The evening was cool and the sky had cleared. The fish were indulgent and rose to his hook in an agreeable manner, so that he very soon had half a dozen largish trout beside him on the bank, gasping under his duffle coat. These he packed in moss and leaves, and tied the makeshift parcel with some string he had found in his kit. They would, he calculated, make an annoying present for the Ambassador if only he could get them to Porson safely.
Dusk was settling into evening before he finished packing and hiding his possessions in the cave. He set off across the hill to the Ibar gorge taking a new direction along the wooded crest of the hill above the cave, very much on the alert at this time when visibility was so poor and an ambush so easy to contrive. But his fears appeared to be misplaced for he reached the point where the Studenitsa falls abruptly over the high Ibar gorge without mishap. A half-hour of slipping and sliding down the mossy glades brought him to a point overlooking the road without his having once been obliged to leave cover.
Here he stayed for a while watching the patrols moving along the stone cuttings of the railway track opposite. Above the roar of the river he could hear the noise of voices and here and there a cigarette-point glowed in the gathering darkness. He worked his way along among the saplings and bushes, keeping the road below him until he came to the white milestone. A hundred yards beyond it was the tree into which he must climb beside a gushing spring of mountain water. Here he found a grassy hollow and lay down to doze until dawn.
He must have been more tired than he realized, for he fell asleep, lulled by the delicious cool treble splashing of water on stone, and it was past midnight when he was woken by a swarm of mosquitoes which droned about his ears and seemed able to sting through his shirt. He drew the duffle coat round him and tried to sleep but there was no protection for his neck and ears, and after a little while he gave it up as a bad job. What should he do? He longed to smoke but dared not; and he was alarmed to see how long he had slept. If he once fell asleep he might miss the car altogether. Stretching himself, he decided to climb into the tree now. Why wait? At least in that precarious perch he would be too much on the alert to sleep.
Setting his parcel of fish inside his tunic, and buttoning it over the bulge, he crossed the road and hoisted himself into the tree, climbing along the lower branches until he sat perched over the middle of the road, yet hidden in the dense foliage. Hardly had he done so when he heard the noise of a car and saw the yellow splash of headlights approaching from the south, dipping and vanishing among the curves of the road. “It can’t be Porson,” he told himself, but nevertheless his pulse quickened with excitement.
CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Rendezvous
The white diffuse light approached less quickly than he had anticipated, shivering along the dark cliff walls, at times disappearing altogether only to reappear once more round a corner like a glow-worm. He settled himself in the deepest part of the tree’s foliage, yet being careful enough to keep an empty space below him into which he could lob his packet should the car turn out to be Porson’s. He could hear the engine now more clearly and he decided from the hoarse note of the sound that it was not a touring car but a lorry which was approaching — probably carrying wood northward. As it swept round the last bend, however, it seemed to throw the beams of its headlights almost directly into the tree in which he was perched, silhouetting every leaf in its white incandescence of light, so that Methuen all at once felt completely naked and exposed to view. His eyes, accustomed now to darkness, took a moment or two to get used to the blinding glare; and he kept as still as possible, lest any movement of the foliage should betray him.
But one thing he was profoundly thankful for — his sudden change of position: for the lights penetrated directly into the thicket in which he had been lying before. He would have been forced to beat a retreat into the deeper part of the wood, and could not have done that without being seen. He was just congratulating himself on his good luck, however, when the lorry drew to a halt, its headlights still biasing, by the gushing spring and with a clang the drop-cover at the back opened to release — not a load of wood alas! — but a company of blue-clad police which scrambled into the road with weary oaths. For one second he thought that perhaps he had been spotted and fumbled for the safety-catch of his revolver, but he was reassured when the men advanced to the spring to drink and wash themselves; the headlights were switched off, and the dark was suddenly full of pin-points of red light from cigarettes.
He had caught sight of a small group of leather-men who were obviously in charge of the party, and who now sauntered up the road together talking. After a ten-minute halt this small group returned to the lorry and shouted harsh orders. The headlights were switched on again and Methuen saw two of the men in leather coats unrolling a map in the glare. He heard one say: “We should be in position by dawn to comb this area. This is where he will be — somewhere within this area,” and a shiver ran down his spine for it seemed to him that they must be talking about him. “We have time,” said one, and at another order the lorry’s lights were again switched off.
The police settled by the side of the road in little groups, some to lie and doze, and some to talk and argue in low voices. They were hailed from the rock-cutting over the river, and one of the leather-men stepped forward to answer the shout. “Police patrol!” he shouted, and climbing into the lorry, switched the lights on and off half a dozen times — obviously a pre-arranged signal.
Methuen was by now acutely anxious, for if Porson should arrive at this moment it would be quite impossible to communicate with him; moreover, if this patrol should stay here until daylight he would find himself trapped in the tree for the whole of the next day. His feeling of vulnerability was increased by the fact that he had noticed how heavily armed the police were — with tommy-guns and grenades. It was not much consolation to realize that their presence here in force certainly proved that something was going on in the mountains — the mountains which had seemed to him empty of all life. He wished now that he had not cumbered himself with the heavy parcel of fish, and he cursed his own stupidity under his breath.
An hour passed and still the patrol showed no signs of moving; the hands of Methuen’s watched pointed to half-past three. The first faint streaks of light had begun to come into the eastern sky. A set of headlights started to blink on the road to the south and he set his teeth — hoping that the next arrival was not Porson. This time, however, it was a lorry full of timber which did not stop.
In the light of its headlamps he caught sight of the small group of leather-coated officers, sitting apart from the main body, discussing something in low tones. Then, as the noise of the lorry boomed into silence along the rock-tunnels he heard to his relief a voice cry: “Attention now! All aboard!” and the night was alive with the noise of boots on stone. The lorry was started up, and after its complement of men had been loaded, someone barked a harsh order. Methuen smiled with relief to hear the whine of the clutch as it engaged, and to see the white blanket of light from the headlights move under him and plunge the tree once more into blessed darkness. The machine lurched raggedly off down the road and he was able to stretch his cramped limbs along the branches.
Silence settled once more over the road and Methuen found himself dying for a drink. He did not dare, however, to climb down from his perch, and lay his face to the icy gushing water of the spring. Its ripple tantalized him, and with an effort he forced himself to ignore his thirst and to concentrate on the gradually lightening landscape before him; the peaks of the mountain gorge were being silhouetted ever more clearly against the lightening sky. It was like watching an etching going through its various states. “Please God,” he said under his breath, “tell that young brute Porson not to let it get too light.”