The Quick Boat Men, page 18
‘At Burgas,’ Edward said. ‘We had to move them because of the threat from Romania.’
It wasn’t an unreasonable argument and the documents were handed over, together with a thick file of plans and instructions. The champagne was drunk and the blinochki eaten and Drimic passed over the bank draft. It was an elaborate document in scarlet, yellow and gold. Edward noticed it was drawn on the King’s personal account.
They stood in silence as Drimic climbed back into his car, and set off up the hill into the town. Edward stared at the bank draft.
‘Don’t be presentin’ it here, whatever ye do,’ McClumpha insisted. ‘Drimic has the banks in his pocket. Take it tae Burgas. Use the Swiss bank. An’ I’ll get y’r message tae Khamlukin but ye’ve no need tae worry about him. He willnae be back here in a hurry. He left a lot of debts and there are a few bum bailiffs lookin’ for him. An’, to cap things, his wife’s run off wi’ a Pole.’
As they burst out laughing, McClumpha continued. ‘I’ll go tae the station an’ get y’r tickets. Ye’ll also need cash. You stay here. Dinnae go oot an’ keep the door lockit an’ y’r heads doon.’
It was good advice. McClumpha shot off in his car while Sam and Edward collected their belongings. He was waiting in Reception as they left the hotel, and shoved a wad of notes into Edward’s hand.
‘We can never thank you enough,’ Edward said.
‘Pchah.’ McClumpha shook him by the hand. ‘It’s ma job as consul, after all. Ye can pay me back when ye’ve time tae stop runnin’.’
Worried about Drimic, Edward had placed the bank draft in the inside pocket of his jacket and used a safety pin to make sure it couldn’t fall out.
‘If they want it back,’ he said, ‘they’ll have to strip me.’
‘They won’t get that far,’ Sam said, opening his briefcase. Inside was a revolver.
Edward grinned and lifted the lid of his despatch-case. Inside there was a revolver of his own. ‘Snap,’ he said.
‘Never mind guns,’ McClumpha advised. ‘Keep y’r eyes open. Ye need have no worries aboot the boats. If Drimic tries tae steal ’em for his own use, we’ll move ’em. Intae Enescu’s yard. They can be hidden there as well as in mine. I wouldnae trust yon Drimic not tae sell ’em again and pocket the money.’
Dark clouds were massing over the hills and heavy drops of rain began to fall as the train jerked into movement. Crowds gathered on the platform to applaud its departure, and Edward spotted Drimic and Roboshva. When he saw Edward leaning out of the window, he ran forward a few steps, pointing to someone in one of the coaches behind.
‘Sam,’ Edward said, ‘I think we’re being followed already. And if we are, it’s because they’re hoping to get this bank draft back. If Drimic has someone on this train they can only be looking for us. I suggest that at the first opportunity we drop off and catch the next train.’
‘Here we go again,’ grumbled Sam.
Provadiya was a small town tucked into the bottom of a range of mountains. It was packed with people who had left Sofia after the threat of invasion, and who were now trying to make their way to the sea. As the train stopped, Drimic’s agents, both dressed in black with homburg hats, jumped down and mingled obtrusively with the peasant women squatting under the trees. Eventually, a red-capped guard bustled along the platform pushing people back on board. Whistles blew, flags waved and they saw the two men head back to the train.
‘Right, Sam.’
Picking up their cases, they made for the door. Like all Continental railway carriages, the door had steps to ground level for the low station platforms.
The train was just gathering speed as they opened the door and jumped out. As they went sprawling, Edward saw one of Drimic’s agents at a window.
Dusting themselves off, the two men picked up their belongings and headed for the station exit, surrounded by indignant railway officials.
‘Come on, Sam,’ Edward said. ‘Those bastards’ll be waiting at the next station. We’ll have to think of something else.’
But outside, there was a livery stable which hired horses and traps.
‘That’s the answer,’ Edward said. ‘We’ll follow the road. Can you ride? I can’t remember.’
‘No.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Edward. ‘Too bad.’
‘I’d manage better,’ Sam groaned, ‘if the wretched thing was fitted with a tiller.’
The road led into the hills, which climbed beyond them to a clear sky.
‘We have around eighty miles to go,’ Edward said. ‘We should be able to reach Burgas in about three days.’
‘What makes you think they won’t be waiting for us at Burgas?’ Sam asked. ‘Why not cross the border into Greece?’
For three days, in increasing cold, they plodded along. There were few roads and, at every village, by signs and the few words they had learned, they were able to set themselves on the right route. The inns were few and far between but they found reasonable food and hard beds for the night. On the fourth day, they became aware they were being followed by two horsemen.
‘Can you hit anything with that?’ Edward asked, as Sam fished out his revolver.
‘Shouldn’t think so. How about you?’
Edward shook his head.
At the next village they took a loop road away from the main route south. They didn’t stop to ask directions and wondered if they’d lost their pursuers. Towards evening, feeling more or less safe, they passed through a village called Picep, then turned back to the main road. Heading between rock-scattered hills in the last of the sunshine, they were wondering where to stay.
‘We could sleep in the open,’ Sam suggested. ‘It wouldn’t do us any harm for one night.’
A breeze had started which promised to make the night chilly.
‘Hang on, Ted,’ he said. ‘We’ve got company.’
At a bend in the road by a rocky wall surrounding a field, two men waited. Two horses were tethered to a tree. Drimic’s agents.
Edward’s eyes flickered about them. There were dry-stone walls on either side of the road, and behind them a narrow humpbacked bridge which they had just crossed.
‘What do you suggest we do now?’ Edward asked.
‘Rush ’em?’
‘And get shot before we’ve gone a couple of yards? Let them come to us.’
It was a good guess. The two men walked over, while Edward and Sam sat waiting in the saddle.
‘Paper,’ said one of them in English. ‘I want.’
Both men were holding revolvers.
‘Very well,’ said Edward, reaching inside his jacket.
But instead of the bank draft, he brought out the heavy revolver he had bought in Sofia and slammed it down hard on the man’s head. As he did so, he saw the other man raise his gun and found himself looking down the hole in the barrel. There was a bang that echoed round the hills and set the horses dancing in fright. He saw Sam fall from his saddle, while the second Bulgar was flung sideways against the stone wall. He groaned once, then slid down against it to sprawl on the grass at its base, leaving a smear of red on the stones.
‘Jesus,’ Sam sat up. ‘I hit him.’
Vaulting from the saddle, Edward bent to examine the two bodies.
‘You not only hit him, Sam,’ he said. ‘You killed him.’
Turning to the other man lying crumpled in the road, he turned him over. Blood oozed from his nose and ears and his face looked like wax.
‘In fact, I think we killed ’em both,’ he said.
Twenty-seven
Stiff and saddlesore, they drew near the Greek frontier two days later. The place was bustling with soldiery. It had started raining and the dusty roads were already becoming quagmires. Along every pathway lay the debris of retreating armies. The sky was dark with buzzards and kites. And the wind from the mountains was bitterly cold. Every house they passed contained sick and wounded soldiers, with doctors struggling to help without drugs, bandages or lint.
Everywhere were broken carts and waggons and roofless and burned farm buildings. Dead horses and cattle made the place vile with their stench. Here and there they could see a huddle of grey clothing where a dead man lay. Moving about among the ruins were the shadowy figures of people who lived in the area, searching desperately for something that might sustain life, gaunt figures with hollow cheeks and burning eyes. Every scrap of wood had vanished and they were wrenching out the vines from the slopes to make fires. In some houses living and dead lay together, almost indistinguishable from each other. Starving dogs sniffed hopefully at doorways.
There were refugees everywhere. The suffering had brought a stillness over the countryside that was broken only by the cawing crows which hovered over the long caterpillar of human beings trudging northwards and eastwards.
As the rain persisted the mud grew worse. Near the village of Prosip they came across ambulance carts stuck in the mud, and, shortly afterwards, crossed the path of the battered and retreating Bulgarian army. The feet of the half-starved soldiers were wrapped in rags, their bodies swathed in old carpets and pieces of torn canvas. Nearby, they saw a group of hospital tents and a Red Cross flag, a Ford car, ox carts and mule-drawn waggons. Wretched-looking soldiers swathed in bandages sat in groups, hunched against the cold.
As they approached, a woman emerged from one of the tents. She seemed little more than a girl, fair-haired with a long curl that fell over her nose, a neat figure and legs half-obscured by the long coat she wore over a nurse’s uniform. She stopped in front of them and addressed a few words of Bulgarian Slav to them.
‘Perhaps,’ Edward said gently, ‘it would be better if we spoke English.’
Her eyes lit up. ‘You speak English?’
‘We are English.’
‘You are? What are you? Doctors?’
‘I suppose you’d call us sailors.’
Gesturing towards the mountains, she said ‘We don’t see many ships round here. But it’s good to see you. I’m with the British Women’s Convoy Corps. We arrived when the fighting started last year. We’re here with the assistance of Queen Eleanora of Bulgaria. Not that she’s given much of that. We need help. We have to move the hospital. A pipe carries excreta past the building we’re using to a cesspool that’s only partly covered by rotting planks. Delightful. We’ve found another building that’s usable but we can’t manage on our own.’
‘Madam,’ Edward said uncomfortably, ‘we’d love to be of assistance, but we have urgent business, which requires us to leave Bulgaria as quickly as possible.’
‘I’m not a madam,’ she replied. ‘I’m a miss. Are you a spy?’
‘Certainly not,’ he said. ‘I’m a businessman. Of sorts.’
‘Then you can spare a day or two to help us, I’m sure. My name’s Virginia Gogarty. There are seven of us, part of Mrs St John Halahan’s group. She just dumped us here while she went off with the others to sort out supplies. One of the lorries has broken down, and it would help if we could understand the bloody language better. You don’t speak it, by any chance?’
‘Only a few words, I’m afraid.’
She was young and pretty and reminded Edward of Augusta. She had the same neat blonde hair drawn back and tied with a ribbon. Even her voice sounded a little like Augusta’s.
‘The bloody people round here are perfectly prepared to carry the stretchers. But they haven’t the foggiest idea what we want done when we get there. Every time we open the windows they shut them again. We have an outbreak of typhus and cholera, and no one to help. Please stay. If only for a while.’
‘Have you got any transport?’ Edward asked. ‘I need to find a bank.’
‘To deposit your loot?’
Ignoring her remark, Edward said, ‘My friend, Sam Nankidno here, will stay with you until I return. As a hostage.’ He smiled.
‘Svilencic’s not far away. They have a Swiss bank there.’
‘Good. I’ll go tomorrow. Now, what can we do?’
‘You can go and tell those bloody Bulgarians to leave the windows open.’
‘Why not smash the panes?’
‘Why did I never think of that?’ she said. ‘Too well brought up, I suppose. You might also tell them not to throw scraps of food on the floor. It encourages mice and cockroaches, to say nothing of rats. This place is full of them.’
‘I’ll threaten to shoot anyone I see doing it,’ Sam offered. ‘I can hit anything at a distance of a yard.’
She turned to Edward. ‘Have you got a gun too?’
‘Yes.’
She grinned. ‘That makes three of us then. Please call me Ginny.’
‘Ginny,’ said Edward.
‘And you would tell me if you were a spy, wouldn’t you?’
They worked until dark setting up the hospital and spent the night on the floor in the same room as the off-duty nurses. There were two British, Virginia Gogarty and a girl called Florence Mitchell, a Canadian and four Australians, all of whom had been recruited in England. They were all shattered and slept like logs.
‘Here’s a rum go,’ Sam said as they shared the blankets round them. ‘Never thought I’d share a bed with seven girls at once.’
At first light Edward set off for Svilencic with a Bulgarian driver-mechanic called Movisch. The ambulance had bone-juddering solid tyres and the road was rutted and very difficult. But they made it eventually to Svilencic where Edward insisted on Movisch staying in the ambulance with his revolver until he returned, in case anyone tried to steal it.
The clerk studied the signature on the bank draft and the name, Bulgarian National Bank, along the top, then insisted that Edward see the manager, a cold-eyed Italian-Swiss.
‘This is on the King’s personal account,’ he said. ‘May I ask how you came by it?’
Edward explained. ‘You can check with the palace and with the firm of Bourdillons in England.’
‘I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong, sir, but this is a large sum of money. I shall have to make some enquiries.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘I’m sure I can have an answer for you by this afternoon.’
In the event, confirmation came through quickly, and Edward was able to raise some much-needed cash. A biting wind made it difficult to light the ambulance’s oil-filled lamps. And the only way to get the vehicle back on the road was to push-start it. The going was very slippery, and the lamps gave only a feeble glow and kept going out. They finished the journey with Movisch steering and Edward squatting on the running board, working the throttle by hand with the bonnet open.
It was in the early hours of the morning when they clattered back into Prosip. There was no sign of life, just a solitary light in the hospital building. Then the silence was broken by a shriek and suddenly they were surrounded by yelling young women.
‘My God.’ A lantern was held up right in front of Edward’s face, making him blink. ‘He came back,’ cried Ginny Gogarty. ‘Oh, thank you, Spy. I never thought you would. I’ll never forget you. Anybody who can forget international secrets to help half a dozen lost women is a pearl beyond price.’
She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. Then the two men were hurried into a room at the end of the hospital, and someone found food and wine. It was only then that Edward realised how cold and wet and tired he was.
‘We thought we’d lost you and our ambulance, too.’ Ginny Gogarty said. ‘I was beginning to wonder what the hell I was going to tell Mrs Halahan. “Sorry, Ma’am. I lent the ambulance to this spy.” ’
Edward smiled. ‘I’m really not a spy, you know.’
‘It doesn’t matter to me if you are or not. The important thing is that you’re here.’
Twenty-eight
The weather had been growing colder ever since they had left Varna and now violent storms howled round the mountain tops. Icy winds brought torrential rain, turning the ground to a quagmire. As Ferdinand’s defeated army retreated the Turks took the opportunity to snatch back territory they had lost in the First Balkan War.
Typhus was rampant, and the bitter cold that drove the homeless to seek refuge and warmth in overcrowded quarters only helped the epidemic to spread.
Many of the men who found their way to the little hospital had frostbite which with neglect had turned to gangrene. Often the patients were two to a bed, but Ginny Gogarty and her staff fought to keep the dysentery, typhus and fever cases separate.
Patients and staff had all their hair cut short because that was where the lice laid their eggs, and the girls wore one-piece calico garments bound at the wrists, with Turkish-type trousers tucked into rubber boots or socks. Even the medical teams were at risk and one of the Australian girls had caught typhus and had had to be isolated.
As supplies dwindled, Ginny went to seek help from one of the Bulgarian hospitals in a town called Brznikovitsa. She took Edward with her as escort.
‘One of the patients gave me an egg the other day,’ said Ginny. ‘We couldn’t make out where he got it but it turned out he had the hen in the bed with him under the blanket.’
It was a wasted journey. The hospital was stinking and unventilated. There were few beds and what bedding there was, was swarming with vermin. Because of the cholera, the whole town was on the point of being quarantined. There were no trains, few rations, and no sugar, tobacco or milk.
They returned to find that the water supply at Prosip had vanished. Sam had already discovered that a conduit had broken and was struggling in the rain and sleet to repair it. But at least there was food. Movisch had once been a poacher and was a good shot. He brought back rabbits and wildfowl, once a roe-deer, once a boar, sometimes stolen hens. One day he came back with his dark eyes blazing.
‘Mister Edward,’ he said, hardly able to stand still for excitement. ‘I have found a baker. Two bakers, in fact. Unfortunately–’ Movisch grinned ‘–they are Turks.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Only half a mile away, Mister Edward. I got lost and almost wandered into their camp. I was going to shoot them so the Turks would also have no bread. Then I thought, why not bring them here and let them make bread for us?’
