'You're crazy.' Reynolds's voice came in a low, furious whisper. 'Crazy as a loon. You could have got yourself killed. You could have got all of us killed. What are you, shell-shocked or something?'
Andrea did not reply. He lit one of his obnoxious cigars and regarded Reynolds with mild speculation or as near an approach to mildness as it was possible for him to achieve.
'Crazy isn't half the word for it.' Groves, if anything, was even more heated than Reynolds. 'Or didn't you know that was a Partisan you killed? Don't you know what that means? Don't you know people like that must always take precautions?'
Whether he knew or not, Andrea wasn't saying. He puffed at his cigar and transferred his peaceable gaze from Reynolds to Groves.
Miller said soothingly: 'Now, now. Don't be like that. Maybe Andrea was a mite hasty but — '
'God help us all,' Reynolds said fervently. He looked at his fellow-sergeants in despair. 'A thousand miles from home and help and saddled with a trigger-happy bunch of has-beens.' He turned back to Miller and mimicked: ' 'Don't be like that.' '
Miller assumed his wounded expression and looked away.
The room was large and bare and comfortless. The only concession to comfort was a pine fire crackling in a rough hearth-place. The only furniture consisted of a cracked deal table, two chairs and a bench.
Those things Mallory noted only subconsciously. He didn't even register when he heard Droshny say: 'Captain Mallory. This is my commanding officer.' He seemed to be too busy staring at the man seated behind the table.
The man was short, stocky and in his mid-thirties. The deep lines around eyes and mouth could have been caused by weather or humour or both: just at that moment he was smiling slightly. He was dressed in the uniform of a captain in the German Army and wore an Iron Cross at his throat.
CHAPTER FOUR
The German captain leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. He had the air of a man enjoying the passing moment.
'Hauptmann Neufeld, Captain Mallory.' He looked at the places on Mallory's uniform where the missing insignia should have been. 'Or so I assume. You are surprised to see me?'
'I am delighted to meet you, Hauptmann Neufeld.' Mallory's astonishment had given way to the beginnings of a long, slow smile and now he sighed in deep relief. 'You just can't imagine how delighted.' Still smiling, he turned to Droshny, and at once the smile gave way to an expression of consternation. 'But who are you? Who is this man, Hauptmann Neufeld? Who in the name of God are those men out there? They must be — they must be — '
Droshny interrupted heavily: 'One of his men killed one of my men tonight.'
'What!' Neufeld, the smile now in turn vanishing from his face, stood abruptly: the backs of his legs sent his chair crashing to the floor. Mallory ignored him, looked again at Droshny. 'Who are you. For God's sake, tell me!' Droshny said slowly: 'They call us Cetniks.' 'Cetniks? Cetniks? What on earth are Cetniks?' 'You will forgive me, Captain, if I smile in weary disbelief.' Neufeld was back on balance again, and his face had assumed a curiously wary impassivity, an expression in which only the eyes were alive: things, Mallory reflected, unpleasant things could happen to people misguided enough to underrate Hauptmann Neufeld. 'You? The leader of a special mission to this country and you haven't been well enough briefed to know that the Cetniks are our Yugoslav allies?'
'Allies? Ah!' Mallory's face cleared in understanding. Traitors? Yugoslav Quislings? Is that it?'
A subterranean rumble came from Droshny's throat and he moved towards Mallory, his right hand closing round the haft of a knife. Neufeld halted him with a sharp word of command and a brief downward-chopping motion of his hand.
'And what do you mean by a special mission?' Mallory demanded. He looked at each man in turn and smiled in wry understanding. 'Oh, we're special mission all right, but not in the way you think. At least, not in the way I think you think.'
'No?' Neufeld's eyebrow-raising technique, Mallory reflected, was almost on a par with Miller's. 'Then why do you think we were expecting you?'
'God only knows,' Mallory said frankly. 'We thought the Partisans were. That's why Droshny's man was killed, I'm afraid.'
'That's why Droshny's man — ' Neufeld regarded Mallory with his warily impassive eyes, picked up his chair and sat down thoughtfully. 'I think, perhaps, you had better explain yourself.'
As befitted a man who had adventured far and wide in the West End of London, Miller was in the habit of using a napkin when at meals, and he was using one now, tucked into the top of his tunic, as he sat on his rucksack in the compound of Neufeld's camp and fastidiously consumed some indeterminate goulash from a mess-tin. The three sergeants, seated nearby, briefly observed this spectacle with open disbelief, then resumed a low-voiced conversation. Andrea, puffing the inevitable nostril-wrinkling cigar and totally ignoring half-a-dozen watchful and understandably apprehensive guards, strolled unconcernedly about the compound, poisoning the air wherever he went. Clearly through the frozen night air came the distant sound of someone singing a low-voiced accompaniment to what appeared to be guitar music. As Andrea completed his circuit of the compound, Miller looked up and nodded in the direction of the music.
'Who's the soloist?'
Andrea shrugged. 'Radio, maybe.'
'They want to buy a new radio. My trained ear — '
'Listen.' Reynolds's interrupting whisper was tense and urgent. 'We've been talking.'
Miller performed some fancy work with his napkin and said kindly: 'Don't. Think of the grieving mothers and sweethearts you'd leave behind you.'
'What do you mean?'
'About making a break for it is what I mean,' Miller said. 'Some other time, perhaps?'
'Why not now?' Groves was belligerent. They're off guard — '
'Are they now.' Miller sighed. 'So young, so young. Take another look. You don't think Andrea likes exercise, do you?'
The three sergeants took another look, furtively, surreptitiously, then glanced interrogatively at Andrea.
'Five dark windows,' Andrea said. 'Behind them, five dark men. With five dark machine-guns.'
Reynolds nodded and looked away.
'Well, now.' Neufeld, Mallory noted, had a great propensity for steepling his fingers: Mallory had once known a hanging judge with exactly the same propensity. 'This is a most remarkably odd story you have to tell us, my dear Captain Mallory.'
'It is,' Mallory agreed. 'It would have to be, wouldn't it, to account for the remarkably odd position in which find ourselves at this moment.'
'A point, a point.' Slowly, deliberately, Neufeld ticked off other points on his fingers. 'You have for some months, you claim, been running a penicillin and drug-running ring in the south of Italy. As an Allied liaison officer you found no difficulty in obtaining supplies from American Army and Air force bases.'
'We found a little difficulty towards the end,' Mallory admitted.
'I'm coming to that. Those supplies, you also claim, were funnelled through to the Wehrmacht.'
'I wish you wouldn't keep using the word 'claim' in that tone of voice,' Mallory said irritably. 'Check with Field-Marshal Kesselring's Chief of Military Intelligence in Padua.'
'With pleasure.' Neufeld picked up a phone, spoke briefly in German and replaced the receiver.
Mallory said in surprise: 'You have a direct line to the outside world? From this place?'
'I have a direct line to a hut fifty yards away where we have a very powerful radio transmitter. So. You further claim that you were caught, court-martialled and were awaiting the confirmation of your death sentence. Right?'
'If your espionage system in Italy is all we hear it is, you'll know about it tomorrow,' Mallory said drily.
'Quite, quite. You then broke free, killed your guards and overheard agents in the briefing room being briefed
