Eric Ambler - The Schirmer Inheritance

He grinned. “Bit bumpy, was it?”

“Yes.”

They climbed out stiffly and found themselves standing on what had once been the flagged courtyard of a small house. All that remained of the house itself was a ruined wall and a pile of debris.

“ELAS boys did that,” Arthur explained; “the other lot were using it as a stronghold. We go this way.”

The ruined house was on the summit of a pine-clad hill. They followed Arthur along a track which led from the house down through the trees.

They walked silently over pine needles for about fifty yards, then Arthur halted.

“Wait a tick,” he said.

They waited while he went on ahead. It was very dark under the trees and there was a strong smell of pine resin. After the atmosphere in the truck, the soft, cool air was delicious. A faint murmur of voices came from the darkness ahead.

“Did you hear that, Miss Kolin?”

“Yes. They were speaking Greek, but I could not distinguish the words. It sounded like a sentry challenging and receiving a reply.”

“What do you make of all this?”

“I think we should have left word with someone where we were going.”

“We didn’t know where we were going, but I did what I could. If we’re not back by the time the femme de chambre cleans my room in the morning, she’ll find a letter addressed to the manager on my bureau. In it there’s the number of that old man’s car and a note of explanation for the Captain.”

“That was wise, Mr. Carey. I have noticed something-” She broke off. “He’s coming back.”

Her hearing was very acute. Several seconds went by before George was able to hear the soft rustle of approaching footsteps.

Arthur appeared out of the darkness. “O.K., chums,” he said. “Here we go. We’ll have a bit of light on the scene in half a tick.”

They followed him down the path. It was getting less steep now. Then, as it levelled off, Arthur switched on a flashlight and George saw the sentry leaning against a tree with his rifle under his arm. He was a thin, middle-aged man in khaki drill trousers and a ragged singlet. He watched them intently as they went by.

They were clear of the pine trees now and there was a house in front of them.

“Used to be a village down the hill there,” said Arthur. “Wiped out by some of the boys. All flat except our place, and we had to patch that up a good bit. Left to rot, it was. Belonged to some poor bastard of a deviationist who got his throat cut.” He had become the week-end host again, proud and fond of his house and wanting his guests to share his enthusiasm.

It was a two-story building with stuccoed walls and broad overhanging eaves. The shutters over the windows were all closed.

There was another sentry by the door. Arthur said something to him and the man shone a light on their faces before nodding to Arthur and motioning them on. Arthur opened the door and they followed him into the house.

There was a long narrow hall with a staircase and several doorways. An oil lamp hung from a hook by the front door. There was no plaster on the ceiling and very little left on the walls. It looked like what it was, a house which had been gutted by bomb blast or shellfire and temporarily repaired.

“Here we are,” said Arthur; “H.Q. mess and anteroom.”

He had opened the door of what appeared to be a dining-room. There was a bare trestle table with benches on either side. On the table there were bottles, glasses, a pile of knives and forks, and another oil lamp. In a corner of the room, on the floor, there were empty bottles.

“Nobody at home,” said Arthur. “I dare say you could do with a snifter, eh? Help yourselves. The you-know-what is just across the hall on the right if anybody’s interested. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

He went out of the room, shutting the door after him. They heard him clattering up the stairs.

George looked at the bottles. There was Greek wine and plum brandy. He looked at Miss Kolin.

“Drink, Miss Kolin?”

“Yes, please.”

He poured out two brandies. She picked hers up, drank it down at a gulp, and held the glass out to be filled again. He filled it.

“Pretty strong stuff this, isn’t it?” he said tentatively.

“I hope so.”

“Well, I didn’t expect to be taken to a place like a military headquarters. What do you think it is?”

“I have an idea.” She lit a cigarette. “You remember four days ago in Salonika there was a bank robbery?”

“I remember something about it. Why?”

“Next day, in the train to Florina, I read the newspaper reports of it. It gave an exact description of the truck that was used.”

“What about it?”

“We came here in that truck tonight.”

“What? You’re kidding.”

“No.” She drank some more brandy.

“You’re mistaken then. After all, there must be dozens, hundreds maybe, of these British army trucks still about in Greece.”

“Not with slots for false number-plates.”

“What do you mean?”

“I noticed the slots when he was shining the flashlight for me to get in. The false plates were on the floor in the back of the truck. When we stopped, I put them where the moonlight would shine as we got out. The part of the number I could see was the same as the one in the newspaper report.”

“Are you absolutely sure?”

“I do not like it any more than you, Mr. Carey.”

But George was remembering something that Colonel Chrysantos had said: “They are clever and dangerous and the police do not catch them.”

“If they get half a suspicion we know anything-” he began.

“Yes. It could be most disagreeable.” She raised her glass to drink again and then stopped.

There was the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs.

George drank his brandy down quickly and got out a cigarette. The learned judge, whose secretary he had been, had once said that it was impossible to practise law for very many years without learning that no case, however matter-of-fact it might seem, could be considered entirely proof against the regrettable tendency of reality to assume the shape and proportions of melodrama. At the time, George had smiled politely and wondered if he would be given to making such half-baked generalizations when he became a judge. Now he remembered.

The door opened.

The man who came into the room was fair and deep-chested, with heavy shoulders and big hands. He might have been any age between thirty and forty. The face was strong, with muscular cheeks, a determined mouth, and cool, watchful eyes. He held himself very erect and the bush-shirt he wore stretched tightly across his chest. With the revolver belt at his waist he looked almost as if he were in uniform.

He glanced swiftly from George to Miss Kolin as Arthur, who had followed him in, shut the door and bustled forward.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Arthur said. “Mr. Carey, this is my chief. He speaks a bit of English-I taught him-but go easy on the long words. He knows who you are.”

The newcomer clicked his heels and gave the slightest of bows.

“Schirmer,” he said curtly, “Franz Schirmer. I think you wish to speak with me.”

The German forces which withdrew from Greece in October 1944 were very different in both numbers and quality from the field army which had invaded the country just over three years earlier. If the Twelfth Army of General von List, with its crack panzer divisions and its record of success in the Polish campaign, had epitomized the irresistible strength of the Wehrmacht , the occupation forces, setting out to make their way home while there was still a road home left open to them, epitomized no less strikingly the Wehrmacht’s ultimate exhaustion. The earlier practice of resting troops from the fighting fronts by giving them tours of occupation duty had long been abandoned as a luxury. The Lines of Communication Division which garrisoned the Salonika area in 1944 was, for the most part, made up of men who, for one reason or another, were considered unfit for combatant duty: debilitated survivors from the Russian front, the older men, the weaklings, and those who, because of either wounds or sickness, were of low medical categories.