Lawrence Durrell - White Eagles Over Serbia

“Mules. I got the mules. All of them. They will come over the mountains and must be met at the old border wall on the top of Rtanj. Then you will lead them to Black Peter at the Janko Stone. Tell him to load without delay and start for the coast.” His voice tailed away into a mumble and Methuen seized a pencil and jotted down the place-names, excited beyond measure to have discovered something concrete. “No delay,” the man repeated. “There must be no delay. The police have smelt a rat. Sixty armed men of the Eagles will join Black Peter at twilight tomorrow and they must march at night without a halt.” He groaned again and closed his eyes.

Methuen was wrestling with the momentous meanings which could lie behind this message when he heard voices outside the cave. In a flash he was at the entrance in time to see the three soldiers come over the hill towards him, and ford the river. “He must have gone up here,” one was saying in a loud drunken voice. They crashed across the shallows and began to climb the slope towards the cave-mouth. Methuen shrank back, pistol in hand, into the deeper shadow. “Keep silent,” he whispered to the wounded man. “They are coming.”

They advanced in straggling fashion up the hill, arguing loudly, and came to the knoll below the great tree before one said: “Not up here, surely.” The second of the three, whose voice was the loudest, replied: “Looks like a cave up there. I bet you’ll find him in there.”

It looked like the end of everything; Methuen’s only consolation was that he might kill all three without giving them time to “hose down” (in the picturesque army phrase) the cave in which he crouched. He waited grimly, listening to the sound of their heavy boots crunching and slipping outside. Then there was a sigh and a voice said: “It’s a cave all right.”

It was at this moment that the snake saved the day. It slithered into the sunlit patch at the entrance and took up its usual position, waiting no doubt for lizards to creep out and sun themselves unsuspectingly on the nearby rock-face. Methuen heard it hiss loudly; and the scrabble of boots outside, accompanied by a gasp, told him that the party had recoiled. “Look out!” said a soldier, “the snake.”

Another began to laugh. “Well,” he said, “he can’t be living with a brute like that. Shall I kill it?” There was a long pause during which the snake hissed again. One of the soldiers coughed and said: “There is probably another inside. Don’t fire.”

They stood irresolutely in a circle, and peeping round the corner Methuen realized that he could drop all three without difficulty. Nevertheless he waited. One took off his cap and scratched his head. Then he said with conviction: “Snakes are unlucky. I’m not going in there. Are you?” The other two laughed harshly and Methuen heard them click on the safety catches of their weapons. “Nor me,” said the one with the loud voice. Then he turned away, adding: “Come on, we’ll lose him altogether if we waste time.”

In the relief from the tension Methuen heard his own even heart-beats above the noise of their heavy boots retreating. He heaved a sigh and thrust his pistol back into its sling, turning once more to the wounded man. There were one or two vital points to be cleared up. But the man had sunk into a coma from which there was no rousing him and Methuen took the opportunity to write a brief account of this latest incident. “I propose”, he added, “to meet the mule-team to-night and lead them up to the so-called Janko Stone — which is a sort of obelisk set up long ago to mark the border between Serbia and Bosnia. It is on the furthest plateau, six thousand-odd feet above sea-level, a barren stretch of mountain which I’ve studied through glasses but not climbed. I’ll try for the Sunday morning rendezvous. By then I should know what it is all about.”

His spirits rose now at the prospect of something concrete to do, and he turned his attention to his patient, trying to bandage the gaping stomach-wound, from which a fragment of red intestine was trying to escape, with strips cut from his shirt. He also made a little warm soup and tried to force some between the clenched teeth of the wounded man. In vain. He was tempted to try a surgical repair of the wound with the needle and thread which he had with him and had gone so far as to swab the area of the wound with acriflavin when the man’s breathing abruptly changed to a heavy gasping snore punctuated by ghastly hiccoughs. Only his extraordinary physique had kept him alive so long. But now the colour drained from his face and his teeth began to grind as if with cold.

Methuen shook him and tried to rouse him from his coma. It was essential to know not only who he was but also to know the password which would admit him to the headquarters of the White Eagles. But it seemed in vain. Once he opened his eyes and muttered: “Mother … It’s Marko, Mother,” and that provided the only essential clue he was to leave Methuen; for the rest the ghastly breathing continued. “He’s dying,” said Methuen aloud, and folding those blood-caked hands on the fugitive’s chest he repeated aloud the only Serbian prayers he could remember, his voice sounding tremulous and thin in the resonance of the cave. In another quarter of an hour the breathing became feebler and the man died with scarcely a murmur. “So your name is Marko,” said Methuen, still tormented by the missing pieces of the jig-saw puzzle. “Marko,” he repeated angrily, getting his possessions together, “Marko.”

It was by now mid-afternoon and he must hurry if he was not to miss the rendezvous. He hid his possessions as well as he could and set off from the cave at speed, doubling and turning from copse to copse, watching for the soldiers. Mercifully they had disappeared as suddenly as they had first appeared and he reached the gorge without seeing a soul. He raced down the mossy slopes at breakneck speed, and arrived at the road with five minutes to spare. Once more he blessed his luck for there was not a soul about and the rendezvous went off without a hitch. Before the dust of the cars had died away he was already in the ditch gripping the white packet which had been dropped. This time it was in ordinary script and said: “Nothing further to report. Presume you will return so this is unnecessary.”

“Presume my foot!” he said in the general direction of the road which Porson had taken. “I’m seeing this thing through.” And it was with a savage elation that he climbed out of the gorge towards the sunlight which slanted over the plateau. He had decided not to go back to the cave and risk capture, so he had taken with him everything necessary for the long walk up the central plateau. He rested now for half an hour by his watch, and ate some bread and cold meat from the hare he had cooked. Then, after a long drink, he set off, turning due west away from the cave across the slanting valley, towards the source of the Studenitsa.

He walked now at a slower pace more suited to the journey he had undertaken, and as he walked he once more wrestled in his mind with the various pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, trying to fit them all together into one comprehensible pattern. Certainly the picture had somewhat cleared. It was quite plain that the White Eagles had discovered something of quite exceptional importance in the mountains — treasure of some sort which would enable the Royalists to establish themselves. Therefore they had concentrated as many men as they could around it. It was to be borne westward over the barren karst mountains to the coast where presumably.… “Of course,” he said aloud, striking his knee with impatience, “the submarine.” It was to be got out of the country by submarine. “The King’s birthright?” he reflected. “Precious stones? Uranium?” Methuen became increasingly angry with himself for not being able to guess the answer to the riddle. He munched bread as he walked.