Authors: Leon Uris
“Your name, Jew?”
“I am a British soldier!”
Oberg raised his arm and slashed the riding crop across Yichiel’s cheek. A streak of blood spurted down his face.
He spit in Oberg’s face.
In an instant a half dozen brownshirts engulfed him under flailing clubs. They smashed him to the stone floor. He rolled over and held his arms over his face as they kicked.
Elpis’ screams tore through him. She knelt beside him and held his head.
“Take him away,” Oberg commanded.
The brownshirts dragged a screaming, kicking, clawing Elpis from her husband. Yichiel crawled to his feet and staggered for the door.
“My, my, aren’t you the little animal,” the Colonel said to Elpis. “Take her to my quarters. Let us see if you make love with such wonderful violence.”
Yichiel rushed across the room. A club cracked on his skull. He slumped unconscious to the floor.
Both of them were removed—Elpis still clawing and fighting her three guards.
“She should be delightful—delightful.”
His mistress looked bored.
The Prussian returned to his chair and resumed his rocking. He pointed the riding crop at Antonis. “Now don’t tell me you are a British soldier, too?”
Antonis stepped forward and answered that he was Antonis, captain of the
Arkadia.
“Book him, espionage and sabotage.”
Mike now stood alone in the center of the room.
The Colonel leaned over to the clerk. “What do we have on this fellow?”
“False travel card, pistol, a million drachmas—no previous record here.”
“Your name?”
“Jay Linden.”
“We would like to know more about you, Mr. Linden.”
“Jay Linden, Lance Corporal, number 359195, New Zealand.”
“Go on.”
“As a prisoner of war, that is all I am obliged to give.”
Oberg’s face cracked into a half-smile. He laughed softly. “Very well recited, Lance Corporal Linden.”
Mike looked around the room. The brutal brownshirts awaited a signal. He gritted his teeth and gulped.
Oberg stared through the monocle. Then he resumed his rocking and slapping the riding crop in his palm. “Are you certain you have no more to say, Lance Corporal Linden?”
Mike did not answer.
“You wouldn’t be holding some information, Lance Corporal Linden?”
Mike could hear the big clock ticking on the wall. It echoed through the stone room....
Oberg looked up at the clock. He glanced toward the door through which Elpis was taken. “Book him. Sabotage and espionage.” Oberg arose and the brownshirts came to attention. He motioned to his clerk. “Get this information on the
Arkadia
over to Gestapo in the morning.” He nodded to Mike. “I’m sure Gestapo will make you more anxious to talk.” Oberg turned to his mistress. “You may go home,” he said. “I shall not want you tonight.”
The woman yawned.
Mike was thrown into a black cell. He crawled to his feet and groped about blindly. “Ben,” he called. “Ben.”
“Over here, matey.”
Mike stumbled over sleeping bodies in the dark. The stench of the place was terrific. He made out Ben’s immense form kneeling over the prostrate body of Yichiel.
“They gave him a pretty good working over,” Ben said.
Yichiel groaned and rolled over.
“They took his wife away.... Oberg...”
“The bloody bastard! And when he finishes with her he’ll turn her over to his guards....”
Mike slipped down to a sitting position on the icy stone floor. He did something he had not done since his childhood. Michael Morrison cried openly and unashamed.
Ben’s hand patted his back. “It will be all right, cobber. They won’t keep us ’ere long. In about a week we’ll be processed and sent to the P.O.W. side of the jail. It’s a lot better over on that side....”
Mike pulled himself together and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.
“They’ll run us down to Field Police—Gestapo—and they’ll question us and charge us with everything, includin’ startin’ the war. But they’re just bluff, all bluff. Just stand up to them and demand your rights as a British soldier and they’ll send you to the P.O.W. side....”
“Who—who does the questioning at Gestapo?”
“Oh, he’s a mean bugger, chap named Heilser. But don’t worry none, Jay—he’s all bluff.”
FOUR
“Out of the night that covers me,
Out of the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul!”
“Quiet in there,
schweinhund!
Quiet in there, or I kill you....”
“Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.”
Ben finished his song, ignoring the crazed head guard, a sadistic Austrian named Hans, who continued to rave outside the cell.
“Beautiful song, ain’t it, Jay?” Ben said. “You know, Jay, can’t say as I like the ’ospitality ’ere.”
Ben had managed to calm Mike considerably. His example of courage, of defiance in the face of the brutal guards was a tonic. And some of Mike’s fear had vanished in the two days in Averof. He knew that hell could be no worse for he had now seen the cesspool of humanity.
Their cell couldn’t have held forty men properly. It contained ninety “Greek saboteurs.” There were no bunks, no heat, no toilet facilities, no water. Only stone and bars. The other “saboteurs” ranged from a boy of ten who had stolen a carton of cigarettes to a man of eighty who had stolen a loaf of bread. Several of the inmates were in a stage of babbling idiocy and there were a dozen obvious T.B. cases ... Lice swarmed everywhere. Mammoth rats roamed.
At night the stone turned icy and the only warmth became the heat of the tightly packed bodies. Then-daily meal was a slimy bean soup, without beans. Ben told Mike he would learn to love the stuff and Ben taught Mike how to filch potato peels and garbage from the galley during the visits to the toilet. Ben, an old hand at Averof, immediately found a guard who would pass notes to the outside and who would smuggle in food. Money talked in Averof. The inmate with connections could manage to survive.
Each morning dead men were pulled from the tank.
From one of the two small windows Mike could look down into the center courtyard of Averof. Twenty-four hours a day horrible torture sessions went on. Each dawn a firing squad eliminated another batch of “saboteurs”—men who stood shivering against the gray stone wall. Each dawn the guard Hans would select some “saboteur” from Mike’s tank for execution. He would line up all the prisoners in the corridor and taunt them as he limped up and down the line, an insane smirk on his face.
On the fourth morning, Elpis was dragged to the stone wall in the courtyard. Her screams were feeble but they still reached her husband’s ears. The girl was beyond recognition. They strapped her to a post. And as the firing squad lined up, Hans, in the corridor outside the cell, screamed taunts at Yichiel. He boasted that he had been one of the fifty guards who had raped her the night before.
Ben and Mike kept a suicide watch over the bereaved Palestinian.
Four days passed. Michael Morrison was no longer afraid. A seething, boiling anger inside him would not let him be still. But each day brought him closer to the moment when he must come face to face with Konrad Heilser. His mind worked desperately on a plan to avoid the meeting. Perhaps he would feign sickness—perhaps he would try to make a break enroute to Gestapo headquarters—perhaps he would take a crack at Hans and be thrown into solitary...
A thousand ideas passed through his mind. All of them except one seemed hopeless.
The one slim hope was Ben’s connection with the outside world—a Greek guard named Axiotis. He was one of the very few in Averof inherited by the Germans. The ancient jailer ran a profitable business of smuggling out messages and smuggling in bread, wine and tobacco. Hans was aware of it, but allowed it to continue as long as he received a portion of Axiotis’ take.
Ben knew a dozen women on the outside who kept him and Mike and Yichiel in food and tobacco. Mike kept close watch, waiting for Axiotis to pull a doublecross, but the old jailer delivered every time Ben sent him on a mission.
But whom could Mike contact? He did not know where to reach Lisa, and there was the remote possibility that Lisa had been mixed up in his capture. He tried to drive the thought from his mind but it persisted.
Contact Chesney? No. Mike was certain that Chesney had played out a game to lull him into security and staged the capture with such adroitness as to remove any taint of suspicion from himself. After all, Antonis had not showed the least concern. He had acted almost as if he expected to be picked up by the patrol boat. And where was Antonis now? All new prisoners came through Hans’ cell block, and he had not seen Antonis. Most likely Antonis was preparing another batch of British soldiers for capture.
Ben insisted on taking the blame, certain that in his drunkenness the night before sailing he had spilled to someone. But Mike could not be sure of that.
Contact Dr. Thackery? He couldn’t. Lisa had said that Thackery had been forced into hiding. Even so, the American Archaeological Society was certain to be under the scrutiny of the Gestapo.
One thread remained. It was as fragile as the rest, but he’d have to try it.
Each day brought him closer to Konrad Heilser. Ben looked forward to it for it meant transfer to the P.O.W. side of Averof.
On the fifth day Yichiel was removed from the cell. The sixth day passed.
“Have you ever been across the sea to Ireland?”
Ben Masterton had resorted to singing Irish ballads.
“Quiet in there!”
“When maybe at the closin’ of the day
...”
“Schweinhund!”
“You can sit and watch the sun come over Claddock...”
“I’ll kill you if you don’t quiet down!”
“Trouble with Hans, Jay, he’s got no soul for culture...
And watch the barefoot gosels at their play.”
Hans stopped his raving suddenly. Ben’s voice continued bellowing....
“If there’s ever to be a life hereafter, and faith, now, sure I know there’s going to be
...”
At the end of the corridor, Colonel Oberg and his staff were marching along crisply, inspecting the cages of misery. His bored mistress was at his side. Ben raced up to the bars.
“Hey, wienerschnitzel!”
Oberg whirled about.
“Hey, why don’t you be a good bloke and send us over to the other side of the yard with the P.O.W.’s?”
“Aha, my two British saboteurs.”
“Now, come on, wienerschnitzel. In another two days we’ll be as nutty as your guards.”
“I take it, Herr Masterton, you’ve had enough of Greek criminals?”
“I’ve had enough of you savin’ the world from communism. I just don’t like the ’ospitality ’ere.”
For some curious reason, Colonel Oberg seemed to feel some affection for Ben Masterton. A smile cracked his Prussian lips.
“And while you’re about it,” Ben said, “I’d like to know what ’appened to our cobber?”
“The Jew?”
“The British soldier.”
“Rather unfortunate, Ben. He took ill—quite ill...”
“I’ll bet he did!”
Oberg looked angry at first, then sighed in disgust. He turned to his clerk. “See that Herr Masterton and his friend are taken to Gestapo tomorrow and sent over to the P.O.W. compound on return.”
“Thanks, matey.”
“Masterton, do me a favor. The next time you escape—please don’t get recaptured.”
“But, Jay,” Ben said, “you don’t have to pay Axiotis no hundred thousand drachmas to just take out one simple little note for you.”
“Look, stop asking questions, Ben. I’ve got to get it out tonight.”
Ben shrugged. “But a hundred thousand drachmas...”
Axiotis nodded. A grin broke out on the ancient jailer’s face as he pocketed the money. He was told that a return message would bring another hundred thousand. The note was addressed to Lazarus, a truck farmer in Chalandri with instructions to get the message to Lisa immediately.
It read:
Helena: I am in Averof. Tomorrow I am to be taken to Gestapo for questioning. Vassili.
FIVE
H
EILSER’S FACE TIGHTENED AS
he crumpled the message. He was in serious trouble now. Von Ribbentrop had certainly selected the worst possible time for a visit to Greece. British escapees were roaming all over the country and resistance was increasing daily. Just how many documents had already been stolen from the Germans would be known when and if Morrison made his escape and contacted the British. Konrad Heilser sat on a powder keg and the fuse grew short.
He gulped a sedative and rubbed his throbbing temples. The old self-assurance was shattered now. If only he could lay hands on Morrison and learn the names on the Stergiou list, it would throw the entire Underground into a panic. He sank into a chair behind his marble-top desk and mixed another sedative.
Zervos entered without knocking. He smiled at his squirming confederate. No matter who took over the Gestapo, he, Zervos, was secure in his position.
“Konrad,” Zervos said, “it is time for our appointment with Lisa.”
Heilser thumbed through the papers on his desk. “You go. Colonel Oberg phoned this morning from Averof. He is sending two British escapees over for questioning.”
“Oh? Anyone of importance?”
“Only that nuisance, Ben Masterton. I wish he’d make one of his escapes good.”
“The other?”
Heilser looked at the preliminary report. “New Zealander, name of Linden—Jay Linden. First time. We have no records on him.”
Zervos smirked. “I’ll give your regards to Lisa.” He turned toward the door.
“Wait. Inform Lisa she is to meet me at my suite at the Grande Bretagne tonight at eight o’clock.”
“It won’t do you any...”