Mack Reynolds - After Utopia

Tracy said, flicking the magazine from the butt of the gun, “Where did you get these?”

Zieglar had been slightly miffed by Dan’s tone. He said indignantly, “I am a Jew. Before the Nazis there were tens of thousands of Jews in Vienna. When they left there were exactly two hundred and forty-three of us left, all in hiding. The last days, before the allied troops came in, we arose and joined with the partisans in the street fighting. I acquired the guns at that time.”

Dan was flicking the 9mm cartridges from the clip of his gun with his right thumb. He said, “Over ten years ago. Have they remained loaded all that time? The springs in the magazines—”

“No. Of course not,” Zieglar said. “The magazines have been empty, so the springs would not weaken, and the guns have been kept well oiled. I cleaned them up just before coming over here.”

“Good,” Tracy said. “You are to be complimented, Franz. How about transportation?”

Zieglar thought for a minute, sipping at his brandy absently. He said finally, “Georg Haslauer has his old Mercedes. It is over twenty years old but he is very proud of it and has kept it in good shape. I would think he would… loan it to the movement.”

Tracy said, “If anything should happen to it, the organization would reimburse him. Now this fellow Gyula Rajk, the poet. Does he speak anything besides Hungarian?”

“Both German and French. That’s why he’s the international contact man. Nobody speaks Hungarian except the Hungarians. It’s an impossible language. The only tongue it is remotely similar to is Finnish.”

“All right,” Tracy said. He had reloaded the clip of the gun and now thrust it back into the butt of the P.38. The gun was unique, as automatics go, being double action; and it wasn’t necessary to cock it before firing. He jacked a bullet into the breach and lowered the hammer. Dan had already done the same. They buckled the pistols to their right hips, under their coats.

Tracy was saying, “How do we contact him?”

“Every day he checks with the tourist receptionist at the Danu Hotel, which is located at Apaczai Cseri Janos ut four, right on the Danube River on the Pest side, and about eight blocks below the Parliment building. The receptionist is also a member of the organization and is used as a clearinghouse for the movement.”

“Would it be practical for us to stay there?” Dan asked.

The other nodded.” Yes. The Danu is an Ibusz hotel. That’s the national foreign tourist bureau. The girl speaks English.”

“All right,” Tracy said again. He sighed. “Could you see about getting the Mercedes from George, whatever his last name is?”

The Viennese came to his feet. “Georg Haslauer,” he said. “I’ll go immediately.”

The Mercedes was forthcoming. Tracy and Dan stocked up well with canned food. They had no way of knowing how available it might be in Budapest, in the midst of a revolution. They had been in similar situations before and knew by experience that rations could get short in a large city when all chips were down.

They drove east, crossing the Austro-Hungarian border at Hegyeshalom, then bowling down the partly finished concrete motorway to the capital city.

Zieglar’s description of the border crossing had been surprisingly accurate. There was a gate there and customs and immigrations buildings, but both were deserted so far as officials were concerned. To both left and right of the road and buildings were stretches of barbed wire as far as the eye could see. To each side of the road were Russian T-34 medium tanks; the leather-helmeted crews stood or sat outside them and didn’t seem particularly interested in the long files of refugees crossing the border, largely on foot, their belongings in hand. They were men, women, and children of all ages, from babes in arms to doddering octogenarians. Occasionally, there was a car, truck, or horse-pulled wagon, but they were mostly on foot. How far had they come? Budapest was at least another hundred miles, but, of course, some of them must have started from nearer points.

On the Austrian side of the border, Red Cross and other relief organizations were busy. Buses and trucks periodically came up and loaded the refugees in. There was a mobile canteen which distributed coffee, buns and sandwiches. The Austrians were rallying around, and Tracy was proud of them. Tracy Cogswell and Dan Whiteley drove through the border gate without interruption. There were several Hungarian soldiers there, the Communist red stars ripped from their caps, but they did nothing more than look curiously at the foreigners.

The faces of the two organization men were expressionless as they drove along the endless file of refugees. They had seen refugees before. It was far from a pleasant experience. You couldn’t stop, even to help a woman in childbirth. If you stopped, you’d have an occasion to do so every few minutes. Some of the pedestrians were wounded.

They had filled the car’s tank to the brim, at the last petrol station on the Austrian side, and had brought two five-gallon jerry cans of gasoline along too. Which was just as well. They saw no signs of any place they could have refueled all the way to Budapest.

They said little, all the way to the beleagured city.

Once Dan said, “What do we do when we get there?”

“Play it by ear,” Tracy told him. He inwardly shrugged, rather surprised at the question from one such as Dan Whiteley.

They had no road map. Not that it made a good deal of difference. In Hungary, evidently all roads led to Budapest, and they couldn’t have gotten lost if they’d tried. Occasionally, there was a road sign, in Hungarian, German, and French. They passed through exactly one community large enough to be called a town. After the comparative affluence of Germanic Austria, the whole area was as drab as either of them had ever seen. It was worse then war-torn Spain, as bad as the war-torn Poland Dan Whiteley had witnessed.

“Jesus Christ,” Tracy growled. “This country could use a revolution.”

Dan said, “I understand that after the Nazis were run out, the Russians stripped the Hungarians of just about everything worth taking, from factory machinery to railroad rolling stock.”

“Where do we enter Budapest?” Tracy asked him. “We must be getting near. I hope we get there before dark. It’s probably blacked out, and I’d hate to have some trigger-happy revolutionists taking pot shots at us.”

Dan said, “The time I was here, I came by train. But we’re to the north of the Danube so we’ll be entering on the Buda side of the river. Once we get to the river’s edge, I’ll know where we are.”

It went as he said. Buda wasn’t very wide, at least to the southwest where they entered. They soon came to the Danube and travelled parallel to it. There were several bridges.

“Where do we cross?” Tracy asked. The streets were packed with people; many of them, especially the younger, had rifles slung over their shoulders. Some even carried submachine guns. On almost every street corner there was a soapbox speaker. It was a revolution all right.

“A little further down,” Dan said. “The Lanchid bridge. Franz said the hotel was on the Pest side, right on the river. Seems to me I’ve seen it. One of the only hotels on the river not blown down when the fighting with the Nazis took place.”

The bridge was guarded by a dozen or so armed civilians who were curious but didn’t attempt to stop them.

Tracy came to a halt and said, in each language in turn, English, French, and German, “Does anyone here speak… ”

One of the men, who carried a 9mm Steyr Solothurn submachine gun and looked to be about eighteen years of age, said in English, “What do you want to know?”

Tracy said, “Where is the Duna Hotel, Comrade?”