Harriet, glad to drop Yakimov, asked Galpin if there were any news.
‘Uh-huh.’ Galpin nodded his head, his expression glum. Among the journalists now ordering at the bar, there was the excitement of a situation come to life.
‘What is it?’
‘Just heard Hungary’s mobilising. German troops flooding in. We’ve been trying to get Budapest all evening but the lines are dead. It’s my belief that this time we’re for it.’
Harriet felt the pang of fear. Now, after six months in Rumania, she reacted more sharply to news of this sort than she would have done when she first arrived. In a small voice, she said: ‘But aren’t the passes blocked with snow?’
‘Oh, that old theory! Do you think snow could keep out mechanised forces?’
‘The Rumanians said they would fight.’
‘Don’t make me laugh. Have you ever seen the Rumanian army? A bunch of half-starved peasants.’
Without waiting for the order, Albu had handed Galpin a double whisky. Now, taking a gulp at it, Galpin grew flushed and stared at Harriet as though angry with her: ‘What do you think will happen here? Fifth column risings. This place is stiff with fifth columnists – not only those German bastards, but thousands of pro-Germans and chaps in German pay. And there’s all those hangers-on of the German Legation. They’re not here for their health. There’re two big German establishments here – and a regular arsenal in each of them. We’re all marked down. Yours truly with the rest. Make no mistake about it. We’re just sitting on a time-bomb.’
Harriet had grown pale. As she put her hand to the bar counter, Clarence drawled with exaggerated calm: ‘What are you trying to do, Galpin? Scare the wits out of her?’
Galpin now swung his angry stare on to Clarence, but he was slightly disconcerted by this reproof. He drank to give himself time, then he said: ‘We’ve got to face facts. The women oughtn’t to stick around if they can’t face facts. And you chaps’ll have to face them, too. Everyone thinks you’re agents. Don’t quote me, but the chances are you’ll wake up one night with a gun in your belly.’
‘I’ll worry about that when it happens,’ said Clarence.
Yakimov’s eyes had grown round. ‘Is this really true about Hungary?’ he asked in shocked surprise.
‘True enough for my paper.’
‘Meaning,’ said Clarence, ‘you and the others have just cooked it up?’
‘Meaning nothing of the sort. Ask Screwby here. Hey, Screws!’
Screwby loped slowly over from the other side of the room, his smile wide and simple. Appealed to, he scratched one cheek of his large, soft, heavy face and said: ‘Yah, there’s something to it all right. Budapest’s closed down. Can’t get a squeak from them. That means a “stop” and a “stop” can mean anything. Something’ll happen tonight, and that’s for sure.’
Harriet said anxiously: ‘We must try and find Guy.’
‘First,’ said Clarence, ‘have another drink.’
‘After all,’ Yakimov tried to soothe her, ‘we can’t do anything. Might as well have a couple while we’re able. Doubt if we’ll get much in dear old Dachau.’ He giggled and looked at Clarence. Clarence ordered another round. When it was drunk, Harriet would stay no longer.
As they crossed the hall, the hotel door started to revolve. Harriet watched it hopefully but it was only Gerda Hoffman, ‘trying to look’, Harriet thought, ‘as fatal and clever as she’s reputed to be’. The train of Germans that followed her appeared to be in the highest spirits; congratulating themselves, it seemed to Harriet, on the elements of victory.
‘I wish we were safely out of this country,’ she said.
‘You’ll get leave in the summer,’ said Clarence. ‘Only five more months.’
They drove to the Doi Trandafiri. Guy was not there. They did a round of several other bars, but could see nothing of him. Harriet was mystified by his disappearance. In the end she said she would go home. When Clarence left her at the door of Blocşul Cazacul, he said: ‘I expect he’s up there waiting for you.’ This now seemed so probable that Harriet was the more disturbed to find the flat dark and silent and the bedroom empty.
She was suddenly convinced that Guy’s disappearance had something to do with the scare about Hungary. Perhaps Sheppy had already taken him off on some sabotaging expedition. Perhaps he had already injured himself – or been arrested – or seized by the fifth columnists. Perhaps she would never see him again. She blamed herself that she had not gone immediately to Inchcape and asked him to interfere: now she went to the telephone and dialled his number. When he answered, she asked if Guy were with him. He had seen or heard nothing of Guy that evening.
She said: ‘There’s a rumour that Germany has invaded Hungary. Do you think it’s true?’
‘It could be.’ Inchcape took the news lightly. ‘It doesn’t mean they’ll come here. Hungary is, strategically speaking, more important to Germany than Rumania is. It simply means the Germans are straightening out their Eastern front.’
Harriet, in no mood to listen to Inchcape’s theories, broke in rather wildly: ‘Everyone thinks they’ll come here. All the journalists think so. And Guy has disappeared. I’m afraid he’s gone to Ploeşti with Sheppy on one of these insane sabotage plans.’
‘What insane sabotage plans?’ Inchcape spoke with the mild patience of one out to discover something, but Harriet did not need to be manoeuvred. She was keeping nothing to herself. All she wanted now was to seize Guy back from disaster.
She answered: ‘Putting detonators down the oil wells. Blowing up the Iron Gates …’
‘I see! That’s what he’s up to, is he? Indeed! Well, don’t worry, my dear child. Leave this to me, will you?’
‘But where is Guy? Where is Guy?’
‘Oh, he’ll turn up.’ Inchcape spoke impatiently, the question of Guy’s whereabouts being, in importance, a long way behind the threat to his dignity contained in Sheppy’s use of his men.
As Harriet put down the receiver, she heard Guy’s key in the lock. He entered singing, his face agleam with the cold. ‘Why, hello!’ he said, surprised at seeing her standing unoccupied beside the telephone.
‘Where on earth have you been?’ she asked. ‘We were meeting you in the English Bar.’ She was guilty and cross with relief.
‘I glanced in and there was no one there, so I walked down to the Dâmboviţa with Dubedat.’
‘Couldn’t you have waited? Can’t you wait for me even for ten minutes? Do you know that German troops are pouring into Hungary? They may invade Rumania tonight.’
‘I don’t believe it. I bet you got this from Galpin.’
‘I did, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’
‘These rumours are never true.’
‘One day one will be true. This sort of phoney war can’t go on for ever. Someone’s got to move some time and we’ll be trapped. Galpin says the place is full of fifth columnists. He says you’ll wake up one night with a gun in your belly. We’ll be sent to Dachau. We’ll never be free … we’ll never go home again …’ As he reached her, she collapsed against him crying helplessly.
‘My poor darling.’ He put his arms round her, astonished. ‘I didn’t realise you were getting nervous.’ He put her into the armchair and telephoned the Legation, where Foxy Leverett was on duty. He learnt that the rumours had derived from nothing more than a breakdown on the line to Budapest. This had now been righted. Foxy had just rung Budapest and found all quiet there.