Alistair Maclean - The guns of Navaronne

In the end, Mallory almost literally stumbled upon both men and shelter. He was negotiating a narrow, longitudinal spine of rock, had just crossed its razor-back, when he heard the murmur of voices beneath him and saw a tiny glimmer of light behind the canvas stretching down from the overhang of the far wall of the tiny ravine at his feet.

Miller started violently and swung round as he felt the hand on his shoulder: the automatic was half-way out of his pocket before he saw who it was and sunk back heavily on the rock behind him.

«Come, come, now! Trigger-happy.» Thankfully Mallory slid his burden from his aching shoulders and looked across at the softly laughing Andrea. «What's so funny?»

«Our friend here.» Andrea grinned again. «I told him that the first thing he would know of your arrival would be when you touched him on the shoulder. I don't think he believed me.»

«You might have coughed or somethin',» Miller said defensively. «It's my nerves, boss,» he added plaintively. «They're not what they were forty-eight hours ago.»

Mallory looked at him disbelievingly, made to speak, then stopped short as he caught sight of the pale blur of a face propped up against a rucksack. Beneath the white swathe of a bandaged forehead the eyes were open, looking steadily at him. Mallory took a step forward, sank down on one knee.

«So you've come round at last!» He smiled into the sunken parchment face and Stevens smiled back, the bloodless lips whiter than the face itself. He looked ghastly. «How do you feel, Andy?»

«Not too bad, sir. Really. I'm not.» The bloodshot eyes were dark and filled with pain. His gaze fell and he looked down vacantly at his bandaged leg, looked up again, smiled uncertainly at Mallory. «I'm terribly sorry about all this, sir. What a bloody stupid thing to do.»

«It wasn't a stupid thing.» Mallory spoke with slow, heavy emphasis. «It was criminal folly.» He knew everyone was watching them, but knew, also, that Stevens had eyes for him alone. «Criminal, unforgiveable folly,» he went on quietly, «--and I'm the man in the dock. I'd suspected you'd lost a lot of blood on the boat, but I didn't know you had these big gashes on your forehead. I should have made it my business to find out.» He smiled wryly. «You should have heard what these two insubordinate characters had to say to me about it when they got to the top… . And they were right. You should never have been asked to bring up the rear in the state you were in. It was madness.» He grinned again. «You should have been hauled up like a sack of coals like the intrepid mountaineering team of Miller and Brown… . God knows how you ever made it — I'm sure you'll never know.» He leaned forward, touched Stevens's sound knee. «Forgive me, Andy. I honestly didn't realise how far through you were.»

Stevens stirred uncomfortably, but the dead pallor of the high-boned cheeks was stained with embarrassed pleasure.

«Please, sir,» he pleaded. «Don't talk like that. It was just one of these things.» He paused, eyes screwed shut and indrawn breath hissing sharply through his teeth as a wave of pain washed up from his shattered leg. Then he looked at Mallory again. «And there's no credit due to me for the climb,» he went on quietly. «I hardly remember a thing about it.»

Mallory looked at him without speaking, eyebrows arched in mild interrogation.

«I was scared to death every step of the way up,» Stevens said simply. He was conscious of no surprise, no wonder that he was saying the thing he would have died rather than say. «I've never been so scared in all my life.»

Mallory shook his head slowly from side to side, stubbled chin rasping in his cupped palm. He seemed genninely puzzled. Then he looked down at Stevens and smiled quizzically.

«Now I know you are new to this game, Andy.» He smiled again. «Maybe you think I was laughing and singing all the way up that cliff? Maybe you think I wasn't scared?» He lit a cigarette and gazed at Stevens through a cloud of drifting smoke. «Well, I wasn't. 'Scared' isn't the word — I was bloody well terrified. So was Andrea here. We know too much not to be scared.»

«Andrea!» Stevens laughed, then cried out as the movement triggered off a crepitant agony in his boneshattered leg. For a moment Mallory thought he had lost consciousness, but almost at once he spoke again, his voice husky with pain. «Andrea!» he whispered. «Scared! I don't believe it!»

«Andrea was afraid.» The big Greek's voice was very gentle. «Andrea is afraid. Andrea is always afraid. That is why I have lived so long.» He stared down at his great hands. «And why so many have died. They were not so afraid as L They were not afraid of everything a man could be afraid of, there was always something they forgot to fear, to guard against. But Andrea was afraid of everything — and he forgot nothing. It is as simple as that.»

He looked across at Stevens and smiled.

«There are no brave men and cowardly men in the world, my son. There are only brave men. To be born, to live, to die — that takes courage enough in itself, and more than enough. We are all brave men and we are all afraid, and what the world calls a brave man, he, too, is brave and afraid like all the rest of us. Only he is brave for five minutes longer. Or sometimes ten minutes, or twenty minutes — or the time it takes a man sick and bleeding and afraid to climb a cliff.»

Stevens said nothing. His head was sunk on his chest, and his face was hidden. He had seldom felt so happy, seldom so at peace with himself, He had known that he could not hide things from men like Andrea and Mallory, but he had not known that it would not matter. He felt he should say something, but he could not think what and he was deathly tired. He knew, deep down, that Andrea was speaking the truth, but not the whole truth; but he was too tired to care, to try to work things out.

Miller cleared his throat noisily.

«No more talkin', Lieutenant,» he said firmly. «You gotta lie down, get yourself some sleep.»

Stevens looked at him, then at Mallory in puzzled inquiry.

«Better do what you're told, Andy,» Mallory smiled. «Your surgeon and medical adviser talking. He fixed your leg.»

«Oh! I didn't know. Thanks, Dusty. Was it very — difficult?»

Miller waved a deprecatory hand.

«Not for a man of my experience. Just a simple break,» he lied easily. «Almost let one of the others do it… . Give him a hand to lie down, will you, Andrea?» He jerked his head towards Mallory. «Boss?»

The two men moved outside, turning their backs to the icy wind.

«We gotta get a fire, dry clothing, for that kid,» Miller said urgently. «His pulse is about 140, temperature 103. He's rnnnin' a fever, and he's losin' ground all the thne.»

«I know, I know,» Mallory said worriedly. «And there's not a hope of getting any fuel on this damned mountain. Let's go in and see how much dried clothing we can muster between us.»

He lifted the edge of the canvas and stepped inside. Stevens was still awake, Brown and Andrea on either side of him. Miller was on his heels.

«We're going to stay here for the night,» Mallory announced, «so let's make things as snug as possible. Mind you,» he admitted, «we're a bit too near the cliff for comfort, but old Jerry hasn't a clue we're on the island, and we're out of sight of the coast. Might as well make ourselves comfortable.»

«Boss …» Miller made to speak, then fell silent again. Mallory looked at him in surprise, saw that he, Brown and Stevens were looking at one another, uncertainty, then doubt and a dawning, sick comprehension in their eyes. A sudden anxiety, the sure knowledge that something was far wrong, struck at Mallory like a blow.

«What's up?» he demanded sharply. «What is it?»