comer of the block-house, pressing close in to the stone wall.
Four feet from the corner came the first of the embrasures. Mallory did not bother to lower himself any deeper into the snow — the embrasures were so deeply recessed in the massive stone walls that it would have been quite impossible for any watcher to see anything at a lesser distance than six feet from the embrasure. He concentrated, instead, on achieving as minimal a degree of sound as was possible, and did so with success, for he safely passed the embrasure without any alarm being raised. The other four were equally successful even though the moon broke from behind the cloud as the last of them, Groves, was directly under the embrasure. But he, too, remained undetected.
Mallory reached the door. He gestured to Miller, Reynolds and Groves to remain prone where they were he and Andrea rose silently to their feet and pressed their ears close against the door.
Immediately they heard Droshny's voice, thick with menace, heavy with hatred.
'A traitress! That's what she is. A traitress to our cause. Kill her now!'
'Why did you do it, Maria?' Neufeld's voice, in contrast to Droshny's, was measured, calm, almost gentile.'
480
'Why did she do it?' Droshny snarled. 'Money. That's why she did it. What else?'
'Why?' Neufeld was quietly persistent. 'Did Captain Mallory threaten to kill your brother?'
'Worse than that.' They had to strain to catch Maria's low voice. 'He threatened to kill me. Who would have looked after my blind brother then?'
'We waste time,' Droshny said impatiently. 'Let take them both outside.'
'No.' Neufeld's voice, still calm, admitted of no argument. 'A blind boy? A terrified girl? What are you, man?'
'A Cetnik!'
'And I'm an officer of the Wehrmacht.'
Andrea whispered in Mallory's ear: 'Any minute and someone's going to notice our foot-tracks in the snow.'
Mallory nodded, stood aside and made a small gesturing motion of his hand. Mallory was under no illusion as to their respective capabilities when it came to bursting open doors leading into rooms filled with armed men. Andrea was the best in the business and proceeded to prove it in his usual violent and lethal fashion.
A twist of the door handle, a violent kick with the sole of the right foot and Andrea stood framed in the doorway. The wildly swinging door had still not reached the full limit of travel on its hinges when the room echoed to the flat staccato chatter of Andrea's Schmeisser: Mallory, peering over Andrea's shoulder through the swirling cordite smoke, saw two German soldiers, lethally cursed with over-fast reactions, slumping wearily to the floor. His own machine-pistol levelled, Mallory followed Andrea into the room.
There was no longer any call for Schmeissers. None of the other soldiers in the room was carrying any weapon at all while Neufeld and Droshny, their faces frozen into expressions of total incredulity, wen clearly, even if only momentarily, incapable of any movement at all, far less being capable of the idea of offering any suicidal resistance.
Mallory said to Neufeld: 'You've just bought your self your life.' He turned to Maria, nodded towards the door, waited until she had led her brother outside, then looked again at Neufeld and Droshny and said curtly: 'Your guns.'
Neufeld managed to speak, although his lips moved in a strangely mechanical fashion. 'What in the name of God-'
Mallory was in no mind for small talk. He lifted his Schmeisser. 'Your guns.'
Neufeld and Droshny, like men in a dream, removed their pistols and dropped them to the floor.
'The keys.' Droshny and Neufeld looked at him in almost uncomprehending silence. 'The keys,' Mallory repeated. 'Now. Or the keys won't be necessary.'
For several seconds the room was completely silent, then Neufeld stirred, turned to Droshny and nodded Droshny scowled — as well as any man can scowl when his face is still overspread with an expression of baffled astonishment and homicidal fury — reached into his pocket and produced the keys. Miller took them, unlocked and opened wide the cell door wordlessly and with a motion of his machine-pistol invited Neufeld, Droshny, Baer and the other soldiers to enter, waited until they had done so, swung shut the door, locked it and pocketed the key. The room echoed again as Andrea squeezed the trigger of his machine-pistol and destroyed the radio beyond any hope of repair. Five seconds later they were all outside, Mallory, the last in to leave, locking the door and sending the key spinning to fall yards away, buried from sight in the deep snow.
Suddenly he caught sight of the number of ponies tethered outside the block-house. Seven. Exactly the right number. He ran across to the embrasure outside the cell window and shouted: 'Our ponies are tethered two hundred yards uphill just inside the pines. Don't forget.' Then he ran quickly back and ordered the others to mount. Reynolds looked at him in astonishment.
'You think of this, sir? At such a time?'
'I'd think of this at any time.' Mallory turned to Petar, who had just awkwardly mounted his horse, then turned to Maria. 'Tell him to take off his glasses.'
Maria looked at him in surprise, nodded in apparent understanding and spoke to her brother, who looked at her uncomprehendingly, then ducked his head obediently, removed his dark glasses and thrust them deep inside his tunic. Reynolds looked on in astonishment, then turned to Mallory.
'I don't understand, sir.'
Mallory wheeled his pony and said curtly: 'It's not necessary that you do.'
'I'm sorry, sir.'
Mallory turned his pony again and said, almost wearily: 'It's already eleven o'clock, boy, and almost already too late for what we have to do.'
'Sir.' Reynolds was deeply if obscurely pleased that Mallory should call him boy. 'I don't really want to know, sir.'
'You've asked. We'll have to go as quickly as our ponies can take us. A blind man can't see obstructions, can't balance himself according to the level of the terrain, can't anticipate in advance how he should brace himself for an unexpectedly sharp drop, can't lean in the saddle for a corner his pony knows is coming. A blind man, in short, is a hundred times more liable to fall off in a downhill gallop than we are. It's enough that a blind man should be blind for life. It's too much that we should expose him to the risk of a heavy fall with his glasses on, expose him to the risk of not only being blind but of having his eyes gouged out and being in agony for life.'
'I hadn't thought — I mean — I'm sorry, sir.'
'Stop apologizing, boy. It's really my turn, you know — to apologize to you. Keep an eye on him, will you?'
Colonel Lazlo, binoculars to his eyes, gazed down over the moonlit rocky slope below him towards the bridge at Neretva. On the southern bank of the river, in the meadows between the south bank and the beginning of the pine forest beyond, and, as far as Lazlo could ascertain, in the fringes of the pine forest itself, there was;u disconcertingly ominous lack of movement, of any sign of life at all. Lazlo was pondering the disturbingly sinister significance of this unnatural peacefulness when a hand touched his shoulder. He twisted, looked up and recognized the figure of Major Stephan, commander of the Western Gap.
'Welcome, welcome. The General has advised me of your arrival. Your battalion with you?' 'What's left of it.' Stephan smiled without really smiling. 'Every man who could walk. And all those who couldn't.'
'God send we don't need them all tonight. The General has spoken to you of this man Mallory?' Major Stephen nodded, and Lazlo went on: 'If he fails? If the Germans cross the Neretva tonight — '
'So?' Stephan shrugged. 'We were all due to die tonight anyway.'
'A well-taken point,' Lazlo said approvingly. He lifted his binoculars and returned to his contemplation the bridge at Neretva.
So far, and almost incredibly, neither Mallory nor any of the six galloping behind him had parted company with their ponies. Not even Petar. True, the incline of the slope was not nearly as steep as it had been im the Ivenici plateau down to the block-house, It Reynolds suspected it was because Mallory had imperceptibly succeeded in slowing down the pace of their earlier headlong gallop. Perhaps, Reynolds — thought vaguely, it was because Mallory was subconsciously trying to protect the blind singer, who was riding almost abreast with him, guitar firmly
