The Complete Navarone (61 page)

The path was easy walking, following the contours, skirting precipices over which Miller did not allow his eyes to stray. They followed it up and onto the ridge.

Lack of effort let them feel the chill of their sodden clothes. They paused to let Lisette and Hugues catch up. Mallory took his oilcloth-wrapped cigarettes from the soaking pocket of his blouse, and gave one to Miller. Their faces were haggard in the Zippo’s flare. Hugues and Lisette approached.

Hugues said, ‘Lisette needs food. Rest, warmth –’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Lisette’s voice. She sounded weak, but resolute.

‘But my darling –’

‘Don’t you darling me,’ she said. ‘Can we go on?’

Mallory said nothing. It was possible to admire this woman’s spirit. It was less possible to admire the speed at which she moved. Too slow, thought Mallory. It was all getting too slow, and there was a hell of a distance to travel before they even got to the start line.

His watch said it was 0200 hours. He said to Jaime, ‘How long?’

‘Two hours. All downhill. The slope is not so bad now.’

Mallory could hear Hugues’ teeth chattering. There was a thin, icy wind up here, and the snow was colder. ‘Any shelter before then?’

‘In ten minutes. A shepherd’s hut. There will be nobody.’

‘We’ll stop for twenty minutes.’

‘Thank God.’

The shepherd’s hut had a roof and three walls, facing providentially away from the wind. The floor was covered in dung-matted straw, but it was dry, and after the snow it was as good as a Turkish carpet. They burrowed into the filthy straw, smoking, letting their body heat warm their soaking clothes. Jaime produced a bottle of brandy. Lisette was half-buried in the straw next to Hugues. When Mallory shone his flashlight at her, he saw her face was a dead grey. He took the brandy bottle out of Thierry’s hand and carried it over to her. ‘Here,’ he said.

The neck of the bottle rattled against her teeth. She coughed. ‘Thank you,’ she said, when she could speak.

Mallory said, ‘It was a good thing you found us.’

‘Love,’ said Hugues. ‘It was the power of love. A sixth sense –’

‘There was a little more to it than that,’ she said, dryly. ‘Hugues, you are getting carried away.’

‘Yes,’ said Mallory, warming to her toughness. ‘So how did you do it?’

She shook her head. Her shivering was lending a faint seismic movement to the straw. ‘They were talking, the
résistants
. One of them I knew. They said the radio signal arranging your drop mentioned that you were carrying money, I don’t know if it’s true. They made a deal with a German officer. They are demoralised, some of these Germans in the mountains here. And of course the
résistants
too; some of them are no more than bandits. The German was to kill you. Then he was to give them the money and collect a medal, I guess.’ Her teeth gleamed in the pale reflection from the snow outside. ‘I saw them come back to warn the officer. I knew where they had come from. So I got on my bicycle, and fell off in the right place. And it didn’t work out for those pigs.’

‘Thank God,’ said Hugues, fervently.

Mallory found he was smiling. ‘Thank you,’ he said. He got up, his weary knees protesting. It looked as if there was a new addition to the party. A brave addition, but a slow one. He hoped that Hugues would get his ardour under control, and start acting human again. He said, ‘We’re moving out.’

An hour and a half later Jaime led them down a snowy path and into the trees above the village. There was another barn-like building in the trees.

Jaime opened the door and said, ‘Wait in here.’

Mallory said, ‘Where are you going?’

‘To find some friends.’ There was a fireplace. Jaime struck a match, lit the piled kindling, and threw on an armful of logs. ‘Be comfortable. Dry yourselves.’ His eyes were invisible in the shadows under his heavy eyebrows.

Mallory’s eyes met Andrea’s. He did not like it. Nor, he could tell, did Andrea. But there was nothing he could do.

Jaime disappeared into the night. Lisette sank down in front of the fire and began to pull her boots off.

‘Outside,’ said Mallory.

She looked at him as if he was mad.

‘What if Jaime comes back with a German patrol?’

‘
Mais non
,’ said Thierry.

‘Jaime?’ said Lisette. ‘Never. He hates Germans.’

Hugues’ face was pink and nervous. ‘How do you know?’ he said. ‘How does anyone know? The Germans arrived at the drop site within half an hour. Someone betrayed us –’

‘I told you what happened,’ said Lisette. ‘Now for God’s sake –’

‘Outside,’ said Hugues.

Something happened to Lisette’s face. ‘
Non
,’ she said. ‘
Non, non, non, non
. I am staying.’

‘And I also,’ said Thierry, his big face the colour of lard under the straw hat.

‘
Women
,’ said Hugues.

‘I am not
women
!’ snapped Lisette. ‘I am someone who knows Jaime. And trusts him.’

‘’Ah, ça!’
said Hugues. ‘Well –’

‘But perhaps you trust your friends more,’ said Lisette.

And when Hugues looked round, he saw that where Mallory, Miller and Andrea had been standing were only wet footprints.

Out in the woods Miller lay and shivered in a pile of sodden pine needles, and thought longingly of the warm firelight in the barn. He had watched Hugues storm out, heard the slam of the door. Then nothing, except the icy drip of rainwater on his neck, and the mouldy smell of pine needles under his nose.

After half an hour, the rain stopped. There was silence, with dripping. And behind the dripping, the wheeze and clatter of an engine. Some sort of truck came round the corner, no lights. Miller sighted his Schmeisser on its cab. Three men got out. As far as Miller could see, the truck was small, and not German.

A voice said,
‘L’Amiral Beaufort!’

Another voice said,
‘Vive la France!’

The barn door opened and closed.

Mallory saw Hugues come out of the bush in which he had been hiding, and walk across to the barn. Hugues knew these men, it appeared. That was Hugues’ area of speciality. So Mallory got up himself, and went in.

The men Jaime had brought wore sweeping moustaches and huge berets that flopped down over their eyes. They carried shotguns. Two of them were talking to Hugues in rapid French. Mallory thought they looked a damned sight too pleased with themselves.

‘There are no Germans in the village,’ said Jaime. ‘But there is a small problem. It seems that Jules has had an accident. A fatal accident, they tell me. He was shot at Jonzère, last night.’

Mallory stared at him. ‘How?’ he said.

‘A matter of too much enthusiasm,’ said Jaime.

Hugues ceased his conversation and turned to Mallory. He said, ‘Or to tell the truth, a mess.’

Jaime shrugged. He said, ‘The
résistants
heard we had landed. There was an idea that we were a regiment, maybe more, because there were only two survivors from the German patrol in the gorge. So Jules heard all this and went to Jonzère to stop these hotheads getting themselves killed. But he was too late. They were firing on the Germans, and the Germans were firing back, and they got themselves killed, all right. And Jules got himself killed with them.’

Hugues blew air, expressing scorn. ‘It is not as it is in the north. These mountain people have too many feelings and too few brains.’

It was Jules who had known the man who knew where the Werwolf pack were being repaired. Without Jules, the chain was broken.

Mallory said, with a mildness he did not feel, ‘So how are we to continue with the operation?’

‘Ah,’ said Jaime. ‘Marcel has a surprise for you, in Colbis.’ He did not look as if he approved of surprises.

‘Marcel the baker?’ said Hugues.

‘That’s the one.’

Hugues nodded approvingly. ‘A good man,’ he said.

Mallory had the feeling that he was sitting in on gossip about people he did not know. He said, ‘I need information about the Werwolf pack, not bread.’

‘Voilà
,’ said Jaime. ‘Marcel proposes breakfast in the … in his café. Then he will provide you with transport to where it is you wish to go. He has another Englishman there, you will be glad to hear, who may have information.’

May, thought Mallory. Only may. He took a deep, resigned breath.

‘Oh, good,’ said Miller, edging towards the fire. ‘And the dancing girls?’

‘You may find some dancing girls.’

‘Breakfast would be fine,’ said Miller.

Mallory beckoned Jaime over. The men with the berets followed him as if glued to his side. ‘Why are there no Germans in the village?’

One of the men with the berets grinned, and spoke quickly. Jaime translated. ‘Because they are all in Jonzère. First, fighting. Now, trying to catch some bandits before they arrive in Spain.’ There was more talk in a language that was not French. Basque, Mallory guessed. ‘This man says there has been a battle. Many Germans have been killed. There may be reprisals. It is said there was an Allied army in the mountains. In the next valley.’

Mallory raised his eyebrows. ‘An army,’ he said. From regiment to army, in the space of three minutes.

‘Yes,’ said Jaime, solemn-faced in the dim light of the torch. ‘And they say it is lucky that we were not involved, being so few, and one of us a woman.’

Mallory looked at Jaime hard. Was that the ghost of a wink? Andrea’s face was impassive. He had seen it too. His great head moved, almost imperceptibly. Nodding. Suddenly, Mallory found himself perilously close to trusting Jaime.

Mallory hardened his heart. ‘Now you listen,’ he said. ‘I am grateful for your offers of hospitality. But I don’t want to go into the village, breakfast or no breakfast. I want our transport out here, and I want to get up to the coast. The more time we spend in the mountains, the messier it’s going to get, the bigger the rumours. We want to do this quick and quiet. I don’t like rumours and reprisals, or battles. I want intelligence, and I want transport, and I want them before daylight. Tell these people to tell Marcel.’

Jaime said, ‘I don’t know –’

Mallory said, ‘And make it snappy.’

Jaime looked at the steady burn of the deeply-sunken eyes over the long, unshaven jaw. Jaime thought of the cliff that nobody could climb, that this man had climbed; of three burned-out lorries in the pass; and the pursuit on a wild goose chase towards the Spanish border. This was not a man it was easy to disobey. Perhaps he had underestimated this man.

‘
Bon
,’ he said.

‘And now,’ said Mallory, when the men in berets had gone outside, ‘Thierry. Time to tell the folks at home we’ve arrived.’

Thierry nodded. He looked big and pale and exhausted. His head moved slowly, as if his neck was stiff, the big jowls creasing and uncreasing, stray strands of straw waving jauntily over the burst crown of his hat. He began to unpack the radio. Miller was in a corner, stretched out full-length on the straw, humming a Bix Beiderbecke tune. Andrea was relaxed, but close to a knothole in the door, through which he could keep tabs on the sentries. Mallory leaned his head against the wall. He could feel his clothes beginning to steam in the heat from the fire.

He said to Hugues, quietly, ‘What do you know about this Marcel?’

‘Jules’ second-in-command,’ said Hugues. ‘It is an odd structure, down here. Security is terrible. But they are brave men.’

‘And we trust them?’

Hugues smiled. He said, ‘Is there any choice?’

Mallory kept hearing Jensen’s voice.
It seems quite possible that the Germans will, in a manner of speaking, be waiting for you
.

Damn you, Jensen. What did you know that you did not tell us?

It was raining again, a steady rattle on the roof of the barn. On the mountain it would be snowing on their tracks. Perhaps their tracks would be comprehensively covered, and the Germans would not be waiting for them. Perhaps they would be lucky.

But Mallory did not believe in luck.

Thierry said, ‘Contact made and acknowledged.’

‘Messages?’

‘No messages.’

Mallory closed his eyes. Sleep lapped at him. Despite the fire he was cold. Two hours later, he was going to remember being cold; remember it with nostalgic affection. For the moment, he lay and shivered, dozing.

Then he was awake.

A lorry engine was running outside. He gripped his Schmeisser and rose to his feet, instantly alert. He could see Miller covering the door. Andrea was gone. What –

The door crashed open. A man was standing there. He was short and fat, with a beret the size of a dinner plate, and a moustache that spread beyond it like the wings of a crow. His small black eyes flicked between the Schmeisser barrels covering him. He grinned broadly. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Colbis welcomes its allies from beyond the seas.
Allons, ‘L’ Amiral Beaufort
.

Mallory said, ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Marcel,’ said the man. ‘I am delighted to see you. I am only sorry that you had some little problems last night, of which I have already heard.’ He bowed. ‘My congratulations. Now, into the lorry. It will soon be light, and there are many eyes connected to many tongues.’