Horizon Page 13

  “Good.” Mahlknecht was relieved. His whole face smoothed out. But his eyes were still thoughtful. “There is an immediate problem,” he said.

  The three younger men exchanged glances and smiled. “We know,” Thomson agreed. “We were just discussing at this moment how to silence the two Germans and the Mussner girl.”

  “That can be managed.” Mahlknecht’s voice was quiet and capable. He was doing his best to keep the two newcomers’ confidence in his people. It had been bad luck that the Germans’ sudden interest in the Schichtl house had happened just at this time. Mahlknecht’s pride was hurt: he had worked carefully, and now there was this incident which a stranger might think was a proof of incompetence. It showed Lennox somehow how sincerely Mahlknecht wanted the help of the Allies. He wanted these men to stay, to trust him and his people.

  Mahlknecht was biting the corner of his lip again. When he spoke there was a certain dignity in his words. There was no minimising of his worry.

  “We can take care of the Mussner girl in a civilised manner,” he said. “We shall send Johann away, with one of the missions into the North Tyrol. She will not see him again, so she will have no more guesses to pass over to her German friends. We shall watch her closely, from now onward.”

  “And the two Jerries in the barn?” Shaw spoke crisply. He wasn’t the man to make excuses, and he didn’t expect any. He was a hard case, Lennox thought. That was the kind of man Mahlknecht had wanted; he had certainly got it.

  “It would be easy to lead them up a mountain. There’s many a way of getting rid of a man on a mountainside. But even if these Germans seemed to die accidentally on a mountain the question of why they should have been climbing is still unanswered. And other Germans, with stronger suspicions, would come and take their place. So the problem is this: we must lead them away from the Schichtl house back to where their friends can see them. And either we must put an end to their suspicions, or—if necessary—kill them. But on no account must their death confirm the German suspicion.”

  Shaw and Thomson nodded. They were pleased with Mahlknecht’s quiet analysis. They were relieved that they weren’t dealing with a hot-head, filled with heroic plans which would only lead to disaster.

  “You were right,” Shaw said to Lennox. “Our friend Mahlknecht is a very careful fellow.” Then he turned to Mahlknecht. “What is your explanation of these waiting Germans?”

  “First, they had some suspicion about the Schichtl house giving help to Allied airmen who had crashed. We believe that their suspicion came from vague information supplied by Eva Mussner. It must have been vague, or else we in the Schichtl house should all have been arrested yesterday... Secondly, they must have learned that two men dropped from a plane near here last flight. But they can have no idea whether these two men were parachuting as agents, or simply bailing out of a plane which might later have crashed in the high mountains. Certainly they have no idea who you are, for today, in the village, you were accepted by them as men of the Schlern. And that makes me believe, although we cannot be sure, that they are looking for two airmen rather than agents... Thirdly they went back to the Schichtl house, to see if the parachutists had gone there for help. The two Germans who are now dressed as civilians came along with the SS men because these civilians had seen us yesterday and so could identify any newcomers today.”

  “And that,” Thomson said, “sounds as near the truth as we shall ever know. We’ll have to work, as we’ve often done, by guess and by God. But the first problem is they are still waiting.”

  Lennox said, “Yes. And why? They must have some real suspicion now about the Schichtl house.” He kept worrying about the sure way in which the two Germans had walked to the Kasal barn. They had been settling down to watch and to wait. Of that he felt sure. “They found no strangers in the house. Why should they wait?”

  “Perhaps,” Mahlknecht said slowly, “perhaps they are waiting for you.”

  Lennox was silent. It was true: he hadn’t been seen in the village, and so he should have been at the house. The Germans would think it interesting if he were to be found neither near the house nor in the village. He realised suddenly that this was the thought at the back of his mind which had been worrying him all afternoon. He realised that now as he listened to Mahlknecht’s words. He knew what he had to do, what they expected him to do.

  He moved over to the door so that he could see the grass and the trees and the mountains. He was wondering how you fought Germans with bare hands and quick wits. This was the civilian way of resisting; this was something new for a soldier to learn. A tommy-gun would have seemed very comforting at this moment.

  “I suppose I ought to move back to the house, then,” he said. “The longer I stay away, the more questions they will begin to ask.”

  The others didn’t answer. They were thinking of their other problems, balancing them against this one. They probably had a dozen worries to solve at this moment.

  His voice became more assured. “Look, you have other things to think about. I’ll shut up those two Jerries somehow. Johann will help me. Anyway, this looks like our particular headache.”

  The others accepted this solution.

  “I’m glad you volunteered,” Shaw said. “You’ll manage it all right.”

  “If there’s any questioning then act dumb,” Thomson advised.

  Lennox smiled grimly. “I shall be dumb, all right,” he said. He was still wondering how to fight Germans with bare hands. And then it didn’t seem so difficult: anyone who had been a prisoner-of-war had learned to fight with his wits.

  Mahlknecht said, “Use your own judgment.” And as Lennox looked at him sharply, he added, “—whether they stay alive or not.”

  Lennox nodded. He moved slowly over the clearing, and then as he saw Johann standing talking to old Schroffenegger at the path his pace quickened. Johann had won his bet. Katharina had been warned. Lennox was smiling as he said to the boy, “We have a little job to do.”

  * * *

  The three men in the hut returned to the table.

  Thomson straightened the map thoughtfully and picked up his pencil. “Pity we hadn’t time to give them a helping hand.”

  The Englishman’s silence showed he agreed.

  Mahlknecht said slowly, “I am sorry, gentlemen, that this incident had to happen at this time.” He was embarrassed as if he blamed himself for this complication.

  The American laughed. “Don’t let that worry you. Something always happens at the wrong time. Doesn’t it, Roy?”

  The Englishman nodded, absentmindedly. “You know,” he said, “that man Lennox might not be a bad chap to have around. Useful, perhaps.”

  “Yes.” Thomson was thoughtful too. “Remember the colonel’s report on him? Intelligent man, but undisciplined. Either Lennox has learned the hard way or the colonel was making a snap decision. I don’t know of any greater discipline than being able to take your own orders.”

  “He’s learned.” Shaw paused, pretending to examine the map. “Now we had better get on with our own job. We’ll have to trust Lennox to do his.”

  Mahlknecht sat astride a wooden bench, and began to advise. His own worry about Johann and Lennox began to recede: he began to believe, even as these two foreigners had assumed, that the Germans would have their problems too.

  17

  The journey to the Schichtl house was swift. Johann’s pace was steady and unbroken. He moved over the more difficult ground quickly, without slackening speed, as if he expected Lennox to follow easily. And because it was expected of him, Lennox managed it. Either the brief rest at Schönau, or the stimulus of the two Allied officers’ arrival, or the sense of necessity which surrounded him had chased away the fatigue of his muscles. Or perhaps they had never really forgotten the long months of training in the desert. They were obeying him, anyway. His mind was clear. He had a feeling of growing confidence. He was sure now that the job which he and Johann had to do could be done, if only they were quick enough at improvisin
g. Improvise, he told himself—that’s your best chance.

  As he followed Johann’s easy stride, imitating its changes in rhythm, matching footholds down difficult terrain, he could let his mind think about the simplest plan on which improvisation could be worked. He kept remembering Mahlknecht’s implication. The Germans were first to be satisfied that he was alone at the house, that he didn’t expect anyone. Then they were to be led away from the house. They were to be led away. And after that he was to use his own judgment.

  The sunlight was deepening in colour. A cool breeze was blowing up from the meadows. From the direction of the village he could hear the gay, distant music of a band, ebbing and flowing like a tide as the wind dropped or strengthened. The late afternoon had brought high clouds, tight and withdrawn into the soft blue of the sky. The rock of the mountain precipices had lost its hard grey look: the yellow sun was drawing out the warmth from its veins. The dark fir-trees grew more secret with the coming of evening; the thick stretches of woods, like twisting bands of rich green velvet, separated the bright new grass in the meadows from the giant teeth of rock. Lennox thought of the men and women gathered together in the village, of their gay costumes and bright music and friendly laughter disguising nagging worries. He thought of the Germans in the village, and the hidden trucks, quietly waiting. He thought of the two Germans in the Kasal barn, impatient, speculating. He thought of the three men in the foresters’ hut on the Schönau; of old Schroffenegger guarding the south path while his two sons kept watch on the northern road to the lumber camp. He thought of Johann and himself moving on their grim errand across the wide mountainside. The background of space and height gave the feeling of peace. It was a most noble illusion, he decided bitterly.

  At the wood behind the Schichtl house they avoided the path, and made their way carefully and indirectly down between the thicker trees. Half-way Lennox stopped to give his quiet instructions. Johann nodded; he was listening intently. His young face was strangely blank. But the plan seemed to please him, for he nodded again and clapped Lennox’s shoulder as much as to say, “We’ll give the blighters a run for their money.” Then he cut swiftly off to his left to reach the edge of the wood where Katharina and Lennox had watched the German car on the road. Lennox walked on to the house.

  The untouched breakfast-table reminded him that he was hungry. The fire in the stove was almost out. The house was forlorn and cheerless, as if it remembered the disordered bedroom upstairs, the neglect downstairs, and resented such unusual treatment.

  He decided to attend to the fire first. It was something of a job to get it lit if he once let it die out completely. He raked the ashes gently, threw on some small dried twigs, and then decided to go out for more wood. The logs were piled outside under the windows. Here was the chance for anyone watching this house to see him being thoroughly domestic. He felt self-conscious about the way he wouldn’t let himself look at the Kasal barn. And then he wondered suddenly whether the Germans were still there. He’d feel a fool if they weren’t, pretending so hard to be so damned natural. He brought back two logs into the house, carrying them in his left arm. He hoped his right arm would look weak to any observer. He made a second journey, and a third, using only his left arm for the carrying.

  After that he felt he deserved an outsized sandwich. He ate it, standing at the side of the neat window with its crisp curtains, keeping his body well out of sight of the road. He was wondering just what the two Germans were planning now; they must have identified him from the Kasal barn, and yet they themselves couldn’t come over here to question him. It gave him some pleasure to think that life was complicated for them too. If anything he had the advantage over them: the Germans were watching him, but they didn’t know that they themselves were being just as carefully watched. His vigil at the window was rewarded. He saw one of the men leave the Kasal barn, moving quickly round its side so that he could no longer be seen from the Schichtl house or the road. He didn’t appear again: he must have gone down into the low-lying field where his movements would be hidden. Lennox heard the Kasal dog bark. The German must be walking past the lean cows at pasture. Well, that was one way of reaching Hinterwald quietly and making a report. The other must still be waiting in the barn. How both of them must have cursed the simplicity of life in these mountains: a telephone in the Kasal farmhouse would have been a useful gadget at this moment. Anyway, Lennox thought as he turned away from the window, he had ruined a fine May afternoon for them. He hoped they had run out of cigarettes, too.

  He poured some milk, cut another slice of bread and another chunk of cold meat, and sat down at the table with a feeling of satisfaction. The next move was the Germans’, and he guessed it wouldn’t take long. He had made the opening gambit. This whole business was, the more he thought of it, rather like a game of chess. It was a damned queer way to fight a war. Yet this was the way it was being fought by a lot of people. He wondered how many women and men in Europe were at this moment waiting for a German to come and question them.

  He had finished his second glass of milk, and was making a third sandwich, when he heard the approaching car. So the German, slinking across the fields, had reached Hinterwald and recruited strength. And now the test. He imagined Johann at this moment, alert, watchful. Probably sweating it out. Lennox wasn’t exactly cool and collected himself. But he would have to be... Lack of confidence was an expensive luxury when you paid with your life. Prison-camp had taught him to be an actor, a dissembler. He had faced questioning before; all he had to do, he knew, was to stick to his story.

  He began eating the sandwich. He sat down once more, sprawling with his feet resting on a second chair. He unbuttoned his waistcoat, and propped the German-published Bozener Tageblatt against the earthenware crock of milk at his elbow. The haggled loaf spread its coarse crumbs on the tablecloth. The remains of meat looked as if it had been enjoyed. Lennox studied the effect and was satisfied. The observant German eyes, which would mark every detail, would see a picture of a bucolic bachelor enjoying the simple pleasures of home.

  The car halted outside the house. Peter Lennox looked up from his newspaper as the front door was pushed open.

  The two Germans, in the black uniform of special police, whom he had already seen today, were standing in the doorway.

  Lennox stopped chewing, and surveyed them gravely.

  “This the road to Seis?” one of them asked.

  Lennox nodded with deliberation. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it’s one of the roads to Seis.” He ignored the prying eyes. He went on eating. “There’s a better road down on the meadows.”

  “Have you been here all day?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Did you see two men following this road?”

  Lennox shook his head.

  “Are you sure?” While the one man questioned the other looked round the kitchen intently. He didn’t learn anything there, for he moved back into the living-room. It seemed to Lennox that he was staring at the steps leading up to the bedroom.

  “I didn’t notice anyone while I was here,” Lennox said, with determination through a well-filled mouth. He chewed reflectively.

  “You were down at the village?”

  “No. I was out for a walk this afternoon. Went to get a breath of air.”

  “Did you see a car?”

  “I heard a car just after I left the house. Couldn’t see it, though.”

  “Were you away from this house for long?”

  “Not so very long. An hour or two. Perhaps three. Time passes quickly.”

  “Three hours looking at the view?” The German’s voice was losing any patience it had adopted initially.

  “I fell asleep.” Lennox’s voice was friendly and confiding. “There’s a good place under a pine-tree. The sun was warm. And the view was good.”

  “Enjoying life, aren’t you?” There was no humour in the hard eyes.

  Lennox finished the sandwich and then looked up at the German. “There were no mountains to look at in A
frica,” he said. “There wasn’t much sleep either.”

  The other German was standing at the entrance to the house. His head was bent as if he were studying the gleam on his well-polished boots.

  “So you’re an old soldier. Got your papers?” the cross-examining German asked. Lennox produced them. The German read them with interest.

  “From the Zillertal, eh? You’re quite a way from home.”

  “I’ve no home there any more. I came here because my aunt could give me one until I got well again.”

  The German didn’t answer. He was now studying Peter Schichtl’s discharge papers. He glanced quickly at Lennox’s right hand. The scar reassured him, for he went on reading with less interest. Severe wound in right hand, shrapnel fragments in right forearm, bullet-wound close to left lung and possible weakness of lung.

  The German threw the papers on the table. “Report with these at the police station,” he said. “All men are to register there.”

  Lennox stared stupidly.

  The German said impatiently, “The police station in Hinterwald.”

  As Lennox still said nothing, still sat staring, the German said with rising anger, “Report at police headquarters. At the Golden Roof Inn. Today. Understand?”

  Lennox gathered up his papers slowly, put them carefully away, rose, and searched for his hat, and nodded.

  The German, who was waiting at the door, said, “Nothing here. Come on.” He moved out into the sunlight.

  The German who had done the talking followed him. They didn’t speak within Lennox’s hearing. He heard the car start, and saw it follow ostensibly the track to Seis. He was quite prepared to wager that it would swing west on the first crossroads it met, and circle round by the “foreigners’ road” towards Hinterwald again. The Germans were concentrating on Hinterwald today.

  He cleared the table so that the littered kitchen wouldn’t upset Frau Schichtl on her return. The stove was burning slowly with the new wood. The logs he hadn’t used were drying on the whitewashed stone hearth. Before he left the house he paused as the curious German had done, and looked at the staircase. The steps were perfectly normal, practical wooden steps scrubbed white. But as he looked he had a sudden doubt. The four bottom steps were less white, as if a dust film were over them. He bent down and drew a finger along the surface of the lowest step. There was a whitish powder on his forefinger. He walked up the four steps and then walked down again. The dust had clung to his shoes, and there was the faint but clear outline of their soles. He crossed over to the front door. The same fine powder had been scattered over the threshold, for the impression of the Germans’ boots was there. Not strong, but definite enough if you were looking for it. At the back door, he found the marks of many footsteps, but it was plain they came from the one pair of shoes—his shoes. Anyone coming into this house, carefully, cleverly, to avoid the Germans would have still been caught; anyone hidden in a secret place upstairs which the Germans hadn’t been able to discover in their search, anyone venturing downstairs when he thought the house was empty, would have been discovered.