Colin Forbes - The Heights of Zervos

'He knows this ship well?'

'Well enough to hide until we have reached Katyra as you have not found him now.' And with this last thrust Nopagos turned away and attended to his duties once more. But he was not able to resist asking a question which he carefully put in a polite tone. 'Have they found the time-bomb yet?'

'No.'

'So, there is still time.'

This simple comment stung Burckhardt more than anything Nopagos had said previously. He had given Eberhay orders to leave assembly for disembarkation until the last possible moment so they could keep on looking for that missing demolition charge – Burckhardt's greatest fear was that it would detonate just before they landed. He was thinking about this when Schnell, almost exhausted from his long hours over the wheel, straightened up as a soldier ran along outside the bridge and came in breathless. Burckhardt recognized him as one of the two men posted as lookouts as soon as they had passed through the narrows. In his anxiety to speak the man had trouble in getting out his message.

'Mines sighted, sir… on the port bow.'

The explosion came at 5.45 AM as the Hydra, listing to port, her engines beating uncertainly, began the ninety-degree turn which would take her inshore to the distant light of the Katyra landing-stage. They were almost there, Burckhardt reflected as he stood on the bridge behind Nopagos, but the last mile was likely to be the longest of the voyage. The dangers surrounding the expedition were now so overwhelming that his mind had reached the point where ft could hardly take in any more – those damnable Italian mines were growing more numerous with every quarter-mile they glided forward; an armed Greek was loose somewhere on board, and a marksman at that; and they had still failed to locate the demolition charge which might detonate at any moment. Lifting his field-glasses to focus on the circle of mines ringing the vessel, he ignored the newcomers arriving on the already overcrowded bridge. Because of the risk of imminent disaster he had ordered the British prisoners to be brought up from their cabin.

'Are we abandoning ship?' Prentice asked quietly.

'No!' Hahnemann's reply was savagely emphatic as his hand guided the lieutenant by the elbow to the rear of the bridge. 'We shall be landing shortly.'

'Through that lot!' Ford sounded incredulous as he gazed over the colonel's shoulder along the searchlight beam which cut across the darkness. To port and starboard of the illuminated avenue at least four mines floated, metallic spheres which gleamed palely, their surfaces speckled with small shadows -the dreaded nozzles which caused instant detonation on contact. Burckhardt spoke briefly over his shoulder, instructing Hahnemann to tell them about the missing demolition charge; after all, they were soldiers, so they might as well know the position. With waning enthusiasm, Prentice and Ford listened to Hahnemann and were then pushed to the rear of the bridge, squeezed in between a press of uniformed Alpenkorps troops. Looking to his right, Prentice found he was huddled next to the large German civilian who had come aboard at Istanbul. On their way up from the cabin they had seen him in the distance climbing a staircase and Prentice had enquired who he was.

'Herr Dietrich is with the Abwehr,' Hahnemann had replied with a hint of respect in his voice. Prentice looked up curiously at the huge figure who stared back at him as he lit a fresh cigar with one elbow rested on the shoulder of the corporal next to him. A rum cove, this Dietrich, was Prentice's reaction as he turned to listen to Ford who was keeping his voice down.

'How big did he say that demolition charge was? I couldn't catch all he said in this crush.'

'Ten kilograms. Is that bad?'

'It's not good, I can tell you that straight off. And if it's been dumped near the boilers and they go, too…'

He broke off as Burckhardt issued a stream of orders to Eberhay who had appeared at the door to the bridge and then hurried away when the colonel had finished speaking. They were close to the moment of disembarkation, which required disciplined control, and the little major was facing something like near-panic as the troops filed up the staircases. It was then that Prentice saw the Alpenkorps equipment which confirmed his worst fears: he had a glimpse of men with skis of hickory wood passing beyond the bridge. The skis were carried on their backs which also supported rucksacks – which could only mean they expected to be operating in the deep snows on Mount Zervos at the far end of the peninsula. The Alpenkorps' main objective was the natural observation post of the monastery which overlooked the mainland road carrying Allied supplies northward.

'Funny that bomb hasn't gone off already,' he remarked lightly to Ford. He would have liked to feel that he was praying for the charge to detonate, but the truth was that he was sick with apprehension. 'Perhaps the chap who fixed it didn't know what he was doing,' he suggested.

'That's possible, sir. But their time fuses aren't all that reliable – a Jerry we had in the bag told me that. The damned things have a habit of conking out at the wrong moment.'

'You mean they become harmless?' Prentice tried to keep the hope out of his voice.

'Now I didn't say that, did I? Apparently they sometimes stop and then start up again. Vibrations can get them going again as easy as winking. The ship's engines are ideal for the purpose.'

'That's right, cheer us all up.' Prentice did not feel particularly reassured. Ford was an ammunition examiner who spent too much of his life fiddling with things which might go bang in his face at any second – including enemy explosives and equipment on which he was also something of an expert. But here on this German-held vessel he was displaying distinct signs of nervousness as he pulled at the lobe of one ear and kept looking round the bridge as though he expected it to disappear without warning.

'Fasten those straps at once!' Hahnemann had returned briefly to the bridge and had noticed that Ford's life-jacket was loose. Every man on the bridge wore his life-jacket and these cumbersome objects took up more space and further impeded movement. Prentice had the feeling that he would soon be lifted clear off the floor if anyone else crowded in on the bridge. He jerked his head round again to look through the rear window which gave a view along the deck towards the stern, a deck which was almost deserted since the order for uniformed troops to keep out of sight was still in force. Almost deserted, but not quite. Prentice's eyes narrowed as he watched sea mist drift past a lamp near the starboard rail: by its light he saw a short, heavily built man on the wrong side of the rail, a man who carried a rifle over his back. Something about the shape and the movement reminded him of the Greek civilian who had also come aboard at Istanbul. Grapos, the captain had called him. Mist blurred the view and when it cleared the poised figure was gone. He had dived over the side.

'Seen a ghost, sir?' Ford inquired.

'I've got a crick in my neck if you're referring to my expression of almost unendurable agony.' Prentice felt sure that at the last minute Dietrich had also glanced through that window, but by then the mist would have blotted out the lonely figure. He was greatly relieved when the German said nothing and continued quietly smoking the cigar which was now adding to the growing foetid atmosphere inside the packed bridge. So Grapos had made a dive for it and was heading for the shore fast. Some people are lucky, he thought, and then he remembered the mine-strewn waters the Greek was swimming through at that very moment and he suppressed a shudder. Despite the number of men compressed inside the confined space it was very silent on the bridge in the intervals between Burckhardt giving sharp orders as officers and NCOs appeared at the door, a silence of suppressed dread which hung over their still heads like a pall as the engines slowly beat out their mechanical rhythm and the Hydra continued to turn eastwards.