Алистер Маклин - Partisans

‘I have to agree,’ Harrison said. ‘They’ll go ahead as planned. Forewarned, one takes it, is forearmed. A satisfactory night’s work, no?’

‘It was unimportant. They would almost certainly have found out in any case. We have a considerable number of reliable contacts throughout the country. In the areas held by the Germans, Italians, Četniks and Ustaša – and that’s most of the country – there are reliable solid citizens, or are so regarded by the Germans, Italians, Četniks and Ustaša, who, while cheerfully collaborating with the enemy, send us regular and up-to-date reports of the latest enemy troop movements. In other words, they are Partisan spies. Their reports are far from complete but enough to give Tito and his staff a fair indication of the enemy’s intentions.’

‘I suppose that happens in every war,’ Harrison said, ‘But I didn’t know the Partisans had spies in the enemy’s camp.’

‘We have had from the very beginning. We couldn’t have survived otherwise. What took up most of our time last night was the distressing discovery – well, we first suspected it about ten weeks ago – that the enemy have spies in our camp. Even more distressing was the discovery that they had spies in the Partisan HQ. In retrospect, it was naïve of us, we should have suspected the possibility and taken precautions long ago. In fairness to us, we weren’t complacent – we were just under the fond misapprehension that every Partisan was a burning patriot. Some, alas, burn less brightly than others. This, and not acting as message boys for General von Löhr, is what has been occupying George, Alex and myself in Italy in the past two weeks. It was a matter of such vital importance that George was actually sufficiently motivated to drag himself away from his snug retreats in Bihać and Mount Prenj. Those spies in our camp had become a major threat to our security: we were trying to uncover the Italian connection.

‘That there was, and is, an Italian connection, is beyond dispute. Not German, not Četnik, not Ustaša – specifically Italian, for it has been the Italian Murge division, first-class mountain troops, that have been causing us all the trouble. Our Partisans are as good, probably even better mountain troops, but hundreds of them have been killed by the Murge division in the past few months. Never in pitched battle. Invariably in isolated, one-off, incidents. A patrol, a localized troop movement, a transfer of wounded to a supposedly safer area, a reconnaissance group behind enemy lines – it came to the stage where none of those was immune to a lightning strike by specialized Murge units who apparently knew, always, exactly where to strike, when to strike, how to strike – they even seemed to know the number and composition of the Partisan groups they would be attacking, even the approximate number of the groups themselves. Our small-scale guerrilla movements were becoming very hampered, almost paralysed: and a partisan’s army’s survival depends almost exclusively on mobility, flexibility and long-range reconnaissance.

‘The Murge, of course, were receiving precise advance information of our movements. The information had to be coming from a person or persons in the neighbourhood of our HQ. Those secret messages, messages which led hundreds of men to their deaths, were not of course written down, addressed to the enemy and dropped in the nearest letterbox: they were sent by radio.’ Petersen broke off as if to collect his thoughts, his eyes wandering, unseeingly, as it seemed, round the table. Lorraine, he could see, was unnaturally pale: Sarina had her hands clasped tightly together. Petersen appeared to notice nothing.

‘I’ll carry on for a moment,’ George said. ‘At this time, you must understand that Peter has been overcome by his habitual modesty. Peter couldn’t believe that the traitors could be any longserving Partisans. Neither could I. Peter suggested that we check the approximate dates of the first transmissions – the times of the first unexpected swoops by the Murge units – with the time of the arrival of the latest recruits to the Partisans. We did and found that this checked with the arrival of an unusually high number of ex-Četniks regularly desert to us and it’s Četniks – quite impossible to check out the credentials and good faith of ail of them or even a fraction of them.

‘Peter and some of his men checked on a small number of those and found two who had access to long-range transmitters hidden in a forest on a hill-side. They wouldn’t talk and we don’t torture. They were executed. Thereafter the number of unexpected attacks by the Murge fell off rapidly: but they still continued at sporadic intervals. Which, of course, could only mean that there were still some traitors around.’

George helped himself liberally to some beer. It was but breakfast time, but George claimed to be allergic to both tea and coffee.

‘So we went to Italy, the three of us. Why? Because we – are or were – Četnik intelligence officers and naturally associated with our Italian counterparts. Why? Because we were convinced that the messages were being relayed through Italian Intelligence. Why? Because a fighting division has neither the facilities, the ability, the organization nor the cash to mount such an operation. But Italian Intelligence has all of these in abundance.’

‘Amidst the welter of “whys”, George,’ Harrison said, ‘why the cash?’

‘It’s as Peter said,’ George said sadly. ‘You haven’t got the Balkan mentality. Come to that, I doubt whether you have the universal mentality. The Četnik agents, like agents and double-agents the world over, are not motivated simply by altruism, patriotism or political conviction. The little gears in their minds only mesh efficiently under the influence of the universal lubricant. Money. They are rather highly paid and, considered dispassionately, deserve to be: look what happened to those two unfortunates unmasked by Peter.’ Petersen rose, walked to the window and stood there, gazing down the gentle valley that sloped away from their chalet. He seemed to have lost interest in the conversation.

‘All in all,’ Harrison said, ‘a fair night’s work.’

‘That wasn’t quite all of it,’ George said. ‘We have located Cipriano.’

‘Cipriano!’

‘None other. Lorraine, my dear! You look so pale. Are you not well?’

‘I feel – I feel a little faint.’

‘Maraschino,’ George said unhesitatingly. ‘Sava!’ This to one of Crni’s soldiers who rose at once and crossed to the liquor cupboard. ‘Yes, indeed. The worthy Major himself.’

‘But how on earth–’

‘We have our little methods,’ George said complacently. ‘We have, as Peter told you, our reliable, solid citizens everywhere. Incidentally, you can now forget all that Peter told you – thank you, my boy, just give it to the lady – all he told you about Cipriano working hand-in-glove with the Partisans. I’m afraid he grossly maligned the poor man but at the moment he deemed it prudent to divert any suspicions that Majors Metrović and Ranković might have been harbouring from himself to an absent person. Cipriano was conveniently absent. Our Peter is a very convincing actor, no?’

‘He’s a very convincing liar,’ Sarina said.

‘Oh, tush! Hurt pride again. We’re just mad because he fooled you, too. Anyway, Cipriano’s in Imotski, doubtless closeted with the Murge brigade commander there and hatching fresh devilish schemes against our poor Partisans. I shouldn’t have to explain any of this. You will remember that Peter said in Mount Prenj that he wanted to get to the link-man – Cipriano – because he was aiding and abetting the Partisans. What he meant to say was he wanted to get at the link-man because he was a deadly enemy of the Partisans but he couldn’t very well say that, could he, in front of Metrović and Ranković? Come, come, my children, you disappoint me: you had all night long to work out something as simple and obvious as that.’