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Miller lit one of the pungent, evil-smelling local cigarettes, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
«Damn' fu
«Put your cigarette out,» Mallory suggested.
«You wouldn't believe it, but the smell I'm smelling is a damn' sight worse than that.»
«Hashish,» Mallory said briefly. «The curse of these island ports.» He nodded over towards a dark corner. «The lads of the village over there will be at it every night in life. It's all they live for.»
«Do they have to make that gawddamned awful racket when they're at it?» Miller asked peevishly. «Toscanini should see this lot!»
Mallory looked at the small group in the corner, clustered round the young man playing a bouzouko--a long-necked mandolin — and singing the haunting, nostalgic rembetika songs of the hashish smokers of the Piraeus. He supposed the music did have a certain melancholy, lotus-land attraction, but right then it jarred on him. One had to be in a certain twi-lit, untroubled mood to appreciate that sort of thing; and he had never felt less untroubled in his life.
«I suppose it is a bit grim,» he admitted. «But at least it lets us talk together, which we couldn't do if they all packed up and went home.»
«I wish to hell they would,» Miller said morosely. «I'd gladly keep my mouth shut.» He picked distastefully at the meze--a mixture of chopped olives, liver, cheese and apples — on the plate before him; as a good American and a bourbon drinker of long standing he disapproved strongly of the invariable Greek custom of eating when drinking. Suddenly he looked up and crushed his cigarette against the table top. «For Gawd's sake, boss, how much longer?»
Mallory looked at him, then looked away. He knew exactly how Dusty Miller felt, for he felt that way himself — tense, keyed-up, every nerve strung to the tautest pitch of efficiency. So much depended on the next few minutes; whether all their labour and their suffering had been necessary, whether the men on Kheros would live or die, whether Andy Stevens had lived and died in vain. Mallory looked at Miller again, saw the nervous hands, the deepened wrinkles round the eyes, the tightly compressed mouth, white at the outer corners, saw all these signs of strain, noted them and discounted them. Excepting Andrea alone, of all the men he had ever known he would have picked the lean, morose American to be his companion that night. Or maybe even including Andrea. «The finest saboteur in southern Europe» Captain Jensen had called him back in Alexandria. Miller had come a long way from Alexandria, and he had come for this alone. To-night was Miller's night.
Mallory looked at his watch.
«Curfew in fifteen minutes,» he said quietly. «The balloon goes up in twelve minutes. For us, another four minutes to go.»
Miller nodded, but said nothing. He filled his glass again from the beaker in the middle of the table, lit a cigarette. Mallory could see a nerve twitching high up in his temple and wondered dryly how many twitching nerves Miller could see in his own face. He wondered, too, how the crippled Casey Brown was getting on in the house they had just left. In many ways he had the most responsible job of all — and at the critical moment he would have to leave the door unguarded, move back to the balcony. One slip up there… . He saw Miller look strangely at him and gri
He wondered if the other two were at their posts, unmolested; they should be, the search party had long passed through the upper part of the town; but you never knew what could go wrong, there was so much that could go wrong, and so easily. Mallory looked at his watch again: he had never seen a second hand move so slowly. He lit a last cigarette, poured a final glass of wine, listened without really hearing to the weird, keening threnody of the rembetika song in the corner. And then the song of the hashish singers died plaintively away, the glasses were empty and Mallory was on his feet.
«Time bringeth all things,» he murmured. «Here we go again.»
He sauntered easily towards the door, calling good night to the tavernaris. Just at the doorway he paused, began to search impatiently through his pockets as if he had lost something: it was a windless night, and it was raining, he saw, raining heavily, the lances of rain bouncing inches off the cobbled street — and the street itself was deserted as far as he could see in either direction. Satisfied, Mallory swung round with a curse, forehead furrowed in exasperation, started to walk back towards the table he had just left, right hand now delving into the capacious i
«Keep quite still!» He spoke in German, his voice low but as steady, as menacing, as the Navy Colt .455 balanced in his right hand. «We are desperate men. If you move we will kill you.»
For a full, three seconds the soldiers sat immobile, expressionless except for the shocked widening of their eyes. And then there was a quick flicker of the eyelids from the man sitting nearest the counter, a twitching of the shoulder and then a grunt of agonyas the .32 bullet smashed into his upper arm. The soft thud of Miller's silenced automatic couldn't have been heard beyond the doorway.
«Sorry, boss,» Miller apologised. «Mebbe be's only sufferin' from St. Vitus' Dance.» He looked with interest at the pain-twisted face, the blood welling darkly be.. tween the fingers clasped tightly over the wound. «But he looks kinda cured to me.»
«He is cured,» Mallory said grimly. He turned to the i
The tavernaris shook his head. Completely unruffled and unimpressed, he seemed to regard armed hold-ups in his tavern as the rule rather than the exception.
«Not them!» he said contemptuously. «English a little, I think — I am sure. But not our language. That I do know.»
«Good. I am a British Intelligence officer. Have you a place where I can hide these men?»
«You shouldn't have done this,» the tavernaris protested mildly. «I will surely die for this.»
«Oh, no, you Won't.» Mallory had slid across the counter, his pistol boring into the man's midriff. No one could doubt that the man was being threatened — and violently threatened — no one, that is, who couldn't see the broad wink that Mallory had given the i
«All right. There is a trap-door at the end of the counter here. Steps lead down to the cellar.»
«Good enough. I'll find it by accident.» Mallory gave him a vicious and all too convincing shove that sent the man staggering, vaulted back across the counter, walked over to the rembetika singers at the far corner of the room.
«Go home,» he said quickly. «It is almost curfew time anyway. Go out the back way, and remember — you have seen nothing, no one. You understand?»
«We understand.» It was the young bouzouko player who spoke. He jerked his thumb at his companions and gri
«No!» Mallory was emphatic. «Think of your families — these soldiers have recognised you. They must know you weli — you and they are here most nights, is that not so?»
The young man nodded.