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 sergeant-pilot 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 –’