Captain Hughson touched Canidy’s arm.
“There’s a rock over the water,” he said.
“You can jump from it to the boat.”
He nodded toward it.
“Would you like to take this with you?” Hughson asked, unslinging his Sten submachine gun from his shoulder and offering it to Canidy.
“Have you got another one?”
“Actually,” Hughson said, “there’s a Schmeisser in my cell I’ve been looking for an excuse to carry.”
“Then thank you, Hughson,” Canidy said, and took the submachine gun from him.
“You will be a good chap, won’t you, Major, and make an effort to return the Sten to me, in person?” Hughson said.
“Despite what everybody apparently thinks,” Canidy said, “I am not charging foolhardy into the valley of death.”
“No, of course you aren’t,” Hughson said. He put out his hand, and Canidy took it.
The boat nosed in to the rock. First Ferniany and then Canidy jumped onto the deck. Immediately, the boat headed offshore.
There were two men in the wheelhouse, both dark-haired and darkskinned, both needing a shave, and both dressed in dark blue fisherman’s trousers and rough brown sweaters. It was only when one of them spoke in English to Ferniany that Canidy had any idea which was the genuine fisherman and which the SOE agent with the code name “Saint Peter.”
“And what, might one dare inquire, is one supposed to do with this downed, if intrepid, aviator?” Saint Peter asked in an upper-class British accent.
Ferniany chuckled.
“Major Canidy, may I introduce Lieutenant J.V.M. Bean Williams, late of the Household Cavalry?”
“How’d’ja do?” It. Beane-Williams said with a smile, offering his hand.”
hate to put it to you so bluntly, Major, but you have, so to speak, just enter the “Out’ door. England… I presume you came from England… is in quit the opposite direction.”
Canidy chuckled. He liked this Englishman.
“Hughson tells me that you can put us ashore on the mainland,” Canid said.
“I presume there is a reason?” Saint Peter said.
“Someplace where we can make contact with Mihajlovic’s guerrillas, Canidy said.
“Our ultimate destination is Budapest, and the sooner we can gs there, the better.”
“Budapest is rather nasty this time of year,” Saint Peter said.
“Snow an.
slush, and ever-increasing numbers of the Boches. But I daresay you’ve al read considered that, haven’t you?”
Without waiting for a reply, he entered into a conversation with the Yi goslavian captain.
Finally, he turned to Canidy.
“Todor suggests we put you ashore at Ploce,” he said.
“He has a first cousi twice removed there. Or did he say a ‘second cousin, once removed’? He aSa asked that I express his practically boundless admiration for your wristwatch, Canidy looked at the Yugoslavian captain, who was smiling warmly at tuff exposing two gold and two missing teeth, i Then he unstrapped his chronometer and handed it to him.
The Yugoslavian said something, and Saint Peter translated, j “He says, “Oh, I couldn’t.”” “Tell him I insist,” Canidy said I The Yugoslav unstrapped his cheap watch and handed it to Canidy.
“He says,” Saint Peter said, “that if you insist…” } Canidy chuckled. I “It’s sixty miles, or thereabouts, to Ploce,” Saint Peter said.
“If we’re N stopped, it should take us four, perhaps four and a half hours.” | “And if we’re stopped?” 1 “Then none of us will get to visit Piece’s many historical and cultural 9 tractions,” Saint Peter said. ‘i
lONE]
First Lieutenant Hank Darmstadter was riding in the copilot’s seat working the radios when Commander John Dolan suddenly reached over and grasped his upper arm in a very tight grip.
Startled, Darmstadter looked at him. Dolan’s face was white and beaded with sweat. He seemed to be in pain.
“Indigestion,” Dolan said with a terrible effort.
“There’s a bottle of medicine in my briefcase. Get it, will you?”
The first thing Darmstadter remembered, as he hastily unfastened his seat and shoulder harness, was that Dolan had been medically retired from the Navy before the war because of a heart condition.
Jesus, he’s having a heart attack’ Dolan’s black leather Navy-issue briefcase was on a shelf in the passageway between the cockpit and the auxiliary fuel tanks that had been installed in the bomb bay. Its contents expanded the accordion folds, and Darmstadter grunted with the effort it took to open the catch and the straps that held it closed.