The White Rose

The Road to Vienna

Some people who are always dreaming of travel and adventure in order to give themselves airs and an aura of heroism in other people's eyes. Then, when they find themselves in the middle of an adventure and in peril, they begin to think, 'What a fool I was. Why on earth did I put myself in this position?' These were precisely the circumstances in which young Guccio Baglioni found himself. There was nothing he had desired more than to see the sea. But now that he was upon it, he would have given anything in the world to be somewhere else.

It was the period of the equinoctial gales, and very few ships had raised their anchors that day. Having played a somewhat hectoring role on the quay at Dover, his sword at his side and his cape flung over his shoulder, Guccio had at length found a ship's captain who agreed to give him a passage. They had left in the evening, and the storm had risen almost as soon as they had left harbor. Having found a corner below decks, next to the mainmast – 'This is where you will feel the least movement', the captain had said – and where a wooden shelf served as a bunk, Guccio was spending the most disagreeable night of his life.

The waves beat against the ship like battering-rams, and Guccio felt that the world around him was being turned topsy-turvy. He rolled off the shelf on to the floor and

for a long time struggled in total darkness, colliding now against the ship's side, now against coils of rope hardened by seawater or, again, against ill-stowed packing-cases which were noisily sliding from side to side. He kept on trying to clutch invisible objects that escaped his grasp. The hull seemed to be on the point of disintegrating. Between two gusts of the storm, Guccio heard the sails flapping and great masses of water breaking over the deck above him. He wondered whether the whole ship had not been swept clear, and whether he was not the only survivor in an empty ship that was thrown upwards to the sky by the waves and then dropped once more into the depths with a descent so rapid that it seemed to have no end to it.

'I shall most certainly die,' Guccio said to himself. 'How stupid to die in this way at my age, engulfed in the sea. I shall never see my uncle again, or the sun. If only I had waited another day or two at Dover! How stupid I am! But if I come out of this per la Madonna, I shall stay in Vienna; I shall become a water-carrier or anything else, but never again shall I set foot in a ship.'

In the end he grasped the foot of the mainmast in his arms and, falling upon his knees in the darkness, clutching, trembling, seasick, his clothes soaked, he waited for death and promised prayers to Santa Maria delle Nevi, to Santa Maria della Scala, to Santa Maria del Servi, to Santa Maria del Carmine – indeed to all the churches of Sienna whose names he could remember.

At dawn the storm suddenly lessened. Guccio, exhausted, looked about him: packing-cases, sails, tarpaulins, anchors and ropes were heaped in terrifying disorder and, in the bilges, beneath the open joints of the planking, water was sloshing.

The hatch which gave access to the bridge opened and a coarse voice cried, 'Hi, there, Signor! Did you manage to have a good sleep?'

'Sleep?' answered Guccio rather angrily. 'I might be dead for all you'd care.'

'Good God, my fine young gentleman, we have had something of a bad night! But you seemed in a hurry. For us, you know, it's nothing much out of the ordinary,' replied the captain. 'Anyway, we are now close to land.'

He was an elderly, fine-looking man with little dark eyes. He looked at Guccio rather mockingly.

Pointing to a pale green line that was taking shape in the mist, the old sailor added, 'That's Ostend over there.'

Guccio sighed, wrapping his cloak about him.

'How long before we get there?'

The other shrugged his shoulders and replied, 'Four or five hours, not more. The wind's in the east.'