«Thank you, sir. Thanks for not letting me down. You and Andrea — you understand. You always did understand.»
«You'll — you'll be all right, Andy?» God, Mallory thought, what a stupid, what an inane thing, to say.
«Honest, sir, I'm O.K.» Stevens smiled contentedly. «No pain left — I can't feel a thing. It's wonderful!»
«Andy, I don't—»
«It's time you were gone, sir. The others will be waiting. Now if you'll just light me a gasper and fire a few random shots down that ravine.»
Within five minutes Mallory had overtaken the othera, and inside fifteen they had all reached the cave that led to the coast. For a moment they stood in the entrance, listening to the intermittent firing from the other end of the valley, then turned wordlessly and plunged into the cave. Back where they had left him, Andy Stevens was lying on his stomach, peering down into the now almost dark ravine. There was no pain left in his body, none at all. He drew deeply on a cupped cigarette, smiled as he pushed another clip home into the magazine of the Bren. For the first time in his life Andy Stevens was happy and content beyond his understanding, a man at last at peace with himself. He was no longer afraid.
CHAPTER 13
Wednesday Evening
18:00--19:15
Exactly forty minutes later they were safely in the heart of the town of Navarone, within fifty yards of the great gates of the fortress itself.
Mallory, gazing out at the gates and the still more massive arch of stone that encased them, shook his head for the tenth time and tried to fight off the feeling of disbelief and wonder that they should have reached their goal at last — or as nearly as made no difference. They had been due a break some time, he thought, the law of averages had been overwhelmingly against the continuation of the evil fortune that had dogged them so incessantly since they had arrived on the island. It was only right, he kept telling himself, it was only just that this should be so: but even so, the transition from that dark valley where they had left Andy Stevens to die to this tumble-down old house on the east side of the town square of Navarone had been so quick, so easy, that it still lay beyond immediate understanding or unthinking acceptance.
Not that it had been too easy in the first fifteen minutes or so, he remembered. Panayis's wounded leg had given out on him immediately after they had entered the cave, and he had collapsed; he must have been in agony, Mallory had thought, with his torn, roughlybandaged leg, but the faffing light and the dark, bitter, impassive face had masked the pain. He had begged Mallory to be allowed to remain where he was, to hold off the Alpenkorps when they had overcome Stevens and reached the end of the valley, but Mallory had roughly refused him permission. Brutally he had told Panayis that he was far too valuable to be left there-- and that the chances of the Alpenkorps picking that cave out of a score of others were pretty remote. Ma!.. lory had hated having to talk to him like that, but there had been no time for gentle blandishments, and Panayis must have seen his point for he had made neither protest nor stuggie when Miller and Andrea picked him up and helped him to limp through the cave. The limp, Mallory had noticed, had been much less noticeable then, perhaps because of the assistance, perhaps because now that he had been baulked of the chance of killing a few more Germans it had been pointless to exaggerate his hurt.
They had barely cleared the mouth of the cave on the other side and were making their way down the treetufted, sloping valley side towards the sea, the dark sheen of the Aegean clearly visible in the gloom, when Louki, hearing something, had gestured them all to silence. Almost immediately Mallory, too, heard it, a soft guttural voice occasionally lost in the crunch of approaching feet on gravel, had seen that they were providentially screened by some stunted trees, given the order to stop and sworn in quick anger as he had heard the soft thud and barely muffled cry behind them. He had gone back to investigate and found Panayis stretched on the ground unconscious. Miller, who had been helping him along, had explained that Mallory had halted them so suddenly that he'd bumped into Panayis, that the Greek's bad leg had given beneath him, throwing him heavily, his head striking a stone as he had fallen. Mallory had stooped down in instantly renewed suspicion — Panayis was a throw-back, a natural-born killer, and he was quite capable of faking an accident if he thought he could turn it to his advantage, line a few more of the enemy up on the sights of his rifle … but there had been no fake about that: the bruised and bloodied gash above the temple was all too real.
The German patrol, having had no inkling of their presence, moved noisily up the valley till they had finally gone out of earshot. Louki had thought that the commandant in Navarone was becoming desperate, trying to seal off every available exit from the Devil's Playground. Mallory had thought it unlikely, but had not stayed to argue the point. Five minutes later they had cleared the mouth of the valley, and in another five had not only reached the coast road but silenced and bound two sentries — the drivers, probably — who had been guarding a truck and command car parked by the roadside, stripped them of denims and helmets and bundled them out of sight behind some bushes.
The trip into Navarone had been ridiculously simple, but the entire lack of opposition was easily understandable, because of the complete unexpectedness of it all. Seated beside Mallory on the front seat, clad, like Mallory in captured clothes, Louki had driven the big car, and driven it magnificently, an accomplishment so unusual to find in a remote Aegean island that Mallory had been completely mystified until Louki had reminded him that he had been Eugene Viachos's Consulate chauffeur for many years. The drive into town had taken less than twelve minutes — not only did the little man handle the car superbly, but he knew the road so well that he got the utmost possible out of the big machine, most of the time without benefit of any lights at all.
Not only a simple journey, but quite uneventful. They had passed several parked trucks at intervals along the road, and less than two miles from the town itself had met a group of about twenty soldiers marching in the opposite direction in column of twos. Louki had slowed down — it would have been highly suspicious had he accelerated, endangering the lives of the marching men-- but had switched on the powerful headlights, blinding them, and blown raucously on the horn, while Mallory had leaned out of the right-hand window, sworn at them in perfect German and told them to get out of his damned way. This they had done, while the junior officer in charge had come smartly to attention, throwing up his hand in punctilious salute.
Immediately afterwards they had run through an area of high-walled, terraced market gardens, passed between a decaying Byzantine church and a whitewashed orthodox monastery that faced each other incongruously across the same dusty road, then almost at once were running through the lower part of the old town. Mallory had had a vague impression of narrow, winding, dim-lit streets only inches wider than the car itself, hugely cobbled and with almost knee-high pavements, then Louki was making his way up an arched lane, the car climbing steeply all the time. He bad stopped abruptly, and Mallory had followed his quick survey of the darkened lane: completely deserted though over an hour yet to curfew. Beside them had been a flight of white stone steps innocent of any hand-rail, running up parallel to the wall of a house, with a highly ornamented lattice-work grill protecting the outside landing at the top. A still groggy Panayis had led them up these stairs, through a house — he had known exactly where he was — across a shallow roof, down some more steps, through a dark courtyard and into this ancient house where they were now. Louki had driven the car away even before they had reached the top of the stairs; it was only now that Mallory remembered that Louki hadn't thought it worth while to say what he intended to do with the car.
Still gazing out the windowless hole in the wall at the fortress gate, Mallory found himself hoping intensely that nothing would happen to the sad-eyed little Greek, and not only because in his infinite resource and local knowledge he had been invaluable to them and was likely to prove so again; all these considerations apart, Mallory had formed the deep
est affection for him, for his unvarying cheerfulness, his enthusiasm, his eagerness to help and to please, above all for his complete disregard of self. A thoroughly lovable little man, and Mallory's heart warmed to him. More than he could say for Panayis, he thought sourly, and then immediately regretted the thought: it was no fault of Panayis's that he was what he was, and in his own dark and bitter way he had done as much for them as Louki. But the fact remained that he was sadly lacking in Louki's warm humanity.
He lacked also Louki's quick intelligence, the calculated opportunism that amounted almost to genius. It had been a brilliant idea on Louki's part, Mallory mused, that they should take over this abandoned house: not that there had been any difficulty in finding an empty house — since the Germans had taken over the old castle the inhabitants of the town had left in their scores for Margaritha and other outlying villages, none more quickly than those who had lived in the town square itself; the nearness of the fortress gates, the sentries marching to and fro, the never-ceasing reminders that their freedom was a vanished thing. So many had gone that more than half the houses on the west side of the square — those nearest the fortress — were now occupied by German officers. But this same enforced close observation of the fortress's activities had been exactly what Mallory had wanted. When the time came to strike they had only yards to go. And although any competent garrison commander would always be prepared against the unexpected, Mallory considered it unlikely indeed that any reasonable man could conceive of a sabotage group so suicidally minded as to spend an entire day within a literal stone's throw of the fortress wall.
Not that the house as such had much to recommend it. As a home, a dwelling place, it was just about as uncomfortable as possible, as dilapidated as it could be without actually falling down. The west side of the square — the side perched precariously on the cliff-top — and the south side were made up of fairly modern buildings of whitewashed stone and Parian granite, huddled together in the invariable fashion of houses in these island towns, fiat-roofed to catch as much as possible of the winter rains. But the east side of the square, where they were, was made up of antiquated timber and turf houses, of the kind much more often found in remote mountain vifiages.
The beaten earth floor beneath his feet was hummocky, uneven, and the previous occupants had used one corner of it — obviously — for a variety of purposes, not least as a refuse dump. The ceiling was of roughhewn, blackened beams, more or less covered with planks, these in turn being covered with a thick layer of trodden earth: from previous experience of such houses in the White Mountains, Mallory knew that the roof would leak like a sieve whenever the rain came on. Across one end of the room was a solid ledge some thirty inches high, a ledge that served, after the fashion of similar structures in Eskimo igloos, as bed, table or settee as the occasion demanded. The room was completely bare of furniture.
Mallory started as someone touched him on the shoulder and turned round. Miller was behind him, munching away steadily, the remains of a bottle of wine in his hand.
«Better get some chow, boss,» he advised. «I'll take a gander through this hole from time to time.»
«Right you are, Dusty. Thanks.» Mallory moved gingerly towards the back of the room — it was almost pitch dark inside and they dared not risk a light — and felt his way till he brought up against the ledge. The tireless Andrea had gone through their provisions and prepared a meal of sorts — dried figs, honey, cheese, garlic sausages and pounded roast chestnuts. A horrible mixture, Mallory thought, but the best Andrea could do: besides he was too hungry, ravenously so, to worry about such niceties as the pleasing of his palate. And by the time he had washed it down with some of the local wine that Louki and Panayis bad provided the previous day, the sweetly-resinous rawness of the drink had obliterated every other taste.
Carefully, shielding the match with his hand, Mallory lit a cigarette and began to explain for the first time his plan for entering the fortress. He did not have to bother lowering his voice — a couple of looms in the next house, one of the few occupied ones left on that side of the square, clacked incessantly throughout the evening. Mallory had a shrewd suspicion that this was more of Louki's doing, although it was difficult to see how he could have got word through to any of his friends. But Mallory was content to accept the situation as it was, to concentrate on making sure that the others understood his insttuctions.
Apparently they did, for there were no questions. For a few minutes the talk became general, the usually taciturn Casey Brown having the most to say, complaining bitterly about the food, the drink, his injured leg and the hardness of the bench where he wouldn't be able to sleep a wink all night long. Mallory grinned to himself but said nothing; Casey Brown was definitely on the mend.
«I reckon we've talked enough, gentlemen.» Mallory slid off the bench and stretched himself. God, he was tired! «Our first and last chance to get a decent night's sleep. Two hour watches — I'll take the first.»
«By yourself?» It was Miller caffing softly from the other end of the room. «Don't you think we should share watches, boss? One for the front, one for the back. Besides, you know we're all pretty well done up. One man by himself might fall asleep.» He sounded so anxious that Mallory laughed.
«Not a chance, Dusty. Each man will keep watch by the window there and if he falls asleep he'll damn' soon wake up when he hits the floor. And it's because we're so darned bushed that we can't afford to have anyone lose sleep unnecessarily. Myself first, then you, then Panayis, then Casey, then Andrea.»
«Yeah, I suppose that'll be O.K.,» Miller conceded grudgingly.
He put something hard and cold into his hand. Mallory recognised it at once — it was Miller's most cherished possession, his silenced automatic.
«Just so's you can fill any nosy customers full of little holes without wakin' the whole town.» He ambled off to the back of the room, lit a cigarette, smoked it quietly for a few moments, then swung his legs up on the bench. Within five minutes everyone except the silently watchful man at the window was sound asleep.
Two or three minutes later Mallory jerked to unmoving attention as he heard a stealthy sound outside-from the back of the house, he thought. The clacking of the looms next door had stopped, and the house was very still. Again there came the noise, unmistakable this time, a gentle tapping at the door at the end of the passage that led from the back of the room.
«Remain there, my Captain.» It was Andrea's soft murmur, and Mallory marveled for the hundredth time at Andrea's ability to rouse himself from the deepest of sleeps' at the slightest alien sound: the violence of a thunderstorm would have left him undisturbed. «I will see to it. It must be Louki.»
It was Louki. The little man was panting, near exhaustion, but extraordinarily pleased with himself. Gratefully he drank the cup of wine that Andrea poured for him.
«Damned glad to see you back again!» Mallory said sincerely. «How did it go? Someone after you?»
Mallory could almost see him drawing himself up to his full height in the darkness.
«As if any of these clumsy fools could see Louki, even on a moonlit night, far less catch him,» he said indignantly. He paused to draw some deep breaths. «No, no, Major, I knew you would be worried about me so I ran back all the way. Well, nearly all the way,» he amended. «I am not so young as I was, Major Mallory.»
«All the way from where?» Mallory asked. He was glad of the darkness that hid his smile.
«From Vygos. It is an old castle that the Franks built there many generations ago, about two miles from here along the coast road to the east.» He paused to drink another mouthful of wine. «More than two miles, I would say — and I only walked twice, a minute at a time, on the way back.» Mallory had the impression that Louki already regretted his momentary weakness in admitting that he was no longer a young man.
«And what did you do there?» Mallory asked.
«I was thinking, after I left you,» Louki answered indirectly. «Me, I am always thinking,» he explai
ned. «It is a habit of mine. I was thinking that when the soldiers who are looking for us out in the Devil's Playground find out that the car is gone, they will know that we are no longer in that accursed place.»
«Yes,» Mallory agreed carefully. «Yes, they will know that.»
«Then they will say to themselves, 'Ha, those verdammt Englanders have little time left. They will know that we will know that they have little hope of catching us in the island — Panayis and I, we know every rock and tree and path and cave. So all they can do is to make sure that we do not get into the town — they will block every road leading in, and to-night is our last chance to get in. You follow me?» he asked anxiously.
«I'm trying very hard.»
«But first—» (Louki spread his hands dramatically) «but first they will make sure we are not in the town. They would be fools to block the roads if we were already in the town. They must make sure we are not in the town. And so — the search. The very great search. With — how do you say?--the teeth-comb!»
Mallory nodded his head in slow understanding.
«I'm afraid he's right, Andrea.»
«I, too, fear so,» Andrea said unhappily. «We should have thought of this. But perhaps we could hide — the roof-tops or—»
«With a teeth-comb, I said!» Louki interrupted impatiently. «But all is well. I, Louki have thought it all out. I can smell rain. There will be clouds over the moon before long, and it will be safe to move… . You do not want to know what I have donа with the car, Major Mallory?» Louki was enjoying himself immensely.
The guns of Navaronne Page 24