Flight From Honour

24

They met again at ten that morning in the Sherring office on the Boulevard des Capucines. After – probably – a couple of hours’ sleep in her own bed, a bath and a change of clothing, Corinna looked crisp and fresh. Ranklin didn’t. On what was obviously going to be another hot day, he had spent three hours taxi-cabbing from cafe to cafe in his overcoat and burdened with his luggage.

She had a Baedeker Austria-Hungary open at the Trieste pages. “The Excelsior Palace sounds good enough for a Sherring representative. Shall I cable them to book a room? – I suppose there’s no hope that you aren’t going to pose as one of us?”

“Er, well, it . . . that is . . .”

“I thought not. But please try not to shoot anybody in our name, will you?” She scribbled on a form and gave it to a clerk.

“And since you mention it,” Ranklin said hopefully, “can you give me any names in Trieste? – business acquaintances?”

She pulled a sour face. “Give an inch and . . . Oh well.” She rummaged in her bag once more and found a small but bulky notebook. “Trieste . . . I’ve never been there myself, but . . . Here we are: there’s Signor Pauluzzo on the Exchange there. He thinks he knows more than he does but he does know about shipping. He breeds orchids and has a son in Boston.” The book obviously held more than just names and addresses and Ranklin longed to add it to the Bureau’s “registry”.

“I could,” he suggested helpfully, “look them up myself, see who seems likely-”

“No you don’t. This sort of stuff is our real family jewels. Your Bureau can buy its own notebook.” She gave him a couple more names, complete with character sketches, then said hesitantly: “There’s also a Conte di Chioggia listed. Apparently no good on business affairs, but knows everyone socially and is involved in pro-Italian politics at a dilettante level. Spends every morning in the Cafe San Marco. Sounds good for a gossip, anyway. What time’s your train?”

“One o’clock at the Gare de Lyons. Gets me into Trieste tomorrow night. What about you?”

“I’ll get out to Issy to see about getting the airplane onto a train for Turin.” She saw his surprise. “Andrew doesn’t want to fly it all the way down, thank God, what with the Alps and saving wear and tear on the engine. Did you know those engines only last fifteen hours or so between overhauls? Crazy. The Signora’s already there, some Italian she wants should see it . . .”

They chattered on, the gulf of parting gradually widening between them, until a cable came back from the Excelsior in Trieste confirming that Ranklin – James Spencer, that is – was booked in from Sunday night.

But as he was about to leave, she suddenly hugged him fiercely. “Take care of yourself,” she whispered. “And I really mean that. I’ll be at the Grand de Turin, cable me if there’s any problem. Any problem.”

“And you know where I am. It’s not too far. And stick close to O’Gilroy: he’s got a good sense of self-preservation.”

She nodded. “Yes. That’s why I wish he were going with you.”

As Ranklin looked for yet another taxi, he reminded himself: I’m working for the Bureau. I think.

The Paris aerodrome, on an old drill-field in the suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux, was surprisingly deserted for a fine Saturday afternoon until Corinna recalled Andrew talking of the Gordon Bennett air races at Rheims that weekend. They (she and the Sherring chauffeur) finally tracked down the Oriole behind the two vast airship sheds and found it already in pieces. Andrew and O’Gilroy, shirt-sleeved and oil-smudged, were directing a handful of French mechanics as they lashed the body onto a flat motor-truck. Much as she trusted her brother (she told herself) she was always cheered to see his aeroplanes in unflyable condition.

She greeted them, was assured that an unfledged sparrow could have made yesterday’s Channel crossing safely, and asked: “What happened to Signora Falcone?”

“Went off with the wop poet,” Andrew said, turning back to the loading.

“The who?” she asked O’Gilroy.

“Dannun-something. Seems he’s a famous poet. Italian.”

“D’Annunzio?”

“Ye know him, then?”

“I know of him, of course – is he the Italian she was talking about?”

O’Gilroy shrugged. “Best ask the Signora. But seems he’s in it with Falcone, buying the Oriole for the Italian Army.”

Corinna frowned. From what she’d read of Gabriele d’Annunzio, what he spent money on was himself – which included actresses – and the money wasn’t usually his own. Indeed, wasn’t he exiled in France by bankruptcy? But he was still popular in influential Italian circles, and while getting a poet-playwright to endorse an airplane would be pointless in America, in Italy things were different.

“Seems he’s writing something,” O’Gilroy went on. “A poem about the aeroplane, mebbe, and they’ll be doing a stunt dropping copies of it from the air. Mr Sherring took him up jest an hour gone, and he was scattering bits of paper to the divil and back.” He clearly disapproved of such snake-oil salesmanship in Serious Aeronautics.

Corinna grinned and relaxed. If they were merely concealing a sales stunt that might be spoiled by advance gossip, she’d been worrying unnecessarily. However, not about Ranklin in Trieste.

Andrew was busy yards away, overseeing as one of the wings was lifted on to the truck. She said: “Matt came across on the same boat, and he’s gone on to Trieste. And with Scotland Yard close behind.”

O’Gilroy frowned. “Was they now? I wasn’t wanting to get him into trouble with-”

“He’s not blaming you. Umm-” she wasn’t sure how to tackle this; “-do you know anything about Major Dagner’s marriage?”

“Never a thing.” It was very prompt, like a door closing.

She knew that expression, and this time it annoyed her. So she put on a superior smile and changed the subject to: “Were you thinking of taking a pistol to Italy?”

O’Gilroy looked at her but said nothing.

“Because it’s strictly against the law there. I suppose they have so many gang feuds. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you in Baedeker’s.”

“And that law would mean yeself, too?” he growled, staring at her travelling bag.

“Don’t be silly.”

“So I’d best stick close to yeself for protection.”

“That’s right. Now, when you’re ready, I’ll ride you over to the freight yard.”

The Simplon Express couldn’t be called “Orient” because it terminated at Venice for political reasons. But it had the same carriages, staff, speed and luxury, so it was the train they took, although it meant a change at Milan to backtrack eighty miles to Turin. It also charged Orient Express prices, which was why Ranklin wasn’t travelling it on Bureau expenses.

In Corinna’s experience, taking maids to Italy was more trouble – in Rescuing their Honour – than it was worth in hairdressing. So with Kitty left behind, she had only Andrew and O’Gilroy to get to the Gare de Lyons on time and reasonably presentable. Andrew’s luggage had come with her own, and O’Gilroy could pass as an eccentric Irish squire with the minimal luggage he had crammed into the Oriole. And at least she had made sure neither of them smelled of castor oil.

Having dumped them in the salon end of the dining car with a batch of French aviation magazines, she waited on the platform, exchanging greetings with the senior staff who remembered her (and most made sure they did) until Signora Falcone and d’Annunzio arrived.

Men who were supposed to be irresistible to women and were careless with other people’s money were guaranteed Corinna’s mistrust, and d’Annunzio gave her almost every excuse. He must have been about fifty, shorter than she and stocky, with a long fleshy nose and small moustache and beard. He wore a very fresh white linen suit and wide hat, and moved in a cloud of lavender water and greyhounds. The greyhounds frisked around, all paws and wet noses, rushing up to check passers-by then rushing back to nuzzle their Master. The lavender water didn’t behave much better.

He bowed over her hand with perfect correctness. “I am delighted to meet you, Mrs Finn.” His English was good but with a strong accent. “May I compliment you on having a brother who is a superb aviator and most gifted designer of flying machines?”

Annoyed that she couldn’t argue with that, she forced a smile.

“The flight was-” he hunched shoulders and hands, then spread them in an opening gesture; “-a rebirth! I have been given a new life! Now forgive me, I must say my farewells.”

These were to a clutch of theatrical-looking hangers-on and, Corinna was relieved to see, the dogs. She left him to it and joined the men in the salon until Signora Falcone came through. They ordered coffee.

“I should have mentioned d’Annunzio,” Signora Falcone said briskly, “only I wasn’t sure we were going to meet him here. You can never tell with Gabri, he does tend to live on a different planet.”

“He’s – as it were – endorsing the airplane?”

“That sort of thing. He’s a big name in Italy – and he’s got a new opera opening at La Scala soon – he isn’t coming to Turin immediately, he’s stopping in Milan – so the publicity works both ways. He doesn’t live chat much on a different planet.”

“Is he an old friend?”

“Yes. Did I tell you I was on the stage once myself? I played in a thing of his ages ago now.” She smiled graciously. “I don’t think I had Sarah Bernhardt worried. Nor Eleonora Duse or Donatella.” There might have been a coded message there: those last two had certainly been d’Annunzio’s mistresses.

“In fact,” she went on, “we’re rather letting Gabri hog the limelight, as if the whole aeroplane scheme is his inspiration and we’re supporting him. The Senator has political enemies – every senator has, of course – and as long as he gets the manufacturing rights . . .”

Corinna nodded. Limelight didn’t show on balance sheets. “Is the Senator thinking of starting up his own manufacturing plant?” she asked, casual as a hungry tigress.

At dinner, d’Annunzio proved an easy conversationalist, slipping unselfconsciously from English to French to Italian, then apologising to Corinna for the self-indulgence of speaking his native language again. Her own Italian was exam standard and rusty with it. Andrew and O’Gilroy sat at a separate table and she doubted the conversation there ever fell below a thousand feet.

The stillness woke Corinna. The train had stopped, and from the lack of human babble, not at a station. The only sounds were distant clankings and chuffings and a brief hoot of a shunting engine. She waited a few minutes, trying to sense the mood of the train, before deciding it had become as immovable as a fat, sleepy cat. She put on slippers and a robe and stepped into the corridor.

From the view through the window, they were stranded in the middle of a marshalling yard, too big to see what lay beyond in the darkness: mountains or forest or a sleeping town. This was a world of its own, dim-lit with lines of both bluish electric lights and yellower gas ones. Neither brought any colour to the rows of freight cars, dark carriages and lines of dull-glinting rails. It looked as still and cold as a morgue.

“‘I am the way into the doleful city’,” a voice said quietly. It was d’Annunzio, wearing a royal blue gown that reached to the floor and a white silk scarf thrown around his neck. “I think we have reached the gates of Dis.”

“Does it inspire you?”

He shuddered. “I find it hateful. A graveyard, not even of men, but of their hopes. Machines built to rush about the world, now heaped in a common grave.”

She smiled. “I find it rather romantic.”

He turned to look – up – at her in the thin cold light. “Romantic? This is not an outpost on your great American prairies. Here was once forests and villages, perhaps even Hannibal’s camp-fires.”

“I still like it,” she said cheerfully, pressing her nose to the cold glass.

“Do you then see it as romantic that each carriage and truck out there has a value?” Probably Signora Falcone had talked about Corinna’s background.

Unruffled, she said: “In a way, maybe.”

“You see so many stacks of money?”

“No. You can’t see the sort of money that interests me. It’s the muscles under the skin: you see the movement, not the muscle.”

He shook his head firmly. “That, I do not understand. I like money you can-” He made a fingering gesture. “And you say movement? Here nothing is moving. It is all dead!”

“Just resting.”

Smudges of steam, slow to dissolve in the cold air, drifted past. “Except,” d’Annunzio said in a sonorous voice, “for the souls of unfinished journeys, turned to ghosts.”

“I said it would inspire you.”

“Pff, just description, sterile imaginings.” A flick of his hand threw it away.

“A lot of-” But then the sleeping-car attendant noticed two of his charges were awake and came along the corridor to assure them that the train would move on at any moment. Meanwhile, could he bring them anything? D’Annunzio politely deflected the question to Corinna. She shook her head. “Not for me.”

“Ni moi, merci – un moment: vous n’avez-pas des cigarettes?”

The attendant hadn’t a stock, but happily gave d’Annunzio one of his own, lit it for him and said good-night. D’Annunzio took a cautious drag, stifled a cough, and murmured: “Horrible. Truly horrible. I smoke only weak cigarettes and not often, but tonight I am restless . . .”

Corinna eyed him cautiously, having a clear idea of what men got restless for on night trains. Women, too, she admitted, in view of last night. And as for ocean liners . . .

D’Annunzio took another careful puff. “You are saying?”

What had she been saying? Yes. “Just that a lot of good poetry is description and recollection.”

“Most often by your English poets – if you also claim them as your own. But for me, I am tired of just describing. It is not enough.” He paused, then went on thoughtfully: “To make people say ‘I recognise’ or ‘I remember’ no longer satisfies me. And even when my words are spoken by a great voice and spirit – I have heard Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse make audiences weep with my words . . . but I have doubts. Here, at this hour, in this ante-room to the Inferno, I doubt my own words. Was it those words – or those voices? Would the audience have wept if Duse had read a railway timetable?”

Curious, Corinna asked bluntly: “Are you jealous of actresses?”

“Envy, envy – it is the great Italian sin. In a world of riches and power, we have only beauty and envy.” He dropped the unfinished cigarette on the floor and was about to stamp it out, then realised his slippers were too thin, and kicked it aside.

“A lot of countries have only got the envy,” she said diplomatically.

He didn’t take it as diplomacy, and snapped: “Italy is not a lot of countries! It is Italy – of Rome and Dante and Venice and Michelangelo . . . And one day I will speak words worthy of them, not in the theatre but in the world, that will rouse Italy again to her true glory. I feel it, that I am alive at this time to do this.”

Startled by his sudden passion, Corinna looked away, through the window. A hunched figure swinging a lantern trudged up the track, going quietly about his job, probably with no idea of how it fitted into the complexity of the shunting yard. And probably content with that. “There’s a lot of people around Europe, quite enough already, I’d think, giving speeches like that-”

“Then Italy deserves the finest and most rousing.”

“D’you mean war?” she asked flatly.

“Yes.” He stood four-square, facing and challenging her. She looked at him for a moment, then turned to the window again and began speaking quietly.

“I know a soldier – an artillery officer. He fought for the Greeks in Macedonia last year, and told me something about it. Mostly it was mud and cold and marching and being hungry and scared. Just moments of excitement, then the same thing only now with men dying of gangrene with no medical aid. And finally – not in his area, thank God – typhus, too, so the ones who lived to go home found they were kept out of their own villages. In the end, you got all the Four Horsemen. He believed it could happen all over Europe.” She looked at him. “To your beautiful Italy, too.”

D’Annunzio seemed unmoved, but nodded to show he had understood. “No. Your friend fought only in a peasant brawl. Serbians, Bulgarians, what do they know of modern war? Even the Greeks – and I love Greece – they cannot be Romans. True war, our war, will indeed be terrible, but it will be quick. Quick as an aeroplane, as a torpedo, as a bullet is quick. And the suffering will be terrible, worse than anyone can imagine. But true courage is to know this and still to go into the fire, seeking to be destroyed – or cleansed and made free and strong once more. Because only the strongest will survive, only a Dante may come back from the Inferno. That is the justice of war. It will be the . . . the . . . crucible that will create our new leaders, to sweep away the old feeble ones elected by bribes from the Camorra.”

She couldn’t argue about the length of any future war; a lot of people believed it would, must, be quickly over. But: “A lot of your bravest and best are going to be the first to get killed. And your crooked politicians and gang bosses aren’t going to get anywhere near a bullet. Be careful they aren’t the only ones left to be your leaders.”

“The fire will destroy many, but it will make more strong those who live. And the people who have been through the fire also, they will never be led by any others.”

His voice stumbled and strained against the barricade of a foreign language, but that only added to his sincerity. And she saw, bursting through the shell of self-indulgence and disrepute, the attraction of the man. Sure he loved himself, but mostly for what he believed he could do, in his art, in his patriotism. He was reaching outside himself, and not always for the nearest woman.

They just come with the mail, she thought, reining in her admiration. So she said in her mildest tone: “Forgive me asking, but had you any specific enemy in mind? – or just a good old war?”

He seemed about to reply, then clamped his mouth shut. And then he said: “Flying machines – such as your brother has made. You have seen the lion in the Piazza San Marco? You remember it has wings? I, Gabriele d’Annunzio, shall give him wings again. I vow it.”

Corinna sat for a while on her bed, picking over their conversation as if summarising it for a report to her father. There was no doubting the sincerity of d’Annunzio’s patriotism any more than its power. It was a smart move to harness that to selling the Oriole. But she had to remember the Falcones were up to something else, something that interested Ranklin and the Bureau. Something that had brought assassins to London. She could only pray they were separate deals – and keep an eagle eye open for a connection.

A couple of hundred miles ahead of them, Ranklin sat on the edge of his non-de luxe sleeper bed and lit a cigarette. He disapproved of smoking in bed, so sitting up was his compromise, despite the Alpine chill. The cigarette was to stop thoughts prowling restlessly through his head and it wasn’t working.

He was glad to be heading out on a new task; such jobs were the core of his new trade. But he was also scared he would find Trieste as recent newspapers drew it: flourishing and prosperous rather than discontented and yearning to riot. And the idea of handing out revolutionary pamphlets at shipyard gates didn’t fit with his image of Senator Falcone. It lacked flamboyance; something was missing.

Did Dagner know what that missing something was? Or had he got his teeth too firmly into his ‘mission’? That wasn’t a good position from which to see the whole picture. And the business of Dagner’s wife . . . Spies are liars; they have to be. But not when they’re so easily proven wrong, like whether their wives are alive or dead. So perhaps his superior hadn’t so much been been lying as . . . as what? No answer he could think of promised him a good night’s sleep.