About half an hour before sunset they struggled up the last few boulder-strewn yards of a steeply-shelving ravine floor, halted just beyond the shelter of the projecting wall where the ravine dipped again and turned sharply to the right and the north. There had been no more mortar bombs since the one that had failed to explode. The six-inch and the weirdly-howling Nebelwerfer had only a limited range, Mallory knew, and though the planes still cruised overhead, they cruised uselessly: the sun was dipping towards the horizon and the floors of the ravines were already deeply-sunk in shadowed gloom, invisible from above. But the Alpenkorps, tough, dogged, skilful soldiers, soldiers living only for the revenge of their massacred comrades, were very close behind. And they were highly-trained mountain troops, fresh, resilient, the reservoir of their energies barely tapped: whereas his own tiny band, worn out from continuous days and sleepless nights of labour and action …
Mallory sank to the ground near the angled turn of the ravine where he could keep lookout, glanced at the others with a deceptive casualness that marked his cheerless assessment of what he saw. As a fighting unit they were in a pretty bad way. Both Panayis and Brown were badly crippled, the latter’s face grey with pain. For the first time since leaving Alexandria, Casey Brown was apathetic, listless and quite indifferent to everything: this Mallory took as a very bad sign. Nor was Brown helped by the heavy transmitter still strapped to his back – with point-blank truculence he had ignored Mallory’s categorical order to abandon it. Louki was tired, and looked it: his physique, Mallory realised now, was no match for his spirit, for the infectious smile that never left his face, for the panache of that magnificently upswept moustache that contrasted so oddly with the sad, tired eyes above. Miller, like himself, was tired, but, like himself, could keep on being tired for a long time yet. And Stevens was still conscious, but even in the twilit gloom of the canyon floor his face looked curiously transparent, while the nails, lips and eyelids were drained of blood. And Andrea, who had carried him up and down all these killing canyon tracks – where there had been tracks – for almost two interminable hours, looked as he always did: immutable, indestructible.
Mallory shook his head, fished out a cigarette, made to strike a light, remembered the planes still cruising overhead and threw the match away. Idly his gaze travelled north along the canyon and he slowly stiffened, the unlit cigarette crumpling and shredding between his fingers. This ravine bore no resemblance to any of the others through which they had so far passed – it was broader, dead straight, at least three times as long – and, as far as he could see in the twilight, the far end was blocked off by an almost vertical wall.
‘Louki!’ Mallory was on his feet now, all weariness forgotten. ‘Do you know where you are? Do you know this place?’
‘But certainly, Major!’ Louki was hurt. ‘Have I not told you that Panayis and I, in the days of our youth –’
‘But this is a cul-de-sac, a dead-end!’ Mallory protested. ‘We’re boxed in, man, we’re trapped!’
Louki grinned impudently and twirled a corner of his moustache. The little man was enjoying himself.
‘So? The Major does not trust Louki, is that it?’ He grinned again, relented, patted the wall by his side. ‘Panayis and I, we have been working this way all afternoon. Along this wall there are many caves. One of them leads through to another valley that leads down to the coast road.’
‘I see, I see.’ Relief washing through his mind, Mallory sank down on the ground again. ‘And where does this other valley come out?’
‘Just across the strait from Maidos.’
‘How far from the town?’
‘About five miles, Major, maybe six. Not more.’
‘Fine, fine! And you’re sure you can find this cave?’
‘A hundred years from now and my head in a goat-skin bag!’ Louki boasted.
‘Fair enough!’ Even as he spoke, Mallory catapulted himself violently to one side, twisted in mid-air to avoid falling across Stevens and crashed heavily into the wall between Andrea and Miller. In a moment of unthinking carelessness he had exposed himself to view from the ravine they had just climbed: the burst of machine-gun fire from its lower end – a hundred and fifty yards away at the most – had almost blown his head off. Even as it was, the left shoulder of his jacket had been torn away, the shell just grazing his shoulder. Miller was already kneeling by his side, fingering the gash, running a gently exploratory hand across his back.
‘Careless, damn careless,’ Mallory murmured. ‘But I didn’t think they were so close.’ He didn’t feel as calm as he sounded. If the mouth of that Schmeisser had been another sixteenth of an inch to the right, he’d have had no head left now.
‘Are you all right, boss?’ Miller was puzzled. ‘Did they –’
‘Terrible shots,’ Mallory assured him cheerfully. ‘Couldn’t hit a barn.’ He twisted round to look at his shoulder. ‘I hate to sound heroic, but this really is just a scratch …’ He rose easily to his feet, and picked up his guns. ‘Sorry and all that, gentlemen, but it’s time we were on our way again. How far along is this cave, Louki?’
Louki rubbed his bristly chin, the smile suddenly gone. He looked quickly at Mallory, then away again.
‘Louki!’
‘Yes, yes, Major. The cave.’ Louki rubbed his chin again. ‘Well, it is a good way along. In fact, it is at the end,’ he finished uncomfortably.
‘The very end?’ asked Mallory quietly.
Louki nodded miserably, stared down at the ground at his feet. Even the ends of his moustache seemed to droop.
‘That’s handy,’ Mallory said heavily. ‘Oh, that’s very handy!’ He sank down to the ground again. ‘Helps us no end, that does.’
He bowed his head in thought and didn’t even lift it as Andrea poked a Bren round the angle of the rock, and fired a short downhill burst more in token of discouragement than in any hope of hitting anything. Another ten seconds passed, then Louki spoke again, his voice barely audible.
‘I am very, very sorry. This is a terrible thing. Before God, Major, I would not have done it but that I thought they were still far behind.’
‘It’s not your fault, Louki.’ Mallory was touched by the little man’s obvious distress. He touched his ripped shoulder jacket. ‘I thought the same thing.’
‘Please!’ Stevens put his hand on Mallory’s arm. ‘What’s wrong? I don’t understand.’
‘Everybody else does, I’m afraid, Andy. It’s very, very simple. We have half a mile to go along this valley here – and not a shred of cover. The Alpenkorps have less than two hundred yards to come up that ravine we’ve just left.’ He paused while Andrea fired another retaliatory short burst, then continued. ‘They’ll do what they’re doing now – keep probing to see if we’re still here. The minute they judge we’re gone, they’ll be up here in a flash. They’ll nail us before we’re half-way, quarter-way to the cave – you know we can’t travel fast. And they’re carrying a couple of Spandaus – they’ll cut us to ribbons.’
‘I see,’ Stevens murmured. ‘You put it all so nicely, sir.’
‘Sorry, Andy, but that’s how it is.’
‘But could you not leave two men as a rear-guard, while the rest –’
‘And what happens to the rear-guard?’ Mallory interrupted dryly.
‘I see what you mean,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘No, but the rear-guard would. Quite a problem, isn’t it?’
‘There is no problem at all,’ Louki announced. ‘The Major is kind, but this is all my fault. I will –’
‘You’ll do damn all of the kind!’ Miller said savagely. He tore Louki’s Bren from his hand and laid it on the ground. ‘You heard what the boss said – it wasn’t your fault.’ For a moment Louki stared at him in anger, then turned dejectedly away. He looked as if he were going to cry. Mallory, too, stared at the American, astonished at the sudden vehemence, so completely out of character. Now that he came to think of it, Dusty had been strangel
y taciturn and thoughtful during the past hour or so – Mallory couldn’t recall his saying a word during all that time. But time enough to worry about that later on …
Casey Brown eased his injured leg, looking hopefully at Mallory. ‘Couldn’t we stay here till it’s dark – real dark – then make our way –’
‘No good. The moon’s almost full tonight – and not a cloud in the sky. They’d get us. Even more important, we have to get into the town between sunset and curfew tonight. Our last chance. Sorry, Casey, but it’s no go.’
Fifteen seconds, half a minute passed, and passed in silence, then they all started abruptly as Andy Stevens spoke.
‘Louki was right, you know,’ he said pleasantly. The voice was weak, but filled with a calm certainty that jerked every eye towards him. He was propped up on one elbow, Louki’s Bren cradled in his hands. It was a measure of their concentration on the problem on hand that no one had heard or seen him reach out for the machine-gun. ‘It’s all very simple,’ Stevens went on quietly. ‘Just let’s use our heads, that’s all … The gangrene’s right up past the knee, isn’t it, sir?’
Mallory said nothing: he didn’t know what to say, the complete unexpectedness had knocked him off balance. He was vaguely aware that Miller was looking at him, his eyes begging him to say ‘No.’
‘Is it or isn’t it?’ There was a patience, a curious understanding in the voice, and all of a sudden Mallory knew what to say.
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘It is.’ Miller was looking at him in horror.
‘Thank you, sir.’ Stevens was smiling in satisfaction. ‘Thank you very much indeed. There’s no need to point out all the advantages of my staying here.’ There was an assurance in his voice no one had ever heard before, the unthinking authority of a man completely in charge of a situation. ‘Time I did something for my living anyway. No fond farewells, please. Just leave me a couple of boxes of ammo, two or three thirty-six grenades and away you go.’
‘I’ll be darned if we will!’ Miller was up on his feet making for the boy, then brought up abruptly as the Bren centred on his chest.
‘One step nearer and I’ll shoot you,’ Stevens said calmly. Miller looked at him in long silence, sank slowly back to the ground.
‘I would, you know,’ Stevens assured him. ‘Well good-bye, gentlemen. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.’
Twenty seconds, thirty, a whole minute passed in a queer, trance-like silence, then Miller heaved himself to his feet again, a tall, rangy figure with tattered clothes and a face curiously haggard in the gathering gloom.
‘So long, kid. I guess – waal, mebbe I’m not so smart after all.’ He took Stevens’s hand, looked down at the wasted face for a long moment, made to say something else, then changed his mind. ‘Be seein’ you,’ he said abruptly, turned and walked off heavily down the valley. One by one the others followed him, wordlessly, except for Andrea, who stopped and whispered in the boy’s ear, a whisper that brought a smile and a nod of complete understanding, and then there was only Mallory left. Stevens grinned up at him.
‘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 insane thing, to say.
‘Honest, sir, I’m OK.’ 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 others, 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.
THIRTEEN
Wednesday Evening
1800–1915
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 tumbledown 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, roughly-bandaged leg, but the failing 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. Mallory 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 struggle 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 tree-tufted 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. Mallory 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 b
ound 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 Vlachos’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.
The Complete Navarone Page 24