He took Ranklins’ arm and urged him towards the front door; he had a grip like a lobster. “When I arrest people like you,” he confided, “I am allowed the expense of a carriage. You may also ride in it, or you can be carried through the streets by my men. It makes no difference to me. Either way, I still get to ride in the carriage.”
27
Turin to Venice was 365 kilometres in a straight line, which was 227 miles, which was 3 hours 46 minutes at a steady 60 m.p.h. in a dead calm. Only it wasn’t going to be a dead calm, it was impossible to maintain a steady 60 m.p.h. and certainly not a straight line. But O’Gilroy had learnt that the original perfection of measurement and calculation was still vital. Then, when you spotted an unquestionable landmark, you could work out just how far off your perfect plan you were, in time or distance, and correct accordingly.
That left only the problems of identifying unquestionable landmarks you had never seen before in an unknown countryside and hazy weather – and getting some sense out of the compass. O’Gilroy had had no dealings with compasses before: they went with officers, and a rare old mess that combination usually made. Now, watching the needle swing unprovoked a good ten degrees either side of north, he had some sympathy with the lieutenants and captains of his Army past.
Andrew had been unworried. “Venice is on the sea, we can’t miss that. If you’ve any doubts, err to the south, so we’ll know which way to turn when we find the coast.”
But O’Gilroy was determined to do better than that. Flying was a matter of precision, and unless you started with that, there came a point when all you believed in vanished. He had experienced it even within a few miles of Brooklands aerodrome: a sudden sense of being utterly lost in an alien world. A familiar landmark, popping out from under the Boxkite’s wing, had saved him then. He remembered the sense of relief as everything clicked back into place, putting him just a few minutes from home. But he remembered also the sense of utter loss.
At least the haze meant that the wind was light, perhaps 10 m.p.h. at 2,000 feet where Andrew chose to fly. Their course headed just north of east, down the wide and ever-widening valley of the Po. It looked good agricultural land below, studded with farms that were like miniature fortresses – and maybe had been, in wilder days. O’Gilroy knew nothing of Italian history, but enough about mankind to assume that any flat rich land had been well fought over.
An hour and a quarter after Turin they were supposed to pass just north of Piave and south of Milan, which should give a reasonably accurate check on progress. But while Milan was obvious enough as a long sprawl of red roofs under a smoky haze, it was too obvious, too big. Towns and cities weren’t as neat as on the map: they straggled away into suburbs and half-absorbed villages, and he wasn’t sure about Piave at all. But the railway joining the two saved him with a near-precise position.
“We’re running late,” he called to Andrew, “and being pushed north. Head due east a while.”
Andrew nodded and nudged the Oriole slightly to the right, glancing down at the compass and then, probably, finding some landmark on the horizon and steering for it. O’Gilroy began re-calculating on the basis of a stronger south-east wind than they’d assumed.
There weren’t, or shouldn’t be, any more cities until they passed Verona, an hour and a half ahead, and O’Gilroy tried to relax. He had never foreseen that so much flying would be like this: as dull as marching across the South African veldt. The engine droned steadily, a fine mist of castor oil condensed on the little glass windshield – it was really more an oil-shield; they both wore goggles against the wind – and Andrew corrected the little joggles in the air with minute movements of the stick. Getting rid of the bulky control wheel of earlier aircraft was one of the Oriole’s modern touches. And the stick was topped by a “blip” switch to cut off the ignition momentarily, so Andrew could leave the petrol and air levers alone once he had achieved the delicate balance needed. True, the switch worked (he said) by transferring the current from the ignition to his thumb, but it did work.
O’Gilroy looked at his wristwatch, checked the revised timetable scrawled on the edge of the folded map, and began looking ahead for a useful conjunction of river and railway that should pinpoint them at Pontevico. They trudged on across the wide veldt of sky.
This wasn’t the normal town jail for drunks and pick-pockets. That might be modern, light and airy, built according to the latest humanitarian theories of penal reformers. Ranklin doubted that, but it was still possible. Any theories about this Castello dungeon came from four centuries ago.
And at first glance in the dim light, so had the other occupant. Ranklin seemed to have strayed into popular romance, where jails always had a gaunt, bearded prisoner who had been there since forever. But as the man got up from one of the three army-style iron cots, Ranklin saw this one was merely dirty, ragged, tousle-haired – no beard – and possibly younger than himself. His smile showed even but stained teeth, and he said something in a crackling language that was probably Slovenian.
Ranklin dumped the armful of thin blankets and barely thicker mattress on a cot and said politely: “Buon giorno,” but that didn’t help. He tried German, French, and finally English without success. The man just smiled agreeably, then pointed to himself: “Pero.”
So Ranklin did the same: “James. Or Jim.”
“Jee-eem.” Pero smiled; he did a lot of smiling, and Ranklin wondered if he were simple-minded or just making the best of a bad job. Then Pero began a mime show: he had been painting on walls – slogans, presumably – had been arrested, slapped around, finally thrown in here. Meanwhile, his wife (kissing and cuddling the air) and child didn’t know where he was, would be weeping and starving . . . It was, Ranklin had to admit, very well explained and he was sorry he couldn’t reply in kind while staying in character. Private banking didn’t come across well in mime.
So communication languished, and Ranklin sat down and looked around. The dungeon itself was reasonably big, around twenty feet square, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, and made of roughly-dressed but close-fitting stonework that had been whitewashed not so long ago. The one window, sealed with glass and an iron grille, was in a tunnel at head height, showing the outer wall to be at least five feet thick, so he wasn’t going to scratch his way to freedom with a toothpick.
Apart from the cots, there was a wooden table, two chairs and a chipped, enamelled bucket. The uneven floor was felt-covered and slightly damp, but the atmosphere was muggy rather than chill. And that was it, apart from some old iron rings set into the walls, presumably from some penal theory that Ranklin hoped was long forgotten.
Putting suspected spies in a fortress was normal in many countries. Perhaps espionage was felt to be contagious, and nobody wanted to infect common criminals, or perhaps spies might be officers and thus deserve special treatment – though there were two ways of looking at that idea. But the police could have no automatic power to slap someone into a military prison – the Castello was an army HQ and the guards were soldiers – so Novak had at least the tacit approval of the Austrian authorities. Which would make it that much more difficult for anyone to get him out. The Bureau would miss him – eventually – but have to act discreetly.
He was, he reckoned, on his own. Well, that was spying for you.
Indeed, Novak might be trying a simple test: shove a man in jail, and if nobody complains, then you know you’ve caught a spy. He fished out his cigarette case – that, matches and his watch were all he had been left with – and wondered whether jail etiquette meant he had to offer Pero one. In the end he did, but luckily it was refused politely, so he lit one of the nine he had left and settled down to feel the seconds limp by.