To Risks Unknown Page 21

  The commandant crossed to Crespin’s side. ‘It would be better if you anchor now. You are in twenty metres of water here and it is good holding ground.’ He moved his pistol holster to the front of his belt. ‘I will send a patrol ashore in one of the boats. I am not happy that it is so quiet.’

  Crespin signalled to Ross, and after the customary stamp on the deck the engine rattled into silence. By comparison the sound of the outrunning anchor cable seemed terrifying, but Soskic said briefly, ‘It is safe here. The village is around the next headland. I know this place well.’

  Crespin did not ask him why he was still apprehensive or the reason for anchoring the schooner so far from the picking-up point. Time was short, but Soskic did not seem the sort of man who would waste it unnecessarily.

  One of the two heavy fishing dinghies was warped alongside and six partisans jumped down into it. They seemed to have little idea of stealth, and Coutts groaned as one man dropped his machine-pistol and another shouted curses at him for his carelessness.

  He said, ‘I’ll go with them if you like?’

  Soskic studied him in the darkness. ‘You will please stay here. You may think that my men are amateurs and unfit for their work, yes? But what they lack in training they have much to offer in experience.’ He brushed past Coutts and barked an order to the dinghy. The oars splashed noisily until the men picked up some sort of stroke and almost immediately vanished beneath the blacker shadow of the cliffs.

  Coutts said irritably, ‘I suppose he thinks I’ll have them all forming threes or something!’

  Crespin sat on the hatch coaming and tried to pitch his ear above the sluice of water around the swaying hull. The first part, in spite of the primitive arrangements, had gone well. At any staff college this sort of operation would have been ridiculed even if it was considered, he thought. It was all a question of trust and knowing the individual strength and weakness of each man involved. He felt the heavy pistol dragging at his hip and thought of the small partisan who had returned it to him. It had been the same man who had so neatly whipped it from his holster as he had climbed from the dory. He would probably have killed him without hesitation if Soskic had so ordered, but he had handed back the pistol with the eager simplicity of a child who had been proved wrong. There were no words. Just a cheerful grin, and the fact that the weapon had been carefully oiled and cleaned as an additional mark of mutual respect.

  A full hour dragged by with nothing but the sea noises to break the silence. Coutts sat slumped against the bulwark staring at the deck, and Crespin wondered if he could ever get used to this way of fighting a war. There was always uncertainty. Always an overriding sense of danger and helplessness.

  Then two of the partisans stood up and cocked their weapons, and Ross said, ‘Here they come!’

  The big dinghy bumped against the hull, and breathing heavily the returning patrol climbed aboard.

  Soskic spoke with the leader for several minutes, his head bobbing in time to the curt questions and answers, the descriptive gestures of the other man’s hands.

  Then he looked at Crespin and said harshly, ‘We are too late. As I feared, the Chetniks have discovered our purpose here. I do not know how it happened, but someone must have betrayed us!’

  He spoke with such bitterness that Crespin could feel his despair.

  He replied quietly, ‘What did your men find?’

  ‘There is a German patrol in the village. Those Royalist swine would not have dared to attack unless there was help nearby. Most of our people are penned in some sheds under guard. No doubt they will be transported elsewhere for interrogation very soon.’ He drew one hand across his mouth. ‘Some have already died. They are lying at the roadside like slaughtered animals!’ He seemed to take a fresh grip on himself. ‘There is nothing for us to do but return to Gradz. There will be other days, and when the time comes we will not forget.’

  Crespin saw the other partisans standing round them, listening in silence. Theirs was to have been a small gesture, but to men who had already lost families and friends and were condemned to death for their resistance, it must mean a great deal.

  He said, ‘Do you know who is in charge of these Chetniks?’

  Soskic nodded. ‘His name is Kolak. He was a colonel in the Royal Guard before the occupation. He was the one who attacked my village on Gradz. Whose word I wanted to trust. Now he has shown his hand as only his sort can. He is outwardly working with the Germans. For that he has lost the right to live!’

  Crespin touched his arm. ‘If he found out about your plan it must have been after his attack?’

  ‘That is so. But how can that help?’

  ‘Then he cannot know about the schooner.’ Crespin could feel the man’s mind grappling with his words. ‘He knows that your one large boat was sunk and that you are not the kind of man who would attempt to rescue these people in a few oared dinghies.’

  Soskic looked at him closely. ‘That is true! And he knows me. Any such plan would have been out of the question!’

  Crespin continued, ‘If you were in his position, what would you expect?’

  Soskic’s hand rasped over his beard. ‘I have the village. I have the hostages. I would expect that any attack would come from inland. A mass escape rather than a rescue attempt, eh?’ He gripped Crespin’s wrist tightly. ‘How does that sound to you?’

  Crespin nodded. ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘But why are we talking like this?’ Soskic’s hand dropped helplessly to his side. ‘If we make an attack from the sea we must do it in daylight. Even if we succeeded there is still the voyage back to Gradz. And how long do you think it would be before Kapitan Lemke’s ship came looking for us?’

  Crespin felt the excitement running through him like madness. ‘I still believe it is worth a try! You said yourself that the Nashorn’s movements are measured by the clock. Maybe we were wrong to think that Lemke has no weakness. Perhaps his devotion to punctuality is that weakness.’

  Soskic stared at him. ‘He is not due to pass Gradz until midday tomorrow.’

  Coutts interrupted, ‘It’s tomorrow now!’

  Soskic ignored him. ‘You’re right. We might just succeed.’ He rapped out another question to the patrol leader. Then he said, ‘The Germans are few in number. Just one half-tracked vehicle and maybe half a dozen men.’

  Crespin wondered how the patrol had found out so much in so little time. Their efficiency obviously far outweighed their lack of precision and smartness. He said, ‘I suggest that you land most of your men right away. Get them in position above the village.’

  He thought suddenly of the marine major who had died on the Sicilian raid. ‘Plenty of noise and confusion,’ he had said.

  He continued, ‘As soon as it gets light enough you can start a mock attack. Use everything you’ve got, grenades, anything you can lay hands on, but don’t show yourselves. Make them think you’ve roused the whole partisan army!’

  Soskic asked, ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘Sail this old tub right into the cove by the village.’ It sounded so simple that he wanted to laugh. Anything to release some of this rising insanity. ‘They won’t know which way to run!’

  The commandant nodded, suddenly calm. ‘That is what we will do.’ He beckoned to several of his men and began to explain what he wanted.

  Coutts blew out his cheeks. ‘Now I’ve heard everything. You actually told him what to do.’ He looked at Ross who was grinning broadly. ‘Not only that, but he listened!’

  Crespin shrugged. ‘Well, you said it was your job to bring me here. After that it was up to me, remember?’ He pushed through the chattering men beside the hatch. ‘Now haul up that other dinghy and get ready to start the engine again.’ He put an edge to his voice. ‘If that bloody relic breaks down I’ll have your guts for garters!’

  Ross prised the Yugoslav helmsman’s hands from the wheel and grinned. ‘You go with your lot, matey! This time it’s a job for the professionals.’

&
nbsp; Preston sauntered back from the bows, his hands in his pockets. To nobody in particular he exclaimed, ‘It just goes to show, doesn’t it? There are a few regular officers about who know what’s what after all!’

  Coutts eyed him coldly. ‘Thanks.’ He pulled out his Lüger and rubbed it against his leg. ‘Thanks for damn all!’

  ‘Keep as close inshore as you can!’ Crespin saw Ross’s hands ease the spokes over and watched as the small bow wave creamed away to break across the fallen rocks at the foot of the cliff. The schooner was steering parallel with the land, so that the cliffs seemed to hang directly overhead, catching the sound of their passing and throwing back the engine’s throaty growl in a never-ending echo. From high, unseen ledges flocks of disturbed gulls rose flapping and screaming, and then dived down over the two vibrating masts before circling back to their nests to stare after the intruder with ruffled annoyance.

  Crespin looked at his watch and then up at the cliff top where already the sky was changing to a hard grey. In the dull light he could see the schooner’s crew and the remaining handful of partisans crouching along either bulwark, their weapons trained outboard and ready. In the bows Preston lay beside the rusty cable, a Bren cradled against his cheek while he poked the muzzle through a fairlead and stared at the dark line which marked the edge of land around which lay the cove and the village.

  The engine was throttled right down but it was still too noisy. Before they could swing to starboard and head for the beach they would have to turn slightly to seaward to avoid one isolated pinnacle of rock which rose against the murky sky in a towering black triangle. Those would be precious minutes lost. Time for a sentry to hear their engine and raise the alarm. Time for the enemy to realize what they were trying to do.

  He asked quietly, ‘How much water between that pinnacle and the cliffs, Skipper?’ He saw Ross staring over the bows. ‘At a guess?’

  Ross put his weight on the wheel and swung the stem slightly away from a telltale flurry of white spray. ‘There’s about sixty feet between them.’ His eyes narrowed with professional interest. ‘Not much depth though.’

  ‘Enough for us?’

  Ross seemed to realize what Crespin meant. ‘It’d be a tight squeeze, sir. Aye, there’ll not be a lot under her keel.’

  Crespin bit his lip. It had to be done. ‘In a minute I’ll want full speed. Everything that mechanic of yours can give you! We’ll head straight between that gap and go hard astarboard.’ He saw Ross nodding imperturbably. ‘Then, and only then, we’ll cut the engine completely and go for the beach. If we don’t hit anything she should have enough way on to reach it without using any more power at all.’

  He heard Ross shouting through the engine hatch and found time to wonder at the mechanic’s lonely existence. Unlike Magot, he had no one to talk to, nobody to explain the happenings of the world above his head.

  Ross grunted. ‘Ready when you are, sir.’

  ‘Right. Full ahead, Skipper!’ Crespin gripped the coaming and felt the deck begin to shiver and vibrate as if it would collapse beneath him. They were so close inshore now that the cliff seemed to be tearing past at an impossible speed, although he guessed it was probably less than ten knots. Faster and faster, with more enraged gulls sweeping around them in a noisy escort.

  Coutts stood beside him, his pistol in his hand. He watched the great rock pinnacle creeping out to port and murmured, ‘Too late to change your mind now. So here we go!’

  All at once they were churning between the two walls of rock, the water seething and leaping over each bulwark like a millrace as the schooner ploughed through the narrow gap. One partisan was pointing over the rail, his voice lost in the sounds of engine and backwash, but Crespin did not have to look to know that he had seen the sea’s bottom gliding up to meet their onrush, the littered fragments gleaming through the churned water like black teeth.

  Coutts said, ‘Christ, we’re through!’

  Crespin did not even hear him. ‘Hard astarboard! Cut engine!’ He almost fell as Ross put the wheel down and sent the little schooner pivoting around the last outflung arm of headland. And there was the cove, a wide crescent of beach at the far end, already grey in the dawn light, and beyond it, in a jumbled mass of stone and shadow, was the village.

  Somewhere on the hillside beyond the cove Soskic and his men must have seen the schooner’s erratic appearance, for in the seconds which followed the remaining shadows were split apart by murderous bursts of automatic fire, while from somewhere to the left came the heavier explosions of grenades.

  As the schooner’s keel cut a fine line across the sheltered water and the cove opened out to meet her more firing started from beyond the low huts and cottages, sporadic and vague at first, and then as the alarm was raised, heavier and with more controlled purpose.

  Crespin ran forward as Preston squeezed his trigger and sent a stream of tracers flicking across the water towards an open space between the houses. Like Crespin he had seen the crouching shape of the German half-track, and as he emptied his first magazine he saw sparks fly from the steel while more bullets ploughed into the sand around it, making it spurt into the air like jets of steam.

  Crespin seized his shoulder and shook it. ‘Not the halftrack!’ He had to shake him violently before he understood. Beside the parked vehicle Crespin had seen a small camouflaged tent where the German crew had no doubt been enjoying a sleep, safe in the knowledge they were in an occupied village. But now they were stumbling out of the tent, their bodies pale in their underclothes as they staggered towards the safety of the half-track. ‘Get them! If they reach that thing …’

  His words were lost in the renewed burst of tracer from the Bren as Preston shifted his sights. Three of the Germans fell kicking on the sand and another turned and ran back into the tent. The muzzle moved very slightly, and even in the poor light Crespin saw the bullets ripping it apart until it hung from its frame in tattered fragments.

  He yelled, ‘Stand by to beach!’

  Beyond the houses the hillside was criss-crossed with gunflashes and the sharp orange detonations of the grenades. There was smoke, too, and occasionally Crespin could see figures running from cover to cover, shooting, as they ran, some tailing, others crawling blindly until the next shots cut them down.

  With a groan of protest the stem drove into the beach, and as the schooner sidled awkwardly on the hard sand the men were already leaping over the bows, wading through the water with their weapons above their heads.

  Crespin shouted, ‘Covering fire with the Bren!’ Then he, too, was over the side, the sea dragging at his efforts to wade ashore, like a man in a nightmare. The water was surprisingly warm, and this fact seemed to steady him. Salt splashed across his face, and he realized that bullets were now coming towards the schooner. Behind him he heard the Bren rattle into life once more and felt the bullets fanning overhead in a hot wind.

  A partisan reached the beach first and lifted his Schmeisser to fire. Then he fell forward on to his face, and another man dropped almost by his side.

  But they were well up the beach now, with figures and objects looming out of the smoke, faces distorted and unreal as the Sten guns and pistols threw them back on to the sand, their blood making strange patterns which looked black in the dull light.

  Crespin saw Leading Seaman Allan fall on one knee, blood gushing from his mouth, and a partisan snatch his Sten as he ran past the dying seaman with hardly a pause before he reopened fire. One of the Germans in the tent had survived after all. He dashed out between the running figures, his hands above his head, his cries unheeded until a stray bullet brought him, too, kicking to the ground.

  Coutts saw him fall and fired two shots into his body as he ran past.

  Inside the tent the remaining German soldier leaned against a small field radio set, the microphone still gripped in one bloodied hand. The lower part of his face had been shot away, but his eyes stared up at Crespin with an expression of incredible hatred. The radio was buzzing beneath the
corpse until Crespin fired his pistol directly into it, the crash of the shot dragging his mind back from the edge of nausea and insanity.

  As he walked out of the tent he saw more people than ever surging around him, but this time they were strangers. Men and women, even children, clutching the grim-faced partisans, weeping and cheering, oblivious to the danger and the bullets which still whimpered towards the sea.

  Through the fog of his reeling mind Crespin realized that the firing was less and the bang of grenades seemed muffled and much further away.

  Coutts strode towards him, the Lüger replaced in its holster. He paused as he saw Crespin and threw up a salute which would have done credit to any Palace guard.

  ‘The village is ours, sir.’ He teeth showed white in his grimy face. ‘Any orders?’

  Crespin lifted his arm. ‘Don’t let the partisans blow up the half-track. There’s a four-barrelled Vierling gun on it. They could use it on Gradz.’ He wiped his forehead with his wrist. He felt dizzy and sick, yet something was still making him go on. He did not even recognize his own voice. ‘Tell Ross to send his mechanic here. He should be able to strip it.’

  Hands were pounding his shoulders, and a dark-haired woman with a deep cut above one eye was holding up a baby towards him like a talisman.

  Then Soskic came out of the smoke. ‘You did well, comrade!’ He was watching Crespin gravely. ‘Those carrion have run for the hillside.’

  Crespin gestured towards the tent. ‘That German may have had time to send a signal. We must get the schooner floated off immediately.’

  He swayed and Soskic steadied his arm, shouting above the voices which surged around them in a tide of excitement and relief. ‘My men will do it. She is only a little ship, but worth caring for, eh?’

  Crespin nodded and then walked back towards the sea’s edge. He could hear occasional shots and what sounded like screams. Perhaps those Germans had been the lucky ones after all.

  Coutts joined him and stopped to splash some water against his face and hands. He said, ‘I saw what the Chetniks did here. They butchered about thirty of the villagers. They raped the women first before killing them, of course.’