'Got any form of identification to prove who you are, mate? And this sten isn't aimed at your guts for the fun of the thing.'
'What the hell…'
'We can do without the indignation bit, Wing Commander,' Reader interrupted in a voice of quiet menace. 'I've been on this underground lark long enough not to trust my own grandmother – unless she has her papers. Have you?'
'Here you are,' Lindsay said wearily, extracting his RAF pay-book. 'I don't normally pull rank, but…'
'So don't pull it now. The man with the gun outranks everyone. Something else I learned down there in Greece. Same bleedin' set-up. Only there they call themselves EDES and ELAS. One lot Commies, the others Royalists and both more keen on cutting each others' throats than fighting Jerry. The whole Balkans is one big shithouse…'
While he was rambling on, Reader was examining Lindsay's identity papers with great care, even testing the thickness and feel of the material with thumb and forefinger.
'Checking for forgery?' Lindsay queried sarcastically.
Reader's reply stunned him and he studied the outwardly phlegmatic sergeant all over again as though he had never seen him before.
'Checking for just that. The Gestapo boys have a whole printing outfit at No. 9 Prinz Albrechtstrasse, Berlin: Work like beavers day and night producing false papers. Some of them to infiltrate their own people into the underground escape route for RAF fliers from Brussels to the Spanish border. You know what, old boy? You pass scrutiny. Lucky for you. If you hadn't passed muster I'd have been obliged to put a bullet into you after nightfall…'
Lindsay returned the identity papers to his pocket. He was trying to absorb the complete change of accent in Reader's voice in his last four sentences. In contrast to the earlier cockney they had been spoken by a highly- educated man.
'And, incidentally,' Reader continued with a wintry smile, 'I'm not all that heavily out-ranked by you. I'm a major. Army Intelligence
…'
'I knew there was something phoney about you,'
Lindsay replied quietly. 'You'll excuse me – your performance was a bit hammy. I used to be a professional actor a millennium ago.'
'I thought I was pretty good…' Reader sounded a trifle put out. 'Where did I go wrong?'
'The usual faults they knock out of you at RADA. Exaggeration, of gesture, accent and so forth. Economy is the secret, gaining the maximum of effect with the minimum effort. The art of doing nothing can take you a long way…'
'The object of the exercise was to fool this rabble.' That I did pull off. What a ghastly crowd they are. Positively wallowing in butchery. Some of them, anyway. They'd have been lost without a war…'
'We have to remember this is the cradle of war throughout most of history. Why the cover role? Major! '
They had left the boulder and wandered slowly round the crown of the hill. In the distance Milic and his men watched them uncertainly. Smoke like a poison gas cloud drifted from a nearby slope and brought with it a stench like burning flesh. Reader wrinkled his long, enquiring nose.
'The whole Balkans stinks. Literally. My cover role? Enough about the set-up out here filtered through to London to give us something of a picture. Nobody trusts anyone. Strangers – new arrivals – are automatically suspect. It's like one of our English villages. Twenty years in the place and maybe they'll give you the time of day. Just maybe! Can you imagine the reaction of Tito if he heard Army Intelligence had arrived? From what we've gleaned he's the biggest neurotic of them all…'
Lindsay rather liked gleaned. As they walked, Reader couldn't keep his hands still. His fingers walked up and down the barrel of the sten as though he were itching to use it. Probably he was missing his tightly-rolled Dunhill umbrella. Unless… Lindsay went on probing in his off-hand manner.
'Care to tell me why you are out here? Why you downgraded yourself to sergeant?'
'Cover again. We thought the sergeant touch rather good. Gives me some air of authority with the locals, but an officer, no! A Communist gang is going to take a very questioning look once an officer lands in their lap. God knows, you must have found that out by yourself now…'
'Not really. You were going to tell me what brought you into this earthly paradise.'
'Was I?' A hint of mockery crept into Reader's tone. 'Surely you asked me. Well, here goes. What I told you earlier – doing my cockney bit – was gospel. I'm the bloody chaperone – escort Wing Commander Lindsay out of the Balkans, Reader, they said…'
'And who may they be?'
'Nice bit of syntax there. The Lord's anointed. Colonel Browne. None other…'
'He still smokes those foul cigars?'
'When he can get them, yes. He sends you his regards. Thought you'd appreciate that out here.'
`So you're not a radio operator at all?' Lindsay went on grimly. 'We have no communication with the outside world?'
'Begging your pardon.' The mockery had turned to mild indignation. 'Before I transferred to Intelligence I was in Signals. Came out top of the form for transmitting at high speed.'
'So there is a hidden transmitter buried somewhere?'
'Bet your life on it.' Reader paused, his tone sardonic now. 'Come to think of it, chum, that's what you are doing – betting your life on that box of wires and circuits. We have to get you out of here. All we need is a radio signal sent in secret. An airstrip for the Dakota from Africa to land on. The Dakota itself. Piece of cake, wouldn't you say?'
'Major, I've just realized something,' Lindsay ruminated aloud. 'You made a big thing about my identification. I haven't seen yours yet.'
'Thought you'd never ask…'
Earlier Paco had reappeared in the distance, talking briefly to Milic before she resumed strolling by herself a hundred yards or so away from the two Englishmen. Lindsay examined the Army pay-book Reader handed him. He opened the stiff brown cover and checked the pages, glancing up several times.
'That blonde girl, Paco,' he murmured, 'speaks better English than you do. In fact, she is half-English – on her mother's side. Thought you ought to know before you meet her. Security. She's a Partisan…'
Reader took back the pay-book Lindsay held out to him and with a sleight of hand made it disappear somewhere inside his uniform. As he handed back the brown folder Lindsay found himself recalling something Reader himself had said earlier.
The Gestapo boys have a whole printing outfit at No. 9 Prinz Albrechtstrasse. Work like beavers..: producing false papers…
'Wing Commander,' Reader commented out of the blue, 'I would say you're head over heels in love with that girl. Are you?'
'What the hell are you talking about?' Lindsay snapped.
'Fact One: the way you said her name. Fact Two: while we've been talking you've hardly taken your eyes off her since she appeared. You watch her every movement as though you're watching a goddess. Fact Three: your expression since I started talking about her – mind your own bloody business is written all over your face…'
'Why don't you do just that, Sergeant?' Lindsay rapped back.
'This might just be the moment to get clear of this bunch of peasants,' Reader suggested, not in the least disconcerted by his companion's reaction. 'They're all grouped together quite a way from where we are now. Take it one step at a time. Head for the spot where I buried the transmitter..
'Could I take a look at that sten of yours?'
The question was so unexpected that Reader handed over the weapon almost as a reflex action.
Lindsay stepped back a few paces, grasping the weapon firmly as he performed a simple action.
'Watch out!' There was genuine alarm in Reader's voice. 'You just released the safety catch – and that's a full mag.'
'I know. And I'm aiming it at you point-blank. Colonel Browne is a chain-smoker – of cigarettes. He's never touched a cigar in his life..
