Alistair Maclean: The guns of Navaronne

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, Moselie, ouzo and retsima .

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-- TN.T., 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 scrapyard. 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, be 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.»

«The double change, I meant Once in the plane, and now.»

«Oh, I see. Army khaki and naval whites in Alex., blue battledress in Casteirosso and now Greek clothes? Could have been — almost certainly were — snoopers in Alex. or Casteirosso or Major Rutledge's island. And we've changed from launch to plane to M.T.B. to caique. Covering our tracks, Corporal. We just can't take any chances.»

Miller nodded, looked down at the clothes sack at his feet, wrinkled his brows in puzzlement, stooped and dragged out the white clothing that had caught his eye. He held up the long, voluminous clothes for inspection.

«To be used when passing through the local cemeteries, I suppose.» He was heavily ironic. «Disguised as ghosts.»

«Camouflage,» Mallory explained succinctly. «Snowsmocks.»

«What!»

«Snow. That white stuff. There are some pretty high mountains in Navarone, and we may have to take to them. So — snowsmocks.»

Miller looked stunned. Wordlessly he stretched his length on the deck, pillowed his head and closed his eyes. Mallory grinned at Andrea.

«Picture of a man getting his full quota of sunshine before battling with the Arctic wastes… . Not a bad idea. Maybe you should get some sleep, too. I'll keep watch for a couple of hours.»

For five hours the caique continued on its course parallel to the Turkish coast, slightly west of north and rarely more than two miles off-shore. Relaxed and warm in the still kindly November sun, Mallory sat wedged between the bulwarks of the blunt bows, his eyes ceaselessly quartering sky and horizon. Amidships, Andrea and Miller lay asleep. Casey Brown still defied all attempts to remove him from the engine-room. Occasionally-- very occasionally — he came up for a breath of fresh air, but the intervals between his appearances steadily lengthened as he concentrated more and more on the aged Kelvin engine, regulating the erratic drip-fed lubrication, constantly adjusting the air intake: an engineer to his finger-tips, he was unhappy about that engine: he was drowsy, too, and headachy — the narrow hatchway gave hardly any ventilation at all.

Alone in the wheelhouse — an unusual feature in so tiny a caique — Lieutenant Andy Stevens watched the Turkish coast slide slowly by. Like Mallory's, his eyes moved ceaselessly, but not with the same controlled wandering. They shifted from the coast to the chart: from the chart to the islands up ahead off the port bow, islands whose position and relation to each other changed continually and deceptively, islands gradually lifting from the sea and hardening in definition through the haze of blue refraction: from the islands to the old alcohol compass swinging almost imperceptibly on rusted gimbals, and from the compass back to the coast again. Occasionally, he peered up into the sky, or swung a quick glance through a 180-degree sweep of the horizon. But one thing his eyes avoided all the time. The chipped, fly-blown mirror had been hung up in the wheelhouse again, but it was as if his eyes and the mirror were of opposite magnetic poles: he could not bring himself to look at it.

His forearms ached. He had been spelled at the wheel twice, but still they ached, abominably: his lean, tanned hands were ivory-knuckled on the cracked wheel. Repeatedly, consciously, he tried to relax, to ease the tension that was bunching up the muscles of his arms; but always, as if possessed of independent volition, his hands tightened their grip again. There was a funny taste in his mouth, too, a sour and salty taste in a dry, parched mouth, and no matter how often he swallowed, or drank from the sun-warmed pitcher at his side, the taste and the dryness remained. He could no more exorcise them than he could that twisting, cramping ball that was knotting up his insides, just above the solar plexus, or the queer, uncontrollable tremor that gripped his right leg from time to time.