Crack of Doom (7 page)

As for Andrej and his men—Nikolash bit his lip in annoyance. He rose and went to the window. A fierce wind had blown up and shook the bare trees. You couldn't have wished for better weather, he thought; again Andrej had been dead right. He had never known anyone better fitted for leading a section of partisans. ... If only they weren't at loggerheads all the time. From the first day he had talked to Andrej on confidential terms and in his own strange way felt something like friendship for him. But these feelings were not reciprocated, nor could he win over Andrej to his ideological views. Nikolash found himself rather in the position of a rejected lover, and with his easily offended vanity could never forgive this humiliation. He had begun to hate Andrej.

Nikolash wondered if he might persuade Margita to come to Dobsina without Andrej. After all, he was convinced she loved him. The war might still go on for a long time and he meant to keep her with him as long as he could . . .

Nikolash looked out the window and suddenly saw the lights of the trucks.

They moved slowly into the village, and a moment later the streets were swarming with German soldiers. They're coming for Andrej, Nikolash thought, and just for a moment this gave him satisfaction; then he realized the danger he himself was in. He rushed into Margita's room and over to her bed, felt for her head in the dark and pulled her up by her hair.

She whimpered, then started hitting out at him. "Stop that!" he told her; "the Germans are here." At once she became wide awake. He jumped out of Margita's room into the garden, and still in his bare feet raced to the front, where there was a garden shed; above it was old Jozef Zarnov's room. Nikolash levered himself on to a beam, walked precariously along it and knocked at the window, through which he could see Jozef sitting by the stove. The old man got up and came hesitantly toward the window. When he saw Nikolash's face, he shrank back. Without letting him speak, Nikolash pushed him roughly aside, and with an eloquent gesture toward his throat said: "Don't you breathe a word about me, or else. . . ." He fancied he could hear voices downstairs. Crossing his arms, he remained standing by the window, and told Jozef to sit down.

He looked at the pine standing in a bucket near the window. "Why don't you take it to bed with you?" he mocked. "Tomorrow I’ll stick it in the stove." He listened again for the noises from below and heard Margita pouring out abuse.

The little she-devil, he thought fondly. He decided to get her away to Dobsina at all costs, by force if necessary. From below came the sound of one of the Germans laughing loudly, then, a moment later, a door slammed and all was silent.

Nikolash met with Margita halfway down the stairs. She gave a rather forced laugh. "Nothing to do with us. They were looking for three German soldiers."

"Three German soldiers?" Nikolash was baffled.

They went to the front room and looked out the window. All they could see were the trucks' rear lights, which got fainter and fainter in the snow-storm and finally disappeared altogether.

"That might easily have gone wrong," said Margita.

"It was very clever of you to keep them downstairs," Nikolash pulled her toward him.

The front door slammed and a second later Andrej came bursting into the room. When he saw the two of them standing there, his face relaxed. "Did they come here too?"

"Yes," said Nikolash. "Where were you? At Elizabeth's? Did they come there?"

"Three soldiers. They didn't want anything of us, they were looking for their own men."

"Deserters perhaps," said Nikolash slowly.

"And the Very light?"

"What?"

"They shot a Very light when they were finished. Didn't you see it?"

Nikolash shook his head. "What color?"
_N
"White."

"Odd," muttered Nikolash, uneasy again.

Andrej nodded. "A sign for someone or other. We must watch out."

CHAPTER

4

Kolodzi had thought very carefully about his route to Kosice. Altogether he reckoned it must be a good fifty miles, a distance he couldn't possibly cover by the evening on foot and in this snow. But he trusted to his luck, for about six miles past Svedler the road met the railway line to Jelnice and there he might find a freight or a truck going to Kosice.

The road to Svedler was easy enough, downhill all the way; and at half-past one he by-passed Svedler on a footpath.

Back on the road he quickened his pace again. The snow gave him little trouble. During the four years in Russia his leg muscles had gained the toughness and resilience of steel springs. The division had marched two thousand five hundred miles from Upper Silesia into the heart of Russia, and almost as great a distance on their retreat now. There was a layer of calloused skin on his feet almost as thick as the soles o* his boots, and on the march his body worked like a machine.

However, gradually the snow storm grew worse until he could hardly see ahead of him. He kept having to wipe the great, wet flakes out of his eyes; they lay on his shoulders and chest like a white armor. He started to sweat and stopped to catch his breath.

It was so quiet he could hear the snow falling on the trees. On one side of the road a bare hill rose so steeply you could not see the top; it was like a white sheet hanging down to earth and fastened somewhere in the sky. A slight wind came up over the mountains, sweeping the snow along in front of it and making the telegraph wires whir like airplanes.

Never before in his life had he felt so alone. The cold seemed to be seeping right into his marrow and he suddenly threw away his cigarette, finding it tasteless. He sighed. His thoughts strayed to Herbig and Vohringer, who would now be lying on the warm bench by the stove and sleeping. As he thought of them he caught himself wanting simply to turn back and give up the whole crazy plan. The snow storm persisted and the wind whirled big flakes along, and Kolodzi registered subconsciously that he would have the wind behind him if he stayed on the road to Ko§ice. Perhaps it was a sign. He was not superstitious, but at this moment of utter forlornness he made up his mind to go with the wind; and as always, once he had decided something, he wasted no more time and marched on.

About an hour later he came to the railway line. The railway now ran northward parallel with the road, and Kolodzi strode on even faster, afraid that a train might go past before he reached the station. But his luck held; nothing stirred on the line. At last he saw a light dancing through the snow. It twinkled on the right of way, and when he got nearer he saw that it was the lantern of a man going down the line.

He called out, but the man took no notice and walked on with big strides; Kolodzi sent an oath after him. His legs began to hurt, and the snow clung to his boots in big lumps and made the going harder. At last the first houses came into view. It was Nagy—he remembered now. The station, a long wooden hut, was at the other end of the village, and he could see at a glance that it was not in use. The windows were boarded up, iron grating had been put in front of the door, and the wind howled over the dark, deserted platforms. It was half past three by now. From a sort of desperate obstinacy, Kolodzi went back to the road and marched on. The road ahead led unendingly into the middle of the snow storm. He began to feel very drowsy. Somewhere there were houses with warm beds in them, and people lying in those beds now, not worrying about the snow falling outside and the wind howling in the telegraph wires. It would be wonderful to be in bed. His shoulders drooped as he went on down the road, while the snow fell into his tired face and on his bent back, which hurt under the weight of the heavy gun. He walked on as in a dream and it began to seem to him that he had been walking on this road all his life, through the same night and the same snow and always the same wind on his back and the howling of the telegraph wires in his ears.

Finally he saw a light twinkling near the line. This time it wasn't a lantern; the light came from the window of a signal tower between the tracks. He crossed the rails and found himself in front of a door. He opened it, went up a steep staircase in the darkness and bumped into another door; when he opened it a current of warm air hit him, making him blink before his eyes became used to the light. One side of the room contained a battery of switch and signal levers. There was a red-hot stove with a man sitting by it, the man was staring at him and now lifted a pistol and pointed at Kolodzi. "What d'you want?" he asked loudly. He wore the uniform of a railroad man, with a service cross in his button hole.

Kolodzi pulled the door shut behind him. 'Tut that thing away, I don't like it," he said.

The signalman hesitated, then lowered the barrel of the pistol. "Who are you?"

"Lot of questions you ask, I'm a
handset—
can't you tell?"

"You've got a funny way of talking," said the signalman. Kolodzi pulled his paybook out of his pocket and threw it over to him. The man looked at it, compared the photograph with Kolodzi, then handed it back. "One has to be careful," he said apologetically, and pointed to a chair. "Come and warm up."

His manner had changed instantly. "We don't often get anyone straying this way," he remarked chattily. "And when we do, it's almost always a partisan. The trouble we have with them here! A week ago they blew up a whole signal tower. Three men killed. Cup of coffee?"

Kolodzi nodded. He was beginning to feel extremely comfortable.

"Where have you come from?" the signalman asked, as he poured out the coffee.

"Oviz."

"Not on foot surely?"

"Yes, on foot. Thought I'd pick up a lift somewhere, but there wasn't a thing on the road the whole damned way. And I want to get to Kosice too."

"There's nothing along here before dawn, I'm afraid. There aren't any trains that stop here. None of them stops before Jelnice."

"When's the next?"

"Can't say. One side of the line's snowed up, and there should be a snow plow coming, but God knows when."

"It goes beyond Jelnice?"

"Right to Kosice."

"Does it, by God!" said Kolodzi, massaging his numbed fingers and holding them near the stove. "Can't you stop it?"

The signalman laughed. "What d'you think?—there's no stop here. Are you in a hurry?"

"I’ll say I am. I live in Kosice, and they suddenly gave me home leave on compassionate grounds. Only I've got to be back in Oviz by this evening. We're supposed to be looking for partisans there."

"If it were only up to me," said the man. "One might try to stop the plow. But I'm sure my partner won't agree. We don't get along too well. He's out on the line now."

"I believe I met him," Kolodzi said. "With a lamp. I tried to talk to him but he wouldn't stop."

"I'm not surprised," nodded the signalman. "You don't know how careful we have to be. All the locals here are in with the partisans. And they put only two of us up here, it's crazy. We hardly ever get any sleep."

Kolodzi glanced at his unshaven face and noticed for the first time how pale and bleary-eyed he looked. At that instant the door flew open to show a tall man, who stooped to come in, with a gaunt face and piercing eyes, his coat heavy with snow. He slammed the door behind him and stared at Kolodzi who suppressed an immediate feeling of antipathy and exclaimed, forcing a smile: "Ah, so there you are. A moment ago you wouldn't even talk to me."

The man went on staring at him. "That was you, was it? What do you want here?" He took off his great-coat and went on, not waiting for an answer: "You can't spend the night here. We've no room and besides it's against regulations."

"I don't want to. I only wanted to ask about trains."

"The station's at Jelnice," the man said in a surly voice. He sat down on the chair which Kolodzi had been occupying. His partner began to explain. "He's got compassionate leave till tonight, his people live in Kosice. But he has to be back in Oviz by this evening."

The man stared at Kolodzi.

"Compassionate leave, eh? Got a leave pass?"

"Want to see it?" Kolodzi asked, as calmly as possible.

"He's shown me his paybook," the first signalman hastily put in, "and it's quite in order. Perhaps the plow can take him?"

"It doesn't stop here," the tall man rapped out. "How can you say that it might take him?"

"I only said perhaps," the other defended himself.

It was obvious that the tall man was in command and Kolodzi decided to lose no more time. He rose and picked up his gun. There seemed no further point in hiding his feelings so he turned to the tall man and shouted: "Lucky there aren't many like you. I'd prefer a Gestapo man."

"Well, we can always fetch one. Let's see your leave pass."

"What d'you mean?"

"I want to see your leave pass," repeated the tall man, reaching for the pistol which the other had put down on the table.

Kolodzi calmly lifted his gun, pushed back the safety catch with his thumb, and aimed the barrel at the man. "Here it is," he said. "No need to get excited. This isn't a question of leave passes, it's a question of principle. Where should we be if every railwayman could ask to see your leave passes, get me? And I'd put that pistol down if I were you," he told the tall man whose face had turned dead white. He dropped the pistol.

"That's better," said Kolodzi, backing to the door. "You'll never make a good Gestapo man," he added and then stumbled down the dark staircase.

At the bottom of the stairs his foot hit something. He bent down and felt a lantern and without stopping to think picked it up and took it with him.

Outside the wind had now increased, but it was still behind him and the snow was not falling so thickly now; the lantern, however, felt very heavy on his arm.

He set off in the direction of Jelnice, keeping on the right side of the rails. Looking around he saw dozens of trees lying all over the wood. Their bases were mostly jagged like broken glass, and only a few had been uprooted bodily. He knew about this; when it was very cold trees would break up at the impact of quite an ordinary storm; they froze so hard right to the core that they snapped apart like icicles. As he was looking at the overturned trees, he suddenly had a bold idea. He continued walking along the right of way until he found what he was looking for.

Two yards from the rails the storm had pulled out the stem of a young beech and hurled it across into the wood, where it was still hanging with its top caught in another tree. It seemed almost impossible to move so heavy a tree: with its branches it was about ten yards long, and its average diameter about a foot. But Kolodzi saw that the tree was not hopelessly stuck. Only the stem of the other tree was caught in its crotch, and he could easily reach up to it. The broken-off end had dug itself into the snow near the stump. Kolodzi found a strong branch sticking out of the snow, which he put crossways under the end of the tree. Kneeling down, he took the upper part of the branch on to his shoulder, went on his hands and knees, and heaved himself upward; the tree moved slowly at first, the crotch slipped off the stem of the other tree and thudded into the snow. Now came the hardest part, turning the tree and dragging it over the line. He stepped into the crotch and wound his arms under a branch pressing against it with all his strength. He succeeded in pushing the whole tree a foot and a half in the direction of the line and then pressed it around so far that it lay parallel with the embankment. The work was exhausting but he allowed himself no break, though his fingers were stiff and numb as he dragged the tree around to cross the rails. Finally it was lying just as he wanted it: diagonally over the tracks, with its broken-off end a foot from the stump. He wiped out the traces of his work with a bundle of brushwood. He could safely leave the rest to the storm, which was whirling clouds of fine snow over the embankment and into the wood. In a few minutes the last traces would be covered.

Kolodzi lit the lantern, then fetched his gun and started walking in the direction from which the train would be coming.

He had walked about three hundred yards when he heard a noise which made him stop. Now he heard it again. It was the shrill whistle of an engine. His heart began hammering, the storm blew snow into his face, but he took no notice and stared tensely into the night. Now he heard the whistle again, much nearer. He held the lantern above his head with both hands, waving it to and fro, as he had once watched railwaymen doing. Now he saw a spark moving forward between the rails; it swelled like an avalanche, a few seconds later it broke apart, and two glaring beams of fight swept over the line. The gale howled in his ears, louder and louder, till he realized it was no longer the gale but the noise of the engine roaring down on him. They had not reduced their speed.

He crouched. The beams of light were blinding him, and the wind threatened to tear the lantern out of his hands. In front of him a whirl of snow and light grew to a huge, shining white cloud, which rolled toward him with fantastic speed. Now there was a hot blast on his face. He stumbled, trying to jump to one side; his legs no longer obeyed him. The lantern dropped. A terrible force had gripped him, hurled him aside into an* icy black vortex. He felt the snow in his mouth and struggled for air, thrashing round with his arms. His lungs swelled like balloons, the blood rushed to his head so that it seemed to burst. Air, he thought, I must have air. He fought like an animal against the snow that had its icy fingers round his throat, that would not relax its grip, that was doing its best to strangle him. Twice, three times he succeeded in slightly raising his heavy body, but his strength was gone. On the verge of unconsciousness he felt himself being gripped by the legs and pulled upward. He writhed in the snow, still fighting for air, and heard voices above him.

He pushed himself up on his arms. Icy fresh air flooded into his lungs, and opened his eyes to see two men's soot-covered faces above him. Instinctively he felt behind him, where the gun should be hanging; but someone gripped his arm and said: "Take it easy." The voice sounded friendly, it brought Kolodzi completely to himself; he swore loudly. Four powerful hands lifted him to his feet, and steadied him. "Nothing broken?" one of the men asked, a fat man with a huge chest and a good-natured face. Looking past him, Kolodzi saw the engine about fifty yards away, just recognizable in the snow storm. They stopped, he thought, they really stopped.