Thunderbolt from Navarone. Sam Llewellyn

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СКАЧАТЬ You will transfer to an MTB near Benghazi. You’ll be ashore and operating by 0300 tomorrow. There will be no training.’

      ‘MTB?’ said Mallory.

      ‘Motor Torpedo Boat,’ said Dixon.

      ‘Bit indiscreet,’ said Mallory, who knew what an MTB was. ‘Noisy.’

      ‘Can’t be helped,’ said Jensen. ‘Sorry about the training, sorry about the MTB. But it’s a matter of… well, put it like this. There’s a bit of a flap on. These damned rockets are a menace to our rear and our flank in Italy. They can deliver three tons of HE with an accuracy of fifty yards. They need disposing of before they’re operational, and we think that will be soon. We’d fly you in, but Staff say it’s the wrong place for a parachute drop. So MTB it’ll have to be. Time is of the essence.’

      ‘Can’t be done,’ said Mallory. Suddenly he felt Jensen’s eyes upon him like rods of ice.

      The Admiral’s neck veins swelled. ‘Look here,’ he said, in a sort of muted bellow. ‘It is against my better judgement that I am using an insubordinate shower like you to perform a delicate operation. But Captain Jensen assures me that you know what you are doing, and takes responsibility for you. Well, let me make myself clear. If you do not obey my orders and the orders of Captain Carstairs in this matter, you will be charged with mutiny so fast your feet will not touch the ground – what are you doing?’

      Mallory was on his feet, and so were Miller and Andrea. They were standing rigidly to attention. ‘Permission to speak, sah,’ said Mallory. ‘You can get your court martial ready, sah.’

      The Admiral stared, flabby-faced. ‘By God,’ he said. ‘By God, I’ll have you – ‘

      Jensen cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me, Admiral,’ he said. ‘Might I make a suggestion?’ The Admiral seemed to be beyond speech. ‘These men work as a unit. Their record is good. Might I suggest that rather than operating as a top-down command structure they be attached to Captain Carstairs as a force of observers, leaving Captain Carstairs in command of his own unit but without specific responsibility for these men, who would, as it were, be attached yet separate? This would obviate the need for special training, and establish the possibility of cross-unit liaison and cooperation rather than intra-unit response to ad hoc and de facto command structures.’

      The Admiral’s jaw had dropped. ‘What?’ he said.

      ‘Mallory’s the senior captain,’ said Jensen. ‘And of course there is a colonel in the force.’

      ‘Who’s a colonel?’

      ‘I am,’ said Andrea.

      Now it was Carstairs’ turn to stare. Andrea needed a haircut, and his second shave of the day. His uniform needed a laundry. Carstairs raised an eyebrow. ‘Colonel?’ he said, and Miller could hear his lip curl even if he could not see it.

      The air in the briefing room was thick and ugly. ‘Greek army,’ said Andrea. ‘Under Captain Mallory’s command, for operational purposes.’

      ‘Uh,’ said the Admiral, looking like a man who had just trodden on a fair-sized mine.

      Jensen said, ‘Come out here, all of you,’ and marched into the corridor. Out there, he said, ‘You’ve got Carstairs whether you like him or not. I want you on this mission. I’m ordering you to take him along.’

      ‘And wipe his nose.’

      ‘Also his shoes, if necessary.’ Jensen’s eyes were bright chips of steel.

      ‘Under my command,’ said Mallory.

      ‘I know about rockets,’ said Miller. ‘I know as much about rockets as anyone. We don’t need this guy. He’ll get in the way. We’ll wind up carrying him, he’ll–’

      ‘We would be fascinated to hear your views,’ said Jensen in a freezing voice. ‘Some other time, though, I think.’

      ‘So who needs this guy?’

      ‘If you mean Captain Carstairs, the Admiral wants him. And that, gentlemen, is that. Now get back in there.’

      They knew Jensen.

      They got back in there.

      The Admiral said, ‘Captain Carstairs will be a separate unit, taking his orders directly from me.’

      Carstairs smiled a smooth, inward-looking smile. Technically, Mallory was his superior officer. All the Admiral was doing was muddying waters already troubled. They stood wooden-faced, potential disasters playing like newsreels in their minds.

      ‘Last but not least,’ said Jensen. ‘Local support. Lieutenant.’

      Robinson stood up, spectacles gleaming. ‘There is Resistance activity on the island,’ he said. ‘But we want your operation kept separate. Civilian reprisals, er, do not help anyone.’ Andrea’s face was dark as a thundercloud. He had found the bodies of his parents on a sandbank in the River Drava. They had been lashed together and thrown in to drown. He knew about reprisals: and so did the Germans who had done the deed, once he had finished with them. Robinson continued, ‘We will be landing you in Parmatia. There is a gentleman called Achilles at three, Mavrocordato Street in Parmatia. He will provide you with motor transport up the island to the Acropolis. We’ll have a submarine standing by at a position you will be given at midnight on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. If you’re there, hang up a yellow fishing lantern as a signal. If not … well, he’ll wait until 0030 on Saturday, then you’re on your own. Got it?’

      ‘Got it.’

      ‘But avoid all other contact. We’d like you to be a surprise. A thunderbolt of a surprise. That’s what this operation is called, by the way. Operation Thunderbolt.’

      ‘After the weather forecast?’ said Miller.

      ‘How did you guess?’ said Jensen.

      ‘You did it last time,’ said Miller.

      Jensen did not seem to hear. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘The detail.’

      For the next two hours, in the company of the geologist and a man from SOE, they studied the detail.

      ‘All right,’ said Jensen, as they folded away their maps. ‘Armoury next.’

      The armoury was the usual harshly-lit room with racks of Lee Enfields. The Armourer was a Royal Marine with a bad limp and verbal diarrhoea. ‘Schmeissers, ‘e said you wanted,’ said the Marine, pulling out boxes. ‘Quite right, quite right, don’t want those bloody Stens, blow up on you as soon as Jerry, go on, ‘ave a look, yes, Corporal? Oh, I see you are the more discriminating type of customer, grenades, was it?’ But even his flow of talk could not hold up over the grim silence that filled that little room. Mallory and Andrea sat down on the bench and disassembled a Schmeisser each, craftsmen assessing the tools of a deadly trade. The hush filled with small, metallic noises. Andrea rejected two of the machine-pistols before he found one to his liking, then another. Miller, meanwhile, was in a corner of the room, by a cupboard the size of a cigar humidor. He had a special pack, lined with wood and padded. Into this he was stowing, with a surgeon’s delicacy of touch, buff-coloured bricks of plastic explosives, brightly-coloured time pencils, and a СКАЧАТЬ