Partisans

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘Nothing wrong with Sandhurst. I’ve been there, as a visitor only. But a bit on the conservative side as far as the courses offered are concerned.’

  ‘You mean?’

  ‘Nothing on guerrilla warfare. Nothing on espionage and counter-espionage. Nothing on code and cypher breaking. I understand you’re a specialist on all three.’

  ‘I’m self-educated in some things.’

  ‘I’m sure you are.’ Lunz was silent for some seconds, savouring his brandy, then said: ‘Whatever became of your father?’

  ‘I don’t know. You may even know more than I do. Just disappeared. Thousands have done so since the spring of ’41. Disappeared, I mean.’

  ‘He was like you? A Royalist? A etnik?’ Petersen nodded. ‘And very senior. Senior officers don’t just disappear. He fell foul of the Partisans, perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps. Anything is possible. Again, I don’t know.’ Petersen smiled. ‘If you’re trying to suggest I’m carrying on a vendetta because of a blood feud, you’d better try again. Wrong country, wrong century. Anyway, you didn’t come here to pry into my motives or my past.’

  ‘And now you insult me. I wouldn’t waste my time. You’d tell me just as much as you wanted me to know and no more.’

  ‘And you didn’t come here to carry out a search of my belongings – that was just a combination of opportunity and professional curiosity. You came here to give me something. An envelope with instructions for our commander. Another assault on what it pleases you to call Titoland.’

  ‘You’re pretty sure of yourself.’

  ‘I’m not pretty sure. I’m certain. The Partisans have radio transceivers. British. They have skilled radio operators, both their own and British. And they have skilled code-crackers. You don’t dare send secret and important messages any more by radio. So you need a reliable message boy. There’s no other reason why I’m in Rome.’

  ‘Frankly, I can’t think of any other, which saves any explanation on my part.’ Lunz produced and handed over an envelope.

  ‘This is in code?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Why “naturally”? In our code?’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘Stupid. Who do you think devised that code?’

  ‘I don’t think. I know. You did.’

  ‘It’s still stupid. Why don’t you give me the message verbally? I’ve a good memory for this sort of thing. And there’s more. I may be intercepted, and then two things may happen. Either I succeed in destroying it, in which case the message is useless. Or the Partisans take it intact and decipher it in nothing flat.’ Petersen tapped his head. ‘A clear case for a psychiatrist.’

  Lunz took some more brandy and cleared his throat. ‘You know, of course, of Colonel General Alexander von Löhr?’

  ‘The German Commander in Chief for southeastern Europe. Of course. Never met him personally.’

  ‘Perhaps it is as well that you never do. I don’t think General von Löhr would react too favourably to the suggestion that he is in need of psychiatric treatment. Nor does he take too kindly to subordinate officers – and, despite your nationality, you can take it that he very definitely regards you as subordinate – who question far less disobey his orders. And those are his orders.’

  ‘Two psychiatrists. One for von Löhr, one for the person who appointed him to his command. That would be the Führer, of course.’

  Colonel Lunz said mildly: ‘I do try to observe the essential civilities. It’s not normally too difficult. But bear in mind that I am a German Regimental Commander.’

  ‘I don’t forget it and no offence was intended. Protests are useless. I have my orders. I assume that this time I will not be going in by plane?’

  ‘You are remarkably well informed.’

  ‘Not really. Some of your colleagues are remarkably garrulous in places where not only have they no right to be garrulous but have no right to be in the first place. In this case I am not well informed, but I can think, unlike – well, never mind. You’d have to notify my friends if you were sending in a plane and that message could be just as easily intercepted and deciphered as any other. You don’t know how crazy those Partisans could be. They wouldn’t hesitate to send a suicide commando behind our lines and shoot down the plane when it’s still at an altitude of fifty or a hundred metres, which is an excellent way of ensuring that no-one gets out of that plane alive.’ Petersen tapped the envelope. ‘That way the message never gets delivered. So I go by boat. When?’

  ‘Tomorrow night.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘A little fishing village near Termoli.’

  ‘What kind of boat?’

  ‘You do ask a lot of questions.’

  ‘It’s my neck.’ Petersen shrugged his indifference. ‘If your travel arrangements don’t suit me, I’ll make my own.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time you’d borrowed shall we say, a boat from your – ah – allies?’

  ‘Only in the best interests of all.’

  ‘Of course. An Italian torpedo boat.’

  ‘You can hear one of those things twenty kilometres away.’

  ‘So? You’ll be landing near Ploe. That’s in Italian hands, as you know. And even if you could be heard fifty kilometres away, what’s the difference? The Partisans have no radar, no planes, no navy, nothing that could stop you.’

  ‘So the Adriatic is your pond. The torpedo boat it is.’

  ‘Thank you. I forgot to mention that you’ll be having some company on the trip across.’

  ‘You didn’t forget. You just saved it for last.’ Petersen refilled their glasses and looked consideringly at Lunz. ‘I’m not sure that I care for this. You know I like to travel alone.’

  ‘I know you never travel alone.’

  ‘Ah! George and Alex. You know them, then?’

  ‘They’re hardly invisible. They attract attention – they have that look about them.’

  ‘What look?’

  ‘Hired killers.’

  ‘You’re half right. They’re different. My insurance policy – they watch my back. I’m not complaining, but people are always spying on me.’

  ‘An occupational hazard.’ Lunz’s airily dismissive gesture showed what he thought of occupational hazards. ‘I would be grateful if you would allow those two people I have in mind to accompany you. More, I would regard it as a personal favour if you would escort them to their destination.’

  ‘What destination?’

  ‘Same as yours.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Two radio operator recruits for your etniks. Carrying with them, I may say, the very latest in transceiver equipment.’

  ‘That’s not enough, and you know it. Names, background.’

  ‘Sarina and Michael. Trained – highly trained, I might say – by the British in Alexandria. With the sole intent of doing what they are about to do – joining your friends. Let us say that we intercepted them en route.’

  ‘What else? Male and female, no?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No what?’

  ‘I’m a fairly busy person. I don’t like being encumbered and I’ve no intention of acting as a shipborne chaperon.’

  ‘Brother and sister.’

  ‘Ah.’ Petersen said. ‘Fellow citizens?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then why can’t they find their own way home?’

  ‘Because they haven’t been home for three years. Educated in Cairo.’ Again the wave of a hand. ‘Troubled times in your country, my friend. Germans here, Italians there, Ustaša, etniks, Partisans everywhere. All very confusing. You know your way around your country in these difficult times. Better than any, I’m told.’

  ‘I don’t get lost much.’ Petersen stood. ‘I’d have to see them first, of course.’

  ‘I would have expected nothing else.’ Lunz drained his glass, rose and glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll be back in forty minutes.’

  George answered Peterse
n’s knock. Despite Lunz’s unflattering description George didn’t look a bit like a killer, hired or otherwise: genial buffoons, or those who look like them, never do. With a pudgy, jovial face crowned by a tangled thatch of grey-black hair, George, on the wrong side of fifty, was immense – immensely fat, that was: the studded belt strung tightly around what used to be his waist served only to emphasize rather than conceal his gargantuan paunch. He closed the door behind Petersen and crossed to the left-hand wall: like many very heavy men, as is so often seen in the case of overweight dancers, he was quick and light on his feet. He removed from the plaster a rubber suction cap with a central spike which was attached by a wire to a transformer and thence to a single earphone.

  ‘Your friend seems to be a very pleasant man.’ George sounded genuinely regretful. ‘Pity we have to be on opposite sides.’ He looked at the envelope Petersen had brought. ‘Aha! Operational orders, no?’

  ‘Yes. Hotfoot, you might say, from the presence of Colonel General von Löhr himself.’ Petersen turned to the recumbent figure on one of the two narrow beds. ‘Alex?’

  Alex rose. Unlike George, he had no welcoming smile but that meant nothing, for Alex never smiled. He was of a height with George but there any resemblance ended. His weight was about half George’s as were his years: he was thin-faced, swarthy and had black watchful eyes which rarely blinked. Wordlessly, for his taciturnity was almost on a par with the stillness of his face, he took the envelope, dug into a knapsack, brought out a small butane burner and an almost equally small kettle, and began to make steam. Two or three minutes later Petersen extracted two sheets of paper from the opened envelope and studied the contents carefully. When he had finished he looked up and regarded the two men thoughtfully.

  ‘This will be of great interest to a great number of people. It may be the depths of winter but things look like becoming very hot in the Bosnian hills in the very near future.’

  George said: ‘Code?’

  ‘Yes. Simple. I made sure of that when I made it up. If the Germans never meant business before, they certainly mean it now. Seven divisions, no less. Four German, under General Lütters, whom we know, and three Italian under General Gloria, whom we also know. Supported by the Ustaša and, of course, the etniks. Somewhere between ninety thousand and a hundred thousand troops.’

  George shook his head. ‘So many?’

  ‘According to this. It’s common knowledge of course that the Partisans are stationed in and around Bihać. The Germans are to attack from the north and east, the Italians from south and west. The battle plan, God knows, is simple enough. The Partisans are to be totally encircled and then wiped out to a man. Simple, but comprehensive. And just to make certain, both the Italians and Germans are bringing in squadrons of bomber and fighter planes.’

  ‘And the Partisans haven’t got a single plane.’

  ‘Even worse for them they don’t have antiaircraft guns. Well, a handful, but they should be in a museum.’ Petersen replaced the sheets and re-sealed the envelope. ‘I have to go out in fifteen minutes. Colonel Lunz is coming to take me to meet a couple of people I don’t particularly want to meet, two radio operator etnik recruits who have to have their hands held until we get to Montenegro or wherever.’

  ‘Or so Colonel Lunz says.’ Suspicion was one of the few expressions that Alex ever permitted himself.

  ‘Or so he says. Which is why I want you two to go out as well. Not with me, of course – behind me.’

  ‘A little night air will do us good. These hotel rooms get very stuffy.’ George was hardly exaggerating, his penchant for beer was equalled only by his marked weakness for evil-smelling, black cigars. ‘Car or foot?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. You have your car.’

  ‘Either way, tailing in a blackout is difficult. Chances are, we’d be spotted.’

  ‘So? You’ve been spotted a long time ago. Even if Lunz or one of his men does pick you up it’s most unlikely that he’ll have you followed. What he can do, you can do.’

  ‘Pick up our tail, you mean. What do you want us to do?’

  ‘You’ll see where I’m taken. When I leave find out what you can about those two radio operators.’

  ‘A few details might help. It would be nice to know who we’re looking for.’

  ‘Probably mid-twenties, brother and sister, Sarina and Michael. That’s all I know. No breaking down of doors, George. Discretion, that’s what’s called for. Tact. Diplomacy.’

  ‘Our specialities. We use our Carabinieri cards?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  When Colonel Lunz had said that the two young radio operator recruits were brother and sister, that much, Petersen reflected, had been true. Despite fairly marked differences in bulk and colouring, they were unmistakably twins. He was very tanned, no doubt from all his years in Cairo, with black hair and hazel eyes: she had the flawless peach-coloured complexion of one who had no difficulties in ignoring the Egyptian sunshine, close-cropped auburn hair and the same hazel eyes as her brother. He was stocky and broad: she was neither, but just how slender or well proportioned she might have been it was impossible to guess as, like her brother, she was clad in shapeless khaki-coloured fatigues. Side by side on a couch, where they had seated themselves after the introductions, they were trying to look relaxed and casual, but their overly expressionless faces served only to accentuate their wary apprehensiveness.

  Petersen leaned back in his arm-chair and looked appreciatively around the large living-room. ‘My word. This is nice. Comfort? No. Luxury. You two young people do yourselves well, don’t you?’

  ‘Colonel Lunz arranged it for us,’ Michael said.

  ‘Inevitably. Favouritism. My spartan quarters –’

  ‘Are of your own choosing,’ Lunz said mildly. ‘It is difficult to arrange accommodation for a person who is in town for three days before he lets anyone know that he’s here.’

  ‘You have a point. Not, mind you, that this place is perfect in all respects. Take, for instance, the matter of cocktail cabinets.’

  ‘Neither my brother nor I drink.’ Sarina’s voice was low-pitched and quiet. Petersen noticed that the slender interlaced hands were ivory-knuckled.

  ‘Admirable.’ Petersen picked up a briefcase he had brought with him, extracted a brandy bottle and two glasses and poured for Lunz and himself. ‘Your health. I hear you wish to join the good Colonel in Montenegro. You must, then, be Royalists. You can prove that?’ Michael said: ‘Do we have to prove it? I mean, don’t you trust us, believe us?’

  ‘You’ll have to learn and learn quickly – and by that I mean now – to adopt a different tone and attitude.’ Petersen was no longer genial and smiling. ‘Apart from a handful of people – and I mean a handful – I haven’t trusted in or believed anyone for many years. Can you prove you’re a Royalist?’

  ‘We can when we get there.’ Sarina looked at Petersen’s unchanged expression and gave a helpless little shrug. ‘And I know King Peter. At least, I did.’

  ‘As King Peter is in London and London at the moment isn’t taking any calls from the Wehrmacht, that would be rather difficult to prove from here. And don’t tell me you can prove it when we get to Montenegro for that would be too late.’

  Michael and Sarina looked at each other, momentarily at a loss for words, then Sarina said hesitatingly: ‘We don’t understand. When you say it would be too late –’

  ‘Too late for me if my back is full of holes. Bullet wounds, stab wounds, that sort of thing.’

  She stared at him, colour staining her cheeks, then said in a whisper: ‘You must be mad. Why on earth should we –’

  ‘I don’t know and I’m not mad. It’s just by liking to live a little longer that I manage to live a little longer.’ Petersen looked at them for several silent moments, then sighed. ‘So you want to come to Yugoslavia with me?’

  ‘Not really.’ Her hands were still clenched and now the brown eyes were hostile. ‘Not after what you’ve just said.’ She looked at her brother,
then at Lunz, then back at Petersen. ‘Do we have any options?’

  ‘Certainly. Any amount. Ask Colonel Lunz.’

  ‘Colonel?’

  ‘Not any amount. Very few and I wouldn’t recommend any of them. The whole point of the exercise is that you both get there intact and if you go by any other means the chances of your doing just that are remote: if you try it on your own the chances don’t exist. With Major Petersen you have safe conduct and guaranteed delivery – alive, that is.’

  Michael said, doubt in his voice: ‘You have a great deal of confidence in Major Petersen.’

  ‘I do. So does Major Petersen. He has every right to, I may add. It’s not just that he knows the country in a way neither of you ever will. He moves as he pleases through any territory whether it’s held by friend or enemy. But what’s really important is that the fields of operations out there are in a state of constant flux. An area held by the etniks today can be held by the Partisans tomorrow. You’d be like lambs in the fold when the wolves come down from the hills.’

  For the first time the girl smiled slightly. ‘And the Major is another wolf?’

  ‘More like a sabre-toothed tiger. And he’s got two others who keep him constant company. Not, mind you, that I’ve ever heard of sabretoothed tigers meeting up with wolves but you take my point, I hope.’

  They didn’t say whether they took his point or not. Petersen looked at them both in turn and said: ‘Those fatigues you’re wearing – they’re British?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘You have spares?’

  Again they nodded in unison.

  ‘Winter clothing? Heavy boots?’

  ‘Well, no.’ Michael looked his embarrassment. ‘We didn’t think we would need them.’

  ‘You didn’t think you would need them.’ Petersen briefly contemplated the ceiling then returned his gaze to the uncomfortable pair on the couch. ‘You’re going up the mountains, maybe two thousand metres, in the depths of winter, not to a garden party in high summer.’

  Lunz said hastily: ‘I shouldn’t have much trouble in arranging for these things by morning.’