Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (8 page)

“As you can
imagine, the country through which we had to advance was pretty hideous. The
roads were no better than tracks, and the tracks led through endless valleys
dominated by rocky heights on either side. I did what I could to protect my
column by throwing out a strong advance guard and large numbers of vedettes on
either flank, but from the beginning we were subjected to sniping all day and
raids each night. We had the Greeks to the south of us, the Bulgarians to the
north, and the whole country was infested with Macedonian irregulars who appeared
ready to die happily if only they could first shoot a Turk.”

“Johnny Turk is
a brave and determined fighter; but the pace of the force had to be that of its
slowest vehicles, and often guns and wagons had to be dragged one by one up
steep inclines, or across boulder-strewn gullies. And the nerves of the finest
troops in the world will become frayed in such circumstances, if meanwhile they
are under harassing fire from a constant succession of ambushes. After a few
days they began to ignore my orders about taking prisoners, and promptly
butchered any of the enemy who fell into their hands. Those were the
circumstances in which I made the acquaintance of Colonel Dimitriyevitch.”

“I had ridden
far forward one day, with a small staff, to see the lie of the land. Apparently
he had done the same, having been sent on a reconnaissance by the commander of
a Serbian division. His party had had a brush with a troop of my Kurdish
cavalry, and had got the worst of it. His companions were dead and he was
within an ace of death himself; but my opportune arrival saved him, and I made
him my personal prisoner.”

“Naturally,
although he expressed his gratitude, he at first refused to talk on any subject
connected with the war. But he was obviously a man of culture and considerable
intelligence, so I had him treated well, invited him now and then to eat at my
own table, and went out of my way to win his confidence.”

“In view of the
anxieties of my situation, and the extraordinary heavy demands made on me as
the commander of a force slowly moving forward, but attacked by enemies on all
sides, why I should have devoted so much time to my solitary prisoner I cannot
pretend to explain. It may be that I sensed instinctively the black, evil heart
that he concealed beneath an urbane manner, and realized subconsciously that it
held secrets that I had been given a unique opportunity to learn. In any case,
by the time my force joined the main army in the neighbourhood of Monastir, he
had come to regard me as a friend.”

“A few days
later a general battle took place. After four days of severe fighting the
Turkish army of the west was heavily defeated. I had taken the precaution to
form a small reserve of about fifteen hundred picked men. To have flung them into
the battle in its final stages could not possibly have influenced its outcome;
so when the break-up of the army ensued I still had intact this
well-disciplined body of reliable troops. All means of communication with my
superior officers had been cut off, so I decided to retire through the
mountains to the south-west, in the hope of finding some town having a Turkish
garrison which I might reinforce: or, failing that, eventually reaching the
Turkish stronghold of Yannina in the Epirus.”

“By a forced march
of twenty-four hours, I extricated my troops from any risk of being surrounded
and captured during the aftermath of the battle. But it was now late November,
so the cold and hardships that we suffered, as we continued our progress across
the bleak uplands, were intense. In addition, the peasantry were bitterly
hostile, which meant that to secure food enough to keep life in the bodies of
my men I had to turn a blind eye to the methods they employed in forcing the
wretched country people to disclose where they had hidden their cattle and
secret stores of grain. It was a nightmare journey, which I would that I could
forget, except for one thing—I still had my prisoner with me.”

“From the day I
rescued him he realized that, guarded as he was by semi-barbarous troops who
hated all he represented, if he were caught attempting to escape his life would
not be worth a moment’s purchase. And later, when my men became desperate from
privation, he knew his life to be really safe only as long as he remained
within call of me: so day and night he kept in my immediate vicinity and made
himself as useful to me in small ways as he could. In fact, he became my
constant companion; and after the Turkish army had been so completely defeated
at Monastir, there was no reason why he should longer refrain from discussing
military matters with me.”

“None of the
Turkish officers on my small staff had more than a smattering of any language
other than their own, but Dimitriyevitch spoke French fluently. During those
long, dark, winter nights we often talked for hours, as we sat, a bottle of
ouzo
between us, huddled in our greatcoats in the corner of one
of the burnt-out farm-houses that I used as a temporary headquarters.”

“Gradually I got
to know about him: partly because there was a streak of conceit in his evil
nature, and at times when the
ouzo
had warmed him
up the desire to boast got the better of his discretion; partly because he
admired the way in which I handled difficult situations, and, seeing that the
Turkish goose was as good as cooked, he hoped to induce me to enter the service
of Serbia.”

“Bit by bit, he
let it out that he was one of the officers who, nine years earlier, had
personally participated in the murder of King Alexander and Queen Draga. He had
been one of the prime movers in founding the Black Hand. He spoke with pride of
its growth, iron discipline, and now nation-wide ramifications. It was he who
told me that several members of the Serbian royal family and government are
pledged to obey its orders; and that the secret council of the society would
stop at nothing—not even the plunging of the whole of Europe into war—to
achieve their final purpose of winning for Serbia a great Empire in the Eastern
Mediterranean.”

When the Duke
ceased speaking the other two continued to regard him in speculative silence.
Both thought that he looked remarkably young to have held the considerable
field command with which he had been dispatched from Constantinople, yet
recognized the natural air of authority in his bearing. Neither could quite
decide how much of his story to believe, but they were much too polite to say
so; and, after a moment, Sir Pellinore exclaimed:

“Well, I’ll be
damned! Pity, though, you didn’t leave this feller Dimibitch hanging by his
heels. Still, you weren’t to know that at the time. But tell us the rest of the
yarn. Did you manage to evade capture till the end of the war?”

De Richleau
nodded. “I lost a lot of my men through sniping, frost-bite, and some ugly
skirmishes that occurred when at last we reached the vicinity of Yannina. The
place was already partially invested, so I had to fight my way in; but the
remnant I brought made quite a useful little reinforcement for the Governor.
Having handed my troops over to him, I spent a few days assessing the local situation,
and as it did not appear to me that the town could hold out for very long I
decided to make my way back to Turkey. A fishing smack took me across the
Adriatic to Brindisi, and from there it was easy to get an Italian freighter
round to Constantinople.”

“Well done! Damn
good show! But what happened to your pal, Disivitch?”

“I left him in
Yannina. The Turks there were taking prisoners in the orthodox manner and
treating them reasonably well, so I knew that he would come to no harm.”

“Tell me,” put
in the First Lord, “when you got back to Constantinople, did you report to
anyone these extraordinary conversations that you had had with your prisoner?”

“No, sir.”

“May I ask, why?
You are a British citizen; and a man of your position must surely have realized
that our Ambassador would have been much interested in hearing what you had to
tell.”

The Duke’s
strong teeth flashed in a smile. “Perhaps I ought to have done so; but the fact
is that I did not believe the greater part of what Colonel Dimitriyevitch told
me, at the time. About the Black Hand, yes. Its existence is more or less
common knowledge in the Balkans; but not the extent of its power, that such
highly placed persons were involved, or his own prominent position in the
movement. I regarded him as a megalomaniac, obsessed with dark dreams of power.
The study of his evil personality had fascinated me, but I did not consider him
a danger to anyone outside his immediate circle, much less a menace to the
peace of Europe.”

“What, then, has
caused you to change your opinion?”

“I met him again
a little over a month ago in Sofia. He told me that Serbia is now sufficiently
recovered to undertake another war, and that the experience gained in her
campaigns of 1912 and 1913 would enable her to put into the field the finest
army for its size in Europe. He more than hinted that a pretext would be sought
to attack Austria this coming summer, and he then offered me a high command in
the Serbian army—which I declined on the excuse that I was still pledged to
Turkey for some time to come.”

“Do you really
believe that he was in a position to make you such an offer ?”

“Indeed I do.
What point would there be in his making it, if he were unable to secure such a
post for me? And the very fact that he has sufficient influence to nominate
generals for high commands gives the strongest possible support to the
statement he made to me on numerous occasions while he was my prisoner. Namely,
that he not only was a founder member of the Black Hand, but is to-day its
Grand Master.”

“You said
yourself that at that time you considered him a megalomaniac. May it not be
that he is still suffering from illusions of grandeur, and that all that he
told you recently is pure moonshine?”

De Richleau
shook his head. “No. That is the terrible thing about it. And on this you can
check up for yourselves. Dimitriyevitch is, in his own black way, as sane as
any of us; and he is now the official chief of all the Serbian Intelligence
departments. I need not stress the power that such a position gives him. He can
report adversely upon highly placed officers and government officials who are
not members of the Black Hand, and so secure the removal of all opposition from
his path. He controls secret funds which he can use for bribery in cases where
threats fail. His post entitles him to know the innermost secrets of Serbian
diplomacy; and among his agents there must be men whom, under the pretext of
national safety, he can order to commit assassinations. You see now how grave
is the danger that I fear. What is there to stop such a man, in such a post,
choosing his own moment and creating an incident that will lead to war?”

While the Duke
had been speaking, bursts of hearty cheering had broken out above them in the
ballroom, and now the band struck up the Austrian National Anthem. Midnight had
come: the revellers had unmasked, and were openly showing their delight at the
presence in their midst of the lovely Archduchess Ilona Theresa.

Mr. Marlborough
stood up. “You must forgive me if I leave you now, Duke, but I must pay my
formal respects to Her Imperial Highness. Our talk has been most interesting.
In fact, it will give me much to think about, and you may be sure that we shall
not lightly dismiss the warning you have brought us. To procure for you a
commission in the British Army is, I fear, beyond my powers; but if there is
any other way in which I can be of service to you, pray don’t hesitate to let
me know.”

As De Richleau
murmured his thanks, Sir Pellinore boomed:

“Bit above my
head, all this international stuff; but I’d like to hear more about your
soldiering. Perhaps you’ll lunch with me one day? Where you staying?”

“The Coburg,”
replied the Duke. “And I should be delighted to lunch with you.”

“Right! Drop you
a line about that. Best leave you here, now, though; and spare the blushes of
the lovely Archduchess, eh?”

The three of
them had just emerged from among the banked-up orchids. With a nod, and a
twinkle in his bright blue eyes, Sir Pellinore turned away with the First Lord
and, side by side, they crossed the broad, open space, beneath the centre of
the marquee. As they reached the iron staircase leading up to the ballroom, he
asked:

“What d’you make
of him, eh?”

Mr. Marlborough’s
heavy brows drew together. “It’s hard to say. He must know that we can easily
verify his claim to have served the Turks as a general, so it is unlikely he
was lying to us about that: and he certainly is no fool. He gives the
impression of being both shrewd and honest; but perhaps he has deceived
himself. I pray God that it may be so; for if he is right about Dimitriyevitch
we will have even worse worries on our hands than the Irish business, before we
are much older.”

“He’s on to
something, all right. I’d bet a packet on that,” muttered the tall baronet. “All
he said ties up with bits of stuff that have been reaching me for months past.
This Black Hand thing exists, of course. Has done for years. Not a doubt about
that. So does Dimititch—or whatever the damn feller’s name is. Constant
replacement of people holding big jobs in Serbia by comparatively unknown men
has been puzzling me a bit. This amorous young Duke has provided us with a
solution that’s all too clear. But what’s his game, eh? Has he been sent here
to pull a double bluff? Is he on our side, or theirs? That’s what I’d like to
know.”