The Heights of Zervos (23 page)

'How long is a piece of string?' Prentice muttered under his breath. 'Look, Grapos, we can't even be sure the Germans are coming in this direction. They could easily have changed their minds and be waiting for us farther along that road.'

'They were coming up the hill. You will see. We can see from here.' Grapos climbed out of the end of the gulley and stood behind a dense grove of undergrowth which was taller than a man's height. In places there were gaps in the vegetation which formed natural windows and when the others joined him they found they had a clear view of the hill beyond. Without much expectation of seeing anything, Prentice stared through a tracery of bare twigs, and it came as a shock when he saw figures against the skyline. There were six of theirs, well spread out, and they started to descend the slope in a semi-circle with the two in the middle maintaining a higher altitude than those on the flanks. Which was correct procedure, Prentice was thinking - the two men in the centre had better observation and could give covering fire to the men below if necessary. He recognized at once the field-grey uniforms and the distinctive caps of the Alpenkorps.

'Why should they choose this area for their patrol?' Macomber wondered out loud.

'Because Theophilous will have told them about the path,' Grapos informed him promptly. 'There are two main ways from Katyra to Zervos - the road and the path. They have come over the road by mule and when they do not find you they turn back - to trap you on the path.' He stared blankly at the Scot while he pulled at a tip of his straggled moustache and his continuing distrust of Macomber was only too obvious.

'They could seal us off inside that pipe with only one man at each end,' Macomber persisted.

'When they reach the stream and cross it, we go into the pipe. They come up this hill and we pass under them.'

'Sounds feasible,' the Scot commented. 'If it works.' Turning round, he renewed his observation of the patrol which was descending the hill slope rapidly; already they had covered more ground than he would have expected and he reminded himself that these six oncoming Germans were highly-trained Alpenkorps troops, men whose natural habitat was wild, untracked countryside, and who were now operating under ideal conditions. A disturbing thought struck him and he asked Grapos a question quickly. 'I suppose there's no risk that this chap, Theophilous, might have told them about the pipe, too?"

The Greek snorted contemptuously. 'He is not a man who ever walks or hunts - he would be frightened that he gets lost. We wait. When they cross the stream we go into the pipe.'

Macomber moved close to Prentice as he gazed through the dense thicket and he was frowning as though there were something he didn't understand. For a few minutes he watched the patrol, clambering over rocks, sometimes disappearing up to waist-height in undergrowth, but always maintaining their careful formation as they came closer to the stream, then he voiced his doubt. 'I don't like it - Burckhardt is using his men too wastefully.'

'What are you getting at?' snapped Prentice. Still without sleep, he could feel the strain telling and he knew he was trigger-tempered.

'Burckhardt has two hundred men at his disposal to take and hold Zervos. At least he had two hundred when he left the
Rupescu
, he told me. He lost four while on board the
Hydra
...'

'Four?'

'Yes, four. There was the man you threw overboard. Grapos killed two more while escaping, and I put one over the side when I was carrying that demolition charge up on deck. His bayonet and scabbard came in useful, by the way - I used them to support the charge inside the ventilator shaft. That's two per cent of his force without adding in those who died on the jetty and when the ship blew up. Yet he feels he can spare another six men to look for us. Does it suggest something to you, Prentice? Something alarming?'

'It suggests he feels he still has enough left to take care of a few monks.' Prentice was having trouble thinking straight. What on earth was the persistent Scot driving at now?

'It suggests to me that he expects heavy reinforcements in the very near future, which isn't a happy thought.'

'You mean by sea? Another boatload in broad daylight?'

'I doubt that. They may use some entirely different method this time.' Macomber found himself looking upwards. The sky was clear blue as far as the eye could see, its only occupants a flock of seagulls sailing high up in the sunlight as they flew away in the direction of Katyra. 'He wouldn't expend a patrol of six men just looking for us unless he was confident more help was on the way.'

'Just what we need at the moment, a Job's comforter,' Prentice muttered irritably. The Alpenkorps were half-way down the hill and they had begun to converge inwards towards the stepping-stones, although as a target they were still spread out over a considerable distance. Keeping his voice down, Macomber had now turned to question Grapos.

'You know the monastery well?'

'I lived there for two years.'

Is there any other means of communication whatsoever apart from the telephone which has been cut?'

'When they want things, they phone to Katyra. Sometimes they phone Salonika.'

'There is, of course, no wireless transmitter for emergencies?'

'No, nothing like that.'

Grapos was staring through the thicket as he replied without looking in Macomber's direction, and his replies were grudging, but the Scot appeared not to notice his reticence as he pressed on interrogating the Greek. 'You mean there is no other way... are you listening to me? Good.' Grapos looked at Macomber directly and the brown eyes which looked back were compelling him to concentrate, to remember. 'Is there no other way at all whereby the Abbot can send a message if the phone breaks down?'

'Only the pigeons.'

"Pigeons?' Macomber's voice was sharp. 'You mean he keeps carrier pigeons? Where do they go to when released?'

'To Livai on the other side of the gulf.'

'On the mainland, you mean?'

'Yes. Livai is near Olympus and there are more monks there.'

Macomber nodded and said nothing more while the German patrol continued its descent to the edge of the stream. Even when they crossed they displayed good military caution, only one man moving over the stones at a time until they had all reached the bank below where Grapos and his group waited. As the last man landed on the near-side bank the Greek grunted and moved towards the mouth of the hole. Macomber had earlier noticed that they were standing in a natural water catchment area; above where they stood three small ravines converged into the gulley and he guessed that during bad weather a minor Hood must pour into the pipe. A drift of heavy cloud had appeared in the sky and it was coming their way as he followed Grapos. Once again the unpredictable Aegean weather was changing and he prayed there wouldn't be a cloudburst while they were inside that unsavoury-looking pipe. The Greek was on all fours, about to enter the mouth, when he fumbled under his coat, extracted a knife from his jacket pocket, flicked it to eject the blade, then held it upright. The five-inch blade retracted of its own accord. He was putting it into his coat pocket for easier access when Ford rapped out his question. 'Where did you get that?'

Grapos looked over his shoulder and glared at the sergeant. For a moment it seemed as though he wasn't going to reply and then he answered resentfully. 'It is just a knife. My knife.' Ford glanced at Macomber who had immediately detected the note of suspicion in the sergeant's voice and told Grapos to wait a minute. 'It's a German knife,' Ford explained. 'A parachutist's gravity knife. What the hell is he doing with a thing like that?'

'We have to go into the tunnel,' Grapos reminded them sullenly.

'We have to know about that knife, first,' Macomber replied briskly. 'Where did you get it? Come on - I want to know.'

The German patrol must already have started advancing up the hill towards them but the possession of this strange weapon bothered Macomber and he was determined to get an explanation before they followed the Greek inside the pipe. For precious seconds it seemed like deadlock as the three men stared down at the Greek who gazed back at them with a hostile expression. Then he shrugged his broad shoulders, adjusted the rifle he had previously looped diagonally across his back and addressed Macomber. 'I took it from the German I shot.'

'You were miles away in the hills when you fired on the jetty,' Macomber pointed out. 'Just a minute, do you mean one of those Jerries on the boat?'

'No. The man I shot over there.' He made a gesture forwards to the hill the Alpenkorps patrol had just descended. 'There were seven men when I saw them. I shot the man who was to the right and he fell from a rock into the bushes. They did not find him and when they had gone I took the knife.'

'You mean you've alerted this lot! They know someone is close because you've already shot one of the patrol?' Macomber was appalled. He had accepted the Greek's stratagem for evading the Alpenkorps because he had been confident they were only searching hopefully. Now those six highly trained men below knew they were stalking someone who couldn't be far away, which meant they would be in a state of total alert.

'Yes,' Grapos confirmed, 'one is shot. When we go through the pipe they will not know we are on the other side...'

'So that's it!' Macomber stepped forward and gripped the Greek by the shoulder. 'You want us to go through the pipe and then open fire on them from the other side?'

'We have to kill Germans,' Grapos replied simply. 'When I go to join the army they say I am no good because of my limp. When I have killed many Germans I go to Athens and tell them - then I join the army.'

'Grapos!' Macomber spoke with low intensity. 'We have to get to the monastery before the Germans - in the hope that we can send a message to the mainland in time, or do something to upset them. If the Germans do take the monastery half a division won't shift them - maybe not even a division. Our job is to reach the monastery - to keep out of the way of any Germans we meet on the way, not to fight them.'

'Not fight!' Grapos was outraged. He looked up at Prentice. 'You are a British officer. I was told that when they wanted to know if I knew you. You agree with what this man is saying -this man who pretended he was a German?'

'Macomber's right,' Prentice said quietly. 'We want to get there and the only way we can do that is to dodge them - there are too many to fight. We may achieve a lot more by keeping out of their way.'

'Because it is you who say this.' Grapos glared in Macomber's direction and started crawling down the pipe which left less than a foot's clearance above his arched back. Dropping to bis knees, the Scot followed the Greek into the insalubrious hole and the clearance above his back was barely six inches. Prentice, who had decided to bring up the rear, sent Ford down next, took one last look at the guiley to make sure the surface hadn't retained traces of footprints, then went inside himself with his machine-pistol over his back and a fervent hope that the Greek wouldn't start quarrelling with the Scot in this situation. Farther along the pipe Macomber was already finding his great bulk a distinct handicap as he crawled behind Grapos. He had only to lift himself a few inches and he found his back scraping the curved concrete; his contracted elbows grazed the sides of the pipe and his knees were slithering on a film of slime at the base of the pipe as he accelerated his awkward movements to keep up with the Greek's phenomenal rate of progress. The downward slope of the pipe helped him to keep up a certain speed, but he was beginning to dislike the feeling of being shut in as he went on shuffling forward through the total darkness beyond the mouth of the pipe.

Within two minutes he found himself taking great heaving breaths and this was no place for deep breathing - as he penetrated deeper inside the buried pipe the damp smell changed to an oppressive airlessness and the place seemed bereft of oxygen. How the broad-bodied Grapos managed to keep up such a killing pace he couldn't imagine and gradually the sensation of being entombed grew. He had expected his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness but it was still pitch-black and the only sound was the noise of scuffling feet and knees some distance behind him, a sound which reminded him of rats he had once heard scattering inside a derelict warehouse. He plodded on, hands stretching out into the unknown, followed by the haul of his. knees over the scum-like surface of the pipe which he now realized had been embedded in the ground for God knew how long; his hands told him this because frequently the surface of the pipe wall flaked off at his touch and more than ones a large piece came away and clattered grittily on the floor. It was badly in need of running repairs but he imagined that when something was built on Zervos it was hopefully expected to last for ever. Nightmare possibilities began to invade his mind - supposing the far end was blocked? The only similar culvert pipe he could remember had been barred at the exit end by an iron grille to prevent small boys swimming in the river from investigating its interior. Grapos had been this way before years ago, but there was no reason why such a grille should not have been fixed more recently. At a rough guess the pipe must be a quarter of a mile long - so what would be the position if the exit were closed? He could never hope to turn round in this confined space and their only hope would be a slow, endless crawl backwards and uphill, a prospect he contemplated with no great relish.