Mallory left. Andrea, Miller and the three sergeants were sitting patiently on their rucksacks. From the distance there still came the sound of distant music. For a moment Mallory cocked his head to listen to it, and walked across to join the others. Miller patted his lips delicately with his napkin and looked up at Mallory.
'Had a cosy chat?'
'I spun him a yarn. The one we talked about in the plane.' He looked at the three sergeants. 'Any of you speak German?' All three shook their heads.
'Fine. Forget you speak English too. If you're questioned you know nothing.'
'If I'm not questioned,' Reynolds said bitterly, 'I still don't know anything.'
'All the better,' Mallory said encouragingly. Then you can never tell anything, can you?'
He broke off and turned round as Neufeld and Droshny appeared in the doorway. Neufeld advanced and said: 'While we're waiting for some confirmation, a little food and wine, perhaps.' As Mallory had done, he cocked his head and listened to the singing. 'But I first of all, you must meet our minstrel boy.'
'We'll settle for just the food and wine,' Andrea said.
'Your priorities are wrong. You'll see. Come.'
The dining-hall, if it could be dignified by such a name, was about forty yards away. Neufeld opened the door to reveal a crude and makeshift hut with two rickety trestle tables and four benches set on the earth en floor. At the far end of the room the inevitable pine fire burnt in the inevitable stone hearth-place. Close to the fire, at the end of the farther table, three men — obviously, from their high-collared coats and guns propped by their sides, some kind of temporarily off duty guards — were drinking coffee and listening to the quiet singing coming from a figure seated on the ground by the fire.
The singer was dressed in a tattered anorak type jacket, an even more incredibly tattered pair of trousers and a pair of knee boots that gaped open at almost every possible seam. There was little to be seen of his face other than a mass of dark hair and a large pair of rimmed dark spectacles.
Beside him, apparently asleep with her head on his shoulder, sat a girl. She was clad in a high-collared British Army greatcoat in an advanced state of dilapidation, so long that it completely covered her tucked-in legs. The uncombed platinum hair spread over her shoulders would have done justice to any Scandinavian, but the broad cheekbones, dark eye brows and long dark lashes lowered over very pale cheeks were unmistakably Slavonic.
Neufeld advanced across the room and stopped by the fireside. He bent over the singer and said: Petar, I want you to meet some friends.'
Petar lowered his guitar, looked up, then turned and touched the girl on the arm. Instantly, the girl's head lifted and her eyes, great dark sooty eyes, opened wide. She had the look, almost, of a hunted animal. She glanced around her, almost wildly, then jumped quickly to her feet, dwarfed by the greatcoat which itched almost to her ankles, then reached down to help the guitarist to his feet. As he did so, he stumbled: he was obviously blind.
This is Maria,' Neufeld said. 'Maria, this is Captain Mallory.'
'Captain Mallory.' Her voice was soft and a little husky: she spoke in almost accentless English. 'You English, Captain Mallory?'
It was hardly, Mallory thought, the time or the place for proclaiming his New Zealand ancestry. He smiled. 'Well, sort of.'
Maria smiled in turn. 'I've always wanted to meet in Englishman.' She stepped forward towards Mallory's outstretched hand, brushed it aside and struck him, open-handed and with all her strength, across the face.
Maria!' Neufeld stared at her. 'He's on our side.'
An Englishman and a traitor!' She lifted her hand in but the swinging arm was suddenly arrested in Andrea's grip. She struggled briefly, futilely, then subsided, dark eyes glowing in an angry face. Andrea lifted his free hand and rubbed his own cheek in fond recollection.
He said admiringly: 'By heavens, she reminds me of own Maria,' then grinned at Mallory. 'Very handy their hands, those Yugoslavs.'
Mallory rubbed his cheek ruefully with his hand and turned to Neufeld. 'Perhaps Petar — that's his name — '
'No.' Neufeld shook his head definitely. 'Later. Let's eat now.' He led the way across to the table at the far end of the room, gestured the others to seats, Sat down himself and went on: 'I'm sorry. That was my fault. I should have known better.'
Miller said delicately: 'Is she — um — all right?'
'A wild animal, you think?'
'She'd make a rather dangerous pet, wouldn't you say?'
'She's a graduate of the University of Belgrade. Languages. With honours, I'm told. Some time after graduation she returned to her home in the Bosnian mountains. She found her parents and two small brothers butchered. She — well, she's been like this ever since.'
Mallory shifted in his seat and looked at the girl. Her eyes, dark and unmoving and unwinking, were fixed on him and their expression was less than encouraging. Mallory turned back to Neufeld.
'Who did it? To her parents, I mean.'
'The Partisans,' Droshny said savagely. 'Damn their black souls, the Partisans. Maria's people were our people. Cetniks.'
'And the singer?' Mallory said.
'Her elder brother.' Neufeld shook his head. 'Blind from birth. Wherever she goes, she leads him by the hand. She is his eyes: she is his life.'
They sat in silence until food and wine were brought in. If an army marched on its stomach, Mallory thought, this one wasn't going to get very far: he had heard that the food situation with the Partisans was close to desperate, but, if this were a representative sample, the Cetniks and Germans appeared to be in little better case. Unenthusiastically, he spooned — it would have been impossible to use a fork — a little of the greyish stew, a stew in which little oddments of indefinable meat floated forlornly in a mushy gravy of obscure origin, glanced across at Andrea and marvelled at the gastronomic fortitude that lay behind the already almost empty plate. Miller averted his eyes from the plate before him and delicately sipped the rough red wine. The three sergeants, so far, hadn't even looked at their food: they were too occupied in looking at the girl by the fireside. Neufeld saw their interest, and smiled.
'I do agree, gentlemen, that I've never seen a more beautiful girl and heaven knows what she'd look like she had a wash. But she's not for you, gentlemen. She's not for any man. She's wed already.' He looked at the questioning faces and shook his head. 'Not to any man. To an ideal — if you can call death an ideal. The death of the Partisans.'
'Charming,' Miller murmured. There was no other comment, for there was none to make. They ate in silence broken only by the soft singing from the fireside, the voice was melodious enough, but the guitar sounded sadly out of tune. Andrea pushed away his empty plate, looked irritably at the blind musician and turned to Neufeld.
'What's that he's singing?'
'An old Bosnian love song, I've been told. Very old and very sad. In English you have it too.' He snapped his fingers. 'Yes, that's it. "The girl I left behind me".'
Tell him to sing something else,' Andrea muttered. Neufeld looked at him, puzzled, then looked away as a German sergeant entered and bent to whisper in his I ear. Neufeld nodded and the sergeant left.
'So.' Neufeld was thoughtful. 'A radio report from the patrol that found your plane. The tanks were empty. I hardly think we need await confirmation from Padua, do you, Captain Mallory?'
'I don't understand.'
'No matter. Tell me, have you ever heard of a General Vukalovic?'
'General which?'
'Vukalovic.'
'He's not on our side,' Miller said positively. 'Not with a name like that.'