Lawrence Durrell - White Eagles Over Serbia

The air of dawn was chill, but he slept sweetly enough in his heavy duffle coat, while the mules cropped the grass around his head. Half an hour of sound sleep makes a great difference, and he had trained himself to sleep anywhere, at any time. He woke in time to see the first milky dawn light begin to paint in the furthest range of mountains, and looking back along the way they had come, he felt a mild self-satisfaction at the accuracy of his night navigation. About a mile ahead of them rose the final summit of the range, still wreathed in a thick pinkish mist. They were nearly at their journey’s end.

His long low whistle woke the muleteers, and the straggling line formed once again behind him. They set off at a smart pace now, encouraged no doubt by the thought of a comfortable camp awaiting them with fires and hot food. “You know the password of course,” said the old peasant, drawing his mule up alongside Methuen in order to offer him a cut of chewing-tobacco. “That is what is worrying me,” said Methuen. “I was given the word ‘Wings’; but Marko as he was dying said that they had changed the password again.” The man looked at him in consternation. “Aieel” he said, making a long face. “Will we be shot at?”

“Not if they see the mules.”

“The Communists use mules.”

“Patience. Let us see.”

The ground had levelled off now and become much more broken and boulder-strewn with patches of rough ground breaking through the grass cover, like patches of baldness on a human head. The view from here was indescribably lovely, with mountain-peaks stretching away in all directions, softly coloured by the approaching sunlight and packets of coloured mist. “Soon we will be there,” said Methuen, and the cavalcade entered the misty fringe of the crown. From the east, like a premonition, came the drone of aircraft.

Visibility now shrank to a dozen paces, and Methuen stopped every two minutes and gave a long-drawn cry: “Ho!” before moving forward. Apart from this they walked in silence punctuated only by the creaking of girths and wooden saddles.

After a quarter of an hour they heard a sharp whistle repeated three times and from behind a white jutting rock came a hoarse bark of command: “Halt.” Methuen halted the cavalcade and walked forward a few paces until the cry repeated and the clicking of safety catches warned him that further enterprise of this kind might prove costly. He accordingly stood still and watched a small band of singularly wild-looking ruffians materialize around him in the mist like spectres. They were all clad in white sheepskin jackets and moth-eaten hats. Some were barefoot. But he could not help noticing that they were heavily armed with efficient and obviously well-maintained tommy-guns.

They said nothing at first but prowled around Methuen and the little knot of muleteers like savage mastiffs, sniffing at them suspiciously. It took them perhaps twenty seconds to finish their examination of the mule-train and then one, wild and bearded, came up and demanded the password. “I don’t know,” said Methuen, “I come from headquarters and Marko died before he could tell me. Take me to Black Peter, he will understand.”

To his surprise this answer seemed to satisfy them for they turned, and with a series of sharp barks and yelps — the noises that shepherds make on the hills to guide their flocks — they led the way through the mist towards the summit. “So far so good,” thought Methuen as he surrendered himself to this pack of wild creatures, “at least I shall meet Black Peter.”

In a quarter of an hour the mountain levelled off and the mist cleared; and here indeed it was as Methuen had surmised — a large quarry with a network of abandoned workings. Some fifty men were bivouacked in lean-to huts built alongside the steep walls, camouflaged with some skill, and properly drained. The camp was still asleep and their arrival caused a general stirring of pallid faces and beards in these shadowy huts. “The mules,” someone said, and the words were repeated in gruff voices all round the camp until they swelled into a roar. “The mules. Thank God we’ve got the mules.”

Their guides had dispersed into the entrance of a tunnel and presently one came running out to Methuen, full of the self-importance that a special mission gives, and to the latter’s surprise pointed a cocked pistol at him, urging him fiercely into the tunnel. Methuen made reproachful noises and said: “Brother, what does this mean?” But the only answer he got was a scowl and a wave of the pistol. He put his hands above his head and allowed himself to be marched down the tunnel for some fifty yards. Here he was told to halt, while his guide tapped upon a door set in the wall with his pistol barrel.

“Come in,” said an extraordinarily soft and musical voice, and Methuen advanced into a shadowy room — resembling a church — lit by a dozen candles, and with some peeling ikons standing against the further wall. “Black Peter,” he said, “I have been sent to you from headquarters.”

The young man who stood up behind the table was immensely tall and broad. The steep back to his head, the unswept shock of black hair, and the black beard proclaimed him a Serb. He had cruel dark eyes set very close together and huge hands in which he was trying to crack a walnut. He was dressed in a dirty Russian tunic and trousers tucked into the tops of his dirty boots. He had bad teeth. Beside him, next to a candle which shone rosily on his evil old face, sat an old man in a much-patched uniform. His lean jaws were decorated by a fringe of silver beard, while the head was clumsily shaven in such a way as to leave a long dangling elf-lock at the crown. This Albanian type of hair-style was new to Methuen and he presumed that he must be an Arnaut from the Kosmet.

“You did not have the password?” said the old man in a cracked voice, with an air of insinuation. “Now how could that be?” The young man cracked his nut and began to eat it slowly. As he munched he raised his eyes and let them settle on Methuen’s face. It was an ugly moment. Methuen repeated his story; he had been recently infiltrated to help the White Eagles. Headquarters had sent him with a message to Black Peter. En route he had met Marko and witnessed his death. The password he had been given was “Wings” but this was apparently old. All this he droned out with as much circumspection as he could, staring down the pistol-barrel of his guard, whose curiosity overcame him so that he stood in front of his charge and stared at him like a yokel.

They looked neither convinced nor unconvinced. The old man stared at his lips all the time he was speaking and at last said: “You are not a Serb.” Methuen side-stepped this one fairly easily: “My mother is a Serb, my father a Slovene. I have spent many years abroad.” He was obsessed by one fear only: that there might be a radio link between this camp and the town organization which he imagined must be based in a town like Usizce, close to the mountains. So far, however, he could see no trace of such a thing; nor did either of his interrogators make notes. The tall one picked his nails with a knife and said: “Describe how you came.” Now Methuen was a thoughtful man and had already bothered his head a good deal in trying to imagine how agents could enter and leave the hill territory. There was only one way that he could imagine and he proceeded to describe it. “I took an ordinary ticket at Usizce for Rashka; I jumped off in one of the tunnels at night, avoided the guard and crossed the Ibar river.” Then he held his breath to see whether his guess had proved correct.

The tall young man coughed behind his hand and said in a milder tone. “You see we have to be careful.” It was the first time that the temperature had dropped and Methuen took advantage of the fact. “I do not care whether you believe in me,” he said earnestly, “but for God’s sake believe the news I bring. The Communists are surrounding this chain of hills.” He took a step to the table and unrolled a map which had caught his eye. “Here,” he said. “Look. There is no time to be lost. You must load the treasure to-night and leave early in the morning.”