‘So you came back?’
‘As you can see,’ Mallory agreed.
Droshny looked at the ponies. ‘And travelling in comfort.’
‘A present from our good friend Major Broznik.’ Mallory grinned. ‘He thinks we’re heading for Konjic on them.’
Droshny didn’t appear to care very much what Major Broznik had thought. He jerked his head, wheeled his horse and set off at a fast trot for Neufeld’s camp.
When they had dismounted inside the compound, Droshny immediately led Mallory into Neufeld’s hut. Neufeld’s welcome, like Droshny’s, was something less than ecstatic, but at least he succeeded in imparting a shade more benevolence to his neutrality. His face held, also, just a hint of surprise, a reaction which he explained at once.
‘Candidly, Captain, I did not expect to see you again. There were so many – ah – imponderables. However, I am delighted to see you – you would not have returned without the information I wanted. Now then, Captain Mallory, to business.’
Mallory eyed Neufeld without enthusiasm. ‘You’re not a very business-like partner, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m not?’ Neufeld said politely. ‘In what way?’
‘Business partners don’t tell lies to each other. Sure you said Vukalovic’s troops are massing. So they are indeed. But not, as you said, to break out. Instead, they’re massing to defend themselves against the final German attack, the assault that is to crush them once and for all, and this assault they believe to be imminent.’
‘Well, now, you surely didn’t expect me to give away our military secrets – which you might, I say might, have relayed to the enemy – before you had proved yourselves,’ Neufeld said reasonably. ‘You’re not that naive. About this proposed attack. Who gave you the information?’
‘Major Broznik.’ Mallory smiled in recollection. ‘He was very expansive.’
Neufeld leaned forward, his tension reflected in the sudden stillness of his face, in the way his unblinking eyes held Mallory’s. ‘And did they say where they expected this attack to come?’
‘I only know the name. The bridge at Neretva.’
Neufeld sank back into his chair, exhaled a long soundless sigh of relief and smiled to rob his next words of any offence. ‘My friend, if you weren’t British, a deserter, a renegade and a dope-peddler, you’d get the Iron Cross for this. By the way,’ he went on, as if by casual afterthought, ‘you’ve been cleared from Padua.
The bridge at Neretva? You’re sure of this?’
Mallory said irritably: ‘If you doubt my word -‘
‘Of course not, of course not. Just a manner of speaking.’ Neufeld paused for a few moments, then said softly: ‘The bridge at Neretva.’ The way he spoke them, the words sounded almost like a litany.
Droshny said softly: ‘This fits in with all we suspected.’
‘Never mind what you suspected,’ Mallory said rudely. ‘To my business now, if you don’t mind. We have done well, you would say? We have fulfilled your request, got the precise information you wanted?’ Neufeld nodded. ‘Then get us the hell out of here. Fly us deep into some German-held territory. Into Austria or Germany itself, if you like – the farther away from here the better. You know what will happen to us if we ever again fall into British or Yugoslav hands?’
‘It’s not hard to guess,’ Neufeld said almost cheerfully. ‘But you misjudge us, my friend. Your departure to a place of safety has already been arranged. A certain Chief of Military Intelligence in northern Italy would very much like to make your personal acquaintance. He has reason to believe that you can be of great help to him.’ Mallory nodded his understanding.
General Vukalovic trained his binoculars on the Zenica Gap, a narrow and heavily-wooded valley floor lying between the bases of two high and steep-shouldered mountains, mountains almost identical in both shape and height.
The German 11th Army Corps tanks among the pines were not difficult to locate, for the Germans had made no attempt either to camouflage or conceal them, measure enough, Vukalovic thought grimly, of the Germans’ total confidence in themselves and in the outcome of the battle that lay ahead. He could clearly see soldiers working on some stationary vehicles: other tanks were backing and filling and manoeuvring into position as if making ready to take up battle formation for the actual attack: the deep rumbling roar of the heavy engines of Tiger tanks was almost incessant.
Vukalovic lowered his glasses, jotted down a few more pencil marks on a sheet of paper already almost covered with similar pencil marks, performed a few exercises in addition, laid paper and pencil aside with sigh and turned to Colonel Janzy, who was similarly engaged.
Vukalovic said wryly: ‘My apologies to your staff, Colonel. They can count just as well as I can.’
For once, Captain Jensen’s piratical swagger and flash-confident smile were not very much in evidence: It that moment, in fact, they were totally absent. It could have been impossible for a face of Jensen’s generous proportions ever to assume an actually haggard appearance, but the set, grim face displayed unmistakable signs of strain and anxiety and sleeplessness he paced up and down the 5th Army Operations Headquarters in Termoli in Italy.
He did not pace alone. Beside him, matching him step for step, a burly grey-haired officer in the uniform a lieutenant-general in the British Army accompanied him backwards and forwards, the expression his face an exact replica of that on Jensen’s. As they came to the farther end of the room, the General stopped and glanced interrogatively at a head-phone Wearing sergeant in front of a large RCA transceiver, the sergeant slowly shook his head. The two men resumed their pacing.
The General said abruptly: ‘Time is running out. You do appreciate, Jensen, that once you launch a major offensive you can’t possibly stop it?’
‘I appreciate it,’ Jensen said heavily. ‘What are the latest reconnaissance reports, sir?’
‘There is no shortage of reports, but God alone knows what to make of them all.’ The General sounded bitter. ‘There’s intense activity all along the Gustav Line, involving – as far as we can make out – two Panzer divisions, one German infantry division, one Austrian infantry division and two Jaeger battalions – their crack Alpine troops. They’re not mounting an offensive, that’s for sure – in the first place, there’s no possibility of their making an offensive from the areas in which they are manoeuvring and in the second place if they were contemplating an offensive they’d take damn good care to keep all their preparations secret.’
‘All this activity, then? If they’re not planning an attack.’
The General sighed. ‘Informed opinion has it that they’re making all preparations for a lightning pull-out. Informed opinion! All that concerns me is that those blasted divisions are still in the Gustav Line. Jensen, what has gone wrong?’
Jensen lifted his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. ‘It was arranged for a radio rendezvous every two hours from four a.m. -‘
‘There have been no contacts whatsoever.’
Jensen said nothing.
The General looked at him, almost speculatively. The best in Southern Europe, you said.’
‘Yes, I did say that.’
The General’s unspoken doubts as to the quality of the agents Jensen had selected for operation Force 10 would have been considerably heightened if he had been at that moment present with those agents in the guest hut in Hauptmann Neufeld’s camp in Bosnia. They were exhibiting none of the harmony, understanding and implicit mutual trust which one would have expected to find among a team of agents rated as the best in the business. There was, instead, tension and anger in the form of an air of suspicion and mistrust so heavy as to be almost palpable. Reynolds, confronting Mallory, had is anger barely under control.
‘I want to know now!’ Reynolds almost shouted lie words.
‘Keep your voice down,’ Andrea said sharply. ‘I want to know now,’ Reynolds repeated. This time his voice was little more than a whisper, but none the less demanding and insistent for that.
‘You’ll be told when the time comes.’ As always, Mallory’s voice was calm and neutral and devoid of heat. ‘Not till then. What you don’t know, you can’t tell.’
Reynolds clenched his fists and advanced a step. ‘Are you damn well insinuating that -‘
Mallory said with restraint: ‘I’m insinuating nothing. I was right, back in Termoli, Sergeant. You’re no better than a ticking time-bomb.’
‘Maybe.’ Reynolds’s fury was out of control now. ‘But at least there’s something honest about a bomb.’
‘Repeat that remark,’ Andrea said quietly.
‘What?’
‘Repeat it.’
‘Look, Andrea -‘
‘Colonel Stavros, sonny.’
‘Sir.’
‘Repeat it and I’ll guarantee you a minimum of five years for insubordination in the field.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Reynolds’s physical effort to bring himself under control was apparent to everyone. ‘But why should he not tell us his plans for this afternoon and at the same time let us all know that we’ll be leaving from this Ivenici place tonight?’