course.
'Sixty minutes, sir, and we land in The Cauldron…'
'Heljec, or whatever your bloody name is, here we come!' Murray-Smith shouted. 'We've got the guns, you've got the man, so no frigging about…`
Oh, Christ, thought Conway, he's enjoying himself.
Hartmann and Paco had walked slowly along the full length of the makeshift airstrip, followed by a rebellious Heljec while they examined every inch of the ground. The German had imposed his personality on the Partisan leader, stopping every now and again to insist on the removal of a rock projecting a few centimetres above the surface. Paco acted as interpreter. Afterwards the defective patch had to be filled in with grit and hard-packed soil from a large wicker basket two Partisans carried.
'No wonder they never get anywhere in this benighted country,' Hartmann grumbled. 'Sloppy. I'm sorry, I'm talking about your home…`
'I'm half-English,' she reminded him. 'And I don't think I'm going to want to come back here. Ever. I can't get out of my mind what the Amazon Brigade did.'
'Go and cheer up Lindsay…'
'When we've finished this job. The plane should be here soon. It's nearly eleven o'clock.'
Lindsay, aware that Hartmann was doing the job he should have attended to, sat on a rock feeling exhausted. The glandular fever was sapping him again. He cursed the timing. Dr Macek appeared from behind a boulder and felt his forehead.
'We are not feeling in love with the world?' he enquired.
'Not too bad. I should be over there, with Hartmann and Paco.'
'No temperature. A period of convalescence is needed. It is good that the plane is coming after so many months…'
'I want to thank you for all you have done…'
'But it is my profession. Thank me by resting when you arrive at your destination. Maybe we shall meet again one day.'
'Somehow I don't think so…'
Macek nodded, a smile on his gentle face, and walked away. The whole plateau was deserted in the brilliant morning light apart from the group checking and putting finishing touches to the airstrip. Heljec had cleared the plateau of men and weapons, concentrating them on the rim at the head of ravines – inside the ravines – leading up to the plateau. He was convinced he had sealed off all approaches to his temporary stronghold.
Lindsay made the effort, forced himself up off the rock and trod step by dragging step towards the airstrip. He used the stick Milic had fashioned for him. Poor Milic, killed in the German mortar attack a hundred years ago. Milic who was never mentioned, whose existence most of the Partisans had forgotten. 'How's it going, Hartmann?' he called out. 'Plane's due soon now, isn't it?'
'The airstrip is level, my friend,' the German replied. 'As level as it ever will be. And yes, the Dakota should arrive any moment if it's on time.'
'If it ever finds us, you mean.'
'Surely you have faith in the RAF?' Hartmann spoke jocularly, realizing what the walk was costing Lindsay. He deliberately made no attempt to help the Englishman: Lindsay wouldn't welcome being treated as a cripple. 'He will come in from the south, so that is the direction we should watch…'
'I'm as nervous as a girl about to have her first baby,' Paco said. 'Isn't it ridiculous?'
'We're all a bit on edge,' Lindsay reassured her as he halted and lifted a hand to scan the sky.
Was it old instincts returning? A throwback to the days when, behind the controls of a Spitfire over the glorious green fields of Kent, he had learned to look everywhere. Constantly…'
He looked to the south, as Hartmann had suggested, then continued searching the sky slowly in a three-sixty degree radius. Not a cloud anywhere. Incredible after yesterday's snow. The jagged peaks of mountains silhouetted against the blue. Nothing to the east. East-north-east. Nothing. He turned slowly, circumscribing the points of the compass. He had always been noted for his exceptional far-sighted vision. Soon he would be facing due north. He turned through a few more degrees. Oh, my God! No!
'All aboard for the Clipper! See it coming over that ridge – there, to the south…'
It was Reader joining them with his transceiver carried inside his back-pack. He had been to the high point of the plateau, attempting a last-minute contact. The elevation had given him the first sighting of the approaching Dakota.
'Look to the north, you stupid sods!' shouted Lindsay. 'The Germans are coming – a whole armada of troop transports…'
Aboard the Dakota Conway was hammering his clenched fist on his lap with excitement. He smashed a hole in the map.
'There's the plateau! There's the marker – the Communist star, five-pointed, laid out with rocks. God, there's not a helluva lot of margin for error…'
'Calm down, man,' Murray-Smith reprimanded. 'I can land this on a bee's bum…'
'And that's about what it is!'
Conway snatched up a pair of field-glasses and focused on the tiny figures staring up towards the Dakota. One of them waved a stick with one hand, elevated the other in the thumbs-up sign. Then he began gesturing madly with the stick.
'I think that's Lindsay down there, the one with the stick. He's waving the thing about like a lunatic. Understandable, I suppose…'
'Considering the whole bloody Luftwaffe is coming in from the north, it is understandable,' said Murray-Smith in a tone of biting sarcasm. 'We're much closer, we might just make it.
'God Almighty…'
For the first time Conway saw what Murray-Smith had spotted seconds earlier. A fleet of dark blips growing larger as he watched them. Jerry troop transports. At a fairish height. Well spread out and stepped in layers, no one aircraft above another.
'A parachute drop is my bet,' said Murray-Smith. 'A major operation. Down we go. Let's just hope they've dug all the rocks out of that airstrip. We'll know soon enough, won't we?'
Jaeger, with Schmidt alongside, equipped with their chutes ready for the drop, sat in the command plane. The flight from Zagreb had been uneventful, the first off-key occurrence being when Colonel Stoerner, the paratroop commander, had been urgently summoned to go and see the pilot.
'We must be bloody near the target,' said Schmidt. 'And I'm sweating…'
'Who isn't?'
The paratroopers sat in two rows, facing each other along the fun length of the aircraft. The drop controller stood by the door now. Jaeger glanced along the rows of faces frozen in rigidity, beads of perspiration on their foreheads. No one was speaking. Jaeger could smell the tension, the raw fear.
The men stared straight ahead. Unnaturally still. The only sound the steady purr of the plane's motors, the creak of a harness. It never got any easier with each drop. With every operation there was a ten per cent ratio of nervous breakdowns. Among those who did survive.
'Funny,' Schmidt whispered, 'our last time was Maleme airfield in Crete. I can't even recall which year that was. I can't think…'
Jaeger looked up as Stoerner came back from the pilot's cabin and grasped his arm. A bullet-headed veteran, he looked odd; he had hardly any eye-lashes. He tugged at Jaeger's arm.
'A word with you. Up front…'
Which meant a crisis had arisen before the operation had even started. Jaeger puzzled over possibilities as he followed the paratrooper down the centre of the aircraft. An hour earlier a small plane had flown towards the target, keeping well clear of the plateau. The pilot had reported back that the Partisans were still in position. So…
He entered the cabin, crouching to ease his parachute through the narrow opening. Stoerner, able – but impetuous – in Jaeger's opinion, closed the door. He pointed ahead with a stubby finger. Jaeger could see the Dakota clearly.
'We're just in time,' Stoerner said throatily. 'Watch that English pilot run for it…'
