White Eagles Over Serbia (15 page)

Methuen shook him and tried to rouse him from his coma. It was essential to know not only who he was but also to know the password which would admit him to the headquarters of the White Eagles. But it seemed in vain. Once he opened his eyes and muttered: “Mother … It's Marko, Mother,” and that provided the only essential clue he was to leave Methuen; for the rest the ghastly breathing continued. “He's dying,” said Methuen aloud, and folding those blood-caked hands on the fugitive's chest he repeated aloud the only Serbian prayers he could remember, his voice sounding tremulous and thin in the resonance of the cave. In another quarter of an hour the breathing became feebler and the man died with scarcely a murmur. “So your name is Marko,” said Methuen, still tormented by the missing pieces of the jig-saw puzzle. “Marko,” he repeated angrily, getting his possessions together, “Marko.”

It was by now mid-afternoon and he must hurry if he was not to miss the rendezvous. He hid his possessions as well as he could and set off from the cave at speed, doubling and turning from copse to copse, watching for the soldiers. Mercifully they had disappeared as suddenly as they had first appeared and he reached the gorge without seeing a soul. He raced down the mossy slopes at breakneck speed, and arrived at the road with five minutes to spare. Once more he blessed his luck for there was not a soul about and the rendezvous went off without a hitch. Before the dust of the cars had died away he was already in the ditch gripping the white packet which had been dropped. This time it was in ordinary script and said: “Nothing further to report. Presume you will return so this is unnecessary.”

“Presume my foot!” he said in the general direction of the road which Porson had taken. “I'm seeing this thing through.” And it was with a savage elation that he climbed out of the gorge towards the sunlight which slanted over the plateau. He had decided not to go back to the cave and risk capture, so he had taken with him everything necessary for the long walk up the central plateau. He rested now for half an hour by his watch, and ate some bread and cold meat from the hare he had cooked. Then, after a long drink, he set off, turning due west away from the cave across the slanting valley, towards the source of the Studenitsa.

He walked now at a slower pace more suited to the journey he had undertaken, and as he walked he once more wrestled in his mind with the various pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, trying to fit them all together into one comprehensible pattern. Certainly the picture had somewhat cleared. It was quite plain that the White Eagles had discovered something of quite exceptional importance in the mountains—treasure of some sort which would enable the Royalists to establish themselves. Therefore they had concentrated as many men as they could around it. It was to be borne westward over the barren karst mountains to the coast where presumably.… “Of course,” he said aloud, striking his knee with impatience, “the submarine.” It was to be got out of the country by submarine. “The King's birthright?” he reflected. “Precious stones? Uranium?” Methuen became increasingly angry with himself for not being able to guess the answer to the riddle. He munched bread as he walked.

Then there was the question of Anson's death; it was fairly clear that Anson was also on the point of solving the mystery when death had caught up with him, though how and in what form it was impossible to say. Certainly the return of the body by the Communist authorities suggested that they were not themselves responsible for it. If Anson had somehow blundered into the headquarters of the White Eagles it was quite possible that they had silenced him without knowing more than that he was a foreign spy.

Yet all the time at the back of his mind there was an irritating feeling that he already knew the nature of the King's treasure, that he had already heard, or read somewhere, something which would give him the answer. What was it? “It's clear, too,” he added aloud, “that the leather-men have also discovered something. There is going to be a most almighty battle about it.”

He crossed the first shoulder of mountain beyond the monastery and could not help stopping to admire the soft undulating mountain lawn through which his way led by a maze of paths, through fir plantations and groves of mulberry trees. The fresh smell of hay was delicious and in the middle distance he saw the higher slopes dark and feathery with beeches. It was quite hard to imagine that once he crossed the crest he would be far from towns and human habitations. The landscape had the premeditated air of a great formal park and one half-expected to see the gables of some Elizabethan country house peeping through the screen of green foliage at every corner.

The sun was sinking though its warmth still drugged the windless air and on this side of the mountains the flowers and foliage grew more and more luxurious, while the woods were full of tits and wrens and blackbirds. The woods were carpeted with flowers, sweet-smelling salvia, cranesbill, and a variety of ferns. Here and there, too, bright dots of scarlet showed him where wild strawberries grew, and in these verdant woods the pines and beeches increased in size until he calculated that he was walking among glades of trees nearly a hundred feet in height. He could not help contrasting all this peace and beauty with the grim errand upon which he was bent, and which might lead him to sudden death.

He crossed the western slopes of the ridge and began to climb steeply through a pine plantation—pines with long wrinkled arms and shaggy beards of lichen, like patriarchs, awakening in his mind memories of Lapland. Then once again, on the sunny slopes beyond, the pines gave place to beeches—cheerful avenues of sun-dappled arches opening into glades where butterflies fluttered—commas, whites and clouded yellows. He thought of Dombey and smiled grimly. How envious of him Dombey would be if he could see him: Dombey chainsmoking in his gloomy office above the London traffic.

The track he was following now began to ascend rapidly once more and followed a long curve which looked as if it marked the beginning of a water-shed. On the other side stretched the backbone of the mountain-chain, the colour of elephant-skin in the evening light. There was Rtanj, and somewhere in the golden mist beyond it was the Janko Stone. This latter he had heard of on his earlier journey but had never visited it; indeed only the shepherds with their flocks ever ventured up on to the roof of the mountains, and there were no roads to tempt a traveller.

He rested for a while in the woods, pleased with his progress, for he reckoned to reach the crown of Rtanj well before midnight, which he presumed must be the rendezvous time for the mule-train. At any rate if he were late they must wait for Marko, he told himself; and since Marko was dead.… He surveyed the whole range through his glasses but could see nothing of interest. A flock of sheep grazed on the nether slopes of the mountain but he could see no sign of the shepherd, if shepherd they had.

The sun rolled behind a crest and all of a sudden the prospect darkened and flushed red. He set out once more, feeling as if he were the last man on earth, walking in a dream landscape towards a destination he might never reach. Yet he was heartened by his own good spirits and by the fact that as yet he hardly felt tired by the long journey he had made that day. His body was getting into the swing of things, he reflected with relief and pleasure.

Darkness fell as he reached the edge of the great bare upland pasture which marked the beginning of Rtanj, and here he found the whole backbone of the mountain deeply carpeted with a kind of grey-mauve heather of great density. It was as thick as a mattress and though he rejoiced in its beauty he was annoyed to have to slacken his pace, for the going had become much harder. Despite this, however, he calculated that he would reach the crown of the mountain with time to spare.

Once or twice in the eerie half-light he thought he caught sight of figures moving to his left, and he went out of his way to investigate: hoping to meet the mule-team. But each time he was mistaken. A thin slice of new moon came out to keep him company but gave little light. The night was windless though the very lack of wind seemed to create a great rushing vacuum of emptiness up here which teased the ears, making them imagine they could hear the sound of distant voices, or water falling, or the calls of birds which had long since returned to their nests.

From time to time he came upon the great smooth stones, remains of the ancient wall, which had once separated two kingdoms, and touching their smooth surfaces with his hands he could not help thinking that there was something eerie about them. They seemed left over from some forgotten Cyclopean age. He was reminded of Stonehenge. The wall followed the crest up the hills until it reached the final obelisk which had been called the Janko Stone—heaven only knew why. It was a useful marker for him, however, and he was glad to be able to orient himself by these great shattered blocks which loomed up at him through the darkness.

It was well after eleven before he reached the crest of Rtanj and stood looking round him at the dim chain of shadowy mountains around. Ahead, at an even higher elevation, lay the second peak where the Janko Stone stood, and here he descried a fitful beam of light, as from a camp fire. “Well,” he said, “the rest is up to the mules.” And sitting himself down on a fallen boundary stone he shed his equipment and settled down to a well-earned dinner. He had not realized how ravenous he was, and he made serious inroads upon the small supply of food he had brought with him; worse still, he had made no provision for water, as he had counted on operating in the river country, while this bare upland lacked springs or rivers. He hoped the muleteers, whoever they might be, would be carrying water, and would let him quench his thirst.

Midnight came and went. He stood up on the stone from time to time and raked the darkness with his glasses—which were indeed admirable night-glasses and had been owned by a U-boat captain during the war. But the darkness offered him no clue as to the mule-team. He was worried by the thickness of the grass too: for even a mule-team would be completely muffled by so thick a carpet, and perhaps it might pass him by during the night.

The stone was cold, and the heavy dew penetrated his duffle coat. The hand of his watch pointed to half-past one before he heard—not without incredulity, for it might be a trick of the wind—the creak of girths and the snort of some animal—horse or mule perhaps—in the darkness. He immediately started in the direction of the sound, walking swiftly and bending double so that he would not be seen against the sky.

One hundred yards away from his resting-place there was a deep depression in the ground and here he heard the champing of mules and the low voices of men. He did not quite know in what terms to hail them so he lay on the ground and coughed loudly. At once there was silence, and then after a slight pause a deep voice said: “Ho!” drawing out the sound in a solemn and impressive manner.

“Ho!” replied Methuen, drawing the word out for a full second and letting his voice sink down the register in the same impressive manner. He lay on the ground and waited. Presently a voice quite near him said hoarsely: “Marko? Where are you?” Methuen licked his dry lips and said: “Marko is dead. He sent me to guide the team.” There was a sudden click of safety-catches in the darkness followed by silence. Methuen went on: “The soldiers found him near the valley of the Studenitsa river. They shot him.”

A second figure must by this time have moved forward towards him in the darkness, for another voice said harshly: “Have you light?”

“Yes.”

“Light your own face so that we can see you.”

His torch was pretty feeble but it gave light enough; he was still lying down and in the yellowish beam he saw that his interlocutors had been standing up addressing the darkness over his head. Now they knelt and stared long and earnestly at him. “Who are you?” said the deep-voiced one. Methuen rose to his knees and gave his cover-name, adding that he had been sent out by headquarters with a message for Black Peter; on the way he had met Marko by accident, had witnessed his death, and was on the way to deliver both messages to the White Eagles. He himself was a Yugoslav who had emigrated to Paris fifteen years before, he added, and had recently been infiltrated to help with the battle.

The men withdrew and muttered together, while Methuen turned off his torch and waited; he took the extra precaution of moving a dozen paces to his right in the dark. Presently the voices approached again and one said: “Very well. We should get going.” Methuen scrambled to his feet and came out to meet the muleteers. He found to his delight that a number had brought water-bottles and other more powerful drinks—plum brandy, the ubiquitous
rakia
of Serbia—and more than one smelt strongly of it. There seemed in all to be about a dozen muleteers and they seemed a fairly well-disciplined lot despite the smell of
shlivovitz
which clung to some of them, for there was hardly any talking and chatter among them.

The mules formed up in a long straggling line and the man who seemed to be in charge of the party came to join Methuen. He was a bulky-looking Serbian wood-cutter (and Methuen later was to learn that he was the brother of the dead Marko): “You must lead now”, he said simply, “and become our eyes.”

While the daylight held Methuen had taken the precaution to take a bearing on the Janko Stone with the help of his tiny oil-compass and Capella which was clear and high in the northwest. It was to be presumed that the terrain, like that which they had already traversed, offered no difficulty, being grassy and soft. Nevertheless it is always nerve-racking to be responsible for the direction of a pack of mules and twelve men, when you have never traversed the road before: when you are not certain of the reception you will receive on arrival: moreover when you have no idea what the password is.… So Methuen rambled on to himself as he climbed into the uncomfortable wooden saddle of the foremost mule and urged the column forward with a great show of certainty. Most of the men walked beside their animals, and after half an hour of torture Methuen decided that their choice was the right one, and followed suit.