The Heights of Zervos

CHAPTER NINE

Sunday, Noon

The advance guard of the Alpenkorps was in sight and since they were mounted on mules it could only be a matter of time before they overtook anyone moving on foot. Perched on the Crag which hung over the road a hundred feet below, Macomber closed the Monokular glass which Prentice had returned to him and looked down at the roadside where Grapos waited for the oxen-carts coming from Zervos. It had been agreed that it would be better if he questioned the peasants riding on the carts alone and the three of them – Macomber, Prentice and Ford – had climbed up from the road to keep out of sight. For the Scot this had been a welcome opportunity to see a long distance back over the way they had come, although the view could have been more encouraging.

'I hope Grapos isn't going to take all day arguing the toss with those peasants,' Prentice said irritably. Lack of sleep was making it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes open and now it was only will-power which sustained his movements. The trouble was that he had missed even the short rest the others had enjoyed before Grapos had appeared on the hilltop.

'He may get some news from them – or at least find out where we can get some food,' Macomber pointed out.

'I couldn't eat a thing. And that lot following us hasn't put any edge on my appetite either.'

'It shouldn't take them too long to get here,' observed Ford. 'They'll drive those mules till they drop – and mules don't drop all that quickly.'

Macomber forced his sagging shoulders upright and began speaking rapidly. It was clear that Prentice was in such a low state that a few minutes of pessimistic conversation might be more than enough to sap his remaining resistance, so he deliberately instilled a rough vigour into his voice. 'We're standing on a good lookout point to check the geography of the area so you know what lies ahead of us. It's about ten miles from Katyra to the plateau, and the plateau itself is about six miles long. Then there's about another four miles from the far end of the plateau up to Zervos. That last four miles is pretty appalling – you climb up a winding road from the plateau which zigzags all over the place – so if we can conscript some mules for ourselves, we'd better do it. Grapos may manage to fix that up – I gather he knows just about everyone on the peninsula.'

'You mean we have another ten miles to do before we get to the monastery?' Prentice started to sit down on a rock and then remained standing; he had the feeling that if he relaxed he might never get up again. 'I don't see us getting there today,' he said firmly.

'Burckhardt will get there today – I'm sure that's the key to his whole timetable. And if you look over there I rather think you'll see Mount Zervos in a minute.'

From their elevated position at the top of the crag they had a panoramic view over the peninsula and to east and west the Aegean was in view, still a brilliant blue across the gulf where they could see the mountains on the mainland above the vital road the Allies were using. The surface of the water glittered in the sunlight and when Macomber scanned it with his glass he thought he could make out small dark specks amid the calm cobalt, the specks of Italian mines floating in the gulf. The mainland was still half-shrouded in mist but here and there the sunlight caught the tiny square of whiteness which must be the wall of a building. To the north a dark column of smoke still hung in the sky from the burning Hydra, but the plume was less well-defined now and less smoke drifted upwards to maintain its density. And it was in that same direction where a distant file of men on mules advanced towards the crag at a seemingly snail's pace, a file which was telescoping as the head of the file went down inside a dip in the white streak of road.

To the south a fleet of heavy clouds drifted low over the peninsula, but the clouds were thinning rapidly as they drifted out across the gulf beyond Cape Zervos and, as Macomber had predicted, the mountain slowly emerged from the clouds like a massive volcanic cone, a cone whose slopes were white with snow to the triangular-shaped summit. Prentice stood watching the mountain appear with a sense of awe – had they really a dog's chance in hell of scaling that giant and reaching the strategically vital monastery before the Germans took it? Borrowing Macomber's glass again, he focused and saw that the clouds had never really covered the peak; they had smothered the plateau and intervened between the mountain and the view from the north. So the met men had been right -Zervos was hardly ever obscured by the weather and once Burckhardt was established up there he would have a continuous view of the supply road. Prentice felt temporarily overwhelmed – overwhelmed by what was at stake and by the apparently insuperable problem of arriving on Zervos in time.

'It's not so good to the east, though,' Macomber warned them soberly. 'At this time of year the weather comes from that direction and I don't like the look of what's on the way.'

To the east the sea was still visible, a grey ruffled sea rapidly disappearing under a fresh formation of dense cloud banks which had a heavy swollen look. There was very little doubt that extremely dirty weather was coming, heading for the section of the peninsula they would have to cross. Prentice stared again southwards where the mountain was now fully exposed to its base, and when Macomber told him to focus on a certain spot he thought he saw a tiny rectangle of rock perched close to the sea. 'If you're looking at the right place,' the Scot told him, 'that's the monastery. It's pretty high up, as you'll see.'

'Pretty high. Well above the snow-line, in fact.'

Perhaps a mile farther on from the crag the last remnants of cloud were now clearing from the edge of the plateau which rose abruptly from the foothills like a wall. Again Macomber pointed out a certain spot and Prentice found the road which climbed up to the tableland. On the eastern side of the plateau a wisp of smoke eddied into the sky as it was caught by a strong wind and there appeared to be a huddle of buildings under the smoke. 'That's the village of Elatia,' Macomber explained in reply to Prentice's question. 'We shan't go near that – a spur track runs off the main road to reach it.'

'Main road? Some main road!' Prentice handed back the glass and looked down to where the oxen-carts had stopped below while Grapos talked to several peasants who had gathered round him. At one moment Grapes gestured vigorously towards Katyra and Prentice guessed that ha was warning them about the approaching Germans. Shortly afterwards something like panic gripped the gathering. Three of the four oxen-carts filled up with the peasants and began to leave the road to drive straight across the fields which stretched away from the base of the hill. One wagon got stuck as its wheels caught in the ditch and the shouts of the passengers urging the beasts to make greater efforts echoed up to the crag. The fourth cart, empty, remained standing in the road as Grapos stared up at the crag and waved both arms furiously to summon them down. As they started their descent Macomber took one last look northwards and saw the tail of the Alpenkorps column sliding out of view. When it emerged in sight again it would be that much closer to the crag and to Mount Zervos.

'The news is bad – very bad,' Grapos greeted them. 'The Germans attacked my country and Yugoslavia at 5.45 this morning. They say the forts at Rupel have held the first attack'

'They said the Maginot Line would hold all attacks,' Prentice muttered under his breath. 'Why have they left this wagon?' he asked out aloud. Grapos had turned the cart round so that now it faced away from the Alpenkorps.

'For us! They are going into the fields to escape the Germans so that it did not matter that they knew you were here. With this we can save our strength and some of us can sleep. I know where we can get food and clothes.' He looked at Ford and Prentice. 'With those clothes you would freeze to death on Zervos.'

'Any other news, Grapos?' Macomber inquired quietly. 'And how do your friends know about the German offensive? The telephone line was going to be cut.'

'It has been cut since last night. They heard the news on the wireless.' Grapos' manner had become openly hostile as though he resented the question, and Prentice thought Oh, Lord, those two are at it again! 'I tell you the truth,' the Greek added vehemently.^

'Of course you do,' Macomber replied, completely unruffled. 'But I deal in fact and I like to know the details. Where can we get the food and the clothes?'

'At a house where the road climbs. We must go…'

'Just a minute! You know this family well?'

'There is no family. There is one man and I have known him many years. He would be in the army fighting but he is old. And he has no German mother – if that would really worry you, Mr Macomber.'

'Then let's get moving. This will be a chance for you to get some rest, Prentice. Make the most of it. I have an idea it may be the last chance you'll get!'

The inside of the ox-cart was carpeted with straw and Prentice, who sprawled full-length after bunching up the straw into a makeshift palliasse, had fallen asleep almost as soon as the cumbersome vehicle started moving. Grapos held the long whip which signalled the animals that it was time to work again and they began lurching forward over the dusty road at a laboured pace across a small plain. The foothills continued on their right, hiding the gulf from them, but they became lower as the wall of the plateau crawled towards them with infinite slowness. It would have been at least as quick to march on foot but Macomber felt that Prentice must recuperate even though the Alpenkorps on mules must inevitably close the gap between them, and the cart provided a means of rest for all four men. Although convinced that it was crucial to conserve their energies for what might lie in front of them, the slow-motion pace of the cart irritated him almost beyond endurance. The wagon was drawn by two long-horned oxen which plodded along sedately as the ancient wagon creaked and groaned as though it might fall apart at any moment. They were coming close to the wall of the plateau when Ford asked Macomber his wry question. 'Anything worrying you – anything in particular, I mean?'

'Well, this ox-cart for one thing. It's not exactly the Orient Express.' He stared ahead as Grapos, who stood between them, glared in his direction. 'For another thing, I can't work out how we're going to communicate with the mainland forces in time to warn them of what is happening here. In tune,' he repeated. 'Once Burckhardt has established himself on the heights no one will ever shift him – the place, the position, everything, makes it a natural fortress. But the thing which bothers me most of all is the size of his force – I'm absolutely certain that he's expecting massive reinforcements.'

'Hard to see how – unless they sneaked in by sea again. Could they land somewhere over there?' Ford pointed towards the eastern coastline which was still clear, although, out over the Aegean the clouds were continuing to mass.

'There's no way inland. The cliffs go on until they reach the delta area in the north. But I can't see them risking a sea-going expedition twice – and this one in broad daylight. They can't be expecting to break through from Salonika in time or else they wouldn't have sent Burckhardt in the first place…' Macomber trailed off and stared ahead as he put himself in the colonel's position and tried to imagine his next move. Ford was standing with his back to the way they were going so he could watch the road behind but so far it stretched away emptily as far as he could see.

When they reached the base of the plateau wall Grapos took them inside a single-storey stone house concealed by a grove of cypresses and there the owner, a man in his seventies, divided among them the meal he had just prepared for himself. The food was strange and strong-tasting and consisted of balls of meat rolled inside the leaves of some unidentifiable vegetable. He offered to cook more but Macomber said they had no time and they ate with relish food they would normally have rejected as inedible.

Macomber was keeping watch by himself just beyond the cypresses while he drank ouzo from a large glass when he saw them coming. His Monokular brought them closer – Alpenkorps on mules, a file which extended back into the distance and which was a far more formidable force than he had imagined from his earlier sight of them. He ran back into the house to find Prentice and Ford trying on two ancient sheepskin coats the owner was providing and then exploded when the lieutenant started to write the man's name in a notebook so they could send him payment later. 'Prentice, you may have just signed that man's death warrant! If the Germans catch us and find that…'

'Of course! I must be half-asleep,' the lieutenant replied apologetically. He went to a stone sink and began setting fire to the page prior to washing away the embers. The room was stone-paved and stone-walled. A hideous place to spend seventy years of one's life.

'And we have about half a minute to clear out of here,' Macomber rapped out.

'I'm just burning a death warrant, as you so aptly pointed out.' Prentice had recovered his normal composure after the sleep in the cart and there was a faint smile on his face when he stared back at the large Scot. 'How close would you say?'

'Two miles. Maybe less.'

'Close enough, I agree. We'll have to hike it up to the top of that plateau. I hope you can walk faster than a mule, Ford.' He dropped the blackened paper into the sink and poured a stone jugful of water over the mess, pushing it down the drain with his finger. 'There's no way up except the road, I suppose?'

'No other way,' Grapos told him.

'Right! The road it is!' He turned to the old man. Tell him he has our grateful thanks for his hospitality. I rather fancy it would be a mistake to offer money for the food?'

'A mistake,' Grapos agreed abruptly. He was looking through the open doorway towards the road and hoisted his rifle higher as he moved towards it.

'Tell him also,' Macomber intervened, 'that when the Germans arrive and ask about us, he's to say he saw us get off the wagon we'd obviously stolen and run up the hill. If he tells them something they're more likely to leave him alone. Tell him also to wash up three of those plates and glasses and just leave his own dirty. They'll be looking for things like that. And don't forget the thanks.' He waited while Grapos poured out a stream of Greek and the old man kept shaking his head as though it were nothing, and he was relieved to see as they left that the old man was already starting to wash the dirty plates.

When Macomber looked back as they started to climb the hill, the line of mounted troops was already appreciably closer and he knew that they must bide soon or be captured. With the Scot in the lead they ascended the winding road at a slow trot, but long before they reached the top they were slowing down badly. The gradient was steep and wound its way between huge boulders which seemed on the verge of toppling down the rugged incline. Groves of bare olive trees studded the hill slope and the frequent twists in the road soon hid them from the plain below, which had the advantage of hiding them from the Alpenkorps mule train, but had the disadvantage of preventing them seeing how close their pursuers were drawing. Cover was what they needed, Macomber was telling himself, and he was tempted to leave the road altogether and hide on the hill slope, but this would mean throwing in the sponge: the Alpenkorps would ride past and continue on to Zervos. I'm damned if I'm giving up as easily as that, he thought, after surviving that voyage from Istanbul.

'I'd say we have another thirty minutes left – at the outside,' Prentice called up to him.

'At the outside,' Macomber agreed. Thirty minutes before the leading Alpenkorps troops overhauled them. It was beginning to get a bit desperate and he was pinning all his hopes on seeing a chance to escape when they reached that plateau which stretched six miles to the base of the mountain. This was one area where he had very little idea of the topography because when he had travelled this way five years before it had been drenched in mist while they drove over the tableland. The stitch in his side was getting worse as he forced his legs to keep up the route-march pace and now each thud of his boots on the road pounded up his side like a sledgehammer. To counter the pain he stooped forward a little, cursing inwardly as Prentice caught up with him.

'Take it easy, Mac, you'll kill yourself. You're streaming with sweat,'

'Time is running out – we had a head start on them and we've lost it. We'll have to make a quick decision when we reach the top.' The effort of speaking was a major strain now but he was damned if he was going to give up. Keep moving, you'll work it off! Prentice was walking alongside him now and this gave him a pacemaker to keep up with. He forced himself to resist the impulse to look at the ground because this brought on greater fatigue. Straightening up, he stared at the ridge they were approaching. Was this the rim of the plateau at long last? He had thought so hopefully with three lower ridges and had been disappointed each time. In his state of extreme pained exertion the plateau above was now taking on the character of a promised land, a haven where there must be some salvation from the relentless Alpenkorps coming up behind.

He was hardly aware of the landscape they were passing as the pain grew worse and pulled at him like a steel wire contracting inside his body. Boulders, olive groves, clumps of shrubbery moved past in a blur as he fixed his eyes on the wobbling ridge moving down towards them as they turned another bend and then another. Despite his robot-like condition he was conscious that the air was cooler, that a breeze was growing stronger, and this gave him fresh hope that they were close to the head of the tortuous road which went on and on forever – another bend, another stretch of white dust3 another bend…

'Must be nearly there – with this wind,' Prentice commented.

Macomber only grunted and stared upwards. Was he breaking the grip of the stitch? It seemed a little less agonizing, a little less inclined to screw up his muscles into complex knots. It left him quite suddenly and with the realization that he had conquered it he began to take long loping strides which Prentice could hardly keep up with. He wiped his face dry as he walked and then accelerated his pace, feeling a sense of triumph as he saw only sky beyond the lowering ridge. They were almost there! Revived by the small quantity of food and the wine he began moving faster still as the gradient of the road lessened, leaving Prentice behind in his anxiety to catch his first glimpse of the plateau. There must be no hesitation here – they must decide swiftly what they were going to do and do it. There might even be a convenient farm at the top. With a lot of luck there might even be bicycles – he had seen men cycling when he had visited Katyra before the war. A cycle should be a match for a mule. They needed some form of transport which would take them the six miles across the plateau, something which would put them well ahead of that blasted mule train of Burckhardt's. He put on a spurt, came over the top and the plateau lay before him.

The disappointment was so crushing that he stood quite still until Prentice reached him. A classic tableland spread out into the distance, an area of flatness devoid of any form of cover for several miles. In fact, he could hardly have imagined a region less suited for them to escape the Alpenkorps. The road was a surprise, too: a highway of recently laid tar which ran straight across to the mountain, the land greenish on one side and brownish on the other. They must have started the highway from the peninsula tip, a highway which in due course would be extended to Katyra.

'Not quite what we're in the market for,' Prentice remarked.

'It might as well be the sea for all the good it is to us.' Macomber glanced over his shoulder. 'How's the Greek?'

'Had a bit of trouble with his limp coming up. Ford stayed back to keep him company. What's exciting them now, I wonder?'

Ford and Grapos had appeared but they were standing together on an outcrop of rock a short distance from the road as they waved their hands with a beckoning motion. Prentice left Macomber gazing bleakly at the plateau and went back to the outcrop. The ground he scrambled up was dry and gritty, which confirmed that the storm of the night before must have blown itself out somewhere near Cape Zervos. And there was a trace of excitement in Ford's voice as he called down. 'Hurry up or you'll miss it.'

'Miss what?'

The sun which shone on the back of Prentice's neck as he hauled himself up on the rock had no warmth in it and the coldness of the light breeze was a reminder that they were approaching a zone of low temperature. Standing beside Grapos, he adjusted his sheepskin coat. It was too big and flopped off the shoulders; Ford, who was wearing another coat belonging to the same man, fitted far more comfortably inside his sheepskin. Had the Greek possessed a third coat? The thought had never struck Prentice during the flurry to get away from the house. Following the line of Ford's pointed arm he could see the top of the house now, its faded red tiles so levelled by the height that it looked flat-roofed. And only a few yards beyond the cypresses the head of the Alpenkorps column was approaching the foot of the hill road. 'There they come,' said Ford, 'the first of the many.'

'You're sure they are the first? There may be more of them already coming up the hill.'

'No, sir. You and Macomber were in such a perishing hurry to get up here I don't imagine you ever looked back – but we caught sight of them more than once and that's the head of the column.'

Prentice was surprised. Earlier he had been startled to find German troops in front of them when they came over the hilltop near the pipe, and now he was surprised at how long it had taken them to reach this point since he had glanced back when they rushed out of the house below. He waited for two or three men to turn aside and enter the house, but the column went straight past and vanished as it began to mount the hill road. The wagon had been left behind the cypresses, which also concealed the house, and the Alpenkorps were going to ride up the hill without ever realizing its existence. With a feeling of relief he jumped down from the platform and hurried back to where Macomber still stood, stood like a man of stone as he gazed upwards, his hands inside his coat pockets, the expression on his face so grim that it recalled his impersonation of Dietrich.

'What's the matter?' asked Prentice. He tilted his head. "What's that -I can hear something?"

'The reinforcements – Burckhardt's reinforcements. By God, I expected something but I hadn't expected this. They must have half the Wehrmacht up there coming in.'

The sky to the north-east was still clear, more than clear enough for them to see the huge aerial armada which was descending on Zervos. The steady purr of their engines grew louder as they flew over the peninsula at a height of less than a thousand feet and they were close enough already for Macomber to see that they were three-engined machines with an iron cross on the fuselage and the swastika on the tail. Transport planes,' Ford said in his ear. "They'll very likely have parachutists aboard.' In the distance, flying even lower, came more planes and these were towing other machines with different silhouettes. Macomber was focusing his glass on them as Prentice spoke.

"The Alpenkorps have just started to come up the hill behind us.'

'They'll take Zervos before nightfall. There's nothing to stop them,' said Macomber.

'Unless this airborne crowd is heading for the mainland,' Ford suggested without much conviction.

Macomber stared through the glass, holding his head tilted back as the planes flew in closer. The aircraft towing other machines were losing height rapidly while the transport planes circled above the plateau, their engines a muted roar. There were no Allied fighters to intercept them, of course, although a flight of Messerschmitts had now appeared: the bulk of the over-strained RAF was supporting the Greek war in Albania and even these formations were few and far between. With a feeling of appalled helplessness they watched the aerial fleet droning casually over the plateau like a flying circus putting on a show before an invited audience, although the only audience to watch this display of Luftwaffe air power was the group of four men on the plateau rim. There were probably between twenty and thirty planes, but it was the thought of what they might contain which frightened Prentice. 'Those machines they're towing are gliders,' said Ford. He saw Macomber nod in confirmation and now the shadows of the planes were flitting over the level surface of the plateau, a perfect landing ground for putting down an airborne force. A moment later a cluster of black dots sprayed from one of the transport machines and the dots became cones as the parachutists floated downwards. A machine detached itself from its powered carrier and the gliders started to come in to land.

The four men were retreating from the plateau towards the hillside above the road when Macomber called out. 'Wait a minute, Prentice! Something's going wrong with this one.' A glider detached from its powered transport was wobbling unstably as it headed for the earth and had the appearance of being out of control as it descended towards the rim of the plateau close to where Macomber waited. An ugly, ungainly beast, it was twin-tailed and the fuselage was squat, suggesting great carrying capacity.

Half a mile along the road more parachutists were floating down over the brownish ground which seemed to be the main landing area and the sunlight caught their tilting cones – white for parachutists and various colours for the 'chutes supporting supply containers. Only one transport plane had attempted a landing to the left of the road and his machine was propped at a dangerous angle with the nose well down and its tail angled in the air. On the other side of the road two transports had already touched down safely and a third was just coming in.

'That plane on the left will be in trouble,' Prentice said tersely. 'It's marshland on that side.'

'How do you know that?' Macomber asked quickly.

'Because I persuaded the pilot to make a detour and fly over here on our way to Istanbul. We'd been discussing Zervos before I left Athens and I wanted to see what the place looked like. He told me that the green area was marshy…'

'Those transport machines are JU 52/3s,' Ford interjected professionally. 'I've heard they can carry mountain guns…'

'This is hardly a good time to start cataloguing German equipment,' Prentice snapped. 'I say we'd better get out of here – and fast.'

'And this brute of a glider coming towards us is a Gotha unless I'm very much mistaken,' Ford continued, and then found he was alone as the others ran back towards the boulders and scrub at the top of the hill. As he followed them he could hear the whine of the wind rising and the steady beat-beat of more transports coming in. Ford, who had a fatalistic streak in his make-up had little doubt that this was the end of the line; they would spend the rest of the war in some German prison camp, unless they were shot in the process of being captured. He was close to the first boulders when the machine-pistol slipped off his shoulder and he had to turn back to pick it up.

The huge Gotha assault cargo glider was flying down at an unpleasantly acute angle less than a hundred yards away. If it wasn't very lucky it was going to miss the rim of the plateau and go crashing down onto the plain below. Fascinated by the spectacle of the imminent disaster he stayed out in the open. Macomber seemed similarly affected, because now he came cut from behind the rocks and stood close to Ford as the massive glider swooped down, tried to level out at the last moment, and then thudded into the soft earth a bare hundred feet away.

'For God's sake get under cover, you idiots!' Prentice shouted from behind them. Ford, the spell broken, turned to go, but Macomber still waited as he gazed at the machine. The shock of landing had righted the fuselage and now the whole of the nose of the aircraft was lifting back like an immense hood. A soldier stood near the entrance as the aperture yawned larger, exposing a vehicle like a large car which waited to emerge. The German was moving unsteadily as he climbed behind the driver's seat and he paused to wipe something which might have been blood from his forehead. The engine started up and the vehicle began to move slowly out of the nose with a rattling sound as the driver slumped over the wheel as though he could hardly hold himself up. There was little doubt that he had been badly knocked about by the crash-landing. Prentice, who had come out from cover with Grapos, spoke over the Scot's shoulder. 'If we could just grab that…'

'Exactly what I was thinking, but there are bound to be more men inside.'

Ford grabbed his arm and his voice reflected a rare excitement for the phlegmatic sergeant. 'It's a bloody half-track! Look!'

The clanking sound grew louder as the vehicle came out with painful slowness and the dazed driver remained still unaware of their proximity. Capless, he was wearing the uniform of the Alpenkorps, but it was the vehicle itself which Macomber was staring at as he put his hand inside his coat pocket and began to move forward purposefully over the grass. A long vehicle without any roof, its body was painted a drab olive-grey and at the front it was supported by two normal wheels, but there were no wheels at the rear; instead it was held up by two large caterpillar tracks. As Ford had said, a half-track -half-tank, half-car. The grinding of the tracks was muffled as they moved down onto the grass and now the driver lifted his head to see where he was going and saw Macomber standing a few feet away. The Scot spoke swiftly, rapping out the words in German.

'Brake! Colonel Burckhardt is here. He needs this vehicle at once!'

The driver reacted automatically to the command in German, braked, then stared hard at the man who had given the order. His eyes travelled over the Scot's shoulder to where Prentice and Ford were moving forward while Grapos watched the road behind. As he made a sudden movement to reach something Macomber pulled out the Luger and struck him across the temples. He had the door open and was hauling the soldier out before he had sagged to the floor while Prentice and Ford ran to either side of the open mouth of the glider. Heaving the driver out onto the grass with one hand while the other still retained the Luger, he looked up as another German soldier appeared at the open nose, his rifle at the ready. Two shots were fired within the fraction of a second. The first, fired by the soldier, struck Ford. The second, fired by Macomber, entered the German's body as Prentice ran round the back of the vehicle, arriving at the moment when the Alpenkorps man slumped down in the space between the rear of the tracks.

'Heads down!' it was Prentice who shouted as he snatched a grenade dangling from the fallen German's belt. The grenade sailed into the interior of the glider and detonated near the back. A moment earlier Macomber had caught a glimpse of movement from inside the plane, but when he raised his head after the thumping explosion there was no further sign of activity aboard the Gotha. Ford was holding onto the side of the tracks as he stooped forward on his knees, but he was trying to clamber up as Prentice and Macomber reached him. The passage of the bullet was marked by a neat tear on the right shoulder of his sheepskin coat. Prentice had an arm round his chest and was helping him to his feet as Macomber spoke.

'Get him aboard quick! I'll have to try and drive this blasted thing – they'll be on to us in a minute.'

Ford was upright now, one arm clutching Prentice round the waist for support as he clambered inside a cut-out aperture which was the rear-door of the half-track. He spoke through his teeth to Macomber. 'Drives like a car… any car… the tracks move with the wheels.' Macomber was turning to go to the front when he saw the distinctive Alpenkorps cap on the head of the soldier slumped between the tracks. He scooped it off and rammed it down over his own head as Grapos arrived, running at a shuffling jog-trot with his rifle between his hands.

'The mules are here,' he gasped out. 'Coming over the hill quickly. I think the first man…'

'Get in, for God's sake.'

Prentice had successfully manoeuvred Ford into one of the benches behind the two front seats and Macomber was behind the wheel as Grapos climbed aboard. Brake, clutch-pedal, gear-lever – it looked like an ordinary car. Ford told Prentice to shut up a minute and leaned forward. 'An ordinary car, Macomber, that's all it is – for driving, anyway.' He sagged back against the bench seat as Prentice grabbed at a first-aid kit attached to the rear of the driving-seat and then the vehicle began moving forward over the grass towards the road. The tracks clanked gently as they revolved over the field and the vehicle had a feeling of great stability.

Macomber was concentrating on three things at once – on getting to know how this queer monster worked, on keeping an eye on the hilltop over which the Alpenkorps might stream at any moment, and with what little attention he had left he cast quick glances to the south where the road ran past the landing zone. The sky was littered with a fresh wave of falling parachutists and another transport plane had just come to a halt after a bumpy landing. Dammit, he said to himself and speeded up. The half-track reached the road at the moment when the leading Alpenkorps soldier crested the rise on his mule.

Hahnemann! Macomber felt certain it was the German lieutenant on that animal. He must have been hurled overboard into the sea when the Hydra blew up, must have been one of those men swimming in the water. The thought darted through his brain as it all became a kaleidoscope and he reacted with pure instinct. Two more men on mules appeared behind Hahnemann. Parachutists hitting the earth, their 'chutes landing and pulling sideways. A giant glider cruising in to land on the brownish area. The steady throb of planes' engines overhead mingling with the urgent shouts of the men on the mules. Still feeling like a man towing a caravan, he turned the wheel and the half-track climbed onto the road. As its great metal tracks ground their teeth into the hard tar they set up a jarring vibration sound and the unexpected barrage of noise panicked the mules. There was more shouting, frantic now, as the animals headed across the hilltop, threading their way nimbly among the boulders and away from the strange machine. Macomber completed his turn, hunched his shoulders, pressed his foot down, and the half-track began to build up speed as the wheels spun and the tracks churned round faster and faster, half-deafening its passengers with the pounding beat of metal on tar.

'How fast can it go?' shouted the Scot.

'Twenty… thirty… forty. Fifty would be pushing it.* Ford had his arm out of the sleeve now and was taking off the right side of his jacket as he replied. There were three rows of bench seats across the vehicle behind the front seats and Grapos occupied the rear position. He had aimed his rifle at Hahnemann but the half-track had lurched at the wrong moment, almost throwing him off, and he hadn't fired a shot. Now there was no target – the mules and their riders were lost somewhere inside the tangle of boulders. He swore colourfully in Greek when Macomber shouted over his shoulder for him to get down on the floor out of sight – Grapos was rather too distinctive a figure for his Liking at the moment.

Ahead more transport planes were droning in the sky as they waited their moment to come down, and already the plateau to the right of the road had the look of a disorganized military tattoo. So far there were no troops close to the road but a few hundred yards away parachutists were grappling with the supply containers and a number of men were already armed with machine-pistols. Several looked up as the half-track roared past and their uniform was very different from that of the Alpenkorps, so different that they might have belonged to another army. They wore pot-shaped helmets not dissimilar to diving helmets, smocks camouflaged with mottled dark green and brown, and overall trousers which gave them a deceptively clumsy appearance, but there was nothing clumsy about their movements as they began to form np in sections.- Macomber, having got the feel of the vehicle, was now sitting very erect so his Alpenkorps cap was prominently on view and frequently he drove with one hand while he waved with the other to the men assembling in the field, a performance which Prentice witnessed with some trepidation. It was typical of Macomber, he was thinking., to carry the bluff to its utmost limit,

'Lookout!'

Prentice shrieked out the warning. Like Macomber, all his attention had been fixed on the airborne force's landing area and it was only by chance that he glanced to the left. A Gotha assault glider released from its tow-rope was coming in to land from the east. It was already flying very low, perhaps twenty feet above the ground, flying on a course which would take it directly across the road just ahead of the speeding half-track. Prentice guessed that the pilot was desperately trying to maintain Sight long enough to take his machine beyond the marshland area and it was horribly clear that the two very different forms of transport were headed on a collision course. Macomber had time to slow down but nearby a drawn-up section of parachutists was marching steadily towards the road. If he slowed, stopped, they'd get a damn good look at who was inside the vehicle and they had machine-pistols looped over their shoulders. Without hesitation he accelerated and it became a race towards destruction.

His shoulders hunched again, he watched road and oncoming glider. It was an uncomfortably fine calculation -known speed of half-track against estimated speed of glider, with the added element of tie plane's angle of descent. The half-track was now thundering down the road, which had begun to slope, at a pace which alarmed Prentice, the tracks rotating madly under increasing tension as the moving racial smashed its way forward with a rattling cannonade of sound.

Across the green field the glider grew larger as it maintained its course unerringly and lost more height. He must be mad, Prentice was thinking. Macomber's going to try and beat the bloody thing, to sneak past ahead of it! The glider was so close now that he wanted to close his eyes, to look away, but he felt a terrible compulsion to stare at the oncoming machine which now seemed enormous.

'We won't make it,' said Ford who had now become aware of what was happening, and Ford was good at this sort of hair's breadth calculation. Prentice would have felt even less happy had he known that exactly the same thought was pressing down on Macomber, and now it was too late to think of reducing speed. The converging projectiles were so close that he would probably smash into the tail of the glider as it passed. The only answer was a little more speed.

The downward gradient of the road was increasing as he pressed his foot harder and prayed – prayed against two catastrophes. He had heard somewhere that if you drive a tracked vehicle too fast a caterpillar could break loose, freeing itself from the small wheels over which it revolved and leave the vehicle altogether. If that happened at the speed they were moving at now there would be very little hope of survival. Grimly, he kept his foot down, his mind totally concentrated on the straight road ahead, the tortured gyrations of the overstrained tracks, and that huge drifting shape about to move across his bows. Prentice had one arm steadying Ford while the other hand gripped the side of the vehicle as the glider lost more height and cruised forward barely six feet above the plateau and less than fifty yards from the road. Grapos, tying resentfully on the floor with his feet under a bench and his back against the rear of the vehicle, had the shock of his life when he looked up and saw the bulk of the Gotha loom up. The half-track raced forward, Grapos involuntarily ducked, and the wing of the Gotha passed over the rear of the vehicle, landing a short distance beyond the road.

Prentice sagged against the back of the bench and stared at the back of the huge Scot, his lips moving soundlessly. Macomber was already slowing down to a safer speed, expecting some uncomplimentary comment from his passengers, but the occupants of the bench were stunned, so he was saved an argument. In the distance a transport plane was stationary close to the road and Macomber whistled under his breath when he saw something which looked like a part of a field-gun coming down a ramp through a large opening in the fuselage. "How is Ford?' he called out over his shoulder.

'Ford is surviving,' Ford replied.

'The bullet grazed him,' amplified Prentice who was now fixing a bandage to his final satisfaction. 'He's lost a bit of blood and he looks like Banquo's ghost but the fresh air will probably tone him up a treat.'

'There's a plane ahead with something coming out – better try and identify it so we know what we're up against.'

'We can see what we're up against,' Prentice told him bluntly. 'The cream of the Wehrmacht. And I suppose you've seen there are more half-tracks over to the right? One's just nosed its way out of that Gotha which just missed us.'

'Do you think we're nearly clear of them?' asked Ford and there was a note of anxiety in his voice.

'Not much ahead as far as I can see. Why?' Macomber had detected the anxious note and was wondering what had struck the technically minded Ford.

'Because we've been lucky so far – it's wireless communication that worries me. If the Alpenkorps who came over the hill can send a message ahead we may have a reception committee waiting for us.'.

It was a point which had worried Prentice but he hadn't seen any point in raising new problems at this particular juncture. So far they had got away with their audacious dash along the fringe of the assembly area, and this didn't entirely surprise him: the Germans had just landed on enemy territory and were taken up with carrying out a certain vital routine – collection of weapons from the supply containers, the unloading of heavy equipment from the gliders and transport planes, and the assembling of the men into their units. They had no reason, when their attention was so divided, to see anything strange in one of their own recently landed half-tracks speeding along the road to Zervos. But wireless communication was a different matter.

'We may "be lucky,' said Macomber. 'I made a mess of both of Burckhardt's wireless sets and if he hasn't got that tuning coil fixed he'll have to wait until he finds one with this airborne mob. Now, watch it, Ford.'

He had been travelling at little more than twenty miles an hour to give the tracks a rest but now he began to build up speed again as they approached the transport plane which had landed little more than a hundred yards from the road. Men were scurrying round the machine and he saw beyond it another plane which had been hidden from view. Close to the aircraft stood a complete field-piece. Ford twisted sideways on the bench as they roared past and this time, to Prentice's relief, the Scot did not attempt his cheerful waving act. The planes were receding behind them when Ford spoke.

'They're 75-mm mountain guns – just what they need where they're going. And I saw several 8-cm mortars. This lot is really going places."

'Some of the half-tracks will haul the mountain guns?* Prentice inquired.

'Yes, that's it. And they'll carry troops aboard as well, They've landed a beautiful heavy-nosed spearhead for the job.'

'Why send Burckhardt's expedition at all?' Macomber asked.

'That's very necessary,' Prentice explained, 'for a variety of reasons. First, if they hadn't had this patch of clear weather the airborne force could never have landed at all and then Burckhardt would have had to do the whole job himself. Second, I can see now that it was vital for them to land men at Katyra to seal off the peninsula…'

'And third,' interjected Ford, 'there's a limit to how much a glider or transport can carry. You can have heavy stuff – the mountain guns, the half-tracks – or you can have men, but you can't have both. So it's my bet Burckhardt's expedition is bringing in a sizable portion of the manpower while the airborne fleet brings in the heavy stuff. Together, it makes up a beautifully balanced force.'

'That's the second time you've used the word "beautiful",' Prentice complained. 'Frankly, I can't see one damned thing that's beautiful in what's coming to us.'

'Just a professional observation, sir,' Ford explained blandly.

'I think we've left them behind," Macomber called out. 'It looks as though those two planes landed closest to Zervos.'

The road stretched away across the plateau and still ran straight as a Roman road, a perfect highway for the advance of the German invaders. They were much closer to the mountain now but it no longer rose from its base with majestic symmetry; a heavy cloud bank from the east was drifting across the lower slopes and the peak had a lop-sided look. The disturbed Aegean was no longer visible from the plateau and another formation of low cloud was gradually obliterating the tableland itself. The road was sloping upwards as it climbed' towards the mountain wall and Macomber could feel a distinct drop in temperature as the wind grew stronger. The worsening of the weather was a development he viewed with some disenchantment; his photographic memory for places vividly recalled that murderous stretch of road farther on which zigzagged up the flank of the mountain, a road twisting and turning over precipitous drops as it ascended into the wilderness.

At least Burckhardt's tracked spearhead wouldn't be able to do a Le Mans over that course, but the trouble was he had to take the half-track up the same road. The gradient was increasing more steeply as Prentice called out to him.

'How are we off for petrol?'

'We had a hundred litres – a full tank – when we started, so that's the least of our problems.'

'The pilot of the glider would insist on a full tank before he took off,' Ford pointed out helpfully. 'That minimizes the risk of something going wrong during the flight – an explosion, even.'

Prentice groaned half-audibly. 'And talking about trouble, I don't much like the look of that dirty weather blowing up from the east.'

'Is the Greek still on the floor?' Macomber asked. 'He can get up now if he is and give us his opinion – a Met forecast, in fact.'

Prentice glanced round and lifted his eyes to heaven. Grapos was sprawled on his side with the rifle cuddled in his arms and he was fast asleep. The coil of Alpenkorps climbing rope, which earlier he had pulled from under a bench and examined with interest, lay with a German army satchel at his feet. How anyone could kip down on top of those vibrating tracks passed Prentice's comprehension. 'The Greek,' he announced in a loud voice, 'is in dreamland.'

'Well, wake him up,' Macomber commanded brutally.

Disturbed from his slumber, Grapos sat on the bench behind Prentice who put the question about the coming weather to him. He stared across the plateau, pulling absently at one corner of his moustache and then feeling the stubble on his chin. Then he stared ahead to where the mountain was fast losing itself behind the vaporous pall which was drifting across the plateau in front of them. As he watched, the mountain disappeared. 'It is bad,' he said. 'It is very bad. The worst. There will be much snow within the hour.'

'Exactly what makes you predict that?' Macomber called back to him sharply.

'It is from the east. The clouds are low. They are like a cow with calf – swollen with snow…'

'First time I've heard of cows with snow inside them.' Prentice commented in an effort to lighten the pall Grapos himself was spreading over them. But the Greek was not to be put off by unseemly levity.

'The sea has gone from the plateau – that is another sign. The top of the mountain has gone – another sign. As we climb it will get worse and worse. It will be very cold and there will be a big fall of snow.'

'Thank you,' said Prentice, 'you're fired! We'll get another met forecaster from the BBC.'

'You ask me – I tell you. There may be landslides on the mountain. There will be ice on the road…'

'And the sea shall rise up and encompass us, so we'd better find a Noah's Ark,' said Prentice in a kind of frenzy. 'For Pete's sake, man, we asked you for a weather forecast – not a gipsy's warning of doom. Now can it!' And he looks a bit like a gipsy, the old brigand, he thought as Grapos glared at him resentfully and then gazed stolidly ahead as though drawing their attention to the appalling prospect which lay before them. 'That answer your question, Mac?' he called out.

'I think so. Further outlook unsettled.'

It was the reference to ice on the road which most disturbed the Scot. He would have to take this cumbersome half-track up a route which, five years before, a car had found difficulty in negotiating in good weather, because during that trip only the plateau had been blotted out by low cloud. It would make it equally hazardous for Burckhardt, of course, so it really depended on which way you looked at the problem, but Macomber was going to be in front with the Germans coming up behind. He changed gear as the gradient increased again and they were moving at little more than twenty miles an hour when Prentice asked if he could borrow the Monokular glass. He kept it for only a short time and then handed it back as he spoke.

'You were right, the outlook is unsettled – behind us. A half-track is coming after us like a bat out of hell. It could be Hahnemann aboard, but I'm only guessing, of course.' 'How many men?' Macomber was already trying to coax a fraction more speed out of the vehicle.

'Three or four. I couldn't be sure. He's on the flat at the moment so he'll have to slow down when he starts coming up.' Ford and Grapos twisted round on their benches and saw in the distance the half-track coming towards them at speed. Macomber was watching what appeared to be the crest of the hill they were climbing and beyond it the cloud hid the base of the mountain which must be very close. He would bave to cut-drive Hahnemann up that devilish road: the snag was he would soon be slowed down by the mist while the German could drive full-tilt up to this point, thus narrowing the gap between them to almost zero. The weather was certainly not their friend at the moment. He drove up steadily, reached the crest, and immediately the road turned and dropped into a dip between dry-stone walls- where it turned again. The oxen were massed at the bend.

There were three Greek peasants with the animals which had accumulated at this point, and they were shouting their heads off and flailing the beasts with birches made of slim stems. So far as Macomber could see as he drove down towards them their efforts were only adding to the confusion and the road was well and truly blocked. With the thought of that other half-track tearing towards them, he pulled up his own vehicle inches from the chaos of animals and drovers. 'Sort them out, Grapos! Get them moving and damned quickly! They can shove them on to that bit of grass by the next bend till we get past. Then tell them to block the road again.' He waited while Grapos got out of the vehicle and began shouting at the drovers, who, at first, simply shouted back. An ox rested its horned head on the side of the half-track and stared at Ford with interest. Grapos continued his shouting and gesticulating match with the drovers and Prentice felt his temper going. A minute later the animals were still milling round the vehicle and Grapos was still conducting his verbal war with his countrymen. Something snapped inside Macomber. He stood up, pulled out his Luger and fired it over the heads of men and beasts. The animals panicked and began to trot off down the road, followed by the drovers who penned them into the grassy area while the half-track grumbled past them.

'You told them to block the road again?' Macomber shouted back to Grapos who had resumed his seat on the bench.

'I told them the Germans were coming and they must make them wait.'

Macomber swore violently to himself: mention of the Germans coming would undoubtedly frighten the drovers so much they'd keep their animals penned up off the road until the second half-track had passed. They had closed the road to him but he felt sure they would open it to the Germans. Something pretty drastic had to be done to widen the gap between the two vehicles. The road was straightening out once more as it went down a hill between high earthen banks, so he accelerated. The half-track built up speed rapidly under the pressure of his foot and he felt a coldness on his face as the road flew away under him. The mist was floating aimlessly and as it drifted to and fro he caught glimpses of the mountain wall rising up like an immense fortress bastion. Here and there pinnacles of rock spurred upwards and then vanished as the mist closed in again. Glancing at the speedometer, he saw that they were moving at the equivalent of fifty miles an hour and he was well aware that only the weight and stability of the racing tracks were holding them on the road. When the mist parted again momentarily he saw a stone bridge at the bottom and the old route came back to him: beyond the bridge the road veered to the right and then started its fierce climb up the mountain. Within a minute or two he would be reduced to crawling pace as he attempted the first acute bend and the realization of this fact made him exert a trifle more foot pressure.

Behind him Ford was white-faced with the aftermath of his wound, but Prentice was white-faced at the speed they were travelling as he clung tightly to the arm of the bench seat which was shuddering so violently that he was scared the screws attaching it to the floor might soon shake loose. Grapos had wedged himself in against the side of the vehicle, and when Prentice glanced back he thought he saw for the first time a flicker of uncertainty in the Greek's narrowed eyes. Ford's-reaction was brief but significant: he leaned forward, stared at the speedometer, then braced his back against the bench. In his determination to out-distance the following half-track Macomber seemed to be going far beyond the bounds of a calculated risk as he drove steadily downwards, the high earthen banks sliding past them in a blur, the sound of the pounding tracks confined inside the sunken road like the noise from a stamping mill, and now the revolving metal was developing a disconnected rhythm which brought Prentice's raw nerves to screaming point. Was the Scot intent on killing every man aboard?

The mist had rolled like a grey fog over the gulley below, temporarily blotting out the narrowing distance between the rushing half-track and the bridge, and it was only when the greyness dispersed briefly that Macomber grasped his mistake, understood that he had overestimated his margin of safety badly, saw the bridge – with the right-angled turn beyond -soaring up towards him, alarmingly close. He began to lose speed knowing that he was too late, that the half-track must still be moving too fast when the moment came to swing the wheel, to turn to the left sharply over the bridge and then turn to the right even more sharply once he was across it. He lost more speed, lost it dangerously quickly, and behind him his three passengers – Grapos now on his feet, grasping the rear of the bench which seated Prentice and Ford – were like frozen men, men who had lost all ability to move even as they stared petrified at what lay ahead of them, knowing that they were going straight through the bridge wall into the river below.