‘A young man with taste, sensibility and discretion,’ Petersen said. ‘Who is he, he said to himself, to interfere with an army officer carrying on a torrid affair with two beautiful young ladies. The hunt, however, is on. The paper he held had the number of the old truck. Then he checked driver and passengers, a most unusual thing. He had been warned to look out for three desperadoes. Anyone can see that I’m perfectly respectable and neither of you could be confused with a fat and thin desperado.’
‘But they must know we’re with you.’
‘No “must” about it. They will, soon enough, but not yet. The only two people who knew that you were aboard the ship were the two who are still tied up in the hut back there.’
‘Somebody may have asked questions at the Colombo.’
‘Possibly. I doubt it. Even if they had, no member of the crew would divulge anything without Carlos’ okay. He has that kind of relationship with them.’
Sarina said doubtfully: ‘Carlos might tell them.’
‘Carlos wouldn’t volunteer anything. He might have a struggle with his conscience but it would be a brief one and duty would lose out: he’s not going to sell his old girlfriend down the river, especially, as is like enough, there would be shooting.’
Lorraine leaned forward and looked at him. ‘Who’s supposed to be the girlfriend? Me?’
‘A flight of fancy. You know how I ramble on.’
Twice more they were stopped at roadblocks, both times without incident. Some minutes after the last check, Petersen pulled into a lay-by.
Td like you to get in the back, now, please. It’s colder there but my fisherman friend did give me some blankets.’
Sarina said: ‘Why?’
‘Because from now on you might be recognized. I don’t think it likely but let’s cater for the unlikely. Your descriptions will be out any minute now.’
‘How can they be out until Major Massamo -‘ She broke off and looked at her watch. ‘You said you’d phone the army post at Capljina in an hour. That was an hour and twenty minutes ago. Those men will freeze. Why did you lie -‘
‘If you can’t think, and you obviously can’t, at least shut up. Just a little, white, necessary lie. What would have happened if I phoned now or had done in the past twenty minutes?’
‘They’d have sent out a rescue party.’
‘That all?’
‘What else?’
‘Heaven help Yugoslavia. They’d have traced the call and know roughly where I am. The call was sent on the hour by my friend. From Gruda, on the Capljina-Imotski road away to the north-west of here. What more natural than we should be making for Imotski – an Italian division is headquartered there. So they’ll concentrate their search on the Imotski area. There’s an awful lot of places – buildings, store-houses, trucks – where a person can hide in a divisional headquarters, and as the Italians like the Germans about as much as they like the Yugoslavs – and the order for my detention comes from the German HQ in Rome – I don’t suppose they’ll conduct the search with any great enthusiasm. They may have double-guessed – I don’t think they’d even bother trying – but go in the back anyway.’
Petersen descended, saw them safely hoisted aboard the rear of the truck, returned to the cab and drove off.
He passed two more roadblocks – in both cases he was waved on without stopping – before arriving at the town of Mostar. He drove into the middle of the town, crossed the river, turned right by the Hotel Bristol and two minutes later pulled up and stopped the engine. He went round to the back of the truck.
‘Please remain inside,’ he said. ‘I should be back in fifteen minutes.’
Giacomo said: ‘Are we permitted to know where we are?’
‘Certainly. In a public car park in Mostar.’
‘Isn’t that rather a public place?’ It was, inevitably, Sarina.
The more public the better. If you really want to hide, there’s no place like hiding in the open.’
George said: ‘You won’t forget to tell Josip that I’ve had nothing to eat or drink for days?’
‘I don’t have to tell him. He’s always known that.’
When Petersen returned it was in a small fourteen-seater Fiat bus which had seen its heyday in the middle twenties. The driver was a small, lean man with a swarthy complexion, a ferocious black moustache, glittering eyes and a seemingly boundless source of energy.
‘This is Josip,’ Petersen said. Josip greeted George and Alex with great enthusiasm, they were obviously acquaintances of old standing. Petersen didn’t bother to introduce him to the others. ‘Get your stuff into the bus. We’re using the bus because Josip doesn’t care too much to have an Italian army lorry parked outside the front door of his hotel.’
‘Hotel?’ Sarina said. ‘We’re going to stay in a hotel?
‘When you travel with us,’ George said expansively, ‘you may expect nothing but the best.’
The hotel, when they arrived there, didn’t look like the best. The approach to it could not have been more uninviting. Josip parked the bus in a garage and led the way along a narrow winding lane that was not even wide enough to accommodate a car, fetching up at a heavy wooden door.
‘Back entrance,’ Petersen said. ‘Josip runs a perfectly respectable hotel but he doesn’t care to attract too much attention by bringing so many people in at once.’
They passed through a short passage into the reception area, small but bright and clean.
‘Now then.’ Josip rubbed his hands briskly, he was that kind of man. ‘If you’ll just bring your luggage, I’ll show you to your rooms. Wash and brush up, then dinner.’ He spread his hands. ‘No Ritz, but at least you won’t go to bed hungry.’
‘I can’t face the stairs, yet,’ George said. He nodded towards an archway. ‘I think I’ll just go and rest quietly in there.’
‘Barman’s off tonight, Professor. You’ll have to help yourself.’
‘I can take the rough with the smooth.’
This way, ladies.’
In the corridor upstairs Sarina turned to Petersen and said in a low voice: ‘Why did your friend call George “Professor”?’
‘Lots of people call him that. A nickname. You can see why. He’s always pontificating.’
Dinner was rather more than Josip had promised it would be but, then, Bosnian innkeepers are renowned for their inventiveness and resourcefulness, not to mention acquisitiveness. Considering the ravaged and war-stricken state of the country, the meal was a near miracle: Dalmatian ham, grey mullet with an excellent Posip white wine and, astonishingly, venison accompanied by one of the renowned Neretva red wines. George, after remarking, darkly, that one never knew what the uncertain future held for them, thereafter remained silent for an unprecedented fifteen minutes: no mean trencherman at the best of times, his current exercise in gastronomy bordered on the awesome.
Apart from George, his two companions and their host, Marija, Josip’s wife, was also at the table. Small, dark and energetic like her husband, she was in other ways in marked contrast to him: he was intense, she was vivacious: he was taciturn, she was talkative to the point of garrulity. She looked at Michael and Sarina, seated some distance away at one small table, and at Giacomo and Lorraine, seated about the same distance away, at another, and lowered her voice.
‘Your friends are very quiet.’
George swallowed some venison. ‘It’s the food.’
‘They’re talking, all right,’ Petersen said. ‘You just can’t hear them over the champing noise George is making. But you’re right, they are talking very softly.’
Josip said: ‘Why? Why do they have to murmur or whisper? There’s nothing to be afraid of here. Nobody can hear them except us.’
‘You heard what George said. They don’t know what the future holds for them. This is a whole new experience for them – not, of course, for Giacomo, but for the other three. They’re apprehensive and from their point of view they have every right to be. For all they know, tomorrow may be their last day on earth.’
‘It could be yours, too,’ Josip said. ‘The word in the market-place – we hoteliers spend a lot of time in the market-place – is that groups of Partisans have by-passed the Italian garrison at Prozor, moved down the Rama valley and are in the hills overlooking the road between here and Jablanica. They may even be astride the road: they’re crazy enough for anything. What are your plans for tomorrow? If, I may add hastily, one may ask.’
‘Why ever not? We’ll have to take to the mountains by and by of course, but those three young people don’t look much like mountain goats to me so we’ll stick as long as possible to the truck and the road. The road to Jablanica, that is.’
‘And if you run into the Partisans?’