The Schirmer Inheritance

Arthur had been in a British Commando force which had raided a German headquarters in North Africa. He had been wounded and captured. The German officer in charge had chosen to ignore the standing order about shooting captured Commando men and had put Arthur in with a batch of other British prisoners who were being sent to Germany via Greece and Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia, Arthur had escaped and spent the rest of the war fighting with the Tito Partisans. He had not troubled to return to England when the war ended, and had been one of the instructors provided by Tito to assist Markos.

In Arthur the Sergeant found a kindred spirit. They were both professional soldiers and had both served in corps d’elite as N.C.O.’s Neither had any emotional ties with his native land. Both loved soldiering for its own sake. Above all, they shared the same outlook on matters of politics.

During his service with the Partisans, Arthur had listened to so much Marxist patter that he knew a great deal of it by heart. At moments of stress or boredom he would recite it at length and at lightning speed. It had disconcerted the Sergeant when he had heard it for the first time, and he had approached Arthur privately on the subject.

“I was not aware, Corporal,” he had said in the clumsy mixture of Greek, English, and German they used in order to converse; “I did not think that you were a Red.”

Arthur had grinned. “No? I’m one of the most politically reliable men in the outfit.”

“So?”

“So. Don’t I prove it? Look how many slogans I know. I can talk like the book.”

“I see.”

“Of course, I don’t know what this dialectical-materialism stuff means, but then I could never understand what the Bible was all about either. At school we had to say bits of the Bible. I always used to get top marks for Scripture. Here I’m politically reliable.”

“You do not believe in the cause for which we fight?”

“No more than you do, Sergeant. I leave that to the amateurs. Soldiering’s my job. What do I want with causes?”

The Sergeant had nodded thoughtfully and glanced at the medal ribbons on Arthur’s shirt. “Do you think, Corporal, that there is any possibility of our General’s plans succeeding?” he had asked. Although they both held commissions in the Markos forces, they had chosen to ignore the fact in private. They had been N.C.O.’s in proper armies.

“Could be,” Arthur said. “Depends on how many mistakes the other lot make, same as always. Why? What are you thinking about, Sarge? Promotion?”

The Sergeant had nodded. “Yes, promotion. If this revolution were to succeed, there might be big opportunities for men able to take them. I think that I, too, must take steps to become politically reliable.”

The steps he had taken had proved effective, and his qualities as a natural leader had soon been recognized. By 1947 he was commanding a brigade, with Arthur as his second-in-command. When, in 1949, the Markos forces began to disintegrate, their brigade was one of the last to hold out in the Grammos area.

But they knew by then that the rebellion was over, and they were bitter. Neither of them had ever believed in the cause for which they had fought so long and hard and skillfully; but its betrayal by Tito and the Moscow Politburo had seemed an infamous thing.

“ ‘Put not your trust in princes,’ ” Arthur had quoted gloomily.

“Who said this?” the Sergeant had asked.

“The Bible. Only these aren’t princes, they’re politicians.”

“It is the same.” A faraway look had come into the Sergeant’s eyes. “I think, Corporal, that in future we must trust only ourselves,” he had said.

Eric Ambler

The Schirmer Inheritance

11

It was just after dawn and the mountains above Florina were outlined against a pink glow in the sky when the old Renault deposited George and Miss Kolin outside the cinema where it had picked them up ten hours earlier. On George’s instructions, Miss Kolin paid the driver and arranged with him to pick them up again that evening to make the same journey. They went to their hotel in silence.

When he got to his room, George destroyed the precautionary letter he had left there for the manager and sat down to draft a cable to Mr. Sistrom.

“ CLAIMANT LOCATED IN STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES,” he wrote, “ IDENTITY BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT STOP COMPLEX SITUATION PREVENTS STRAIGHTFORWARD ACTION TO DELIVER HIM YOUR OFFICE STOP MAILING FULL EXPLANATORY REPORT TODAY STOP MEANWHILE CABLE IMMEDIATELY TERMS OF EXTRADITION TREATY IF ANY BETWEEN U.S. AND GREECE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE ARMED BANK ROBBERY. CAREY.”