‘Nice goin’, boss,’ he complimented. ‘Never heard a thing. Who’s the heavyweight champ?’
‘No idea.’ Mallory shook his head in the darkness. ‘Just skin and bones, that’s all, just skin and bones. Shut the door, Dusty, and let’s have a look at what we’ve got.’
EIGHT
Tuesday
1900–0015
A minute passed, two, then the little man stirred, moaned and pushed himself to a sitting position. Mallory held his arm to steady him, while he shook his bent head, eyes screwed tightly shut as he concentrated on clearing the muzziness away. Finally he looked up slowly, glanced from Mallory to Miller and back at Mallory again in the feeble light of the newly-lit shuttered lantern. Even as the men watched, they could see the colour returning to the swarthy cheeks, the indignant bristling of the heavy, dark moustache, the darkening anger in the eyes. Suddenly the man reached up, tore Mallory’s hand away from his arm.
‘Who are you?’ He spoke in English, clear, precise, with hardly a trace of accent.
‘Sorry, but the less you know the better.’ Mallory smiled, deliberately to rob the words of offence. ‘I mean that for your own sake. How are you feeling now?’
Tenderly the little man massaged his midriff, flexed his leg with a grimace of pain.
‘You hit me very hard.’
‘I had to.’ Mallory reached behind him and picked up the cudgel the man had been carrying. ‘You tried to hit me with this. What did you expect me to do – take my hat off so you could have a better swipe at me?’
‘You are very amusing.’ Again he bent his leg, experimentally, looking up at Mallory in hostile suspicion. ‘My knee hurts me,’ he said accusingly.
‘First things first. Why the club?’
‘I meant to knock you down and have a look at you,’ he explained impatiently. ‘It was the only safe way. You might have been one of the WGB … Why is my knee –?’
‘You had an awkward fall,’ Mallory said shamelessly. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Who are you?’ the little man countered.
Miller coughed, looked ostentatiously at his watch.
‘This is all very entertainin’, boss –’
‘True for you, Dusty. We haven’t all night.’ Quickly Mallory reached behind him, picked up the man’s rucksack, tossed it across to Miller. ‘See what’s in there, will you?’ Strangely, the little man made no move to protest.
‘Food!’ Miller said reverently. ‘Wonderful, wonderful food. Cooked meat, bread, cheese – and wine.’ Reluctantly Miller closed the bag and looked curiously at their prisoner. ‘Helluva funny time for a picnic.’
‘So! An American, a Yankee.’ The little man smiled to himself. ‘Better and better!’
‘What do you mean?’ Miller asked suspiciously.
‘See for yourself,’ the man said pleasantly. He nodded casually to the far corner of the room. ‘Look there.’
Mallory spun round, realised in a moment that he had been tricked, jerked back again. Carefully he leaned forward and touched Miller’s arm.
‘Don’t look round too quickly, Dusty. And don’t touch your gun. It seems our friend was not alone.’ Mallory tightened his lips, mentally cursed himself for his obtuseness. Voices – Dusty had said there had been voices. Must be even more tired than he had thought …
A tall, lean man blocked the entrance to the doorway. His face was shadowed under an enveloping snow-hood, but there was no mistaking the gun in his hand. A short Lee Enfield rifle, Mallory noted dispassionately.
‘Do not shoot!’ The little man spoke rapidly in Greek. ‘I am almost sure that they are those whom we seek, Panayis.’
Panayis! Mallory felt the wave of relief wash over him. That was one of the names Eugene Vlachos had given him, back in Alexandria.
‘The tables turned, are they not?’ The little man smiled at Mallory, the tired eyes crinkling, the heavy black moustache lifting engagingly at one corner. ‘I ask you again, who are you?’
‘SOE,’ Mallory answered unhesitatingly.
The man nodded in satisfaction. ‘Captain Jensen sent you?’
Mallory sank back on the bunk and sighed in long relief.
‘We are among friends, Dusty.’ He looked at the little man before him. ‘You must be Louki – the first plane tree in the square in Margaritha?’
The little man beamed. He bowed, stretched out his hand.
‘Louki. At your service, sir.’
‘And this of course, is Panayis?’
The tall man in the doorway, dark, saturnine, unsmiling, inclined his head briefly but said nothing.
‘You have us right!’ The little man was beaming with delight. ‘Louki and Panayis. They know about us in Alexandria and Cairo, then?’ he asked proudly.
‘Of course!’ Mallory smothered a smile. ‘They spoke highly of you. You have been of great help to the Allies before.’
‘And we will again,’ Louki said briskly. ‘Come, we are wasting time. The Germans are on the hills. What help can we give you?’
‘Food, Louki. We need food – we need it badly.’
‘We have it!’ Proudly, Louki gestured at the rucksacks. ‘We were on our way up with it.’
‘You were on your way …’ Mallory was astonished. ‘How did you know where we were – or even that we were on the island?’
Louki waved a deprecating hand.
‘It was easy. Since first light German troops have been moving south through Margaritha up into the hills. All morning they combed the east col of Kostos. We knew someone must have landed, and that the Germans were looking for them. We heard, too, that the Germans had blocked the cliff path on the south coast, at both ends. So you must have come over the west col. They would not expect that – you fooled them. So we came to find you.’
‘But you would never have found us –’
‘We would have found you.’ There was complete certainty in the voice. ‘Panayis and I – we know every stone, every blade of grass in Navarone.’ Louki shivered suddenly, stared out bleakly through the swirling snow. ‘You couldn’t have picked worse weather.’
‘We couldn’t have picked better,’ Mallory said grimly.
‘Last night, yes,’ Louki agreed. ‘No one would expect you in that wind and rain. No one would hear the aircraft or even dream that you would try to jump –’
‘We came by sea,’ Miller interrupted. He waved a negligent hand. ‘We climbed the south cliff.’
‘What? The south cliff!’ Louki was frankly disbelieving. ‘No one could climb the south cliff. It is impossible!’
‘That’s the way we felt when we were about half-way up,’ Mallory said candidly. ‘But Dusty, here, is right. That’s how it was.’
Louki had taken a step back: his face was expressionless.
‘I say it is impossible,’ he repeated flatly.
‘He is telling the truth, Louki,’ Miller cut in quietly. ‘Do you never read newspapers?’
‘Of course I read newspapers!’ Louki bristled with indignation. ‘Do you think I am – how you say – illiterate?’
‘Then think back to just before the war,’ Miller advised. ‘Think of mountaineerin’ – and the Himalayas. You must have seen his picture in the papers – once, twice, a hundred times.’ He looked at Mallory consideringly. ‘Only he was a little prettier in those days. You must remember. This is Mallory, Keith Mallory of New Zealand.’
Mallory said nothing. He was watching Louki, the puzzlement, the comical screwing up of the eyes, head cocked to one side: then, all at once, something clicked in the little man’s memory and his face lit up in a great, crinkling smile that swamped every last trace of suspicion. He stepped forward, hand outstretched in welcome.
‘By heaven, you are right! Mallory! Of course I know Mallory!’ He grabbed Mallory’s hand, pumped it up and down with great enthusiasm. ‘It is indeed as the American says. You need a shave … And you look older.’
‘I feel older,’ Mallory said gloomily. He nodded at Miller.
‘This is Corporal Miller, an American citizen.’
‘Another famous climber?’ Louki asked eagerly. ‘Another tiger of the hills, yes?’
‘He climbed the south cliff as it has never been climbed before,’ Mallory answered truthfully. He glanced at his watch, then looked directly at Louki. ‘There are others up in the hills. We need help, Louki. We need it badly and we need it at once. You know the danger if you are caught helping us?’
‘Danger?’ Louki waved a contemptuous hand. ‘Danger to Louki and Panayis, the foxes of Navarone? Impossible! We are the ghosts of the night.’ He hitched his pack higher up on his shoulders. ‘Come. Let us take this food to your friends.’
‘Just a minute.’ Mallory’s restraining hand was on his arm. ‘There are two other things. We need heat – a stove and fuel, and we need –’
‘Heat! A stove!’ Louki was incredulous. ‘Your friends in the hills – what are they? A band of old women?’
‘And we also need bandages and medicine,’ Mallory went on patiently. ‘One of our friends has been terribly injured. We are not sure, but we do not think that he will live.’
‘Panayis!’ Louki barked. ‘Back to the village.’ Louki was speaking in Greek now. Rapidly he issued his orders, had Mallory describe where the rock-shelter was, made sure that Panayis understood, then stood a moment in indecision, pulling at an end of his moustache. At length he looked up at Mallory.
‘Could you find this cave again by yourself?’
‘Lord only knows,’ Mallory said frankly. ‘I honestly don’t think so.’
‘Then I must come with you. I had hoped – you see, it will be a heavy load for Panayis – I have told him to bring bedding as well – and I don’t think –’
‘I’ll go along with him,’ Miller volunteered. He thought of his back-breaking labours on the caique, the climb up the cliff, their forced march through the mountains. ‘The exercise will do me good.’
Louki translated his offer to Panayis – taciturn, apparently, only because of his complete lack of English – and was met by what appeared to be a torrent of protest. Miller looked at him in astonishment.
‘What’s the matter with old sunshine here?’ he asked Mallory. ‘Doesn’t seem any too happy to me.’
‘Says he can manage OK and wants to go by himself,’ Mallory interpreted. ‘Thinks you’ll slow him up on the hills.’ He shook his head in mock wonder. ‘As if any man could slow Dusty Miller up!’
‘Exactly!’ Louki was bristling with anger. Again he turned to Panayis, fingers stabbing the empty air to emphasise his words. Miller turned, looked apprehensively at Mallory.
‘What’s he tellin’ him now, boss?’
‘Only the truth,’ Mallory said solemnly. ‘Saying he ought to be honoured at being given the opportunity of marching with Monsieur Miller, the world-famous American climber.’ Mallory grinned. ‘Panayis will be on his mettle tonight – determined to prove that a Navaronian can climb as well and as fast as any man.’
‘Oh, my Gawd!’ Miller moaned.
‘And on the way back, don’t forget to give Panayis a hand up the steeper bits.’
Miller’s reply was luckily lost in a sudden flurry of snow-laden wind.
That wind was rising steadily now, a bitter wind that whipped the heavy snow into their bent faces and stung the tears from their blinking eyes. A heavy, wet snow that melted as it touched, and trickled down through every gap and chink in their clothing until they were wet and chilled and thoroughly miserable. A clammy, sticky snow that built up layer after energy-sapping layer under their leaden-footed boots, until they stumbled along inches above the ground, leg muscles aching from the sheer accumulated weight of snow. There was no visibility worthy of the name, not even of a matter of feet, they were blanketed, swallowed up by an impenetrable cocoon of swirling grey and white, unchanging, featureless: Louki strode on diagonally upwards across the slope with the untroubled certainty of a man walking up his own garden path.
Louki seemed as agile as a mountain goat, and as tireless. Nor was his tongue less nimble, less unwearied than his legs. He talked incessantly, a man overjoyed to be in action again, no matter what action so long as it was against the enemy. He told Mallory of the last three attacks on the island and how they had so bloodily failed – the Germans had been somehow forewarned of the sea-borne assault, had been waiting for the Special Boat Service and the Commandos with everything they had and had cut them to pieces, while the two airborne groups had had the most evil luck, been delivered up to the enemy by misjudgment, by a series of unforeseeable coincidences; or how Panayis and himself had on both occasions narrowly escaped with their lives – Panayis had actually been captured the last time, had killed both his guards and escaped unrecognised; of the disposition of the German troops and check-points throughout the island, the location of the road blocks on the only two roads; and finally, of what little he himself knew of the layout of the fortress of Navarone itself. Panayis, the dark one, could tell him more of that, Louki said: twice Panayis had been inside the fortress, once for an entire night: the guns, the control rooms, the barracks, the officers’ quarters, the magazine, the turbo rooms, the sentry points – he knew where each one lay, to the inch.
Mallory whistled softly to himself. This was more than he had ever dared hope for. They had still to escape the net of searchers, still to reach the fortress, still to get inside it. But once inside – and Panayis must know how to get inside … Unconsciously Mallory lengthened his stride, bent his back to the slope.
‘Your friend Panayis must be quite something,’ he said slowly. ‘Tell me more about him, Louki.’
‘What can I tell you?’ Louki shook his head in a little flurry of snowflakes. ‘What do I know of Panayis? What does anyone know of Panayis? That he has the luck of the devil, the courage of a madman and that sooner the lion will lie down with the lamb, the starving wolf spare the flock, than Panayis breathe the same air as the Germans? We all know that, and we know nothing of Panayis. All I know is that I thank God I am no German, with Panayis on the island. He strikes by stealth, by night, by knife and in the back.’ Louki crossed himself. ‘His hands are full of blood.’
Mallory shivered involuntarily. The dark, sombre figure of Panayis, the memory of the expressionless face, the hooded eyes, were beginning to fascinate him.
‘There’s more to him than that, surely,’ Mallory argued ‘After all, you are both Navaronians –’
‘Yes yes, that is so.’
‘This is a small island, you’ve lived together all your lives –’
‘Ah, but that is where the major is wrong!’ Mallory’s promotion in rank was entirely Louki’s own idea: despite Mallory’s protests and explanations he seemed determined to stick to it. ‘I, Louki, was for many years in foreign lands, helping Monsieur Vlachos. Monsieur Vlachos,’ Louki said with pride, ‘is a very important Government official.’
‘I know,’ Mallory nodded. ‘A consul. I’ve met him. He is a very fine man.’
‘You have met him! Monsieur Vlachos?’ There was no mistaking the gladness, the delight in Louki’s voice. ‘That is good! That is wonderful! Later you must tell me more. He is a great man. Did I ever tell you –’
‘We were speaking about Panayis,’ Mallory reminded him gently.
‘Ah, yes, Panayis. As I was saying, I was away for a long time. When I came back, Panayis was gone. His father had died, his mother had married again and Panayis had gone to live with his stepfather and two little stepsisters in Crete. His stepfather, half-fisherman, half-farmer, was killed in fighting the Germans near Candia – this was in the beginning. Panayis took over the boat of his father, helped many of the Allies to escape until he was caught by the Germans, strung up by his wrists in the village square – where his family lived – not far from Casteli. He was flogged till the white of his ribs, of his backbone, was there for all to see, and left for dead. Then they burnt the village and Panayis’s family – disappeared. You understand, Major?’
‘I understand,’ Mallory said grimly. ‘But Panayis –’
‘He should have died. But he is tough, that one, tougher than a knot in an old carob tree. Friends cut him down during the night, took him away into the hills till he was well again. And then he arrived back in Navarone, God knows how. I think he came from island to island in a small rowing-boat. He never says why he came back – I think it gives him greater pleasure to kill on his own native island. I do not know, Major. All I know is that food and sleep, the sunshine, women and wine – all these are nothing and less than nothing to the dark one.’ Again Louki crossed himself. ‘He obeys me, for I am the steward of the Vlachos family, but even I am afraid of him. To kill, to keep on killing, then kill again – that is the very breath of his being.’ Louki stopped momentarily, sniffed the air like a hound seeking some fugitive scent, then kicked the snow off his boots and struck off up the hill at a tangent. The little man’s unhesitating sureness of direction was uncanny.
‘How far to go now, Louki?’
Two hundred yards, Major. No more.’ Louki blew some snow off his heavy, dark moustache and swore. ‘I shall not be sorry to arrive.’
‘Nor I.’ Mallory thought of the miserable, draughty shelter in the dripping rocks almost with affection. It was becoming steadily colder as they climbed out of the valley, and the wind was rising, climbing up the register with a steady, moaning whine: they had to lean into it now, push hard against it, to make any progress. Suddenly both men stopped, listened, looked at each other, heads bent against the driving snow. Around them there was only the white emptiness and the silence: there was no sign of what had caused the sudden sound.
‘You heard something, too?’ Mallory murmured.
‘It is only I.’ Mallory spun round as the deep voice boomed out behind him and the bulky, white-smocked figure loomed out of the snow. ‘A milk wagon on a cobbled street is as nothing compared to yourself and your friend here. But the snow muffled your voices and I could not be sure.’
The Complete Navarone Page 16