He unpacked a weighted belt which would let him drop down from the surface. Dark blue sneakers, something to give his feet a grip on the ledge and yet not cause added difficulties when the time came to rise to the surface. Mitts of foam-neoprene, tight but easily pulled on if he first wet his hands. A knife, one blade serrated. A strong wire cutter. (Both of these would be strapped to his leg.) A thirty-foot stretch of quarter-inch nylon cord, braided to prevent fouling, and a clamp to fasten one end of the cord that he would coil around the tree nearest the water, a second clamp, with quick release, to fasten the other end around his waist. A piece of rubber tyre to protect the tree’s bark from any friction. An underwater light. A waterproof watch with illuminated numerals. A slab of chocolate and a flask of brandy to be left beside his camera and tripod, all covered by his clothes which he was now stripping off. He secured the neat pile with a heavy stone. Methodically, he began donning his gear.
He was ready. He pulled sharply on the rope coiled on its cushion of rubber around the base of the tree, testing the clamp. It would hold. The other end of the rope was already firmly around his waist, the remaining loops neatly gathered in the crook of his left arm. He glanced at his watch strapped over the mitt on his right hand, making sure that nothing interfered with the wrist seal of his suit. He checked the light hooked securely to his belt, adjusted the mask which would let him see sideways as well as above and below, and started regular breathing. Then, gripping the rope in his left hand, with a twist around the wrist for extra security, playing it slowly out, keeping it taut with his right hand, he took a step backwards into the lake. Its bank went straight down. As the water reached his shoulders, he remembered to check his descent and raise his right arm above his head so that his left hand could open the wrist seal briefly and let the air in his suit be pushed out. Then he gripped the rope with both hands again, removing the strain from his left wrist, and sank slowly down into a black-green world.
It was worse than he had imagined. Cold shock, as his face went under, and blind slow motion; a feeling of being trapped in darkness. With an effort, he forced down the split-second panic that attacked him, and kept his breathing regular. His feet touched something solid under slimy mud. He could stand on it, he could turn slowly, carefully. His right hand could free its rigid grip on the rope for a moment and fumble for the flashlight at his belt. He switched on its powerful beam. By stooping, and that was the way he would have to move, he could direct the light in front of his feet. Yes, he had found the ledge.
It was about two feet wide at this point. How long? The beam showed a short stretch of ten feet, no more, before the ledge vanished. Nothing on that section. He turned slowly, remembering not to dislodge any silt by a quick or careless movement—muddied waters could take hours to settle again, and his job would be made impossible even before it had properly begun—and looked along the other stretch of ledge. It was just about the same length; the trees above him had marked almost the middle of this outcrop of rock. And near its end he saw a heavy mass, blacker than the waters around it.
It’s too big, he thought at first; I’ll never raise that weight by myself. And then, as he came closer, leaning forward—slowly does it, small sure steps, keep a grip on the rope and the breathing regular—he decided it wasn’t a chest at all, but a lump of stone that had fallen down the mountainside and ended here with a thud. It was only when he was close to it and could stoop over with his flashlight full on it that he saw it was really a huge lump of mud and moss-like growths. He unsheathed his knife and went to work on the deposit of twenty-one years, cutting and scraping gently, always mindful of the danger of disturbed silt, until he struck something hard. It glinted under the light. His depression vanished. It was a chest made of some bright metal that did not rust. Not iron, thank God. If it was aluminium, it would be all the more easily raised. (After all, the Nazis who had lowered it here wouldn’t want any difficulties in salvage. They planned ahead, those boys.) His one problem now was to get it free of the mud, and then ease it along to the spot where he had descended.
He began scraping cautiously at the encrustation until he found that, if he got his hands against the box and pushed up against the caked deposit, it peeled off like a matted carpet and floated away in broken chunks. There were long fraying fragments of hemp on the side handles of the chest, all that was left of the cords that had lowered it. He pulled them off quickly. Too quickly. There were shreds of thin wire embedded in the cord, and their broken edges ripped the palms of his gloves. Lucky his suit hadn’t been torn by one of these thin jags of wire—that would have been real trouble. He worked more carefully, using wire cutters, and at last released the chest completely. Now to secure it, his way.
He released the clamp at his waist and started twisting the freed rope around the chest and through its handles. Under water, its weight was no problem, and once he had it freed from the mud it had settled into, the task was only a matter of care and quiet movements. He used all the rope he could spare, and then clamped it to hold. The hardest job, because it was most worrying, was to find the place where he had descended. But by tugging on the rope overhead every few steps back along the ledge, lifting the chest with him as he moved so that it lay always beside his feet when he paused, he found the spot where the rope no longer strained at an angle between his hand and the tree, but fell straight as a plumb line.
Quickly, he released the buckle of his weighted belt, the flashlight hooked to it, and let them drop away. The wire cutter, which he had been too late to use when his mitts had been torn, went too. He started to float. Keep a firm grip on the rope, he warned himself, and don’t hold your breath; move slowly; don’t hold your breath! He rose to the surface, half swimming, half pulling upwards on the rope, and hauled himself on to land. He staggered towards the cover of the tree. He tore off the mask, wrenched free from the rest of his equipment. The fresh air twisted his lungs. Twenty-seven, he noted with difficulty, twenty-seven minutes all told. The box... Better rest before he salvaged the box.
He did more than rest. He collapsed, face down, his cheek against the tree’s root. When he became conscious again, he had lost a valuable twenty minutes. Daylight was spreading from over the eastern ridge.
He rolled slowly over on his back, and lay there, unable to rise, his body heavy with fatigue. He was chilled to the bone. He shivered violently, remembering the last few minutes under water when the cold started to penetrate his body; colder, colder, the embrace of death. He sat up with an effort. Everything seemed out of control. He wanted to fall back again, let himself drift into deep, deep sleep. He rubbed the back of his neck, gently; that was where the headache began that encircled his brow. The box could wait. He had made sure it was lying safely on the ledge, well wrapped in tight coils of rope. First, he must drag himself to his clothes, get some brandy down his throat, get this suit off, get his flannel shirt and sweater and thick trousers on to his body. Something warm, for Christ’s sake, something warm and light. His body felt as if it were encased in a ton weight.
It took him another half hour to accomplish these simple things. And then, suddenly, he began to feel more in command. His chin, which had been exposed under water, felt frozen. And his hands were stiff. Their palms had been scored by the rope when his grasp had slipped. Now that he could see the sun and breathe the fresh air, he would admit the worst moment down in that pit of darkness—the moment when he had rid himself of the weighted belt and the flashlight, sensing them go over the edge and sink into the depths; and he was left with only his grip on a quarter-inch thickness of rope to keep him from drifting out over the abyss too.
He had drunk all the brandy—its only effect was to bring him up to normal—and eaten some of the slab of chocolate to give him energy. He was far behind schedule now. He ought to have been back at the Volkswagen by this time, heading down into the valley where the highway would take him back home to Salzburg for breakfast. But as he worried, he worked. He removed the knife from its sheath and bundled the rest of his gear
around the tank, empty now and heavier, and added the stone that had anchored his clothes. That should be weight enough. He would tie the package firmly with the rope once his use for it was over, and drop it all into the lake. Four feet out from the bank wouldn’t cause too much of a splash, he hoped; the bundle should sink as far as his belt had travelled.
He was ready to haul up the chest. He had bandaged his hands with a shredded handkerchief, and was preparing to dampen his wool gloves to give them some grip (the torn mitts were now bundled with the suit), when the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone right along this side of the lake. He took cover among the trees and boulders, staring through the branches at the opposite shore thick in fog with the mountainsides above it shrouded in low-lying clouds. And they were stationary. So I’ll have to wait, he thought gloomily, I may have to wait until dusk this evening. Where was that prevailing wind, damn it, that brought mists and rain from the huge mass of storm-breeding mountains far to the south? But at the moment, Finstersee looked like a stretch of dark-green glass. It was almost too still. That could mean bad weather. Perhaps, he thought, hope surging again, I may not have to wait in this trap until evening. For trap it was, with this side of the lake washed in early-morning light.
He sat there for almost an hour, kneading his body to keep the circulation moving, rubbing his legs, watching the lake. And at last the wind was rising, sweeping clouds from the south, packing heavy mists down over the treetops. The sky was shrouded, the sun obliterated, and all the bare slopes of crag behind him were swathed in grey. Visibility was scarcely ten feet. I’ll manage it yet, he thought, and moved quickly.
He unfastened the rope but left its coil around the tree, safely padded with the tyre, and pulled on its end until he had taken up the slack on the ledge below and he could feel the chest resist. Now let’s say you are bringing in a thirty-pound salmon, he told himself. He stood a little to one side of the tree, again made sure the piece of rubber was in place, and began to haul. His hands hurt like hell, but the less attention he paid to them the sooner the chest would be raised. With four short pauses, letting the tree take the brunt of the dangling weight, he made it. The chest broke the surface, tilting dangerously. Rapidly, he cinched the rope around the tree. He reached for the box with both hands and lifted it safely on to solid ground. It had become much heavier to handle. He carried it into the small encampment of boulders and trees, placed it beside his rucksack. He kept staring at it. It was heavier but smaller. It seemed to have shrunk. Then he remembered that the glass face on his mask, by underwater refraction, had magnified everything.
He was smiling as he carefully peeled the piece of tyre from the tree, slashed the rope, to free the chest, added all those bits and pieces to his weighted gear, keeping one length of cord to tie the package securely. He carried the bundle to the water’s edge. It sank reassuringly. He threw the knife after it. He eased the chest into the rucksack, a tight fit made more difficult by a padlock. The flap couldn’t be fastened over its top but at least he could carry the weight on his back, leaving his hand free for camera and tripod. His hands... The woollen gloves were in shreds over the palms, but he kept them on. The cold air was shrewd and damp. Better wet gloves than nothing. They’d offer some protection when he came to the job of hiding the chest.
He must hurry. Every second counted more than ever now. He moved out from the small group of boulders and trees, with a last glance around to make sure that he had left nothing behind. He was so pressed for time—this shore of the lake was blanketed in mist, but the wind from the south had blown too strongly and the high edges of the peaks opposite him were beginning to be cleared of cloud—that he didn’t use the track that had brought him here, but struck along the lower slope of the mountainside, following the shore line as his guide through the white fog towards the picnic ground. It was one of those times when the feeling of urgency drove every pain out of his body and made the impossible seem simple. Tomorrow he would ask himself, How in hell did you manage that? Today he was too intent on reaching the edge of the meadow even to doubt he could make it. And he reached it. The mist at the western end of the lake was so thick that he couldn’t see the picnic table or the trees that had covered his climb up on to the mountainside almost four hours ago. His timing had been shot to pieces but at least he had some luck now, just when he needed it most, with the weather. He almost walked past the three ungainly boulders that lay some twelve feet from the water’s edge.
They were piled together roughly, as if some giant hand had thrown them from the mountain, aiming for the lake, and missed. Bryant found the gap at ground level between two of them where one had tilted against the other, and eased the rucksack off his shoulders. Gently, he pulled back the dry grasses and the thorny branches of a wild rose bush that were part of the circle of growth that surrounded the boulders. (In summer, this spot had been a mass of colour.) He laid his tripod on top of the stalks and stems to keep them down for the brief moment he needed, and used a knee to hold the branches aside. He lifted the chest, rucksack and all, and pushed them sideways into the gap as far as he could stretch. He was careful to leave the straps pointing towards him. When the time came to remove the chest, he would need them for haulage. There was no way of reaching down into the gap from the top of the boulders, for they met together in a tipsy embrace. And they were the height of a man, well grounded in the soil, as if they had taken root there. It would need a bulldozer or dynamite to force them apart. When he lifted his tripod and helped the grasses and dried twigs to stand upright again, the gap was screened. The rose bush bobbed back into place, leaving a few hard thorns piercing his trouser leg, and covered everything.
He backed away, his eyes looking with satisfaction at the naturally disguised gap. It didn’t exist. As the mist blocked it from his view, he made for the dim shadow of the nearest tree and reached the forest that had led him early this morning on to the mountainside. Here, visibility was better—the massed firs seemed to be balancing the clouds on top of their heads. His quick pace slackened to a slow march; he could now let himself admit he was just about at the end of his strength. But he was careful enough to avoid the direct uphill route to the tree where he had hidden his jacket. Instead, he circled widely to the north to approach it downhill. He’d known it at once, with its low sloping branches and the track starting eastward only a few feet away.
He took off his sodden gloves, shredded and torn, and dropped them into the first piece of underbrush he passed. It was better to do that and tell Anna he had lost them than let her see the damage and start imagining the kind of dangers he had been through. He would be home for breakfast, after all, a late ten o’clock breakfast. An eleven o’clock breakfast, he amended, noticing the time on his watch. It was now twenty minutes to nine. He would tell Anna just enough to keep her from asking questions—last night, he had only disclosed what was absolutely necessary for her to know in case something went wrong. Even that had terrified her. He remembered the sudden whiteness of her face, the thin drawn look of her cheeks, the droop to her lips, the blank stare as if she could see no future at all. She didn’t weep, she didn’t exclaim. But the touch of her hands had been ice-cold with fear. As cold as he felt now in spite of the shelter of the forest. He would be glad to button that jacket right up to his chin. And there was the tree he was looking for, with its thick, low-slung branches.
And there, also, were two men.
2
August Grell had been wakened by a sound. His mind, half-thick with sleep, couldn’t place it. A car travelling up the hill to Finstersee? But in that case he ought to have heard it travelling through the village. His small inn stood on a rising meadow just above Unterwald, its back close against the woods that covered the lower slopes of the mountain. He pushed aside the bulky eiderdown and left the warmth of his bed. He crossed over the scrubbed-wood floor to the window. If there was a car taking the hill trail, he could see no lights. There was only the thick blackness of the forest, a thinner blackness of th
e sky. Dawn was slow in coming at this time of year. There wasn’t a light in the village, so they had heard nothing. A bunch of peasants, he thought as he climbed back into the high bed. You could rely on them to pay no attention except to their own lives. Twenty years of being the owner of the Gasthof Waldesruh had convinced him of that.
He hadn’t even got his head back on the pillow when the telephone rang. He moved quickly, slipping his feet into wool-lined slippers, pulling his old coat over his nightshirt as he crashed through his bedroom into the front hall where the telephone stood on the reception desk. Perhaps it had been the telephone that had wakened him and not the sound of a car. In any case, Anton was up at the lookout on Finstersee; if any car drove up to the lake, he’d hear and see it.
Without switching on the light, Grell fumbled for the receiver and found it. A man’s voice asked, “How’s the weather up there?”
Grell said guardedly, “There has been some mist and heavy cloud.” The man could be a hunter, making sure that the mountains were clear enough for a day’s shooting before he drove up all the way from the valley.
“You might listen to the weather reports.”
“I’ll do that.” Grell smiled as the line went dead. That had been no ordinary hunter. He closed the inside shutters before he switched on the light and looked at the clock on the wall, which had never missed a minute in the twenty years he had lived here. It told him the time was 4:36 exactly. The “weather report” would be transmitted one hour later than the telephone call. He would be ready for it.
But first, even before he started heating some coffee or getting dressed, he had better make contact with Anton and learn whether anything had been heard or seen at the lake. The lookout was actually a cave with a narrow entrance at the foot of a high cliff on the south shore of Finstersee, which a detail of German sappers had transformed into a weatherproof, drip-proof room with a gallery leading through the rugged stone to a much larger room commanding the southern hillsides right down to the valley. They had even installed a field telephone between this blockhouse and Waldesruh, which had been taken over as company headquarters by the German occupying forces. It had been part of a vast plan for hundreds of strong points to make a last stand feasible. But all the frantic labour in March and April of 1945 had come to nothing. The secrecy of it had been useful, though: the peasants had been trucked down to the valley, only a few men with useful skills kept here to work as they were told, no explanations given; they had never guessed the full extent of these fortifications. And if the gallery and larger room had never been filled with ammunition or gun emplacements, the small room facing Finstersee had justified its existence. The heavy door closing the narrow entrance to the original cave was completely hidden by the tops of the trees that grew right up to the cliff face; some branches even brushed the door’s natural timber. An apparent fissure in the rock, well to the side of the door, had been carefully fashioned to give the room enough air and—just as important—to allow a telescope to keep its sharp eye on the opposite side of the lake. Anton wasn’t always stationed up there, of course. But there had been an alert last week, and Anton had spent the last four nights and days in his eyrie.