The Heights of Zervos

CHAPTER FOUR

Saturday, Midnight

With his machine-pistol cradled under his arm, Lieutenant Hahnemann, now dressed in Alpenkorps uniform, unlocked the door, turned the handle and kicked it open with his foot. Dietrich was sitting at the little table, still wearing his coat and hat with his legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles. He was smoking a fresh cigar and the rude entry had no effect on him, caused no change in his relaxed stance; rather it seemed as though he went out of his way to demonstrate his bored unconcern. Dietrich folded his arms. He was regarding Hahnemann as he might have regarded a piece of badly cooked meat, then he transferred his attention to the tall, beak-nosed man who walked briskly in behind the lieutenant. A striking-looking German in his early forties, he held himself very erect as his cold blue eyes studied the seated passenger, and under his civilian coat, which he wore open at the front, Dietrich saw the boots and uniform of the Alpenkorps.

'This is Colonel Burckhardt,' Hahnemann informed him harshly. He paused as though expecting some reaction. 'People normally stand in the colonel's presence,' he went on bleakly.

'Tell this man to go away so we can talk.' Dietrich addressed the suggestion to Burckhardt who was looking down at him with interest. The passenger hadn't moved since he had entered the cabin.

'You can talk with both of us,' Burckhardt began tersely. 'Unless you have a very good reason for wishing to speak to me alone.' Like Hahnemann earlier, Burckhardt was wondering why he had reacted in a way he had hardly intended. And yet…

'What I have to say is not for junior officers.' Dietrich's brief mood of amiability was vanishing rapidly and he looked at the colonel grimly. 'I should have thought you hadn't a great deal of time to waste, so shall we get on with it?'

Burckhardt's expression showed no reaction, but inwardly he felt a trifle off-balance – he had been going to say almost precisely the same thing and now this aggressive-looking brute had forestalled him. He had the odd feeling that he was losing ground so he spoke decisively to the lieutenant. 'Hahnemann, you have duties to attend to. Leave me with this man until I call you.'

'He may be armed,' Hahnemann protested.

'Of course I am armed,' Dietrich replied swiftly, anticipating Burckhardt's next question. A lesser man than Colonel Heinz Burckhardt might have felt annoyance, but the colonel had risen to command an elite arm of the Wehrmacht and he had a grudging appreciation of an independent attitude. 'I am going to take out a Luger pistol,' Dietrich explained, staring at Hahnemann as though he doubted his ability to grasp plain German, 'so kindly keep a hold on yourself – and your weapon.' Producing the pistol from his coat pocket, he laid it on the table. 'It is fully loaded, incidentally – I never bluff when I have to use a weapon, which, fortunately, is a rare occasion.' The sight of the regulation pistol, a minor point, subtly reinforced Burckhardt's growing interest in the huge German passenger. For a moment Hahnemann hesitated whether to pick up the gun, but Dietrich's attention was so clearly concentrated on the colonel, was so obviously no longer aware of his presence, that he felt at a loss and glanced at Burckhardt for instructions.

'Leave us,' the colonel told him brusquely. 'I shall be on the bridge in a few minutes.'

Dietrich waited until the cabin door had closed and then stood up slowly. The action startled Burckhardt, who was six feet tall; he had realized that Dietrich also was a tall man but now he was able to see that the German civilian stood two to three inches above him. Rarely impressed by another man's physique, Burckhardt found himself a little overawed by the formidable figure who stood before him with his shoulders hunched and his hands clasped behind his broad back. Dietrich waited a moment, then put a hand inside his coat, extracted something and dropped it on the table. 'My papers, Colonel

Burckhardt.'

With a mounting sense of irritation Burckhardt looked at the card carefully, glancing up to find Dietrich watching him without any particular expression. 'You're an archaeologist, I see, Dr Dietrich?' He couldn't keep the flatness out cf his voice: he had suspected that this passenger was someone important from Berlin; it was the only explanation for his arrogant manner.

'Look at them carefully,' Dietrich urged him gruffly. 'See anything unusual about them?'

'No!' Burckhardt replied after a second perusal and there was a snap in his voice now.

'Good!' Dietrich lifted his shoulders and towered over the colonel as he went on with withering sarcasm. 'I was travelling aboard a Greek ferry which might at any time have been stopped and searched by a British destroyer. Under those conditions would you really expect me to present them with papers showing I am a senior officer of the Abwehr?'

Burckhardt stood quite still and his heart sank. Here was the explanation for Dietrich's overbearing attitude since he had entered the cabin. God, the Abwehr! That damned Intelligence organization of the incredibly influential Admiral Canaris. They never told anyone what they were going to do – not until they had done it. And they never told anyone where they were going until they had been there and arrived back in Berlin. They were responsible to no one except the wily old admiral who had started his career with naval Intelligence, and who was now answerable only to the Fuhrer himself. The Abwehr was disliked – feared might be a better word – by all the regular Intelligence services because it lived a life of its own, but even more because of its legendary record of coups. In some uncanny way the admiral managed to be right every time in his forecast of enemy intentions. Oh yes, Burckhardt had heard of the Abwehr, but this was the first time he had met one of them. That is, assuming Dietrich was who he claimed to be… He looked up suspiciously as something else landed on the table.

'Now you can see what I would have dropped through the nearest porthole if we had been stopped – along with the Luger, of course.'

Dietrich's tone was ironic, close to sneering, and Burckhardt caught the tone and felt the blood rush to his head, so for a short time while he examined the second card Baxter had doctored and handed over in Giurgiu, his normally ice-cold judgement deserted him. Dietrich walked across the cabin to look out through the porthole, still talking over his shoulder.

'You will require absolute proof of my identity, so you had better send a wireless message to Berlin. I can give you the signal code.'

'Not while we are at sea,' Burckhardt rapped out. 'We must preserve radio silence at all costs.'

'I had assumed that,' Dietrich retorted brusquely. 'I meant after you had gone ashore. You have dealt with the two Englanders, I hope?'

'Yes, Hahnemann dealt with the whole operation most efficiently. They are only a lieutenant and a sergeant travelling home from Turkey.'

'You knew then beforehand that these two men were being put on board?'

Burckhardt paused, staring at the back of the Abwehr man who continued gazing out to sea. There was something in the way the question had been phrased which disturbed him, which made him delay his departure for the bridge. Had there been some awful slip-up somewhere? 'Knew?' he repeated warily.

'Yes, "knew", I said. Did you know?' Dietrich had swung round and was talking with his cigar in his mouth, his legs splayed as he continued to dominate the conversation.

'No,' the colonel admitted reluctantly. 'I was worried when I first heard about them but they are of very junior rank…'

'Are you certain of that? Papers can be easily forged or doctored – including army pay-books. These two men could be far more important for all we know.' He paused to give his insidious suggestion maximum impact. 'They could be on board because some hint of your operation has reached the Allies. You may be lucky they never reached the wireless-room.' He leaned forward grimly. 'I take it they did not reach the wireless-room?'

'Of course not! That was part of Hahnemann's job…'

'Any idea which arm of the service they're attached to?'

Burckhardt felt himself go very cold. Until this unnerving interview he had assumed that the two Englanders were only on board by chance, but now the Abwehr man was raising diabolical possibilities. 'Ford, the staff-sergeant, is an ammunition examiner,' he said slowly.

Had Dietrich detected the note of reluctance in his voice? He pressed the colonel for further information instantly. 'And the other man, the so-called lieutenant – Prentice?'

'He is with the Signals Corps.'

'Ah! So undoubtedly an expert wireless operator…' Dietrich shrugged his shoulders, his devastating point made. He puffed at his cigar for several seconds and then said something equally disturbing. 'Since we know they have been in Turkey for several weeks it seems an even stranger coincidence that they should choose this particular trip for returning to Greece. Don't you agree?'

'Several weeks? You know this? Is this why you are on board?' Burckhardt took a step towards Dietrich who regarded him without replying. 'They were supposed to have been saved from a ship which sank off the Turkish coast a few days ago…'

'What ship?' Dietrich pounced on the statement. 'Is this the story they have told you?'

'Yes, when Lieutenant Hahnemann was questioning them…'

'He has Intelligence training, this Hahnemann?' The ironic note was back in Dietrich's voice.

'No, but he is clever and he said their story rang true. The lieutenant – Prentice – told him this…'

'I have seen this British lieutenant,' the Abwehr man replied slowly and deliberately, 'and I would say he not only has his wits about him – he is also capable of making up a convincing story on the spur of the moment. I don't like the way the situation is developing, Colonel Burckhardt. You should have the two Englanders questioned again.'

Burckhardt's expression was remote. Under other circumstances, without the enormous responsibility of the expedition resting on his shoulders, he might have thought differently, and he had no way of knowing that he was confronted by a master of the art of psychological aggression. Without realizing it, he had been subjected to a kaleidoscope of changing impressions and anxieties from the moment he had entered the cabin, and during this ordeal he had subconsciously accepted the Abwehr man's credentials at face value. In fact, the subject of the identity of Dietrich had subtly been turned into questioning the identity of the British prisoners. He was also becoming a little worried about his own position. Had this devil been put aboard the Hydra to check up on the operation because it involved a naval phase – the seizure of the Hydra and its subsequent voyage to their objective! 'I'll get Hahnemann to have another word with the prisoners,' he said crisply.

'This Prentice, he speaks German, then?' Dietrich was staring through the porthole again as he asked the question.

'Not so far as I know – but Hahnemann speaks excellent English. I must leave for the bridge now.' He was talking again to Dietrich's back as the Abwehr man used his hand to smear a hole in the steamed-up glass. The temperature was probably at least thirty degrees higher inside the cabin than on the high seas.

'Did Hahnemann find out anything else when he was interrogating the prisoners?' Dietrich went on peering intently through the porthole and something in his attitude made the colonel wait a few seconds longer.

'I believe there was some mention of a British destroyer being in the area, but I'm convinced he was bluffing.'

'Bluffing!' Dietrich straightened up, swung round abruptly. 'First you talk about it being a coincidence that those men are aboard and now you hope he was bluffing! I'm afraid a very serious situation has arisen – a strange vessel is coming in fast from the north-east and unless I'm very much mistaken it is a British destroyer.'

Burckhardt turned to go quickly, and when Dietrich was left to his own devices he had, by default, been granted the privilege to roam round the vessel as freely as he wished.

Burckhardt was leaving the cabin when he very nearly collided with Hahnemann who was rushing down the companionway. Halting abruptly, the soldier saluted and spoke breathlessly. 'There's an emergency, sir. Lieutenant Schnell would like to see you on the bridge – it's very urgent…'

'I know!' Burckhardt was already pushing past him, heading for the staircase. Hard-faced young men of the Alpenkorps, fully uniformed, pressed themselves against the companionway wall with their rifles at their sides to let him pass. One man hastily extinguished a cigarette under his boot. The doorways to the three cabins recently occupied by the German passengers were open and inside more men of the Alpenkorps sat on the floors and leaned against the walls, their faces tense as they watched their colonel pass. The grapevine had worked already, reporting the rumour that a British destroyer was approaching fast. The whole atmosphere of the Greek ferry had changed, had become more akin to that of a troopship. Dodging round kit piled in the passage, Burckhardt made a mental note to get that shifted and then leapt up the staircase. Pushing open the door at the top he received a blast of cold wind and a douche of icy spray full in the face. Without even bothering to wipe himself he glanced quickly along the deserted, wave-washed deck. All the troops were under strict instructions to remain below decks and he was satisfied with the outward appearance of normality. Strange how the sea seemed far worse up here than down below. The thought flashed through his mind as he went into the wheelhouse.

Inside the enclosed area everything was quiet and there was a feeling of disciplined control, but under the silence Burckhardt sensed an atmosphere of nerves tautly strained as the Hydra ploughed on through mounting seas. Lieutenant Schnell of the German Navy, wearing inconspicuous dark trousers and a dark woollen sweater, was holding the wheel while the ferry's captain, Nopagos, stood a few feet away with a signalling lamp in his hands. Behind him, crouched on his knees out of sight, an Alpenkorps soldier held a machine-pistol trained on the captain's back.

'Over there. To starboard.' It was the helmsman who had spoken, nodding his head towards the north-east. Schnell was a typical German naval officer, round-faced, his dark hair neatly trimmed, a man of thirty with watchful eyes and a steady manner. Taking in the situation at a glance, Burckhardt accepted a pair of field-glasses from another soldier whose uniform was covered with a civilian raincoat. To starboard a slim grey silhouette was bearing down on the Hydra, a silhouette with lights at her masthead. Burckhardt focused the glasses on the ship and his lips tightened. Yes, it was a British destroyer sailing on an oblique course which would take her across the bows of the ferry within a mile or two. He handed back the glasses and moved into the shadows in case other glasses were aimed in his direction from that distant bridge. They wouldn't be able to pick out individuals yet, but within a few minutes they'd pick up all the detail they wanted if the destroyer maintained its present course. He spoke quickly to Schnell. 'What is Nopagos doing with that signalling lamp in his hands?'

'He will have to use it in a minute…'

'I don't like that.'

'We have no alternative.' Schnell had half-turned round to stare at the oncoming warship. 'She is bound to signal us, so tell the Greek I understand the use of signals at sea.'

Burckhardt thought quickly. It was a damnable situation: the very existence of the expedition now depended on the signal-lamp in the hands of a Greek whose ship had just been shanghaied from under him. He saw the knuckles of Schnell's hands whitened under the overhead light as he gripped the wheel and steadily kept to his course. Still crouched on the floor, the Alpenkorps soldier with the machine-pistol moved gently with the sway of the ship, his face drawn with tension as he watched Burckhardt and then transferred his gaze to Nopagos' back. Burckhardt maintained his outward appearance of calm confidence, his hands thrust into his coat pockets, although inwardly his nerves were screwed up to fever pitch. He began speaking to Nopagos in his careful, Teutonic-sounding Greek.

'The British destroyer may start signalling. If that happens you only use your lamp when I give the order. I want you to understand this clearly – the man at the wheel is a German naval officer thoroughly conversant with signalling procedures. He will be watching. If you make any attempt to send a distress signal, we shall know. If there is an emergency we shall engage the British destroyer and we shall undoubtedly be sunk. I hope you realize that it is unlikely anyone will be saved in seas like this…' Without putting it in so many words he managed to convey that Nopagos' crew were hostages. He had just finished speaking when the moonlit wake of the oncoming destroyer became clearly visible. A few seconds later the door to the bridge opened and Dietrich came inside. Burckhardt swung round and turned away again when he saw who it was. Completely unruffled by his reception, the Abwehr man walked across to join the colonel after glancing at the approaching destroyer.

'It's probably just a routine check,' he remarked, 'but let's hope they are not expecting a signal from their friends locked up below.'

A nerve jumped by the side of Burckhardt's neck underneath his collar. Dietrich had hardly arrived before voicing the most alarming suggestion at this critical moment. He had just quietened his mind after the Abwehr man's remark when the door burst open again and Hahnemann strode onto the bridge with a furious expression. He had hesitated to stop Dietrich following Burckhardt up to the bridge but now felt he should keep an eye on him. Burckhardt turned on him instantly. 'Hide that gun you bloody fool – they may be watching the bridge. And while you're here – had either of those British soldiers any means of signalling in their possession?'

'No signalling lamp,' Hahnemann reassured him quickly. 'They definitely had no signalling equipment of any kind. The lieutenant, Prentice, had a revolver under his pillow. But nothing to send a message with.'

Burckhardt glanced at Dietrich with an expressionless face, but the Abwehr man was still studying Hahnemann, who glared back at him defiantly. 'And no torch?' Dietrich queried in a deceptively mild tone. 'Not even a pocket torch?'

Hahnemann looked confused. He started to answer Dietrich, then his face stiffened and he addressed Burckhardt. 'One of them had a torch, yes, sir. It was inside the pocket of his coat hanging up behind the door.'

Dietrich caught Burckhardt's glance and he lifted his eyebrows in an expression of foreboding, then frowned at Schnell who had turned to say something. 'Here it comes, sir. They've started.' Across the swelling Aegean where the waves were growing higher a light began to wink on and off from the destroyer. Schnell bad half-turned to starboard, his eyes fixed on the flashing lamp which went on with Its brief explosions. On the bridge no one moved or spoke as all eyes were fixed hypnotically on the signalling light and Burckhardt could feel the stillness of men suspended in a state of horrible anticipation. So much depended on the next few minutes but Burckhardt had no intention of surrendering, whatever happened. He had had some experience of the devastating fire a British destroyer could lay down; in Norway he had seen a German troop transport reduced to a burning hulk by only a few salvoes. What those four-inch guns might do to the hull of the Hydra was something he preferred not to contemplate. The lamp stopped flashing and Schnell spoke.

'We are asked to identify ourselves.'

Burckhardt stood up a little straighter and gave Nopagos his instructions in Greek. 'Signal that we are the Greek ship Hydra. Nothing more. And remember that Lieutenant Schnell is a naval officer.'

The tension on the bridge was becoming almost unbearable, like a physical affliction. Nopagos wiped his lips and glanced behind to where the Alpenkorps man gazed straight at him, the muzzle of the machine-pistol aimed at the small of his back. Burckhardt nodded confidently without speaking, as much as to say get on with it. The captain adjusted his cap and started to flash the lamp while Schnell watched him coldly, his hands still on the wheel. To the colonel it seemed to take an age to send the short message. Was marine signalling really so complicated? Was Nopagos managing to trick Schnell while he inserted a desperate SOS among the jumble of flashes? A dozen appalling possibilities ran through his mind but he could do nothing but wait, hoping that his threat had struck home to the Greek. The lamp stopped flashing. Nopagos mopped the back of his neck with a coloured handkerchief as Schnell addressed Burckhardt over his shoulder.

'He has identified us simply as the Hydra, ownership Greek. Nothing more.'

With a supreme effort Burckhardt resisted the impulse to let his shoulders relax; both the Alpenkorps soldiers kept glancing towards him for reassurance. German soldiers, Burckhardt had noticed before, were never entirely happy at sea – the existence of the British Navy probably had something to do with their lack of enthusiasm for water-borne expeditions. He watched the destroyer still moving on her oblique course. Would her captain be satisfied with that signal? Just a routine check, Dietrich had suggested. But a moment later he had raised the unnerving suggestion that the two British soldiers might have been put on board deliberately – that the destroyer out there was expecting another flashing signal from a porthole confirming that all was well aboard the Hydra. Blast the Abwehr!

'They're signalling again!' Schnell spoke quietly, his eyes on the distant flashing light which was now less than a quarter of a mile away. Burckhardt stood quite still, resisting the impulse to pace up and down the bridge: it was vital at this moment to preserve an absolute outward calm. He felt that his feet had been glued to the deck for hours and God knew there were enough signs of tension on the bridge already. The signal lamp in Nopagos' hands wobbled slightly – if he had to carry on answering these bloody questions much longer he was going to crack. The soldier crouched behind the Greek captain was sweating profusely, his forehead gleaming from the light over the bridge. Hahnemann was lightly tapping a nervous fingernail on the butt of his machine-pistol and Burckhardt wanted to roar at him for God's sake stop it! Schnell, a highly experienced naval officer, was still holding the wheel tightly. All these little details Burckhardt took in automatically while the lamp on the British destroyer blandly went on flashing its message. Only Dietrich seemed undisturbed, almost at ease as he stared at the ceiling with the unlit cigar motionless in the centre of his mouth. He dropped his eyes and caught the colonel watching him.

"There is a Greek called Grapos aboard,' Dietrich commented. 'I think he could be dangerous if he isn't watched carefully.'

'I dealt with him myself,' said Hahnemann in a flat tone. 'He was sleeping in the saloon – he had no cabin – and I was able to knock him out before he knew I was there. He's tied up in one of the holds.' The endless strain of waiting had neutralized his natural dislike of the Abwehr man and he looked at Dietrich without resentment.

'I do have this ship under control,' Burckhardt added icily.

'Perhaps it might be better if I went below,' Dietrich said almost amiably. He glanced to his left and saw that Hahnemann was leaving the bridge as a cloud of spray broke over the bows of the Hydra. When the lieutenant had gone there was a loaded silence as the light from the destroyer continued flashing, the ferry's engines went on throbbing heavily, and the sea heaved endlessly under them. After the winking light had stopped, Schnell cleared his throat twice before speaking. 'They wish us to report where we're from, our ultimate destination and the time of arrival.'

Without hesitation Burckhardt rapped out more instructions in Greek. 'Tell them we're bound from Istanbul, that our destination is Katyra, Zervos, and our estimated time of arrival 05-30 hours.' Nopagos blinked, glanced again at the sweating soldier behind him, took a firmer grip on the lamp and began signalling. The gun muzzles of the destroyer could be clearly seen in the moonlight as the vessel remorselessly continued on course without altering direction by as much as a single degree. Burckhardt found it unnerving – why was all this interest being shown in an ancient Greek ferry which spent its life plying between Istanbul and the remote peninsula of Zervos? He kept a tight grip on himself as Dietrich's rumbling voice spoke again behind his back. 'I'm wondering now whether this signalling isn't a smoke-screen put out until they get close to us. If they were expecting their own private signal from the prisoners below the course they are maintaining would make sense – they would keep on that course until they fired the first shot across our bows. Ten minutes should tell us the worst.' And having fired this last shot across the colonel's bows he quietly left the bridge and went out on deck.

Tight-lipped, Burckhardt heard him go, relieved that at long last the Abwehr man was leaving the bridge. But secretly Burckhardt agreed that Dietrich's estimate was just about right. In the next ten minutes they should know the worst.