Force 10 from Navarone

‘It’s in my bones, my boy. One way or another it’s coming, coming for all of us.’

‘You can’t be sure, sir,’ Warburg protested.

‘True enough.’ Zimmermann sighed. ‘I can’t be sure. But I’m sure of this. If they do come, if the 11th Army Group can’t break through from the north, if we can’t wipe out those damned Partisans in the Zenica Cage –’

Warburg waited for him to continue, but Zimmermann seemed lost in reverie. Apparently apropos of nothing, Warburg said: ‘I’d like to see Germany again, sir. Just once more.’

‘Wouldn’t we all, my boy, wouldn’t we all.’ Zimmermann walked slowly to the edge of the wood and stopped. For a long time he gazed out over the bridge at Neretva. Then he shook his head, turned and was almost at once lost to sight in the dark depths of the forest.

The pine fire in the great fireplace in the drawing-room in Termoli was burning low. Jensen threw on some more logs, straightened, poured two drinks and handed one to Mallory.

Jensen said: ‘Well?’

‘That’s the plan?’ No hint of his incredulity, of his near-despair, showed in Mallory’s impassive face. ‘That’s all of the plan?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your health.’ Mallory paused. ‘And mine.’ After an even longer pause he said reflectively: ‘It should be interesting to watch Dusty Miller’s reactions when he hears this little lot this evening.’

As Mallory had said, Miller’s reactions were interesting, even if wholly predictable. Some six hours later, clad now, like Mallory and Andrea, in British Army uniform, Miller listened in visibly growing horror as Jensen outlined what he considered should be their proposed course of action in the next twenty-four hours or so. When he had finished, Jensen looked directly at Miller and said: ‘Well? Feasible?’

‘Feasible?’ Miller was aghast. ‘It’s suicidal!’

‘Andrea?’

‘Andrea shrugged, lifted his hands palms upwards and said nothing.

Jensen nodded and said: ‘I’m sorry, but I’m fresh out of options. We’d better go. The others are waiting at the airstrip.’

Andrea and Miller left the room, began to walk down the long passageway. Mallory hesitated in the doorway, momentarily blocking it, then turned to face Jensen who was watching him with a surprised lift of the eyebrows.

Mallory said in a low voice: ‘Let me tell Andrea, at least.’

Jensen looked at him for a considering moment or two, shook his head briefly and brushed by into the corridor.

Twenty minutes later, without a further word being spoken, the four men arrived at the Termoli airstrip to find Vukalovic and two sergeants waiting for them: the third, Reynolds, was already at the controls of his Wellington, one of them standing at the end of the airstrip, propellers already turning. Ten minutes later both planes were airborne, Vukalovic in one, Mallory, Miller, Andrea, and the three sergeants in the other, each plane bound for its separate destination.

Jensen, alone on the tarmac, watched both planes climbing, his straining eyes following them until they disappeared into the overcast darkness of the moonless sky above. Then, just as General Zimmermann had done that afternoon, he shook his head in slow finality, turned and walked heavily away.

THREE Friday 0030–0200 (#ulink_e6cb4e69-41f6-5db4-8660-fc05fe16802b)

Sergeant Reynolds, Mallory reflected, certainly knew how to handle a plane, especially this one. Although his eyes showed him to be always watchful and alert, he was precise, competent, calm and relaxed in everything he did. No less competent was Groves: the poor light and cramped confines of his tiny plotting-table clearly didn’t worry him at all and as an air navigator he was quite clearly as experienced as he was proficient. Mallory peered forward through the windscreen, saw the white-capped waters of the Adriatic rushing by less than a hundred feet beneath their fuselage, and turned to Groves.

‘The flight plan calls for us to fly as low as this?’

‘Yes. The Germans have radar installations on some of the outlying islands off the Yugoslav coast. We start climbing when we reach Dalmatia.’

Mallory nodded his thanks, turned to watch Reynolds again. He said, curiously: ‘Captain Jensen was right about you. As a pilot. How on earth does a Marine Commando come to learn to drive one of those things?’

‘I’ve had plenty of practice,’ Reynolds said. ‘Three years in the RAF, two of them as sergeantpilot in a Wellington bomber squadron. One day in Egypt I took a Lysander up without permission. People did it all the time – but the crate I’d picked had a defective fuel gauge.’

‘You were grounded?’

‘With great speed.’ He grinned. ‘There were no objections when I applied for a service transfer. I think they felt I wasn’t somehow quite right for the RAF.’

Mallory looked at Groves. ‘And you?’

Groves smiled broadly. ‘I was his navigator in that old crate. We were fired on the same day.’

Mallory said consideringly: ‘Well, I should think that might be rather useful.’

‘What’s useful?’ Reynolds asked.

‘The fact that you’re used to this feeling of disgrace. It’ll enable you to act your part all the better when the time comes. If the time comes.’

Reynolds said carefully: ‘I’m not quite sure –’

‘Before we jump, I want you – all of you – to remove every distinguishing badge or emblem of rank on your clothes.’ He gestured to Andrea and Miller at the rear of the flight-deck to indicate that they were included as well, then looked at Reynolds again. ‘Sergeants’ stripes, regimental flashes, medal ribbons – the lot.’

‘Why the hell should I?’ Reynolds, Mallory thought, had the lowest boiling-point he’d come across in quite some time. ‘I earned those stripes, those ribbons, that flash. I don’t see –’

Mallory smiled. ‘Disobeying an officer on active service?’

‘Don’t be so damned touchy,’ Reynolds said.

‘Don’t be so damned touchy, sir.’

‘Don’t be so damned touchy, sir.’ Reynolds suddenly grinned. ‘O?, so who’s got the scissors?’

‘You see,’ Mallory explained, ‘the last thing we want to happen is to fall into enemy hands.’

‘Amen,’ Miller intoned.

‘But if we’re to get the information we want we’re going to have to operate close to or even inside their lines. We might get caught. So we have our cover story.’

Groves said quietly: ‘Are we permitted to know just what that cover story is, sir?’

‘Of course you are,’ Mallory said in exasperation. He went on earnestly: ‘Don’t you realize that, on a mission like this, survival depends on one thing and one thing only – complete and mutual trust? As soon as we start having secrets from each other – we’re finished.’

In the deep gloom at the rear of the flight-deck, Andrea and Miller glanced at each other and exchanged their wearily cynical smiles.

As Mallory left the flight-deck for the fuselage, his right hand brushed Miller’s shoulder. After about two minutes Miller yawned, stretched and made his way aft. Mallory was waiting towards the rear of the fuselage. He had two pieces of folded paper in his hand, one of which he opened and showed to Miller, snapping on a flashlight at the same time. Miller stared at it for some moments, then lifted an eyebrow.

‘And what is this supposed to be?’

‘It’s the triggering mechanism for a 1,500-pound submersible mine. Learn it by heart.’

Miller looked at it without expression, then glanced at the other paper Mallory held.