The Heights of Zervos

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sunday, 10 AM

By ten o'clock in the morning they had marched almost nonstop through punishing hill country which had caused them either to climb or descend most of the way, and they had still seen no trace of Grapos. It was Macomber who had urged them on mercilessly, insisting that they put as much ground as possible between themselves and the oncoming Germans before they rested. Several times Prentice had tried to talk and ask questions, but on each occasion the Scot had brusquely told him to save his breath for the march. They followed a footpath which twisted and turned as its surface changed, sometimes sand, sometimes rock and often merely beaten earth. A path which led them past olive groves, over hilltops ringed with boulders, and down into scrub-infested valleys where the streams raced with swelling waters. But now they had reached a hilltop where Macomber consented to pause briefly because it gave a clear view back to the north where the road from Katyra came towards them in a series of bends and drops down the near sides of hills dense with undergrowth.

'We can see them coming from here,' Macomber announced as he perched on a rounded boulder. 'And water is going to be our problem. There isn't much of it on the plateau.'

'This might help,' Ford suggested as he undid his coat and showed a pear-shaped water-bottle attached to his belt. 'I filched that off one of those dead Jerries while you two pulled yourselves together.'

'Ford gets his priorities right,' Prentice remarked, and then stared hard at Macomber. 'Mind if I hear a little more about you now?'

Macomber took a swig from the water-bottle, handed it on to Prentice and grinned faintly. 'I've spent the last fifteen months in the Balkans. Do you think that sounds cushy?'

'Depends what you were doing,' Prentice replied cautiously. 'What were you doing?'

'I'll tell you, then. I'm like Winston Churchill as far as ancestry goes – half-British and half-American. My mother was a New Yorker and my father came from Aberdeen. I spent a third of my early years in the States, another third in Scotland, and the rest of the time travelling round Europe with my parents. My father was a linguistics expert and I inherited his gift for languages.' There was no modesty in Macomber's tone but neither was he boasting; he was simply stating a fact. 'And that's where the trouble started,' he went on. 'Principally my languages are German, Greek and French – which comes in useful when you're in Rumania. I had lung trouble before the war…'

'Lung trouble!' Prentice looked sceptical, remembering the tremendous pace the Scot had set up while they were making their dash up and down those endless hills.

'It's cured now – at least so a quack in Budapest assured me. He said it was the pure clean air from Siberia which blows across Hungary in winter that had done the trick. But that lung kept me out of the Forces in 1939, so the Ministry of Economic Warfare asked me to do a job for them. Get your head out of the way, Ford, I can't see that road.'

'What sort of a job?' Prentice asked casually. Without appearing to do so he was trying to check the Scot's story.

'Buying up strategic war materials the Jerries wanted. You'd never believe the funds I had at my disposal. I bought up everything I could lay my hands on and had it shipped out of the Balkans. I had an idea the bright boys foresaw the German Drach nach Osten and wanted to denude the place before Hitler arrived.'

'Sounds interesting,' was Prentice's only comment.

'You think so? Just sitting behind a desk and making out orders in quadruplicate for a few thousand gallons of oil or the odd few tons of copper – is that how you see it?'

'I didn't say so.'

'No, but you looked so!' He took out one of his remaining cigars. 'What I don't think you've quite grasped is that I had competitors, Jerry competitors, and they can play very rough, very rough indeed. When I'd survived two attempts to kill me

– one in Gyor and one in Budapest – I decided my luck was running out and the time had come to go underground, so I acquired some false papers and set up as a German.' He looked quizzically at Prentice over his cigar, put it back in his mouth and went on talking. 'Don't look so damned unbelieving

– false papers can be obtained almost anywhere if you have the money, and I had a small fortune to play with.'

'You set up as Dietrich, then?'

'No, he came later. I called myself Hermann Wolff, and, you know, necessity really did turn out to be the mother of invention. I found myself mixing openly with the German community in Budapest, which in the beginning was simply excellent camouflage, but later when I ran out of stuS to buy up it gave our Ministry brains another idea, a diabolical idea.' He turned again to look over his shoulder at the hill behind, in the opposite direction from where the Germans must come, and this was a gesture he had repeated several times.

'Isn't that the wrong direction to fret over?' Prentice inquired. 'Or could they have got ahead of us on the road while we were doing our cross-country route march?'

'Old habits…' Dietrich spread a large hand. 'I've spent so many months looking over my shoulder – because the danger always comes from where you least expect it.' He shrugged and stared at Ford for a moment. 'When it comes, it comes.'

'A diabolical job, you were saying,' Prentice reminded him. As he listened he scanned the deserted countryside to the north where a dark smoke column from the burning Hydra was still climbing into the brilliant morning sky. They'd see that smoke as far away as Salonika, almost, if the weather visibility was as good across Macedonia. It seemed incredible that a whole German expedition was mustering itself somewhere beyond those hills for a forced march south to Mount Zervos.

'Yes, truly diabolical,-' Macomber repeated. 'There were hardly any more strategic supplies I could lay my hands on, but there was a mass of stuff the Germans had bought up which still hadn't been shipped back to the Reich. It was lying around in warehouses and railway sidings, so the Ministry brainboxes said would I have a go at it? Very obliging they were, too – sent out an explosives man to teach me a trick or two about things that go bang in the night…' He paused again, detecting a sudden freshening of interest from Ford, but when the ammunition examiner said nothing he continued. 'The trouble again was I was made to order for these sabotage jobs. I picked up information from the German community I was mixing with about what was where – and by then I was accepted in Budapest. We even used German explosives – like ten-kilogram demolition charges.'

'Why not British equipment?' queried Ford.

'Because I was operating in neutral territory and the Hungarian government might not have taken too kindly to British time-bombs being planted inside their goods wagons. Those bombs don't always function according to the book and sometimes they don't function at all. Even when they do, the experts can often piece together a few vital bits and tell the type of bomb that was used and where it was made.' He glanced over his shoulder and grinned again. 'And don't ask me how we got hold of German explosives because that's a state secret.'

'You were pretty successful in passing yourself off as a German even in Hungary then?' Prentice suggested idly. He felt close to exhaustion but his mind was still sufficiently alert to go on checking Macomber's identity so far as he could.

'I knew the Reich well by the time war broke out. In peacetime I'd been a shipping broker – some of my business was with the Reich and I spent a lot of time in Germany before 1939 and sometimes, even then, it was convenient to pass for one of the Herrenvolk. The trick is to learn to think like them, to feel you are one of them – and that's something I had to work overtime at while we were on the Hydra. I may tell you that was the longest voyage of my life, and it took just twenty-four hours.'

'How did you fool the colonel? That must have taken some doing.'

'The ability to bluff big – nothing else. I took a leaf out of the dear Fuhrer's book there: if you want to believe a lie, be sure it's a whopper. If I'd tried to pass myself off simply as a German civilian, I think they'd have restricted my movements, but the dreaded Abwehr was something quite different. I knew quite a lot about the Abwehr when I went aboard the Hydra at Istanbul – in fact, I thought they had somebody on my tail ready to do an assassination act before I could get home…'

'You weren't put on that ship deliberately then?' Prentice found it difficult to keep the surprise out of his voice. Ford was emptying the machine-pistol while he tested the mechanism and then re-loaded.

'No, I'd finished with the Balkans and I was on my way to Athens to get a berth to Egypt. The Germans had occupied the whole area and it wasn't possible to operate any more with the key points swarming with their security chaps. I was coming on the direct Istanbul-Athens ferry, but that was cancelled at the last moment. When Burckhardt's lot took over the ship I wasn't completely surprised – the presence of several Germans on the passenger list was something I'd been thinking about ever since I got on board.'

'But why pretend you were the Abwehr?'

'Because I knew how they operated – months ago they'd sent men to Budapest to investigate the sabotage. But mainly because it's the only organization inside Germany today which the armed forces get nervous about. Burckhardt was convinced I'd been put on the ship to check up on how he handled things – which gave me a psychological stranglehold over him from the outset.'

'You make it sound so damned easy.' There was a hint of admiration in Prentice's manner as he sat with his back propped against a boulder and waited.

'Oh, very easy – as easy as moving round inside Hungary and Rumania with top Abwehr agents on your tail. As easy as making frequent trips to wayside railway stations to collect suitcases left by someone you never see – suitcases containing demolition charges. As easy as lugging them across railway lines at two in the morning with engines shunting all over the place and guards with dogs looking for you." Macomber's voice had risen to a low growl as he glared at Prentice with an intensity of rage which was alarming. 'As easy as going back to your flat late in the evening and noticing that the lock has been tampered with – so you know that inside that darkened flat someone is waiting for you with a knife or a gun or whatever particular weapon they've decided will do the job quickly and quietly. Yes, Prentice, and it was easy on that ship we've just left, too – easy putting those wireless sets out of action with two hundred troops all around you, easy coming into your cabin to cut your ropes to give you a chance to get clear and warn that destroyer…'

'I'm sorry,' Prentice said quietly, realizing for the first time the tremendous pressure this man must have lived under for months, catching a glimpse of what it must have been like to go on living alone in the alien Balkans surrounded by enemies while he went on with his deadly work. He supposed that the outburst was the climax of God knew how much pent-up anxiety and living on the nerves endlessly, until it had seemed it must go on for ever. Macomber made no attempt to apologize for the outburst but he smiled wintrily as he smoked his cigar and started talking again.

'Planting the demolition charge was simpler than you might imagine. I just saw it lying with the fuses in a half-open rucksack and grabbed it. There was a little trouble in the dark on deck when I ran into a soldier, but a knowledge of unarmed combat can come in useful. Afterwards, I pitched him over the side like you did your chap. The vital moment was when we'd just come ashore – I'd always foreseen that.'

'Why then?' asked Prentice.

'Several reasons. Burckhardt's whole attention was taken up with the landing and capturing Katyra quickly. Later, he'd have more time to think, which is just what I didn't want him to have. Then there was the problem of the other wireless set -I'd messed up the tuning coil with the butt of my Luger but I gathered they might be able to repair the thing. The moment they could wireless for confirmation of my identity I was finished. And you can thank whatever lucky star you were born under that the bomb didn't go off earlier – it must have stopped and then started again.'

'What time had you set it for?' Prentice was taking a great interest in the answer to this question and now he saw Ford looking over his shoulder towards the hill behind them. Macomber's fears were contagious.

'I set it to detonate at 3.30 AM while we were still well down the gulf.'

'Good God!'

A trace of the nervous reaction still smouldered inside Macomber and he didn't bother to put it too tactfully. 'I'm sure, Prentice, that by now you know there's a war on. There were two hundred German troops aboard who may yet do untold damage to the Allied cause – if I could sink them I was going to do it. And I still will, although how I haven't the slightest idea. You know they're heading for the monastery on Mount Zervos to set up an observation post, I take it?'

'I had an idea that was the objective. I agree we've got to get there first, if we can, but I can't quite see us forming the monks into a defensive battalion to hold off the Jerries. Is there any means of communication there we could use to get in touch with the mainland?'

'Not so far as I know apart from the telephone line to Salonika and that's been cut.' Macomber dropped the half-smoked cigar into the sand and carefully heeled it out of sight. 'But there's always something that can be done as long as you're there – that's something I've learned.' His expression became ferocious as he growled out the words. Whatever happens the Germans have got to be stopped from taking Zervos. Hell! If there's nothing else we'll have to set fire to the place to attract attention. There are British troops driving up that coast only a few miles across the gulf. Setting fire to the monastery may be the only solution!'

Prentice stared at the huge figure stooped forward over the boulder and realized that he meant what he said. Previously he had regarded Macomber as an enterprising civilian, with the accent on 'civilian', but now he began to wonder whether the war he had fought in the Western Desert compared with the shadowy, no-quarter struggle the Scot had waged inside the peace-time Balkans. He blinked to keep his eyes open as Macomber clasped both hands tightly and stared again at the road from Katyra with a dubious expression. It was over twenty-four hours since any of them had slept and the strain showed in their whiskered haggard faces; the brain was beginning to slow down, the reflexes to react sluggishly, and these were danger signals. He was about to speak when Macomber made the suggestion himself. 'I think three-quarters of an hour's sleep would work wonders. We may need every ounce of strength we can muster before the day is out but someone must keep watch.' He grinned. 'So, if you two are sufficiently convinced of my bona-fides, I'll act as lookout while you get some kip.'

'No, I'll stand watch while you and Ford sleep,' Prentice said promptly. 'You've been through more than us, anyway.'

'Suit yourself,' was Macomber's terse reply. Dropping down off the boulder, he lay on the sand after casting one final look back at the hill behind. The hill looked dangerous was his last thought before he fell asleep.

Macomber was a man who, when he woke up, became instantly alert, all his faculties keyed up for immediate action. The trait had been sharpened during bis experience ia the Balkans and on waking he had developed another facility – the habit of never opening his eyes until he had listened for a few seconds. Lying on the sand with his back against the rock, he listened carefully to the sounds with his eyes still closed. The scrape of a boot over stone, which told him someone was moving nearby. The quick dull click of metal on metal, which was the movement of a rifle bolt. A coldness down his back was the physical reaction of his brain warning him of danger. Then a voice spoke. Prentice's.

'Don't move, Ford, for God's sake!'

Macomber's prone body was still relaxed and lifeless as he half-opened his eyes. Ford was sitting up on the sand, his suit crumpled, his right hand withdrawing from the machine-pistol which lay close by bis side. He had a drugged look and had obviously just woken up. Macomber couldn't see Prentice but the thought flashed through his mind that the lieutenant must have dozed off and during those unguarded minutes a German patrol had arrived. Lying on his side, Macomber's hand was tucked inside his coat pocket where it had rested when he had fallen asleep, and now his fingers curled round the butt of the Luger. The problem was going to be to get in an upright position quickly enough. From the direction of Ford's startled gaze he calculated that the newcomers were stationed behind the boulder he was leant against. But how many of them? The boot scraped again and the shadow of a man fell across the sand in front of where he lay, the shadow of a man and a gun.

'Wait! For God's sake wait!' A note of desperation in Prentice's voice chilled Macomber. 'We can explain – don't shoot!'

The silhouette of the rifle barrel angled lower and Macomber guessed that it was now tilted downwards and aimed at him point-blank. He sensed that the slightest movement of his body would activate the shadow's trigger finger, and while he compelled himself to stay relaxed he felt the stickiness of his palm clutching the pistol butt. A strange tingling sensation sang along his nerves and his brain hung in a horrible state of prolonged suspension as every tiny detail seemed weirdly clear. The appalled expression on Ford's face, the mouth half-open, held as though in a condition of rictus. The wobble of the unknown man's silhouette as he shifted balance to the other foot to take the shock of the rifle's recoil. The flitting motion of some tiny insect hopping over the sand in the shade of the silhouette. Macomber's throat had gone so dry that he felt the most terrible compulsion to cough as a tickle crawled in his throat.

'Do you understand any English at all?' Prentice again, his voice throaty with tension. 'We're on your…'

'Yes, I speak English.' A deep-chested voice with a rumbling timbre which sounded familiar. 'Why are you with the German?'

'Look, Grapos,' Prentice pleaded quickly, 'he's not a German. He's British. If you let him wake up and speak he'll talk to you in English as much as you want…'

'There are Germans who speak English.' Grapos' tone was unimpressed and savagely obstinate. 'I speak English but I am Greek. He has made you think he is English? We have very little time. He must be killed, now!' The gun silhouette moved again as though the Greek was taking fresh aim and Macomber waited for the thud of the bullet, the last thing he would ever feel. And there was an urgency in Grapos' voice as well as in his words which filled the Scot with foreboding. There was some other danger coming very close, he felt sure of it, a danger the Greek was only too well aware of. Prentice was talking again and this time he was adopting an entirely different tactic, abandoning pleading as he spoke crisply as though he were giving a command.

'Look, I'm telling you, mate. His name is Macomber. Ian Macomber. He's a Scot – that's from the topside of my country – and he's the one who planted that bomb which nearly blew up all those Germans, only it didn't go off in time. He speaks fluent German – a damned sight more fluent German than you speak English. To help us get away he half-killed a Jerry – a German – in front of me. He grabbed a couple of German machine-pistols and gave them to us. Since then he's led the way to where we are now because he knows the country and we don't. And if that isn't enough for you, you can go and dive in the sea again. So stop aiming that gun at him and let him wake up and speak for himself.'

'You are sure of these things?' Grapos sounded anything but sure of what he had been listening to and the rifle was still pointed down at the inert figure below.

'I'm perfectly sure! Don't you think I can tell when I'm talking to one of my own countrymen? Wouldn't you know when you were talking to a Greek even if you'd heard that same man speaking good German earlier?' Prentice deliberately lost his temper a little, and seeing the look of doubt on Grapos' face he followed up quickly while he had the Greek off-balance. 'And now, for Pete's sake, can he get up and speak for himself? He must be awake now.'

'Yes… I… am… awake.' Macomber spoke slowly and very clearly, resuming his normal manner of speech only when he saw the shadow of the gun move away. 'So can I get up and let you have another good look at me?'

'Yes, you may get up.' Grapos' boots scraped again as he spoke and when Macomber climbed to his feet the villainous-looking civilian was standing several paces beyond him with his weapon still held so that it could cover Macomber with only a fraction of movement. A German carbine, the Scot noted. The one he had gone overboard with. The one he had used to shoot down the Alpenkorps men on the jetty. Macomber's hands hung loosely by his sides and he gazed at Grapos without friendship as he asked the question with a single word.

'Well?'

'You look like a German.'

'And you look like a bandit.'

The Greek's eyes flashed. The gun muzzle lifted and was then lowered. He stared back grimly but with a certain respect as he slapped his rifle butt once and then turned to Prentice, ignoring Macomber as he spoke rapidly. 'There is trouble. German soldiers are coming up that hill on the other side…' He indicated the hill which had worried Macomber, the hill he had glanced back at so many times. 'When they come to the top they will see you here. We must go quickly.'

'Which way?' asked Prentice.

'That way.' He pointed towards the hill crest over which he had just warned them the Germans were advancing. Prentice took a step forward, stooped to pick up bis machine-pistol, which he looped over his shoulder, and then shook his head uncomprehendingly.

'Grapos, you've just said the Germans are coming over that hill, so we'd better push off in some other direction.'

'No. They come this way – so we go this way. You will see. Come! We must hurry.'

'Half a minute!' Prentice was not convinced and his naturally sceptical mind was now wondering whether he could trust Grapos. 'We haven't seen any Germans come along the road down there and they'd have to do that to get over there…'

Macomber broke in quickly, relieved to see that Ford's common sense had automatically made him turn round and watch the empty hill crest while the others argued it out. 'Prentice, the Germans were confident they could get hold of mules in Katyra – not enough for all their men, I'm sure, but probably enough to send ahead an advance party. If Burckhardt acted quickly and sent out a patrol on mules in time, they could have passed along that road while we were moving across country. In which case some of them would be ahead of us – that was why I kept looking over my shoulder earlier.'

Theophilous would supply them with mules,' said Grapos. He spat on the ground. 'Theophilous is at Katyra. He has German mother and Greek father, but he loves Germans. It is known for a long time. And Theophilous has mules…'

'And undoubtedly would know where to lay his hands on others,' Macomber interjected. 'All right, assuming they're coming up that hill from the far side, where do we go?'

'We go down here and wait.'

'Wait…?' Prentice still couldn't understand the Greek's plan but Grapos, without attempting to explain further, led the way down the flank of the hill which was fully exposed to anyone coming over the distant hill crest. From the summit of the hill where they had rested the view into the valley below had been obscured by an outcrop of rock, but as they descended through thick scrub which almost closed over the path they were able to see more clearly. A broad stream on its way to the sea ran along the narrow valley floor and at one point it was crossed by a series of stepping-stones which were barely above the water's surface. On the far bank, perhaps a hundred yards to the right of the primitive crossing point, Prentice caught a glimpse of the dusty track winding its way round the base of the hill towards Zervos. The hill crest, which reared above them now as a hard outline against the cloudless sky, was still deserted. What the devil was the Greek up to? He ran down the path and began talking as soon as he was within a few paces of Grapos who hurried downhill without looking back. 'Where are we going? I want to know.'

'To the pipe.' Grapos spoke over his shoulder without pausing, although he had begun to take a keen interest in the hill crest, staring frequently in that direction as he trotted downwards unevenly because of his limp.

'What pipe? What are you talking about?'

The pipe takes the floods from the hill to the stream. It was built many years since to stop the waters rushing over the road. We go down the pipe. The Germans will not find us there.'

'How big is it, for heaven's sake?'

It is big. I went down it when I was a boy.'

'You were smaller, then,' Prentice pointed out urgently. 'And they'll see us as soon as they come over that ridge.'

'That is why we hide. We are there.'

They were less than half-way down the hill when Grapos plunged into a deep gulley. The sides were lined with protruding rocks and it was deep enough to hide them from view completely. Prentice looked back as Ford and Macomber dropped into the ravine and then turned ahead to see Grapos on his hands and knees while he pulled at a clump of scrub with his bare hands. When Prentice reached him he had exposed the entrance to a large drain-pipe of crumbling concrete. The hole was at least three feet in diameter, a dark decrepit opening but large enough to crawl inside on hands and knees. Crouching beside Grapos, Prentice saw that it sloped down at an angle of about twenty degrees, so it should be navigable. Macomber and Ford were also bunched round the forbidding hole which was damp and smelled of decaying fungus, and the fact that there was no light at the end of the tunnel, no visible end at all, did nothing to increase their enthusiasm for the Greek's proposed escape route.

'Where does it come out?' demanded Macomber.

'By the stream. We cross by the stones.'

'And how long is it?'

'Not long.'

'How long is a piece of string?' Prentice muttered under his breath. 'Look, Grapos, we can't even be sure the Germans are coming in this direction. They could easily have changed their minds and be waiting for us farther along that road.'

'They were coming up the hill. You will see. We can see from here.' Grapos climbed out of the end of the gulley and stood behind a dense grove of undergrowth which was taller than a man's height. In places there were gaps in the vegetation which formed natural windows and when the others joined him they found they had a clear view of the hill beyond. Without much expectation of seeing anything, Prentice stared through a tracery of bare twigs, and it came as a shock when he saw figures against the skyline. There were six of theirs, well spread out, and they started to descend the slope in a semi-circle with the two in the middle maintaining a higher altitude than those on the flanks. Which was correct procedure, Prentice was thinking – the two men in the centre had better observation and could give covering fire to the men below if necessary. He recognized at once the field-grey uniforms and the distinctive caps of the Alpenkorps.

'Why should they choose this area for their patrol?' Macomber wondered out loud.

'Because Theophilous will have told them about the path,' Grapos informed him promptly. 'There are two main ways from Katyra to Zervos – the road and the path. They have come over the road by mule and when they do not find you they turn back – to trap you on the path.' He stared blankly at the Scot while he pulled at a tip of his straggled moustache and his continuing distrust of Macomber was only too obvious.

'They could seal us off inside that pipe with only one man at each end,' Macomber persisted.

'When they reach the stream and cross it, we go into the pipe. They come up this hill and we pass under them.'

'Sounds feasible,' the Scot commented. 'If it works.' Turning round, he renewed his observation of the patrol which was descending the hill slope rapidly; already they had covered more ground than he would have expected and he reminded himself that these six oncoming Germans were highly-trained Alpenkorps troops, men whose natural habitat was wild, untracked countryside, and who were now operating under ideal conditions. A disturbing thought struck him and he asked Grapos a question quickly. 'I suppose there's no risk that this chap, Theophilous, might have told them about the pipe, too?"

The Greek snorted contemptuously. 'He is not a man who ever walks or hunts – he would be frightened that he gets lost. We wait. When they cross the stream we go into the pipe.'

Macomber moved close to Prentice as he gazed through the dense thicket and he was frowning as though there were something he didn't understand. For a few minutes he watched the patrol, clambering over rocks, sometimes disappearing up to waist-height in undergrowth, but always maintaining their careful formation as they came closer to the stream, then he voiced his doubt. 'I don't like it – Burckhardt is using his men too wastefully.'

'What are you getting at?' snapped Prentice. Still without sleep, he could feel the strain telling and he knew he was trigger-tempered.

'Burckhardt has two hundred men at his disposal to take and hold Zervos. At least he had two hundred when he left the Rupescu, he told me. He lost four while on board the Hydra…'

'Four?'

'Yes, four. There was the man you threw overboard. Grapos killed two more while escaping, and I put one over the side when I was carrying that demolition charge up on deck. His bayonet and scabbard came in useful, by the way – I used them to support the charge inside the ventilator shaft. That's two per cent of his force without adding in those who died on the jetty and when the ship blew up. Yet he feels he can spare another six men to look for us. Does it suggest something to you, Prentice? Something alarming?'

'It suggests he feels he still has enough left to take care of a few monks.' Prentice was having trouble thinking straight. What on earth was the persistent Scot driving at now?

'It suggests to me that he expects heavy reinforcements in the very near future, which isn't a happy thought.'

'You mean by sea? Another boatload in broad daylight?'

'I doubt that. They may use some entirely different method this time.' Macomber found himself looking upwards. The sky was clear blue as far as the eye could see, its only occupants a flock of seagulls sailing high up in the sunlight as they flew away in the direction of Katyra. 'He wouldn't expend a patrol of six men just looking for us unless he was confident more help was on the way.'

'Just what we need at the moment, a Job's comforter,' Prentice muttered irritably. The Alpenkorps were half-way down the hill and they had begun to converge inwards towards the stepping-stones, although as a target they were still spread out over a considerable distance. Keeping his voice down, Macomber had now turned to question Grapos.

'You know the monastery well?'

'I lived there for two years.'

Is there any other means of communication whatsoever apart from the telephone which has been cut?'

'When they want things, they phone to Katyra. Sometimes they phone Salonika.'

'There is, of course, no wireless transmitter for emergencies?'

'No, nothing like that.'

Grapos was staring through the thicket as he replied without looking in Macomber's direction, and his replies were grudging, but the Scot appeared not to notice his reticence as he pressed on interrogating the Greek. 'You mean there is no other way… are you listening to me? Good.' Grapos looked at Macomber directly and the brown eyes which looked back were compelling him to concentrate, to remember. 'Is there no other way at all whereby the Abbot can send a message if the phone breaks down?'

'Only the pigeons.'

"Pigeons?' Macomber's voice was sharp. 'You mean he keeps carrier pigeons? Where do they go to when released?'

'To Livai on the other side of the gulf.'

'On the mainland, you mean?'

'Yes. Livai is near Olympus and there are more monks there.'

Macomber nodded and said nothing more while the German patrol continued its descent to the edge of the stream. Even when they crossed they displayed good military caution, only one man moving over the stones at a time until they had all reached the bank below where Grapos and his group waited. As the last man landed on the near-side bank the Greek grunted and moved towards the mouth of the hole. Macomber had earlier noticed that they were standing in a natural water catchment area; above where they stood three small ravines converged into the gulley and he guessed that during bad weather a minor Hood must pour into the pipe. A drift of heavy cloud had appeared in the sky and it was coming their way as he followed Grapos. Once again the unpredictable Aegean weather was changing and he prayed there wouldn't be a cloudburst while they were inside that unsavoury-looking pipe. The Greek was on all fours, about to enter the mouth, when he fumbled under his coat, extracted a knife from his jacket pocket, flicked it to eject the blade, then held it upright. The five-inch blade retracted of its own accord. He was putting it into his coat pocket for easier access when Ford rapped out his question. 'Where did you get that?'

Grapos looked over his shoulder and glared at the sergeant. For a moment it seemed as though he wasn't going to reply and then he answered resentfully. 'It is just a knife. My knife.' Ford glanced at Macomber who had immediately detected the note of suspicion in the sergeant's voice and told Grapos to wait a minute. 'It's a German knife,' Ford explained. 'A parachutist's gravity knife. What the hell is he doing with a thing like that?'

'We have to go into the tunnel,' Grapos reminded them sullenly.

'We have to know about that knife, first,' Macomber replied briskly. 'Where did you get it? Come on – I want to know.'

The German patrol must already have started advancing up the hill towards them but the possession of this strange weapon bothered Macomber and he was determined to get an explanation before they followed the Greek inside the pipe. For precious seconds it seemed like deadlock as the three men stared down at the Greek who gazed back at them with a hostile expression. Then he shrugged his broad shoulders, adjusted the rifle he had previously looped diagonally across his back and addressed Macomber. 'I took it from the German I shot.'

'You were miles away in the hills when you fired on the jetty,' Macomber pointed out. 'Just a minute, do you mean one of those Jerries on the boat?'

'No. The man I shot over there.' He made a gesture forwards to the hill the Alpenkorps patrol had just descended. 'There were seven men when I saw them. I shot the man who was to the right and he fell from a rock into the bushes. They did not find him and when they had gone I took the knife.'

'You mean you've alerted this lot! They know someone is close because you've already shot one of the patrol?' Macomber was appalled. He had accepted the Greek's stratagem for evading the Alpenkorps because he had been confident they were only searching hopefully. Now those six highly trained men below knew they were stalking someone who couldn't be far away, which meant they would be in a state of total alert.

'Yes,' Grapos confirmed, 'one is shot. When we go through the pipe they will not know we are on the other side…'

'So that's it!' Macomber stepped forward and gripped the Greek by the shoulder. 'You want us to go through the pipe and then open fire on them from the other side?'

'We have to kill Germans,' Grapos replied simply. 'When I go to join the army they say I am no good because of my limp. When I have killed many Germans I go to Athens and tell them – then I join the army.'

'Grapos!' Macomber spoke with low intensity. 'We have to get to the monastery before the Germans – in the hope that we can send a message to the mainland in time, or do something to upset them. If the Germans do take the monastery half a division won't shift them – maybe not even a division. Our job is to reach the monastery – to keep out of the way of any Germans we meet on the way, not to fight them.'

'Not fight!' Grapos was outraged. He looked up at Prentice. 'You are a British officer. I was told that when they wanted to know if I knew you. You agree with what this man is saying -this man who pretended he was a German?'

'Macomber's right,' Prentice said quietly. 'We want to get there and the only way we can do that is to dodge them – there are too many to fight. We may achieve a lot more by keeping out of their way.'

'Because it is you who say this.' Grapos glared in Macomber's direction and started crawling down the pipe which left less than a foot's clearance above his arched back. Dropping to bis knees, the Scot followed the Greek into the insalubrious hole and the clearance above his back was barely six inches. Prentice, who had decided to bring up the rear, sent Ford down next, took one last look at the guiley to make sure the surface hadn't retained traces of footprints, then went inside himself with his machine-pistol over his back and a fervent hope that the Greek wouldn't start quarrelling with the Scot in this situation. Farther along the pipe Macomber was already finding his great bulk a distinct handicap as he crawled behind Grapos. He had only to lift himself a few inches and he found his back scraping the curved concrete; his contracted elbows grazed the sides of the pipe and his knees were slithering on a film of slime at the base of the pipe as he accelerated his awkward movements to keep up with the Greek's phenomenal rate of progress. The downward slope of the pipe helped him to keep up a certain speed, but he was beginning to dislike the feeling of being shut in as he went on shuffling forward through the total darkness beyond the mouth of the pipe.

Within two minutes he found himself taking great heaving breaths and this was no place for deep breathing – as he penetrated deeper inside the buried pipe the damp smell changed to an oppressive airlessness and the place seemed bereft of oxygen. How the broad-bodied Grapos managed to keep up such a killing pace he couldn't imagine and gradually the sensation of being entombed grew. He had expected his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness but it was still pitch-black and the only sound was the noise of scuffling feet and knees some distance behind him, a sound which reminded him of rats he had once heard scattering inside a derelict warehouse. He plodded on, hands stretching out into the unknown, followed by the haul of his. knees over the scum-like surface of the pipe which he now realized had been embedded in the ground for God knew how long; his hands told him this because frequently the surface of the pipe wall flaked off at his touch and more than ones a large piece came away and clattered grittily on the floor. It was badly in need of running repairs but he imagined that when something was built on Zervos it was hopefully expected to last for ever. Nightmare possibilities began to invade his mind – supposing the far end was blocked? The only similar culvert pipe he could remember had been barred at the exit end by an iron grille to prevent small boys swimming in the river from investigating its interior. Grapos had been this way before years ago, but there was no reason why such a grille should not have been fixed more recently. At a rough guess the pipe must be a quarter of a mile long – so what would be the position if the exit were closed? He could never hope to turn round in this confined space and their only hope would be a slow, endless crawl backwards and uphill, a prospect he contemplated with no great relish.

As they went on and the angle of the pipe dipped more steeply, Macomber remembered that the hill slope dropped sharply when it approached the stream. He began to have a horrible feeling that they had taken the wrong decision – that they should never have entered this Stygian cylinder which might be their grave. For a brief second he paused to wipe the gathering sweat off his forehead and then ploughed on, his wrists aching under the weight they had to bear, the palms of his hands sore and tender with groping over the gritty concrete, the pain increasing across his back and down his thighs. When the hell were they going to get out of this blasted tunnel Grapos had led them into so confidently? There had to be a bend soon because only a bend would explain why there was still no light ahead. Unless the tunnel exit was completely blocked: that certainly would account for the continuing state of darkness they were crawling down through. It might also account for the worsening difficulty in breathing.

Macomber was having great trouble in regulating the intake of air now as he shuffled downwards blindly and automatically. But if the exit were stopped up they would be descending into a region of foul and foetid air where breathing might become well-nigh impossible. His great fear now was that they would. discover the grim truth too late – that by the time they knew there was no way out they would have degenerated into such a weakened state that they would never be able to summon up the strength needed for the return trip. Years later when they excavated the pipe they would find… He suppressed the macabre thought and concentrated on keeping going, hands first, then that dreadful, wearying haul forward of the knees which it was becoming an agony to move. His head was vibrating gently and frequently he blinked as brief lights flashed in front of his eyes. He was aware of feeling warmer and he couldn't be sure whether this was an illusion or a symptom warning mat something was going wrong with his system. He had moved forward mechanically for so long that his heart jumped with the shock when his outstretched hand touched something hard. The sole of Grapos' stationary boot. Was there a crisis? Had the Greek collapsed on the floor of the tunnel under the murderous physical strain? He called out. 'Grapos…' Because of the silence which had lasted so long he found he was unconsciously whispering as he called again. 'Something wrong, Grapos?'

The voice which came back out of the darkness was hoarse and breathless. 'We are at the bend. I can see the light at the bottom. When we arrive, you wait inside the pipe. You do not come out until I tell you.'

'All right. You're doing fine.'

Grapos grunted and began heaving himself forward again, on his stomach now because he found this an easier way to progress as the pipe angled downhill more precipitately. Macomber was about to follow when he felt a hand touch his own foot and he called back over his shoulder. 'Nearly there, Ford. We can see the end of the tunnel. Pass it on.' There was a considerable element of exaggeration in his statement but it seemed a reasonable moment to send back a cheerful message. As he rounded the bend, Macomber was able to appreciate the extent of his exaggerated optimism: the pipe was angled downwards at an increasingly nerve-wracking pitch and the blur of light in the distance was little larger than a sixpence. They were probably barely half-way down the hili slope. He was easing himself round the bend when his right knee contacted a particularly slippery patch and before he knew what was happening he lost balance and crashed heavily against the tunnel wall. He felt it crumble under his impact and a large piece of concrete slithered into his thigh followed by a shower of loosened earth. In places the damned thing was little thicker than paper. Calling back to warn the others, he crawled forward again with a sensation of moving down a chute. The brief pause had hindered rather than helped – his knees were wobbling badly and he expected at any moment to keel into the wall for a second time. When the accident happened it was so unexpected, so unforeseeable and bizarre, that it took away Macomber's breath. He had just caught up with Grapos and was within inches of his rearmost boot when the uncanny silence inside the tunnel was shattered by a ripping, cracking sound. Little more than a foot beyond Grapos' head the tunnel roof splintered, caved in and exposed a small hole – and thrust down through the hole was an Alpenkorps boot with a leg showing to the knee.

Macomber froze as Grapos lay rigid, his face inches away from the point where one of the Alpenkorps patrol had trodden through the rotting roof of the ancient pipe. Sufficient light percolated through the small aperture for him to see the pattern of large nails on the sole of the boot. Scarcely daring to breathe, he watched the leg withdrawing. For a few seconds it was held fast by the smallness of the hole when the boot tried to free itself, then it disappeared upwards, leaving the small aperture with ragged concrete edges. Still on all fours, Macomber prayed that the others behind him would lie still, that they had realized something had happened, that they would understand the desperate need for preserving total silence.

Grapos was still lying motionless on the tunnel floor, unable to reach the rifle looped over his back and having the sense not to attempt that dangerous manoeuvre. With agonizing slowness the Scot eased his tender knees forward a few more inches, wondering whether the hole was large enough for the invisible German to peer down and see Grapos, but he doubted whether that was possible. The Greek should be just far enough from the hole to go undetected. But how bright would that Alpenkorps man be? Would it occur to him to investigate the pipe, to kick in a little more of the crumbling roof? Originally, the pipe must have been laid just under the earth's surface, but over the years the rain had probably washed away some of the protecting soil until only a thin layer had remained. He found it an uncanny feeling to be lying there cooped up inside the narrow space, buried just underneath the hill slope and knowing that not three feet above them there was probably a German standing, undecided what to do about this phenomenon. Or had he gone away and climbed farther up the hill over their heads, cursing the pipe and not giving it another thought? He would have his orders to maintain the line of the sweep and German discipline gave little scope for personal initiative. But these were Alpine troops, men very different in training and background from the average breed of Wehrmacht footslogger. Their training taught them to use their heads, to think for themselves.

All these rattling thoughts passed through Macomber's brain as four men lay absolutely still inside the pipe while two of them – Prentice and Ford – had even less idea of what was happening because they had been farther back. All they knew was that the wriggling, advancing worm of feet and heads had unaccountably stopped after that weird breaking sound had travelled back up the tunnel. Instinct alone, or perhaps a telepathic sense of emergency, prevented them from calling out to ask what had gone wrong. Macomber felt the boots resting against his knuckles begin to wriggle and he understood the signal – Grapos wished to move back a little farther away from the hole. To avoid the risk of two men's movements,' Macomber simply perched both hands a little higher up the tunnel wall and the legs wriggled back underneath his own hoisted body, then stopped moving. He had made no sound during his short passage backwards but Macomber wished to heaven that he knew what had caused the Greek to retract that short distance. Was it in anticipation of something? The next moment he had confirmation that he had guessed correctly – a heavy instrument was hammered against the ragged rim of the aperture. Fragments clattered on the floor of the pipe and then the steel-plated butt of a rifle came half-way inside the pipe as a piece collapsed unexpectedly. The German was enlarging the hole to get a better view.

Macomber felt Grapos' body tense and then relax almost immediately – he had been about to seize the rifle butt and jerk it downwards out of the unseen hand holding it. Had the Alpenkorps man been alone it would have been a worthwhile action, but Grapos had remembered in time that the German was not alone on the hill slope. Grimly, Macomber waited for the hammering to be resumed, for the hole to be enlarged to a point where they mast be seen, but as the seconds passed the hammering was not resumed and there was an unnerving stillness beyond the aperture. Apparently the soldier was now satisfied that it was simply a deserted culvert and he had continued uphill with the sweep. Or was this too comforting an explanation of the lack of activity above that tell-tale hole?

Had he, in fact, seen Grapos? Probably not – Grapos had moved farther up the tunnel just in time. The complacent thought had hardly passed through Macomber's head when he realized how fatally he had been wrong, realized that the German was still standing there just above them and that this was a man who was going to make sure of the business with very little expenditure of effort. The expenditure of a single hand-grenade, in fact.

The stick-like object fell through the hole and landed on the floor of the pipe. Macomber knew at once that they were going to die, that the grenade would detonate under perfect conditions. Inside that confined space the blast would be enormous with only a fraction escaping through the aperture; the main part of the explosion would be concentrated and funnelled along the pipe in a searing wave of bursting gases which would tear them to pieces. Prentice at the rear might just survive – survive with ruptured ear-drums as the hellish noise roared over him. Macomber felt Grapos stir under him and knew what he was trying to do, but the Greek was sprawled along the floor in a near-helpless position and he would never manage it in time. The Scot's hand closed over the grenade as he pivoted, taking his whole weight on his left hand to give him hoisting room. Gripping the throwing-handle and knowing that he held death in his fist, he looked upwards, calculated in a split-second and then jerked his hand, praying that the missile wouldn't catch the rim of the hole and come bouncing down again. The grenade sailed up through the aperture's centre and vanished as Macomber instinctively huddled over Grapos who now lay perfectly still. The detonation echoed back to the prone men as a hard thump like the thud of a rubber hammer against an oak door. Macomber let out his breath and then nearly fell over as Grapos scrambled out from underneath him, half-stood up, pushed his head through the hole and heaved with his shoulders to force his way through the fractured rim.

What the devil was he up to now? The manoeuvre took Macomber completely by surprise. Was the Greek on the German side, was he taking this last chance to get out of the tunnel and reach his friends? Still standing in a half-crouched position with his head and shoulders only above the rim, Grapos was doing something frantically with his hands and arms. Below him Macomber held the Luger aimed at the lower part of his body while he tried to work out what Grapos was trying to do. He waited a whole minute and then the Greek, lowered himself back inside the tunnel, pausing on his knees to reach up outside the hole while he hauled clumps of vegetation over the aperture. His hands were streaked with blood and when Macomber caught a glimpse of the prickly undergrowth he understood – he had been clawing and arranging a screen of vegetation to conceal the hole from the rest of the Alpenkorps patrol. Grapos sagged into an awkward sitting position and wiped his streaked hands carefully underneath his coat while he took in great gasping breaths of air. When he could speak he looked at Macomber and his former mistrust had gone as he dragged out the words. 'The German is dead – the bomb must have landed at his feet. He is alone… the others will come and will think the bomb went off by accident… with luck. If they do not see the hole…'

'You covered it completely?'

'I think so. If they search they will find it – but why should they do that if they think the bomb exploded by mistake? They will see it is not in his belt.'

'Thanks,' Macomber said simply. 'Think you can make it to the end of the tunnel? Good. And now you'd better be extra damned careful how you emerge.'

'I will manage.' Grapos wiped hair away from his face and stared at the Scot. 'And thank you – that bomb came within centimetres of my nose – if it exploded here I would have no head now…'

'Get moving – those Germans will be here any minute.'

In spite of their cramped state the four men made speedier progress down the last stretch of the tunnel and then waited at the bottom until Grapos signalled that all was clear. Like the Alpenkorps, they crossed the stepping-stones singly, and in less than five minutes they came out from the undergrowth on to the deserted road to Zervos. Grapos grinned as he hoisted his rifle over his shoulder prior to leading the way. 'It will be good from now,' he informed them. 'We are in front of the Germans.'

'I wouldn't count on that,' Macomber replied sharply. 'I've got a nasty idea something very peculiar is going to happen between here and Zervos.'