Cause for Alarm v-2 Read online

  I was nearly asleep when he got back. He shook me. I looked up and saw his face near mine. The sweat was trickling down in rivers through the dust and grime on his unshaven cheeks.

  “Something to drink and eat,” he said.

  He had bought some bread and sausage and a bottle of water mixed with a little wine from a woman in a cottage about a quarter of a mile away. Her husband had been at work in the fields. He had seen nobody else but the driver of a passing lorry.

  “I’d have preferred plain water myself,” he added; “but she said it was safer with a little wine in it. I didn’t argue the toss about it. We don’t want to add stomach trouble to the rest of it.”

  I was feeling too tired to eat much. When we had finished, we put what was left in our pockets, together with the now half-empty bottle, smoked one cigarette each and set off again.

  The afternoon was worse, if anything, than the morning. It was the first really hot day I had known in Italy. We marched with our overcoats and jackets slung over our shoulders. The flies pestered us almost beyond endurance. Twice we had to make wide semicircular detours over rough ground to avoid being seen by labourers. We crossed another secondary road. Towards four o’clock Zaleshoff called a halt.

  “If we go on like this,” he panted, “we shall kill ourselves. We can’t be so very far from the railway now. For God’s sake let’s have a drink and wait for the sun to cool off a bit.”

  For an hour we rested in the shade of a tree, talking inanities to prevent ourselves going to sleep. When we got to our feet again the sun had started to dip down towards the trees on the western horizon. The flies seemed less attentive. Zaleshoff suggested singing as we went to keep a good marching rhythm. At first I was inclined to regard the proposal as a piece of very shallow heartiness, but to my surprise I found that the dingy humming that we managed to produce cheered me considerably. My legs seemed to be moving automatically as though they did not belong to me. All I could feel of them was the aching thigh muscles and the burning soles of my feet. We began to descend a long gentle gradient.

  It was about half-past six that we heard the train whistle.

  Zaleshoff gasped out an exclamation. “You heard it, Marlow? You heard it?”

  “It sounded a darn long way away.”

  “Electric train whistles always do. Another couple of kilometres and we’ll have done it.”

  Twenty minutes later we crossed our third road. It was a little wider than the others and we had to wait for a private car and a van to pass before we broke cover and crossed.

  The way now was more difficult. Before, we had been traversing open country partly under cultivation, with only an occasional hedge or low stone wall to mark property boundaries. Towards the railway the properties were smaller and sometimes fenced with wire. We passed at no great distance a fair-sized factory with two tall metal chimneys. Then, as we breasted a low slope, Zaleshoff pointed to what looked like a thin strip of grey cloud right down on the horizon ahead of us and said that it was the hills above Bergamo. Not long after we saw the railway line.

  It emerged from a cutting about a quarter of a mile away below us. For some reason, the sight of it depressed me. We had arrived; but the worst lay ahead of us. The curving rails looked extraordinarily inhospitable.

  “Well, what now?” I said helplessly.

  “Now, we wait until it’s dark.”

  We found a hollow screened by grass and piles of brown stones near the cutting and finished the remains of the food we had with us. We washed it down with some cognac. My eyes burned and stung and were half-closed, but I felt suddenly very wide awake.

  “We’d better put our coats and scarves on,” said Zaleshoff: “it’ll be cold soon.”

  We lay there in silence watching the sun grow and redden as it sank into the streaky blue-black clouds that seemed waiting to receive it. The light faded. When it was nearly dark we left our hiding-place, moved down near to the line and began to walk in a direction parallel to it away from the cutting. By the time we saw the lights of a station it was quite dark.

  We approached the station slowly. It was very small. In common with most small Italian country stations there were no platforms, only the white stuccoed station buildings, the neat wood fences, and the clipped hedges. Beyond it was a level crossing and a signal cabin. An electric floodlight suspended from a tall concrete standard cast a circular pool of light in front of the station house. Standing talking in the light were two men. One was a station official. The other was a Fascist militiaman with a rifle slung across his back.

  “What’s the one with the rifle doing there?” I whispered stupidly.

  “What do you think?” retorted Zaleshoff. “The siding’s over the other side. We’ll go back and cross the line a bit lower down.”

  We groped our way back along the wire fence that bounded the track, then dived under it and scuttled across the rails. On the far side we remained on the track side of the fence and began slowly to work our way back towards the station.

  The track level was only about a couple of feet above that of the surrounding land and we had practically to crawl along on our hands and knees to keep under cover. Then the fence curved away to the left and I saw ahead the bulky outlines of tarpaulined goods trucks. A moment or two later we were able to stand upright with the trucks between us and the station house.

  There were about twenty trucks in the siding and all appeared to be loaded. We walked alongside them until we reached the buffers at the end. Then Zaleshoff stopped.

  “This looks like us,” he whispered. “All loaded and ready to go. Probably parked here last night. Come on.”

  He led the way back a little, then stopped again.

  “Lend me your matches,” he muttered.

  I passed them to him in silence. He struck one and, shielding the flame with cupped hands, held it up against the side of the truck beside which we were standing. Then I saw that there was a metal frame there and that in the metal frame was a card. There was a lot of writing on the card, but as Zaleshoff blew out the match almost immediately I saw only one thing:

  TORINO A VENEZIA — DIRETTORE PROV. MAR.

  “Director of naval supplies, Venice,” murmured Zaleshoff. “It won’t get us to Udine because it’ll be side-tracked again before then, but it’ll get us on our way.”

  He reached up to one of the ropes securing the tarpaulin and untied it. Then he grasped an iron staple, clambered up the toe-holes in the side of the truck and turned back the free corner of the tarpaulin. I followed him. A moment later I slid under the tarpaulin. My boots struck something hard and slippery.

  “What on earth is it?” I whispered.

  I heard him chuckle in the blackness. “An egg box. Get down on your knees and feel. It’s something you ought to know something about, I guess.”

  I got down on my knees. Then I understood why he had chuckled. The truck was loaded with big naval gun shells held upright by a sort of framework of wood. I could feel their cold, smooth surfaces each tapering to the ring bolts that had been screwed in for lifting purposes where the fuse would one day go. There was a smell of grease and machine oil.

  As I wedged myself along the framework between two of the rows I heard Zaleshoff pulling the tarpaulin back into place.

  “Now you can have your nap,” he said.

  I closed my eyes.

  It seemed to me no more than a few minutes after that the jolt of the truck half woke me. Actually I must have been asleep some time. As the truck began to rumble on its way I drifted off once more into sleep.

  The next thing I remember is a strong light shining in my eyes blinding me, of fingers gripping my arm hard and shaking me, and of a voice bawling at me in Italian.

  15

  HAMMER AND SICKLE

  Normally I am a heavy sleeper and do not wake easily; the wakening is a long, slow journey back to consciousness; a journey through a country of fantastic confusions and strange images. But on that morning I awoke quickly. Even
as I screwed up my eyes against the first blinding flash of the foreman’s torch, I had remembered where I was and why I was there. A dream of fear changed suddenly into the reality.

  The man shaking my arm was Zaleshoff. Then I felt a blow on my legs. With my eyes still closed I heard him speak quickly and angrily.

  “Leave him alone. We’ll get down all right.”

  I felt the glare leave my eyes and opened them again. It was still dark and there was a single bright star winking in a dark-blue sky. The head and shoulders of a man in uniform showed over the side of the truck.

  “Be quick about it!” he snapped.

  I scrambled to my feet. Zaleshoff already had one leg slung over the side of the truck.

  “Where are we?” I whispered.

  “Brescia. Speak Italian,” he muttered.

  I clambered out after him. In the gloom I could see four men standing waiting for us. Three were in workmen’s overalls; the fourth, the uniformed man with the torch, was a foreman. As our feet touched the ground the four of them closed in on us and seized our arms.

  The foreman flashed the torch over us. “To the weighbridge office,” he said abruptly; “they can be kept there until I consult with the yard manager and the police. Keep a firm hold of them. Come on, march!”

  He jerked my arm and we began to walk across a network of lines and points towards a massive, dark building.

  We appeared to be in a big goods yard. Beyond the building ahead there was a haze of light coming from a row of floodlights which the building concealed. I could hear a diesel-motored engine shunting a long line of trucks and the receding clink-clink of the buffers. In the distance was the reflected glare in the sky of street lighting. It was cold and my body, still warm from sleep, shivered. One of the men holding Zaleshoff said something and the other laughed. Then we walked on in silence.

  The dark building turned out to be an engine shed. About fifty yards beyond it a gang of men with a travelling crane working below the floodlights was loading motor-car chassis on to long two-bogie trucks. We turned away to the left along a narrow concrete path. The path curved round a signal cabin. Then we crossed another track and approached a small building with a large window in one side through which I could see a naked electric lamp suspended above a sort of counter. The foreman pushed the door open and we were led inside.

  It was really little more than a hut. A youth was seated on a high stool before the counter, which I now saw was the recording part of the weighbridge on the adjacent track; and as we came in he slipped off his stool and stood goggling at us.

  I could see the foreman’s face now. He was a dark, grey-faced man with a little spiky moustache. He looked intelligent and bad-tempered. He frowned at the youth.

  “Have you finished checking the cement loadings?”

  “Yes, Signore.”

  “Then you can go and work at your own table. This is no business of yours.”

  “Yes, Signore.” The youth gave us a frightened look and went.

  “Now then!” The foreman relaxed his grip on my arm and motioned to the men holding Zaleshoff to release him. Then he pointed to the opposite wall of the office. “Stand over there, both of you.”

  We obeyed. His lips tightened. He surveyed us grimly.

  “Who are you?” he snapped suddenly; and then, without giving us a chance to reply to this: “What were you doing in that truck? Don’t you know that it is forbidden to ride on goods trains? You are cheating the State. You will be put in prison.”

  There did not seem anything to be said to this. Obviously, the moment the police saw me the game would be up. It was, I thought, remarkable that I had not already been identified with the picture in the paper. Perhaps the hat accounted for it. But it was only a matter of time. I wished they would hurry up. Perhaps it would be best if I told them myself.

  “Well,” snapped the foreman, “what have you got to say for yourselves?”

  Then, to my surprise, Zaleshoff stepped forward a little.

  “We were doing no harm, Signore,” he whined, “we were trying to get to Padova. We had heard that there was work there and we had no money. Do not give us up to the police, Signore.”

  It was abject; but Zaleshoff, with his filthy face and heavy growth of beard, was a villainous-looking object and anything but pitiable. I was not surprised when the foreman scowled.

  “Enough. I know my duty. Where do you come from?”

  “Torino, Signore. We were only trying to get work.”

  “Show me your identity card.”

  Zaleshoff hesitated. Then: “It is lost, Signore,” he said quickly; “I had it, but it was stolen from me. It…”

  It was a hopeless exhibition of shiftiness. The foreman cut him short with a gesture and turned to me.

  “Show me your identity card.”

  “I have none, Signore, I…”

  He laughed angrily. “Do you also come from Torino?”

  I thought quickly. Now was the time to give myself up. Zaleshoff must have known what was passing through my mind for he coughed warningly. I hesitated.

  “Answer!” snapped the foreman.

  “No, Signore. From Palermo.”

  My Italian was not nearly as good as Zaleshoff’s and I thought that I had better give an answer that would explain away my accent.

  “I see.” His lips tightened. “One from Torino and one from Palermo. Both without identity cards. This is clearly a matter for the police.”

  “But…” whined Zaleshoff.

  “Silence!” The workmen had been watching the scene with blank faces. Now he turned to two of them. “You two stay here and see that they don’t try to escape while I consult with the yard manager and the police.” He turned to the third man. “Go back and see if they have done any damage inside the truck. If it is all in order refasten the tarpaulin properly. Those trucks will go on to Verona to-day.”

  A moment later the door closed and we were left with our two gaolers.

  For a moment or two we exchanged stares.

  They were brawny fellows with red, grease-smeared faces. They were wearing filthy light-blue overalls and berets. One of them was about my own age; the other looked about ten years older. He carried a long wheel-tapper’s hammer. The younger man was, judging by the state of his hands, a greaser. They both looked very determined. It seemed obvious to me that if we tried any rough stuff we should accomplish nothing and probably get badly knocked about.

  I glanced at Zaleshoff and caught his eye. His face was quite impassive, but he raised his eyebrows and shrugged slightly. I took it that he had resigned himself to the inevitable.

  But I was wrong.

  Four men standing in silence in a small room staring solemnly at one another produces after a while an atmosphere of extreme nervous tension. The desire to break the silence or establish some sort of communication with the other three becomes overpowering. The man with the hammer was the first to give way. His face puckered suddenly into a sheepish grin.

  Zaleshoff promptly grinned back at him.

  “Do you mind if we sit down, comrades?” he said.

  The grin faded from the workman’s face as suddenly as it appeared. I saw him cast a quick apprehensive glance at his companion. The younger man was frowning. I realised that it was the word “comrades” that had been the trouble. It was, I thought, very tactless of Zaleshoff.

  The wheel-tapper nodded slowly. “Yes, you can sit down,” he said.

  There were some packing-cases in one corner of the office.

  We moved over and sat on them. Zaleshoff began to hum softly.

  I stared wretchedly at the bare wood floor. So this was the end of our plan for getting out of the country! We might, I reflected bitterly, have saved ourselves those twenty-four hours of walking. I had, I told myself, always known that it was hopeless, that Zaleshoff had only been postponing the evil moment; yet, now that it had come, I was conscious of being disappointed. It must, I decided, have been that I had expected something di
fferent. I had expected to be recognised. In my mind’s eye I rehearsed the scene as it should have been played. I imagined the sudden gleam that should have lighted my captor’s eyes when he realised that he had earned himself ten thousand lire. Then there would be the formalities at the police station and the armed guard back to Milan. I pictured the pained courtesy of the young man at the Consulate. “Naturally, Mr. Marlow (or would he omit the Mister?), we shall do all we can, but…” Or perhaps it would not get as far as that. “Shot while escaping”-that had been the phrase Zaleshoff had used. “They make you kneel down. Then they put a bullet through the back of your neck.” That was horrible. You knelt down as if you were going to pray. There was something helpless and pitiful about a man kneeling. I yawned. I kept yawning. It was absurd. I was not tired, I was not bored-my God, no! I was scared, scared stiff, in the bluest of funks, and I was yawning. It was grotesque. I shivered.

  Zaleshoff was still humming. It was a march of some sort. It went on and on, a steady, plodding rhythm. I found myself involuntarily beating time with my foot.

  “Stop that!”

  It was the wheel-tapper who had spoken. It was said angrily, in irritation; but in his eyes there was a watchful, worried look that puzzled me. I had a sudden feeling that there was something going on that I did not understand. The greaser was watching Zaleshoff closely. Outside an engine clanked slowly past. Then it happened.

  Zaleshoff pulled the brandy bottle out of his pocket.

  “Can we have a drink, comrades?” he said.