the mists. He wasn't in any hurry to reply – time was a factor the German clearly valued, as though he were following a carefully worked out timetable, and Prentice had detected a note of anxiety, behind the question, so his reply was deliberately non-informative. 'To travel from Istanbul to Zervos,' he said. For a horrible second he thought he had made a fatal mistake. Hahnemann's finger tightened on the trigger and Prentice braced himself for the lacerating burst of bullets, but the German regained control and. smiled unpleasantly.
'That I understood! Now, Lieutenant Prentice, before I shoot Sergeant Ford in the stomach I will ask the question again. Why are you travelling on this particular ship on this particular night? You understand? Good.'
Prentice found he was sweating badly on the palms of his hands and under his armpits. He hadn't the least idea of what Hahnemann was talking about but he doubted whether he could convince the German of this. His brain reeled as he sought desperately for words which might half-satisfy their interrogator, and with a tremendous effort he managed a ghastly smile in an endeavour to lower the temperature before it was too late. 'I take it you're in the German army?' For the first time Hahnemann showed a trace of uncertainty and Prentice followed up his tiny advantage quickly. 'Then you'll know that according to the Geneva Convention all we have to give you is name, rank and number. You've got those there on that table already.'
It was a hair-line gamble, switching the conversation to this topic, but Prentice was counting on the German's training to make him pause, to cool his anger, to gain control again. To his great relief he saw the machine-pistol muzzle swing to a point between himself and Ford where it could fire in either direction. The German had, at least temporarily, recovered his balance. Prentice had now assessed Hahnemann as a highly trained individual who normally kept an ice-cold grip on his emotions, but who also, occasionally, in a state of fury, lost that grip and went berserk. They had just witnessed such an occasion when their lives had trembled on the brink.
'What were you doing in Turkey?' Hahnemann asked suddenly.
Trying to get a berth home to Athens.' Prentice's quick tongue rattled on. 'And the civilian clothes were loaned to us by the Turks. Our ship struck a mine off the Turkish coast two days ago and we were dragged out of the sea more dead than alive. We were the only survivors – and don't ask me the name of the ship or how many she was carrying because you wouldn't answer that either if I were holding the gun. And don't ask me why the Turks didn't intern us because I don't know – except that they seemed damned glad to get rid of us at the earliest possible moment. They'd have put us on the normal Istanbul-Athens service, but that was cancelled at the last minute so we were hustled aboard this ferry. The first available ship out, they said – and this was it.'
It had been a long speech and he hoped to God that it had satisfied Hahnemann on the one question which seemed to bother him – why were they aboard the Hydra? There was a hint of respect in the German's eyes now and Prentice decided to press a point home, forgetting that it's always a mistake to overdo a good thing.
'So we're your prisoners-of-war at the moment,' Prentice continued, 'but don't forget that the Royal Navy controls the Aegean. If there's a British destroyer in the area you may find me holding that gun within a few hours, so let's drop the threats.'
'There is a British destroyer near here?' The gun muzzle was aimed straight at Prentice's chest and the note of cold fury had come back into the German's voice. 'You know this?' The words were an accusation and Hahnemann's jaw muscles were rigid with tension, a tension which instantly communicated itself to the two men with their backs to the wall. The tip of the gun muzzle quivered, the outward sign of the nervous vibration bottled up inside the man holding the weapon. Christ! Prentice was thinking, we're a nervous twitch away from a fusillade. Where the devil did I go wrong? He spoke carefully but quickly, his eyes fixed on Hahnemann's as he struggled to gauge the effect of his words while he was talking. 'I'm not thinking of any particular destroyer – I'm in the army, not the navy – you know that. But these seas are constantly patrolled so it's just a matter of luck – yours or ours.' He shut up, hoping for the best, determined not to overdo it a second time. His shirt was clinging to his wet back and he daren't look at Ford in case Hahnemann thought he was passing a signal. It was becoming a nightmare and he had a grisly feeling they might not live through it.
Turn round and lie on the floor – stretch out your hands to the fullest extent.'
The unexpected order threw Prentice off balance; it was impossible to keep up with this German through his swift changes of mood, but at least there weren't going to be any more of those trigger-loaded questions. He was on his knees when he grasped the meaning of the order, saw out of the corner of his eye the vicious arc of the machine-pistol butt descending on poor Ford's head, and as the sergeant slumped unconscious over the floor he swung round to swear at the German. The muzzle was aimed point-blank at his chest. Prentice was obeying the fresh order to look at the wall when a ton-weight landed on his tender scalp. A brilliant burst of light flashed before his eyes and then vanished in the flood of darkness which overwhelmed him.
The rifle muzzle was pressed into Macomber's face when he opened the cabin door in response to the urgent knocking, and the threat was accompanied by an apology in German. 'You must remain in your cabin until further orders, Herr Dietrich. I am sorry…'
'Whose orders?' Macomber stood with his hand behind his back, his manner harsh and unimpressed by the sight of the weapon. For a moment it seemed as though he would push Volber out of the way by walking straight into him The German had paused, uncertain how to handle this aggressive reaction, but Hahnemann, who stood close behind with a machine-pistol in bis hands, was not taken aback.
'By order of the Wehrmacht!'
Macomber stared past Volber, ignoring the squat man as he gazed bleakly at Hahnemann. Again it seemed as though he would push the rifle barrel aside and Hahnemann instinctively raised his own weapon. 'That is not enough,' Macomber rumbled Teutonically. 'The officer's name, if you please.' He might have been a colonel addressing a subordinate.
'Lieutenant Hahnemann, Alpenkorps.' The German had replied automatically and had felt the reflex of snapping his heels to attendon, but he desisted just in time. Now he was furious with his own reply, but there was something about the passenger which he found intimidating, an air of authority which was disturbing. 'You will stay in your cabin,' he barked. 'Do you understand? Anyone found outside their cabin without permission will be shot!' Immediately he had spoken he had doubts, and the steely look in Macomber's eye was anything but reassuring. Who the hell could he be? 'Lieutenant Hahnemann?' Macomber repeated slowly, and there was an uncomfortable, mocking note in his voice. 'I think I can remember that for later!'
Hahnemann persisted, but more quietly. 'Please give my sergeant the key of your cabin so it can be locked from the outside.'
Macomber gazed thoughtfully at Hahnemann a moment longer, then turning on his heel so that the cabin door hid part of his body, he slipped the Luger back inside bis coat pocket and re-entered the cabin, ignoring the request for the key. Volber he could have dealt with, but the lieutenant's machine-pistol was quite another matter. With a muttered expression of annoyance Hahnemann walked forward, extracted the key himself and locked the door on the outside. The Scot straightened up from the newspaper spread over the table, his expression grim. This was even worse than he had imagined: they were taking over the whole ship.
His initial reaction on opening the door was that the assassins had come for him- This fleeting impression had been succeeded by the revelation that they were not interested in him at all, that a major Wehrmacht operation was under way, a stroke as audacious as the Norwegian campaign*. He stood listening, his head cocked to one side. Yes, he was right – the Hydra 's engines were slowing. For the mid-sea rendezvous, of course. They must have taken control of the engine-room at an earlier stage and by now they would command the bridge. An efficient operation planned with the usual meticulous care and attention to detail – including the bringing aboard of Herr Schnell and his outsize cabin trunk containing the weapons. Retrieving his smoking cigar from the ash-tray, he switched off the light and used his torch to find his way across the cabin to the porthole.
The Hydra 's engines had almost stopped and the Rupescu was so close that a collision seemed likely. Standing by the porthole without any attempt at concealment, his cigar glowing for anyone who cared to see it, he watched the transfer of the German troops from the Rumanian vessel to the Greek ferry. The soldiers, wearing life- jackets, were coping with a heavy swell – had they arrived later or had the weather worsened earlier the operation might have proved impossible. German luck again, Macomber thought bitterly – like the luck of the marvellous weather over France in 1940. You can't get far without luck, he was thinking as he watched a boatload of troops being lowered to the sea. There must have been almost twenty men aboard and he was praying for an accident as the craft almost capsized when the waves heaved up to meet it, but at the last moment someone released the ropes and the boat followed the natural curvature of the sea. The uniformed troops wore soft, large-peaked caps and were heavily laden with equipment. Alpenkorps. A unit of the elite mountain troops who had conquered Norway, men trained to fight in appalling terrain such as the peninsula of Zervos.
