Waiting for Orders Read Free Page B

like the same musicians. Before the war we usually met when there was some Sibelius being played and went to hear it together. I was a little puzzled when, about three weeks ago, he telephoned with the suggestion that I should dine at his house that night. There was not, I knew, a concert of any sort in London. I agreed, however, to grope my way through the black-out to Wimpole Street shortly before eight o’clock.
    It was not until he had presented me with a brandy that I found out why I had been invited to dinner.
    ‘Do you remember,’ he said suddenly, ‘that I spent a week or so in Belgrade last year? I missed Beecham doing the Second through it. There was one of those international medical bun fights being held there, and I went to represent the Association. My German is fairly good, you know. I motored. Can’t stick trains. Anyway, on the way back a very funny thing happened to me. Did I ever tell you about it?’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘I thought not. Well’ – he laughed self-consciously – ‘it was so funny, now there’s a war on, that I’ve been amusing myself by writing the whole thing down. I wondered whether you’d be good enough to cast a professional eye over it for me. I’ve tried’ – he laughed again – ‘to make a really literary job of it. Like a story, you know.’
    His hand had been out of sight behind the arm of his chair, but now it emerged from hiding holding a wad of typewritten sheets.
    ‘It’s typed,’ he said, planking it down on my knees. And then, with a theatrical glance at his watch, ‘Good Lord, it’s ten. There’s a telephone call I must make. Excuse me for a minute or two, will you?’
    He was out of the room before I could open my mouth to reply. I was left alone with the manuscript.
    I picked it up. It was entitled
A Strange Encounter.
With a sigh, I turned over the title page and began, rather irritably, to read:
    The Stelvio Pass is snowed up in winter, and towards the end of November most sensible men driving to Paris from Belgrade or beyond take the long way round via Milan rather than risk being stopped by an early fall of snow. But I was in a hurry and took a chance. But the time I reached Bolzano I was sorry I had done so. It was bitterly cold, and the sky ahead was leaden. At Merano I seriously considered turning back. Instead, I pushed on as hard as I could go. If I had had any sense I should have stopped for petrol before I started the really serious part of the climb. I had six gallons by the gauge then. I knew that it wasn’t accurate, but I had filled up early that morning and calculated that I had enough to get me to Sargans. In my anxiety to beat the snow I overlooked the fact that I had miles of low-gear driving to do. On the Swiss side and on the Sargans road where it runs within a mile or two of the Rhätikon part of the German frontier, the car sputtered to a standstill.
    For a minute or two I sat there swearing at and to myself and wondering what on earth I was going to do. I was, I knew, the only thing on the road that night for miles.
    It was about eight o’clock, very dark and very cold. Except for the faint creaking of the cooling engine and the rustle of the breeze in some nearby trees, there wasn’t a sound to be heard. Ahead, the road in the headlights curved away to the right. I got out the map and tried to find out where I was.
    I had passed through one village since I had left Klosters, and I knew that it was about ten kilometres back. I must, therefore, either walk back ten kilometres to that village, or forward to the next village, whichever was the nearer. I looked at the map. It was of that useless kind that they sell tomotorists. There was nothing marked between Klosters and Sargans. For all I knew, the next village might be fifteen or twenty kilometres away.
    An Alpine road on a late November night is not the place to choose if you want to sleep in your car. I decided to walk back the way I had come.
    I had a box of those