Jack Higgins - The Dark Side of the Island

JACK

HIGGINS

THE DARK SIDE OF

THE ISLAND

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © Harry Patterson 1963

Jack Higgins asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

ISBN: 978-0-00-723490-5

Ebook Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007290505

Version: 2020-10-21

Contents

Cover

Title Page JACK HIGGINS THE DARK SIDE OF THE ISLAND

Publisher’s Note

Foreword

Book One: The Long Return

Chapter 1 - On Kyros, Nothing Changes

Chapter 2 - A Man Called Alexias

Chapter 3 - Two Candles for St Katherine

Chapter 4 - The Bronze Achilles

Book Two: The Nightcomer

Chapter 5 - Cover of Darkness

Chapter 6 - A Willingness to Kill

Chapter 7 - Of Action and Passion

Chapter 8 - ‘The Little Ship’

Chapter 9 - Temple of the Night

Chapter 10 - Fire on the Mountain

Chapter 11 - No Hard Feelings, Captain Lomax

Book Three: A Sound of Hunting

Chapter 12 - One Should Never Return to Anything

Chapter 13 - To the Other

Chapter 14 - A Fine Night for Dying

Chapter 15 - A Prospect of Gallows

Chapter 16 - The Run for Cover

Chapter 17 - Confessional

Chapter 18 - Dust and Ashes

About the Author

Also by Jack Higgins

Copyright

About the Publisher

Publisher’s Note

The Dark Side Of The Island was first published in the UK by John Long in 1963 and later by Signet in 1997. It was originally published under the name of Harry Patterson, an author who later became known to millions as Jack Higgins.

This amazing novel has been out of print for some years, and in 2010, it seemed to the author and his publishers that it was a pity to leave such a good story languishing on his shelves. So we are delighted to be able to bring back The Dark Side Of The Island for the pleasure of the vast majority of us who never had a chance to read the earlier editions.

Foreword

One of my earliest forays into the Second World War. A holiday spent visiting the Greek islands and my discovery of the undercover work there by the SAS in its earliest years gave me the idea for a thriller which has the hero return to the island that had been the scene of his most brilliant exploit, only to find that the local people believe him a traitor and responsible for the executions of many partisans. In a way it is a whodunit, as he tries not only to stay alive but to find out who was really responsible.

Book One

The Long Return

Chapter 1

On Kyros, Nothing Changes

Lomax lay on the narrow bunk in the airless cabin, stripped to the waist, his body drenched in sweat, and stared up at the stained and peeling ceiling.

Looked at long enough, it became a pretty fair map of the Aegean. He worked his way down from Athens through the Cyclades to the larger mass that was Crete, but where Kyros should have been there was only an empty expanse of sea. For some reason it made him feel curiously uneasy and he swung his legs to the floor.

He got up, splashed water into the cracked basin that stood beneath the mirror beside the bunk and washed the sweat from his body. His shoulders were solid with muscle, his body bronzed and fit, and somehow the ugly puckered scar of the old bullet wound beneath his left breast looked sinister and out of place.

As he dried himself, a stranger stared out of the mirror. A man with skin stretched tightly over prominent cheekbones and dark, sombre eyes that examined the world with a curiously remote expression he could no longer analyse, even to himself.

As he reached for his shirt, the cabin door opened and the steward looked in. ‘Kyros in half an hour, Mr Lomax,’ he said in Greek.

The door closed behind him and for the first time Lomax was conscious of a faint stirring of excitement, a cold finger that seemed to touch him somewhere inside. He pulled on his linen jacket and went out on deck.

As he stood at the rail watching Kyros grad-u ally rise out of the sea, Captain Papademos emerged from the deck-house and paused beside him. He was heavily built and almost blackened by the sun, his face seamed with wrinkles.

He put a match to his pipe. ‘It’s difficult in this heat haze, but if you look carefully you can see Crete in the distance. Quite a view, eh?’

‘Something of an understatement,’ Lomax said.

‘I’ve been everywhere a sailor can go,’ Papademos continued. ‘In the end I found I was only travelling in a circle.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Lomax said.

He took out a cigarette and Papademos gave him a light. ‘For an Englishman you speak pretty good Greek. The best I’ve heard from a foreigner. You’ve been out here before?’

Lomax nodded. ‘A long time ago. Before the flood.’

Papademos looked puzzled for a moment and then his face cleared. ‘Ah, now I see it. You were in the islands during the war.’

‘That’s right,’ Lomax said. ‘Working in Crete with the E.O.K. mostly.’

‘So?’ Papademos nodded, serious for a moment. ‘Those were hard times for all of us. The people of these islands don’t forget how much the English helped. Have you been back before?’

Lomax shook his head. ‘Never felt like it. In any case, I always seemed to have something more important to do. You know how it is.’

‘Life, my friend, she grips us by the throat.’ Papademos nodded sagely. ‘But seventeen years is a long time. A man changes.’

‘Everybody changes,’ Lomax said.

‘Maybe you’ve got a point there, but why Kyros? I could think of better places.’

‘There are some people I want to look up if they’re still around,’ Lomax said. ‘I’d like to see if they’ve changed too. Afterwards, I’ll move on to Crete and Rhodes.’

‘On Kyros nothing changes.’ Papademos spat down into the water. ‘Ten years I’ve been making this trip and they still treat me as if I’ve got the plague.’

Lomax shrugged. ‘Maybe they just don’t like strangers.’

Papademos shook his head. ‘They don’t like anybody. You sure you’ve got friends there?’

‘I hope so.’

‘So do I. If you haven’t, you’re in for a pretty thin time and you’ll be stuck for a week until I call again.’

‘I’ll take my chances.’

Papademos knocked the ash from his pipe on the rail. ‘We’ll be here for four hours. Why don’t you have a quick look round for old times’ sake and then go on to Crete with me? They’ll show you a better time in Herakleion than they will here.’

Lomax shook his head. ‘Next week I’ll take you up on that offer, but not now.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Papademos shrugged and went back into the deck-house.

They were close inshore now, the great central peak of the island towering three thousand feet above them. As the little steamer rounded the curved promontory crowded with its white houses, a single-masted caicque, sails bellying in the breeze, moved out to sea. It passed so close to them that Lomax could see the great eyes painted on each side of the prow.