'I've been hoping to hell you'd pick me up on that…'
'Really, Sergeant? May I ask why?'
'Like I tells you before, mate.' Reader was lapsing back into his awful cockney. Out of the corner of his eye Lindsay saw that Paco was approaching. Reader was quick as a knife, he'd grant the bastard that. He went on, gabbling out the explanation. 'We was told to be especially bleedin' careful in this dung-heap. No one is what they say they is until they've been triple- checked, then don't make any cosy assumptions. Those cigars was thought up by the Colonel himself as a trick question. You could have been anyone… Reader rattled on, 'seeing as the Allied Mission is a prime Jerry target. Had to be sure. No offence…'
He broke off as Paco arrived, swept off his cap in an elaborate gesture of politeness and stared at her with blatant interest as she stood and stared back.
'And who have we here, Wing Commander? When they told me you're for the Balkans, my lad, I never expected to meet the Queen of Sheba? I am right? I 'ave to be…'
'This,' Lindsay introduced him to Paco, 'is Sergeant Len Reader who, you may already have gathered, has a habit of speaking his mind – and hardly ever stops doing just that. Reader, meet Paco.'
'Pleasure's all mine.'
They shook hands. Paco's sleepy eyes studied Reader and under her scrutiny he became oddly restless.
'Could I have my hand back now?' Paco suggested. 'I only have two of them…'
'A thousand apologies, lady. No offence meant – but out here a man gets bowled over when someone like you turns up. And when you speak the King's English… This sing-song chatter I've been hearing ever since I arrived…'
' When did you arrive, Sergeant Reader?' Paco enquired.
'It's all right,' Lindsay assured her. 'I've checked his identity.'
'I'd still like to know when he arrived, where and how?'
It was the first time Lindsay realized one of Paco's duties was to act as Intelligence Officer for the Partisan group. The irony of the situation intrigued him – she had little idea that she was interrogating a man who himself was undoubtedly highly-trained in the sophisticated craft of interrogation.
'The when was days ago. The where Mickey can tell you – me I've no flaming idea. The how was by parachute, dangling by my braces over the Black Hole of Calcutta. Anything else you'd like to know, Lady Bountiful? – Blood group? I can show you me birthmark if you're not shy.'
'Mickey?'
'I think he means Milic who brought him in,' Lindsay explained.
Paco ignored him as she continued studying Reader who stared back with what Lindsay felt sure he would have described as 'dumb insolence'. Lindsay sensed a growing hostility between the pair.
'Milic,' Paco said with quiet deliberation, 'tells me he found you wandering round in the middle of the night. No sign of any parachute.'
`So I buried it under some rocks, didn't I? You think I'm going to leave it lying around for Jerry to find? Next thing we know is a whole bleedin' Panzer division is on me heels. First thing you do when your arse hits enemy territory is hide the 'chute.'
'I know…'
'Why ask then, for Christ's sake?' Reader flared up. 'We come here to help you people out and you try and stand me in the witness box. Why did you do this? Why didn't you do that? My boss is going to love you…'
'And just who is your boss?' Paco asked sharply.
'Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean…' Reader leaned his face close to Paco's. 'And let me tell you something. He's been in more scraps than you've had hot dinners. We started fighting 'itler in 1939. You joined the party a bit late, didn't you?'
'I think that's enough, Sergeant,' Lindsay intervened.
'Well keep your girlfriend off my back or I'm liable to get a bit shirty. She wouldn't like that is my guess.'
Taking his sten from Lindsay, Reader marched away at a steady one-two, one-two. Paco waited until he was out of hearing before she spoke.
'Lindsay, I don't trust that man…'
'Just because you didn't hit it off with him? He's come a long way to…'
'It's the classic manoeuvre of the suspect under interrogation,' she insisted. 'Pick a quarrel, break the trend when the questions get dangerous…'
'He just hasn't attuned himself to the atmosphere out here. He only dropped out of the blue a few days ago.'
'You're sure of that? Milk found him roaming about. No one saw him coming down in a parachute. He's sensitive about that 'chute, as he calls it. And why did he call me your girlfriend?'
The question, idly thrown into the conversation, caught Lindsay off guard. Paco was standing very close to him. He was excruciatingly aware of her physical proximity. The emotions he had clamped a lid down on flooded out. The lid was blown sky-high. Damn Reader and his careless remark to the flames of hell.
He stood very still, not looking at her. She waited in silence. He knew she was watching him as closely as she had so recently watched Reader. He took out one of his few remaining packs of cigarettes, cupped his hand against the breeze which was blowing up, and lit it.
'Could I have one?' Paco asked quietly.
'Here you are, take this one…'
He would have liked to place it between her lips but refrained from even this small gesture of intimacy. Instead, he handed it to her. He was pleased to see his hand was steady. This was unadulterated hell. Paco took short, quick puffs and then opened Pandora's box.
'Lindsay, I like you.' She paused. 'I like you a lot. But that's all. I'm sorry…'
'The feeling's mutual…'
He didn't know how he'd managed to get the words out. He was worried his voice had sounded forced, unnatural. Paco, he knew, was a very perceptive girl. God knows he'd done his best to conceal his real feelings. If she went on like this he was going to give himself away.
'You're still very carefully not looking at me.
'I'm watching Reader traipsing about. You said don't trust him.'
'Now you're changing the subject. What's your next move – to manufacture a row between us?'
He swung round violently and stared straight at her. 'What do you want me to say then?'
'Let's go for a stroll. I want to talk to you.'
She linked her arm inside his and he felt the gentle pressure of her right breast. They walked in step as she began talking.
'You don't know much about me. There is no one else, by the way. The war seems to have stultified my emotions. I've seen so much horror I've grown almost immune. That worries me, worries me more than you might imagine, Lindsay. I know how you feel – I wish I felt the same way. I don't. And a quick roll in the hay after dark isn't going to help either of us. I thought bringing it out into the open might help. I made a mistake. I can see that now. War is not the most amusing of human activities.'
She let go of his arm, bent down to stub out her cigarette on a rock and then dropped the dead stub in her pocket. Her voice changed, became matter-of- fact.
'The first rule of Partisan survival. Leave no traces for the enemy to find.'
She walked away, a slow, purposeful tread. The sun came out. It showed up the gleam of her neat, blonde hair. She had never looked more desirable.
Lindsay stopped at the edge of the abyss. The rock wall fell a thousand feet to a scatter of boulders far below. They looked no larger than pebbles.
He had to get his priorities sorted out. He was carrying – inside his head, in his diary – priceless information which London must know. It could even affect the outcome of the war. Getting back to Allied territory was his prime objective.
He found it poor consolation. He felt humiliated. Paco knew. It was, he now realized, her presumed ignorance of his feelings which had sustained him. He felt an emotional wreck. How often had he imagined making love to her in every erotic detail – her equally passionate response.
'We could make a break for it now, Wing Commander. I've found a hidden gulch which leads into the
