‘Quite right, Lieutenant, quite right,’ Skoda murmured approvingly. ‘These are dangerous men and one cannot take chances with dangerous men.’ He pushed back his chair, rose easily to his feet, strolled round the table and stopped in front of Andrea. ‘Except maybe this one, Lieutenant?’
‘He is dangerous only to his friends,’ Turzig said shortly. ‘It is as I told you, sir. He would betray his mother to save his own skin.’
‘And claiming friendship with us, eh?’ Skoda asked musingly. ‘One of our gallant allies, Lieutenant.’ Skoda reached out a gentle hand, brought it viciously down and across Andrea’s cheek, the heavy signet ring on his middle finger tearing skin and flesh. Andrea cried out in pain, capped one hand to his bleeding face and cowered away, his right arm raised above his head in blind defence.
‘A notable addition to the armed forces of the Third Reich,’ Skoda murmured. ‘You were not mistaken, Lieutenant. A poltroon – the instinctive reaction of a hurt man is an infallible guide. It is curious,’ he mused, ‘how often very big men are thus. Part of nature’s compensatory process, I suppose … What is your name, my brave friend?’
‘Papagos,’ Andrea muttered sullenly. ‘Peter Papagos.’ He took his hand away from his cheek, looked at it with eyes slowly widening with horror, began to rub it across his trouser leg with jerky, hurried movements, the repugnance on his face plain for every man to see. Skoda watched him with amusement.
‘You do not like to see blood, Papagos, eh?’ he suggested. ‘Especially your own blood?’
A few seconds passed in silence, then Andrea lifted his head suddenly, his fat face screwed up in misery. He looked as if he were going to cry.
‘I am only a poor fisherman, your Honour!’ he burst out. ‘You laugh at me and say I do not like blood, and it is true. Nor do I like suffering and war. I want no part of any of these things!’ His great fists were clenched in futile appeal, his face puckered in woe, his voice risen an octave. It was a masterly exhibition of despair and even Mallory found himself almost believing in it. ‘Why wasn’t I left alone?’ he went on pathetically. ‘God only knows I am no fighting man –’
‘A highly inaccurate statement,’ Skoda interrupted dryly. ‘That fact must be patently obvious to every person in the room by this time.’ He tapped his teeth with a jade cigarette-holder, his eyes speculative. ‘A fisherman you call yourself –’
‘He’s a damned traitor!’ Mallory interrupted. The commandant was becoming just that little bit too interested in Andrea. At once Skoda wheeled round, stood in front of Mallory with his hands clasped behind his back, teetering on heels and toes, and looked him up and down in mocking inspection.
‘So!’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The great Keith Mallory! A rather different proposition from our fat and fearful friend on the bench there, eh, Lieutenant?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘What rank are you, Mallory?’
‘Captain,’ Mallory answered briefly.
‘Captain Mallory, eh? Captain Keith Mallory, the greatest mountaineer of our time, the idol of pre-war Europe, the conqueror of the world’s most impossible climbs.’ Skoda shook his head sadly. ‘And to think that it should all end like this … I doubt whether posterity will rank your last climb as among your greatest: there are only ten steps leading to the gallows in the fortress of Navarone.’ Skoda smiled. ‘Hardly a cheerful thought, is it, Captain Mallory?’
‘I wasn’t even thinking about it,’ the New Zealander answered pleasantly. ‘What worries me is your face.’ He frowned. ‘Somewhere or other I’m sure I’ve seen it or something like it before.’ His voice trailed off into silence.
‘Indeed?’ Skoda was interested. ‘In the Bernese Alps, perhaps? Often before the war –’
‘I have it now!’ Mallory’s face cleared. He knew the risk he was taking, but anything that concentrated attention on himself to the exclusion of Andrea was justified. He beamed at Skoda. ‘Three months ago, it was, in the zoo in Cairo. A plains buzzard that had been captured in the Sudan. A rather old and mangy buzzard, I’m afraid,’ Mallory went on apologetically, ‘but exactly the same scrawny neck, the same beaky face and bald head –’
Mallory broke off abruptly, swayed back out of reach as Skoda, his face livid and gleaming teeth bared in rage, swung at him with his fist. The blow carried with it all Skoda’s wiry strength, but anger blurred his timing and the fist swung harmlessly by: he stumbled, recovered, then fell to the floor with a shout of pain as Mallory’s heavy boot caught him flush on the thigh, just above the knee. He had barely touched the floor when he was up like a cat, took a pace forward and collapsed heavily again as his injured leg gave under him.
There was a moment’s shocked stillness throughout the room, then Skoda rose painfully, supporting himself on the edge of the heavy table. He was breathing quickly, the thin mouth a hard, white line, the great sabre scar flaming redly in the sallow face drained now of all colour. He looked neither at Mallory nor anyone else, but slowly, deliberately, in an almost frightening silence, began to work his way round to the back of the table, the scuffling of his sliding palms on the leather top rasping edgily across overtautened nerves.
Mallory stood quite still, watching him with expressionless face, cursing himself for his folly. He had overplayed his hand. There was no doubt in his mind – there could be no doubt in the mind of anyone in that room – that Skoda meant to kill him; and he, Mallory, would not die. Only Skoda and Andrea would die: Skoda from Andrea’s throwing knife – Andrea was rubbing blood from his face with the inside of his sleeve, fingertips only inches from the sheath – and Andrea from the guns of the guards, for the knife was all he had. You fool, you fool, you bloody stupid fool, Mallory repeated to himself over and over again. He turned his head slightly and glanced out of the corner of his eye at the sentry nearest him. Nearest him – but still six or seven feet away. The sentry would get him, Mallory knew, the blast of the slugs from the Schmeisser would tear him in half before he could cover the distance. But he would try. He must try. It was the least he owed to Andrea.
Skoda reached the back of the table, opened a drawer and lifted out a gun. An automatic, Mallory noted with detachment – a little, blue-metal, snub-nosed toy – but a murderous toy, the kind of gun he would have expected Skoda to have. Unhurriedly Skoda pressed the release button, checked the magazine, snapped it home with the palm of his hand, flicked off the safety catch and looked up at Mallory. The eyes hadn’t altered in the slightest – they were cold, dark and empty as ever. Mallory flicked a glance at Andrea and tensed himself for one convulsive fling backwards. Here it comes, he thought savagely, this is how bloody fools like Keith Mallory die – and then all of a sudden, and unknowingly, he relaxed, for his eyes were still on Andrea and he had seen Andrea doing the same, the huge hand slipping down unconcernedly from the neck, empty of any sign of knife.
There was a scuffle at the table and Mallory was just in time to see Turzig pin Skoda’s gun-hand to the table-top.
‘Not that, sir!’ Turzig begged. ‘For God’s sake, not that way!’
‘Take your hands away,’ Skoda whispered. The staring, empty eyes never left Mallory’s face. ‘Take your hands away, I say – unless you want to go the same way as Captain Mallory.’
‘You can’t kill him, sir!’ Turzig persisted doggedly. ‘You just can’t. Herr Kommandant’s orders were very clear, Hauptmann Skoda. The leader must be brought to him alive.’
‘He was shot while trying to escape,’ Skoda said thickly.
‘It’s no good.’ Turzig shook his head. ‘We can’t kill them all – and the other prisoners would talk.’ He released his grip on Skoda’s hands. ‘Alive, Herr Kommandant said, but he didn’t say how much alive.’ He lowered his voice confidentially. ‘Perhaps we may have some difficulty in making Captain Mallory talk,’ he suggested.
‘What!