Horizon by Helen MacInnes Page A

Schlern. If only Dusty Miller had been here with him, or big Jock...someone to talk to. Someone who would not always be polite. Someone who’d argue with you. Someone who’d see the joke in everyday names. “Puflatsch, Bad Ratzes, Eggen Tal,” he said aloud, but he didn’t even smile now. Miller could have woven half an hour’s conversation out of them and raised a dozen laughs. Lennox could have done too—once.
    “Time I was getting out of here, and getting out pretty damn quick,” he said emphatically. Now that the man from Bozen was here it would be easier to give his ultimatum. It hadn’t been so easy with Frau Schichtl. Three times now, upstairs in this room, he had made the resolution that he was leaving. Three times, downstairs, his resolution had melted away. Somehow a woman always made you feel a swine if you insisted on doing something she didn’t want you to do. Today, it was true, he had begun to say what was on his mind. He smiled, remembering the way in which the door had closed.
    “Five minutes past eight,” he said. He talked aloud quite a lot now. Well, he had certainly used up five minutes of this day. He looked down at the roadway, and wondered how slow it would be to travel through roads as mud-filled as that. The ground was thawing out now, and the water from the melting snow on the mountains streamed down on to the meadows. But Frau Schichtl had said it drained off quickly. She had said the higher fields and woods were already passable. If Johann would guide him by the secret paths known to those who had been brought up in this district the journey would be much simpler. And oncehe was out of this chain of mountains he could strike alone south-east across the plains. He could reach the Adriatic and Jugoslavia this time. His plans to reach them were still as fresh in his mind as they had been eight months ago.
    He stiffened. He stood motionless, his eyes rigid. On the road, slipping heavily on the yellowish mud, were two figures. They were walking towards Hinterwald. They hesitated as they neared the house, halted beside a tree. The taller figure seemed to be urging the other on. They started again towards the house. The uncertain one was limping now. He was leaning heavily on his friend’s shoulder.
    Lennox moved quickly. He was out of his room, and he was knocking sharply on all the three doors on the landing before he had even got his thoughts straight. From one door came Johann’s voice, and then a deeper voice asking, “What the devil?”
    It was Johann who appeared. His sleepy eyes opened fully as Lennox pushed past him to confront the bearded man who was sitting up in bed.
    “Two men are approaching this house,” Lennox was saying. “American flyers, I think. One of you had better get downstairs and put out the welcome mat.”
    “What the devil—” the bearded man began. He rubbed the back of his head and yawned widely. But he was reaching for his trousers lying over the rail at the foot of the bed. “I’ll go,” he grumbled. He glanced at his large silver watch on the chair beside him. “Three hours’ sleep. Hand me those boots, damn you. Thanks. So you are Lennox? I’m Paul Mahlknecht. Johann, stand by. If I call come downstairs. Lennox, you stay up here.”
    Lennox nodded. Paul Mahlknecht was already hurrying out of the room, buttoning his trousers with one hand, slipping his broad bright-coloured braces over his shoulders with the other. He lifted his waistcoat from the chair as he kicked the door open. He gave Lennox a rueful shake of his head as he left the room. “No rest these days,” he said, with considerable enjoyment.
    Downstairs the front door was opened. There was the sound of heavy, dragging footsteps.
    “Anyone here?” a strange voice called. It repeated the question in English.
    Lennox stood very still. Then he crossed over to the door and closed it quietly.
    “Perhaps they are your friends,” Johann said, with his broad, simple