It is always difficult to guess the age of foreigners, but Ranklin made Pauluzzo over sixty, with his aura of comfortable worth in black suit, wing collar and a white moustache that disdained the dashing upturned ends favoured by the Austrians. And the other two about his own age or younger; one even wore a turned-down collar like his own, which probably counted as rather flash on the Exchange. So far they had done little but nod and smile.
“And local industries?” Ranklin prompted.
“Again, new records – especially in shipbuilding. This year, Stab Tec will build over twenty warships and eighty other vessels.”
“Perhaps over one hundred,” ventured one of the others.
“It sounds as if there is no problem with strikes,” Ranklin ventured, “as at Fiume?” It was pure luck that the yard down the coast, building the fourth of the dreadnoughts, was strike-bound at the moment. He had no idea why, but it made it a reasonable topic for an outsider.
That brought confident chuckles and some unkind murmurs about managers and workers down there. Pauluzzo held up a hand. “No, we must be fair,” he said solemnly, and the expressions on the younger faces warned: Joke Coming. “It is not easy to build a battleship from the keel downwards, in the Hungarian manner.”
They all duly guffawed. But before he could work around to another rib-tickler, Pauluzzo was called away by a messenger and the atmosphere relaxed in the international camaraderie of the same age group.
Ranklin put his pipe in his mouth. “And no hint of political – nationalist – problems?”
They swapped glances, then the one with the turned-down collar and a long Venetian nose shrugged and said: “I only speak of the Italians. The Slovenes, in the city there are not so many, and I do not know what they think. Probably they hate both Austrians and Italians. But the Italian worker, he thinks of himself as Italian, so when he gets drunk he says he is oppressed by the Austrians. But all around are Italians also getting drunk and agreeing with him, eating Italian food, reading newspapers in Italian, in the city where their fathers and grandfathers got drunk and complained also. And when he is sober in the morning, when he goes to work in the shipyard, he looks at the colour of his money before the colour of the flag. He loves Italy, but does he want Italian poverty and politics?”
The other had been nodding gently. Now he said: “Also, they listen to the Church which tells them to be good citizens and loyal to the Emperor, who is a good Catholic himself and not like Italian politicians who have robbed the Church of land and power.”
The first one said: “If there came an avenging angel, a new Garibaldi, even Oberdan, then perhaps – who knows? But until then-” He lifted a couple of coins set aside as a tip and chinked them. “This is the music of Trieste. It is so since Roman times.”
If this is true, or even half true, Ranklin thought, how does Falcone reckon to get the workers to rise and wreck their own livelihood? He steered the conversation into the innocent waters of capital shortages before it ended.
The trouble, he told himself as he paced slowly around the Piazza, is that I don’t know even how British civilian workers think and feel. Oh, I know the Army’s view of civilians, but since I left off the cocoon of uniform, life has looked a lot more complex.
Still, I’ve only heard one view. Perhaps I’ll find another one in the Cafe San Marco.
He knew the place immediately: he had, he felt, sat there in every Central European city he had visited, among the same almost democratically diverse clientele. Intellectuals gathered there because no-one objected to their loud argument, ladies came in because the coffee was good, businessmen might meet there because it was centrally placed, and students because they were left alone to read. And the cafe didn’t mind if you only popped in to view such diversity, particularly such flamboyant and slightly scandalous characters as the Conte di Chioggia.
There was no mistaking him; he clearly didn’t want there to be. He was elderly, slim, aristocratic, wearing a light suit, a wide floppy hat and holding a silver-knobbed cane like a staff of office; on a cooler day he would surely have worn a cloak. Ranklin sat and watched as a stream of visitors arrived at his table, drank a coffee, said a few words, listened and went about their business. They were a well-mixed bunch, but that didn’t mean that a complete stranger would be welcome.
Past noon the waiters started clattering cutlery and serving lunch, and the turnover at the Count’s table dried up to one man who was obviously going to stay and eat. But first, he had to greet a lady on the far side of the room and Ranklin acted on an impulse.
Carrying a menu and frowning at it, he moved to the Count’s table. “Beg pardon, Excellence, but do you speak English?”
The Count showed no sign of surprise at being recognised by a total stranger. “I retain a modest competence in that language. How may I be of assistance?”
“If you could explain what this dish here is . . . I was recommended to this cafe by Senator Falcone.” The Count’s face showed only polite interest. “Or perhaps it was Signor Vascotti.”
“Ah yes.” The Count smiled. “How is he?”
“Recovering.” That was commitment.
“Good.” No questions, just “good”. That was commitment, too, Ranklin exulted.
The Count took his time putting on a pair of gold pince-nez that were tied to him by a scarlet cord and peering at the menu. “And who are you, pray?” he murmured.
“An English businessman with connections to the House of Sherring.”
“That sounds as if it could easily be verified – or disproven.”
“Yes.”
“Hmm . . . I seem to be taking a long time to explain this dish, which is no more than rice and vegetables. Perhaps I should wave my hands in culinary gestures. I think we should meet more privately, most of the waiters here are police spies . . . Do you know the Galleria di Montuzza, the tunnel under the Castello?”
“I can find it. You could suggest other dishes instead.”
“An excellent idea. If you are just inside the tunnel at the Piazza Goldoni end at four this afternoon, my carriage will pick you up and nobody will see. More seriously, I recommend this dish: the scaloppa.”
“You’re most kind.”
“Prego.”
Ranklin stayed and ate his scaloppa without another glance at the Count’s table. He seemed to have found the right man, and been invited to a Secret Meeting. He would rather it had been a mire secret meeting, but the Count’s flamboyance wouldn’t allow that. With contacts, too, you had to work with what you’d got.
Putting the Oriole together again at Veneria aerodrome was a much longer job than dismantling it had been. It was covered in smoke-smuts and with a couple of small rips in the wing fabric. These weren’t serious – such things happened all the time – but Andrew insisted on doing the patching himself, trimming the ripped area, sealing on a new patch with cellulose dope, then weather-proofing it with varnish. O’Gilroy was permitted to wash off the smuts.
After lunch they began the re-assembly. In principle this was straightforward; in practice it was a cautious procedure of reattaching wires, both for control and rigging, then tightening or loosening each one on turnbuckles to achieve what Andrew saw as just the right tension. Two experienced pilots could disagree on the last touches of rigging, preferring marginally different wing incidence or stiffness. As yet, O’Gilroy had no views; he hadn’t even touched the Oriole’s controls, since they were all on Andrew’s side. His job had been map-reading, keeping the engine log, and passing sandwiches.