the rock cast across the road. He slowed down, braked under the lee of the rock, and followed Grapos out of the half-track, flexing his stiffened fingers which had become almost locked to the wheel.
They had climbed only a few feet when the Greek pulled the Scot close to the rock and whispered. 'I go up this side – you take the other and wait. If he hears me coming he will go down your side – you wait and he meets you.' Macomber nodded, scrambled stiffly back down through knee-deep snow to the road, gestured to the other two men to stay where they were, and made his way under the looming rock. The far side was a steep slope covered with harder snow where the east wind had blown over it, and he had climbed less than fifty feet before he came up behind a large boulder which provided a perfect ambush point. With his Luger in his hand he settled down to wait, and while he waited he stared out at the panoramic view.
The monastery was in sight. Mount Zervos, remote above the vagaries of the weather was fully exposed to view. Crouched behind his boulder, Macomber saw that it was as he remembered it – the huge bluff shouldered out from the mountain, hanging over the sea on one side while on the other it plunged hundreds of feet to the lake below. The walls of the monastery rose vertically from the summit of the bluff; four windowed slabs like giant watch-towers linked together by battlemented walls. They seemed to grow up out of the rocky bluff as they sheered upwards and were silhouetted against the sea with the mainland beyond, the most remote and ascetic hermitage in all Europe – and the ultimate objective of Colonel Burckhardt.
The sea was grey and choppy but comparatively calm as the last of the snowstorm crossed the gulf. Macomber doubted whether the snow had even reached the bluff this time, so once again the monastery had retained its unimpaired view across the sea to the mainland supply road. Below where he waited-the ground receded away to the lake, a stretch of water at least half a mile wide, a lake frozen solid. The road went down to the eastern shore, turned along the northern edge of the ice-sheet, and then vanished before reappearing at the far end, close to the sea at the point where it began its unseen ascent to the bluff. A good half mile of the road was lost, blocked completely by an immense mass of snow heaped up against the slope below Macomber. This was drift snow, probably anything up to thirty feet deep, snow blown there recently by the high wind and which would strangle any type of powered vehicle attempting to drive through it. He stared down at the frozen lake, a sheet of water which must have frozen steadily thicker throughout the long winter. Was it solid enough to support half- tracks and mountain guns? A rattle of disturbed stones beyond the boulder warned him that someone was coming.
'Do not shoot! Please!'
Grapos' voice. Macomber lowered his Luger, stood up and saw the Greek leaning against the rock face with his rifle hoisted harmlessly over his shoulder. 'What's wrong?' he asked sharply.
'He is dead. Come, you must see.'
'Who's dead?'
But the Greek had turned back and was scrambling up again through the snow, using one hand to lever his limping foot more rapidly up past the rock. Macomber swore at his ambiguousness and went up after him. When he arrived at the top, receiving the full blast of the wind in his face, Grapos was staring down at a flattened projection just below which spurred out over the road, and Macomber found he could see down past the spur into the half- track where Ford still sat on the rear bench while Prentice stood in the road gazing up at them with his machine- pistol at the ready.
The uniformed figure on the spur lay sprawled over a machine gun. His attitude was that of a soldier watching the road from the north, the road they had just driven down in the half-track, but despite the presence of the two men above him he remained in his life-like posture until Grapos reached down and prodded him with his rifle tip. The uniformed figure went over sideways and ended up on his back with his face staring at the sky, a face with a rigid look and an unnatural bluish tinge. The poor devil had frozen to death at his post. Macomber gazed down at the Alpenkorps uniform, the stiffened Alpenkorps cap which still clutched the head, the weapon which still stood mounted in position, the barrel encased in ice and frozen snow so that it had the appearance of a glass gun. The Germans were already on Zervos, had already penetrated the monastery.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sunday, Zero Hour
The attack on the monastery was planned, agreed in detail, and each man knew the part he had to play. The plan was Macomber's, a plan which relied on audacity, on an eruptive breakthrough into the heart of the sanctuary, and it was based on the unproven assumption that only a small number of Germans had taken over the place in preparation for the arrival of Burckhardt's army. It was also based on Grapos' intimate knowledge of the interior of the monastery, knowledge which Prentice had transferred to his notebook as a series of ground-plans which showed the layout. It was the basic assumption which still worried Prentice as he closed the book and tucked it inside his pocket.
'If there are more men up there than we think, we haven't a hope,' he warned.
'I agree,' Macomber replied briskly, 'but it's logical. They must have arrived as civilians – the only safe way they could travel before war was declared – and in that case a large party would arouse suspicion. They only faced the monks, so a few of them could do the job.' He checked his watch. 'And we've spent twenty-one minutes working this out, so we'd better get moving before Burckhardt lands on our tail. God knows there's enough to do in the time…'
He had kept the engine ticking over during their discussion; now he released the brake and the half-track began moving down towards the lake. Behind him the others were seated on the floor of the vehicle, their backs against its sides and their heads crouched forward, so from a distance it appeared that only Macomber, still wearing his Alpenkorps cap, occupied the vehicle. As they rumbled downhill at a steady pace the caterpillars whipped up the soft snow and cast it into the ditches on either side, and within a few minutes they had driven past the point where the road entered the massive snowdrift, had crossed a stretch of uneven ground and were pulling up at the eastern end of the lake to give Macomber a chance to study the ice. He would have liked to conduct a reconnaissance, to attempt walking out over the ice, but time was short. He had little faith in the Germans being held up for long by that boulder on the mountain ledge: with their manpower and the equipment they carried they would soon shift it higher up the ravine, and since he had negotiated the formidable road the weather had improved. German luck again. The wind, bitter and penetrating, whined eerily across the frozen sheet and he could see snow powder blowing over the dulled surface, but was Grapos right – right in his conviction that the prolonged winter had solidified the ice to a depth which would support the enormous weight of a half-track? He turned in his seat as though looking back up the road and saw Prentice's anxious face staring up at him. 'You think we might make it?' the lieutenant inquired.
'Only one way to find out.'
'I have told you,' Grapos repeated hoarsely. 'In winter the monks take their ox-wagons over the lake when the road is blocked.'
'As late in the year as this?' Macomber asked critically.
The Greek hesitated and Ford, disliking the hesitation, looked at him quickly. Grapos cleared his throat before speaking again, but his voice was confident. 'It is not usual – but five years since we also have the bad winter and then they take the wagons across in April. That was also the time of the great landslide – the avalanche. Much snow had fallen all through the winter and when the spring comes the mountain comes alive…'
Macomber lit his last but one cigar, then interrupted the Greek's flow of words. 'Let's hope it's as thick as it was five years ago, then. And now I'd appreciate it if the League of Nations debate could be adjourned – this is going to take a little concentration.' He released the brake, exerted a little foot pressure and they were moving out over the ice.
He kept his speed down to a crawl, to less than ten miles an hour as the tracks rumbled hollowly over the ice sheet and their treads ground into the surface with a brittle sound which tingled his nerves. It was almost spring, the time of the year when the ice would imperceptibly begin to thin, to lose that extra inch of solidity which might make all the difference to whether they crossed safely or plunged through shattered ice into the depths below. And the depths were something which didn't repay thinking about. During their discussion the Scot had asked Grapos about the depth of the lake and his answer had not exactly raised anyone's morale. 'Fifty metres. More deep in
