Mallory nodded his thanks, turned to watch Reynolds again. He said, curiously: 'Captain Jensen was right about you. As a pilot. How on earth does a Marine Commando come to learn to drive one of those things?'
'I've had plenty of practice,' Reynolds said. 'Three years in the RAF, two of them as sergeant-pilot in a Wellington bomber squadron. One day in Egypt I took a Lysander up without permission. People did it
Mallory looked at Groves. 'And you?'
Groves smiled broadly. 'I was his navigator in that old crate. We were fired on the same day.'
Mallory said consideringly: 'Well, I should think I hat might be rather useful.'
'What's useful?' Reynolds asked.
The fact that you're used to this feeling of disgrace. It'll enable you to act your part all the better when the time comes. If the time comes.'
Reynolds said carefully: 'I'm not quite sure — '
'Before we jump, I want you — all of you — to remove I every distinguishing badge or emblem of rank on your clothes.' He gestured to Andrea and Miller at the rear of the flightdeck to indicate that they were included as well, then looked at Reynolds again. 'Sergeants' stripes, Regimental flashes, medal ribbons — the lot.'
'Why the hell should I?' Reynolds, Mallory thought, had the lowest boiling-point he'd come across in quite some time. 'I earned those stripes, those ribbons, that Hash. I don't see — '
Mallory smiled. 'Disobeying an officer on active service?'
'Don't be so damned touchy,' Reynolds said.
'Don't be so damned touchy, sir.'
'Don't be so damned touchy, sir.' Reynolds suddenly grinned. 'OK, so who's got the scissors?'
'You see,' Mallory explained, 'the last thing we want to happen is to fall into enemy hands.'
'Amen,' Miller intoned.
'But if we're to get the information we want we're going to have to operate close to or even inside their lines. We might get caught. So we have our cover story.'
Groves said quietly: 'Are we permitted to know just what that cover story is, sir?'
'Of course you are,' Mallory said in exasperation. He went on earnestly: 'Don't you realize that, on a mission like this, survival depends on one thing and one thing only — complete and mutual trust? As soon as we start having secrets from each other — we're finished.'
In the deep gloom at the rear of the flightdeck, Andrea and Miller glanced at each other and exchanged their wearily cynical smiles.
As Mallory left the flightdeck for the fuselage, his right hand brushed Miller's shoulder. After about two minutes Miller yawned, stretched and made his way aft. Mallory was waiting towards the rear of the fuselage. He had two pieces of folded paper in his hand, one of which he opened and showed to Miller, snapping on a flashlight at the same time. Miller stared at it for some moments, then lifted an eyebrow. 'And what is this supposed to be?' 'It's the triggering mechanism for a 1,500-pound submersible mine. 'Learn it by heart.'
Miller looked at it without expression, then glanced at the other paper Mallory held. 'And what have you there?'
Mallory showed him. It was a large-scale map, the central feature of which appeared to be a winding lake with a very long eastern arm which bent abruptly at right-angles into a very short southern arm, which in turn ended abruptly at what appeared to be a dam wall. Beneath the dam, a river flowed away through a winding gorge.
Mallory said: 'What does it look like to you? Show them both to Andrea and tell him to destroy them.' Mallory left Miller engrossed in his homework and moved forward again to the flightdeck. He bent over Groves's chart table. 'Still on course?' 'Yes, sir. We're just clearing the southern tip of island of Hvar. You can see a few lights on the mainland ahead.' Mallory followed the pointing hand, located a few clusters of lights, then reached out a hand to steady himself as the Wellington started to climb sharply. He glanced at Reynolds. 'Climbing now, sir. There's some pretty lofty stuff head. We should pick up the Partisan landing lights about half an hour.'
'Thirty-three minutes,'Groves said 'One-twenty,near enough.'
For almost half an hour Mallory remained on a map-seat in the flightdeck, just looking ahead. After a few minutes Andrea disappeared and did not reappear, Miller did not return. Groves navigated, Reynolds flew, Saunders listened in to his portable transceiver and nobody talked at all. At one-fifteen Mallory rose, touched Saunders on the shoulders, told him to pack his gear and headed aft. He found Andrea and a thoroughly miserable looking Miller with their parachute lap-catches already clipped on to the jumping wire, Andrea had the door pulled back and was throwing out tiny pieces of shredded paper which swirled away in the slipstream. Mallory shivered in the suddenly intense cold. Andrea grinned, beckoned him to the open doorway and pointed downwards. He yelled in Mallory's ear: 'There's a lot of snow down there.' There was indeed a lot of snow down there. Mallory understood now Jensen's insistence on not landing a plane in those parts. The terrain below was rugged in the extreme, consisting almost entirely of a succession of deep and winding valleys and steep-sided mountains. Maybe half of the landscape below was covered in dense forests of pine trees: all of it was covered in what appeared to be a very heavy blanket of snow. Mallory drew back into the comparative shelter of the Wellington's fuselage and glanced at his watch.
'One-sixteen.' Like Andrea, he had to shout.
'Your watch is a little fast, maybe?' Miller bawled unhappily. Mallory shook his head, Miller shook his. A bell rang and Mallory made his way to the flight deck, passing Saunders going the other way. As Mallory entered, Reynolds looked briefly over his shoulder, then pointed directly ahead. Mallory bent over his shoulder and peered forwards and downwards. He nodded.
The three lights, in the form of an elongated V, were still some miles ahead, but quite unmistakable. Mallory turned, touched Groves on the shoulder and pointed aft. Groves rose and left. Mallory said to Reynolds: 'Where are the red and green jumping lights?'
Reynolds indicated them.
'Press the red light. How long?'
'Thirty seconds. About.'
Mallory looked ahead again. The lights were less than half as distant as they had been when first he'd looked. He said to Reynolds: 'Automatic pilot. Close the fuel switches.'
'Close the — for the petrol that's left — '
'Shut off the bloody tanks! And get aft. Five seconds'
Reynolds did as he was told. Mallory waited, briefly made a last check of the landing lights ahead, pressed the green light button, rose and made his way swiftly aft. By the time he reached the jump door, even Reynolds, the last of the first five, was gone. Mallory slipped on his snap-catch, braced his hands round the edge of the doorway and launched himself out into the bitter Bosnian night.
The sudden jarring impact from the parachute harness made him look quickly upwards: the concave circle of a fully open parachute was a reassuring spectacle. He glanced downwards and saw the equally reassuring spectacle of another five open parachutes, two of which were swaying quite wildly across the sky — just as was his own. There were some things, reflected, about which he, Andrea and Miller had great deal to learn. Controlling parachute descents vas one of those things.
He looked up and to the east to see if he could locate the Wellington, but it was no longer visible. Suddenly, as he looked and listened, both engines, almost in perfect unison, cut out. Long seconds passed when the only sound was the rush of the wind his ears, then there came an explosively metallic sound as the bomber crashed either into the ground into some unseen mountainside ahead. There was no fire or none that he could see: just the crash, then silence. For the first time that night, the moon broke through.