If you move I will kill you! Mallory said softly in German. The man stiffened. He had a carbine in his hand, Mallory saw.
Put the gun down. Don't turn round. Again the man obeyed, and Mallory was out of the water and on to the deck, in seconds, neither eye nor automatic straying from the man's back. He stepped softly forward, reversed the automatic, struck, caught the man before he could fall overboard and lowered him quietly to the deck. Three minutes later all the others were safely aboard.
Mallory followed the limping Brown down to the engine-room, watched him as he switched on his hooded torch, looked around with a professional eye, looked at the big, gleaming, six-cylinder in line Diesel engine.
This, said Brown reverently, is an engine. What a beauty! Operates on any number of cylinders you like. I know the type, sir.
I never doubted but you would. Can you start her up, Casey?
Just a minute till I have a look round, sir. Brown had all the unhurried patience of the born engineer. Slowly, methodically, he played the spotlight round the immaculate interior of the engine-room, switched on the fuel and turned to Mallory. A dual control job, sir. We can take her from up top.
He carried out the same painstaking inspection in the wheel-house, while Mallory waited impatiently. The rain was easing off now, not much, but sufficiently to let him see the vague outlines of the harbour entrance. He wondered for the tenth time if the guards there had been alerted against the possibility of an attempted escape by boat. It seemed unlikely from the racket Andrea was making, the Germans would think that escape was the last thing in their minds. He leaned forward, touched Brown on the shoulder.
Twenty past eleven, Casey, he murmured. If these destroyers come through early we're apt to have a thousand tons of rock falling on our heads.
Ready now, sir, Brown announced. He gestured at the crowded dashboard beneath the screen. Nothing to it really.
I'm glad you think so, Mallory murmured fervently. Start her moving, will you? Just keep it slow and easy.
Brown coughed apologetically. We're still moored to the buoy. And it might be a good thing, sir, if we checked on the fixed guns, searchlights, signalling lamps, life-jackets and buoys. It's useful to know where these things are, he finished deprecatorily.
Mallory laughed softly, clapped him on the shoulder.
You'd make a great diplomat, Chief. We'll do that A landsman first and last, Mallory was none the less aware of the gulf that stretched between him and a man like Brown, made no bones about acknowledging it to himself. Will you take her out, Casey?
Right, sir. Would you ask Louki to come here I think it's steep to both sides, but there may be snags or reefs. You never know.
Three minutes later the launch was half-way to the harbour mouth, purring along softly on two cylinders, Mallory and Miller, still clad in German uniform, standing on the deck for'ard of the wheelhouse, Louki crouched low inside the wheelhouse itself. Suddenly, about sixty yards away, a signal lamp began to flash at them, its urgent clacking quite audible in the stillness of the night
Dan'l Boone Miller will now show how it's done, Miller muttered. He edged closer to the machine-gun on the starboard bow. With my little gun. I shall
He broke off sharply, his voice lost in the sudden clacking from the wheelhouse behind him, the staccato off-beat chattering of a signal shutter triggered by professional fingers. Brown had handed the wheel over to Louki, was morsing back to the harbour entrance, the cold rain lancing palely through the ifickering beams of the lamp. The enemy lamp had stopped but now began flashing again..
My, they got a lot to say to each other, Miller said admiringly. How long do the exchange of courtesies last, boss?
I should say they are just about finished. Mallory moved back quickly to the wheelhouse. They were less than a hundred feet from the harbour entrance. Brown had confused the enemy, gained precious seconds, more time than Mallory had ever thought they could gain. But it couldn't last. He touched Brown on the arm.
Give her everything you've got when the balloon goes up. Two seconds later he was back in position in the bows, Schmeisser ready in his hands. Your big chance, Dan'l Boone. Don't give the searchlights a chance to line up they'll blind you.
Even as he spoke, the light from the signal lamp at the harbour mouth cut off abruptly and two dazzling white beams, one from either side of the harbour entrance, stabbed blindingly through the darkness, bathing the whole harbour in their savage glare a glare that lasted for only a fleeting second of time, yielded to a contrastingly stygian darkness as two brief bursts of machine-gun fire smashed them into uselessness. From such short range it had been almost impossible to miss.
Get down, everyone! Mallory shouted. Flat on the deck!
The echoes of the gunfire were dying away, the reverberations fading along the great sea wall of the fortress when Casey Brown cut in all six cylinders of the engine and opened the throttle wide, the surging roar of the big Diesel blotting out all other sounds in the night. Five seconds, ten seconds, they were passing through the entrance, fifteen, twenty, still not a shot fired, half a minute and they were well clear, bows lifting high out of the water, the deep-dipped stern trailing its long, seething ribbon of phosphorescent white as the engine crescendoed to its clamorous maximum power and Brown pulled the heeling craft sharply round to starboard, seeking the protection of the steep-walled cliffs.
A desperate battle, boss, but the better men won. Miller was on his feet now, clinging to a mounted gun for support as the deck canted away beneath his feet. My grandchildren shall hear of this.
Guards probably all up searching the town. Or maybe there were some poor blokes behind these searchlights. Or maybe we just took 'em all by surprise. Mallory shook his head. Anyway you take it, we're just plain damn' lucky.
He moved aft, into the wheelhouse. Brown was at the wheel, Louki almost crowing with delight
That was magnificent, Casey, Mallory said sincerely. A first-class job of work. Cut the engine when we come to the end of the cliffs. Our job's done. I'm going ashore.
You don't have to, Major.
Mallory turned. What's that?
You don't have to. I tried to tell you on the way down, but you kept telling me to be quiet. Louki sounded injured, turned to Casey. Slow down, please. The last thing Andrea told me, Major, was that we were to come this way. Why do you think he let himself be trapped against the cliffs to the north instead of going out into the country, where he could have hidden easily.
Is this true, Casey? Mallory asked.
Don't ask me, sir. Those two they always talk. in Greek.
Of course, of course. Mallory looked at the low cliffs close off the starboard beam, barely moving now with the engine shut right down, looked back at Louki. Are you quite sure
He stopped in mid-sentence, jumped out through the wheelhouse door. The splash there had been no mistaking the noise-had come from almost directly ahead. Mallory, Miller by his side, peered into the darkness, saw a dark head surfacing above the water less than twenty feet away, leaned far over with outstretched arm as the launch slid slowly by. Five seconds later Andrea stood on the deck, dripping mightily and beaming all over his great moon face. Mallory led him straight into the wheelhouse, switched on the soft light of the shaded chartlamp.