by James Munro
Serafin lay on the deck. Craig looked at him, stiffened, then looked down again to where the blood still flowed. He was weak and getting weaker. He could do nothing until the bleeding stopped. Somehow he fumbled his way into the cabin, pressed the lips of the cut together and re-bandaged it, cleaned up the mess on the side of his face, then allowed himself one drink and went up topside to work once more at Serafin.
The old man was a mess. His face and body were covered in enormous bruises, and his right arm was broken. Craig felt the old man's pulse, which was fluttering and fast. Groaning with weakness, Craig set the old man's arm, taped his ribs, put a pillow under his head and wrapped him in blankets, then switched off the engine. Getting down into the engine hold was an agony, searching for the faults in the diesel a chess match with a grand master. At last he heated the engine with a blow lamp, the only sparking plug a caique diesel possesses, swung the handle, his whole body one great pain, then staggered over to the wheel. Someone had lashed it so that the caique sailed in a great circle, half a mile in diameter. Craig set a course that would take him to Serafin's wife's brother. When he found him he sent him at once to Athens for Serafin's son, then held course for Andraki, staying up now by willpower alone, his body drained far beyond the point of collapse, and only the savage drive of his will to keep him going.
When he reached the island he fired the Verey pistol, and at once a boat put out for him, and men picked them up, carried them into the boat, and at last to the hut on the beach, where Serafin's wife stood waiting.
Craig said: "I'm sorry, mother. I—"
"No," said the old woman. "Your turn will come."
"Yes," Craig said. "I promise you that."
Then he fainted.
38
B ME RICH
» Chapter 5 «=*
Dr. Stavros Kouprassi was small, chubby, voluble. That his father and mother should be Serafin and Maria was a minor miracle to Craig. It seemed to him that Stavros must have lived at least three lives in Athens to achieve so high a degree of sophistication, so conscientiously urbane an attitude to everything that happened to him and to the world. He had been fifteen when Craig first met him, in 1943, working on his father's boat, as Craig had once worked with Ms father. Even then he had been a sophisticate, fussy about his shirt, his fingernails, his one pair of shoes. In all of Andraki there was no one who looked and acted so like an Athenian as Stavros; plump, sleek, and hard as a seal. Except for one thing. Even at fifteen, Stavros was an artist with a knife. There was no one on the island to touch him. That was why he had been chosen to kill the sentry outside the prison.
The prison held one man, a schoolteacher called Andreou, and it was guarded like the vaults of a bank. Andreou, in 1943, was intelligence officer for the Andraki Resistance movement, and the Germans knew this. It was vital that Andreou should be freed before the Gestapo arrived from Athens to learn his secrets, so vital that a message had been sent to the Special Boat Service, and a caique manned by experts had been sent to help. Among them had been Craig, and a small, dark, dangerous man called Rutter. Craig had been young then, not all that much older than Stavros, and yet he had frightened Stavros from the very beginning. He moved so swiftly, and yet so carefully; his decisions were so accurate, his weapons so apt. He handled them as a painter might handle his brushes, familiarly yet with care, almost with love. In Andraki Stavros had seen death many times; he had never seen anyone who used it as Craig used it, and he feared him.
When they went to rescue Andreou, they were betrayed. The sentry was there all right—an expendable Pole —and Stavros reached him and killed him, clinically, neatly, but then the world went mad and panzer grenadiers seemed to grow out of the ground, coming in for the kill. One had grabbed him, twisted his knife wrist, rammed his arm behind his back, and Stavros, in his nightmares, remembered to perfection how he had straddled the Pole when it had happened, how the nightingales stopped singing as a cloud covered the new moon, how Craig had appeared behind the panzer grenadier, pulled back his steel helmet, gripped its rim in his hands, spun it like a steering wheel and broken his neck, then let him drop, still twitching, and gone to help the little dark man kill Germans. They had done it like terriers killing rats, then blasted their way into the prison as alarm bells gonged and a rocket climbed, burst, in the rich dark bloom of the sky. They had found Andreou too, and carried him out—his left leg was broken—while Serafin and the others kept up the fight, and lorry loads of grenadiers came into action.
Stravos adored Andreou. The schoolteacher had taught him so much, encouraged him to believe that for him to be a doctor was not only possible, but essential, until Stavros, too, believed it, and learned all that the schoolteacher could teach him. Without Andreou he was nothing. And that night he watched the man he adored carried out by strangers. They carried him carefully, but without feeling, Stavros remembered, as if he were an object whose value might diminish at any minute. The German reinforcements arrived, and Stavros's father and the rest of the Andraki men were pushed inevitably back. Stavros stood where he was, and stared at Andreou, and the noise of battle grew louder. Stavros didn't hear it. All he heard was Andreou saying, "Can you get me out?"
Craig spoke to the little dark man, and he moved, wary as a fox, to the sound of gunfire, then signaled back to Craig. Craig looked at Andreou then, and shook his head. Andreou sighed. Stavros would never again in his life hear anything so heartbreaking as that sigh. "You had better kill me then," he said.
Craig had looked back to Rutter, and the little man had signaled again, more urgently.
"Christ, you're a man," said Craig, and while Stavros
screamed aloud, he shot Andreou between the eyes. He had gone over to Stavros then, and pushed him out on the way back to his father, stopping from time to time to help the little man kill more Germans. Stavros never knew whether he hated Craig, or adored him. . . .
Craig looked up at the small, sleek man. He was in a low, cool room and there were dull pains in his stomach and head. The man in the room beside him became first a doctor, then Stavros. Suddenly Craig remembered; he had sent for Stavros. He remembered why.
"How's Serafin?" he asked.
"He'll live," Stavros said. "He won't be much use again—but he'll five." "That bad?"
"Broken arm, broken ribs, pneumonia, multiple bruises," Stavros said. "Ten years ago he'd simply have got over it. Now he's too old."
"I shouldn't have left him," said Craig.
Stavros took his pulse, listened to his heartbeat. "Not today," he said. 'Tomorrow you can tell me."
When Craig told him he listened, unflinching, heard it out to the end. And then:
"You did far more than I have a right to ask," he said. "Without you my father would be dead. No!"—when Craig tried to interrupt: "He was an obstinate old man. Without you he would still have gone and he would be dead. As it is, he's an imbecile, but that's not your fault, Craig. You did evenihing I—or he—could expect."
He went out then to speak to Maria, and the old woman came in, lay across Craig's bed, and wept on his chest.
"Sh, mother," said Craig, "I don't deserve it."
"He would have died," Maria sobbed. "You brought h^z hick iz me."
Ar.f Sti '.Tcs wiped his hands on a very white handkerchief, ar.d v:ved that Craig must be made well again, superblv welL no matter how long he was kept away from Athens. He new knew whether he adored Craig or hated him.
When Craig began to heal Stavros superintended his convalescence, waited for the day when he could see Serafin, and took him in, showed him an old, old man who looked like Serafin, but whose muscles were soft and slack, whose eyes were stupid and faded, who spent all day playing Xeri, a simple and undemanding game of cards, or else whittled at a piece of wood jammed into a chair, slowly, painfully, conscientiously cutting it to pieces with a small and very beautiful knife. Craig had a knife too, as elegant as Serafin's. He had taken it from the German, Bauer. He looked at the old man, and spoke to him softly and gen
tly. Serafin began at once to ask for things; a few drachmas, a handkerchief, an orange, sweets, demanding like a child the tangible evidences of love. Craig gave him money and peeled an orange for him, then watched as the old man ate it, messily, noisily, babbling his thanks, the old voice cackling its pleasure even as he cringed. Craig went outside and Stavros followed him. "Who did it?" Craig asked.
"The big man," said Stavros. "He must be enormous." "He is," said Craig.
"It took no more than a few seconds," Stavros said, "to turn him from what he was to—that." He nodded at Serafin's room.
"Why?" Craig asked. "Why did he do it?"
"Your accent is not like my father's, nor your coloring," Stavros said. "He did not believe that you were his son. He questioned my father about it. My father insisted that you were—even while the big man did that to him."
"But why? Why didn't he tell the truth?"
Stavros paused, and looked at him.
"At first I think it was because you had said so. You wanted to be taken for his son, so he said you were. He told them you had worked in Cyprus for a while, picked up a different accent. That was at first, before the big man lost his temper."
"And afterward?"
"He believes it," said Stavros. "From now until he dies you are his son. He has owed you a debt for twenty years—he has owed you for my life. Would you say he has repaid you now?"
"All right," said Craig. "All right. I'll see that big man again."
"And what will you do? Kill him?"
"Maybe," said Craig.
"You have killed for our family before," said Stavros. "I hope we were sufficiently grateful."
"Your father was," said Craig, and Stavros flushed.
"What can I do then?" Stavros asked. "Teach you to kill more efficiently?"
"It's possible," said Craig. "You could show me how to use a knife."
"For what?" Stavros asked. "You kill well enough
now."
"A German did this to me," Craig said, and touched his wound. "I don't want it to happen again."
Stavros said: "I haven't used the knife in years."
"You were the best I've ever seen," said Craig.
"Very well, then," Stavros said. "I'll teach you."
Craig looked into his eyes, sensed the raging anger behind them that Stavros struggled to conceal for his father's sake. Stavros was ready to hate him, but that hatred might be put to use. Stavros had a skill that might be useful if he was to go back and seek the big Englishman. They practiced together every day, longer and longer sessions as Craig's strength returned, and in the end, he was satisfied. He became an artist, with a quick and deadly grace, a duelist's speed and judgment, and even Stavros found it hard to hold him. He could hold a knife like a sword, cut and thrust with appalling speed, and as he fought his left hand worked for him too, a hard edge of bone that could strike like a hammer, bruise flesh, snap bone, kill, if his aim were accurate, as quickly as the knife.
One day they fought in the open, out by the beach, using the little wooden knives Stavros had made for their practice, watched by a crowd of Andraki men, alive to each smoothly timed movement of foot and ami. At last Stavros leaped, Craig swerved too late, and he felt the wooden knife at his heart, but even then his body had twisted with the swerve, his own knife plunged beneath Stavros's ribs. The doctor laughed.
"You can't help it, can you?" he asked. "Even when you're dying, you go on killing."
There was no joy in his laughter.
"I can't teach you any more," Stavros said. "You're as good as I am. If you want to be better, you must go on by yourself."
He threw the wooden knife into the sand, and a child ran to pick it up, to slash in the air against imaginary enemies.
"It's too easy to be like you," said Stavros, then broke off as a man came up to him, waving the flimsy paper of a telegram. He glanced at it, and passed it to Craig.
"Dyton-Blease may be leaving," he said.
"You were going to visit him?" asked Craig. "Without
me?"
"I wanted to see him," said Stavros. "I wanted to know why."
"You wanted to ldll him."
"Perhaps," said Stavros. "I won't know until I meet him. But you haven't any doubts at all."
"I have met him," said Craig. "Are you going back to Athens now?"
"I'll send for a hydroplane tomorrow."
"I'd like to share it if I may," said Craig. "There's someone I have to see there." He moved nearer to Stavros. "I haven't thanked you properly for all you've done," he said.
"You're my brother," said Stavros. "Who needs a brother's thanks?"
Craig laughed, and swung Stavros up in his arms, a parody of a brother's embrace. Stavros felt the power beneath it, and thought yet again how absurd, even wicked, it was to love a man whose one talent was destruction.
* Chapter 6 *
That night Craig went to call on Serafin's cousin Elias, who was short, round, and hard, with a look of his nephew Stavros. He listened to what Craig wanted to do and agreed at once.
"Stavros will want to come, too," he said. "It's his blood feud as much as yours."
"Of course," said Craig. "That is why we musn't tell him. Stavros is a doctor. We can't ask him to risk this."
Elias looked at him, hesitating, agreeing at last.
"Very well," he said. "You're the eldest after all."
Craig smiled his thanks, marveling at the other's tact and kindliness that could live quite happily with explosive violence. He told Elias what he wanted to do, and Elias objected fiercely; there wasn't enough in it for him. And yet in the end he agreed; Andraki men never argued with Craig when it came to discussing a fight.
Elias and his son took Craig over to Menos under sail. He sat in the darkness, listening to the unending chuckle of water against the bows, and wishing only that the big man, Dyton-Blease, was still there. When the caique hove to near the headland, he stared into the darkness, searching out the denser dark of cliff and castle, then he stripped, piled his clothes into an inflated rubber raft, and lowered it into the water. He murmured good-bye to the Greeks, then slipped quietly into the calm, warm sea, and, pushing the raft ahead of him, swam out toward the island, taking his time, cautious not to tire himself, until at last he reached shingle, stood up, and dragged the raft on to a beach.
Craig took a towel from the raft, dried himself and dressed, then took Bauer's knife from it too, deflated the raft, and felt his way to the base of a cliff. Cautiously he drew out a shaded torch and hid the raft at the foot of a rock, then looked along the cliff face, searching patiently until he found the alarm wire he knew must be there. He climbed over it, and moved slowly, cautiously up the rock face, pausing near the top to search for, and find, another alarm wire.
Before him the castle stood, black and solid in the night's soft darkness. Craig looked out for dogs or sentries. There were none. He moved across the rock-hard ground to the castle wall, and made for the gate and a thin wedge of light. The small postern stood slightly ajar, and a man with a rifle leaned back against the wall, asleep. Slowly, with infinite care, Craig moved inside, then hit the sentry hard on the neck with his fist. The snoring stopped, and Craig caught the sentry as he fell and propped him against the postern, leaving his rifle with him. He looked more drunk than asleep, but the results would be the same if anyone spotted him. Craig felt in the man's pockets and found a bottle of ouzo. He poured some over the sentry's clothes and left the bottle beside him, then moved into the castle, across the courtyard to the keep. Again the inner gate was unlocked and he moved in like a cat, quiet and menacing.
The keep had been divided into three floors, and each floor had been subdivided into a series of rooms. Craig started at the top. The top floor was Dyton-Blease's. It contained an enormous bedroom, with a vast peachwood bed, a dressing room crammed with suits, shirts, shoes, all handmade—at least & 2,000 worth—and an office with a desk that contained nothing at all in its drawers and cupboards except a comprehen
sive collection of large-scale maps of the Middle East and some handsome writing paper headed Menos, Greece. There was also a huge gymnasium equipped with weights, medicine balls, expanders, for a man of superhuman strength. And there was a dojo—a judo practice mat. Craig paused by it, then moved down to the floor below. Every room was elegant, feminine, and beautiful. And yet somehow, every room was wrong. Craig looked at two vases, one with a beautiful flower arrangement, the other with an unsuccessful copy of the first. He saw a dining-room set for dinner for eight, at which only two people had eaten, a card table with the wreckage of a bridge game, one hand viciously torn across, and a tailor's dummy in the dressing room that was the most dressed dummy he had ever seen. Her expression of stupid aloofness didn't slip a centimeter when Craig lifted her skirts to discover she wore panties, girdle, and bra beneath her Balenciaga gown. Craig decided that Dyton-Blease had been teaching Selina how rich European women live and dress and occupy their day. He remembered the torn cards and grinned. Bridge bored him, too.
On the ground floor two men slept, the two men who had boarded the caique and taken Selina away. The silent one's room was a huge collage of pinups, the walls, the ceiling, even the floor. He lay on his back and snored, blowing bubbles of saliva as he exhaled. Craig hit him as he had hit the sentry. Once again the snoring stopped. When he searched the room he found only a Steyr automatic, ammunition, a knife, a cosh, and a series of photographs that used two or more human bodies to show how the letters of the alphabet could be portrayed in even the most absorbing circumstances. The photographs had been
E rinted in Cairo. Craig looked again at Q, grinned, and took is collection of weapons into the talkative one's bedroom. This room was austere, yet had richness. The furni-
