The Heights of Zervos (30 page)

Afterwards he could never remember his automatic action of driving forward slowly and turning the half-track so it faced towards the mountain road before he braked, switched off the engine and staggered out onto the road where Prentice held him as his legs almost gave way. 'I'm not too bad ... I'll survive. I want to see...' He stumbled over to a piece of the remaining wall and leant heavily against it while he looked over. The half-track, upside down, had been caught by two huge boulders thrust above the water, but as he looked down it lost its balance, tipped over sideways, wallowed briefly three-parts submerged and then sank. Bubbles coming up from it reached the surface and were then whipped away in the fast-flowing current, so he couldn't be sure whether his eyes had played him a trick. The sunken vehicle gave up one last memory, the uniformed body of an Alpenkorps man who came to the surface and then was swept away downriver, towards Molos, towards the Gulf of Zervos. 'Poor devil,' Macomber muttered, then he straightened up, still using the wall for support. 'There'll be others on the way, so we'd better get on - up the mountain.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sunday, 2-30 PM

The ledge which supported the road was dangerously narrow -as Macomber had predicted they were hemmed in between a vertical wall of rock to their right, a wall which climbed high above them, while to their left the abyss fell away to unknown depths, unknown because the mist below prevented them from seeing how far down the drop continued. They were fifteen minutes' driving time from the wrecked bridge - no great distance considering he had been compelled to move up at a rate of only a few miles per hour - but in that time they had climbed steadily and Macomber calculated that soon they would have ascended a thousand feet, one thousand nerve-crushing feet. Before they had left the bridge Prentice had offered to take over the wheel, but the Scot refused the suggestion. 'I think I've a little experience of handling her now,' he had remarked drily, conferring a feminine status on the most unfeminine-looking object imaginable, 'you might even say I've had a crash course in coping with a half-track.'

'Crash is the word,' Prentice agreed humorously, 'and that's why I'm wondering whether you're in fit state to drive it up the mountain.'

'If I'm not, you should have time to nip off the back.'

Prentice was recalling this last optimistic remark as he stared over the side to where the world dropped away into nothingness. The tracks were grinding irritably over the shale-strewn road as he leaned forward to speak directly into Macomber's ear. 'You'll watch it, won't you, Mac? This isn't too good a place for nipping off anywhere.'

'You could slip over, too, even if you made it - you've seen what's coming up?'

Prentice stared ahead and was joined in his stare by Ford and Grapos who shared the same bench seat. Up to this moment the road had a dull, powdery look, but ahead it gleamed with a sinister sheen - a sheen of ice which coated the surface from wall to brink. 'That doesn't look too funny,' Ford remarked thoughtfully as he recalled vividly what had happened to the half-track when it hit the ice patch on their way down to the bridge. 'Think we can make it?' Prentice asked softly, subconsciously seeking reassurance.

'It may be all right,' Macomber replied non-commitally as he edged the vehicle forward. 'Nothing's ever as bad as you think it's going to be - once you try it.' But his confident reply, deliberately delivered in that form to keep up the morale of his passengers, hardly corresponded with his misgivings. Further evidence that they were climbing steadily was provided by the equally steady drop in temperature and already the mist drifting over his windscreen was lingering, settling to form streaks of blobbed ice. There was no wind worth speaking of at this height yet; just a relentless fall in temperature which caused the Scot to pull the scarf a little tighter round his neck, a purity of cold which inhibited speech and made a man want to sink into the stillness of the mountain. The tracks rumbled forward under them as the ice came closer and Macomber cursed their bad luck - this hazard had presented itself at the very moment when the ledge was narrowing so there was barely a foot of free space on either side of the lumbering vehicle.

He was finding it more difficult to handle in the confined space - no leeway for even the fraction of an error and the concentration required every second was beginning to sap his last reserves of energy, to dull the keenness of his nerves just when he needed every ounce of alertness he could summon up. The vehicle moved on, passing into the ice zone as Macomber sat up straighter, every fibre of his consciousness keyed up for the first sign of slipping, the first hint that the tracks were in trouble - because it was the tracks which would get them through if they survived this ordeal, their weight which would hold the vehicle on the ledge - and conversely it was their malfunction which could bring about the final disaster, the slither backwards which he might not be able to control, ending in their dropping over the precipice, hauled down by the weight which had earlier saved them. Above the slow clatter he heard a new sound, the chilling prickle as the tracks moved onto the ice, followed immediately by a crackle like breaking glass. He let out his breath: it was all right, the ice was breaking. He had to keep up this gradual pace and the tracks would anchor the vehicle while the wheels crossed the treacherous surface, then the tracks would fracture it to allow their own safe passage. Within a minute he was frowning, knowing he had miscalculated dangerously, that his remark that nothing was as bad as you expected was incorrect - things could be worse, infinitely worse. It was the feel of the half-track which warned him, something he was becoming familiar with, because now they felt to be moving over a permanent smoothness. The grip of the caterpillars into the road he had noted farther down was missing. They weren't gripping any more - they were moving upwards over a second more solid layer of ice beneath; only the surface had cracked. And he was coming to a bend. And he could see the first of the snow, white streaks garnishing the gleaming surface. Prentice leaned close to his shoulder, careful not to distract him, to keep his tone moderate and calm.

'Look, Mac, I think we have a problem. We're still moving over ice. The stuff must be inches thick.'

'I know. You'd better all move onto the rear bench - just in case.'

'I appreciate the suggestion...' Prentice was speaking with studious calm, a calm he was making a certain effort to assume,'... but I don't think that would help. If we start to go we'll go backwards, so I don't foresee any rush to leave by the rear exit.'

He was right, of course, Macomber thought pessimistically; they were totally boxed in - by the wall, the abyss, and by the danger of the vehicle starting to slide backwards. Their options were also critically limited in another direction which Prentice probably hadn't grasped yet: Macomber dare not risk braking - stopping on this glass-like surface - because once he stopped they would face the almost inevitable peril that when the half-track tried to move forward again the caterpillars would revolve uselessly over the ice, the first stage in the final slip-back. Boxed in, unable to stop, compelled to move up and up whatever faced them, Macomber began easing the vehicle round the shallow curve, his eyes switching constantly from one point to another - from the curving wall to the extension of the road ahead in case it narrowed even farther. He sat very still behind the wheel, his mind filled with the clanking sound of the turning metal, the curve of the sheer wall which went on and on, the sharp edge where the road ended and the blurred abyss began.

Behind him Prentice sat motionless on the bench in the position nearest to the drop, with Ford in the middle and Grapos seated close to the wall, a wall the Greek viewed with increasing disenchantment as it insidiously moved nearer to his right shoulder: the ledge was contracting. Perched above the brink, Prentice's gloved hand gripped the side of the vehicle as though attached to it and he felt the vibrations of engine and tracks passing up his arm, felt the freezing air numbing his cheeks, felt the tremble of the half-track when it wobbled as it passed over an ice-coated unevenness. The crackling sound, the thinly-iced layer crumbling under the weight, came to him above the engine's purr like the sputtering of a log fire, the symbol of warmth while he slowly froze into a state of immobility, and he couldn't take his eyes off the ribbon of ascending ledge which gradually unwound as the road climbed higher and higher. How much more of this could Mac stand? An audacious gamble - like the reversing of the half-track down the slope to hit the Germans on the bridge - he had grasped this side of the Scot's character; but this murderous, mind-killing creep up the ice-bound mountain, this was something else again, something which made him regard the Scot with far greater awe. And he must be nearly asleep over that wheel... He pushed the thought out of his head quickly. It frightened him too much. Glancing at the others, he saw Ford's hands clasped rather tightly in his lap, his face wooden, whereas Grapos was leaning forward, watching the road intently as though expecting a fresh hazard any second. To take his mind off watching the road Prentice pulled out the looped rope from under the bench, saw that at one end a grappling hook was attached, and when he opened the Alpenkorps satchel he saw more climbing equipment - another rope, pitons, a hammer. As he shoved satchel and rope back under the bench something damp flaked his face, dropped into his lap. It had started snowing.

The snow started falling heavily as they navigated a fresh turn in the road and a rising wind met them, a bitter wind which blew the flakes into a turmoil so they danced above the ledge, driven this way and that in disconcerting flurries. For Macomber the coming of the snow was the final straw, the ultimate hazard. He had kept the half-track on the ledge, maintaining an even space on either side as it narrowed, as he found himself increasingly compressed between wall and brink; maintaining an even speed as it balanced itself delicately on the solid ice, but he had accomplished this gruelling task with a reasonable visibility. Now this only asset was taken away from him as blinding snow fogged his vision, pasted itself over the windscreen, blurred wall and precipice edge to mere silhouettes whose exact location he could no longer rely on. He switched on the lights and they sent out short-lived swathes penetrating only a few yards inside the frenzy of the snowstorm which was growing rapidly more violent as the wind rose to a moaning howl and the men on the bench seat behind him bowed their heads to shield themselves against the onslaught of the elements. Grapos, his chin dug into his chest, was peering warily to his right where the rock face seemed to be closing in; if they collided with that at the wrong moment it could veer the vehicle outwards and over the drop, and Macomber, seated on the other side of the half-track was less able to judge their distance from the wall than from the brink. In the faint hope that he might be able to issue a warning in time, the Greek lifted his head, ignored the whipping snow-flakes which stung his skin and stared ahead through half-closed eyes. No doubt about it - they were appreciably closer to the wall.

This slight change of position was not a mistake on the Scot's part as Grapos feared; it was a deliberate act to try and reduce a little the overwhelming danger they now faced. Unsure from moment to moment of the precise position of the abyss edge he had turned in nearer to the mountain, knowing that if they struck the rock face he at least had a chance to recover, and knowing that if the tracks tipped over the edge there would be no chance of survival at all. Macomber had seriously considered halting, but they were still passing over solid ice and they were still moving up a steepish incline, so if he could keep going until the storm died away the hazards were probably a fraction less dangerous than the hazards of stopping - to say nothing of the fact that somewhere not too far behind them Burckhardt's force must already be making its own way up the mountain road. And the possibility of finding himself stationary on the ice-bound ledge as armed men, more than likely men equipped with mortars, came round a corner in his rear was not a contingency which appealed to him. He turned his head slightly, shouted to make himself heard above the howling wind. 'Any idea how much farther, Grapos?'

'One kilometre beyond the big bend.'

'How far to this ruddy bend?'

'Soon - very soon now.'

'How do you know in this stuff?' Macomber bawled out sceptically.

'Because of the gash.'

Gash? The Scot glanced quickly to his right and saw for the first time a break in the endless mountain wall, a fissure scarcely wider than the breadth of a man, and beyond the gyrating snow he had a glimpse of a narrow tumble of water which fell almost vertically and which was frozen solid in mid-air. Then it was gone. Jesus, the temperature must be low up here. As he looked ahead again the road began to turn round the mountain, and it went on turning, which forced him to keep the wheel swung over permanently to the right, but at least this was an improvement on the zigzags he had encountered lower down, hairpin bends he doubted he could even have attempted if the snow had come then. He drove on, up and up, following the continuing curve of the wall, peering from underneath his Alpenkorps cap brim as his gaze switched from brink to wall and back again to brink, and so great was his concentration that it was a few minutes before he realized there had been a change in the weather. It was still snowing but the wind had dropped, fading away to a chilling stillness as the curtain of snow floated down almost vertically in the windless atmosphere. For the hundredth time he brushed his hand over the windscreen to clear the snow: the wipers had packed up some time ago and his hand was equally effective for removing some of the freezing snow which was steadily adhering to the glass at either end of the screen. And now the headlights penetrated farther, giving him a safer view of what was coming up - and they were only about one kilometre from safety according to Grapos. The thought had barely passed through his head when he stiffened, felt his hands grip the wheel more tightly. A short distance ahead a boulder rested against the inner wall, a boulder rounded and partly covered with snow, and as the headlights moved nearer he saw its. massive size, that it was only partly protruding from a ravine similar to the one they had recently passed, that it must have tumbled down the ravine and then become jammed in the exit immovably just before it crossed the ledge and swept down into the abyss. The dream of safety receded as every turn of the tracks took them closer to the emergency. Macomber weighed up the chances quickly - the boulder appeared firmly jammed inside the ravine, they were within a kilometre of easier going, there appearing to be just sufficient room for them to squeeze past, but it would take them to the edge of the precipice.