Prince Cecil: XX.

Chapter XX.

The Shadows Flee

The noise gradually died away and the room became very still, only the slither of settling rubble could be heard. Cecil raised his head and looked about him. He almost expected the laboratory to be gone and to see only the roofless dome of space about him, but the room was still there and had only sustained a few cracks in one wall.
He got slowly to his feet and his eyes turned to where Wakjavotski lay sprawled beneath the table. A trickle of blood had appeared on the bald spot on the top of his head where Cecil had hit him and he lay very still. Cecil wondered anxiously if he were dead.
He did not trouble just then to find out, though. He was thinking of the Silver Heels and how much longer they would be able to hold the radio building. He felt that he had very little time.
The door of the laboratory was unlocked. Cecil went out and closed it behind him. Under the table where he had dropped it as he fell, lay the useful automatic, but Cecil had completely forgotten about it. He turned to go up the corridor the way he had come—the way that led to Wakjavotski’s audience chamber—but he stopped as he heard running footsteps echoing down the concrete passage.
It was the two guards who kept watch on either side of the audience chamber door. Alarmed by the explosion, they had come to reconnoitre. They caught sight of Cecil as they rounded a bend in the corridor and immediately stopped short.
‘Stop!’ shouted one, drawing his pistol.
There was only one other way to run, apart from back into the laboratory. Behind Cecil the corridor ran on further and turned at a right angle. He turned and dashed around the corner just as the guard sent a bullet into the wall behind him. As Cecil rounded the corner the first thing he saw was a glowing red exit sign up near the ceiling and beneath it somewhere a metal door. But at the same time he saw this he saw something else and stopped short. Between him and the door stood a figure in a black uniform—Zköllmann.
Cecil caught his breath with a jerk. He had so nearly made it. If only he had been a few seconds sooner! Zöllmann had only just come in—the door was still swinging to and as Cecil stood he heard it shut with a small click.
Where had Zköllmann been all this time? What had made him so late? He had left Miss Kaparthy’s house more than half an hour before, and her house was only about ten minutes from the Royal Palace. Zköllmann had had plenty of time to make arrangements and to send over Kuhn and Schneck. Why he had not come sooner himself was a mystery, but here he was arriving, by some enormous chance, at exactly the right moment and in exactly the right place—though what had made him choose that little-used back door was a mystery, too.
And here he was. Cecil had known, somehow, all along that he couldn’t beat Zköllmann. The SO chief’s black shadow had seemed to pursue him everywhere and he had always felt that it would get him in the end. And now here he was face to face with his worst enemy and he could hear the guards’ feet pounding down the corridor behind him.
He had stood there for only two or three seconds but it felt like several minutes. He stared at Zköllmann, his chest heaving, wondering what the SO chief would do. But Zköllmann did nothing. He stood as Cecil did, staring before him. His eyes looked strangely unsettled—Cecil had never seen them look other than cold and serene. Then, before Cecil had a chance to realise what he was doing, Zköllmann had thrust the door open out into the night and had stepped back against the wall.
Cecil did not understand. What did he mean to do to him? He searched Zköllmann’s face, but it was as impassive as ever. He heard the guards turning the corner behind him…. And the next moment he was through the door and free.

He did not stop running for several blocks. The night wind came rushing lightly up the avenue and blew Cecil’s hair back from his face. He could hear from the direction of the radio tower the sound of shots and, more ominously, the dull boom of field guns.
But his way did not lie in that direction. He turned and trotted up the street away from the sounds, their distant rattle urging him to hurry. As he went, he noticed the singular desertion of the city, as Csilla had noticed it earlier that evening. Far down the road ahead of him he heard a lorry engine and two headlights turned off of a side street and came towards him.
The lorry pulled up as it came alongside Cecil. Two soldiers sat in the cab and half a dozen more put their heads out of the back.
‘Heard the news?’ they asked.
‘What news?’
‘Just got it over the wireless; the prince has come back.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Cecil.
‘To help out the revolution. Seen anything going on?’
‘There was a row up in the palace,’ said Cecil. ‘I just came from there.’
‘Have they got him—the prince?’
‘No. I’m the prince.’
‘Hurrah!’ came a cry from the soldiers in the back of the lorry.
‘Where are you going? Hop in, we’ll take you there.’
‘What about your oath to Wakjavotski?’ asked Cecil.
‘Hang Wakjavotski!’
‘But your oath—’
‘Hang the oath!’
‘Do you think that’s honourable?’
‘Hang honour, too!’
Cecil gave up and climbed into the cab.
‘Do you know how to get to the SO headquarters from here?’ he asked.

The SO headquarters were surprisingly quiet as the lorry pulled up to the gates. It seemed as if the occupants were oblivious of what was going on in the rest of the city that night. Very likely they were not, but Zköllmann had left no orders and nobody there acted without them.
Cecil and the soldiers entered the guardhouse forcefully and found only one officer on duty, sitting behind a large desk. Cecil stepped up to him.
‘We’d like to get in,’ he said.
The officer raised an eyebrow.
‘You would, would you?’ he said. ‘Whose orders?’
‘Mine,’ said Cecil. ‘Wakjavotski isn’t dictator anymore, and from now on you’ll take orders from me.’
‘And may I ask who you are?’
‘I’m the prince. Now let us in, please.’
The officer regarded him for a moment in silence. Then, instead of obeying, he rose and addressed the soldiers in a commanding tone.
‘Who gave you permission to leave your barracks?’ he asked. ‘Report to your officers immediately. You’ll be tried later for your insubordination.’
The soldiers stared at him doubtfully. He spoke with a good deal of authority and it was difficult for them to know exactly what to do. Cecil could see them hesitating.
Then, through the half open door, they heard the sound of raucous singing punctuated by hoots and yells. The song was a sea chanty and the voices approached so suddenly that almost before Cecil was aware of it, the room was full of wild sailors.
‘Where’s Zköllmann?’ they shouted. ‘We want Zköllmann!’
‘He isn’t here,’ Cecil informed them.
‘Well, this chap will do,’ they said, surging towards the SO officer.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Cecil.
‘We heard the news on the wireless,’ replied the sailors. ‘The prince has come back! Down with Wakjavotski! Booh! We’re going to string this thug up from the nearest lamppost, and any of the rest of the secret police we find.’
So saying, they laid rough hands on the SO officer. There was a scuffle and a deadened bang followed by a salty oath.
‘Stop,’ said Cecil. ‘I won’t allow violence.’
‘Violence!’ exclaimed a sailor. ‘He’s the one who winged me with his filthy silenced automatic!’
‘I’ll take that, sir,’ said Cecil, taking the pistol from the officer’s hand. ‘Now, you’d better let us in like a good fellow. It’s a cell or a lamppost—take your choice.’
The officer sulkily pressed a button and the gates outside the guardhouse swung open.
‘You’ll have to unlock the door of the building for us, too,’ said Cecil.
The officer pressed a second button and, with Cecil covering him with the pistol, led them all to the SO building.
The place was well-lit but quiet and no one seemed to be about. They entered an office filled with file cabinets. Cecil opened these and began to take out keys of different cells.
‘Let out anyone you find locked up,’ he said, handing the keys to the soldiers and sailors. ‘—And lock up anyone you find out. This officer will do for starters.’

* * * * *

For nearly forty-five minutes Csilla had sat before the microphone, pouring into it every appeal she could think of for help and support. She knew she had the people’s ear and she knew that she could not have it for very long. All the while in the ears rang the sound of fierce fighting. The Silver Heels were holding out as they’d said they would, gallantly, bravely, and hopelessly.
The Pyromanians had heard many of Wakjavotski’s speeches over their wirelesses, but the speech this evening was far different from anything they had ever heard. It was a simple cry for help by the voice that had so often cheered them and given them hope to go on. Csilla didn’t have a script. She talked, and when she couldn’t think of anything more to say, she sang.
Her voice was at last beginning to crack from the uninterupted exercise. Her mind, too, was growing weary. If only help would come!
She stopped in the middle of a sentence and listened. All was suddenly still outside the radio building. She sat tensely in the strained stillness, praying for the sound of a shot or the clatter of a sword. Not a sound came.
They had lost, then. They had only had a little amunition and not enough guns for all the men. They had held out far longer than anyone had thought possible, but now the revolution was over.
She heard the muffled sound of feet on the floor below and then the sound of a tread on the stairs. She waited. The door, as she watched it, opened and suddenly she felt as if her strained nerves were giving way. A familiar figure had entered.
‘Cecil!’ she cried, starting up.
She had thought he was still inside the palace—or captured. How had he come there? Had they really won, then? How could they have?
Cecil stepped into the room and paused. A man had followed him in. The man was terribly thin, and he coughed a good deal.
‘It’s your brother,’ explained Cecil. He had kept his promise

* * * * *

The night breeze made havoc of Cecil’s hair and tie as Karotski steered the SO staff car down the boulevards at a furious rate. The streets, so lately deserted, were now filled with people liberated at last from the curfew. Pyromania seemed to have come over in a body to the new government.
Karotski pulled up before a palace side entrance and got out of the car. Cecil followed him and Leiber and Mikhailov leaped out of the back. They entered through a side gate that had been left ajar. The palace seemed to be in confusion and none of the usual safety precautions were in place. A group of guards stood near a guard box beside the entrance, talking together in low voices.
‘What’s going on inside?’ they asked Karotski. ‘They called in a doctor… said something about the Superior and a concussion…’
‘Then he isn’t dead?’ asked Cecil with relief.
‘Get in there and arrest everyone who doesn’t swear immediate allegiance to the king!’ said Karotski.
‘What king?’ asked a guard, blinking.
‘Do as I say!’ said Karotski.
A little firmness was all that was required with palace guards. They glanced around, saw the fast-gathering crowds in the street, and hastened to obey.
Another vehicle pulled up before the gate—this time a police car—and Leiber and Mikhailov got out.
‘All quiet?’ asked Mikhailov.
‘They won’t give us any trouble,’ replied Karotski. ‘There’s enough of a crowd here; I’m going to give the proclamation from the palace steps.’
He entered through the door that the guards had left open and which the truant porter had left untended, and strode rapidly down the quiet hallways with Cecil at his heels. They reached the grand entrance and forced the door, which stuck badly (it hadn’t been used since Mussolini’s visit in 1935).
The white palace steps were awash in moonlight. Karotski fumbled at an electric panel concealed behind a pillar beside the door and turned on the electric lights, which lit up the steps and the front of the palace like a stage.
‘Pyromanians!’ shouted Karotski, and the crowds grew silent.
Cecil, standing beside Karotski, stared. He had never seen so many people in the street at one time before. –And this was not like the Javotski rallies: everyone was enjoying himself.
Suddenly the crowd began to ebb backwards like melted wax and three large shapes lumbered slowly into the space before the palace steps. The loud hum of their engines drowned out all other noise. They crawled like three giant beetles, one behind the other, and stopped just below where Cecil and Karotski stood.
They were Wakjavotski’s tanks, just arrived from their nine-mile journey from the fort.
As Cecil watched, the hatch of one swung up and an officer appeared from within. He gazed round at the scene and as he did so, two more officers appeared from the hatches of the other two tanks.
Cecil stared at the three of them, feeling that they looked somehow familiar.
‘I say!’ exclaimed the first officer in a British accent, and suddenly Cecil recognised them. They were the SIS agents.
‘Well, we found these tanks on their way here and we decided to bring ‘em the rest of the way ourselves,’ said the one who had first spoken. ‘We thought they might be useful, but it looks like the revolution is over.’
It was.