Codeword Golden Fleece Page 38

  He had got so far in his anxious speculation when a tall, thin officer entered the room. Speaking in French, which seemed to be the lingua franca in use between the Rumanians and Poles, he introduced himself to the Major as the Senior Intelligence Officer on the Station. He then went on to say that the Station Commander was waiting for a trunk call from Bucharest, but as soon as it had come through he would join them. In the meantime, he had given orders that the prisoner was to be searched.

  Rex protested to the Rumanian that he was not the man they thought him to be, but his protest was ignored, so he shrugged resignedly.

  While they helped him off with his clothes the station doctor was sent for to remove his bandages. This worthy, a fat, jolly-looking fellow, arrived a few moments later, bringing with him a dressing-gown to cover Rex’s nakedness after his clothes had been taken from him.

  The doctor, apparently, did not speak French, as he gabbled away in Rumanian with a joking manner after he had unwound the bandages from Rex’s head, pointing at his chin and evidently drawing attention to the fact that, although his jaw had been heavily padded with cotton wool, it had not even a scratch upon it. However, the dried blood in Rex’s wavy hair and the rainbow-hued bruises on his body bore out his story that he had been badly knocked about.

  While the doctor was making his examination the tall Intelligence Officer was going over his garments with the utmost care, ripping open the linings of his outer clothes here and there and even examining the buttons to see if they were genuine or could be unscrewed to hold small pieces of folded paper. But neither search revealed anything at all, and the pockets of Rex’s money-belt were found to contain only a considerable sum in Rumanian banknotes.

  The telephone shrilled, and after answering it the young Duty Officer said to the others: ‘That was the C.O. He has finished his telephoning now, and I told him of our disappointment, but he wishes to see the prisoner.’

  Rex’s clothes were handed back to him and he dressed as quickly as he could; then he was escorted by the whole party across the hall to a much larger office. A square-jawed, determined-looking man with grizzled hair, evidently the Station Commander, was sitting there behind a large desk and near him was standing a beaky-nosed, dapper little fellow, who proved to be the Station Adjutant.

  The moment Rex entered the room the beaky-nosed man muttered something in Rumanian, and the Station Commander shook his head. He then spoke sharply to the Polish Military Attaché in French:

  ‘This is not Captain Kilec; and except for height this fellow bears little resemblance to him.’

  The Pole looked distinctly crestfallen, but he bridled at the implication that they still regarded a Polish officer as the culprit. ‘As we had the honour to inform Monsieur le Commandant this afternoon, the real Captain Kilec died for his country some ten days ago,’ he said huffily. ‘Monsieur le Commandant means that he does not think that the prisoner resembles the man who impersonated Kilec.’

  ‘I have no grounds yet for accepting your ingenious theory that a German had succeeded in foisting himself on you as your Captain Kilec,’ replied the Station Commander coldly. ‘If it were so it shows an extraordinary lack of elementary security precautions in the Polish Command.’

  As Rex listened to this chilly outburst he gained a much clearer understanding of why the Poles had been so anxious to hand him over to this fire-eating Rumanian with the least possible delay. Evidently he had been creating hell’s delight about his missing document, and the Poles, being virtually his prisoners, had the best possible reasons for endeavouring to pacify him and so regain his goodwill.

  ‘I saw the man known as Kilec only once,’ the Station Commander went on, ‘but I am sure that he was of slighter build, and I think his hair was fair.’

  ‘But can you be certain of that?’ the Major almost pleaded. ‘After all, if you saw him only once you may be mistaken, and men of such a height are uncommon in any army.’

  ‘It is not the man,’ cut in the dapper Adjutant decisively. ‘I saw Kilec—’

  ‘The man who was impersonating Kilec,’ insisted the Major.

  ‘As you will. I saw the man you sent to us as Captain Kilec on several occasions; half a dozen times at least. It was from the safe in my office that he stole the document when I left it for a few moments because the Station Commander had sent for me. He was as tall as this man but not quite as broad. There the resemblance ends. The other had fair hair, as the Station Commander says, and bright blue eyes; also he had slightly protruding teeth.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Rex, entering the discussion for the first time. ‘Now, may I give you my end of the story?’

  The Station Commander nodded. ‘Yes. As the Poles don’t seem to know their own officers from Nazi agents and you are dressed as a Polish officer, let us hear who you are and how you came to be mixed up in all this.’

  Rex had now been over the story he meant to tell so often in his own mind that he was able to tell it clearly and convincingly. When he had finished it was obvious that the Rumanians believed him; but the Polish Major, angry and disgruntled at being made to look an impetuous fool, through having dragged Rex over to the Rumanian camp without first finding somebody in his own camp who had worked with the false Kilec and could identify him, continued to display a pigheaded antagonism.

  ‘If he is not the impersonator of Kilec, who is he then?’ he demanded. ‘He says he is an American, but he had no papers to prove it….’

  ‘Oh, nuts!’ Rex cut in. ‘I’ve told you half a dozen times. They were stolen with my clothes.’

  But the Major would not be stopped, and hurried on: ‘He says that he tried to get into our camp to secure redress against the man who attacked him. If that is so, why did he try to slip past the sentry by just waving a pass that did not belong to him? Why did he not come in the daytime when it was light? Why did he not take the pass straight to the guardroom and ask to be taken up to the Camp Offices? Why did he swathe his jaw in bandages when his only injuries were on the top of his head?’

  ‘I’ve perfectly good explanations for all those silly little points,’ Rex replied briskly. ‘You’re simply wasting time with all this nit-pecking, and I expect these gentlemen want to get back to their evening’s work or amusements, even if you don’t.’

  ‘I, too, have a perfectly good explanation for these not so silly little points,’ declared the Major, now determined to justify himself in the eyes of the Rumanians. ‘You did these things because you are another impostor. Yes, I have it! You are not the German agent that stole the defence plan, but you are another Nazi spy. The man who passed as Kilec would have known that after stealing the document our camp would be no safe place for him; but, for reasons best known to themselves, the Nazis still wanted a man inside it. You met him last night by arrangement. You gave him your clothes to help him get away from this part of the country unsuspected, and he gave you his uniform and pass so that you could slip into our camp. Once safely inside, you would have taken the name of another of our missing airmen and got to work at your filthy espionage.’

  ‘You’re crazy!’ cried Rex angrily. ‘How about the cuts on my head and all those bruises on my body that you saw just now? If the fellow had been a friend of mine is it likely that he’d have handed me out things like that?’

  ‘Why not?’ snapped the Major. ‘None of your hurts are at all serious. A big man like yourself would think little of such punishment if his life might hang upon receiving it. Those cuts and bruises were deliberately accepted by you in order that, should you be caught entering the camp, they would support the lies you have just been telling us about being attacked and having your clothes taken from you. There is another thing. You did everything in your power to persuade me not to hand you over to our Rumanian friends here. Why was that? It was because you know that the Polish camp is still in great confusion, owing to the constant arrival of new officers who have only just escaped over the frontier, and that we had to leave all our own dossiers about enemy agents be
hind in Poland. But not so the Rumanians. Their routine for dealing with suspects like yourself has not yet been interfered with. You were afraid that if you fell into their hands their Intelligence Department would soon be able to check up on you.’

  Rex was now acutely worried again. He was in constant fear that the Major would make mention of his rash assertion that he was acting for the British and, given help to get out of the country, could prevent further supplies of Rumanian oil reaching the Nazis.

  The manner of the Rumanians had noticeably hardened towards Rex while the Major was speaking, and he felt that to prolong the argument would only serve to increase his own danger. The one thing now was to stop the Pole talking before he excited really dangerous suspicions in the Rumanians’ minds by some mention of the oil traffic. So, with great reluctance but from a feeling of essential caution, Rex made no effort to answer in detail the charge made against him. He simply shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘This is all absolute nonsense.’

  ‘I am by no means satisfied that it is,’ announced the Station Commander. ‘I think Major Serzeski has made a reasonably strong case against you, and you do not seem to be in a position to refute it. In any case, I shall certainly hold you here until our Intelligence people have gone into the matter and checked your description against their files of suspects.’

  With an awful sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach Rex thought of the Golden Fleece, which in a few minutes now looked like being whisked away, God alone knew where, under the seat of the Major’s car. True, he had the car’s number and now the name of its owner, which had just been mentioned by the Station Commander, but it might be the most frightful job to trace it once Major Serzeski had left the Bukovina.

  In a last effort to retrieve the situation he tried an angry bluff and boomed: ‘You can’t do this to me. I’m an American citizen. You’ve no right to detain me just because I’ve had the bad luck to be attacked by some Polish crook or dirty German.’

  ‘In the circumstances I have every right,’ snapped the Station Commander. ‘Unless, of course, you can prove your bona fides. If you are really an American perhaps you have friends in the United States Legation in Bucharest. If there is anyone there who would vouch for you I will have a trunk call put through.’

  ‘No,’ said Rex a little lamely. ‘No, I don’t know anyone at our Legation in Bucharest.’

  ‘Very well then. I shall keep you confined in our lock-up here until we are fully satisfied as to your identity.’

  ‘Holy Mike!’ Rex gasped. ‘How—how long’s that likely to be?’

  The Station Commander shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. It largely depends on the information you are prepared to give us about yourself. A week perhaps, but in the present state of things it might easily be a month if the friends to whom you refer us outside Rumania are dilatory in answering our enquiries.’

  As he finished speaking he made a sign to the young Duty Officer, who slipped out into the hall and returned a moment later with two armed guards.

  While the Rumanians were saying good-night to Major Serzeki the guards placed themselves one on either side of Rex, and, with the Duty Officer in attendance, marched him from the room.

  He was taken down a long passage, then through several others at the back of the building until they came to a row of cells. One of the cells was unlocked, and the soldiers pushed Rex into it, locking the door behind him.

  One look round was enough to show him that he was in a proper military ‘glasshouse’, from which there was little hope of escape. The walls were solid brick, the door had a glass peephole in it, and the windows were barred. The place was furnished only with a truckle bed, a wooden chair and a tin pail.

  Wearily he sank down on the bed and drew his hand across his eyes. He felt utterly done and absolutely overwhelmed by an agony of depression. His beloved and trusted friend, dear old Greyeyes, was out of the game for good. Simon had by this time almost certainly been identified and was probably facing a charge of violent assault, if not murder, for the attack on von Geisenheim and the German Commercial Attaché. Poor old Richard had been half-killed in the car-smash and, still a cripple, was now hundreds of miles away in distant Turkey. While he, the last of that splendid company, had messed up the final hand that they still had left to play and had landed himself in a military prison—perhaps for a week, perhaps for a month.

  ‘A month!’ And the option was only good for thirty days from the 21st of September. It still had twenty-five days to go; but how long would he remain cooped up in prison? There was no one to whom he could appeal to go surety for him in Rumania without giving away to the Rumanians that his real name was van Ryn, and if any of the Iron Guards got to know of his whereabouts they would pounce on him for being mixed up in the von Geisenheim affair.

  In a fresh wave of distress he realised that this would also apply if he endeavoured to get himself vouched for by his father or other friends outside the country. To reveal his full name in any circumstances was as good as asking to be allowed to join poor Simon for a term of years in the Rumanian equivalent of Sing Sing.

  But even if he could find some means of persuading the Station Commander to set him free, he no longer had the Golden Fleece. His friends had relied on him to get it through, and he had let them down. That was the last straw. They had given everything they had to give, and in the end they had trusted him with a thing they valued more than their lives. Yet he had lost it and now had no hope at all of retrieving it.

  Exhausted, still aching in every part of his body from his cuts and bruises, utterly overwrought, Rex felt like letting his head fall into his hands and sobbing like a child. But he did not do so. The stubbornness with which his American forbears had fought the prairie and the Indians and the drought came to his assistance now, and all the best of the courage and chivalry that had been the light of Europe for many generations lit a beacon in his mind as he thought of the Duke.

  De Richleau would not give way to a sentimental flood of tears inspired by his own inadequacy. Shrewd as he was, there had been times when he, too, had made mistakes, and many a time the luck had turned against him. But never had he thrown his hand in and blubbered like an ill-used schoolboy. He had been like a blade of pure, fine-tempered steel that could take it and take it and yet come up again finally to run an antagonist through the heart.

  There must be a way out if he, Rex, could only think of it, and there was a way out. There was one card in the pack that had not yet been played. It was a card that needed very skilful playing and a dangerous card that, when played, might easily cost him his life; on the other hand, it might prove the Ace of Trumps. Rex knew that he must wait to play it, but a few days would not make all that difference. He must hold his hand when they questioned him tomorrow, and perhaps the next day and the next.

  That was an appalling risk to take, because at any time Major Serzeski might have his Ford V.8 properly cleaned out, which would result in the discovery of the Golden Fleece. But that was a risk which must be taken. Rex knew that he could play his card effectively only if he pretended that he had no cards at all and then produced it casually, so that he would be allowed to exploit it instead of its being brushed peremptorily aside.

  He lay down on the bed and within a few minutes, instead of sobbing like an impotent child, he was sleeping as peacefully as a great Commander who, faced with enormously superior odds, is at least content in the knowledge that he has made the best plan possible before the day of battle.

  19

  Prison Bars

  On the following morning Rex was wakened by the sound of bugles blowing the Réveillé. He had been so done up the night before that, faced with the difficulty of undressing with the use of only one hand, he had flung himself down on the bed and slept in his clothes. He had not been able to shave since he left Cernauti, so his chin was now covered with a bristly stubble, and he felt generally ghastly.

  However, he was allowed little time to commiserate with himself on his parlous state,
his torn and muddy garments, or the fact that he had lost the Golden Fleece and was now in prison. The bugles had hardly ceased sounding when there came the jingle of keys and the noise of doors being thrown open. His own cell was unlocked, and he was beckoned out to join a line of men, who were then marched off to a wash-house. One of the guards, noticing that Rex had his arm in a sling, very decently helped him get his upper garments off, and two out of his five fellow prisoners lent him soap, a towel and shaving equipment. None of them seemed to speak any language he understood, but they were a decent crowd of simple, cheerful airmen, and they extended a ready sympathy to their new comrade in misfortune.

  Feeling considerably refreshed by his clean-up, Rex was marched back to his cell, where his breakfast, consisting of a bowl of porridge, two doorsteps well spread with butter and a mug of coffee, was passed in to him. A quarter of an hour later, from a variety of sounds out in the passage, he guessed that the other prisoners were being led off to work, but he was left undisturbed until half past nine, when he was taken from his cell and escorted to an office two doors away from the one in which he had been brought before the Station Commander the previous night.

  The tall, gawky Intelligence Officer and the dapper, beaky-nosed Adjutant were both there. The former told him to sit down and began to interrogate him. In the interval since breakfast Rex had had an opportunity to collect his thoughts and work out the details of the account he meant to give of himself.

  His story was that his business was selling cars in a big way, and he was the European representative of a new United States make called the Stuyvesant. The outbreak of the war had caught him in Poland. When Britain and France had come in he had thought it just on the cards that the United States might follow suit. If that had happened and he had been caught by the Nazis, he would have found himself interned for the duration. As he didn’t care to risk that, he had made his way to the Rumanian border and crossed it with a number of other refugees. Having reached Cernauti, he heard that all that was left of the Polish Air Force was being flown out to Grodek and decided to go there to see if he could learn what had happened to his friend Captain Jan Lubieszow of the Polish Air Force Reserve. He had been on his way up to the Polish camp two evenings before when the man whom they knew as Kilec had come up behind him on the road and suddenly attacked him, without giving the least indication why he did so.