“Going to draw them off?” Mallory was at Louki’s side staring out of the window. “The crazy fool! He’ll get himself killed this time–get himself killed for sure! There are soldiers everywhere. Besides, they won’t fall for it again. He tricked them once up in the hills, and the Germans–”
“I’m not so sure, sir,” Brown interrupted excitedly. “Andrea’s just shot out the searchlight on his side. They’ll think for certain that we’re going to break out over the wall and–look, sir, look! There they go!” Brown was almost dancing with excitement, the pain of his injured leg forgotten. “He’s done it, sir, he’s done it!”
Sure enough, Mallory saw, the patrol had broken away from their shelter in the house to their right and were running across the square in extended formation, their heavy boots clattering on the cobbles, stumbling, falling, recovering again as they lost footing on the slippery wetness of the uneven stones. At the same time Mallory could see torches flickering on the roofs of the houses opposite, the vague forms of men crouching low to escape observation and making swiftly for the spot where Andrea had been when he had shot out the great Cyclops eye of the searchlight.
“They’ll be on him from every side.” Mallory spoke quietly enough, but his fists clenched until the nails cut into the palms of his hands. He stood stock-still for some seconds, stooped quickly and gathered a Schmeisser up from the floor. “He hasn’t a chance. I’m going after him.” He turned abruptly, brought up with equal suddenness: Miller was blocking his way to the door.
“Andrea left word that we were to leave him be, that he’d find his own way out.” Miller was very calm, very respectful. “Said that no one was to help him, not on any account.”
“Don’t try to stop me, Dusty.” Mallory spoke evenly, mechanically almost He was hardly aware that Dusty Miller was there. He only knew that he must get out at once, get to Andrea’s side, give him what help he could. They had been together too long, he owed too much to the smiling giant to let him go so easily. He couldn’t remember how often Andrea had come after _him_, more than once when he had thought hope was gone. . . . He put his hand against Miller’s chest.
“You’ll only be in his way, boss,” Miller said urgently. “That’s what you said . . .”
Mallory pushed him ‘aside, strode for the door, brought up his fist to strike as hands closed round his upper arm. He stopped just in time, looked down into Louki’s worried face.
“The American is right,” Louki said insistently. “You must not go. Andrea said you were to take us down to the harbour.”
“Go down yourselves,” Mallory said brusquely. “You know the way, you know the plans.”
“You would let us all go, let us all–”
“I’d let the whole damn’ world go if I could help him.” There was an utter sincerity in the New Zealander’s voice. “Andrea would never let me down.”
“But you would let him down,” Louki said quietly. “Is that it, Major Mallory?”
“What the devil do you mean?”
“By not doing as he wishes. He may be hurt, killed even, and if you go after him and are killed too, that makes it all useless. He would die for nothing. Is it thus you would repay your friend?”
“All right, all right, you win,” Mallory said irritably.
“That is how Andrea would want it,” Louki murmured. “Any other way you would be–”
“Stop preaching at me! Right, gentlemen, let’s be on our way.” He was back on balance again, easy, relaxed, the primeval urge to go out and kill well under control. “We’ll take the high road–over the roofs. Dig into that kitchen stove there, rub the ashes all over your hands and faces. See that there’s nothing white on you anywhere. And no talking!”
The five-minute journey down to the harbour wall–a journey made in soft-footed silence with Mallory hushing even the beginnings of a whisper–was quite uneventful. ‘Not only did they see no soldiers, they saw no one at all. The inhabitants of Navarone were wisely observing the curfew, and the streets were completely deserted. Andrea had drawn off pursuit with a vengeance. Mallory began to fear that the Germans had taken him, but just as they reached the water’s edge he heard the gun-fire again, a good deal farther away this time, in the very north-east corner of the town, round the back of the fortress.
Mallory stood on the low wail above the harbour, looked at his companions, gazed out over the dark oiliness of the water. Through the heavy rain he could just distinguish, to his right and left, the vague blurs of caiques moored stern on to the wall. Beyond that he could see nothing.
“Well, I don’t suppose we can get much wetter than we are right now,” he observed. He turned to Louki, checked something the little man was trying to say about Andrea. “You sure you can find it all right in the darkness?” “It” was the commandant’s personal launch, a thirty-six-foot ten-tonner always kept moored to a buoy a hundred feet offshore. The engineer, who doubled as guard, slept aboard, Louki had said.
“I am already there,” Louki boasted. “Blindfold me as you will and I–”
“All right, all right,” Mallory said hastily. “I’ll take your word for it. Lend me your hat, will you, Casey?” He jammed the automatic into the crown of the hat, pulled it firmly on to his head, slid gently into the water and struck out by Louki’s side.
“The engineer,” Louki said softly. “I think he will be awake, Major.”
“I think so, too,” Mallory said grimly. Again there came the chatter of machine-carbines, the deeper whiplash of a Mauser. “So will everyone else in Navarone, unless they’re deaf or dead. Drop behind as soon as we see the boat. Come when I call.”
Ten seconds, fifteen passed, then Louki touched Mallory on the arm.
“I see it,” Mallory whispered. The blurred silhouette was less than fifteen yards away. He approached silently, neither legs nor arms breaking water, until he saw the vague shape of a man standing on the poop, just aft of the engine-room hatchway. He was immobile, staring out in the direction of the fortress and the upper town: Mallory slowly circled round the stern of the boat and came up behind him, on the other side. Carefully he removed his hat, took out the gun, caught the low gunwale with his left hand. At the range of seven feet he knew he couldn’t possibly miss, but he couldn’t shoot the man, not then. The guard-rails were token affairs only, eighteen inches high at the most, and the splash of the man falling into the water would almost certainly alert the guards at the harbour mouth emplacements.
“If you move I will kill you!” Mallory said softly in German. The man stiffened. He had a carbine in his hand, Mallory saw.
“Put the gun down. Don’t turn round.” Again the man obeyed, and Mallory was out of the water and on to the deck, in seconds, neither eye nor automatic straying from the man’s back. He stepped softly forward, reversed the automatic, struck, caught the man before he could fall overboard and lowered him quietly to the deck. Three minutes later all the others were safely aboard.
Mallory followed the limping Brown down to the engine-room, watched him as he switched on his hooded torch, looked around with a professional eye, looked at the big, gleaming, six-cylinder in line Diesel engine.
“This,” said Brown reverently, “is an engine. What a beauty! Operates on any number of cylinders you like. I know the type, sir.”
“I never doubted but you would. Can you start her up, Casey?”
“Just a minute till I have a look round, sir.” Brown had all the unhurried patience of the born engineer. Slowly, methodically, he played the spotlight round the immaculate interior of the engine-room, switched on the fuel and turned to Mallory. “A dual control job, sir. We can take her from up top.”
He carried out the same painstaking inspection in the wheel-house, while Mallory waited impatiently. The rain was easing off now, not much, but sufficiently to let him see the vague outlines of the harbour entrance. He wondered for the tenth time if the guards there had been alerted against the possibility of an attempted escape by boat. It seemed unlikely–from the racket Andrea was making, the Germans would think that escape was the last thing in their minds. … He leaned forward, touched Brown on the shoulder.
“Twenty past eleven, Casey,” he murmured. “If these destroyers come through early we’re apt to have a thousand tons of rock falling on our heads.”
“Ready now, sir,” Brown announced. He gestured at the crowded dashboard beneath the screen. “Nothing to it really.”