The guns of Navaronne

by Alistair MacLean

  «Major Rutledge said it was running only yesterday,» Mallory said mildly. «Anyway, come on ashore. Breakfast. Remind me we're to pick up a few heavy stones on the way back, will you?»

  «Stones!» Miller looked at him in horror. «Aboard that thing?»

  Mallory nodded, smiling.

  «But that gawddamned ship is sinkin' already!» Miller protested. «What do you want stones for?»

  «Wait and see.»

  Three hours later Miller saw. The caique was chugging steadily north over a glassy, windless sea, less than a mile off the coast of Turkey, when he mournfully finished lashing his blue battledress into a tight ball and heaved it regretfully over the side. Weighted by the heavy stone he had carried aboard, it was gone from sight in a second.

  Morosely he surveyed himself in the mirror propped up against the for'ard end of the wheelhouse. Apart from a deep violet sash wrapped round his lean middle and a fancifully embroidered waistcoat with its former glory mercifully faded, be was dressed entirely in black. Black lacing jackboots, black baggy trousers, black shirt and black jacket: even his sandy hair had been dyed to the same colour.

  He shuddered and turned away.

  «Thank Gawd the boys back home can't see me now!» he said feelingly. He looked critically at the others, dressed, with some minor variations, like himself. «Waal, mebbe I ain't quite so bad after all… . Just what is all this quick-change business for, boss?»

  «They tell me you've been behind the German lines twice, once as a peasant, once as a mechanic.» Mallory heaved his own ballasted uniform over the side. «Well, now you see what the well-dressed Navaronian wears.»

  «The double change, I meant Once in the plane, and now.»

  «Oh, I see. Army khaki and naval whites in Alex., blue battledress in Casteirosso and now Greek clothes? Could have been — almost certainly were — snoopers in Alex. or Casteirosso or Major Rutledge's island. And we've changed from launch to plane to M.T.B. to caique. Covering our tracks, Corporal. We just can't take any chances.»

  Miller nodded, looked down at the clothes sack at his feet, wrinkled his brows in puzzlement, stooped and dragged out the white clothing that had caught his eye. He held up the long, voluminous clothes for inspection.

  «To be used when passing through the local cemeteries, I suppose.» He was heavily ironic. «Disguised as ghosts.»

  «Camouflage,» Mallory explained succinctly. «Snowsmocks.»

  «What!»

  «Snow. That white stuff. There are some pretty high mountains in Navarone, and we may have to take to them. So — snowsmocks.»

  Miller looked stunned. Wordlessly he stretched his length on the deck, pillowed his head and closed his eyes. Mallory grinned at Andrea.

  «Picture of a man getting his full quota of sunshine before battling with the Arctic wastes… . Not a bad idea. Maybe you should get some sleep, too. I'll keep watch for a couple of hours.»

  For five hours the caique continued on its course parallel to the Turkish coast, slightly west of north and rarely more than two miles off-shore. Relaxed and warm in the still kindly November sun, Mallory sat wedged between the bulwarks of the blunt bows, his eyes ceaselessly quartering sky and horizon. Amidships, Andrea and Miller lay asleep. Casey Brown still defied all attempts to remove him from the engine-room. Occasionally-- very occasionally — he came up for a breath of fresh air, but the intervals between his appearances steadily lengthened as he concentrated more and more on the aged Kelvin engine, regulating the erratic drip-fed lubrication, constantly adjusting the air intake: an engineer to his finger-tips, he was unhappy about that engine: he was drowsy, too, and headachy — the narrow hatchway gave hardly any ventilation at all.

  Alone in the wheelhouse — an unusual feature in so tiny a caique — Lieutenant Andy Stevens watched the Turkish coast slide slowly by. Like Mallory's, his eyes moved ceaselessly, but not with the same controlled wandering. They shifted from the coast to the chart: from the chart to the islands up ahead off the port bow, islands whose position and relation to each other changed continually and deceptively, islands gradually lifting from the sea and hardening in definition through the haze of blue refraction: from the islands to the old alcohol compass swinging almost imperceptibly on rusted gimbals, and from the compass back to the coast again. Occasionally, he peered up into the sky, or swung a quick glance through a 180-degree sweep of the horizon. But one thing his eyes avoided all the time. The chipped, fly-blown mirror had been hung up in the wheelhouse again, but it was as if his eyes and the mirror were of opposite magnetic poles: he could not bring himself to look at it.

  His forearms ached. He had been spelled at the wheel twice, but still they ached, abominably: his lean, tanned hands were ivory-knuckled on the cracked wheel. Repeatedly, consciously, he tried to relax, to ease the tension that was bunching up the muscles of his arms; but always, as if possessed of independent volition, his hands tightened their grip again. There was a funny taste in his mouth, too, a sour and salty taste in a dry, parched mouth, and no matter how often he swallowed, or drank from the sun-warmed pitcher at his side, the taste and the dryness remained. He could no more exorcise them than he could that twisting, cramping ball that was knotting up his insides, just above the solar plexus, or the queer, uncontrollable tremor that gripped his right leg from time to time.

  Lieutenant Andy Stevens was afraid. He had never been in action before, but it wasn't that. This wasn't the first time he had been afraid. He had been afraid all his life, ever since he could remember: and he could remember a long way back, even to his early prep-school days when his famous father, Sir Cedric Stevens, the most celebrated explorer and mountaineer of his time, bad thrown him bodily into the swimming pool at home, telling him that this was the only way he could learn to swim. He could remember still how he had fought and spluttered his way to the side of the pool, panic-stricken and desperate, his nose and mouth blocked with water, the pit of his stomach knotted and constricted in that nameless, terrifying ache he was to come to know so well: how his father and two elder brothers, big and jovial and nerveless like Sir Cedric himself, had wiped the tears of mirth from their eyes and pushed him in again…

  His father and brothers… . It had been like that all through his schooldays. Together, the three of them bad made his life thoroughly miserable. Tough, hearty, open-air types who worshipped at the shrine of athleticism and physical fitness,. they could not understand bow anyone could fail to revel in diving from a five-metre springboard or setting a hunter at a five-barred gate or climbing the crags of the Peak district or sailing a boat in a storm. All these things they had made him do and often he had failed in the doing, and neither his father nor his brothers could ever have understood how he had come to dread those violent sports in which they excelled, for they were not cruel men, nor even unkind, but simply stupid. And so to the simple physical fear he sometimes and naturally felt was added the fear of failure, the fear that he was bound to fail in whatever he had to do next, the fear of the inevitable mockery and ridicule: and because he had been a sensitive boy and feared the ridicule above all else, he had come to fear these things that provoked the ridicule. Finally, he had come to fear fear itself, and it was in a desperate attempt to overcome this double fear that he had devoted himself — this in his late teens — to crag and mountain climbing: in this he had ultimately become so proficient, developed such a reputation, that father and brothers had come to treat him with respect and as an equal, and the ridjcule had ceased. But the fear had not ceased; rather it had grown by what it fed on, and often, on a particularly difficult climb, be had all but fallen to his death, powerless in the grip of sheer, unreasoning terror. But this terror he had always sought, successfully so far, to conceal. As now. He was trying to overcome, to conceal that fear now. He was afraid of failing — in what he wasn't quite sure — of not measuring up to expectation: he was afraid of being afraid: and he was desperately afraid, above all things, of being seen, of being known to be afraid… .

  T
he startling, incredible blue of the Aegean; the soft, hazy silhouette of the Anatolian mountains against the washed-out cerulean of the sky; the heart-catching, magical blending of the blues and violets and purples and indigoes of the sun-soaked islands drifting lazily by, almost on the beam now; the iridescent rippling of the water fanned by the gentle, scent-laden breeze newly sprung from the south-east; the peaceful scene on deck, the reassuring, interminable thump-thump, thump-thump of the old Kelvin engine… . All was peace and quiet and contentment and warmth and languor, and it seemed impossible that anyone could be afraid. The world and the war were very far away that afternoon.

  Or perhaps, after all, the war wasn't so far away. There were occasional pin-pricks — and constant reminders. Twice a German Arado seaplane had circled curiously overhead, and a Savoia and Fiat, flying in company, had altered course, dipped to have a look at them and flown off, apparently satisfied: Italian planes, these, and probably based on Rhodes, they were almost certainly piloted by Germans who had rounded up their erstwhile Rhodian allies and put them in prison camps after the surrender of the Italian Government. In the morning they had passed within half a mile of a big German caique — if flew the German flag and bristled with mounted machine-guns and a two-pounder far up in the bows; and in the early afternoon a high-speed German launch had roared by so closely that their caique had rolled wickedly in the wash of its passing: Mallory and Andrea had shaken their fists and cursed loudly and fluently at the grinning sailors on deck. But there had been no attempts to molest or detain them: neither British nor German hesitated at any time to violate the neutrality of Turkish territorial waters, but by the strange quixotry of a tacit gentlemen's agreement hostilities between passing vessels and planes were almost unknown. Like the envoys of warring countries in a neutral capital, their behaviour ranged from the impeccably and frigidly polite to a very pointed unawareness of one another's existence.

  These, then, were the pin-pricks-the visitations and bygoings, harmless though they were, of the ships and planes of the enemy. The other reminders that this was no peace but an illusion, an ephemeral and a frangible thing, were more permanent. Slowly the minute hands of their watches circled, and every tick took them nearer to that great wall of cliff, barely eight hours away, that had to be climbed somehow: and almost dead ahead now, and less than fifty miles distant, they could see the grim, jagged peaks of Navarone topping the shimmering horizon and reaching up darkly against the sapphired sky, desolate and remote and strangely threatening.

  At half-past two in the afternoon the engine stopped. There had been no warning coughs or splutters or missed strokes. One moment the regular, reassuring thump-thump: the next, sudden, completely unexpected silence, oppressive and foreboding in its absoluteness.

  Mallory was the first to reach the engine hatch.

  «What's up, Brown?» His voice was sharp with anxiety. «Engine broken down?»

  «Not quite, sir.» Brown was stifi bent over the engine, his voice muffled. «I shut it off just now.» He straightened his back, hoisted himself wearily through the hatchway, sat on deck with his feet dangling, sucking in great draughts of fresh air. Beneath the heavy tan his face was very pale.

  Mallory looked at him closely.

  «You look as if you had the fright of your life.»

  «Not that.» Brown shook his head; «For the past two-three hours I've been slowly poisoned down that ruddy hole. Only now I realise it.» He passed a hand across his brow and groaned. «Top of my blinkin' head just about lifting off, sir. Carbon monoxide ain't a very healthy thing.»

  «Exhaust leak?»

  «Aye. But it's more than a leak now.» He pointed down at the engine. «See that stand-pipe supporting that big iron ball above the engine — the water-cooler? That pipe's as thin as paper, must have been leaking above the bottom flange for hours. Blew out a bloody great hole a minute ago. Sparks, smoke and flames six inches long. Had to shut the damned thing off at once, sir.»

  Mallory nodded in slow understanding.

  «And now what? Can you repair it, Brown?»

  «Not a chance, sir.» The shake of the head was very definite. «Would have to be brazed or welded. But there's a spare down there among the scrap. Rusted to hell and about as shaky as the one that's on… . I'll have a go, sir.»

  «I'll give him a hand,» Miller volunteered.

  «Thanks, Corporal. How long, Brown, do you think?»

  «Lord only knows, sir. Two hours, maybe four. Most of the nuts and bolts are locked solid with rust: have to shear or saw 'em — and then hunt for others.»

  Mallory said nothing. He turned away heavily, brought up beside Stevens who had abandoned the wheelhouse and was now bent over the sail locker. He looked up questioningly as Mallory approached.

  Mallory nodded. «Just get them out and up. Maybe four hours, Brown says. Andrea and I will do our landlubberly best to help.»

  Two hours later, with the engine still out of commission, they were well outside territorial waters, closing on a big island some eight miles away to the W.N.W. The wind, warm and oppressive now, had backed to a darkening and thundery east, and with only a lug and a jib — all the sails they had found — bent to the foremast, they could make no way at all into it. Mallory had decided to make for the island — the chances of being observed there were far less than in the open sea. Anxiously he looked at his watch, then stared back moodily at the receding safety of the Turkish shore. Then he stiffened, peered closely at the dark line of sea, land and sky that lay to the east.

  «Andrea! Do you see—»

  «I see it, Captain.» Andrea was at his shoulder. «Caique. Three miles. Coming straight towards us,» he added softly.

  «Coming straight towards us,» Mallory acquiesced. «Tell Miller and Brown. Have them come here.»

  Mallory wasted no time when they were all assembled.

  «We're going to be stopped and investigated,» he said quickly. «Unless I'm much mistaken, it's that big caique that passed us this morning. Heaven only knows how, but they've been tipped off and they're going to be as suspicious as hell. This'li be no kid-glove, hands-in-the pockets inspection. They'll be armed to the teeth and hunting trouble. There's going to be no half-measures. Let's be quite clear about that. Either they go under or we do: we can't possibly survive an inspection — not with all the gear we've got aboard. And,» he added softly, «we're not going to dump that gear.» Rapidly he explained his plans. Stevens, leaning out from the wheelhouse window, felt the old sick ache in his stomach, felt the blood leaving his face. He was glad of the protection of the wheelhouse that bid the lower part of his body: that old familiar tremor in his leg was back again. Even his voice was unsteady.

  «But, sir — sir—»

  «Yes, yes, what is it, Stevens?» Even in his hurry Mallory paused at the sight of the pale, set face, the bloodless nails clenched over the sill of the window.

  «You — you can't do that, sir!» The voice burred harshly under the sharp edge of strain. For a moment his mouth worked soundlessly, then he rushed on. «It's massacre, sir, it's — it's just murder!»

  «Shut up, kid!» Miller growled.

  «That'll do, Corporal!» Mallory said sharply. He looked at the American for a long moment, then turned to Stevens, his eyes cold. «Lieutenant, the whole concept of directing a successful war is aimed at placing your enemy at a disadvantage, at not giving him an even chance. We kill them or they kill us. They go under or we do — and a thousand men on Kheros. It's just as simple as that, Lieutenant. It's not even a question of conscience.»

  For several seconds Stevens stared at Mallory in complete silence. He was vaguely aware that everyone was looking at him. In that instant he hated Mallory, could have killed him. He hated him because-suddenly he was aware that he hated him only for the remorseless logic of what he said. He stared down at his clenched hands. Mallory, the idol of every young mountaineer and cragsman in pre-war England, whose fantastic climbing exploits had made world headlines, in '38 and '39: Mallory, who had
twice been baulked by the most atrocious ill-fortune from surprising Rommel in his desert headquarters: Mallory, who had three times refused promotion in order to stay with his beloved Cretans who worshipped him the other side of idolatry. Confusedly these thoughts tumbled through his mind and he looked up slowly, looked at the lean, sunburnt face, the sensitive, chiselled mouth, the heavy, dark eyebrows barstraight over the lined brown eyes that could be so cold or so compassionate, and suddenly he felt ashamed, knew that Captain Mallory lay beyond both his understanding and his judgment.

  «I am very sorry, sir.» He smiled faintly. «As Corporal Miller would say, I was talking out of turn.» He looked aft at the caique arrowing up from the southeast. Again he felt the sick fear, but his voice was steady enough as he spoke. «I won't let you down, sir.»

  «Good enough. I never thought you would.» Mallory smiled in turn, looked at Miller and Brown. «Get the stuff ready and lay it out, will you? Casual, easy and keep it hidden. They'll have the glasses on you.»

  He turned away, walked for'ard. Andrea followed him.

  «You were very hard on the young man.» It was neither criticism nor reproach — merely statement of fact.

  «I know.» Mallory shrugged. «I didn't like it either… . I had to do it.»

  «I think you had,» Andrea said slowly. «Yes, I think you had. But it was hard… . Do you think they'll use the big gun in the bows to stop us?»

  «Might — they haven't turned back after us unless they're pretty sure we're up to something fishy. But the warning shot across the bows — they don't go in for that Captain Teach stuff normally.»

  Andrea wrinkled his brows.

  «Captain Teach?»

  «Never mind.» Mallory smiled. «Time we were taking up position now. Remember, wait for me. You won't have any trouble in hearing my signal,» he finished dryly.