Colin Forbes: The Heights of Zervos

The German, still on his knees, swung round with the machine-pistol and the Scot grabbed at the muzzle in mid-swing. Instead of pulling at the weapon, which the German expected, he pushed viciously and the soldier lost balance, letting go of the gun as he fell over backwards, but his elbows saved him from sprawling over the floor. Still in pain, Macomber made a mistake, thinking he had enough time to reverse the weapon and get a grip on it. He was still fumbling when the German came to his feet and went for his throat, and the momentum of his charge carried Macomber back against the waist-high tower wall. He couldn't even attempt to use the gun which was compressed between their bodies as they grappled fiercely and Macomber felt himself being pushed remorselessly backwards over the brink. The soldier was a few inches shortei but he was in prime condition and ten years younger, and the Scot was very close to the end of his physical resources. With the gun penned between them, the German had both hands locked tightly round Macomber's throat and now, as his back arched over the wall screamed with pain, he felt his air supply going. A momentary panic gripped him as he started to tip over the drop, the rim of the wall hard against the small of his back and acting as a fulcrum for the German to lever him down to the lake far below.

Knowing that he was winning, the soldier ignored the gun, squeezing his hands tighter and tighter as Macomber's face changed colour. The Scot's hands still held the machine-pistol and he managed to force it sideways, but he still couldn't use it. Had the German continued his pressure he would have sent Macomber over the edge within seconds, but he saw the gun come loose and released his right hand to grab at it, confident that the Scot was done for. And Macomber was almost done for – the German was holding his throat with only one hand but he had quickly inserted his thumb into the Scot's windpipe and his victim began to choke. Get rid of the gun! The message raced through Macomber's brain and he jerked feebly but with just sufficient force to snatch it out of the hand clutching the dangling strap. He let go and the machine-pistol disappeared over the edge.

As the thumb pressure increased reddish lights sputtered in front of his eyes and he felt his last remaining strength ebbing away. This was it. Nothing else left. His right hand fluttered, felt hair at the moment when the German's nailed boot ground down his instep. Pain shrieked up his leg like an electric shock and he was seized with a spasm of blind fury which sent fresh adrenalin through his veins. He grabbed a large handful of hair, clawed his hand, twisted it and dragged it sideways with all the energy he could muster, hauling at the hair as though to tear it out by the roots. The thumb pressure slackened, was released. Macomber sucked in a gasping lungful of cold mountain air, knowing that within seconds the brawny German would recover. Releasing the hair, he clawed his hand again and, as the soldier's face reappeared, he struck. The savagery of the onslaught unnerved the German and he propelled himself backwards away from the wall to save his face, catching the heel of his boot on an uplifted stone. He was fighting to restore his balance when Macomber's bull-like charge, head down, punched into his stomach, driving him headlong across the roof. The Scot was following him when his right foot tangled with a leg of the telescope's tripod and he crashed forward on his chest as the telescope toppled, broke away from its tripod and rolled over the roof. Macomber had hauled himself up on all fours, his chin sticky with blood where it had grazed the stones, when he saw that the wall had saved his opponent. The German had slapped his hands hard down on the wall-top to halt his momentum when Macomber, close to him, whipped a hand round his right ankle and lifted. The German made his second mistake. Acting by reflex, still off-balance, still groggy from the pile-driving blow in the stomach, he lifted his other foot to kick Macomber in the face. Elbow hard into the roof, the Scot hoisted as high as he could, no more than a few inches, but a fraction more of the German's weight was now poised over the brink than over the roof. The imprisoned foot jerked upwards out of Macomber's grasp of its own volition and the soldier was propelled outwards and downwards as the Scot climbed to his feet. The scream came up as a fading wail and he was just in time to see the minute spread-eagled figure strike the ice hundreds of feet below.

Using the wall for support, he made his way over to the trapdoor, kicking out of the way an opened notebook, the book they had used to record the passage of Allied supplies up the mainland road. Stooping painfully, be pulled back the bolt, but he let them open it, and when the lid lifted it was being raised by Grapos, with Ford below and Prentice bringing up the rear. It was the staff-sergeant who made the first comment. Seeing the crumpled corporal lying on his back he stared curiously at Macomber. 'We didn't think we'd see you alive again, but I thought there were two of them.'

'One went over the side… you'd better look down here quick.' He was still holding on to the wall support and he looked haggard as he gently massaged his throat and stared down at the lake. 'Burckhardt's nearly here…'

Burckhardt had moved with great speed: his force was already arrayed and moving far out onto the lake, so that as the Scot gazed down from the great height of the tower he had the sensation of watching a diorama in a war museum. Six half-tracks, spread out widely over the ice like toy models, led the advance, followed by Alpenkorps and parachutists on foot. Farther back more half-tracks crawled forward and each of the weird vehicles carried only its driver – to minimize casualties if the ice broke at any point Burckhardt had shrewdly emptied the half-tracks of all superfluous passengers. Several light ack-ack guns and 75-mm mountain howitzers, unlimbered from the half-tracks which had hauled them up the mountain road, were being drawn bodily over the ice, two men to a gun, and Macomber noticed that round all the vehicles and guns there were unoccupied areas of frozen lake – the men on foot were nervous of the weight this equipment was imposing on the lake's surface. The sense of looking down on a scale model was heightened by the heavy silence which had fallen over the mountain as the wind dropped, and no sound of the advancing army reached the watchers on the tower. Macomber looked at the staff-sergeant who was also gazing down at the threatening spectacle.

'Any hope at all, Ford – by using the mortar? It is an 8-cm, isn't it?'

'Yes. You mean break the ice under them? We can try, but I can't feed the mortar with this shoulder.' He looked across at Prentice who was nursing his swollen right hand. 'And neither can he. Grapos' shoulder is temporarily numbed from the blow it took from that trap-door.' He looked doubtfully at Macomber, who instinctively straightened up from the wall. 'Can you cope?''

'I'll have to. And we'd better get moving.'

Macomber looked back out to sea. The mounting crisis was of the worst possible magnitude. The destroyer had turned to come in closer, to steam directly for the cape, and within a matter of minutes it would have vanished under the lee of the peninsula prior to commencing landing operations. If Burckhardt reached the monastery he would not only have achieved his objective – he would be in a position to slaughter those troops as they wound their way up the cliff-face track. What on earth had warned Athens that something was wrong? He dismissed the question as academic and began a quick count of the snub-nosed shells lying half covered with canvas while they waited to service the mortar. Thirty bombs. It didn't seem many, not nearly enough. He rammed his last cigar into his mouth and chewed at it as Ford, the calmest man on the roof, stood by the parapet, turning his face sideways to gauge the strength of the fading breeze, screwing up his eyes against the sun as he estimated distances and trajectories. While they waited for the staff-sergeant to complete his calculations Macomber helped Prentice to fix his hand in a makeshift sling with the aid of his scarf, a hand which was swelling ominously, and he watched Burckhardt's progress tensely as he attended the injury. The half-tracks were crawling steadily forward like mechanical bugs – bugs which were now almost two-thirds of the distance across the lake as they approached the road up to the monastery. And even from the great height he looked down on them, Macomber could at last hear a faint purring sound travelling up through the cold mountain air, the purr of engines and caterpillar tracks grinding over the ice.