‘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 Vlachos 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 Vlachos 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.’ Vlachos’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 skill nor the experience for successful 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.’ Vlachos 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 tonight,’ the old man whispered. ‘God go with you tonight. I only wish that I could go too.’
‘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, sorry.’ 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 Castelrosso, 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 transatlantic 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.