In less than an hour they were in sight of the block-house. A place had been chosen five hundred yards from it, well screened by foliage, where the observers could await events in comfort and safety. The partisans had moved out in the darkness and should have been in position surrounding their objective in the nearest cover.
“I’m going down to look for them,” said Sneiffel.
“I shall stay here,” said Ian. He was still feeling debauched by shock.
General Speit studied the scene through very large binoculars. “Block-house” had been a slightly deceptive term. What he saw was a very solid little fort built more than a century earlier, part of the defensive line of Christendom against the Turk. “I appreciate now why they want air support,” said General Speit. “Can’t see anyone moving. Anyway we’ve achieved surprise.”
“As a matter of fact,” said de Souza aside to Guy, “things have not gone quite right. One of the brigades lost its way in the approach-march. They may turn up in time. Don’t let on to our allies.”
“You’d think there would be more sign of life from a German post,” said General Speit. “Everyone seems asleep.”
“These are domobrans,” said the Commissar’s interpreter. “They are lazy people.”
“How’s that again?”
“Fascist collaborators.”
“Oh, I got the idea in Bari we were going to fight Germans. I suppose it’s all the same thing.”
The sun rose high but it was cool in the shade of the observation post. The air support was timed to begin at ten o’clock. That was to be the signal for the infantry to come into the open.
At half past nine rifle-fire broke out below them. The partisan general looked vexed.
“What are they up to?” asked General Speit.
A partisan runner was sent down to inquire. Before he returned the firing ceased. When he reported, the interpreter said to General Speit: “It is nothing, it was a mistake.”
“It’s lost us surprise.”
De Souza, who had heard and understood the runner’s report, said to Guy: “That was the second brigade turning up. The first thought they were enemy and started pooping off. No one’s been hit but, as our ally remarks, we have ‘lost surprise.’ ”
There was no longer peace in the valley. For the next quarter of an hour occasional shots came, at random it seemed, some from the parapet of the block-house, some from the surrounding cover; then sharp at ten, just as on General Speit’s elaborate watch the minute hand touched its zenith, there came screaming out of the blue sky the two aeroplanes. They swooped down one behind the other. The first fired simultaneously two rockets which just missed their target and exploded in the woods beyond, where part of the attacking force was now grouped. The second shot straighter. Both his rockets landed square on the masonry, raising a cloud of flying rubble. Then the machines climbed and circled. Guy, remembering the dive-bombers in Crete relentlessly tracking and pounding the troops on the ground, waited for their return. Instead they dwindled from sight and hearing.
The airman who had been sent to observe them, stood near. “Lovely job,” he said, “right on time, right on target.”
“Is that all?” asked Guy.
“That’s all. Now the soldiers can do some work.”
Silence had fallen in the valley. Everyone, friend and enemy alike, expected the return of the aeroplanes. The dust cleared revealing to those on the hillside equipped with binoculars two distinct patches of dilapidation in the massive walls of the blockhouse. Some of the partisans began discharging their weapons. None came into view. The Air Force observer began to explain to General Speit the complexity of the task which he had seen successfully executed. The Commissar and the partisan general spoke earnestly and crossly in their own language. A runner from below came to report to them. “It appears,” the interpreter explained to General Speit, “that the attack must be postponed. A German armored column has been warned and is on its way here.”
“What do your men do about that?”
“Before a German armored column they disperse. That is the secret of our great and many victories.”
“Well, uncle,” said de Souza to Guy, “we had better begin thinking of luncheon for our visitors. They’ve seen all the sport we have to offer here.”
But he was wrong. Just as the observers were turning towards their cars, Ian said: “Look.”
Two figures had emerged from the scrub near the block-house walls and were advancing across the open ground. Guy remembered the precept of his musketry instructor: “At 200 yards all parts of the body are distinctly seen. At 300 the outline of the face is blurred. At 400 no face. At 600 the head is a dot and the body tapers.” He raised his binoculars and recognized the incongruous pair, the first was Ritchie-Hook. He was signaling fiercely, summoning to the advance the men behind him, who were already slinking away; he went forward at a slow and clumsy trot towards the place where the rocket-bombs had disturbed the stones. He did not look back to see if he was being followed. He did not know that he was followed, by one man, Sneiffel, who like a terrier, like the pet dwarf privileged to tumble about the heels of a prince of the Renaissance, was gamboling round him with his camera, crouching and skipping, so small and agile as to elude the snipers on the walls. A first bullet hit Ritchie-Hook when he was some twenty yards from the walls. He spun completely round, then fell forwards on his knee, rose again and limped slowly on. He was touching the walls, feeling for a hand-hold when a volley from above caught him and flung him down dead. Sneiffel paused long enough to record his last posture, then bolted, and the defenders were so much surprised by the whole incident that they withheld their fire until he had plunged into the ranks of the retreating partisans.
The German patrol—not, as the partisan scouts had reported an armored column, but two scout cars summoned by telephone when the first shots were fired—arrived at the block-house to find the scars of the rockets and the body of Ritchie-Hook. They did not move from the road. A section of domobrans investigated the wood where the first aeroplane had misplaced its missiles. They found some smoldering timber and the bodies of four partisans. A puzzled German captain composed his report of the incident which circulated through appropriate files of the Intelligence Service attracting incredulous minutes as long as the Balkan branch continued to function. The single-handed attack on a fortified position by a British major-general, attended in one account by a small boy, in another by a midget, had no precedent in Clausewitz. There must be some deep underlying motive, German Intelligence agreed, which was obscure to them. Perhaps the body was not really Ritchie-Hook’s—they had his full biography—but that of a sacrificial victim. Ritchie-Hook was being preserved for some secret enterprise. Warning orders were issued throughout the whole “Fortress of Europe” to be vigilant for one-eyed men.
*
Lieutenant Padfield had not spent an agreeable morning in Begoy. His only company had been Gilpin and he had been troubled by a deputation of Jews who, hearing that an American was among them, had come to inquire about the arrangement U.N.R.R.A. was making for their relief. The lieutenant was no linguist. Bakic was surly. The conversation had been a strain on his spirits already subdued by the aeroplane crash. It was with great pleasure that, earlier than expected, the observers came driving into the town.
The death of Ritchie-Hook had changed the events of the day from fiasco to tragic drama. There was ample material for recriminations but in the face of this death even the Commissar was constrained to silence.
Sneiffel was jubilant. He had secured a scoop which would fill half a dozen pages of an illustrated weekly, the full photographic record of a unique event.
Ian was soberly confident. “You didn’t miss much, Loot,” he said, “but the object of the exercise has been attained. General Speit is satisfied that the partisans mean business and are skilled in guerrilla tactics. He was rather skeptical at one moment but Ritchie-Hook changed all that. A decision of the heart rather than of the head perhaps.
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“It’s an odd thing. In all this war I’ve only twice had any part in an operation. Both have afforded classic stories of heroism. You wouldn’t have thought, would you, that Trimmer and Ritchie-Hook had a great deal in common?”
Guy took it on himself to inform Halberdier Dawkins of his master’s death.
The much blistered man displayed no extremity of bereavement. “So that’s how it was,” he said and added with awe at the benevolent operation of Providence: “Hadn’t been for going sick, like enough I’d be with him. He’s led me into some sticky places I can tell you, sir, these last three years. He was fair asking to cop one. As you’ll remember, sir, he always spoke very straight and more than once he’s said to me right out: ‘Dawkins, I wish those bastards would shoot better. I don’t want to go home.’ Of course I’d go anywhere with the general. Had to really, and he was a fine man, no getting away from that. So it’s turned out the best for both parties the way things are. It’s a shame we couldn’t bury him proper, but you can trust the Jerries to do what’s right, he always said. He wasn’t a strictly religious man. Just so as he has his grave marked, he wouldn’t want more.”
Later the Air Force made a daylight sortie with fighter cover to collect General Speit and the remnants of his party. When Guy and de Souza returned from the airfield to their quarters they found the partisan girls already removing the bourgeois furniture.
“The captains and the kings depart,” said de Souza. “What do we do now, uncle, to keep ourselves amused?”
There was not work for two liaison officers. There was barely enough for one. As the result of General Speit’s recommendations supplies came almost nightly in great profusion. The squadron leader arranged for them, the partisans collected them, Guy and de Souza were spectators. Throughout the last weeks of August and the first weeks of September the Commissar and the General were uncomplaining, even comradely. De Souza drove Guy in the jeep round the “liberated” area visiting partisan camps.
“It seems to me,” said Guy, “that they’ve got all they can use at the moment. If they’re going to mount a summer offensive they’d better get on with it.”
“There’s not going to be a summer offensive here in Croatia,” said de Souza. “You might have noticed that we’re moving troops out, as soon as they’re equipped. They’re going into Montenegro and Bosnia. They’ll keep on the heels of the Germans and move into Serbia before the Cetnics can take over. That’s the important thing now. Begoy has served its purpose. They’ll just leave enough men to deal with the local fascists. I have the feeling I shan’t be staying long myself. Can you face the winter alone, uncle? Once the snow comes the landing strip will be out of service, you know.”
“I’d like to do something about the Jews.”
“Oh, yes. Your Jews. I’ll make a signal.”
He got in reply: Plans well advanced evacuation all Jews your area before snow.
“I hope that’s cheered you up, uncle.”
That was in the middle of the third week in September. In the middle of the fourth week de Souza came into their common-room with his file of signals and said: “I shall be leaving you tonight, uncle. I’ve been recalled to Bari. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you there.”
“Remind them about the Jews.”
“You know, uncle, I’m beginning to doubt if you’re fit to be left. You’ve an idée fixe. I hope you aren’t going to become a psychiatrist’s case like your predecessor here.”
It was not until dinner that de Souza said: “I daresay you ought to know what’s happening. Tito has left Vis and gone to join the Russians. He might have done it more politely. He never said a word to anyone. Just took off while everyone was asleep. Some of our chaps are rather annoyed about it, I gather. I bet Winston is. I told you he’d make rings round the old boy. Winston imagined he’d worked the same big magic with Tito he did with the British Labour leaders in 1940. There were to be British landings in Dalmatia and a nice coalition government set up in Belgrade. That’s what Winston thought. From now on any help Tito needs is coming from Russia and Bulgaria.”
“Bulgaria? The Jugoslavs hate their guts.”
“Not any more, uncle. You don’t follow modern politics any more than poor Winston does. The Bulgarians have, as our Prime Minister might have put it, ‘found their souls.’
“I don’t think you’ll have a very busy winter. There won’t be so much Anglo-American interest as there’s been in the last few months. In fact they might close this Mission down before Christmas.”
“Any suggestion of how we’re supposed to get out?”
“I’ll leave you the jeep, uncle. You might get through to Split.”
It seemed to Guy then that he had never really liked Frank de Souza.
The officer in Bari who distributed educational matter had sent a huge bundle of illustrated American magazines, mostly of distant date. In the long hours of early October Guy read them, slowly, straight through, like a Protestant nanny with her Bible.
Days passed without his receiving any summons to general headquarters. Bakic did not like walking. Guy got some pleasure from tramping the autumnal countryside with the spy limping behind him. The church was locked up; the priest had left. Three members of the Praesidium were installed in the presbytery.
“What’s become of him?” Guy asked Bakic.
“He gone some other place. Little village more quiet than here. He was old. Too big a house for one old man.”
On Guy’s forty-first birthday he received a present; a signal reading: Receive special flight four Dakotas tomorrow night twenty-ninth dispatch all Jews.
He went joyfully to the Commissar, who, as before, had received confirmation from his own source of authority, and coldly gave his assent to the proposal.
It seemed to Guy, in the fanciful mood that his lonely state engendered, that he was playing an ancient, historic role as he went with Bakic to inform the Jews of their approaching exodus. He was Moses leading a people out of captivity.
He was not well versed in Old Testament history. The bulrushes, the burning bush, the plagues of Egypt belonged in his mind to very early memories, barely distinguishable from Grimm and Hans Andersen, but the image of Moses stood plain before his eyes, preposterously striking water from rock near the Grand Hotel in Rome, majestically laying down the law in St. Peter-in-Chains. That day Guy’s cuckold’s horns shone like the patriarch’s, when he came down from the awful cloud of Sinai.
But there was no divine intervention to help the Jews of Begoy, no opening of the sea, no inundation of chariots. Guy was informed that no further assistance was required from him. A partisan security company was detailed to muster the refugees and examine their scant baggage. At dusk they were marched out of their ghetto along the road to the airfield. Guy saw them pass from the corner of the lane. It was the season of mists and Guy felt the chill of anticipated failure. Silent and shadowy the procession trailed past him. One or two had somehow borrowed peasants’ hand carts. The oldest and feeblest rode in them. Most were on foot bowed under their shabby little bundles.
At ten o’clock when Guy and the squadron leader went out the ground-mist was so thick that they could hardly find the familiar way. The Jews were huddled on the embankment, mostly sleeping.
Guy said to the squadron leader: “Is this going to lift?”
“It’s been getting thicker for the last two hours.”
“Will they be able to land?”
“Not a chance. I’m just sending the cancellation order now.”
Guy could not bear to wait. He walked back alone but could not rest; hours later, he went out and waited in the mist at the junction of lane and road until the weary people hobbled past into the town.
Twice in the next three weeks the grim scene was repeated. On the second occasion the fires were lit, the aeroplanes were overhead and could be heard circling, recircling, and at length heading west again. That evening Guy prayed: “Please God make it all right. You’ve done thi
ngs like that before. Just send a wind. Please God send a wind.” But the sound of the engines dwindled and died away, and the hopeless Jews stirred themselves and set off again on the way they had come.
That week there was the first heavy fall of snow. There would be no more landing until the spring.
Guy despaired, but powerful forces were at work in Bari. He soon received a signal. Expect special drop shortly relief supplies for Jews stop Explain partisan HQ these supplies only repeat only for distribution Jews.
He called on the General with this communication.
“What supplies?”
“I presume food and clothing and medicine.”
“For three months I have been asking for these things for my men. The Third Corps have no boots. In the hospital they are operating without anesthetics. Last week we had to withdraw from two forward positions because there were no rations.”
“I know. I have signaled about it repeatedly.”
“Why is there food and clothes for the Jews and not for my men?”
“I cannot explain. All I have come to ask is whether you can guarantee distribution.”
“I will see.”
Guy signaled: Respectfully submit most injudicious discriminate in favor of Jews stop Will endeavor secure proportionate share for them of general relief supplies, and received in answer: Three aircraft will drop Jewish supplies point C1,130 hrs 21st stop. These supplies from private source not military stop Distribute according previous signal.
On the afternoon of the 21st the squadron leader came to see Guy.
“What’s the idea?” he said. “I’ve just been having the hell of a shemozzle with the Air Liaison comrade about tonight’s drop. He wants the stuff put in bond or something till he gets orders from higher up. He’s a reasonable sort of chap usually. I’ve never seen him on such a high horse. Wanted everything checked in the presence of the Minister of the Interior and put under joint guard. Never heard of such a lot of rot. I suppose someone at Bari has been playing politics as usual.”