The guns of Navaronne

by Alistair MacLean

  «Forgotten all about it,» Mallory confessed. «What did you do with the car?»

  «I left it in the courtyard of Vygos castle. Then I emptied all the petrol from the tank and poured it over the car. Then I struck a match.»

  «You did what?» Mallory was incredulous.

  «I struck a match. I think I was standing too near the car, for I do not seem to have any eyebrows left.» Louki sighed. «A pity — it was such a splendid machine.» Then he brightened. «But before God, Major, it burned magnificently.»

  Mallory stared at him.

  «Why on earth--?»

  «It is simple,» Louki explained patiently. «By this time the men out in the Devil's Playground must know that their car has been stolen. They see the fire. They hurry back to — how do you say?»

  «Investigate?»

  «So. Investigate. They wait till the fire dies down. They investigate again. No bodies, no bones in the car, so they search the castle. And what do they find?»

  There was silence in the room.

  «Nothing!» Louki said impatiently. «They find nothing. And then they search the countryside for half a mile around. And what do they find? Again nothing. So then they know that they have been fooled, and that we are in the town, and will come to search the town.»

  «With the teeth-comb,» Mallory murmured.

  «With the teeth-comb. And what do they find?» Louki paused, then hurried on before anyone could steal his thunder. «Once again, they will find nothing,» he said triumphantly. «And why? For by then the rain will have come, the moon will have vanished, the explosives will be hidden — and we will be gone!»

  «Gone where?» Mallory felt dazed.

  «Where but to Vygos castle, Major Mallory. Never while night follows day will they think to look for us there!»

  Mallory looked at him in silence for long seconds without speaking, then turned to Andrea.

  «Captain Jensen's only made one mistake so far,» he murmured. «He picked the wrong man to lead this expedition. Not that it matters anyway. With Louki here on our side, how can we lose?»

  Mallory lowered his rucksack gently to the earthen roof, straightened and peered up into the darkness, both hands shielding his eyes from the first drizzle of rain. Even from where they stood — on the crumbling roof of the house nearest the fortress on the east side of the square — the wall stretched fifteen, perhaps twenty feet above their heads; the wickedly out- and down-curving spikes that topped the wall were all but lost in the darkness.

  «There she is, Dusty,» Mallory murmured. «Nothing to it.»

  «Nothin' to it!» Miller was horrified. «I've — I've gotta get over that?»

  «You'd have a ruddy hard time going through it,» Mallory answered briefly. He grinned, clapped Miller on the back and prodded the rucksack at his feet. «We chuck this rope up, the hook catches, you shin smartly up—»

  «And bleed to death on those six strands of barbed wire,» Miller interrupted. «Lould says they're the biggest barbs he's ever seen.»

  «We'll use the tent for padding,» Mallory said soothingly.

  «I have a very delicate skin, boss,» Miller complained. «Nothin' short of a spring mattress—»

  «Well, you've only an hour to find one,» Mallory said indifferently. Louki had estimated that it would be at least an hour before the search party would clear the northern part of the town, give himself and Andrea a chance to begin a diversion. «Come on, let's cache this stuff and get out of here. We'll shove the rucksacks in this corner and cover 'em with earth. Take the rope out first, though; we'll have no time to start undoing packs when we get back here.»

  Miller dropped to his knees, hands fumbling with straps, then exclaimed in sudden annoyance.

  «This can't be the pack,» he muttered in disgust. Abruptly his voice changed. «Here, wait a minute, though.»

  «What's up, Dusty?»

  Miller didn't answer immediately. For a few seconds his hands explored the contents of the pack, then he straightened.

  «The slow-burnin' fuse, boss.» His voice was blurred with anger, with a vicious anger that astonished Mallory. «It's gone!»

  «What!» Mallory stooped, began to search through the pack. «It can't be, Dusty, it just can't! Dammit to hell, man, you packed the stuff yourself!»

  «Sure I did, boss,» Miller grated. «And then some crawlin' bastard comes along behind my back and unpacks it again.»

  «Impossible!» Mallory protested. «It's just downright impossible, Dusty. You closed that rucksack — I saw you do it in the grove this morning — and Louki has had it all the time since then. And I'd trust Louki with my life.»

  «So would I, boss.»

  «Maybe we're both wrong,» Mallory went on quietly. «Maybe you did miss it out. We're both helluva tired, Dusty.»

  Miller looked at him queerly, said nothing for a moment, then began to swear again. «It's my own fault, boss, my own gawddamned fault.»

  «What do you mean, your own fault? Heavens above man, I was there when …» Mallory broke off, rose quickly to his feet and stared through the darkness at the south side of the square. A single shot had rung out there, the whiplash crack of a carbine followed the thin, high whine of a ricochet, and then silence.

  Mallory stood quite still, hands clenched by his sides. Over ten minutes had passed since he and Miller had left Panayis to guide Andrea and Brown to the Castle Vygos — they should have been well away from the square by this time. And almost certainly Louki wouldn't be down there. Mallory's instructions to him had been explicit — to hide the remainder of the T.N.T. blocks in the roof and then wait there to lead himself and Miller to the keep. But something could have gone wrong, something could always go wrong. Or a trap, maybe, a ruse. But what kind of trap?

  The sudden, off-beat stammering of a heavy machine-gun stilled his thoughts, and for a moment or two he was all eyes and straining ears. And then another, and lighter machine-gun cut in, just for a few seconds: as abruptly as they had started, both guns died away, together. Mallory waited no longer.

  «Get the stuff together again,» he whispered urgently. «We're taking it with us. Something's gone wrong.» Within thirty seconds they had ropes and explosives back in their knapsacks, had strapped them on their backs and were on their way.

  Bent almost double, careful to make no noise whatsoever, they ran across the roof-tops towards the old house where they had hidden earlier in the evening, where they were now to rendezvous with Louki. Still running, they were only feet away from the house when they saw his shadowy figure rise up, only it wasn't Louki, Mallory realised at once, it was far too tall for Louki, and without breaking step he catapulted the horizontal driving weight of his 180 pounds at the unknown figure in a homicidal tackle, his shoulder catching the man just below the breast-bone, emptying every last particle of air from the man's lungs with an explosive, agonised whoosh. A second later both of Miller's sinewy hands were clamped round the man's neck, slowly choking him to death.

  And he would have choked to death, neither of the two men were in any mind for half-measures, had not Mallory, prompted by some fugitive intuition, stooped low over the contorted face, the staring, protruding eyes, choked back a cry of sudden horror.

  «Dusty!» he whispered hoarsely. «For God's sake, stop! Let him go! It's Panayis!»

  Miller didn't hear him. In the gloom his face was like stone, his head sunk farther and farther between hunching shoulders as he tightened his grip, strangling the Greek in a weird and savage silence.

  «It's Panayis, you bloody fool, Panayis!» Mallory's mouth was at the American's ear, his hands clamped round the other's wrists as he tried to drag him off Panayis's throat. He could hear the muffled drumming of Panayis's heels on the turf of the roof, tore at Miller's wrists with all his strength: twice before he had heard that sound as a man had died under Andrea's great hands, and he knew with sudden certainty that Panayis would go the same way, and soon, if he didn't make Miller understand. But all at once Miller understood, relaxed hea
vily, straightened up, still kneeling, hands hanging limply by his sides. Breathing deeply he stared down in silence at the man at his feet.

  «What the hell's the matter with you?» Mallory demanded softly. «Deaf or blind or both?»

  «Just one of these things, I guess.» Miller rubbed the back of a hand across his forehead, his face empty of expression. «Sorry, boss, sorry.»

  «Why the hell apologise to me?» Mallory looked away from him, looked down at Panayis: the Greek was sitting up now, hands massaging his bruised throat, sucking in long draughts of air in great, whooping gasps. «But maybe Panayis here might appreciate—»

  «Apologies can wait,» Miller interrupted brusquely. «Ask him what's happened to Louki.»

  Mallory looked at him for a moment, made to reply, changed his mind, translated the question. He listened to Panayis's halting answer — it obviously hurt him even to try to speak — and his mouth tightened in a hard, bitter line. Miller watched the fractional slump of the New Zealander's shoulders, felt he could wait no longer.

  «Well, what is it, boss? Somethin's happened to Louki, is that it?»

  «Yes,» Mallory said tonelessly. «They'd only got as far as the lane at the back when they found a small German patrol blocking their way. Louki tried to draw them off and the machine-gunner got him through the chest. Andrea got the machine-gunner and took Louki away. Panayis says he'll die for sure.»

  CHAPTER 14

  Wednesday Night

  19:15 — 20:00

  The three men cleared the town without any difficulty, striking out directly across country for the Castle Vygos and avoiding the main road. It was beginning to rain now, heavily, persistently and the ground was mired and sodden, the few ploughed fields they crossed almost impassable. They had just struggled their way through one of these and could just see the dim outline of the keep — less than a cross-country mile from the town instead of Louki's exaggerated estimate — when they passed by an abandoned earthen house and Miller spoke for the first time since they had left the town square of Navarone.

  «I'm bushed, boss.» His head was sunk on his chest, and his breathing was laboured. «01' man Miller's on the downward path, I reckon, and the legs are gone. Couldn't we squat inside here for a couple of minutes, boss, and have a smoke?»

  Mallory looked at him in surprise, thought how desperately weary his own legs felt and nodded in reluctant agreement. Miller wasn't the man to complain unless he was near exhaustion.

  «Okay, Dusty, I don't suppose a minute or two will harm.» He translated quickly into Greek and led the way inside, Miller at his heels complaining at length about his advancing age. Once inside, Mallory felt his way across to the inevitable wooden bunk, sat down gratefully, lit a cigarette, then looked up in puzzlement. Miller was still on his feet, walking slowly round the hut, tapping the walls as he went.

  «Why don't you sit down?» Mallory asked irritably. «That was why you came in here in the first place, wasn't it?»

  «No, boss, not really.» The drawl was very pronounced. «Just a low-down trick to get us inside. Twothree very special things I want to show you.»

  «Very special. What the devil are you trying to tell me?»

  «Bear with me, Captain Mallory,» Miller requested formally. «Bear with me just a few minutes. I'm not wastin' your time. You have my word, Captain Mallory.»

  «Very well.» Mallory was mystified, but his confidence in Miller remained unshaken. «As you wish. Only don't be too long about it.»

  «Thanks, boss.» The strain of formality was too much for Miller. «It won't take long. There'll be a lamp or candles in here — you said the islanders never leave an abandoned house without 'em?»

  «And a very useful superstition it's been to us, too.» Mallory reached under the bunk with his torch, straightened his back. «Two or three candles here.»

  «I want a light, boss. No windows — I checked. O.K.?»

  «Light one and I'll go outside to see if there's anything showing.» Mallory was completely in the dark about the American's intentions. He felt Miller didn't want him to say anything, and there was a calm surety about him that precluded questioning. Mallory was back in less than a minute. «Not a chink to be seen from the outside,» he reported.

  «Fair enough. Thanks, boss.» Miller lit a second candle, then slipped the rucksack straps from his shoulders, laid the pack on the bunk and stood in silence for a moment.

  Mallory looked at his watch, looked back at Miller.

  «You were going to show me something,» he prompted. «Yeah, that's right. Three things, I said.» He dug into the pack, brought out a little black box hardly bigger than a match-box. «Exhibit A, boss.»

  Mallory looked at it curiously. «What's that?»

  «Clockwork fuse.» Miller began to unscrew the back panel. «Hate the damned things. Always make me feel like one of those bolshevik characters with a dark cloak, a moustache like Louki's and carryin' one of those black cannon-ball things with a sputterin' fuse stickin' outa it. But it works.» He had the back off the box now, examining the mechanism in the light of his torch. «But this one doesn't, not any more,» he added softly. «Clock's O.K., but the contact arm's been bent right back. This thing could tick till Kingdom Come and it couldn't even set off a firework.»

  «But how on earth--?»

  «Exhibit B.» Miller didn't seem to hear him. He opened the detonator box, gingerly lifted a fuse from its felt and cotton-wool bed and examined it closely under his torch. Then he looked at Mallory again. «Fulminate of mercury, boss. Only seventy-seven grains, but enough to blow your fingers off. Unstable as hell, too — the little tap will set it off.» He let it fall to the ground, and Mallory winced and drew back involuntarily as the American smashed a heavy heel down on top of it. But there was no explosion, nothing at all.

  «Ain't workin' so good either, is it, boss? A hundred to one the rest are all empty, too.» He fished out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and watched the smoke eddy and swirl above the heat of the candles. He slid the cigarettes into his pocket.

  «There was a third thing you were going to show me,» Mallory said quietly.

  «Yeah, I was goin' to show you somethin' else.» The voice was very gentle, and Mallory felt suddenly cold. «I was goin' to show you a spy, a traitor, the most vicious, twistin', murderin', doublecrossin' bastard I've ever known.» The American had his hand out of his pocket now, the silenced automatic sitting snugly against his palm, the muzzle trained over Panayis's heart. He went on, more gently than ever. «Judas Iscariot had nothin' on the boy-friend, here, boss… . Take your coat off, Panayis.»

  «What the devil are you doing! Are you crazy?» Mallory started forward, half-angry, half-amazed, but brought up sharply against Miller's extended arm, rigid as a bar of iron. «What bloody nonsense is this? He doesn't understand English!»

  «Don't he, though? Then why was he out of the cave like a flash when Casey reported hearin' sounds outside … and why was he the first to leave the carob grove this afternoon if he didn't understand your order? Take your coat off, Judas, or I'll shoot you through the arm. I'll give you two seconds.»

  Mallory made to throw his arms round Miller and bring him to the ground, but halted in mid-step as he caught the look on Panayis's face — teeth bared, murder glaring out from the coal-black eyes. Never before had Mallory seen such malignity in a human face, a malignity that yielded abruptly to shocked pain and disbelief as the .32 bullet smashed into his upper arm, just below the shoulder.

  «Two seconds and then the other arm,» Miller said woodenly. But Panayis was already tearing off his jacket, the dark, bestial eyes never leaving Miller's face. Mallory looked at him, shivered involuntarily, looked at Miller. Indifference, he thought, that was the only word to describe the look on the American's face. Indifference. Unaccountably, Mallory felt colder than ever.

  «Turn round!» The automatic never wavered.

  Slowly Panayis turned round. Miller stepped forward, caught the black shirt by the collar, ripped it off his b
ack with one convulsive jerk.

  «Waal, waal, now, whoever woulda thought it?» Miller drawled. «Surprise, surprise, surprise! Remember, boss, this was the character that was publicly flogged by the Germans in Crete, flogged until the white of his ribs showed through. His back's in a heliuva state, isn't it?»

  Mallory looked but said nothing. Completely off balance, his mind was in a kaleidoscopic whirl, his thoughts struggling to adjust themselves to a new set of circumstances, a complete reversal of all his previous thinking. Not a scar, not a single blemish, marked the dark smoothness of that skin.

  «Just a natural quick healer,» Miller murmured. «Only a nasty, twisted mind like mine would think that he had been a German agent in Crete, became known to the Allies as a fifth columnist, lost his usefulness to the Germans and was shipped back to Navarone by fast motor-launch under cover of night. Floggin'! Islandhoppin' his. way back here in a rowboat! Just a lot of bloody eyewash!» Miller paused, and his mouth twisted. «I wonder how many pieces of silver he made in Crete before they got wise to him?»

  «But heavens above, man, you're not going to condemn someone just for shooting a line!» Mallory protested. Strangely, he didn't feel nearly as vehement as he sounded. «How many survivors would there be among the Allies if—»

  «Not convinced yet, huh?» Miller waved his automatic negligently at Panayis. «Roll up the left trouser leg, Iscariot. Two seconds again.»

  Panayis did as he was told. The black, venomous eyes never looked away from Miller's. He rolled the dark cloth up to the knee.

  «Farther yet? That's my little boy,» Miller, encouraged him. «And now take that bandage off — right off.» A few seconds passed, then Miller shook his head sadly. «A ghastly wound, boss, a ghastly wound!»

  «I'm beginning to see your point,» Mallory said thoughtfully. The dark sinewy leg wasn't even scratched. «But why on earth—»

  «Simple. Four reasons at least. Junior here is a treacherous, slimy bastard — no self -respectin' rattlesnake would come within a mile of him — but he's a clever bastard. He faked his leg so he could stay in the cave in the Devil's Playground when the four of us went back to stop the Alpenkorps from comin' up the slope below the carob grove.»