The Last Frontier (26 page)

How long he lay there at the full stretch of his knife he did not know. It could have been only seconds. Gradually he became aware that the track beneath him had straightened out again, that centrifugal force no longer had him in its murderous grip and that he was free to move once more, although with infinite caution. Inch by inch he slowly pulled his legs back on to the roof again, freed the knife, stabbed it in farther up and gradually hauled himself on to the top. A moment later, still using his knife as his sole support, he found the first circular ventilator and clutched it as if he would never let it go. But he had to let it go, there could only be two or three minutes left. He had to reach the next ventilator. He reached out in its direction, raised the knife and stabbed it down: but it struck some metal, probably a bolt head, with a jarring shock, and when he brought it up to his eyes he saw that the blade had been snapped off cleanly at the hilt. He flung Ae handle away, braced his feet against the ventilator and pushed off along the roof, colliding heavily with the next ventilator, perhaps only six feet away. Seconds later, again using his feet to propel him forward from one ventilator to the next, he had reached the third one, and then the fourth: and then he had realised he did not know how long the carriage was, whether there were any more ventilators, whether or not another push along the top of the carriage would send him skidding helplessly over the front of the carriage to fall to his death under the wheels of the train. He decided to risk it, placed his feet against the ventilator and was on the point of pushing off when the thought struck him that with any height at all he should be able to see from there into the cab of the locomotive and see limned against its brightness, perhaps, the edge of that coach, for the snow was beginning to ease at last.
He knelt upright, the ventilator clutched tightly between his thighs, and his heart turned slowly over as he saw the edge of the carriage, silhouetted clearly against the red glow from the locomotive's open firebox, a bare four feet away. In die cab itself, through the flurries of snow, he caught a glimpse of the engineer, and of his fireman turning and stooping as he shovelled coal from the tender into the firebox. And he could see something that had no right to be there, but which he might have expected -- a soldier armed with a carbine, crouched for protection from the cold close into the gaping red maw of the firebox.
Reynolds fumbled for his gun, but all the feeling had left his hands, he couldn't even get his frozen forefinger through the trigger-guard. He thrust it back in his pocket and rose quickly to his feet, leaning far into the wind, the ventilator still locked between his legs. It was all or nothing now. He took one short step, the sole of his right shoe found the edge of the carriage with the second step, he was in mid-air, then he was sliding and slithering down the sloping, crumbling coal of the tender to land on his shoulder and side, temporarily winded, at the back of the footplate.
They turned to stare at him -- all three, engineer, stoker and soldier 'turned to stare at him, their faces almost comical in bewilderment and disbelief. Perhaps five seconds elapsed, five precious seconds that enabled Reynolds partially to regain his breath, before the soldier abruptly recovered from his astonishment, unslung his rifle, swept the butt high in the air and leapt towards the prostrate Reynolds. Reynolds grasped a lump of coal, the first thing that came to hand, and flung it despairingly at the advancing man, but his fingers were too numb, and as the soldier ducked low the coal flew high over his head, missing him completely. But the fireman didn't miss, and the soldier collapsed on to the footplate as the flat of the shovel caught him on the back of the head.
Reynolds scrambled to his feet. With the torn clothes and bleeding, frost-whitened hands and face streaked with coal dust, he was an incredible spectacle, but at that moment quite oblivious of the fact. He stared at the fireman, a big, curly-haired youngster with his shirt sleeves rolled far up in defiance of the bitter cold, then transferred his gaze to the soldier at his feet.
'The heat.' The youngster was grinning. 'He was suddenly overcome.'
'But why -- '
'Look, friend, I don't know who you're for, but I know who I'm against.' He leaned on his shovel. 'Can we help you?"
'You certainly can!' Reynolds rapidly explained, and the two men looked at each other. The older man, the driver, hesitated.
'We have to think of ourselves -- '
'Look!' Reynolds ripped his coat open. 'A rope. Take it off, will you -- my hands are about gone. You can tie each other's wrists. That should -- '
'Of course!' The younger man grinned even as the driver reached for the air-brake lever. 'We were held up. Five or six men at least. Safe home, my friend.'
Reynolds hardly stopped to thank the men who helped him so casually, with so little thought for themselves. The train was slowing down quickly on that incline, and he had to get to the back wagon before it stopped altogether and the tightening of the coupling made it impossible to free it. He jumped out from the lowest cab step, tumbled head over heels, regained his feet and started running back. The train was almost stopped now as the guard's van crawled past him, and he had a momentary, heart-warming glimpse of Jansci standing in the open door at the rear of the van, a gun rock-steady in his hand.
Then the buffers were banging and rattling together as the locomotive up front came to a halt, Reynolds had his torch switched on and was lifting the towing links clear and knocking off the air-brake flange coupling with his hammer. He looked briefly for a steam coupling, but there was none -- convicts didn't need heat -- he had severed all connections between the last wagon and the train. All the carriages were now jolting backwards under the impetus of the releasing pressure of the compressed buffer springs, Jansci, a bunch of keys swinging in one hand and the levelled gun still in the other, was stepping across from the guard's van to the cattle truck, and Reynolds himself was just grabbing hold of the handrail when the guard's van bumped violently into the truck and gave it its initial impetus for the run down the long, gentle hill they had just climbed.
The big brake wheel was on the outside of the wagon and Reynolds was beginning to turn this, perhaps a mile after they had left the main train, when Jansci finally found the right key for the wagon, kicked the door open and flashed his torch inside. Half a mile farther on Reynolds was just giving the wheel its final lock and bringing the coach to a gentle standstill, watched by a smiling Jansci and a Dr. Jennings who had been at first dazed then unbelieving but now as wildly excited as any schoolboy. And they had barely left the wagon and were striking out for the west where they knew the road lay when they heard a cry and saw a figure floundering towards them through the deep snow. It was the Count, all aristocratic reserve gone, yelling and shouting and waving his arms like a madman.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

They arrived at Jansci's headquarters in this country, not ten miles from the Austrian frontier, at half past six hi the following morning. They arrived after fourteen consecutive hours' motoring over the frozen snow-bound roads of Hungary at an average speed of well under twenty miles an hour, after fourteen of the coldest, most uncomfortable, most exhausting hours' travelling that Reynolds had ever done in his life. But they arrived, and for all their cold and hunger and weariness and sleeplessness, they arrived in tremendous spirits, their elation buoying them up above all their distress: all except the Count, who, after his first outburst of gladness at their safety and success, had relapsed, as the long hours of the night wheeled by, into his usual remote, detached mood of sombre cynicism.
They had covered exactly four hundred endless, gruelling kilometres in the course of that night, and the Count had driven every kilometre of the way, stopping twice only for petrol, rousing reluctant, sleeping pump attendants with the twin menaces of his voice and uniform. More than once, as the lines of strain had etched themselves more and more deeply into the Count's lean face, Reynolds had been on the point of suggesting that he take over, but each time his common sense had come to the rescue and he had refrained: as he had observed on that first drive in the black Mercedes, the Count, as a driver, was in a world all of his own and, on these snow bound treacherous roads, it was more important that they should arrive safely than that the Count's exhaustion should be relieved. And so for most of the night Reynolds had sat and dozed and watched him, as did the Cossack by his side, both of them being in the relatively warm cab for the same reason-to thaw out. The Cossack had been in far worse case than even Reynolds, and understandably so: for the last half of the distance between Szekszard and Pecs -- almost twenty miles -- he had been perched outside the truck, jammed between fender and bonnet, keeping the screen completely clear for the Count as he had driven through the blinding snow. And it had been on that fender that he had his grandstand view of Reynolds' suicidal climb across the coach roofs, and there was no scowl now in his face as he looked at Reynolds, just a kind of awed wonder.
The direct route from Pecs to Jansci's house in the country would have been just under half of the actual distance they had covered, but both Jansci and the Count had been convinced that taking that route could only have had one end -- a concentration camp. The fifty-mile stretch of Lake Balaton blocked off most of the escape routes to the Austrian border in the west, and both men had been sure that between its southern tip and the Yugoslavian border not even the most insignificant road would be left unwatched. The other routes to the west, between the northern tip of Balaton and Budapest might or might not have been watched, but they had taken no chances. They had gone 200 kilometres due north, circled round the northern outskirts of the capital itself, then taken the main highway to Austria, branching off to the south-west as they approached Gyor.
And so it had taken them fourteen hours and 400 kilometres, and brought them to their destination cold and hungry and exhausted. But once inside the safety and shelter of the house, these things fell from them like a cloak, and when Jansci and the Cossack produced a roaring fire in the wood stove, Sandor a cooking pot and a magnificent smell of cooking and the Count a bottle of barack from a more than adequate stock he kept in the house, their relief at their safe arrival, their jubilation at having completely thwarted the AVO, expressed itself in talk and laughter and still more talk, and with warm food inside them and the Count's barack bringing life back to frozen bodies and limbs, all thought of weariness and sleep was forgotten. There would be time enough for sleep, they had all day for sleep, for Jansci wasn't going to make his attempt at the border till after midnight of that day.
Eight o'clock came, and with it the weather and news reports over the big, modern radio Jansci had recently installed in the house. Of their own activities and the rescue of the professor there was no mention, nor had they expected any: such a confession of failure was the last thing the Communists would make to their satellite subjects. The weather report, which predicted further heavy and continuous snowfalls over almost the entire country, contained an item of extreme interest: all south-west Hungary, in an area stretching east from Lake Balaton to Szeged on the Yugoslavian border, was completely immobilised by the severest snowstorm since the war, every road, railway line and airport being completely blocked. Jansci and the others listened in a silence more eloquent of their relief than any words could have been: had their attempt been made twelve hours later both rescue and escape would have been impossible.
Nine o'clock came and with it the first grey tinges of dawn through the again thickly falling snow, the second bottle of barack and the recounting of many stories. Jansci told of their sojourn in the Szarhaza, the Count, already with half a bottle of brandy inside him, gave an ironic account of his interview with Furmint, and Reynolds himself had to tell, several times over, of his perilous journey across the top of the train. To all this, the most avid listener by far was the old professor, whose feeling towards his Russians hosts, as Jansci and Reynolds had observed when they had seen him in the Szarhaza, had undergone a radical and violent change. The beginnings of the change and their change towards him had come, he said, when he had refused to speak at the conference until he knew what had happened to his son, and when he had heard that his son had escaped, he refused to speak anyway -- the Russians' last hold over him was gone. Being thrown into the Szarhaza had made him more furious than ever, and the final indignity of being imprisoned in the same freezing cattle truck as a band of hardened criminals had completed his conversion in no uncertain fashion. And when he had heard of the tortures inflicted on Jansci and Reynolds his fury had known no bounds. He swore in a most uncharacteristic fashion.
'Wait!' he said. 'By heavens, just wait till I get home!
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The British Government, their precious projects, their missiles -- damn their projects and the missiles! I've got more important things to do first.'
'Such as?' Jansci asked mildly.
'Communism!' Jennings downed his glass of barack and his voice was almost a shout. 'I'm not boasting, but I've got the ear of nearly all the big newspapers in the country. They'll listen to me -- especially when they remember the damned poppycock I used to talk before. Ill expose the whole damned, rotten system of communism, and by the time I'm finished -- '
Too late.' The interruption came from the Count, and the tone was ironic.
'What do you mean "Too late"?" Jennings demanded.
"The Count just means that communism has already been pretty thoroughly exposed,8 Jansci said soothingly, 'and, without offence, Dr. Jennings, by people who have suffered for years under it, not just a week-end, as you have.'
'You expect me to go back to London and sit on my hands -- ' Jennings broke off, and when he spoke again Ms tone was calmer. 'Damn it, man, it's the duty of everyone -- all right, all right, I'm late in seeing it, but I see it now -- it's the duty of everyone to do what he can to stop the spread of this damned creed -- '
'Too late.' Again the dry interruption came from the Count.
'He just means that communism, outside its homeland, is failing of its own accord,' Jansci explained hastily. 'You don't need to stop it, Dr. Jennings -- it's already stopped. Oh, it works here and there, but only to a limited extent, and then only among primitive peoples like the Mongols who fall for the fine phrases and the even finer promises, but not with us, not with the Hungarians, Czechs, Poles or others, not in any country where the people are more politically advanced than the Russians themselves. Take this country itself -- who were the most heavily indoctrinated people?'
'The youth, I should imagine.' Jennings was holding his impatience in check only with difficulty. 'They always are.'
'The youth.' Jansci nodded. 'And the pampered darlings of communism -- the writers, the intellectuals, the lionised workers of heavy industry. And who led the revolt here against the Russians? Exactly the same people -- the young, the intellectuals and the workers. The fact that I think that the
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whole rising was futile, crazily ill-timed has nothing to do with it. The point is that communism failed most completely in those among whom it had the best chance of succeeding -- if it were ever to succeed.'
'And you should see the churches in my country,' the Count murmured. 'Crowded masses every Sunday -- packed with kids. You wouldn't worry about communism so much then, Professor. In fact,' he added dryly, 'the only thing to match the failure of communism in our countries is its remarkable success in countries like Italy and France who have never seen one of these in their lives.' He gestured, with evident distaste, at the uniform he was wearing, and shook his head sadly. 'Human nature is a wonderful thing.'
'Then what the devil would you have me do?' Jennings demanded. 'Forget the whole damned thing?'
'No.' Jansci shook his head, with just a trace of weariness. "That's the last thing I want you to do, that's the last thing I want anyone to do -- there may be a greater crime, a greater sin than indifference, but I don't know of it. No, Dr. Jennings, what I should like you to do is to go home and tell your people that we in Central Europe have only our one little life apiece to lead, and 'time is running out. Tell them that we would like to smell the sweet air of freedom, just once, before we go. Tell them that we have been waiting for seventeen long years now, and hope cannot last for ever. Tell them we don't want our children, and our children's children, to walk along the dark and endless road of slavery, and never see a light at the end. Tell them we don't want much -- we only want a little peace, green fields and church bells and carefree children playing in the sun, without fear, without want, without wondering what dark clouds tomorrow must surely bring.'
Jansci leant forward in his chair, his glass forgotten, the tired lined face beneath the thick white hair ruddy in the flickering flames of the fire, earnest and intense as Reynolds had never seen.
'Tell them, tell your people at home, that our lives, and the lives of generations to come, lie in their hands. Tell them that there is only one thing that ultimately matters on this earth, and that is peace on this earth. And tell them that this is a very small earth, and growing smaller with every year that passes, but that we all have to live on it together, that we all must live on it together.'
'Co-existence?' Dr. Jennings raised an eyebrow.
'Co-existence. A terrible word, a. big bogey-man word, but what else could any sane man ever offer in its place -- all the nameless horrors of a thermo-nuclear war, the requiem for the lost hopes of mankind? No, co-existence must come, it must if mankind is to survive, but this world without spheres, the dream of that great American, Cordell Hull, will never come if you have impetuous fools, as you do have, Dr. Jennings, shouting for big results now, here, today. It will never come so long as people in the west think in terms of parachute diplomacy, of helping us to help ourselves.... My God! They've never seen even a single Mongol division in action or they wouldn't talk such arrant nonsense -- it will never come while people talk dangerous drivel about the Russian people being their secret allies, who say, "Get at the Russian people," or listen to the gratuitous advice of people who fled these unhappy countries of ours years ago and have lost all contact with what we are thinking and feeling today.
'Most of all, it will never come so long as our leaders and governments, our newspapers and our propagandists teach us incessantly, insistently, that we must hate and fear and despise all the other peoples who share this same tiny world with us. The nationalism of those who cry, "We are the people," the jingoistic brand of patriotism -- these are the great evils of our world today, the barriers to peace that no man can overcome. What hope is there for the' world as long as we cling to the outmoded forms of national allegiance? We owe allegiance to no one, Dr. Jennings, at least not on this earth.' Jansci smiled. 'Christ came to save mankind, we are told -- but maybe he has made a special exception in the case of the Russians.'
'What Jansci is trying to tell you, Dr. Jennings,' the Count murmured, 'is that all you've got to do is to convert the western world to Christianity and all will be well.'
'Not quite.' Jansci shook his head. 'What I say applies to the Russians even more than the western world, but I think the first move must come from the western world -- a maturer people, a more politically advanced people -- and not nearly so afraid of the Russians as the Russians are of them.'
'Talk.' Jennings was no longer angry, not even ironic, just thoughtful. 'Talk, talk, just talk. It'll require a great deal more than that, my friend, to bring about the millennium. It needs action. First move, you said. What move?'
'Heaven only knows.' Jansci shook his head. 'I don't; if I did know, no name in all history would be so revered as that of Major-General Illyurin. No man can do more, no man dare do more than make suggestions.'
No one spoke, and after a time Jansci went on slowly.
'It is essential, I think, to hammer home the idea of peace, the idea of disarmament, to convince the Russians, above all things, of our peaceful intentions. Peaceful intentions!' Jansci laughed without mirth. 'The British and the Americans filling the armouries of the nations of Western Europe with hydrogen bombs -- what a way to demonstrate peaceful intentions, what a way rather to ensure that Russia will never relax its grip on the satellites it no longer wants, what a way to drive the men of the Kremlin, scared men, I tell you, inexorably nearer the last thing in the world they want to do -- sending the first intercontinental missile on its way: the last thing they want to do, the last act of panic or desperation, because they know better than any that, though in their deep cellars in Moscow they may survive the retaliation that will surely come, they will never survive the vengeful fury of the crazed survivors of the holocaust that will just as surely engulf their own nation.. To arm Europe is to provoke the Russians to the point of madness: whatever else we may not do, it is essential to avoid all provocation, to keep the door of negotiation and approach always open, no matter what the rebuffs may be.'