Lunz shook his head. ‘The intricacies of your language—’
‘ “Better death than slavery”. That’s what the Yugoslav crowds shouted when they learned that Prince Paul had acceded to the Tripartite Pact. That’s what they shouted when he was deposed and the pact denounced. What the people didn’t understand was that there was no “nego”, no “than”. It was to be death and slavery as they found out when the Führer, in one of his splendid rages, obliterated Belgrade and crushed the army. I was one of those who were crushed. Well, nearly.’
‘If I might have some more of that excellent cognac.’ Lunz helped himself. ‘You don’t seem greatly moved by your recollections.’
‘Who can live with all his yesterdays?’
‘Nor by the fact that you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having to fight your own countrymen.’
‘Instead of joining them and fighting you? War makes for strange bed-fellows, Colonel. Take yourselves and the Japanese, for instance. Hardly entitles you to a holier-than-thou attitude.’
‘A point. But at least we’re not fighting our own people.’
‘Not yet. I wouldn’t bank on it. God knows, you’ve done it enough in the past. In any event, moralizing is pointless. I’m a loyalist, a Royalist, and when—and if ever—this damned war is over I want to see the monarchy restored. A man’s got to live for something and if that’s what I choose to live for, then that’s my business and no-one else’s.’
‘All to hell our own way,’ Lunz said agreeably. ‘It’s just that I have some difficulty in visualizing you as a Serbian Royalist.’
‘What does a Serbian Royalist look like? Come to that, what does a Serbian look like?’
Lunz thought then said: ‘A confession, Petersen. I haven’t the slightest idea.’
‘It’s my name,’ Petersen said kindly. ‘And my background. There are Petersens all over. There’s a village up in the Italian Alps where every second surname starts with “Mac”. The remnants, so I’m told, of some Scottish regiment that got cut off in one of those interminable medieval wars. My great-great-great grandfather or whatever, was a soldier of fortune, which sounds a lot more romantic than the term “mercenary” they use today. Like a thousand others he arrived here and forgot to go home again.’
‘Where was home? I mean, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, what?’
‘Genealogy bores me and, not only don’t I care, I don’t know either. Ask any Yugoslav what his ancestors five times removed were and he almost certainly wouldn’t know.’
Lunz nodded. ‘You Slavic people do have rather a chequered history. And then, of course, just to complicate matters, you graduated from Sandhurst.’
‘Dozens of foreign countries have had their officers graduate from there. In my case, what more natural? My father was, after all, the military attaché in London. If he’d been the naval attaché in Berlin I’d probably have ended up in Kiel or Mürwik.’
‘Nothing wrong with Sandhurst. I’ve been there, as a visitor only. But a bit on the conservative side as far as the courses offered are concerned.’
‘You mean?’
‘Nothing on guerrilla warfare. Nothing on espionage and counter-espionage. Nothing on code and cypher breaking. I understand you’re a specialist on all three.’
‘I’m self-educated in some things.’
‘I’m sure you are.’ Lunz was silent for some seconds, savouring his brandy, then said: ‘Whatever became of your father?’
‘I don’t know. You may even know more than I do. Just disappeared. Thousands have done so since the spring of’41. Disappeared, I mean.’
‘He was like you? A Royalist? A Četnik?’ Petersen nodded. ‘And very senior. Senior officers don’t just disappear. He fell foul of the Partisans, perhaps?’
‘Perhaps. Anything is possible. Again, I don’t know.’ Petersen smiled. ‘If you’re trying to suggest I’m carrying on a vendetta because of a blood feud, you’d better try again. Wrong country, wrong century. Anyway, you didn’t come here to pry into my motives or my past.’
‘And now you insult me. I wouldn’t waste my time. You’d tell me just as much as you wanted me to know and no more.’
‘And you didn’t come here to carry out a search of my belongings—that was just a combination of opportunity and professional curiosity. You came here to give me something. An envelope with instructions for our commander. Another assault on what it pleases you to call Titoland.’
‘You’re pretty sure of yourself.’
‘I’m not pretty sure. I’m certain. The Partisans have radio transceivers. British. They have skilled radio operators, both their own and British. And they have skilled code-crackers. You don’t dare send secret and important messages any more by radio. So you need a reliable message boy. There’s no other reason why I’m in Rome.’
‘Frankly, I can’t think of any other, which saves any explanation on my part.’ Lunz produced and handed over an envelope.
‘This is in code?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Why “naturally”? In our code?’
‘So I believe.’
‘Stupid. Who do you think devised that code?’
‘I don’t think. I know. You did.’
‘It’s still stupid. Why don’t you give me the message verbally? I’ve a good memory for this sort of thing. And there’s more. I may be intercepted, and then two things may happen. Either I succeed in destroying it, in which case the message is useless. Or the Partisans take it intact and decipher it in nothing flat.’ Petersen tapped his head. ‘A clear case for a psychiatrist.’
Lunz took some more brandy and cleared his throat. ‘You know, of course, of Colonel General Alexander von Löhr?’
‘The German Commander in Chief for southeastern Europe. Of course. Never met him personally.’
‘Perhaps it is as well that you never do. I don’t think General von Löhr would react too favourably to the suggestion that he is in need of psychiatric treatment. Nor does he take too kindly to subordinate officers—and, despite your nationality, you can take it that he very definitely regards you as subordinate—who question far less disobey his orders. And those are his orders.’
‘Two psychiatrists. One for von Löhr, one for the person who appointed him to his command. That would be the Führer, of course.’
Colonel Lunz said mildly: ‘I do try to observe the essential civilities. It’s not normally too difficult. But bear in mind that I am a German Regimental Commander.’
‘I don’t forget it and no offence was intended. Protests are useless. I have my orders. I assume that this time I will not be going in by plane?’
‘You are remarkably well informed.’
‘Not really. Some of your colleagues are remarkably garrulous in places where not only have they no right to be garrulous but have no right to be in the first place. In this case I am not well informed, but I can think, unlike—well,