The Guns of Navarone

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘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 strangely 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 no
t 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 bound 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.

  Immediately afterwards they had run through an area of high-walled, terraced market gardens, passed between a decaying Byzantine church and a whitewashed orthodox monastery that faced each other incongruously across the same dusty road, then almost at once were running through the lower part of the old town. Mallory had had a vague impression of narrow, winding, dim-lit streets only inches wider than the car itself, hugely cobbled and with almost knee-high pavements, then Louki was making his way up an arched lane, the car climbing steeply all the time. He had stopped abruptly and Mallory had followed his quick survey of the darkened lane; completely deserted though over an hour yet to curfew. Beside them had been a flight of white stone steps innocent of any hand-rail, running up parallel to the wall of a house, with a highly ornamented latticework grille protecting the outside landing at the top. A still groggy Panayis had led them up these stairs, through to a house – he had known exactly where he was – across a shallow roof, down some more steps, through a dark courtyard and into this ancient house where they were now. Louki had driven the car away even before
they had reached the top of the stairs; it was only now that Mallory remembered that Louki hadn’t thought it worth while to say what he intended to do with the car.

  Still gazing out of the windowless hole in the wall at the fortress gate, Mallory found himself hoping intensely that nothing would happen to the sad-eyed little Greek, and not only because in his infinite resource and local knowledge he had been invaluable to them and was likely to prove so again; all these considerations apart, Mallory had formed the deepest affection for him, for his unvarying cheerfulness, his enthusiasm, his eagerness to help and to please, above all for his complete disregard of self. A thoroughly lovable little man, and Mallory’s heart warmed to him. More than he could say for Panayis, he thought sourly, and then immediately regretted the thought; it was no fault of Panayis’s that he was what he was, and in his own dark and bitter way he had done as much for them as Louki. But the fact remained that he was sadly lacking in Louki’s warm humanity.

  He lacked also Louki’s quick intelligence, the calculated opportunism that amounted almost to genius. It had been a brilliant idea on Louki’s part, Mallory mused, that they should take over this abandoned house: not that there had been any difficulty in finding an empty house – since the Germans had taken over the old castle the inhabitants of the town had left in their scores for Margaritha and other outlying villages, none more quickly than those who had lived in the town square itself; the nearness of the fortress wall that formed the north side of the square had been more than many of them could stomach, with the constant coming and going of their conquerors through the fortress gates, the sentries marching to and fro, the never-ceasing reminders that their freedom was a vanished thing. So many gone that more than half the houses on the west side of the square – those nearest the fortress – were now occupied by German officers. But this same enforced close observation of the fortress’s activities had been exactly what Mallory had wanted. When the time came to strike they had only yards to go. And although any competent garrison commander would always be prepared against the unexpected, Mallory considered it unlikely indeed that any reasonable man could conceive of a sabotage group so suicidally minded as to spend an entire day within a literal stone’s throw of the fortress wall.