The dogs were very close now and as he crossed the yard and moved along the track, they came over the crest of the hill above his head.
He broke into a shambling run and after a while turned off the track and moved across the barren hillside. He paused on top of a small rise, laid Boyd carefully down and turned, unslinging his machine gun.
They were coming down through the olive grove now and he loosed off a long burst. The dogs howled excitedly and he heard shouts and several shots were fired in reply.
He turned and started to run, but for some reason his legs refused to function properly and he tripped and fell heavily over a stone.
For a little while he lay there half-stunned and then he struggled to his feet. They had skirted the farm and were running along the track, men and dogs in full cry.
He raised the sub-machine gun and pressed the trigger, flame stabbing the night in a long, reverberating roll that emptied the gun.
He tossed the useless weapon to one side and turned to run as a Schmeisser stuttered in reply. It was as if he had been kicked sharply in the legs several times and he fell forward on to his face.
Everything was going away from him, but "he was still conscious when a hand gripped him by the shoulder and turned him over and a torch was shone into his face. He could hear the excited voices of the soldiers and the snarling of the dogs as they were held back and the whole swelled into a meaningless roar and he plunged into darkness.
Slowly the blackness turned to grey and he was aware of somebody talking quietly near at hand. He opened his eyes and saw a light directly over his head like a baleful eye.
He was lying on a narrow operating table and when he moved slightly, the talking stopped and quick footsteps sounded across a tiled floor. The man who leaned over him wore a neat white smock and was obviously a doctor.
"Just relax," he said. "You're going to be all right."
A male nurse moved beside him carrying a tray and the doctor filled a hypodermic and gave Lornax another injection. As he finished, a door swung open and Steiner came in and leaned over the operating table.
There was a faint smile on his face. "So, my dear Lomax. You are still with us?"
Lomax frowned, trying to push himself upright. "How did you know my name?"
The male nurse pressed a foot-pump, automatically raising one end of the table, bringing them face to face, and Steiner laughed. "I've got a file on you six inches thick in my office. Intelligence keep adding to it each month. I never thought we'd see you on Kyros, though. Excellent job you did on the monastery, by the way. Worth another bar to your MC I should imagine."
He took a cigarette from a slim gold case, put it in Lomax's mouth and lit it. "How do you feel?"
Lomax looked down and saw that his trousers had been cut open. Both legs were heavily bandaged. "As if I shouldn't be here."
"But you are," Steiner said. "Unfortunate, really. I'm supposed to have you shot. I presume you're aware of that?"
"I've had a good run," Lomax said.
"Of course a little co-operation might help me to change my mind," Steiner said. "The names of the people who helped you, for instance."
"I didn't need local assistance," Lomax said. "I had half a dozen good men with me."
"That's strange," Steiner said. "So far we've only accounted for you and the dead sergeant who was with you when you were picked up. How do you explain: that?"
"The rest of my men must have made the rendezvous on time." Lomax glanced at his wrist-watch and tried to
7 97 sound convincing. "We were due to be picked up by a submarine at eight o'clock on the other side of the island." He smiled faintly. "You've missed the boat, Colonel."
"Then it is impossible for us to come to an understanding?"
"There's nothing to come to an understanding about"
"Somehow I thought you'd say that." Steiner pulled on his gloves. "No hard feelings, Lomax. I respect a brave man, but I've got to do my job."
"No hard feelings," Lomax said.
The German shook hands and went out and Lomax lay back against the pillow. Nothing seemed to matter any more and he was beginning to feel sleepy as the drug started to take effect. The strange thing was that Steiner had seemed to be laughing at him and he couldn't think why. The nurse lowered the end of the table and lie stared up at the light and after a while drifted into sleep.
When he awakened, he found himself lying on a stretcher in an ambulance. Two medical orderlies in field uniform were sitting beside him and he turned his head weakly and frowned. "Where am I? What's happening?"
One of them leaned across, a young, pleasant-faced boy, eyes serious under the forage cap. "There's nothing to worry about. You're going to Crete, that's all. Your leg needs a special operation."
He lay there in a daze, trying to make some sense out of it, but he found it impossible to concentrate and then the ambulance stopped and they opened the doors and took him outside.
It was early morning, grey and overcast with a light rain falling and a cold wind blew across the harbour. Thirty or forty people stood talking in little groups on the pier, mostly fishermen with ona or two women hovering on the fringe,
They moved forward curiously as the two orderlies picked up the stretcher and the guards had to push a way through.
It took them a minute or two to get the stretcher down the ladder to the waiting E-boat and the orderlies laid him on the deck beside the wheelhouse and stood beside him as the sailors quickly cast off.
As the water churned at the stern and the boat pulled away from the pier, the people crowded silently forward to the edge. Lomax looked up at the line of white, meaningless faces, his vision blurring slightly, and then Katina's seemed to jump out at him.
So she was safe? There was that much to be thankful for. She was wearing a headscarf and looked exactly as he had seen her on that first night, very young, the eyes like shadows in the white face and a lump rose in his throat that threatened to choke him.
He lay there on the deck, the cold rain falling on his face and as the island faded into the mist a seagull dipped over his head and fled through the grey morning like a departing spirit.
Book Three
A Sound of Hunting
One Should Never Return to Anything
When he awakened, the coin was still firmly clutched in his right hand. He stared at it, a frown of bewilderment on his face, his first conscious thought that it should not be in his possession, and then he remembered.
The past and the present had become so inextricably ùmixed that it was difficult to make sense of either. He dropped the coin and chain on the small beside table, swung his legs to the floor and sat there trying to get his bearings.
Who am I, he thought? The Nightcomer or Hugh Lomax, residence California, scriptwriter and novelist oœ sorts? There was no answer or none that would suffice. He had become a stranger to himself and he got to his feet and moved across to the washstand.
There was a dull ache in his side where a foot had caught him and a bad graze on his right cheek. He pulled off his shirt and splashed lukewarm water over his face. As he started to dry himself, there was a knock at the door and Katina entered.
She was wearing the same silk headscarf and cream linen dress and she closed the door and smiled. "How do you feel?"
He grinned. "Too old for street brawls with men hah; my age."
She opened his suitcase, took out a clean shirt and unbuttoned it for him. "What have you been doing?"
"Going back into the past," he said. "Trying to make some sense out of things."
"A dangerous game. They say one should never return to anything."
"I'm beginning to think they're right. I'm not even sure who I am anymore."
"You are Hugh Lomax," she said, and with uncanny perception added, "The Nightcomer died a long time ago."
"I'm not so sure," he said. "He almost killed a man this afternoon."
To that she had no answer and he went on, "There's no logic to it, Katina. No answer. I've only one thing to hang on to in a world gone mad. The fact that I know that I didn't betray those who helped me."
"I know, Hugh," she said. "I believe you and so does Oliver. He wants to see you. He thinks he might be able to help. Will you come out to the villa with me?"
"What have I got to lose?" he said. "I'd like to meet him again in any case."
She crossed to the door and opened it. "I'll see you downstairs. I want a word with Anna before we leave."
He decided against a shave and finished dressing quickly. When he walked out into the hot sunlight of the square five minutes later, she.was sitting behind the wheel of the jeep talking to Kytros.
As Lomax approached, the police sergeant turned and examined him critically. "You look in considerably better shape than Dimitri."
"How is he?" Lomax asked.
"When I last saw him he was having several stitches inserted into his face," Kytros said. "But don't underestimate him. It will take more than one beating to put him on his back. He's made of iron and his capacity for hate is frightening."
"Am I to take that as a warning?"
Kytros nodded gravely. "Keep off the streets at night, Mr. Lomax. There are those here who would kill you. I'd rather you didn't make it easy for them."
"My pleasure." Lomax climbed into the jeep beside Katina. "Was there anything else?"
"Perhaps the only worthwhile legacy of the German occupation is our telephone system," Kytros told him. "If you could keep me informed of your movements it would help. If I'm not at my office, the operator should 4e able to contact me for you."
He stepped back and Katina drove away across the square. As they turned into a side street she said, "Will you do as he asks?"
Lomax nodded. "Why not, if it keeps him happy?"
She concentrated on her driving, taking the jeep expertly through the twisting, narrow streets. There was a new bridge over the ravine outside town, its web of steel replacing the stonework of the old, but otherwise nothing seemed to have changed.
He lit a cigarette, his hands cupped against the breeze, and turned sideways so that he could look at her.
"Where's Yanni?" he said.
She smiled. "I left him hi the kitchen eating his head off."
"Who with-old Maria?"
Her smile faded. "Maria died a long time ago at Fonchi. They took her when they arrested Oliver."
He groaned, remembering the old woman and her kind-' ness, and then another thought came to him and he said slowly, "What happened to your aunt?"
"She tried to warn my uncle when they came for him. They shot her down on the stairs."
"Something else he blames me for?" Lomax asked bitterly, but she made no reply and they continued the journey in silence.
When she stopped the engine in the yard outside the stables at the rear of the villa, it was still and hot and very quiet and nothing had changed. Time stood still, the past and the present merging to touch everything with a slight edge of unreality.
As he followed her along the narrow path between the olive trees, the feeling remained, and what he found when they mounted the steps to the terrace and entered the house only strengthened the unreality.
Everything was exactly as it had been seventeen years before. The great stone fireplace, the grand piano, even the shelves filled with books, and he paused and touched them gently with one hand.
He swayed suddenly, feeling vaguely light-headed, and Katina said in alarm, "Are you all right?"
He took a deep breath and pulled himself together. "Nothing to worry about. It's just that hi some strange way, time seems to have no meaning for me standing here in this room. It takes some getting used to."
She seemed about to speak, hesitated and then turned away, a slight frown on her face. She walked out into the hall and moved along the cool, whitewashed corridor that led to the north terrace.
The circular glass room was filled with a diffused light, flimsy curtains half-drawn as a filter against the strong rays of the sun. There was no sign of Van Horn, but his magnificent collection of Greek ceramics was there, the great red and black amphora still the centrepiece, aloof on its pedestal in the middle of the room.
Lomax paused to admire it then frowned and moved closer. The surface was covered by a network of fine lines. Since he had last looked upon it, it had obviously been smashed into hundreds of fragments which someone had laboriously fitted together again.
A step sounded behind him and Van Horn said, "If you're interested, it took me just over a year."
