Colin Forbes - The Heights of Zervos

'Good God!'

A trace of the nervous reaction still smouldered inside Macomber and he didn't bother to put it too tactfully. 'I'm sure, Prentice, that by now you know there's a war on. There were two hundred German troops aboard who may yet do untold damage to the Allied cause – if I could sink them I was going to do it. And I still will, although how I haven't the slightest idea. You know they're heading for the monastery on Mount Zervos to set up an observation post, I take it?'

'I had an idea that was the objective. I agree we've got to get there first, if we can, but I can't quite see us forming the monks into a defensive battalion to hold off the Jerries. Is there any means of communication there we could use to get in touch with the mainland?'

'Not so far as I know apart from the telephone line to Salonika and that's been cut.' Macomber dropped the half-smoked cigar into the sand and carefully heeled it out of sight. 'But there's always something that can be done as long as you're there – that's something I've learned.' His expression became ferocious as he growled out the words. Whatever happens the Germans have got to be stopped from taking Zervos. Hell! If there's nothing else we'll have to set fire to the place to attract attention. There are British troops driving up that coast only a few miles across the gulf. Setting fire to the monastery may be the only solution!'

Prentice stared at the huge figure stooped forward over the boulder and realized that he meant what he said. Previously he had regarded Macomber as an enterprising civilian, with the accent on 'civilian', but now he began to wonder whether the war he had fought in the Western Desert compared with the shadowy, no-quarter struggle the Scot had waged inside the peace-time Balkans. He blinked to keep his eyes open as Macomber clasped both hands tightly and stared again at the road from Katyra with a dubious expression. It was over twenty-four hours since any of them had slept and the strain showed in their whiskered haggard faces; the brain was beginning to slow down, the reflexes to react sluggishly, and these were danger signals. He was about to speak when Macomber made the suggestion himself. 'I think three-quarters of an hour's sleep would work wonders. We may need every ounce of strength we can muster before the day is out but someone must keep watch.' He grinned. 'So, if you two are sufficiently convinced of my bona-fides, I'll act as lookout while you get some kip.'

'No, I'll stand watch while you and Ford sleep,' Prentice said promptly. 'You've been through more than us, anyway.'

'Suit yourself,' was Macomber's terse reply. Dropping down off the boulder, he lay on the sand after casting one final look back at the hill behind. The hill looked dangerous was his last thought before he fell asleep.

Macomber was a man who, when he woke up, became instantly alert, all his faculties keyed up for immediate action. The trait had been sharpened during bis experience ia the Balkans and on waking he had developed another facility – the habit of never opening his eyes until he had listened for a few seconds. Lying on the sand with his back against the rock, he listened carefully to the sounds with his eyes still closed. The scrape of a boot over stone, which told him someone was moving nearby. The quick dull click of metal on metal, which was the movement of a rifle bolt. A coldness down his back was the physical reaction of his brain warning him of danger. Then a voice spoke. Prentice's.

'Don't move, Ford, for God's sake!'

Macomber's prone body was still relaxed and lifeless as he half-opened his eyes. Ford was sitting up on the sand, his suit crumpled, his right hand withdrawing from the machine-pistol which lay close by bis side. He had a drugged look and had obviously just woken up. Macomber couldn't see Prentice but the thought flashed through his mind that the lieutenant must have dozed off and during those unguarded minutes a German patrol had arrived. Lying on his side, Macomber's hand was tucked inside his coat pocket where it had rested when he had fallen asleep, and now his fingers curled round the butt of the Luger. The problem was going to be to get in an upright position quickly enough. From the direction of Ford's startled gaze he calculated that the newcomers were stationed behind the boulder he was leant against. But how many of them? The boot scraped again and the shadow of a man fell across the sand in front of where he lay, the shadow of a man and a gun.

'Wait! For God's sake wait!' A note of desperation in Prentice's voice chilled Macomber. 'We can explain – don't shoot!'

The silhouette of the rifle barrel angled lower and Macomber guessed that it was now tilted downwards and aimed at him point-blank. He sensed that the slightest movement of his body would activate the shadow's trigger finger, and while he compelled himself to stay relaxed he felt the stickiness of his palm clutching the pistol butt. A strange tingling sensation sang along his nerves and his brain hung in a horrible state of prolonged suspension as every tiny detail seemed weirdly clear. The appalled expression on Ford's face, the mouth half-open, held as though in a condition of rictus. The wobble of the unknown man's silhouette as he shifted balance to the other foot to take the shock of the rifle's recoil. The flitting motion of some tiny insect hopping over the sand in the shade of the silhouette. Macomber's throat had gone so dry that he felt the most terrible compulsion to cough as a tickle crawled in his throat.

'Do you understand any English at all?' Prentice again, his voice throaty with tension. 'We're on your…'

'Yes, I speak English.' A deep-chested voice with a rumbling timbre which sounded familiar. 'Why are you with the German?'

'Look, Grapos,' Prentice pleaded quickly, 'he's not a German. He's British. If you let him wake up and speak he'll talk to you in English as much as you want…'

'There are Germans who speak English.' Grapos' tone was unimpressed and savagely obstinate. 'I speak English but I am Greek. He has made you think he is English? We have very little time. He must be killed, now!' The gun silhouette moved again as though the Greek was taking fresh aim and Macomber waited for the thud of the bullet, the last thing he would ever feel. And there was an urgency in Grapos' voice as well as in his words which filled the Scot with foreboding. There was some other danger coming very close, he felt sure of it, a danger the Greek was only too well aware of. Prentice was talking again and this time he was adopting an entirely different tactic, abandoning pleading as he spoke crisply as though he were giving a command.

'Look, I'm telling you, mate. His name is Macomber. Ian Macomber. He's a Scot – that's from the topside of my country – and he's the one who planted that bomb which nearly blew up all those Germans, only it didn't go off in time. He speaks fluent German – a damned sight more fluent German than you speak English. To help us get away he half-killed a Jerry – a German – in front of me. He grabbed a couple of German machine-pistols and gave them to us. Since then he's led the way to where we are now because he knows the country and we don't. And if that isn't enough for you, you can go and dive in the sea again. So stop aiming that gun at him and let him wake up and speak for himself.'

'You are sure of these things?' Grapos sounded anything but sure of what he had been listening to and the rifle was still pointed down at the inert figure below.

'I'm perfectly sure! Don't you think I can tell when I'm talking to one of my own countrymen? Wouldn't you know when you were talking to a Greek even if you'd heard that same man speaking good German earlier?' Prentice deliberately lost his temper a little, and seeing the look of doubt on Grapos' face he followed up quickly while he had the Greek off-balance. 'And now, for Pete's sake, can he get up and speak for himself? He must be awake now.'