"BEYOND DOVER"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 May 1939, Page 12

"BEYOND DOVER"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

By

VAL GIELGUD.

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

CHAPTER XVIII. _ (Continued). But the young man who had made his gesture, and knew that it had been good, stared dully at the omelette growing cold on the plate before him, and shivered in spite of the heat of the day. There had been some fighting when the radio station was first occupied. The staff had proved difficult. Most of them had been deliberately picked for maintaining safe republican views, and more than a few carried weapons. Their defence had proved futile against regular infantry from the garrison, and Hugo had arrived to find twenty-three men under guard in the hall of the Station. Several were wounded, most were dusty, scared, and more or less knocked about. All had their hands tied. He had loathed having to walk past them on his way into the studio. It was perhaps a minute after he had finished at tne microphone when he heard the volley, followed by a few stray shots. He had imagined that real fighting had begun, and he went out, queerly light-hearted, to take his part and his risks. It would be a relief almost to face bullets after that infernal contraption with its wires and fixings, the studio with its deadening curtains, and its self-consciously modern decoration; a relief to get out into the sunlight. And then he had seen the crumpled group of black figures sprawled along the base of the wall at the bottom of the steps. One of two were still writhing a little. The firing squad had just been dismissed, and were smoking and chatting round their piled rifles. Enquiry soon established the simple fact that the officer in charge of the infantry detachment guarding the prisoners was a pathological case. He was still standing apart from his men, a smoking pistol in on hand. He had been finishing off the wounded. His face was like chalk, his hands jerked convulsively, his eyes were set in his head. He slumped, like a marionette deprived of its wings, when Hugo ordered him under arrest.

By this time rumours of what had happened at the Radio Station had penetrated the town. A crowd had formed round the entrance. There had been several hundred witnesses to the shooting. And soon there had been women, and children crawling among those blood-stained dusty bodies, peering and moaning, and crying out. Some of them had stood up and cursed and screamed at Hugo as he stood at the top of the steps, glittering in his polished boots and spurs and wide gilded epaulettes and bright buttons. They had called him a bloody murderer, and one old hag had shrieked out “Like father, like son!” He wanted to face them out, to explain, but the soldiers showed signs of getting out of hand, and Flanescu, terrified of more shooting, had got him inside, and begged him to eat; assured him that it nothing—or at least, the sort of thing that was almost bound to happen in a revolution.

That was just the trouble, thought Hugo, gulping down some more of the rough dark wine of the country. It was not that he was by nature particularly merciful, though he was far from being cruel. He had been exasperated by the stupidity shown by the victims of the shooting in their original hopeless and rather incompetent resistance. What was so inexpressibly humiliating was the fact that his nervous system had been proved too fastidious, too delicate, for', battle murder and sudden death. The sight of spilled blood; the dusty squalor of those crumpled black-clad corpses, lying there in the sunshine with none of the normal dignity of death; the screeching abdication of self-res-pect by the women —he had not been afraid, or unbearably sorry; he had simply been overwhelmingly disgusted. Every nerve in his body had flinched away, rasped and jagged. And this sort of thing was bound to happen in a revolution!

It was at this moment that fate chose to send him by the hands of an unkempt orderly a message wire by Casimir Konski from Bratza: “All well here,” it ran,“stop Auffenburg ready to move immediately on receipt of word from you stop Respectful congratulations on your radio speech stop Expect you Bratza tomorrow evening stop Rumours rioting in Capital confirmed therefore essential A should march at earliest possible moment stop Miss Martin joined by the Englishman Craven stop Their whereabouts al present unknown .” .

Hugo sprang to his' feet, crumpling the telegram in his hand. A series of terrible pictures flashed across his mind; von Auffenburg marching into the capital; finding himself confronted with a population out of hand, and the red flag flying over pitiful flimsy barricades; deciding that a little’ bloodletting—the whiff of grapeshot—was inevitable in sucfi cases; sending his tanks against the barricades, his cavalry galloping over tne crowds in the Great Square in front of the Parliament Building—no, by god, he wouldn’t have it!

And then the news about Sally! Craven be damned! If Craven had turned up, which Hugo profoundly doubted, then Casimir was at the bot tom of it. If Casimir thought he could use Ottokar Maximilian at a catspaw and then double-cross him, he was mistaken, more mistaken than he had even been before in his life! .-‘Whereabouts at present unknown!” That fheant dirty work—danger for Sally—and he wouldn’t stand for it. Not that he was in love with her. Human relationships seemed to have withered in the glare of the Styrian sunshine, in the fire of a coup d’etat in being. But she had entered his service, worked for him, run risks for him. He was responsible for her. He unbuckled his sword and threw it across the desk, put on his cap, saw that the revolver in the holster at his belt was loadea, and went out into the corridor. “Get me a hors.e!” he ordered. “The best you can find in Duvornik. And pay for it!” “Where are you going. Highness?” Flanescu as usual appeared from nowhere in particular, hot and flurried. "I'm going to Bratza,” said Hugo, “alone.” “Eut Highness, it’s impossible!” “I accepted that word from Casimir Konski. I’ll not take it from you, Leopold. I’ve been tricked-once too of-

ten. Casimir thinks he is running this affair. I propose to show him once and for all that he is not!” “Then take a car and let me come with you!” "A car —on these roads! And 1 shan’t find relays of cars, my good Leopold. If you could ride—but you can’t! I must see von Auffenburg before he can start. And find Sally, he added to himself. For the best part of half an hour ne fidgetted about the Radio Station nail, while a suitable charger was being found. He exchanged his tunic with its decoration and monogrammed epaulettes for a subaltern officer's, plain and unadorned. He tore off his spurs. He pocketed a flask of orandy, a packet of chocolate, and some spare ammunition for his revolver. At last the horse was brought. Hugo slung a cloak across his shoulders, told Flanescu to cheer up, and sprang into the saddle. In a few moments all that remained to Duvornik of the Pretender to the Styrian Throne was the clatter of hooves and a cloud of dust receding at speed down the hill towards the Bratza road. Flanescu and the other royalists remained looking gloomily at each other.

“The wires between here and Bratza are down,” said Flanescu, "or I’d have made touch. We’re cut off from Konski and von Auffenburg, and God knows what may not happen to His Highness." “It’s stark raving lunacy!” said one of the infantry officers bluntly. “It’s all right if old Auffenburg has taken the bit between his teeth and marched,” said another. "If you ask me it means the fat’s in the fire,” said a third. “Nonsense!” cried Flanescu. “Where is your courage, gentlemen, your loyalty?” The infantry officer turned on him savagely. “Where’s the commonsense of the man we were to serve?” he snarled. “We’ve started the shooting, remember,” he jerked a thumb towards the bullet spattered wall. “It’s not an end I care to contemplate.” He moved away. The other officers followed him. Flanescu was left alone, looking at the wall and the fouled dust at its base. What the devil has Casimir Konski been doing? CHAPTER XIX. Extract from a paragraph in the “Corriere d’ltalia,” dated August 3, 193—: “Rumours continue to circulate from sources generally found to be reliable, referring to a monarchist upheaval in Styria. Both the exiled Arch-Duke Ottokar Maximilian and ' his Mother the Queen Dowager are reported to have landed on the coast near Krasak. It is believed that the veteran General Karl von Auffenburg is at the head of several thousand men of the Army who have declared for the Arch-Duke. The latter, who is generally supposed to be an intelligent and amiable young man, entirely under die influence of his Mother and her advisers, is little known to the nub’ic at large. Since the Revolution of 1918 he has been educated at one of the smaller English public schools and a Belgian University. His portrait is, however, a familial 1 one, as that of far the best looking of the younger royalties of Europe. His betrothal to the youngest princess of a reigning house would certainly follow were he to return to the Styrian Throne. The chances of the success of any rising can, however, be considered as remote. The small but well-dis-ciplined Styrian Navy has the most sternly rigid republican sympathies, and even if the Arch-Duke has landed, it is hard to see how he is to join hands with his military supporters. A Bucharest message reports that the Arch-Duke, who has married in secret a member- of the British aristocracy, has reached Bratza. Another from Athens asserts that troops opened fire on the people in the streets of Duvornik, and that several hundred casualties resulted. Both the latter should be accepted with the greatest reserve.” Extraction from a paragraph in “The Tribune,” August 4, 193 "No confirmation is to be had of the rumours circulating with regard

to a monarchist revolt against the Government of Styria. Since July 31 the frontiers have been rigidly closed, and nothing beyond the original official denial that the young Ottokar Maximilian had landed on the island of Torcula has been issued by the Government to the Press. In any event the success of any such rising would be problematical in the extreme, though it is well known that monarchial feeling is strong among the peasantry and in certain units of the army. It would ultimately depend on the action taken Dy the States composing the Danubian Alliance, which have always announced the maintenance of republican government in Styria to be an unshakeable point in their combined policy.” Extract from "Isolation,” August 5, 193—: "The backing of two great Powers has been secured for the romantic adventure undertaken by the youthful Arch-Duke Ottokar Maximilian to recover the throne of his ancestors. Italy and Germany have given guarantees which ensure that no military interference shall be undertaken by the Danubian Alliance. The States composing the latter threaten to bring the matter before the League of Nations. We hope that Great Britain will make it clear immediately that she has no interest in the government of Styria, and that, paraphrasing Bismarck, Styria and all its islands are not worth the bones of a single British Grenadier!” Extracts from a confidential (code) report by Basil Lutyens, Esq.., 0.8. E., to His Majesty’s Secretary of State for League of Nation’s Affairs. (Decoded and delivered by Col. F. Boughton, D. 5.0., M. 1.3.): (To be Continued.)