friends up by the Zenica Gap who are whistling in the dark because they are momentarily expecting an all-out assault by units of the 11th Army Corps. And it will be a great deal noisier later on when the RAF starts dropping bombs in all the wrong places, they won't be dropping them near you, so don't worry.' ' The captain lowered the paper. 'That's good enough for me. If the General says we are not to worry, that's good enough for me. You know the General's reputation, sergeant?'
'I know his reputation, sir.' Some distance away and from some unidentifiable direction, came several more bursts of machine-pistol fire. The sergeant stirred unhappily.
'You are still troubled by something?' the captain asked.
'Yes, sir. I know the general's reputation, of course, and trust him implicitly.' He paused then went on, worriedly: 'I could have sworn that that last burst of machine-pistol fire came from down the gorge there.'
'You're becoming just an old woman, sergeant,' lie captain said kindly, 'and you must report to our divisional surgeon soon. Your ears need examining.'
The sergeant, in fact, was not becoming an old woman and his hearing was in considerably better shape than that of the officer who had reproached him. The current burst of machine-pistol firing was, as he'd thought, coming from the gorge, where Droshny and his men, now doubled in numbers, were moving forward, singly or in pairs, but never more than two at a time, in a series of sharp but very short rushes, firing as they went. Their firing, necessarily wildly inaccurate as they stumbled and slipped on the treacherous going underfoot, elicited no response from Andrea, possibly because he felt himself in no great danger, probably because he was conserving his ammunition. The latter supposition seemed the more likely as Andrea had slung his Schmeisser and was now examining with interest a stick-grenade which he had just withdrawn from his belt.
Farther up-river, Sergeant Reynolds, standing at the eastern edge of the rickety wooden bridge which spanned the narrowest part of the gorge where the turbulent, racing, foaming waters beneath would have offered no hope of life at all to any person so unfortunate as to fall in there, looked unhappily down the gorge towards the source of the machine-pistol firing and wondered for the tenth time whether he should take a chance, re-cross the bridge and go to Andrea's aid: even in the light of his vastly revised estimate of Andrea, it seemed impossible, as Groves had said, that one man could for long hold off twenty others bent on vengeance. On the other hand, he had promised Groves to remain there to look after Petar and Maria. There came another burst of firing from down-river. Reynolds made his mind up. He would offer his gun to Maria to afford herself and Petar what protection it might, and leave them for as little time as might be necessary to give Andrea what help he required.
He turned to speak to her, but Maria and Petar were no longer there. Reynolds looked wildly around, his first reaction was that they had both fallen into the rapids, a reaction that he at once dismissed as ridiculous. Instinctively he gazed up the bank towards the base of the dam, and even although the moon was then obscured by a large bank of cloud, he saw them at once, making their way towards the foot of the iron ladder, where Groves was standing. For a brief moment he puzzled why they should have moved upstream without permission, then remembered that neither he nor Groves had, in fact, remembered to give them instructions to remain by the bridge. Not to worry, he thought, Groves will soon send them back down to the bridge again and when they arrived he would tell them of his decision to return to Andrea's aid. He vaguely relieved at the prospect, not because he entertained fears of what might possibly happen to him when he rejoined Andrea and faced up to Droshny and his men but because it postponed, if even only briefly, the necessity of implementing a decision which could be only marginally justifiable in the first place.
Groves, who had been gazing up the seemingly endless series of zig-zags of that green iron ladder so precariously, it seemed, attached to that vertical cliff-face, swung round at the soft grate of approaching footsteps on the shale and stared at Maria and Petar, walking, as always, hand in hand. He said angrily: 'What in God's name are you people doing here? You've no right to be here — can't you see, the guards have only to look down and you'll be killed? Go on. Go back and rejoin Sergeant Reynolds at the bridge. Now!'
Maria said softly: 'You are kind to worry, Sergeant Groves. But we don't want to go. We want to stay here.'
'And what in hell's name good can you do by lying here?' Groves asked roughly. He paused, then it on, almost kindly: 'I know who you are now, Maria. I know what you've done, how good you are at your own job. But this is not your job. Please.'
'No.' She shook her head. 'And I can fire a gun.'
'You haven't got one to fire. And Petar here, what right have you to speak for him. Does he know where he is?'
Maria spoke rapidly to her brother in incomprehensible Serbo-Croat: he responded by making his customary odd sounds in his throat. When he had finished, Maria turned to Groves.
'He says he knows he is going to die tonight, has what you people call the second sight and he says there is no future beyond tonight. He says he is tired of running. He says he will wait here till the time comes.'
'Of all the stubborn, thick-headed — ' 'Please, Sergeant Groves.' The voice, though still low, was touched by a new note of asperity. 'His mind is made up, and you can never change it.'
Groves nodded in acceptance. He said: 'Perhaps I can change yours.'
'I do not understand.'
'Petar cannot help us anyway, no blind man could but you can. If you would.' 'Tell me.'
'Andrea is holding off a mixed force of at least twenty Cetniks and German troops.' Groves smiled wryly. 'I have recent reason to believe that Andrea probably has no equal anywhere as a guerilla fighter, but one man cannot hold off twenty for ever. When he goes, then there is only Reynolds left to guard the bridge — and if he goes, then Droshny and his men will be through in time to warn the guards, almost certainly in time to save the dam, certainly in time to send a radio message through to General Zimmermann to pull his tanks back on to high ground. I think, Maria, that Reynolds may require your help. Certainly, you can be of no help here — but if you stand by Andrea you could make all the difference between success and failure. And you did say you can fire a gun.'
'And as you pointed out, I haven't got a gun.' '
That was then. You have now.' Grove unslung his Schmeisser and handed it to her along with some span ammunition.
'But — ' Maria accepted gun and ammunition reluctantly. 'But now you haven't a gun.' 'Oh yes I have.' Groves produced his silenced Luger from his tunic. 'This is all I want tonight. I can't afford make any noise tonight, not so close to the dam as this'
'But I can't leave my brother.'
'Oh, I think you can. In fact, you're going to. None on earth can help your brother any more, now. Please hurry.'
Very well.' She moved off a few reluctant paces, and, turned and said: 'I suppose you think you're clever, Sergeant Groves?'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' Groves said woodenly. She looked at him steadily for a few moments, then turned and made her way down-river, Groves smiled to himself in the near-darkness. The smile vanished in the instant of time that it took for the gorge to be suddenly flooded with bright moonlight as a black, sharply-edged cloud moved away from the face of the moon. Groves called softly, urgently to Maria: 'Face down on the rocks and keep still,' saw at once do what he ordered, then looked up the en ladder, his face registering the strain and anxiety his mind.
About three-quarters of the way up the ladder, Mallory and Miller, bathed in the brilliant moonlight, clung to the top of one of the angled sections immobile as if they had been carved from the rock self. Their unmoving eyes, set in equally unmoving faces, were obviously fixed on — or transfixed by — the same point in space.
That point was a scant fifty feet away, above and their left, where two obviously jumpy guards were leaning anxiously over the parapet at the top of the dam: they were gazing into the middle distance, down the gorge, towards the location of what seemed to be the sound of firing. They had only to move their eyes downwards and discovery for Groves and Maria was certain: they had only to shift their gaze to the left and discovery for Mallory and Miller would have been equally certain. And death for all inevitable
CHAPTER ELEVEN
