The Heights of Zervos (20 page)

At the bottom of the steps he noted a less trivial detail - the battalion wireless, the last set still in serviceable condition, was stowed against the wall with the flap opened back. An Alpenkorps soldier stood close by guarding the precious equipment. As soon as they had taken Katyra Burckhardt had to send the vital signal,
Phase One completed
. Despite the air of total confusion which now pervaded the vessel where men crouched low behind the rails or ran down the gangway urged on by Hahnemann, the colonel was still thinking clearly and a disturbing idea had entered his mind. Three shots, three casualties. That was the work of a marksman. It was quickly apparent that Hahnemann was disembarking the troops with all speed so Burckhardt, still concerned with his simple calculation, went swiftly back to the bridge where he could see what was happening. He arrived there in time to see more men hurrying along the jetty too close together as the firing continued. A man near the edge stopped as though struck by an invisible blow, tried to stagger forward a few steps, then plunged over the edge. He hit the water with a splash and when the body surfaced it floated motionlessly.

The fusillade continued for several minutes while the Alpenkorps constantly disembarked and ran the gauntlet of the exposed jetty. During the firing Burckhardt ordered the two remaining guards on the bridge to take Prentice and Ford below ready for going ashore. Schnell had left earlier so now he was alone on the bridge as the fusillade ceased suddenly.

He waited, turning his eyes now to the lower hill slopes still in the fading shadow of night. Hahnemann had carried out his order to cease fire abruptly and then hold fire for five minutes. Earlier, the colonel had assumed that those shots were coming from behind one of the shuttered windows, but so far he had seen nothing to confirm this. Half-a-dozen men were risking the jetty run again, their bodies crouched low as they ran past the huddled shapes lying on the stones. A single shot split the silence only broken by the thud of nailed boots on paved stone. One man fell. The others ran on, disappearing through the gap in the wall. On the bridge Burckhardt twisted his mouth grimly. He had seen it this time - the muzzle-flash in the hills to the south of the village. The marksman was indeed firing long-distance, and now he felt sure it was the work of one man. He left the bridge and Hahnemann met him at the foot of the staircase with news of the disaster.

'The second set is out of commission...'

'What!' Burckhardt was thunderstruck. He felt the blood rush to his head and paused before going on. 'How did it happen?'

'A bullet hit it - all the valves are smashed.'

A soldier was crouched over the set and he kept his head lowered as though afraid to face the colonel. Bending close to him, Burckhardt spoke very quietly. 'You were supposed to be guarding it, Dorff.'

'He could hardly have done anything,' Hahnemann interjected. 'He was by the rail firing off a few shots himself when it happened. He was never very far away from the set. It is just the most appalling bad luck, sir.'

'Bad luck, Hahnemann?' The colonel straightened up and stared at him. 'We have had one set sabotaged earlier in the voyage. Someone planted a demolition charge inside the vessel. And someone, at the beginning, set free the British prisoners. Haven't you grasped it yet that some unknown person is making sure that bad luck does come our way?' He turned as Dietrich walked round a corner and stopped to look down at the wrecked set.

'More?' he asked bluntly.

'A bullet has smashed all the valves. The set is quite useless.' Burckhardt studied the Abwehr man for a moment. 'Herr Dietrich, I believe you possess a Luger. Would you mind showing it to me?'

Without a word Dietrich extracted the pistol from his pocket and handed it to the colonel. While Burckhardt was examining the weapon he stood with his hands deep inside his pockets as he gazed along the jetty where the last troops were hurrying towards the village. It was almost daylight now and the buildings beyond the sea-wall showed up clearly in the pale sunshine. They had a decrepit, unpainted look and several tiles were missing from the shallow roofs which were a dull red colour. Once their walls had been brightly colour-washed but that had been a long time ago; now that the place could be seen properly in the dawn light it had shrunk from a shadowed village of some size to a tiny fishing hamlet of a few hundred people. Burckhardt had checked the gun, had found it fully loaded with seven rounds. He sniffed briefly at the barrel and then returned it. 'Thank you.' He looked at Hahnemann. 'We will go ashore. Tell Volber to bring the prisoners.'

Straightening his tunic, Burckhardt led the way onto Greek soil. Because of the
Hydra
's list to port, the gangway was inclined at a steep angle, a detail he had overlooked, and he had to run down it onto the almost deserted jetty. Here again, he led the way, walking briskly but without undue haste, pausing to exchange a few words with two medical orderlies who were attending the casualties. One of them looked up and shook his head. Burckhardt resumed his even pace, knowing that men still aboard were watching him from the rails. Behind him came the Abwehr man, hands still inside his pockets, looking towards the south as he trailed the colonel, and behind him followed Prentice and Ford escorted by Volber and a private. At the end of the mole the colonel stopped and called down to Nopagos who was waiting with the other civilians on the beach. 'That Greek, Grapos, what other qualifications had he that you didn't tell me about?'

'He speaks English.'

Nopagos hadn't understood what the colonel was driving at and he saw the German stiffen. Burckhardt's reactions piled on top of one another. Was he being insolent? The question going through the colonel's head had been whether at some time Grapos might have undergone military service, perhaps before he contracted his limp. Grapos spoke English? As he walked on to the causeway Burckhardt tried to recall the sequence of events aboard the
Hydra
. Could Grapos have freed Prentice and Ford? He had been imprisoned in the hold at the time. Had he sabotaged both wireless sets? Was he still on board? Then who was that marksman in the hills... Firmly, he pushed the riddle out of his thoughts as he went through the gap in the wall where a sentry had been posted. He saluted as the man jumped to attention.

Behind him Dietrich was taking his time about walking towards Katyra, dragging his feet until Volber and the prisoners caught up with him. He even stood quite still for a moment while he looked down at Nopagos, and when he continued along the causeway the prisoners and their escorts had passed and were a few paces in front of him. He appeared to be taking a great interest in the view to the south next, staring fixedly at the hills, and then he switched his attention to the sentry by the wall, noting the hand-grenade which hung from the soldier's belt. Finally, he looked back along the jetty to see if anyone else was close at hand. The gangplank was empty and there was no sign of more troops coming ashore. He turned round and called out.

'Volber! I think you're wanted back at the ship.'

The sergeant gestured to the prisoners to halt. They had just passed through the gap and beyond a dusty track wound out of sight past a stone building into the main part of Katyra. Burckhardt had almost reached the bend and Dietrich's words had not been spoken loudly enough to reach him. The sentry looked puzzled and stared at the
Hydra
where a tall figure could be seen at the head of the gangway with its back turned.

'What is it, sir?' Volber took a few paces towards the Abwehr man and his expression was uncertain. In the distance, over his shoulder, the colonel disappeared round the curve in the road which was now empty. Prentice was standing with his hands on his hips while Ford stared pointedly at the soldier who stood a few paces away with his rifle at the ready.

'I think you're wanted back at the ship,' Dietrich repeated. 'I saw Hahnemann beckoning.'

Volber was in a quandary. He had received explicit orders from the colonel to escort the prisoners personally into the village and he had no inclination to vary from Burckhardt's command by so much as a centimetre. But Lieutenant Hahnemann was the officer who could, and did, make life arduous for him. So he compromised briefly, waiting to see whether the beckoning was repeated from the gangway. Dietrich remained where he was, apparently absorbed in the panorama across the gulf. If one ignored the huddled group on the jetty and overlooked the signs of military invasion, it was an extraordinarily peaceful scene. By early daylight the Aegean was an intense, deep cobalt with a backdrop of misty mountains on the mainland which seemed almost unreal. At the head of the lonely gulf, where the sun caught the water at a certain angle, the sea glittered like mercury, and on the nearby beach small waves, rippled by the breeze, slid gently forward and collapsed.

Volber stirred restlessly. 'I can't wait any longer, sir,' he ventured, and Dietrich nodded as though he understood. He followed the sergeant through the gap and stopped suddenly when he saw, to his right, that two Alpenkorps soldiers stationed behind the wall had been concealed from his view. As he appeared they were looking at the hills to the south, but now they lowered their field-glasses, hoisted their machine-pistols more firmly over their shoulders, and walked back to the gap to take one last look at the vessel which had brought them all the way from Istanbul. Volber paused to have a word with them, making some joking reference to pleasure cruises, but Dietrich noticed that he was staring along the jetty in case Hahnemann appeared and started gesturing. Sighing out aloud, Prentice crossed onto the grass verge and sat down with his back to the wall where Ford joined him. Volber, standing in the middle of the gap with the other three soldiers, was about to reprimand him, when hell opened up on the gulf.

The reverberations of the detonation crashed round the hillsides, roared out across the gulf like a cannonade, and sent a shock wave like a bombardment through the gap in the wall. The demolition charge had reached zero. Dietrich, half-protected by the wall, was thrown sprawling onto the grass, and he thought he heard two explosions close together - the charge first, then the boilers going up. The full force of the wave had struck the four Alpenkorps soldiers like a giant hammer and they lay in the road like trampled rag dolls. Only two men were moving feebly and one of them fell limp almost immediately as he lost consciousness. The sentry was bunched up against the outside of the wall in a strangely twisted position. As Dietrich lay on the grass, temporarily deafened by the road, there was a stench of burning oil in his nostrils and Prentice and Ford, whose ears had not been affected, heard debris clattering on the village rooftops like spent shrapnel from ack-ack guns.

For both of them the immensely strong sea-wall had muffled the blast. But Dietrich was recovering quickly. As he staggered to his feet Prentice began to move up behind him with a rock in his fist. The Abwehr man, unaware of what was happening behind him, fished the Luger out of his pocket, looked quickly up the road and along the jetty, and moved towards the soldier who was climbing to his feet in the centre of the road. Prentice, moving soundlessly on the grass, followed Dietrich as he lurched towards the soldier who had now brought himself to his knees and was shaking his head like a dog emerging from a river. He looked up as Dietrich brought the Luger barrel crashing down on his head. He was slumping to the ground when Dietrich tugged the loop of the machine-pistol free. Prentice stared in astonishment, the rock still poised in his hand, but when he saw the machine-pistol he moved forward again. The Abwehr man turned, knocked the unsteady fist aside and thrust the weapon into Prentice's hands. 'This will be more useful - if you can handle the damned thing.'

He had spoken in English and without waiting for Prentice's reaction he hauled another machine-pistol loose from an inert German, tossed it across to Ford, and then extracted spare magazines from the pockets of the two men on the ground. When he stood up he noticed that it was Ford who was familiar with the machine-pistol and shoved the magazines at him. 'Here - it looks as though they'd be more use to you.

Now, we've got to get moving pdq. We go that way - along the wall to the south.'

'Who the devil are you?' Prentice demanded,

'Dietrich of the Abwehr.'

The reply was given ironically as the large man stared briefly along the jetty wall. The
Hydra
looked like a refugee from an Atlantic convoy. The funnel was bent at a surrealist angle and her bows were already settling in the shallow water. Around the hull men swam in the sea distractedly as a huge column of black smoke ascended into the clear sky like a gigantic signal which would be seen clear across the bay to the mainland. As he gazed at the wreckage a tongue of red flame flared up at the base of the distorted funnel. Soon the whole superstructure would be ablaze and would go on burning until the hulk was reduced to its waterline and the
Hydra
was a blackened shell. All Burckhardt's efforts at preserving an appearance of normality had gone up with the demolition charge. 'I thought she'd never blow,' he said half to himself, and then he saw Nopagos clambering up onto the jetty. The shock wave must have blown straight over the heads of the group on the beach. He looked back towards the town and the road was still empty. 'They'll be coming soon,' he warned, 'so let's get to hell out of here.'