Partisans

Nine

And venison it was. Josip and Marija had excelled themselves and achieved the seemingly impossible – the venison tasted even marginally better than the last time. George excelled himself in a corresponding fashion, but failed to achieve the impossible: halfway through his third massive helping of venison he had to admit defeat. Sleep that night, unlike the last occasion, was undisturbed by unwelcome visitors. Breakfast was a late and leisurely meal.

‘I wish we’d had you up in the damned Mount Prenj for the past two months,’ Harrison said to Josip after the meal. ‘But it’s been worth the wait. I wish someone would station me here for the duration. He directed his attention towards Petersen. ‘Are we permitted to know our plans – well, your plans – for the day?’

‘Of course. They’re concerned primarily, though not entirely, with one person – Cipriano, his apprehension and interrogation. The Bihać affair we can consider as being virtually a closed matter. As you know, we failed to make contact yesterday, but Ivan and I had better luck during the small hours – reception, as you know, is always better at night. They’ve come up with no fewer than sixteen Četnik-turned-Partisan suspects, there can’t be more than two, at the most three. We send out a coded message at a certain hour on a certain wavelength and note will be taken as to which of the sixteen is absent at the time. He will not of course be apprehended until the other one or two have been similarly trapped. Routine. Forget it.’ That the words were tantamount to a death sentence was evident to everyone, except, apparently, Petersen.

‘Cipriano,’ Giacomo said. ‘Still at Imotski?’

‘He is. We have two men up there on a twenty-four hour watch. We’re in radio contact. Spoke to them last an hour ago. Cipriano’s up and around but shows no sign yet of moving on. He’s got quite an entourage with him.’ He looked at Alex. ‘You might be interested in hearing the description of one of them.’

‘Alessandro?’ Alex said hopefully.

‘No other.’

‘Ah.’ Just for once Alex registered a trace of expression: it was as near to a happy smile as Alex would ever come.

‘Plus, I’m almost certain from the description, Alessandro’s three henchmen. Seems that Carlos must have found a flame-cutter somewhere. We don’t, of course, know which way the fox is going to jump – there are several different exit routes he can take from Imotski – but we’ll be told immediately that is known. He could, of course, be taking a back road to Ploče and hitch-hiking a lift home with Carlos – if the Colombo’s diesel lines have been cleared out – but I think that unlikely. I think he’ll be heading for the military airfield just outside the town here and the fast way back to Rome. Ivan and I are just going out to the airport to check.’

‘Check what?’ Harrison asked.

‘Whether there’s air transport standing by for him.’

‘Won’t the airfield be guarded?’

‘We are two Italian officers. I’ve just promoted myself to Colonel and will probably outrank anyone there. We’ll just walk in and ask them.’

‘That won’t be necessary, Peter,’ Josip Pijade said. ‘My cousin, who owns a garage just outside the airport, works there as a parttime repair and maintenance engineer. Not, unfortunately, on the planes, but on the plant, otherwise the Italian air force would be experiencing mysterious crashes. I have but to lift the phone.’

‘Thank you, Josip.’

Josip left. Lorraine said: ‘Another solid and reliable citizen?’

‘Yugoslavia is full of them.’

Josip was back in two minutes. ‘There is an Italian plane on standby. And it’s reserved for Major Cipriano.’

‘Thank you.’ He nodded to the small transceiver on the table. ‘I’ll take this with me. Call up if you hear from Imotski. We’re almost certain of the route Cipriano will take into town so Ivan and I will go and select an ambush spot. We may take your car, Josip?’

‘Take me, too. I know the perfect spot.’

Sarina said: ‘We can go into town?’

‘I think so. I won’t be needing you until nightfall. The only attention you’re liable to attract is wolf-whistles from the licentious Italian soldiery.’ He looked at Giacomo. ‘I’d feel happier if you went along.’

‘No sacrifice too great,’ Giacomo said.

Sarina smiled. ‘We need protection?’

‘Only from the licentious soldiery.’

The call came, inevitably enough, when they were halfway through lunch. Marija came in and said: ‘They’ve just left. They’re heading for Posušje.’

‘The Mostar road. Excuse us,’ Petersen said. He rose as did Alex, Crni and Edvard.

George said: ‘I wish I were coming with you. But everyone knows I’m not a man of action.’

‘What he means,’ Petersen said coldly, ‘is that his jaws haven’t even got out of second gear yet and he’s barely touched his first litre of beer.’

Sarina said: ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’

Petersen smiled and said: ‘Coming, Giacomo?’

‘Certainly not. That’s a public bar through there. The licentious soldiery might come in any moment.’

‘There’s your answer about being careful, Sarina. If Giacomo thought there was the slightest chance of shooting an Italian full of holes he’d be the first aboard the truck. He knows there’s no hope. But thanks all the same.’

Alex, white handkerchief in hand, stood on a low knoll in the rough grazing field opposite the tree-lined lane which led off the main Lištica – Mostar road. In the lane itself, with engine running, Petersen sat in the cab of the Italian army truck which was parked only feet from the entrance to the road.

Alex raised the handkerchief high above his head. Petersen engaged first gear and waited, clutch depressed, accelerator at halfthrottle. Alex brought the handkerchief sharply down and, clutch released, the truck moved forward under full throttle. Three seconds later Petersen jammed on the brakes, bringing the truck to an abrupt halt, fair and square across the width of the main highway.

The Italian army command car which, fortunately for its occupants, was travelling at only a moderate speed, had no chance: even as the driver stamped on the foot-brake he must have realized that his options were limited indeed: he could either keep to the road and hit the side of the truck head-on or swerve to his right into the field where Alex was – a swerve to the left would have fetched him up against the trees lining the lane. Prudently, he chose the latter course. Locked tyres screeching on the tarmac, the car bust through a low wooden fence, broke into the field while balanced on only two wheels, teetered for a couple of seconds then came to rest as it fell over on its left side, wheels still spinning slowly in the air.

Within seconds, rifle butts had smashed in the right-hand windows of the car but the need for haste was not there: the five occupants, unhurt except for cuts about their faces, were too dazed to recognize the presence of their assailants, far less offer resistance: when they did recover some sense of awareness, the sight of the four machine-pistol muzzles only inches from their heads made the thought of offering any resistance too ludicrous for contemplation.

When Petersen and Crni returned to the hotel they found George and his companions – inevitably, in George’s case – in the bar. Equally inevitably, George was presiding behind the counter.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen.’ George was at his affable best.

‘You’ve finished lunch, then?’ Petersen said.

‘And it wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. What shall it be? Beer?’

‘Beer is fine.’

‘Aren’t you going to ask him what happened?’ Sarina said indignantly.

‘Ah. Alex and Edvard have been cut off in their prime?’

‘They’re in the truck and the truck is in the car park.’

‘That’s what I like. Solicitude. Making sure that the prisoners are not doing themselves an injury. When do you propose to bring them inside?’

‘When it’s dark. I can’t very well march them through the streets, bound and gagged, in broad daylight, can I?’

‘True.’ George yawned and slid off his stool. ‘Siesta.’

‘I know,’ Petersen said sympathetically. ‘Go, go, go all the time. Wears a man down.’

George left in dignified silence. Sarina said: ‘Doesn’t go in much for congratulations, does he?’

‘He postponed his siesta. That shows he’s deeply moved.’

‘So you got Major Cipriano. What do you think of that, Lorraine?’

‘I suppose I should be weeping for joy. I am glad, I’m terribly glad. But I knew he would. I never for a moment doubted it. Did you?’

‘No. It’s very irritating.’

‘“Souvent femme varie”,’ Petersen said sadly. ‘Josip, would you send someone with your hotel wagon to pick up the prisoners’ luggage and take it upstairs. No, not upstairs: I can examine it just as well down here.’ He turned to Sarina. ‘And you keep quiet.’

‘I didn’t say anything!’

‘You were about to tell me that that was something else I was very good at. Examining other people’s luggage, I mean.’

The five prisoners were brought in by the back entrance as soon as it was reasonably dark. The hotel doors were locked. Cipriano, Alessandro and the three others were settled in chairs and their gags removed. Their wrists remained bound behind their backs. The normally tranquil and civilized Major Cipriano had undergone a radical transformation. His eyes glared and his face was suffused in anger.

‘What is the meaning of this – this abominable outrage, Petersen? Have you gone mad? Stark raving mad? Untie me at once! I’m an officer, an Italian officer, an allied officer!’

‘You’re a murderer. Your rank and nationality is of no importance. Not when you’re a mass murderer.’

‘Untie me! You’re crazy! By God, Petersen, if it’s the last thing I do–’

‘Has it occurred to you that you may already have done your last thing on earth?’

Cipriano stared at Petersen. His lack of understanding was total. Suddenly, he noticed Josip for the first time.

‘Pijade! Pijade! You – you are a party to this monstrous outrage!’ Cipriano was so clearly nearly bereft of reason that he struggled futilely with his bonds. ‘By God, Pijade, you shall pay for this treachery!’

‘Treachery.’ Petersen laughed without mirth. ‘Speak of treachery while you may, Cipriano, because you’re going to die for it. Pijade will pay, will he? How will he do that, Cipriano?’ Petersen’s voice was very soft. ‘Your eternal curses from the bottom of hell where you’ll surely be before midnight tonight?’

‘You’re all mad,’ Cipriano whispered. The anger had drained from his face: he had suddenly become aware that he was in mortal danger.

Petersen went on in the same gentle tone: ‘Hundreds of my comrades lie dead because of you.’

‘You are mad!’ His voice was almost a scream. ‘You must be mad. I’ve never touched a Četnik in my life.’

‘I am not a Četnik. I’m a Partisan.’

‘A Partisan!’ Cipriano was back to his husky whispering again. ‘A Partisan! Colonel Lunz suspected – I should have listened–’ He broke off and then his voice strengthened. ‘I have never harmed a Partisan in my life.’

‘Come in,’ Petersen called.

Lorraine entered.

‘Do you still deny, Cipriano, that you have masterminded the deaths of hundreds of my fellow-Partisans? Lorraine has told me everything, Cipriano. Everything.’ He produced a small black book from his tunic. ‘Lorraine’s code book. In your own handwriting. Or perhaps you don’t recognize your handwriting, Cipriano, I’m sure you never thought that you would be signing your own death warrant with your own handwriting. I find it ironic, Cipriano. I hope you do too. But irony isn’t going to bring all those hundreds back to life, is it? Even although the last of your spies will have been trapped and executed by the end of the week, those men will still be dead, won’t they, Cipriano. Where’s the little boy, Lorraine’s little boy? Where’s Mario, Cipriano?’

Cipriano made a noise in his throat, a harsh and guttural and meaningless sound and struggled to his feet. Giacomo glanced at Petersen, correctly interpreted the nod and, with evident satisfaction, hit Cipriano none too gently in the solar plexus. Cipriano collapsed into his chair, harsh retching noises coming deep from his throat.

Petersen said: ‘George?’

George emerged from behind the bar, carrying two pieces of rope in his hand. He ambled across the saloon, dropped one piece to the floor and secured Cipriano firmly to his chair with the other. Then he picked up the second rope, already noosed, and dropped it over Alessandro’s chest before the man realized what was happening. Seconds later and he was trussed like the proverbial turkey.

‘Cipriano isn’t going to tell me because Cipriano knows that he’s going to die, whatever happens. But you’ll tell me where the little boy is, won’t you, Alessandro?’

Alessandro spat on the floor.

‘Oh dear.’ Petersen sighed. ‘Those disgusting habits are difficult to eradicate, aren’t they?’ He reached behind the bar and produced the metal box of syringes and drugs he had taken from Alessandro aboard the Colombo. ‘Alex.’

Alex produced his razor-sharp knife and slit Alessandro’s left sleeve from the shoulder to where the ropes bound him at the elbow level.

‘No!’ Alessandro’s voice was a scream of pure terror. ‘No! No! No!’

Cipriano leaned forward and struggled against his bonds, his face suffused dark red as he tried to force words through his still constricted throat. Giacomo tapped him again to ensure his continued silence.

‘I’m afraid I cut him a little,’ Alex said apologetically. He was hardly exaggerating: Alessendro’s arm was, indeed, quite badly gashed.

‘No matter.’ Petersen picked up the syringe and selected a phial at apparent random. ‘Save the trouble of searching for a vein.’

‘Ploče!’ Alessandro’s whispered. His voice was strangled with fear. His breath coming and going faster than once every second. ‘Ploče. I can take you there! 18 Fra Spalato! I swear it! I can take you there!’

Petersen replaced the syringe and phials and closed the lid. He said to the girls: ‘Alessandro, I’m afraid, was psychologically disadvantaged. But I never laid a finger on him, did I?’

Both girls stared at him, then looked at each other. As if by some telepathic signal, they shuddered in unison.

When Alessandro’s arm had been bandaged and Cipriano recovered, they made ready to leave. As Alex approached him with a gag, Cipriano looked at Petersen with empty eyes and said: ‘Why don’t you kill me here? Difficult to dispose of the body? But no trouble in the Adriatic, is it? A few lengths of chain.’

‘Nobody’s going to dispose of you, Cipriano. Not permanently. We never had any intention of killing you. I knew Alessandro would crack but I didn’t want to waste time over it. A bit of a pragmatist, is our Alessandro, and he had no intention of sacrificing his life for a man he believed to be already as good as dead. We have every moral justification for killing you but no legal justification. Spies are shot all the time: spy-masters never. Geneva Conventions say so. It does seem unfair. No, Cipriano, you are going into durance vile. A prisoner of war, for however long the war lasts. British Intelligence are just going to love to have a chat with you.’

Cipriano had nothing to say, which was perhaps understandable. When the reprieve comes along just as the guillotine is about to be tripped, suitable comment is hard to come by.

Petersen turned to his cousin as Cipriano’s gag was being fastened. ‘Marija, I would like you to do me a favour. Would you look after a little boy for a day or two?’

‘Mario!’ Lorraine said. ‘You mean Mario?’

‘What other little boy would I be talking about. Well, Marija?’

‘Peter!’ Her voice was full of reproach.

‘Well, I had to ask.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘The bane of my life, but I love you.’

‘So we part once more,’ Josip said sadly. ‘When do we meet again?’

‘Dinner-time. George is coming back for the rest of that venison he couldn’t finish last night. So am I.’

Edvard stopped the truck several hundred yards short of the entrance to the docks. Alex and Sava dropped down from the back of the truck followed by a now unbound and ungagged Alessandro – they were in the main street and there were a number of people around. The three men turned, without any undue haste, down an unlit side-street.

Crni, seated up front with Petersen, said: ‘Do you anticipate any trouble at the control gate?’

‘No more than usual. The guards are old, inefficient, not really interested and very susceptible to arrogant and ill-tempered authority. That’s us.’

‘Cipriano’s wrecked command car is bound to have been found some time ago. And the people in charge at the airport must be wondering where he’s got to.’

‘If a Yugoslav found it, it will have made his day and he would have driven by without stopping. Whether the airport was expecting him I don’t know – Cipriano seems an unpredictable fellow who does very much what he wants. Even if it’s accepted by now that he’s genuinely missing, where are they going to start looking? Ploče’s about as unlikely a place as any.’

And so it proved. The sentry didn’t even bother to leave his box. Beyond the gate, the docks were deserted – the day’s work was over and the freezing temperatures were hardly calculated to encourage night-time strollers. Even so, Petersen told Edvard to stop two hundred metres short of where the Colombo was berthed, left the cab, went round to the back, called Lorraine’s name and helped her down.

‘See that light there? That’s the Colombo. Go and tell Carlos to switch off his two gangway lights.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh, yes.’ She ran a few steps then halted abruptly as Petersen called her.

‘Walk you clown. No one in Ploče ever runs.’

Three minutes later the gangway lights went out. Two minutes after that the prisoners had made their unobserved way up the unlighted gangway and the truck had disappeared. The gangway lights came on again.

Carlos sat in his usual chair in his cabin, his good left hand tightly held in both of Lorraine’s, the expression on his face not so much uncomprehending and stunned but comprehending and still stunned.

‘Let me see whether I’ve got this right or whether I’m just imagining it,’ Carlos said. ‘You’re going to lock up my crew and myself, abscond with Lorraine and Mario, imprison Cipriano and his men aboard and steal my ship?’

‘I couldn’t have put it more succinctly myself. Except, of course, that I wouldn’t have used the word “abscond”. Only, of course, if you consent. The decision is entirely up to you. And Lorraine, too. But I think Lorraine has already made up her mind.’

‘Yes, I have.’ There was no hesitation in her voice.

‘I’ll be dismissed from the Navy,’ Carlos said gloomily. ‘No, I won’t, I’ll be court-martialled and shot.’

‘Nothing will happen to you. There is not a chance in the world. George and I have gone over it time and again.’

‘My crew will talk and–’

‘Talk? Talk what about? They’re sitting in the mess-room with machine-pistols at their heads. If you had a machine-pistol at your head would you have any doubt whatsoever that your ship had been taken over by force?’

‘Cipriano–’

‘What of Cipriano? Even if he survives his captivity, which he unfortunately probably will as the British don’t shoot prisoners, there’s nothing he can do. There is no way your version and that of the crew – and this will become the official version – can be disproved. And he would never dare lay a personal charge against you – by the time peace comes you can call for the testimony of several solid and respected citizens of Yugoslavia who will testify to the fact that Cipriano kidnapped your son. The penalty in Italy for kidnapping is life imprisonment.’

‘Oh, do come on, Carlos,’ Lorraine said impatiently. ‘It’s not like you to dilly-dally. There is no other way.’ She gently touched his chin so that his eyes came round to hers. ‘We’ve got Mario back.’

‘True, true.’ He smiled at her. ‘That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it?’

‘Not all.’ She smiled in return. ‘You’re back too. That matters a little. What’s the alternative, Carlos? Peter doesn’t want to kill Cipriano, and if Cipriano is free our life is finished. He has to be imprisoned in a safe place and that means in British hands, and the only way to get him there is in this boat. Peter doesn’t make mistakes.’

‘Correction,’ Sarina said sweetly. ‘Peter never makes mistakes.’

‘“Souvent femme varie”’ Petersen said.

‘Oh, do be quiet.’

‘If I’m locked up,’ Carlos said, ‘When will I – and my crew – be released?’

‘Tomorrow. An anonymous phone message.’

‘And Lorraine and Mario will stay with your friends?’

‘Only a few days. Until we provide them with new identity papers. George is a close friend of the master forger in the Balkans. Lorraine Tremino, we had thought. In these troublous times you should have no difficulty in establishing a long-established family unit. A marriage certificate, George?’

George lowered his tankard. ‘For my friend, a trifle. Venue? Rome? Pescara? Cowes? Wherever. We shall see what forms he has available.’

The door opened and Alex entered, Sava close behind him. Alex had a curly-haired little boy by the hand. The boy looked around him, wonderingly, caught a sight of Carlos and ran to him, arms outstretched. Carlos picked him up and set him on his knees. Mario wound his arms round his neck and gazed wonderingly at Lorraine.

‘He’s only a little boy,’ George said comfortingly. ‘For a little boy, Lorraine, six months is a long time. He will remember.’

Harrison coughed. ‘And I am to go with Giacomo on this perilous voyage, this rendezvous with eternity?’

‘Your choice, Jamie, but Giacomo has to have somebody. Besides, you know as well as I do that the Illyrian Alps are not your homeland and that there’s no useful function you can perform here any more. More important, as a serving British officer you will lend credulity – total credibility – to Giacomo’s story – apart from convincing the British of the true state of affairs out here, about which you feel so strongly.’

‘I will go,’ Harrison said. ‘A twisted smile on my face, but I will go.’

‘You’ll untwist your smile when the fast Royal Navy patrol boat comes out to meet you. We will radio Cairo. I don’t have their call-up sign but you do, don’t you, Sarina?’

‘Yes.’

‘As a final back-up we will give you a letter explaining the situation fully. Do you have a typewriter, Carlos?’

‘Next door.’ Carlos had handed Mario over to Lorraine. The little boy, while not objecting, still had a suspicious frown on his face.

‘This letter will be signed by the General-Major and myself. Can you type, Sarina?’

‘Of course.’

‘Of course. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. Well, I can’t. You should, at least, be pleased. A chink in my armour. Come on.’

Carlos said, ‘I don’t like to say this, Peter, but I think you’ve missed something. It’s a long long way to the south of Italy where I assume this rendezvous will be made.’

‘Your diesel lines are cleared? Your tanks are full?’

‘Yes. That’s not my point. Oh, I’m sure that Giacomo can steer by the sun and the compass but a rendezvous has to be precise. Latitude this, longitude that.’

‘Indeed. But there are some things you don’t know about Giacomo.’

Carlos smiled. ‘I’m sure there are. What?’

‘Do you have a foreign-going master’s ticket?

‘No.’ Carlos smiled again. ‘Don’t tell me. Giacomo has.’

In the tiny cabin next door Petersen said: ‘You liked Cairo, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Sarina looked puzzled. ‘Yes, I did.’ Her puzzlement changed to suspicion. ‘Why?’

‘Aristocratic young ladies like you are not cut out for this life. All the cold and ice and snow and mountains. Besides, you suffer from vertigo.’

‘I’m coming with you.’ The tone in her voice was final.

Petersen looked at her for a long moment then smiled. ‘A Partisan.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘So is Michael.’

‘I’m coming with you in a different way.’

Petersen pondered. ‘If things like that have to be said I think that I should really–’

‘You talk so much I’d have to wait for ever.’

He smiled and touched the auburn hair. ‘About this letter.’

‘Romance,’ she said. ‘Life is going to be full of it.’

‘One little thing you’ve overlooked, Peter,’ Harrison said.

‘Peter never overlooks anything.’ Petersen looked at Sarina and raised his eyes.

‘Souvent–’

‘Please.’

‘Giacomo and I are going to be alone,’ Harrison said. ‘We have to sleep. Five dangerous men to be watched. How are we–’

‘Alex?’

‘Yes, Major?’

‘The engine-room.’

‘Ah!’ A rare, a very rare smile touched Alex’s lips. ‘The oxyacetylene welder.’