The Heights of Zervos

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sunday, 2-30 PM

The ledge which supported the road was dangerously narrow -as Macomber had predicted they were hemmed in between a vertical wall of rock to their right, a wall which climbed high above them, while to their left the abyss fell away to unknown depths, unknown because the mist below prevented them from seeing how far down the drop continued. They were fifteen minutes' driving time from the wrecked bridge – no great distance considering he had been compelled to move up at a rate of only a few miles per hour – but in that time they had climbed steadily and Macomber calculated that soon they would have ascended a thousand feet, one thousand nerve-crushing feet. Before they had left the bridge Prentice had offered to take over the wheel, but the Scot refused the suggestion. 'I think I've a little experience of handling her now,' he had remarked drily, conferring a feminine status on the most unfeminine-looking object imaginable, 'you might even say I've had a crash course in coping with a half-track.'

'Crash is the word,' Prentice agreed humorously, 'and that's why I'm wondering whether you're in fit state to drive it up the mountain.'

'If I'm not, you should have time to nip off the back.'

Prentice was recalling this last optimistic remark as he stared over the side to where the world dropped away into nothingness. The tracks were grinding irritably over the shale-strewn road as he leaned forward to speak directly into Macomber's ear. 'You'll watch it, won't you, Mac? This isn't too good a place for nipping off anywhere.'

'You could slip over, too, even if you made it – you've seen what's coming up?'

Prentice stared ahead and was joined in his stare by Ford and Grapos who shared the same bench seat. Up to this moment the road had a dull, powdery look, but ahead it gleamed with a sinister sheen – a sheen of ice which coated the surface from wall to brink. 'That doesn't look too funny,' Ford remarked thoughtfully as he recalled vividly what had happened to the half-track when it hit the ice patch on their way down to the bridge. 'Think we can make it?' Prentice asked softly, subconsciously seeking reassurance.

'It may be all right,' Macomber replied non-commitally as he edged the vehicle forward. 'Nothing's ever as bad as you think it's going to be – once you try it.' But his confident reply, deliberately delivered in that form to keep up the morale of his passengers, hardly corresponded with his misgivings. Further evidence that they were climbing steadily was provided by the equally steady drop in temperature and already the mist drifting over his windscreen was lingering, settling to form streaks of blobbed ice. There was no wind worth speaking of at this height yet; just a relentless fall in temperature which caused the Scot to pull the scarf a little tighter round his neck, a purity of cold which inhibited speech and made a man want to sink into the stillness of the mountain. The tracks rumbled forward under them as the ice came closer and Macomber cursed their bad luck – this hazard had presented itself at the very moment when the ledge was narrowing so there was barely a foot of free space on either side of the lumbering vehicle.

He was finding it more difficult to handle in the confined space – no leeway for even the fraction of an error and the concentration required every second was beginning to sap his last reserves of energy, to dull the keenness of his nerves just when he needed every ounce of alertness he could summon up. The vehicle moved on, passing into the ice zone as Macomber sat up straighter, every fibre of his consciousness keyed up for the first sign of slipping, the first hint that the tracks were in trouble – because it was the tracks which would get them through if they survived this ordeal, their weight which would hold the vehicle on the ledge – and conversely it was their malfunction which could bring about the final disaster, the slither backwards which he might not be able to control, ending in their dropping over the precipice, hauled down by the weight which had earlier saved them. Above the slow clatter he heard a new sound, the chilling prickle as the tracks moved onto the ice, followed immediately by a crackle like breaking glass. He let out his breath: it was all right, the ice was breaking. He had to keep up this gradual pace and the tracks would anchor the vehicle while the wheels crossed the treacherous surface, then the tracks would fracture it to allow their own safe passage. Within a minute he was frowning, knowing he had miscalculated dangerously, that his remark that nothing was as bad as you expected was incorrect – things could be worse, infinitely worse. It was the feel of the half-track which warned him, something he was becoming familiar with, because now they felt to be moving over a permanent smoothness. The grip of the caterpillars into the road he had noted farther down was missing. They weren't gripping any more – they were moving upwards over a second more solid layer of ice beneath; only the surface had cracked. And he was coming to a bend. And he could see the first of the snow, white streaks garnishing the gleaming surface. Prentice leaned close to his shoulder, careful not to distract him, to keep his tone moderate and calm.

'Look, Mac, I think we have a problem. We're still moving over ice. The stuff must be inches thick.'

'I know. You'd better all move onto the rear bench – just in case.'

'I appreciate the suggestion…' Prentice was speaking with studious calm, a calm he was making a certain effort to assume,'… but I don't think that would help. If we start to go we'll go backwards, so I don't foresee any rush to leave by the rear exit.'

He was right, of course, Macomber thought pessimistically; they were totally boxed in – by the wall, the abyss, and by the danger of the vehicle starting to slide backwards. Their options were also critically limited in another direction which Prentice probably hadn't grasped yet: Macomber dare not risk braking – stopping on this glass-like surface – because once he stopped they would face the almost inevitable peril that when the half-track tried to move forward again the caterpillars would revolve uselessly over the ice, the first stage in the final slip-back. Boxed in, unable to stop, compelled to move up and up whatever faced them, Macomber began easing the vehicle round the shallow curve, his eyes switching constantly from one point to another – from the curving wall to the extension of the road ahead in case it narrowed even farther. He sat very still behind the wheel, his mind filled with the clanking sound of the turning metal, the curve of the sheer wall which went on and on, the sharp edge where the road ended and the blurred abyss began.

Behind him Prentice sat motionless on the bench in the position nearest to the drop, with Ford in the middle and Grapos seated close to the wall, a wall the Greek viewed with increasing disenchantment as it insidiously moved nearer to his right shoulder: the ledge was contracting. Perched above the brink, Prentice's gloved hand gripped the side of the vehicle as though attached to it and he felt the vibrations of engine and tracks passing up his arm, felt the freezing air numbing his cheeks, felt the tremble of the half-track when it wobbled as it passed over an ice-coated unevenness. The crackling sound, the thinly-iced layer crumbling under the weight, came to him above the engine's purr like the sputtering of a log fire, the symbol of warmth while he slowly froze into a state of immobility, and he couldn't take his eyes off the ribbon of ascending ledge which gradually unwound as the road climbed higher and higher. How much more of this could Mac stand? An audacious gamble – like the reversing of the half-track down the slope to hit the Germans on the bridge – he had grasped this side of the Scot's character; but this murderous, mind-killing creep up the ice-bound mountain, this was something else again, something which made him regard the Scot with far greater awe. And he must be nearly asleep over that wheel… He pushed the thought out of his head quickly. It frightened him too much. Glancing at the others, he saw Ford's hands clasped rather tightly in his lap, his face wooden, whereas Grapos was leaning forward, watching the road intently as though expecting a fresh hazard any second. To take his mind off watching the road Prentice pulled out the looped rope from under the bench, saw that at one end a grappling hook was attached, and when he opened the Alpenkorps satchel he saw more climbing equipment – another rope, pitons, a hammer. As he shoved satchel and rope back under the bench something damp flaked his face, dropped into his lap. It had started snowing.

The snow started falling heavily as they navigated a fresh turn in the road and a rising wind met them, a bitter wind which blew the flakes into a turmoil so they danced above the ledge, driven this way and that in disconcerting flurries. For Macomber the coming of the snow was the final straw, the ultimate hazard. He had kept the half-track on the ledge, maintaining an even space on either side as it narrowed, as he found himself increasingly compressed between wall and brink; maintaining an even speed as it balanced itself delicately on the solid ice, but he had accomplished this gruelling task with a reasonable visibility. Now this only asset was taken away from him as blinding snow fogged his vision, pasted itself over the windscreen, blurred wall and precipice edge to mere silhouettes whose exact location he could no longer rely on. He switched on the lights and they sent out short-lived swathes penetrating only a few yards inside the frenzy of the snowstorm which was growing rapidly more violent as the wind rose to a moaning howl and the men on the bench seat behind him bowed their heads to shield themselves against the onslaught of the elements. Grapos, his chin dug into his chest, was peering warily to his right where the rock face seemed to be closing in; if they collided with that at the wrong moment it could veer the vehicle outwards and over the drop, and Macomber, seated on the other side of the half-track was less able to judge their distance from the wall than from the brink. In the faint hope that he might be able to issue a warning in time, the Greek lifted his head, ignored the whipping snow-flakes which stung his skin and stared ahead through half-closed eyes. No doubt about it – they were appreciably closer to the wall.

This slight change of position was not a mistake on the Scot's part as Grapos feared; it was a deliberate act to try and reduce a little the overwhelming danger they now faced. Unsure from moment to moment of the precise position of the abyss edge he had turned in nearer to the mountain, knowing that if they struck the rock face he at least had a chance to recover, and knowing that if the tracks tipped over the edge there would be no chance of survival at all. Macomber had seriously considered halting, but they were still passing over solid ice and they were still moving up a steepish incline, so if he could keep going until the storm died away the hazards were probably a fraction less dangerous than the hazards of stopping – to say nothing of the fact that somewhere not too far behind them Burckhardt's force must already be making its own way up the mountain road. And the possibility of finding himself stationary on the ice-bound ledge as armed men, more than likely men equipped with mortars, came round a corner in his rear was not a contingency which appealed to him. He turned his head slightly, shouted to make himself heard above the howling wind. 'Any idea how much farther, Grapos?'

'One kilometre beyond the big bend.'

'How far to this ruddy bend?'

'Soon – very soon now.'

'How do you know in this stuff?' Macomber bawled out sceptically.

'Because of the gash.'

Gash? The Scot glanced quickly to his right and saw for the first time a break in the endless mountain wall, a fissure scarcely wider than the breadth of a man, and beyond the gyrating snow he had a glimpse of a narrow tumble of water which fell almost vertically and which was frozen solid in mid-air. Then it was gone. Jesus, the temperature must be low up here. As he looked ahead again the road began to turn round the mountain, and it went on turning, which forced him to keep the wheel swung over permanently to the right, but at least this was an improvement on the zigzags he had encountered lower down, hairpin bends he doubted he could even have attempted if the snow had come then. He drove on, up and up, following the continuing curve of the wall, peering from underneath his Alpenkorps cap brim as his gaze switched from brink to wall and back again to brink, and so great was his concentration that it was a few minutes before he realized there had been a change in the weather. It was still snowing but the wind had dropped, fading away to a chilling stillness as the curtain of snow floated down almost vertically in the windless atmosphere. For the hundredth time he brushed his hand over the windscreen to clear the snow: the wipers had packed up some time ago and his hand was equally effective for removing some of the freezing snow which was steadily adhering to the glass at either end of the screen. And now the headlights penetrated farther, giving him a safer view of what was coming up – and they were only about one kilometre from safety according to Grapos. The thought had barely passed through his head when he stiffened, felt his hands grip the wheel more tightly. A short distance ahead a boulder rested against the inner wall, a boulder rounded and partly covered with snow, and as the headlights moved nearer he saw its. massive size, that it was only partly protruding from a ravine similar to the one they had recently passed, that it must have tumbled down the ravine and then become jammed in the exit immovably just before it crossed the ledge and swept down into the abyss. The dream of safety receded as every turn of the tracks took them closer to the emergency. Macomber weighed up the chances quickly – the boulder appeared firmly jammed inside the ravine, they were within a kilometre of easier going, there appearing to be just sufficient room for them to squeeze past, but it would take them to the edge of the precipice.

'You'll never make it, Mac…' It was Prentice's strained voice which spoke, but the Scot maintained the same even pace as he called back to them.

'Prentice, get to the back and watch the tracks – the outside one. If I'm going over, signal Ford by waving your hand. Ford! You warn me by clapping a hand on my left shoulder -damned quickly, too!' He heard feet moving back along the floorboards. Someone slipped in the snow and swore as they saved themselves. On his own initiative Grapos went back to watch the inner track which had to pass the boulder. Macomber reduced speed to a point where he feared the engine might stop altogether and the snow-covered obstacle crept closer and seemed to magnify itself hugely as he steered away from the mountain wall to give himself maximum clearance, which involved placing the left-hand track on the very edge of the precipice.

The half-track crept forward through the deepening gloom, because now the snow drifting down had made it seem almost like night, and his headlights reflected weirdly off the ice covering which had formed over the mountain wall. It was like living through a bad dream, Macomber thought wearily – the drifting snow which he no longer brushed away from the windscreen, from his weighted coat; the uncanny silence, the muffled throb of the engine, the creak of the turning tracks, the blurred cones of the headlights, and now that frozen gleam off the rock wall. Inside his gloves his hands had hardly any feeling left, his feet were losing contact with the rest of his body, the dull ache in his forehead was fogging his mind, and he had the strange sensation that he was disembodied, that his limbs belonged to someone else, that he was reacting like an automaton. Perhaps his judgement had gone, he was attempting the impossible, and they would end up plunging into that abyss which could easily go down for a couple of thousand feet. He blinked, bit his lip, pushed the defeatist thoughts out of his mind and glared ferociously ahead as the trapped boulder moved closer and closer and the outer track revolved along the rim of the ledge. They were within yards of the obstacle now, would attempt to slide past it within seconds.

At the rear of the vehicle Prentice was leant half over the side as he followed the progress of the caterpillar which was starting to inch out over the precipice as they began to pass the boulder. It was a frightening sight – a portion of the moving belt suspended over the drop – and he was on the verge of signalling to Ford when he decided to wait a few seconds longer, to see whether the position deteriorated. On the far side, mid-way along the half-track, Grapos was gazing down at the boulder with equal intensity while the inner track churned slowly forward, drew alongside it and shaved snow from its encrusted surface. Glancing over his shoulder towards Prentice he frowned at the lieutenant's precariously poised position and then looked down at the boulder again. The main section of track was beginning to slide past it. Prentice, leaning over the outer edge, was supporting himself with one hand only to give himself the best possible view of what was happening, and the fact that his head was almost upside down probably brought on the attack. He was in the same position, staring intently as an inch of track revolved in mid-air, when the dizziness swept over him and he knew he was going to faint. Muddled, disorientated, he felt the quick movement of his right foot slipping over a patch of snow at the same moment as he heard the first grind of the vehicle against the boulder. His balance went completely, both feet sliding under him as Grapos lurched across the half-track, grasped his right arm and jerked him backwards. Prentice fell heavily, caught the back of his head on the bench and sprawled on the floorboards.

Macomber was concentrating on the precipice brink, his hands gripping the wheel, his foot ready to apply a little pressure, when he heard the scraping sound of the inner track contacting the boulder. He waited, his nerves strung up to fever pitch, waited for the hand to descend on his shoulder warning him to brake, and when nothing happened – confident that Prentice was still checking the outer caterpillar – he continued forward. The vehicle was shuddering unpleasantly as the scraping developed into a grinding sound and he suppressed the urge to glance back. His job was driving, not observation, but again he was obsessed with the mounting fear of what would happen if the caterpillar disengaged from the vehicle, leaving it with only two wheels and a single track, which must cause a state of fatal disequilibrium within seconds. The half-track shuddered again and the vibrations travelled up the steering column while he resisted the temptation to steer the front wheels, which were now well past the boulder, in towards the mountain wall. Then the shuddering and grinding noise ceased at the same moment. He drove a few yards farther forward and turned the wheel, taking the half-track away from the edge. Within minutes the road was fanning out, becoming wider as the weather began to clear and the snow drifted down more slowly, soon to stop altogether. To his right the mountain wall moved away from him, the road followed it at a distance, and on his left the precipice faded away where the ground sloped more gradually. He increased speed, experiencing a sense of exhilaration.

'Soon we shall see the monastery.' It was Grapos who spoke with hoarse confidence as he stood behind the Scot and stared over the windshield. 'We go down, pass a big rock, and there it is.'

'How are the others?'

'Prentice fell down and struck his head, but he is conscious again and Ford is helping him.'

Macomber glanced over his shoulder and saw Prentice seated on the rear bench with his head between his hands and Ford beside him. The lieutenant looked up, caught the Scot's frowning expression and waved back encouragingly. 'I'll be OK in a minute – how much farther before we see something?'

'Not far. Take it easy while you can.' Macomber looked up at Grapos. 'That rock you mentioned – I seem to remember it hangs out over the road, doesn't it?'

'Yes. We pass it – we see the monastery.'

They were travelling downhill but the view to the south was obscured by a snowbound slope as they lost altitude rapidly, descending into a bowl with wintry hills sweeping down on all sides. Along the ridges the wind whipped up the snow in flurries which eddied briefly and then vanished, but the sky above was a clear cold blue and the sun shone palely and without warmth. Macomber thought he had never seen such a bleak landscape, a wilderness where savage rocks reared up in strange shapes which reminded him of the wastelands of Arizona. They were close to one of these weird rock formations

– the only one which towered above the road – when Grapos' hand gripped his shoulder tightly. 'There is someone up there

– up on the crag.' Macomber looked up a second too late and they were already moving into the faint shadow the rock cast across the road. He slowed down, braked under the lee of the rock, and followed Grapos out of the half-track, flexing his stiffened fingers which had become almost locked to the wheel.

They had climbed only a few feet when the Greek pulled the Scot close to the rock and whispered. 'I go up this side – you take the other and wait. If he hears me coming he will go down your side – you wait and he meets you.' Macomber nodded, scrambled stiffly back down through knee-deep snow to the road, gestured to the other two men to stay where they were, and made his way under the looming rock. The far side was a steep slope covered with harder snow where the east wind had blown over it, and he had climbed less than fifty feet before he came up behind a large boulder which provided a perfect ambush point. With his Luger in his hand he settled down to wait, and while he waited he stared out at the panoramic view.

The monastery was in sight. Mount Zervos, remote above the vagaries of the weather was fully exposed to view. Crouched behind his boulder, Macomber saw that it was as he remembered it – the huge bluff shouldered out from the mountain, hanging over the sea on one side while on the other it plunged hundreds of feet to the lake below. The walls of the monastery rose vertically from the summit of the bluff; four windowed slabs like giant watch-towers linked together by battlemented walls. They seemed to grow up out of the rocky bluff as they sheered upwards and were silhouetted against the sea with the mainland beyond, the most remote and ascetic hermitage in all Europe – and the ultimate objective of Colonel Burckhardt.

The sea was grey and choppy but comparatively calm as the last of the snowstorm crossed the gulf. Macomber doubted whether the snow had even reached the bluff this time, so once again the monastery had retained its unimpaired view across the sea to the mainland supply road. Below where he waited-the ground receded away to the lake, a stretch of water at least half a mile wide, a lake frozen solid. The road went down to the eastern shore, turned along the northern edge of the ice-sheet, and then vanished before reappearing at the far end, close to the sea at the point where it began its unseen ascent to the bluff. A good half mile of the road was lost, blocked completely by an immense mass of snow heaped up against the slope below Macomber. This was drift snow, probably anything up to thirty feet deep, snow blown there recently by the high wind and which would strangle any type of powered vehicle attempting to drive through it. He stared down at the frozen lake, a sheet of water which must have frozen steadily thicker throughout the long winter. Was it solid enough to support half-tracks and mountain guns? A rattle of disturbed stones beyond the boulder warned him that someone was coming.

'Do not shoot! Please!'

Grapos' voice. Macomber lowered his Luger, stood up and saw the Greek leaning against the rock face with his rifle hoisted harmlessly over his shoulder. 'What's wrong?' he asked sharply.

'He is dead. Come, you must see.'

'Who's dead?'

But the Greek had turned back and was scrambling up again through the snow, using one hand to lever his limping foot more rapidly up past the rock. Macomber swore at his ambiguousness and went up after him. When he arrived at the top, receiving the full blast of the wind in his face, Grapos was staring down at a flattened projection just below which spurred out over the road, and Macomber found he could see down past the spur into the half-track where Ford still sat on the rear bench while Prentice stood in the road gazing up at them with his machine-pistol at the ready.

The uniformed figure on the spur lay sprawled over a machine gun. His attitude was that of a soldier watching the road from the north, the road they had just driven down in the half-track, but despite the presence of the two men above him he remained in his life-like posture until Grapos reached down and prodded him with his rifle tip. The uniformed figure went over sideways and ended up on his back with his face staring at the sky, a face with a rigid look and an unnatural bluish tinge. The poor devil had frozen to death at his post. Macomber gazed down at the Alpenkorps uniform, the stiffened Alpenkorps cap which still clutched the head, the weapon which still stood mounted in position, the barrel encased in ice and frozen snow so that it had the appearance of a glass gun. The Germans were already on Zervos, had already penetrated the monastery.