Prince Cecil: X

Chapter X.

We Shall Never Give Up

The strangest flashing circles were floating about before Cecil’s eyes like a lot of Roman candles on Guy Fawkes day. He felt his legs swaying out from under him as if he were on the deck of a ship and then someone caught him by the arm and pulled him backwards and he came down hard into a chair.
‘I’m all right,’ he gasped.
‘You would have fallen if I hadn’t caught you,’ said Karotski. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cecil. ‘I felt so queerly all of a sudden. I’ll be all right in a minute, I think.’
‘Are you hurt anywhere?’ asked Karotski, gazing apprehensively at Cecil’s pale face.
‘No,’ said Cecil, taking the glass of water Leiber had been about to pour down his neck and swallowing half of it.
‘When did you last eat?’ asked Leiber.
‘I don’t know,’ said Cecil. ‘Last night, wasn’t it? We had tea and biscuits.’
‘There’s no wonder in that, then,’ said Leiber. ‘He hasn’t eaten anything for twenty-four hours.’
‘Well, get him something to eat, then,’ said Karotski. ‘In the meanwhile,’ he said to Cecil; ‘tell us what happened to you.’
‘But what about Wakjavotski? Are you sure it didn’t work?’ asked Cecil.
‘Yes,’ said Karotski gloomily. ‘How could we have expected it to work? We were too few.’
‘But how do you know that it didn’t?’
‘It’s apparent,’ said Karotski. ‘If he’d been knocked off the whole capitol would be in confusion right now. Everything is going too smoothly for him to have been killed or even seriously hurt.’
‘But just perhaps—’ began Cecil.
‘Hush!’ said Karotski, turning the volume knob on the wireless. ‘Here’s the evening news. Now we’ll know what happened.’
He the tuning knob on the wireless to lessen the static, Leiber paused in the midst of spreading mustard on a frankfurter, and Cecil shut his mouth and leaned forward, all of them listening intently as the final movement of an overture ended and the clipped, business-like tones of a broadcaster’s voice came on. He announced first a few mundane details of the political situation in Europe and then inserted quite suddenly the news they were waiting to hear.
‘Attention, please,’ said the voice. ‘This afternoon an attempt was made on the life of our illustrious and beloved Superior. It was, of course, unsuccessful, and only occasioned minor damage to the palace. Our Superior is well and quite calm after this unsatisfactory event, the perpetrators of which have all been apprehended and destroyed. The unrest was occasioned by a small and erratic sect that is no longer in existence. Let this be a warning to all who would wish to disturb the well-balanced order of our happy State…’
Karotski switched it off and turned away.
‘Well, that’s what everyone gets to know about it,’ he said. ‘It isn’t the truth, but it will do just as well.’
‘What went wrong?’ asked Cecil. ‘Didn’t I lay the dynamite right?’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Karotski. ‘It was a crazy chance to begin with. The sewer walls were too thick—there wasn’t enough dynamite to blow up that part of the building.’
‘If we hadn’t lost the dynamite on that one boatload that upset on the way up,’ said Leiber; ‘it might have worked.’
‘Anyway, Wakjavotski’s alive; that’s quite certain,’ said Karotski. ‘And we’ve no more dynamite.’
‘What are we going to do then?’ asked Cecil.
‘What can we do?’ said Karotski, and Cecil saw that the strange listless mood was on him again as it had been when he had first met the leader of the underground.
‘We can’t just give up,’ said Cecil.
‘That was our only chance,’ replied Karotski. ‘Now they’ll be guarding the palace so closely that we’ll never be able to get in.’
‘Can’t we get Wakjavotski some time when he’s going out—to inspect troops or something?’ asked Cecil.
‘He never goes out,’ said Karotski. ‘—Not even to make a speech. That’s why he always records them. He’s afraid if he leaves the palace someone will try to kill him.’
‘I should hate to be him,’ said Leiber; ‘and always be so frightened all the time.’
‘So should I,’ said Cecil.
‘Have some supper,’ said Leiber, setting the frankfurter and half of a beef sandwich in front of him.
Cecil fell to at once but although he was terribly hungry he hadn’t the heart to enjoy it. Karotski and Leiber sat despondently at the table and since they had nothing better to look at, looked at Cecil and it is hard to eat while you’re being watched. Cecil finished his sandwich and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
‘There must be another way,’ he said.
‘Another way to what?’ asked Karotski.
‘To free Pyromania.’
‘Well, have you got any ideas?’
‘I was rather hoping you might,’ suggested Cecil.
‘It’s no good. We played our cards and we lost. There never was much of a chance of our winning. If only we had more men!’
‘How many men do we have?’ asked Cecil.
‘Sixteen here in the capitol, including you, and seven more in the countryside,’ replied Karotski without enthusiasm.
‘Can’t we get any more?’
‘Get any more? No, we can’t get any more. What do you want us to do, roust out the whole country—say, “Join our ranks, chappies!”—just like that? The SO would be onto us in twenty minutes. Besides, we can’t have just anyone. We’ve never had more than thirty members at any time because numbers are so dangerous. If even one of us were caught, the Javotskis would force him to betray the rest. There have been some fine, good men whom we might have allowed into the company but we couldn’t because they had families and if they were caught, the secret police would use their wives and children to make them divulge information. Oh, yes, they would, too. You don’t think they would?’
Karotski, growing excited, leaned forward and fixed on Cecil his feverish eyes.
‘They don’t stop at anything. The only reason we haven’t been caught yet is because there are so few of us, but even that isn’t any security. We know we’ll be caught sooner or later and our only hope is to go on fighting while we’re able. You think Leiber and I are friends?’
Cecil had thought so, since they seemed to always accompany each other everywhere and depend on each other.
‘Well,’ said Karotski; ‘if we were caught and they threatened to kill Leiber if I didn’t tell them what they want to know, I’d have to sit in silence and watch them shoot him. We don’t allow ourselves to have friends. We live for only one purpose and that is to fight Javotskism. So you see how it is. What kind of life is that? How can we possibly build up an effective force?’
‘Maybe if we had enough time…’ suggested Cecil.
‘We don’t. Every Javotski is out combing the city for us this very minute. It’s only a matter of time before they find us. We have to act at once and we can’t—that’s the whole trouble.’
‘But what about the tanks?’ asked Cecil.
‘The tanks? What tanks?’
‘The Javotski tanks. I saw several of them—when I was escaping from the sewers.’
They made him tell them all about his escape then. They had forgotten to make him do it before. It was only then that Cecil realised how very much had happened to him that afternoon.
‘Well, what about the tanks?’ he asked at the end of his recital. ‘Do you think we could get hold of them?’
‘Hardly. They know we know about them and they’ll probably move them to the fort.’
Karotski said this. He was very good at predicting what the enemy would do because as you know this was exactly what Wakjavotski had given orders to have done.
‘They would be useful,’ Karotski went on; ‘and we should be able to dispense with a large force of men if we had them, but we haven’t got them so we’ve got to have the men instead.’
‘Even if the tanks were still in the bunker, we can’t get them out,’ said Leiber. ‘We’re not that good at stealing.’
‘Well, I got out of the bunker,’ said Cecil; ‘so it isn’t impossible….Wait a minute, I just remembered—’
He put his hand into his pocket and drew out the TOP SECRET paper he had found in the office.
‘There’s this!’ he said. ‘I forgot about it. Do you think you could decipher it?’
Karotski and Leiber looked at Cecil in surprise and with a shade of respect. They were beginning to discover that they never knew what he would spring on them next.
‘It shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out,’ said Leiber. ‘We’ve already cracked most of their codes. Let me get the book.’
They sat over it for several minutes and when they had finished it read like this:

To Col. Schumm, CO armoured vehicle squadron 14 (tanks):
You have sworn an oath of fealty to the Superior and him alone. You serve no interests but those of the State. No matter what the circumstances are you are to obey no orders save those received from the Superior, General Grosse, or myself, with reservations concerning General Grosse. The SO have no control over your movements and are to receive no information from you. If they make trouble for you, refer them to me. If in the interests of the State it becomes necessary to liquidate the Surreptitious Operations organisation, you will render the full support of your squadron in this task. This is to prepare you in the event of such necessity. For now you are to keep this directive in strict secrecy.
(signed) Baden,
Department of Information and Propaganda


‘I don’t understand it,’ said Cecil. ‘What does he mean?’
‘Baden is afraid of the SO,’ said Karotski. ‘No wonder—they all mistrust each other up there. That’s what you get when you eradicate principles, after all.’
‘Serves them right,’ said Leiber.
‘If only they’d set to work knocking each other off and save us the trouble,’ said Cecil.
‘But we can’t count on that,’ said Karotski. ‘Still, this is interesting. This is the sort of paper you burn immediately upon receiving—not the kind you leave lying about your desk. The fact that Schumm kept it means that he’s playing for stakes of some sort. If he does what Baden tells him to then he gets a promotion—something the officers are always trying to get—and then, of course, if he doesn’t do as he’s told he it’s curtains for him. But, on the other hand, the SO are very strong and if they should turn out to be stronger than Baden, all they have to do is arrest Schumm and he’ll never be heard from again. He knows this, but he doesn’t know who’s the stronger and he’s not sure how to act. He saved that paper to give to the SO and so do them a service in exchange for their help, but if Baden can really get rid of them then he definitely doesn’t want to do that, and he can’t make up his mind.’
‘Then that Erlich fellow comes along and wants him to throw over both of ‘em, and Wakjavotski too,’ said Leiber. ‘Just now Col. Schumm is a man with many choices.’
‘But there’s something in that all the same,’ said Karotski, deep in thought. ‘That other chap said there were others in the army who wanted to get rid of Wakjavotski, didn’t you say?’
‘I think that’s what he said,’ said Cecil.
‘There may be something in that,’ said Karotski. ‘It may be the place to get the men we need. But we’d still have to kill Wakjavotski because they’re all afraid of him and of their silly oath.’
‘It would be rather difficult to subvert the entire army,’ said Leiber. ‘—Or even a large part of it.’
‘That’s just because we don’t know how to do it,’ said Karotski. ‘There are some who know how. There are spies and saboteurs everywhere, you know—from that ring, the “Hundred Circles”.’
‘That’s the spy ring that the singer—Miss Kaparthy—is a part of,’ said Cecil.
‘But how would we get in touch with them?’ asked Leiber. ‘How would we even know who they were? And what if they didn’t want to help us?’
‘All I know,’ said Karotski; ‘is that there are a lot of them and that if they wanted to, they could help us—a great deal. We might be able to pull it off with their help. They and the army are the only possible places to find recruits that I can think of. They’re both crazy chances, but all we’ve ever had are crazy chances. If there were only a way to contact them…’
As Karotski said this, Cecil noticed that his eyes had regained their lustre and a note of hope had crept into his voice again.
‘We might ask Miss Kaparthy,’ said Cecil.
‘That’s no good,’ said Karotski. ‘How could she get in touch with them? The SO know about her, you know. And who’s going to walk up to her and ask her anyway? She doesn’t know us: she’d probably think it was a trap.’
‘I will,’ said Cecil. ‘She knows me.’
'How would you even find her?' asked Karotski.
'She's singing at the Skolzor Theatre to-morrow afternoon,' said Leiber.
'Then I'll go and see her before the concert,' said Cecil. 'You know how people go backstage and visit with the singers at a performance? I think they usually go afterwards but I'll go before and save time. I'm sure she'll help us.'
'She may,' said Karotksi; 'and she may not.'
'It can't hurt to try, I suppose,' said Leiber.
'All that could happen is that we could all be caught,' said Karotski drily.
'But we might be caught anyway,' said Cecil. 'We have to try.'
'There is one way she can help us,' admitted Karotski; 'even if she won't help us contact the spies—she could help us get rid of Zköllmann.’
‘How can she do that?’ asked Cecil.
‘He plagues her all the time and she’s the only one he tells ahead of time when he’s coming to see her. Baden is right if thinks the SO is getting too powerful—they are, and Zköllmann’s at the bottom of it. He’s the brains behind the whole operation.’
'But how can she help us get rid of him?'
'She can pretend that she has some information to give him and arrange a meeting in some out-of-the-way place. Then when he comes to the rendezvous we shoot him and it's all taken care of nice and quietly.'
This sounded to Cecil markedly similar to the Wakjavotski putsch and he was not prepossessed with the idea.
'Do we have to kill everybody?' he asked.
'Zkollmann would have been condemned by a jury after you were reinstated anyway,' said Karotski. 'To kill him now is kinder--the same for all of the top Javotskis. They are all criminals and can ask for nothing more lenient from the Pyromanian people than a long rope and a short shrift.'
'Very well,' said Cecil reluctantly.
‘While you go off on your unpromising enterprise,’ said Karotski; ‘I shall go pay a call on this Major Erlich person.’
‘What for?’ asked Cecil.
‘On the chance,’ replied Karotski; ‘that he may prove useful. It’s a lead, anyway.’
‘But what if you were caught?’
‘Better let me, old fellow,’ said Leiber. ‘You’re the one running this show, you know.’
‘Confound it, you don’t think I’m going to let you and him take all the risks, do you?’ said Karotski.
They saw that it was no use arguing and were silent.
‘I’m going down to wind my watches,’ Leiber informed them, getting up.
Cecil and Karotski remained sitting at the table deep in thought.
‘There goes one of the most loyal subjects you’ll ever have,’ said Karotski, watching as Leiber went down the stairs.
‘Leiber?’ said Cecil in surprise.
‘Yes. And he’s suffered for his loyalty—more than you will ever be able to appreciate.’
‘How?’ asked Cecil.
Karotski didn’t seem to have heard. He sat with his elbows on the table, staring into vacancy and seemingly lost in reminiscence. His reflections did not appear to be pleasant, either, from the way he knit his brows and bit his lip. He sat so for several minutes, then suddenly seemed to return to reality and turned to Cecil with a look in his eye that was almost angry.
‘Look here,’ he said.
He got up and took off his coat, hanging it over the back of his chair, sat down again and proceeded to roll up his sleeve.
‘Look at that,’ he said, showing a small blue number tattooed on the inside of his wrist.
‘133762,’ read Cecil aloud.
‘That was my name to the Javotski government for six years,’ said Karotski. ‘Wakjavotski took power when I was eighteen. When I was twenty I was arrested for leading a strike in a factory and spent seven months in prison. I got out, led a protest, and was sent to a labour camp where I got that number. My name, age, occupation, family, future—all meant nothing to the government. I was just a number on their list. I was there for six years, building the new highway. Actually, it was the canal for the first four. When I got out, I had at last learned that you can’t fight this kind of evil in the open. So I started the underground.’
‘That means you are twenty-nine now,’ said Cecil, doing the arithmetic.
‘Leiber’s thirty. He was nineteen when he was sent to a labour camp. He tried to get away from Pyromania when Wakjavotski got into power but he was caught. He had taken a berth on board a British ship and meant to go to England, but his ship put into harbour at Corsica and one night when he went ashore he was kidnapped by some Javotski agents there, clubbed senseless, and dragged back to Pyromania and prison. If you turned up his sleeve, you’d find more than a tattoo mark. He has scars all up and down his arms from the tortures they put him through. They didn’t do it to extract information, either. They just wanted him to die. How he survived I don’t know, but I think he did just to spite them. The things they did to him—’
Karotski stopped suddenly, seeming to realise that what he was saying was not exactly suited for boys’ ears.
‘Well, anyway, he survived,’ he said. ‘Then they put him into a labour camp. He was there for almost ten years—think of it! Ten years! The best years of his life—wasted away in hard labour, poor food, and no medical care. Did I tell you why they did it? Simply because he saved your life.’
‘Mine?’ said Cecil.
‘Yes, when he shot the gunner who was about to shoot you and your mother the night you escaped. That was his crime. They’ll never forgive him for it. Leiber has more reason to hate than anyone else ever did, and still he doesn’t hate. I don’t know why not.’
‘Are you sure you meant it when you said he wasn’t your friend?’ asked Cecil.
‘I didn’t really mean it,’ admitted Karotski. ‘Leiber is the only friend I’ve ever had. It’s the most utter evil that a man like him should be treated like they treated him. You see now why it is we must fight.’
‘Yes, I see,’ said Cecil. ‘I see why we have to win, too.’