‘The explosives.’ The torch was balanced in the hand again, the voice silky and gentle. ‘I asked you where they were.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ Mallory spat out a broken tooth, wiped some blood off his smashed lips. ‘Is this the way the Germans treat their prisoners?’ he asked contemptuously.
‘Shut up!’
Again the torch lashed out. Mallory was waiting for it, rode the blow as best he could: even so the torch caught him heavily high up on the cheek-bone, just below the temple, stunning him with its jarring impact. Seconds passed, then he pushed himself slowly off the snow, the whole side of his face afire with agony, his vision blurred and unfocused.
‘We fight a clean war!’ The officer was breathing heavily, in barely controlled fury. ‘We fight by the Geneva Conventions. But these are for soldiers, not for murdering spies –’
‘We are no spies!’ Mallory interrupted. He felt as if his head was coming apart.
‘Then where are your uniforms?’ the officer demanded. ‘Spies, I say – murdering spies who stab in the back and cut men’s throats!’ The voice was trembling with anger. Mallory was at a loss – nothing spurious about this indignation.
‘Cut men’s throats?’ He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘My own batman. A harmless messenger, a boy only – and he wasn’t even armed. We found him only an hour ago. Ach, I waste my time!’ He broke off as he turned to watch two men coming up the gully. Mallory stood motionless for a moment, cursing the ill luck that had led the dead man across the path of Panayis – it could have been no one else – then turned to see what had caught the officer’s attention. He focused his aching eyes with difficulty, looked at the bent figure struggling up the slope, urged on by the ungentle prodding of a bayoneted rifle. Mallory let go a long, silent breath of relief. The left side of Brown’s face was caked with blood from a gash above the temple, but he was otherwise unharmed.
‘Right! Sit down in the snow, all of you!’ He gestured to several of his men. ‘Bind their hands!’
‘You are going to shoot us now, perhaps?’ Mallory asked quietly. It was suddenly, desperately urgent that he should know: there was nothing they could do but die, but at least they could die on their feet, fighting; but if they weren’t to die just yet, almost any later opportunity for resistance would be less suicidal than this.
‘Not yet, unfortunately. My section commander in Margaritha, Hauptmann Skoda, wishes to see you first – maybe it would be better for you if I did shoot you now. Then the Herr Commandant in Navarone – Officer Commanding of the whole island.’ The German smiled thinly. ‘But only a postponement, Englishman. You will be kicking your heels before the sun sets. We have a short way with spies in Navarone.’
‘But, sir! Captain!’ Hands raised in appeal, Andrea took a step forward, brought up short as two rifle muzzles ground into his chest.
‘Not Captain – Lieutenant,’ the officer corrected him. ‘Oberleutnant Turzig, at your service. What is it you want, fat one?’ he asked contemptuously.
‘Spies! You said spies! I am no spy!’ The words rushed and tumbled over one another, as if he could not get them out fast enough. ‘Before God, I am no spy! I am not one of them.’ The eyes were wide and staring, the mouth working soundlessly between the gasped-out sentences. ‘I am only a Greek, a poor Greek. They forced me to come along as an interpreter. I swear it, Lieutenant Turzig, I swear it!’
‘You yellow bastard!’ Miller ground out viciously, then grunted in agony as a rifle butt drove into the small of his back, just above the kidney. He stumbled, fell forward on his hands and knees, realised even as he fell that Andrea was only playing a part, that Mallory had only to speak half a dozen words in Greek to expose Andrea’s lie. Miller twisted on his side in the snow, shook his fist weakly and hoped that the contorted pain on his face might be mistaken for fury. ‘You two-faced, double-crossing dago! You gawddamned swine, I’ll get you …’ There was a hollow, sickening thud and Miller collapsed in the snow: the heavy ski-boot had caught him just behind the ear.
Mallory said nothing. He did not even glance at Miller. Fists balled helplessly at his sides and mouth compressed, he glared steadily at Andrea through narrowed slits of eyes. He knew the lieutenant was watching him, felt he must back Andrea up all the way. What Andrea intended he could not even begin to guess – but he would back him to the end of the world.
‘So!’ Turzig murmured thoughtfully. ‘Thieves fall out, eh?’ Mallory thought he detected the faintest overtones of doubt, of hesitancy, in his voice, but the lieutenant was taking no chances. ‘No matter, fat one. You have cast your lot with these assassins. What is it the English say? “You have made your bed, you must lie on it.”’ He looked at Andrea’s vast bulk dispassionately. ‘We may need to strengthen a special gallows for you.’
‘No, no, no!’ Andrea’s voice rose sharply, fearfully, on the last word. ‘It is true what I tell you! I am not one of them, Lieutenant Turzig, before God I am not one of them!’ He wrung his hands in distress, his great moonface contorted in anguish. ‘Why must I die for no fault of my own? I didn’t want to come. I am no fighting man, Lieutenant Turzig!’
‘I can see that,’ Turzig said dryly. ‘A monstrous deal of skin to cover a quivering jelly-bag your size – and every inch of it precious to you.’ He looked at Mallory, and at Miller, still lying face down in the snow. ‘I cannot congratulate your friends on their choice of companion.’
‘I can tell you everything, Lieutenant, I can tell you everything!’ Andrea pressed forward excitedly, eager to consolidate his advantage, to reinforce the beginnings of doubt. ‘I am no friend of the Allies – I will prove it to you – and then perhaps –’
‘You damned Judas!’ Mallory made to fling himself forward, but two burly soldiers caught him and pinioned his arms from behind. He struggled briefly, then relaxed, looked balefully at Andrea. ‘If you dare to open your mouth, I promise you you’ll never live to –’
‘Be quiet!’ Turzig’s voice was very cold. ‘I have had enough of recriminations, of cheap melodrama. Another word and you join your friend in the snow there.’ He looked at him a moment in silence, then swung back to Andrea. ‘I promise nothing. I will hear what you have to say.’ He made no attempt to disguise the repugnance in his voice.
‘You must judge for yourself.’ A nice mixture of relief, earnestness and the dawn of hope, of returning confidence. Andrea paused a minute and gestured dramatically at Mallory, Miller and Brown. ‘These are no ordinary soldiers – they are Jellicoe’s men, of the Special Boat Service!’
‘Tell me something I couldn’t have guessed myself,’ Turzig growled. ‘The English Earl has been a thorn in our flesh these many months past. If that is all you have to tell me, fat one –’
‘Wait!’ Andrea held up his hand. ‘They are still no ordinary men but a specially picked force – an assault unit, they call themselves – flown last Sunday night from Alexandria to Castelrosso. They left that same night from Castelrosso in a motor-boat.’
‘A torpedo boat,’ Turzig nodded. ‘So much we know already. Go on.’
‘You know already! But how –?’
‘Never mind how. Hurry up!’
‘Of course, Lieutenant, of course.’ Not a twitch in his face betrayed Andrea’s relief. This had been the only dangerous point in his story. Nicolai, of course, had warned the Germans, but never thought it worth while mentioning the presence of a giant Greek in the party. No reason, of course, why he should have selected him for special mention – but if he had done, it would have been the end.
‘The torpedo boat landed them somewhere in the islands, north of Rhodes. I do not know where. There they stole a caique, sailed it up through Turkish waters, met a big German patrol boat – and sunk it.’ Andrea paused for effect. ‘I was less than half a mile away at the time in my fishing boat.’
Turzig leaned forward. ‘How did they manage to sink so big a boat?’ Strangely, h
e didn’t doubt that it had been sunk.
‘They pretended to be harmless fishermen like myself. I had just been stopped, investigated and cleared,’ Andrea said virtuously. ‘Anyway, your patrol boat came alongside this old caique. Close alongside. Suddenly there were guns firing on both sides, two boxes went flying through the air – into the engine-room of your boat, I think. Pouf!’ Andrea threw up his hands dramatically. ‘That was the end of that!’
‘We wondered …’ Turzig said softly. ‘Well, go on.’
‘You wondered what, Lieutenant?’ Turzig’s eyes narrowed and Andrea hurried on.
‘Their interpreter had been killed in the fight. They tricked me into speaking English – I spent many years in Cyprus – kidnapped me, let my sons sail the boat –’
‘Why should they want an interpreter?’ Turzig demanded suspiciously. ‘There are many British officers who speak Greek.’
‘I am coming to that,’ Andrea said impatiently. ‘How in God’s name do you expect me to finish my story if you keep interrupting all the time? Where was I? Ah, yes. They forced me to come along, and their engine broke down. I don’t know what happened – I was kept below. I think we were in a creek somewhere, repairing the engine, and then there was a wild bout of drinking – you will not believe this, Lieutenant Turzig, that men on so desperate a mission should get drunk – and then we sailed again.’
‘On the contrary, I do believe you.’ Turzig was nodding his head slowly, as if in secret understanding. ‘I believe you indeed.’
‘You do?’ Andrea contrived to look disappointed. ‘Well, we ran into a fearful storm, wrecked the boat on the south cliff of this island and climbed –’
‘Stop!’ Turzig had drawn back sharply, suspicion flaring in his eyes. ‘Almost I believed you! I believed you because we know more than you think, and so far you have told the truth. But not now. You are clever, fat one, but not so clever as you think. One thing you have forgotten – or maybe you do not know. We are of the Württembergische Gebirgsbataillon – we know mountains, my friend, better than any troops in the world. I myself am a Prussian, but I have climbed everything worth climbing in the Alps and Transylvania – and I tell you that the south cliff cannot be climbed. It is impossible!’
‘Impossible perhaps for you.’ Andrea shook his head sadly. ‘These cursed Allies will beat you yet. They are clever, Lieutenant Turzig, damnably clever!’
‘Explain yourself,’ Turzig ordered curtly.
‘Just this. They knew men thought the south cliff could not be climbed. So they determined to climb it. You would never dream that this could be done, that an expedition could land on Navarone that way. But the Allies took a gamble, found a man to lead the expedition. He could not speak Greek, but that did not matter, for what they wanted was a man who could climb – and so they picked the greatest rock-climber in the world today.’ Andrea paused for effect, flung out his arm dramatically. ‘And this is the man they picked, Lieutenant Turzig! You are a mountaineer yourself and you are bound to know him. His name is Mallory – Keith Mallory of New Zealand!’
There was a sharp exclamation, the click of a switch, and Turzig had taken a couple of steps forward, thrust the torch almost into Mallory’s eyes. For almost ten seconds he stared into the New Zealander’s averted, screwed-up face, then slowly lowered his arm, the harsh spotlight limning a dazzling white circle in the snow at his feet. Once, twice, half a dozen times Turzig nodded his head in slow understanding.
‘Of course!’ he murmured. ‘Mallory – Keith Mallory! Of course I know him. There’s not a man in my Abteilung but has heard of Keith Mallory.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have known him, I should have known him at once.’ He stood for some time with his head bent, aimlessly screwing the toe of his right boot into the soft snow, then looked up abruptly. ‘Before the war, even during it, I would have been proud to have known you, glad to have met you. But not here, not now. Not any more. I wish to God they had sent someone else.’ He hesitated, made to carry on, then changed his mind, turned wearily to Andrea. ‘My apologies, fat one. Indeed you speak the truth. Go on.’
‘Certainly!’ Andrea’s round moon face was one vast smirk of satisfaction. ‘We climbed the cliff as I said – although the boy in the cave there was badly hurt – and silenced the guard. Mallory killed him,’ Andrea added unblushingly. ‘It was a fair fight. We spent most of the night crossing the divide and found this cave before dawn. We were almost dead with hunger and cold. We have been here since.’
‘And nothing has happened since?’
‘On the contrary.’ Andrea seemed to be enjoying himself hugely, revelling in being the focus of attention. ‘Two people came up to see us. Who they were I do not know – they kept their faces hidden all the time – nor do I know where they came from.’
‘It is as well that you admitted that,’ Turzig said grimly. ‘I knew someone had been here. I recognised the stove – it belongs to Hauptmann Skoda!’
‘Indeed?’ Andrea raised his eyebrows in polite surprise. ‘I did not know. Well, they talked for some time and –’
‘Did you manage to overhear anything they were talking about?’ Turzig interrupted. The question came so naturally, so spontaneously, that Mallory held his breath. It was beautifully done. Andrea would walk into it – he couldn’t help it. But Andrea was a man inspired that night.
‘Overhear them!’ Andrea clamped his lips shut in sorely-tried forbearance, gazed heavenwards in exasperated appeal. ‘Lieutenant Turzig, how often must I tell you that I am the interpreter? They could only talk through me. Of course I know what they were talking about. They are going to blow up the big guns in the harbour.’
‘I didn’t think they had come here for their health!’ Turzig said acidly.
‘Ah, but you don’t know that they have plans of the fortress. You don’t know that Kheros is to be invaded on Saturday morning. You don’t know that they are in radio contact with Cairo all the time. You don’t know that destroyers of the British Navy are coming through the Maidos Straits on Friday night as soon as the big guns have been silenced. You don’t know –’
‘Enough!’ Turzig clapped his hands together, his face alight with excitement. ‘The Royal Navy, eh? Wonderful, wonderful! That is what we want to hear. But enough! Keep it for Hauptmann Skoda and the Kommandant in the fortress. We must be off. But first – one more thing. The explosives – where are they?’
‘Alas, Lieutenant Turzig, I do not know. They took them out and hid them – some talk about the cave being too hot.’ He waved a hand towards the western col, in the diametrically opposite direction to Leri’s hut. ‘That way, I think. But I cannot be sure, for they would not tell me.’ He looked bitterly at Mallory. ‘These Britishers are all the same. They trust nobody.’
‘Heaven only knows that I don’t blame them for that!’ Turzig said feelingly. He looked at Andrea in disgust. ‘More than ever I would like to see you dangling from the highest scaffold in Navarone. But Herr Kommandant in the town is a kindly man and rewards informers. You may yet live to betray some more comrades.’
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you! I knew you were fair and just. I promise you, Lieutenant Turzig –’
‘Shut up!’ Turzig said contemptuously. He switched into German. ‘Sergeant, have these men bound. And don’t forget the fat one! Later we can untie him, and he can carry the sick man back to the post. Leave a man on guard. The rest of you come with me – we must find those explosives.’
‘Could we not make one of them tell us, sir?’ the sergeant ventured.
‘The only man who would tell us, can’t. He’s already told us all he knows. As for the rest – well, I was mistaken about them, Sergeant.’ He turned to Mallory, inclined his head briefly, spoke in English. ‘An error of judgment, Herr Mallory. We are all very tired. I am almost sorry I struck you.’ He wheeled abruptly, climbed swiftly up the bank. Two minutes later only a solitary soldier was left on guard.
For the tenth time Mallory shifted his position uncomfortably,
strained at the cord that bound his hands together behind his back, for the tenth time recognised the futility of both these actions. No matter how he twisted and turned, the wet snow soaked icily through his clothes until he was chilled to the bone and shaking continually with the cold; and the man who had tied these knots had known his job all too well. Mallory wondered irritably if Turzig and his men meant to spend all night searching for the explosives: they had been gone for more than half an hour already.
He relaxed, lay back on his side in the cushioning snow of the gully bank, and looked thoughtfully at Andrea who was sitting upright just in front of him. He had watched Andrea, with bowed head and hunched and lifting shoulders, making one single, titanic effort to free himself seconds after the guard had gestured to them to sit down, had seen the cords bite and gouge until they had almost disappeared in his flesh, the fractional slump of his shoulders as he gave up. Since then the giant Greek had sat quite still and contented himself with scowling at the sentry in the injured fashion of one who has been grievously wronged. That solitary test of the strength of his bonds had been enough. Oberleutnant Turzig had keen eyes, and swollen, chafed and bleeding wrists would have accorded ill with the character Andrea had created for himself.
A masterly creation, Mallory mused, all the more remarkable for its spontaneity, its improvisation. Andrea had told so much of the truth, so much that was verifiable or could be verified, that belief in the rest of his story followed almost automatically. And at the same time he had told Turzig nothing of importance, nothing the Germans could not have found out for themselves – except the proposed evacuation of Kheros by the Navy. Wryly Mallory remembered his dismay, his shocked unbelief when he heard Andrea telling of it – but Andrea had been far ahead of him. There was a fair chance that the Germans might have guessed anyway – they would reason, perhaps, that an assault by the British on the guns of Navarone at the same time as the German assault on Kheros would be just that little bit too coincidental: again, escape for them all quite clearly depended upon how thoroughly Andrea managed to convince his captors that he was all he claimed, and the relative freedom of action that he could thereby gain – and there was no doubt at all that it was the news of the proposed evacuation that had tipped the scales with Turzig: and the fact that Andrea had given Saturday as the invasion date would only carry all the more weight, as that had been Jensen’s original date – obviously false information fed to his agents by German counterintelligence, who had known it impossible to conceal the invasion preparations themselves; and finally, if Andrea hadn’t told Turzig of the destroyers, he might have failed to carry conviction, they might all yet finish on the waiting gallows in the fortress, the guns would remain intact and destroy the naval ships anyway.