‘And this?’ Mallory pointed to a thin black line
spanning the river just north of the two armoured divisions.
‘That,’ Jensen said thoughtfully, ‘is the bridge at Neretva.’
Close-up, the bridge at Neretva looked vastly more impressive than it had done in the large-scale photograph: it was a massively cantilevered structure in solid steel, with a black asphalt roadway laid on top. Below the bridge rushed the swiftly-flowing Neretva, greenish-white in colour and swollen with melting snow. To the south there was a narrow strip of green meadowland bordering the river and, to the south of this again, a dark and towering pine forest began. In the safe concealment of the forest’s gloomy depths, General Zimmermann’s two armoured divisions crouched waiting.
Parked close to the edge of the wood was the divisional command radio truck, a bulky and very long vehicle so beautifully camouflaged as to be invisible at more than twenty paces.
General Zimmermann and his ADC, Captain Warburg, were at that moment inside the truck. Their mood appeared to match the permanent twilight of the woods. Zimmermann had one of those high-foreheaded, lean and aquiline and intelligent faces which so rarely betray any emotion, but there was no lack of emotion now, no lack of anxiety and impatience as he removed his cap and ran his hand through his thinning grey hair. He said to the radio operator seated behind the big transceiver:
‘No word yet? Nothing?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘You are in constant touch with Captain Neufeld’s camp?’
‘Every minute, sir.’
‘And his operator is keeping a continuous radio watch?’
‘All the time, sir. Nothing. Just nothing.’
Zimmermann turned and descended the steps, followed by Warburg. He walked, head down, until he was out of earshot of the truck, then said: ‘Damn it! Damn it! God damn it all!’
‘You’re as sure as that, sir.’ Warburg was tall, good-looking, flaxen-haired and thirty, and his face at the moment reflected a nice balance of apprehension and unhappiness. ‘That they’re coming?’
‘It’s in my bones, my boy. One way or another it’s coming, coming for all of us.’
‘You can’t be
sure,
sir,’ Warburg protested.
‘True enough.’ Zimmermann sighed. ‘I can’t be sure. But I’m sure of this. If they do come, if the 11th Army Group can’t break through from the north, if we can’t wipe out those damned Partisans in the Zenica Cage –’
Warburg waited for him to continue, but Zimmermann seemed lost in reverie. Apparently apropos of nothing, Warburg said: ‘I’d like to see Germany again, sir. Just once more.’
‘Wouldn’t we all, my boy, wouldn’t we all.’ Zimmermann walked slowly to the edge of the wood and stopped. For a long time he gazed out
over the bridge at Neretva. Then he shook his head, turned and was almost at once lost to sight in the dark depths of the forest.
The pine fire in the great fireplace in the drawing-room in Termoli was burning low. Jensen threw on some more logs, straightened, poured two drinks and handed one to Mallory.
Jensen said: ‘Well?’
‘That’s the plan?’ No hint of his incredulity, of his near-despair, showed in Mallory’s impassive face. ‘That’s
all
of the plan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your health.’ Mallory paused. ‘And mine.’ After an even longer pause he said reflectively: ‘It should be interesting to watch Dusty Miller’s reactions when he hears this little lot this evening.’
As Mallory had said, Miller’s reactions were interesting, even if wholly predictable. Some six hours later, clad now, like Mallory and Andrea, in British Army uniform, Miller listened in visibly growing horror as Jensen outlined what he considered should be their proposed course of action in the next twenty-four hours or so. When he had finished, Jensen looked directly at Miller and said: ‘Well? Feasible?’
‘Feasible?’ Miller was aghast. ‘It’s suicidal!’
‘Andrea?’
‘Andrea shrugged, lifted his hands palms upwards and said nothing.
Jensen nodded and said: ‘I’m sorry, but I’m fresh out of options. We’d better go. The others are waiting at the airstrip.’
Andrea and Miller left the room, began to walk down the long passageway. Mallory hesitated in the doorway, momentarily blocking it, then turned to face Jensen who was watching him with a surprised lift of the eyebrows.
Mallory said in a low voice: ‘Let me tell Andrea, at least.’
Jensen looked at him for a considering moment or two, shook his head briefly and brushed by into the corridor.
Twenty minutes later, without a further word being spoken, the four men arrived at the Termoli airstrip to find Vukalovic and two sergeants waiting for them: the third, Reynolds, was already at the controls of his Wellington, one of them standing at the end of the airstrip, propellers already turning. Ten minutes later both planes were airborne, Vukalovic in one, Mallory, Miller, Andrea, and the three sergeants in the other, each plane bound for its separate destination.
Jensen, alone on the tarmac, watched both planes climbing, his straining eyes following them until they disappeared into the overcast darkness of the moonless sky above. Then, just as General Zimmermann had done that afternoon, he shook his head in slow finality, turned and walked heavily away.
Sergeant Reynolds, Mallory reflected, certainly knew how to handle a plane, especially this one. Although his eyes showed him to be always watchful and alert, he was precise, competent, calm and relaxed in everything he did. No less competent was Groves: the poor light and cramped confines of his tiny plotting-table clearly didn’t worry him at all and as an air navigator he was quite clearly as experienced as he was proficient. Mallory peered forward through the windscreen, saw the white-capped waters of the Adriatic rushing by less than a hundred feet beneath their fuselage, and turned to Groves.
‘The flight plan calls for us to fly as low as this?’
‘Yes. The Germans have radar installations on some of the outlying islands off the Yugoslav coast. We start climbing when we reach Dalmatia.’
Mallory nodded his thanks, turned to watch Reynolds again. He said, curiously: ‘Captain Jensen
was right about you. As a pilot. How on earth does a Marine Commando come to learn to drive one of those things?’
‘I’ve had plenty of practice,’ Reynolds said. ‘Three years in the RAF, two of them as sergeantpilot in a Wellington bomber squadron. One day in Egypt I took a Lysander up without permission. People did it all the time – but the crate I’d picked had a defective fuel gauge.’
‘You were grounded?’
‘With great speed.’ He grinned. ‘There were no objections when I applied for a service transfer. I think they felt I wasn’t somehow quite right for the RAF.’
Mallory looked at Groves. ‘And you?’
Groves smiled broadly. ‘I was his navigator in that old crate. We were fired on the same day.’
Mallory said consideringly: ‘Well, I should think that might be rather useful.’
‘What’s useful?’ Reynolds asked.
‘The fact that you’re used to this feeling of disgrace. It’ll enable you to act your part all the better when the time comes. If the time comes.’
Reynolds said carefully: ‘I’m not quite sure –’
‘Before we jump, I want you – all of you – to remove every distinguishing badge or emblem of rank on your clothes.’ He gestured to Andrea and Miller at the rear of the flight-deck to indicate that they were included as well, then looked at Reynolds again. ‘Sergeants’ stripes, regimental flashes, medal ribbons – the lot.’
‘Why the hell should I?’ Reynolds, Mallory thought, had the lowest boiling-point he’d come across in quite some time. ‘I
earned
those stripes, those ribbons, that flash. I don’t see –’
Mallory smiled. ‘Disobeying an officer on active service?’
‘Don’t be so damned touchy,’ Reynolds said.
‘Don’t be so damned touchy,
sir.’
‘Don’t be so damned touchy,
sir.’
Reynolds suddenly grinned. ‘O?, so who’s got the scissors?’
‘You see,’ Mallory explained, ‘the last thing we want to happen is to fall into enemy hands.’
‘Amen,’ Miller intoned.
‘But if we’re to get the information we want we’re going to have to operate close to or even inside their lines. We might get caught. So we have our cover story.’
Groves said quietly: ‘Are we permitted to know just what that cover story is, sir?’
‘Of course you are,’ Mallory said in exasperation. He went on earnestly: ‘Don’t you realize that, on a mission like this, survival depends on one thing and one thing only – complete and mutual trust? As soon as we start having secrets from each other – we’re finished.’
In the deep gloom at the rear of the flight-deck, Andrea and Miller glanced at each other and exchanged their wearily cynical smiles.
As Mallory left the flight-deck for the fuselage, his right hand brushed Miller’s shoulder. After about
two minutes Miller yawned, stretched and made his way aft. Mallory was waiting towards the rear of the fuselage. He had two pieces of folded paper in his hand, one of which he opened and showed to Miller, snapping on a flashlight at the same time. Miller stared at it for some moments, then lifted an eyebrow.
‘And what is this supposed to be?’
‘It’s the triggering mechanism for a 1,500-pound submersible mine. Learn it by heart.’
Miller looked at it without expression, then glanced at the other paper Mallory held.
‘And what have you there?’
Mallory showed him. It was a large-scale map, the central feature of which appeared to be a winding lake with a very long eastern arm which bent abruptly at right-angles into a very short southern arm, which in turn ended abruptly at what appeared to be a dam wall. Beneath the dam, a river flowed away through a winding gorge.
Mallory said: ‘What does it look like to you? Show them both to Andrea and tell him to destroy them.’
Mallory left Miller engrossed in his homework and moved forward again to the flight-deck. He bent over Groves’s chart table.
‘Still on course?’
‘Yes, sir. We’re just clearing the southern tip of the island of Hvar. You can see a few lights on the mainland ahead.’ Mallory followed the pointing hand, located a few clusters of lights, then reached
out a hand to steady himself as the Wellington started to climb sharply. He glanced at Reynolds.
‘Climbing now, sir. There’s some pretty lofty stuff ahead. We should pick up the Partisan landing lights in about half an hour.’
‘Thirty-three minutes,’ Groves said. ‘One-twenty, near enough.’
For almost half an hour Mallory remained on a jump-seat in the flight-deck, just looking ahead. After a few minutes Andrea disappeared and did not reappear. Miller did not return. Groves navigated, Reynolds flew, Saunders listened in to his portable transceiver and nobody talked at all. At one-fifteen Mallory rose, touched Saunders on the shoulders, told him to pack up his gear and headed aft. He found Andrea and a thoroughly miserable-looking Miller with their parachute snap-catches already clipped on to the jumping wire. Andrea had the door pulled back and was throwing out tiny pieces of shredded paper which swirled away in the slipstream. Mallory shivered in the suddenly intense cold. Andrea grinned, beckoned him to the open doorway and pointed downwards. He yelled in Mallory’s ear: ‘There’s a lot of snow down there.’
There was indeed a lot of snow down there. Mallory understood now Jensen’s insistence on not landing a plane in those parts. The terrain below was rugged in the extreme, consisting almost entirely of a succession of deep and winding valleys and steep-sided mountains. Maybe half of the landscape below was covered in dense forests of pine
trees: all of it was covered in what appeared to be a very heavy blanket of snow. Mallory drew back into the comparative shelter of the Wellington’s fuselage and glanced at his watch.
‘One-sixteen.’ Like Andrea, he had to shout.
‘Your watch is a little fast, maybe?’ Miller bawled unhappily. Mallory shook his head, Miller shook his. A bell rang and Mallory made his way to the flight-deck, passing Saunders going the other way. As Mallory entered, Reynolds looked briefly over his shoulder, then pointed directly ahead. Mallory bent over his shoulder and peered forwards and downwards. He nodded.
The three lights, in the form of an elongated V, were still some miles ahead, but quite unmistakable. Mallory turned, touched Groves on the shoulder and pointed aft. Groves rose and left. Mallory said to Reynolds: ‘Where are the red and green jumping lights?’
Reynolds indicated them.
‘Press the red light. How long?’
‘Thirty seconds. About.’
Mallory looked ahead again. The lights were less than half as distant as they had been when first he’d looked. He said to Reynolds: ‘Automatic pilot. Close the fuel switches.’
‘Close the – for the petrol that’s left –’
‘Shut off the bloody tanks! And get aft. Five seconds.’
Reynolds did as he was told. Mallory waited, briefly made a last check of the landing lights
ahead, pressed the green light button, rose and made his way swiftly aft. By the time he reached the jump door, even Reynolds, the last of the first five, was gone. Mallory clipped on his snap-catch, braced his hands round the edge of the doorway and launched himself out into the bitter Bosnian night.
The sudden jarring impact from the parachute harness made him look quickly upwards: the concave circle of a fully open parachute was a reassuring spectacle. He glanced downwards and saw the equally reassuring spectacle of another five open parachutes, two of which were swaying quite wildly across the sky – just as was his own. There were some things, he reflected, about which he, Andrea and Miller had a great deal to learn. Controlling parachute descents was one of those things.
He looked up and to the east to see if he could locate the Wellington, but it was no longer visible. Suddenly, as he looked and listened, both engines, almost in perfect unison, cut out. Long seconds passed when the only sound was the rush of the wind in his ears, then there came an explosively metallic sound as the bomber crashed either into the ground or into some unseen mountainside ahead. There was no fire or none that he could see: just the crash, then silence. For the first time that night, the moon broke through.
Andrea landed heavily on an uneven piece of ground, rolled over twice, rose rather experimentally to his feet, discovered he was still intact, pressed the quick-release button of his parachute, then automatically, instinctively – Andrea had a built-in computer for assuring survival – swung through a complete 360° circle. But no immediate danger threatened, or none that he could see. Andrea made a more leisurely survey of their landing spot.
They had, he thought grimly, been most damnably lucky. Another hundred yards to the south and they’d have spent the rest of the night, and for all he knew, the rest of the war, clinging to the tops of the most impossibly tall pine trees he had ever seen. As it was, luck had been with them and they had landed in a narrow clearing which abutted closely on the rocky scarp of a mountainside.
Or rather, all but one. Perhaps fifty yards from where Andrea had landed, an apex of the forest elbowed its way into the clearing. The outermost tree in this apex had come between one of the parachutists and terra firma. Andrea’s eyebrows lifted in quizzical astonishment, then he broke into an ambling run.
The parachutist who had come to grief was dangling from the lowermost bough of the pine. He had his hands twisted in the shrouds, his legs bent, knees and ankles close together in the classic landing position, his feet perhaps thirty inches from the ground. His eyes were screwed tightly shut. Corporal Miller seemed acutely unhappy.
Andrea came up and touched him on the shoulder, gently. Miller opened his eyes and glanced at Andrea, who pointed downwards. Miller followed his glance and lowered his legs, which were then four inches from the ground. Andrea produced a knife, sliced through the shrouds and Miller completed the remainder of his journey. He straightened his jacket, his face splendidly impassive, and lifted an enquiring elbow. Andrea, his face equally impassive, pointed down the clearing. Three of the other four parachutists had already landed safely: the fourth, Mallory, was just touching down.
Two minutes later, just as all six were coming together some little distance away from the most easterly landing flare, a shout announced the appearance of a young soldier running towards them from the edge of the forest. The parachutists’ guns came up and were almost immediately lowered again: this was no occasion for guns. The soldier was trailing his by the barrel, excitedly waving his free hand in greeting. He was dressed in a faded and tattered near-uniform that had been pillaged from a variety of armies, had long flowing hair, a cast to his right eye and a straggling ginger beard. That he was welcoming them, was beyond doubt. Repeating some incomprehensible greeting over and over again, he shook hands all round and then a second time, the huge grin on his face reflecting his delight.
Within thirty seconds he’d been joined by at
least a dozen others, all bearded, all dressed in the same nondescript uniforms, no two of which were alike, all in the same almost festive mood. Then, as at a signal almost, they fell silent and drew slightly apart as the man who was obviously their leader appeared from the edge of the forest. He bore little resemblance to his men. He differed in that he was completely shaven and wore a uniform, a British battledress, which appeared to be all of one piece. He differed in that he was not smiling: he had about him the air of one who was seldom if ever given to smiling. He also differed from the others in that he was a hawk-faced giant of a man, at least six feet four inches in height, carrying no fewer than four wicked-looking Bowie-type knives in his belt – an excess of armament that on another man might have looked incongruous or even comical but which on this man provoked no mirth at all. His face was dark and sombre and when he spoke it was in English, slow and stilted, but precise.
‘Good evening.’ He looked round questioningly. ‘I am Captain Droshny.’
Mallory took a step forward. ‘Captain Mallory.’
‘Welcome to Yugoslavia, Captain Mallory – Partisan Yugoslavia.’ Droshny nodded towards the dying flare, his face twitched in what may have been an attempt at a smile, but he made no move to shake hands. ‘As you can see, we were expecting you.’
‘Your lights were a great help,’ Mallory acknowledged.
‘Thank you.’ Droshny stared away to the east, then back to Mallory, shaking his head. ? pity about the plane.’