Flight From Honour (27 page)

25

The worried, sleepless hours on the train had caused Trieste to loom ominously. It would be strange and sinister, closed against him – and yet sucking him in. Ranklin felt it would want to trap him, be full of eyes, unseen but all-seeing, waiting to pounce on his slightest mistake.

But now, from the steps of the Excelsior Palace on a sunny morning, the nightmare faded with the sea haze. If Trieste was full of eyes, it was also full of ships, fat Italians, thin Greeks and screeching seagulls. And the most immediate thing likely to pounce on a mistake was the traffic, albeit most still horse- and even ox-drawn except for slow-chugging goods trains that ran along the dockside just across the road.

The long, busy waterfront stretched away on either side. To the right, the bigger ships nestled against the warehouses of the railway yard; to the left lay smaller steamers, trading schooners and fishing boats. And beyond them, somewhere round the point with its stubby lighthouse, were the warship slipways of Stabilimento Tecnico. He was
not
going to goggle at them, even if it were, physically possible.

Instead, he turned right and right again into the Piazza Grande with its trees, bandstand and cafés, heading vaguely for the Exchange but mostly trying to fit into the city’s pace and mood. Just spending a few pfennigs on a packet of cigarettes helped convince him of some sort of rapport. Because what he was really looking for was the ordinary confidence of an honest man.

Half an hour later he was sitting in a dainty bright café with Signor Pauluzzo and two friends who were delighted to chatter to the House of Sherring. And since the name so impressed them, Ranklin lost nothing by explaining that he was both new and junior (and thus didn’t know any juicy high-level gossip).

“The troubles in the south Balkans affect us not at all,” Pauluzzo was claiming. “They have their own ports for what little trade they do. What happens here does not matter to the Carso—” he waved a pudgy hand vaguely eastwards; “—for perhaps 200 kilometres inland. Trieste lives with Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Berlin even. Since the new railway five years ago, each year is a new record in trade. In manufactured goods alone . . .”

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 Café 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 café 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 café 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.

But when he wasn’t doing any of these, he had studied Andrew’s hands as they coped with the ripples and bumps he could himself feel in the air.

Around what would have been tea-time if Italy had such a time, O’Gilroy primed each cylinder with petrol, spun the propeller, and saw Andrew off on a short test flight. As he watched the aeroplane bobbing and weaving around the local sky, a large cream-and-red tourer drove onto the field and the chauffeur released Signora Falcone.

“Is that our aeroplane?” she asked, looking up.

“It is, ma’am.”

“And is all well?”

“Seems to be.”

“Good. But it’s most annoying. I’ve just had a telegram—” she flourished it unnecessarily; “—from Gabri. D’Annunzio. It seems . . . No, I’ll explain to Mr Sherring when he gets down.”

She treated O’Gilroy with polite reserve, obviously puzzled by the way he seemed to crop up, first as her husband’s bodyguard, then as Andrew’s assistant. And perhaps the Irish accent reminded her of her own social climb. She must have been better born than O’Gilroy, but true Dublin society didn’t let its daughters go on the stage.

The Oriole drifted down to a smooth landing and O’Gilroy joined the mechanics in man-handling it over to the usual sheds. Andrew climbed down. “A
little
tightening up on the underside wires, they always work a bit loose after re-rigging. And I’ve put another twenty minutes on the engine, don’t forget that.” He turned to Signora Falcone. “All ready to go, Signora. When’s the—”

“I have just had news: that vexing man d’Annunzio now wants us to do the first demonstration in
Venice
– of all places. Some people there he wants to impress, and we’re really in his hands. So I’m going to have to ask you if you can fly there tomorrow, I think it’s only just over two hundred miles . . .”

“Fine, whatever you say.” Andrew was untroubled. “All we need is a map. Maybe we can make it part of the demonstration, a timed trial?”

“As you like. But luckily our main home is near Venice and Giancarlo did much of his flying from one of our fields, so you can land there. I don’t suppose Mrs Finn will want to come, it’s a dreary journey by train, and Turin’s much more a centre of things.”

I wish I dared ask her to bet on that, O’Gilroy thought.

*        *        *

After lunch, Ranklin sat in the hotel lobby and wrote out a cable that started “First impression” and included the phrase “apparently stable workforce with no inclination to strike and good economic reasons not to”, then had it sent to one of the Bureau’s accommodation addresses in London. He wasn’t yet ready to advise Dagner to back out of what might prove a fiasco (though possibly, thank God, an unnoticed one) but he could sound a warning. He still hoped to learn more from the Count.

So at four o’clock, he was loitering just inside the tunnel entrance, which was framed by operatic flights of stairs leading to the Castello, and feeling as obvious as an anarchist with a sizzling bomb.

A closed four-wheeler drew up beside him, the door swung open and he stepped up and in, rocking the little carriage like a dinghy.

“Excellently contrived,” the Count said from the companionable darkness beside him, and rapped on the front with his cane. The driver whipped the horse into a sedate plod. “Perhaps you have more complete news of matters in England? – I received only a guarded cable.”

“You know the Senator was attacked: it was by two Italian thugs, one of whom was killed that evening in London by certain new friends of the Senator. The other escaped. The Senator lost a lot of blood but otherwise it wasn’t serious, he’ll return to Turin as soon as he can travel. Signora Falcone arrived from Paris, so everything continues as planned. All right so far?”

He left the implication that there was more hanging and kept his voice unemotional, but his inner self pleaded for the Count to give him a lead.

And quite calmly the Count said: “I understand. And the aeroplane?”

My God, it
is
involved. But how? – how do you start a shipyard strike with a flying machine?

“It left for France the day I left London. I know nothing more, but it should be in Turin by now.”

“Ah, excellent.” Gas lamps stuck out on ornate arms from the walls of the tunnel and in their intermittent flares, he saw the Count’s head bowed as if brooding. One window of the carriage was open, letting in the echoing clip-clop of their own and other horses, along with a concentrated horse smell.