White Eagles Over Serbia (6 page)

Methuen turned the ugly little book over in his hands. “Go on,” he said.

“Funny thing,” said Carter. “Probably has nothing to do with the case, but I found one passage which looked as if it might have been marked by Peter. Let me show you.” But he could not find it immediately. “It's about white eagles. Now there is something else which is baffling. Peter did tell me that he was making some progress, and that he had discovered an underground Royalist opposition which called itself Society of the White Eagles. You know of course that the white eagle is the old Serbian Royalist emblem. But he wouldn't tell me anything or write anything down until he had it all cleared up.”

“White eagles,” said Methuen reflectively. “May I keep this book awhile? I suppose you have no clue as to where he slept? Did he mention a cave? There is a network of caves along the gorges of the Studenitsa river which would make an excellent hide-out.”

“No. I gathered he slept in a forest. There were pine-needles stuck in his clothes. His wallet with some money and a few flies was also in his clothes when they brought him in.”

“Anything else that struck you?”

“Nothing at all. For once I think the authorities are telling the truth. I think they did find him. As to who shot him up—it's anyone's guess. He was unarmed.”

Methuen ruffled the pages of the little Serbian book and stared at the carpet for a moment, lost in thought.

“When is the next bag?” he said at last.

“This afternoon.”

“And when is the next duty run through this area?”

“Day after to-morrow. You'd better meet Porson, he is in charge of the bag and usually drives it down with him. I'll ring the Chancery.”

Porson proved to be a lanky and extremely youthful secretary, whose tousled head suggested that he had spent all morning grappling bodily with matters of state. In fact, as sixth secretary he had spent an hour trying to make a
placement
for his Ambassador's dinner-party. It had been a baffling and exhausting task, and he had finally been driven to the end of endurance. He had been trying to accommodate twelve couples round the Embassy dining-table in such a way as to give each person the seat most appropriate to his or her rank. It was a very burdensome problem: but then, he reflected, to be the junior secretary among six inevitably meant that he had the chores to deal with. There was however one great compensation for his lowly rank. It was he who was allowed to drive the courier down to Skoplje every week—a journey which virtually gave him three days' leave in every seven. Although he was disposed to complain about the trials of his post, nothing would have induced him to surrender the one real privilege which went with it. Despite the air of diffidence with which he greeted Methuen now the latter decided that there was a becoming touch of irreverence about the young man which would make him an amusing companion. “I've read about you, sir,” he said.

“Methuen,” said Methuen.

“Colonel Methuen,” amended Porson, putting his monocle in his eye and gazing innocently around him. “I must say,” he said, “from the telegrams I thought that the Ambassador would never agree to your mission.”

“I know. But he has now.”

“And you want to do exactly what Anson did?” Porson sighed. “Well, I wish you luck.”

Methuen smiled and thanked him. “A few days in the mountains might teach us something,” he said. “When do you go?”

Porson explained carefully. “We start from here every Wednesday and reach the Ibar valley by about four. There is a white milestone by the road which is the point of rendezvous. There's a deep ditch into which you will have to hurl yourself. At least that's what Anson did. We make the return run on Saturday night, reaching the same point of rendezvous at about dawn on Sunday morning. We get back here about ten usually.”

“That's excellent,” said Methuen, “but the time is rather short. That only gives me Thursday and Friday actually free to explore. I should like to stay a whole week if possible and walk around a bit.”

“Well,” said Porson, “come down on Wednesday and back Saturday week.” Methuen nodded and agreed. “That would be perfect. Meanwhile, of course, if I run into trouble and need to get out you will be passing the rendezvous point twice, won't you, going back and forward? Is there any way I can get a message back to you, for example, even if I don't want to return myself?”

“Yes,” said Porson. “We never used this method but Anson thought it out. About fifty yards beyond the milestone in question there is an enormous fig tree which overhangs the road. If you were to drop anything out of it we could easily field it as we went past. At least that's what Anson thought.”

“Splendid,” said Methuen, “so that I shall feel that I am in touch with you all the time. You see, suppose I discover something which is of importance but which makes it necessary to wander a good way into the mountains, I could let you know. Alternatively if I needed anything you could drop it for me in the same ditch.”

They discussed the various possibilities of the scheme in detail. Porson scratched his chin and said: “It sounds to me as if you intend to stay up there for weeks. I do hope someone has told you how dangerous cross-country travel is in this country. Anson, you know, was not foolhardy. He was a most cautious character.”

Methuen stubbed out his cigarette. “I am going to be doubly cautious,” he said. “And anyway once Anson was caught he could not pose as a Serb. I can, and that might be some help. Of course all this is only speculation.”

“Well,” said Porson, “I must say I admire your nerve. I don't think I should be able to do it with such jolly old sang-froid. Have you told Dombey that the trip is on?”

“No. Perhaps I'd better.”

Porson led the way to the Chancery where Methuen drafted a telegram telling Dombey of his intentions. “I think,” he said, “we should send this as we are starting. In case Dombey suddenly gets cold feet and holds me up.”

“As you wish,” said Porson. “As you wish, dear old fire-eating Colonel.”

Meanwhile some attempt was being made to help Methuen create the character of Mr. Judson, for the benefit of the other inhabitants of the building. He was given a small office of his own with a desk and an immaculate blotter, and the account books of the Military Attaché's office were stacked up before him. He ruffled the pages of figures in some perplexity before putting them on one side. The sanctuary was useful, however, for it enabled him to study once more the mass of documentation which had grown up around the spy-trials. He re-read the newspaper accounts of the trials, making careful notes of anything which might have a bearing on his mission, and following each stage of the inquiry on the excellent map that Carter put at his disposal. It was certainly difficult to imagine why there should be persistent infiltration of armed agents into precisely this area; first of all, any activity here could be easily contained by troops and police. While the barren mountain-range offered fair chances of protection against discovery it would be a hopeless project to attempt to start up a revolution against Tito here. The one railway which crossed this area was not only difficult to cut, since it ran through a series of rock-tunnels cut high in the cliff-face of the gorge, but potential wreckers would have to cross the wide and extremely swift Ibar river to reach it. Even if one could form and maintain a strong guerilla band on the mountains behind the Studenitsa Gorge there would be little point, for there were no targets in this area worth their attention. The towns were few and of little strategic importance. The more he pondered over it the more confusing the problem became.

He turned to the little Serbian collection of folk-songs which Anson had carried with him and went through it carefully. There was one passage underlined which seemed to him the one that Carter had been hunting for.

In his extremity the king will go

To the mother and father of rivers,

Where the sources meet

And the white eagles fly in families,

To find his patrimony here

Buried in the ground.

This seemed to offer little contribution to the argument; doubtless Anson had marked it for its beauty rather than for any hidden significance. Nevertheless he memorized the passage before putting the book on one side. In the cipher-room he concocted a long signal to Dombey explaining his intentions, and giving a brief outline of the latest evidence (since he left London a further group of armed “bandits” had been captured operating in the same area). Then he went out for a walk through the shabby streets of the capital he had once known so well.

CHAPTER SIX

Further Perplexities

C
arter took him to lunch that day, and afterwards they drove out along the loops of the Sava river with its melancholy avenues of giant willows, talking in desultory fashion about their project. Porson came with them and enlivened the afternoon with his ribaldries, and his accounts of the trials and tribulations of secretaries. By tea-time the bag arrived and Methuen claimed the large cardboard box which contained his fancy dress. There was a note attached to it from Boris which read: “Herewith your cloak of invisibility. Hope you don't clank.” He carried off this prize to the privacy of Carter's villa and after locking himself in the bedroom tried out his disguise. “Gosh,” said Carter hovering between admiration and laughter as he saw the progressive stages of Mr. Judson's transformation. “What do you think?” said Methuen with a touch of self-consciousness. He turned away from the mirror and faced his companion. On his head he wore a stained and moth-eaten fur cap of an unmistakably Serbian cast. His feet were clad in patched riding-boots with the traditional concertina-like frill at the ankles. A dirty shirt and waistcoat and a woollen scarf offset a pair of nondescript breeches cut vaguely after the fashion of jodhpurs. “But this,” he said, spreading the wings of his coat, “this is the masterpiece.” Boris had taken an old blue seaman's jacket made in heavy duffle. Inside he had fixed two great poacher's pockets as well as a pistol sling. Together with the inside and outside pockets it would be possible to carry all his small gear on his back. “Clank I probably will,” said Methuen to himself, “but this will help me to move house in a hurry if I need.”

“It really is very good,” said Carter with envy. “Only you can't start from here looking so darned bucolic. You'll have to change in the car. There'll be plenty of room actually.”

“So be it,” said Methuen, starting to resume his formal black chartered accountant's uniform. The cardboard box was carefully locked away in Carter's safe against the journey, and Mr. Judson returned to the Embassy to wrestle with the accounts. In fact he spent an exhausting hour with Porson going over the whole journey in detail, and most particularly with that part of it which concerned him most. He was glad that there was a short breathing spell before he undertook the next and most hazardous part of the adventure. He liked to feel his way into the part he was to play, and to let all the available evidence fall into a pattern in his mind.

Having prepared himself as well as he reasonably could for the hazards of the trip he asked Carter to take him out to dinner, and if possible to the opera. He wanted to make a complete break with the subject of his preoccupation: to let it simmer on in the subconscious while he was left free to be, for however short a time, a normal man, enjoying everyday things. But the mind is a capricious thing. Once started along a train of reasoning it is not easy to sidetrack it with lighter distractions; moreover the mind itself, when busy with a problem, is often like a hound on the scent. Without any conscious effort it leads one further and further along the road of inquiry, picking up evidence.

How else can one account for the fact that Methuen, finding he had an hour to spare before the Embassy closed, strolled into the central registry and asked for the master-file containing the despatches written during the last few months. He was simply amusing himself and collecting a little political background material. But idly reading through the despatches, his attention was drawn to one which described the nature and contents of radio broadcasts from Belgrade. After summarizing the various types of programme the report referred to the “apparently endless series of national poems which are broadcast one at a time, after the eight o'clock news every evening by the famous actress Sophia Marie”. Something in the back of his mind told him that there was a clue to be discovered behind this simple observation and it was with a pleasant sense of anticipation that he turned to the files of the BBC monitoring station—that prodigious organization which records almost every radio programme in the world. It was not difficult to turn up the broadcasts in question. The titles of the poems read were neatly listed and Methuen saw, with some emotion, that the little poem, part of which has already been quoted, was the first to be broadcast, and was repeated twice during the first week.

He took this fragment of information along to Carter, who refused to be excited by it. “It is most likely just a coincidence. After all, every schoolboy is given a pretty steady diet of these damned epics and folk-songs. I listen to these recitations you know: my Serbian teacher makes me do it as pronunciation practice. In fact I'm working from the very book that Sophia Marie is reading from; I remember noticing that she is using
The National Treasury
because she gives the number of each poem at the beginning and end of the transmission.”

“Could I see your copy?”

Carter obligingly ferreted it out from among a stack of papers and Methuen retired once more to the central registry and reopened the monitoring files. The broadcasts had begun about three months previously—in fact just about the time that reports of the first arrests of Royalist “bandits” had begun to be published. If only he could trace the smallest connection between one thing and the other.… Methuen sighed deeply and shook his head as he read through the highly coloured romances of feudal times. What a jumble of Slav imagery to wander through! How could there be any kind of message embedded in all this? Nevertheless he noticed one thing of interest. Several of the poems had been repeated twice by the actress. “Suppose,” he said to himself, “there was some kind of message to be passed. Repeating a poem might draw attention to it. The listener would know that a twice-repeated poem was one containing a message.”