Horizon by Helen MacInnes Page B

smile.
    “Perhaps.” Lennox was too tense. He walked over to the window. This time he was looking from the back of the house, over to the pine woods, up to the mountains. This was the view he had seen each night as he had waited for someone who had never come. Now they had come. He couldn’t believe it.
    “Perhaps,” he said again, trying to fight down his emotion.

10
    Johann was talking as he dressed. He was half grumbling, half pleased. “Another journey,” he was saying. “I’ve just finished taking three Americans into Jugoslavia. God, can’t they give a man some rest?”
    Peter Lennox smiled at that. He turned from the window to look at the “man.” The boy’s face was hidden by a rough towel as he polished his red-apple cheeks.
    “So that’s what you’ve been doing in these last months,” Lennox said. He realised now why Johann had kept silent about such a job. Lennox would have wanted to go along too.
    “That’s what I’ve been doing.” Pride was in Johann’s voice. “Personal escort service.” He threw the towel at Lennox, and began pulling on his shirt.
    “Meet any trouble?”
    “It’s getting more difficult,” Johann acknowledged. “The first batches were easy. The Germans never guessed we wouldhelp any Allied flyers. But now the remains of several planes have been found in the South Tyrol, without a live American or Britisher to show for them. So the Germans are beginning to wonder. No grounded flyer could make his way alone out of these mountains unless he were an expert climber and had a mountaineering map. He would have to come down into the valleys and ask for help. Now the Germans are increasing their garrisons and patrols. They are in a nasty temper about that, too.” The smile had left Johann’s face. Watching him, Lennox suddenly realised that Johann was no longer a boy. But then, journeys over and around these Dolomite peaks in winter would age anyone. Death lay waiting at many a twisting corner in a mountain path.
    “And how have you been?” Johann’s politeness was formal. He was really listening for any possible call from downstairs. When Lennox gave no answer to that he went on cheerily, “Got to keep an ear cocked, you know.” But his eyes were thoughtful and he was watching the Englishman.
    “What you need is some exercise,” Johann said suddenly. “Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you started some mountain-climbing too, soon.”
    “Perhaps I shall,” Lennox said grimly.
    Johann was still watching him, as if he could read the meaning behind the short words. “I don’t blame you,” he said at last. “Being shut up in this house would drive me crazy. But you can’t tell that to my mother, though.” He laughed and then stopped short. He opened the door slightly. It was Mahlknecht, calling in very definite terms for both of them to hurry up and come downstairs.
    “Both of us?” Lennox asked, and there was a first real noteof gladness in his voice. His hope had grown to a certainty.
    Johann pushed him good-naturedly out of the room towards the staircase. “Let Uncle Paul set the pace,” he whispered, “Cousin Peter from the North Tyrol.” He was grinning widely. Lennox was smiling too as they clattered down the wooden stairs.
    * * *
    In the sitting-room there were mud-caked footsteps on the floor, and two pairs of heavy flying-boots lying side by side. That must have been the point where Paul Mahlknecht had stopped the two strangers and made them take off their boots. Frau Schichtl’s rules were observed even by the formidable brother from Bozen, it seemed.
    Mahlknecht had chosen to remain standing. The two flyers were sitting on the hard wooden bench against the wall near the stove. They were huddling towards the heat of its wood fire. On that seat the light from the two kitchen windows fell sharply across their faces. Their eyes looked up as Johann and Lennox entered.
    Mahlknecht said, “One of them speaks a little German. The other doesn’t.