“It wouldn’t be for her, it would be for you,” Peter said honestly. “But I did send her…”
“And?” Lucas knew there was something more. The heart, perhaps, of what Peter had come to say.
Peter walked a few steps further. The sunlight and shadows moved on the ground, as the branches overhead were stirred by the wind. A few more amber leaves drifted down.
“I think there will be an attack on Dollfuss,” he began, trying to find the right words to say, maybe too carefully, although he had not arrived at this thought with any major evidence.
“What sort of attack?” Lucas asked. “There’ve been all kinds of accusations and—”
“No. I mean physical,” interrupted Peter. “It could be done in the open, or more likely secretly, and he would simply not appear at a meeting, an event. There would be excuses: he’s ill, injured, whatever seems most believable. In time someone would replace him…”
“Nazism in Austria, and rooted in Germany?” Lucas asked grimly after another few moments of silence, broken only by Toby still splashing around in the stream. “Toby, come on!” he called. There was more splashing, then Toby came charging along the path, stopping beside Lucas and shaking vigorously, sending water all over the place. Lucas was about to tell him off when Peter started to laugh.
“What o
n earth is funny?” Lucas demanded.
“It’s absurd.” Peter controlled himself with an effort, ironing the panic out of his voice. “You are annoyed because the dog you love shook himself and got you wet, at the same time that we are debating whether the Austrian National Socialists are in the pay of Hitler yet. It’s only a matter of when, not whether it will happen or not. It will.”
“You think so?”
“Of course. If we prevent this attempt to spread Nazism, there’ll be another, and not only in Austria. All the borders of Germany are at risk, and then the borders of those other countries. The question is whether it’s worth another bloodbath to prevent it. I need to be certain that the only thing worse than another slaughter all over Europe will be to find Hitler’s values in every country, every town. To find Brownshirts, or worse, Gestapo, in the streets of London. But am I right?” He looked at Lucas and waited.
Lucas remained silent for several moments. At last he spoke…quietly. “Yes, I think you’re right. War decimates a generation, perhaps even two. But as long as we are alive, there will be a third and a fourth…and so on.”
“For some, but the price is terrible, and we didn’t pay it, you and I. We fought our fight, and our weapons helped win, but we didn’t pay in blood. We didn’t suffer those wounds to the body and the mind that don’t heal, the ones we pretend we don’t see.” He was thinking of the blank-eyed soldiers he had seen for whom the horrors were all inside and would be until they died.
“Peter?”
“I know.” He jerked himself out of his thoughts. “We’re in a minority, you know. There are a lot of people who think we’re warmongers because we’re stopping what peace there could be, if only we just swallowed our pride and minded our own business about Germany.”
“And there are others,” Lucas argued, his voice dropping even lower, “who say we created this with our destructively harsh demands in the treaty after the war. We made another war inevitable.”
“What should we do?” Peter raised his eyebrows. “Pray for peace, and expect God to bring it? While we prepare for war?” It sounded more bitter than he had intended.
“Are you preparing for war?” Lucas stared upward at the leaves as they rustled softly in the sunset breeze. The fading light caught the apricot and pink in their dying shapes.
“No, I’m just trying to see what direction the blow will come from first. I don’t actually fight; I tell other men where to…”
“Did she say anything else?” Lucas asked.
“Who?”
“Did Elena say anything else?”
“No, and she can’t force him to leave if he won’t. She’s only getting information,” Peter replied.
“From a spy whose cover is blown, and whose handler may be alive and on the run…or dead. Murdered by whom?”
Peter raised his head sharply to meet Lucas’s eyes.
Lucas shook his head. “No, you can’t go and look; you’d only make it worse,” he said sharply, as if reading Peter’s mind. “But you’d better make sure you’ve got good people in Vienna already. And Berlin. Don’t disturb them by sending anyone now. Just wait. And, for God’s sake, don’t go yourself! I’ve learned the hard way. Somebody will send word you’ve gone. If they capture you, they can ask their own price. And torture the hell out of you while they wait. Use a little sense. Leave it alone and wait. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do.”
Peter closed his eyes and felt the faint warmth of the sun on his skin, the whisper of the wind in the leaves, and Toby crashing around in the undergrowth, chasing the scent of a rabbit. “Yes,” he said, not sure if he had said it aloud or not. “I know.”
CHAPTER
7