“Says he can manage O.K. and wants to go by himself,” Mallory interpreted. “Thinks you’ll slow him up on the hills.” He shook his bead in mock wonder. “As if any man could slow Dusty Miller up!”
“Exactly!” Louki was bristling with anger. Again he turned to Panayis, fingers stabbing the empty air to emphasise his words. Miller turned, looked apprehensively at Mallory.
“What’s he tellin’ him now, boss?”
“Only the truth,” Mallory said solemnly. “Saying he ought to be honoured at being given the opportunity of marching with Monsieur Miller, the world-famous American climber.” Mallory grinned. “Panayis will be on his mettle to-night–determined to prove that a Navaronian can climb as well and as fast as any man.”
“Oh, my Gawd!” Miller moaned.
“And on the way back, don’t forget to give Panayis a hand up the steeper bits.”
Miller’s reply was luckily lost in a sudden flurry of snow-laden wind.
That wind was rising steadily now, a bitter wind that whipped the heavy snow into their bent faces and stung the tears from their blinking eyes. A heavy, wet snow that melted as it touched, and trickled down through every gap and chink in their clothing until they were wet and chilled and thoroughly miserable. A clammy, sticky snow that built up layer after energy-sapping layer under their leaden-footed boots, until they stumbled along inches above the – ground, leg muscles aching from the sheer accumulated weight of snow. There was no visibility worthy of the name, not even of a matter of feet, they were blanketed, swallowed up by an impenetrable cocoon of swirling grey and white, unchanging, featureless: Louki strode on diagonally upwards across the slope with the untroubled certainty of a man walking up his own garden path.
Louki seemed as agile as a mountain goat, and as tireless. Nor was his tongue less nimble, less unwearied than his legs. He talked incessantly, a man overjoyed to be in action again, no matter what action so long, as it was against the enemy. He told Mallory of the last three attacks on the island and how they had so bloodily failed–the Germans had been somehow forewarned of the seaborne assault, had been waiting for the Special Boat Service and the Commandos with everything they had and had cut them to pieces, while the two airborne groups had had the most evil luck, been delivered up to the enemy by misjudgment, by a series of unforeseeable coincidences; or how Panayis and himself had on both occasions narrowly escaped with their lives–Panayis had actually been captured the last time, had killed both his guards and escaped unrecognised; of the disposition of the German troops and check-points throughout the island, the location of the road blocks on the only two roads; and, finally, of what little he himself knew of the layout of the fortress of Navarone itself. Panayis, the dark one, could tell him more of that, Louki said: twice Panayis had been inside the fortress, once for an entire night: the guns, the control rooms, the barracks, the officers’ quarters, the magazine, the turbo rooms, the sentry points–he knew where each one lay, to the inch.
Mallory whistled softly to himself. This was more than he had ever dared hope for. They had still to escape the net of searchers, still to reach the fortress, still to get inside it. But once inside–and Panayis must know how to get inside. . . . Unconsciously Mallory lengthened his stride, bent his back to the slope.
“Your friend Panayis must be quite something,” he said slowly. “Tell me more about him, Louki.”
“What can I tell ‘you?” Louki shook his head in a little flurry of snowflakes. “What do I know of Panayis? What does anyone know of Panayis? That he has the luck of the devil, the courage of a madman and that sooner the lion will lie down with the lamb, the starving wolf spare the flock, than Panayis breathe the same air as the Germans? We all know that, and we know nothing of Panayis. All I know is that I thank God I am no German, with Panayis on the island. He strikes by stealth, by night, by knife and in the back.” Louki crossed himself. “His hands are full of blood.”
Mallory shivered involuntarily. The dark, sombre figure of Panayis, the memory of the expressionless face, the hooded eyes, were beginning to fascinate him.
“There’s more to him- than that, surely,” Mallory argued. “After all, you are both Navaronians–”
“Yes, yes, that is so.”
“This is a small island, you’ve lived together all your lives–”
“Ah, but that is where the Major is wrong!” Mallory’s promotion in rank was entirely Louki’s own idea: despite Mallory’s protests and explanations he seemed determined to stick to it. “I, Louki, was for many years in foreign lands, helping Monsieur Viachos. Monsieur Viachos,” Louki said with pride, – “is a very important Government official.”
“I know,” Mallory nodded. “A consul. I’ve met him. He is a very fine man.”
“You have met him! Monsieur Vlachos?” There was no mistaking the gladness, the delight in Louki’s voice. “That is good! That is wonderful! Later you must tell me more. He is a great man. Did I ever tell you–”
“We were speaking about Panayis,” Mallory reminded him gently.
“Ah, yes, Panayis. As I was saying, I was away for a long time. When I came back, Panayis was gone. His father had died, his mother had married again and Panayis had gone to live with his stepfather and two little stepsisters in Crete. His stepfather, half-fisherman, halffarmer, was killed in fighting the Germans near, Candia–this was in the beginning. Panayis took over the boat of his father, helped many of the Allies to escape until he was caught by the Germans, strung up by his wrists in the village square–where his family lived–not far from Casteli. He was flogged till the white of his ribs, of his backbone, was there for all to see, and left for dead. Then they burnt the village and Panayis’s family–disappeared. You understand, Major?”
“I understand,” Mallory said grimly. “But Panayis–”
“He should have died. But he is tough, that one, tougher than a knot in an old carob tree. Friends cut him down during the night, took him away into the hifis till he was well again. And then he arrived back in Navarone, God knows how. I think he came from island to island in a small rowing-boat. He never says why he came back–I think it gives him greater pleasure to kill on his own native island. I do not know, Major. All I know is that food and sleep, the sunshine, women and wine–all these are nothing and less than nothing to the dark one.” Again Louki crossed himself. “He obeys me, for I am the steward of the Vlachos family, but even I am afraid of him. To kill, to keep on killing, then kill again–that is the very breath of his being.” Louki stopped momentarily, sniffed the air like a hound seeking some fugitive scent, then kicked the snow off his boots and struck off up the hill at a tangent. The little man’s unhesitating sureness of direction was uncanny.
“How far to go now, Louki?”
“Two hundred yards, Major. No more.” Louki blew some snow off his heavy, dark moustache and swore. “I shall not be sorry to arrive.”
“Nor I.” Mallory thought of the miserable, draughty shelter in the dripping rocks almost with affection. It was becoming steadily colder as they climbed out of the valley, and the wind was rising, climbing up the register with a steady, moaning whine: they had to lean into it now, push hard against it, to make any progress. Suddenly both men stopped, listened, looked at each other, heads bent against the driving snow. Around them there was only the white emptiness and the silence: there was no sign of what had caused the sudden sound.
“You heard something, too?” Mallory murmured.
“It is only I.” Mallory spun round as the deep voice boomed out behind him and the bulky, white-smocked figure loomed out of the snow. “A milk wagon on a cobbled street is as nothing compared to yourself and your friend here. But the snow muffled your voices and I could not be sure.”
Mallory looked at him curiously. “How come you’re here, Andrea?”
“Wood,” Andrea explained. “I was looking for firewood. I was high up on Kostos at sunset when the snow lifted for a moment. I could have sworn I saw an old hut in a gully not far from here–it was dark and square against the snow. So I left–”
“You are right,” Louki interrupted. “The hut of old Leri, the mad one. Leri was a goatherd. We all warned him, but Len would listen and speak to no man, only to his goats. He died in his hut, in a landslide.”
“It is an ill wind. . .” Andrea murmured. “Old Leri will keep us warm to-night.” He checked abruptly as the gully opened up at his feet, then dropped quickly to the bottom, surefooted as a mountain sheep. He whistled twice, a double high-pitched note, listened intently into the snow for the answering whistle, walked swiftly up the gully. Casey Brown, gun lowered, met them at the entrance to the cave and held back the canvas screen to let them pass inside.