«He's a damned traitor!» Mallory interrupted. The commandant was becoming just that little bit too interested in Andrea. At once Skoda wheeled round, stood in front of Mallory with his hands clasped behind his back, teetering on heels and toes, and looked him up and down in mocking inspection.
«So!» he said thoughtfully. «The great Keith Mallory! A rather different proposition from our fat and fearful friend on the bench there, eh, Lieutenant?» He did not wait for an answer. «What rank are you, Mallory?»
«Captain,» Mallory answered briefly.
«Captain Mallory, eh? Captain Keith Mallory, the greatest mountaineer of our time, the idol of pre-war Europe, the conqueror of the world's most impossible climbs.» Skoda shook his head sadly. «And to think that it should all end like this… .I doubt whether posterity will rank your last climb as among your greatest: there are only ten steps leading to the gallows in the fortress of Navarone.» Skoda smiled. «Hardly a cheerful thought, is it, Captain Mallory?»
«I wasn't even thinking about it,» the New Zealander answered pleasantly. «What worries me is your face.» He frowned. «Somewhere or other I'm sure I've seen it or something like it before.» His voice trailed off into silence.
«Indeed?» Skoda was interested. «In the Bernese Alps, perhaps? Often before the war—»
«I have it now!» Mallory's face cleared. He knew the risk he was taking, but anything that concentrated attention on himself to the exclusion of Andrea was justified. He beamed at Skoda. «Three months ago, it was, in the zoo in Cairo. A plains buzzard that had been captured in the Sudan. A rather old and mangy buzzard, I'm afraid,» MallQry went on apologetically, «but exactly the same scrawny neck, the same beaky face and bald head—»
Mallory broke off abruptly, swayed back out of reach as Skoda, his face livid and gleaming teeth bared in rage, swung at him with his fist. The blow carried with it all Skoda's wiry strength, but anger blurred his timing and the fist swung harmlessly by: he stumbled, recovered, then fell to the floor with a shout of pain as Mallory's heavy boot caught him flush on the thigh, just above the knee. He had barely touched the floor when he was up like a cat, took a pace forward and coliapsed heavily again as his injured leg gave under him.
There was a moment's shocked stillness throughout the room, then Skoda rose painfully, supporting himself on the edge of the heavy table. He was breathing quickly, the thin mouth a hard, white line, the great sabre scar flaming redly in the sallow face drained now of all colour. He looked neither at Mallory nor anyone else, but slowly, deliberately, in an almost frightening silence, began to work his way round to the back of the table, the scuffing of his sliding palms on the leather top rasping edgily across over-tautened nerves.
Mallory stood quite still, watching him with expressionless face, cursing himself for his folly. He had overplayed his hands There was no doubt in his mind — there could be no doubt in the mind of anyone in that room — that Skoda meant to kill him; and he, Mallory, would not die. Only Skoda and Andrea would die: Skoda from Andrea's throwing knife — Andrea was rubbing blood from his face with the inside of his sleeve, fingertips only inches from the sheath — and Andrea front the guns of the guards, for the knife was all he had. You fool, you fool, you bloody stupid fool, Mallory repeated to himself over and over again. He turned his head slightly and glanced out of the corner of his eye at the sentry nearest him. Nearest him — but still six or seven feet away. The sentry would get him, Mallory knew, the blast of the slugs from that Schmeisser would tear him in half before he could cover the distance. But he would try. He must try. It was the least he owed to Andrea.
Skoda reached the back of the table, opened a drawer and lifted out a gun. An automatic, Mallory noted with detachment — a little, blue-metal, snub-nosed toy — but a murderous toy, the kind of gun he would have expected Skoda to have. Unhurriedly Skoda pressed the release button, checked the magazine, snapped it home with the palm of his hand, ificked off the safety catch and looked up at Mallory. The eyes hadn't altered in the slightest — they were cold, dark and empty as ever. Mallory ificked a glance at Andrea and tensed himself for one convulsive fling backwards. Here it comes, he thought savagely, this is how bloody fools like Keith Mallory die — and then all of a sudden, and unknowingly, he relaxed, for his eyes were still on Andrea and he had seen Andrea doing the same, the huge hand slipping down unconcernedly from the neck, empty of any sign of knife.
There was a scuffle at the table and Mallory was just in time to see Turzig pin Skoda's gun-hand to the tabletop.
«Not that, sir!» Turzig begged. «For God's sake, not that way!»
«Take your hands away,» Skoda whispered. The staring, empty eyes never left Mallory's face. «Take your hands away, I say — unless you -want to go the same way as Captain Mallory.»
«You can't kill him, sir!» Turzig persisted doggedly. «You just can't. Herr Kommandant's orders were very clear, Hauptmann Skoda. The leader must be brought to him alive.»
«He was shot while trying to escape,» Skoda said thickly.
«It's no good.» Turzig shook his head. «We can't kill them all — and the other prisoners would talk.» He released his grip on Skoda's hands. «Alive, Herr Kommandant said, but he didn't say how much alive.» He lowered his voice confidentially. «Perhaps we may have some difficulty in making Captain Mallory talk,» he suggested.
«What? What did you say?» Abruptly the death's head smile flashed once more, and Skoda was completely on balance again. «You are over-zealous, Lieutenant Remind me to speak to you about it some time. You underestimate me: that was exactly what I was trying to do — frighten Mallory into talking. And now you've spoilt it all.» The smile was still on his face, the voice light, almost bantering, but Mallory was under no fflusions. He owed his life to the young W.G.B. lieutenant — how easily one could respect, form a friendship with a man like Turzig if it weren't for this damned, crazy war… . Skoda was standing in front of him again: he had left his gun on the table.
«But enough of this fooling, eh, Captain Mallory?» The German's teeth fairly gleamed in the bright light from the naked lamps overhead. «We haven't all night, have we?»
Mallory looked at him, then turned away in silence. It was warm enough, stuffy almost, in that little guardroom, but he was conscious of a sudden, nameless chili; he knew all at once, without knowing why, but with complete certainty, that this little man before him was utterly evil.
«Well, well, well, we are not quite so talkative now, are we, my friend?» He hummed a little to himself, looked up abruptly, the smile broader than ever.
«Where are the explosives, Captain Mallory?»
«Explosives?» Mallory lifted an interrogatory eyebrow. «I don't know what you are talking about.»
«You don't remember, eh?»
«I don't know what you are talking about.»
«So.» Skoda hummed to himself again and walked over in front of Miller. «And what about you, my Mend?»
«Sure I remember,» Miller said easily. «The captain's got it all wrong.»
«A sensible man!» Skoda purred — but Mallory could have sworn to an undertone of disappointment in the voice. «Proceed, my friend.»
«Captain Mallory has no eye for detail,» Miller drawled. «I was with him that day. He is malignin' a noble bird. It was a vulture, not a buzzard.»
Just for a second Skoda's smile slipped, then it was back again, as rigidly fixed and lifeless as if it had beeii painted on.
«Very, very witty men, don't you think, Turzig? What the British would call music-hall comedians. Let them laugh while they may, until the hangman's noose begins to tighten… .» He looked at Casey Brown. «Perhaps you—»
«Why don't you go and take a running jump to yourself?» Brown growled.
«A running jump? The idiom escapes me, but I fear it is hardly complimentary.» Skoda selected a cigarette from a thin case, tapped it thoughtfully on a thumb nail. «Hmm. Not just what one might call too co-operative, Lieutenant Turzig.»
«You won
't get these men to talk, sir.» There was quiet finality in Turzig's voice.
«Possibly not, possibly not.» Skoda was quite unruffled. «Nevertheless, I shall have the information I want, and within five minutes.» He walked unhurriedly across to his desk, pressed a button, screwed his cigarette into its jade holder, and leaned against the table, an arrogance, a careless contempt in every action, even to the leisurely crossing of the gleaming jackboots.
Suddenly a side door was flung open and two men stumbled into the room, prodded by a rifle barrel. Mallory caught his breath, felt his nails dig savagely into the palms of his hands. Louki and Panayisi Louki and Panayis, bound and bleeding, Louki from a cut above the eye, Panayis from a scalp wound. So they'd got them too, and in spite of his warnings. Both men were shirtsleeved; Lould, minus his magnificently frogged jacket, scarlet tsanta and the small arsenal of weapons that he carried stuck beneath it, looked strangely pathetic and woe-begone — strangely, for he was red-faced with anger, the moustache bristling more ferociously than ever. Mallory looked at him with eyes empty of all recognition, his face expressionless.
«Come now, Captain Mallory,» Skoda said reproachfully. «Have you no word of greeting for two old friends? No? Or perhapi you are just overwhelmed?» he suggested smoothly. «You had not expected to see them so soon again, eh, Captain Mallory.»
«What cheap trick is this?» Mallory asked contemptuously. «I've never seen these men before in my life.» His eyes caught those of Panayis, held there involuntarily: the black hate that stared out of those eyes, the feral malevolence — there was something appaffing about it.
«Of course not,» Skoda sighed wearily. «Oh, of course not. Human memory is so short, is it not, Captain Mallory.» The sigh was pure theatre — Skoda was enjoying himself immensely, the cat playing with the mouse. «However, we will try again.» He swung round, crossed over to the bench where Stevens lay, pulled off the blanket and, before anyone could guess his intentions, chopped the outside of his right hand against Stevens's smashed leg, just below the knee… . Stevens's entire body leapt in a convulsive spasm, but without even the whisper of a moan: he was still fully conscious, smiling at Skoda, blood trickling down his chin from where his teeth had gashed his lower lip.
«You shouldn't have done that, Hauptmann Skoda,» Mallory said. His voice was barely a whisper, but unnaturally loud in the frozen silence of the room. «You are going to die for that, Hauptmann Skoda.»
«So? I am going to die, am I?» Again he chopped his hand against the fractured leg, again without reaction. «Then Imay as well die twice over — eh, Captain Mallory? This young man is very, very tough — but the British have soft hearts, have they not, my dear Captain?» Gently his hand slid down Stevens's leg, closed round the stockinged ankle. «You have exactly five seconds to tell me the truth, Captain Mallory, and then I fear I will be compelled to rearrange these splints--Gott in Himmel! What's the matter with that great oaf?»
Andrea had taken a couple of steps forward, was standing only a yard away, swaying on his feet.
«Outside! Let me outside!» His breath came in short, fast gasps. He bowed his head, one hand to his throat, one over his stomach. «I cannot stand it! Air! Air! I must have air!»
«Ah, no, my dear Papagos, you shall remain here and enjoy — Corporal! Quickly!» He had seen Andrea's eyes roll upwards until only the whites showed. «The fool is going to faint! Take him away before he falls on top of us!»
Mallory had one fleeting glimpse of the two guards hurrying forwards, of the incredulous contempt on Louki's face, then he ificked a glance at Miller and Brown, caught the lazy droop of the American's eyelid in return, the millimetric inclination of Brown's head. Even as the two guards came up behind Andrea and lifted the flaccid arms across their shoulders, Mallory glanced half-left, saw the nearest sentry less than four feet away now, absorbed in the spectacle of the toppling giant. Easy, dead easy — the gun dangling by his side: he could bit him between wind and water before he knew what was happening… .
Fascinated, Mallory watched Andrea's forearms slipping nervelessly down the shoulders of the supporting guards till his wrists rested loosely beside their necks, palms facing inwards. And then there was the sudden leap of the great shoulder muscles and Mallory had hurled himself convulsively sidewards and back, his shoulder socketing with vicious force into the guard's stomach, inches below the breast-bone: an explosive ouf! of agony, the crash against the wooden walls of the room and Mallory knew the guard would be out of action for some time to come.
Even as he dived, Mallory had heard the sickening thud of heads being swept together. Now, as he twisted round on his side, he had a fleeting glimpse of another guard thrashing feebly on the floor under the combined weights of Miller and Brown, and then of Andrea tearing an automatic rifle from the guard who had been standing at his right shoulder: the Schmeisser was cradled in his great hands, lined up on Skoda's chest even before the unconscious man had hit the floor.
For one second, maybe two, all movement in the room ceased, every sound sheared off by a knife edge: the silence was abrupt, absolute-and infinitely more clamorous than the clamour that had gone before. No one moved, no one spoke, no one even breathed: the shock, the utter unexpectedness of what had happened held them all in thrall.
And then the silence erupted in a staccato crashing of sound, deafening in that confined space. Once, twice, three times, wordlessly, and with great care, Andrea shot Hauptmann Skoda through the heart. The blast of the shells lifted the little man off his feet, smashed him against the wall of the hut, pinned him there for one incredible second, arms outfiung as though nailed against the rough planks in spreadeagle crucifixion; and then he eollapsed, fell limply to the ground, a grotesque and broken doll that struck its heedless head against the edge of the bench before coming to rest on its back on the floor. The eyes were still wide open, as cold, as dark, as empty in death as they had been in life.
His Schmeisser waving in a gentle arc that covered Turzig and the sergeant, Andrea picked up Skoda's sheath knife, sliced through the ropes that bound Mallory's wrists.
«Can you hold this gun, my Captain?»
Mallory flexed his stiffened hands once or twice, nodded, took the gun in silence. In three steps Andrea was behind the blind side of the door leading to the anteroom, pressed to the wall, waiting, gesturing to Mallory to move as far back as possible out of the line of sight.
Suddenly the door was flung open. Andrea could just see the tip of the rifle barrel projecting beyond it.
«Oberleutnant Turzig! Was ist los? Wer schoss …» The voice broke off in a coughing grunt of agony as Andrea smashed the sole of his foot against the door. He was round the outside of the door in a moment, caught the man as he fell, pulled him clear of the doorway and peered into the adjacent hut. A brief inspection, then he closed the door, bolted it from the inside.
«Nobody else there, my Captain,» Andrea reported. «Just the one gaoler, it seems.»
«Fine! Cut the others loose, will you, Andrea?» He wheeled round towards Louki, smiled at the comical expression on the little man's face, the tentative, spreading, finally ear-to-ear grin that cut through the baffled incredulity.
«Where do the men sleep, Louki — the soldiers, I mean?»
«In a hut in the middle of the compound, Major. This is the officers' quarters.»
«Compound? You mean--?»
«Barbed wire,» Louki said succinctly. «Ten feet high — and all the way round.»
«Exits?»
«One and one only. Two guards.»
«Good! Andrea — everybody into the side room. No, not you, Lieutenant. You sit down here.» He gestured to the chair behind the big desk. «Somebody's bound to come. Tell him you killed one of us — trying to escape. Then send for the guards at the gate.»
For a moment Turzig didn't answer. He watched unseeingly as Andrea walked past him, dragging two unconscious soldiers by their collars. Then he smiled. It was a wry sort of smile.
«I am sorry to
disappoint you, Captain Mallory. Too much has been lost already through my blind stupidity. I won't do it.»
«Andrea!» Mallory called softly.
«Yes?» Andrea stood in the anteroom doorway.
«I think I hear someone coming. Is there a way out of that side room?»
Andrea nodded silently.
«Outside! The front door. Take your knife. If the Lieutenant…» But he was talking to himself. Andrea was already gone, slipping out through the back door, soundless as a ghost.
«You will do exactly as I say,» Mallory said softly. He took position himself in the doorway to the side room, where he could see the front entrance between doot and jamb: his automatic rifle was trained on Turzig. «If you don't, Andrea will kill the man at the door. Then we will kill you and the guards inside. Then we will knife the sentries at the gate. Nine dead men — and all for nothing, for we will escape anyway… . Here he is now.» Mallory's voice was barely a whisper, eyes pitiless in a pitiless face. «Nine dead men, Lieutenant-- and just because your pride is hurt.» Deliberately, the last sentence was in German, fluent, colloquial, and Mallory's mouth twisted as he saw the almost imperceptible sag of Turzig's shoulders. He knew he had won, that Turzig had been going to take a last gamble on his ignorance of German, that this last hope was gone.
The door burst open and a soldier stood on the threshhold, breathing heavily. He was armed, but clad only in a singlet and trousers, oblivious of the cold.
«Lieutenant! Lieutenant!» he spoke in German. «We heard the shots—»
«It is nothing, Sergeant.» Turzig bent his head over an open drawer, pretended to be searching for something to account for his solitary presence in the room. «One of our prisoners tried to escape… . We stopped him.»
«Perhaps the medical orderly—»
«I'm afraId we stopped him rather permanently.» Turzig smiled tiredly. «You can organise a burial detail in the morning. Meantime, you might tell the guards at the gate to come here for a minute. Then get to bed yourself — you'll catch your death of cold!»
The guns of Navaronne Page 20