Eric Ambler - Cause for Alarm

“But…” whined Zaleshoff.

“Silence!” The workmen had been watching the scene with blank faces. Now he turned to two of them. “You two stay here and see that they don’t try to escape while I consult with the yard manager and the police.” He turned to the third man. “Go back and see if they have done any damage inside the truck. If it is all in order refasten the tarpaulin properly. Those trucks will go on to Verona to-day.”

A moment later the door closed and we were left with our two gaolers.

For a moment or two we exchanged stares.

They were brawny fellows with red, grease-smeared faces. They were wearing filthy light-blue overalls and berets. One of them was about my own age; the other looked about ten years older. He carried a long wheel-tapper’s hammer. The younger man was, judging by the state of his hands, a greaser. They both looked very determined. It seemed obvious to me that if we tried any rough stuff we should accomplish nothing and probably get badly knocked about.

I glanced at Zaleshoff and caught his eye. His face was quite impassive, but he raised his eyebrows and shrugged slightly. I took it that he had resigned himself to the inevitable.

But I was wrong.

Four men standing in silence in a small room staring solemnly at one another produces after a while an atmosphere of extreme nervous tension. The desire to break the silence or establish some sort of communication with the other three becomes overpowering. The man with the hammer was the first to give way. His face puckered suddenly into a sheepish grin.

Zaleshoff promptly grinned back at him.

“Do you mind if we sit down, comrades?” he said.

The grin faded from the workman’s face as suddenly as it appeared. I saw him cast a quick apprehensive glance at his companion. The younger man was frowning. I realised that it was the word “comrades” that had been the trouble. It was, I thought, very tactless of Zaleshoff.

The wheel-tapper nodded slowly. “Yes, you can sit down,” he said.

There were some packing-cases in one corner of the office.

We moved over and sat on them. Zaleshoff began to hum softly.

I stared wretchedly at the bare wood floor. So this was the end of our plan for getting out of the country! We might, I reflected bitterly, have saved ourselves those twenty-four hours of walking. I had, I told myself, always known that it was hopeless, that Zaleshoff had only been postponing the evil moment; yet, now that it had come, I was conscious of being disappointed. It must, I decided, have been that I had expected something different. I had expected to be recognised. In my mind’s eye I rehearsed the scene as it should have been played. I imagined the sudden gleam that should have lighted my captor’s eyes when he realised that he had earned himself ten thousand lire. Then there would be the formalities at the police station and the armed guard back to Milan. I pictured the pained courtesy of the young man at the Consulate. “Naturally, Mr. Marlow (or would he omit the Mister?), we shall do all we can, but…” Or perhaps it would not get as far as that. “Shot while escaping”-that had been the phrase Zaleshoff had used. “They make you kneel down. Then they put a bullet through the back of your neck.” That was horrible. You knelt down as if you were going to pray. There was something helpless and pitiful about a man kneeling. I yawned. I kept yawning. It was absurd. I was not tired, I was not bored-my God, no! I was scared, scared stiff, in the bluest of funks, and I was yawning. It was grotesque. I shivered.

Zaleshoff was still humming. It was a march of some sort. It went on and on, a steady, plodding rhythm. I found myself involuntarily beating time with my foot.

“Stop that!”

It was the wheel-tapper who had spoken. It was said angrily, in irritation; but in his eyes there was a watchful, worried look that puzzled me. I had a sudden feeling that there was something going on that I did not understand. The greaser was watching Zaleshoff closely. Outside an engine clanked slowly past. Then it happened.

Zaleshoff pulled the brandy bottle out of his pocket.

“Can we have a drink, comrades?” he said.

The greaser made a motion forward as if to stop him; but the older man nodded.

“He’s up to something,” exclaimed the greaser suddenly. He turned on his companion accusingly. “You dirty Red!”

The wheel-tapper raised his hammer menacingly. His mouth tightened. “Keep your mouth shut,” he said slowly, “or I’ll knock your brains out.”

I was bewildered. I looked at Zaleshoff. As if nothing had happened, he was uncorking the bottle. He extended it to me. I shook my head and stared at him.

“You won’t have another chance for a while,” he said with a shrug. “They don’t serve it in prison.”

He put the bottle to his mouth and tilted it. There was not much left in the bottle and I could not help seeing that the liquid did not get as far as his mouth. He lowered the bottle and smacked his lips.

“That was good,” he said.

He got slowly to his feet and extended the bottle to the greaser.

“Have some, comrade?” he said.

The man scowled and opened his mouth to refuse. Suddenly Zaleshoff stepped forward and the bottle moved quickly in his hand.

The next moment the greaser was staggering back, his hands clapped to his eyes and brandy streaming down his face. Almost simultaneously Zaleshoff’s arm with the bottle in it flew up and smashed the electric-light bulb.

After the naked glare of the lamp, the half-light of dawn seemed pitch blackness. The greaser was shouting and swearing violently. There was a quick scuffling, a sudden stamping of feet and a sharp grunt. The greaser stopped shouting. There was a sudden silence. For a split second I stood there bewildered, then I came to my senses and jumped towards where I knew the door to be. It was madness. I knew it. The man with the hammer would brain us before we could get out. Then a hand gripped my shoulder. I spun round, drew back my fist and drove it into the shadow behind me. The next instant my wrist was caught and held.

“It’s me, you fool!” hissed Zaleshoff. “Get out quick!”

He flung the door open and we tumbled out into the air.

“But…”

“Shut up!” he snarled. “Run!”

Even as he spoke, I saw the foreman’s torch bobbing towards us at the end of the concrete path.

We raced across the lines. Then I caught my foot in a sleeper and went sprawling. Zaleshoff dragged me to my feet. There were shouts raised behind us.

“Quick, Marlow! Down by the engine shed!”

I saw the bulk of it outlined against the bluing sky. We clattered across the steel turntable in front of it and turned down a cinder track alongside a line of trucks. Zaleshoff dived under the coupling between two of them. I followed. On the other side we paused. As far as I could see we were going in the direction of the station proper. There were lights ahead and a large open space criss-crossed by rails. Zaleshoff turned round.

“It’s no good this way,” he muttered. “There’s no cover. They’d see us before we got to the station.”

The shouts were growing nearer. I heard a man calling for more lights.

“Come on,” said Zaleshoff, “we’ve got just one chance. Follow me and do exactly as I do, and for the love of Pete do it quietly.”

He started to walk quickly back along the line of trucks towards the engine shed and to the men approaching on the other side. I could hear their footsteps now and the voice of the foreman exhorting them to hurry. Zaleshoff walked on steadily for a bit and then stopped. For a minute we stood behind a truck. Then we heard our pursuers pass to the right of us.

“Come on!” said Zaleshoff.