The Heights of Zervos

by Colin Forbes

  'Herr Dietrich is with the Abwehr,' Hahnemann had replied with a hint of respect in his voice. Prentice looked up curiously at the huge figure who stared back at him as he lit a fresh cigar with one elbow rested on the shoulder of the corporal next to him. A rum cove, this Dietrich, was Prentice's reaction as he turned to listen to Ford who was keeping his voice down.

  'How big did he say that demolition charge was? I couldn't catch all he said in this crush.'

  'Ten kilograms. Is that bad?'

  'It's not good, I can tell you that straight off. And if it's been dumped near the boilers and they go, too...'

  He broke off as Burckhardt issued a stream of orders to Eberhay who had appeared at the door to the bridge and then hurried away when the colonel had finished speaking. They were close to the moment of disembarkation, which required disciplined control, and the little major was facing something like near-panic as the troops filed up the staircases. It was then that Prentice saw the Alpenkorps equipment which confirmed his worst fears: he had a glimpse of men with skis of hickory wood passing beyond the bridge. The skis were carried on their backs which also supported rucksacks - which could only mean they expected to be operating in the deep snows on Mount Zervos at the far end of the peninsula. The Alpenkorps' main objective was the natural observation post of the monastery which overlooked the mainland road carrying Allied supplies northward.

  'Funny that bomb hasn't gone off already,' he remarked lightly to Ford. He would have liked to feel that he was praying for the charge to detonate, but the truth was that he was sick with apprehension. 'Perhaps the chap who fixed it didn't know what he was doing,' he suggested.

  'That's possible, sir. But their time fuses aren't all that reliable - a Jerry we had in the bag told me that. The damned things have a habit of conking out at the wrong moment.'

  'You mean they become harmless?' Prentice tried to keep the hope out of his voice.

  'Now I didn't say that, did I? Apparently they sometimes stop and then start up again. Vibrations can get them going again as easy as winking. The ship's engines are ideal for the purpose.'

  'That's right, cheer us all up.' Prentice did not feel particularly reassured. Ford was an ammunition examiner who spent too much of his life fiddling with things which might go bang in his face at any second - including enemy explosives and equipment on which he was also something of an expert. But here on this German-held vessel he was displaying distinct signs of nervousness as he pulled at the lobe of one ear and kept looking round the bridge as though he expected it to disappear without warning.

  'Fasten those straps at once!' Hahnemann had returned briefly to the bridge and had noticed that Ford's life-jacket was loose. Every man on the bridge wore his life-jacket and these cumbersome objects took up more space and further impeded movement. Prentice had the feeling that he would soon be lifted clear off the floor if anyone else crowded in on the bridge. He jerked his head round again to look through the rear window which gave a view along the deck towards the stern, a deck which was almost deserted since the order for uniformed troops to keep out of sight was still in force. Almost deserted, but not quite. Prentice's eyes narrowed as he watched sea mist drift past a lamp near the starboard rail: by its light he saw a short, heavily built man on the wrong side of the rail, a man who carried a rifle over his back. Something about the shape and the movement reminded him of the Greek civilian who had also come aboard at Istanbul. Grapos, the captain had called him. Mist blurred the view and when it cleared the poised figure was gone. He had dived over the side.

  'Seen a ghost, sir?' Ford inquired.

  'I've got a crick in my neck if you're referring to my expression of almost unendurable agony.' Prentice felt sure that at the last minute Dietrich had also glanced through that window, but by then the mist would have blotted out the lonely figure. He was greatly relieved when the German said nothing and continued quietly smoking the cigar which was now adding to the growing foetid atmosphere inside the packed bridge. So Grapos had made a dive for it and was heading for the shore fast. Some people are lucky, he thought, and then he remembered the mine-strewn waters the Greek was swimming through at that very moment and he suppressed a shudder. Despite the number of men compressed inside the confined space it was very silent on the bridge in the intervals between Burckhardt giving sharp orders as officers and NCOs appeared at the door, a silence of suppressed dread which hung over their still heads like a pall as the engines slowly beat out their mechanical rhythm and the Hydra continued to turn eastwards.

  The bows of the vessel were now moving through drifts of white mist which were fogging visibility, yet a further source of anxiety to Burckhardt, who had now left off his civilian raincoat and was dressed in full uniform with the Alpenkorps broad-brimmed cap set firmly on his head. Nopagos stood like a man of wax, his eyes trying to bore through the mist-curtain at the earliest possible moment. Schnell was crouched in a permanent stoop over the wheel, glancing frequently to starboard where the nearest mine bobbed gently less than fifty metres from the hull. At least, he hoped that was the nearest mine. From his all-round view at the rear, Prentice was looking from face to face, noting the gleam of sweat on tightly drawn skin, the nervous twitch of an eyelid, the hands which gripped rifles and machine-pistols so tensely that the knuckles were whitened. These men, all over the ship, were under the maximum possible pressure. They were going into action by dawn. They knew that the sea ahead was alive with mines, and that somewhere, perhaps under their feet, the time fuse was ticking down to zero. If someone had determined to bring well-night unbearable pressure on their morale they could scarcely have planned it better than this. He looked to his right again. Dietrich, outwardly the most composed man on the bridge, was still calmly smoking his cigar and looking down at Prentice as though assessing his character and qualities in an emergency.

  'Not more than half an hour at the most.' Ford's voice was little more than a whisper, a whisper motivated more by a dislike of breaking the doom-like silence than by a wish not to be overheard.

  'Less than that, I imagine. If we ever get there.' Prentice looked again at the landing-stage light which was visible and closer now the mist had temporarily cleared. And there seemed to be light in the east on the far side of the peninsula. Hoisting his wrist upwards, he looked at his watch. Exactly 5.45 AM. Schnell was turning the wheel to straighten course as Burckhardt transmitted an instruction he had received from Nopagos; Dietrich was studying the end of his cigar rather dubiously; a soldier was wiping moisture from his forehead; and Ford was looking round the bridge with quick darting glances when the explosion came.

  The silence on the bridge was ruptured by a shattering roar. The Hydra shuddered from bows to stern as though struck by a mammoth blow and then wobbled. A wave was carried away from the ferry and swept towards the shore as it gathered up more water in its headlong flight from the vessel. For a few brief seconds it had been as light as day to starboard where a brilliant flash temporarily blinded those who had been looking in that direction. From beyond the open door of the bridge came a babble of panic-stricken voices and the sound of nailed boots scattering across the decks. Stark gibbering panic had seized the ship and on the packed bridge the hysterical murmuring was only silenced by Burckhardt thundering for quiet. He pushed aside Nopagos who had been leaning out of the window to starboard and leaned out himself. The sea appeared to have gone mad as it heaved and bubbled frothily. For a second Burckhardt thought that they had been struck by a torpedo and that a submarine was surfacing. Then the water began to settle. Schnell still held the ship on course, heading for the landing-stage which was coming closer and closer in the darkness, and he spoke without looking at the colonel. 'The mine was very close when it detonated.'

  'It was a mine, just a mine, we have not been hit...' Hahnemann shouted out the news in German and then in English to stem the signs of panic.

  'Well, if that doesn't start it ticking, nothing will,' Ford remarked grimly.

  'It?' Prentice was st
ill a little dazed with relief as well as shock.

  'The demolition charge,' said Ford, whose mind was never far from explosives. 'If the time fuse mechanism had stopped only temporarily that thump was quite enough to get it moving again, believe you me.'

  'I was under the impression that we had hit a mine,' Prentice told him icily. 'That's enough to be going on with, I should have thought.'

  "Well, obviously we didn't - we're still steaming on course at the same speed. The mine just went off on its own accord rather too close for comfort.' He was having to lift his voice for Prentice to hear him above the shouts on deck as Burckhardt thrust his way roughly off the bridge and went out on deck himself.

  'You mean they can be defective, too?'

  'Frequently. They can go off without rhyme or reason. On the other hand something else may have bumped into it -although I can't imagine what.'

  Prentice began to feel slightly ill. He could imagine what else might have bumped into that mine in its frantic efforts to reach the shore. He had a picture in his mind of Grapos diving overboard with that protruding rifle attached to his back, of him swimming among the mines and so easily forgetting the barrel projecting beyond his body. There would be nothing left of the poor devil now. Prentice didn't like to think of what explosive which could take out a ship's bottom might do to a single human being as it detonated within a few feet of the swimming body.

  'I think that little bang has rattled them,' Ford remarked.

  'It rattled me,' Prentice replied with feeling. He looked back through the rear window where there was a state of confusion on the deck below. Alpenkorps men in full uniform who had been huddled close to the rail were being sent under cover by Volber who was waving his arms like a man shepherding sheep back to the fold. Within a minute the deck was clear and the babble of voices beyond the open door had ceased when Burckhardt came back to take up his post behind Nopagos. But the damage had been done. Another heavy blow had been dealt at the morale of troops who, on land would have taken the explosion in their stride, but cooped up on the unfamiliar sea the experience was having an entirely different effect. Prentice thought he could see in the faces in front of him a little extra strain, a trace more tension as the cold light from the east died in the false dawn and the landing-stage light at Katyra drew steadily closer.

  Schnell was showing great skill as he steered the Hydra on the last stage of her perilous course, threading his way between a scatter of mines which floated in the path of the searchlight beam. An oppressive silence had fallen on the limping vessel as she moved through the dark water which was impenetrable beyond the beam, water supporting perhaps a hundred more mines for all Burckhardt could tell. The men on the decks below were waiting - waiting for the final collision with a mine, waiting for the still-hidden demolition charge to detonate under them, waiting for the tension-fraught moment of the landing - although which of these hazards was uppermost in their strained minds it was impossible to guess. The engines ticked over monotonously as the ferry slipped towards a blurred shadow which was the coast.

  Plagued by a dozen anxieties, Burckhardt maintained his outward appearance of calm confidence while inwardly he fretted at the damnably crawling progress of the vessel. He was already nearly thirty minutes behind his timetable and he was praying that the news of the general offensive launched at 5.45 AM was not yet on the air. It was unlikely - an hour or two should pass before the world read the reports of the German onslaught on Greece and Yugoslavia spearheaded by the Panzers and reinforced with airborne troops - and the peninsula was still devoid of Allied troops and wide open to his attack. The whole key to the operation was a swift dash back along the peninsula and the capture of the monastery before the Allies had time to recover their balance. Just so long as there really was nothing standing in his way - and that they were able to land safely. He felt the chill of the early morning air filtering through his uniform and braced himself to control a shiver as Dietrich appeared at his elbow.

  'The inhabitants of Katyra are bound to have heard the mine explode,' the Abwehr man remarked.

  'I realize that,' Burckhardt replied non-committally.

  'So there is a serious risk that someone may have phoned through to Salonika.'

  'We have attended to that, so once again you can put your mind at rest,' Burckhardt began ironically. Then he paused: they were so close to going ashore that really he was free to speak more openly. 'There is only a single telephone line out of the peninsula, Herr Dietrich, and that was cut several hours 'Good. But Salonika may wonder why the line has gone dead.'

  'Last night's storm will account for that. In a way it was lucky - it has provided an explanation.'

  'And you have transport waiting for you as well?' Dietrich inquired genially.

  'There are mules on the peninsula. It was impossible to bring them with us but we shall find mules available. The planning has taken into account every possible contingency. As to transport, other arrangements have also been made...' Burckhardt trailed off vaguely and lifted his glasses, focusing on a mine which floated, so it seemed, only a few metres off the port bow. The vessel was already changing course to avoid the menace.

  'And you expect no opposition?' Despite the atmosphere of suspense on the bridge Dietrich's manner was almost pleasant as he bowed his head to listen to the colonel's reply.

  'None at all. There is no one to oppose us - except a handful of fishermen.'

  'There are two policemen on the peninsula - or there were when I was last here.' Dietrich was very close to becoming jocular and good-humoured, a mood he shared with no one else on the silent bridge.

  Burckhardt made a great effort to respond. 'I think we can manage if they appear. You come ashore with me, of course.'

  'I had assumed that!' Dietrich stared round slowly as though he found it instructive to see the reactions of a company of soldiers about to go ashore into the unknown as dawn broke. He met stolid eyes, tightly shut mouths, and once he caught Prentice's gaze as the lieutenant stared back at him curiously. 'I have my Luger,' he told Burckhardt amiably, 'just in case of trouble.'

  'There is to be no shooting!' Burckhardt spoke sharply and for the first time he turned and looked directly at Dietrich. 'My men have strict orders to go ashore quietly. It will increase the element of surprise and their first task is to set up a road-block at the northern end of the village. The first troops ashore will see to that.'

  'And when do you expect to take the monastery?'

  said we were interested in monasteries, Here Dietrich? This is a war we are fighting, not a religious campaign.' And having delivered this rebuke the colonel turned away and devoted his whole attention to the lamp which was now so close that they could see it perched at the end of a stone jetty. Under the lamp stood two men, woken up doubtless by the explosion of the mine and anxious to hear what had happened. They're in for a surprise, Burckhardt was thinking as he saw the Abwehr man easing his way towards the door. I suppose he's checking up on our arrangements for the landing so he can put that in his report to Canaris. Still, with his knowledge of the peninsula he might come in useful yet. Burckhardt looked up as Hahnemann appeared in the doorway when Dietrich went outside.

  'Start withdrawing men from the search for the Greek and assemble them for disembarkation,' Burckhardt told him. 'What about the demolition charge?'

  'No sign of it, sir. We are still searching...'

  'Withdraw all men from the search except for those in the engine-room. Any news of the Greek?'

  'He hasn't been seen, sir.'

  Burckhardt removed the glove he had been wearing from his pistol hand and nodded. 'The Greek doesn't matter any more. Later the search can be continued by the men left to guard the ship.' It was only a minor element in the meticulous plan -guarding the ship to make sure no one tried to take her across the gulf to warn the British. Burckhardt checked his watch. 5.55 AM. Yes, they were thirty minutes late. It would be dawn just about the time they landed; already he could see faintly a low ridge si
lhouetted against a streak of cold grey light. The countryside in this part of the peninsula was hilly, with a single road to the south which wound its way between the hills until it reached the plateau. From there on the terrain became steadily worse, culminating in the grim wilderness of precipices and sheer ascents of the heights of Zervos.

  'You will be responsible for the security of the British prisoners,' he told Sergeant Volber who had just entered the bridge to report that his section was ready for disembarkation. He had already decided that they would be taken half-way along the peninsula and then left there under guard. This obviated any possibility of their being captured and released by a Greek unit which might be sent to the peninsula from Salonika. The information they possessed as to the unit's strength was a little too valuable to share with the enemy. He glanced back at the two men who stared at him with expressionless faces.

  'Looks as though they're going to make it,' Ford whispered, 'although I wouldn't bet a brass farthing on the outcome yet.'

  'Looks as though we might make it,' Prentice corrected him drily. 'And frankly, I wish you hadn't said that - it's asking for that demolition thing to trip its whatnot.'

  'There's time yet, sir,' Ford assured him.