Horizon by Helen MacInnes

It was the last appeal.
    Lennox was looking too. And Mahlknecht’s deep-set eyes, hardly flickering, caught that look. He saw the slow, careful movement of Lennox’s head. He saw Lennox’s tense left hand, the knuckles folded, the thumb pointing downward.
    Mahlknecht cleared his throat. “I have already told you that you came to the wrong place. If there is such a house as you describe then I have never heard of it. We cannot help you. No one can. Please go.”
    The two flyers stared at him. Mahlknecht’s face was still impassive, as if what he said now was exactly what he had been saying all along.
    “Go,” he repeated. “You came into this house uninvited.Go. Or I shall walk to the village and ’phone Kastelruth that you are here.”
    They rose to their feet, and struggled into their flying-jackets. The captain’s jaw was rigid. The fair-haired man’s lips were white-edged. Mahlknecht’s quiet, determined voice was final. They knew that now. They halted in the sitting-room to pull on their cumbersome flying-boots. The three men in the kitchen watched them in silence. In equal silence, the two flyers left the house. They didn’t turn towards the village. They went back towards the pine woods from which they had come.
    There was a drawn look in Paul Mahlknecht’s face. He was knocking the ashes out of his pipe with solemn concentration.
    “I hope to God that you were right,” he said to Lennox.

11
    Frau Schichtl came home early that day. She brought a pile of text-books and note-books. The Kasal girl accompanied her to the door, helping her to carry the slipping load of books. The girl didn’t follow Frau Schichtl indoors. She stood hesitating, speaking a few words in her quiet voice. And Frau Schichtl didn’t invite her to come in. She wasn’t even talking very much. All she said was, “Thank you, Katharina.”
    The girl spoke again, but her voice was too low for Lennox to catch the meaning of her words. All he could hear was the soft lilt of a girl’s voice. It was the first girl’s voice he had heard in two years. He moved to the window and watched her walking slowly towards the Kasal farm. She was older than he had thought, but perhaps that was because she was now walking gravely with her head slightly bowed. Before, he had always seen her hurrying, generally running. She was wearing her shoes, and didn’t even seem to notice that the mud was ruining them. He didn’t needto hear the clatter of the books, which Frau Schichtl let fall on the kitchen table, to realise something was wrong.
    He turned from the window, and left the fair-haired girl with the strong young body walking over the green fields. Frau Schichtl’s face was white: the bright colour had gone, leaving two small pink daubs on her cheeks where the red veins were broken. Paul Mahlknecht put aside his pipe carefully.
    “Well, Frieda?” he asked.
    Frau Schichtl sat on the bench. She folded her hands tightly on her lap. Her lips were in a bitter line.
    “No more school,” she said, in a low voice.
    “Yes?” Mahlknecht’s quiet question urged her on.
    Suddenly she was speaking quickly, angrily.
    A man had been appointed teacher of the school. He was Heinrich Mussner, the same Mussner who had left for the North Tyrol in 1939. He had come back to Hinterwald last week. Last night Germans had come from Kastelruth. They had come to see that everyone was happy in Hinterwald. That was their story. They called a meeting to discuss how Hinterwald could be improved. The meeting became merely an intimation that as this district was now incorporated into the Reich, the school would have to be better managed. The woman volunteer must go: she had been a pupil-teacher in 1917, it was true, but that was too long ago. Someone with more recent experience must be chosen. A man must be chosen. Volunteers for the job were asked. And before the slow-moving, astounded villagers had begun to understand the meaning of this move Heinrich Mussner had