Partisans (23 page)

‘I mean that you're still intact and in one piece. Keep on like this and you'll wake up in hospital wondering if you fell under a train. I can vouch for Giacomo. He is English. He's got so long and so distinguished a war record that he puts any man in this room to shame. While you've been pottering around the mountains he's been fighting in France and Belgium and North Africa and the Aegean and usually on assignments so dangerous that you couldn't even begin to wonder what they were like. Look at his face, Marino. Look at it and you'll look into the face of war.'

Rankovi
studied Giacomo closely. ‘I'm not a fool. I never questioned his qualities as a soldier. I was curious, that is all, and maybe, like the Colonel and yourself, I am not much given to trusting anyone. I did not intend to give offence.'

‘And I didn't intend to take any,' Giacomo said. His good humour had returned. ‘You're suspicious, I'm touchy. A bad mix. Let me suggest a good mix or rather no mix at all. You never mix malt whisky with anything, do you, George? Not even water?'

‘Sacrilege.'

‘You were right on one count, Major. I am English but I was born in Yugoslavia. Let us drink to Yugoslavia.'

‘A toast no man could quarrel with,' Rankovi
said. There were no handshakes, no protestations of eternal friendship. It was, at best, a truce. Rankovi
, no actor, still had his reservations about Giacomo.

Petersen, for his part, had none.

Considerably later in the evening an understandably much more relaxed and mellowed atmosphere had descended upon the company. Some of them had paid a brief visit to a mess four hundred metres distant for an evening meal. Sarina and Lorraine had pointblank – and as it turned out, wisely – refused to brave the near blizzard that was now sweeping by outside. Michael, inevitably, had elected to remain with them and Giacomo, after a quick exchange of glances with Petersen, had announced that he was not hungry. Giacomo did not have to have it spelt out to him that, even among his own people, Petersen was suspicious of practically everybody in sight.

Compared to Josip Pijade's midday offerings, the meal was a gastro nomic disaster. It was no fault of the
etnik cooks – as elsewhere through that ravaged country, food was at a premium and fine food almost wholly unobtainable. Still, it was a sad come-down from the flesh-pots of Italy and Mostar and even George could manage no more than two platefuls of the fatty mutton and beans which constituted the main and only course of the evening. They had left as soon as decency permitted.

Back in Harrison's radio hut their relative sufferings were soon forgotten.

‘There's no place like home,' Harrison announced to nobody in particular. Although it would have been unfair to call him inebriated, it would have been fair to pass the opinion that he wasn't stone cold sober either.

He bent an appreciative gaze on the glass in his hand. ‘Nectar emboldens me. George has given me a very comprehensive account of your activities over the past two weeks. He has not, however, told me
why
you went to Rome in the first place.

Nor did you seek to enlighten me on your return.'

‘That's because I didn't know myself.'

Harrison nodded sagely. ‘That makes sense. You go all the way to Rome and back and you don't know why.'

‘I was just carrying a message. I didn't know the contents.'

‘Is one permitted to ask if you know the contents now?'

‘One is permitted. I do.'

‘Ah! Is one further permitted to know the contents?'

‘In your own language, Jamie, I don't know whether I'm permitted or not. All I can say is that this is purely a military matter. Strictly, I am not a military man, a commander of troops. I'm an espionage agent. Espionage agents don't wage battles. We're far too clever for that. Or cowardly.'

Harrison looked at Metrovi
and Rankovi
in turn. ‘You're military men. If I'm to believe half you tell me, you wage battles.'

Metrovi
smiled. ‘We're not as clever as Peter.'

‘You know the contents of the message?'

‘Of course. Peter's discretion does him credit but it's not really necessary. Within a couple of days the news will be common knowledge throughout the camp. We – the Germans, Italians, ourselves and the UstaÅ¡a – are to launch an all-out offensive against the Partisans. We shall annihilate Titoland. The Germans have given the name of the attack “Operation Weiss”: the Partisans will doubtless call it the Fourth Offensive.'

Harrison seemed unimpressed. He said, doubtfully: ‘That means, of course, that you've made three other offensives already. Those didn't get you very far, did they?'

Metrovi
was unruffled. ‘I know it's easy to say, but this time really will be different. They're cornered. They're trapped. They've no way out, no place left to go. They haven't a single plane, fighter or bomber. We have squadrons upon squadrons. They haven't a tank, not even a single effective anti-aircraft gun. At the most, they have fifteen thousand men, most of them starving, weak, sick and untrained. We have almost a hundred thousand men, well-trained and fit. And Tito's final weakness, his Achilles' heel, you might say, is his lack of mobility: he is known to have at least three thousand wounded men on his hands. It will be no contest. I don't say I look forward to it, but it will be a massacre. Are you a betting man, James?'