About halfway between where they stood and the pot of the ladder on the other side, a swing bridge spanned the boiling waters of the gorge. There was little about its ancient, rickety and warped appearance to inspire any confidence: and what little confidence there might have been could hardly have survived the presence of an enormous boulder, directly above the eastern edge of the bridge, which seemed in imminent danger of breaking loose from its obviously insecure footing in the deep scar in the cliff-side. Reynolds assimilated all of the scene before him, den turned to Mallory. He said quietly: ‘We’ve been very patient, sir.’
‘You’ve been very patient, Sergeant – and I’m grateful You know, of course, that there is a Yugoslav division trapped in the Zenica Cage – that’s just behind the mountains to our left, here. You know, too, that the Germans are going to launch two armoured divisions across the Neretva bridge at two a.m. this morning and that if once they do get across – and normally there would be nothing to stop them – the Yugoslavs, armed with their pop-guns and with hardly any ammunition left, would be cut to pieces. You know the only way to stop them is to destroy the Neretva bridge? You know that this counter-espionage and rescue mission was only a cover for the real thing?’
Reynolds said bitterly: ‘I know that – now.’ He pointed down the gorge. ‘And I also know that the bridge lies that way.’
‘And so it does. I also know that even if we could approach it – which would be quite impossible – we couldn’t blow that bridge up with a truckload of explosives; steel bridges anchored in reinforced concrete take a great deal of destroying.’ He turned and looked at the dam. ‘So we do it another way. See that dam wall there – there’s thirty million tons of water behind it – enough to carry away the Sydney bridge, far less the one over the Neretva.’
Groves said in a low voice: ‘You’re crazy,’ and then, as an afterthought, ‘sir.’
‘Don’t we know it? But we’re going to blow up that dam all the same. Dusty and I.’
‘But – but all the explosives we have are a few hand-grenades,’ Reynolds said, almost desperately. ‘And in that dam wall there must be ten- to twenty-feet thickness of reinforced concrete. Blow it up? How?’ Mallory shook his head. ‘Sorry.’
‘Why, you close-mouthed -‘
‘Be quiet! Dammit, man, will you never, never learn. Even up to the very last minute you could be caught and made to tell – and then what would happen to Vukalovic’s division trapped in the Zenica Cage? What you don’t know, you can’t tell.’
‘But you know.’ Reynolds’s voice was thick with resentment. ‘You and Dusty and Andrea – Colonel Stavros – you know. Groves and I knew all along that you knew, and you could be made to talk.’
Mallory said with considerable restraint: ‘Get Andrea to talk? Perhaps you might – if you threatened to take his cigars. Sure, Dusty and I could talk – but someone had to know.’
Groves said in the tone of a man reluctantly accepting the inevitable: ‘How do you get behind that dam wall – you can’t blow it up from the front, can you?’
‘Not with the means at present available to us,’ Mallory agreed. ‘We get behind it. We climb up there.’ Mallory pointed to the precipitous gorge wall on the other side.
‘We climb up there, eh?’ Miller said conversationally. He looked stunned.
‘Up the ladder. But not all the way. Three-quarters of the way up the ladder we leave it and climb vertically up the cliff-face till we’re about forty feet above tie top of the dam wall, just where the cliff begins to overhang there. From there, there’s a ledge – well, more of a crack, really -‘
‘A crack!’ Miller said hoarsely. He was horror-stricken.
‘A crack. It stretches about a hundred and fifty feet clear across the top of the dam wall at an ascending angle of maybe twenty degrees. We go that way.’
Reynolds looked at Mallory in an almost dazed incredulity. ‘It’s madness!’
‘Madness!’ Miller echoed.
‘I wouldn’t do it from choice,’ Mallory admitted. Nevertheless, it’s the only way in.’
‘But you’re bound to be seen,’ Reynolds protested.
‘Not bound to be.’ Mallory dug into his rucksack and produced from it a black rubber frogman’s suit, while Miller reluctantly did the same from his. As both men started to pull their suits on, Mallory continued: We’ll be like black flies against a black wall.’
‘He hopes,’ Miller muttered.
‘Then with any luck we expect them to be looking the other way when the RAF start in with the fireworks. And if we do seem in any danger of discovery – well, that’s where you and Groves come in. Captain Jensen was right – as things have turned out, we couldn’t have done this without you.’
‘Compliments?’ Groves said to Reynolds. ‘Compliments from the Captain? I’ve a feeling there’s something nasty on the way.’
‘There is,’ Mallory admitted. He had his suit and hood in position now and was fixing into his belt some pitons and a hammer he had extracted from his rucksack. ‘If we’re in trouble, you two create a diversion.’
‘What kind of diversion?’ Reynolds asked suspiciously.
‘From somewhere near the foot of the dam you start firing up at the guards atop the dam wall.’
‘But – but we’ll be completely exposed.’ Groves gazed across at the rocky scree which composed the left bank at the base of the dam and at the foot of the ladder. ‘There’s not an ounce of cover. What kind of chance will we have?’
Mallory secured his rucksack and hitched a long coil of rope over his shoulder. ‘A very poor one, I’m afraid.’ He looked at his luminous watch. ‘But then, for the next forty-five minutes you and Groves are expendable. Dusty and I are not.’
‘Just like that?’ Reynolds said flatly. ‘Expendable.’
‘Just like that.’
‘Want to change places?’ Miller said hopefully. There was no reply for Mallory was already on his way Miller, with a last apprehensive look at the towering rampart of rock above, gave a last hitch to his rucksack and followed. Reynolds made to move off, but Groves caught him by the arm and signed to Maria go ahead with Petar. He said to her: ‘We’ll wait a and bring up the rear. Just to be sure.’
‘What is it?’ Reynolds said in a low voice.
This. Our Captain Mallory admitted that he has already made four mistakes tonight. I think he’s making fifth now.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘He’s putting all our eggs in one basket and he’s overlooked certain things. For instance, asking the two of us to stand by at the base of the dam wall. If we have start a diversion, one burst of machine-gun fire from the top of the dam wall will get us both in seconds. One man can create as successful a diversion as two -id where’s the point in the two of us getting killed? Bides, with one of us left alive, there’s always the .ice that something can be done to protect Maria her brother. I’ll go to the foot of the dam while you – ‘
‘Why should you be the one to go? Why not -‘
‘Wait, I haven’t finished yet. I also think Mallory’s cry optimistic if he thinks that Andrea can hold off that lot coming up the gorge. There must be at least twenty of them and they’re not out for an evening’s fun and games. They’re out to kill us. So what happens if they do overwhelm Andrea and come up to the swing bridge and find Maria and Petar there while we busy being sitting targets at the base of the dam wall? They’ll knock them both off before you can bat an eyelid.’
‘Or maybe not knock them off,’ Reynolds muttered. ‘What if Neufeld were to be killed before they reached the swing bridge? What if Droshny were the man in charge – Maria and Petar might take some time in dying.’
‘So you’ll stay near the bridge and keep our backs covered? With Maria and Petar in shelter somewhere near?’
‘You’re right, I’m sure you’re right. But I don’t like it,’ Reynolds said uneasily. ‘He gave us his orders and he’s not a man who likes having his orders disobeyed.’
‘He’ll never know – even if he ever comes back, which I very much doubt, he’ll never know. And he’s started to make mistakes.’
‘Not this kind of mistake.’ Reynolds was still more than vaguely uneasy.
‘Am I right or not?’ Groves demanded.
‘I don’t think it’s going to matter a great deal at the end of the day,’ Reynolds said wearily. ‘Okay, let’s do it your way.’
The two sergeants hurried off after Maria and Petar.