And the longer they travelled, the more the view from the train windows became unreal, just exquisitely-painted stage scenery of snowy peaks, the onion domes of Orthodox churches, wayside shrines. It needed no caring, no interpretation; turn one’s eyes to a book or magazine and it was gone. A stop became like the end of a balloon journey, an unwelcome bump back into reality.
They were due into Vienna soon after eight in the evening and Dahlmann announced that dinner would begin immediately they left. So they had to dress first, and Ranklin summoned O’Gilroy to “help” by sitting and smoking a cigarette.
O’Gilroy mentioned that the staff were all soldiers – “Except the chef, probly. He’s just barmy like them all.”
Ranklin considered. “I suppose it’s not surprising. I believe a lot of the Kaiser’s staff are soldiers; he likes having them around him. What have they been doing? Close-order drill in the corridor?”
O’Gilroy told briefly about the fight and Herr Fernrick’s intervention-
“Who?”
“The chief butler, Swiss Admiral, that’s his name.”
“I think you mean Fahnrich. It means senior n.c.o. Colour sergeant.”
O’Gilroy nodded slowly, letting smoke trickle from his nose. “Ah. Then I wasn’t so clever as I thought. They’re not hiding it, jest not saying it neither . . . Give me some money: I’ll rate better with cigarettes and a bottle of me own to share round.”
Ranklin gave him a sovereign. “Where do they hide the bottles?”
“In the coal for the boiler. Herr Fernrick don’t inspect that.”
In so many things, armies are all the same.
For many Orient Express travellers, Vienna was the end of the line; from here, it was downhill socially to Budapest, Belgrade and Sofia, and a month too early for visiting Constantinople. So the train loitered while baggage was unloaded and most of the remaining passengers got out to buy cigarettes and newspapers, smoke, chatter, try to peek into the Kaiser’s carriages, and generally get in the way.
Ranklin saw O’Gilroy scurrying off to shop as he stepped down. Dahlmann and a group of bankers or Embassy officials were already in conference in one patch of lamplight. Their chef was doing a deal in chicken and fish with the Express’s kitchen. A young man in evening dress accosted him.
“Patrick Snaipe? I’m Redpath, from the Embassy. Just popped along to see how things were going with you and Lady Kelso.”
“Very civil of you. Come aboard and meet her.”
They eased past the guard, who had deserted the baggage compartment to protect the main carriage from riff-raff, and Ranklin introduced Redpath to Lady Kelso. She gave the lad five minutes of undiluted charm while Ranklin stood by and had philosophic thoughts. Such as: small men tend to be temperamentally quite different from big, tall men, but small women are femininity more concentrated. How about that for a theory? Perhaps there was something in the Viennese air; there was a Dr Freud here who was having some pretty daft ideas about people, so he’d read.
Then he thought of something more important and interrupted: “I say, can you send a cable for me?”
“Of course, just the sort of thing I’m here for.” So Ranklin wrote out a cryptic message to “Uncle Charles” at a London club address. If the Commander read it properly, he would know that Gunther’s firm was responsible for Ranklin’s untimely end, if he met one. There was some small satisfaction in arranging revenge ahead of one’s death.
The dull, and doubtless soggy, Hungarian plain of the Danube slipped past in the night. Even the stop at Budapest barely rumpled Ranklin’s sleep and they clattered across the iron bridge into Serbia and Belgrade while still at breakfast.
Now they had not only left Europe’s drawing-rooms, but gone through its back door and into the ramshackle outhouses of the Balkans. Dahlmann collected their passports, warned them to stay put, and hurried off. Ranklin saw him ally himself to one of the train staff and start haggling with Serb officials. Alongside the severe well-fitting Orient Express uniform they looked scruffy down-and-outs.
And that, really, was the whole story: the Express travelled across Europe in a private metaphorical tunnel lined and protected by sheer wealth. Only if you got off might you become fair prey; as long as you stayed aboard you were untouchable. The argument, obviously, was about whether the private carriages belonged in the same tunnel – although these certainly weren’t the first such to be attached to the Express.
Ranklin reckoned himself and O’Gilroy to be fireproof behind the diplomatic passport; anyway, Britain wasn’t a player on this bit of the chessboard. But Zurga . . . He realised the Turk was keeping to his sleeper.
The discussion outside ended and Dahlmann came back on board to announce: “We may proceed, but a Serbian officer must ride with us through Serbia to Nis.” He tossed the passports onto a table and hurried through, presumably to warn Zurga.
Moving unhastily but smoothly, Ranklin scooped up the passports, handed Lady Kelso hers, Streibl his, took his own and was left with a handful of solely German ones for Dahlmann, the staff and one must be for Zurga. So they were smuggling him through the Balkans as a German citizen. Which was sensible, but placed Zurga even further in the Baghdad Railway camp.
A Serb officer in a high-crowned peakless cap and a worn great-coat down to the ankles of his semi-polished boots came in, saluted with a slight bow, said a few inscrutable words of Serbo-Croat and sat in a corner. Dahlmann came back and picked up the passports, looked at them, at Ranklin – who was deep in a book – and finally said nothing.
With Belgrade, they had seen the last of the Danube and the wide plains. Soon they had turned up the valley of the Morava, winding gently but tighter into the hills that would become mountains and last the next twenty-four hours. Gradually the sodden fields beside the river were left behind and drifts of snow, worn like the land itself, appeared on the hillsides. Both landscape and snow got fresher as they climbed away from cultivation. Early March is no time to admire what mankind does to the land.
They stretched an untalkative luncheon until they slowed into Nis, a market town with buffalo-carts and peasants in baggy white trousers trudging the muddy streets. The Serb saluted, bowed, said another something and got off – and it was as if an aged and disapproving grand-parent had gone to bed. Streibl made a weak joke about the Serb commandeering a buffalo for his return to Belgrade and they roared with laughter. Ranklin decided he would have a cognac, and Streibl joined him.
“What about poor Zurga Bey?” Lady Kelso said suddenly. “He hasn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Have them bring him something as soon as we’re moving.”
Dahlmann protested that it would upset the kitchen, the servants-
“Fiddlesticks,” said Lady Kelso. “If they won’t do it, I’ll cook him something myself.” And Ranklin and Streibl backed her up.
Perhaps Dahlmann was trapped between the correctness of not wanting to offend the Kaiser’s staff, and seeing his group united for the first time by an irresistible party spirit. In any event, while Ranklin fetched Zurga from his sleeper Dahlmann said God-knows-what to Herr Fernrick, and a meal of soup and warmed-up chicken was produced. Fernrick’s revenge came in insisting his own men were off duty and making O’Gilroy serve the damned foreigners.
Lady Kelso stayed in the dining-saloon with Zurga, and Ranklin found himself next door talking to Streibl. With that atmosphere and the cognac, the railwayman talked happily – breaking off to point out interesting or faulty construction details beside the line – but always railways, railways, railways.
“Ships discovered the world, but only railways can make it tame, civilised. When a ship passes, in a few minutes there is no sign. The sea is not changed. But the railway changes the land forever. Think of America, when it was a land of savages and wild animals, if I could have worked on those great railways. . .” His eyes glowed behind his thick glasses.