Alistair MacLean - The Complete Navarone

‘Well,’ said Miller. ‘They’re not going to do a whole lot of shooting in here, I guess.’

Spiro could not speak.

Mallory had sized up the situation. Now he took control. ‘They won’t do anything to endanger their fuel dump,’ he said. ‘We’ll hold it here. Carstairs, how about you?’

‘Transport,’ said Carstairs. He was looking white about the lips and pinched about the nose. He took out his cigarette case. ‘Turkish this side, Vir —’

‘Not here,’ said Mallory, mildly. ‘Now you get over there with Miller’ — he pointed to the dumpy fuel bowser parked by the entrance — ‘and he’ll hot-wire it for you, and you and I will go and steal an aeroplane, and then we will come back and get everyone.’

‘Piece of cake,’ said Carstairs.

Five minutes later Carstairs came back in the bowser and Mallory climbed in. They rolled out of the fuel dump and across the aerodrome. Andrea gave quiet orders to Miller, who trotted over to the far end of the dump. When he returned, there were two people with him: Clytemnestra and Wills.

‘Good morning,’ said Andrea, with old-world courtesy.

‘Morning,’ said Wills. Clytemnestra was holding his hand.

‘You found your way.’

‘Been here most of the night,’ said Wills. They walked back to an above-ground firefighting pond. Beside it, lying casually in the dirt, was a polished mahogany box with a webbing handle.

‘Yais,’ said Spiro. ‘Yais, this is the damn bloody machine that will make us all killed. I spit on him’ — he spat — ‘and curse him to hell.’

‘Sure,’ said Miller.

‘Better take cover,’ said Andrea, shoving rounds into the magazine of the Mauser. ‘Here.’ He handed the rifle to Wills, and said to Clytemnestra, ‘Do you want one?’

‘What do you think?’ Her eyes flashed dark fire.

Andrea shrugged. ‘Cover me,’ he said, and gave his orders.

Miller and Clytemnestra went to the top of the grassy earthwork protecting the fuel. The surface of the aerodrome stretched away under the sun, a yellow-dun billiard table shot with shining patches of wind-flattened grass. And on that billiard table, small figures were advancing.

Andrea had been busy. He had rolled two fifty-gallon drums of aviation fuel to the top of the bank, siting them six feet apart. Between the drums, he set up the Spandau. Miller kept working, rolling the barrels up the slope, placing them along the crest of the earthwork.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Wills, whitening somewhat beneath the peeling mahogany of his face. ‘It’s an Aunt Sally.’

‘What does that mean?’ Clytemnestra was scowling down the sights of her rifle. The nearest soldier was four hundred yards away.

‘If the Germans shoot at us,’ said Wills in a dazed voice, ‘they stand a good chance of hitting one of those drums. If they hit one of those drums, they stand a good chance of knocking it down and setting it on fire, and rolling it down into a lot of other drums, and blowing up their principal fuel dump. Their supply ship has been sunk. This is precious stuff. They won’t want to lose it.’

‘So?’ said Clytemnestra, shrugging her broad shoulders. ‘They won’t shoot. This is good, no?’

‘Of course,’ said Wills, weakly. ‘It’s just not … normal, that’s all.’

‘Nothing is very normal,’ said Clytemnestra. A German soldier was walking on top of her rifle’s foresight. Her finger tightened on the trigger. Even as she squeezed, Andrea’s Spandau started to chug heavily. Out there on the bare brown plain tiny figures began to drop and roll.

Wills sighted and squeezed, worked the bolt, sighted and squeezed again, and felt the barrel grow hot in his left hand. There were a lot of them: a terrible lot of them. They were not shooting back, though. Thus far, the gasoline drums were a success. But there were too many. They would be able to capture the position by sheer weight of numbers. Unless …

Wills knew with a sort of gloomy certainty that Andrea would have other plans, featuring the destruction of the fuel dump and everyone in it.

The machine gun jammed. The enemy trotted on over the shimmering grass. Any minute now, thought Wills.

Then from behind the line of attackers and to the left, he heard the cough and roar of an aero engine starting; first one, then another, throttling up, then back into a steady clatter. And from the direction of the huts there taxied a twin-engined Heinkel.

The aircraft stuck its nose on to the yellow-dun grass and swung towards the advancing Germans. A heavy, road-drill clatter added itself to the roar of the engines.

‘My God,’ said Wills. ‘He’s machine-gunning them.’ And even as he spoke, the front line of the advance began to collapse. The Germans faltered and stopped. The Heinkel swung back towards the fuel dump and taxied, fast. It came to a halt by the dump entrance. Andrea said, ‘Go. I’ll come.’ He had cleared the Spandau jam. There was still movement out there; squads were re-forming on the grass, and NCOs’ yells drifted down the breeze. As they ran for the entrance, they heard Andrea’s Spandau begin to chug again.

The Heinkel’s door opened. Mallory looked out. Beyond him, Carstairs sat at the controls, smiling an odd smile; a smug smile, cat-gets-the-cream.

‘All aboard,’ said Miller, swinging the mahogany Enigma case in his hand. Mallory jumped down, and went to fetch Andrea. Miller heaved the case up and into the plane. Carstairs reached down and grabbed it. Miller was starting to help Clytemnestra on to the step when Carstairs said, ‘I don’t think so.’ There was a Schmeisser in his hand. The muzzle trembled slightly. It was pointing straight between Miller’s eyes.

‘What?’ said Miller.

‘Bit of a load, six people plus pilot,’ said Carstairs. ‘Not a good idea.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘We don’t want to take any chances with the machine, do we?’ said Carstairs. ‘I mean, who can you trust, nowadays?’

‘You bastard,’ said Wills. ‘You absolute bloody —’

Miller stopped him. He said, ‘What are you going to do with that thing?’

‘Take it to the Allies,’ said Carstairs. ‘Trouble is, I haven’t decided which ones. Everyone wants it. The Yanks have got dollars, the Russians have got gold, and even the poor old Brits have got a couple of bob stowed away in a sock, I shouldn’t wonder. And they don’t like each other much. I’m going to have a little auction, that’s all. Now stand back.’

Miller stood back, pulling Wills and Clytemnestra back with him. His face was completely blank. ‘Goodbye,’ he said.

The door slammed. The engines throttled up. The Heinkel began to roll. Wills raised his Schmeisser. Miller knocked it down with his hand.

‘You can’t let him get away,’ said Wills. ‘He’s a bloody thief. A traitor. You —’

‘Hush,’ said Miller, and Wills observed now that Andrea had come down from his post. ‘The Germans think we’re all on that plane.’

The Heinkel reached the end of the runway and pivoted on one wheel. The engines crescendoed as the throttles went through the gates. It began to roll. It rolled faster and faster, shrinking with distance, the tail lifting, the wheels rising on their suspension until there was daylight under them and the undercarriage came up. A hand came out of the pilot’s window and waved. Then the aircraft turned over the buildings and headed out to sea, chased by the impotent black puffs of a couple of anti-aircraft shells.

‘Hell,’ said Wills. ‘Oh, bloody hell.’

The Heinkel rose steeply into the deep Mediterranean blue. Soon it was no more than a dot, headed north-west, for Italy. Spiro was watching it as if it were a ghost. All his work, said his slack jaw and fishskin jowls; all his massive bravery, his tolerance of Captain Helmholz, his feigning of coma, his sliding around on ropes in the dark; all in vain.