'Let's hope it makes a safe landing,' Zimmermann said.
'Let's hope so indeed, sir.'
The Wellington made a safe landing, a perfect landing considering the extremely difficult conditions. It slowed down quickly, then steadied its speed as it headed towards the end of the runway.
Neufeld said into the microphone: 'Safely down, herr General, and rolling to rest.'
'Why doesn't it stop?' Droshny wondered. 'You can't accelerate a plane over snow as you can over a concrete runway,' Neufeld said. 'They'll require every yard of the runway for the take-off.'
Quite obviously, the pilot of the Wellington was of the same opinion. He was about fifty yards from the end of the runway when two groups of people broke from the hundreds lining the edge of the runway, one group heading for the already opened door in the side of the bomber, the other heading for the tail of the plane. Both groups reached the plane just it rolled to a stop at the very end of the runway, a dozen men at once flinging themselves upon the tail unit and beginning to turn the Wellington through 180 degrees.
Droshny was impressed. 'By heavens, they're not wasting much time, are they?'
They can't afford to. If the plane stays there anytime at all it'll start sinking in the snow.' Neufeld lifted his binoculars and spoke into the microphone.
'They're boarding now, Herr General. One, two, three… seven, eight, nine. Nine it is.' Neufeld sighed in relief and at the relief of tension. 'My warmest congratulations, Herr General. Nine it is, indeed.'
The plane was already facing the way it had come The pilot stood on the brakes, revved the engines up to a crescendo, then twenty seconds after it had come to;i halt the Wellington was on its way again, accelerating down the runway. The pilot took no chances, he waited till the very far end of the airstrip before lifting the Wellington off, but when he did it rose cleanly and easily and climbed steadily into the night sky.
'Airborne, Herr General,' Neufeld reported. 'Every thing perfectly according to plan.' He covered the microphone, looking after the disappearing plane, then smiled at Droshny. 'I think we should wish them bon voyage, don't you?'
Mallory, one of the hundreds lining the perimeter of the airstrip, lowered his binoculars. 'And a very pleasant journey to them all.'
Colonel Vis shook his head sadly. 'All this work just to send five of my men on a holiday to Italy.'
'I dare say they needed a break,' Mallory said.
'The hell with them. How about us?' Reynolds demanded. In spite of the words, his face showed no anger, just a dazed and total bafflement. 'We should have been aboard that damned plane.'
'Ah. Well. I changed my mind.'
'Like hell you changed your mind,' Reynolds said bitterly.
Inside the fuselage of the Wellington, the moustached major surveyed his three fellow-escapees and the five Partisan soldiers, shook his head in disbelief and turned to the captain by his side.
'A rum do, what?'
'Very rum, indeed, sir,' said the captain. He looked curiously at the papers the major held in his hand.
'What have you there?'
'A map and papers that I'm to give to some bearded naval type when we land back in Italy. Odd fellow, that Mallory, what?'
'Very odd indeed, sir,' the captain agreed.
Mallory and his men, together with Vis and Vlanovich, I detached themselves from the crowd and were now standing outside Vis's command tent. Mallory said to Vis: 'You have arranged for the ropes? We must leave at once.'
'What's all the desperate hurry, sir?' Groves asked.
Like Reynolds, much of his resentment seemed to have gone to be replaced by a helpless bewilderment.
'All of a sudden, like, I mean?'
'Petar and Maria,' Mallory said grimly. 'They're the hurry.'
'What about Petar and Maria?' Reynolds asked suspiciously. 'Where do they come into this?'
'They're being held captive in the ammunition block-house. And when Neufeld and Droshny get back there — '
'Get back there,' Groves said dazedly. 'What do you mean, get back there? We — we left them locked up. how in God's name do you know that Petar and Maria are being held in the block-house? How can they be? I mean, they weren't there when we left there — and it wasn't so long ago.'
'When Andrea's pony had a stone in its hoof on the way up here from the block-house, it didn't have a stone in its hoof. Andrea was keeping watch.'
'You see,' Miller explained, 'Andrea doesn't trust anyone.'
'He saw Sergeant Baer taking Petar and Maria there,' Mallory went on. 'Bound. Baer released Neufeld and Droshny and you can bet your last cent our precious pair were up on the cliff side there checking that we really did fly out.'
'You don't tell us very much, do you, sir?' Reynolds said bitterly.
'I'll tell you this much,' Mallory said with certainty 'If we don't get there soon, Maria and Petar are for the high jump. Neufeld and Droshny don't know yet, but by this time they must be pretty convinced that it was Maria who told me where those four agents were being kept. They've always known who we really were — Maria told them. Now they know who Maria is. Just before Droshny killed Saunders — '
'Droshny?' Reynolds's expression was that of a man who has almost given up all attempt to understand 'Maria?'
'I made a miscalculation.' Mallory sounded tired. 'We all make miscalculations, but this was a bad one.' He smiled, but the smile didn't touch his eyes. 'You will recall that you had a few harsh words to say about Andrea here when he picked that fight with Droshny outside the dining hut in Neufeld's camp?' 'Sure I remember. It was one of the craziest — ' 'You can apologize to Andrea at a later and more convenient time,' Mallory interrupted. 'Andrea provoked Droshny because I asked him to. I knew that Neufeld and Droshny were up to no good in the dining hut after we had left and I wanted a moment to ask Maria what they had been discussing. She told me that they intended to send a couple of Cetniks after us into Broznik's camp — suitably disguised, of course to report on us. They were two of the men acting as our escort in that wood-burning truck. Andrea and killed them.'
'Now you tell us,' Groves said almost mechanically.
'Andrea and Miller killed them.'
'What I didn't know was that Droshny was also following us. He saw Maria and myself together.' He looked at Reynolds. 'Just as you did. I didn't know at time that he'd seen us, but I've known for some hours now. Maria has been as good as under sentence death since this morning. But there was nothing I could do about it. Not until now. If I'd shown my hand, we'd have been finished.'
Reynolds shook his head. 'But you've just said that Maria betrayed us — '
'Maria,' Mallory said, 'is a top-flight British espionage agent. English father, Yugoslav mother. She was in this country even before the Germans came. As a student in Belgrade. She joined the Partisans, who trained her as a radio operator, then arranged for her defection to the Cetniks. The Cetniks had captured a radio operator from one of the first British missions. They — the Germans, rather — trained her to imitate this operator's hand — every radio operator has his own unmistakable style — until their styles were quite indistinguishable. And her English, of course, was perfect. So then she It in direct contact with Allied Intelligence in both both Africa and Italy. The Germans thought they had completely fooled: it was, in fact, the other way round.'
Miller said complainingly: 'You didn't tell me any of this, either.'
'I've so much on my mind. Anyway, she was notified direct of the arrival of the last four agents to be parachuted in. She, of course, told the Germans. And and those agents carried information reinforcing the German belief that a second front — a full-scale invasion — of Yugoslavia was imminent.'
Reynolds said slowly: 'They knew we were coming too?'
'Of course. They knew everything about us all along, what we really were. What they didn't know, of course, is that we knew they knew and though what they knew of us was true it was only part of the truth.'
Reynolds digested this. He said, hesitating: 'Sir?' 'Yes?'
'I could have been wrong about you, sir.'
'It happens,' Mallory agreed. 'From time to time, it happens. You were wrong, Sergeant, of course you were, but you were wrong from the very best motives The fault is mine. Mine alone. But my hands were tied.' Mallory
