We found a hollow screened by grass and piles of brown stones near the cutting and finished the remains of the food we had with us. We washed it down with some cognac. My eyes burned and stung and were half-closed, but I felt suddenly very wide awake.
“We’d better put our coats and scarves on,” said Zaleshoff: “it’ll be cold soon.”
We lay there in silence watching the sun grow and redden as it sank into the streaky blue-black clouds that seemed waiting to receive it. The light faded. When it was nearly dark we left our hiding-place, moved down near to the line and began to walk in a direction parallel to it away from the cutting. By the time we saw the lights of a station it was quite dark.
We approached the station slowly. It was very small. In common with most small Italian country stations there were no platforms, only the white stuccoed station buildings, the neat wood fences, and the clipped hedges. Beyond it was a level crossing and a signal cabin. An electric floodlight suspended from a tall concrete standard cast a circular pool of light in front of the station house. Standing talking in the light were two men. One was a station official. The other was a Fascist militiaman with a rifle slung across his back.
“What’s the one with the rifle doing there?” I whispered stupidly.
“What do you think?” retorted Zaleshoff. “The siding’s over the other side. We’ll go back and cross the line a bit lower down.”
We groped our way back along the wire fence that bounded the track, then dived under it and scuttled across the rails. On the far side we remained on the track side of the fence and began slowly to work our way back towards the station.
The track level was only about a couple of feet above that of the surrounding land and we had practically to crawl along on our hands and knees to keep under cover. Then the fence curved away to the left and I saw ahead the bulky outlines of tarpaulined goods trucks. A moment or two later we were able to stand upright with the trucks between us and the station house.
There were about twenty trucks in the siding and all appeared to be loaded. We walked alongside them until we reached the buffers at the end. Then Zaleshoff stopped.
“This looks like us,” he whispered. “All loaded and ready to go. Probably parked here last night. Come on.”
He led the way back a little, then stopped again.
“Lend me your matches,” he muttered.
I passed them to him in silence. He struck one and, shielding the flame with cupped hands, held it up against the side of the truck beside which we were standing. Then I saw that there was a metal frame there and that in the metal frame was a card. There was a lot of writing on the card, but as Zaleshoff blew out the match almost immediately I saw only one thing:
TORINO A VENEZIA — DIRETTORE PROV. MAR.
“Director of naval supplies, Venice,” murmured Zaleshoff. “It won’t get us to Udine because it’ll be side-tracked again before then, but it’ll get us on our way.”
He reached up to one of the ropes securing the tarpaulin and untied it. Then he grasped an iron staple, clambered up the toe-holes in the side of the truck and turned back the free corner of the tarpaulin. I followed him. A moment later I slid under the tarpaulin. My boots struck something hard and slippery.
“What on earth is it?” I whispered.
I heard him chuckle in the blackness. “An egg box. Get down on your knees and feel. It’s something you ought to know something about, I guess.”
I got down on my knees. Then I understood why he had chuckled. The truck was loaded with big naval gun shells held upright by a sort of framework of wood. I could feel their cold, smooth surfaces each tapering to the ring bolts that had been screwed in for lifting purposes where the fuse would one day go. There was a smell of grease and machine oil.
As I wedged myself along the framework between two of the rows I heard Zaleshoff pulling the tarpaulin back into place.
“Now you can have your nap,” he said.
I closed my eyes.
It seemed to me no more than a few minutes after that the jolt of the truck half woke me. Actually I must have been asleep some time. As the truck began to rumble on its way I drifted off once more into sleep.
The next thing I remember is a strong light shining in my eyes blinding me, of fingers gripping my arm hard and shaking me, and of a voice bawling at me in Italian.
15
Normally I am a heavy sleeper and do not wake easily; the wakening is a long, slow journey back to consciousness; a journey through a country of fantastic confusions and strange images. But on that morning I awoke quickly. Even as I screwed up my eyes against the first blinding flash of the foreman’s torch, I had remembered where I was and why I was there. A dream of fear changed suddenly into the reality.
The man shaking my arm was Zaleshoff. Then I felt a blow on my legs. With my eyes still closed I heard him speak quickly and angrily.
“Leave him alone. We’ll get down all right.”
I felt the glare leave my eyes and opened them again. It was still dark and there was a single bright star winking in a dark-blue sky. The head and shoulders of a man in uniform showed over the side of the truck.
“Be quick about it!” he snapped.
I scrambled to my feet. Zaleshoff already had one leg slung over the side of the truck.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
“Brescia. Speak Italian,” he muttered.
I clambered out after him. In the gloom I could see four men standing waiting for us. Three were in workmen’s overalls; the fourth, the uniformed man with the torch, was a foreman. As our feet touched the ground the four of them closed in on us and seized our arms.
The foreman flashed the torch over us. “To the weighbridge office,” he said abruptly; “they can be kept there until I consult with the yard manager and the police. Keep a firm hold of them. Come on, march!”
He jerked my arm and we began to walk across a network of lines and points towards a massive, dark building.
We appeared to be in a big goods yard. Beyond the building ahead there was a haze of light coming from a row of floodlights which the building concealed. I could hear a diesel-motored engine shunting a long line of trucks and the receding clink-clink of the buffers. In the distance was the reflected glare in the sky of street lighting. It was cold and my body, still warm from sleep, shivered. One of the men holding Zaleshoff said something and the other laughed. Then we walked on in silence.
The dark building turned out to be an engine shed. About fifty yards beyond it a gang of men with a travelling crane working below the floodlights was loading motor-car chassis on to long two-bogie trucks. We turned away to the left along a narrow concrete path. The path curved round a signal cabin. Then we crossed another track and approached a small building with a large window in one side through which I could see a naked electric lamp suspended above a sort of counter. The foreman pushed the door open and we were led inside.
It was really little more than a hut. A youth was seated on a high stool before the counter, which I now saw was the recording part of the weighbridge on the adjacent track; and as we came in he slipped off his stool and stood goggling at us.
I could see the foreman’s face now. He was a dark, grey-faced man with a little spiky moustache. He looked intelligent and bad-tempered. He frowned at the youth.
“Have you finished checking the cement loadings?”
“Yes, Signore.”
“Then you can go and work at your own table. This is no business of yours.”
“Yes, Signore.” The youth gave us a frightened look and went.
“Now then!” The foreman relaxed his grip on my arm and motioned to the men holding Zaleshoff to release him. Then he pointed to the opposite wall of the office. “Stand over there, both of you.”
We obeyed. His lips tightened. He surveyed us grimly.