by Colin Forbes
'Thank God!' Lindsay was appalled. 'Call this war? Could it be the Cetniks?'
They paused, two-thirds of the way up the gorge, their aching legs hardly able to carry them another step. Oddly enough, both still hung on to their cases. Lindsay had stopped because they were partly sheltered by a semi-circle of boulders.
'No,' Paco said, 'they're Partisans. The Cetniks have allied themselves with the Germans.
'It's bloody slaughter. Did you see those peasants? A woman had her whole arm shot clean away.'
'This is the way we have to fight.'
'And long after the war is over we shall hear about the brave Partisans who took to the mountains — but massacres like this will go unreported. If this is the filthy Balkans you can keep it.'
'You fool...!'
With her free hand she slapped him hard across the side of his face. Quite deliberately he slapped her back, stinging her skin.
'If that's the language you Balkan women understand. Now, let's get to the top...'
Her reaction was unexpected. He had anticipated a vehement verbal onslaught; instead she quietly followed him up the mountain-like slope. From the bottomless pit of the gorge, the occasional pistol shot reverberated up to them. The Partisans finishing off wounded Germans, Lindsay imagined. There was a sudden crackle of rifle fire close by. Answered at once by a grenade which landed a few yards ahead of Lindsay. It detonated like a bomb. He fell into oblivion.
'He is suffering from the concussion.'
The strange voice spoke English with a careful precision like a man who uses the language occasionally but knows it well. The shape of the man was blurred but becoming more distinct, a man stooped over Lindsay. Everything suddenly became quite clear.
Lindsay was lying on the ground propped up against a boulder softened by something like a folded blanket. Then he saw Paco crouched beside him, studying him closely.
'Lindsay,' she said quietly, 'you can understand me? Good. This is Dr Macek - a proper doctor..
'She means,' Macek intervened with an amused tone, 'that I am assumed to know the profession I practised in the peacetime. You will need much rest...'
He was a man of possibly forty with dark hair, a trim, military-style moustache and dark, almost hypnotic eyes. Like the other men Lindsay could see by the light of a watchman's lamp perched on the ground and which hissed, Macek wore a mixture of peasant clothes and army uniform. Despite the sartorial muddle Macek still seemed to preserve a neat appearance lacking in his compatriots...'
'Another German? So, we will execute him...'
The voice, speaking Serbo-Croat, so Lindsay didn't understand a word, was vigorous and dominant. Beyond Macek stood a giant silhouette against the lamp's glow, a giant with thick black hair and holding a pistol in his right hand.
To Lindsay's horror he saw two Partisans dragging forward a familiar figure, the prisoner maintaining an erect stance despite the fact his hands were bound behind him and he looked exhausted. Major Gustav Hartmann. Blood on his forehead. The giant's gesture with his pistol was eloquent.
'For God's sake, stop him! That's Major Hartmann of the Abwehr,' he told Paco. He had an inspiration despite the feeling that at any moment he would lose consciousness again. 'I can persuade him to provide valuable information...'
'Heljec! Leave him alone!' Paco instantly jumped to her feet and stared at the Partisan leader who swung round to face her. 'I mean what I say!' she continued. 'He is Abwehr...'
'He is German...'
'Heljec..' A small, round-faced man appeared in the glow cast by the lamp. It was Vlatko Jovanovic.
Taco has earned the right to speak for this prisoner...'
'I lead this group!' Heljec raised his pistol again. 'You have no rights. Paco has no rights. I have the rights...'
'Then we settle this dispute in the customary manner.
Vlatko drew a knife, a curved weapon with a long blade. Lindsay fought to retain consciousness, amazed at the courage of the rotund figure. It was Paco who flew into a fury, stepping forward until she was almost standing on the giant's feet as she glared up at him.
'A head count! I killed so many Germans today - you're only interested in increasing your prestige with Tito. How dare you say I have no rights! Who led a group deep inside the Third Reich to rescue the Englishman? Who spent hours dining with an SS colonel in the centre of Munich to obtain transit papers?'
She laughed in his face. Then she looked round the group of fascinated Partisans who had formed a circle to see the outcome.
'This is a very brave man who leads you - while he is on home ground,' she flailed on. 'You think he would dare set one of his outsized feet in Germany.'
'I speak no German...' Heljec began.
'Neither do I, but I, too, was there in Germany.' Milic, who had travelled on the train with Bora, still spoke calmly but his moustaches quivered. He carried a machine-pistol and the muzzle was aimed point-blank at Heljec.
'You will speak with more respect to Paco,' Milic continued. 'The Abwehr is not like the Gestapo — as the Partisans are not like the Cetniks... You wish to behave like a Cetnik, Heljec? I will not permit it.'
'You wish to take over leadership of this group, Milic?'
'Only if you persist in murdering prisoners who may help Tito plan his future strategy..
During this intense exchange Hartmann had stood, his wrists still bound, with a blank expression. He stared at Lindsay as though attempting to convey some message.
There was a long silence after Milic made his final pronouncement. From the gorge below there drifted up from the rail track the sound of people in pain moaning, the stench of cordite. Heljec thrust his pistol back inside his belt.
'We must move fast,' he decided, 'before German motorized troops arrive. The German can walk so he comes with us. Tito will tell us his fate. Make a stretcher to carry the Englishman.' His voice rose sharply. 'What is the matter with you all? I said we must move...'
Paco turned her back on him without a word and came back to kneel beside Lindsay. She placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
'The doctor says you have concussion. You will be carried. No! No argument! You are valuable merchandise - one Englishman for many guns. That was the arrangement...'
Lindsay opened his mouth to speak and dropped into a dark pit of unconsciousness.
'He is suffering from glandular fever. You observe both the sides of the neck - the swellings? And the temperature...'
Lindsay was bemused as he heard the voice speak precise English, the voice which strung out the words with careful deliberation. This was a repeat performance, a theatrical play in which he had appeared before.
He opened his eyes and his vision was blurred. Two figures stooped over him. A man and a woman. The figures became more distinct. Everything suddenly became quite clear. He blinked. Damnit! He was occupying the same posture, propped up against something as he sat on the ground in the open.
'How are you feeling?' asked Paco.
'Awful - bloody awful. Don't worry - I shall feel worse...'
'Ah! The sense of humour,' commented Dr Macek. 'I trained at St Thomas's in London. I enjoyed the British - masterly understatement. Do I have that right?'
'Yes,' said Lindsay. 'Where the hell are we? How far from that frightful gorge?'
'Many miles away,' Paco replied. 'That was four weeks ago. You have had...'
'Four weeks!' Lindsay was suddenly disorientated and very alarmed. Was he going mad? Where had the time gone? He could remember nothing since the train ambush, the subsequent confrontation between Paco and Heljec. Heljec! He could remember the bastard's name. That brought back a little self-confidence. Paco took his right hand in both of hers and began speaking in her slow, soft voice.
'You had concussion. A piece of grenade struck you on the forehead. Men have taken it in turns to carry you on an improvised stretcher. You have insisted on walking at times...'
'And now,' Dr Macek intervened cheerfully, 'my patient, who is almost cu
red of the concussion, has contracted glandular fever. So you have the swellings at the sides of the neck and must rest...'
'Bloody hell, no more!' Lindsay struggled to his feet, swaying as he stared round. Paco placed a walking-stick in his hand. He grasped it automatically and to his surprise the stick felt familiar.
'Milic made you that stick,' she said. 'You have covered a great distance with your three legs. Now you must listen to Dr Macek...' A teasing note entered her voice.. who was trained at St Thomas's so you will trust him...'
A grim, dramatic panorama met his eyes as he hobbled across the rough, rock-ribbed summit. They were perched on top of a small plateau surmounted by the relics of an ancient fortress, so derelict it could scarcely be distinguished from the scramble of huge boulders it had once been erected above.
It was mid-morning, he suspected, a clear, crisp day when the saw-toothed edges of distant mountains looked as though they had been cut from metal silhouetted against a cloudless sky. Perfect flying weather.
Something was disturbing Lindsay, a sense of unease nagging at the back of his mind. Paco and Macek had propped him against a boulder under a copse of stunted trees. Other trees clustered the plateau below the fortress - which had long ago lost all form of roofing. He found himself keeping to the shelter of the trees as he left the other two behind and hobbled with the aid of the stick at a fast jig-jog towards the fortress which, he instinctively felt sure, was Heljec's headquarters.
'Wait for us!' Paco called out. 'God, he's moving like a racehorse.'
Then Lindsay heard it again and stopped abruptly under a well-foliaged tree. The muttering engine of a light aircraft. He'd heard that sound at the moment of regaining consciousness but he had been distracted by Macek's remark, by his general sense of not knowing where he was. They caught up with him and he cautioned them.
'Keep under cover, out of sight of that plane …'
'It's a German Storch, Paco said with irritating patience. 'I have learned to live with the sound.. 'But have you learned to die with it?'.
The violence of his question, his sudden burst of energy, the incredible pace he had kept up moving towards the fortress, stunned both Paco and Macek into temporary silence. To Lindsay's great relief. He could listen — with a pilot's ear.
He stood with his head cocked on one side. Flying very slowly. Almost lowest possible speed. Much lower and the engine would stall. As he thought, it was describing a circle — round the perimeter of the plateau.
Perching both hands on the stick to steady himself, he stared up through the foliage, craning his neck as he sought a loophole through which he might glimpse the plane. Then he saw it. The machine, tilting. The pilot's head, craned like his own — but staring down through the goggles.
'What are you getting so agitated about?' Paco asked. 'The Germans are always flying over Yugoslavia.
'Was a machine like that flying overhead just as 1 woke up?'
'Yes, there was an aircraft...'
'And how many times today has a German light aircraft flown over this area? Think, for God's sake.' 'All right..!' Paco began to protest.
'Six times, I think,' Macek broke in. 'This is the sixth..
'And it's only eleven in the morning...` Lindsay checked his watch.
'I kept it wound up for you,' Paco snapped.
'Six times. I see! That plane was so low it knew what it was looking for, where to find its objective. Hear it flying away?'
'I told you...' Paco began again.
'Heljec must be warned a major bombing attack - maybe even a parachute landing - is imminent. We must evacuate this area at once.' Lindsay's tone was terse, decisive. 'How many men have you billeted up here?'
'Thirty men - the whole unit,' Paco replied. 'Now, look, Lindsay. There's no point in starting a panic.
'No! You listen! Heljec may be the expert at ambushing trains, shooting Germans - including prisoners where he can - at sacrificing civilians wholesale for the greater glory of Communism. A fat lot of joy some of those poor bastards left in the gorge are going to get out of any fanciful Communist paradise. Heljec may be expert at all these things - but when it Goddamn well comes to planes he'd better go back to school. I know the warning signs. I saw enough of them when I was foot-slogging it to Dunkirk after my machine went down. Where's Heljec?'
'In the fort.'
It was Macek who told him. The sound of the spotter plane had faded to the distant hum of a bee on a summer's day. Lindsay grabbed Paco's arm, took a firm grip on his stick and hustled her up the slope to the fort's entrance. Despite his physical weakness his certainty of the appalling danger was producing adrenalin at a tremendous rate.
He paused at the sight inside the fort. Heljec was crouched with Jovanovic over a map spread out over a large rock. On the ground against a crumbling wall slumped Hartmann. The side of his jaw was discoloured with a recent bruise. He grinned wryly at the Englishman.
Lindsay addressed the Abwehr man in German, taking no notice of Heljec who had spun round and was glaring at him.
'How did you get that bruise, Hartmann?'
'I tried to warn this stupid brute - a spotter plane has been over and the next thing will be...'
'I know. Leave it to me.' He turned to Paco, still ignoring Heljec who was showing signs of growing annoyance. He pointed his stick at the Serb. Taco, you once said it was often difficult to get people to do the simplest things - a remark I was not too appreciative of at the time. Now, tell this stupid brute what is coming to him if he doesn't instantly sound a general alarm and evacuate. Tell him I'm a pilot and know about aerial warfare. He's about to be annihilated!'
. Paco began speaking rapidly. At one moment she stamped her foot. In his frustration at this waste of precious time Lindsay walked backwards and forwards with his stick. Jovanovic joined in the heated conversation. Paco turned to Lindsay.
'Tell me again quickly your reasons. Forcefully. Heljec will be watching you.'
He repeated what he had said. One. Two. Three. Finally he turned on the giant and raised his stick like a weapon.
'Tell him if he doesn't act quickly I'll beat some sense into him with this stick,' he shouted at the top of his voice.
She spoke only a few words when Jovanovic interrupted her and made a gesture beyond the fort, rolling up the map as he finished. Heljec ran through the exit and out of sight.
'Your threat to attack him convinced him,' Paco said. 'We are evacuating at once...'
As they emerged from the fort Lindsay was astounded to witness the sudden appearance of Partisans everywhere. They seemed to rise out of the ground from invisible trenches. He followed Paco to the edge of the plateau where the terrain dropped steeply in a series of gullies. She stopped to help him but he waved her on.
'Just show me the way. I'll keep up. Good God, there's Bora. The devil looks after its own.'
The descent was precipitous and Lindsay half- walked, half-stumbled down a flight of natural steps formed by rock ledges jutting from the mountain-side. Somehow he kept his balance as Paco kept glancing back and he kept waving her on, certain there was little time left to get clear of the plateau.
He remembered his case. Below them he saw Bora carrying it and below him Milic carrying another. Paco's, he presumed. As he continued the diabolical descent he thought of Hartmann and looked back. The German was a few yards behind, followed by Vlatko who carried his machine-pistol. That was when his experienced ears caught the first distant sound of a fleet of planes coming.
The guerrilla force slipped down from the plateau inside a series of deep gulches and defiles, some of which in winter would be raging torrents. The slither of small pebbles told Lindsay that.
He was now close enough to the winding gorge they were heading for to see the dark shadows on the opposite slope which were mouths of caves. Those would be their refuge and their shelter when the bombardment started. If they got there in time.
Paco stopped briefly as Vlatko called down to her. Hartmann was close behind
Lindsay who still kept up a furious pace as he went on stumbling down the fiendish descent, saving his balance again and again with the aid of the stick.
'Tell the German if he attempts to signal to the planes I will shoot him instantly,' Vlatko had warned.
'For Christ's sake, he was the one who tried to warn Heljec they were on their way.' Her tone was scathing. 'Go back to your shoemaking if that's the best you can do! And shut up. We haven't much time...'
She repeated the gist of the exchange to Lindsay and then, agile as a goat, continued on her way. We haven't much time. She was right, Lindsay thought. They were almost at the bottom but now the sound of the incoming planes was an ominous roar.
The gorge was a river bed. Green water frothed and tumbled over boulders but the winter level had dropped. Paco waited, grabbed Lindsay's arm and helped him use the boulders as stepping stones. He was vaguely aware that to left and right Partisans were scurrying across and disappearing inside the caves. He concentrated on looking down, watching where he placed his feet. Then they were on the other side.
Still clutching his arm, Paco hustled him up a short slope strewn with stones which slithered and rattled under his feet. The mouth of a cave, about eight feet high, loomed up and she hurried him inside. There was a sudden drop of temperature as they paused in the gloom.
Paco was taking in deep breaths, her bosom heaving with their efforts. She saw him watching her and looked away as Hartmann arrived with Vlatko practically treading on his heels.
'Get this enthusiast off my back,' Hartmann said drily and sat on one of the huge boulders which littered the interior of the cave.
Common sense told them to retreat deep inside the cave. Curiosity - the same curiosity which brought Londoners into the streets in 1940, staring up at the German bombers overhead - took them to the mouth of the cave to see what was happening. Lindsay immediately witnessed a grim incident.
A Partisan in the gorge crouched behind a massive boulder was aiming his rifle skywards. Heljec appeared behind the man, raised his pistol and shot him dead. The Serb skipped across the river and vanished inside another cave.