The Heights of Zervos (35 page)

It went wrong at once. The trap-door opened slowly and there was no one to shoot at as daylight flooded down into the spiral. When the gap was wide enough he ran up the last few steps, aware of an unforeseen handicap - the trap was being opened from behind him by someone he couldn't see. He reached the stone-paved roof and half-turned round, only to find himself again temporarily immobilized in that position by the fierce pain which seared his back and cramped his movement, making it impossible for him to aim the Luger at the kneeling corporal who slammed down the trap and pushed the bolt home. The falling slab of wood had struck Grapos on the shoulder, leaving Macomber isolated on the roof with the two Germans. The corporal, still on his knees, was reaching for a pistol lying on the stones beside him when Macomber threw his Luger. The weapon smashed into the corporal's temple and he fell over sideways, his fingers still closed over the pistol as he lay still, facing the sky with his eyes open. The other soldier had been standing by the wall looking out over the gulf when Macomber came onto the roof, his body crouched as he pressed his eye to a powerful field-telescope mounted on a tripod, while close by a short, squat-barrelled mortar was set up on its own tripod near a pile of snub-nosed shells. Heavily built, the German's open collar exposed a thick neck, and he was only taken by surprise for a few seconds, then he dropped to his knees and began tugging furiously to free something caught under the canvas which cushioned the mortar bombs. It came free as Macomber wrenched himself into action and reached him.

The German, still on his knees, swung round with the machine-pistol and the Scot grabbed at the muzzle in mid-swing. Instead of pulling at the weapon, which the German expected, he pushed viciously and the soldier lost balance, letting go of the gun as he fell over backwards, but his elbows saved him from sprawling over the floor. Still in pain, Macomber made a mistake, thinking he had enough time to reverse the weapon and get a grip on it. He was still fumbling when the German came to his feet and went for his throat, and the momentum of his charge carried Macomber back against the waist-high tower wall. He couldn't even attempt to use the gun which was compressed between their bodies as they grappled fiercely and Macomber felt himself being pushed remorselessly backwards over the brink. The soldier was a few inches shortei but he was in prime condition and ten years younger, and the Scot was very close to the end of his physical resources. With the gun penned between them, the German had both hands locked tightly round Macomber's throat and now, as his back arched over the wall screamed with pain, he felt his air supply going. A momentary panic gripped him as he started to tip over the drop, the rim of the wall hard against the small of his back and acting as a fulcrum for the German to lever him down to the lake far below.

Knowing that he was winning, the soldier ignored the gun, squeezing his hands tighter and tighter as Macomber's face changed colour. The Scot's hands still held the machine-pistol and he managed to force it sideways, but he still couldn't use it. Had the German continued his pressure he would have sent Macomber over the edge within seconds, but he saw the gun come loose and released his right hand to grab at it, confident that the Scot was done for. And Macomber was almost done for - the German was holding his throat with only one hand but he had quickly inserted his thumb into the Scot's windpipe and his victim began to choke. Get rid of the gun! The message raced through Macomber's brain and he jerked feebly but with just sufficient force to snatch it out of the hand clutching the dangling strap. He let go and the machine-pistol disappeared over the edge.

As the thumb pressure increased reddish lights sputtered in front of his eyes and he felt his last remaining strength ebbing away. This was it. Nothing else left. His right hand fluttered, felt hair at the moment when the German's nailed boot ground down his instep. Pain shrieked up his leg like an electric shock and he was seized with a spasm of blind fury which sent fresh adrenalin through his veins. He grabbed a large handful of hair, clawed his hand, twisted it and dragged it sideways with all the energy he could muster, hauling at the hair as though to tear it out by the roots. The thumb pressure slackened, was released. Macomber sucked in a gasping lungful of cold mountain air, knowing that within seconds the brawny German would recover. Releasing the hair, he clawed his hand again and, as the soldier's face reappeared, he struck. The savagery of the onslaught unnerved the German and he propelled himself backwards away from the wall to save his face, catching the heel of his boot on an uplifted stone. He was fighting to restore his balance when Macomber's bull-like charge, head down, punched into his stomach, driving him headlong across the roof. The Scot was following him when his right foot tangled with a leg of the telescope's tripod and he crashed forward on his chest as the telescope toppled, broke away from its tripod and rolled over the roof. Macomber had hauled himself up on all fours, his chin sticky with blood where it had grazed the stones, when he saw that the wall had saved his opponent. The German had slapped his hands hard down on the wall-top to halt his momentum when Macomber, close to him, whipped a hand round his right ankle and lifted. The German made his second mistake. Acting by reflex, still off-balance, still groggy from the pile-driving blow in the stomach, he lifted his other foot to kick Macomber in the face. Elbow hard into the roof, the Scot hoisted as high as he could, no more than a few inches, but a fraction more of the German's weight was now poised over the brink than over the roof. The imprisoned foot jerked upwards out of Macomber's grasp of its own volition and the soldier was propelled outwards and downwards as the Scot climbed to his feet. The scream came up as a fading wail and he was just in time to see the minute spread-eagled figure strike the ice hundreds of feet below.

Using the wall for support, he made his way over to the trapdoor, kicking out of the way an opened notebook, the book they had used to record the passage of Allied supplies up the mainland road. Stooping painfully, be pulled back the bolt, but he let them open it, and when the lid lifted it was being raised by Grapos, with Ford below and Prentice bringing up the rear. It was the staff-sergeant who made the first comment. Seeing the crumpled corporal lying on his back he stared curiously at Macomber. 'We didn't think we'd see you alive again, but I thought there were two of them.'

'One went over the side ... you'd better look down here quick.' He was still holding on to the wall support and he looked haggard as he gently massaged his throat and stared down at the lake. 'Burckhardt's nearly here...'

Burckhardt had moved with great speed: his force was already arrayed and moving far out onto the lake, so that as the Scot gazed down from the great height of the tower he had the sensation of watching a diorama in a war museum. Six half-tracks, spread out widely over the ice like toy models, led the advance, followed by Alpenkorps and parachutists on foot. Farther back more half-tracks crawled forward and each of the weird vehicles carried only its driver - to minimize casualties if the ice broke at any point Burckhardt had shrewdly emptied the half-tracks of all superfluous passengers. Several light ack-ack guns and 75-mm mountain howitzers, unlimbered from the half-tracks which had hauled them up the mountain road, were being drawn bodily over the ice, two men to a gun, and Macomber noticed that round all the vehicles and guns there were unoccupied areas of frozen lake - the men on foot were nervous of the weight this equipment was imposing on the lake's surface. The sense of looking down on a scale model was heightened by the heavy silence which had fallen over the mountain as the wind dropped, and no sound of the advancing army reached the watchers on the tower. Macomber looked at the staff-sergeant who was also gazing down at the threatening spectacle.

'Any hope at all, Ford - by using the mortar? It is an 8-cm, isn't it?'

'Yes. You mean break the ice under them? We can try, but I can't feed the mortar with this shoulder.' He looked across at Prentice who was nursing his swollen right hand. 'And neither can he. Grapos' shoulder is temporarily numbed from the blow it took from that trap-door.' He looked doubtfully at Macomber, who instinctively straightened up from the wall. 'Can you cope?''

'I'll have to. And we'd better get moving.'

Macomber looked back out to sea. The mounting crisis was of the worst possible magnitude. The destroyer had turned to come in closer, to steam directly for the cape, and within a matter of minutes it would have vanished under the lee of the peninsula prior to commencing landing operations. If Burckhardt reached the monastery he would not only have achieved his objective - he would be in a position to slaughter those troops as they wound their way up the cliff-face track. What on earth had warned Athens that something was wrong? He dismissed the question as academic and began a quick count of the snub-nosed shells lying half covered with canvas while they waited to service the mortar. Thirty bombs. It didn't seem many, not nearly enough. He rammed his last cigar into his mouth and chewed at it as Ford, the calmest man on the roof, stood by the parapet, turning his face sideways to gauge the strength of the fading breeze, screwing up his eyes against the sun as he estimated distances and trajectories. While they waited for the staff-sergeant to complete his calculations Macomber helped Prentice to fix his hand in a makeshift sling with the aid of his scarf, a hand which was swelling ominously, and he watched Burckhardt's progress tensely as he attended the injury. The half-tracks were crawling steadily forward like mechanical bugs - bugs which were now almost two-thirds of the distance across the lake as they approached the road up to the monastery. And even from the great height he looked down on them, Macomber could at last hear a faint purring sound travelling up through the cold mountain air, the purr of engines and caterpillar tracks grinding over the ice.

'That must be Burckhardt - in that car.' Prentice had looked up after testing the sling, and Macomber focused his glass quickly to where the lieutenant had pointed with his good hand. A compact open car, strangely shaped, was driving over the ice slowly as it reached a position mid-way between the distant shore and the leading half-tracks. Ford left the wall, lurching unsteadily towards the mortar as he made his comment.

'It will be a Kubelwagen. The car, I mean. Looks a bit like a squashed bucket close up - they'd bring that in by glider. Now, I need your help, Mac.'

First, they had to move the mortar, to drag it round away from the sea so that its muzzle aimed out over the lake, and then Ford, with considerable difficulty, cradled a bomb in bis arms and showed Macomber what he must do. 'There are three basic things to remember - don't put a bomb down the barrel nose first, or else we can all say good-bye; slide it in - don't push; and keep your hands out of the way afterwards if you want to hang on to them. I'll try and give you a demonstration, and then you're on your own - I've got to be by the wall to see what's happening ...'

'They're going up the mountain, too!' Prentice, who had again borrowed the Scot's Monokular, was focused on a point beyond the bluff as he shouted out. Colonel Burckhardt was proving himself an excellent tactician and was leaving nothing to chance: the greater portion of his force was assembled on the lake, but beyond the distant shore two straggled lines of dots were ascending the lower slope of Mount Zervos itself as ski troops made for the monastery by a different route. Seeing those two lines climbing higher, already disappearing behind the bluff, Macomber guessed the route they would follow. The southern shore of the lake was blocked by the bluff climbing vertically from the water's edge, but ski troops could ascend to a point above the bluff and then cross the mountain slope above it, until they reached a position where they could ski downwards over a slope which ended close to the monastery entrance. The snowbound mountain had an overloaded look above the bluff and Grapos, who also guessed at their route, spoke grimly.

'They will need care and luck up there.'

'Why?' demanded Macomber.

'The thaw is coming - the time for the mountain to move.'

'You mean an avalanche?'

'Yes.'

'We'll worry about them later.'

Ford completed his demonstration for the Scot's benefit. Replacing the bomb on the canvas, he then crouched down to make a careful adjustment to the angle of fire, went quickly back to the wall to check the target, and returned to the mortar to adjust it again. Macomber, in a rising fever of impatience to get the thing firing, also went briefly to the wall for a final appraisal. The Kubelwagen was moving closer to the front line, halting frequently for a few seconds, presumably while Burckhardt had a word with his troops. The six half-tracks in front were now three-quarters of the way across the lake and within minutes they would have reached firm ground. Feeling automatically for a match to light his cigar, he brought out his hand empty; this was going to be tricky enough as it was without smoke getting in his eyes. He went back to the mortar, checked to make sure that the blood on his hand was dried, wiped both hands briskly on his handkerchief, and then stooped to lift the first bomb as Ford took up position by the parapet and warned Prentice and Grapos to stay in their corners.

Prentice had the best view, squeezed into the north-east corner where he looked down on the entire lake. The first bomb went away seconds later, soaring out over the wall, diminishing rapidly in size as it described an arc and landed on the ice ahead of the leading half-tracks. Prentice's teeth were clenched with anxiety as he watched its fall. He saw a brief spurt of snow where the projectile hit. Then nothing happened. Nothing. His eyes met Ford's as the sergeant pressed his hands harder on the wall, his face expressionless.