The guns of Navaronne Read online

  «And now it's the turn of Kheros?»

  «Yes.» Jensen shook out a pair of cigarettes, sat silently until Mallory had lit them and sent the match spinning through the window towards the pale gleam of the Mediterranean lying north below the coast road. «Yes, Kheros is for the hammer. Nothing that we can do can save it. The Germans have absolute air superiority in the Aegean… .»

  «But — but how can you be so sure that it's this week?»

  Jensen sighed.

  «Laddie, Greece is fairly hotching with Allied agents. We have over two hundred in the Athens-Piraeus area alone and—»

  «Two hundred!» Mallory interrupted incredulously. «Did you say—»

  «I did.» Jensen grinned. «A mere bagatelle, I assure you, compared to the vast hordes of spies that circulate freely among our noble hosts in Cairo and Alexandria.» He was suddenly serious again. «Anyway, our information is accurate. An armada of caiques will sail from the Piraeus on Thursday at dawn and island-hop across the Cyclades, holing up in the islands at night.» He smiled. «An intriguing situation, don't you think? We daren't move in the Aegean in the daytime or we'd be bombed out of the water. The Germans don't dare move at night. Droves of our destroyers and M.T.B.s and gunboats move into the Aegean at dusk: the destroyers retire to the South before dawn, the small boats usually lie up in isolated islands creeks. But we can't stop them from getting across. They'll be there Saturday or Sunday — and synchronise their landings with the first of the airborne troops: they've scores of Junkers 52s waiting just outside Athens. Kheros won't last a couple of days.» No one could have listened to Jensen's carefully casual voice, his abnormal matter-of-factness and not have believed him.

  Mallory believed him. For almost a minute he stared down at the sheen of the sea, at the faery tracery of the stars shimmering across its darkly placid surface. Suddenly he swung around on Jensen.

  «But the Navy, sir! Evacuation! Surely the Navy—»

  «The Navy,» Jensen interrupted heavily, «is not keen. The Navy is sick and tired of the Eastern Med. and the Aegean, sick and tired of sticking out its long-suffering neck and having it regularly chopped off — and all for sweet damn all. We've had two battleships wrecked, eight cruisers out of commission — four of them sunk-- and over a dozen destroyers gone… . I couldn't even start to count the number of smaller vessels we've lost. And for what? I've told you — for sweet damn all! Just so's our High Command can play round-and-round- the-rugged-rocks and who's the-king-of-the-castle with their opposite numbers in Berlin. Great fun for all concerned — except, of course, for the thousand or so sailors who've been drowned in the course of the game, the ten thousand or so Tommies and Anzacs and Indians who suffered and died on these same islands — and died without knowing why.»

  Jensen's hands were white-knuckled on the wheel, his mouth tight-drawn and bitter. Mallory was surprised, shocked almost, by the vehemence, the depth of feeling; it was so completely out of character… . Or perhaps it was in character, perhaps Jensen knew a very great deal indeed about what went on on the inside.

  «Twelve hundred men, you said, sir?» Mallory asked quietly. «You said there were twelve hundred men on Kheros?»

  Jensen flickered a glance at him, looked away again.

  «Yes. Twelve hundred men.» Jensen sighed. «You're right, laddie, of course, you're right. I'm just talking off the top of my head. Of course we can't leave them there. The Navy will do its damnedest. What's two or three more destroyers — sorry, boy, sorry, there I go again… . Now listen, and listen carefully».

  «Taking 'em off will have to be a night operation. There isn't a ghost of a chance in the daytime — not with two-three hundred Stukas just begging for a glimpse of a Royal Naval destroyer. It'll have to be destroyers-- transports and tenders are too slow by half. And they can't possibly go northabout the northern tip of the Lerades — they'd never get back to safety before daylight. It's too long a trip by hours.»

  «But the Lerades is a pretty long string of Islands,» Mallory ventured. «Couldn't the destroyers go through—»

  «Between a couple of them? Impossible.» Jensen shook his head. «Mined to hell and back again. Every single channel. You couldn't take a dinghy through.»

  «And the Maidos-Navarone channel. Stiff with mines also, I suppose?»

  «No, that's a clear channel. Deep water — you can't moor mines in deep water.»

  «So that's the route you've got to take, isn't it, sir? I mean, they're Turkish territorial waters on the other side and we—»

  «We'd go through Turkish territorial waters to-morrow, and in broad daylight, if it would do any good,» Jensen said flatly. «The Turks know it and so do the Germans. But all other things being equal, the Western channel is the one we're taking. It's a clearer channel, a shorter route — and it doesn't involve any unnecessary international complications.»

  «All other things being equal?»

  «The guns of Navarone.» Jensen paused for a long time, then repeated the words, slowly, expressionlessly, as one would repeat the name of some feared and ancient enemy. «The guns of Navarone. They make everything equaL They cover the northern entrances to both channels. We could take the twelve hundred men off Kheros to-night----if we could silence the guns of Navarone.»

  Mallory sat silent, said nothing. He's coming to it now, he thought.

  «These guns are no ordinary guns,» Jensen went on quietly. «Our naval experts say they're about nine-inch rifle barrels. I think myself they're more likely a version of the 210 mm. 'crunch' guns that the Germans are using in Italy — our soldiers up there hate and fear those guns more than anything on earth. A dreadful weapon — shell extremely slow in flight and damnably accurate. Anyway,» he went on grimly, «whatever they were they were good enough to dispose of the Sybaris in five minutes flat.»

  Mallory nodded slowly.

  «The Sybaris? I think I heard—»

  «An eight-inch cruiser we sent up there about four months ago to try conclusions with the Hun. Just a formality, a routine exercise, we thought. The Sybaris was blasted out of the water. There were seventeen survivors.»

  «Good God!» Mallory was shocked. «I didn't know—»

  «Two months ago we mounted a large-scale amphibious attack on Navarone.» Jensen hadn't even heard the interruption. «Commandos, Royal Marine Commandos and Jellicoe's Special Boat Service. Less than an even chance, we knew — Navarone's practically solid cliff all the way round. But then these were very special men, probably the finest assault troops in the world today.» Jensen paused for almost a minute, then went on very quietly. «They were cut to ribbons. They were massacred almost to a man».

  «Finally, twice in the past ten days-we've seen this attack on Kheros coming for a long time now — we sent in parachute saboteurs: Special Boat Service men.» He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. «They just vanished.»

  «Just like that?»

  «Just like that. And then to-night — the last desperate fling of the gambler and what have you.» Jensen laughed, briefly and without humour. «That interrogation hut — I kept pretty quiet in there to-night, I tell you. I was the 'joker' that Torrance and his boys wanted to heave out over Navarone. I knew it was hopeless-but it had to be done.»

  The big Humber was beginning to slow down now, running silently between the tumble-down shacks and hovels that line the Western approach to Alexandria. The sky ahead was already beginning to streak in the first tenuous greys of the false dawn.

  «I don't think I'd be much good with a parachute,» Mallory said doubtfully. «In fact, quite frankly, I've never even seen a parachute.»

  «Don't worry,» Jensen said briefly. «You won't have to use one. You're going into Navarone the hard way.»

  Mallory waited for more, but Jensen had fallen silent, intent on avoiding the large potholes that were beginning to pock the roadway. After a time Mallory asked:

  «Why me, Captain Jensen?»

  Jensen's smile was barely visible in the greying darkness. He swerved viol
ently to avoid a gaping hole and straightened up again.

  «Scared?»

  «Certainly I'm scared. No offence intended, sir, but the way you talk you'd scare anyone… . But that wasn't what I meant.»

  «I know it wasn't. Just my twisted humour.. . Why you? Special qualifications, laddie, just like I told you. You speak Greek like a Greek. You speak German like a German. Skilled saboteur, first-class organiser and eighteen unscathed months in the White Mountains of Crete-- a convincing demonstration of your ability to survive in enemy-held territory.» Jensen chuckled. «You'd be surprised to know just how complete a dossier I have on you!»

  «No, I wouldn't.» Mallory spoke with some feeling. «And,» he added, «I know of at least three other officers with the same qualifications.»

  «There are others,» Jensen agreed. «But there are no other Keith Mallorys. Keith Mallory,» Jensen repeated rhetorically. «Who hadn't heard of Keith Mallory in the palmy, balmy days before the war? The finest mountaineer, the greatest rock climber New Zealand has ever produced — and by that, of course, New Zealanders mean the world. The human fly, the climber of the unclimbable, the scaler of vertical cliffs and impossible precipices. The entire south coast of Navarone,» said Jensen cheerfully, «consists of one vast, impossible precipice. Nary a hand or foot-hold in sight.»

  «I see,» Mallory murmured. «I see indeed. 'Into Navarone the hard way.' That was what you said.»

  «That was,» Jensen acknowledged. «You and your gang — just four others. Mallory's Merry Mountaineers. Hand-picked. Every man a specialist. You'll meet them all tomorrow — this afternoon, rather.»

  They travelled in silence for the next ten minutes, turned up right from the dock area, jounced their uncomfortable way over the massive cobbles of the Rue Souers, slewed round into Mohammed All square, passed in front of the Bourse and turned right down the Sherif Pasha.

  Mallory looked at the man behind the wheel. He could see his face quite clearly now in the gathering light.

  «Where to, sir?»

  «To see the only man in the Middle East who can give you any help now. Monsieur Eugene Viachos of Navarone.»

  «You are a brave man, Captain Mallory.» Nervously Eugene Viachos twisted the long, pointed ends of his black moustache. «A brave man and a foolish one, I would say — but I suppose we cannot call a man a fool when he only obeys his orders.» His eyes left the large drawing lying before him on the table and sought Jensen's impassive face.

  «Is there no other way, Captain?» he pleaded.

  Jensen shook his head slowly.

  «There are. We've tried them all, sir. They all failed. This is the last.»

  «He must go, then?»

  «There are over a thousand men on Kheros, sir.»

  Vlachos bowed his head in silent acceptance, then smiled faintly at Mallory.

  «He calls me 'sir.' Me, a poor Greek hotel-keeper and Captain Jensen of the Royal Navy calls me 'sir.' It makes an old man feel good.» He stopped, gazed off vacantly into space, the faded eyes and tired, lined face soft with memory. «An old man, Captain Mallory, an old man now, a poor man and a sad one. But I wasn't always, not always. Once I was just middle-aged, and rich and well content. Once I owned a lovely land, a hundred square miles of the most beautiful country God ever sent to delight the eyes of His creatures here below, and how well I loved that land!» He laughed self-consciously and ran a hand through his thick, greying hair. «Ah, well, as you people say, I suppose it's all in the eye of the beholder. 'A lovely land,' I say. 'That blasted rock,' as Captain Jensen has been heard to describe it out of my hearing.» He smiled at Jensen's sudden discomfiture. «But we both give it the same name — Navarone.»

  Startled, Mallory looked at Jensen. Jensen nodded.

  «The Vlachos family has owned Navarone for generations. We had to remove Monsieur Viachos in a great hurry eighteen months ago. The Germans didn't care overmuch for his kind of collaboration.»

  «It was — how do you say — touch and go,» Vlachos nodded. «They had reserved three very special places for my two sons and myself in the dungeons in Navarone… . But enough of the Viachos family. I just wanted you to know, young man, that I spent forty years on Navarone and almost four days»--he gestured to the table--«on that map. My information and that map you can trust absolutely. Many things will have changed, of course, but some things never change. The mountains, the bays, the passes, the caves, the roads, the houses and, above all, the fortress itself — these have remained unchanged for centuries, Captain Mallory.»

  «I understand, sir.» Mallory folded the map carefully, stowed it away in his tunic. «With this, there's always a chance. Thank you very much.»

  «It is little enough, God knows.» Viachos's fingers drummed on the table for a moment, then he looked up at Mallory. «Captain Jensen informs me that most of you speak Greek fluently, that you will be dressed as Greek peasants and will carry forged papers. That is well. You will be — what is the word?--self-contained, will operate on your own.» He paused, then went on very earnestly.

  «Please do not try to enlist the help of the people of Navarone. At all costs you must avoid that. The Germans are ruthless. I know. If a man helps you and is found out, they will destroy not only that man but his entire village — men, women and children. It has happened before. It will happen again.»

  «It happened in Crete,» Mallory agreed quietly. «I've seen it for myself.»

  «Exactly.» Vlachos nodded. «And the people of Navarone have neither the skifi nor the experience for suecessful guerrilla operations. They have not had the chance — German surveillance has been especially severe in our island.»

  «I promise you, sir—» Mallory began.

  Vlachos held up his hand.

  «Just a moment. If your need is desperate, really desperate, there are two men to whom you may turn. Under the first plane tree in the village square of Margaritha — at the mouth of the valley about three miles south of the fortress — you will find a man called Louki. He has been the steward of our family for many years. Louki has been of help to the British before — Captain Jensen will confirm that — and you can trust him with your life. He has a friend, Panayis: he, too, has been useful in the past.»

  «Thank you, sir. I'll remember. Louki and Panayis and Margaritha — the first plane tree in the square.»

  «And you will refuse all other aid, Captain?» Vlachos asked anxiously. «Louki and Panayis — only these two,» he pleaded.

  «You have my word, sir. Besides, the fewer the safer for us as well as your people.» Mallory was surprised at the old man's intensity.

  «I hope so, I hope so.» Viachos sighed heavily.

  Mallory stood up, stretched out his hand to take his leave.

  «You're worrying about nothing, sir. They'll never see us,» he promised confidently. «Nobody will see us — and we'll see nobody. We're after only one thing — the guns.»

  «Ay, the guns — those terrible guns.» Vlachos shook his head. «But just suppose—»

  «Please. It will be all right,» Mallory insisted quietly. «We will bring harm to none — and least of all to your islanders.»

  «God go with you to-night,» the old man whispered. «God go with you to-night. I only wish that I could go too.»

  CHAPTER 2

  Sunday Night

  19:00--02:00

  «Coffee, sir?»

  Mallory stirred and groaned and fought his way up from the depths of exhausted sleep. Painfully he eased himself back on the metal-framed bucket-seat, wondering peevishly when the Air Force was going to get round to upholstering these fiendish contraptions. Then he was fully awake, tired, heavy eyes automatically focusing on the luminous dial of his wrist-watch. Seven o'clock. Just seven o'clock — he'd been asleep barely a couple of hours. Why hadn't they let him sleep on?

  «Coffee, sir?» The young air-gunner was still standing patiently by his side, the inverted lid of an ammunition box serving as a tray for the cups he was carrying.

  «Sorry, boy, so
rry.» Mallory struggled upright in his seat, reached up for a cup of the steaming liquid, sniffed it appreciatively. «Thank you. You know, this smells just like real coffee.»

  «It is, sir.» The young gunner smiled proudly. «We have a percolator in the galley.»

  «He has a percolator in the galley.» Mallory shook his head in disbelief. «Ye gods, the rigours of war in the Royal Air Force!» He leaned back, sipped the coffee luxuriously and sighed in contentment. Next moment he was on his feet, the hot coffee splashing unheeded on his bare knees as he stared out the window beside him. He looked at the gunner, gestured in disbelief at the mountainous landscape unrolling darkly beneath them.

  «What the hell goes on here? We're not due till two hours after dark — and it's barely gone sunset! Has the pilot--?»

  «That's Cyprus, sir.» The gunner grinned. «You can just see Mount Olympus on the horizon. Nearly always, going to Casteirosso, we fly a big dog-leg over Cyprus. It's to escape observation, sir; and it takes us well clear of Rhodes.»

  «To escape observation, he says!» The heavy trans-atlantic drawl came from the bucket-seat diagonally across the passage: the speaker was lying collapsed-- there was no other word for it — in his seat, the bony knees topping the level of the chin by several inches. «My Gawd! To escape observation!» he repeated in awed wonder. «Dog-legs over Cyprus. Twenty miles out from Alex by launch so that nobody ashore can see us taldn' off by plane. And then what?» He raised himself painfully in his seat, eased an eyebrow over the bottom of the window, then fell back again, visibly exhausted by the effort. «And then what? Then they pack us into an old crate that's painted the whitest white you ever saw, guaranteed visible to a blind man at a hundred miles--'specially now that it's gettin' dark.»

  «It keeps the heat out,» the young gunner said defensively.

  «The heat doesn't worry me, son.» The drawl was tireder, more lugubrious than ever. «I like the heat. What I don't like are them nasty cannon shells and bullets that can ventilate a man in all the wrong places.» He slid his spine another impossible inch down the seat, closed his eyes wearily and seemed asleep in a moment.