Alistair Maclean: The guns of Navaronne

His last words seemed to echo in the little room for an interminable time: the stillness was intense. And then, as suddenly as it had arisen, the tension was gone and Briggs's face, a now curiously mottled white and red, was slack and sullen in defeat.

«All right, all right,» he said. «No need for all these damned stupid threats — not if it means all that much to you.» The attempt to bluster, to patch up the shredded rags of his dignity, was pathetic in its transparency. «Matthews — call out the guard.»

The torpedo-boat, great engines throttled back half speed, pitched and lifted, pitched and lifted with monotonous regularity as it thrust its way into the long, gentle swell from the W.N.W. For the hundredth time that night Mallory looked at his watch.

«Running behind time, sir?» Stevens suggested.

Mallory nodded.

«We should have stepped straight into this thing from the Sunderland — there was a hold-up.»

Brown grunted. «Engine trouble, for a flyer.» The aydeside accent was very heavy.

«Yes, that's right.» Mallory looked up, surprised. «How did you know?»

«Always the same with these blasted M.T.B. engines,» Brown growled. «Temperamental as a film star.»

There was silence for a time in the tiny blacked-out cabin, a silence broken only by the occasional clink of a glass. The Navy was living up to its traditional hospitality.

«If we're late,» Miller observed at last, «why doesn't the skipper open her up? They tell me these crates can do forty to fifty knots.»

«You look green enough already,» Stevens said tactlessly. «Obviously, you've never been in an M.T.B. full out in a heavy sea.»

Miller fell silent a moment. Clearly, he was trying to take his mind off his internal troubles. «Captain?»

«Yes, what is it?» Mallory answered sleepily. He was stretched full length on a narrow settee, an almost empty glass in his fingers.

«None of my business, I know, boss, but — would you have carried out that threat you made to Captain Briggs?»

Mallory laughed.

«It is none of your business, but — well, no, Corporal, I wouldn't. I wouldn't because I couldn't. I haven't all that much authority invested in me — and I didn't even know whether there was a radio-telephone in Castelrosso.»

«Yeah. Yeah, do you know, I kinda suspected that.» Corporal Miller rubbed a stubbled chin. «If he'd called your bluff, what would you have done, boss?»

«I'd have shot Nicolai,» Mallory said quietly. «If the colonel had failed me, I'd have had no choice left.»

«I knew that too. I really believe you would. For the first time I'm beginning to believe we've got a chance.… But I kinda wish you had shot him — and little Lord Fauntleroy. I didn't like the expression on old Briggs' face when you went out that door. Mean wasn't the word. He coulda killed you then. You trampled right over his pride, boss — and to a phoney like that nothin' else in the world matters.»

Mallory made no reply. He was already sound asleep, his empty glass fallen from his hand. Not even the banshee clamour of the great engines opening full out as they entered the sheltered calm of the Rhodes channel could plumb his bottomless abyss of sleep.

«My dear fellow, you make me feel dreadfully embarrassed.» Moodily the officer switched his ivory-handled fly-swat against an immaculately trousered leg, pointed a contemptuous but gleaming toecap at the ancient caique, broad-beamed and two-masted, moored stern on to the even older and more dilapidated wooden pier on which they were standing. «I am positively ashamed. The clients of Rutledge and Company, I assure you, are accustomed only to the best.»

Mallory smothered a smile. Major Rutledge of the Buffs, Eton and Sandhurst as to intonation, millimetrically tooth-brushed as to moustache, Savile Row as to the quite dazzling sartorial perfection of his khaki drill, was so magnificently out of place in the wild beauty of the rocky, tree-lined bluffs of that winding creek that his presence there seemed inevitable. Such was the Major's casual assurance, so dominating his majestic unconcern, that it was the creek, if anything, that seemed slightly out of place.

«It does look as if it has seen better days,» Mallory admitted. «Nevertheless, sir, it's exactly what we want.»

«Can't understand it, I really can't understand it.» With an irritable but well-timed swipe the Major brought down a harmless passing fly. «I've been providing chaps with everything during the past eight or nine months — caiques, launches, yachts, fishing boats, everything — but no one has ever yet specified the oldest, most dilapidated derelict I could lay hands on. Quite a job laying hands on it, too, I tell you.» A pained expression crossed his face. «The chaps know I don't usually deal in this line of stuff.»

«What chaps?» Mallory asked curiously.

«Oh, up the islands, you know.» Rutledge gestured vaguely to the north and west.

«But — but those are enemy held—»

«So's this one. Chap's got to have his H.Q. somewhere.» Rutledge explained patiently. Suddenly his expression brightened. «I say, old boy, I know just the thing for you. A boat to escape observation and investigation — that was what Cairo insisted I get. How about a German E-boat, absolutely perfect condition, one careful owner. Could get ten thou. for her at home. Thirtysix hours. Pal of mine over in Bodrum—»

«Bodrum?» Mallory questioned. «Bodrum? But — but that's in Turkey, isn't it?»

«Turkey? Well, yes, actually, I believe it is,» Rutledge admitted. «Chap has to get his supplies from somewhere, you know,» he added defensively.

«Thanks all the same»--Mallory smiled--«but this is exactly what we want. We can't wait, anyway.»

«On your own heads be it!» Rutledge threw up his hands in admission of defeat. «I'll have a couple of my men shove your stuff aboard.»

«I'd rather we did it ourselves, sir, It's — well, it's a very special cargo.»

«Right you are,» the Major acknowledged. «No questions Rutledge, they call me. Leaving soon?»

Mallory looked at his watch.

«Half an hour, sir.»

«Bacon, eggs and coffee in ten minutes?»

«Thanks very much.» Mallory grinned. «That's one offer we'll be very glad to accept.»

He turned away, walked slowly down to the end of the pier. He breathed deeply, savouring the heady, herb-scented air of an Aegean dawn. The salt tang of the sea, the drowsily sweet perfume of honeysuckle, the more delicate, sharper fragrance of mint all subtly merged into an intoxicating whole, indefinable, unforgettable. On either side, the steep slopes, still brilliantly green with pine and walnut and holly, stretched far up to the moorland pastures above, and from these, faintly borne on the perfumed breeze, came the distant, melodic tinkling of goats' bells, a haunting, a nostalgic music, true symbol of the leisured peace the Aegean no longer knew.

Unconsciously almost, Mallory shook his head and walked more quickly to the end of the pier. The others were still sitting where the torpedo boat had landed them just before dawn. Miller, inevitably, was stretched his full length, hat tilted against the golden, level rays of the rising sun.

«Sorry to disturb you and all that, but we're leaving In half an hour; breakfast in ten minutes. Let's get the stuff aboard.» He turned to Brown. «Maybe you'd like to have a look at the engine?» he suggested.

Brown heaved himself to his feet, looked down unenthusiastically at the weather-beaten, paint-peeled caique.

«Right you are, sir. But if the engine is on a par with this bloody wreck.…» He shook his head in prophetic gloom and swung nimbly over the side of the pier.