Bent almost double, careful to make no noise whatsoever they ran across the roof-tops towards the old house where they had hidden earlier in the evening, where they were now to rendezvous with Louki. Still running, they were only feet away from the house when they saw his shadowy figure rise up, only it wasn’t Louki. Mallory realised at once, for it was too tall for Louki and without breaking step he catapulted the horizontal driving weight of his 180 pounds at the unknown figure in a homicidal tackle, his shoulder catching the man just below the breast-bone, emptying every last particle of air from the man’s lungs with an explosive agonised whoosh. A second later both of Miller’s sinewy hands were clamped round the man’s neck, slowly choking him to death.
And he would have choked to death, neither of the two men were in any mind for half-measures, had not Mallory, prompted by some fugitive intuition, stooped low over the contorted face, the staring, protruding eyes, choked back a cry of sudden horror.
‘Dusty!’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘For God’s sake, stop! Let him go! It’s Panayis!’
Miller didn’t hear him. In the gloom his face was like stone, his head sunk farther and farther between hunching shoulders as he tightened his grip, strangling the Greek in a weird savage silence.
‘It’s Panayis, you bloody fool, Panayis!’ Mallory’s mouth was at the American’s ear, his hands clamped round the other’s wrists as he tried to drag him off Panayis’s throat. He could hear the muffled drumming of Panayis’s heels on the turf of the roof, tore at Miller’s wrists with all his strength: twice before he had heard that sound as a man had died under Andrea’s great hands, and he knew with sudden certainty that Panayis would go the same way, and soon, if he didn’t make Miller understand. But all at once Miller understood, relaxed heavily, straightened up, still kneeling, hands hanging limply by his sides. Breathing deeply he stared down in silence at the man at his feet.
‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ Mallory demanded softly. ‘Deaf or blind or both?’
‘Just one of those things, I guess.’ Miller rubbed the back of a hand across his forehead, his face empty of expression. ‘Sorry, boss, sorry.’
‘Why the hell apologise to me?’ Mallory looked away from him, looked down at Panayis: the Greek was sitting up now, hands massaging his bruised throat, sucking in long draughts of air in great, whooping gasps. ‘But maybe Panayis here might appreciate –’
‘Apologies can wait,’ Miller interrupted brusquely. ‘Ask him what’s happened to Louki.’
Mallory looked at him for a moment, made to reply, changed his mind, translated the question. He listened to Panayis’s halting answer – it obviously hurt him even to try to speak – and his mouth tightened in a hard, bitter line. Miller watched the fractional slump of the New Zealander’s shoulders, felt he could wait no longer.
‘Well, what is it, boss? Somethin’s happened to Louki, is that it?’
‘Yes,’ Mallory said tonelessly. ‘They’d only got as far as the lane at the back when they found a small German patrol blocking their way. Louki tried to draw them off and the machine-gunner got him through the chest. Andrea got the machine-gunner and took Louki away. Panayis says he’ll die for sure.’
FOURTEEN
Wednesday Night
1915–2000
The three men cleared the town without any difficulty, striking out directly across country for the castle Vygos and avoiding the main road. It was beginning to rain now, heavily, persistently, and the ground was mired and sodden, the few ploughed fields they crossed almost impassable. They had just struggled their way through one of these and could just see the dim outline of the keep – less than a cross-country mile from the town instead of Louki’s exaggerated estimate – when they passed by an abandoned earthen house and Miller spoke for the first time since they had left the town square of Navarone.
‘I’m bushed, boss.’ His head was sunk on his chest, and his breathing was laboured. ‘O1’ man Miller’s on the downward path, I reckon, and the legs are gone. Couldn’t we squat inside here for a couple of minutes, boss, and have a smoke?’
Mallory looked at him in surprise, thought how desperately weary his own legs felt and nodded in reluctant agreement. Miller wasn’t the man to complain unless he was near exhaustion.
‘Okay, Dusty, I don’t suppose a minute or two will harm.’ He translated quickly into Greek and led the way inside, Miller at his heels complaining at length about his advancing age. Once inside, Mallory felt his way across to the inevitable wooden bunk, sat down gratefully, lit a cigarette then looked up in puzzlement. Miller was still on his feet, walking slowly round the hut, tapping the walls as he went.
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Mallory asked irritably. ‘That was why you came in here in the first place, wasn’t it?’
‘No, boss, not really.’ The drawl was very pronounced. ‘Just a low-down trick to get us inside. Two-three very special things I want to show you.’
‘Very special? What the devil are you trying to tell me?’
‘Bear with me, Captain Mallory,’ Miller requested formally. ‘Bear with me just a few minutes, I’m not wastin’ your time. You have my word, Captain Mallory.’
‘Very well.’ Mallory was mystified, but his confidence in Miller remained unshaken. ‘As you wish. Only don’t be too long about it.’
‘Thanks, boss.’ The strain of formality was too much for Miller. ‘It won’t take long. There’ll be a lamp or candles in here – you said the islanders never leave an abandoned house without ’em?’
‘And a very useful superstition it’s been to us, too.’ Mallory reached under the bunk with his torch, straightened his back. ‘Two or three candles here.’
‘I want a light, boss. No windows – I checked. OK?’
‘Light one and I’ll go outside to see if there’s anything showing.’ Mallory was completely in the dark about the American’s intentions. He felt Miller didn’t want him to say anything, and there was a calm surety about him that precluded questioning. Mallory was back in less than a minute. ‘Not a chink to be seen from the outside,’ he reported.
‘Fair enough. Thanks, boss.’ Miller lit a second candle, then slipped the rucksack straps from his shoulders, laid the pack on the bunk and stood in silence for a moment.
Mallory looked at his watch, looked back at Miller.
‘You were going to show me something,’ he prompted.
‘Yeah, that’s right. Three things, I said.’ He dug into the pack, brought out a little black box hardly bigger than a match-box. ‘Exhibit A, boss.’
Mallory looked at it curiously. ‘What’s that?’
‘Clockwork fuse.’ Miller began to unscrew the back panel. ‘Hate the damned things. Always make me feel like one of those Bolshevik characters with a dark cloak, a moustache like Louki’s and carryin’ one of those black cannon-ball things with a sputterin’ fuse stickin’ outa it. But it works.’ He had the back off the box now, examining the mechanism in the light of his torch. ‘But this one doesn’t, not any more,’ he added softly. ‘Clock’s OK, but the contact arm’s been bent right back. This thing could tick till Kingdom Come and it couldn’t even set off a firework.’
‘But how on earth –?’
‘Exhibit B.’ Miller didn’t seem to hear him. He opened the detonator box, gingerly lifted a fuse from its felt and cotton-wool bed and examined it closely under his torch. Then he looked at Mallory again. ‘Fulminate of mercury, boss. Only seventy-seven grains, but enough to blow your fingers off. Unstable as hell, too – the littlest tap will set it off.’ He let it fall to the ground, and Mallory winced and drew back involuntarily as the American smashed a heavy heel down on top of it. But there was no explosion, nothing at all.
‘Ain’t workin’ so good either, is it, boss? A hundred to one the rest are all empty, too.’ He fished out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and watched the smoke eddy and whirl about the heat of the candles. He slid the cigarettes into his pocket.
‘There was a third thing you we
re going to show me,’ Mallory said quietly.
‘Yeah, I was goin’ to show you somethin’ else.’ The voice was very gentle and Mallory felt suddenly cold. ‘I was goin’ to show you a spy, a traitor, the most vicious, twistin’, murderin’, doublecrossin’ bastard I’ve ever known.’ The American had his hand out of his pocket now, the silenced automatic sitting snugly against his palm, the muzzle trained over Panayis’s heart. He went on, more gently than ever. ‘Judas Iscariot had nothin’ on the boy-friend here, boss … Take your coat off, Panayis.’
‘What the devil are you doing? Are you crazy?’ Mallory started forward, half-angry, half-amazed, but brought up sharply against Miller’s extended arm, rigid as a bar of iron. ‘What bloody nonsense is this? He doesn’t understand English!’
‘Don’t he, though? Then why was he out of the cave like a flash when Casey reported hearin’ sounds outside … and why was he the first to leave the carob grove this afternoon if he didn’t understand your order? Take your coat off, Judas, or I’ll shoot you through the arm. I’ll give you two seconds.’
Mallory made to throw his arms round Miller and bring him to the ground, but halted in mid-step as he caught the look on Panayis’s face – teeth bared, murder glaring out from the coal-black eyes. Never before had Mallory seen such malignity in a human face, a malignity that yielded abruptly to shocked pain and disbelief as the .32 bullet smashed into his upper arm, just below the shoulder.
‘Two seconds and then the other arm,’ Miller said woodenly. But Panayis was already tearing off his jacket, the dark, bestial eyes never leaving Miller’s face. Mallory looked at him, shivered involuntarily, looked at Miller. Indifference, he thought, that was the only word to describe the look on the American’s face. Indifference. Unaccountably, Mallory felt colder than ever.
‘Turn round!’ The automatic never wavered.
Slowly Panayis turned round. Miller stepped forward, caught the black shirt by the collar, ripped it off his back with one convulsive jerk.
‘Waal, waal, now, whoever woulda thought it?’ Miller drawled. ‘Surprise, surprise, surprise! Remember, boss, this was the character that was publicly flogged by the Germans in Crete, flogged until the white of his ribs showed through. His back’s in a helluva state, isn’t it?’
Mallory looked but said nothing. Completely off balance, his mind was in a kaleidoscopic whirl, his thoughts struggling to adjust themselves to a new set of circumstances, a complete reversal of all his previous thinking. Not a scar, not a single blemish, marked the dark smoothness of that skin.
‘Just a natural quick healer,’ Miller murmured. ‘Only a nasty, twisted mind like mine would think that he had been a German agent in Crete, became known to the Allies as a fifth columnist, lost his usefulness to the Germans and was shipped back to Navarone by fast motor-launch under cover of night. Floggin’! Island-hoppin’ his way back here in a row-boat! Just a lot of bloody eyewash!’ Miller paused, and his mouth twisted. ‘I wonder how many pieces of silver he made in Crete before they got wise to him?’
‘But heavens above, man, you’re not going to condemn someone just for shooting a line!’ Mallory protested. Strangely he didn’t feel nearly as vehement as he sounded. ‘How many survivors would there be among the Allies if –?’
‘Not convinced yet, huh?’ Miller waved his automatic negligently at Panayis. ‘Roll up the left trouser leg, Iscariot. Two seconds again.’
Panayis did as he was told. The black venomous eyes never looked away from Miller’s. He rolled the dark cloth up to the knee.
‘Farther yet? That’s my little boy,’ Miller encouraged him. ‘And now take that bandage off – right off.’ A few seconds passed, then Miller shook his head sadly. ‘A ghastly wound, boss, a ghastly wound!’
‘I’m beginning to see your point,’ Mallory said thoughtfully. The dark sinewy leg wasn’t even scratched. ‘But why on earth –?’
‘Simple. Four reasons at least Junior here is a treacherous, slimy bastard – no self-respectin’ rattlesnake would come within a mile of him – but he’s a clever bastard. He faked his leg so he could stay in the cave in the Devil’s Playground when the four of us went back to stop the Alpenkorps from comin’ up the slope below the carob grove.’
‘Why? Frightened he’d stop something?’
Miller shook his head impatiently.
‘Junior here’s scared o’ nothin’. He stayed behind to write a note. Later on he used his leg to drop behind us some place, and leave the note where it could be seen. Early on, this must have been. Note probably said that we would come out at such and such a place, and would they kindly send a welcomin’ committee to meet us there. They sent it, remember: it was their car we swiped to get to town … That was the first time I got real suspicious of the boy-friend: after he’d dropped behind he made up on us again quick – too damn quick for a man with a game leg. But it wasn’t till I opened that rucksack in the square this evenin’ that I really knew.’
‘You only mentioned two reasons,’ Mallory prompted.
‘Comin’ to the others. Number three – he could fall behind when the welcomin’ committee opened up in front – Iscariot here wasn’t goin to get himself knocked off before he collected his salary. And number four – remember that real touchin’ scene when he begged you to let him stay at the far end of the cave that led into the valley we came out? Goin’ to do his Horatio-on-the-bridge act?’
‘Going to show them the right cave to pick, you mean.’
‘Check. After that he was gettin’ pretty desperate. I still wasn’t sure, but I was awful suspicious, boss. Didn’t know what he might try next. So I clouted him good and hard when that last patrol came up the valley.’
‘I see,’ Mallory said quietly. ‘I see indeed.’ He looked sharply at Miller. ‘You should have told me. You had no right –’
‘I was goin’ to, boss. But I hadn’t a chance – Junior here was around all the time. I was just startin’ to tell you half an hour back, when the guns started up.’
Mallory nodded in understanding. ‘How did you happen on all this in the first place, Dusty?’
‘Juniper,’ Miller said succinctly. ‘Remember that’s how Turzig said he came to find us? He smelt the juniper.’
‘That’s right. We were burning juniper.’
‘Sure we were. But he said he smelt it on Kostos – and the wind was blowin’ off Kostos all day long.’
‘My God,’ Mallory whispered. ‘Of course, of course! And I missed it completely.’
‘But Jerry knew we were there. How? Waal, he ain’t got second sight no more than I have. So he was tipped off – he was tipped of by the boy-friend here. Remember I said he’d talked to some of his pals in Margaritha when we went down there for the supplies?’ Miller spat in disgust. ‘Fooled me all along the line. Pals? I didn’t know how right I was. Sure they were his pals – his German pals! And that food he said he got from the commandant’s kitchen – he got it from the kitchen all right. Almost certainly he goes in and asks for it – and old Skoda hands him his own suitcase to stow it in.’
‘But the German he killed on the way back to the village? Surely to God –’
‘Panayis killed him.’ There was a tired certainty in Miller’s voice. ‘What’s another corpse to Sunshine here. Probably stumbled on the poor bastard in the dark and had to kill him. Local colour. Louki was there, remember, and he couldn’t have Louki gettin’ suspicious. He would have blamed it on Louki anyway. The guy ain’t human … And remember when he was flung into Skoda’s room in Margaritha along with Louki, blood pourin’ from a wound in his head?’
Mallory nodded.
‘High-grade ketchup. Probably also from the commandant’s kitchen,’ Miller said bitterly. ‘If Skoda had failed by every other means, there would still have been the boy-friend here as a stool-pigeon. Why he never asked Louki where the explosives were I don’t know.’
‘Obviously he didn’t know Louki knew.’
‘Mebbe. But one thing the bastard did k
now – how to use a mirror. Musta heliographed the garrison from the carob grove and given our position. No other way, boss. Then sometime this morning he must have got hold of my rucksack, whipped out all the slow fuse and fixed the clock fuse and detonators. He should have had his hands blown off tamperin’ with them fulminates. Lord only knows where he learnt to handle the damn things.’
‘Crete.’ Mallory said positively. ‘The Germans would see to that. A spy who can’t also double as a saboteur is no good to them.’
‘And he was very good to them,’ Miller said softly. ‘Very, very good. They’re gonna miss their little pal. Iscariot here was a very smart baby indeed.’
‘He was. Except tonight. He should have been smart enough to know that at least one of us would be suspicious –’
‘He probably was,’ Miller interrupted. ‘But he was misinformed. I think Louki’s unhurt. I think Junior here talked Louki into letting him stay in his place – Louki was always a bit scared of him – then he strolled across to his pals at the gate, told ’em to send a strong-arm squad out to Vygos to pick up the others, asked them to fire a few shots – he was very strong on local colour, was our loyal little pal – then strolls back across the square, hoists himself up on the roof and waits to tip off his pals as soon as we came in the back door. But Louki forgot to tell him just one thing – that we were goin’ to rendezvous on the roof of the house, not inside. So the boy-friend here lurks away for all he’s worth up top, waiting to signal his friends. Ten to one that he’s got a torch in his pocket.’
Mallory picked up Panayis’s coat and examined it briefly. ‘He has.’
‘That’s it, then.’ Miller lit another cigarette, watched the match burn down slowly to his fingers, then looked up at Panayis. ‘How does it feel to know that you’re goin’ to die, Panayis, to feel like all them poor bastards who’ve felt just as you’re feeling now, just before they died – all the men in Crete, all the guys in the sea-borne and air landings on Navarone who died because they thought you were on their side? How does it feel, Panayis?’
The Complete Navarone Page 26
