Alistair Maclean - The guns of Navaronne

«Plenty,» Mallory assured him. «Search party moving this way. We'll have to pull out inside half an hour.» He looked at his watch. «Just on four o'clock. Do you think you could raise Cairo on the set?»

«Lord only knows,» Brown said frankly. He rose stiffly to his feet. «The radio didn't get just the best of treatment yesterday. I'll have a go.»

«Thanks, Chief. See that your aerial doesn't stick up above the sides of the gully.» Mallory turned to leave the cave, but halted abruptly at the sight of Andrea squatting on a boulder just beside the entrance. His head bent in concentration, the big Greek had just finished screwing telescopic sights on to the barrel of his 7.92 mm. Mauser and was now deftly wrapping a sleeping-bag lining round its barrel and butt until the entire rifle was wrapped in a white cocoon.

Mallory watched him in silence. Andrea glanced up at him, smiled, rose to his feet and reached out for his rucksack. Within thirty seconds he was clad from head to toe in his mountain camouflage suit, was drawing tight the purse-strings of his snowhood and easing his feet into the rucked elastic anklets of his canvas boots. Then he picked up the Mauser and smiled slightly.

«I thought I might be taking a little walk, Captain,» he said apologetically. «With your permission, of course.»

Mallory nodded his head several times in slow recollection.

«You said I was worrying about nothing,» he murmured. «I should have known. You might have told me, Andrea.» But the protest was automatic, without significance. Mallory felt neither anger nor even annoyance at this tacit arrogation of his authority. The habit of command died hard in Andrea: on such occasions as he ostensibly sought approval for or consulted about a proposed course of action it was generally as a matter of courtesy and to give information as to his intentions. Instead of resentment, Mallory could feel only an overwhelming relief and gratitude to the smiling giant who towered above him: he had talked casually to Miller about driving Stevens till he died and then abandoning him, talked with an indifference that masked a mind sombre with bitterness at what he must do, but even so he had not known how depressed, bow sick at heart this decision had left him until he knew it was no longer necessary.

«I am sorry.» Andrea was half-contrite, half-smiling. «I should have told you. I thought you understood… . It is the best thing to do, yes?»

«It is the only thing to do,» Mallory said frankly: «You're going to draw them off up the saddle?»

«There is no other way. With their skis they would overtake me in minutes if I went down into the valley. I cannot come back, of course, until it is dark. You will be here?»

«Some of us will.» Mallory glanced across the shelter where a waking Stevens was trying to sit up, heels of his palms screwing into his exhausted eyes. «We must have food and fuel, Andrea,» he said softly. «I am going down into the valley to-night.»

«Of course, of course. We must do what we can.» Andrea's face was grave, his voice only a murmur. «As long as we can. He is only a boy, a child almost… . Perhaps it will not be long.» He pulled back the curtain, looked out at the evening sky. «I will be back by seven o'clock.»

«Seven o'clock,» Mallory repeated. The sky, he could see, was darkening already, darkening with the gloom of coming snow, and the lifting wind was beginning to puff little clouds of air-spun, flossy white into the little gully. Mallory shivered and caught hold of the massive arm. «For God's sake, Andrea,» he urged quietly, «look after yourself!»

«Myself?» Andrea smiled gently, no mirth in his eyes, and as gently he disengaged his arm. «Do not think about me.» The voice was very quiet, with an utter lack of arrogance. «If you must speak to God, speak to Him about these poor devils who are looking for us.» The canvas dropped behind him and he was gone.

For some moments Mallory stood irresolutely at the mouth of the cave, gazing out sightlessly through the gap in the curtain. Then he wheeled abruptly, crossed the floor of the shelter and knelt in front of Stevens. The boy was propped up against Miller's anxious arm, the eyes lack-lustre and expressionless, bloodless cheeks deep-sunken in a grey and parchment face. Mallory smiled at him: he hoped the shock didn't show in his face.

«Well, well, well. The sleeper awakes at last. Better late than never.» He opened his waterproof cigarette case, profferred it to Stevens. «How are you feeling now, Andy?»

«Frozen, sir.» Stevens shook his head at the case and tried to grin back at Mallory, a feeble travesty of a smile that made Mallory wince.

«And the leg?»

«I think it must be frozen, too.» Stevens looked down incuriously at the sheathed whiteness of his shattered leg. «Anyway, I can't feel a thing.»

«Frozen!» Miller's sniff was a masterpiece of injured pride. «Frozen, he says! Gawddanined ingratitude. It's the first-class medical care, if I do say so myself!»

Stevens smiled, a fleeting, absent smile that flickered over his face and was gone. For long moments he kept staring down at his leg, then suddenly lifted his head and looked directly at Mallory.

«Look, sir, there's no good kidding ourselves.» The voice was soft, quite toneless. «I don't want to seem ungrateful and I hate even the idea of cheap heroics, but — well, I'm just a damned great millstone round your necks and—»

«Leave you, eh?» Mallory interrupted. «Leave you to die of the cold or be captured by the Germans. Forget it, laddie. We can look after you — and these ruddy guns — at the same time.»

«But, sir—»

«You insult us, Lootenant.» Miller sniffed again. «Our feelings are hurt. Besides, as a professional man I gotta see my case through to convalescence, and if you think I'm goin' to do that in any gawddamned dripping German dungeon, you can—»

«Enough!» Mallory held up his hand. «The subject is closed.» He saw the stain high up on the thin cheeks, the glad light that touched the dulled eyes, and felt the self-loathing and the shame well up inside him, shame for the gratitude of a sick man who did not know that their concern stemmed not from solicitude but from fear that he might betray them… . Mallory bent forward and began to unlace his high jack-boots. He spoke without looking up.

«Dusty.»

«Yeah?»

«When you're finished boasting about your medical prowess, maybe you'd care to use some of it. Come and have a look at these feet of mine, will you? I'm afraid the sentry's boots haven't done them a great deal of good.»

Fifteen painful minutes later Miller snipped off the rough edges of the adhesive bandage that bound Mallory's right foot, straightened up stiffly and contemplated his handiwork with pride.

«Beautiful, Miller, beautiful,» he murmured complacently. «Not even in John Hopkins in the city of Baltimore …» He broke off suddenly, frowned down at the thickly bandaged feet and coughed apologetically. «A small point has just occurred to me, boss.»

«I thought it might eventually,» Mallory said grimly. «Just how do you propose to get my feet into these damned boots again?» He shivered involuntarily as he pulled on a pair of thick woollen socks, matted and sodden with melted snow, picked up the German sentry's boots, held them at arm's length and examined them in disgust. «Sevens, at the most — and a darned small sevens at that!»

«Nines,» Stevens said laconically. He handed over — his own jack-boots, one of them slit neatly down the side where Andrea had cut it open. «You can fix that tear easily enough, and they're no damned good to me now. No arguments, sir, please.» He began to laugh softly, broke off in a sharply indrawn hiss of pain as the movement jarred the broken bones, took a couple of deep, quivering breaths, then smiled whitely. «My first — and probably my last — contribution to the expedition. What sort of medal do you reckon they'll give me for that, sir?»