Алистер Маклин - Partisans

Lorraine didn’t tell him anything. She just caught her lower lip and looked down at the table.

Sarina said: ‘I think you’re horrible .’

‘If you equate honesty with horror then, sure, I’m horrible.’

Giacomo was smiling. ‘You certainly do know a lot, don’t you, Peter?’

‘Not really. I’ve just learned to learn enough to stay alive.’

Giacomo was still smiling. ‘You’ll be telling me next that I’m not Italian.’

‘Not if you don’t want me to.’

‘You mean I’m not Italian?’

‘How can you be if you were born in Yugoslavia? Montenegro, to be precise.’

‘Jesus!’ Giacomo was no longer smiling, but there was neither rancour nor offence in face or tone. Then he started smiling again.

Sarina looked bleakly at Petersen then turned to Giacomo. ‘And what else did this – this–’

‘Monster?’ Petersen said helpfully.

‘This monster. Oh, do be quiet. What other outrage did this man commit last night?’

‘Well, now.’ Giacomo linked his fingers behind his head and seemed prepared to enjoy himself. ‘It all depends upon what you call an outrage. To start with, after he had Cola shot he gassed Alessandro and three other men.’

‘Gassed them?’ She stared at Giacomo in disbelief.

‘ Gassed . It was their own gas he used. They deserved it.’

‘You mean he killed them? Murdered them?’

‘No, no. They recovered. I know. I was there. Simply,’ he added hastily, ‘you understand, as an observer. Then he took away their guns, and ammunition, and grenades and a few other nasty things. Then he locked them up. That’s all.’

‘That’s all.’ Sarina breathed deeply, twice. ‘When you say it quickly it sounds like nothing, doesn’t it? Why did he lock them up?’

‘Maybe he didn’t want them to have breakfast. How should I know. Ask him.’ He looked at Petersen. ‘A pretty fair old job of locking up, if I may say so. I just happened along that way as we were coming into port.’

‘Ah!’

‘Ah, indeed.’ Giacomo looked at Sarina. ‘You didn’t smell any smoke during the night, did you?’

‘Smoke? Yes, we did.’ She shuddered, remembering. ‘We were sick enough already when we smelled it. That was really the end. Why?’

‘That was your friend Peter and his friends at work. They were welding up the door of Alessandro’s cabin.’

‘Welding up the door?’ A faint note of hysteria had crept into her voice. ‘With Alessandro and his men inside! Why on earth–’ She was suddenly at a loss for words.

‘I guess he didn’t want them to get out.’

The two girls looked at each other in silence. There was nothing more to say. Petersen cleared his throat in a brisk fashion.

‘Well, now that’s everything satisfactorily explained.’ The two girls turned their heads in slow unison and looked at him in total incredulity. ‘The past, as they say, is prologue. We’ll be leaving in about half an hour or whatever time it takes to obtain some transport. Time to brush your teeth and pack your gear.’ He looked at Giacomo. ‘You and your friend coming with us?’

‘Lorraine, you mean?’

‘Got any other friends aboard? Don’t stall.’

‘All depends where you’re going.’

‘Same place as you. Don’t be cagey.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Up the Neretva.’

‘We’ll come.’

Petersen made to rise when Carlos entered, a piece of paper in his hand. Like Giacomo, he was shaven, brisk and apparently cheerful. He didn’t look like a man who hadn’t slept all night but then, in his business, he probably slept enough during the day.

‘Good morning. You’ve had breakfast?’

‘Our compliments to the chef. That paper for me?’

‘It is. Radio signal just come in. Code, so it doesn’t make any sense to me.’

Petersen glanced at it. ‘Doesn’t make any sense to me either. Not until I get the code book.’ He folded the paper and put it in an inside pocket.

‘Might it not be urgent?’ Carlos said.

‘It’s from Rome. I’ve invariably found that whenever Rome thinks something is urgent it’s never urgent to me.’

Lorraine said: ‘We’ve just heard that a man has been shot. Is he badly hurt?’

‘Cola?’ Carlos didn’t sound very concerned about Cola’s health. ‘He thinks he is. I don’t. Anyway, I’ve sent for an ambulance. Should have been here by now.’ He looked out of the small window. ‘No ambulance. But a couple of soldiers approaching the gangway. If, that is, you could call them soldiers. One’s about ninety, the other ten. Probably for you.’

‘We’ll see.’

Carlos had exaggerated the age disparity between the two soldiers but not by much: the younger was indeed a beardless youth, the older well stricken in years. The latter saluted as smartly as his arthritic bones would permit.

‘Captain Tremino. You have a Yugoslav army officer among your passengers?’

Carlos waved a hand. ‘Major Petersen.’

‘That’s the name.’ The ancient saluted again. ‘Commandant’s compliments, sir, and would you be so kind as to see him in his office. You and your two men.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘The Commandant does not confide in me, sir.’

‘How far is it?’

‘A few hundred metres. Five minutes.’

‘Right away.’ Petersen stood and picked up his machine-pistol. George and Alex did the same. The older soldier coughed politely.

‘The commandant doesn’t like guns in his office.’

‘No guns? There is a war in progress, this is a military post, and the commandant doesn’t like guns.’ He looked at George and Alex, then slipped off his machine-pistol. ‘He’s probably in his dotage. Let’s humour him.’

They left. Carlos watched through the window as they descended the gangway to the quayside. He sighed.

‘I can’t bear it. I can’t. As an Italian, I can’t bear it. It’s like sending a toothless old hound and a frisky puppy to round up three timber wolves. Sabre-toothed tigers, more like.’ He raised his voice. ‘Giovanni!’

Sarina said hesitatingly: ‘Are they really like that? I mean, I heard a man in Rome yesterday call them that.’

‘Ah! My old friend Colonel Lunz, no doubt.’

‘You know the Colonel?’ There was surprise in her voice. ‘I thought – well, everybody seems to know everything around here. Except me.’

‘Of course I know him.’ He turned as the lean, dyspeptic looking engineer-chef appeared in the doorway. ‘Breakfast, Giovanni, if you would.’

Giacomo said wonderingly: ‘You can really eat that stuff?’

‘Atrophied taste-buds, a zinc-lined stomach, a little imagination and you could be in Maxim’s. Sarina, one does not approach me at the quayside at Termoli, jerk a thumb towards the east and ask for a lift to Yugoslavia. Do you think you’d be aboard the Colombo if I didn’t know the Colonel? Do you have to be suspicious about everyone?’

‘I’m suspicious about our Major Petersen. I don’t trust him an inch.’

‘That’s a fine thing to say about a fellow-countryman.’ Carlos sat and buttered bread. ‘Honest and straightforward sort of fellow, one would have thought.’

‘One would have – look, we’ve got to go up into the mountains with that man!’

‘He seems to know his way around. In fact, I know he does. You should reach your destination all right.’

‘Oh, I’m sure. Whose destination – his or ours?’

Carlos looked at her in mild exasperation. ‘Do you have any option?’

‘No.’

‘Then why don’t you stop wasting your breath?’

‘Carlos! How can you talk to her like that?’ Lorraine’s voice was sharp enough to bring a slightly thoughtful look to Giacomo’s face. ‘She’s worried. Of course she’s worried. I’m worried, too. We’re both going up into the mountains with that man. You’re not.’ She was either nervous or had a low temper flash-point. ‘It’s all very well for you sitting safe and sound here aboard the Colombo .’