The Sword and the Net

11 LOS ROBLES: Final Phase

The days passed, and the nights, and he kept to his purpose. He ate and slept and rigidly kept his mind from futile maelstrom-racing and in everything obeyed the doctor’s orders: he even invented exercises for the unhurt muscles of his torso and carried them out with secrecy and grew nearer to health and wholeness at astonishing pace.

But he did not tell Clare that now he could sleep at any time he wished and without fear of dreams. He did not tell her this because, if he did, she would not sit with him every night until either he slept or pretended to sleep. There was a constraint between them now: it had begun after the visitors had left, and it had progressed increasingly as his determination for utter recovery grew with each day more iron-clad. He knew it was there and he knew that it hurt her as it was hurting him. But he steeled himself to disregard it until the answer should come to him. Until he had the answer, he was not living, and until he lived he must not have dealings with any matter so vital to him as Clare. He tried to explain it to her once, without explaining. He said:

“If I seem strange, it is because I am in . . . in a sort of . . . of . . .” The words were difficult to find. “In a sort of shell. That is while I am growing well. Then I can . . . can put the shell away.”

It did not seem to interest her much. She said she understood—and that was as far as it went, except that he had for the first time a vague thought, too nebulous to be termed suspicion, that perhaps the constraint was not entirely of his own causing.

But he dismissed the thought—and sank wholly back within the armoured shell again and inside it went on mending.

Dr. Brandt was delighted, and made no secret of his amazement.

“Wonderful specimen!” he said to Ingolls. “Wonderful physique! And hard! We don’t breed ’em that hard over here, more’s the pity in these days! Ninety-five men out of a hundred would’ve died with what that lad took. And just look at him!”

That was the day before they cut the casts off his legs and found them in far better condition than they had hoped. They gave him metal splints then, and in a few days yet lighter ones in which presently, so the doctor said, he could even walk a little.

He smiled at the doctor and said nothing—but within ten minutes of Brandt’s leaving there came to Lena’s ears, as she worked in the living-room below, a curious shuffling, bumping sound from above her head. She sped up the stairs and arrived, breathless, to find her Mizr Johnson incredibly out of bed and upon his feet and in the middle of the room. He was holding to the back of a chair—and, as she squealed in horrified amazement, he grinned at her, as she told afterwards, “f’m year to year, like a child among a melon-patch!”

In two more days he went down the stairs for the first time. He was helped by the balusters and a stick, impeded by the hoverings of Clare and Lena and John the ‘outside man’ and even Waldemar Ingolls himself. But he was sure and careful, and in two more days was making the slow journey, both up and down, with none worrying about his safety.

The constraint between himself and Clare grew worse now that he was a freer agent. Perhaps, although they were both wary, it was noted by others; perhaps not. There was no way to tell—and with the conviction growing daily stronger that he would soon be in a condition to face himself with the problem and determine the answer to it, he took no trouble to find out. He was coming, gradually, out of the shell He knew that—and waited. The signs were various, but first among them was the reaction which he felt to mention of the Texas oil disaster. He had made himself numb at first, and successfully, but now, as he hobbled on walking-splints and stick about the house and listened three times at least a day to the vehemence of Waldemar Ingolls, his torment grew and he began, however sternly he ordered his mind not to dwell upon it, to think about Altinger’s Plan Six, due now in less than eight short weeks; the Sixth ‘Attack’ beside which all others would pale into third-rate insignificance. When he thought of this he sweated, and even, once or twice, was persuaded by emotion to wrestle with the problem, while knowing that yet he was not ready. . . .

Then there arrived, utterly without warning, the night which was to mark the end of waiting and indecision and retreat within armour. A fantastic, undreamt-of, incredible night.

Clare was out with friends, and Otto and Waldemar Ingolls dined alone. They enjoyed the food and drank more wine with it than usual and Ingolls did most of the talking. But it was good talk—and Otto found, with a sudden amazement, that he was actively and pleasantly aware of immediate existence: the shell had broken and been pulled away.

Ingolls did a strange thing. He looked suddenly at Otto across the table, and he suddenly smiled, and he said:

“So the chrysalis has cracked! We will now proceed to get very slightly drunk.”

Otto stared but said nothing. He only half-understood the words and was not sure enough of their astonishing implication. He studied the other man covertly, and saw him, despite his age, erect and strong and happy; vigorous and with a life as full as he made it, commanding and vital and intelligent, with a quality about him at the same time unfathomable and familiar.

“Yes,” said Ingolls firmly. “Very slightly, and very decorously, drunk.”

He gave an order to Lena and led the way into the room which he called library and everyone else in the house his study. It was a very pleasant place: all the southern wall was windows through which the garden and the oaks beyond it seemed impossibly to give ever-changing vistas; there were books from floor to ceiling; there were water-colours of ships and a lovely head in oils of Clare as a child; there were deep chairs of leather and the biggest writing-table Otto had ever seen; there were pipe-racks and cigars and a sheep-dog which lay before the hearth and ashtrays everywhere within reach and a single silver bowl of roses and two inkwells made of gold-mounted horses’ hoofs. And now there was Lena with a tray which bore bubble-goblets and a strangely shaped bottle: she set it down upon a table near Ingolls’ chair and then turned quickly to hover solicitous about Otto as he set down his stick and lowered himself into another great chair and carefully arranged his legs before him, the jointed splints clanking weirdly beneath his trousers.

And then Lena was gone and Ingolls was pouring great golden splashes into the goblets. He smiled at Otto and they drank after warming the smooth glass in their palms, and Ingolls began to talk again and Otto listened carefully, but was conscious all the while that the time of healing was over and that he could now, so soon as he was alone, begin work upon the finding of the answer.

Ingolls was talking about his work, and the talk was of interest and Otto was conscious that he was glad of the respite which was being forced upon him; glad to enjoy this hour when he must not think of his problem; glad that he was here in this place with this man; glad of the brandy; glad to glance every once in a while at the picture of the child Clare; glad to pretend for this little time that he was what Ingolls thought him to be. He said:

“I know that your work is . . . is in connection with the farmers, but I do not know exactly what it is.”

Ingolls laughed. He stood up and lifted the bottle and poured more into the glasses. On the hearth, the dog lifted its head and followed him with its eyes and then, satisfied, put the head down again.

“I’ll tell you what we call it,” Ingolls said. “It’s resounding. We call it Advisory Agricultural Expert—or rather, I do.”

Otto sipped at his brandy. He said, slowly:

“Advisory Agricultural Expert.” He savoured the last word: all of his training made it impressive. “You must have studied for a long time the . . . the scientific aspects of the business of farming.”

Again Ingolls laughed. He said:

“You make it sound very important. And very difficult. It isn’t. It’s a technical profession, and quite a lot of fun because there aren’t many people in it yet and I manage, with a lot of clients and a couple of patents and some Government work, to make quite a bit of money at it. Have some brandy?”

He poured more into Otto’s glass and then his own. He was feeling, very evidently, well pleased with life and Otto and himself.

Otto said: “You have done this . . . this agricultural work since you were a young man?” He was very careful with his words. He was feeling the liquor and was glad of the sensation. He was also genuinely interested, the way he always had been in other men’s lives if these were active.

Ingolls was tilting his goblet. He said, when he set it down:

“I was born in a farming country. Then I left it for a while. Then I came back to it. Drink up, man; you’re very slow.” He stood suddenly and crossed to a far corner of the room. The dog lifted its head again and watched him. He opened a cupboard below the book-shelves and found an album of recordings and busied himself with the radio cabinet and in a moment there was music filling the quietness of the room; the gay, romantically martial music of Offenbach as welded and blended for the ballet called Gaité Parisienne.

Otto forgot about farming. He swayed his glass in time to the vivid opening and then drank and then kept the beat with head and hand as the carefree, toy-soldier chorus slid into the sabre-swinging sweetness of the next melody, irresistibly calling to a man’s mind a wish-picture of himself, having conquered worlds, laying them at the feet of a maiden who could safely be depended upon to return them accompanied by her own delightful person.

The dog lowered its head and slept again as Ingolls came back. He lifted the bottle again and looked across at Otto with raised eyebrows and a smile and then did not wait for any yes or no but poured a bigger libation than any. The music went on, alternately militant and romantic, bacchanal and nostalgic, but always and inevitably gay and courageous and inspiriting.

Ingolls said: “That’s music. It does things to you! They say it’s just operetta stuff—but it fills you with all the sort of ridiculous, lovely thoughts you haven’t had since you were a boy and the world was a damned sight better place to live in. By God, it makes you want to go back, not so much to your own boyhood as your grandfather’s!” His dark eyes were glittering and there was a half-smile at the corners of his strong mouth and his body was as straight as that of the boy he was dreaming of. He said:

“Jacques Offenbach! D’you know what his blood was? He was a German Jew. That always strikes me as peculiarly illustrative of something or the other which I can’t remember just now. Have another drink?”

The music ceased for a moment. There was a soft mechanical whirring as the record changed, and then began the second of the four parts and the room was refilled with melody.

Otto’s head was buzzing, slightly and delightfully. He drank from the great glass again and smiled up at his host. But Ingolls was not looking at him; he was standing with his head half-turned towards the music. There was the most extraordinary expression, Otto suddenly realized, upon his face. He said, to no one:

“Dolmans and dress-spurs and busbies carried underneath your arm. . . . And war was brutal but with a gentleman’s brutality. . . .” He lifted his glass and did not sip at it but drained it and then poured more into it and still did not look at Otto. He crossed towards the machine and lifted its lid as if to cut off the music and then seemed to change his mind and closed it again. The dog got to its feet and padded across the room and thrust its nose into his hand.

The record came to an end—and in the little interval of its changing Ingolls spoke. He said, in a voice which brought Otto out of reverie with a shock:

“I’ll give you a toast, Jorgensen. Drink it with me—if you can. It’s a toast to my country.” He raised his glass: his face was set in hard, grooved lines and he was an old man. He said:

“To the loveliest land of them all—to my country—to Germany!”

He said:

“I mean the land and not its present rulers, nor the robot-parrots they have made from children. I mean the quiet, lovely country and the men and women it breeds if you leave them alone. . . .

“Ingolls is only half the name I was born with. My name was Walter Bruno Waldemar von Ingolstadt. I was a soldier. During the war of ’14-’18 I was first a Colonel, then a Brigade Commander, then at the head of a Division. I was the youngest Divisional Commander in the armies of the Kaiser. I was on the Russian front for a little while, but mostly in Belgium and France. I had a good division. In it there were fifteen thousand officers and men—and two senses of humour, mine and the staff cook’s. . . .

“Germany went rotten—from the inside, at the top. That is the way she always goes rotten, and it is because in the main her people are a grave, simple people who are the most credulous and trusting in the world and instinctively give their support and obedience to anyone who tells them, rudely and violently and constantly enough, that he is their proper ruler. Such a man used to need blue blood until aristocracy went out of fashion and now he must have none. But the principle remains the same. It is perhaps due to a national lack of any sense of proportion, which is perhaps the same thing as a lack of humour. . . .

“Germany went rotten and the war stopped. It was a mistake in the first place. But when it was over the victors made a series of far, far worse mistakes. They wanted no more war—and were misguided enough as to impose the very sort of conditions upon Germany which would ensure, sooner or later, the rapid virus-breeding of a fresh war spirit, a naturally revengeful, turn-of-the-worm-and-tables spirit all blooming and ready after a very few years to be taken hold of by the first power-hungry loudmouth who happened to come along. . . .

“So he came along—and most decent Germans were either destroyed or ran away or became converted and no longer decent. I myself was already away. I was here, in America. I came here immediately after the last war finished, as soon as I saw what economic conditions were going to be in Germany. There was nothing left of my lands and property, nothing worth having—and although I was tough and hard, my wife was not. She was a gentle person, and I could not face the thought of her fighting through the years of misery and starvation which I knew were ahead.

“So I came here, to America. I had nothing, and I was forty-three years old. But I was strong and free here and could use my body and brains. Farming was in my blood as much or more than soldiering. My family’s land in Bavaria was farm land, and for a long time the head of the family had also been the feudal head of three hundred farmers and the master farmer of them all. . . .

“I stayed here, and made enough money, and my wife died in childbirth and I brought up my daughter. I was still a German at heart and even in nationality. And then, in the early ’30’s, I went back—ostensibly on business, but really to see whether what I had been hearing about the New Party was true; to see, in fact, whether I could not become a real German again, living and working in Germany.

“But what I found brought me back quickly to this country once more and made me become, as fast as I could, an American. I am only a German now with my body which was born in Germany. In law and in my head I am an American—but that does not stop me from being sad about Germany—or from hating the cretinous megalomaniacs who rule her and who are storing up against her such vast batteries of hatred that she may never have a chance again to be her easy and beautiful and rather stupid self. . . .

“I used sometimes to feel that I had been a coward and lacking in duty to run away from Germany that second time instead of staying with her and being one more right-thinking German to oppose the new and rabid power. But I do not think that I was: the power was too powerful, and too rabid, to be opposed without at least an equal force. It is so powerful that it will have to be destroyed, in the very end, by a steady opposition from without which will not so much defeat it as give time for it to be defeated by the increasing velocity of its own hysteric, unreal momentum. . . .

“I had two friends who stayed. One of them was won over by the hysteria and now is a madman himself. The other tried to fight them. They broke him into shattered, jarring pieces beneath the outside husk. They ‘questioned’ him. For a long time. And again and again. And finally, through some political misunderstanding, they released him and threw what was left of him away and it was possible for friends to smuggle him out of the country. He is in America now. He is not more than two hundred miles from this house, in the kind of ‘sanatorium’ that should properly be called a lunatic asylum. I say ‘he’—but the thing I saw is not a man, even structurally. . . .

“And I say that my way was the better—for in this war, at last and for the first time in history, it seems to me that the issue has gone beyond the somewhat adolescent exhibition of team-spirit which we call patriotism and has become one of ideology: that at last, and after centuries of pretending, all the men in the world are divided into two camps and are fighting, not for this religion or that piece of ground or the other lump of gold, but for their beliefs in the matter of how Man shall govern and conduct himself. . . .

“So I am glad that I didn’t stay with him and fight uselessly and become, because I was defeated, an asset to them instead of a danger. I am glad that I came here to this old land which is new for men and swore allegiance to it. I am glad because, in doing so, I have sworn allegiance to a way of life and thought which, however much it may have become obscured and overlaid by pettiness of thought and doing in peaceful times, is beginning to show stronger and clearer with every day of this strife. . . .

“I am too old to fight as a soldier—but I am not too old to fight, and I tell you that every man or woman or child, whether or not a member of any organized body or army, who lives his life here and thinks his own free thoughts and carries on his work and is opposed in everything he does to any form of tyranny—I say that that one is fighting, is at least a part of the right, slow, deep-rooted force which will stem the wrong, wild force at last and make it destroy itself. . . .

“But every man must be at least something of a sentimentalist—and while I hate the present rulers and doctrines of my first country with a far greater hate than would be possible to any man of any other nationality, I still give you the toast of Germany. To the Germany of green, fat fields and slow, winding rivers; the Germany of Beethoven and Blücher; of Rhenish wine and Wagner; of Württemberg and the Black Forest; of Grimm and Handel and Frederick’s Hussars; of my father and my mother and my wife. . . .”

Otto said:

“I will drink to that Germany with you.”

He put his hands upon the broad arms of his chair and raised himself and stood upright and tottered a little and then arranged his cumbersome legs and rested one hand upon the back of another chair while Ingolls watched him and did not make the mistake of offering help.

They raised their glasses and drank. The room was very quiet and through the windows, as an underline to silence, drifted the croaking chorus of the frogs.

They set down their glasses, and the dog by Ingolls’ side padded softly back to his place upon the hearth and lay.

And Otto climbed the stairs to his room. He was in bed when he heard the sound of Clare’s returning car—but when she came softly in, he feigned deep and untroubled sleep.

He had the answer to his problem now. He knew what he must do—but the manner of his doing it must be plotted. . . .

He slept for only four hours, but when he waked Lena had already finished her work about the room and it was nearing eleven. He dragged himself from the bed and bathed and shaved and clothed himself and was finished with his breakfast when Clare paid her morning visit.

She looked at him with a smile which seemed careful, and her eyes did not meet his for more than an instant. She said:

“You look all right. How d’you feel?” Her voice was determinedly light, and Otto realized, without remembering, that it must have been this way now for many days.

He said: “I am very well. Fine!” and tried to make her look at him, but failed.

“I’ve been talking to my parent,” she said. “He has a hangover.” She was busy with a cigarette box-upon the mantel now, checking its contents.

Otto levered himself to his feet. He stood upon the splints without swaying and made up his mind and moved forward, tor the first time, without his stick. She wheeled as he moved and her eyes widened in sudden alarm. She said:

“Oh, be careful!” and came forward as if to support him and then backed away a step as she found him close to her and holding with one hand to the mantel-shelf. He said:

“I am all right! Quite all right. I have been . . . strange, I know—but that is over now. I . . . there was a . . . a thing which was worrying my mind. A problem which I did not know how to deal with. But I know now. I wished to tell you that.”

She said: “I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about,” and still did not meet his eyes.

“I am well now,” he said. “And I know the answer to my problem and I will tell it to you soon. To you and your father. But before—now—there is this.”

He took her by the shoulder with his free hand. Beneath the thin silk of her blouse her flesh was firm and alive and coolly warm.

She looked at him now, into his eyes. She looked as if she were afraid, but she did not drop her gaze, and in her eyes he saw again the recognition.

He was very close to her, towering above her. His grip was strong upon her shoulder and it seemed that the blood which was coursing through her body was flowing into his body through his hand.

He lowered his head and she tilted her head back and their mouths touched and a bright flame, bliss and agony inextricably blended, transfixed him.

His eyes closed and he swayed. He steadied himself and opened them again and she was gone. He looked down in amazement at the hand which had held her; it felt as if it were still touching her.

He told them after dinner that night. She and her father sat by the open french windows of the long, low-ceilinged living-room and he came in to them and stood rather stiffly to face them both, braced upon his stick. Ingolls started to say something—and then saw his face and was silent, and Clare drew in her breath with a small, startled, sibilant sound. He said:

“There is something which I have to tell you. I am not what you think I am. I am a serving officer of the German Army. I am on duty, but not in uniform. My name is not Nils Jorgensen but Otto Falken. I was not a passenger upon the train which was derailed: I was in charge of the . . . the working party which was responsible for the derailing.”

There came a strangled little sound from Clare—and then silence. Father and daughter stared steadily up at him. His mouth was dry, and he had to moisten his lips with his tongue before the words world come easily again. He said:

“There is a very great reason why I am telling you this. It is that my mind has changed. I am no longer loyal to the Reich and my oath of service. I am of opposing opinion. My mind began to change at the very beginning of this new duty I was given—or even before that, I think; but I did not know it I did not know it rightly until after I was hurt and was here.”

He paused, and still Ingolls did not speak and watched him. And Clare’s eyes were fixed upon him too. He could feel them. She said, very quietly and as if she did not know she were speaking:

“Oh, God! . . . Oh, my God!”

Then Ingolls spoke. His voice, amazingly, was his ordinary voice. He said:

“The Vulcania? You were aboard her, weren’t you? Or was that some sort of a cooked-up story?”

“Yes,” Otto said. “Yes, I was aboard her. I was Nils Jorgensen, a carpenter’s mate; the only thing that was . . . was arranged was my being taken aboard. I do not know how—but they are very clever.”

Clare spoke to him. If she had not been in his sight, he could not have known her voice. She said:

“The story about the English woman and the boy and your keeping them afloat all that time?”

“That was true.” Otto looked straight in front of him. “I . . . we were together when we jumped from the ship. The boy found our way to get off. He was . . . a good boy. I tried to save him and his mother.”

There was a long silence, and in it no one moved.

“The train,” said Ingolls Suddenly. “Did you plan that and carry it out?”

Otto said: “It was planned and the charge placed and the . . . the beginning work done by my superior officer. But he could not be there on the final day—and I was commanding the work-party. I was . . . involved in the wreck because a man had left something near the track and it might have been dangerous to be found and I tried to recover it.”

Clare spoke again. Her face was hidden from him by the hand which was over her brow. She said:

“That terrible thing in Texas? That dreadful oil fire? Did you . . .”

This time he did not let her finish. He said:

“That was . . . had nothing of my work in it. It was my superior officer—the same man. I have had . . .” He fumbled and lost his words and sentence and breathed deeply and started again. “I should explain that my work was more than being assistant to my super—to this man. It was double work. He is suspected of having ambitions for himself which are not liked by the ones above him, and my main duty was to report secretly upon him while being his aide—his lieutenant. . . . I do not explain it well but perhaps you will understand.”

Ingolls said: “We’re starting at the wrong end, Clare.” He looked at his daughter and she turned her face towards him but did not speak. “We’re behaving like children,” he said. “He tells us two astounding facts—first, that he is in this country as a Nazi agent—or ‘officer’ as he calls it—and second he says that he has decided that he no longer believes in Naziism. And we are so flabbergasted by the whole thing, like a pair of kids, that we just grip on to the first one—which is far less important.” He continued to look at Clare while he spoke but Otto could feel that the words were as much for him.

“We were carried away by the hope,” Ingolls said, “that the snake we’ve been nourishing in our bosom hadn’t been poisoning our friends. We had to try and prove that to ourselves. But let’s stop that nonsense right now! Let’s ask him questions which really matter.” He looked at Otto now, still standing stiffly above him. He said:

“Falken, did you say your name was? Falken: Why did you change? What, if you have changed, are you going to do about it? And in any and either case, what did you tell us for? Why—if you have changed and this isn’t some trick—did you put yourself and us in this ungodly position? Why didn’t you say nothing about it and get well and say thank you and leave and work out your unfortunate destiny in some private way?”

Otto met the hard, grey, unreadable eyes without retreat. He said:

“I changed because I have found out that what I was taught is lies. I can explain more if you wish, but it will take me very long and if you do not believe me now you will not if I say more. But it is true.”

He waited, and Ingolls said: “Go on!”

“I know what I am going to do—but I will answer that afterwards. And I told you because . . . because . . .”

He stopped. He had been ready. He had known the words he was going to say—but they had gone.

Clare got suddenly to her feet. “I know why,” she said to her father, and wheeled away from the group and the soft circle of light about the chairs and stood somewhere in the shadow.

Ingolls peered after her. “So!” His voice was without expression.

Otto plunged, not knowing whether or not he had been grateful for the interruption. He said:

“There is another reason . . .” and could have cut out his tongue for the word ‘another,’ and checked only a little and went on: “There is one reason why I told you: it is weak and I am not proud to give it. It is that I would like your opinion, sir, upon what I . . . upon the decision I have made to do. And especially is that so after what you have told me last night.” The English words were playing tricks with him now and he feared that he had not made sense with them but knew he could not do better. He swayed a little upon the splints and angrily called his body to attention.

Ingolls stood up. He pointed to his chair and said: “Sit,” in a manner which gave no room for protest.

Otto lowered himself into the chair. He felt weak and shaking and was angry with his body. He saw that Ingolls had stepped out of the light now and in the shadows was standing beside the dim straight figure of Clare. A murmuring came to his ears but no word.

And then Ingolls was back in the light, standing over him.

“I don’t know,” Ingolls said, “whether I want to hear what you’re going to do.”

He might have said more, but his daughter spoke before he could continue. She came back into the light and stood beside him, but with her back to Otto in the chair. She said:

“Of course you don’t want to hear! Why should you? It’ll only be more difficult for you to do what you have to do!” Her voice still did not sound to Otto’s ears like her own.

Ingolls said: “And why shouldn’t I hear what he’s got to say? We’ve listened so far; why no farther?”

Clare said: “Because we’re Americans,” and then cut her speech off abruptly. Otto could see her shoulders move to the labour of her breathing.

Ingolls said: “You mean that it’s our duty to report what he’s told us—that he’s what they call a fifth columnist?” His voice, as Otto noted with a dull surprise which pierced even through the bodily fatigue and mental stress which seemed at every moment to be upon the point ot overpowering him, was still his usual voice.

Clare said: “You know very well what I mean!” and turned away and went quickly out of the light again.

Ingolls sat down upon the arm of the chair next to Otto’s and leaned forward and looked into Otto’s face. He said:

“You realized all this before you said anything. You knew we were Americans—and you knew what our feelings were. You must have known that we should at least think it our duty to hand you over—I was going to say as a spy, but I’ll have to change the word to ‘saboteur.’”

“Yes,” Otto said, “I had thought that would be what you must feel.”

Ingolls said: “What else did you think, then? Or is that what you want?” He said the last sentence incredulously, and Otto could feel the grey eyes upon him.

A small, stifled sound came from the shadows behind his chair and he wanted to turn and leap to his feet tod take Clare into his arms. But he sat still and did not turn his head. He said carefully:

“I think you know that is not what I want. And you know, too, that you would be doing nothing for your country or your cause if you did now make them arrest me.”

Clare’s voice said something from the darkness behind him and Ingolls looked toward the sound as he spoke. He said:

“That’s true! If this one says he won’t talk, he won’t—not for all the cigarette-ends and rubber hose in America.” He swung around upon Otto. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

Otto said: “That is what I mean.”

Ingolls spoke to his daughter again. “This conversion: do you believe him?”

“Yes,” said Clare’s voice from the shadows. “Yes!” and Otto started as if someone had struck him.

Ingolls said: “So do I.” He faced Otto again and seemed about to speak, but then was silent for a long moment.

“Clare!” he said at last. “Come here.”

She came slowly into the light and stood beside him. He took her by the arm and pushed her gently into the chair beside Otto’s and then himself sat upon the arm of it with a hand upon her shoulder. He said to Otto:

“Tell us what you plan to do?”

Otto sat forward a little. He gripped his hands, one over the other, between his knees. He said:

“Very well. I will not use the names of places or people, but I will tell you.”

He finished—and a heavy silence seemed to hang about him. No one spoke or moved until Ingolls got to his feet and went to the table at the rim of the circle of light and busied himself with decanter and glasses and came back with a tumbler which he thrust in Otto’s hands.

“Drink that,” he said.

Otto drank, gratefully—and the silence still persisted, until Ingolls broke it.

“Before you began to talk,” he said, “I couldn’t see any way out for you; but that makes sense, Falken.”

Clare said: “It does not! It’s wrong, wrong!”

Otto did not turn his head to look at her. He felt numb and empty of strength and thought.

But Ingolls looked at her and shook his head. “No! It’s not wrong!” he said. “It’s right!”

Clare said: “It isn’t! It’s . . . it’s a frightened compromise. It’s neither one thing nor the other. It’s wrong!”

“Why?” said Otto heavily. “Why is it wrong? I do not understand you.” His voice sounded lifeless and far away in his own ears. And it surprised him: he had not known that he was going to speak.

“Nor do I!” said her father, and his voice was sharper than Otto had heard it towards his daughter.

She stood up, with an abrupt and sudden movement. She turned and faced her father, looking up at him. Her hands were locked in front of her, their fingers twisting about each other. She said:

“I believe him when he says he’s . . . he’s converted. But can’t he see—can’t you see—that what he proposes to do isn’t the best thing for his . . . his new cause? It’s all muddled up with silly notions about his own pride and . . . and . . .”

“Loyalties,” Ingolls said, and then was silent again.

Clare said: “There’s only one thing he can do—must do! And that’s to get in touch, immediately, with Washington and tell them everything—all the names and plans and whereabouts of the whole horrible organization. That’s the only right way!”

Otto tried to look at her but could not. His legs ached almost unendurably, and he shifted his weight uneasily in his chair.

Ingolls said: “You don’t understand, Clare. You don’t understand at all.”

Clare blazed at him “Don’t talk like that—as if I were some idiotic child! Don’t you realize that what he’s proposing to do is first of all suicide for him and secondly absolutely useless to . . . to America? Can’t you see that? If he’s so torn between his new duty and his old loyalties perhaps he does want to kill himself—but not this way he suggests—it’s a mixture of Galahad and Quixote and . . . and Hitler! And it’s treachery to what he believes in now!”

Amazingly, incongruously, Ingolls suddenly laughed. “You’re a good advocate, my child, but you should have a better case!”

The laughter died from his face and voice as quickly and astonishingly as it had come, and Otto, who had looked at him in wonderment, saw him again and with fresh surprise as an old man.

But Clare had not finished. “Don’t let him, Daddy, don’t let him!” Her voice was rising now and there were tears in it. “He’ll do what you say if you’ll only make him! He wanted your advice! Tell him what’s right—not to mind about his personal little prides and feelings, but to tell everything, now, to people who can just . . . just stamp out this whole ‘secret army’ he keeps talking about and crush it out of existence and make America safe!”

She whirled in a flash of movement and for the first time faced Otto and looked at him and spoke to him. Her face was pale beneath the golden tan and drawn with the passion of belief and the desire to force his mind to the shape of hers. She spoke with a sort of quivering, hushed intensity which plucked cruelly at the strings of Otto’s heart. She said:

“Do you know what and when and where the next . . . atrocity is going to be? The next huge sabotage, like the Texas oil fire? Do you? You hinted, but I want it straight. Do you know?”

Otto said: “Yes. I know.” His tongue was stiff and the words came heavily. “But my plan—if I work right—my plan would be in time for that to be prevented. That is the reason that I must be well and ready in three weeks. I . . .”

But she would not let him go on. Her eyes blazed at him and she said: “Stop! Oh, stop!” and wheeled upon her father.

She said: “Did you hear that? Did you? He knows that some horror’s going to happen and that it would certainly be prevented if he told everything! And he also knows that if he carries out this fantastic ‘plan’ of his, it’s a hundred to one he’ll be . . . be killed and the horror will happen. . . .”

She stopped suddenly as her father put gentle hands upon her shoulders. Her body was shaking.

“Clare!” said Ingolls. “Clare, listen to me. You’re talking common sense, but this is an uncommon problem. You sound logical—but the basis of your logic’s not quite right. It’s too narrow, and not nearly deep enough!”

He stopped, looking down into his daughter’s face. He smiled at her and put a sudden arm around her and swept her to the chair beside Otto’s and set her down in it. He said:

“Here’s a man who’s been on the wrong side and wants to change over and join the decent men. Now, you’re saying the very first thing he should do is to betray his former fellow officers. You say they’re so evil and the decent men are so good, that even this course is not only justifiable but right.” He lowered his head to look closely at her face. “That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

She nodded. She was crumpled up in the big chair. She looked very small.

“But,” said her father, “there are some things you’ve forgotten. I won’t say you never knew them, because you’ve lived with me for a long time now. You’ve forgotten, first, that this man couldn’t betray fellow officers. And you’ve forgotten that, if he could, he wouldn’t be the sort of man we’d want on this side. There’s a word which nowadays seems to offend a great many people: they think it’s a purely fairy-tale quality connected only with Knights and Dragons and Women’s Virtue, but it’s a hell of a lot more than this; it summarizes the difference between the decent way and the other way. It’s the word honour. . . .”

Clare twisted her body uneasily. “But . . .” she began, and was cut short.

“Wait!” said Ingolls. “Now the Nazis, as a deliberate part of their policy, have thrown honour away: they make promise after promise in order to break their word at the most advantageous moment for themselves and their plans. The decent men, on the other hand, don’t do that and never will—so that individual men fighting for decency must have individual honour. Don’t you see that, Clare? Don’t you see that what he’s told us is the only thing he can do?”

Otto levered himself to his feet. Without his stick, he went to Ingolls on slow and clumsy but unwavering feet. He said:

“Thank you, sir,” and held out his hand.

Clare’s voice came from behind them. It was very low. She said:

“I . . . it was those people I was thinking about . . . those people who may be killed. . . .”

Ingolls turned towards her, but he laid a hand on Otto’s shoulder as he did so, and he smiled as he spoke.

“Don’t worry, Clare,” he said. “I don’t think he’ll let that happen. I think his grand, crazy scheme is going to work. I think he’s going to make it work, although it seems impossible.”

He dropped his hand from Otto’s shoulder and suddenly moved away. He paused behind his daughter’s chair and bent down and lightly kissed the gleaming dark hair. He said:

“I’ll be in the library. Have some letters to write,” and was gone.

Otto looked after him and was about to speak but did not. He looked at Clare, and saw that she was huddled in the big chair, her feet drawn up beneath her and her head averted from him. She was very still, and very small. He checked an instinctive movement towards her and stumped across to the other chair and picked up his stick and as softly as he could began to make his slow way through the shadows to the door.

He had almost reached it when there came a swift, murmuring rush of feet and she was beside him and a hand was laid upon his arm. She said:

“Nils!” and her voice was hushed and uneven, and she caught him by the shoulders and suddenly all of her body was pressed against his body and she slid an arm behind his head and pulled it down toward hers and he felt her mouth against his and there was the salt of tears upon his lips and she was gone.