Force 10 From Navarone
( Navarone - 2 )
Alistair Maclean
Fresh from destroying the fabled guns of Navarone, Keith Mallory, Dusty Miller, and the ever-lethal Andrea are sent on another improbable assignment: saving 7,000 Yugoslav Partisans who face annihilation by massed German tanks. Off to the Balkans they fly, accompanied by a trio of young commandos. As they attempt to contact the Partisan forces and stop the German onslaught, this elite squad encounter treachery and violence… as well as help from locals working both openly and clandestinely to stem the Axis tide. Can that aid help them overcome fantastic odds and accomplish their unlikely goal before time runs out?
Alistair MacLean
Force 10 From Navarone
CHAPTER ONE
Prelude: Thursday 0000-0600
Commander Vincent Ryan, RN, Captain (Destroyers) and commanding officer of His Majesty's latest S-class destroyer Sirdar, leaned his elbows comfortably on the coaming of his bridge, brought up his night-glasses and gazed out thoughtfully over the calm and silvered waters of the moonlit Aegean.
He looked first of all due north, straight out over the huge and smoothly sculpted and whitely phosphorescent bow-wave thrown up by the knife-edged forefoot of his racing destroyer: four miles away, no more, framed in its backdrop of indigo sky and diamantine stars, lay the brooding mass of a darkly cliff-girt island: the island of Kheros, for months the remote and beleaguered outpost of two thousand British troops who had expected to die that night, and who would now not die.
Ryan swung his glasses through 180 degrees and nodded approvingly. This was what he liked to see. The four destroyers to the south were in such perfect line astern that the hull of the leading vessel, a gleaming bone in its teeth, completely obscured the hulls of the three ships behind. Ryan turned his binoculars to the east.
It was odd, he thought inconsequentially, how unimpressive, even how disappointing, the aftermath of either natural or man-made disaster could be. Were it not for that dull red glow and wisping smoke that emanated from the upper part of the cliff and lent the scene a vaguely Dantean aura of primeval menace and foreboding, the precipitous far wall of the harbour looked as it might have done in the times of Homer.
That great ledge of rock that looked from that distance so smooth and regular and somehow inevitable could have been carved out by the wind and weather of a hundred million years: it could equally well have been cut away fifty centuries ago by the masons of Ancient Greece seeking marble for the building of their Ionian temples: what was almost inconceivable, what almost passed rational comprehension, was the fact that ten minutes ago that ledge had not been there at all, that there had been in its place tens of thousands of tons of rock, the most impregnable German fortress in the Aegean and, above all, the two great guns of Navarone, now all buried for ever three hundred feet under the sea. With a slow shake of his head Commander Ryan lowered his binoculars and turned to look at the men responsible for achieving more in five minutes than nature could have done in five million years.
Captain Mallory and Corporal Miller. That was all he knew of them, that and the fact that they had been sent on this mission by an old friend of his a naval captain by the name of Jensen who, he had learnt only twenty-four hours previously — and th.-n to his total astonishment — was the Head of Allied Intelligence in the Mediterranean. But that was all I knew of them and maybe he didn't even know then Maybe their names weren't Mallory and Miller. Maybe they weren't even a captain and a corporal. They didn't look like any captain or corporal he'd ever seen. Come to that, they didn't look like any soldiers he'd ever seen Clad in salt-water-and blood-stained German uniforms, filthy, unshaven, quiet and watchful and remote, they belonged to no category of men he'd ever encountered: all he could be certain of as he gazed at the blurred and bloodshot sunken eyes, the gaunt and trenched and stubbled-grey faces of two men no longer young, was that he had never before seen human beings so far gone in total exhaustion.
'Well, that seems to be about it,' Ryan said. The troops on Kheros waiting to be taken off, our flotilla going north to take them off and the guns of Navarone no longer in any position to do anything about our flotilla. Satisfied, Captain Mallory?'
That was the object of the exercise,' Mallory agreed.
Ryan lifted his glasses again. This time, almost út the range of night vision, he focused on a rubber dinghy closing in on the rocky shoreline to the west of Navarone harbour. The two figures seated in the dinghy were just discernible, no more. Ryan lowered his glasses and said thoughtfully:
'Your big friend — and the lady with him — doesn't believe in hanging about. You didn't — ah — introduce me to them, Captain Mallory.'
'I didn't get the chance to. Maria and Andrea. Andrea's a colonel in the Greek army: 19th Motorized Division.'
'Andrea was a colonel in the Greek army,' Miller said. 'I think he's just retired.'
'I rather think he has. They were in a hurry, Commander, because they're both patriotic Greeks, they're both islanders and there is much for both to do in Navarone. Besides, I understand they have some urgent and very personal matters to attend to.'
'I see.' Ryan didn't press the matter, instead he looked out again over the smoking remains of the shattered fortress. 'Well, that seems to be that. Finished for the evening, gentlemen?'
Mallory smiled faintly. 'I think so.'
Then I would suggest some sleep.'
'What a wonderful word that is.' Miller pushed himself wearily off the side of the bridge and stood there swaying as he drew an exhausted forearm over bloodshot, aching eyes. 'Wake me up in Alexandria.'
'Alexandria?' Ryan looked at him in amusement. 'We won't be there for thirty hours yet.'
'That's what I meant,' Miller said.
Miller didn't get his thirty hours. He had, in fact, been asleep for just over thirty minutes when he was wakened by the slow realization that something was hurting his eyes: after he had moaned and feebly protested for some time he managed to get one eye open and saw that that something was a bright overhead light let into the deckhead of the cabin that had been provided for Mallory and himself. Miller propped himself up on a groggy elbow, managed to get his second eye into commission and looked without enthusiasm at the other two occupants of the cabin: Mallory was seated by a table, apparently transcribing some kind of message, while Commander Ryan stood in the open doorway.
'This is outrageous,' Miller said bitterly. 'I haven't closed an eye all night.'
'You've been asleep for thirty-five minutes,' Ryan said. 'Sorry. But Cairo said this message for Captain Mallory was of the greatest urgency.'
'It is, is it?' Miller said suspiciously. He brightened. 'It's probably about promotions and medals and leave and so forth.' He looked hopefully at Mallory who hail just straightened after decoding the message. 'Is it?'
'Well, no. It starts off promisingly enough, mind you, warmest congratulations and what-have-you, but after that the tone of the message deteriorates a bit.'
Mallory reread the message: SIGNAL RECEIVED WARMEST CONGRATULATIONS MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. YOU BLOODY FOOLS WHY YOU LET ANDREA GET AWAY? ESSENTIAL CONTACT HIM IMMEDIATELY. WILL EVACUATE BEFORE DAWN UNDER DIVERSIONARY AIR ATTACK AIR STRIP ONE MILE SOUTH-EAST MANDRAKOS. SEND CE VIA SIRDAR. URGENT 3 REPEAT URGENT 3. BEST LUCK. JENSEN.
Miller took the message from Mallory's outstretched hand, moved the paper to and fro until he had brought his bleary eyes into focus, read the message in horrified silence, handed it back to Mallory and stretched out his full length on his bunk. He said, 'Oh, my God!' and relapsed into what appeared to be a state of shock.
That about sums it up,' Mallory agreed. He shook his head wearily and turned to Ryan. 'I'm
sorry, sir, but we must trouble you for three things. A rubber dinghy, portable radio transmitter and an immediate return to Navarone. Please arrange to have the radio lined up on pre-set frequency to be constantly monitored by your WT room. When you receive a CE signal, transmit it to Cairo.'
'CE?' Ryan asked.
'Uh-huh. Just that.'
'And that's all?'
'We could do with a bottle of brandy,' Miller said. 'Something — anything — to see us through the rigours of the long night that lies ahead.'
Ryan lifted an eyebrow. 'A bottle of five-star, no doubt, Corporal?'
'Would you,' Miller asked morosely, 'give a bottle of three-star to a man going to his death?'
As it happened, Miller's gloomy expectations of an early demise turned out to be baseless — for that night, at least. Even the expected fearful rigours of the long night ahead proved to be no more than minor physical inconveniences.
By the time the Sirdar had brought them back to Navarone and as close in to the rocky shores as was prudent, the sky had become darkly overcast, rain was falling and a swell was beginning to blow up from the south-west so that it was little wonder to either Mallory or Miller that by the time they had paddled their dinghy within striking distance of the shore, they were in a very damp and miserable condition indeed: and it was even less wonder that by the time they had reached the boulder-strewn beach itself, they were soaked to the skin, for a breaking wave flung their dinghy against a sloping shelf of rock, overturning their rubber craft and precipitating them both into the sea. But this was of little enough account in itself: their Schmeisser machine-pistols, their radio, their torches were securely wrapped in waterproof bags and all of those were safely salvaged. All in all, Mallory reflected, an almost perfect three-point landing compared to the last time they had come to Navarone by boat, when their Greek caique, caught in the teeth of a giant storm, had been battered to pieces against the jaggedly vertical ― and supposedly unclimbable ― South Cliff of Navarone.
Slipping, stumbling and with suitably sulphuric comments, they made their way over the wet shingle and massively rounded boulders until their way was barred by a steeply-angled slope that soared up into the near-darkness above. Mallory unwrapped a pencil torch and began to quarter the face of the slope with its narrow, concentrated beam. Miller touched him on the arm.
Taking a bit of a chance, aren't we? With that thing, I mean?'
'No chance,' Mallory said. 'There won't be a soldier left on guard on the coasts tonight. They'll all fighting the fires in the town. Besides, who is left for them to guard against? We are the birds and the birds, duty done, have flown. Only a madman would come back to the island again.' 'I know what we are,' Miller said with feeling.
'You don't have to tell me.'
Mallory smiled to himself in the darkness and I Continued his search. Within a minute he had located,what he had been hoping to find — an angled gully in the slope. He and Miller scrambled up the shale and rock-strewn bed of the gully as fast as the treacherous footing and their encumbrances would permit: within teen minutes they had reached the plateau above and used to take their breath. Miller reached inside the depths of his tunic, a discreet movement that was at once followed by a discreet gurgling. 'What are you doing?' Mallory enquired. 'I thought I heard my teeth chattering. What's all this "urgent 3 repeat urgent 3" business in the message, then?'
'I've never seen it before. But I know what it means. Some people, somewhere, are about to die.' 'I'll tell you two for a start. And what if Andrea won't come? He's not a member of our armed forces. He doesn't have to come. And he said he was getting married right away.'
Mallory said with certainty: 'He'll come.' 'What makes you so sure?'
'Because Andrea is the one completely responsible man I've ever met. He has two great responsibilities — one to others, one to himself. That's why he came back to Navarone — because he knew the people needed him. and that's why he'll leave Navarone when he sees this "urgent 3" signal, because he'll know that someone, in some other place, needs him even more.'
Miller retrieved the brandy bottle from Mallory and thrust it securely inside his tunic again. 'Well, I can tell you this. The future Mrs Andrea Stavros isn't going to be very happy about it.'
'Neither is Andrea Stavros and I'm not looking forward to telling him,' Mallory said candidly. He peered at his luminous watch and swung to his feet. 'Mandrakos in half an hour.'
In precisely thirty minutes, their Schmeissers removed from their waterproof bags and now shoulder-slung at hip level, Mallory and Miller moved swiftly but very quietly from shadow to shadow through the plantations of carob trees on the outskirts of the village of Mandrakos. Suddenly, from directly ahead, they heard the unmistakable clink of glasses and bottlenecks.
For the two men a potentially dangerous situation such as this was so routine as not even to warrant a glance at each other. They dropped silently to their hands and knees and crawled forward, Miller sniffing the air appreciatively as they advanced: the Greek resinous spirit ouzo has an extraordinary ability to permeate the atmosphere for a considerable distance around it Mallory and Miller reached the edge of a clump of bushes, sank prone and looked ahead.
From their richly-befrogged waistcoats, cummerbunds and fancy headgear, the two characters propped against the bole of a plane tree in the clearing ahead were obviously men of the island: from the rifles across their knees, their role appeared to be that of guards of some kind: from the almost vertical angle at which they had to tip the ouzo bottle to get at what little was left of its contents, it was equally apparent that they weren't taking their duties too seriously, nor had been for some considerable time past.
Mallory and Miller withdrew somewhat less stealthily than they had advanced, rose and glanced at each other. Suitable comment seemed lacking. Mallory shrugged and moved on, circling around to his right. Twice more, as they moved swiftly into the centre of Mandrakos, flitting from the shadow of carob grove to carob grove, from the shadow of plane tree to plane tree, from the shadow of house to house, they came upon but easily avoided other ostensible sentries, all busy interpreting their duties in a very liberal fashion. Miller pulled Mallory into a doorway.
'Our friends back there,' he said. 'What were they celebrating?'
'Wouldn't you? Celebrate, I mean. Navarone is useless to the Germans now. A week from now and they'll all be gone.'
'All right. So why are they keeping a watch?' Miller nodded to a small, whitewashed Greek Orthodox church standing in the centre of the village square. From inside came a far from subdued murmur of voices. Also from inside came a great deal of light escaping through very imperfectly blacked-out windows. 'Could it be anything to do with that?'
Mallory said: 'Well, there's one sure way to find out.'
They moved quietly on, taking advantage of all available cover and shadow until they came to a still deeper shadow caused by two flying buttresses supporting the wall of the ancient church. Between the buttresses was one of the few more successfully blacked-out windows with only a tiny chink of light showing along the bottom edge. Both men stooped and peered through the narrow aperture.
The church appeared even more ancient inside than on the outside. The high unpainted wooden benches, adze-cut oak from centuries long gone, had been blackened and smoothed by untold generations of churchgoers, the wood itself cracked and splintered by the ravages of time: the whitewashed walls looked as if they required buttresses within as well as without, crumbling to an extinction that could not now be long delayed: the roof appeared to be in imminent danger of falling in at any moment.
The now even louder hum of sound came from islanders of almost every age and sex, many in ceremonial dress, who occupied nearly every available seat in the church: the light came from literally hundreds of guttering candles, many of them ancient and twisted and ornamented and evidently called out for this special occasion, that lined the walls, the central aisle and the altar: by the altar itself, a priest, a bearded patriarch i
n Greek Orthodox robes, waited impassively.
Mallory and Miller looked interrogatively at each other and were on the point of standing upright when a very deep and very quiet voice spoke behind them.
'Hands behind the necks,' it said pleasantly. 'And straighten very slowly. I have a Schmeisser machine-pistol in my hands.'
Slowly and carefully, just as the voice asked, Mallory and Miller did as they were told. 'Turn round. Carefully, now.' So they turned round, carefully. Miller looked at the massive dark figure who indeed had, as he'd claimed, a machine-pistol in his hands, and said irritably: 'Do you mind? Point that damned thing somewhere else.' The dark figure gave a startled exclamation, lowered the gun to his side and bent forward, the dark, craggy, lined face expressing no more than a passing flicker of surprise. Andrea Stavros didn't go in very much for registering unnecessary emotional displays and the recovery of his habitual composure was instantaneous.
'The German uniforms,' he explained apologetically. 'They had me fooled.'
'You could have fooled me, too,' Miller said. He looked incredulously at Andrea's clothes, at the unbelievably baggy black trousers, the black jackboots, the intricately ornamented black waistcoat and violently purple cummerbund, shuddered and closed his eyes in pain. 'Been visiting the Mandrakes pawn shop?'
The ceremonial dress of my ancestors,' Andrea laid mildly. 'You two fall overboard?'
'Not intentionally,' Mallory said. 'We came back to see you.'
'You could have chosen a more convenient time.' He hesitated, glanced at a small lighted building across the street and took their arms. 'We can talk in here.'
He ushered them in and closed the door behind him. The room was obviously, from its benches and Spartan furnishings, some sort of communal meeting-place, I village hall: illumination came from three rather smoky oil lamps, the light from which was most hospitably reflected by the scores of bottles of spirit and wine and beer and glasses that took up almost every available inch of two long trestle tables. The haphazardly unaesthetic layout of the refreshments bespoke a very impromptu and hastily improvised preparation for a celebration: the serried rows of bottles heralded the intention of compensating for lack of quality by an excess of quantity.
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