I Andrea’s affability vanished. He walked unhurriedly round the table and rammed the Luger’s silencer with such force against Droshny’s teeth that he gasped in pain. ‘Please -‘ Andrea’s voice was almost beseeching ‘please don’t tempt me.’
Droshny didn’t tempt him. Mallory moved to the window and peered out over the compound. There were, he saw, at least a dozen Cetniks within thirty feet of Neufeld’s hut, all of them armed. Across the other side of the compound he could see that the door the stables was open indicating that Miller and the two sergeants were in position.
‘You will walk across the compound to the stables,’ Mallory said. ‘You will talk to nobody, warn nobody, make no signals. We will follow about ten yards behind.’
‘Ten yards behind. What’s to prevent us making a break for it? You wouldn’t dare hold a gun on us out there.’ ‘That’s so,’ Mallory agreed. ‘From the moment you open this door you’ll be covered by three Schmeissers from the stables. If you try anything – anything – you’ll be cut to pieces. That’s why we’re keeping well behind you – we don’t want to be cut to pieces too.’
At a gesture from Andrea, Neufeld and Droshny slung their empty Schmeissers in angry silence. Mallory looked at them consideringly and said: ‘I think you’d better do something about your expressions. They’re a dead giveaway that something is wrong. If you open that door with faces like that, Miller will cut you down before you reach the bottom step. Please try to believe me.’
They believed him and by the time Mallory opened the door had managed to arrange their features into a near enough imitation of normality. They went down the steps and set off across the compound to the stables. When they had reached halfway Andrea and Mallory left Neufeld’s hut and followed them. One or two glances of idle curiosity came their way, but clearly no one suspected that anything was amiss. The crossing to the stables was completely uneventful.
So also, two minutes later, was their departure from the camp. Neufeld and Droshny, as would have been proper and expected, rode together in the lead, Droshny in particular looking very warlike with his Schmeisser, pistol and the wickedly-curved knives at his waist. Behind them rode Andrea, who appeared to be having some trouble with the action of his Schmeisser, for he had it in his hands and was examining it closely: he certainly wasn’t looking at either Droshny or Neufeld and the fact that the gun barrel, which Andrea had sensibly pointed towards the ground, had only to be lifted a foot and the trigger pressed to riddle the two men ahead was a preposterous idea that would not have occurred to even the most suspicious. Behind Andrea,
Mallory and Miller rode abreast: like Andrea, they peered unconcerned, even slightly bored. Reynolds and Groves brought up the rear, almost but not quite attaining the degree of nonchalance of the other three: their still faces and restlessly darting eyes betrayed the strain they were under. But their anxiety was needless all seven passed from the camp not only unmolested without as much as even an enquiring glance being it in their direction.
They rode for over two and a half hours, climbing nearly all the time, and a blood-red sun was setting long the thinning pines to the west when they came across a clearing set on, for once, a level stretch of ground. Neufeld and Droshny halted their ponies and tatted until the others came up with them. Mallory rained in and gazed at the building in the middle of the clearing, a low, squat, immensely strong-looking dock-house, with narrow, heavily barred windows and two chimneys, from one of which smoke was coming. ‘This is the place?’ Mallory asked. ‘Hardly a necessary question.’ Neufeld’s voice was dry, but the underlying resentment and anger unmistakable.
‘You think I spent all this time leading you the wrong place?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past you,’ Mallory said. He examined the building more closely. ‘A hospitable-looking place.’
‘Yugoslav Army ammunition dumps were never intended as first-class hotels.’
‘I dare say not,’ Mallory agreed. At a signal from im they urged their ponies forward into the clearing, and as they did so two metal strips in the facing wall of the block-house slid back to reveal a air of embrasures with machine-pistols protruding. Exposed as they were, the seven mounted men were completely at the mercy of those menacing muzzles.
‘Your men keep a good watch,’ Mallory acknowledged to Neufeld. ‘You wouldn’t require many men to guard and hold a place like this. How many an there?’
‘Six,’ Neufeld said reluctantly.
‘Seven and you’re a dead man,’ Andrea warned.
‘Six.’
As they approached, the guns – almost certainly because the men behind them had identified Neufeld and Droshny-were withdrawn, the embrasures closed, the heavy metal front door opened. A sergeant appeared in the doorway and saluted respectfully, his fact registering a certain surprise.
‘An unexpected pleasure, Hauptmann Neufeld,’ the sergeant said. ‘We had no radio message informing us of your arrival.’
‘It’s out of action for the moment.’ Neufeld waved them inside but Andrea gallantly insisted on the German officer taking precedence, reinforcing his courtesy with a threatening hitch of his Schmeisser. Neufeld entered, followed by Droshny and the other five men The windows were so narrow that the burning oil lamps were obviously a necessity, the illumination they afforded being almost doubled by a large log fire blazing in the hearth. Nothing could ever overcome the bleakness created by four rough-cut stone walls, but the room itself was surprisingly well furnished with a table, chairs, two armchairs and a sofa: there were even some pieces of carpet. Three doors led off from the room, one heavily barred. Including the sergeant who had welcomed them, there were three armed soldiers in the room. Mallory glanced at Neufeld who nodded, his face tight in suppressed anger.
Neufeld said to one of the guards: ‘Bring out the .prisoners.’ The guard nodded, lifted a heavy key from the wall and headed for the barred door. The sergeant and the other guard were sliding the metal screens back across the embrasures. Andrea walked casually towards the nearest guard, then suddenly and violently shoved him against the sergeant. Both men cannoned the guard who had just inserted the key into door. The third man fell heavily to the ground: other two, though staggering wildly, managed to maintain a semblance of balance or at least remain on their feet. All three twisted round to stare at Andrea, anger and startled incomprehension in their faces, and three remained very still, and wisely so. Faced with Schmeisser machine-pistol at three paces, the wise always remains still.
Mallory said to the sergeant: ‘There are three others. Where are they?’
There was no reply: the guard glared at him in defiance. Mallory repeated the question, this time fluent German: the guard ignored him and looked questioningly at Neufeld, whose lips were tight-shut in a mask of stone.
‘Are you mad?’ Neufeld demanded of the sergeant.
‘Can’t you see those men are killers? Tell him.’
‘The night guards. They’re asleep.’ The sergeant pointed to a door. ‘That one.’
‘Open it. Tell them to walk out. Backwards and with their hands clasped behind their necks.’
‘Do exactly as you’re told,’ Neufeld ordered. The sergeant did exactly what he was told and so did the three guards who had been resting in the inner room, who walked out as they had been instructed, with obviously no thought of any resistance in their minds. Mallory turned to the guard with the key who had by this time picked himself up somewhat shakily from the floor, and nodded to the barred door.
‘Open it.’
The guard opened it and pushed the door wide. Four British officers moved out slowly and uncertainly into the outer room. Long confinement indoors had made them very pale, but apart from this prison pallor and the fact that they were rather thin they were obviously unharmed. The man in the lead, with a major’s insignia and a Sandhurst moustache – and, when he spoke a Sandhurst accent – stopped abruptly and stared in disbelief at Mallory and his men. ‘Good God above! What on earth are you chaps – ‘
‘Please.’ Mallory cut him short. ‘I’m sorry, but later collect your coats, whatever warm gear you have, and wait outside.’
‘But – but where are you taking us?’ ‘Home. Italy. Tonight. Please hurry!’ ‘Italy. You’re talking – ‘
‘Hurry!’ Mallory glanced in some exasperation ai his watch. ‘We’re late already.’
As quickly as their dazed condition would allow, the four officers collected what warm clothing they had and filed outside. Mallory turned to the sergeant again. ‘You must have ponies here, a stable.’
‘Round the back of the block-house,’ the sergeant said promptly. He had obviously made a rapid readjustment to the new facts of life.