‘Don’t you think I have considered this, Jamie? You simply don’t even begin to know the Balkans. How could you, after less than a couple of months? What do you know of the deviousness, the plotting and counter-plotting, the rivalries, the jealousies, the self-seeking, the total regard for one’s own power base, the distrusts, the obsession for personal gain, the vast gulf between the Occidental and Byzantine minds? I don’t think there’s even a remote chance of the Germans finding out.
‘Consider. Who knows I’ve got the plans? As far as the Colonel is concerned, there are only two plans, he’s got both and I’ve never seen a copy. Why should he think so? Metrovic will have given him the name of Cipriano but I’ll bet the Colonel has never heard of him and even if he has what’s he going to tell him? Even if he did tell him Cipriano would be too smart to believe it was the Murge division – a commando unit like Ivan’s never discloses their true identity. Again; apart from the fact that the Colonel’s pride would probably stop him anyway from letting anyone know that his defences have been breached, he could be Machiavellian enough to want the Germans to be taken by surprise, not, of course in order that they should be defeated but that they should suffer severe casualties. Sure, he wants the Partisans destroyed but, when and if it happens, he wants the Germans out of the country. Basically, they’re both his natural enemies.
‘And even if the Germans did eventually find out, so what ? It’s too late to change plans and, anyway, there are no other plans they could make. There is no alternative.’
‘I have to. agree,’ Harrison said. ‘They’ll go ahead as planned. Forewarned, one takes it, is forearmed. A satisfactory night’s work, no?’
‘It was unimportant. They would almost certainly have found out in any case. We have a considerable number of reliable contacts throughout the country. In the areas held by the Germans, Italians, Cetniks and Ustasa – and that’s most of the country – there are reliable solid citizens, or are so regarded by the Germans, Italians, Cetniks and Ustasa, who, while cheerfully collaborating with the enemy, send us regular and up-to-date reports of the latest enemy troop movements. In other words, they are Partisan spies. Their reports are far from complete but enough to give Tito and his staff a fair indication of the enemy’s intentions.’
‘I suppose that happens in every war,’ Harrison said, ‘But I didn’t know the Partisans had spies in the enemy’s camp.’
‘We have had from the very beginning. We couldn’t have survived otherwise. What took up most of our time, last night was the distressing discovery – well, we first suspected it about ten weeks ago – that the enemy have spies in our camp.
Even more distressing was the discovery that they had spies in the Partisan HQ. In retrospect, it was naive of us, we should have suspected the possibility and taken precautions long ago. In fairness to us, we weren’t complacent – we were just under the fond misapprehension that every Partisan was a burning patriot. Some, alas, burn less brightly than others. This, and not acting as message boys for General von Lohr, is what has been occupying George, Alex and myself in Italy in the past two weeks. It was a matter of such vital importance that George was actually sufficiently motivated to drag himself away from his snug retreats in Bihac and Mount Prenj. Those spies in our camp had become a major threat to our security: we were trying to uncover the Italian connection.
‘That there was, and is, an Italian connection, is beyond dispute. Not German, not Cetnik, not Ustasa – specifically Italian, for it has been the Italian Murge division, first-class mountain troops, that have been causing us all the trouble. Our Partisans are as good, probably even better mountain troops, but hundreds of them have been killed by the Murge division in the past few months. Never in pitched battle. Invariably in isolated, one-off, incidents. A patrol, a localized troop movement, a transfer of wounded to a supposedly safer area, a reconnaissance group behind enemy lines – it came to the stage where none of those was immune to a lightning strike by specialized Murge units who apparently knew, always, exactly where to strike, when to strike, how to strike – they even seemed to know the number and composition of the Partisan groups they would be attacking, even the approximate number of the groups themselves. Our small-scale guerrilla movements were becoming very hampered, almost paralysed: and a partisan’s army’s survival depends almost exclusively on mobility, flexibility and long-range reconnaissance.
‘The Murge, of course, were receiving precise advance information of our movements. The information had to be coming from a person or persons in the neighbourhood of our HQ. Those secret messages, messages which led hundreds of men to their deaths, were not of course written down, addressed to the enemy and dropped in the nearest letterbox: they were sent by radio.’ Petersen broke off as if to collect his thoughts, his eyes wandering, unseeingly, as it seemed, round the table. Lorraine, he could see, was unnaturally pale: Sarina had her hands clasped tightly together Petersen appeared to notice nothing.
‘I’ll carry on for a moment,’ George said. ‘At this time, you must understand that Peter has been overcome by his habitual modesty. Peter couldn’t believe that the traitors could be any long-serving Partisans. Neither could I. Peter suggested that we check the approximate dates of the first transmissions – the times of the first unexpected swoops by the Murge units – with the time of the arrival of the latest recruits to the Partisans. We did and found that this checked with the arrival of an unusually high number of ex-Cetniks – Cetniks regularly desert to us and it’s quite impossible to check out the credentials and good faith of all of them or even a fraction of them.
‘Peter and some of his men checked on a small number of those and found two who had access to long-range transmitters hidden in a forest on a hill-side. They wouldn’t talk and we don’t torture. They were executed. Thereafter the number of unexpected attacks by the Murge fell off rapidly: but they still continued at sporadic intervals. Which, of course, could only mean that there were still some traitors around.’
George helped himself liberally to some beer. It was but breakfast time, but George claimed to be allergic to both tea and coffee.
‘So we went to Italy, the three of us. Why? Because we are – or were – Cetnik intelligence officers and naturally associated with our Italian counterparts. Why? Because we were convinced that the messages were being relayed through Italian Intelligence. Why? Because a fighting division has neither the facilities, the ability, the organization nor the cash to mount such an operation. But Italian Intelligence has all of these in abundance.’
‘Amidst the welter of “whys”, George,’ Harrison said, ‘why the cash?’
‘It’s as Peter said,’ George said sadly. ‘You haven’t got the Balkan mentality. Come to that, I doubt whether you have the universal mentality. The Cetnik agents, like agents and double-agents the world over, are not motivated simply by altrusim, patriotism or political conviction. The little gears in their minds only mesh efficiently under the influence of the universal lubricant. Money. They are rather highly paid and, considered dispassionately, deserve to be: luck what happened to those two unfortunates unmasked by Peter.’
Petersen rose, walked to the window and stood there, gazing down the gentle valley that sloped away from their chalet. He seemed to have lost interest in the conversation.
‘All in all,’ Harrison said, ‘a fair night’s work.’
‘That wasn’t quite all of it,’ George said. ‘We have located Cipriano,’
‘Cipriano!’
‘None other. Lorraine, my dear! You look so pale. Are you .not well ??
‘I feel – I feel a little faint.’
‘Maraschino,’ George said unhesitatingly. ‘Sava!’ This to one of Crni’s soldiers who rose at once and crossed to the liquor cupboard. ‘Yes, indeed. The worthy Major himself.’
‘But how on earth -‘
‘We have our little methods,’ George said complacently. ‘We have, as Peter told you, our reliable, solid citizens everywhere. Incidentally, you can now forget all that Peter told you – thank you, my boy, just give it to the lady – all he told you about Cipriano working hand-in-glove with the Partisans. I’m afraid he grossly maligned the poor man but at the moment he deemed it prudent to divert any suspicions that Majors Metrovic and Rankovic might have been harbouring from himself to an absent person. Cipriano was conveniently absent. Our Peter is a very convincing actor, no?’
‘He’s a very convincing liar,’ Sarina said.
‘Oh, tush! Hurt pride again. We’re just mad because he fooled you, too. Anyway, Cipriano’s in Imotski, doubtless closeted with the Murge brigade commander there and hatching fresh devilish schemes against our poor Partisans. I shouldn’t have to explain any of this. You will remember that Peter said in Mount Prenj that he wanted to get to the link-man – Cipriano – because he was aiding and abetting the Partisans. What he meant to say was he wanted to get at the link-man because he was a deadly enemy of the Partisans but he couldn’t very well say that, could he, in front of Metrovic and Rankovic? Come, come, my children, you disappoint me: you had all night long to work out something as simple and obvious as that.’