The Complete Navarone 4-Book Collection: The Guns of Navarone, Force Ten From Navarone, Storm Force from Navarone, Thunderbolt from Navarone

‘You can also leave it immersed in salt water for ten years without doing it any harm,’ Mallory interrupted didactically. ‘But there are some primers there that might come to grief – not to mention that box of detonators beside Andrea. We’ll just stick the lot outside, under a cape.’

‘Pouf! Louki has a far better idea!’ The little man was already slipping into his cloak. ‘Old Leri’s hut! The very place. Exactly! We can pick it up there whenever we want – and if you have to leave in a hurry you do not have to worry about it.’ Before Mallory could protest, Louki had bent over the box lifted it with an effort, half-walked, half-staggered round the fire, making for the screen. He had hardly taken three steps when Andrea was by his side, had relieved him firmly of the box and tucked it under one arm.

‘If you will permit me –’

‘No, no!’ Louki was affronted. ‘I can manage easily. It is nothing.’

‘I know, I know,’ Andrea said pacifically. ‘But these explosives – they must be carried a certain way. I have been trained,’ he explained.

‘So? I did not realise. Of course it must be as you say! I, then, will bring the detonators.’ Honour satisfied, Louki thankfully gave up the argument, lifted the little box and scuttled out of the cave close on Andrea’s heels.

Mallory looked at his watch. One o’clock exactly. Miller and Panayis should be back soon, he thought. The wind had passed its peak and the snow was almost gone: the going would be all that easier, but there would be tracks in the snow. Awkward, these tracks, but not fatal – they themselves would be gone before light, cutting straight downhill for the foot of the valley. The snow wouldn’t lie there – and even if there were patches they could take to the stream that wound through the valley, leaving no trace behind.

The fire was sinking and the cold creeping in on them again. Mallory shivered in his still wet clothes, threw some more wood on the fire, watched it blaze up, and flood the cave with light. Brown, huddled on a groundsheet, was already asleep. Stevens, his back to him, was lying motionless, his breathing short and quick. God only knew how long the boy would stay alive: he was dying, Miller said, but ‘dying’ was a very indefinite term: when a man, a terribly injured, dying man, made up his mind not to die he became the toughest, most enduring creature on earth. Mallory had seen it happen before. But maybe Stevens didn’t want to live. To live, to overcome these desperate injuries – that would be to prove himself to himself, and to others, and he was young enough, and sensitive enough and had been hurt and had suffered so much in the past that that could easily be the most important thing in the world to him: on the other hand, he knew what an appalling handicap he had become – he had heard Mallory say so; he knew, too, that Mallory’s primary concern was not for his welfare but the fear that he would be captured, crack under pressure and tell everything – he had heard Mallory say so; and he knew that he had failed his friends. It was all very difficult, impossible to say how the balance of contending forces would work out eventually. Mallory shook his head, sighed, lit a fresh cigarette and moved closer to the fire.

Andrea and Louki returned less than five minutes later, and Miller and Panayis were almost at their heels. They could hear Miller coming some distance away, slipping, falling and swearing almost continuously as he struggled up the gully under a large and awkward load. He practically fell across the threshold of the cave and collapsed wearily by the fire. He gave the impression of a man who had been through a very great deal indeed. Mallory grinned sympathetically at him.

‘Well, Dusty, how did it go? Hope Panayis here didn’t slow you up too much.’

Miller didn’t seem to hear him. He was gazing incredulously at the fire, lantern jaw drooping open as its significance slowly dawned on him.

‘Hell’s teeth! Would you look at that!’ He swore bitterly. ‘Here I spend half the gawddamned night climbing up a gawddamned mountain with a stove and enough kerosene to bath a bloody elephant. And what do I find?’ He took a deep breath to tell them what he found, then subsided into a strangled, seething silence.

‘A man your age should watch his blood pressure,’ Mallory advised him. ‘How did the rest of it go?’

‘Okay, I guess.’ Miller had a mug of ouzo in his hand and was beginning to brighten up again. ‘We got the beddin’, the medicine kit –’

‘If you’ll give me the bedding I will get our young friend into it now,’ Andrea interrupted.

‘And food?’ Mallory asked.

‘Yeah. We got the grub, boss. Stacks of it. This guy Panayis is a wonder. Bread, wine, goat-cheese, garlic sausages, rice – everything.’

‘Rice?’ It was Mallory’s turn to be incredulous. ‘But you can’t get the stuff in the islands nowadays, Dusty.’

‘Panayis can.’ Miller was enjoying himself hugely now. ‘He got it from the German commandant’s kitchen. Guy by the name of Skoda.’

‘The German commandant’s – you’re joking!’

‘So help me, boss, that’s Gospel truth.’ Miller drained half the ouzo at a gulp and expelled his breath in a long, gusty sigh of satisfaction. ‘Little ol’ Miller hangs around the back door, knees knockin’ like Carmen Miranda’s castanets, ready for a smart take off in any direction while Junior here goes in and cracks the joint. Back home in the States he’d make a fortune as a cat-burglar. Comes back in about ten minutes, luggin’ that damned suitcase there.’ Miller indicated it with a casual wave of his hand. ‘Not only cleans out the commandant’s pantry, but also borrows his satchel to carry the stuff in. I tell you, boss, associatin’ with this character gives me heart attacks.’

‘But – but how about guards, about sentries?’

‘Taken the night off, I guess, boss. Old Panayis is like a clam – never says a word, and even then I can’t understand him. My guess is that everybody’s out lookin’ for us.’

‘There and back and you didn’t meet a soul.’ Mallory filled him with a mug of wine. ‘Nice going, Dusty.’

‘Panayis’s doin’, not mine. I just tagged along. Besides, we did run into a couple of Panayis’s pals – he hunted them up rather. Musta given him the tip-off about somethin’. He was hoppin’ with excitement just afterwards, tried to tell me all about it.’ Miller shrugged his shoulders sadly. ‘We weren’t operatin’ on the same wave-length, boss.’

Mallory nodded across the cave. Louki and Panayis were close together, Louki doing all the listening, while Panayis talked rapidly in a low voice, gesticulating with both hands.

‘He’s still pretty worked up about something,’ Mallory said thoughtfully. He raised his voice. ‘What’s the matter, Louki?’

‘Matter enough, Major.’ Louki tugged ferociously at the end of his moustache. ‘We will have to be leaving soon – Panayis wants to go right away. He has heard that the German garrison is going to make a house-to-house check in our village during the night – about four o’clock, Panayis was told.’

‘Not a routine check, I take it?’ Mallory asked.

‘This has not happened for many months. They must think that you have slipped their patrols and are hiding in the village.’ Louki chuckled. ‘If you ask me, I don’t think they know what to think. It is nothing to you, of course. You will not be there – and even if you were they would not find you: and it will make it all the safer for you to come to Margaritha afterwards. But Panayis and I – we must not be found out of our beds. Things would go hard with us.’

‘Of course, of course. We must take no risks. But there is plenty of time. You will go down in an hour. But first, the fortress.’ He dug into his breast pocket, brought out the map Eugene Vlachos had drawn for him, turned to Panayis and slipped easily into the island Greek. ‘Come, Panayis. I hear you know the fortress as Louki here knows his own vegetable patch. I already know much, but I want you to tell me everything about it – the layout, guns, magazines, power rooms, barracks, sentries, guard routine, exits, alarm systems, even where the shadows are deep and the others less deep – just everything. No matter how tiny and insignificant the details may seem to you, nevertheless you must tell me. If a door opens outwards instead of inwards, you must tell me: that could save a thousand lives.’

‘And how does the Major mean to get inside?’ Louki asked.

‘I don’t know yet. I cannot decide until I have seen the fortress.’ Mallory was aware of Andrea looking sharply at him, then looking away. They had made their plans on the MTB for entering the fortress. But it was the keystone upon which everything depended, and Mallory felt that this knowledge should be confined to the fewest number possible.

For almost half an hour Mallory and the three Greeks huddled over the chart in the light of the flames, Mallory checking on what he had been told, meticulously pencilling in all the fresh information that Panayis had to give him – and Panayis had a very great deal to tell. It seemed almost impossible that a man could have assimilated so much in two brief visits to the fortress – and clandestine visits in the darkness, at that. He had an incredible eye and capacity for detail; and it was a burning hatred of the Germans, Mallory felt certain, that had imprinted these details on an all but photographic memory. Mallory could feel his hopes rising with every second that passed.

Casey Brown was awake again. Tired though he was, the babble of voices had cut through an uneasy sleep. He crossed over to where Andy Stevens, half-awake now, lay propped against the wall, talking rationally at times, incoherently at others. There was nothing for him to do there, Brown saw: Miller, cleaning, dusting and rebandaging the wounds had had all the help he needed – and very efficient help at that – from Andrea. He moved over to the mouth of the cave, listened blankly to the four men talking in Greek, moved out past the screen for a breath of the cold, clean night air. With seven people inside the cave and the fire burning continuously, the lack of almost all ventilation had made it uncomfortably warm.

He was back in the cave in thirty seconds, drawing the screen tightly shut behind him.

‘Quiet, everybody!’ he whispered softly. He gestured behind him. ‘There’s something moving out there, down the slope a bit. I heard it twice, sir.’

Panayis swore softly, twisted to his feet like a wild cat. A foot-long, two-edged throwing knife gleamed evilly in his hand and he had vanished through the canvas screen before anyone could speak. Andrea made to follow him, but Mallory stretched out his hand.

‘Stay where you are, Andrea. Our friend Panayis is just that little bit too precipitate,’ he said softly. ‘There may be nothing – or it might be some diversionary move … Oh, damn!’ Stevens had just started babbling to himself in a loud voice. ‘He would start talking now. Can’t you do something …’

But Andrea was already bent over the sick boy, holding his hand in his own, smoothing the hot forehead and hair with his free hand and talking to him soothingly, softly, continuously. At first he paid no attention, kept on talking in a rambling, inconsequential fashion about nothing in particular, gradually, however, the hypnotic effect of the stroking hand, the gentle caressing murmur took effect, and the babbling died away to a barely audible muttering, ceased altogether. Suddenly his eyes opened and he was awake and quite rational.

‘What is it, Andrea? Why are you –?’

‘Shh!’ Mallory held up his hand. ‘I can hear someone –’

‘It’s Panayis, sir.’ Brown had his eye at a crack in the curtain. ‘Just moving up the gully.’

Seconds later, Panayis was inside the cave, squatting down by the fire. He looked thoroughly disgusted.

‘There is no one there,’ he reported. ‘Some goats I saw, down the hill, but that was all.’ Mallory translated to the others.

‘Didn’t sound like goats to me,’ Brown said doggedly. ‘Different kind of sound altogether.’

‘I will take a look,’ Andrea volunteered. ‘Just to make sure. But I do not think the dark one would make a mistake.’ Before Mallory could say anything he was gone, as quickly and silently as Panayis. He was back in three minutes, shaking his head. ‘Panayis is right. There is no one. I did not even see the goats.’

‘And that’s what it must have been, Casey,’ Mallory said. ‘Still, I don’t like it. Snow almost stopped, wind dropping and the valley probably swarming with German patrols – I think it’s time you two were away. For God’s sake, be careful. If anyone tries to stop you, shoot to kill. They’ll blame it on us anyway.’

‘Shoot to kill!’ Louki laughed dryly. ‘Unnecessary advice, Major, when the dark one is with us. He never shoots any other way.’

‘Right, away you go. Damned sorry you’ve got yourselves mixed up in all this – but now that you are, a thousand thanks for all you’ve done. See you at half-past six.’