The Last Frontier

ELEVEN

They arrived at Jansci’s headquarters in the country, not ten miles from the Austrian frontier, at half past six in the following morning. They arrived after fourteen consecutive hours’ motoring over the frozen snow-bound roads of Hungary at an average speed of well under twenty miles an hour, after fourteen of the coldest, most uncomfortable, most exhausting hours’ travelling that Reynolds had ever done in his life. But they arrived, and for all their cold and hunger and weariness and sleeplessness, they arrived in tremendous spirits, their elation buoying them up above all their distress: all except the Count, who, after his first outburst of gladness at their safety and success, had relapsed, as the long hours of the night wheeled by, into his usual remote, detached mood of sombre cynicism.

They had covered exactly four hundred endless, gruelling kilometres in the course of that night, and the Count had driven every kilometre of the way, stopping twice only for petrol, rousing reluctant, sleeping pump attendants with the twin menaces of his voice and uniform. More than once, as the lines of strain had etched themselves more and more deeply into the Count’s lean face, Reynolds had been on the point of suggesting that he take over, but each time his common sense had come to the rescue and he had refrained: as he had observed on that first drive in the black Mercedes, the Count, as a driver, was in a world all of his own and, on these snow-bound treacherous roads, it was more important that they should arrive safely than that the Count’s exhaustion should be relieved. And so for most of the night Reynolds had sat and dozed and watched him, as did the Cossack by his side, both of them being in the relatively warm cab for the same reason — to thaw out. The Cossack had been in far worse case than even Reynolds, and understandably so: for the last half of the distance between Szekszárd and Pécs — almost twenty miles — he had been perched outside the truck, jammed between fender and bonnet, keeping the screen completely clear for the Count as he had driven through the blinding snow. And it had been on that fender that he had his grandstand view of Reynolds’ suicidal climb across the coach roofs, and there was no scowl now in his face as he looked at Reynolds, just a kind of awed wonder.

The direct route from Pécs to Jansci’s house in the country would have been just under half of the actual distance they had covered, but both Jansci and the Count had been convinced that taking that route could only have had one end — a concentration camp. The fifty-mile stretch of Lake Balaton blocked off most of the escape routes to the Austrian border in the west, and both men had been sure that between its southern tip and the Yugoslavian border not even the most insignificant road would be left unwatched. The other routes to the west, between, the northern tip of Balaton and Budapest might or might not have been watched, but they had taken no chances. They had gone 200 kilometres due north, circled round the northern outskirts of the capital itself, then taken the main highway to Austria, branching off to the southwest as they approached Györ.

And so it had taken them fourteen hours and 400 kilometres, and brought them to their destination cold and hungry and exhausted. But once inside the safety and shelter of the house, these things fell from them like a cloak, and when Jansci and the Cossack produced a roaring fire in the wood stove, Sandor a cooking pot and a magnificent smell of cooking and the Count a bottle of barack from a more than adequate stock he kept in the house, their relief at their safe arrival, their jubilation at having completely thwarted the AVO, expressed itself in talk and laughter and still more talk, and with warm food inside them and the Count’s barack bringing life back to frozen bodies and limbs, all thought of weariness and sleep was forgotten. There would be time enough for sleep, they had all day for sleep, for Jansci wasn’t going to make his attempt at the border till after midnight of that day.

Eight o’clock came, and with it the weather and news reports over the big, modern radio Jansci had recently installed in the house. Of their own activities and the rescue of the professor there was no mention, nor had they expected any: such a confession of failure was the last thing the Communists would make to their satellite subjects. The weather report, which predicted further heavy and continuous snowfalls over almost the entire country, contained an item of extreme interest: all south-west Hungary, in an area stretching east from Lake Balaton to Szeged on the Yugoslavian border, was completely immobilized by the severest snowstorm since the war, every road, railway line and airport being completely blocked. Jansci and the others listened in a silence more eloquent of their relief than any words could have been: had their attempt been made twelve hours later both rescue and escape would have been impossible.

Nine o’clock came and with it the first grey tinges of dawn through the again thickly falling snow, the second bottle of barack and the recounting of many stories. Jansci told of their sojourn in the Szarháza, the Count, already with half a bottle of brandy inside him, gave an ironic account of his interview with Furmint, and Reynolds himself had to tell, several times over, of his perilous journey across the top of the train. To all this, the most avid listener by far was the old professor, whose feeling towards his Russian hosts, as Jansci and Reynolds had observed when they had seen him in the Szarháza, had undergone a radical and violent change. The beginnings of the change and their change towards him had come, he said, when he had refused to speak at the conference until he knew what had happened to his son, and when he had heard that his son had escaped, he refused to speak anyway — the Russians’ last hold over him was gone. Being thrown into the Szarháza had made him more furious than ever, and the final indignity of being imprisoned in the same freezing cattle truck as a band of hardened criminals had completed his conversion in no uncertain fashion. And when he had heard of the tortures inflicted on Jansci and Reynolds his fury had known no bounds. He swore in a most uncharacteristic fashion.

‘Wait!’ he said. ‘By heavens, just wait till I get home! The British Government, their precious projects, their missiles — damn their projects and their missiles! I’ve got more important things to do first.’

‘Such as?’ Jansci asked mildly.

‘Communism!’ Jennings downed his glass of barack and his voice was almost a shout. ‘I’m not boasting, but I’ve got the ear of nearly all the big newspapers in the country. They’ll listen to me — especially when they remember the damned poppycock I used to talk before. I’ll expose the whole damned rotten system of communism, and by the time I’m finished—’

‘Too late.’ The interruption came from the Count, and the tone was ironic.

‘What do you mean “Too late”?’ Jennings demanded.

‘The Count just means that communism has already been pretty thoroughly exposed,’ Jansci said soothingly, ‘and, without offence, Dr Jennings, by people who have suffered for years under it, not just a weekend, as you have.’

‘You expect me to go back to London and sit on my hands—’ Jennings broke off, and when he spoke again his tone was calmer. ‘Damn it, man, it’s the duty of everyone — all right, all right, I’m late in seeing it, but I see it now — it’s the duty of everyone to do what he can to stop the spread of this damned creed—’

‘Too late.’ Again the dry interruption came from the Count.

‘He just means that communism, outside its homeland, is failing of its own accord,’ Jansci explained hastily. ‘You don’t need to stop it, Dr Jennings — it’s already stopped. Oh, it works here and there, but only to a limited extent, and then only among primitive peoples like the Mongols who fall for the fine phrases and the even finer promises, but not with us, not with the Hungarians, Czechs, Poles or others, not in any country where the people are more politically advanced than the Russians themselves. Take this country itself — who were the most heavily indoctrinated people?’

‘The youth, I should imagine.’ Jennings was holding his impatience in check only with difficulty. ‘They always are.’

‘The youth.’ Jansci nodded. ‘And the pampered darlings of communism — the writers, the intellectuals, the lionized workers of heavy industry. And who led the revolt here against the Russians? Exactly the same people — the young, the intellectuals and the workers. The fact that I think that the whole rising was futile, crazily ill-timed has nothing to do with it. The point is that communism failed most completely in those among whom it had the best chance of succeeding — if it were ever to succeed.’

‘And you should see the churches in my country,’ the Count murmured. ‘Crowded masses every Sunday — packed with kids. You wouldn’t worry about communism so much then, Professor. In fact,’ he added dryly, ‘the only thing to match the failure of communism in our countries is its remarkable success in countries like Italy and France who have never seen one of these in their lives.’ He gestured, with evident distaste, at the uniform he was wearing, and shook his head sadly. ‘Human nature is a wonderful thing.’

‘Then what the devil would you have me do?’ Jennings demanded. ‘Forget the whole damned thing?’

‘No.’ Jansci shook his head, with just a trace of weariness. ‘That’s the last thing I want you to do, that’s the last thing I want anyone to do — there may be a greater crime, a greater sin than indifference, but I don’t know of it. No, Dr Jennings, what I should like you to do is to go home and tell your people that we in Central Europe have only our one little life apiece to lead, and time is running out. Tell them that we would like to smell the sweet air of freedom, just once, before we go. Tell them that we have been waiting for seventeen long years now, and hope cannot last for ever. Tell them we don’t want our children, and our children’s children, to walk along the dark and endless road of slavery, and never see a light at the end. Tell them we don’t want much — we only want a little peace, green fields and church bells and carefree children playing in the sun, without fear, without want, without wondering what dark clouds tomorrow must surely bring.’

Jansci leant forward in his chair, his glass forgotten, the tired lined face beneath the thick white hair ruddy in the flickering flames of the fire, earnest and intense as Reynolds had never seen.

‘Tell them, tell your people at home, that our lives, and the lives of generations to come, lie in their hands. Tell them that there is only one thing that ultimately matters on this earth, and that is peace on this earth. And tell them that this is a very small earth, and growing smaller with every year that passes, but that we all have to live on it together, that we all must live on it together.’

‘Co-existence?’ Dr Jennings raised an eyebrow.

‘Co-existence. A terrible word, a big bogey-man word, but what else could any sane man ever offer in its place — all the nameless horrors of a thermo-nuclear war, the requiem for the lost hopes of mankind? No, co-existence must come, it must if mankind is to survive, but this world without spheres, the dream of that great American, Cordell Hull, will never come if you have impetuous fools, as you do have, Dr Jennings, shouting for big results now, here, to-day. It will never come so long as people in the west think in terms of parachute diplomacy, of helping us to help ourselves … My God! They’ve never seen even a single Mongol division in action or they wouldn’t talk such arrant nonsense — it will never come while people talk dangerous drivel about the Russian people being their secret allies, who say, ‘Get at the Russian people,’ or listen to the gratuitous advice of people who fled these unhappy countries of ours years ago and have lost all contact with what we are thinking and feeling to-day.

‘Most of all, it will never come so long as our leaders and governments, our newspapers and our propagandists teach us incessantly, insistently, that we must hate and fear and despise all the other peoples who share this same tiny world with us. The nationalism of those who cry, “We are the people,” the jingoistic brand of patriotism — these are the great evils of our world to-day, the barriers to peace that no man can overcome. What hope is there for the world as long as we cling to the outmoded forms of national allegiance? We owe allegiance to no one, Dr Jennings, at least not on this earth.’ Jansci smiled. ‘Christ came to save mankind, we are told — but maybe he has made a special exception in the case of the Russians.’

‘What Jansci is trying to tell you, Dr Jennings,’ the Count murmured, ‘is that all you’ve got to do is to convert the western world to Christianity and all will be well.’

‘Not quite.’ Jansci shook his head. ‘What I say applies to the Russians even more than the western world, but I think the first move must come from the western world — a maturer people, a more politically advanced people — and not nearly so afraid of the Russians as the Russians are of them.’

‘Talk.’ Jennings was no longer angry, not even ironic, just thoughtful. ‘Talk, talk, just talk. It’ll require a great deal more than that, my friend, to bring about the millennium. It needs action. First move, you said. What move?’

‘Heaven only knows.’ Jansci shook his head. ‘I don’t; if I did know, no name in all history would be so revered as that of Major-General Illyurin. No man can do more, no man dare do more than make suggestions.’

No one spoke, and after a time Jansci went on slowly.

‘It is essential, I think, to hammer home the idea of peace, the idea of disarmament, to convince the Russians, above all things, of our peaceful intentions. Peaceful intentions!’ Jansci laughed without mirth. ‘The British and the Americans filling the armouries of the nations of Western Europe with hydrogen bombs — what a way to demonstrate peaceful intentions, what a way rather to ensure that Russia will never relax its grip on the satellites it no longer wants, what a way to drive the men of the Kremlin, scared men, I tell you, inexorably nearer the last thing in the world they want to do — sending the first intercontinental missile on its way: the last thing they want to do, the last act of panic or desperation, because they know better than any that, though in their deep cellars in Moscow they may survive the retaliation that will surely come, they will never survive the vengeful fury of the crazed survivors of the holocaust that will just as surely engulf their own nation. To arm Europe is to provoke the Russians to the point of madness: whatever else we may not do, it is essential to avoid all provocation, to keep the door of negotiation and approach always open, no matter what the rebuffs may be.’

‘It is essential to watch ’em like hawks, I would say,’ Reynolds commented.

‘Alas, I thought we had made him see the light,’ the Count mourned. ‘Perhaps we never will.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Jansci agreed. ‘But he’s right, all the same. In the one hand the big gun, in the other the olive branch. But the safety-catch must always be on, and the hand of peace always a little in advance, and you must be endlessly patient — rashness, impatience could bring the world to catastrophe. Patience, endless patience. What matter a blow to your pride when the peace of the world is at stake?

‘You must try to meet them in as many fields as possible — culture, sport, literature, holidays, all those things are important enough — anything that brings people into contact with one another and lets them see the idiocies of Chauvinism is bound to be important — but the great opening lies in trade. Meet them in trade, and never care how many concessions you make — the losses would be negligible in exchange for the goodwill gained, the suspicions allayed. And get your churches to help, as they are helping now here and in Poland. Cardinal Wyszinski who walks hand-in-hand with Gomulka of Poland knows more about the way to achieve the peace of the world that must eventually come than I ever will. People all over Poland to-day walk in freedom, talk in freedom, worship in freedom, and who knows what another five years may bring — and all because men of vastly different creeds but of an equally great goodwill, determined that they were going to get on together, and get on well, no matter what sacrifices they had to make, no matter what blows to their pride they had received.

‘And that, I think is the real answer — not the proposing of courses of action, as Dr Jennings suggested, but in creating the climate of goodwill in which those actions can flower and bear fruit. Ask the rulers of the great nations who should be leading our sick world to a better tomorrow what their greatest need of to-day is, and they will tell you scientists and still more scientists — those luckless, brilliant creatures who have long since traded in their birthright of independence, buried their consciences, and sold out to the governments of the world — so that they can strive harder and still harder until they have in their hands the ultimate weapon of destruction.’

Jansci paused and wearily shook his head. ‘The governments of the world may not be mad, but they are blind and their blindness is but one step removed from insanity. The desperate, most urgent need this world knows or will ever know, is the need for an effort without parallel in history to get to know ourselves and the other people of the world even as well as we know ourselves, and then we will see that the other man is just as we are, that right and virtue and truth belong to him as much as to us. We must think of people not as a conglomerate mass, not conveniently, indiscriminately, as a faceless nation: we must always remember that a nation is made of millions of little human beings just like we are, and to talk about national sin and guilt and wickedness is to be wilfully blind, unjust and un-Christian; and while it is true that such a nation may go off the rails, it never goes off because it wants to, but because it couldn’t help it, because there was something in its past or in its environment that inescapably made it what it is to-day, just as some forgotten incidents, some influences that we can neither recall nor understand, has made each one of us what we are to-day.

‘And with that understanding and knowledge there will come compassion, and no power on earth can compete against compassion — the compassion that makes the Jewish Society issue worldwide appeals for money for their sworn but starving enemies, the Arab refugees, the compassion that made a Russian soldier thrust his gun into Sandor’s hands, the compassion — a compassion born of understanding — that made nearly all the Russians who were stationed in Budapest refuse to fight the Hungarians, whom they had come to know so well. And this compassion, this charity will come, it must come, but men the world over must want to make it come.

‘There is no certainty that it will come in our time. It’s a gamble, it must be a gamble, but better surely a gamble from hope, however tenuous that hope, than a gamble from despair and pressing the button that sends the first intercontinental missile on its way. But for the gamble to succeed, understanding comes first; mountains, rivers, seas are no longer the barriers that separate mankind, just the minds of mankind itself. The intolerance of ignorance, not wanting to know — that is the last real frontier left on earth.’

For a long time after Jansci had finished speaking only the crackling of pine logs in the fire and the gentle singing of a kettle broke the silence in the room. The fire seemed to fascinate, to hypnotize everyone sitting there, and they stared into it as if by staring long enough they could see the future of Jansci’s dream. But it wasn’t the fire that fascinated them, it had been the effect of Jansci’s quiet, insistent hypnotic voice, and what his voice had said and the memory lingered long. Even the professor had lost all his anger, and Reynolds reflected wryly that if Colonel Mackintosh could only know the thoughts that were running through his mind at that moment he would be unemployed as soon as he arrived back in England. After a time, the Count rose to his feet, walked round replenishing the empty glasses, then took his seat again, and all in silence. No one even looked at him as he was doing it, no one, it seemed, wanted to be the first to break the silence, or even wanted the silence to break. They were all deep sunk in their own private thoughts, Reynolds was thinking, almost inevitably, perhaps, of the long dead English poet who had said centuries ago almost exactly what Jansci had been saying then, when the interruption came, the harsh strident ringing of a telephone bell, and it came so pat with Reynolds’ thoughts, the bell tolled. The answer was not long to wait: it tolled for Jansci.

Jansci, startled out of a deep reverie, sat up, transferred his glass to his right hand and picked up the telephone with his other. As the phone was lifted off its receiver, the ringing stopped abruptly, and in its place, clearly audible to everyone in the room, came a high-pitched shriek, a long-drawn-out scream of agony which faded away into a thin, horrible whisper as Jansci pressed the phone to his ear. The whisper gave way to staccato words, then a lighter, higher, sobbing voice, but what the words were no one could distinguish, one ivory-knuckled hand was pressing the receiver so hard to Jansci’s ear that only vague incoherent sounds could escape. The others in the room could do no more than watch Jansci’s face, and as they watched, it hardened into a mask of stone and the ruddy colour drained slowly from his cheeks until they were as pale, almost, as the snow-white hair above. Twenty seconds, perhaps thirty, passed without Jansci speaking a word, then there came a sudden crack and a splintering of glass and the tumbler in Jansci’s hand crashed and broke and shivered into a hundred fragments as it fell on to the stone floor, and the blood from the scarred, misshapen hand began to well and flow and drip steadily down among the shattered pieces of glass. Jansci didn’t even know it had happened, his whole mind, his whole being was at that moment at the other end of that telephone wire. Then he said, suddenly, ‘I’ll call you back,’ listened for another few moments, whispered, ‘No, no,’ in a low strangled voice, and thrust the phone violently back on its rest, but not before the others had time to hear the same sound as they had heard when Jansci had picked up the phone, a hoarse scream of pain that ended as if sheared by a guillotine as the connection went.

‘That was a silly thing to do, wasn’t it?’ Jansci, staring down at his hand, was the first to speak, and his voice was quiet and empty of all life. He drew out a handkerchief and dabbed at the streaming blood. ‘And such a waste of all that good barack. My apologies, Vladimir.’ It was the first time that anyone had ever heard him call the Count by his true name. ‘What in the name of God was that?’ Old Jennings’ hands were shaking, so that the brandy spilled over the lip of his glass, and his voice was a trembling whisper.

‘That was the answer to many things.’ Jansci wrapped the handkerchief round his hand, clenched his fist to keep it in place, and stared into the dull-red heart of the fire. ‘We know now why Imre went missing, we know now why the Count was betrayed. They caught Imre, and they took him down to Stalin Street, and he talked to them, just before he died.’

‘Imre!’ the Count whispered. ‘Before he died. Heaven forgive me. I thought he had run out on us.’ He looked uncomprehendingly across at the telephone. ‘You mean that—’

‘Imre died yesterday,’ Jansci murmured. ‘Poor, lost, lonely Imre. That was Julia. Imre had told them where she was and they went out to the country and took her, just as she was leaving to come here. And then they made her tell where this place was.’

Reynolds’ chair crashed over backwards as he rose to his feet and his lower teeth were showing like a wolf’s.

‘That was Julia screaming.’ His voice was hoarse and unreal, totally unlike his normal voice. ‘They tortured her, they tortured her!’

‘That was Julia, Hidas wanted to show that he meant business.’ Jansci’s dull voice became muffled as he buried his face in his hands. ‘But they didn’t torture Julia, they tortured Catherine in front of Julia, and Julia had to tell.’

Reynolds stared at him uncomprehendingly, Jennings looked baffled and fearful, and the Count was swearing to himself, over and over, a meaningless, blasphemous litany of oaths, and Reynolds knew that the Count understood, and then Jansci was talking, mumbling to himself, and all of a sudden Reynolds understood also and he felt sick and fumbled his chair upright and sat down, his legs seemed to have become weak and nerveless.

‘I knew she hadn’t died,’ Jansci muttered. ‘I always knew she hadn’t died, I never gave up hoping, did I, Vladimir? I knew she hadn’t died … Oh, God, why didn’t you let her die, why didn’t you make her die?’

Jansci’s wife, Reynolds realized dully, his wife was still alive. Julia had said that she must have died, died within days of the AVO taking her away, but she hadn’t died, the same faith and hope that had kept Jansci searching the breadth of Hungary in the sure knowledge that she lived must also have kept the spark of life burning in Catherine, firm in the faith that one day Jansci would find her. But now they had her, Hidas had left the Szarháza because he had known where to find her, these devils of the AVO had her … and they had Julia, and that was a thousand times worse. Unbid, shadowy pictures of her crossed his mind, the mischievous way she had smiled at him when she had kissed him good-bye near Margit Island, the deep concern in her face when she had seen what Coco had done to him, how she had been looking at him when he wakened from sleep, the dead, dull look and the clouded eyes when foreknowledge of coming tragedy had touched her mind … Suddenly, without being aware that he had had any intention of doing so, Reynolds rose to his feet.

‘Where did the call come from, Jansci?’ His voice was back to normal again, no trace of the ice-cold rage showing through.

‘The Andrassy Ut. What does it matter, Meechail?’

‘We can get them back for you. We can go now and get them back. Just the Count and myself. We can do it.’

‘If any two men alive could do it, I can see these two before me now. But even you cannot do it.’ Jansci smiled, a slow, wan smile that hardly touched his lips, but none the less he smiled. ‘The job, only the job, nothing but your job. That is your creed, what you live by. Your job is done, what would Colonel Mackintosh think, Meechail?’

‘I don’t know, Jansci,’ Reynolds said slowly. ‘I don’t know, and God knows I don’t even care. I’m through, I’m finished. I’ve done my last job for Colonel Mackintosh, I’ve done my last job for our intelligence service, so with your permission, the Count and I—’

‘One moment.’ Jansci held up his hand. ‘There’s more to it than that, it’s even worse than you think … What did you say, Dr Jennings?’

‘Catherine,’ the old man murmured. ‘What a strange coincidence, my wife’s name is Catherine also.’

‘The coincidence is affecting us even deeper than that, I’m afraid, Professor.’ For a long time Jansci gazed sightlessly into the fire, then he stirred. ‘The British used your wife as a lever against you and now—’

‘Of course, of course,’ Jennings murmured. He was no longer trembling, but quiet and unafraid. ‘It is obvious, is it not, why else should they have rung up? I shall leave at once.’

‘Leave at once?’ Reynolds stared. ‘What does he mean?’

‘If you knew Hidas as well as I,’ the Count said, ‘you wouldn’t have to ask. A straight trade, is it not, Jansci? Catherine and Julia returned alive in exchange for the professor here.’

‘That’s what they say. They’ll give them back to me if I return the professor.’ Jansci shook his head, slowly, finally. ‘It cannot be, of course, it cannot be. I cannot give you up, I cannot give you back. God only knows what they might do to you if they had hands on you again.’

‘But you must, you must.’ Jennings was on his feet and was staring down at Jansci. ‘They will not harm me, I am too useful to them. Your wife, Jansci, your family — what is my freedom compared to their lives? You have no choice in the matter. I am going.’

‘You would give my family back to me — and you would never see your own again. Do you realize what you are saying, Dr Jennings?’

‘Yes.’ Jennings spoke quietly, doggedly. ‘I do know what I’m saying. It’s not the separation that’s so important, it’s just that if I go to them both our families will be alive — and who knows, freedom may come my way again. If I don’t your wife and daughter die. Surely you can see that?’

Jansci nodded, and Reynolds, even through his anxiety, through his almost overpowering anger, could still feel pity, could feel heart-sorry for any man presented with such a cruel, inhuman choice: and that the choice should be presented to a man like Jansci, a man who only moments ago had been preaching the creed of loving his enemies, of the need for understanding and helping and conciliating his Communist brother, made everything so bitterly intolerable. And then Jansci cleared his throat to speak, and Reynolds knew what he was going to say even before he said it.

‘I am more glad than ever, Dr Jennings, that I have helped in what little way I could, to save you. You are a brave man, and a good man, but you shall not die for me or mine. I will tell Colonel Hidas—’

‘No, I will tell Colonel Hidas,’ the Count interrupted. He crossed to the phone, cranked a handle and gave a number. ‘The Colonel is always so pleased to have reports from his junior officers … No, Jansci, leave this to me. You have never questioned my judgment before: I beg of you don’t start doing it now.’

He broke off, stiffened slightly, then relaxed and smiled.

‘Colonel Hidas? Ex-Major Howarth here … In excellent health, I’m glad to say … Yes, we have thought over your proposition, and have one to make in return. I know how grievously you must miss me — me, the most efficient officer in the AVO, a fact vouched for, you will remember, by no less a person than yourself — and propose to remedy this. If I can guarantee that Professor Jennings will not talk when he reaches the west, will you accept myself, a humble make-weight to be sure, in exchange for Major-General Illyurin’s wife and daughter … Yes, yes, certainly I’ll wait. But I haven’t all day.’

He cradled the phone in his hand, and turned to face both the professor and Jansci, holding out a hand to stop their protestations and the professor’s futile efforts to take the phone from him.

‘Rest easy, gentlemen, and reassure yourselves. Noble self-sacrifice has little appeal for me: in fact, not to put too fine a point on it, it has none at all … Ah, Colonel Hidas … Ah, so, I feared as much … A blow to my self-esteem, but then I am, I suppose, only a little fish … Then the professor it must be … Yes, he is more than willing … He will not go back to Budapest for the transfer, Colonel Hidas … Do you think we are mad? If we go there, then you have all three, so if you insist on Budapest then Dr Jennings crosses the border to-night, and nothing you or any man in Hungary can do can prevent that. You know that better than — aha, I thought you would see reason — you always were so reasonable a man, were you not? Then listen carefully.

‘About three kilometres north of this house — the General’s daughter will show you the way here if you cannot find it easily — a side road branches off to the left. Follow this road — it ends about eight kilometres farther on at a small ferry across a tributary of the Raab. Remain there. About three kilometres to the north there is a wooden bridge over the same stream. We are going to cross that, destroy it so that you will not be tempted to follow it, and make our way south to the ferryman’s house opposite which you will arrive. There is a small, rope-operated boat there which we will use to effect the transfer of prisoners. All this is clear to you?’

There was a long pause, the faintly metallic, indistinguishable murmur of Hidas’ voice was the only sound in the silence of the room, then the Count said, ‘Wait a moment,’ covered the mouthpiece with his hand and turned to the others.

‘He says he must have an hour’s delay — they must have government permission. It’s quite likely. It’s also more than likely that, in normal circumstances, our dear friend would use that hour to call up the army to surround us or the air force to drop a few well-chosen bombs down the chimney.’

‘Impossible.’ Jansci shook his head. ‘The nearest army units are at Kaposvar, south of Balaton, and we know from the radio that they must be completely bogged down.’

‘And the nearest air force bases are up at the Czech border.’ The Count glanced through the window at the grey world of driving snow. ‘Even if they aren’t unserviceable or closed in, no aircraft could ever find us in this weather. We take a chance?’

‘We take a chance,’ Jansci echoed.

‘You have your hour, Colonel Hidas.’ The Count had removed his hand from the mouthpiece. ‘Call us a minute late, and you’ll find us gone. One other thing. You will come by way of the village of Vylok, and by no other way — we do not wish to have our escape route cut off, and you know the size of our organization — we will have every other road north of Szombathely covered, and if a car or truck as much as stirs along these roads, you will arrive here to find us gone. Until we meet then, my dear Colonel … In about three hours, you would say? Au revoir.’

He replaced the phone and turned to the others.

‘You see how it is, gentlemen — I get all the kudos and reputation for chivalry and self-sacrificing gallantry, without any of the distressing risks customarily associated with these things. Missiles mean more than revenge, and they want the professor. We have three hours.’

Three hours, and now one of them was almost gone. It was an hour that should have been spent in sleep, they were all exhausted and desperately in need of sleep, but the thought of sleep occurred to none. It could not occur to Jansci, dazed though he was with joy at the thought of seeing Catherine again, because he was at the same time unhappy, consumed with anxiety and remorse, and still in his heart blindly determined that the professor should not go: it could not occur to the professor, for he had no wish to spend his last few hours of freedom in sleep, and it did not occur to the Cossack, because he was again at his interminable practice with his whip, readying himself for glorious battle against the accursed AVO. Sandor never thought of it, he had just walked up and down in the bitter cold outside by Jansci’s shoulder, because he would not leave him at this hour. And the Count was drinking, heavily, steadily, as if he would never see a bottle of brandy again. Reynolds watched him in silent wonder as he opened a third bottle of brandy — and the Count had already consumed more than half of the others. He might have been drinking water, for all the apparent effects.

‘You think I drink too much, my friend?’ He smiled at Reynolds. ‘You do not conceal your thoughts.’

‘Wrong. Why shouldn’t you?’

‘Why not indeed? I like the stuff.’

‘But—’

‘But what, my friend?’

Reynolds shrugged. ‘That’s not why you drink.’

‘No?’ The Count raised an eyebrow. ‘To drown my many sorrows, perhaps?’

‘To drown Jansci’s sorrows, I think,’ Reynolds said slowly. Then he had a moment of acute, unusual perception. ‘No, I think I know. You know, how you can be sure I do not know, but you are sure that Jansci will see his Catherine and Julia again. His sorrow is gone, but yours remains, and yours was the same as his, but now you have to bear yours alone, so you feel it with redoubled effect.’

‘Jansci has been talking to you?’

‘He has said nothing to me.’

‘I believe you.’ The Count regarded him thoughtfully. ‘You know, you have aged ten years in a few days, my friend. You will never be the same again. You are, of course, leaving your intelligence service?’

‘This is my last mission. No more.’

‘And going to marry the fair Julia?’

‘Good God!’ Reynolds stared at him. ‘Is it — is it as obvious as that?’

‘You were the last to see it. It was obvious to everyone else.’

‘Well, then, yes. Of course.’ He frowned in surprise. ‘I haven’t asked her yet.’

‘No need. I know women.’ The Count waved a lackadaisical hand. ‘She probably has faint hopes of making something of you.’

‘I hope she has.’ Reynolds paused, hesitated, then looked directly at the Count. ‘You put me off beautifully, there, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I did. It was unfair — I was personal, and you had the grace not to rebuff me. Sometimes I think pride is a damnable thing.’ The Count poured a half-tumbler full of brandy, drank from it, chain-lit another Russian cigarette, then went on abruptly, ‘Jansci was looking for his wife, I for my little boy. Little boy! He would be twenty next month — maybe he is twenty. I don’t know, I don’t know. I hope he lived.’

‘He was not your only child?’

‘I had five children, and the children had a mother and grandfather and uncles, but I do not worry about them, they are all safe.’

Reynolds said nothing, there was no need to say anything. He knew from what Jansci had said that the Count had lost everything and everybody in the world — except his little boy.

‘They took me away when he was only three years old,’ the Count went on softly. ‘I can still see him standing there in the snow, wondering, not understanding. I have thought of him since, every night, every day of my life. Did he survive? Who looked after him? Had he clothes to keep the cold out, has he still clothes to keep the cold out? Does he get enough to eat, or is he thin and wasted? Perhaps no one wanted him, but surely to God — he was such a little boy, Mr Reynolds. I wonder what he looks like, I always wondered what he looked like. I wondered how he smiled and laughed and played and ran, I wanted all the time to be by his side, to see him every day of my life, to see all the wonderful things you see when your child is growing up, but I have missed it all, all the wonderful years are gone, and it is too late now. Yesterday, all our yesterdays, can never come again. He was all that I have lived for, but to every man there comes a moment of truth, and mine came this morning. I shall never see him again. May God look after my little boy.’

‘I’m sorry I asked,’ murmured Reynolds. I’m terribly sorry.’ He paused then he said: ‘That’s not true, I don’t know why I said that. I’m glad I asked.’

‘It’s strange, but I’m glad I told you.’ The Count drained his glass, refilled it, glanced at his watch and when he spoke again he was the old Count, his voice brisk and assertive and ironic. ‘Barack brings self-pity, but it also dispels it. Time we were moving, my friend. The hour is almost up. We cannot stay here — only a madman would trust Hidas.’

‘So Jennings must go?’

‘Jennings must go. If they don’t get him, then Catherine and Julia …’

‘Finish. Is that it?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Hidas must want him badly.’

‘He wants him desperately. The Communists are mortally afraid that if he escapes to the west and talks — and that would be a blow from which they would not recover for a long time — the damage would be irreparable. That is why I phoned and offered myself. I knew how badly they wanted me, I wanted to find out how badly they wanted Jennings. As I said, they want him desperately.’

‘Why?’ Reynolds’ voice was strained.

‘He will never work for them again,’ the Count answered obliquely. ‘They know that.’

‘What you mean is—’

‘What I mean is that they only want his everlasting silence,’ the Count said harshly. ‘There is only one way you can ensure that.’

‘God above!’ Reynolds cried. ‘We can’t let him go, we can’t let him walk to his death and not do—’

‘You forget about Julia,’ the Count said softly.

Reynolds buried his face in his hands, too confused, too dazed to think any more. Half a minute passed, perhaps a minute, then he jerked upright as the harsh, strident ring of the telephone bell cut through the silence of the room. The Count had the receiver off its rest within two seconds.

‘Howarth here. Colonel Hidas?’

Again the listeners — Jansci and Sandor had just hurried in through the doorway, heads and shoulders matted with snow — could hear the metallic murmur of the voices in the earpiece, but were unable to distinguish anything. All they could do was watch the Count as he leaned negligently against the wall, his eyes moving idly, unseeingly around the room. Suddenly he straightened off the wall, the contracting muscles of his eyebrows etching a deep, vertical line on his forehead.

‘Impossible! I said an hour, Colonel Hidas. We cannot wait any longer. Do you think we are madmen to sit here till you can take us at your leisure?’

He paused as the voice at the other end interrupted him, listened for a few moments to the urgent, staccato chatter, stiffened as he heard the click of a receiver being replaced, looked for a moment at the lifeless phone, then slowly returned it to his hook. His right thumb, as he turned to face the others, was rubbing slowly, gratingly against the side of his forefinger and his lower lip was caught between his teeth.

‘Something’s wrong.’ The voice reflected the anxiety in his face. ‘Something’s very wrong. Hidas says the minister responsible is at his country retreat, the telephone lines are down, they’ve had to send a car to fetch him and it might be another half-hour, or possibly — you damned idiot!’

‘What do you mean?’ Jansci demanded. ‘Who—’

‘Me.’ The uncertainty had vanished from the Count’s face, and the low controlled voice was alive with a desperate urgency that Reynolds had never heard before. ‘Sandor, start the truck — now. Grenades, ammonium nitrate to take care of that little bridge at the foot of the road and the field telephone. Hurry, all of you. For God’s sake, hurry!’

No one stopped to question the Count. Ten seconds later they were all outside in the heavily falling snow, piling equipment into the truck, and within a minute the truck was jolting down the bumpy path towards the road. Jansci turned to the Count, one eyebrow raised in mute interrogation.

‘That last call came from a call-box,’ the Count said quietly. ‘Criminal negligence on my part not to catch on to it right away. Why is Colonel Hidas of the AVO telephoning from a call-box? Because he’s no longer in his Budapest office. It’s a hundred to one that the previous call wasn’t from Budapest either, but from our divisional H.Q. in Györ. Hidas has been on his way here all the time, desperately trying to delay us, to keep us here with these bogus phone calls. The minister, government permission, broken phone lines — lies, all lies. My God, to think that we fell for that sort of thing! Budapest — Hidas left Budapest hours ago! I’ll wager he’s no more than five miles from here at this very moment. Another fifteen minutes and he would have nailed us all, six good little flies waiting patiently in the spider’s parlour.’