Eric Ambler - Cause for Alarm

“I don’t know that our luck’s been so bad.”

“If it hadn’t been for a piece of lousy luck we shouldn’t have been found in that truck. I couldn’t fasten the tarpaulin from the inside, and the wind blew it back. When we stopped in the yard they spotted it and had to climb up to pull it back. We shouldn’t have been spotted otherwise.”

I glanced sideways at him. “I wasn’t thinking about that, and you know it. Why didn’t that wheel-tapper stop us? And it was he who stopped the other man shouting, too, wasn’t it?”

“Why should he? I wish this darn train ’d hurry.”

“It’ll look better if we talk,” I said spitefully. “What sort of game were you playing in that office, Zaleshoff?”

“Game?”

“Yes-game.”

For a moment our eyes met. “This isn’t the time…” he began, then shrugged. “Back in nineteen-twenty,” he went on slowly, “a lot of the Italian workers used to tattoo a small hammer and sickle on the forearm. It was just to show that they didn’t care a hoot who knew they were Communists. Sort of badge of honour, see. When that guy was holding me, I saw that he had a round scar on his arm. I guessed then that he might have had one of those tattoo marks at some time, but that he’d found it safer since to cut away the flesh with the mark on. I thought I’d find out if I was right. I called him comrade. That scared him, because the other guy was too young to remember anything except fascismo and he might talk. But I knew I’d got him. Once a Communist always a Communist. I started humming the “ Bandiero Rossa ”-that’s the old Italian workers’ song. Then, when I was pretending to take that drink, he winked at me. I knew he was O.K. In the darkness he gave that young chap a clip under the jaw that knocked him cold. I had to do the same for him then, so that he’d have something to show when they questioned him. The poor sap!”

I thought for a moment. “You know,” I said then, “I wouldn’t call him a poor sap. and I don’t think you would either if you didn’t feel that you ought to behave like the traditional right-thinking American citizen.”

But he did not answer. The train was coming in.

Through the windows of the sleeping-cars I could see the white sheets on the upper berths. The sight made me start yawning again. I felt suddenly very tired.

There was a concerted rush for the buffet from the three third-class coaches at the front of the train. We got into a second-class coach and walked along the corridors to the front.

The three third-class coaches were very full and very hot. There were soldiers on the train, and their equipment was piled up in the corridors. Through the steamy windows of the compartments I could see weary, harassed women trying to pacify howling children. The air smelt of garlic, oranges and sleep.

“We’ll stick in the corridor,” murmured Zaleshoff.

Five minutes later the train drew out. We were leaning on the rail gazing out of the window. The blue-eyed porter was standing on the platform looking up. Our eyes met his, and his head turned slowly as the coach slid past him. Zaleshoff waved.

But the porter did not wave back. I saw him raise one hand slowly as if he were about to do so. Then the hand stopped. He snapped his fingers and turned on his heel.

“Damn!” said Zaleshoff softly. “He’s made up his mind.”

What are we going to do now?”

It was the second time I had said it; I seemed always to be saying it; but he looked as if he had not heard me the first time. He was gazing out of the window vacantly, watching the side of a cutting slip by as the train gathered speed. Again he did not answer.

“I suppose that they’ll be waiting for us at Verona.”

He nodded.

“Then there’s nothing we can do?”

“Sure, there’s plenty we can do; but not yet.”

“I don’t see…”

“Shut up; I’m thinking.”

I shut up and lit a cigarette. I had a pain in my stomach and could not decide whether it was nerves or hunger. Then I noticed that he was examining my face.

“You’re pretty filthy,” he said.

“You don’t look any too clean yourself.” For some reason, I felt suddenly very wide-awake and very quarrelsome. “I’ve always heard,” I added venomously, “that the Russians are a very dirty race. But then, of course, you’re an American, aren’t you?”

I saw the muscles of his face tighten beneath the grime. “I should not have believed, Marlow, that the schoolboy could persist to such an absurd extent in the adult. I wonder if you are typically English. Maybe you are. One can see, then, why the Continental mind fails to understand the English. I have often suspected it. The Englishman is no more than an intellectual Peter Pan, a large red-necked Peter Pan with a grubby little mind and grubby false wings. Sublimely ridiculous.”

I made some angrily cumbersome retort. We bickered on. We snapped and snarled at one another steadily for a good five minutes. It was childish, absurd; and it was Zaleshoff who put a stop to it. We had lapsed into a sulky silence. Suddenly, he turned to me and grinned sheepishly.

“Well, thank goodness we’ve got that out of our systems.”

For a moment I frowned sullenly at him, then I was forced to grin too.

“O.K.?” he said.

I nodded. “O.K.”

“Good. Then let’s get down to brass tacks.”

“Do you really think that porter’ll do anything?”

“I’m afraid so. He was suspicious, all right. I must have made a bloomer somewhere. It was the mention of Udine that got him. They probably don’t send goods trains up direct from Udine. Anyway, we can’t afford to take a risk. Somehow we’ve got to get out of these clothes and make ourselves look different between here and Verona. We haven’t got much time to do it in.”

“But how…?”

“Listen.”

For a minute he talked quickly. At the end of it I pursed my lips.

“Well, I suppose we shall have to try it. But I must say that I don’t feel very happy about it, Zaleshoff.”

“I didn’t think you would. I don’t. I shan’t feel happy until we’re across the frontier.”

“If we ever do get across the frontier. If they catch us now, they’ll…”

“Forget it.”

“Yes, I know, but…” I broke off helplessly. I was past caring what happened to me. All I wanted was food and more sleep. “I suppose that we just wait now for the ticket inspector.”

“Yes, we just wait.”

We waited. It takes just under an hour by train from Brescia to Verona, and half that time had gone by the time the ticket inspector came round. As the minutes went by Zaleshoff became increasingly anxious.

“Perhaps he doesn’t inspect the tickets on this run,” I suggested.

“If he doesn’t,” he retorted grimly, “we’re sunk anyway, because that means they’ll be inspected at the Verona barrier.”

When at last we saw the inspector appear at the end of the corridor, Zaleshoff gave a sigh of relief. “Keep your face turned away from him as far as possible,” he murmured.

I gazed steadfastly out of the window. But the precaution was unnecessary. The man passed us with no more than a casual nod. We waited until he was a few compartments away. Then Zaleshoff nudged me.

“O.K. Let’s go.”

We strolled slowly to the end of the corridor out of sight, then we increased our pace and walked rapidly through the second-class coaches. When we reached the leading first-class coach we slowed down again as we walked through it. At the end we stopped.

“There’s a hat and an overcoat in the third compartment from the end,” Zaleshoff reported under his breath; “but there’s a woman passenger in there. The man’s probably in the restaurant car having coffee. We’ll try the next one.”