It took Lisa a long time to come back with the Grenzschein. She started at dawn, while Mark was still asleep. Peter’s farm was several miles away, and the Wildspitze is by no means an easy mountain.
When Lisa reached the farm it took almost as long again to explain to Peter exactly what he must do and why he must do it. Peasants are seldom in a hurry except when confronted by a physical emergency, then – if they are accustomed to it – they act with precision and skill; but if it is a danger they have never met before they are apt to act impulsively and wrongly; and when it is not an immediate physical need, they prefer not acting at all. However at last Peter understood that he must go down the mountain and get a Grenzschein for Mark, under his own name, because it would help Mark to thwart the Nazis. He must leave his hay half-cut, although the weather had been sent by Providence – and might equally well be interrupted by Providence – since there were thunderclouds about. Lisa fortunately could cut hay as easily as she could cut bread; and she promised to go on cutting until Peter returned. His young wife Kathie had to be told why Peter was leaving the hay – but neither Planer told her very much. They 217listened however with extreme patience and no answering volubility, while she made all the objections that naturally occurred to her, and which she would not have made, had either of them seen fit to tell her a little more.
When Peter reached the Thal, it took him some time to convince the authorities that he needed a Grenzschein; and longer still to decide that he might have it; so that it was near sunset before Lisa returned with it to the farm.
‘All the better,’ she told Mark, who was safely secreted above Franz Josef’s head, ‘for now the Schein is valid for all to-morrow; I saw the guards too starting off – the long way up here – before I took the quick way across the waterfall. They will be here in less than an hour, by then, the parents expect them, and those ones will hold them back till everything is in order. Perhaps they will search here for Herr Braun – or try to – but I thought of a plan while I was coming home. I will conduct them to the barn, and then by a little mistake I will slip Franz Josef’s door off the latch, so he will bounce out like a ball; and I will scream “The bull is loose!” and while he is scattering them – and be very sure Franz Josef knows how to scatter them – you can crawl out of the window at the back down the ladder – and run into the wood. They will not know that anyone is here – so they will not be looking out for anyone escaping. It is better than if you tried to escape now – because they will be coming up through the wood – and God knows whether – in their fearfulness of missing Herr Braun – they may not have sent other guards to look for him along the Border! You might easily run into them; and be suspected. Naturally I will give them time to take cover – before I let Franz Josef out. I would not have even those ones meet his horns! I will scream only once. Is that clear?’ 218
‘It is very clear, Lisa,’ Mark told her, ‘except that if you open Franz Josef’s door you will be yourself in danger!’
‘From Franz Josef? Ach nein!’ Lisa said with conviction, ‘for one thing he knows my apron. I always bring his food and water in this apron; and for another after I slip the latch I shall be behind the door. Before him is the meadow – it is there he will wish to be – immediately and – alone! Those men, he will not like on the meadow! Ach nein!’
‘Lisa,’ Mark murmured, ‘Lisa!’ He leaned down as far as he dared from the loft and Lisa looked up at him with shining eyes, from the further side of Franz Josef’s substantial form. ‘You understand,’ she whispered. ‘It was that dead man! He came between us last night. I had to think of him!’
‘I understand,’ Mark answered. He wished he could think of more to say to Lisa but he couldn’t; and with Lisa it was never necessary to say much. Her eyes that were so kind and true and full of love, were satisfied, for she saw the answering tenderness in Mark’s eyes, nor did she know that his tenderness was not the same as hers, but that of a man for a child – a friend for a friend, without the ecstasy and urgency of love. Not having anything further to say, Lisa slipped into Franz Josef’s stall and swiftly unfastened his nose ring from the staple in the wall. Franz Josef stared angrily at her, shook his heavy head and blew out his annoyance from his nostrils; but he had hardly time to feel invaded, before Lisa was out again, saying to him softly over the partition ‘Nah! Nah! Franz Josef, you will like it better that way!’ After all Franz Josef very well recognized Lisa was a woman; and a woman who fed him, so that if she made an intrusion, however exasperating to his dignity, he could afford to let her off easily.
Once more she looked up at Mark. ‘Adieu!’ she 219whispered. There was light enough to see how blue her eyes were and how soft her parted lips.
Lisa had plenty of time to reach the farm before the guards came into sight.
When they appeared Mother Planer was making the extraordinary noise in the doorway which brought the chickens, from every direction simultaneously, towards their last meal of the day.
Mark could not hear the conversation that took place, but he could see that Father as well as Lisa and the chickens, were joining in. It was most unsatisfactory from the Germans’ point of view. For if you are not accustomed to a Tirolean peasant you might just as well try to understand the language of an excited hen. Also none of the Planers wanted to be understood – they wanted to embarrass and mislead. ‘Why?’ Mother Planer demanded, shaking a gaunt dirty brown finger in the guards’ faces. ‘Was not Herr Braun at the farm?’ What had they done with Herr Braun? Was he still in the Thal? But Herr Braun did not do shabby things like that! A nice, civil-spoken guard to whom they had all grown accustomed. Would he desert his meals then? Why should she prepare meals for even a Nazi who did not appear to eat them? Who would pay for all those uneaten Knödeln of the best quality? For the potatoes? Let alone the milk which, since the Reich gave them no fodder for their cows had become as sacred as wine? Would Herr Braun pay for what he had not eaten? Would the Reich?
When they could get a word in edgeways the guards assured her that the Reich would always pay for what had been ordered; but they were not responsible for the absence of Herr Braun. Where was he? It was what they wanted to be told – not to be asked.
Mother Planer’s voice rose higher and higher, the 220chickens, unaccustomed to be called for meals and then deprived of them, shrieked and clucked on almost exactly the same note. Father Planer growled deeper and deeper. The pigs, being excitable animals, always expectant of their latter end – joined in the chorus. The drama increased with the search. Mechanically the guards entered the farm and with them, not at all mechanically, streamed the chickens, a duck, the family Planer and an escaped pig who, with the ubiquity of pigs, took a leading part in the proceedings. Slowly they circulated through all the farm buildings in turn, until at last Father and Mother retired to the kitchen door, exhausted but triumphant; and Lisa led the guards across the meadow towards the barn.
Franz Josef was already furious. Never had he heard so many uncouth noises just at a time when the havoc of the day should have been over. Also his last drink was late. Besides, being free in his stall from the check of his nose ring, he could the more easily thrash himself into a passion. He bellowed so forcibly that even the loft above him shook. Straw flew up into the air. Beneath Mark the noise and fury increased with every second. He could just hear Lisa in a penetrating voice rather unnecessarily explaining to the guards that here was an animal that got sometimes a little excited! They had better not come quite so near until she saw that Franz Josef was quite secure. Still, naturally, she realized that they must search the barn! The door clicked, it swung open – Franz Josef, incredulous with rage and the sudden possibility of gratifying it – stepped cautiously into the meadow. For a moment there was complete silence.
Franz Josef appeared to be afraid of himself. He swung his great head slowly – his red eyes slewed from side to side. In what direction should he attack first? He pawed the soft ground under his feet. ‘The bull is loose!’ shrieked 221Lisa. Franz Josef heard the provocative voice, he saw two strange men in the middle distance – and with the velocity of a bullet he charged them.
Mark had already corkscrewed himself out of his window – and was half-way down the rope ladder when Lisa screamed again. There was something in this second scream that made Mark hang dead still on his ladder. The first scream had been what he had expected – shrill, dramatic, self-propelled, but this scream was different. It was less loud and far more terrifying – it was itself terrified. After it there came a shot; and then no sound at all, not even Franz Josef bellowing. Shot or no shot, his mission was his duty; and he must do it whatever the cost to himself or others. Mark let himself down behind the barn and ran for the woods. The woods seemed a long way off, though he was a swift runner. He reached them at last and the path that led towards Trafoi. His legs went on running, but his senses, his heart and his mind were not with them. That second scream dragged them back. They stayed with Lisa at the farm. There were plenty of little noises in the wood. Birds settling for the night; small animals seeking their suppers; mysterious anonymous rustlings; but Mark heard nothing. He did not feel the insects bite or the brambles tear his legs. He pushed on reluctantly further and further from his heart. He could not go back now. There was nothing he could do to change whatever had happened. It was dark before he reached Trafoi, the quality of the moonlight seemed to grow softer, the sky was a deep and tender blue. Now he was at the frontier, small lights twinkled, hard, mask-faced Germans asked him innumerable questions. Why was he so late? Who wanted work? Was it necessary to seek it in another country? Who was he going to visit? Why must he visit them? One after the other the worrying, 222irritating official sieve drove him through its meshes. Then came the Italians. They shrugged their shoulders, and spat in the thick white dust, but their questions were perfunctory. After all, this peasant was only going from one locked prison to another. Why should he tell the truth? Perhaps he was going to work, perhaps to see a relation, perhaps to make love to a girl! In any case his pass was valid till the following midnight. He had no money; he was carrying nothing; cigarettes? Perhaps a handful – well – he could go on!
Mark stumbled out of the circle of lights into the merciful oblivion of the deep, unpeopled darkness. What a farce men made of the free open world! Everything in nature was more man’s friend now than his fellow man. A piece of paper – or you could go nowhere – and do nothing. A pass stood between you and eternity. It stood, indeed, between you and life. Rules and rubble – these were the creative gifts of man to the twentieth century!
It was late dawn before Mark could look down on Meran. The soft Italian light had changed the visible world. The houses shone like pearls – faint purple shadows covered the young vines; the mountains on the other side of the valley were veiled in amethyst and rose.
There was no ease in Meran, for it was Fascist and as strongly guarded as all the frontiers of Fascist lands. But the liquid, gracious light penetrated Mark’s senses with a strange benevolence. Everywhere roses bloomed and pale clouds of wisteria drifted across the houses. The young green of the vineyards promised a rich harvest. Even the men and women of such a land could not be altogether repressed in their human flowering. The peasants Mark met moved more fluently, than where the rigid stamp of the German mind had been clamped down across the frontier. 223Even Mussolini could not prevent Italian days from shining, nor Italian greetings from being natural.
Mark, following his instructions, looked for the house of the secret agent in the outskirts of Obermais. He came to a shabby raspberry-painted shack with a vine trellis in front of it and a small vineyard half-way up a little hill at the back, a curious place to find a link with the British empire. Yet he had been told ‘a red house standing alone before you enter Obermais’. A little girl came to the door, barefoot, sallow and dark-eyed. She stared at Mark for a long time before she could be persuaded to fetch her father. At last a peasant appeared, dressed as Mark himself was in short leather breeches and an open shirt. His eyes had a blank innocent look under dark brows; they were the unexpected blue of a speedwell. ‘I seek work,’ Mark told him, ‘either in your vineyard or whatever else you can give me.’ Mark spoke in Italian but the answer came to him in Austrian. ‘There is no work here,’ the man said, making with his fingers the sign of the evil eye. ‘Perhaps if you have no work, you have pity,’ Mark finished the password. For a moment or two the man looked as blank as ever; but he moved. He shambled into the house, and returned with some bread and goat’s milk cheese. These he set out on a rickety iron table under the vine trellis. Once more he vanished and returned with wine in two chipped mugs. ‘Bottles,’ he explained, ‘like many other things it is better not to show. Here we have nothing to look at but ourselves – and yet everything is visible. To have nothing to show – and to be visible, that is the nearest anyone can be to safety in a Fascist land. I have been expecting you for a long time. What have you brought?’ Herr Schröder – for he now pronounced his name in the same soft Austrian drawl with which he had greeted Mark, sat down on the other side of the little iron table and 224took out an old and blackened pipe. ‘What I have brought is important,’ Mark said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘I had been told I might meet here an English agent – the stuff should go immediately to England.’
‘I am an English agent,’ Herr Schröder told him. ‘I am also a friend of Father Martin’s. To-night I will take your message to Venice – somewhere in one of the lagoons off the sea wall I meet a naval friend. It is very quiet there – he’s coming in a motor-boat – but he doesn’t bring it right in – they are too noisy. He swims well – he takes back what I bring, in his head – and where it can’t get wet!’ Herr Schröder leaned his elbows on the table; and changing his Austrian drawl to those clipped, expressionless and even tones, men use without having learned them – from the air they breathe beyond the cliffs of Dover, he said, ‘My real name you see is Laurence Courtney; and I played for Somerset.’
Mark gave a little sound that was half a laugh and half a groan. He dropped his eyes to hide how deeply reassured he felt, at this sudden recovery of brotherhood.
This was a man to whom he need say nothing because he could so easily tell him everything. The sharp pressure of responsibility loosened itself and fell from him; and suddenly Mark felt so tired that he could have gone to sleep where he sat in the small iron chair with his head on the table. But he didn’t go to sleep, instead, he pulled himself together, rubbed his eyes, drank his wine and began to talk.
Herr Schröder sat, peaceful and torpid as a cat, puffing lazily at his pipe, and nodding slowly from time to time. Mark’s long list of information unfolded itself, piece by piece, accurately and precisely from his long-drilled mind. On a scrap of old newspaper close to his hand, Herr Schröder wrote an occasional note. ‘You have a phenomenal 225memory,’ he said when Mark had finished. ‘Have you any rice paper? No? We use it now occasionally. It is easier to eat! I will give you some in case, later on, you have specifications or graphs that cannot be remembered in the air. Otherwise this method of yours is far the most practicable. Have you a pill?’ Mark shook his head. ‘What sort of a pill?’ he demanded. ‘Dr. Eichhorn should have given you one,’ Herr Schröder said reprovingly. ‘Especially with such a good memory: you see you must not fall into the hands of the Nazis without being able to get out of them! Better, naturally, not to fall into their hands – escapes are really very rare indeed – and I sometimes marvel at the untutored imaginations of those who retail them – in books or travellers’ tales. I simply do not believe them. We should never under-estimate the Nazis. They have almost foolproof methods: they break down only because hearts are sometimes necessary as well as minds. Also some can be bribed – but very few. Italians can be bribed easily. Germans are too virtuous – especially when they are committing crimes. However this pill I shall give you will prevent torture and I find, however unnecessary as a precaution, it is extremely helpful as a reassurance. You have a small shallow pocket in your shirt – very easy of access – and it looks like a throat lozenge but do not mistake it for one – so! Now you can come into the house, which is full of my Italian children – I have an Italian wife – a good Italian of course – and they cannot therefore be kept quiet – or I will take you up to my vineyard – noiseless enough by the side of a stream – there is shade, and you can sleep. It is no use returning in the heat of the day – also by evening there will be nobody much about. You do not of course return to this farm of yours? You go back over Galtur perhaps to the Schloss? A shade longer, but if this Herr Braun is found 226at the foot of a precipice – there will be a good deal of suspicion and every stranger will be questioned.’
‘No, I go back to the farm,’ Mark said. ‘I must – this girl, the one who helped me – she screamed twice, when it had been arranged that she should scream only once.’
‘A peasant girl – though none in this world can be more faithful to a trust,’ Herr Schröder said kindly, ‘screams easily.’
‘Still, I must go back,’ Mark said decisively. ‘It will not be dangerous for me. I know every step of the way, and when there I can take precautions.’
‘The best precaution to take in such circumstances,’ Herr Schröder said, knocking out his pipe and rising from his chair, ‘is to be somewhere else! However, it is your own affair; but sleep on it.’
Mark followed him to the back of the house, and through the young vines to the stream.
‘My wife will give you food at sunset,’ his host told him. ‘I shall be gone.’
They stood for a moment looking at each other uncertainly, not for want of time, but perhaps from want of things to say that were bearable to put into words.
‘This war,’ Mark said at last. ‘You who live here among the whole bloody lot – and yet are one of us – shall we get away with it?’
Herr Schröder smiled slowly, a sceptical, indolent smile that entirely belied the fixity of his intent. ‘We must!’ he said simply.