Eric Ambler - The Schirmer Inheritance

“I’d say you told me.”

Arthur laughed. “Proper lawyer, aren’t you?”

“Would it matter to you?”

“Not a tuppenny damn.”

“O.K., then.”

Arthur was cleaning a pistol. George watched him for a while in silence. At last he said: “Supposing there had been no question of the Sergeant’s going to America. Would you have gone on with this racket of yours?”

Arthur looked up, then shook his head. “No. I reckon we’ve just about had it now.”

“Having pulled off the big job?”

“Maybe. Time to move on anyway.” He bent over the pistol again.

“Got plenty of dough put away?” George said after a moment or two.

Arthur looked up, startled. “I’ve never met anyone with such terrible manners,” he said. “Come off it, Arthur.”

But Arthur was genuinely shocked. “How would you like it if I was to ask you how much money you had in the bank?” he said indignantly.

“All right. Tell me something else, then. How did it start? The Sergeant kept very quiet about that. What happened in the end to that Markos brigade you both commanded?”

Arthur shook his head sadly. “Always asking questions. I suppose it’s being a lawyer.”

“I have an inquiring mind.”

“Just plain nosy-parkering, my mother would have called it.”

“You forget that, at present, I’m the Sergeant’s legal adviser. Between a man and his legal adviser there should be no secrets.”

Arthur uttered an obscene four-letter word and went back to his cleaning.

But the following evening he came back to the subject of his own accord. George had still seen nothing of either the Sergeant or Miss Kolin and a suspicion had been forming in his mind. He began to ask questions again.

“What time’s the Sergeant coming back today?”

“Don’t know, chum. When we see him, I expect.” Arthur was reading a Belgrade newspaper that had arrived mysteriously during the day. Now he threw it down in disgust. “Lot of nonsense in that paper,” he said. “Ever read The News of the World ? London paper that is.”

“No, I’ve never seen it. Is the Sergeant in Greece or Albania today?”

“Albania?” Arthur laughed, but, as George opened his mouth to ask another question, he went on. “You were asking what happened to us when we packed up fighting. We were up near the Albanian frontier then.”

“Oh, yes?”

Arthur nodded reminiscently. “You ought to have a look at Mount Grammos if you ever get the chance,” he said. “Wonderful scenery up that way.”

The Grammos massif had been one of the first strongholds of the Markos forces; it came to be one of the last.

For weeks the brigade’s position in the area had been deteriorating steadily. The trickle of deserters had become a stream. There came a day in October when important decisions had to be taken.

The Sergeant had been on his feet for fourteen hours or more, and his hip was paining him, when at last he gave orders to bivouac for the night. Later, the officer in charge of an outlying picket caught two deserters from another battalion and sent them to brigade headquarters to be dealt with.

The Sergeant looked at the men thoughtfully and then gave orders for them to be executed. When they had been led away, he poured himself a glass of wine and nodded to Arthur to do the same. They drank their wine in silence. Then, the Sergeant refilled the glasses.

“Does it occur to you, Corporal,” he said, “that those two men may have been setting their brigade commander and his second-in-command a good example?”

Arthur nodded. “It’s been occurring to me for days, Sarge. We haven’t a hope in hell.”

“No. The best we can hope for is that they will starve us to death.”

“They’re beginning to do that already.”

“I have no wish to be a martyr of the revolution.”

“Neither have I. We’ve done our jobs, Sarge, as well as we knew how and a bit over. And we’ve kept faith. That’s more than those bastards at the top can say.”

“ ‘Put not your trust in princes.’ I have remembered that, you see. I think the time has come to seek our independence.”

“When do we go?”

“Tomorrow night would not be too soon.”

“When they find out us two have gone, you won’t see the rest of them for dust. I wonder how many’ll get through.”

“The ones who always get through, the comitadji types. They will hide away in their hills as they have done before. They will be there when we want them.”

Arthur was startled. “When we want them? I thought you said something about independence.”

The Sergeant filled his glass again before he replied. “I have been thinking, Corporal,” he said at last, “and I have a plan. The politicians have used us. Now we will use them.”

He stood up and limped over to his kit bag for the tin box in which he kept his cigars.

Arthur watched him with something that he knew was very like love. He had a profound respect for his friend’s planning ability. Surprising things sometimes emerged from that hard, heavy head.

“How use them?” he said.

“The idea came to me several weeks ago,” said the Sergeant. “I was thinking of that history of the Party which we were once compelled to read. You remember?”

“Sure. I read mine without cutting the pages open.”

The Sergeant smiled grimly. “You missed some important things, Corporal. I will give you my copy to read.” He lighted a cigar luxuriously. “I think that it is quite possible that from being mere soldiers we may soon become soldiers of fortune.”

“It was dead easy,” Arthur said. “The Sarge had got hold of a list of all the secret Party members and sympathizers in the Salonika area, and we sorted out those that worked in banks and in the offices of businesses with big payrolls. Then we approached them and gave them their big chance to serve the Party in its hour of need, just as the book said the old Bolshies had done. We could always say we’d denounce them if they got suspicious, but we haven’t had any trouble of that kind. I tell you, every single job we’ve done, we’ve had a man or woman on the inside, helping us for the honour and glory of the Party.” He laughed contemptuously. “Flies in the Ointment, Unite! They couldn’t wait to ditch the people they were working for. Some of them would torture their own mothers if the Party wanted them to, and be glad to do it. ‘Yes, Comrade. Certainly, Comrade. Glad to be of service, Comrade!’ It’s made me sick sometimes to hear them,” he added self-righteously.

“Still, you did pretty well out of it, didn’t you?”

“Maybe we did, but I still don’t like people who bite the hand that feeds them.”

“Surely, it must have taken quite a bit of courage for some of these people to act on their convictions to the extent of helping you.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Arthur sourly. “If you ask me, these political convictions that make it O.K. to play someone else a dirty trick behind their backs have something pretty phony about them.”

“You’re quite a moralist, Arthur. What about the trick you were playing?”

“I’m not pretending to be better than I am. It’s these phonies I can’t stand. You should talk to some of them. Clever. Know all the answers. Prove anything you like. The sort you don’t want with you if you’re going out on a patrol, because, if things get sticky, they’re the ones who’ll start looking round for a reason for everybody to chuck in their hands and go home.”

“Does the Sergeant feel the same way about these things?”

“Him?” Arthur laughed. “No. He doesn’t bother. You see, I think there are all kinds of people. He doesn’t. He thinks there are only two kinds-those you’d want with you when things are bad, and those you wouldn’t have at any price.” He smiled slyly and added: “And he makes up his mind real quick.”