Almost empty, the train passed the last barrier and lurched forward into the darkness which covered Yugoslavia. Methuen stared eagerly out of the window to pick up remembered landmarks but the darkness defeated him; once or twice he caught a glimpse of a fairy-tale mountain fringed with fir trees, rearing up against the sky, and perhaps dotted with Hans Andersen houses, with hanging eaves. Once or twice the darkness fell away under his eyes and showed him the racing whiteness of a mountain torrent, the steady concussion of the water rising above even the roar of the wheels. But for the most part the land lay in darkness except for where a blaze of light lit up a riverside sawmill or a power factory.
At Lunbliana the station was seething with human beings and almost before the train drew up a raging crowd of peasants burst into it, shouting incoherently and dragging after them shapeless parcels of all sizes.
There was no attempt to keep order, and so great was the press that even the corridors of the train filled to bursting point with human beings, who overflowed into the reserved sleeping-coaches and were expelled with oaths by the attendants. Methuen had a vivid memory of the pre-war Slovene peasant with his spotless linen and he was shocked to see the ragged and dirty crowd which now besieged the train. Everywhere the shapeless cloth cap which was the badge of a new servitude. The women looked ghastly and haggard as they wrestled with their baskets, and the shrill voices with which they wrangled and argued had an edge of hysteria and fatigue. This was a new and startling phenomenon — the transformation of a Yugoslav crowd into a band of pariahs. Only the officials looked secure and well fed, each with his tall top-boots and black despatch case. The revolution had carried them to security above the common press of human beings.
The way to the lavatory was now effectively blocked and Methuen took a stroll to the end of the corridor, reserved for the privileged foreigners, to gaze at the bee-like swarm of passengers in the next carriage. Once the train started they seemed to relax into attitudes of fatigued sleep, some leaning, some standing. As he advanced into the corridor a large mustachioed peasant emerged from the lavatory and greeted him. He was an elderly man with a good expanse of dirty waistcoat and a moth-eaten fur hat. He was obviously rather drunk and carried in his right hand, with elaborate care, a bottle whose pungent odour proclaimed its contents — plum brandy. His broad humorous face proclaimed him a Serb. “Ah,” he said, “a foreigner.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Judson, peering at him.
“Well may you stare at us,” said the Serb, describing an arc with his free hand. “Well may you see what they are doing to our country. Come, follow me.” This was too good to miss; still smiling uncomprehendingly Mr. Judson allowed the heavy arm to propel him into the crowded corridor. Apparently the old farmer had his seat in the first carriage reserved for him. He sat himself down unsteadily after a good deal of clawing at the arms and shoulders of those who blocked the entry. “Here is a foreigner,” he announced to the company at large. Rabbit-glances of uncertainty from all corners of the carriage greeted this statement. “I really must go,” said Mr. Judson, who seemed too timid to disengage himself from the burly peasant’s grasp. “He is seeing what they have done to our country,” said the old man, who felt he had got hold of a point and wanted nothing better than to stick to it. “Our country,” he added, taking a swig from the bottle.
“Let him go,” said a timid-looking girl. “Don’t bother him, he is a foreigner and doesn’t understand.”
The old man gave another grandiloquent flourish of his arm: “He will understand one day,” he said. “When the white eagles come again. Now they are far, far.” He raised his fingers to the ceiling and screwed up his eyes as if trying to spot a distant object in an empty sky. “But one day they will come.” This little effort produced a quite extraordinary effect of alarm in the carriage. Three people, including a policeman, obviously returning from leave, immediately pretended to fall fast asleep and snore. A young soldier, and two women got up hastily and left the carriage, after casting a frightened glance at each other. A man in plain clothes who had been reading a newspaper, dropped it. “Far, far,” repeated the old man.
A tall young militiaman who had been standing in the corridor stuck his head in and shouted: “Enough of your nonsense or we shall put you off the train.” He pushed the old man’s arm off Judson’s and stood back to let him pass, saying: “If you please,” with great politeness. Reluctantly Mr. Judson relinquished his new-found acquaintance and made his way back to his own compartment. He decided to hunt out a book from his suitcase and discovered that it had been clumsily searched, no doubt in his absence. He ordered his bed to be made up and settled himself to read. Whatever else happened, he reflected, nobody could deny that this was going to be a most interesting journey.
They did not reach Zagreb until after midnight, and here once more a sleepy Methuen stared out upon a platform seething with ragged serfs. Huge socialist-realist posters stabbed the ill-lit gloom with their invocations to the God of Marxist progress. Everywhere too were slogans written in dazzling capitals on the walls, and picture upon picture of Tito, flanked by Stalin and Lenin, or flanked by members of his own inner cabinet, the Politburo. The contrast between the promises held out by those flaring posters and the bitter reality of life under Communism seemed fantastic to the sleepy watcher at the window. It was as if he were entering a new country, so little did these scenes correspond to his own memories of a joyous, confused but essentially happy country. To be sure the trains and stations had been crowded before; to be sure people had been rather careful what they said in front of the police; but what had changed now was not the situation so much as the human being. These ragged creatures seemed to have lost all self-respect in the struggle to make ends meet. They had become submerged in the rising tide of an anonymous, faceless, characterless mass. It was rather frightening. And everywhere, walking with authority and arrogance, he saw the officials of the ruling caste — either blue-clad militia or the ubiquitous gentlemen in leather overcoats whose function was to hold the ring for the Communist party.
He slept now, and in his dreams saw the great plains unrolling like a chart on either side of the train, traversed by dense swift rivers. The train gathered speed and clanked onwards towards Belgrade, occasionally emitting a drowsy shriek, or spewing forth a handful of burning clinkers which set fire to the dry sedges beside the railway. The monotonous lulling chant of the wheels took possession of him and he did not wake until he heard the roar of the train passing over the last bridge which spans the Sava river and leads directly into the heart of the capital.
He was met at the station by a junior accountant, a spotty and respectful young man who obviously had no clue that the identity of the Mr. Judson he was expecting was being used as a mask. Methuen thought it wiser not to enlighten him. He loaded his luggage into the car and sitting beside the young man, jogged and sprawled his way up towards the Embassy. “Major Carter is going to put you up in his villa, sir,” said the young man, not without a touch of envy. “Better than the hotels here.”
“I hear”, said Methuen, “that you have lost your M.A.”
The young man lowered both his head and his voice. “It’s been a great shock, sir. We’ve just sent the body back to London, sir. A great shock. And you know, sir, they say he wasn’t only shot; he looked as if he had been crushed. All bruised.”
Methuen said nothing for a moment, watching the shabby battered streets of the capital flicker past outside the windows of the car. “He may have had a bad fall,” he said. “He used to go off on fishing trips, didn’t he?”