During the night a small cruiser had anchored in the bay.  Márta saw it as she opened the bedroom curtains.

"Tony..." her voice beckoned.  I stood beside her.   My hand rested on her hip as I muttered in a sleepy voice:  "I guess the honeymoon's over, sweet­heart!"

I threw the curtains fully open.  The sun caught my eyes.  I shielded them with a hand and thought how my Viking ancestors might have done the same, standing proud in their war boats, going into battle.  I was a ruthless man but I had no stomach for what was about to happen.

"Do they really mean to go through with this Tony?"  Her voice was measured.

I watched a small rubber dinghy leap into the sun-flecked water from the shadow of the cruiser's hull.   "Yes Márti," I said quietly.  "I think you have given them no option."

           It was early in 1992 and these men were from Hungary.  Back in 1956 they had been the rising stars in the Tithos Rendörség, or secret police, perpetrating the Stali­nist reign of terror under Mátyás Rákócz­y. 

           For the ordinary people it had been a time of mind-numb­ing repres­sion, but for these men it had meant power.   They had grown to believe in their own supe­riority and had now banded to­gether under the name Para­ncs­nokság or Supreme Rulers.

           They knew that Márta had stum­bled onto their secret and that she was committed to stopping them.  She had a reputation for total dedica­tion to the cause of freedom and they had to stop her if they were to have any chance of success.  They had vast amounts of information about hundreds of Hungarians and other Europeans from common people to high ranking offi­cials.  They were now starting to use this information to build a power base which could well become powerful enough to de-stabilise the rapidly changing polit­ical shape of Europe.  Their philoso­phy encom­pa­ssed only the worst aspects of Social­ism: power from violence and corruption.

           We had two things in our favour that day.  Firstly, the battle would take place on our home ground.  We had chosen the arena.   Second­ly, we had the ele­ment of surprise.  I had faked an acciden­tal meeting with them yesterday, on the mainland, and upon discover­ing that we had friends in common from the old days, I had  casually invited them to the island for lunch.  We knew that they had orders from the Parancsnokság to eliminate Márta, but we were pretty sure that they did not realise that we were aware of this.  They would be civilised at first, feeling us out, trying to find out how much Márta knew.   Perhaps an attempt at negotia­tion would be the prelude to a double murder.   We were ready.   

           Márta, nearer the window, heard the rubber boat scrape up the coarse, sandy beach as we adjusted  close-fitting bullet proof vests under our casual clothes.  We were safe, at least from small calibre weapons.   We had two small hand guns each.  They were the small, reliable little seven shot automatic Walther PPK's.  We each had one under our clothes and two were hidden in the double couch in the sitting room.    

"Two minutes at most Tony." Márta said in a matter-of-fact voice.  

"Videos are running.  I'll arm the front door, you do the back."

Márta was referring to the small fragmentation grenades we had placed at each exit from the house.  The triggers were tiny radio modules in our pockets.  We did not want anyone leaving us if things turned for the worst.

           At the back entrance to the house I reached under the arch over the door and pressed the tiny switch on the small black box wedged out of sight.

           Back in the sitting room I could see the last hundred metres of the steep, rocky pathway to the house.   I glanced around the room.  Nothing seemed out of place.   The two video cameras could not be seen. Mounted in the walls behind air vents, the red recording lights blacked out with tape, they would bear silent witness to the coming events.

           Márta arranged the vodka bottle and the glasses on the low table between the couches and then sat on the double couch.  Through the window I saw the two men making their way up the path.  To me they looked out of place in their dark, formal coats and hats.  But this was Europe, not Australia.  Here, formality was the norm.  It was considered correct.  I paused and leant to kissed Márta firmly on the lips as I went toward the front door.   She held my arm briefly.  

"Take care my Tony," she whispered,  "I am ready."   Her hand caressed the cushion covering one of our hidden guns.

           I reached the door as the bell rang.   I paused politely before opening it, keeping to one side, balanced for quick movement, just in case.  The precaution was unnecessary.  The two men looked relaxed and they smiled, their eyes welcoming as I shook them by the hand.  One was of short stature with penetrating eyes, the other a rugged, bear-like man with a pale, unattractive face.

"Gentlemen, so glad you could come," I crooned.  "A pleasant cruise from the mainland I trust?"

"Thank you, Larsson, yes.  A wonderful day for amateur seafarers such as we," said the smaller of the two men, his voice oilier than mine, if such were possible.    I took their coats and led them to the sitting room.  Márta remained seated, lifting her hand to each visitor in turn.  They sat.  I poured vodka for each of us.  Glasses in hand, we saluted old friends...  old times...  a new, more open Europe.

           More vodka was poured and we chatted as casually as was proper, using surnames and presuming little.   The larger man, a Mr Havrán, did not speak but eyed us keenly.  His anaemic eyes fixed on whoever was speaking, as if he was trying to coax every shred of understanding from each of our words.  His companion, the affable Mr Schmidt, was more relaxed.  He seemed to quickly reach a state of mild eupho­ria: a little too quickly for a man raised on vodka, but I too began to feel relaxed until the talk turned to politics and the struggle for power in those parts of Europe now finding freedom  from the oppression of communism.  

           Havrán, his eyes fixed on Márta, spoke for the first time as he said quietly, in an affected voice,  "And the Parancsnokság, where do you see the future of this worthy organisation, Miss Handke?"  

           Márta had intro­duced herself using her father's surname.

I thought that Márta's eyes betrayed nothing, that nothing in her expression gave any hint of recognition, but Havrán's eyes narrowed imperceptibly as she spoke.  "The Parancsnokság, Mr Havrán?  I'm not sure that I am familiar with their work at all."  The puzzle­ment in her voice sounded genuine, but out of the corner of my eye I noticed a tiny frown appear on Schmi­dt's forehead as he spoke.

"You surprise me Miss Handke," he said.  "I felt sure that you of all people would be aware of our work.  In fact I would not feel bold in assum­ing that you know a great deal about us." 

           The pistol had appeared in his hand as if by magic, as if it had always been there.  It was a Russian Tokarev TT-33, a Browning copy, the hammer clearly visible and cocked for firing.   His voice hardened, the pretended eupho­ria gone.  "Some of our friends," he continued, "even believe that your recent interest in our activities stems from a desire to join us.  Sadly, they do not know you as well as I."

           So much for the element of surprise.  Perhaps our meeting on the mainland had not been so cleverly staged after all.   I glanced at Márta, but she was staring at Havrán, her face deathly white, her hands on the couch beside her.  She seemed to have stopped breath­ing.  

           Schmidt, supremely confident, did not notice and con­tinued, "Yes, Miss Handke. I have fol­lowed your career with some interest for many years now.  Ah, what a nuisance you have been to me!"   He threw his hands up in mock despair, his gun carelessly pointing slightly away from us.     Márta shot him in the face without taking her eyes from Havrán who was reaching into his coat.  Her second shot caught Havrán in the hand as he drew his pistol.  He screamed, drop­ping the weapon.  As he leant forward Márta slowly raised the little blue-grey Walther in both hands and whispered hoarsely, "For Mama!"  She shot him deliberately in the fore­head, holding the trigger down so that five shots hit Havrán in quick succes­sion.  The hollow nosed 7.65mm bullets tore the back of his head away as they left his body to thud into the wall behind him. 

           Havrán's lifeless form slid slowly to the floor beside that of the late Mr. Schmid­t as Márta turned to me, dropping her empty gun onto the couch.  I saw tears in her eyes, those big, soft eyes, for only the second time in twenty-two years.  

"Oh Tony, he was there," she whispered. "That animal was there when Mama died.  I knew his voice." 

She buried her head in my lap.  I stroked her hair and held her as her body trem­bled and shook and this strong, independent woman, cried out all her sorrow.  She had held it inside her for so many years.  

           The sun had fallen behind the house and the sea lay shrouded in shadow before we moved.

           Márta cried, and dozed, and cried again.   I think she finally managed to say goodbye to her mother that afternoon.  I carried her and laid her gently on our bed.  I partially un­dressed her and covered her with blankets and kissed her softly on the cheek.  She moaned quietly and slept, emotion­ally spent, but peaceful at last. 

           It took me two hours to clean up the room and carry the bodies down to the rubber boat and out to the small cruiser at anchor in the bay.  She was a fifteen metre fly-bridge cruiser, sleek and powerful.  I hoped that the owner had her well insured.

           I searched the men and the boat carefully, finding passports, two briefcases and a manila folder.  After loosening both main fuel lines, I lit the gas stove and returning to the bridge, I started the twin Volvo engines.  As they idled quietly I raised the anchor and headed the boat out of the bay.  I wedged the small steering wheel straight ahead, leapt into the rubber boat and cast off as the cruiser made its way slowly across the vast lake.   I drifted there on the gentle swell in the cold starlight listening to the soft rumble of the cruiser's engines as it moved away.  I hoped that the fumes from the open fuel line would reach the gas stove in about ten or fifteen minutes.  My watch showed twelve minutes had elapsed when the sky was lit by a yellow flash and a split second later I heard and felt the thump of the explosion.   I started the outboard motor and made my way to shore.

           Márta moaned again as I slipped into the bed beside her.  I held her soft, warm body as she snuggled against me and I lay there listening to her slow, steady breathing.   It was almost midnight.  The musician part of me was starting to wake up.  In Australia we would be just beginning to play the first bracket of the evening.  A warm evening, beer flowing freely, the patrons ready for some dancing.  But I was not in Australia.  I was in a foreign country helping a friend, and the battle lines had now been crossed.   We were now officially at war with the Parancsnokság.    The failure of their killers to return would give a clear signal.   Márta was not to be trifled with.   It would also place the removal of Márta high on their list of priori­ties.   Our success, and perhaps indeed our survival, would depend on our finding them before they found us again.   We would need help from all our old contacts.    Eventual­ly I slept, holding Márta close, as I had done back in those wonderful times in the hut amidst the oaks on a beauti­ful moun­tainside.

    It seems like yesterday, that terrible day.  A memory etched indelibly in my brain.  We were not killers, yet we had killed deliber­ately and with malicious aforethought.

           I sat back in my chair and watched the flames leaping in the fireplace.  Yes, it had come to murder.  It began as a love affair and became much more, but then Márta's life was like that; innocent beginnings, spawning violence and death.

           She spoke very sparingly of her early days, even to me, even in the dead of night, safe in my arms.   I have pieced together some of her back­ground. 

           She was born in Sušice, Czechoslovakia, of an Austrian father who left when she was five, and a Czech mother. Her parents were well-educat­ed and intelli­gent.  Her father was a high ranking politician and her mother a tertiary lecturer in European History.  She lived with her mother in Sušice, until that fateful holiday in a small village in Hungary's north.

           It was October of 1956.  Since the establishment of a full dicta­torship in the Stalin style in 1947, the Hungarian people had lived in the asphyx­iating atmos­phere of a police state, in fear of each other, in fear of speak­ing out about the government even to their own children lest their words be interpreted as treason against the ruling body.  Any form of dissent, real or perceived, usually resulted in that person disappea­ring in the night, never to be heard of again. 

           In the main square in Budapest, beneath the hero's statue a smallish group of students rallied.  One seventeen year old boy stood beneath the statue of the Archangel Gabriel towering over thirty metres above him and recited the poem that had united his countr­ymen for over one hundred years. 

           He began, "Stand up Hungarians..."

           The next day the boy's mother reported to his school that her son had not returned home.  His friends concluded that he had been taken by the Tithos Rendörség and the story spread like wildfire through the school. At ten o'clock in the morning forty ­schoolgirls, dressed in their uniform white blouses and dark skirts, marched on the headquar­ters of the Secret Police.  They demanded that the young man be released from jail.

           As the young girls stood chanting in front of the grey building some­one threw a bomb from a first floor window.

           Eight girls died and twenty were wounded.

           By noon the people of the city of Miskolc had heard the news.  Three thousand of their steel workers marched with tools in hand through the streets of dull grey mortar-covered buildings to the local Secret Police Headquarters.  They were soon joined by many more townspeople.  There, they detained every em­ployee leaving the building.  Venting ten years of frustration and anger, the people used their bare hands or their tools of trade to kill their oppressors.  Only a few of the Secret Police es­caped.

           One man who had a police friend in another town had managed to obtain a gun and they used this to defeat the few remaining occu­pants and force their way to the first floor armament storage area.  In minutes it was empty.  The crowd was armed and so began the bloody revolution. [1]   

           It was nearly dusk on that same day in October.   Five men in crum­pled suits walked the long, single street of a small mountain village near Misk­olc.   They were not known to the villagers.  Some­one fired a single shot.  Mindless enough, but with terrible conse­quences.  The men were the remains of the Miskolc Secret Police.   They had escaped the crowds in Miskolc and were tense and afraid.  After their own narrow escape and with most of their comrades dead they should have been incapable of further violence, but something inside them snapped.  They lashed out as trapped animals would.   They retaliated swiftly and cruelly.  They went from house to house.   They shot the men.  They shot the children.  They savagely raped the women and then shot them.  After a shameful night of terror, they left.  The bodies of their victims lay as they had fallen, distort­ed in fright and agony.

           As the rays of the morning sun pierced the gloom of a shat­tered room, a ten year old girl still shivered in her hiding place.  She peered through the ventilator grill of the cupboard into which she had scrambled when those terrifying men had smashed their way into the house where she and her mother were visiting.  They were away from her home in Sušice for the first time in her life.  She saw her moth­er's dead body on the floor and heard again her screams.  She crawled out of the cupboard to lie beside her mother and wrapped her arms about her.  She closed her eyes tightly but was silent.  She would not cry.

           Late in the afternoon she was still there.  Three young men had arrived, and working quickly and quietly, they searched the village thor­oughly, taking identity papers and any other useful documents.  They found only two people alive.  A young boy, who died in their arms, and they found Márta.  A grim, determined little girl.   Gently, but firmly they took her from her mother and from that place.

           These men where not known to the local people.  Such was the control the Secret Police had established over ten years or more that these men had to be invisible.  There were informers in every village.   The Secret Police would be called if a stranger was seen.   During each brief sortie from their base in Austria, they hid in the hills and forests.  Very few locals were brave enough to help them.  They belonged to a group of humane men whose main motivation was to help ordi­nary, vulnerable people, in any way that they could.    They were well-supported financially, if unofficially, by the United States Govt.  They were paid to obtain information about conditions in Hungary, and about the strengths and weaknesses of the occupiers.   They were also paid for another service to the Americans.

           Using all their re­sources, they had estab­lished a pipeline from the USSR and its occu­pied territories to the outside world.  To Austria.  Over the next twenty years many hun­dreds of people from Hungary and the USSR were to pass this way.   The pipeline became known to the Americans and they used it to filter valuable people from the USSR.  People who were considered to have important information.   This work did not always find favour with the Austrian men, but they needed the money, so they co-operat­ed with the USA while continu­ing their own work.  

           Little Márta was carried unwittingly into this nomadic world of stress and secrecy.  She was adopted by Eva, the wife of one of these men, a teacher with no children of her own.  Eva soon became aware of Márta's agile and retentive mind.   A quiet, thoughtful girl, Márta was an ideal pupil.  Eva filled the little girl's head with facts and figures, with philoso­phy and religion. She taught her four or five languages in addition to Márta's own Czech and German.   Márta desperate­ly grasped every morsel of information as if her very life depended on it. By the age of sixteen, a little girl no more, she could not be con­tained at home.  She began to venture across the border with the men.

           It was during one of those cold, Hungarian nights we spent in each others arms that Márta told me of her first journey back into Hungary seven years before.  I can hear her words now, her eyes sparkling in the dim light with the remembered excite­ment.   I have translated as closely as I can remember from her broken English and her occasional Czech or German:

                                                                            
                  -

           "It took me one whole year of nagging and making promis­es to study harder and harder before Eva agreed to let me go with Hans and the others.    She finally said that if I learnt to read one particu­larly large book of Russian, then I could go.  I did it so quickly even Eva was surprised.

           It was eleven o'clock at night.  The three men had slept since two in the afternoon, but I had not.  I could not sleep.  My hands would not stop shaking.  It was late autumn, nearly winter.  I was dressed in peasant's clothes, but they were very warm.  My papers said I was the daughter of a steel worker from Miskolc.  The men would not tell me what our mission was.   I think they were a bit cross that Eva had allowed me to come.   We entered the forest near our village and walked for two hours in the dark­ness along winding path­ways, under dripping trees.  I was so lost.  I had no idea which way we had come.   One man was younger than the others.  His name was Ján and he saw that I was stumbling in the dark and so he helped me and stayed near me. 

           We stopped at the edge of a clearing and I soon discovered that we had reached the border with Hungary.  The land ahead as far as I could see had been cleared of all vegeta­tion.   Ján said there was a two metre high, double barbed wire fence and a wide strip with mines and alarms.  As well, he said, there was a ten metre wide strip of carefully raked ground on the Hungarian side.    It would show any footprints.   I could not see any of this and it looked so quiet and peaceful.  

           Instead of continuing, we walked carefully along the edge of the forest until we came to a steep hillside.  Little streams of tumbling water ran down the slopes and sparkled in the dim moon­light.  I remember it was very pretty and I wasn't at all afraid with Ján beside me. 

           We headed back into the forest around the rocky slopes and then we stopped and the men began carefully moving a large clump of long vines which covered the slopes here.   Soon we could see a black opening in the hillside.  With our small electric lanterns lit, we en­tered the tunnel which appeared to be an old mine shaft.  The timbers lining the sides and roof looked very old and rotten.  I was a little worried that the roof might fall on top of us.

           After some time we stopped again and the men removed some timbers from one side of the shaft to reveal another opening.  This shaft was smaller and we had to bend our heads and go carefully.  It was a newer tunnel with clean, straight timber lining it.  Ján proudly told me his father had helped make this tunnel.  We followed it as it sloped downwards for a long time before beginning to rise again.  Ján crashed into me and held me as the men in front stopped suddenly.  It was nice to feel his strong body next to mine.

           We waited while the men worked to open the end of the shaft until I could just see the light outside and smell the fresh breeze on my face.  It was very cold after the lovely warmth of the tunnel.  We scrambled out into another forest.  The opening to the tunnel was well hidden beneath several huge, fallen trees.  I shivered and Ján held me again.  I was enjoy­ing this night. 

           I was only sixteen years old and I was in Hungary with false papers but I wasn't really afraid.   I felt like a woman, not a child. The men around me seemed efficient and confident and I had great faith in them.  They had, after all, been using this tunnel for nearly five years.  It was built early in 1957 after the Russians had con­structed a new barrier along the entire border.  I remem­bered Eva joyfully telling me of the hundreds of people they had helped cross the border in the months following the revolution, before the great gaps in the border defences were closed. 

           We walked quickly into the forest and soon came to a highway.  We paused to listen and crossed quickly.   We came out of the forest and walked through orchards and chestnut groves, rows of bare trees lit from the east by the moonlight.    We continued on and down into a valley which led us to the edge of a small village.  We stopped and listened again.  Muffled sounds of cows and goats reached us, but fortunately few people could afford to keep a dog and so no canine alarm sounded.  

           Skir­ting quietly around the village, we came to a broken down house.   The fence surro­unding it was barely standing.  The men dropped into a hollow some distance from the house and I followed.   We lay still and I heard one man scratching in the ground.  Ján whispered to me that they were checking a wire which would show them if anyone had found the hiding place we were to use.  It must have been all right because the men quickly crossed the yard, keeping low, and slipped quietly into an old shed behind the house.  

           It was pitch dark inside and I heard the men rustling around on the floor until they found a door which led down a steep ladder to a space beneath.   We lit our lanterns and I saw that it was a large room with a very low roof.  It seemed to be carved out of rock but when I looked closer I could see it had been dug into the earth and lined with stones.   Ján showed me the wall he had helped to con­struct two years ago.  

           The room was well stocked with tins of food and in one corner there were bags of straw and blankets.  I was quite hungry now and thankfully these men were well prepared.  Cold beans and chocolate bars made a strange breakfast before we all lay together on the blankets.  Ján made sure he was next to me, and he covered me with his blanket.  I snuggled as close to him as I dared.   How could I sleep?  What an adventure!

           I awoke stiff and sore, feeling as if I had slept directly on the rocky floor.   When I moved Ján put his arm around me and held me close to him as I tried to fully wake up.  His watch said it was late afternoon.   We had slept all day.   Tea was the same as breakfast, beans and chocolate with a hot drink a bit like coffee.  Ján showed me the little magic container that became very hot when you put two pieces together. It quickly boiled the coffee drink.  

           When we finally emerged from our little hideaway it was dark again, a cold, overcast night, the blackness thick like a blanket wrapped around us.   Ján said we had 25km to walk to Sárvár, a town outside the frontier zone, where it would be safe to travel by train and bus to our final destination across Hungary to the Zemplén mountain district in the North.  

           I was so excited and so careful not to appear to be a nuisance to the men that I didn't feel at all tired when, after five hours of walk­ing, Ján pointed out the lights of Sárvár in the distance.   We had walked through forests, over plains of dry grasses, across roads, canals and two railway lines.   The men walked quickly and confident­ly.  They had done this trip so many times before.  We met up with the Gyöng­yös River a few kilo­metres from the town and followed its left bank all the way in.

           We were dressed like the factory workers and once in the town we joined other workers for breakfast at a large, run-down cafeteria.  It was so dirty and smoky, but the cooked sausages, thick bread and hot coffee were very wel­come after our all-night trek. 

           After breakfast we made our way to the train station in time to board a train for Budapest.  It was very busy and the train was crowded.  Ján and I sat together and the other two men went in another carriage.   Ján said our travel papers were very good but so far no-one had even wanted to check them. 

           It was lunchtime when we pulled into the Western Station in Budapest and we bought some bread and meat before finding the train to Miskolc.  Ján and I remained separated from the others.  He said they would meet us at Miskolc.  It was still quite busy with people and I was having very good practice with my Hungarian, listening to the locals and talking to Ján who spoke it like a native.

           It was nearly evening and although I had slept for most of the journey from Budapest I was feeling quite tired as the train rattled slowly into the outskirts of Miskolc.  The hazy smog from the steel factories made the dull grey buildings look even more depress­ing.    I was close to Mamma now and the memories suddenly flooded back.    It was only six years ago, but it seemed like a whole lifetime.   I felt panic and almost choked.  Ján heard me catch my breath and he saw the sorrow in my eyes.  He held me to him.   "I know about your Mamma, little Márta.  She is safe now.  You are safe now,"  he said in Hungarian.   The people in the carriage looked at us and one woman smiled at me.   I snuggled into my man friend.  He knew me and it would be all right.

           I had no time to look around Miskolc as we met the others on the station platform and had to run to catch the bus for the 45km journey to Szerencs, on the edge of the Northern frontier zone.

Ján explained that the others would leave us at Szerencs and we would have to walk into the frontier zone like lovers taking a stroll in the country-side.  It was a one hour walk to Tállya where we could safely catch a local bus into the mountains.

           We walked hand in hand in the cool dusk along the small road towards the mountains and my life felt complete.   I was going to learn about the pipeline that rescued so many people, and my teach­er would be this man who was already so close to me.

           The black car pulled up silently behind us and two men dressed in dark suits quickly got out.   "One moment please!  Your papers, let me see your papers."  

           My heart stopped beating then, but Ján squeezed my hand gently before letting it go to advance confi­dently toward the car.   He held out his papers with a smile.   The man with the thin, hard face examined the papers, examined Ján, and then approached me.  I tried to smile.   I think I just looked ill.  I handed him my papers.   He only glanced at them and said, smiling, "Young lovers, please do not get lost in the forest. I do not wish to spend my holiday tomorrow looking for you!"   I blushed then and lowered my face before taking my papers.   Ján waved to both men as he came to me, took my hand and led me away along the road.   "Little Márta, I thought you might faint and fall down in the road!   What a fright you had."  He stopped and pulled me gently to him and I lifted my face to his and he kissed me.  The road sank away beneath me as he held me.   My whole body floated, my head began to spin and I really did feel faint.  I could feel only his strong hands and his lips softly exploring mine.   I completely relaxed into his arms .  He held me.  He kissed me and then he brushed his lips on my eyelids and my cheeks before he whispered, "What a beautiful woman has joined the team.  I will be her friend and I will hold her close and I will teach her.  Come Márta we must hurry."

           I don't think my feet touched the ground for the remainder of that wonderful walk through the countryside of Hungary.  To our right rose the beautiful Zemplén mountains, covered in beech trees and Hungarian oaks.   To our left the undulating hills were covered by vineyards.    We talked and talked like old and intimate friends of things that children speak of and things that adults speak of as well.   Ján was twenty years old and had been in the teams for four years.   He enjoyed the work and the danger although he had not had any real trouble so far.

           All too soon we reached Tállya and met the men at the little store in the centre of the small village.  Conditions in Hungary were much better than before the revolution, but the buildings needed attention and spoke of poverty and hard­ship.  

           The store owner and his wife were known to the men and after warm greetings and big hugs for me, they fussed around helping us change our clothes.  We now dressed in the cordu­roy pants, thick jumpers and long coats that folk from the larger towns wore when on bush­walking or hunting expedi­tions in the area.  Rucksacks were retrieved from where they had been hidden the last time the men came through on their way home from the mountains.   One of the men pulled out a vodka bottle and we toasted our hosts and our mission.  Soon we heard the bus clatter to a halt outside.

           The noisy, smoky little bus took one hour to wind around the base of the mountains before heading up a steep valley to drop us at Regéc where it continued on to the mountain village of Ujhuta.  Only two old women travelled with us and the town itself was almost deserted.   The main tourist areas and facilities were on the far side of the mountains, so this village had the air of a forgotten place, a place of little importance.

           It was dark and we saw no-one as we struck out through the scattered forest trees which clung to the base of the mountain that towered above us.  While we were following a track around the mountain, I heard a low whistle and saw a light flash just ahead of us.  Ján held me back as the men went ahead.  We heard greetings ex­changed and we too continued and found we had been joined by another man.  He was introduced to me as Charlie.   I could not tell if he was European, but he spoke Hungarian well, with little accent.  

           I was really beginning to feel exhausted now, but I was deter­mined not to show it.  I thought strong thoughts and stayed near Ján as we walked on and on through the night.  Ján pointed out various landmarks so that I could begin to learn the way for future trips.  Future trips!  I had not thought beyond this great adventure.  Of course, if I could become a member of the team I would come this way often.   Ján told me that this team came here every two or three months to show people the way to Austria and freedom.   Mamma would be so proud if only she could see me now, if only she could know that I was to do such good work. I stumbled then and Ján held my arm.   I was so tired, but I would not show it.

           My legs felt like stone and I felt sick with the tiredness when at last Ján touched my arm and pointed up ahead.  In the morning light I saw the sharp outline of a large hut almost blending with the side of the mountain."

                                                                            
                        -

           Márta tossed and turned and cried out in her sleep one night in our room in the hut.  I held her and comforted her, but to little avail and so we rose at the break of dawn.

           "It is time to continue my story, Tony." she said rather hoarsely, "Today I must tell you more of another love, more about Ján."   She tumbled bread and meat and vodka into a ruck­sack and pulled me out the door.  She headed into the forest and I stumbled after her.   We went through the forest with the hillside rising steeply on our right.  Márta almost ran as we followed the curve of the hill.  Each time I complained at her pace she simply said, "We are almost there."  

           The sun had crept up and over the trees and it was nearly three hours later that she finally stopped.   She paused before carefully ap­proach­ing a large clearing covered with signs of human traffic.  We continued across the clearing and entered a wide pathway, bordered by large oaks and shrubs, winding down the hillside.  We stopped where a fallen tree made a natural resting spot and as we sat, the sun's early morning rays fell on us, filtering through the tree tops.   Márta knelt in front of me and took my hand with both of hers.   "Tony, you are my true love.  Be very sure you are my love."  She kissed my hands with cold lips, "But now I must tell you all about Ján, my love from before you came to me."

           It was my third visit to the hut on the mountain and our relation­ship felt very secure.  She had mentioned her love of Ján in the teams, but I had never pursued the matter further.  She had always spoken of Ján in the past tense.  We were certainly very close and very much in love, but Márta seemed worried about what she had to tell me.

           We sat on the edge of the pathway beneath the trees and Márta continued her story.

           "I went many times with Ján to the hut and we often took only one other with us, sometimes a younger man and sometimes older.  At the hut we met with teams from the USA, like your team now, men who knew who we were trying to liberate, and who would make sure that only the correct person would use our pipeline.  Many times we safely took these people through Hungary and into Austria. We were always lucky and very success­ful. 

           The man we knew only as Charlie often met us at certain places, but just seemed to be there to watch what we were doing.   Two years ago he came to me in Austria and asked me to lead a special team, a team that would do other work as well as the pipeline.   He gave me a great surprise when he said that someone had purchased a small house in a large town not too far from here, and that it now belonged to me.   I could use this house very safely as my base.  It would be known only to him and to me.   This would mean that I would not have to cross the border and would only do that small stage of each journey from my house to the hut and back again.  He had also arranged Hungarian citizenship for me.  I now had real identity papers for my times in Hungary.

           I think you know, Tony, that he is somehow connected with the British and it is for them that he asked me to do some work.  I cannot tell you, but my knowledge of languages was very useful.   It was good work and I agreed straight away. 

           He asked me to choose a team and so I chose three young men who had experience with the teams.  One of these men was, of course, Ján.  The others were his friends and knew the work very well. Charlie arranged some special training for us in Vienna and we did this for three months.

           Our work was to do with information only.  We were not to interfere with the occupiers of Hungary, although we despised them so much.  This work went very well, and with that and the pipeline, we were very busy until this day one year ago.  Yes, my Tony, this day is an anniversary.

           Ján came to me in very great distress.  Three of his relatives in a village not far from here had been murdered.  He was sure that the local area supervisor and one of his men were respon­sible.  They were feared by the locals for their brutality and many hated them.  He had a very foolish plan to kill these men and make them disappear.   He was so angry and I loved him so much that I finally agreed. 

           It was so easy.  Ján knew a woman called Elza who was pretend­ing to be friendly with this supervisor and so Elza and I had no trouble luring the men out one night.  We met for drinks and then convinced them to walk with us along the pathway beneath the trees.  It was a place for lovers and so after some drinks they were happy to take us there.  Ján and his friends were waiting for us at a particular­ly deep part of the forest where the pathway crossed through.

           Someone made a mistake when we made our plans.   I am sure Elza and I had to keep to the left of the men, but when the ambush happened we were in the way.  There was confusion and both the supervisor and his man were shot but it was a mess and one of them had time to draw a gun and shoot Ján.   He was already dead when I came to him.  I could not even say goodbye.

           We buried the other two quickly and then took Ján's body far into the forest and buried him deeply and carefully.   We are near him now."

           Márta stopped talking then, her breath came in short gasps and her face lost all its colour.  I lifted her onto my lap and held her very close.  "I'm here Márti, it's all over and we are here together."   I whispered.   "You can cry away this sorrow now."   But she couldn't cry in my arms, not yet. 

           I cried for her, and I held her all day as we talked quietly and gently as intimate friends do.   As the sun settled into the forest  I kissed her long and tenderly.  Still she could not cry.  It was to be another twenty years before the sorrow deep inside her would finally be released in a flood of tears. 

 Márta was in a wicked mood one evening.  A blazing fire, a little too much warm vodka and she revealed that she had told all our secrets in a letter to her dear friend Sarah.   When I finally convinced Sarah to let me have the letter, years later, it turned out to be just a short biography seen through Márta's eyes.   However, it will suffice to tell my story.

Darling Sarah,

           I know it is time I wrote a letter to you and yes, I did say I would tell you about the man who has come into my life, but he has kept me very busy for the past two years since we met!  I will tell you about him now.  He is wonderful and I love him.  Is that all you wanted to know?  Perhaps not.  All right then.  He is twenty-four years old and has a good body and is strong and not afraid of things, but he has a very sensitive mind.  He watches people and listens and sees many things others do not.  He is so loving to me, and soft when I do not need him to be strong.  He cries sometimes. Not really crying, but some tears.  It is nice and I wish I could do it. He writes pretty poetry for me sometimes.  He came to me first two years ago.  He came with the team from Australia and it was his first time in our country.  I took my team to the hut one cold, still night expecting more of those American men and that Australian man they were using.  I told you what he was like I think.  Well, I entered the hut after the others and I saw straight away a man with blond hair and blue eyes standing at the fire with a mug of coffee in his hands.   He looked at me and I looked at him and I think we were in love at that moment.  His eyes were so strongly looking into me.  We stood and talked for a long, long time and then some other things happened:  I will not tell you!

           But I will tell you about him.  He had no brothers or sisters and when he was older he went away from home to a boys' school.  He was very good at sport I think and so he had a good time at this school. I think he was very interested in girls and sport and his band of musi­cians, so he did not do very well at being a scholar.  He is very funny when he tries to learn my languag­es.  When he left school he went to a big city and fell in love with a girl.  They were very good for each other for nearly one year until she died in an accident.   He will not talk about this time and I think he is very hurt from it.  He under­stands very well about Ján and so this is the reason.   Soon after this he married another girl he had already known and I think this was a big mistake.  From what he tells me I think she does not know him at all and they are not very good for each other.  This is sad because I think he cares about people a lot. 

           Just when they had married he was required to join the Army and went away to a camp.  Here he was to be an officer, but very soon he was chosen by the people who organise the teams.   They found that he had some skills they need, the ones we use.  I cannot tell you.  He was pleased with this because he likes an adventure and danger I think.  So after some training for more than a year he came to us.  He has learnt well and does the work here easily.   He is very calm when we work and when there might be danger.  I have not seen him get nervous.  He is very playful after the work is done and this is such fun.

           In Australia he has just started his own job building houses and other things to do with this.  He employs people and he says the business is very good at the moment.   He is very clever at thinking of ways to do things that he wants and he knows how to treat people well so I think he will be a big success.  He plays music in clubs and beer places some­times and I think this is what he would really like to do.

           What more can I tell you?  He is so very good for me and he always makes me so happy and safe.   I am very afraid of what will happen to us.  I don't think he can come to stay and I don't think I will be able to go to his country.   I cannot think about this for now.

           Now I have told you about my man you must write again and tell me your news.  Everything is good for us here now, we are very busy.

            Love and kisses,

                           Márta.

           I took a photo from the bookshelf.  It was of a pretty, laughing girl.  She was just nineteen.   It was taken a week before she died.   Her name was Suzyanne and we had been desperately in love.  

           It was February of 1966, mid-summer, and we were scuba diving at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, near Melbourne, from a friend's yacht.   It was late afternoon, warm and still.  The sea lay smooth all around us.  Our four companions were diving for crayfish while we made love on the deck, the power of the sun tempered by the slight haze overhead.

           When they returned we still wanted to be alone so we decided to dive just once more, by ourselves.   But the tide had turned and a huge flood of water was about to rush out of the bay through the narrow rip.    We should have felt the boat beginning to strain on the anchor chain.   We were too happy and too much in love to notice anything that day. 

           Earlier we had found a large rocky shelf about ten metres down and we swam to this looking for crayfish.   As we came close the surging tide threw Suzyanne against the ugly rock face, wedging her firmly. Her arms reached out for me as a stream of bubbles gushed from her damaged equipment.   I held myself off the rocks with my feet as I tried to see what was wrong.   She had smashed something against the rock and as I tried to look closer she pulled her mouth­piece out to indicate that she was getting no air.   I held onto her then and shared my air with her while I tried in vain to pry her loose from the rocks.

           The last thing I saw before blacking out were those large frightened eyes, magnified in her diving mask.

           Our companions came looking for us too late to save Suzyanne but I survived somehow and after a week in hospital my physical recovery was complete.

           In the hospital her father held me in his arms.  His wife had died two years earlier and Suzyanne was his only child.    He moved to Western Australia soon after the funeral and I haven't seen him since.

           Somewhat unfairly, I married an old girlfriend a year later, still in mourning for Suzyanne, so that when the army offered me an exciting diversion I was more than ready.

           My training, consisting largely of the basics needed to survive in another country without papers or a passport, was conclud­ed in 1968.   It had been part-time, and more interesting than useful, but I had none-the-less enjoyed the atmosphere of comradeship, similar to that in the army.

           That shadowy intelligence agency within an agency now decided to try out my skills in the field.   As a result I began the long trek into Central Europe at dawn on a hot February morning in 1969, the third anniversary of Suzy­anne's death.