Алистер Маклин - Partisans

Back in Harrison’s radio hut their relative sufferings were soon forgotten.

‘There’s no place like home,’ Harrison announced to nobody in particular. Although it would have been unfair to call him inebriated, it would have been fair to pass the opinion that he wasn’t stone cold sober either.

He bent an appreciative gaze on the glass in his hand. ‘Nectar emboldens me. George has given me a very comprehensive account of your activities over the past two weeks. He has not, however, told me why you went to Rome in the first place. Nor did you seek to enlighten me on your return.’

‘That’s because I didn’t know myself.’

Harrison nodded sagely. ‘That makes sense. You go all the way to Rome and back and you don’t know why.’

‘I was just carrying a message. I didn’t know the contents.’

‘Is one permitted to ask if you know the contents now?’

‘One is permitted. I do.’

‘Ah! Is one further permitted to know the contents?’

‘In your own language, Jamie, I don’t know whether I’m permitted or not. All I can say is that this is purely a military matter. Strictly, I am not a military man, a commander of troops. I’m an espionage agent. Espionage agents don’t wage battles. We’re far too clever for that. Or cowardly.’

Harrison looked at Metrović and Ranković in turn. ‘You’re military men. If I’m to believe half you tell me, you wage battles.’

Metrović smiled. ‘We’re not as clever as Peter.’

‘You know the contents of the message?’

‘Of course. Peter’s discretion does him credit but it’s not really necessary. Within a couple of days the news will be common knowledge throughout the camp. We – the Germans, Italians, ourselves and the Ustaša – are to launch an all-out offensive against the Partisans. We shall annihilate Titoland. The Germans have given the name of the attack “Operation Weiss”: the Partisans will doubtless call it the Fourth Offensive.’

Harrison seemed unimpressed. He said, doubtfully: ‘That means, of course, that you’ve made three other offensives already. Those didn’t get you very far, did they?’

Metrović was unruffled. ‘I know it’s easy to say, but this time really will be different. They’re cornered. They’re trapped. They’ve no way out, no place left to go. They haven’t a single plane, fighter or bomber. We have squadrons upon squadrons. They haven’t a tank, not even a single effective anti-aircraft gun. At the most, they have fifteen thousand men, most of them starving, weak, sick and untrained. We have almost a hundred thousand men, well-trained and fit. And Tito’s final weakness, his Achilles’ heel, you might say, is his lack of mobility: he is known to have at least three thousand wounded men on his hands. It will be no contest. I don’t say I look forward to it, but it will be a massacre. Are you a betting man, James?’

‘Not against odds like that, I’m not. Like Peter here, I lay no claim to being a military man – I never even saw a uniform until three years ago – but if the action is so imminent why are you drinking wine at your leisured ease instead of being hunched over your war maps, sticking flags in here, flags in there, drawing up your battle plans or whatever you’re supposed to be doing in cases like this?’

Metrović laughed. ‘Three excellent reasons. First, the offensive is not imminent – it’s two weeks away yet. Second, all the plans have already been drawn up and all the troops are already in position or will be in a few days. Third, the main assault takes place at Bihać, where the Partisan forces are at present centred, and that’s over two hundred kilometres north-west of here. We’re not taking part in that: we’re staying just where we are in case the Partisans are so foolish, or optimistic or suicidal to try to break out to the south-east: stopping them from crossing the Neretva, in the remote possibility of a few stragglers getting as far as here, would be only a formality.’ He paused and gazed at a darkened window. ‘There may well be a fourth possibility. If the weather worsens, or even continues like this, the best laid plans of the High Command could well go wrong. A postponement would be inevitable. Nobody’s going to be moving around the mountains in those impossible weather conditions for days to come, that’s for sure. Days might well become weeks.’

‘Well, yes,’ Harrison said. ‘One sees why you face the future with a certain resigned fortitude. On the basis of what you say the chances are good that you won’t even become involved at all. For myself, I hope your prognosis is correct – as I’ve said I’m no man of war and I’ve become quite attached to these rather comfortable quarters. And do you, Peter, expect to hibernate along with us?’

‘No. If the Colonel has nothing for me in the morning – and he gave no indication tonight that he would have – then I shall be on my way the following morning. Provided, of course, that we’re not up to our ears in snowdrifts.’

‘Whither away, if one is–’

‘Permitted to ask? Yes. A certain Italian intelligence officer is taking an undue amount of interest in me. He’s trying either to discredit me or hamper me in my operations. Has tried, I should say. I would like to find out why.’

Metrović said: ‘In what way has he tried, Peter?’

‘He and a gang of his thugs held us up in a Mostar hotel in the early hours of this morning. Looking for something, I suppose. Whether they found it or not I don’t know. Shortly before that, on the boat coming from Italy, some of his minions tried to carry out a night attack on us. They failed, but not for the want of trying, for they were carrying syringes and lethal drugs which they were more than prepared to use.’

‘Goodness me.’ Harrison looked suitably appalled. ‘What happened?’

‘It was all quite painless, really,’ George said with satisfaction. ‘We welded them up in a cabin on the boat. Last heard of they were still there.’

Harrison looked reproachfully at George. ‘Missed this out in your stirring account of your activities, didn’t you?’

‘Discretion, discretion.’

‘This Italian intelligence officer,’ Metrović said, ‘is, of course an ally. With some allies, as we know, you don’t need enemies. When you meet up with this ally what are you going to do? Question him or kill him?’ The Major seemed to regard that as a very natural query.

‘Kill him?’ Sarina looked and was shocked. ‘That nice man. Kill him! I thought you rather liked him.’

‘Liked him? He’s reasonable, personable, smiling, open-faced, has a firm handshake and looks you straight in the eye – anyone can tell at once that he’s a member of the criminal classes. He was prepared to kill me, by proxy, mind you, through his hatchet-man Alessandro – which, if anything, makes it an even more heinous intention on his part – so why shouldn’t I be prepared to pre-empt him? But I won’t, at least not right away. I just want to ask him a few questions.’

‘But – but you might not even be able to find him.’

‘I’ll find him.’

‘And if he refuses to answer?’

‘He’ll answer.’ There was the same chilling certainty in the voice. She touched her lips with the back of her hand and fell silent. Metrović, his face thoughtful, said: ‘You’re not the man to ask questions unless you’re pretty certain of the answers in advance. You’re after confirmation of something. Could you not have obtained this confirmation at the hotel you mentioned?’

‘Certainly. But I didn’t want the place littered with corpses, not all of which might have been theirs. I’d promised to deliver this lot intact first. Everything in its due turn. Confirmation? I want confirmation of why Italy is planning to pull out of this war. That they want out I don’t for a moment doubt. Their people never wanted this war. Their army, navy and air force never wanted it. Remember when Wavell’s army in North Africa overwhelmed the Italians? There was a picture taken just after the last battle, a picture that was to become world-famous. It showed about a thousand Italian prisoners being marched off to their barbed wire cages escorted by three British soldiers. The sun was so hot that the soldiers had given their rifles to three of the prisoners to carry. That about sums up the Italian attitude to the war.