The Last Frontier

FIFTEEN

It was just after four o’clock in the morning when Jansci halted them in the centre of a thick clump of head-high reeds, turned and waited until the others had caught up with him. They came in single file, Julia, Reynolds, the Cossack and Dr Jennings with Sandor beside him, half-helping, half-carrying him across the frozen marshes, all with their heads bent low, all except Sandor with the trudging, stumbling gait of those very close to exhaustion.

They had reason, and more than reason, for their exhaustion. Two hours and three miles lay between them and where they had left the truck, two hours of winding in and out between the frozen reeds that snapped and crackled at the lightest touch, two hours of interminable stumbling and crunching through the thin ice of freezing marshes, ice just not strong enough to bear their weight, but more than strong enough to impede their progress, compelling them to lift each foot high to clear it before moving on to the next step, where they would sink down again through ice and frozen mud, often beyond their knees. But that same ice was their salvation that night, the dogs of the border guards would have found the conditions hopeless for operation and could only have floundered along, helplessly out of their depth. Not that they had seen or heard either dogs or guards once in those three miles: on a night such as this even the fanatical guards of the AVO huddled high in their stilted border towers round the warmth of a stove, and let who would pass by.

It was a night such as the night on which Reynolds had crossed the border into Hungary, with the cold stars riding high in a cold and empty sky, and a wind sighing gently through the marshes, a bitter wind that touched their cheeks with icy talons and carried their frozen breath drifting away through the softly rustling reeds. For a moment Reynolds himself was lost in the memory of that first night, when he had lain in the snow, as cold, and even colder than he was now, and had felt the icy wind in his face and seen the stars high above, and then, with an almost physical effort, he wrenched his mind away from that night, for his thoughts had moved on to the police hut and the appearance of the Count and he felt sick to his heart when he remembered for the hundredth time that the Count would never come again.

‘No time for dreaming now, Meechail,’ Jansci said gently. He nodded with his roughly-bandaged head, leaned forward and parted high reeds for Reynolds to have a glimpse of what lay beyond — a sheet of ice, perhaps ten feet wide, that stretched in both directions as far as he could see. He straightened again and looked at Jansci.

‘A canal?’

‘A ditch, that’s all. Just a little drainage ditch, but the most important in all Europe. On the other side lies Austria.’ Jansci smiled. ‘Five metres from freedom, Meechail, freedom and the success of a mission. Nothing can stop you now.’

‘Nothing can stop me now,’ Reynolds echoed. His voice was flat, empty of all life. The longed-for freedom interested him hardly at all, the complete success of his mission even less: the success was ashes in his mouth, the cost had been too cruelly high. Worst of all perhaps, was what was to come, and he knew with a sombre certainty what that was. He shivered in the bitter cold. ‘It grows even colder, Jansci. The crossing is safe — no guards are near?’

‘The crossing is safe.’

‘Come then — let’s not wait any longer.’

‘Not me.’ Jansci shook his head. ‘Just you and the professor and Julia. I remain here.’

Reynolds nodded heavily and said nothing. He had known what Jansci was about to say, and knew with equal certainty that discussion was useless. He turned away, not knowing what to say, and even as he turned Julia broke loose from his arms and caught her father by the lapels of his coat.

‘What did you say, Jansci? What was that you said?’

‘Please, Julia. There is no other way, you know there is no other way. I have to stay.’

‘Oh, Jansci! Jansci!’ She was pulling at his lapels, shaking them in her anxiety. ‘You can’t stay, you mustn’t, not now, not after all that’s happened!’

‘More than ever after all that’s happened.’ He put his arms round her and pulled her close and said: ‘I have work to do, I have much work to do, and as yet I have hardly begun: if I stop now, the Count will never forgive me.’ He smoothed the blonde hair with his scarred and twisted hand. ‘Julia, Julia, how could I ever accept freedom for myself while I know there are hundreds of poor people who will never know freedom unless it comes through me — no one can help them as well as I, you know that. How can I buy for myself at the expense of others a happiness that would be no happiness at all? Can you expect me to sit at my ease somewhere in the west while the young men here are still being dragged off to the Black Sea Canal or dying old women being driven out to work in the beet fields, and the snow still on the ground? Do you indeed think so little of me, Julia?’

‘Jansci.’ Her face was buried in his coat, and her voice was muffled. ‘I can’t leave you, Jansci.’

‘You can and must. You were not known before, but you are known now and there is no place for you in Hungary. No harm will come to me, my dear — not while Sandor lives. And the Cossack, too, will look after me.’ In the starlit gloom the Cossack seemed to straighten and grow tall.

‘And you can leave me? You can let me go?’

‘You no longer need me, my child — you have stayed with me all these years because you thought I needed you — and now Meechail here will look after you. You know that.’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was more muffled than ever. ‘He is very kind.’

Jansci caught her by the shoulders, held her at arm’s length and looked at her.

‘For the daughter of Major-General Illyurin, you’re a very silly girl. Do you not know, my dear, that if it were not for you, Meechail would not be returning to the west?’

She turned and stared at Reynolds, and he could see that her eyes were shining in the starlight with unshed tears. ‘Is — is this true?’

‘It’s true.’ Reynolds smiled faintly. ‘A long argument, but I lost it. He won’t have me at any price.’

‘I’m sorry. I did not know.’ The life had gone out of her voice. ‘This is the end of it, then.’

‘No, my dear, only the beginning.’ Jansci caught her close and held her as her body shook with dry soundless sobs, looked over her shoulder and nodded at Reynolds and Sandor. Reynolds nodded in return, shook the scarred misshapen hand in silence, murmured his good-bye to the Cossack, parted the tall reeds and went down to the ditch, followed by Sandor, who held one end of the Cossack’s whip while Reynolds held the other and moved out gingerly on the ice. On the second step it broke under his weight and he was standing on the muddy bottom, covered to the thighs in the freezing water, but he ignored the numbing cold of it, broke the ice in front of him and pulled himself up on to the far bank. Austria, he said to himself, this is Austria, but the word meant nothing to him.

Something splashed into the water behind him and he turned to see Sandor forging his way through the water and broken ice, carrying Dr Jennings high in his arms, and as soon as Reynolds had him safely on top of the bank, Sandor waded back to the Hungarian side, gently took the girl away from Jansci and carried her in turn across the ditch. For a moment she clung to him almost desperately as if she were terrified of breaking the last contact with the life she was leaving behind her, then Reynolds stooped down and raised her on to the bank beside him.

‘Do not forget what I told you, Dr Jennings,’ Jansci called softly. He and the Cossack had come through the reeds and were standing on the far bank. ‘We are walking a long dark road, but we do not want to walk it for ever more.’

‘I will not forget.’ Jennings was shaking with cold. ‘I will never forget.’

‘It is good.’ Jansci bowed his white bandaged head in a barely perceptible token of farewell. ‘God be with you. Dowidzenia.’

‘Dowidzenia,’ Reynolds echoed. Dowidzenia — till we meet again. He turned, caught Julia and Dr Jennings by the arms and led them, the shivering old man and the silently crying girl, up the gentle slope to the field and the freedom that lay beyond. At the top he turned, just for a moment, and he could see the three men walking slowly away across the Hungarian marshes, never once looking back, and by and by they were lost to sight behind the tall reeds and he knew that he would never see them again.