Alistair Maclean: The guns of Navaronne

«Good God!» Mallory was shocked. «I didn't know—»

«Two months ago we mounted a large-scale amphibious attack on Navarone.» Jensen hadn't even heard the interruption. «Commandos, Royal Marine Commandos and Jellicoe's Special Boat Service. Less than an even chance, we knew — Navarone's practically solid cliff all the way round. But then these were very special men, probably the finest assault troops in the world today.» Jensen paused for almost a minute, then went on very quietly. «They were cut to ribbons. They were massacred almost to a man».

«Finally, twice in the past ten days-we've seen this attack on Kheros coming for a long time now — we sent in parachute saboteurs: Special Boat Service men.» He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. «They just vanished.»

«Just like that?»

«Just like that. And then to-night — the last desperate fling of the gambler and what have you.» Jensen laughed, briefly and without humour. «That interrogation hut — I kept pretty quiet in there to-night, I tell you. I was the 'joker' that Torrance and his boys wanted to heave out over Navarone. I knew it was hopeless-but it had to be done.»

The big Humber was beginning to slow down now, running silently between the tumble-down shacks and hovels that line the Western approach to Alexandria. The sky ahead was already beginning to streak in the first tenuous greys of the false dawn.

«I don't think I'd be much good with a parachute,» Mallory said doubtfully. «In fact, quite frankly, I've never even seen a parachute.»

«Don't worry,» Jensen said briefly. «You won't have to use one. You're going into Navarone the hard way.»

Mallory waited for more, but Jensen had fallen silent, intent on avoiding the large potholes that were beginning to pock the roadway. After a time Mallory asked:

«Why me, Captain Jensen?»

Jensen's smile was barely visible in the greying darkness. He swerved violently to avoid a gaping hole and straightened up again.

«Scared?»

«Certainly I'm scared. No offence intended, sir, but the way you talk you'd scare anyone… . But that wasn't what I meant.»

«I know it wasn't. Just my twisted humour.. . Why you? Special qualifications, laddie, just like I told you. You speak Greek like a Greek. You speak German like a German. Skilled saboteur, first-class organiser and eighteen unscathed months in the White Mountains of Crete-- a convincing demonstration of your ability to survive in enemy-held territory.» Jensen chuckled. «You'd be surprised to know just how complete a dossier I have on you!»

«No, I wouldn't.» Mallory spoke with some feeling. «And,» he added, «I know of at least three other officers with the same qualifications.»

«There are others,» Jensen agreed. «But there are no other Keith Mallorys. Keith Mallory,» Jensen repeated rhetorically. «Who hadn't heard of Keith Mallory in the palmy, balmy days before the war? The finest mountaineer, the greatest rock climber New Zealand has ever produced — and by that, of course, New Zealanders mean the world. The human fly, the climber of the unclimbable, the scaler of vertical cliffs and impossible precipices. The entire south coast of Navarone,» said Jensen cheerfully, «consists of one vast, impossible precipice. Nary a hand or foot-hold in sight.»

«I see,» Mallory murmured. «I see indeed. 'Into Navarone the hard way.' That was what you said.»

«That was,» Jensen acknowledged. «You and your gang — just four others. Mallory's Merry Mountaineers. Hand-picked. Every man a specialist. You'll meet them all tomorrow — this afternoon, rather.»

They travelled in silence for the next ten minutes, turned up right from the dock area, jounced their uncomfortable way over the massive cobbles of the Rue Souers, slewed round into Mohammed All square, passed in front of the Bourse and turned right down the Sherif Pasha.

Mallory looked at the man behind the wheel. He could see his face quite clearly now in the gathering light.

«Where to, sir?»

«To see the only man in the Middle East who can give you any help now. Monsieur Eugene Viachos of Navarone.»

«You are a brave man, Captain Mallory.» Nervously Eugene Viachos twisted the long, pointed ends of his black moustache. «A brave man and a foolish one, I would say — but I suppose we cannot call a man a fool when he only obeys his orders.» His eyes left the large drawing lying before him on the table and sought Jensen's impassive face.

«Is there no other way, Captain?» he pleaded.

Jensen shook his head slowly.

«There are. We've tried them all, sir. They all failed. This is the last.»

«He must go, then?»

«There are over a thousand men on Kheros, sir.»

Vlachos bowed his head in silent acceptance, then smiled faintly at Mallory.

«He calls me 'sir.' Me, a poor Greek hotel-keeper and Captain Jensen of the Royal Navy calls me 'sir.' It makes an old man feel good.» He stopped, gazed off vacantly into space, the faded eyes and tired, lined face soft with memory. «An old man, Captain Mallory, an old man now, a poor man and a sad one. But I wasn't always, not always. Once I was just middle-aged, and rich and well content. Once I owned a lovely land, a hundred square miles of the most beautiful country God ever sent to delight the eyes of His creatures here below, and how well I loved that land!» He laughed self-consciously and ran a hand through his thick, greying hair. «Ah, well, as you people say, I suppose it's all in the eye of the beholder. 'A lovely land,' I say. 'That blasted rock,' as Captain Jensen has been heard to describe it out of my hearing.» He smiled at Jensen's sudden discomfiture. «But we both give it the same name — Navarone.»

Startled, Mallory looked at Jensen. Jensen nodded.

«The Vlachos family has owned Navarone for generations. We had to remove Monsieur Viachos in a great hurry eighteen months ago. The Germans didn't care overmuch for his kind of collaboration.»

«It was — how do you say — touch and go,» Vlachos nodded. «They had reserved three very special places for my two sons and myself in the dungeons in Navarone… . But enough of the Viachos family. I just wanted you to know, young man, that I spent forty years on Navarone and almost four days»--he gestured to the table--«on that map. My information and that map you can trust absolutely. Many things will have changed, of course, but some things never change. The mountains, the bays, the passes, the caves, the roads, the houses and, above all, the fortress itself — these have remained unchanged for centuries, Captain Mallory.»

«I understand, sir.» Mallory folded the map carefully, stowed it away in his tunic. «With this, there's always a chance. Thank you very much.»

«It is little enough, God knows.» Viachos's fingers drummed on the table for a moment, then he looked up at Mallory. «Captain Jensen informs me that most of you speak Greek fluently, that you will be dressed as Greek peasants and will carry forged papers. That is well. You will be — what is the word?--self-contained, will operate on your own.» He paused, then went on very earnestly.

«Please do not try to enlist the help of the people of Navarone. At all costs you must avoid that. The Germans are ruthless. I know. If a man helps you and is found out, they will destroy not only that man but his entire village — men, women and children. It has happened before. It will happen again.»

«It happened in Crete,» Mallory agreed quietly. «I've seen it for myself.»

«Exactly.» Vlachos nodded. «And the people of Navarone have neither the skifi nor the experience for suecessful guerrilla operations. They have not had the chance — German surveillance has been especially severe in our island.»

«I promise you, sir—» Mallory began.