don’t know what you are talking about.’ Mallory spat out a broken tooth, wiped some blood off his smashed lips. ‘Is this the way the Germans treat their prisoners?’ he asked contemptuously.
‘Shut up!’
Again the torch lashed out. Mallory was waiting for it, rode the blow as best he could: even so the torch caught him heavily high up on the cheek-bone, just below the temple, stunning him with its jarring impact. Seconds passed, then he pushed himself slowly off the snow, the whole side of his face afire with agony, his vision blurred and unfocused.
‘We fight a clean war!’ The officer was breathing heavily, in barely controlled fury. ‘We fight by the Geneva Conventions. But these are for soldiers, not for murdering spies –’
‘We are no spies!’ Mallory interrupted. He felt as if his head was coming apart.
‘Then where are your uniforms?’ the officer demanded. ‘Spies, I say – murdering spies who stab in the back and cut men’s throats!’ The voice was trembling with anger. Mallory was at a loss – nothing spurious about this indignation.
‘Cut men’s throats?’ He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘My own batman. A harmless messenger, a boy only – and he wasn’t even armed. We found him only an hour ago. Ach, I waste my time!’ He broke off as he turned to watch two men coming up the gully. Mallory stood motionless for a moment, cursing the ill luck that had led the dead man across the path of Panayis – it could have been no one else – then turned to see what had caught the officer’s attention. He focused his aching eyes with difficulty, looked at the bent figure struggling up the slope, urged on by the ungentle prodding of a bayoneted rifle. Mallory let go a long, silent breath of relief. The left side of Brown’s face was caked with blood from a gash above the temple, but he was otherwise unharmed.
‘Right! Sit down in the snow, all of you!’ He gestured to several of his men. ‘Bind their hands!’
‘You are going to shoot us now, perhaps?’ Mallory asked quietly. It was suddenly, desperately urgent that he should know: there was nothing they could do but die, but at least they could die on their feet, fighting; but if they weren’t to die just yet, almost any later opportunity for resistance would be less suicidal than this.
‘Not yet, unfortunately. My section commander in Margaritha, Hauptmann Skoda, wishes to see you first – maybe it would be better for you if I did shoot you now. Then the Herr Commandant in Navarone – Officer Commanding of the whole island.’ The German smiled thinly. ‘But only a postponement, Englishman. You will be kicking your heels before the sun sets. We have a short way with spies in Navarone.’
‘But, sir! Captain!’ Hands raised in appeal, Andrea took a step forward, brought up short as two rifle muzzles ground into his chest.
‘Not Captain – Lieutenant,’ the officer corrected him. ‘Oberleutnant Turzig, at your service. What is it you want, fat one?’ he asked contemptuously.
‘Spies! You said spies! I am no spy!’ The words rushed and tumbled over one another, as if he could not get them out fast enough. ‘Before God, I am no spy! I am not one of them.’ The eyes were wide and staring, the mouth working soundlessly between the gasped-out sentences. ‘I am only a Greek, a poor Greek. They forced me to come along as an interpreter. I swear it, Lieutenant Turzig, I swear it!’
‘You yellow bastard!’ Miller ground out viciously, then grunted in agony as a rifle butt drove into the small of his back, just above the kidney. He stumbled, fell forward on his hands and knees, realised even as he fell that Andrea was only playing a part, that Mallory had only to speak half a dozen words in Greek to expose Andrea’s lie. Miller twisted on his side in the snow, shook his fist weakly and hoped that the contorted pain on his face might be mistaken for fury. ‘You two-faced, double-crossing dago! You gawddamned swine, I’ll get you …’ There was a hollow, sickening thud and Miller collapsed in the snow: the heavy ski-boot had caught him just behind the ear.
Mallory said nothing. He did not even glance at Miller. Fists balled helplessly at his sides and mouth compressed, he glared steadily at Andrea through narrowed slits of eyes. He knew the lieutenant was watching him, felt he must back Andrea up all the way. What Andrea intended he could not even begin to guess – but he would back him to the end of the world.
‘So!’ Turzig murmured thoughtfully. ‘Thieves fall out, eh?’ Mallory thought he detected the faintest overtones of doubt, of hesitancy, in his voice, but the lieutenant was taking no chances. ‘No matter, fat one. You have cast your lot with these assassins. What is it the English say? “You have made your bed, you must lie on it.”’ He looked at Andrea’s vast bulk dispassionately. ‘We may need to strengthen a special gallows for you.’
‘No, no, no!’ Andrea’s voice rose sharply, fearfully, on the last word. ‘It is true what I tell you! I am not one of them, Lieutenant Turzig, before God I am not one of them!’ He wrung his hands in distress, his great moonface contorted in anguish. ‘Why must I die for no fault of my own? I didn’t want to come. I am no fighting man, Lieutenant Turzig!’
‘I can see that,’ Turzig said dryly. ‘A monstrous deal of skin to cover a quivering jelly-bag your size – and every inch of it precious to you.’ He looked at Mallory, and at Miller, still lying face down in the snow. ‘I cannot congratulate your friends on their choice of companion.’
‘I can tell you everything, Lieutenant, I can tell you everything!’ Andrea pressed forward excitedly, eager to consolidate his advantage, to reinforce the beginnings of doubt. ‘I am no friend of the Allies – I will prove it to you – and then perhaps –’
‘You damned Judas!’ Mallory made to fling himself forward, but two burly soldiers caught him and pinioned his arms from behind. He struggled briefly, then relaxed, looked balefully at Andrea. ‘If you dare to open your mouth, I promise you you’ll never live to –’
‘Be quiet!’ Turzig’s voice was very cold. ‘I have had enough of recriminations, of cheap melodrama. Another word and you join your friend in the snow there.’ He looked at him a moment in silence, then swung back to Andrea. ‘I promise nothing. I will hear what you have to say.’ He made no attempt to disguise the repugnance in his voice.
‘You must judge for yourself.’ A nice mixture of relief, earnestness and the dawn of hope, of returning confidence. Andrea paused a minute and gestured dramatically at Mallory, Miller and Brown. ‘These are no ordinary soldiers – they are Jellicoe’s men, of the Special Boat Service!’
‘Tell me something I couldn’t have guessed myself,’ Turzig growled. ‘The English Earl has been a thorn in our flesh these many months past. If that is all you have to tell me, fat one –’
‘Wait!’ Andrea held up his hand. ‘They are still no ordinary men but a specially picked force – an assault unit, they call themselves – flown last Sunday night from Alexandria to Castelrosso. They left that same night from Castelrosso in a motor-boat.’
‘A torpedo boat,’ Turzig nodded. ‘So much we know already. Go on.’
‘You know already! But how –?’
‘Never mind how. Hurry up!’
‘Of course, Lieutenant, of course.’ Not a twitch in his face betrayed Andrea’s relief. This had been the only dangerous point in his story. Nicolai, of course, had warned the Germans, but never thought it worth while mentioning the
