Night Journey (18 page)

… A curious whistling could be heard above the rumble of the train. Jane had saved herself from falling into the corridor, and instead sat for a moment in the lap of the elderly man by the door. Now she quickly recovered and stared up in horror at what she had done.

The whistling sound was lowering its note, became plaintive ebbed, breathily away as the train braked, died completely as it came to a standstill.

Silence. For a moment all was silence, as if the train and everyone in it held a breath. Then, growing in place of the patterned beat of the wheels, a murmur of excited voices, At the same time seven of the eight people in the carriage began talking.

“Gee, I'm awfully sorry,” said Jane, in English. “ How ever did I do that?”

“Now indeed we shall be late,” said the lady by the window, helping herself to another grape.

The soldiers in the corridor were the first outsiders to discover who was responsible for the mishap. When they had shouted the news both out of the windows and into the neighbouring compartments, everyone, it seemed, wanted to peer into ours. Everyone began pointing out Jane to the people behind them. The people in our compartment took it rather well and explained carefully to each other just how it had happened. Jane went back to her seat and looked both timid and tearful.

“Whatever shall I do?” she appealed to everyone. “I never thought, you know. I just put out my hand and never though.”

Everybody—excepting me—gave her advice. The lady next to her said, stay here and wait until someone comes. The elderly man on whom she had sat said, fear nothing, just explain to the guard exactly how it happened, just tell him the whole truth.

One of the sailors, who was now leaning out of the window, reported that there were six men on the line, no less than six officials. They were running backwards and forwards. Hoo-eee! This way! This was the carriage! Get out on the line and explain to them I said another woman.

“I don't know how it happened,” Jane said, taking out her handkerchief. “I just trod on something and over-balanced——”

“The fault was partly mine,” I said. “It was possibly my foot you stumbled on——”

“No, it was mine! It was mine!” claimed the other sailor, as if he was being robbed of some distinction.

By now there was a straggling and a heaving among the press of people in the corridor and two officials fought their way into view. Everybody was helping them and trying to explain to them just what had happened, and they apparently were trying not to listen. They forced their way into the carriage, one fat and pink and sweating, the other an elderly man who had been round checking the tickets. Behind them was a dark long-nosed man in a blue suit who bore the unmistakable expression of a Fascist official.

Some explaining had been done in the carriage by the time the third man got in. He interrupted it by shooting:

“
Now then
! Anyone who was not in the carriage when this happened—
outside at once
!”

His authoritative voice quelled the uproar. Two soldiers and two other men were expelled, and he slid the glass door in their faces and pulled up the window.

“
Now then
! Quickly. We have not all day to waste.”

Four or five voices began but be cut them short. “
You
” he said, pointing to Jane, “if you are responsible——”

She explained it well. I had feared that before the inbred suspicion of the O.V. R.A. her accident would sound contrived, but no one appeared to doubt its genuineness. The man's sharp face twitched on hearing her nationality, and he waved the ticket collector to examine all official papers in the carriage. While this was being done, Jane dabbed her eyes and continued to look helpless and sorry for herself.

The fat railway official said: “There is, you will understand,
signorina
, a fine payable. You will see the warming on the roof of the carriage. That must be suet.”

Jane looked uncomprehending for a moment, and then it dawned on her and she opened her bag. “ But of course. Of course, I hadn't thought …”

The two railway officials looked pleased. A little money would solve so much, would ease the whole situation. But before Jane could pay, the O. V. R.A. man had turned sharply on me, my passport in his hand.

“
You
, What is your business on this train?”

I stared at his angry eyes and realised somewhat late that an American, whatever the attitude of the United States government—short of war—would be treated with some friendliness in Italy. A Yugoslav could expect no such treatment. There was Trieste and many other matters in dispute.

“I—travel in timber,” I said; praying he would not ask my name, which in the emergency of the moment I had suddenly, utterly forgotten. Brunsdorff, was it? Peter Brunsdorff?
Unglaublich
…

“I did not ask what you travelled In—I asked what your business was on the train.”

“I am going to Milan. I have a cousin living there. Dalla Marchetti, Via Valona, 22. I am leaving again to-morrow.” All that came. But it was not Brunsdorff. It was …

“Did you come from Venice to-day?”

“No, from Garda.”

“What business have you there?”

“I had often wished to spend a night by the lake. I broke my journey.”

“When are you returning to Ljubljana?”

“Not for some days.”

“Why not?”

“I have to go to Turin.”

“What for?”

“To see the timber importers there,” I said with a show of anger. “Your government wants oak wood. We have it to sell. It is a matter of common business!”

The man continued to stare at my passport as if hoping to see some irregularity. Jane was paying the two officials and tipping them. All annoyance had now been wiped from their faces as from a slate. Two guards had climbed up to the window from the line and were demanding how much longer.
No longer
, said the ticket collector.
Avanti
! It is nothing but a mischance. No damage. Right away!

As the train stammered into motion the O.V.B.A. man thrust my passport back at me.
Lansdorf
! God, what insanity to forget!

“You have been in Italy four days,” said the man, “and you still have to conduct your business in Turin and Milan. What have you been doing in Venice?”

“I have to see the shippers,” I answered patiently. “ One was away. These Things cannot be done in a few hours.”

“You have hurt your hands,” the Fascist said, looking at the bandages. “Was it an air-raid?”

There had only been a dozen bombs dropped near Venice since Italy entered the war, and he must have known it.

“It was a motor accident,” I said, “before I left Yugoslavia. It is almost healed.”

The man turned away and his eyes flickered towards Jane's bag. Jane fumbled in it. This, I knew, was a crucial moment. She could over-tip the railway officials and they would think the better of her for it. But if she over-tipped the Fascist it would rouse his suspicions afresh.

She took out a single note, but it was a good one. “ I'm indeed sorry to have caused all this trouble,” she said. “I hope you'll permit me …”

He took the note without looking at it and without thanking her. It disappeared,
flip, flip
, folded four times, into a top pocket of his waistcoat.

“Very well,” he said. “Very well,” and went out. Jane sniffed into her handkerchief and then bravely put it away.

“Don't worry, child,” said the woman with the grapes. “No harm has been done. And we shall still be in Milan nicely before dark.”

I took out my watch, “We Shall certainly be late,” I said. “The time is five-thirty already.”

The last half hour was spent with a warm consciousness of success. We had asked at both stations whether the Milan-Basle express left promptly and were assured it did, even in wartime conditions. There was no question of this train being regarded as a connection for the other.

It would be unfortunate for Fräulein Volkmann. I wondered with what fuming impatience she had suffered the delay. No train can make up for a ten minute stop with only twenty-five kilometres to go—end anyway coal was too scarce to squander in the attempt This was why Jane had left it so late. At last, relaxing, I began to feel I dared to look forward to the journey back to Garda. We could catch the seven o'clock train and be back in three hours. It scarcely bore thinking of. I could not bring myself to look at lie girl opposite and to think of it. Yet I could not stop thinking of it. It was what I had thought in Garda this morning: live dangerously and all that matters is the next few hours. Perhaps to this is added: love dangerously and you have the world in your hands …

Straggling houses: we were running into the environs of the city: people were gathering up their belongings: train slowing. It was five minutes to six. We came slowly into the station.

People crowding now to get out; Jane ahead of me, and she was fending off one of the sailors who clearly thought he had been encouraged and wished to attach himself. I had no doubt of her ability to handle him. Of Fräulein Volkmann there was no sign. The whole arrangement had worked so perfectly that one could not help feeling anxious.

I pushed through the crowd and caught a porter by the arm. “The Basle express. I suppose it has left?”

He smiled briefly. “You are lucky,
signors
. You still have plenty of time to catch it.”

“What!”

My voice must have been full of horror but he was too busy to notice.

“Platform eleven. There has been an accident on the line where the British bombed it. The express will not leave for twenty minutes yet.”

I met Jane outside the barrier. We went down the long flight of steps unspeaking.

“We must tell Andrews and Dwight,” I said bitterly. “ They will be somewhere on the train. I can buy a ticket and——”

“They're already in Switzerland,” she said.

“In——”

“They're catching this train over the frontler.”

I came to a stop.

“Walk on,” she said. “We might be followed here. I didn't trust that Fascist on the train.”

“Do you know their plan?”

“A little of it.”

“And Fräulein Volkmann …”

“Will be a terrible complication.”

“Is there any way of letting them know?”

“No.”

I felt bitter and cold inside. All the false optimism and hope of the last half hour were blown away like dust which has accumulated in corner. The success—the apparent success—had been too easy. One should never have trusted it.

“I must go, Jane. I have to catch the train. I know it means—the end of what we planned. But there is no other way.”

She was lighting a cigarette. Her fingers were nicotine. “ Will it help? I doubt it.”

“I might be able to help—at the time.”

“Then I'll come with you.”

“No. You mustn't be involved in what is going to happen.”

“I already am.”

“
No
… If we're—Jane: this is not for you——” I baulked at putting it more plainly.

“And my passport's in order,” she said, shaking out the match. “It was fixed before I left Venice, in case of accidents. Incidentally, is yours?”

We walked through the booking hall while I took out the passport. “Oh, dear God, no. The other one was. I was thinking of that …”

“Stop over here,” she said, at a newspaper kiosk. We did so, and she turned the pages of a magazine. “I must go alone, Robert.”

“Are you crazy? Perhaps I can get through without a visa.”

“Not a chance. Did you say your other passport was in order?”

“Yes; you remember Andrews arranged it in Venice.”

She looked at her wrist-watch. “I might be able to get that. It will be in the Lorenzo store-rooms if it hasn't been destroyed.

“What, get it now? You'd never manage it in the time! Besides, it might be dangerous, going there.”

“Not to the store-rooms. It's five minutes by taxi.”

I hesitated. “ There'll be traffic at this time …” While I half objected I knew I was going to agree, because, if she failed to get back to time, at least I would be sure she could not be implicated in what was to come.

Her hands tightened over her bag. “I'll do that. It's worth the chance … You, Robert, I think you shouldn't hang about the station, in case she O.V.S.A. man from the train is still around.”

“I'll take a taxi too,” I said. “ Just drive somewhere and then come back. I'll meet you at the barrier In fifteen minutes, No. 11.”

“Get the tickets,” she said, “and book to Lucerne.”

I raised my hat with a formal bow as she left me. I had intended it to be an Italian now, but in a moment of hyper-criticism it suddenly seemed to me too Germanic.

After a few seconds I followed her to the entrance of the station and got in a taxi and gave the address that I had given the detective in the train. I had no idea in what part of the town this was, but when we had gone about a mile, having become certain that no one was following, I told the driver to return to the station.

He stared and shrugged but obeyed, and within ten minutes of leaving I was in the queue to book two second-class tickets to Lucerne.

Here I had a moment's leisure to wonder whether Andrews and Dwight would approve of our taking the train. It was impossible to decide whether our being there could help or hinder. There was still a tremendous impulse to opt out. But I could not feel there would be any true response for either of us at Garda if we had not only failed in our mission but failed to warn them that we had.

I got the tickets and walked to the barrier nearest Platform 11. Standing close behind the ticket collector, reading a paper, was the hook-nosed Gestapo agent who had followed me all yesterday.