The people that lived in fair Nottingham

Andreahe'd come back by this timethought it a sure bet that they'd work right round the square and get here in two or three minutes, so he took off like a bat across the roofs." "Going to draw them off?" Mallory was at Louki's side staring out of the window. "The crazy fool! He'll get himself killed this timeget himself killed for sure! There are soldiers everywhere. Besides, they won't fall for it again. He tricked them once up in the hills, and the Germans" "I'm not so sure, sir," Brown interrupted excitedly. "Andrea's just shot out the searchlight on his side. They'll think for certain that we're going to break out over the wall andlook, sir, look! There they go!" Brown was almost dancing with excitement, the pain of his injured leg forgotten. "He's done it, sir, he's done it!" Sure enough, Mallory saw, the patrol had broken away from their shelter in the house to their right and were running across the square in extended formation, their heavy boots clattering on the cobbles, stumbling, falling, recovering again as they lost footing on the slippery wetness of the uneven stones. At the same time Mallory could see torches flickering on the roofs of the houses opposite, the vague forms of men crouching low to escape observation and making swiftly for the spot where Andrea had been when he had shot out the great Cyclops eye of the searchlight. "They'll be on him from every side." Mallory spoke quietly enough, but his fists clenched until the nails cut into the palms of his hands. He stood stock-still for some seconds, stooped quickly and gathered a Schmeisser up from the floor. "He hasn't a chance. I'm going after him." He turned abruptly, brought up with equal suddenness: Miller was blocking his way to the door. "Andrea left word that we were to leave him be, that he'd find his own way out." Miller was very calm, very respectful. "Said that no one was to help him, not on any account." "Don't try to stop me, Dusty." Mallory spoke evenly, mechanically almost He was hardly aware that Dusty Miller was there. He only knew that he must get out at once, get to Andrea's side, give him what help he could. They had been together too long, he owed too much to the smiling giant to let him go so easily. He couldn't remember how often Andrea had come after him, more than once when he had thought hope was gone. . . . He put his hand against Miller's chest. "You'll only be in his way, boss," Miller said urgently. "That's what you said . . ." Mallory pushed him 'aside, strode for the door, brought up his fist to strike as canon digital cameras web listings hands closed round his upper arm. He stopped just in time, looked down into Louki's worried face. "The American is right," Louki said insistently. "You must not go. Andrea said you were to take us down to the harbour." "Go down yourselves," Mallory said brusquely. "You know the way, you know the plans." "You would let us all go, let us all" "I'd let the whole damn' world go if I could help him." There was an utter sincerity in the New Zealander's voice. "Andrea would never let me down." "But you would let him down," Louki said quietly. "Is that it, Major Mallory?" "What the devil do you mean?" "By not doing as he wishes. He may be hurt, killed even, and if you go after him and are killed too, that makes it all useless. He would die for nothing. Is it thus you would repay your friend?" "All right, all right, you win," Mallory said irritably. "That is how Andrea would want it," Louki murmured. "Any other way you would be" "Stop preaching at me! Right, gentlemen, let's be on our way." He was back on balance again, easy, relaxed, the primeval urge to go out and kill well under control. "We'll take the high roadover the roofs. Dig into that kitchen stove there, rub the ashes all over your hands and faces. See that there's nothing white on you anywhere. And no talking!" The five-minute journey down to the harbour walla journey made in soft-footed silence with Mallory hushing even the beginnings of a whisperwas quite uneventful. 'Not only did they see no soldiers, they saw no one at all. The inhabitants of Navarone were wisely observing the curfew, and the streets were completely deserted. Andrea had drawn off pursuit with a vengeance. Mallory began to fear that the Germans had taken him, but just as they reached the water's edge he heard the gun-fire again, a good deal farther away this time, in the very north-east corner of the town, round the back of the fortress. Mallory stood on the low wail above the harbour, looked at his companions, gazed out over the dark oiliness of the water. Through the heavy rain he could just distinguish, to his right and left, the vague blurs of caiques moored stern on to the wall. Beyond that he could see nothing. "Well, I don't suppose we can get much

That erst was sae fair and frie O.

and brown mottled capes. First of all they located the telephone and reported to base. Then the young sergeant sent two men to search another hundred yards or so along the cliff, while he and the fourth soldier probed among the rocks that paralleled the cliff. The search was slow and careful, but the two men did not penetrate very far into the rocks. To Mallory, the sergeant's, reasoning was obvious and logical. If the sentry had gone to sleep or taken ill, it was unlikely that he would have gone far in among that confused jumble of boulders. Mallory and the others were safely back beyond their reach. And then came what Mallory had fearedan organised, methodical inspection of the cliff-top itself: worse stifi, it began with a search along the very edge. Securely held by his three men with interlinked armsthe last with a hand hooked round his beltthe sergeant walked slowly along the rim, probing every inch with the spotlit beam of a powerful torch. Suddenly he stopped short, exclaimed suddenly and stooped, torch and face only inches from the ground. There was no question as to what he had foundthe deep gouge made in the soft, crumbling soil by the climbing rope that had been belayed round the boulder and gone over to the edge of the cliff. . . . Softly, silently, Mallory and his three companions straightened to their knees or to their feet, gun barrels lining along the tops of boulders or peering out between cracks in the rocks. There was no doubt in any of their minds that Stevens was lying there helplessly in the crutch of the chimney, seriously injured or dead. It needed only one German carbine to point down that cliff face, however carelessly, and these four men would die. They would have to die. The sergeant was stretched out his length now, two men holding his legs. His head and shoulders were over the edge of the cliff, the beam from his torch stabbing down the chimney. For ten, perhaps fifteen seconds, there was no sound on the cliff-top, no sound at all, only the high, keening moan of the wind and the swish of the rain in the stunted grass. And then the sergeant had wriggled back and risen to his feet, slowly shaking his head. Mallory gestured to the others to sink down behind the boulders again, but even so the sergeant's soft Bavarian voice carried clearly in the wind. "It's Ehrich all right, poor fellow." Compassion and anger blended curiously in the voice. "I warned him often enough about his carelessness, about going too near the edge of that cliff. It is very treacherous." Instinctively lcd screen protector for digital camera the sergeant stepped back a couple of feet and looked again at the gouge in the soft earth. "That's where his heel slippedor 'maybe the butt of his carbine. Not that it matters now." "Is he dead, do you think, Sergeant?" The speaker was only a boy, nervous and unhappy. "It's hard to say.. . . Look for yourself." Gingerly the youth lay down on the cliff-top, peering cautiously over the lip of the rock. The other soldiers were talking among themselves, in short staccato sentences, when Mallory turned to Miller, cupped his hands to his mouth and the American's ear. He could contain his puzzlement no longer. "Was Stevens wearing his dark suit when you left him?" he whispered. "Yeah," Miller whispered back. "Yeah, I think he was." A pause. "No, thmmit, I'm wrong. We both put on our rubber camouflage capes about the same time." Mallory nodded. The waterproofs of the Germans were almost identical with their own: and the sentry's hair, Mallory remembered, had been jet blackthe same colour as Stevens's dyed hair. Probably all that was visible from above was a crumpled, cape-shrouded figure and a dark head. The sergeant's mistake in identity was more than understandable: it was inevitable. The young soldier eased himself back from the edge of the cliff and hoisted himself carefully to his feet. "You're right, Sergeant. It is Ebrich." The boy's voice was unsteady. "He's alive, I think. I saw his cape move, just a little. It wasn't the wind, I'm sure of that." Mallory felt Andrea's massive hand squeezing his arm, felt the quick surge of relief, then elation, wash through him. So Stevens was alive! Thank God for that! They'd save the boy yet. He heard Andrea whispering the news to the others, then grinned wryly to himself, ironic at his own gladness. Jensen definitely would not have approved of this jubilation. Stevens had already done his part, navigated the boat to Navarone and climbed the cliff: and now he was only a crippled liability, would be a drag on the whole party, reduce what pitiful chances of success remained to them. For a High Command who pushed the counters around crippled pawns slowed up the whole game, made the board so damnably untidy. It was most inconsiderate of Stevens not to have killed himself so that they could have disposed of him neatly and without trace in the deep and hungry waters that

And kist his wounds that were so red.

energy-sapping layer under their leaden-footed boots, until they stumbled along inches above the - ground, leg muscles aching from the sheer accumulated weight of snow. There was no visibility worthy of the name, not even of a matter of feet, they were blanketed, swallowed up by an impenetrable cocoon of swirling grey and white, unchanging, featureless: Louki strode on diagonally upwards across the slope with the untroubled certainty of a man walking up his own garden path. Louki seemed as agile as a mountain goat, and as tireless. Nor was his tongue less nimble, less unwearied than his legs. He talked incessantly, a man overjoyed to be in action again, no matter what action so long, as it was against the enemy. He told Mallory of the last three attacks on the island and how they had so bloodily failedthe Germans had been somehow forewarned of the seaborne assault, had been waiting for the Special Boat Service and the Commandos with everything they had and had cut them to pieces, while the two airborne groups had had the most evil luck, been delivered up to the enemy by misjudgment, by a series of unforeseeable coincidences; or how Panayis and himself had on both occasions narrowly escaped with their livesPanayis had actually been captured the last time, had killed both his guards and escaped unrecognised; of the disposition of the German troops and check-points throughout the island, the location of the road blocks on the only two roads; and, finally, of what little he himself knew of the layout of the fortress of Navarone itself. Panayis, the dark one, could tell him more of that, Louki said: twice Panayis had been inside the fortress, once for an entire night: the guns, the control rooms, the barracks, the officers' quarters, the magazine, the turbo rooms, the sentry pointshe knew where each one lay, to the inch. Mallory whistled softly to himself. This was more than he had ever dared hope for. They had still to escape the net of searchers, still to reach the fortress, still to get inside it. But once insideand Panayis must know how to get inside. . . . Unconsciously Mallory lengthened his stride, bent his back to the slope. "Your friend Panayis must be quite something," he said slowly. "Tell me more about him, Louki." "What can I tell 'you?" Louki shook his head in a little flurry of snowflakes. "What do I know of Panayis? What does anyone know of Panayis? That he has the luck of the devil, the courage of a madman and that sooner the lion will lie down with the lamb, the starving wolf spare vancouver digital camera repair the flock, than Panayis breathe the same air as the Germans? We all know that, and we know nothing of Panayis. All I know is that I thank God I am no German, with Panayis on the island. He strikes by stealth, by night, by knife and in the back." Louki crossed himself. "His hands are full of blood." Mallory shivered involuntarily. The dark, sombre figure of Panayis, the memory of the expressionless face, the hooded eyes, were beginning to fascinate him. "There's more to him- than that, surely," Mallory argued. "After all, you are both Navaronians" "Yes, yes, that is so." "This is a small island, you've lived together all your lives" "Ah, but that is where the Major is wrong!" Mallory's promotion in rank was entirely Louki's own idea: despite Mallory's protests and explanations he seemed determined to stick to it. "I, Louki, was for many years in foreign lands, helping Monsieur Viachos. Monsieur Viachos," Louki said with pride, - "is a very important Government official." "I know," Mallory nodded. "A consul. I've met him. He is a very fine man." "You have met him! Monsieur Vlachos?" There was no mistaking the gladness, the delight in Louki's voice. "That is good! That is wonderful! Later you must tell me more. He is a great man. Did I ever tell you" "We were speaking about Panayis," Mallory reminded him gently. "Ah, yes, Panayis. As I was saying, I was away for a long time. When I came back, Panayis was gone. His father had died, his mother had married again and Panayis had gone to live with his stepfather and two little stepsisters in Crete. His stepfather, half-fisherman, halffarmer, was killed in fighting the Germans near, Candiathis was in the beginning. Panayis took over the boat of his father, helped many of the Allies to escape until he was caught by the Germans, strung up by his wrists in the village squarewhere his family livednot far from Casteli. He was flogged till the white of his ribs, of his backbone, was there for all to see, and left for dead. Then they burnt the village and Panayis's familydisappeared. You understand, Major?" "I understand," Mallory said grimly. "But Panayis" "He should have died. But he is tough, that one, tougher than a knot in an old carob tree. Friends cut him down