”
“Yes.”
But it was not to be. He had closed his eyes and lapsed into a state approaching sleep when something not very heavy depressed his feet, as though a dog or a cat had landed there. He looked and saw Sneiffel.
“Well, well, well, so you’re a newspaper man? My, but you’ve got a story. I’ve been down to the wreck. It’s still too hot to get near it. They reckon there’s five stiffs in there besides the crew. There’ll be an elegant funeral when they get the bodies out. Everyone seems kinda het up today. Not me though. I don’t shock so easy. The partisans were for putting off the battle but General Speit works to a schedule. He’s got to have the battle on the day it was planned and then get out his report and I’ve got to have the pictures to go with it. So the battle’s tomorrow as per schedule. What say you come round with me and talk to some of these partisans? I’ve got the general’s interpreter. He’s not feeling too bright this morning, but I reckon he can still hear and speak.”
So Ian gingerly set foot to the floor, dressed and began his work as a war correspondent.
*
No one could give a technical explanation of the night’s mishap. Guy had stood at his usual post on the edge of the airfield. He had heard the squadron leader talking his peculiar jargon into his wireless-set, had seen the girls run from tar-barrel to barrel lighting the path for the incoming aeroplane, had watched it come down as he had watched many others, had seen it overrun its objective, rocket suddenly up like a driven pheasant and fall as though shot half a mile away. He had heard de Souza say: “That’s the end of them,” had seen the flames kindle and spread and then had seen one after another a few dark, unrecognizable, apparently quite lethargic figures emerge from the hatches and stand near the wreck. He had joined in the rush to the scene. After that he had been busy with his duties as host in getting the survivors to their beds and finding in the store replacements for their lost equipment.
The partisans were inured to disaster. They had a certain relish for it. They did not neglect to mention that this was an entirely Anglo-American failure, but they did so with a rare cordiality. They had never been convinced that the allies were taking the war seriously. This unsolicited burnt-offering seemed in some way to appease them.
De Souza was very busy with his tear-off cipher-pads and it devolved on Guy to arrange the day of the newcomers. General Speit’s aide had been struck with a delayed stammer by his fall and complained of pains in his back. Gilpin now had both hands bandaged and useless. The two generals were the fittest of the party; General Speit brisk and business-like. Ritchie-Hook reanimated. Guy had not seen him in his decline. He was now as he had always been in Guy’s experience.
Halberdier Dawkins said: “It’s been a fair treat for the general. He’s his old self. Come in this morning and gave me a rocket for disobeying orders getting his gear out.”
Dawkins was a stretcher case, and after arduous years in Ritchie-Hook’s service not sorry to be honorably at ease. He submitted without complaint to his tetanus injections and basked in the hospitality of the Mission sergeant who brought him whisky and cigarettes and gossip.
The former Minister of the Interior reluctantly canceled the Vin d’Honneur and the concert but there were sociable meetings between the general staff and their guests, the observers, at which the plans for the little battle were discussed. It was after one of these that Ritchie-Hook took Guy aside and said: “I’d like you to arrange for me to have a quiet talk with the fellow whose name ends in ‘itch.’ ”
“All their names end like that, sir.”
“I mean the decent young fellow. They call him a brigadier. The fellow who’s going to lead the assault.”
Guy identified him as a ferocious young Montenegrin who had a certain affinity to Ritchie-Hook in that he, too, lacked an eye and a large part of one hand.
Guy arranged a meeting and left the two warriors with the Commissar’s interpreter. Ritchie-Hook returned in high good humor. “Rattling good fellow that Itch,” he said. “No flannel or ormolu about him. D’you suppose all his stories are true?”
“No, sir.”
“Nor do I. I pulled his leg a bit but I am not sure that interpreter quite twigged. Anyway, we had a perfectly foul drink together—that ended in ‘itch’ too—extraordinary language—and I’ve attached myself to him for tomorrow. Don’t tell the others. Itch hasn’t room for more than one tourist in his car. We’re driving out tonight to make a recce and get the men in place for the attack.”
“You know, sir,” Guy said, “there’s a certain amount of humbug about this attack. It’s been laid on for General Speit.”
“Don’t try and teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” said Ritchie-Hook. “Of course I twigged all that from the word ‘go.’ Itch and I understand one another. It’s a demonstration. Sort of thing we did in training. But we enjoyed that, didn’t we?
”
Guy thought of those long chilly exercises in “biffing.” “Yes, sir,” he said, “those were good days.”
“And between you and me I reckon it’s the last chance I have of hearing a shot fired in anger. If there’s any fun going, Itch will be in it.”
*
At eight next morning General Speit and his aide, the British Mission, the partisan general staff, Ian and Sneiffel assembled beside the line of miscellaneous cars which the Jugoslavs had all the summer kept secreted, with so much else, in the forest. Guy made Ritchie-Hook’s excuses to General Speit who merely said: “Well, there’s plenty of us without him.”
The convoy set out through a terrain of rustic enchantment, as through a water-color painting of the last century. Strings of brilliant peppers hung from the eaves of the cottages. The women at work in the fields sometimes waved a greeting, sometimes hid their faces. There was no visible difference between “liberated” territory and that groaning under foreign oppression. Ian was unaware when they passed the vague frontier.