“Who are you?” He spoke in English, clear, precise, with hardly a trace of accent.
“Sorry, but the less you know the better.” Mallory smiled, deliberately to rob the words of offence. “I mean that for your own sake. How are you feeling now?”
Tenderly the little man massaged his midriff, flexed his leg with a grimace of pain.
“You hit me very hard.”
“I had to.” Mallory reached behind him and picked up the cudgel the man had been carrying. “You tried to hit me with this. What did you expect me to do–take my hat off so you could have a better swipe at me?”
“You are very amusing.” Again he bent his leg, experimentally, looked up at Mallory in hostile suspicion. “My knee hurts me,” he said accusingly.
“First things first. Why the club?”
“I meant to knock you down and have a look at you,” he explained impatiently. “It was the only safe way. You might have been one of the W.G.B.. . . Why is my knee–?”
“You had an awkward fall,” Mallory said shamelessly. “What are you doing here?”
“Who are you?” the little man countered.
Miller coughed, looked ostentatiously at his watch.
“This is all very entertainin’, boss–”
“True for you, Dusty. We haven’t all night.” Quickly Mallory reached behind him, picked up the man’s rucksack, tossed it across to Miller. “See what’s in there, will you?” Strangely, the little man made no move to protest.
“Food?” Miller said reverently. “Wonderful, wonderful food. Cooked meat, bread, cheese–and wine.” Reluctantly Miller closed the bag and looked curiously at their prisoner. “Helluva funny time for a picnic.”
“So! An American, a Yankee.” The little man smiled to himself. “Better and better!” –
“What do you mean?” Miller asked suspiciously.
“See for yourself,” the man said pleasantly. He nodded casually to the far corner of the room. “Look there.”
Mallory spun round, realised in a moment that he had been tricked, jerked back again. Carefully he leaned forward and touched Miller’s arm.
“Don’t look round too quickly, Dusty. And don’t touch your gun. It seems our friend was not alone.” Mallory tightened his lips, mentally cursed himself for his obtuseness. Voices–Dusty had said there had been voices. Must be even more tired than he had thought. . . .
A tall, lean man blocked the entrance to the doorway. His face was shadowed under an enveloping snow-hood, but there was no mistaking the gun in his hand. A short Lee Enfleld rifle, Mallory noted dispassionately.
“Do not shoot!” The little man spoke rapidly in Greek. “I am almost sure that they are those whom we seek, Panayis.”
Panayis! Mallory felt the wave of relief wash over him. That was one of the names Eugene Viachos had given him,. back in Alexandria.
“The tables turned, are they not?” The little man smiled at Mallory, the tired eyes crinkling, the heavy black moustache lifting engagingly at one corner. “I ask you again, who are you?” –
“S.O.E.,” Mallory answered unhesitatingly.
The man nodded in satisfaction. “Captain Jensen sent you?”
Mallory sank back on the bunk and sighed in long relief.
“We are among friends, Dusty.” He looked at the little man before him. “You must be Louki–the first plane tree in the square in Margaritha?”
The little man beamed. He bowed, stretched out his hand.
“Louki. At your service, sir.”
“And this, of course, is Panayis?”
The tall man in the doorway, dark, saturnine, unsmiling, inclined his head briefly but said nothing.
“You have us right!” The little man was beaming with delight. “Louki and Panayis. They know about us in Alexandria and Cairo, then?” he asked proudly.
“Of course!” Mallory smothered a smile. “They spoke highly of you. You have been of great help to the Allies before.”
“And we will again,” Louki said briskly. “Come, we are wasting time. The Germans are on the hills. What help can we give you?”
“Food, Louki. We need food–we need it badly.”
“We have it!” Proudly, Louki gestured at the rucksacks. “We were on our way up with it.”
“You were on your way. . . .” Mallory was astonished. “How did you know where we were–or even that we were on the island?”
Louki waved a deprecating hand.
“It was easy. Since first light German troops have been moving south through Margaritha up into the hills. All morning they combed the east col of Kostos. We knew someone must have landed, and that the Germans had blocked the cliff path on the south coast, at both ends. So you must have come over the west col. They would not expect that–you fooled them. So we came to find you.” –
“But you would never have found us—-”
“We would have found you.” There was complete certainty in the voice. “Panayis and I–we know every stone, every blade of grass in Navarone.” Louki shivered suddenly, stared out bleakly through the swirling snow. “You couldn’t have picked worse weather.”
“We couldn’t have picked better,” Mallory said grimly.
“Last night, yes,” Lould agreed. “No one would expect you in that wind and rain. No one would hear the aircraft or even dream that you would try to jump–”
“We came by sea,” Miller interrupted. He waved a negligent hand. “We climbed the south cliff.”
“What? The south cliff!” Louki was frankly disbelieving. “No one could climb the south cliff. It is impossible!”
“That’s the way we felt when we were about half-way up,” Mallory said candidly. “But Dusty, here, is right. That’s how it was.”
Louki had taken a step back: his face was expressionless.
“I say it is impossible,” he repeated flatly.
“He is telling the truth, Louki,” Miller cut in quietly. “Do you never read newspapers?”
“Of course I read newspapers!” Louki bristled with indignation. “Do you think I am–how you say–illiterate?”
“Then think back to just before the war,” Miller advised. “Think of mountaineerin’–and the Himalayas. You must have seen his picture in the papers–once, twice, a hundred times.” He- looked at Mallory consideringly. “Only he was a little prettier in those days. You must remember. This is Mallory, Keith Mallory of New Zealand.”
Mallory said nothing. He was watching Louki, the puzzlement, the ãomical screwing up of the eyes, head cocked to one side: then, all at once, something clicked in the little man’s memory and his face lit up in a great, crinkling smile that swamped every last trace of suspicion. He stepped forward, hand outstretched in we!come.
“By heaven, you are- right! Mallory! Of course I know Mallory!” He grabbed Mallory’s hand, pumped it up and down with great enthusiasm. “It is indeed as the American says. You need a shave. . . . And you look older.”
“I feel older,” Mallory said gloomily. He nodded at Miller. “This is Corporal Miller, an American citizen.”
“Another famous climber?” Louki asked eagerly. “Another tiger of the hills, yes?”
“He climbed the south cliff as it has never been climbed before,” Mallory answered truthfully. He glanced at his watch, then looked directly at Louki. “There are others up in the hifis. We need help, Louki. We need it badly and we need it at once. You know the danger if you are caught helping us?”
“Danger?” Louki waved a contemptuous hand. “Danger to Louki and Panayis, the foxes of Navarone? Impossible! We are the ghosts of the night.” He hitched his pack higher up on his shoulders. “Come. Let us take this food to your friends.”
“Just a minute.” Mallory’s restraining hand was on his arm. “There are two other things. We need heat–a stove and fuel, and we need–”
“Heat! A stove!” Louki was incredulous. “Your friends in the hifis–what are they? A band of old women?”
“And we also need bandages and medicine,” Mallory went on patiently. “One of our friends has been terribly injured. We are not sure, but we do not think that he will live.”
“Panayis!” Louki barked. “Back to the village.” Louki was speaking in Greek now. Rapidly he issued his orders, had Mallory describe where the rock-shelter was, made sure that Panayis understood, then stood a moment in indecision, puffing at an end of his moustache. At length he looked up at Mallory.
“Could you find this cave again by yourself?”
“Lord only knows,” Mallory said franidy. “I honestly don’t think so.”
“Then I must come with you. I had hoped–you see, it will be a heavy load for Panayis–I have told him to bring bedding as well–and I don’t think–”
“I’ll go along with him,” Miller volunteered. He thought of his back-breaking labours on the caique, the climb up the cliff, their forced march through the mountains. “The exercise will do me good.”
Louki translated his offer to Panayis–taciturn, apparently, only because of his complete lack of English–and was met by what appeared to be a torrent of protest. Miller looked at him in astonishment.
“What’s the matter with old sunshine here?” he asked Mallory. “Doesn’t seem any too happy to me.”