"BEYOND DOVER"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 May 1939, Page 12

"BEYOND DOVER"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

VAL GIELGUD.

(Author of “Death at Broadcasting House,” etc.)

CHAPTER XVI. (Continued). “And you idolise him, Leopold,” retorted Casimir, "which is even more foolish and liable to error.” He clasped his powerful hands together on the table in front of him. “I tell you. the thing goes well —largely due to the intelligence and help of the colonel here.” The Commandant bowed stiffly. “I —we —’’Casimir went on, “took our first trick when we recovered the jewel from that scoundrel Leyland; the second when our landing on Torcula was safely accomplished. The taking of the third depends on von Auffenburg in Bratza, and his Highness’s speech on the radio at Duvornik.” “The latter is all right,” smirked Flanescu.

“I wrote it myself on the boat.” “Then I'll see it please, before I sleep.” “And the girl, Casimir?” “She comes in useful to deliver the jewels to von Auffenburg; the task I’d originally intended for Felicity Harben. After that—it is, I think, enough to tell you that I have made plans.” “You were responsible for her, remember, Casimir.”

“My good Leopold, not even his Highness can blame me, if a pretty girl changes her mind at the persuasion of a lover. I tell you, I have made my plans. You know the girl is seriously in our way/ Very well then. I am only asking you to keep your mouth shut!”

“I only repeat, Casimir, that you are perpetually trying to be a little too clever. Think it over!” said Flanescu and shambled to the door. The Commandant finished his brandy," rose, saluted smartly, and followed. Casimir looked out over the sea. A lighthouse on the nearest point of the mainland flashed red, and green, and red again. Some boy down in the village poured out his soul into a mouth-organ. Along the curve of the quay three or four lamps were reflected in crooked spirals of liquid gold. Across the mouth of the bay slid the silhouette’ of a destroyer, steaming full speed ahead for Krusak, her wake and the foam at her bows glittering in the moonlignt. The kitten was purring contentedly round his ankles. Casimir slid an expert hand under the beast’s stomach and held it against his cheek, one, finger exploring for the sensitive spot beneath its chin. “The more I see of men, the better I like —cats,” he murmured. "Who was the idiot who spoiled a good epigram by ending it with ‘dogs?’ ”

And, the kitten balanced on his shoulder, Casimir went to his bedroom. Arrived there he mercilessly rewrote Flanescu’s speech for delivery by the Arch-Duke on the radio; folded his clothes with care; and went dreamlessly to sleep.

CHAPTER XVII. Next day dawned with every visible prospect set fair for the launching of the enterprise. The air was crystalline. The bay of Torcula was flecked with white-caps under a rising wind that only served to cool pleasantly the faces of the adventurers as they got into their Hying kit. The two aeroplanes —monoplanes, looking singularly deadly, with their black bodies and bright scarlet wings—glittered in the sunshine like dragonflies. The Commandant settled his helmet, looked at his wrist watch, came across to the Arch-Duke and saluted. Hugo jerked up his head. “Give me the jewels,” he said to Casimir. Casimir handed over the despatch case and the key. “You’ll find them all there. Highness,” he said, with the suspicion 'of a smile. “I had no doubt of it,” returned Hugo, and opened the case. Then he returned to Sally. “You understand, Sally. The contents of this case are to be delivered by you personally into the hands of General von Auffenburg, and to no one else. Once that is done your responsibility in the matter ends. Casimir here is responsible for bringing you to the General’s quarters.” “You can trust me,” said Sally, rather breathlessly. “I hope then to see you in Bratza. tomorrow evening at the latest. But just in case anything should go wrong He opened one of the smaller leather cases and took out a bracelet; an old fashioned wide braceet of heavy dull gold with an elaborate jewelled clasp. “Keep it Sally—just to remind yourself of how you once—acted as King's Messenger," he said. He snapped it on to her wrist and kissed her band. Then, with Flanescu, already panting and sweating at his heels, he followed the Colonel and scrambled into the nearer of the monoplanes. Sally looked after him, then down at tho bracelet. It seemed a monstrously incongruous ornament when combined with a leather flying coat, breeches, and long boots. “Shall I take the case for you, Mademoiselle?” asked Casimir, from behind her. She shook her head. It was her responsibility, her charge. She was not letting it out of her hands till she could hand it over io von Auffenburg. She would earn her bracelet.

The Commandant's machine roared into life, ran forward into the wind, rose easily, circled the aerodrome once, and headed into the east. One of its occupants, presumably Fanescu, waved a hand. Then it climbed fast, till it was no more than a glistening speck moving against the infinite blue. The group of officers who had been standing at the salute, relaxed, took off gloves, unbuckled swords, and lit cigarettes. Casimir's pilot, a slim dark young man, with a narrow face and very deep blue eyes—asked if he was ready. i Casimir nodded.

“When you are.” he said. “But remember—keep to your ceiling, and above all, don’t fly over any territory that’s not Styrian! These machines of yours arc rather conspicuous. We don’t want to present the Danubian Alliance with a ready-made grievance.” The Colonel's second-in-command, a thin, middle-aged major, in a rather shabby uniform with the eyes of a fanatic, held out his hand and wished Casimir luck. “Though I confess, sir, I hardly i.m-

der stand your methods,” he concluded "There’s no an anti-aircraft gun in the length and breadth of Styria. We could have blown the capital, or Bratza, or Duvornik to hell for you with this squadron within three hours of leaving here! Why not?” "Because,” said Casimir patiently, pulling on his gloves, “this revolution must not only be successful, but practically bloodless. An odd scuffle or two—perhaps. 1 anticipate trouble at the radio station for example. But to the world it must appear that the Arch-Duke has returned at the unanimous desire of the whole people. If there’s anything approaching civil war in Styria, the Danubian Alliance will intervene to re-establish the Republic. So keep your daredevils in order, major. That’s vital.” He shook hands, helped Sally in to the aeroplane, clambered in himself. Tne propeller spun, the chocks were dragged clear —they were off! It was Sally’s first flight. And, though she would have died rather than admit it, she had felt distinctly nervous at the prospect. But once the earth had receded, not with any sensation of terrifying speed but rather with something of the ease of unreality of a dream, and she had got used to the occasional “bump” which at first grievously unsettled her stomach and brought her heart up towards her mouth, she found it altogether fascinating. Oddly enough she felt secure, detached from the tiresomness of earth —its hardness, its smells, its irregularity. Here one could look every way, apparently into the infinite. The roar of the engine seemed to dwindle to a hardly noticeable background. She felt lapped in an azqre peace altogether limitless. That she was about to take part in a political upheaval would have been beyond belief, out of question, but for the case under her arm and the heavy Bracelet on her wrist. For the first time also Sally realised what is meant in fact by a bird’seye view. Below her the coastine of Styria and the Islands lay like a coloured map, bathed in sunshine. She saw the fantastic outline of Torcula, with its granite nose and chin. She saw vessels of the Styrian Navy, those citadels of republicanism, lying off Krusak, faintly veiled in smoke, like models in the window of a toyshop. She saw the grim cliffs of the mainland; the narrow belt of rich darkloamed fertile country lying immediately behind the ports of Blint and Krusak; the swelling rise of the foothills, jabbing their long spurs fringed with olive-trees and cypresses out into the plain. She saw the two rivers, that were like broad silver ribbons at the ports where they met the sea, dwindle to thin streaks like wire, as she followed their course inland and they dwindled gradualy to mere cataracts tumbling among the hills.

She felt she understood for the first time why men had always stretched out their hands for the gift of flight—so that they might look down upon earth spread out below them with something of the detachment of the winged messengers of the old gods. Suddenly the pilot flung out an arm and pointed. "Bratza!” he shouted. And Sally, following his gloved forefinger saw a neat little town ringing an old walled citadel, from whose battlements fluttered a diminutive flag. Immediately to northward of the town a series of ridges piled one upon another, serried with pine trees, and rising to three rocky crests. Beside the middle, of these crests lay an almost perfect circle of water, glowing like a blue jewel, and on its northern shore stood a long low building with two wings enclosing a courtyard. Sally needed no telling that this was the Summer Palace of the Kings of Styria.

She caught her breath, as the aeroplane tilted for its landing, and she looked down upon the palace through all those leagues of empty air. She had a moment’s picture —quite frighteningly vivid —of a tall mudstained man, bareheaded on a stone balcony; he was holding a scared small boy by the hand, and talking with a feverish violence that somehow was thin and shrill and ineffective.

Then she clutched desperately at the sides of the ’plane, as the pilot- sent it hurtling earthwards to its landing on the Bratza racecourse.

“Wait for an hour,” said Casimir to the pilot as ne got out of the machine. “If by then I have not returned, you can go back to Torcula, and let your comrades know that all goes well. If there has been any kind of slip since I was last in touch with von Auffenburg— then you may have to take us off in a hurry!” Sally exchanged her leather jacket for an ordinary riding coat; Casimir put on a soft felt hat, shook the pilot’s hand; and the two of them walked away across the racecourse, and strolled, in the most casual manner possible, through the streets of Bratza up towards ’ the citadel. The girl's heart was beating rather fast, and she felt uncomfortably hot in her breeches and boots; but she believed that Casimir had seen her jump and flinch during those last few minutes of the flight, and she was not prepared to give him another opportunity of looking at her with quizzical superiority in his sleepy, amber-coloured eyes, which always reminded her of the eyes of some big cat behind bars, a puma or a jaguar.

There was certainly no sign that any foreknowledge or rumour of their coming was abroad in Bratza. It was <? little before midday—their pilot had made good time —and most of the inhabitants seemed to have already succumed to the temptations of lunch or of the noon siesta. The streets were half empty. Tramps, shoppiers, and horsed cabs alike, moved at a walking pace, careless, unhurried, content with the heat, and the patterned sunlight falling between the foliage of the trees across the pavements, and all the thick warm scents of high summer. Until they reached the cobbled street leading directly to the citadel gateway, and saw the sentry with steel helmet and fixed bayonet standing like a statue, the only uniform they had met was a policeman in mouse-colour-ed breeches with a red stripe, a white drill coat, a pith helmet, and a belt from which hung a short life-preserv-er, who was directing traffic with a langour distinctly unimpressive. (To be Continued.)