Chapter V.
A Band of Brothers
A Band of Brothers
‘I must explain, your highness,’ said Sir Andrew; ‘that I can’t go inside with you. I’m not really allowed to see or hear or speak to the men you are about to meet. It’s safer for everybody that way.’
Sir Andrew’s shiny black automobile was parked in an alleyway across the street from a small restaurant whose windows glowed palely in the heavy darkness of the city night. The consul and Cecil were the only occupants of the vehicle for Sir Andrew did not have a chauffeur either.
Sir Andrew looked at his watch by aid of a match.
‘It’s about time,’ he said. ‘Be sure there are no policemen about when you cross the street. When you get inside the restaurant, give the proprietor the codeword: Stambulisky.’
‘Right,’ said Cecil, slipping quietly out of the side door and creeping to the end of the alley.
The avenue was silent and empty. A faint sound of a concertina could be heard from inside the restaurant and off down the street a cat ran across the pavement. Cecil dashed out, bent nearly double, crossed the wide strip of roadway and arrived breathless in the hollow of the restaurant door. He glanced first up and down the street to see that he had not been observed and lastly in the direction of the alley in which he could faintly see a corner of Sir Andrew’s front fender. Reassured, he put his hand on the door and pushed it inwards.
The inside of the restaurant was a striking example of the divided lives of the Pyromanian people, its quiet interior consisting of neatly laid round tables, dark carpet, and a fire on a small open hearth, contrasting sharply with garish government posters placarded on the wall urging citizens to ‘Ban the Brit’ and ‘Buy Bonds for Better Bombs’.
Cecil stepped up to the counter and asked the concertina player for the proprietor.
‘I’m himself,’ was the idiomatic answer.
‘Stambulisky,’ said Cecil conversationally.
The proprietor nodded towards a door in the back of the room without pausing in his playing.
‘Up the staircase,’ he said without further explanation.
Cecil went out and found a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. At the end of it was a hallway and as there was only one door in it, he knocked at it and went in.
There was nobody inside. The room was a small one that was furnished for a sitting room and was obviously the restaurant owner’s living quarters. There was a sofa and several chairs, a victrola on a bookshelf, a lamp, and several prints of mountain scenery hanging on the walls. Cecil looked at his watch and saw that he had a few minutes still before the appointed hour. He went to the window and found that it looked out on a back alley full of garbage cans.
As he stood there the light behind him suddenly went out. Cecil swung round but the sudden darkness prevented him from seeing anything at all for several seconds. In the interval he heard a voice speak.
‘You should not stand in front of a window with a light behind you.’
It was a man’s voice, but definitely not the proprietor of the restaurant’s. It was a strange voice that gave Cecil a queer feeling and there was a peculiar quality in it, as if nothing it said really mattered—as if nothing at all really mattered.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Cecil. ‘I’m not standing in front of the window anymore; do you mind turning the light back on?’
‘It were better if I left it off,’ said the voice in the same empty tone. ‘I don’t mind talking in the dark. You must know the password or you can’t have gotten past our man downstairs. I don’t care to hear how you knew it, I just want to know what you’re doing here.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Cecil.
‘Who are you? Why are you here? What are you looking for?’
They were perhaps the three most generic questions there are and you have probably asked and been asked them at least a hundred times a year, but spoken by that queer empty voice in the dark they sounded to Cecil like the three great enigmas of existence. The last question was the only one he really felt he could answer.
‘I’m looking for a man,’ he said, feeling along the wall.
‘What man?’
‘I think,’ said Cecil on a venture; ‘that he might be you.’
‘Name him.’
‘I don’t know his name.’
‘Then I can’t help you.’
‘He goes by the name Aleph,’ said Cecil, and by now his hand had found what it had been looking for and he flipped on a light switch.
The room flashed into view for a split second and flashed out again like rooms do during a summer storm. The person on the other side of it had his hand on the other light switch and had flipped it off again instantly. But Cecil had caught a glimpse of him first.
‘Are you Aleph?’ asked Cecil, flipping on the light again.
‘No,’ said the person, flipping it off just as quickly.
‘You’re just saying that,’ said Cecil. ‘And if you keep flipping the light off, you’ll blow the bulb.’
‘I don’t want the light on.’
‘Why not? And when are the others getting here?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I mean the others of your group. I won’t say any more in case we can be overheard, but I have a feeling that they’re behind this door.’
‘What door?’
‘The door that is beside this light switch.’
‘There is no door by that light switch.’
‘There is always a door by a light switch,’ said Cecil. ‘Otherwise, what’s the use of having a light switch there? Anyhow, I’ve found the knob. It’s meant to look like a coat hook, but it’s too low down.’
‘You’d better not go in there,’ said the voice.
‘Look here,’ said Cecil; ‘what’s the point in keeping me out when I already know too much? I’ll lay down my weapons if you like, but I’m going in there all the same.’
‘You will die if you do,’ said the voice.
Cecil said nothing. In the silence he heard footsteps crossing the floor and then sensed the electric feeling of someone in the darkness quite close to him. There was a curious rhythmic tapping on the wall struck out, he knew, by the mysterious person beside him. Then he felt the atmosphere about him move as the door opened on equal blackness and a breath of close air came out, tinged with tobacco smoke.
‘I thought I warned you about smoking, Vau,’ said the voice, and Cecil heard by its sound that the person was going into the room.
He followed.
‘I put it out,’ said a voice from within.
‘Who is it?’ asked another voice.
‘Is Daleth still on guard?’ said another.
Cecil felt the door shut behind him and began to perspire in the close space.
‘I say, is there a window handy?’ he asked. ‘I’m stifled.’
He was blinded for a moment by the light being suddenly turned on and when his eyes had adjusted, he saw that he was in a small square bedroom, a bed and a bureau being the sole articles of furniture in it, and in the wall one window that was so muffled up with flannel that not a speck of light could get out nor a breath of air get in. There were about ten men in the room, all in dark clothes, and all looking curiously at him.
‘Hullo,’ he said.
‘Who sent you here?’ asked one of the men who held a drawn pistol in his hand.
He was a youngish-looking man with black hair and dark eyes and a small black moustache. Cecil knew at once from his voice that he had been the person in the other room.
‘The British government did,’ said Cecil.
‘What for?’ asked one of the others.
They were obviously sceptical and suspicious as well.
‘What do they know of us? We haven’t been able to contact them for over a year. And if they want to help us, why don’t they send us the weapons and machines we need?’
‘They only sent me,’ said Cecil. ‘Or, at any rate, the British Consul did. He thought you might be useful to my cause.’
This reversal of roles completely dumbfounded the members of the underground for a moment.
‘Your cause? And what cause is that?’ asked the man with the pistol.
‘Saving Pyromania,’ replied Cecil. ‘I’m Cecil Montellescue.’
There was a shocked silence.
‘What do you mean?’ asked one of the men confusedly. ‘You’re the prince? How can you prove it?’
‘Here’s my sword,’ said Cecil, drawing it and laying it on the bed. ‘It has the Montellescue motto.’
They all stared at the sword and saw the words engraved in the steel: Semper Idem. It did not occur to them to doubt Cecil after that. Besides, he looked too much like his father to be doubted.
‘You’re the leader, aren’t you?’ asked Cecil, addressing the dark-haired man.
‘Yes,’ said that person, who seemed to be trying to recover his wits. He could not have looked more confused if the world had suddenly turned upside down.
‘Then I’ll call you Aleph, although you don’t seem to like it much,’ said Cecil briskly. ‘Right. How about the rest of you gentlemen?’
‘The British consul sent you, did he?’ asked Aleph, speaking rapidly and seeming to be trying to straighten his mind out. ‘How did you get into the country? Who knows about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cecil. ‘I don’t think it’s gotten into the papers yet. I got here by the SIS’s help.’
‘What are your plans? What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
The leader still stared at him dazedly. ‘I can’t believe it!’ he murmured.
‘Can’t believe what?’ asked Cecil uncomfortably. He felt that he had been rather brash and now that it was revealed that he had no definite plans for saving Pyromania, he was beginning to feel a little silly.
‘That you came back. You came here to lead a coup on your own? A mere boy?’
‘Well, someone had to do it,’ said Cecil.
Aleph sat down (on the bed because there was nowhere else to sit).
‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking.’
Nobody spoke but the men’s faces had begun to look excited and they couldn’t stop staring at Cecil. It was the sort of impression that he had hoped to make and yet it was a bit unexpected all the same.
‘All right, I think I have it!’ said Aleph. ‘Gimel!’
Gimel—who looked a decent sort of fellow—stepped towards him.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘That meeting to-morrow,’ asked Aleph; ‘—we could still pull it off, couldn’t we?’
‘Possibly, if we hurried. The lorry with the dynamite leaves in an hour.’
‘Listen, this is the plan,’ Aleph went on, addressing the group in general. ‘The lorry gets stopped according to what we worked out before. To-morrow afternoon Wakjavotski has a meeting with his generals—Baden, Grosse, and Limbrügher will all be there and we’ll have the chance to knock them all off at once. We lay the explosives under the floor of the conference room…’
‘But just a minute,’ said Gimel. ‘I thought you said that it wasn’t any use and the plan was off.’
‘I did, but everything’s changed now. We have him.’
And he turned his eyes shining with fanatical zeal on Cecil.
‘Don’t you see?’ he said. ‘The whole point of it was to kill off every possible Javotski who could take effective leadership of the government, but unless we could take the lead ourselves that step would only plunge the country into anarchy. We had to have someone whom the armed forces, the heads of the different departments, the press—everyone—will listen to and follow. And now we have!’
‘I say!’ said Cecil.
‘Then you mean we’re actually going to go through with it?’ asked one of the others.
‘We are,’ said Aleph. ‘Whoever is afraid, this is your chance to back out, for from here on there won’t be another.’
Cecil stared at him. The strange emptiness in his voice was entirely gone and now his eyes glowed and his tone was full of enthusiasm and determination.
‘Now listen closely, everybody,’ he said. ‘These are the plans. We start out at rendezvous D. Cheth, Jod, and Tau get the cosh job. I’ll bring the clothes for you, Cheth. The rest of you we’ll need for lifting and carrying.’
Cecil watched him curiously as he gave out the orders to the different agents. The leader of the underground seemed to be able to change from one mood to another quite rapidly and without any intermediate stages. His fanatical enthusiasm had cooled almost at once and he was now suddenly completely calm and as business-like as an Englishman on Change. It was not hard to see how he had become the leader of the only underground operation continuing to exist in totalitarian Pyromania.
‘Does everyone understand?’ he asked.
‘Excuse me,’ said Cecil. ‘Did all of you take your names from the Hebrew alphabet?’
‘Yes,’ said Aleph shortly.
‘What made you choose the Hebrew alphabet? Are you all Jewish?’
‘What does it matter? We chose it because it was as good as any other and no, we’re not Jewish.’
‘My grandmother was Jewish,’ said Gimel.
‘If you don’t mind then,’ said Cecil; ‘I’d like to be called Tzaddi.’
‘You don’t need an alias,’ said Aleph. ‘We already know who you are.’
‘I should like to be called Tzaddi anyway,’ said Cecil.
‘Very well, if you insist on it,’ said Aleph.
There was a curious tapping on the door and in the same instant everyone noticed that the low continuous sound of the concertina had stopped.
‘Light,’ said Aleph briefly and the light was instantly extinguished.
Cecil heard the door open and a low question given and answered.
‘What is it, Daleth?’
‘Police.’
‘What branch?’
‘Civil.’
‘Oh, only civil. They’ll be easy to handle. Stall them up if you can.’
The door closed and the light came on again.
‘Disperse everyone,’ said Aleph calmly. ‘We’ll meet up at rendezvous D in half in hour. Vau, turn on the electric fan and get some of the smoke out of here.’
The men silently filed out through a narrow door on the other side of the room. Aleph and Gimel motioned to Cecil.
‘You’ll come with us,’ said Aleph. ‘Keep the noise down.’
They went through the narrow door behind the last of the other agents and Cecil found that it led into a small bathroom. There was a window above the bathtub and through it the men climbed one at a time, sliding down a rope that was attached to the sill. Cecil found when his turn came that the distance to the ground was not very great, especially as he came down on the top of a dumpster. Gimel came last, disconnecting the rope as he came.
The men quickly disappeared into the night and Cecil hurried between Aleph and Gimel as they traversed the back alleys of the city. Not a word was spoken between them. They walked quickly but without making any noise and Cecil was hard put to keep his sword from rattling.
There was scarcely any light in the back lanes that they stayed in and, although this was a good thing for them in that it kept them concealed, Cecil soon had no idea where in the city he was. The two men seemed to know their way about perfectly and did not stop or even slow down for a moment until at last they reached their destination. It seemed a shop of some sort because a sign hung above the door but in the darkness Cecil could not read it. He heard ond of the men turn a key in a lock and open a door. Then he followed on their heels into a dark room of some sort.
At first Cecil had no idea what gave him the strange feeling of continuous sound, until the door had closed and in the stillness he could make it out clearly. It was a clicking sound, as of hundreds of tiny machines, all beating away in a regular rhythm but completely independent of each other. It almost frightened him. What sort of machines were they, and in what sort of a place was he?
But the next minute Gimel turned on a light and Cecil almost laughed. They were machines—he was in a watch shop.
‘Here we are,’ said Gimel. ‘What do you think?’
‘Is this place yours?’ asked Cecil.
‘Yes, it’s mine. We have meetings here sometimes, in the cellar.’
‘That’s not what we’re here for now,’ said Aleph. ‘I have to get a few items from upstairs. Keep a watch, Gimel.’
He went up a staircase that opened up in the back of the shop and Gimel took up a position by the window to keep an eye on the street. He took his eye off the street once or twice though to look at Cecil and grin.
‘Are you frightened?’ he asked.
‘Not much,’ said Cecil.
The man grinned again as if pleased about something.
‘I always thought you would come back,’ he said.
‘Why?’ asked Cecil. ‘Did somebody think I wasn’t going to?’
‘Most people did. After all, you were safe in Great Britain with a nice safe school to go to and, as we all thought, learning to be a good socialist. Why should you come back?’
‘Because I’m a Pyromanian and this is my country.’
‘I know. That’s why I thought you would come back.’
‘Did Aleph expect me?’
‘No, he didn’t. I don’t think any one of us was as surprised to see you as he was.’
‘I rather think he looks on me as a mere kid.’
‘I think he does, too.’
‘Well, I hope he’ll let me do something interesting. He seems one of those tiresome sort of grown-ups.’
‘He can’t help it,’ said Gimel.
He was stopped from saying anything further by the leader’s reappearance with a bundle.
‘All right, let’s go,’ said Aleph peremptorily.
They left the shop and struck off down more back alleys, flattening themselves against walls and crouching behind garbage cans whenever a policeman or soldier was seen. Cecil was rather surprised to find how many soldiers seemed to be out on the streets and supposed it was the result of the recent mobilisation.
The three of them arrived eventually at the back of a dilapidated warehouse clustered with several others round the base of an old water tower that, with its rusty metal sides and cone-shaped corrugated roof, reminded Cecil of the Martian machines from Mr. H. G. Wells’s book. All was silent in the alley, but Cecil soon saw a group of silent figures waiting together at one end. They were the rest of the little band and a movement of excitement ran through them as they saw their leader approaching.
He handed his bundle to one of the agents and took a quick survey.
‘Is everyone clear on his orders?’ he asked.
There was a murmur of assent.
‘Good. All armed?’
‘With what we’ve got,’ said one.
‘Mem hasn’t shown up yet,’ said another.
‘We’ll have to go ahead without him. I hope he wasn’t picked up by the police,’ said the leader.
‘Here comes someone; that must be him, or Jod would have given the signal.’
‘All right,’ said Aleph, as soon as they had made certain that it was Mem. ‘To work then. We have exactly seven minutes and twelve seconds.’
Cecil was startled to see a Pyromanian soldier emerge from the group, but as he passed close beside him he recognised the man as Cheth in the uniform Aleph had brought him.
‘What are they going to do?’ he asked Gimel as they watched two other insurgents join the man and all three slip away up the alley.
‘They’re going to steal a lorry full of dynamite,’ explained Gimel.
‘All by themselves?’ exclaimed Cecil.
‘Oh yes. They’re quite good thieves. They pinched an omnibus yesterday.’
‘An omnibus! What for?’
‘For carrying the dynamite to the palace. It’s the one vehicle least likely to attract attention.’
Cecil realised on reflection that this was so.
‘How are they going to steal the lorry?’ he asked.
‘Cheth will stop it on the road while the other two jump in and tie up the driver and guard. They should be back in fifteen minutes.’
They were back in even a little less time than that. The lorry rumbled into the dark alley with its headlights off and drew up beside the door of the warehouse. The other members of the group quickly got to work carrying the heavy crates of explosives from the lorry into the warehouse where it was deposited inside a green omnibus concealed within.
‘Make it quick; we haven’t got much time,’ said Aleph, lending his energy to the proceedings.
They found among the crates in the lorry the bodies of the driver and guard, bound and gagged and knocked senseless by the zeal of the two assaulters. These unfortunates they deposited in the cab of the lorry after Aleph had added the thorough but unnecessary precaution of blindfolding them. The instant the last crate was removed Gimel drove the lorry (now empty except for the driver and guard) off down the streets to leave it in a less conspicuous place. The rest of the men covered the omnibus with tarpaulins and locked up the warehouse.
‘You know the plans,’ said Aleph to them. ‘Be here by five to-morrow afternoon. Goodnight, brothers all, and may our flag fly over a free country before another night arrives!’
The insurgent band departed their various ways without looking as if they thought this possibility very likely and Aleph and Cecil returned to the watch shop to wait for Gimel. They did not wait very long; he arrived soon enough looking very cheerful and reporting good success. He had left the lorry in a junk yard.
There was a room above the shop that was Gimel’s living room and bedroom. It was furnished quite cosily for the little space available and was kept neat and tidy. Aleph and Cecil sat down around a table while Gimel proceeded to make tea on a gas burner.
‘Well, that’s the first step done,’ said Aleph. ‘The next is more complicated, and I think we had better have the map out. Where did you hide it, Leiber?’
‘It’s inside the grandfather clock,’ said Gimel.
He went to a monstrous old clock that stood in a corner and must have been made by some old Dutch clockmaker in the days when people needed places to hide large amounts of valuables, for it was quite capacious. Gimel opened up the face of it and took out a paper which his leader spread out on the table and began to study.
‘It passed off without a hitch, didn’t it?’ said Gimel, going back to the kettle. ‘I was rather afraid something would go wrong.’
‘It went exactly according to plan,’ said Aleph with satisfaction. ‘There was no interference from the SO, which was chiefly what I was afraid of.’
‘So was I,’ said Gimel, setting the teacups on the table reflectively. ‘Do you feel in the mood for biscuits, Karotski?’
‘By all means; have ‘em out. What time is it?’
‘Ten o’clock by the grandfather clock and that’s set to the atomic clock, so it’s right.’
‘Do you set your watches downstairs to it too, Leiber?’ asked Cecil.
‘Yes,’ said Gimel.
Aleph looked sharply at Cecil.
‘What did you call him?’ he asked.
‘Leiber,’ said Cecil.
‘Leiber?’ asked Aleph, standing up. ‘Where did you hear that name?
‘I’m sorry. You were calling each other by your real names, and I forgot I wasn’t supposed to.’
‘Were we?’
The two men looked at each other for a moment anxiously. Aleph set his lips and looked down at Cecil.
‘We kept our names from you for your sake, not for ours. If you happen to be captured, you will regret that you ever heard them spoken.’
‘Why?’ asked Cecil.
‘Because the SO will torture you to make you divulge them.’
‘He means the Secret Police,’ said Leiber.
‘I know,’ said Cecil; ‘but I wouldn’t tell them, you know.’
‘You would still be sorry you had anything to tell,’ said Karotski. ‘Still, it was my fault; I shouldn’t have been so careless.’
With that he sat down once more and poured out a cup of tea.
‘Is the SO onto you?’ asked Cecil, hoping to change the subject. ‘Do they know about your activities?’
‘No, because up until a few days ago we didn’t have any activities to know about,’ said Karotski. ‘We haven’t had a fighting chance of pulling off a rebellion and not the men or materials to do it if we did. Wakjavotski’s been getting stronger every year since he came to power and there’s been absolutely no opportunity. The British have helped us some, but there’s not much they can do and we haven’t been able to get in contact with them because its’ too dangerous. We’ve had several close calls with the SO already.’
‘One of our men was picked up by a policeman last week,’ said Leiber. ‘We were all getting ready to run for our lives until we found out it was only for being out after curfew. The civil police don’t much care for the SO and don’t usually give up prisoners to them, but the SO can make them if it wants to because it has enormous executive power. It’s Wakjavotski’s personal information system and bodyguard.’
‘They are absolutely without scruple,’ said Karotski. ‘They torture anyone they think knows anything and kill off anyone they think dangerous without any kind of trial.’
‘The man at the head of it is called Zköllmann,’ said Leiber. ‘He’s the worst of all Wakjavotski’s henchmen.’
‘Those are the sort of methods this regime employs,’ said Karotski.
‘Why does everyone put up with it?’ asked Cecil.
He had still a fear that what his headmaster had said was true and that the people really did prefer this sort of government to the monarchy.
‘What else can they do?’ asked Karotski. ‘They’ve tried to protest, but what does it get them? Shot, usually. It’s up to us to save the country.’
Now that the two men had gone so far with Cecil they seemed intent on telling him all they knew of the problem and of their own attempts to solve it.
‘We stole the omnibus,’ explained Karotski; ‘on an impulse when the alliance went through and England declared war, because we knew we’d never have another chance and that that one pitiful plan was all we had. As it was, I had second thoughts and decided against going through with it and I was just going to tell the others when you appeared and we suddenly had what we needed to pull it off. So there it is. Your arrival was providential and if we don’t succeed to-morrow it will be our own fault.’
‘What’s your plan?’ asked Cecil.
‘Look here, I’ll show you,’ said Karotski, smoothing out the paper in front of him which on inspection proved to be a floor plan of the palace. ‘We get in here—through the sewer that’s being repaired. That will get us underneath the conference room. We plant the dynamite here,’ and he made a small x on the map. ‘The fuse will be easy to lay. We’ll set it off from beneath the home defence building across the street.’
‘Are we going to do it at night?’ asked Cecil.
‘No, the meeting is to-morrow afternoon so we have to do it then.’
‘But won’t they see us in broad daylight? And what about the sewers? Who will want to go down there?’
‘They won’t see us because we will be underground the whole time,’ explained Karotski. ‘The sewer system is most extensive and runs so far and its walls are so thick that we will be able to set off the explosion from inside it. And don’t worry about dirt. It rained steadily all of last week and it’s mostly rainwater down there.’
‘What will we do if it doesn’t work?’
‘We will fight! We will run and hide and come back to fight some more! We will never give up. Supposing the plan fails? It’s a risk we have to take because it’s the best plan we have. But I don’t think it will fail. I know, and Leiber knows even better, that this plan must not fail.’
Karotski had gotten again the gleam of the zealot in his eye and ring in his voice that he only got in moments of great excitement and for only short periods. It made him look very different from the way he usually looked and behaved.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Cecil, who had been studying the paper.
‘What don’t you understand?’ asked Karotski, who seemed to have almost forgotten again that he was there.
‘Are we going to blow them all up? Wakjavotski and—and everybody?’
‘Yes. What don’t you understand about that?’
‘It’s just that…’ Cecil paused, for he didn’t know how to explain himself.
‘You don’t like the idea?’ asked Leiber.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Cecil. ‘It seems a rotten show to blow them up like that—when they aren’t expecting it.’
‘Do you think it would be kinder to them to blow them up when they are expecting it?’ asked Karotski. ‘Maybe we should shower them with leaflets first.’
‘No,’ said Cecil; ‘I don’t mean that. I just mean—well, it seems—well, I don’t like it.’
He kicked the legs of his chair despondently.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Karotski. ‘There are enough people to feel sorry for without having to feel sorry for our enemies.’
‘It isn’t just feeling sorry for them,’ said Cecil. ‘It’s that it’s so jolly mean and low to hit a fellow from behind like that. It’s—it’s just like Wakjavotski.’
‘What do you suggest?’ asked Karotski. ‘—That we don’t kill him at all?’
‘It would be different if we shot him and had done with it—I mean right out in the open, you know. But sneaking around doesn’t seem right.’
‘That’s the only way of fighting we have. We can’t be gentlemen: this isn’t a gentleman’s war.’
‘Bother it,’ said Cecil.
‘You will soon get over it,’ said Karotski.
‘Yes,’ said Leiber. ‘You probably will. But I know what you mean—or, at any rate, I think I do. I had to shoot a fellow once who I knew didn’t have any chance to get away—that’s what was so awful about it. I’m not sorry I shot him—I had to and if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do it differently—but it seemed he ought to have had a chance.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Karotski.
But Cecil understood what he meant. It was an awful feeling that they had to become murderers to free Pyromania. He couldn’t be quite sure that it was right, but after all it was their only choice and that was the way the world was. He wished it wasn’t.
Sir Andrew’s shiny black automobile was parked in an alleyway across the street from a small restaurant whose windows glowed palely in the heavy darkness of the city night. The consul and Cecil were the only occupants of the vehicle for Sir Andrew did not have a chauffeur either.
Sir Andrew looked at his watch by aid of a match.
‘It’s about time,’ he said. ‘Be sure there are no policemen about when you cross the street. When you get inside the restaurant, give the proprietor the codeword: Stambulisky.’
‘Right,’ said Cecil, slipping quietly out of the side door and creeping to the end of the alley.
The avenue was silent and empty. A faint sound of a concertina could be heard from inside the restaurant and off down the street a cat ran across the pavement. Cecil dashed out, bent nearly double, crossed the wide strip of roadway and arrived breathless in the hollow of the restaurant door. He glanced first up and down the street to see that he had not been observed and lastly in the direction of the alley in which he could faintly see a corner of Sir Andrew’s front fender. Reassured, he put his hand on the door and pushed it inwards.
The inside of the restaurant was a striking example of the divided lives of the Pyromanian people, its quiet interior consisting of neatly laid round tables, dark carpet, and a fire on a small open hearth, contrasting sharply with garish government posters placarded on the wall urging citizens to ‘Ban the Brit’ and ‘Buy Bonds for Better Bombs’.
Cecil stepped up to the counter and asked the concertina player for the proprietor.
‘I’m himself,’ was the idiomatic answer.
‘Stambulisky,’ said Cecil conversationally.
The proprietor nodded towards a door in the back of the room without pausing in his playing.
‘Up the staircase,’ he said without further explanation.
Cecil went out and found a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. At the end of it was a hallway and as there was only one door in it, he knocked at it and went in.
There was nobody inside. The room was a small one that was furnished for a sitting room and was obviously the restaurant owner’s living quarters. There was a sofa and several chairs, a victrola on a bookshelf, a lamp, and several prints of mountain scenery hanging on the walls. Cecil looked at his watch and saw that he had a few minutes still before the appointed hour. He went to the window and found that it looked out on a back alley full of garbage cans.
As he stood there the light behind him suddenly went out. Cecil swung round but the sudden darkness prevented him from seeing anything at all for several seconds. In the interval he heard a voice speak.
‘You should not stand in front of a window with a light behind you.’
It was a man’s voice, but definitely not the proprietor of the restaurant’s. It was a strange voice that gave Cecil a queer feeling and there was a peculiar quality in it, as if nothing it said really mattered—as if nothing at all really mattered.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Cecil. ‘I’m not standing in front of the window anymore; do you mind turning the light back on?’
‘It were better if I left it off,’ said the voice in the same empty tone. ‘I don’t mind talking in the dark. You must know the password or you can’t have gotten past our man downstairs. I don’t care to hear how you knew it, I just want to know what you’re doing here.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Cecil.
‘Who are you? Why are you here? What are you looking for?’
They were perhaps the three most generic questions there are and you have probably asked and been asked them at least a hundred times a year, but spoken by that queer empty voice in the dark they sounded to Cecil like the three great enigmas of existence. The last question was the only one he really felt he could answer.
‘I’m looking for a man,’ he said, feeling along the wall.
‘What man?’
‘I think,’ said Cecil on a venture; ‘that he might be you.’
‘Name him.’
‘I don’t know his name.’
‘Then I can’t help you.’
‘He goes by the name Aleph,’ said Cecil, and by now his hand had found what it had been looking for and he flipped on a light switch.
The room flashed into view for a split second and flashed out again like rooms do during a summer storm. The person on the other side of it had his hand on the other light switch and had flipped it off again instantly. But Cecil had caught a glimpse of him first.
‘Are you Aleph?’ asked Cecil, flipping on the light again.
‘No,’ said the person, flipping it off just as quickly.
‘You’re just saying that,’ said Cecil. ‘And if you keep flipping the light off, you’ll blow the bulb.’
‘I don’t want the light on.’
‘Why not? And when are the others getting here?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I mean the others of your group. I won’t say any more in case we can be overheard, but I have a feeling that they’re behind this door.’
‘What door?’
‘The door that is beside this light switch.’
‘There is no door by that light switch.’
‘There is always a door by a light switch,’ said Cecil. ‘Otherwise, what’s the use of having a light switch there? Anyhow, I’ve found the knob. It’s meant to look like a coat hook, but it’s too low down.’
‘You’d better not go in there,’ said the voice.
‘Look here,’ said Cecil; ‘what’s the point in keeping me out when I already know too much? I’ll lay down my weapons if you like, but I’m going in there all the same.’
‘You will die if you do,’ said the voice.
Cecil said nothing. In the silence he heard footsteps crossing the floor and then sensed the electric feeling of someone in the darkness quite close to him. There was a curious rhythmic tapping on the wall struck out, he knew, by the mysterious person beside him. Then he felt the atmosphere about him move as the door opened on equal blackness and a breath of close air came out, tinged with tobacco smoke.
‘I thought I warned you about smoking, Vau,’ said the voice, and Cecil heard by its sound that the person was going into the room.
He followed.
‘I put it out,’ said a voice from within.
‘Who is it?’ asked another voice.
‘Is Daleth still on guard?’ said another.
Cecil felt the door shut behind him and began to perspire in the close space.
‘I say, is there a window handy?’ he asked. ‘I’m stifled.’
He was blinded for a moment by the light being suddenly turned on and when his eyes had adjusted, he saw that he was in a small square bedroom, a bed and a bureau being the sole articles of furniture in it, and in the wall one window that was so muffled up with flannel that not a speck of light could get out nor a breath of air get in. There were about ten men in the room, all in dark clothes, and all looking curiously at him.
‘Hullo,’ he said.
‘Who sent you here?’ asked one of the men who held a drawn pistol in his hand.
He was a youngish-looking man with black hair and dark eyes and a small black moustache. Cecil knew at once from his voice that he had been the person in the other room.
‘The British government did,’ said Cecil.
‘What for?’ asked one of the others.
They were obviously sceptical and suspicious as well.
‘What do they know of us? We haven’t been able to contact them for over a year. And if they want to help us, why don’t they send us the weapons and machines we need?’
‘They only sent me,’ said Cecil. ‘Or, at any rate, the British Consul did. He thought you might be useful to my cause.’
This reversal of roles completely dumbfounded the members of the underground for a moment.
‘Your cause? And what cause is that?’ asked the man with the pistol.
‘Saving Pyromania,’ replied Cecil. ‘I’m Cecil Montellescue.’
There was a shocked silence.
‘What do you mean?’ asked one of the men confusedly. ‘You’re the prince? How can you prove it?’
‘Here’s my sword,’ said Cecil, drawing it and laying it on the bed. ‘It has the Montellescue motto.’
They all stared at the sword and saw the words engraved in the steel: Semper Idem. It did not occur to them to doubt Cecil after that. Besides, he looked too much like his father to be doubted.
‘You’re the leader, aren’t you?’ asked Cecil, addressing the dark-haired man.
‘Yes,’ said that person, who seemed to be trying to recover his wits. He could not have looked more confused if the world had suddenly turned upside down.
‘Then I’ll call you Aleph, although you don’t seem to like it much,’ said Cecil briskly. ‘Right. How about the rest of you gentlemen?’
‘The British consul sent you, did he?’ asked Aleph, speaking rapidly and seeming to be trying to straighten his mind out. ‘How did you get into the country? Who knows about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cecil. ‘I don’t think it’s gotten into the papers yet. I got here by the SIS’s help.’
‘What are your plans? What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
The leader still stared at him dazedly. ‘I can’t believe it!’ he murmured.
‘Can’t believe what?’ asked Cecil uncomfortably. He felt that he had been rather brash and now that it was revealed that he had no definite plans for saving Pyromania, he was beginning to feel a little silly.
‘That you came back. You came here to lead a coup on your own? A mere boy?’
‘Well, someone had to do it,’ said Cecil.
Aleph sat down (on the bed because there was nowhere else to sit).
‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking.’
Nobody spoke but the men’s faces had begun to look excited and they couldn’t stop staring at Cecil. It was the sort of impression that he had hoped to make and yet it was a bit unexpected all the same.
‘All right, I think I have it!’ said Aleph. ‘Gimel!’
Gimel—who looked a decent sort of fellow—stepped towards him.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘That meeting to-morrow,’ asked Aleph; ‘—we could still pull it off, couldn’t we?’
‘Possibly, if we hurried. The lorry with the dynamite leaves in an hour.’
‘Listen, this is the plan,’ Aleph went on, addressing the group in general. ‘The lorry gets stopped according to what we worked out before. To-morrow afternoon Wakjavotski has a meeting with his generals—Baden, Grosse, and Limbrügher will all be there and we’ll have the chance to knock them all off at once. We lay the explosives under the floor of the conference room…’
‘But just a minute,’ said Gimel. ‘I thought you said that it wasn’t any use and the plan was off.’
‘I did, but everything’s changed now. We have him.’
And he turned his eyes shining with fanatical zeal on Cecil.
‘Don’t you see?’ he said. ‘The whole point of it was to kill off every possible Javotski who could take effective leadership of the government, but unless we could take the lead ourselves that step would only plunge the country into anarchy. We had to have someone whom the armed forces, the heads of the different departments, the press—everyone—will listen to and follow. And now we have!’
‘I say!’ said Cecil.
‘Then you mean we’re actually going to go through with it?’ asked one of the others.
‘We are,’ said Aleph. ‘Whoever is afraid, this is your chance to back out, for from here on there won’t be another.’
Cecil stared at him. The strange emptiness in his voice was entirely gone and now his eyes glowed and his tone was full of enthusiasm and determination.
‘Now listen closely, everybody,’ he said. ‘These are the plans. We start out at rendezvous D. Cheth, Jod, and Tau get the cosh job. I’ll bring the clothes for you, Cheth. The rest of you we’ll need for lifting and carrying.’
Cecil watched him curiously as he gave out the orders to the different agents. The leader of the underground seemed to be able to change from one mood to another quite rapidly and without any intermediate stages. His fanatical enthusiasm had cooled almost at once and he was now suddenly completely calm and as business-like as an Englishman on Change. It was not hard to see how he had become the leader of the only underground operation continuing to exist in totalitarian Pyromania.
‘Does everyone understand?’ he asked.
‘Excuse me,’ said Cecil. ‘Did all of you take your names from the Hebrew alphabet?’
‘Yes,’ said Aleph shortly.
‘What made you choose the Hebrew alphabet? Are you all Jewish?’
‘What does it matter? We chose it because it was as good as any other and no, we’re not Jewish.’
‘My grandmother was Jewish,’ said Gimel.
‘If you don’t mind then,’ said Cecil; ‘I’d like to be called Tzaddi.’
‘You don’t need an alias,’ said Aleph. ‘We already know who you are.’
‘I should like to be called Tzaddi anyway,’ said Cecil.
‘Very well, if you insist on it,’ said Aleph.
There was a curious tapping on the door and in the same instant everyone noticed that the low continuous sound of the concertina had stopped.
‘Light,’ said Aleph briefly and the light was instantly extinguished.
Cecil heard the door open and a low question given and answered.
‘What is it, Daleth?’
‘Police.’
‘What branch?’
‘Civil.’
‘Oh, only civil. They’ll be easy to handle. Stall them up if you can.’
The door closed and the light came on again.
‘Disperse everyone,’ said Aleph calmly. ‘We’ll meet up at rendezvous D in half in hour. Vau, turn on the electric fan and get some of the smoke out of here.’
The men silently filed out through a narrow door on the other side of the room. Aleph and Gimel motioned to Cecil.
‘You’ll come with us,’ said Aleph. ‘Keep the noise down.’
They went through the narrow door behind the last of the other agents and Cecil found that it led into a small bathroom. There was a window above the bathtub and through it the men climbed one at a time, sliding down a rope that was attached to the sill. Cecil found when his turn came that the distance to the ground was not very great, especially as he came down on the top of a dumpster. Gimel came last, disconnecting the rope as he came.
The men quickly disappeared into the night and Cecil hurried between Aleph and Gimel as they traversed the back alleys of the city. Not a word was spoken between them. They walked quickly but without making any noise and Cecil was hard put to keep his sword from rattling.
There was scarcely any light in the back lanes that they stayed in and, although this was a good thing for them in that it kept them concealed, Cecil soon had no idea where in the city he was. The two men seemed to know their way about perfectly and did not stop or even slow down for a moment until at last they reached their destination. It seemed a shop of some sort because a sign hung above the door but in the darkness Cecil could not read it. He heard ond of the men turn a key in a lock and open a door. Then he followed on their heels into a dark room of some sort.
At first Cecil had no idea what gave him the strange feeling of continuous sound, until the door had closed and in the stillness he could make it out clearly. It was a clicking sound, as of hundreds of tiny machines, all beating away in a regular rhythm but completely independent of each other. It almost frightened him. What sort of machines were they, and in what sort of a place was he?
But the next minute Gimel turned on a light and Cecil almost laughed. They were machines—he was in a watch shop.
‘Here we are,’ said Gimel. ‘What do you think?’
‘Is this place yours?’ asked Cecil.
‘Yes, it’s mine. We have meetings here sometimes, in the cellar.’
‘That’s not what we’re here for now,’ said Aleph. ‘I have to get a few items from upstairs. Keep a watch, Gimel.’
He went up a staircase that opened up in the back of the shop and Gimel took up a position by the window to keep an eye on the street. He took his eye off the street once or twice though to look at Cecil and grin.
‘Are you frightened?’ he asked.
‘Not much,’ said Cecil.
The man grinned again as if pleased about something.
‘I always thought you would come back,’ he said.
‘Why?’ asked Cecil. ‘Did somebody think I wasn’t going to?’
‘Most people did. After all, you were safe in Great Britain with a nice safe school to go to and, as we all thought, learning to be a good socialist. Why should you come back?’
‘Because I’m a Pyromanian and this is my country.’
‘I know. That’s why I thought you would come back.’
‘Did Aleph expect me?’
‘No, he didn’t. I don’t think any one of us was as surprised to see you as he was.’
‘I rather think he looks on me as a mere kid.’
‘I think he does, too.’
‘Well, I hope he’ll let me do something interesting. He seems one of those tiresome sort of grown-ups.’
‘He can’t help it,’ said Gimel.
He was stopped from saying anything further by the leader’s reappearance with a bundle.
‘All right, let’s go,’ said Aleph peremptorily.
They left the shop and struck off down more back alleys, flattening themselves against walls and crouching behind garbage cans whenever a policeman or soldier was seen. Cecil was rather surprised to find how many soldiers seemed to be out on the streets and supposed it was the result of the recent mobilisation.
The three of them arrived eventually at the back of a dilapidated warehouse clustered with several others round the base of an old water tower that, with its rusty metal sides and cone-shaped corrugated roof, reminded Cecil of the Martian machines from Mr. H. G. Wells’s book. All was silent in the alley, but Cecil soon saw a group of silent figures waiting together at one end. They were the rest of the little band and a movement of excitement ran through them as they saw their leader approaching.
He handed his bundle to one of the agents and took a quick survey.
‘Is everyone clear on his orders?’ he asked.
There was a murmur of assent.
‘Good. All armed?’
‘With what we’ve got,’ said one.
‘Mem hasn’t shown up yet,’ said another.
‘We’ll have to go ahead without him. I hope he wasn’t picked up by the police,’ said the leader.
‘Here comes someone; that must be him, or Jod would have given the signal.’
‘All right,’ said Aleph, as soon as they had made certain that it was Mem. ‘To work then. We have exactly seven minutes and twelve seconds.’
Cecil was startled to see a Pyromanian soldier emerge from the group, but as he passed close beside him he recognised the man as Cheth in the uniform Aleph had brought him.
‘What are they going to do?’ he asked Gimel as they watched two other insurgents join the man and all three slip away up the alley.
‘They’re going to steal a lorry full of dynamite,’ explained Gimel.
‘All by themselves?’ exclaimed Cecil.
‘Oh yes. They’re quite good thieves. They pinched an omnibus yesterday.’
‘An omnibus! What for?’
‘For carrying the dynamite to the palace. It’s the one vehicle least likely to attract attention.’
Cecil realised on reflection that this was so.
‘How are they going to steal the lorry?’ he asked.
‘Cheth will stop it on the road while the other two jump in and tie up the driver and guard. They should be back in fifteen minutes.’
They were back in even a little less time than that. The lorry rumbled into the dark alley with its headlights off and drew up beside the door of the warehouse. The other members of the group quickly got to work carrying the heavy crates of explosives from the lorry into the warehouse where it was deposited inside a green omnibus concealed within.
‘Make it quick; we haven’t got much time,’ said Aleph, lending his energy to the proceedings.
They found among the crates in the lorry the bodies of the driver and guard, bound and gagged and knocked senseless by the zeal of the two assaulters. These unfortunates they deposited in the cab of the lorry after Aleph had added the thorough but unnecessary precaution of blindfolding them. The instant the last crate was removed Gimel drove the lorry (now empty except for the driver and guard) off down the streets to leave it in a less conspicuous place. The rest of the men covered the omnibus with tarpaulins and locked up the warehouse.
‘You know the plans,’ said Aleph to them. ‘Be here by five to-morrow afternoon. Goodnight, brothers all, and may our flag fly over a free country before another night arrives!’
The insurgent band departed their various ways without looking as if they thought this possibility very likely and Aleph and Cecil returned to the watch shop to wait for Gimel. They did not wait very long; he arrived soon enough looking very cheerful and reporting good success. He had left the lorry in a junk yard.
There was a room above the shop that was Gimel’s living room and bedroom. It was furnished quite cosily for the little space available and was kept neat and tidy. Aleph and Cecil sat down around a table while Gimel proceeded to make tea on a gas burner.
‘Well, that’s the first step done,’ said Aleph. ‘The next is more complicated, and I think we had better have the map out. Where did you hide it, Leiber?’
‘It’s inside the grandfather clock,’ said Gimel.
He went to a monstrous old clock that stood in a corner and must have been made by some old Dutch clockmaker in the days when people needed places to hide large amounts of valuables, for it was quite capacious. Gimel opened up the face of it and took out a paper which his leader spread out on the table and began to study.
‘It passed off without a hitch, didn’t it?’ said Gimel, going back to the kettle. ‘I was rather afraid something would go wrong.’
‘It went exactly according to plan,’ said Aleph with satisfaction. ‘There was no interference from the SO, which was chiefly what I was afraid of.’
‘So was I,’ said Gimel, setting the teacups on the table reflectively. ‘Do you feel in the mood for biscuits, Karotski?’
‘By all means; have ‘em out. What time is it?’
‘Ten o’clock by the grandfather clock and that’s set to the atomic clock, so it’s right.’
‘Do you set your watches downstairs to it too, Leiber?’ asked Cecil.
‘Yes,’ said Gimel.
Aleph looked sharply at Cecil.
‘What did you call him?’ he asked.
‘Leiber,’ said Cecil.
‘Leiber?’ asked Aleph, standing up. ‘Where did you hear that name?
‘I’m sorry. You were calling each other by your real names, and I forgot I wasn’t supposed to.’
‘Were we?’
The two men looked at each other for a moment anxiously. Aleph set his lips and looked down at Cecil.
‘We kept our names from you for your sake, not for ours. If you happen to be captured, you will regret that you ever heard them spoken.’
‘Why?’ asked Cecil.
‘Because the SO will torture you to make you divulge them.’
‘He means the Secret Police,’ said Leiber.
‘I know,’ said Cecil; ‘but I wouldn’t tell them, you know.’
‘You would still be sorry you had anything to tell,’ said Karotski. ‘Still, it was my fault; I shouldn’t have been so careless.’
With that he sat down once more and poured out a cup of tea.
‘Is the SO onto you?’ asked Cecil, hoping to change the subject. ‘Do they know about your activities?’
‘No, because up until a few days ago we didn’t have any activities to know about,’ said Karotski. ‘We haven’t had a fighting chance of pulling off a rebellion and not the men or materials to do it if we did. Wakjavotski’s been getting stronger every year since he came to power and there’s been absolutely no opportunity. The British have helped us some, but there’s not much they can do and we haven’t been able to get in contact with them because its’ too dangerous. We’ve had several close calls with the SO already.’
‘One of our men was picked up by a policeman last week,’ said Leiber. ‘We were all getting ready to run for our lives until we found out it was only for being out after curfew. The civil police don’t much care for the SO and don’t usually give up prisoners to them, but the SO can make them if it wants to because it has enormous executive power. It’s Wakjavotski’s personal information system and bodyguard.’
‘They are absolutely without scruple,’ said Karotski. ‘They torture anyone they think knows anything and kill off anyone they think dangerous without any kind of trial.’
‘The man at the head of it is called Zköllmann,’ said Leiber. ‘He’s the worst of all Wakjavotski’s henchmen.’
‘Those are the sort of methods this regime employs,’ said Karotski.
‘Why does everyone put up with it?’ asked Cecil.
He had still a fear that what his headmaster had said was true and that the people really did prefer this sort of government to the monarchy.
‘What else can they do?’ asked Karotski. ‘They’ve tried to protest, but what does it get them? Shot, usually. It’s up to us to save the country.’
Now that the two men had gone so far with Cecil they seemed intent on telling him all they knew of the problem and of their own attempts to solve it.
‘We stole the omnibus,’ explained Karotski; ‘on an impulse when the alliance went through and England declared war, because we knew we’d never have another chance and that that one pitiful plan was all we had. As it was, I had second thoughts and decided against going through with it and I was just going to tell the others when you appeared and we suddenly had what we needed to pull it off. So there it is. Your arrival was providential and if we don’t succeed to-morrow it will be our own fault.’
‘What’s your plan?’ asked Cecil.
‘Look here, I’ll show you,’ said Karotski, smoothing out the paper in front of him which on inspection proved to be a floor plan of the palace. ‘We get in here—through the sewer that’s being repaired. That will get us underneath the conference room. We plant the dynamite here,’ and he made a small x on the map. ‘The fuse will be easy to lay. We’ll set it off from beneath the home defence building across the street.’
‘Are we going to do it at night?’ asked Cecil.
‘No, the meeting is to-morrow afternoon so we have to do it then.’
‘But won’t they see us in broad daylight? And what about the sewers? Who will want to go down there?’
‘They won’t see us because we will be underground the whole time,’ explained Karotski. ‘The sewer system is most extensive and runs so far and its walls are so thick that we will be able to set off the explosion from inside it. And don’t worry about dirt. It rained steadily all of last week and it’s mostly rainwater down there.’
‘What will we do if it doesn’t work?’
‘We will fight! We will run and hide and come back to fight some more! We will never give up. Supposing the plan fails? It’s a risk we have to take because it’s the best plan we have. But I don’t think it will fail. I know, and Leiber knows even better, that this plan must not fail.’
Karotski had gotten again the gleam of the zealot in his eye and ring in his voice that he only got in moments of great excitement and for only short periods. It made him look very different from the way he usually looked and behaved.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Cecil, who had been studying the paper.
‘What don’t you understand?’ asked Karotski, who seemed to have almost forgotten again that he was there.
‘Are we going to blow them all up? Wakjavotski and—and everybody?’
‘Yes. What don’t you understand about that?’
‘It’s just that…’ Cecil paused, for he didn’t know how to explain himself.
‘You don’t like the idea?’ asked Leiber.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Cecil. ‘It seems a rotten show to blow them up like that—when they aren’t expecting it.’
‘Do you think it would be kinder to them to blow them up when they are expecting it?’ asked Karotski. ‘Maybe we should shower them with leaflets first.’
‘No,’ said Cecil; ‘I don’t mean that. I just mean—well, it seems—well, I don’t like it.’
He kicked the legs of his chair despondently.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Karotski. ‘There are enough people to feel sorry for without having to feel sorry for our enemies.’
‘It isn’t just feeling sorry for them,’ said Cecil. ‘It’s that it’s so jolly mean and low to hit a fellow from behind like that. It’s—it’s just like Wakjavotski.’
‘What do you suggest?’ asked Karotski. ‘—That we don’t kill him at all?’
‘It would be different if we shot him and had done with it—I mean right out in the open, you know. But sneaking around doesn’t seem right.’
‘That’s the only way of fighting we have. We can’t be gentlemen: this isn’t a gentleman’s war.’
‘Bother it,’ said Cecil.
‘You will soon get over it,’ said Karotski.
‘Yes,’ said Leiber. ‘You probably will. But I know what you mean—or, at any rate, I think I do. I had to shoot a fellow once who I knew didn’t have any chance to get away—that’s what was so awful about it. I’m not sorry I shot him—I had to and if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do it differently—but it seemed he ought to have had a chance.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Karotski.
But Cecil understood what he meant. It was an awful feeling that they had to become murderers to free Pyromania. He couldn’t be quite sure that it was right, but after all it was their only choice and that was the way the world was. He wished it wasn’t.
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