The Heights of Zervos (24 page)

As they went on and the angle of the pipe dipped more steeply, Macomber remembered that the hill slope dropped sharply when it approached the stream. He began to have a horrible feeling that they had taken the wrong decision - that they should never have entered this Stygian cylinder which might be their grave. For a brief second he paused to wipe the gathering sweat off his forehead and then ploughed on, his wrists aching under the weight they had to bear, the palms of his hands sore and tender with groping over the gritty concrete, the pain increasing across his back and down his thighs. When the hell were they going to get out of this blasted tunnel Grapos had led them into so confidently? There had to be a bend soon because only a bend would explain why there was still no light ahead. Unless the tunnel exit was completely blocked: that certainly would account for the continuing state of darkness they were crawling down through. It might also account for the worsening difficulty in breathing.

Macomber was having great trouble in regulating the intake of air now as he shuffled downwards blindly and automatically. But if the exit were stopped up they would be descending into a region of foul and foetid air where breathing might become well-nigh impossible. His great fear now was that they would .discover the grim truth too late - that by the time they knew there was no way out they would have degenerated into such a weakened state that they would never be able to summon up the strength needed for the return trip. Years later when they excavated the pipe they would find... He suppressed the macabre thought and concentrated on keeping going, hands first, then that dreadful, wearying haul forward of the knees which it was becoming an agony to move. His head was vibrating gently and frequently he blinked as brief lights flashed in front of his eyes. He was aware of feeling warmer and he couldn't be sure whether this was an illusion or a symptom warning mat something was going wrong with his system. He had moved forward mechanically for so long that his heart jumped with the shock when his outstretched hand touched something hard. The sole of Grapos' stationary boot. Was there a crisis? Had the Greek collapsed on the floor of the tunnel under the murderous physical strain? He called out. 'Grapos ...' Because of the silence which had lasted so long he found he was unconsciously whispering as he called again. 'Something wrong, Grapos?'

The voice which came back out of the darkness was hoarse and breathless. 'We are at the bend. I can see the light at the bottom. When we arrive, you wait inside the pipe. You do not come out until I tell you.'

'All right. You're doing fine.'

Grapos grunted and began heaving himself forward again, on his stomach now because he found this an easier way to progress as the pipe angled downhill more precipitately. Macomber was about to follow when he felt a hand touch his own foot and he called back over his shoulder. 'Nearly there, Ford. We can see the end of the tunnel. Pass it on.' There was a considerable element of exaggeration in his statement but it seemed a reasonable moment to send back a cheerful message. As he rounded the bend, Macomber was able to appreciate the extent of his exaggerated optimism: the pipe was angled downwards at an increasingly nerve-wracking pitch and the blur of light in the distance was little larger than a sixpence. They were probably barely half-way down the hili slope. He was easing himself round the bend when his right knee contacted a particularly slippery patch and before he knew what was happening he lost balance and crashed heavily against the tunnel wall. He felt it crumble under his impact and a large piece of concrete slithered into his thigh followed by a shower of loosened earth. In places the damned thing was little thicker than paper. Calling back to warn the others, he crawled forward again with a sensation of moving down a chute. The brief pause had hindered rather than helped - his knees were wobbling badly and he expected at any moment to keel into the wall for a second time. When the accident happened it was so unexpected, so unforeseeable and bizarre, that it took away Macomber's breath. He had just caught up with Grapos and was within inches of his rearmost boot when the uncanny silence inside the tunnel was shattered by a ripping, cracking sound. Little more than a foot beyond Grapos' head the tunnel roof splintered, caved in and exposed a small hole - and thrust down through the hole was an Alpenkorps boot with a leg showing to the knee.

Macomber froze as Grapos lay rigid, his face inches away from the point where one of the Alpenkorps patrol had trodden through the rotting roof of the ancient pipe. Sufficient light percolated through the small aperture for him to see the pattern of large nails on the sole of the boot. Scarcely daring to breathe, he watched the leg withdrawing. For a few seconds it was held fast by the smallness of the hole when the boot tried to free itself, then it disappeared upwards, leaving the small aperture with ragged concrete edges. Still on all fours, Macomber prayed that the others behind him would lie still, that they had realized something had happened, that they would understand the desperate need for preserving total silence.

Grapos was still lying motionless on the tunnel floor, unable to reach the rifle looped over his back and having the sense not to attempt that dangerous manoeuvre. With agonizing slowness the Scot eased his tender knees forward a few more inches, wondering whether the hole was large enough for the invisible German to peer down and see Grapos, but he doubted whether that was possible. The Greek should be just far enough from the hole to go undetected. But how bright would that Alpenkorps man be? Would it occur to him to investigate the pipe, to kick in a little more of the crumbling roof? Originally, the pipe must have been laid just under the earth's surface, but over the years the rain had probably washed away some of the protecting soil until only a thin layer had remained. He found it an uncanny feeling to be lying there cooped up inside the narrow space, buried just underneath the hill slope and knowing that not three feet above them there was probably a German standing, undecided what to do about this phenomenon. Or had he gone away and climbed farther up the hill over their heads, cursing the pipe and not giving it another thought? He would have his orders to maintain the line of the sweep and German discipline gave little scope for personal initiative. But these were Alpine troops, men very different in training and background from the average breed of Wehrmacht footslogger. Their training taught them to use their heads, to think for themselves.

All these rattling thoughts passed through Macomber's brain as four men lay absolutely still inside the pipe while two of them - Prentice and Ford - had even less idea of what was happening because they had been farther back. All they knew was that the wriggling, advancing worm of feet and heads had unaccountably stopped after that weird breaking sound had travelled back up the tunnel. Instinct alone, or perhaps a telepathic sense of emergency, prevented them from calling out to ask what had gone wrong. Macomber felt the boots resting against his knuckles begin to wriggle and he understood the signal - Grapos wished to move back a little farther away from the hole. To avoid the risk of two men's movements,' Macomber simply perched both hands a little higher up the tunnel wall and the legs wriggled back underneath his own hoisted body, then stopped moving. He had made no sound during his short passage backwards but Macomber wished to heaven that he knew what had caused the Greek to retract that short distance. Was it in anticipation of something? The next moment he had confirmation that he had guessed correctly - a heavy instrument was hammered against the ragged rim of the aperture. Fragments clattered on the floor of the pipe and then the steel-plated butt of a rifle came half-way inside the pipe as a piece collapsed unexpectedly. The German was enlarging the hole to get a better view.

Macomber felt Grapos' body tense and then relax almost immediately - he had been about to seize the rifle butt and jerk it downwards out of the unseen hand holding it. Had the Alpenkorps man been alone it would have been a worthwhile action, but Grapos had remembered in time that the German was not alone on the hill slope. Grimly, Macomber waited for the hammering to be resumed, for the hole to be enlarged to a point where they mast be seen, but as the seconds passed the hammering was not resumed and there was an unnerving stillness beyond the aperture. Apparently the soldier was now satisfied that it was simply a deserted culvert and he had continued uphill with the sweep. Or was this too comforting an explanation of the lack of activity above that tell-tale hole?

Had he, in fact, seen Grapos? Probably not - Grapos had moved farther up the tunnel just in time. The complacent thought had hardly passed through Macomber's head when he realized how fatally he had been wrong, realized that the German was still standing there just above them and that this was a man who was going to make sure of the business with very little expenditure of effort. The expenditure of a single hand-grenade, in fact.

The stick-like object fell through the hole and landed on the floor of the pipe. Macomber knew at once that they were going to die, that the grenade would detonate under perfect conditions. Inside that confined space the blast would be enormous with only a fraction escaping through the aperture; the main part of the explosion would be concentrated and funnelled along the pipe in a searing wave of bursting gases which would tear them to pieces. Prentice at the rear might just survive - survive with ruptured ear-drums as the hellish noise roared over him. Macomber felt Grapos stir under him and knew what he was trying to do, but the Greek was sprawled along the floor in a near-helpless position and he would never manage it in time. The Scot's hand closed over the grenade as he pivoted, taking his whole weight on his left hand to give him hoisting room. Gripping the throwing-handle and knowing that he held death in his fist, he looked upwards, calculated in a split-second and then jerked his hand, praying that the missile wouldn't catch the rim of the hole and come bouncing down again. The grenade sailed up through the aperture's centre and vanished as Macomber instinctively huddled over Grapos who now lay perfectly still. The detonation echoed back to the prone men as a hard thump like the thud of a rubber hammer against an oak door. Macomber let out his breath and then nearly fell over as Grapos scrambled out from underneath him, half-stood up, pushed his head through the hole and heaved with his shoulders to force his way through the fractured rim.

What the devil was he up to now? The manoeuvre took Macomber completely by surprise. Was the Greek on the German side, was he taking this last chance to get out of the tunnel and reach his friends? Still standing in a half-crouched position with his head and shoulders only above the rim, Grapos was doing something frantically with his hands and arms. Below him Macomber held the Luger aimed at the lower part of his body while he tried to work out what Grapos was trying to do. He waited a whole minute and then the Greek, lowered himself back inside the tunnel, pausing on his knees to reach up outside the hole while he hauled clumps of vegetation over the aperture. His hands were streaked with blood and when Macomber caught a glimpse of the prickly undergrowth he understood - he had been clawing and arranging a screen of vegetation to conceal the hole from the rest of the Alpenkorps patrol. Grapos sagged into an awkward sitting position and wiped his streaked hands carefully underneath his coat while he took in great gasping breaths of air. When he could speak he looked at Macomber and his former mistrust had gone as he dragged out the words. 'The German is dead - the bomb must have landed at his feet. He is alone ... the others will come and will think the bomb went off by accident... with luck. If they do not see the hole...'

'You covered it completely?'

'I think so. If they search they will find it - but why should they do that if they think the bomb exploded by mistake? They will see it is not in his belt.'

'Thanks,' Macomber said simply. 'Think you can make it to the end of the tunnel? Good. And now you'd better be extra damned careful how you emerge.'

'I will manage.' Grapos wiped hair away from his face and stared at the Scot. 'And thank you - that bomb came within centimetres of my nose - if it exploded here I would have no head now...'

'Get moving - those Germans will be here any minute.'

In spite of their cramped state the four men made speedier progress down the last stretch of the tunnel and then waited at the bottom until Grapos signalled that all was clear. Like the Alpenkorps, they crossed the stepping-stones singly, and in less than five minutes they came out from the undergrowth on to the deserted road to Zervos. Grapos grinned as he hoisted his rifle over his shoulder prior to leading the way. 'It will be good from now,' he informed them. 'We are in front of the Germans.'

'I wouldn't count on that,' Macomber replied sharply. 'I've got a nasty idea something very peculiar is going to happen between here and Zervos.'

CHAPTER NINE

Sunday, Noon

The advance guard of the Alpenkorps was in sight and since they were mounted on mules it could only be a matter of time before they overtook anyone moving on foot. Perched on the Crag which hung over the road a hundred feet below, Macomber closed the Monokular glass which Prentice had returned to him and looked down at the roadside where Grapos waited for the oxen-carts coming from Zervos. It had been agreed that it would be better if he questioned the peasants riding on the carts alone and the three of them - Macomber, Prentice and Ford - had climbed up from the road to keep out of sight. For the Scot this had been a welcome opportunity to see a long distance back over the way they had come, although the view could have been more encouraging.