Colin Forbes - The Heights of Zervos

Behind him Prentice sat motionless on the bench in the position nearest to the drop, with Ford in the middle and Grapos seated close to the wall, a wall the Greek viewed with increasing disenchantment as it insidiously moved nearer to his right shoulder: the ledge was contracting. Perched above the brink, Prentice's gloved hand gripped the side of the vehicle as though attached to it and he felt the vibrations of engine and tracks passing up his arm, felt the freezing air numbing his cheeks, felt the tremble of the half-track when it wobbled as it passed over an ice-coated unevenness. The crackling sound, the thinly-iced layer crumbling under the weight, came to him above the engine's purr like the sputtering of a log fire, the symbol of warmth while he slowly froze into a state of immobility, and he couldn't take his eyes off the ribbon of ascending ledge which gradually unwound as the road climbed higher and higher. How much more of this could Mac stand? An audacious gamble – like the reversing of the half-track down the slope to hit the Germans on the bridge – he had grasped this side of the Scot's character; but this murderous, mind-killing creep up the ice-bound mountain, this was something else again, something which made him regard the Scot with far greater awe. And he must be nearly asleep over that wheel… He pushed the thought out of his head quickly. It frightened him too much. Glancing at the others, he saw Ford's hands clasped rather tightly in his lap, his face wooden, whereas Grapos was leaning forward, watching the road intently as though expecting a fresh hazard any second. To take his mind off watching the road Prentice pulled out the looped rope from under the bench, saw that at one end a grappling hook was attached, and when he opened the Alpenkorps satchel he saw more climbing equipment – another rope, pitons, a hammer. As he shoved satchel and rope back under the bench something damp flaked his face, dropped into his lap. It had started snowing.

The snow started falling heavily as they navigated a fresh turn in the road and a rising wind met them, a bitter wind which blew the flakes into a turmoil so they danced above the ledge, driven this way and that in disconcerting flurries. For Macomber the coming of the snow was the final straw, the ultimate hazard. He had kept the half-track on the ledge, maintaining an even space on either side as it narrowed, as he found himself increasingly compressed between wall and brink; maintaining an even speed as it balanced itself delicately on the solid ice, but he had accomplished this gruelling task with a reasonable visibility. Now this only asset was taken away from him as blinding snow fogged his vision, pasted itself over the windscreen, blurred wall and precipice edge to mere silhouettes whose exact location he could no longer rely on. He switched on the lights and they sent out short-lived swathes penetrating only a few yards inside the frenzy of the snowstorm which was growing rapidly more violent as the wind rose to a moaning howl and the men on the bench seat behind him bowed their heads to shield themselves against the onslaught of the elements. Grapos, his chin dug into his chest, was peering warily to his right where the rock face seemed to be closing in; if they collided with that at the wrong moment it could veer the vehicle outwards and over the drop, and Macomber, seated on the other side of the half-track was less able to judge their distance from the wall than from the brink. In the faint hope that he might be able to issue a warning in time, the Greek lifted his head, ignored the whipping snow-flakes which stung his skin and stared ahead through half-closed eyes. No doubt about it – they were appreciably closer to the wall.

This slight change of position was not a mistake on the Scot's part as Grapos feared; it was a deliberate act to try and reduce a little the overwhelming danger they now faced. Unsure from moment to moment of the precise position of the abyss edge he had turned in nearer to the mountain, knowing that if they struck the rock face he at least had a chance to recover, and knowing that if the tracks tipped over the edge there would be no chance of survival at all. Macomber had seriously considered halting, but they were still passing over solid ice and they were still moving up a steepish incline, so if he could keep going until the storm died away the hazards were probably a fraction less dangerous than the hazards of stopping – to say nothing of the fact that somewhere not too far behind them Burckhardt's force must already be making its own way up the mountain road. And the possibility of finding himself stationary on the ice-bound ledge as armed men, more than likely men equipped with mortars, came round a corner in his rear was not a contingency which appealed to him. He turned his head slightly, shouted to make himself heard above the howling wind. 'Any idea how much farther, Grapos?'

'One kilometre beyond the big bend.'

'How far to this ruddy bend?'

'Soon – very soon now.'

'How do you know in this stuff?' Macomber bawled out sceptically.

'Because of the gash.'

Gash? The Scot glanced quickly to his right and saw for the first time a break in the endless mountain wall, a fissure scarcely wider than the breadth of a man, and beyond the gyrating snow he had a glimpse of a narrow tumble of water which fell almost vertically and which was frozen solid in mid-air. Then it was gone. Jesus, the temperature must be low up here. As he looked ahead again the road began to turn round the mountain, and it went on turning, which forced him to keep the wheel swung over permanently to the right, but at least this was an improvement on the zigzags he had encountered lower down, hairpin bends he doubted he could even have attempted if the snow had come then. He drove on, up and up, following the continuing curve of the wall, peering from underneath his Alpenkorps cap brim as his gaze switched from brink to wall and back again to brink, and so great was his concentration that it was a few minutes before he realized there had been a change in the weather. It was still snowing but the wind had dropped, fading away to a chilling stillness as the curtain of snow floated down almost vertically in the windless atmosphere. For the hundredth time he brushed his hand over the windscreen to clear the snow: the wipers had packed up some time ago and his hand was equally effective for removing some of the freezing snow which was steadily adhering to the glass at either end of the screen. And now the headlights penetrated farther, giving him a safer view of what was coming up – and they were only about one kilometre from safety according to Grapos. The thought had barely passed through his head when he stiffened, felt his hands grip the wheel more tightly. A short distance ahead a boulder rested against the inner wall, a boulder rounded and partly covered with snow, and as the headlights moved nearer he saw its. massive size, that it was only partly protruding from a ravine similar to the one they had recently passed, that it must have tumbled down the ravine and then become jammed in the exit immovably just before it crossed the ledge and swept down into the abyss. The dream of safety receded as every turn of the tracks took them closer to the emergency. Macomber weighed up the chances quickly – the boulder appeared firmly jammed inside the ravine, they were within a kilometre of easier going, there appearing to be just sufficient room for them to squeeze past, but it would take them to the edge of the precipice.

'You'll never make it, Mac…' It was Prentice's strained voice which spoke, but the Scot maintained the same even pace as he called back to them.

'Prentice, get to the back and watch the tracks – the outside one. If I'm going over, signal Ford by waving your hand. Ford! You warn me by clapping a hand on my left shoulder -damned quickly, too!' He heard feet moving back along the floorboards. Someone slipped in the snow and swore as they saved themselves. On his own initiative Grapos went back to watch the inner track which had to pass the boulder. Macomber reduced speed to a point where he feared the engine might stop altogether and the snow-covered obstacle crept closer and seemed to magnify itself hugely as he steered away from the mountain wall to give himself maximum clearance, which involved placing the left-hand track on the very edge of the precipice.