Colin Forbes - The Heights of Zervos

'I'd say we have another thirty minutes left – at the outside,' Prentice called up to him.

'At the outside,' Macomber agreed. Thirty minutes before the leading Alpenkorps troops overhauled them. It was beginning to get a bit desperate and he was pinning all his hopes on seeing a chance to escape when they reached that plateau which stretched six miles to the base of the mountain. This was one area where he had very little idea of the topography because when he had travelled this way five years before it had been drenched in mist while they drove over the tableland. The stitch in his side was getting worse as he forced his legs to keep up the route-march pace and now each thud of his boots on the road pounded up his side like a sledgehammer. To counter the pain he stooped forward a little, cursing inwardly as Prentice caught up with him.

'Take it easy, Mac, you'll kill yourself. You're streaming with sweat,'

'Time is running out – we had a head start on them and we've lost it. We'll have to make a quick decision when we reach the top.' The effort of speaking was a major strain now but he was damned if he was going to give up. Keep moving, you'll work it off! Prentice was walking alongside him now and this gave him a pacemaker to keep up with. He forced himself to resist the impulse to look at the ground because this brought on greater fatigue. Straightening up, he stared at the ridge they were approaching. Was this the rim of the plateau at long last? He had thought so hopefully with three lower ridges and had been disappointed each time. In his state of extreme pained exertion the plateau above was now taking on the character of a promised land, a haven where there must be some salvation from the relentless Alpenkorps coming up behind.

He was hardly aware of the landscape they were passing as the pain grew worse and pulled at him like a steel wire contracting inside his body. Boulders, olive groves, clumps of shrubbery moved past in a blur as he fixed his eyes on the wobbling ridge moving down towards them as they turned another bend and then another. Despite his robot-like condition he was conscious that the air was cooler, that a breeze was growing stronger, and this gave him fresh hope that they were close to the head of the tortuous road which went on and on forever – another bend, another stretch of white dust3 another bend…

'Must be nearly there – with this wind,' Prentice commented.

Macomber only grunted and stared upwards. Was he breaking the grip of the stitch? It seemed a little less agonizing, a little less inclined to screw up his muscles into complex knots. It left him quite suddenly and with the realization that he had conquered it he began to take long loping strides which Prentice could hardly keep up with. He wiped his face dry as he walked and then accelerated his pace, feeling a sense of triumph as he saw only sky beyond the lowering ridge. They were almost there! Revived by the small quantity of food and the wine he began moving faster still as the gradient of the road lessened, leaving Prentice behind in his anxiety to catch his first glimpse of the plateau. There must be no hesitation here – they must decide swiftly what they were going to do and do it. There might even be a convenient farm at the top. With a lot of luck there might even be bicycles – he had seen men cycling when he had visited Katyra before the war. A cycle should be a match for a mule. They needed some form of transport which would take them the six miles across the plateau, something which would put them well ahead of that blasted mule train of Burckhardt's. He put on a spurt, came over the top and the plateau lay before him.

The disappointment was so crushing that he stood quite still until Prentice reached him. A classic tableland spread out into the distance, an area of flatness devoid of any form of cover for several miles. In fact, he could hardly have imagined a region less suited for them to escape the Alpenkorps. The road was a surprise, too: a highway of recently laid tar which ran straight across to the mountain, the land greenish on one side and brownish on the other. They must have started the highway from the peninsula tip, a highway which in due course would be extended to Katyra.

'Not quite what we're in the market for,' Prentice remarked.

'It might as well be the sea for all the good it is to us.' Macomber glanced over his shoulder. 'How's the Greek?'

'Had a bit of trouble with his limp coming up. Ford stayed back to keep him company. What's exciting them now, I wonder?'

Ford and Grapos had appeared but they were standing together on an outcrop of rock a short distance from the road as they waved their hands with a beckoning motion. Prentice left Macomber gazing bleakly at the plateau and went back to the outcrop. The ground he scrambled up was dry and gritty, which confirmed that the storm of the night before must have blown itself out somewhere near Cape Zervos. And there was a trace of excitement in Ford's voice as he called down. 'Hurry up or you'll miss it.'

'Miss what?'

The sun which shone on the back of Prentice's neck as he hauled himself up on the rock had no warmth in it and the coldness of the light breeze was a reminder that they were approaching a zone of low temperature. Standing beside Grapos, he adjusted his sheepskin coat. It was too big and flopped off the shoulders; Ford, who was wearing another coat belonging to the same man, fitted far more comfortably inside his sheepskin. Had the Greek possessed a third coat? The thought had never struck Prentice during the flurry to get away from the house. Following the line of Ford's pointed arm he could see the top of the house now, its faded red tiles so levelled by the height that it looked flat-roofed. And only a few yards beyond the cypresses the head of the Alpenkorps column was approaching the foot of the hill road. 'There they come,' said Ford, 'the first of the many.'

'You're sure they are the first? There may be more of them already coming up the hill.'

'No, sir. You and Macomber were in such a perishing hurry to get up here I don't imagine you ever looked back – but we caught sight of them more than once and that's the head of the column.'

Prentice was surprised. Earlier he had been startled to find German troops in front of them when they came over the hilltop near the pipe, and now he was surprised at how long it had taken them to reach this point since he had glanced back when they rushed out of the house below. He waited for two or three men to turn aside and enter the house, but the column went straight past and vanished as it began to mount the hill road. The wagon had been left behind the cypresses, which also concealed the house, and the Alpenkorps were going to ride up the hill without ever realizing its existence. With a feeling of relief he jumped down from the platform and hurried back to where Macomber still stood, stood like a man of stone as he gazed upwards, his hands inside his coat pockets, the expression on his face so grim that it recalled his impersonation of Dietrich.

'What's the matter?' asked Prentice. He tilted his head. "What's that -I can hear something?"

'The reinforcements – Burckhardt's reinforcements. By God, I expected something but I hadn't expected this. They must have half the Wehrmacht up there coming in.'

The sky to the north-east was still clear, more than clear enough for them to see the huge aerial armada which was descending on Zervos. The steady purr of their engines grew louder as they flew over the peninsula at a height of less than a thousand feet and they were close enough already for Macomber to see that they were three-engined machines with an iron cross on the fuselage and the swastika on the tail. Transport planes,' Ford said in his ear. "They'll very likely have parachutists aboard.' In the distance, flying even lower, came more planes and these were towing other machines with different silhouettes. Macomber was focusing his glass on them as Prentice spoke.