Codeword Golden Fleece (16 page)

‘Excellently,’ de Richleau smiled. ‘I told them that our car had broken down after an all-night drive from Lwow, and they couldn’t do enough for me. You see, these simple, honest people have taken it for granted that Britain is already in the war with them, and directly they learned that I was an Englishman they refused to let me pay for anything.’

‘D’you think they’ll spill the beans about your visit?’

‘That’s a chance we’ll have to take. I dared not ask them to refrain from mentioning it, as they were in such an excited state that they might easily have jumped to the conclusion that I was a foreign spy.’

‘Then we may not be safe here for much longer?’

‘I know; but I’m afraid we must accept it now that something serious must have happened to prevent our friends getting here. I feel that the time has come for us to find out what that something is.’

Marie Lou heaved a sigh of relief. ‘I’m so glad you think that, Greyeyes. This uncertainty and interminable waiting is simply killing me.’

Rex patted her hand. ‘We’ve both been wise to that; but we’d have been crazy guys to beat it outta here while there was a fair-chance they’d turn up. But now I’m with Greyeyes every time. Soon as we’ve fed let’s get going.’

Since the Duke had emptied his sack all three of them had been collecting kindling and small fallen branches to make a fire. Soon it was blazing merrily. De Richleau scraped some clay from the bank of a brook that ran through the clearing and carefully encased the eggs in it ready for baking in the hot ashes, while the other two cooked the bacon by holding it over the fire on long pointed sticks.

When they had done they brought their prisoner out to share this woodland banquet, which in their half-famished state tasted
better to them than any meal they could remember; and for the first time Mack showed signs of geniality.

‘I gather from your remarks,’ he said after his sixth plum, ‘that you intend to go in search of your friends. I assume that means you will take the road to Warsaw?’

‘Yes,’ replied the Duke, ‘and, if the car has remained undiscovered, we shall be happy to offer Your Excellency a lift.’

‘Thanks,’ the lean statesman replied drily. ‘As it is my car it seems rather that it is I who will be giving you a lift. However, since war has actually broken out, I am naturally more anxious than ever to get back to the capital, so we will not quibble over technicalities. Whether I drive or am driven it will give me no small pleasure when we get there to see you all safely directed to Police Headquarters.’

‘Thank
you,
’ smiled de Richleau, ‘for presenting us with a valuable piece of information. Until you spoke I was not aware that it was your car that we had—er—borrowed. That it is should prove of considerable help in persuading any suspicious policeman who may pull us up that you are indeed giving us a lift, and that we have the felicity to be under your personal protection.’

Mack grimaced. ‘I had an idea that was what you might have in mind; but you can’t play that sort of game indefinitely, you know.’

‘Alas! No pleasure can be prolonged indefinitely,’ philosophised the Duke. ‘However, I am sure you will see the wisdom of continuing to give us your protection during our journey to the capital, as I need hardly add that your life hangs upon our reaching Warsaw in safety.’

‘And then?’

‘Surely the fact that several million people, although apparently with long lives before them yesterday, are now being killed by one another with long-range guns, bombs, bullets and possibly poison gas, is sufficient demonstration that none of us can foresee what fate has in store for us tomorrow?’

‘Oh, come on!’ cut in Rex impatiently. ‘Let’s get going.’

‘Patience, my friend,’ rejoined the Duke. ‘Even if the forest is now being beaten for us, it’s so large that the chances are all against our being located for several hours.’

‘Surely you don’t mean we must stay here all the afternoon?’ Marie Lou cried in protest.

‘No, Princess. Only for another hour or so. You see, it may well be that the place to which we are going is already in the
hands of those who wish us no good, or under observation; therefore, it would be wise for us to approach it with the utmost caution. It follows that the most suitable condition would be under cover of darkness.’

Mack’s little niggling laugh echoed through the glade. ‘Thank
you
, Duke, for a piece of valuable information. You have as good as confirmed my guess that you are going to Jan’s house, the Lubieszow mansion, to see if the beautiful Contessa Cordoba y Coralles can give you any news of your missing friends.’

‘How considerate of you, Excellency,’ purred the Duke, ‘to present us with the extent of your knowledge of our private affairs. It seems that, even at Lubieszow, you were not too heavily immersed in affairs of state to take an interest in our activities. Permit me, though, to remind you of the old tag which warns us that “a little learning is a dangerous thing”. However, as I was saying to my friends, reasonable precaution dictates that we should not arrive in Warsaw much before midnight. It will be to Your Excellency’s interest to see that we aren’t held up on the journey, so we ought to do the trip in eight hours. We will allow an hour to reach the car, so if we leave here at three o’clock, barring any unfortunate accident which would prove fatal to yourself, we should do it nicely.’

It was already past two, so they had no great while to wait, and they employed it selecting suitable phrases for a note they intended to leave in the hut for Richard, Simon and Lucretia, should they, after all, succeed in making a belated appearance at the rendezvous. To the uninitated the final document would have proved extremely misleading, but its authors were fully satisfied that their friends would read between the lines and do their best either to follow them with all speed to the capital or make for the Hungarian frontier—the choice of action being left to them.

Leaving the letter on the table, they repacked their two suitcases and set out, in the same order as that in which they had arrived, for the place where they had left the car. Now that it was daylight the Duke was able to find his way more easily, and in well under an hour, to their considerable relief, they saw between the trees ahead the big pile of branches, under which they had hidden the car, still undisturbed.

Five minutes were sufficient to disembarrass it of its camouflage, and in another five it was slowly rolling through the fringe of wood towards the road.

‘You quite understand?’ the Duke said quickly to his prisoner. ‘Under my coat I have a fully loaded pistol. If we are halted you will feel its barrel as a hard lump pressing into your side. You will answer all questions—and do not forget that I understand Polish pretty thoroughly. This is your own car, and you are hurrying back to Warsaw in it; you are giving two of Poland’s English allies and a friendly American a lift. If any officious policeman shows doubt and speaks of a rumour that you have been kidnapped against your will by just such a party you will laugh him to scorn. If he still hesitates to let us pass until he has consulted his superiors, you will say that your presence is required in the capital with the utmost urgency, and order my friend van Ryn to drive on. In no circumstances will you attempt to leave the car, even if requested to do so. Any divergence from these instructions will result in your immediate death.’

By way of reply Mack only grunted and began to settle himself in his corner to go to sleep; but later it became fully apparent that he had taken the Duke’s warning to heart; as when they were challenged for the first time at Niewierz, a small town on the Prypec about a third of the way to Brest-Litovsk, he played the rôle assigned to him, that of a Cabinet Minister in a desperate hurry, in a way that gave his companions complete satisfaction.

They were stopped again at Dwyn, Nowoziolki and Brest-Litovsk, and at several places after that; but Mack’s long, grey face, so well known to the Polish people through his photographs in the press, the top priority sign on his car, and, above all, the authority vested in him, carried them safely past all posts after only the briefest delay and one slightly longer halt for petrol

In a few cases their questioners remarked that they were stopping all cars in the hope of catching three foreign spies, but none of Mack’s companions gave away their non-Polish origin by speaking and no suggestion was made that he had been, or possibly still was, the victim of kidnappers; so it seemed that his friends had decided that it would be wisest to suppress this part of their story.

With the muzzle of de Richleau’s gun pressing into his ribs their hostage impatiently waved aside all mention of these foreigners, and owing to the fact that war had broken out that day, the police had many other urgent matters to which to attend. In consequence, they reached the outskirts of Warsaw without serious molestation a little before half past seven that night.

As they had been driving through Eastern Poland, they had
seen few troops on the road, and, except for unusually large knots of people gathered outside the still lighted cafés, there was no indication in the suburbs of Warsaw that this day had prematurely sealed the fate of millions.

‘Mighty quiet, isn’t it?’ remarked Rex, as they neared the centre of the city. ‘You wouldn’t think there was a war on.’

As he spoke they caught a faint, distant hum. In scarcely more than a minute it had increased to a thunderous roar. Somewhere, belatedly, an air-raid siren screamed its banshee note. The people in the street began to run in all directions. Blinds were nastily pulled down, lights flicked out; a police whistle shrilled a frantic warning. A thin, wailing note followed by an angry swish sounded above the drone of the aircraft engines. Somewhere ahead there was the boom of an explosion. Another and another followed, each coming nearer.

Suddenly, the road in front of them seemed to rise up. Screams of terror were mingled with the crash of falling glass. The Nazis had begun their ghastly work. The war was on—and on in earnest.

They were saved only by Rex’s magnificent driving. As he flung the wheel right over it looked for a moment as though they were going straight through the shattered windows of a drugstore, inside which something had already begun to burn; but, as they mounted the pavement, the car swerved again, tilted on two wheels, bumped and ran back on to the road, missing the yawning crater that the bomb had made by a matter of inches.

More bombs were falling behind them now, and a lurid flare suddenly shot up to their right, where an oil-drum had burst on the roof of a tall building. The staccato crack of anti-aircraft guns was now added to the din, but even by the wildest stretch
of the imagination it could not be called a barrage. Much as the Poles distrusted and loathed the Germans, they had not plumbed the depths of the callous brutishness that would send an air armada to murder men, women and children indiscriminately in the congested streets of the Polish capital, without warning and on the very first night of war; so they had sent nearly all their anti-aircraft to war stations and reserved only a few guns to protect the Warsaw Arsenal.

As Rex drove on towards the old city they could hear a second wave of bombers coming up from the west. Slowing down, he shouted: ‘Shall we try to make Jan’s place or run for cover?’

‘Keep going,’ the Duke shouted back. He felt that there was little to choose between the open street and the scant protection offered by the old brick and plaster buildings they were passing. Moreover, if Jan’s mansion were under observation, the middle of an air raid offered the best possible opportunity of reaching it unseen, as the watchers would almost certainly have taken cover.

‘It’s in one of the blocks near the Zamek, didn’t you say?’ shouted Rex.

‘Yes. When we get there His Excellency will direct us.’ Taking out his pistol, de Richleau pointed it at his prisoner and added: ‘No tricks now!’ For your own sake as well as ours, you will be wise to guide us to the Lubieszow mansion by the shortest route.’

‘All right! All right!’ Mack hastily agreed. ‘But for God’s sake don’t point that thing at me. If another bomb drops near us the jolt may send it off.’

He had hardly spoken when the second wave of bombers let go their eggs. All hell seemed let loose. There was a great burst of orange flame further up the street. The façade of a tall building stood out for a moment silhouetted in the glare, its empty windows lit by the red fires raging behind it. Momentarily it seemed to hover, then it bent outward with the slowness of a tired old man and suddenly collapsed, its brick and masonry cascading into the road and sending up huge clouds of choking red-hued dust.

The car lurched from the blast, but Mack’s fears were groundless, as de Richleau still had the safety-catch on his pistol. Again Rex saved them from a smash, or piling up on the great heap of rubble that now blocked the road ahead. Mounting an island and shaving the lamp standard on it, he heaved the car round by a right-angle twist into the side-street they were passing. Two
minutes later he turned left and brought them out into the square of the Zamak—the Palace of the old Polish Kings—with its cypress trees and famous granite column on which the great statute of Sigismund III has stood for three hundred years.

As Mack leaned forward to give directions the legend concerning the statue flashed into the Duke’s mind. Sigismund wears the cope of a bishop and a mitre-like crown. In his left hand he holds a huge cross, and in his right a curved sword which for centuries pointed upward. The Poles had a superstition that not until the sword of Sigismund pointed downward would they be free. During the 1914-18 war the terrific shocks resulting from the dynamiting of Warsaw’s bridges displaced the blade, and after the war Poland regained her hard-won freedom. Sadly de Richleau wondered how long she would now be able to retain it.

From the square they passed through several short, old-fashioned streets until Mack told them to pull up and pointed to a big house on their right. They could not see its full extent, but a flare dropped by one of the German aircraft momentarily lit the narrow way, enabling them to glimpse a three-storey, stone-fronted building that had a low Roman arch with iron filigree gates leading to an interior courtyard and, further along, a tall nail-studded door reached by three narrow stone steps, flanked by ancient iron flambeau holders.