“I was wondering if you would, Gorsak.”
“No. For our own sakes, Gelda’s and mine, no. The truth drug, if ever we are caught, is what you would call a bastard, friend.”
They drove on in silence for a while. It was night now, and the sky was clear of the rain of the night before. The moon shone down ghostlike on the Hungarian Plain, where Attila’s hordes had passed centuries ago, pillaging and burning their way across Europe from their capital city of Buda. Attila the Hun… and his kind of rule by fear held sway once more in these unhappy lands, though in a less obtrusive way, perhaps, so that people outside were able to close their eyes and their consciences to what went on. It didn’t concern the Western peoples — yet.
Soon after that Gelda woke up and Gorsak handed over the driving. Shaw sat on with her for a few minutes. She seemed to enjoy driving, her big capable hands managing the heavy vehicle with ease. They chatted a little, making heavy weather of the language problem, and then he got up and climbed into the back. He switched on his shaver-transceiver just before 2300 hours calculated at zone-time for Moscow, and listened for a transmission from Latymer. Dead on time his call-sign came through and was followed by a brief coded message: Fleet's visit altered from Leningrad to Moltsk. That was all; he had never heard of Moltsk and the message meant little to him — but he was surprised and somewhat perturbed. Why an alteration in plans now — and why ask the fleet to what must be an insignificant minor port? A calculated insult? But why bother — if the end was as near as Rudintsev had suggested? He worried around the point for a while, got nowhere, and then he turned in, taking Gorsak’s advice to get as much sleep as was possible in between the Hungarian’s gross snores and the attentions of the bedbugs.
At nine-fifteen the next night Gorsak — who had already passed Shaw the brother-in-law’s papers as a last-ditch and probably vain precaution — announced that they were within five kilometres of the frontier and indeed Shaw could already begin to see the lights of Khamchevko ahead.
In the back of the bus, he got his suitcase ready and made certain his prepared passport was there, also his Russian money. Then he checked his gun. His hands were clammy and he was on edge as the moment of action approached, his stomach-nerves playing up on him badly, though he knew that once he was inside the station he would be all right. The bus went on slowly now and they didn’t speak. Soon they were driving along dark, mean streets, streets only dimly lit and, like those back in Indsbach, almost empty. Shaw shivered. Only a few hundred yards away now lay the heavily guarded Russian frontier, and the MVD, and the grilling-rooms, and the Siberian forced-labour camps waiting for agents who got caught. There was a terrible brooding fear over the place, a fear from which one couldn’t escape. It was everywhere, it pervaded everything like an insidious disease, an infection of the state, an effluence from Russia. It was the fear of the jackboot, the firing-squad, the visit in the middle of the night, the bloodbath — the whole regime of terror and brutality which the Stalin era had brought and which could not be eradicated all at once…
Gorsak said suddenly, “Here is the station.”
He shifted gear and swung the vehicle slowly left into the approach, up a slight incline, and then stopped. There were some people, peasants mostly, going with their pitiful bundles into the station. A heavy lorry ahead of them disgorged a line of sick-looking men wearing handcuffs and chained together, and Gorsak said quietly, leaning on the wheel, “Deviationists. This happens most nights. They are being sent into Russia — to learn the truth!” He laughed cynically. “They will not come back, of course, even when they have learned it, poor devils.” Then he added, “I knew about
these people, naturally. They can be useful to us to-night — you will understand later.”
Sweat broke out on Shaw’s body, though it was a bitterly cold night, as he watched that line of hopeless men shuffling wearily into the station. Thin, starved, white — they were shivering in their wretched clothing. Then he stiffened as he heard a distant rumble in the air, a rumble that came nearer… Gorsak said in a low voice, “Here she comes. Do not get out until Gorsak tells you.”
“Right.” Shaw felt for the Webley; it gave him some comfort. He heard a deep-toned, clanging bell in the distance and soon he saw the fiery glow of the great engine approaching from the south-west, heard the clanking of carriage wheels on metal and then saw a blurred line of light from the steamed-up windows. The Budapest-Smolensk Transfrontier Express was pulling in for checking. A steamy smell, raw and damp and hard, came down to them as the long train clanked and jangled to a stop inside the frontier, and then they heard the hoarse shouts, the orders driving the passengers to pile out onto the platform, orders coming crisp and menacing on the cold night air. Shaw moved restlessly, but Gorsak sat there without moving a muscle, waiting, waiting. He put out a hand to Shaw after a while. He said quietly, “Not yet, friend. Patience. We must wait until the checking is well started.”
It was almost two hours later when Gorsak glanced round and nodded. He climbed through into the back and rooted about in a wooden crate, brought out a voluminous cloak which he threw on to his body with a large gesture almost of defiance. Then he picked up the old Sten, concealing it in the folds of the cloak.
Looking at Shaw he said curtly, “Now we go. Do exactly as I tell you from now on, without question.” He went to the front of the bus and took Gelda in his arms, kissed her passionately on the lips, his hands feeling for her body. Then he jumped out quickly. As Shaw, about to follow him, took Gelda’s hand, he saw how pale her dark face had become and saw, too, the sparkle of sudden tears in her eyes.
He said, “Don’t worry, Gelda. I’ll do my best to see that nothing happens to him.”
Her voice was breaking. “You are one only. Gelda will not speak blame. Must is that you pass.” She was trembling now. “God be with you.”
He squeezed her rough, work-hardened hand, the hand that was too old for a young girl. He couldn’t find anything to say.
He jumped down and followed behind Gorsak, carrying his grip. They went through the cold night up some steep steps and Shaw looked through into the Hungarian ticket-hall. It was a dreary, depressing place with peeling paintwork and old posters faded and yellow with dirt and age; a deadly cold draught blew through, as though it had come straight off the bitter Siberian plain. At the door Shaw turned and looked back at the old bus with its gaudy sides and its boarded windows. It was semi-derelict and it stank and it was bug-ridden — but it had made a brave endeavour and it had brought him a long way and it looked remarkably like home at that moment.
They walked on into the ticket-hall and as they did so a man in uniform came through from the platform, slamming a gate behind him. The uniform was that of the Hungarian Security Police and the man had a Russian Simonov semiautomatic carbine slung from his shoulder. He glanced coldly at Shaw and Gorsak and went on through into a waiting-room where they heard his voice coming back to them in a bullying shout and a moment later two old women and a man came into the ticket-hall shivering with cold and terror.
Shaw followed Gorsak to the ticket-window and the Hungarian bought a ticket for Smolensk. Half a minute later the two of them were out on the platform where the passengers were lined up, patiently shuffling through the Hungarian-Russian checkpoint. To their left a sign said, in Hungarian: MEN’S URINAL.