The Complete Navarone (82 page)

He said in his rasping whisper, ‘Mallory.’ He breathed hard. ‘You will all die together. It will not be an easy death.’

Mallory felt the sweat of relief flow under his stinking uniform. Andrea and Miller were still alive. He said to the General, ‘Please. Take your clothes off.’

The General’s brain felt starved of blood. He knew the things this man had done. He knew that he was in trouble. He said, ‘No.’

Then he dived for the bell-push.

Mallory saw him go, as if in slow motion. He lashed out again with the barrel of the Schmeisser. It caught the General on his bone-white temple. His eyes rolled up. His body went limp and dropped to the Turkish carpet. His head hit the flagstones at the carpet’s fringe with a loud, wet
crunch
. He lay still.

Mallory laid the Schmeisser on the desk. He stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray, took another from the silver box, lit it, and inhaled deeply. He walked across to the door and quietly shot the big bolt. Then he crouched by the body on the floor, and took the pulse in the neck.

There was no pulse.

Mallory began to remove the uniform.

He pulled off the boots, the tunic, the breeches. He paused a moment, face immobile, eyebrow cocked. The uniform was bigger than the body. The General’s corpse was white and fleshless, little better than a skeleton. Under the dead-black uniform, the man was wearing ivory silk French knickers.

Mallory began to unbutton his tunic. He thew his sewage-stained clothes behind the curtain, and climbed into the General’s uniform.

It had been oversized for the General, but was about the right size for Mallory. He had climbed the castle tower without socks, and large areas of skin had come away from his feet. The General’s socks were clean and made of silk, which was soothing; the General’s mirror-polished jackboots were a size too tight, which was not. But Mallory’s own boots were not the elegant boots of a General, so there was no help for it.

When he had finished dressing Mallory transferred the contents of his battledress pockets to the General’s tunic and breeches. He caught sight of himself reflected in the glass of the window. He saw a tall, thin SS General, the hollow-cheeked face shadowed by the cap that came down far over the eyes, the unscarred neck hidden by the shirt collar. Unless he got too close to someone who knew the General well, he would pass. The Cabo de la Calavera force would be a scratch team. They would not know each other well.

You hope.

Stay in the shadows.

He took the cap off, and began to walk round the office. A door led to a room with a shortwave radio on a table.

Mallory went into the bathroom. He washed his hands and face. He changed the blade in the dead man’s razor for a new one. He shaved: SS Generals do not have twelve hours’ growth of stubble. As he shaved he thought about the way that the lights had come on after the landing, the instantaneous capture of Andrea and Miller. And what the General had said:
we have been expecting you
.

Mallory wiped the remains of the lather from his face, and decided that, disguise or no disguise, he could not face the General’s violet-scented eau de Cologne. He walked back to the radio room, stiff-legged because of the pinch of the boots. Jensen had made sure his men were trained in the use of German equipment. He flicked on the power, and tuned the dial to the
Stella Maris
’ frequency.
‘Ici l’Amiral Beaufort,’
he said.

There was a wave of static. Then a little voice said,
‘Monsieur l’Amiral.’
Even across the static it was recognisable as Hugues.

Mallory said, ‘I have laid large explosive charges at the main gate. Am expecting reinforcements from the landward.’

Hugues said, ‘What –’

Mallory hit his press-to-talk switch. ‘Stay where you are,’ he said. ‘Ignore all further radio communications. Await arrival of main force, one hour. Acknowledge.’ He lifted his thumb from the switch.

Static washed through the earphones. For a moment he thought Hugues had not received him. Then he realised that the silence would be the silence of confusion.

Or treachery.

‘Acknowledge,’ he said again.

‘I acknowledge,’ said Hugues.

‘Out,’ said Mallory, and disconnected.

Mallory hobbled back into the office. Very quietly he unbolted the door, walked back to the desk and pulled the body behind the curtain. Then he lit another Turkish cigarette from the box on the desk, and turned away from the door to face the window. It was dark out there. He waited five minutes. Suddenly, the night to the left whitened, as if many lights had come on. Mallory pressed the button on the desk. The door opened behind him. A voice said, ‘Herr General?’

Mallory could see in the rain-flecked glass the reflection of a young SS officer, standing to attention with tremulous rigidity, eyes front. The officer would not be able to see Mallory’s reflection. Mallory was standing too close to the glass. And of course, the officer was German, so he would notice uniforms, not faces.

At least, that was the theory Mallory was backing with his life. And Andrea’s, and Miller’s.

He said, in what he hoped was a replica of the General’s harsh croak, ‘There seems to be a problem by the gate. The lights are on. What is happening?’

‘We have reports of enemy action.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Intelligence,’ said the voice.

Mallory said, ‘Investigate this. Personally. Come back only when you have established the nature of this action, and neutralized it. Take all forces at your disposal. The whole garrison, if necessary.’

‘But Herr General, the administration … we depart at dawn …’

Mallory’s heart seemed to stop beating. ‘At what time?’ he said.

‘At dawn,’ said the SS man, worried. ‘The Herr General will remember … it was the Herr General who issued the order …’

‘The time of dawn, idiot,’ snapped Mallory.

‘Of course.’ The SS man sounded flustered. ‘My apologies. 0500, Herr General.’

‘So you will raise the general alarm,’ said Mallory. ‘And you will proceed to the gate.’

‘But Herr General –’

‘With all the men you can find.’

‘But the work –’

‘Silence!’ barked Mallory. ‘Leave only the sentries, and one man. I need to interview the prisoners. I shall require an escort. The rest to the gate. I hold you personally responsible.’

‘But –’

‘You will go out in the rain,’ said Mallory, ‘and confront the enemy! There is worse than rain on the
Ostfront
!’

He heard boot heels crash together. The officer said,
‘Jawohl, Herr General,’
in a tight, offended voice. The uniform would be occupying the whole of his vision.

‘Send the escort in five minutes,’ said Mallory. ‘Dismiss!’

The boot heels crashed again. The door slammed. Alarm bells started ringing, rackety and imperious. Mallory turned, stubbed out the cigarette, and lit another.

Five o’clock. The U-boats were sailing seven hours early. And the Storm Force had not even begun.

There was the stamp of many feet in the corridor outside: the General’s staff, trotting off to the gate, scared witless by the prospect of the Russian Front. The footsteps faded. A double knock sounded on the door. Mallory turned back to the window.
‘Komm!’
he cried.

A nervous voice said, ‘Herr General.’

‘We will visit the prisoners,’ said Mallory. ‘Lead the way.’

‘The way?’

‘You lead,’ rasped Mallory. ‘I will follow you. About
turn
.’

The soldier about turned. Mallory clasped his hands behind his back and hobbled out from behind the desk.

In the corridor, he sank his chin into his collar and strode stiffly after the private. Anyone watching would have seen the General, cap pulled low over his eyes, deep in thought, doing his rounds. But there were only clerks to watch. The alarm bells had sent the garrison clattering for the assembly points, and from the assembly points the Feldwebels had bellowed them to the ramparts on the peninsula.

The escort’s boots rang in the vaulting and crunched grit on the stone stairs. The pain in Mallory’s feet and the aches of his body were small, distant inconveniences.

He had radioed the
Stella Maris
with false information. Within five minutes, that false information had been relayed to the garrison.

Someone on the
Stella Maris
was a traitor.

Lisette was out of France, away from the long arm of the Gestapo. Hugues had his girlfriend and his child safe alongside him; if he betrayed the
Stella Maris
party, Lisette would be separated from him, and probably killed. Which left Jaime: Jaime the dark and silent, the smuggler, connoisseur of secret paths and byways.

Not that it mattered just now.

The soldier halted, with a stamp of his feet. ‘Herr General,’ he said.

They were in a long corridor lined with steel doors. White lights glared harshly from the ceiling. There was a smell of damp and mould. The sentry standing rigidly at attention outside the nearest door coughed. Mallory said, ‘Key.’

The sentry was still coughing.

‘Key!’ rasped Mallory, holding out his hand.

The sentry said, ‘Herr General,’ and fumbled at his belt. He looked at Mallory’s hand.

And Mallory’s skin turned suddenly to ice.

For the sentry was frowning at that outstretched hand. The right hand. The hand of flesh and blood.

The hand that on the real General had been an artificial hand of orange rubber.

‘Herr General,’ said the sentry, with the face of one undergoing a nervous breakdown. ‘This is … you are not the General.’

‘The key,’ rasped Mallory.

But under the brim of his cap he saw the man’s hands going for the Schmeisser.

The cell had not changed. It was still cold, and it still stank, and it was still dark, dark with the absolute blackness of a pocket hewn from living rock. Midnight in the goddamn dungeons, thought Miller. Ghosts would be walking, witches doing whatever the hell witches do when it rains. As far as Miller was concerned, the ghosts and the witches could get on with it. Right here, midnight meant time for a cigarette.

He gave one to Andrea, put one in his own mouth, and lit them. The hot little coals began to glow in the dark, and for a couple of minutes there were warm points in this cold, evil-smelling universe.

But cigarettes end. And when they were finished, it was colder again, and lonelier, and worst of all, quieter.

What felt like two hours later, Andrea said, ‘What time is it?’

Andrea would be thinking about the operation. Miller was thinking about it too. Miller wanted to get finished up.

Some chance.

He looked at the radium-bright hands of his watch. ‘Five past twelve,’ he said.

‘Any minute now,’ said the rumble of Andrea’s voice. And although Miller knew it was a packet of bullshit, he felt for a moment that, any minute now, something might happen.

But nothing did.

Not for thirty seconds, anyway. After thirty seconds, the silence was broken by an odd noise.

It sounded like a jackhammer. It was not a jackhammer.

Someone was firing a machine pistol outside the cell door.

The door swung open. Brilliant light exploded into the darkness. A figure stood against the light, a black, angular silhouette. Andrea stared at it, dazzled. From the monochrome blur there emerged a spidery figure, jackboots set well apart, hands on hips, face invisible under the high-fronted black cap. It was the silhouette that stalked Andrea’s dreams: the rusty-black silhouette that had stood against the sun on the low hill in Greece, with the blue Aegean twinkling like sapphires under the sky.

Under the hill had been the house of Andrea’s brother, Iannis. It had been a small house, with a vine growing over a little terrace of red tiles, fanned by the small thyme-scented breeze that blew up from the sea.

By the time Andrea had got there, the damage had been done. His brother had been suspected of partisan activities, and captured in possession of British weapons. Under the pleasant green shade of the vine, the General had opened a bottle of Iannis’ retsina and poured himself a glass. Then he had perched elegantly on the wall, gleaming boots crossed at the ankles, and watched the show.

The show had consisted of lighting the fire of charcoal on which the family had from time to time cooked an alfresco meal. Three Croatian SS had then brought Iannis’ three daughters – Athene, six, Eirene, eight, and Helen, nine – out of the house. In the fire of charcoal they had burned off the girls’ hands. When Iannis’ wife had begun to scream, the General had had her hanged before the eyes of her husband and her still living children. Iannis they had left alive, nailing his hands to the house door against his attempts to claw out the eyeballs that had seen this thing, and wrench out the heart that was broken.

It was only after they had hanged the children beside their mother that Iannis had managed to tear his hands free and run, run like a maniac, eyes blinded with tears, to the brink of the high white cliff, and keep running, though his feet were no longer running on ground, but running on air, and he was falling down the glistening face of that cliff, falling happily, because he would see his children again, and his wife, and his parents, murdered by Bulgarians –