Alistair MacLean - The Complete Navarone

‘It does look as if it has seen better days,’ Mallory admitted. ‘Nevertheless, sir, it’s exactly what we want.’

‘Can’t understand it, I really can’t understand it.’ With an irritable but well-timed swipe the major brought down a harmless passing fly. ‘I’ve been providing chaps with everything during the past eight or nine months — caiques, launches, yachts, fishing boats, everything — but no one has ever yet specified the oldest, most dilapidated derelict I could lay hands on. Quite a job laying hands on it, too, I tell you.’ A pained expression crossed his face. ‘The chaps know I don’t usually deal in this line of stuff.’

‘What chaps?’ Mallory asked curiously.

‘Oh, up the islands; you know.’ Rutledge gestured vaguely to the north and west.

‘But — but those are enemy held —’

‘So’s this one. Chap’s got to have his HQ somewhere,’ Rutledge explained patiently. Suddenly his expression brightened. ‘I say, old boy, I know just the thing for you. A boat to escape observation and investigation — that was what Cairo insisted I get. How about a German E-boat, absolutely perfect condition, one careful owner. Could get ten thou. for her at home. Thirty-six hours. Pal of mine over in Bodrum —’

‘Bodrum?’ Mallory questioned. ‘Bodrum? But — but that’s in Turkey, isn’t it?’

‘Turkey? Well, yes, actually, I believe it is,’ Rutledge admitted. ‘Chap has to get his supplies from somewhere, you know,’ he added defensively.

‘Thanks all the same’ — Mallory smiled — ‘but this is exactly what we want. We can’t wait, anyway.’

‘On your own heads be it!’ Rutledge threw up his hands in admission of defeat. ‘I’ll have a couple of my men shove your stuff aboard.’

‘I’d rather we did it ourselves, sir. It’s — well, it’s a very special cargo.’

‘Right you are,’ the major acknowledged. ‘No questions Rutledge, they call me. Leaving soon?’

Mallory looked at his watch.

‘Half an hour, sir.’

‘Bacon, eggs and coffee in ten minutes?’

‘Thanks very much.’ Mallory grinned. ‘That’s one offer we’ll be very glad to accept.’

He turned away, walked slowly down to the end of the pier. He breathed deeply, savouring the heady, herb-scented air of an Aegean dawn. The salt tang of the sea, the drowsily sweet perfume of honeysuckle, the more delicate, sharper fragrance of mint all subtly merged into an intoxicating whole, indefinable, unforgettable. On either side, the steep slopes, still brilliantly green with pine and walnut and holly, stretched far up to the moorland pastures above, and from these, faintly borne on the perfumed breeze, came the distant melodic tinkling of goats’ bells, a haunting, a nostalgic music, true symbol of the leisured peace the Aegean no longer knew.

Unconsciously almost, Mallory shook his head and walked more quickly to the end of the pier. The others were still sitting where the torpedo boat had landed them just before dawn. Miller, inevitably, was stretched his full length, hat tilted against the golden, level rays of the rising sun.

‘Sorry to disturb you and all that, but we’re leaving in half an hour; breakfast in ten minutes. Let’s get the stuff aboard.’ He turned to Brown. ‘Maybe you’d like to have a look at the engine?’ he suggested.

Brown heaved himself to his feet, looked down unenthusiastically at the weather-beaten, paint-peeled caique.

‘Right you are, sir. But if the engine is on a par with this bloody wreck …’ He shook his head in prophetic gloom and swung nimbly over the side of the pier.

Mallory and Andrea followed him, reaching up for the equipment as the other two passed it down. First they stowed away a sackful of old clothes, then the food, pressure stove and fuel, the heavy boots, spikes, mallets, rock axes and coils of wire-centred rope to be used for climbing, then, more carefully, the combined radio receiver and transmitter and the firing generator fitted with the old-fashioned plunge handle. Next came the guns — two Schmeissers, two Brens, a Mauser and a Colt — then a case containing a weird but carefully selected hodge-podge of torches, mirrors, two sets of identity papers and, incredibly, bottles of Hock, Moselle, ouzo and retsina.

Finally, and with exaggerated care, they stowed away for’ard in the forepeak two wooden boxes, one green in colour, medium sized and bound in brass, the other small and black. The green box held high explosive — TNT., amatol and a few standard sticks of dynamite, together with grenades, gun-cotton primers and canvas hosing; in one corner of the box was a bag of emery dust, another of ground glass, and a sealed jar of potassium, these last three items having been included against the possibility of Dusty Miller’s finding an opportunity to exercise his unique talents as a saboteur. The black box held only detonators, percussion and electrical, detonators with fulminates so unstable that their exposed powder could be triggered off by the impact of a falling feather.

The last box had been stowed away when Casey Brown’s head appeared above the engine hatch. Slowly he examined the mainmast reaching up above his head, as slowly turned for’ard to look at the foremast. His face carefully expressionless, he looked at Mallory.

‘Have we got sails for these things, sir?’

‘I suppose so. Why?’

‘Because God only knows we’re going to need them!’ Brown said bitterly. ‘Have a look at the engine-room, you said. This isn’t an engine-room. It’s a bloody scrap-yard. And the biggest, most rusted bit of scrap down there is attached to the propeller shaft. And what do you think it is? An old Kelvin two-cylinder job built more or less on my own doorstep — about thirty years ago.’ Brown shook his head in despair, his face as stricken as only a Clydeside engineer’s can be at the abuse of a beloved machine. ‘And it’s been falling to bits for years, sir. Place is littered with discarded bits and spares. I’ve seen junk heaps off the Gallowgate that were palaces compared to this.’

‘Major Rutledge said it was running only yesterday,’ Mallory said mildly. ‘Anyway, come on ashore. Breakfast. Remind me we’re to pick up a few heavy stones on the way back, will you?’

‘Stones!’ Miller looked at him in horror. ‘Aboard that thing?’

Mallory nodded, smiling.

‘But that gawddamned ship is sinkin’ already!’ Miller protested. ‘What do you want stones for?’

‘Wait and see.’

Three hours later Miller saw. The caique was chugging steadily north over a glassy, windless sea, less than a mile off the coast of Turkey, when he mournfully finished lashing his blue battledress into a tight ball and heaved it regretfully over the side. Weighted by the heavy stone he had carried aboard, it was gone from sight in a second.

Morosely he surveyed himself in the mirror propped up against the for’ard end of the wheelhouse. Apart from a deep violet sash wrapped round his lean middle and a fancifully embroidered waistcoat with its former glory mercifully faded, he was dressed entirely in black. Black lacing jackboots, black baggy trousers, black shirt and black jacket: even his sandy hair had been dyed to the same colour.

He shuddered and turned away.

‘Thank Gawd the boys back home can’t see me now!’ he said feelingly. He looked critically at the others, dressed, with some minor variations, like himself. ‘Waal, mebbe I ain’t quite so bad after all … Just what is all this quick-change business for, boss?’

‘They tell me you’ve been behind the German lines twice, once as a peasant, once as a mechanic.’ Mallory heaved his own ballasted uniform over the side. ‘Well, now you see what the well-dressed Navaronian wears.’