‘He still doesn’t.’
George looked at him then nodded slowly. ‘And you called me devious.’
Petersen opened the outer door and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘We live in devious times, George.’
The second half of the trip was an improvement on the first but just marginally. Cocooned, as they were, to the ears in heavy blankets, the von Karajans were no longer subject to involuntary bouts of shivering and teeth-chattering but otherwise looked no happier and were no more communicative than they had been in the morning, which meant that they were both totally miserable and silent. They didn’t even speak when George, shouting to make himself heard above the fearful mechanical din, offered them brandy to relieve their sufferings. Sarina shuddered and Michael shook his head. They may have been wise for what George was offering them was no French cognac but his own near-lethal form of slivovitz, his native plum brandy. Some twelve kilometres from Pescara they bore right off the Route 5 near Chieti, reaching the Adriatic coast road at Francavilla as a premature dusk was falling – premature, because of gathering banks of dark grey cloud which Alex, inevitably, said could only presage heavy snow. The coastal road, Route 16 was an improvement over the Apennines road – it could hardly have failed to be otherwise – and the relatively comfortable though still cacophonous ride to Termoli took no more than two hours. Wartime Termoli, on a winter’s night, was no place to inspire a rhapsody in the heart of the poet or composer: the only feelings it could reasonably expect to give rise to were gloom and depression. It was grey, bleak, bare, grimy and seemingly uninhabitated except for a very few half-heartedly blacked-out premises which were presumably cafes or taverns. The port area itself, however, was an improvement on Rome: here was no blackout, just a dim-out which probably didn’t vary appreciably from the normal. As the truck stopped along a wharf-side there was more than enough light from the shaded yellow overhead lamps to distinguish the lines of the craft alongside the wharf, their transport to Yugoslavia.
That it was a motor torpedo boat was beyond question. Its vintage was uncertain. What was certain was that it had been in the wars. It had sustained considerable, though not incapacitating, damage to both hull and superstructure. No attempt had been made at repair: no-one had even thought it worthwhile to repaint the numerous dents and scars that pockmarked its side. It carried no torpedoes, for the sufficient reason that the torpedo tubes had been removed; nor had it depth-charges, for even the depth-charge racks had been removed. The only armament, if such it could be called, that it carried was a pair of insignificant little guns, single-barrelled, one mounted for’ard of the bridge, the other on the poop. They looked suspiciously like Hotchkiss repeaters, one of the most notoriously inaccurate weapons ever to find its mistaken way into naval service.
A tall man in a vaguely naval uniform was standing on the wharf-side at the head of the MTB’s gangway. He wore a peaked badgeless naval cap which shaded his face but could not conceal his marked stoop and splendid snow-white Buffalo Bill beard. He raised his hand in half-greeting, half-salute as Petersen, the others following close behind, approached him.
‘Good evening. My name is Pietro. You must be the Major we are expecting.’
‘Good evening and yes.’
‘And four companions, one a lady. Good. You are welcome aboard. I will send someone for your luggage. In the meantime, it is the commanding officer’s wish that you see him as soon as you arrive.’
They followed him below and into a compartment that could have been the captain’s cabin, a chart-room, an officers’ mess-room and was probably all three: space is at a premium on MTBs. The captain was seated at his desk, writing, as Pietro entered without benefit of knocking. He swung round in his swivel-chair which was firmly bolted to the deck as Pietro stood to one side and said: ‘Your latest guests, Carlos. The Major and the four friends we were promised.’
‘Come in, come in, come in. Thank you, Pietro. Send that young ruffian along, will you?’
‘When he’s finished loading the luggage?’
‘That’ll do.’ Pietro left. The captain was a broad-shouldered young man with thick curling black hair, a deep tan, very white teeth, a warm smile and warm brown eyes. He said: ‘I’m Lieutenant Giancarlo Tremino. Call me Carlos. Nearly everyone else does. No discipline left in the Navy.’ He shook his head and indicated his white polo neck jersey and grey flannel trousers. ‘Why wear uniform? No-one pays any attention to it anyway.’ He extended his hand – his left hand – to Petersen; ‘Major, you are very welcome. I cannot offer you Queen Mary type accommodation – peacetime accommodation, that is – but we have a very few small cabins, washing and toilet facilities, lots of wine and can guarantee safe transit to Ploce. The guarantee is based on the fact that we have been to the Dalmatian coast many times and haven’t been sunk yet. Always a first time, of course, but I prefer to dwell on happier things.’
‘You are very kind,’ Petersen said. ‘If it’s to be first name terms, then mine is Peter.’ He introduced the other four, each by their first name. Carlos acknowledged each introduction with a handshake and smile but made no attempt to rise. He was quick to explain this seeming discourtesy and quite unembarrassed about doing so.
‘I apologize for remaining seated. I’m not really ill-mannered or lazy or averse to physical exertion.’ He moved his right arm and, for the first time, brought his glove-sheathed right hand into view. He bent and tapped his right hand against his right leg, about halfway between knee and ankle. The unmistakable sound of hollow metal meeting hollow metal made the onlookers wince. He straightened and tapped the tips of his left fingers against the back of his right glove. The sound was against unmistakable although different – flesh meeting metal. ‘Those metal appliances take some getting used to.’ Carlos was almost apologetic. ‘Unnecessary movement – well, any movement – causes discomfort and who likes discomfort? I am not the noblest Roman of them all.’
Sarina gnawed her lower lip. Michael tried to look as if he weren’t shocked but was. The other three, with eighteen months of vicious and bitter warfare in the Yugoslav mountains behind them, predictably showed no reaction. Petersen said: ‘Right hand, right leg. That’s quite a handicap.’
‘Just the right foot really – blown off at the ankle. Handicap? Have you heard of the English fighter pilot who got both legs destroyed? Did he shout for a bath-chair? He shouted to get back into the cockpit of his Spitfire or whatever. He did, too. Handicap!’
‘I know of him. Most people do. How did you come by those two – um – trifling scratches?’
‘Perfidious Albion,’ Carlos said cheerfully. ‘Nasty, horrible British. Never trust them. To think they used to be my best friends before the war – sailed with them in the Adriatic and the Channel, raced against them at Cowes – well, never mind. We were in the Aegean going, as the lawyers say, about our lawful occasions and bothering no-one. Dawn, lots of heavy mist about when suddenly, less than two kilometres away, this great big British warship appeared through a gap in the mist.’
Carlos paused, perhaps for effect, and Petersen said mildly: ‘It was my understanding that the British never risked their capital ships north of Crete.’
‘Size, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It was, in fact, a very small frigate, but to us, you understand, it looked like a battleship. We weren’t ready for them but they were ready for us – they had their guns already trained on us. No fault of ours – we had four men, not counting myself, on lookout: they must have had radar, we had none. Their first two shells struck the water only a few metres from our port side and exploded on contact: didn’t do our hull much good, I can tell you. Two other light shells, about a kilo each, I should think – pom-poms, the British call them – scored direct hits. One penetrated the engine-room and put an engine out of action -1 regret to say it’s still out of action but we can get by without it – and the other came into the wheelhouse.’
‘A kilo of explosives going off in a confined space is not very nice,’ Petersen said. ‘You were not alone?’
‘Two others. They were not as lucky as I was. Then I had more luck – we ran into a fog bank.’ Carlos shrugged. ‘That’s all. The past is past.’
A knock came at the door. A very young sailor entered, stood at attention, saluted and said: ‘You sent for me, Captain.’