Plane and truck came to a halt at the same moment. Jensen, displaying a surprising agility for one of his very considerable bulk, hopped nimbly to the ground and strode briskly across the tarmac and arrived at the Wellington just as its door opened and the first of the passengers, the moustached major, swung to the ground.
Jensen nodded to the papers clutched in the major’s hand and said without preamble: ‘Those for me?’
The major blinked uncertainly, then nodded stiffly return, clearly irked by this abrupt welcome for a in just returned from durance vile. Jensen took the papers without a further word, went back to his seat the jeep, brought out a flashlight and studied the papers briefly. He twisted in his seat and said to the radio operator seated beside the General: ‘Flight plan as stated. Target as indicated. Now.’ The radio operator began to crank the handle.
Some fifty miles to the south-east, in the Foggia area, the buildings and runways of the RAF heavy bomber base echoed and reverberated to the thunder scores of aircraft engines: at the dispersal area at the west end of the main runway several squadrons Lancaster heavy bombers were lined up ready for take-off, obviously awaiting the signal to go. The signal was not long in coming.
Halfway down the airfield, but well to one side the main runway, was parked a jeep identical to one in which Jensen was sitting in Termoli. In the back seat a radio operator was crouched over a radio, earphones to his head. He listened intently, and then looked up and said matter-of-factly: ‘Instructions as stated. Now. Now. Now.’
‘Instructions as stated,’ a captain in the front seat repeated. ‘Now. Now. Now.’ He reached for a wooden box, produced three Very pistols, aimed directly across the runway and fired each in turn. The brilliantly arcing flares burst into incandescent life, green, red and green again, before curving slowly back to earth.
The thunder at the far end of the airfield mounted to rumbling crescendo and the first of the Lancasters began to move. Within a few minutes the last of them had taken off and was lifting into the darkly hostile night skies of the Adriatic.
‘I did say, I believe,’ Jensen remarked conversationally and comfortably to the General in the back seat, ‘that they are the best in the business. Our friends from Foggia are on their way.’
‘The best in the business. Maybe. I don’t know What I do know is that those damned German and Austrian divisions are still in position in the Gustav Line. Zero hour for the assault on the Gustav Line is he glanced at his watch – ‘in exactly thirty hours.’
‘Time enough,’ Jensen said confidently.
‘I wish I shared this blissful confidence.’
Jensen smiled cheerfully at him as the jeep moved off, then faced forward in his seat again. As he did the smile vanished completely from his face and hi fingers beat a drum tattoo on the seat beside him.
The moon had broken through again as Neufeld, Droshny and their men came galloping into camp and reined in ponies so covered with steam from their heaving flanks and distressed breathing as t<> have a weirdly insubstantial appearance in the pal< moonlight. Neufeld swung from his pony and turned to Sergeant Baer.'How many ponies left in the stables?'Twenty. About that.''Quickly. And as many men as there are ponies Saddle up.'Neufeld gestured to Droshny and together they ran towards the radio hut. The door, ominously enough on that icy night, was standing wide open. They were still ten feet short of the door when Neufeld shouted: The Nevetva bridge at once. Tell General Zimmermann -''He halted abruptly in the doorway, Droshny by his shoulder. For the second time that evening the faces of men reflected their stunned disbelief, their total uncomprehending shock.Only one small lamp burned in the radio hut, that one small lamp was enough. Two men on the floor in grotesquely huddled positions, one lying partially across the other: both were unmistakably dead. Beside them, with its face-ripped off and interior smashed, lay the mangled remains of what had once been a transmitter. Neufeld gazed at the scene for some time before shaking his violently as if to break the shocked spell and turned to Droshny. 'The big one,' he said quietly. The big one did this.''The big one,' Droshny agreed. He was almost smiled, 'You will remember what you promised, Hauptman Neufeld? The big one. He's for me.''You shall have him. Come. They can be only minutes ahead.' Both men turned and ran back to compound where Sergeant Baer and a group of soldiers were already saddling up the ponies, machine-pistols only,' Neufeld shouted. 'No rifles. It will be close-quarter work tonight. And Sergeant Baer?''Hauptmann Neufeld?''Inform the men that we will not be taking prisoners.'AS those of Neufeld and his men had been, the ponies of Mallory and his six companions were almost Invisible in the dense clouds of steam rising from their sweat-soaked bodies: their lurching gait, which could not now even be called a trot, was token enough of the obvious fact that they had reached the limits of exhaustion. Mallory glanced at Andrea, who nodded and said: 'I agree. We'd make faster time on foot now ' 'I must be getting old,' Mallory said, and for a moment he sounded that way. 'I'm not thinking very well tonight, am I?' 'I do not understand,''Ponies. Neufeld and his men will have fresh ponies from the stables. We should have killed them - or at least driven them away.''Age is not the same thing as lack of sleep. Ii never occurred to me, either. A man cannot think of everything, my Keith.' Andrea reined in his pony and was about to swing down when something on the slope below caught his attention. He pointed ahead.A minute later they drew up alongside a very narrow-gauge railway line, of a type common in Central Yugoslavia. At this level the snow had petered out and the track, they could see, was overgrown and rusty, but for all that, apparently in fair enough mechanical condition: undoubtedly, it was the sam< track that had caught their eye when they had paused to examine the green waters of the Neretva dam on the way back from Major Broznik's camp that morning. Bin what simultaneously caught and held the attention of both Mallory and Miller was not the track itself, but a little siding leading on to the track - and a diminutive wood-burning locomotive that stood on the siding. Tin locomotive was practically a solid block of rust and looked as if it hadn't moved from its present position since the beginning of the war: in all probability, h hadn't.Mallory produced a large-scale map from his tunic and flashed a torch on it. He said: 'No doubt of it, this is the track we saw this morning. It goes down along the Neretva for at least five miles before bearing off the south.' He paused and went on thoughtfully: 'I wonder if we could get that thing moving.''What?' Miller looked at him in horror. 'It'll fall to bs if you touch it - it's only the rust that's holding damn thing together. And that gradient there!' He in dismay down the slope. 'What do you think our terminal velocity is going to be when we hit one of monster pine trees a few miles down the track?''The ponies are finished,' Mallory said mildly, 'and know how much you love walking.' Miller looked at the locomotive with loathing.'There must be some other way.''Shh' Andrea cocked his head. 'They're coming, I can hear them coming.''Get the chocks away from those front wheels,' Miller shouted. He ran forward and after several violent and well-directed kicks which clearly took into no account future state of his toes, succeeded in freeing the triangular block which was attached to the front of the locomotive by a chain: Reynolds, no less energetically, did the same for the other chock.All of them, even Maria and Petar helping, flung their weight against the rear of the locomotive, locomotive remained where it was. They tried in, despairingly: the wheels refused to budge even faction of an inch. Groves said, with an odd mixture urgency and diffidence: 'Sir, on a gradient like this, Would have been left with its brakes on.''Oh my God!' Mallory said in chagrin. 'Andrea. Quick - Release the brake lever.'Andrea swung himself on to the footplate. He said complainingly: 'There are a dozen damned levers up here-''Well, open the dozen damned levers, then.' Mallory glanced anxiously back up the track. Maybe Andrea had heard something, maybe not: there was certainly no one in sight yet. But he knew that Neufeld and Droshny, who must have been released from the block-house only minutes after they had left then themselves and who knew those woods and path better than they did, must be very close indeed by this time.