He could have stretched out his hand, touched the barrel of the Mauser that protruded threateningly through the bars of the grille door. Again the guard rattled the rifle angrily between the bars, shouted something he didn’t understand.
“Leave it alone, Louki,” Andrea said quietly. His voice was tranquil, unshadowed by disappointment “Come back here. Our Mend outside is not too pleased.” Obediently Louki moved back, heard the guttural voice again, rapid and alarmed this time, the rattle as the guard withdrew his rifle quickly from the bars of the door, the urgent pounding of his feet on the flagstones outside as he raced up the passage.
“What’s the matter with our little friend?” Casey Brown was as lugubrious, as weary as ever. “He seems upset.”
“He is upset.” Andrea smiled. “He’s just realised that Louki’s hands are untied.”
“Well, why doesn’t he tie them up again?”
“Slow in the head he may be, but he is no fool,” Andrea explained. “This could be a trap and he’s gone for his friends.”
Almost at once they heard a thud, like the closing of a distant door, the sound of more than one pair of feet running down the passage, the tinny rattling of keys on a ring, the rasp of a key against the lock, a sharp click, the squeal of rusty hinges and then two soldiers were in the room, dark and menacing with their jackboots and ready guns. Two or three seconds elapsed while they looked round them, accustoming their eyes to the gloom, then the man nearest the door spoke.
“A terrible thing, boss, nothin’ short of deplorable! Leave ’em alone for a couple of minutes and see what happens? The whole damn’ bunch tied up like Houdini on an off night!”
There was a brief, incredulous silence, then all three were sitting upright, staring at them. Brown recovered first.
“High time, too,” he complained. “Thought you were never going to get here.”
“What he means is that he thought we were never going to see you again,” Andrea said quietly. “Neither did I. But here you are, safe and sound.”
“Yes,” Mallory nodded. “Thanks to Dusty and his nasty suspicious mind that cottoned on to Panayis while all the rest of us were asleep.”
“Where is he?” Louki asked.
“Panayis?” Miller waved a negligent hand. “We left him behind–he met with a sorta accident.” He was across at the other side of the room now, carefully cutting the cords that pinioned Brown’s injured leg, whistling tunelessly as he sawed away with his sheath knife. Mallory, too, was busy, slicing through Andrea’s bonds, explaining rapidly what had happened, listening to the big Greek’s equally concise account of what had befallen the others in the keep. And then Andrea was on his feet, massaging his numbed hands, looking across at Miller.
“That whistling, my Captain. It sounds terrible and, what is worse, it is very loud. The guards–”
“No worry there,” Mallory said grimly. “They never expected to see Dusty and myself again. . . . They kept a poor watch.” He turned round to look at Brown, now hobbling across the floor.
“How’s the leg, Casey?”
“Fine, sir.” Brown brushed it aside as of no importance. “I got through to Cairo, to-night, sir. The report–”
“It’ll have to wait, Casey. We must get out as fast as we can. You all right, Louki?”
“I am heart-broken, Major Mallory. That a countryman of mine, a trusted friend–”
“That, too, will have to wait. Come on!”
“You are in a great hurry,” Andrea protested mildly. They were already out in the passage, stepping over the cell guard lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. “Surely if they’re all like our friend here–”
“No danger from, this quarter,” Mallory interrupted impatiently. “The soldiers in the town–they’re bound to know by now that we’ve either missed Panayis or disposed of him. In either case they’ll know that we’re certain to come hot-footing out here. Work it out for yourself. They’re probably half-way here already, and if they do come . . .” He broke off, stared at the smashed generator and the ruins of Casey Brown’s transmitter set lying in one corner of the entrance hail. “Done a pretty good job on these, haven’t they?” he said bitterly.
“Thank the Lord,” Miller said piously. “All the less to tote around, is what I say. If you could only see the state of my back with that damned generator–”
“Sir!” Brown had caught Mallory’s arm, an action so foreign to the usually punctilious petty officer that Mallory halted in surprise. “Sir, it’s terribly important–the report, I mean. You _must_ listen, sir!”
The action, the deadly earnestness, caught and held Mallory’s fully attention. He turned to face Brown with a smile.
“O.K., Casey, let’s have it,” he said quietly. Things can’t possibly be any worse than they are now.”
“They can, sir.” There was something tired, defeated about Casey Brown, and the great, stone hail seemed strangely chill. “I’m afraid they can, sir. I got through to-night. First-class reception. Captain Jensen himself, and he was hopping mad. Been waiting all day fbr us to come on the air. Asked how things were, and I told him that you were outside the fortress just then, and hoped to be inside the magazine in an hour or so.”
“Go on.”
“He said that was the best news he’d ever had. He said his information had been wrong, he’d been fooled, that the invasion fleet didn’t hold up overnight in the Cyclades, that they had come straight through under the heaviest air and E-boat escort ever seen in the Med., and are due to hit the beaches on Kheros some time before dawn to-morrow. He said our destroyers had been waiting to the south all day, moved up at dusk and were waiting word from him to see whether they would attempt the passage of the Maidos Straits. I told him maybe something could go wrong, but he said not with Captain Mallory and Miller inside and besides he wasn’t–he couldn’t risk the lives of twelve hundred men on Kheros just on the off chance that he might be wrong.” Brown broke off suddenly and looked down miserably at his feet. No one else in the hail moved or made any sound at all.
“Go on.” Mallory repeated in a whisper. His face was very pale.
“That’s all, sir. That’s all there is.. The destroyers are coming through the Straits at midnight.” Brown looked down at his luminous watch. “Midnight. Four hours to go.”
“Oh, God! Midnight!” Mallory was stricken, his eyes for the moment unseeing, ivory-knuckled hands clenched in futility and despair. “They’re coming through at midnight! God help them! God help them all now!”
CHAPTER 15
Wednesday Night
2000-2115
Eight-thirty, his watch said. Eight-thirty. Exactly half an hour to curfew. Mallory flattened himself on the roof, pressed himself as closely as possible against the low retaining wall that almost touched the great, sheering sides of the fortress, swore softly to himself. It only required one man with a torch in his hand to look over the top of the fortress wall–a catwalk ran the whole length of the inside of the wall, four feet from the top–and it would be the end of them alL The wandering beam of a torch and they were bound to be seen, it was impossible not to be seen: he and Dusty Miller–the American was stretched out behind him and clutching the big truck battery in his arms–were wide open to the view of anyone who happened to glance down that way. Perhaps they should have stayed with the others a couple of roofs away, with Casey and Louki, the one busy tying spaced knots in a rope, the other busy splicing a bent wire hook on to a long bamboo they had torn from a bamboo hedge just outside the town, where they had hurriedly taken shelter as a convoy of three trucks had roared past them heading for the castle Vygos.
Eight thirty-two. What the devil was Andrea doing down there, Mallory wondered irritably and at once regretted his irritation. Andrea wouldn’t waste an unnecessary second. Speed was vital, haste fatal. It seemed unlikely that there would be any officers inside–from what they had seen, practically half the garrison were combing either the town or the countryside out in the direction of Vygos–but if there were and even one gave a cry it would be the end.
Mallory stared down at the burn on the back of his hand, thought of the truck they had set on fire and grinned wryly to himself. Setting the truck on fire had been his only contribution to the night’s performance so far. All the other credit went to either Andrea or Miller. It was Andrea who had seen in this house on the west side of the square–one of several adjoining houses used as officers’ billets–the only possible answer to their problem. It was Miller, now lacking all time-fuses, clockwork, generator and every other source of electric power who had suddenly stated that he must have a battery, and again it was Andrea, hearing the distant approach of a truck, who had blocked the entrance to the long driveway to the keep with heavy stones from the flanking pillars, forcing the soldiers to abandon their truck at the gates and run up the drive towards their house. To overcome the driver and his mate and bundle them senseless into a ditch had taken seconds only, scarcely more time than it had taken Miller to unscrew the terminals of the heavy battery, find the inevitable jerrican below the tailboard and pour the contents over engine, cab and body. The truck had gone up in a roar and _whoosh_ of flames: as Louki had said earlier in the night, setting petrol-soaked vehicles on fire was not without its dangers–the charred patch on his hand stung painfully–but, again as Louki had said, it had burned magnificently. A pity, in a way–it had attracted attention to their escape sooner than was necessary– but it had been vital to destroy the evidence, the fact that a battery was missing. Mallory had too much experience of and respect for the Germans ever to underrate them: they could put two and two together better than most.