John Robb - Zone Zero

“You can see for yourself! I tripped and…”

“Nonsense! You deliberately stumbled. You deliberately hurt your hands. And then you threw down the crate.”

Keith glared down at Gallast. But his indignation was heavily tempered with anxiety.

“I tell you I did nothing of the sort! Anyway, what the hell are you worrying about? It fell on soft sand, didn’t it? It doesn’t look as if anything is broken.”

Gallast regarded the undamaged crate thoughtfully.

“I won’t know about that until the professor has made an examination.”

Professor Daak had risen stertorously from his chair. He stood beside Keith, waving an accusing finger at him.

He screeched: “I was watching! I saw it all. He threw it out of the plane!”

Keith turned to face the paunchy and vicious little man.

“You’re a damned liar!”

“Quiet! I will not have you speak to me so!”

Keith instinctively bunched his throbbing fists. He felt a strong desire to use them.

“If you weren’t an old man,” he announced slowly and loudly, “I’d take you apart.”

Professor Daak was no hero. And he was not content to rely upon his senility for protection. He retreated into the plane. Then Gallast spoke again.

“Everyone will get out of the bomber,” he rapped. “I am satisfied with Professor Daak’s statement. There is no need for further debate.”

Three guards with Lugers ushered them down the ladder. On further orders the other legionnaires ceased work and joined them. There was an atmosphere of morbid tension.

Gallast said: “I made it clear that if there was any nonsense one man would be selected at random and executed—an innocent man. You can scarcely have forgotten. We will proceed with that unpleasant business without delay—I want to get the plane in the air as soon as possible.”

He spoke with casual indifference, as though explaining a minor hitch in army manoeuvres.

D’Aran pushed forward. His prematurely lined face was now more deeply etched than ever.

“You can’t be such a maniac! I am ready to state on my honour that it was an accident—I saw it better than Daak.”

Gallast shook his head.

“I am sorry that I cannot accept the word of an officer—but there it is.”

“So you are going to pick out an innocent man and murder him!”

“I did not use the term murder. Execute is the more accurate description.”

Keith took a pace forward so that he was standing next to D’Aran. Some compulsion made him say: “If you are determined on this, you might as well kill me. I dropped the crate.”

He felt them all looking at him. And, strangely, he felt a deep and genuine hope that Gallast would accept. It would be an atonement…

But again Gallast shook his head.

“That is impossible. It is most necessary that the innocent should suffer if we are to avoid further trouble. The only question is whom…”

His eyes travelled down the line of legionnaires. They returned and rested upon a small and tubby figure in the middle of the file.

Legionnaire Paffal…

Paffal was a Greek. He was justly proud of the fact. But there was nothing about his appearance or demeanour to suggest the ancient and modern glories of his race.

In his sweat-sodden shirt and baggy trousers he looked as if he had been moulded to shape in a barrel. Neither heat, not hard physical work, nor a frugal diet could remove his rolls of fat.

And he was a nervous little man, was Legionnaire Paffal. Not merely at this moment, but always. He was one of those unfortunate men who are forever anxious to please, but never quite succeed in doing so. In fact, if there was a wrong way of doing anything, Paffal would be sure to find it—despite his efforts to the contrary.

When loading a rifle he would contrive to jam the cartridges across the magazine spring. When on parade he would forget his number in the file. When detailed to scrub out a barrack room he would overturn the bucket of water on a legionnaire’s only tunic.

Yet no one—not even the long-suffering Sergeant Vogel—could get really annoyed with Paffal. For Paffal tried so hard. And beneath his perpetual state of nervous flux there was a warm heart and cheerful nature. It was to Paffal that Gallast pointed. “It will be you,” Gallast said. “Walk away from us—two of my men will shoot you as you do so. You’ll know nothing about it.”

A faint hiss of deeply drawn breaths spread down the file. It was followed by an ugly muttering.

D’Aran’s face was contorted, his eyes wild.

“This is satanic! Listen to me… I’ll have the bullet in the back. I’m the commanding officer here, so my life ought to satisfy you more than his!”

Gallast ignored the suggestion. He pointed again at Paffal.

“Do as I say,” he said briskly. “You’ll gain nothing by standing there for we can quite well shoot you from the front. But it will be better for you if you don’t know the precise moment.”

Paffal’s greasy round face looked as if it was being massaged by invisible fingers. His eyes were glazed. He tried to speak. No sound emerged.

It was then that the legionnaires moved—moved simultaneously.

They formed a shield of bodies round Paffal. They were not inspired by any discernible leadership. There was no suggestion of a word of command. It just happened. It was the sort of mass reaction which seizes men who have been pushed too far…

In one moment Paffal was visible in the centre of the file. In the next, he had disappeared. And the file had reformed itself into a closely packed mass.

After a moment of bewildered inaction, the guards raised their pistols and rifles. Then they looked doubtfully at Gallast.

Gallast remained very still. Almost unconcerned. But when he spoke his tones had a strained, echoing quality.

He said: “If you do not move, you will be shot—all of you.”

They did not move. They stared back at Gallast. “This is your last chance. In a few seconds I will order my men to fire.”

Absolute stillness.

It was as if the earth had ceased to spin in the heavens. As if nothing existed upon a torrid planet save this group of men standing outside a tiny military outpost.

It was uncanny. And like all uncanny things it could not endure for long. Either the rattle of firearms had to end it—or some action from among the legionnaires themselves.

It came from among the legionnaires.

From Paffal.

He pushed through the huddle of his comrades, his head bent low. When he emerged he had lost his kepi and the sun reflected off his shining bald scalp.

He made a nervous gesture. Then he said to Gallast: “ I am ready.”

Keith made a dart to him and grabbed his shoulder. But Paffal shook him off.

“I am ready,” he repeated. His voice had a firmness which had never been heard before. There was a strangely decisive air about him.

For a moment Gallast seemed confused. Then he said: “I don’t recognise your accent, fat one. What’s your nationality?”

“I am a Greek.”

“Indeed… you surprise me. What is there about Greeks which makes them so willing to die?”

“I am afraid to die. But I would be more afraid if I saw my comrades dying because of me.”

Gallast nodded.

“You confirm my reasoning. But you also puzzle me. I know nothing about Greece which leads me to believe that its people are capable of such courage.”

“Then you truly know nothing about Greece. My people have fought tyrants for two thousand years. They fought them just a little time ago when they broke the hearts of the Italian armies who tried to invade the land… I am not a brave man. Sometimes I think I am a very stupid and useless sort of man. But I can try to be worthy of my people, who have never been cowed by bullies such as you, for freedom… oh, but you would not understand!”