They skirted two barrack blocks on their right, then the powerhouse on their left, then an ordnance depot on their right and then the _Abteilung_ garage on their left. They were climbing, now, almost in darkness, but Mallory knew where he was to the inch: he had so thoroughly memorised the closely tallying descriptions given him by Vlachos and Panayis that’ he would have been confident of finding his way with complete accuracy even if the darkness had been absolute.
“What’s that, boss?” Miller had caught Mallory by the arm, was pointing to a large, uncompromisingly rectangular building that loomed gauntly against the horizon. “The local hoosegow?”
“Water storage tank,” Mallory said briefly. “Panayis estimates there’s half a million gallons in there–magazine flooding in an emergency. The magazines are directly below.” He pointed to a squat, box-like, concrete structure a little farther on. “The only entrance to the magazine. Locked and guarded.”
They were approaching the senior officers’ quarters now–the commandant had his own flat on the second story, directly overlooking the massive, reinforced ferro-concrete control tower that controlled the two great guns below. Mallory suddenly stopped, picked up a handful of dirt, rubbed it on his face and told Miller to do the same.
“Disguise,” he explained. “The experts would consider it a bit on the elementary side, but it’ll have to do. The lighting’s apt to be a bit brighter inside this place.”
He went up the steps to the officers’ quarters at a dead run, crashed through the swing doors with a force that almost took them off their hinges. The sentry at the keyboard looked at him in astonishment, the barrel of his sub-machine-gun lining up on the New Zealander’s chest.
“Put that thing down, you damned idiot!” Mallory snapped furiously. “Where’s the commandant? Quickly, you oaf! It’s life or death!”
“Herr–Herr Kominandant?” the sentry stuttered. “He’s left–they are all gone, just a minute ago.”
“What? All gone?” Mallory was staring at him with narrowed, dangerous eyes. “Did you say ‘all gone’?” he asked softly.
“Yes. I–I’m sure they’re . . .” He broke off abruptly as Mallory’s eyes shifted to a point behind his shoulder.
“Then who the hell is that?” Mallory demanded savagely.
The sentry would have been less than human not to fall for it. Even as he was swinging round to look, the vicious judo cut took him just below the ear. Mallory had smashed open the glass of the keyboard before the unfortunate guard bad bit the floor, swept all the keys–about a dozen in all–off their rings and into his pocket. It took them another twenty seconds to tape the man’s mouth and hands and lock him in a convenient cupboard; then they were on their way again, still running.
One more obstacle to overcome, Mallory thought as they pounded along in the darkness, the last of the triple defences. He did not know how many men would be guarding the locked door to the magazine, and in that moment of fierce exaltation he didn’t particularly care. Neither, he felt sure, did Miller. There were no worries now, no taut-nerved tensions or nameless anxieties. Mallory would have been the last man in the world to admit it, or even believe it, but this was what men like Miller and himself had been born for.
They had their hand-torches out now, the powerful beams swinging in the wild arcs as they plunged along, skirting the massed batteries of A.A. guns. To anyone observing their approach from the front, there could have been nothing more calculated to disarm suspicion than the sight and sound of the two men running towards them without any attempt at concealment, one of them shouting to the other in German, both with lit torches whose beams lifted and fell, lifted and fell as the men’s arms windmilled by their sides. But these same torches were deeply hooded, and only a very alert observer indeed would have noticed that the downward arc of the lights never passed backwards beyond the runners’ feet.
Suddenly Mallory saw two shadows detaching themselves from the darker shadow of the magazine entrance, steadied his torch for a brief second to check. He slackened speed.
“Right!” he said softly. “Here they come–only two of them. One each–get as close as possible first. Quick and quiet–a shout, a shot, and we’re finished. And for God’s sake don’t start clubbing ’em with your torch. There’ll be no lights on in that magazine and I’m not going to start crawling around there with a box of bloody matches in my hand!” He transferred his torch to his left hand, pulled out his Navy Colt, reversed it, caught it by the barrel, brought up sharply only inches away from the guards now running to meet them.
“Are you all right?” Mallory gasped. “Anyone been here? Quickly, man, _quickly!_”
“Yes, yes, we’re all right.” The man was off guard, apprehensive. “What in the name of God is all that noise–”
“Those damned English saboteurs!” Mallory swore viciously. “They’ve killed the guards and they’re inside! Are you sure no one’s been here? Come, let me see.”
He pushed his way past the guard, probed his torch at the massive padlock, then straightened his back.
“Thank heaven for that anyway!” He turned round, let the dazzling beam of his torch catch the man square in the eyes, muttered an apology and switched off the light, the sound of the sharp click lost in the hollow, soggy thud of the heel of his Colt catching the man behind the ear, just below the helmet. The sentry was still on his feet, just beginning to crumple, when Mallory staggered as the second guard reeled into him, staggered, recovered, clouted him with the Colt for good measure, then stiffened in sudden dismay as he heard the vicious, hissing _plop_ of Miller’s automatic, twice in rapid succession.
“What the hell–”
“Wily birds, boss,” Miller murmured. “Very wily indeed, There was a third character in the shadows at the side. Only way to stop him.” Automatic cocked in his ready hand, he stooped over the man for a moment, then straightened. “Afraid he’s been stopped kinda permanent, boss.” There was no expression in his voice.
“Tie up the others.” Mallory had only half-heard him; he was already busy at the magazine door, trying a succession of keys in the lock. The third key fitted, the lock opened and the heavy steel door gave easily to his touch. He took a last swift look round, but there was no one in sight, no sound but the revving, engine of the last of the trucks clearing the fortress gates, the distant rattle of machine-gun fire. Andrea was doing a magnificent job–if only he didn’t overdo it, leave his withdrawal till it was too late. . . . Mallory turned quickly, switched on his torch, stepped inside the door. Miller would follow when he was ready.
A vertical steel ladder fixed to the rock led down to the floor of the cave. On either side of the ladder were hollow lift-shafts, unprotected even by a cage, oiled wire ropes glistening in the middle, a polished metal runner at each side of the square to guide and steady the spring-loaded side-wheels of the lift itself. Spartan in their simplicity but wholly adequate, there was no mistaking these for anything but what they were–the shell hoist shafts going down to the magazine.
Mallory reached the solid floor of the cave and swept his torch round through a 180-degree arc. This was the very end of that great cave that opened out beneath the towering overhang of rock that dominated the entire harbour. Not the natural end, he saw after a moment’s inspection, but a man-made addition: the volcanic rock round him had been drilled and blasted out. There was nothing here but the two shafts descending into the pitchy darkness and another steel ladder, also leading to the magazine. But the magazine could wait: to check that there were no more guards down here and to ensure an emergency escape route–there were the two vital needs of the moment.
Quickly Mallory ran along the tunnel, flipping his torch on and off. The Germans were past-masters of booby traps–explosive booby traps–for the protection of important installations, but the chances were that they had none in that tunnel–not with several hundred tons of high explosive stored only feet away.
The tunnel itself, dripping-damp and duckboard floored, was about seven feet high and even wider, but the central passage was very narrow–most of the space was taken up by the roller conveyors, one on either side, for the great cartridges and shells. Suddenly the conveyors curved away sharply to left and right, the sharplysheering tunnel roof climbed steeply up into the neardarkness of the vaulted dome above, and, almost at his feet, their burnished steel caught in the beam from his torch, twin sets of parallel rails, imbedded in the solid stone and twenty feet apart, stretched forward into the lightened gloom ahead, the great, gaping mouth of the cave. And just before he switched off the torch–searchers returning from the Devil’s Playground might easily catch the pin-point of light in the darkness–Mallory had a brief glimpse of the turn-tables that crowned the far end of these shining rails and, crouched massively above, like some nightmare monsters from an ancient and other world, the evil, the sinister silhouettes of the two great guns of Navarone.