Partisans (7 page)

The young woman who stepped over the low coaming – she could have been anything between twenty and thirty-five – was of medium height, slender and dressed in a jersey, jacket and skirt, all in blue. Pale-complexioned, without a trace of make-up, she was grave and unsmiling. Her hair was black as night and swooped low, like a raven's wing, over the left forehead, quite obscuring the left eyebrow. The pock-marking, for such it seemed to be, high up on the left cheekbone, served only to accentuate, not diminish, the classical, timeless beauty of the features: twenty years on, just as conceivably thirty, she would still be as beautiful as she was at that moment. Nor, it seemed certain, would time ever change the appearance of the man who followed her into the cabin, but the sculpted perfection of features had nothing to do with this. A tall, solidly built, fair-haired character, he was irredeemably ugly. Nature had had no hand in this. From the evidence offered by ears, cheeks, chin, nose and teeth he had been in frequent and violent contact with a variety of objects, both blunt and razor-edged, in the course of what must have been a remarkably chequered career, It was, withal, an attractive face, largely because of the genuine warmth of his smile: as with Carlos, an almost irrepressible cheerfulness was never far from the surface.

‘This,' Carlos said, ‘is Lorraine and Giacomo.' He introduced Petersen and the other four in turn. Lorraine's voice was soft and low, in tone and timbre remarkably like that of Sarina: Giacomo's, predictably, was neither soft nor low and his hand-clasp fearsome except when it came to Sarina: her fingers he took in his finger and thumb and gallantly kissed the back of her hand. Such a gesture from such a man should have appeared both affected and stagey: oddly enough, it did neither. Sarina didn't seem to think so either. She said nothing, just smiled at him, the first genuine smile Petersen had seen from her: it came as no surprise that her teeth would have been a dentist's delight or despair, depending upon whether aesthetic or financial considerations were uppermost in his mind.

‘Help yourselves,' Carlos gestured to the wicker basket. Giacomo, leaving no doubt that he was decisive both as to cast of mind and action, needed no second urging. He poured a glass of Pellegrino for Lorraine, evidence enough that this was not the first time he had met her and that she shared the von Karajans' aversion towards alcohol, and then half-filled a tumbler with scotch, topping it up with water. He took a seat and beamed around the company.

‘Health to all.' He raised his brimming glass. ‘And confusion to our enemies.'

‘Any particular enemies?' Carlos said.

‘It would take too long.' Giacomo tried to look sad but failed. ‘I have too many.' He drank deeply to his own toast. ‘You have called us to a conference, Captain Carlos?'

‘Conference, Giacomo? Goodness me, no.' It didn't require any great deductive powers, Petersen reflected, to realize that those two had met before and not just that day. ‘Why should I hold a conference? My job is to get you where you're going and you can't help me in that. After you land I can't help you in whatever you're going to do. Nothing to confer about. As a ferryman, I'm a great believer in introductions. People in your line of business are apt to react over-quickly if, rightly or wrongly, they sense danger in meeting an unknown on a dark deck at night. No such danger now. And there are three things I want to mention briefly.

‘First, accommodation. Lorraine and Giacomo have a cabin each, if you can call something the size of a telephone box a cabin. Only fair. First come, first served. I have two other cabins, one for three, one for two.' He looked at Michael. ‘You and – yes, Sarina – are brother and sister?'

‘Who told you?' Michael probably didn't mean to sound truculent, but his nervous system had suffered from his encounter with Petersen and his friends, and that was the way it came out.

Carlos lowered his head briefly, looked up and said, not smiling, ‘The good Lord gave me eyes and they say “twins”.'

‘No problem.' Giacomo bowed towards the embarrassed girl. ‘The young lady will do me the honour of switching cabins with me?'

She smiled and nodded. ‘You are very kind.'

‘Second. Food. You could eat aboard but I don't recommend it. Giovanni cooks only under duress and protest. I don't blame him. He's our engineer. Everything that comes out of that galley, even the coffee, tastes and smells of oil. There's a passable café close by – well, barely passable, but they do know me.' He half-smiled at the two women in turn. ‘It will be a hardship and a sacrifice but I think I'll join you.

‘Third. You're free to go ashore whenever you wish, although I can't imagine why anyone should want to go ashore on a night like this – except, of course, to escape Giovanni's cooking. There are police patrols but their enthusiasm usually drops with the temperature. If you do run into any, just say you're from the
Colombo
: the worst that can happen is that they'll escort you back here to check.' ‘I think I'll take my chance on both weather and the police,' Petersen said. ‘Advancing years or too many hours in that damned truck or maybe both, but I'm as stiff as a board.'

‘Back inside an hour, please, then we'll leave for the meal.' He looked at the bulkhead clock. ‘We should be back at ten. We sail at one o'clock in the morning.'

‘Not till then?' Michael looked his astonishment. ‘Why, that's hours away. Why don't we –'

‘We sail at 1.00 a.m.' Carlos was patient.

‘But the wind's getting stronger. It must be rough now. It'll be getting rougher.'

‘It will not be too comfortable. Are you a bad sailor, Michael?' The words were sympathetic, the expression not.

‘No. Yes. I don't know. I don't see – I mean, I can't understand –' ‘Michael.' It was Petersen, his voice gentle. ‘It really doesn't matter what you can't see or can't understand. Lieutenant Tremino is the captain. The captain makes the decisions. No-one
ever
questions the captain.'

‘It's very simple, really.' It was noticeable that Carlos spoke to Petersen not Michael. ‘The garrison that guard such port installations as they have at Plo
e are not first-line troops. As soldiers go, they are either superannuated or very very young. In both cases they're nervous and trigger-happy and the fact that they have radio notification of my arrival seems to have no effect on them. Experience and a few lucky escapes have taught me that the wisest thing is to arrive at sunrise so that even the most rheumy eyes can see that the gallant Captain Tremino is flying the biggest Italian flag in the Adriatic.'

The wind, as Michael had said, had indeed strengthened, and was bitingly cold but Petersen and his two companions were not exposed to it for long, for George's homing instinct was unerring. The tavern in which they fetched up was no more or less dingy than any other dockside tavern and it was at least warm.

‘A very short stroll for such stiff legs,' George observed.

‘Nothing wrong with my legs. I just wanted to talk.'

‘What was wrong with our cabin? Carlos has more wine and grappa and slivovitz than he can possibly use –'

‘Colonel Lunz, as we've said, has a long arm.'

‘Ah! So! A bug?'

‘Would you put anything past him? This could be awkward.'

‘Alas, I'm afraid I know what you mean.'

‘I don't.' Alex wore his suspicious expression.

‘Carlos,' Petersen said. ‘I know him. Rather, I know who he is. I knew his father, a retired naval captain but on the reserve list: almost certainly on the active list now, a cruiser captain or such. He became a reserve Italian naval captain at the same time as my father became a reserve Yugoslav army colonel. Both men loved the sea and both men set up chandlers' businesses: both were highly successful. Inevitably, almost, their paths crossed and they became very good friends. They met frequently, usually in Trieste and I was with them on several occasions. Photographs were taken. Carlos may well have seen them.'

‘If he has seen them,' George said, ‘let it be our pious hope that the ravages of time and the dissipation of years make it difficult for Carlos to identify Major Petersen with the carefree youth of yesteryear.'

Alex said: ‘Why is it so important?'

‘I have known Colonel Petersen for many years,' George said. ‘Unlike his son, he is, or was, a very outspoken man.'

‘Ah!'

‘A pity about Carlos, a great pity.' George sounded, and may well have been, profoundly sad. ‘An eminently likeable young man. And you can say the same about Giacomo – except, of course, not so young. An excellent pair to have by one's side, one would have thought, in moments of trouble and strife, which are the only ones we seem to have.' He shook his head. ‘Where, oh where, are my ivory towers?'

‘You should be grateful for this touch of realism, George. Exactly the counter-balance you academics need. What do you make of Giacomo? An Italian counterpart of the British commando?'

‘Giacomo has been savagely beaten up or savagely tortured or perhaps both at the same time. Commando material unquestionably. But not Italian. Montenegrin.'

‘Montenegrin!'

‘You know. Montenegro.' George, on occasion, was capable of elaborate sarcasm, an unfortunate gift honed and refined by a lifetime in the groves of academe. ‘A province in our native Yugoslavia.'

‘With that fair hair and impeccable Italian?'

‘Fair hair is not unknown in Montenegro and though his Italian is very good the accent overlay is unmistakable.'

Petersen didn't doubt him for a moment. George's ear for languages, dialects, accents and nuances of accent was, in philological circles, a byword far beyond the Balkans.

The evening meal was more than passable, the café more than presentable. Carlos was not only known there, as he had said, but treated with some deference. Lorraine spoke only occasionally and then to no-one except Carlos, who sat beside her. She, too, had, it seemed been born in Pescara. Predictably, neither Alex nor Michael nor Sarina contributed a word to the conversation but that didn't matter. Both Carlos and Petersen were relaxed and easy talkers but even that didn't matter very much: when Giacomo and George were in full cry, more often than not at the same time, even the possibility of a conversational hiatus seemed preposterous: both men talked a great deal without saying anything at all.

On the way back to the ship they had to face not only a perceptibly stronger wind but a thinly driving snow. Carlos, who had drunk little enough, was not so sure on his feet as he thought or, more likely, would have others think. After the second stumble he was seen to be walking arm in arm with Lorraine: who had taken whose arm could only be guessed at. When they arrived at the gangway, the
Colombo
was rocking perceptibly at its moorings: the harbour swell responsible bespoke much worse conditions outside.

To Petersen's surprise and an ill-concealed irritation that amounted almost to anger, five more men were awaiting their arrival down below. Their leader, who was introduced as Alessandro, and for whom Carlos showed an unusual degree of respect, was a tall, thin, grey-haired man with a beaked nose, bloodless lips and only the rudimentary vestiges of eyebrows. Three of his four men, all about half his age, were introduced as Franco, Cola and Sepp, which names were presumably abbreviations for Francesco, Nicholas and Giuseppe: the fourth was called Guido. Like their leader, they wore nondescript civilian clothes. Like their leader they gave the distinct impression that they would have been much happier in uniform: like their leader they had cold, hard, expressionless faces.

Petersen glanced briefly at George, turned and left the cabin, George following with Alex, inevitably, close behind. Petersen had barely begun to speak when Carlos appeared in the passage-way and walked quickly towards them.

‘You are upset, Major Petersen?' No ‘Peter'. The trace of anxiety was faint but it was there.