‘And we’re to carry out sabotage operations on all rail lines leading to Sarajevo,’ he said to Nicky. ‘Cairo will drop us supplies. All we have to arrange is a suitable dropping-zone.’
All through the summer they arranged dropping-zones and all through the summer they conducted a relentless onslaught on all possible lines of German communication. In September the Italians surrendered and huge quantities of captured weapons and ammunition boosted the vital supplies being parachuted in to them.
By the end of the year it was obvious that the Germans were beginning to lose the war and it was also obvious that when they did so, the future government of Yugoslavia would be dominated by the communists.
‘Is that a future you can stomach?’ Nicky asked Stephen as together with the rest of the unit they crouched around a roaring wood fire in a shepherd’s hut while a snowstorm raged outside.
‘If it means an end to Serbs and Croats constantly being at each other’s throats and Moslems, Catholics and Orthodox finally welding together in a united country then yes, I can probably stomach it.’
Nicky grinned. He enjoyed trying to bait Stephen politically and it amused him vastly that Stephen never rose to the bait and never became heatedly contentious as one of his own fellow-countrymen would have done.
By the time spring came, Stephen found it hard to imagine any other way of life than the one he was now leading. The spartan simplicity and male camaraderie suited him. He enjoyed living for the most part out in the open; marching in the early morning across mountain slopes; resting in orchards thick with plum and almond blossom; eating around a camp fire and then, at night, setting off on adrenalin-packed sabotage missions.
As month after month passed and the Germans were pushed gradually further and further northwards, Stephen was aware that more and more Loyalists were throwing in their lot with the Partisans. At the end of the summer a BBC broadcast ensured that even greater numbers began to do so.
‘I don’t believe it!’ Nicky gasped as the voice of young King Peter, speaking from London, called on all Yugoslav patriots to abandon their support of General Mihailovich and to rally behind Tito and his Partisans. ‘King Peter will be joining us himself, next!’
‘If he still has hopes of returning to Yugoslavia as king that is exactly what he should do,’ Mitja Stefanovich said dryly. ‘Why should any Yugoslav welcome a king back who hasn’t fought with them and for them?’
Though in full agreement with him, Stephen kept silent. He was wondering what his mother’s reaction to King Peter’s broadcast would be. It was a betrayal of General Mihailovich and all those, Peter and Max included, who were fighting with him and she was bound to be distressed and bewildered by it.
In midsummer Mitja Stefanovich was promoted to the rank of major and Nicky was ordered to report to Staff Headquarters, leaving Mitja in command of the unit.
‘It doesn’t look as if we’ll be entering Belgrade together after all,’ Nicky said in deep dudgeon to Stephen as he loaded his few possessions on to his horse. ‘Why the devil I’ve to be given a Staff appointment just when things are coming to a military conclusion, I can’t begin to imagine.’
‘If the conclusion is going to be soon, it will be easy enough for us to meet up after it, in Belgrade,’ Stephen said, as disappointed as Nicky that there now seemed no likelihood of their fighting their way into the city side by side.
Nicky finished strapping his pack on to his horse. ‘Don’t take any nonsense from Mitja,’ he said gruffly.
Stephen grinned. Mitja Stefanovich was the most easy-going and reasonable of men and as unlikely to dish out ‘nonsense’as he was to fly to the moon.
Nicky turned towards him, his eyes overly bright. ‘Goodbye, my friend,’ he said, embracing him. ‘Promise me one thing. Promise me you’ll always take good care of that sister of yours.’
‘I promise,’ Stephen said thickly.
Nicky mounted his horse. All the men he had led for so long, under such difficult conditions, were gathered to see him go. He raised his hand to them in a clenched fist salute and then, reluctantly, he pressed his heels lightly against his horse’s flanks and minutes later was only an indistinct figure in the distance.
Chapter Twenty-Four
In the weeks and months that followed, Stephen missed Nicky greatly. They had lived together and fought together as blood brothers for well over a year and though Nicky’s mercurial temperament had often exasperated him, it had also ensured that when there had been long gaps in military activity, life had never been dull.
Hard on the heel of Nicky’s departure came news from Cairo that the Russians were storming through Romania and would shortly be entering Yugoslavia from the east and joining forces with the Partisan Army in the fight for Belgrade. Everywhere, on all fronts, the Germans were under pressure and Stephen decided that the time had come for him to visit Sarajevo.
‘Sarajevo?’ Mitja said to him, puzzled. ‘Why do you want to enter Sarajevo? Orders from both my command and yours are that we should be making our way towards Belgrade.’
‘I have a visit to make in Sarajevo,’ Stephen said, wondering what on earth Mitja would say if he knew what the purpose of his visit was. ‘I’ll leave the wireless transmitter and receiver in your care and catch up with you as soon as possible.’
‘You’ll be court-martialled if anyone finds out!’
‘Very likely,’ Stephen said dryly. ‘To avoid complications let the wireless batteries run down. Twenty-four hours of not being able to establish contact won’t harm Cairo and it won’t harm us.’
‘It’s a woman, isn’t it?’ Mitja said with a sudden grin. ‘You’re going to see a woman?’
‘No, but I’m going to do a favour for one,’ Stephen said, beginning to strip his sten gun down so that the magazine and short body and barrel could be carried in the inside pockets of his sleeveless sheepskin jacket.
‘You must love her very much.’ Beneath his forbidding, bearded exterior, Mitja had a tender heart. ‘She must be very special.’
Stephen stowed the separate parts of his gun away, satisfied that together with his hand gun he carried enough firepower to get himself out of any trouble into which he might get himself.
‘I do,’ he said wryly, ‘and she is.’
He had little trouble entering Sarajevo and walking through its streets. The Germans had far too much on their minds to worry about a young peasant in mud-stained clothing, especially a peasant carrying an incongruous bunch of late flowering wild white roses.
Asking for directions in fluent Serbo-Croat from elderly ladies he made his way on foot, up through the dusty streets towards the cemetery.
Though there was no distinctive monument, the graves were easy to find. They lay near the cemetery palings, three stone slabs, the area around them neglected and untended.
The central slab, under which Gavrilo Princip was buried, was slightly raised and Stephen laid his posy of white roses on top of it.
He stood silently for a long time, thinking of the nineteen-year-old whose patriotic, criminal action had brought such cataclysmic consequences in its wake. Because of what had happened in Sarajevo on that sunny June afternoon thirty-one years ago the world had been plunged into war. Even now, in the midst of a second world war, the reverberations of that action continued. He thought of his mother, exiled for all of her adult life from the country she so passionately loved and he marvelled again at her lack of bitterness. In her eyes, Gavrilo Princip had been her friend.
He pondered on what might have happened if Gavrilo had admitted to speaking to her in the Oriental bazaar; of having met regularly with her in Belgrade at the Golden Sturgeon. In all likelihood she would have stood trial accused of being an accomplice in the plot to assassinate the Archduke. And she might have died in prison, as Gavrilo and his friends had died, and been buried alongside them.
It was an eerie thought and he knew that she was right in thinking that Princip had been a true friend to her. Wishing him eternal rest he
made the sign of the cross on brow and breast and then, his mission completed, he made his way back to the cemetery gates and the narrow, busy street beyond them.
It took him a day and a half to catch up with Mitja and his men. Though they were camped in thick woodland he had no trouble in finding them. It was a camp site they had used before, earlier in the year, convenient not only because of the cover it gave from enemy aircraft but also because a nearby stream boasted a deep sandy bank warrened with man-sized hiding holes.
Giving the low whistle that was his unit’s call sign, he made a cautious approach.
‘We have visitors,’ Yelich, who was on sentry duty, said to him. ‘They say they know you.’ There was curiosity in his eyes. ‘Major Stefanovich thinks one of them could be the reason you went to Sarajevo.’
Stephen’s heartbeats began to slam against his breast-bone. Mitja had assumed the reason to be a woman and the only woman he knew who could possibly be a visitor to a Partisan guerilla camp, was Olga.
There was no sign of a raffish RAF cap among the grey side-caps worn by the men sitting and talking on the banks of the stream. Then he saw the burly, unmistakable figure of Marko.
‘Marko!’ he shouted joyously, hurrying towards him. ‘What the devil are you doing here? Is Peter with you? Is Olga?’
Marko strode to meet him, looking oddly alien in Partisan uniform. ‘I’m here for the same reason as you are,’ he said with a face-splitting grin. ‘To fight the Germans. Where our other friends are, I’m not sure. Apart from Olga of course. Olga is making her report to Major Stefanovich.’
‘Then I’d better join them,’ Stephen said, breaking free of Marko’s bear-like embrace. ‘Does she know I’m with Stefanovich’s unit? Is that why you came here?’
Marko’s grin grew even wider. ‘Aren’t you taking rather a lot on yourself, my English friend?’ he asked, vastly amused. ‘Why should Olga want to join up with Stefanovich just because you’re his liaison officer? And why the devil would either Olga or Major Stefanovich want you with them while she makes her report? It would be far more sensible of you to stay here with me and to listen while I tell you of the Russian troops with whom we made contact four days ago. They were part of the Soviet Fourth Mechanized Corps and had enough trucks and tanks with them to storm Berlin, let alone Belgrade.’
Despite his fevered impatience to see Olga again, Stephen’s attention was hooked. ‘What strength were they?’ he asked with urgent interest. ‘A platoon? A brigade? A company?’
‘A division,’ Marko said, enjoying the expression of incredulity on Stephen’s face. ‘An entire division, my English friend. The battle for Belgrade is imminent.’
Stephen’s elation turned to sudden horror. ‘Christ Almighty!’ he said, staring at Marko appalled. ‘And I asked Mitja to let the battery on the receiving set run down!’ He turned on his heel and began running in the direction of the felled tree that customarily acted as Mitja’s desk. He had to make sure if Mitja had done as he had asked and, if he had, he had to begin cranking the stiff handle of the battery’s generator immediately.
At his approach Mitja looked up from the slenderly built figure he was talking to; an expression of vast relief crossing his face.
‘Stephen! Thank God you’re back!’ he exclaimed, rising to his feet. ‘The entire First Army Group is bearing down on Belgrade. Our orders are to remain as a sabotage unit and to keep up heavy pressure on the Belgrade to Sarajevo line. We have two additions to our ranks to help us do so. Lieutenant Marko Tomosevich and Lieutenant Olga Marinko. I believe you’re acquainted with them both?’
Olga had been standing, facing Mitja and now she turned around. The pale oval of her face was as impassive as it had been when he had first seen her, putting the bottle of slivovitz and glass on the table in Peter’s headquarters. Then he saw the expression at the back of her eyes and he knew that her impassiveness was nothing more than a defensive shield for uncertainty and shyness.
He could only think of one reason for the uncertainty and elation sang through him. ‘Yes,’ he said, suddenly sure that she knew what his feelings for her were; that Peter had spoken to her. ‘We’re acquainted. How is the shoulder, Lieutenant Marinko?’
She shrugged, as if proving that it was no trouble whatsoever, her eyes not leaving his.
Mitja said briskly: ‘Both Lieutenant Tomosevich and Lieutenant Marinko are explosives experts. We’re going to leave at dusk and blow the Belgrade-Sarajevo line at its nearest point to us. Can you discuss the plan with me now?’
‘I have to make contact with Cairo first and if you let the battery expire, as I suggested, I’m going to need help cranking the generator.’
‘Lieutenant Marinko will help you. We need to divide ourselves into three separate groups for tonight’s action. Two groups to cover the line left and right and one to lay the charges. If you and Lieutenant Marinko fix the charges, I’ll command one of the protecting groups and Lieutenant Tomosevich can command the other. I’ll go and speak to him now.’
When he had gone and when Stephen had ensured there was no-one else within hearing distance, he said, ‘What’s happened to the others, Olga? Have they joined Partisan units as well? Where is Peter?’
She said carefully, as if filing a formal report, ‘After you left, and we went up to the cave, we saw very little action. Every sabotage act Major Zlarin wished to carry out had to be sanctioned by General Mihailovich. This meant long delays while couriers informed the general of the plans and then, nearly always, the general vetoed them. Everyone grew exasperated and one or two of the younger ones, Peko and Tomas, followed you north-west to join Partisan units.’
‘And then?’ He took a packet of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and offered her one.
She shook her head, saying a little unsteadily, ‘And then we received confirmation that some of our units were collaborating with the Germans. Major Zlarin said they weren’t doing so with General Mihailovich’s sanction and that we shouldn’t let it deter us from continuing to give the general our loyalty, but it was hard to stomach. Lieutenant Vlatko said he’d rather fight with the communists than have people assume that as a Chetnik he was a collaborator and after a terrible argument with Major Zlarin he left, taking Milos with him.’
In sudden weariness she sat down on the tree trunk. ‘After that we weren’t viable as a unit any longer. Major Zlarin said he was going to join General Mihailovich and asked Marko and me if we wished to go with him.’
For the first time there was undisguised, anguished emotion in her eyes. ‘Marko said that by not quelling the traitors in his ranks immediately, General Mihailovich had lost all credibility as a resistance leader. He said he had joined the resistance to fight the Germans and if the only way he could so was by throwing in his lot with the Partisans, then that was what he was going to do.’
‘And you left with him?’
She nodded. ‘We’ve been with a unit about twenty miles to the south of Sarajevo. Two days ago orders were received to join with the main body of the army ready for the assault on Belgrade. We asked if, as our experience was in sabotage, we could join with Major Stefanovich’s unit instead.’
‘I’m glad you did,’ he said, resting a booted foot on the tree trunk a few inches away from her and looking down at her intently. ‘I’ve thought of you often.’
Her hands were folded on her lap and she averted her gaze from his, looking down at them, the merest suspicion of colour heightening her cheeks. Her hands were long and narrow with beautiful almond-shaped nails. He wondered how, handling gelignite as she did, she managed to keep them so smooth and unstained. He wondered also if he was about to make a God-awful fool of himself. He remembered his father telling him how he had fallen in love with his mother almost instantly and without hardly knowing her. He couldn’t remember his mother telling him that she had fallen in love equally precipitately, but considering the circumstances under which they had married she must have done so. It was a marriage blatantly happy and successful a
nd it had been founded on little more than instinct.
Following family tradition and trusting to instinct himself, he said huskily, ‘I missed you, Olga. We had too little time together.’
‘Yes.’ She lifted her head, her eyes meeting his, her face impassive no longer. ‘I missed you, too. When you had gone I realized that I had not thanked you for the medical care you gave me and I realized something else, too. I realized that because I had not known you were part Slav, I had been very impolite.’
The laugh-lines edging his mouth deepened. ‘Why did realizing I was part Slav change anything?’
She said gravely, ‘In the weeks prior to you joining us there had been several BBC reports of sabotage action being carried out by Partisans when it had, in fact, been carried out by Loyalists. It was obvious to me that the British were preparing to abandon General Mihailovich and switch their support to Tito and so I felt hostile towards the British. And because you are British I felt hostile towards you, too.’
‘And now?’ he asked, his amusement deepening.
There was a glimmer of an answering smile in the dark depths of her eyes. ‘And now I realize that though you are British, you are not typically British. That you care very much what happens to Yugoslavia.’
‘I do,’ he said sincerely, remembering the urgent need to make radio contact with Cairo. He tossed his cigarette stub away. The present conversation could be continued later, under more suitable conditions. What was important now was that they began cranking the generator and that enough life was restored to the battery to enable him to send a signal that evening.
‘Come on,’ he said, stretching a hand down to her and helping her to her feet, knowing that a totally different and far more intimate relationship had been forged between them. ‘We have work to do.’
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