To Risks Unknown (27 page)

When they reached the bunker Soskic said, ‘I suggest that you get some rest. I have to select a raiding party for the schooner. We will head for the mainland as soon as dusk makes it safe enough.' He looked hard at Crespin. ‘That is unless you have changed your thoughts about it?'

Crespin shook his head. ‘I shall be ready.'

The commandant nodded. ‘Good.' Then he turned on his heel and walked briskly towards the village.

Coutts said, ‘And I was supposed to see that you kept out of trouble!' He took off his goatskin and laid it on the floor like a rug. ‘I'm not making a very good job of it!'

Crespin watched him settle down on the coat as if he had been sleeping in this fashion all his life. He replied quietly, ‘The partisans need us. But if we're going to do any good out here we have got to make them trust us, too. You can't buy trust with a cargo of old guns and a few boxes of salvaged ammunition.' But when he looked down again he saw that Coutts had fallen asleep.

He smiled and walked across to a crude wooden bench. He sat for several minutes massaging the pain in his wounded leg and thinking about the armoured ship.

Whichever way you looked at it, the
Nashorn
seemed to be the key. She had to be destroyed, but how?

Then he lolled back against the rock wall and he, too, was asleep.

As the first shadows of evening darkened the sides of the inlet the little schooner hoisted her anchor and headed purposefully into open water. Crespin, who had at first thought it safer to wait for complete darkness, soon realized that an early start was not only sensible but essential if their mission was to have any chance of success at all. For with the coming of night to the islands the wind had immediately dropped, so that once more Ross had to rely on the schooner's tired engine alone. In addition to thirty heavily armed partisans the ship was further hampered by the last of the island's sizeable boats which yawed astern on a towline, and after a full two hours at sea the engine began to overheat so that they had to reduce speed still more.

But if the partisans were troubled by the delay they were certainly not showing it. They sat or lounged about the schooner's deck smoking and chattering as if they were on some kind of holiday. Perhaps they were just glad to be leaving their isolation and heartened by the chance of doing something instead of merely surviving.

One of them had taken the wheel, and while the schooner pointed her bows eastward into the darkness he stood beside Ross in companionable silence, turning the spokes gently this way and that while the bearded skipper watched him with quiet approval. Crespin had discovered that the helmsman had also been a fisherman like Ross, so in spite of their lack of communication they had a complete understanding which isolated them from all the others. Ross, it seemed, had served for so long in deep-sea trawlers that he had an inbuilt mistrust of charts and the more sophisticated methods of navigation, and was more prepared to use his fisherman's instinct in such matters.

Soskic passed the time by moving amongst his men, speaking to them individually, checking their weapons and making sure that each one knew what he had to do. But he seemed a changed man from the one who had stood on the headland to watch the
Nashorn
's methodical bombardment of the island, and Crespin thought perhaps his restlessness was more to cover his uncertainty than for any other purpose.

Shortly after midnight they crept slowly beneath a great overhang of black cliffs. It could have been Gradz again, or any other landfall in the Adriatic, but both the helmsman and Soskic seemed quite satisfied.

The commandant crossed to Crespin's side. ‘It would be better if you anchor now. You are in twenty metres of water here and it is good holding ground.' He moved his pistol holster to the front of his belt. ‘I will send a patrol ashore in one of the boats. I am not happy that it is so quiet.'

Crespin signalled to Ross, and after the customary stamp on the deck the engine rattled into silence. By comparison the sound of the outrunning anchor cable seemed terrifying, but Soskic said briefly, ‘It is safe here. The village is around the next headland. I know this place well.'

Crespin did not ask him why he was still apprehensive or the reason for anchoring the schooner so far from the picking-up point. Time was short, but Soskic did not seem the sort of man who would waste it unnecessarily.

One of the two heavy fishing dinghies was warped alongside and six partisans jumped down into it. They seemed to have little idea of stealth, and Coutts groaned as one man dropped his machine-pistol and another shouted curses at him for his carelessness.

He said, ‘I'll go with them if you like?'

Soskic studied him in the darkness. ‘You will please stay here. You may think that my men are amateurs and unfit for their work, yes? But what they lack in training they have much to offer in experience.' He brushed past Coutts and barked an order to the dinghy. The oars splashed noisily until the men picked up some sort of stroke and almost immediately vanished beneath the blacker shadow of the cliffs.

Coutts said irritably, ‘I suppose he thinks I'll have them all forming threes or something!'

Crespin sat on the hatch coaming and tried to pitch his ear above the sluice of water around the swaying hull. The first part, in spite of the primitive arrangements, had gone well. At any staff college this sort of operation would have been ridiculed even if it was considered, he thought. It was all a question of trust and knowing the individual strength and weakness of each man involved. He felt the heavy pistol dragging at his hip and thought of the small partisan who had returned it to him. It had been the same man who had so neatly whipped it from his holster as he had climbed from the dory. He would probably have killed him without hesitation if Soskic had so ordered, but he had handed back the pistol with the eager simplicity of a child who had been proved wrong. There were no words. Just a cheerful grin, and the fact that the weapon had been carefully oiled and cleaned as an additional mark of mutual respect.

A full hour dragged by with nothing but the sea noises to break the silence. Coutts sat slumped against the bulwark staring at the deck, and Crespin wondered if he could ever get used to this way of fighting a war. There was always uncertainty. Always an overriding sense of danger and helplessness.

Then two of the partisans stood up and cocked their weapons, and Ross said, ‘Here they come!'

The big dinghy bumped against the hull, and breathing heavily the returning patrol climbed aboard.

Soskic spoke with the leader for several minutes, his head bobbing in time to the curt questions and answers, the descriptive gestures of the other man's hands.

Then he looked at Crespin and said harshly, ‘We are too late. As I feared, the Chetniks have discovered our purpose here. I do not know how it happened, but someone must have betrayed us!'

He spoke with such bitterness that Crespin could feel his despair.

He replied quietly, ‘What did your men find?'

‘There is a German patrol in the village. Those Royalist swine would not have dared to attack unless there was help nearby. Most of our people are penned in some sheds under guard. No doubt they will be transported elsewhere for interrogation very soon.' He drew one hand across his mouth. ‘Some have already died. They are lying at the roadside like slaughtered animals!' He seemed to take a fresh grip on himself. ‘There is nothing for us to do but return to Gradz. There will be other days, and when the time comes we will not forget.'

Crespin saw the other partisans standing round them, listening in silence. Theirs was to have been a small gesture, but to men who had already lost families and friends and were condemned to death for their resistance, it must mean a great deal.

He said, ‘Do you know who is in charge of these Chetniks?'

Soskic nodded. ‘His name is Kolak. He was a colonel in the Royal Guard before the occupation. He was the one who attacked my village on Gradz. Whose word I wanted to trust. Now he has shown his hand as only his sort can. He is outwardly working with the Germans. For that he has lost the right to live!'

Crespin touched his arm. ‘If he found out about your plan it must have been
after
his attack?'

‘That is so. But how can that help?'

‘Then he cannot know about the schooner.' Crespin could feel the man's mind grappling with his words. ‘He knows that your one large boat was sunk and that you are not the kind of man who would attempt to rescue these people in a few oared dinghies.'

Soskic looked at him closely. ‘That is true! And he knows
me.
Any such plan would have been out of the question!'

Crespin continued, ‘If you were in his position, what would you expect?'

Soskic's hand rasped over his beard. ‘I have the village. I have the hostages. I would expect that any attack would come from inland. A mass escape rather than a rescue attempt, eh?' He gripped Crespin's wrist tightly. ‘How does that sound to you?'

Crespin nodded. ‘I think you're right.'

‘But why are we talking like this?' Soskic's hand dropped helplessly to his side. ‘If we make an attack from the sea we must do it in daylight. Even if we succeeded there is still the voyage back to Gradz. And how long do you think it would be before Kapitan Lemke's ship came looking for us?'

Crespin felt the excitement running through him like madness. ‘I still believe it is worth a try! You said yourself that the
Nashorn
's movements are measured by the clock. Maybe we were wrong to think that Lemke has no weakness. Perhaps his devotion to punctuality
is
that weakness.'

Soskic stared at him. ‘He is not due to pass Gradz until midday tomorrow.'

Coutts interrupted, ‘It's tomorrow now!'

Soskic ignored him. ‘You're right. We might just succeed.' He rapped out another question to the patrol leader. Then he said, ‘The Germans are few in number. Just one half-tracked vehicle and maybe half a dozen men.'

Crespin wondered how the patrol had found out so much in so little time. Their efficiency obviously far outweighed their lack of precision and smartness. He said, ‘I suggest that you land most of your men right away. Get them in position above the village.'

He thought suddenly of the marine major who had died on the Sicilian raid.
‘Plenty of noise and confusion,'
he had said.

He continued, ‘As soon as it gets light enough you can start a mock attack. Use everything you've got, grenades, anything you can lay hands on, but don't show yourselves. Make them think you've roused the whole partisan army!'

Soskic asked, ‘And what will you do?'

‘Sail this old tub right into the cove by the village.' It sounded so simple that he wanted to laugh. Anything to release some of this rising insanity. ‘They won't know which way to run!'

The commandant nodded, suddenly calm. ‘That is what we will do.' He beckoned to several of his men and began to explain what he wanted.

Coutts blew out his cheeks. ‘Now I've heard everything. You actually
told
him what to do.' He looked at Ross who was grinning broadly. ‘Not only that, but he
listened
!'

Crespin shrugged. ‘Well, you said it was your job to bring me here. After that it was up to me, remember?' He pushed through the chattering men beside the hatch. ‘Now haul up that other dinghy and get ready to start the engine again.' He put an edge to his voice. ‘If that bloody relic breaks down I'll have your guts for garters!'

Ross prised the Yugoslav helmsman's hands from the wheel and grinned. ‘You go with your lot, matey! This time it's a job for the professionals.'

Preston sauntered back from the bows, his hands in his pockets. To nobody in particular he exclaimed, ‘It just goes to show, doesn't it? There are a few regular officers about who know what's what after all!'

Coutts eyed him coldly. ‘Thanks.' He pulled out his Lüger and rubbed it against his leg. ‘Thanks for damn all!'

‘Keep as close inshore as you can!' Crespin saw Ross's hands ease the spokes over and watched as the small bow wave creamed away to break across the fallen rocks at the foot of the cliff. The schooner was steering parallel with the land, so that the cliffs seemed to hang directly overhead, catching the sound of their passing and throwing back the engine's throaty growl in a never-ending echo. From high, unseen ledges flocks of disturbed gulls rose flapping and screaming, and then dived down over the two vibrating masts before circling back to their nests to stare after the intruder with ruffled annoyance.

Crespin looked at his watch and then up at the cliff top where already the sky was changing to a hard grey. In the dull light he could see the schooner's crew and the remaining handful of partisans crouching along either bulwark, their weapons trained outboard and ready. In the bows Preston lay beside the rusty cable, a Bren cradled against his cheek while he poked the muzzle through a fairlead and stared at the dark line which marked the edge of land around which lay the cove and the village.

The engine was throttled right down but it was still too noisy. Before they could swing to starboard and head for the beach they would have to turn slightly to seaward to avoid one isolated pinnacle of rock which rose against the murky sky in a towering black triangle. Those would be precious minutes lost. Time for a sentry to hear their engine and raise the alarm. Time for the enemy to realize what they were trying to do.

He asked quietly, ‘How much water between that pinnacle and the cliffs, Skipper?' He saw Ross staring over the bows. ‘At a guess?'

Ross put his weight on the wheel and swung the stem slightly away from a telltale flurry of white spray. ‘There's about sixty feet between them.' His eyes narrowed with professional interest. ‘Not much depth though.'