‘Any injuries, any cracked bones or skulls?’ Mallory joked. He himself felt as if he had been over Niagara barrel. ‘No? Fine.’ He looked at Miller. ‘You stay ire with me. Andrea, take the others up round the far corner there and wait for us.’ ‘Me?’ Andrea objected mildly. He nodded towards He gully. ‘We’ve got friends that might be coming own there at any moment.’ Mallory took him some little way aside. ‘We also have friends,’ he said quietly, ‘who might just possibly be coming down-river from the dam garrison.’ He nodded at the two sergeants, Petar and Maria. ‘What would happen to them if they ran into an Alpenkorps patrol, do you think?’
‘I’ll wait for you round the corner.’
Andrea and the four others made their slow way up-river, slipping and stumbling over the wetly slimy rocks and boulders. Mallory and Miller withdrew into the protection and concealment of two large boulders and stared upwards.
Several minutes passed. The moon still shone and the top of the gully was still innocent of any sign of the enemy. Miller said uneasily: ‘What do you think has gone wrong? They’re taking a damned long time about turning up.’
‘No, I think that it’s just that they are taking a damned long time in turning back.’
‘Turning back?’
‘They don’t know where we’ve gone.’ Mallory pulled out his map, examined it with a carefully hooded pencil-torch. ‘About three-quarters of a mile down the railway track, there’s a sharp turn to the left in all probability the locomotive would have left the track there. Last time Neufeld and Droshny saw us we were aboard that locomotive and the logical thing for them to have done would have been to follow the track till they came to where we had abandoned the locomotive, expecting to find us somewhere in the vicinity. When they found the crashed engine, they would know at once what would have happened – but that would have given them another mile and a half to ride – and half of that uphill on tired ponies.’
‘That must be it. I wish to God,’ Miller went on grumblingly, ‘that they’d hurry up.’
506
‘What is this?’ Mallory queried. ‘Dusty Miller yearning for action?’
‘No, I’m not,’ Miller said definitely. He glanced his watch. ‘But time is getting very short.’ Time,’ Mallory agreed soberly, ‘is getting terribly short’
And then they came. Miller, glancing upward, saw a faint metallic glint in the moonlight as a head peered cautiously over the edge of the gully. He touched Mallory on the arm.
‘I see him,’ Mallory murmured. Together both men reached inside their tunics, pulled out their Lugers and removed their waterproof coverings. The helmeted head gradually resolved itself into a figure standing fully silhouetted in the moonlight against the sharply etched skyline. He began what was obviously meant be a cautious descent, then suddenly flung up both hands and fell backwards and outwards. If he cried out, from where Mallory and Miller were the cry could not have been heard above the rushing of the waters. He struck the ledge halfway down, bounced off and upwards for a quite incredible distance, then landed spread-eagled on the stony river bank below, pulling down a small avalanche behind him. Miller was grimly philosophical. ‘Well, you said it was dangerous.’
Another figure appeared over the lip of the precipice to make the second attempt at a descent, and was followed in short order by several more men. Then, for the pace of a few minutes, the moon went behind a cloud, while Mallory and Miller stared across the river until their eyes ached, anxiously and vainly trying to pierce the impenetrable darkness that shrouded the slope on the far side. The leading climber, when the moon did break through, was just below the ledge, cautiously negotiating the lower slope. Mallory took careful aim with his Luger, the climber stiffened convulsively, toppled backwards and fell to his death. The following figure, clearly oblivious of the fate of his companion, began the descent of the lower slope. Both Mallory and Miller sighted their Lugers but just then the moon was suddenly obscured again and they had to lower their guns. When the moon again reappeared, four men had already reached the safety of the opposite bank, two of whom, linked together by a rope, were just beginning to venture the crossing of the ford.
Mallory and Miller waited until they had safely completed two thirds of the crossing of the ford. They formed a close and easy target and at that range it was impossible that Mallory and Miller should miss, nor did they. There was a momentary reddening of the white waters of the rapids, as much imagined as seen, then, still lashed together they were swept away down the gorge. So furiously were their bodies tumbled over and over by the rushing waters, so often did cartwheeling arms and legs break surface, that they might well have given the appearance of men who, though without hope, were still desperately struggling for their lives. In any event, the two men left standing on the far bank clearly did not regard the accident as being significant of anything amiss in any sinister way They stood and watched the vanishing bodies of their companions in perplexity, still unaware of what was happening. A matter of two or three seconds later and they would never have been aware of anything else but once more a wisp of errant dark cloud covered the moon and they still had a little time, a very little time, to live. Mallory and Miller lowered their guns. Mallory glanced at his watch and said irritably
‘Why the hell don’t they start firing? It’s five past one’
‘Why don’t who start firing?’ Miller said cautiously. ‘You heard. You were there. I asked Vis to ask Vukalovic to give us sound cover at one. Up by the Zenica Gap there, less than a mile away. Well, we can’t wait any longer. It’ll take -‘ He broke off and listened the sudden outburst of rifle fire, startlingly loud n at that comparatively close distance, and smiled. ell, what’s five minutes here or there. Come on. I have the feeling that Andrea must be getting a little anxious about us.’
Andrea was. He emerged silently from the shadows they rounded the first bend in the river. He said reproachfully: ‘Where have you two been? You had me worried stiff.’ ‘I’ll explain in an hour’s time – if we’re all still around in an hour’s time,’ Mallory amended grimly. Our friends the bandits are two minutes behind. I think they’ll be coming in force – although they’ve lost four already – six including the two Reynolds got from the locomotive. You stop at the next bend up-river and hold them off. You’ll have to do it by yourself. Think you can manage?’
‘This is no time for joking,’ Andrea said with dignity.
‘And then?’
‘Groves and Reynolds and Petar and his sister come with us up-river, Reynolds and Groves as nearly as possible to the dam, Petar and Maria wherever they can find some suitable shelter, possibly in the vicinity of the swing bridge – as long as they’re well clear of that damned great boulder perched above it.’
‘Swing bridge, sir?’ Reynolds asked. ‘A boulder?’ ‘I saw it when we got off the locomotive to reconnoitre.’
‘You saw it. Andrea didn’t.’
‘I mentioned it to him,’ Mallory went on impatiently. He ignored the disbelief in the sergeant’s face and turned to Andrea. ‘Dusty and I can’t wait any longer. Use your Schmeisser to stop them.’ He pointed north-westwards towards the Zenica Gap, where the rattle of musketry was now almost continuous. ‘With all that racket going on, they’ll never know the difference.’
Andrea nodded, settled himself comfortably behind a pair of large boulders and slid the barrel of his Schmeisser into the V between them. The remainder of the party moved upstream, scrambling awkwardly around and over the slippery boulders and rocks that covered the right-hand bank of the Neretva, until they came to a rudimentary path that had been cleared among the stones. This they followed for perhaps a hundred yards, till they came to a slight bend in the gorge. By mutual consent and without any order being given, all six stopped and gazed upwards.
The towering breath-taking ramparts of the Neretva dam wall had suddenly come into full view. Above the dam on either side precipitous walls of rock soared up into the night sky, at first quite vertical then both leaning out in an immense overhang which seemed to make them almost touch at the top, although this, Mallory knew from the observation he had made from above, was an optical illusion. On top of the dam wall itself the guardhouses and radio huts were clearly visible, as were the pigmy shapes of several patrolling German soldiers. From the top of the eastern side of the dam, where the huts were situated, an iron ladder – Mallory knew it was painted green, but in the half-shadow cast by the dam wall it looked black fastened by iron supports to the bare rock face, zig zagged downwards to the foot of the gorge, close by where foaming white jets of water boiled from the outlet pipes at the base of the dam wall. Mallory tried to estimate how many steps there would be in that ladder. Two hundred, perhaps two hundred and fifty, and once you started to climb or descend just had to keep on going, for nowhere was there platform or backrest to afford even the means for temporary respite. Nor did the ladder at any point afford the slightest scrap of cover from watchers on the bridge. As an assault route, Mallory mused, it was scarcely the one he would have chosen: he could not perceive of a more hazardous one.