Prince Cecil: VII

Chapter VII.

Alone

The tunnel was full of the sound of rushing water with occasionally the noise of a boat bumping against another or against the wall. Not a word was spoken among the little group of revolutionaries as they rowed the boats steadily down the current. Cecil could only think of one thing: hurry, hurry; on, on. They must get out of the tunnel before they were discovered. The light filtering down through culverts and drains had begun to ebb away and the sewer was dark and inscrutable. They only knew they were on the right track because they were being carried along by the current downwards—towards the sea.
At length Karotski raised his voice for a moment to say,
‘We’d better get out before the storm starts.’
‘I thought it was getting dark too early,’ remarked Leiber. ‘Do you think the water will rise too much if we get a lot of rain?’
‘It’s rather higher than usual as it is,’ said Karotski.
Then they were silent again but everyone plied his oar more quickly. Cecil strained his eyes to see if there was any light up ahead, but the tunnel only grew darker as they descended, as if they were going straight down the throat of the sewer.
‘Don’t you think they’ll have soldiers at the end of the tunnel to stop us?’ asked Cecil.
‘They won’t have anyone to give them orders,’ replied Karotski. ‘The dynamite should have taken care of that.’
Cecil noticed that he said ‘should have’. Up till that time Karotski had seemed quite certain of the success of the plan, but now Cecil wondered if in the darkness he was having doubts.
‘If they are waiting at the end,’ Karotski went on after a moment; ‘we’ll find another place to get out. They can’t guard every manhole.’
‘What’s that sound?’ asked Leiber.
For a moment nobody spoke. Nobody even moved and the boats were left to drift along without anyone bothering to steer them. All ears strained in the quiet dimness to catch the strange sound coming down the sewers towards them. It had been soft when Leiber called their attention to it but it grew louder every instant until it rose to a thunderous rushing.
‘Water!’ cried Karotski. ‘They’ve flooded the—’
But nobody heard the rest. It was drowned out by a roar like that of a goods train as a huge white swirling monster came hurling itself down the tunnel towards them, foaming and churning and twisting within the narrow walls, impatient to burst free.
It caught their flimsy boats like a lot of leaves in a gutter and sent them whirling away at an incredible pace, threatening every moment to dash them in pieces against the walls of the sewer. Cecil tried to catch on to the side of his boat as the water caught hold of it. For a moment it struggled wildly like a hooked trout and suddenly jerked itself from beneath his feet. He felt the water plunging down on top of him and thrashed his arms desperately but his hands grasped nothing but water. Water was all around him. He could neither see, hear, nor breathe and the only thought that would come to him was of the thick sewer walls shutting him under that terrible dark water.
Suddenly he felt himself caught against something hard and solid and his head was suddenly free and in the clean open air. He felt a hand grab at his ankle and Leiber’s voice shout,
‘Tzaddi!’
And that was all. The boats had all been borne away and Cecil was left behind.
When he had gotten the water out of his eyes, he wondered that he could not see anything. He had a horrible feeling that either he had suddenly gone blind or that he was buried far beneath the city in some strange hole and for a moment he was quite frightened. But as he lay flat on his stomach where the water had thrown him he began to discern a dim light like that at the mouth of a tunnel coming from somewhere above. He raised himself slowly on his hands and scrambled up towards it. It was coming down through a narrow opening which he was just able to squeeze through.
He found himself, when he was able to look about him, in a large tomb-like space. The opening he had come through appeared to be a gutter or drain of some sort in the wall on the level of the floor. It was perfectly dry in the room but cold with a sort of chilly feeling of being underground. The walls and floor were made of concrete and a strange death-like dimness filled the place. Except for the gurgle of the afterwash coming softly up from the sewer, the place was as still and silent as a crypt.
The light seemed to come from the mouth of the structure, to Cecil’s left, which he could not see because the inside of the place was blocked up by great masses of metal. Cecil made his way along the wall towards the opening, wondering vaguely where he was and how he was to get back to the others—that is, if they had not all been drowned. The light was the last dreary effort of the dying day and it shone through a wide opening against which the shape of a guard in boots with an automatic machine gun was sihouetted darkly.
Cecil started back and crouched beneath the shadow of one of the metal hulks. He knew what the place was now: he was in a concrete bunker and those monstrous things were—he looked up at the huge caterpillar tracks suspended above him, the thick steel armour, the megolithic turrets topped by huge guns that looked in the dimness like great untrimmed cigars—tanks!
He was trapped in there with the iron creatures. He shivered in the cold air as he listened to the quiet click of the guard’s heels strolling back and forth across the mouth of the bunker. After a few minutes the clicking stopped and Cecil heard the guard strike a match and light a cigarette, humming as he did it. The sound of the match burning, the smell of the smoke, and the little glimmer of light that it put out gave Cecil a cosy feeling and before he could stop himself a sneeze burst out of his nose.
There was a silence and then Cecil heard the sound of the guard’s footsteps coming towards him. He crawled round behind the tracks and crouched under the belly of the tank, his heart beating vehemently. It was dark enough to hide him but if the guard had an electric torch…
The guard did not, however. Cecil saw his boots pass close to him as he searched among the tanks and then heard his steps going back to the mouth of the cave. He had not given up the search yet though. He had only gone to blow his whistle and set off the alarm. The electric alarm bell rang in Cecil’s ears as he crawled from beneath the tank and hurried towards the back wall of the bunker, hoping desperately that there was another way out.
In the back wall there was a steel door, but Cecil was sure it was locked and would probably set off an alarm of some sort if opened. Still, he had no choice. He hesitated for a moment, glancing back to see if the guard had seen him, then he grasped the handle and pulled with all his might.
The door flew back so suddenly that it flattened him against the wall, for someone on the other side had opened it at the same time Cecil had. A group of soldiers poured out and hurried towards the tanks, not seeing Cecil stuck up behind the door. They left it open behind them and Cecil peered around it, saw them busily searching the bunker, and quickly slipped in and shut it after him.
He was in a guard room of sorts that had a table, several chairs, and multiple cups of coffee sitting about. There was another door across the room and without stopping to reflect, Cecil ran to it and jerked it open. It led into a small office with a desk and a file cabinet. The only other exit was through a steel door in the opposite wall. Cecil hurled himself against it, but his luck had run out. It was locked.
He turned to the desk and began to feverishly open the drawers and rifle through the papers inside hoping to find a key. There was very little order kept inside the desk and it seemed that everything was thrown together hap-hazardly. Most of the papers in it were simply type-written reports or notices or rosters, but one of them caught his eye because it was marked across the top in red letters:

MOST SECRET
Note: This document should not be left lying about and, if it is unecessary to retain, should be returned to the private office.

Cecil picked it up and looked at it curiously, trying to make sense of the encoded writing underneath. He’d studied codes a bit in a manual that the SIS had given him, but he hadn’t even begun to make any headway when he crammed the paper into his pocket and ducked under the desk. The door had just opened and two officers came into the room.
The first was a colonel and the second a major. They had been talking as they came up and that was what had warned Cecil of their arrival.
‘…it’s only the alarm in the bunker,’ the colonel was saying. ‘A guard thought he heard someone in there, but it’s probably just a false alarm.’
‘We won’t be disturbed for a while then, I hope?’ asked the other officer.
‘No, probably not. They’ll do a systematic check and it will take them a while. I’m not worried, but the Superior insists on all these precautions.’
Cecil heard a clatter over his head as the colonel laid his hat and riding crop on the desk. There was a small hole in the back board of the desk for the telephone cord and Cecil could see a little of the two men through it.
‘What was it you came for?’ asked the colonel, removing his gloves.
‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Anything important? Orders from General Headquarters?’
‘No. I came on my own account; no one sent me. It’s—personal business.’
‘What do you mean? Do you need money?’
‘No. No loans. Nothing like that.’
The major paused.
‘Schumm,’ he said; ‘do you know much of what is going on at GHQ?’
‘They don’t tell me much. Just orders.’
‘But you must have heard something. Take the newest regulation—officers are not permitted to wear their families’ coats of arms. Did you hear of that?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Well, you didn’t take it sitting down, did you? What did you think of it?’
‘Oh, I know what they mean by it,’ said the colonel unconcernedly. ‘They don’t like the upper class, you know. For my part I don’t find those sort of orders so hard to comply with—I prefer to be democratic, and I never wore my coat of arms anyway.’
‘All the same they are going directly against tradition.’
‘Well, what of it? Let them, if they like. Progress, you know.’
Cecil wondered desperately how he was going to get out. The desk was not a very good hiding place but it had been the only one in the room. At any moment one of the officers might discover him and he was getting dreadfully cramped besides.
‘But it isn’t just little things like that that they are doing,’ the major went on. ‘They intend no less than to destroy the army as we know it. They’ve closed the officers’ clubs, and you’ve seen the miserable gutter-snipes they’ve been sending in as Brigadier and Lieutenant and even Major Generals.’
‘True, but what can one do about it?’
‘I,’ said the major bitterly; ‘have not had a promotion for six years. I know why, too—it’s because they suspect me of disloyalty. That isn’t fair either, for I’ve served them to the best of my ability. Anyone who merely differs politically from the Javotski party is liable to be arrested. But who decides whether or not your views differ from the Javotski party? The SO—that’s who—and we know how impartial they are.’
‘You could very well be arrested for what you are saying right now you know, Erlich.’
‘Yes, if you were to report me.’
The colonel turned and began to arrange things on his desk.
‘Of course I wouldn’t report you, but all the same you are too outspoken. What is the good of it? Have a cigar.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s better not to talk about such things,’ said the colonel, lighting a cigar for himself and shutting up the box.
‘Then what do we do? Let them get worse?’
‘You’re always complaining, Erlich. Things aren’t all that bad.’
‘You’re wrong, Schumm. You haven’t seen everything I have. I cannot stand this state of affairs any longer. I mean that.’
‘What’s the use in telling me that?’
‘Schumm, you and I were at school together. You’re an officer and a gentleman and, I feel quite sure, an honest man on top of it. So I confide in you.’
Colonel Schumm looked uncomfortable.
‘Don’t confide in me,’ he said.
‘I must. You have more influence than I do, you’re a senior officer…and you’re in charge of the tanks.’
‘The tanks!’
‘Not so loud.’
‘What are you talking about? Do you actually mean—’
‘Well?’ asked Major Erlich as Schumm did not go on.
‘You’re starting to talk like a revolutionary,’ said the colonel uneasily.
‘Schumm, open your eyes. Pyromania is going to ruin. Everything we believe in is being taken from us. Are you going to stand by and let them do as they please?’
‘What can we do? There is enough unrest already. You’ve heard the rumours about the revolutionaries. –And that explosion a moment ago—that might have been something of the same kind.’
‘Then someone is standing up for freedom and we should join him.’
‘Do you know what that would mean?’
‘Yes,’ said Erlich briefly.
‘I’m a married man,’ protested Schumm.
‘Then you have even more responsibility. Do you want your children to grow up in a country like this?’
‘No, but—well, what are you going to do?’
‘There are other officers who feel as I do. Not many, but a few. Between us we may be able to make a difference. If we could get enough of the army on our side we could oust the oligarchy in the government buildings and set up a real government.’
‘That’s impossible!’
‘It’s the only way to save Pyromania. Mere reforms would never accomplish anything.’
‘Of course, of course, but—to do that—no, I couldn’t!’
‘Schumm, I am an officer. My father was an officer as was his father. The same is true of you. Our family honour, our honour as soldiers, demands that we act.’
‘What about our oath?’
‘What oath?’
‘You know—the oath we swore when Wakjavotski came to power—our oath of fealty to the Superior before all else.’
‘Oh yes, that. But you don’t consider that binding after all he’s done, do you?’
‘Whatever he’s done, I pledged my loyalty to him. Nobody made me do it—I did it willingly and I must stand to it. I agree with you that all this is wrong, Erlich, but to break my oath—I can’t do that. My honour depends on it.’
‘God will not hold you to such an oath.’
‘No, Erlich—I voted for him.’
‘Why, so did I. What difference does that make? We didn’t know what he was then. Besides, it wasn’t a fair election.’
‘But still it was we who helped to put him in power. We can’t go against him now.’
‘A second wrong does not make the first wrong right. If we were mistaken we should correct the error now.’
‘But I can’t break my oath. What about my conscience?’
‘Sometimes it’s better to suffer so that others can be free,’ said Erlich. ‘Schumm, don’t you think I’ve struggled with this as well? I don’t want to break my word or conspire against my own leaders, but what else is there for us to do? It’s wrong to stand by and do nothing at a time like this.’
Schumm turned away and seemed to be struggling with himself.
‘Schumm, listen,’ said Erlich, going close up to him. ‘Pyromania can never be truly great while it is being ruled by tyrants, and we can never be truly free. I want to help our people and give them a chance to live well and honourably; I want Pyromania to be unstained by greed and cruelty. Isn’t that what you want too?’
‘I can’t, Erlich,’ said Schumm, his shoulders drooping. ‘I can’t break my oath. You must stop asking me to.’
‘Supposing you were free from it,’ said Erlich.
‘How can I be free from it?’ asked Schumm, turning to look at him.
‘Supposing Wakjavotski were dead…’
‘Erlich! You must not speak of it! Do not even breathe such a suggestion. Do you want to be shot?’
‘Would that make any difference?’
‘None! And I will not countenance murder. It’s wrong. If you murdered Wakjavotski—or anyone else—even I would give evidence against you.’
‘I don’t think it would be a sin in this case.’
‘It is a sin. It’s breaking God’s law. I can’t help you, Erlich. I can’t even talk to you anymore if you are going to keep talking like this.’
‘I will tell you what is breaking God’s law!’ exclaimed Erlich, losing his temper. ‘It’s watching innocent people be dragged through the street as criminals. It’s letting them be put up in front of a sham court of justice and seeing them sentenced by Javotski-paid judges without lifting a finger to help them. And then to let them be taken away to those miserable state prisons where no one ever comes out again—that is a sin. Why don’t we do something about it?’
‘Not so loud!’ enjoined Schumm.
‘You’re afraid!’ said Erlich. ‘You’ll cringe and bow to them and forget the honour of ten centuries of ancestors all to save the wretched skin of their most unworthy descendent! Don’t try to deny it, Schumm. I can see that you’re afraid.’
‘Erlich, stop! Perhaps I am afraid. I don’t know. Things change so fast that I don’t know what is right and what is wrong any more. I am afraid to do what I will be sorry for later, that’s all. I can only see one thing clearly and that is the solemn oath I swore of loyalty to the Superior. I cannot break it no matter what you say.’
‘That’s all?’ asked Erlich.
Schumm could not bring himself to reply.
‘Goodbye, then,’ said the major and he went out and slammed the door.
Schumm went round the desk and for a moment Cecil was afraid that he was going to sit down at it. If he had, he would have inevitably discovered Cecil. But instead he merely kicked his chair across the room and said some things unsuited for Cecil’s ears.
While he was engaged in these pursuits the telephone rang and Schumm answered it gruffly. There was a short conversation that terminated thus: (Schumm:) ‘How many do you want?…All right, I’ll send them over…..Ja; hoch Wakjavotski.’
Then he hung up the telephone, took up his hat and riding crop, and went out.
Cecil crawled out from under the desk, very stiff. He glanced around the room, looking for a way of escape and saw to his inexpressible delight that the colonel had left something behind on his desk. It was a bunch of Keys.
Cecil seized it without a moment’s loss, hurried to the outer door, and tried the keys in it one at a time. It was slow work because his hands trembled and he kept thinking he heard footsteps coming. It was ticklish, sitting in the office like that when at any moment he might be caught. Cecil had nerves, but everyone’s nerves have a limit to what they can endure.
The third key actually went into the lock and, to Cecil’s immeasurable relief, turned. He swung the door outward to find outside an open courtyard, bounded by buildings and concrete walls topped with barbed wire. Along one wall stood a row of brown army lorries, drawn up and ready for service. A gate, made of chain links and also topped with barbed wire, opened onto the street. Cecil could not see any other way out.
It had just begun to rain and the wind picked up, blowing the drops against his face. And now again he heard someone coming through the next room straight toward the office door, or rather several people by the sound of their footsteps. Cecil hadn’t any time to think about it any more. He stepped out, shutting the door behind him and ran over to the lorries, which were the only sort of hiding place in the courtyard, crouching down behind the wheel of one and listening.
It was out of the frying pan into the fire for this was a worse hiding place than under the desk. He hadn’t the least idea how he was to get out of that place and they would surely find him before much longer. He heard the steel door open then boots marching out and the voices of the soldiers.
‘Which ones should we take?’ asked one of them.
‘Whichever you want; it doesn’t matter,’ another replied.
Cecil ducked as one of them passed the lorry he was crouched behind and in a minute the cab doors were slamming on three of the lorries and their engines started up.
As they did, an idea came to Cecil and it was such a wild and crazy idea that he could only account for it being of divine inspiration.
He jerked open the cab door of the truck he had hidden beside and found, as he had hoped, that one of the keys on the ring fitted into the ignition and started the engine.
Cecil had never driven before, but he had asked enough questions of grownups to have a fair idea of how it was done, and last hols he had had a veritable crammer’s course in driving while spending several weeks with Sanford’s folks’ (Sanford was his best chum at Mapleton and Cecil’s godparents had been so busy at Balmoral that they had only been able to have him there for a few days). Sanford had an uncle who drove a milk truck and, being an exceptionally prime old chap, had taken the two boys along on his rounds and shown them how to drive the thing, although he hadn’t actually let them practice.
Besides this being the only chance Cecil would have for several years to drive a truck, it was also the only way of escape open to him and he did not hesitate. Taking firm hold of the transmission, he put the lorry into first gear and crept slowly out through the gate at the tailgate of the last truck. They turned onto the street in convoy and picked up speed with a roar.
Steering was trickier than he’d expected, especially when he couldn’t see the whole of the pavement in front of him. Cecil had no idea where in the city he was. He could see just above the dashboard the narrow street filled with dumpsters, crates, and other rubbish, so he knew he was in a back alley of some sort. He had succeeded in knocking down several garbage cans that rolled away with abominable clangings before the convoy pulled out onto a main street.
Here things were a bit easier, but though there were fewer things to run into, they were of a more solid character. Cecil narrowly missed a fire hydrant and sadly bent a post box along with his truck’s fender. It was quite fortunate that the other drivers did not bother to look in their rear mirrors and see what was going on behind them.
It took Cecil a little while to figure out reverse and to get disentangled from the post box and the other lorries had gotten the gain of him by several blocks by the time he regained the pavement. He put the lorry into second gear and nudged the accelerator a bit harder with his toe. Off he sped at twenty-five miles per hour but the other trucks had sped up too and he was hopelessly behind.
They turned down another street and then onto another, Cecil toiling along in the rear. He had just made the turn last of all when down the street towards them an armoured car came roaring with several officers inside and a machine gun mounted on the hood in place of a wind shield. The CO in the car raised his hand to bring it to a halt just in front of the first lorry and Cecil could see him giving orders to the driver.
The CO spoke inaudibly for several minutes and then Cecil saw him look in his own direction. A strange look overspread the officer’s face and Cecil had the sudden feeling that it might be fun to drive around on some other street, preferably in a different part of the city.
He got into reverse and backed down the avenue the convoy had just turned off of and as he did so, he heard a shout and the sound of the armoured car’s motor firing up. This convinced him not to waste any time. He got the truck turned around with difficulty and, throwing caution to the winds, set off at a stout pace, shifting gears rapidly as he went.
Once he looked in one of the rear mirrors and saw the armoured car pull onto the street behind him. The CO was waving an authoritative hand and one of the soldiers was hunched menacingly over the machine gun. A sound like corn popping followed and two holes appeared in the windshield over Cecil’s head. After that he didn’t dare to look back again.
The main thing to do was to get onto a different street and out of the angle of fire. This he did so successfully that he actually shook off the armoured car for three blocks. But then it had made the turn as well and was rapidly bearing down on him. Several more holes appeared in the windshield, but the gunner, as he couldn’t see his target, was firing high. Cecil found that there were advantages to being short.
The street they were on was long, straight, and wide, and the pursuers took advantage of these features to use their Mercedes-Benz engine to its full power. Cecil heard the hum of their rapid advance and the shout of satisfaction from the CO as the pursuing vehicle closed.
It was then that he saw the narrow alley opening off to the right. It was so narrow that he hadn’t seen it at all until he was almost abreast of it and in another second he should have flashed by, but in that second some flight instinct took charge and, almost without thinking, Cecil slammed on the brakes and put the wheel about.
The truck made it—but just. With a sharp complaint it regained its two right side tyres and continued coasting down the alley. But Cecil saw, out of the corner of his eye, the armoured car flash past the alley mouth and continue up the boulevard with a screach of brakes and imprecations.
Cecil, having gained some precious time, turned off into another alley and then onto a third. But here fortune deserted him. The alley was so narrow and he made the turn in so unsatisfactory a manner that he only succeeded in embroiled the fender firmly in the brick wall of a building. He was firmly and undeniably stuck and a bevy of soldiers was just coming down the alley from the opposite end.There was nothing for it but to take to his heels and if he didn’t find cover it was all up with him. He cut the motor and scrambled out of the lorry on the far side from the soldiers, making for a stairwell that led down to a cellar door. He could hear the men coming closer and remarking on the unusual situation of the army vehicle. From the sound of their voices and their talk it seemed that they were walking around it and giving it a closer examination. Then they began to move away from it, in search, so it proved, of the truant driver.