Paving the New Road

Chapter 4

7

Hinkler’s Body Found

May 1

The body of Squadron-Leader Bert Hinkler, the Australian airman, was found on Friday on a desolate plateau in the Apennine Mountains between Florence and Arezzo, in Italy. Hinkler disappeared on January 7th, the first day of an attempted flight from England to Australia. Apparently the plane had run out of fuel, smashed itself against a mountain side, 4,600 feet above sea level, and burst into flames. The tanks were empty. Hinkler must have died instantly, for he had terrible head injuries.

Portland Guardian, 1933

The Southern Cross made an unremarkable landing just outside Vienna. Nothing failed mechanically and the airfield, although small, was even, and adequate for a pilot of Kingsford Smith’s skill. The company was to part here.

Kingsford Smith and his crew would take the Fokker F.VII on to London, where they would deliver several bags of mail, ostensibly proving the viability of a mail route between Britain and Australia.

“Well, Sinclair, good luck.” Kingsford Smith shook Rowland’s hand as the Southern Cross was being prepared to fly again. For the first time Rowland sensed a curiosity in the airman as to their purpose in Europe. “I suppose you’ll be back in Sydney in a few months so we can teach you to fly that Gipsy of yours.”

Rowland sighed. There was a beautiful de Havilland Gipsy Moth stored in a shed on Oaklea, the Sinclairs’ property at Yass. Since the moment the Gipsy had come into his possession Rowland had been determined to pilot her himself. He had signed on months before, to the flying school that Kingsford Smith would soon open. Of course, now he would have to delay the lessons till his return, but nothing so far had dampened his enthusiasm for the sport. “You’ll see me,” he said. “You can count on it.”

“Senator Hardy didn’t really mention what you were doing here.” Kingsford Smith pressed a cigarette tightly between his lips.

“We’re buying art.”

“Art?”

Rowland tried to sound like he knew what he was talking about. “Yes… Good time to invest… the Depression, you see…”

Kingsford Smith nodded slowly. “So why the hurry?”

Rowland smiled. “A Rubens, actually… It’s been in a private collection for decades but the owner needs to liquidate quickly… debts or some such thing. We wanted to get here before other collectors got wind of it.”

“What has the good Senator Hardy got to do with it? I wouldn’t have thought he was an art collector.”

Rowland searched quickly for a plausible response. Kingsford Smith knew full well that the Senator had smoothed their way with passports and papers. The airman might also have noticed that his passengers were travelling, on record, under assumed names. Rowland decided to take a punt that Kingsford Smith was not himself a saint. “We are making purchases for a number of powerful investors while we’re here,” he said carefully. “Senator Hardy is one of them. Sometimes there can be issues with Customs, foreign laws, that sort of thing.”

Kingsford Smith grinned suddenly. He winked at Rowland and slapped him on the back. “I see. Well, never let it be said that Smithy hasn’t helped out the Australian entrepreneur. Had the odd stoush with Customs myself.”

Rowland laughed, relieved. “You understand that our purpose here is something that needs to be treated with… discretion.”

“Yes, of course… mum’s the word.”

And so, with Kingsford Smith convinced that they were involved in some sort of minor smuggling operation, they said farewell. Edna kissed each airman for luck and Kingsford Smith added her scarf to the collection of charms in the cockpit. And the Southern Cross and the men who flew her soared once again into the sky.

The Wien-Bahnhof, Vienna’s major railway station, was crowded, bustling with travellers and merchants. Bakers with baskets passed warm pastries to passengers through carriage windows, as smartly dressed travellers promenaded on the platform. Beggars lurked in the shadowed spaces of the station and brown-shirted members of the Sturmabteilung, otherwise known as the SA, wandered in loud, arrogant groups. Rowland watched as they strutted, bullying railway workers. He shook his head. Common thugs cloaked in the dubious legitimacy of the SA uniform.

Rowland organised their passages upon the Orient Express to Munich. Trunks of clothing and necessities had already been loaded onto the train. The trunks had, of course, been stocked and packed by someone else. They were now conscious of appearing like art collectors on a purchasing tour of Europe and boarding without luggage would have seemed odd to anyone who noticed. In a small guesthouse near the station, they had washed and changed. One did not travel and dine on the Orient Express without being appropriately attired.

Though the journey to Munich would be one of hours rather than days, Rowland booked sleeping cabins in the first-class carriage. They were tired, having only snatched sleep for several days now, and they would need privacy. Each of them would have to become accustomed to new names—their own and each other’s. They would have to ensure they told a consistent story of their recent history, their association, their business.

“Oi!” Milton reached out and grabbed a small boy by the shoulder. The child was swarthy and ragged, with eyes that glittered resentfully as Milton restrained him. “Little blighter had his hand in your pocket… Robbie,” he said, hesitating slightly as he used Rowland’s alias. “Hand it over, you thieving scamp.”

The boy kept his fist tightly closed and berated Milton bitterly in some foreign language.

“Not so tight, you’ll hurt him,” Edna said, looking sympathetically at the thin, dirty pickpocket. “What did he say, Robbie?”

Rowland shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it’s Romany… I’m pretty sure it wasn’t ‘Welcome to Vienna’, though.”

The child spoke again, but this time in Bavarian, addressing Rowland directly and finishing with what seemed like a hiss.

Rowland paused for a moment, mildly astounded, and grinned despite himself. “That I understood… but I can’t repeat it in the presence of Ed.”

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Edna asked, bending down.

“Schlampen.” The boy glared at her.

“Schlampen,” Edna said smiling. “How do you do, Schlampen?”

Rowland tried hard not to laugh. “I don’t think that’s his name, Ed. In fact, I wouldn’t repeat it.”

Clyde chuckled. “Belligerent little blighter, isn’t he?”

Edna took the boy’s clenched fist, but gently. “What did you take, little boy?”

He opened his hand. Coins. Australian coins.

A whistle warned that the Orient Express was preparing to pull away.

Rowland glanced back at the train. “Let him go. It’s just a couple of shillings.”

Reluctantly, Milton released the boy, who did not linger, fleeing with the coins still clutched in his hand.

“We’d better get moving—the train leaves in…” Milton stared at his bare wrist, where a watch should have been. Cursing, he looked around for the young pickpocket, who was by then well and truly gone. “Damn it… if I get my hands on that—”

Rowland checked his own watch as the final whistle sounded and the air became moist with squealing steam. “We don’t have time to hunt the boy down… We’ll have to get you another in Munich.”

For a moment Milton resisted but the theft had been well timed, and they had little option. They ran for the train now and boarded breathless, just seconds before it pulled out.

Their assigned compartment had been converted for the day into a carpeted sitting room; the seats upholstered in burgundy velvet on either side of a central table. Luggage racks and other fittings were brass and the walls, panelled cedar. It was a cosy fit with the four of them, but though Rowland had booked three double sleeping cabins to accommodate them, they did have many matters they needed to discuss.

Edna and Milton squabbled briefly for a place beside the window. Milton won, and Rowland gave up the facing seat to Edna.

The window framed a passing vista of snow-capped mountains, swathed in hills of radiant yellow and deep green. Rowland watched, almost mesmerised. The colours were more intense here than at home. Perhaps it was the broadness of the Australian continent that muted its shades, faded them somehow. Here the colours seemed to be thicker, undiluted. A landscape made for the brush of Van Gogh. “Would you look at that,” he murmured, as the band of yellow widened into a golden sea.

Clyde prodded him. “Don’t tell me you want to paint it.”

Rowland laughed. He had long given up trying to paint landscapes. Both his talent and his interest had always been in portrait work, and not even the magnificence through the window could intrigue him as more than a backdrop.

“What’s making the fields appear so yellow?” Edna asked.

“Dandelions,” Rowland replied, remembering from previous visits, when he had walked in those fields. “Rather a lot of them.”

Milton was unable to refrain. “Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”

“I think you’ll find that Wordsworth was talking about daffodils, not dandelions.”

As the train churned through the Austrian countryside towards the German border, they decided brief personal histories consistent with their new identities. Edna was prone to embroider the story, and for a while they debated the efficacy of the elaborate lie over the simple one. The sculptress and Milton were adamant that plausibility lay in detail, while Clyde demanded something he could remember. In the end it was decided that they could be creative with those aspects that did not require Clyde to remember them, and a satisfactory agreement was reached.

Edna rested her head on Rowland’s shoulder as the gentle rhythmic lurch of the moving train rocked her towards sleep.

“How are we going to find Campbell?” Clyde asked.

“We don’t want to find him,” Rowland yawned. “He’d quite probably recognise us all. And he’ll most certainly recognise me.”

“So what are we supposed to do?”

“Apparently this chap, Blanshard, Campbell’s interpreter, will get in touch with us at the Vier Jahreszeiten.”

“The fear of what?” Clyde murmured.

Rowland smiled. “The Vier Jahreszeiten—The Four Seasons. It’s an hotel. Until then we visit galleries, talk to artists, generally carry on like art collectors and see if we can’t find out more about what happened to Peter Bothwell.”

“And Campbell has no idea that Blanshard is an Old Guard spy?” Milton asked, playing with the dark moustache he had kept when he sacrificed his goatee for their time in Germany. It was now just long enough to twist.

Rowland shrugged. “We have no way of knowing. I can only presume if Blanshard is still with him, then Campbell is still in the dark.”

“And if not?”

“Things will get a bit awkward, I expect.”

It was early in the evening when the Orient Express stopped in Munich, before continuing on to Strasbourg and Paris. It was cold, the sky dark with cloud, and the day misted with a light but steady drizzle.

Rowland offered Edna his hand as she alighted. The sculptress was still not completely awake having roused only moments before. Indeed, they had all slept through most of the journey, forgoing their turn in the dining carriage in the interests of rest. Rowland’s last memory was of the simple lines and rural colour. The ornate, architectural grandeur of the Munich bahnhof was disorienting in contrast.

The railway platform buzzed and whistled with celebration. A band played folk tunes and the brown-shirted men of the SA were present in force. The general noise was punctuated with shouts of “Heil Hitler!”.

Edna started. “Is he here?” she asked, casting her eyes around.

“Who?”

“Mr. Hitler… they keep ‘heiling’ him.”

“No… I think they use his name to greet anybody,” Rowland explained.

“Really? Well, that’s a bit silly,” Edna said, as she looked out into the crowd to observe that he spoke the truth.

“It is a bit,” Rowland agreed. He glanced around at the banners and posters which festooned the station. “But you probably shouldn’t say so too loudly.”

When another train pulled in, the jubilation rose into a roar of approbation and the Brownshirts began to chant “Heil!” in a pounding rhythm. It was focussed upon a small group alighting the train on the opposite platform. Fleetingly, Rowland wondered if it was in fact the Chancellor, and then his ear, having become attuned, picked up snippets of excited conversation.

“Who is it?” Milton asked, as Rowland now strained to see the party from the other train.

Rowland motioned towards a large, stocky man who emerged from the carriage with his chest thrust out at the world. The Brownshirts exploded into applause. Rowland glanced uneasily at Milton. “Apparently that’s Röhm. He’s head of the SA… the Brownshirts.”

Edna grabbed Rowland’s hand. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered.