The Angry Mountain Read online

  In the end I went down to the bar. For a while I tried to persuade myself that Tuček and Maxwell were nothing to do with me. But it was no good. What had happened filled me with a sense of helplessness. It made me want to get drunk again, so I went in to dinner. And after dinner I went out to a cinema where an old English film was showing. I got back shortly before eleven. There was no message for me and nobody had called to see me. I got a drink and took it up to my room. I stayed up, waiting for Maxwell. But he didn’t come and when the church clock struck midnight I went to bed. It was a long time before I could get to sleep. I kept on thinking of Jan Tuček, somewhere over on the other side of Pilsen under house arrest, and wondering what had become of Maxwell.

  I was called at eight-thirty the following morning. The rain was beating in at the open window and the clouds were low and wind-blown. It looked like being a dirty trip over the Alps. But I didn’t care about that. I was glad to be leaving Czechoslovakia. I knew I’d been on the fringe of a political whirlpool and it was good to know I was getting out before I was sucked down into it.

  I had breakfast, paid my bill and got a drožka. The flight was scheduled for eleven-thirty. I paid one call on the way out to the airport and arrived well before eleven. I checked my bags and then went to the passenger clearing office. I handed my passport to the clerk. He looked at it, flicked over the pages and then nodded to a man standing near me. The man came forward. “Pan Farrell?”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice. I knew what he was.

  “You will come with me please.” He spoke in Czech. “There are some questions we must ask you.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, putting a front on it. “Who are you?”

  “I am of the S.N.B.” His hand was on my arm. “Come this way, please. We have a car waiting.”

  I looked about me quickly. I had a sudden, urgent desire to make a break for it. I’d been through all this before. I knew what it was like. I’d lost a leg and nearly lost my reason, too. But the grip tightened on my arm. There was another of them on my other side. And then suddenly I was angry. I’d done nothing, nothing at all. They couldn’t arrest me without a reason. I shook my arms free and faced them. “Are you arresting me?” I demanded.

  “We wish to question you, pan Farrell.” It was the smaller of the two who replied, the one who had spoken before. He was very broad in the shoulders and his small eyes were protected by sandy lashes that blinked very rapidly.

  “Then please put your questions to me here. My plane leaves at eleven-thirty.”

  The corners of his lips turned down slightly. “I am afraid you will miss your plane. My instructions are to take you to the Ředitelství S.N.B.”

  “Then I am under arrest,” I said. “What is the charge, please?”

  “We only wish to question you.” His hand was on my arm again, his face quite expressionless. I knew it was no good trying to bluff him. He had his instructions. There was only one thought in my mind, to see that somebody knew what had happened. “Very well then. But first I must telephone my Embassy in Prague.”

  “You can do that later.”

  “I’ll do it now,” I snapped. “You arrest me without making any charge and then try to deny me the right to inform my own Embassy of what has happened.” I leaned over the desk and picked up the telephone that was there. He moved to stop me, but I said, “Either I telephone or I make a scene. There are sure to be some English or Americans here at the airport. If they report what has happened you will find the repercussions at a much higher level.”

  He seemed to appreciate the point, for he shrugged his shoulders. Fortunately I got through right away and I was able to get the third secretary, a man named Elliot whom I’d met at a party in Prague only a few days ago. I explained what had happened and he promised to take immediate action.

  I put down the telephone. “Now if you’ll find my bags for me,” I said, “I’ll come with you. But please understand I have business appointments in Milan and I shall hold your office responsible for seeing that I have a reservation on the next plane.” I took my passport away from the clerk who had been gaping at us the whole time and, after collecting my two suitcases, we went out to a waiting police car.

  The moment of genuine anger which had carried me as far as the phone call to the Embassy had evaporated now, and I admit that, as we drove back through the suburbs of Pilsen, I was pretty scared. It was true that I’d done nothing. But if they checked up on me…. Suppose they’d arrested Maxwell and knew that he’d come to see me by way of the fire-escape? Had the night porter kept his mouth shut about Jan Tuček’s visit? And what about the two men I’d interrupted searching Tuček’s office? If they checked up on me thoroughly I’d have a job convincing them that I was completely outside the whole business. And what was the business anyway? What had happened to make them suddenly arrest me? And then I began to sweat. Suppose they’d got Maxwell? Suppose they confronted Maxwell with me? He’d think I’d given him away. My God! He’d think the mere threat of trouble had frightened me into talking. All my other fears were suddenly of no importance. They were swamped by this new and to me much more terrifying possibility.

  At the Ředitelství I was put in a dingy little waiting-room that looked out on to the ruins of a bombed building. A uniformed policeman was placed in the room with me. He stood by the door, picking his teeth and watching me without interest. There was a clock on the wall. It ticked the minutes away slowly and relentlessly. It was the old technique. I tied to relax, to ignore the slow passage of time. But as the hands of the clock slowly moved round the dial I felt the silence preying on my nerves. I tried to get into conversation with my guard. But he had his instructions. He just shook his head and said nothing.

  After forty minutes a police officer entered and told me to follow him. I was taken down a stone corridor and up a flight of uncarpeted stairs, the guard following behind me. On the first floor I was shown into an office. There were shutters across the window and the place was lit by electric light. A small bearded man in plain clothes was seated at a desk. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting. Please sit down.” He waved me to a seat.

  I sat down. He fumbled amongst the papers on his desk. His face I remember was very pale, almost yellow, and he had bright button eyes. The back of his carefully manicured hands were covered with black hair. He found the paper he was looking for and said, “You are Richard Harvey Farrell?” He spoke in Czech.

  I nodded.

  “And you represent the company of B. & H. Evans of Manchester.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I was due to catch the plane to Munich and Milan at eleven-thirty this morning. Would you be good enough to tell me why I have been arrested?”

  He looked across at me with a slight lift of his tufty eyebrows. “Arrested, pan Farrell? Come now—all we wish is to put a few questions to you.”

  “If there was any way I could have helped you,” I said, “surely it would have been sufficient to have sent an officer down to the hotel before I left?”

  He smiled. I didn’t like that smile. It was slightly sadistic. He was like a psychiatrist whose career has taken some peculiar twist. “I am sorry you have been inconvenienced.” He made it clear that he enjoyed inconveniencing people. I waited and after a moment, he said, “You knew pan Tuček I believe?”

  “That is correct,” I answered.

  “You are with him when he is in England in 1940.”

  I nodded.

  “And you saw him at the Tučkovy ocelárny the day before yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  I gave him the gist of our conversation in front of the interpreter. His eyes kept glancing down to the paper on his desk and I knew that he was checking my account with the interpreter’s report. When I had finished he nodded as though satisfied. “You speak our language very well, pan Farrel. Where did you learn?”

  “In the air force,” I answered. “I find languages come quite easily to me and
I was stationed with Tuček’s Czech squadron for several months.”

  He smiled. “But on Wednesday, when you see Tuček, you do not speak any language but English. Why?” The question was barked at me suddenly and his little button eyes were fixed on mine. “Why do you lie and make it necessary for an interpreter to be found?”

  “I didn’t lie,” I answered hotly, “It was Tuček who said I spoke nothing but English.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “How should I know? Probably he felt it was not very nice to talk to an old friend in front of a spy.” I was speaking in English now and I saw him straining to translate.

  “Are you sure you do not come with a message to him?” The fact that he was now speaking haltingly in English together with the negative phrasing of the question made it clear that he had nothing definite against me.

  “What message could I bring him?” I asked. “I hadn’t seen him for over ten years.”

  He nodded and then said, “Please give me an account of all that you do since you arrive in Plzeň. I wish every minute to be accounted for, pan Farrell.”

  Well, I took him through everything from the moment of my arrival at the Hotel Continental. When I had finished he sat looking down at the papers on his desk, drumming with his fingers. “Would you mind telling me why you find it necessary to question me about this meeting between Tuček and myself?” I asked him.

  He looked at me. “The man is politically suspect. He has many contacts in England.” He stopped short there and shouted to someone in the next office. The door opened and the man who had stopped me at the airport came in. For an awful moment I thought he was going to confront me with the night porter of the Hotel Continental. “Take pan Farrell back to his hotel,” he ordered. Then he turned to me. “You will remain at your hotel please. If we have no further questions to ask you, you will be allowed to leave by tomorrow’s plane.”

  I said nothing, but followed the police officer out of the room. Outside the Ředitelství a police car was waiting. I got in. As we drove off I found I was trembling. The reaction was setting in and I wanted a drink. The rain-wet smell of the streets was very sweet after the dead mustiness of S.N.B. headquarters. Gradually my nerves relaxed. The police car drew up at the hotel and I got out. The officer put my bags on the pavement and the car drove off. I took my things into the hotel and went through into the bar. I was ordering a drink when a voice behind me said in Czech, “Perhaps pana would be kind enough to give me a light?” I turned. It was Maxwell. He made no sign of recognition and when I’d struck a match and lit his cigarette, he thanked me and went back to his seat in a corner of the bar.

  Chapter II

  It was obvious that Maxwell wanted to speak to me. In the mirror backing of the shelves behind the bar I could see him seated at one of the little tables well away from the light of the windows. He was reading a newspaper and didn’t once glance in my direction. I waited until the bar had filled up. Then I got myself another drink and went over to his table. “Permit me, pane” I said in Czech, and took the chair opposite him.

  “I was beginning to get worried about you, Dick,” he said without glancing up from his newspaper. “Are you being watched?”

  “I don’t think so,” I answered.

  “Good. Will they let you take the plane to-morrow?”

  “I think so. They don’t seem to have anything against me except the fact that I saw Jan Tuček on Wednesday. How did you know I’d been arrested?”

  “I was at the airport.”

  “Were you catching that plane?”

  “No. I was waiting to see you.” I saw the whites of his eyes in the shadow of his face as he glanced quickly round the room. Then he smoothed his paper out flat on the table and leaned slightly forward. “You probably know by now why the S.N.B. police picked you up for questioning.” I shook my head and he said, “We got Tuček out of the country last night. That’s why I couldn’t meet you as arranged. There was a lot to do.”

  “You got him out of the country!” I stared at him. “But—he was in protective custody. How—”

  “A little diversion. The house next door caught fire. But don’t worry about the details. We had an old Anson waiting at Bory airfield. There were two of them—Tuček and a senior Czech air force officer, generál letectva Lemlin. They should have been in Milan early this morning.” He was talking very fast, his lips hardly moving. “Reece wouldn’t be expecting them till Sunday morning, but they knew where to contact him, and I should have had confirmation of their arrival by wire this morning.” He paused and then said, “I’m very worried, Dick. I’ve heard nothing. When you get to Milan to-morrow, I want you to go straight to the Albergo Excelsior, opposite the Stazione Centrale. Tell Reece to wire me immediately. Will you do that?”

  “The Excelsior! Is Reece staying there?” I asked him.

  He nodded and I cursed the luck that had booked me at the same hotel. I didn’t want to see Reece. I think Maxwell knew that, for he added, “It’s very urgent, Dick. They may have crashed.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll see Reece.”

  “Good man. Just one other thing. A message from Tuček. He told me to tell you that he wished to see you as soon as you arrived in Milan. He was very insistent.”

  “All right,” I said.

  A waiter appeared and collected our glasses. Maxwell folded his newspaper. “Would pana care to have a look at the paper?” he said in Czech. I thanked him and took the paper. He collected his brief case and got to his feet. “Goodbye, Dick,” he whispered. “See you again sometime.” And he strolled down the length of the bar and out by the street door.

  I had another drink and then went in to lunch. Time passed very slowly during the rest of that day. I drank it away watching the hands of the clock over the bar move steadily through afternoon into evening. The airport had made no difficulty about transferring my booking to the following day. The only question was, would the police let me go? Everything seemed to hinge on whether the night porter kept his mouth shut about Tuček’s extraordinary visit to my room. The more I thought about that, the more odd it seemed. If he had come to see me, then why hadn’t he wakened me? Perhaps I’d been so drunk he couldn’t wake me? But then why did he want to see me as soon as I reached Milan?

  These speculations became more and more confused in my mind as I drank the evening out. And they became confused with my promise to see Reece. I didn’t want to see Reece. Alive or dead, I didn’t want to see him. He’d been so bitter. He’d turned his sister against me, smashed my life. Shirer I didn’t mind so much. Shirer had been older. He knew what I’d been through. But Reece was young. He didn’t understand. He’d never faced real pain in his life. Those letters he’d written her from the hospital—he’d told me what he was writing to her. He’d taken it out of me that way. Suddenly I didn’t care about the Czech security police. I didn’t want to leave Czechoslovakia any more. Let them arrest me. I didn’t care. All I knew was that I didn’t want to go to Milan and see Reece. God! For all I knew Alice might be there. I began to sing Alice Blue Gown. That was when they got me out of the bar and I found the night porter helping me up to my room.

  As we reached the landing he said, “I hear, pane, that you have trouble with the S.N.B. to-day?” His greedy little eyes peered up at me. I wanted to punch his face. I knew what he wanted. He wanted money. “You go to hell!” I said.

  I couldn’t get his face in focus, but I knew he was leering up at me. “Perhaps I go to the police.”

  “You can go to the devil for all I care,” I mumbled.

  He opened the door of my room and helped me inside. I tried to shake him off and fell on to the bed. He shut the door and came over to me. “Also I hear pan Tuček is escaped. Perhaps his visit to you is more important than the fifty kronen you give me, eh?” He was standing beside the bed, looking down at me.

  “Get the hell out of here, you little crook,” I shouted at him.

  “But, pane, consider
for a moment, please. If I tell the police what I know it will be very bad for pane.”

  I didn’t care any more. As long as I didn’t have to see Reece I didn’t mind. “Go to the police,” I said wearily. “It doesn’t matter. Go and tell them what you know.” I saw the baffled, frustrated look on his face and that was the last thing I remember. Whether I passed out or just fell asleep I don’t know. All I know is that I woke fully clothed and very cold to find myself sprawled on my bed in the dark. It was then just after one-thirty. I undressed and got into bed.

  In the morning I felt frightful. Also I was scared. Everything is much simpler when you’re drunk. Perhaps it is because the urge to live is less. At any rate, in the sober grey light of day I knew that I’d rather face Reece in Milan than be held here in Pilsen by the Czech police. I’d been a fool to refuse the porter money. I dressed quickly and went down to find him. But he’d already gone. I was in a panic then lest he’d gone to the police. I tried to steady myself with cups of black coffee and cigarettes. But my hands were trembling and clammy and I knew that I was waiting all the time for my name to be called, waiting to go out and find the man with the sandy eyelashes standing by the reception desk.

  But my name wasn’t called and in the end I got up and went out to pay my bill. As soon as I looked in my wallet I knew why the police hadn’t come for me. Most of my money was gone—all the pound notes and lire. The little swine had left me just enough kronen to pay my bill.