'Milic made you that stick,' she said. 'You have covered a great distance with your three legs. Now you must listen to Dr Macek…' A teasing note entered her voice.. who was trained at St Thomas's so you will trust him…'
A grim, dramatic panorama met his eyes as he hobbled across the rough, rock-ribbed summit. They were perched on top of a small plateau surmounted by the relics of an ancient fortress, so derelict it could scarcely be distinguished from the scramble of huge boulders it had once been erected above.
It was mid-morning, he suspected, a clear, crisp day when the saw-toothed edges of distant mountains looked as though they had been cut from metal silhouetted against a cloudless sky. Perfect flying weather.
Something was disturbing Lindsay, a sense of unease nagging at the back of his mind. Paco and Macek had propped him against a boulder under a copse of stunted trees. Other trees clustered the plateau below the fortress – which had long ago lost all form of roofing. He found himself keeping to the shelter of the trees as he left the other two behind and hobbled with the aid of the stick at a fast jig-jog towards the fortress which, he instinctively felt sure, was Heljec's headquarters.
'Wait for us!' Paco called out. 'God, he's moving like a racehorse.'
Then Lindsay heard it again and stopped abruptly under a well-foliaged tree. The muttering engine of a light aircraft. He'd heard that sound at the moment of regaining consciousness but he had been distracted by Macek's remark, by his general sense of not knowing where he was. They caught up with him and he cautioned them.
'Keep under cover, out of sight of that plane…'
'It's a German Storch, Paco said with irritating patience. 'I have learned to live with the sound.. 'But have you learned to die with it?'.
The violence of his question, his sudden burst of energy, the incredible pace he had kept up moving towards the fortress, stunned both Paco and Macek into temporary silence. To Lindsay's great relief. He could listen – with a pilot's ear.
He stood with his head cocked on one side. Flying very slowly. Almost lowest possible speed. Much lower and the engine would stall. As he thought, it was describing a circle – round the perimeter of the plateau.
Perching both hands on the stick to steady himself, he stared up through the foliage, craning his neck as he sought a loophole through which he might glimpse the plane. Then he saw it. The machine, tilting. The pilot's head, craned like his own – but staring down through the goggles.
'What are you getting so agitated about?' Paco asked. 'The Germans are always flying over Yugoslavia.
'Was a machine like that flying overhead just as 1 woke up?'
'Yes, there was an aircraft…'
'And how many times today has a German light aircraft flown over this area? Think, for God's sake.' 'All right..!' Paco began to protest.
'Six times, I think,' Macek broke in. 'This is the sixth..
'And it's only eleven in the morning…` Lindsay checked his watch.
'I kept it wound up for you,' Paco snapped.
'Six times. I see! That plane was so low it knew what it was looking for, where to find its objective. Hear it flying away?'
'I told you…' Paco began again.
'Heljec must be warned a major bombing attack – maybe even a parachute landing – is imminent. We must evacuate this area at once.' Lindsay's tone was terse, decisive. 'How many men have you billeted up here?'
'Thirty men – the whole unit,' Paco replied. 'Now, look, Lindsay. There's no point in starting a panic.
'No! You listen! Heljec may be the expert at ambushing trains, shooting Germans – including prisoners where he can – at sacrificing civilians wholesale for the greater glory of Communism. A fat lot of joy some of those poor bastards left in the gorge are going to get out of any fanciful Communist paradise. Heljec may be expert at all these things – but when it Goddamn well comes to planes he'd better go back to school. I know the warning signs. I saw enough of them when I was foot-slogging it to Dunkirk after my machine went down. Where's Heljec?'
'In the fort.'
It was Macek who told him. The sound of the spotter plane had faded to the distant hum of a bee on a summer's day. Lindsay grabbed Paco's arm, took a firm grip on his stick and hustled her up the slope to the fort's entrance. Despite his physical weakness his certainty of the appalling danger was producing adrenalin at a tremendous rate.
He paused at the sight inside the fort. Heljec was crouched with Jovanovic over a map spread out over a large rock. On the ground against a crumbling wall slumped Hartmann. The side of his jaw was discoloured with a recent bruise. He grinned wryly at the Englishman.
Lindsay addressed the Abwehr man in German, taking no notice of Heljec who had spun round and was glaring at him.
'How did you get that bruise, Hartmann?'
'I tried to warn this stupid brute – a spotter plane has been over and the next thing will be…'
'I know. Leave it to me.' He turned to Paco, still ignoring Heljec who was showing signs of growing annoyance. He pointed his stick at the Serb. Taco, you once said it was often difficult to get people to do the simplest things – a remark I was not too appreciative of at the time. Now, tell this stupid brute what is coming to him if he doesn't instantly sound a general alarm and evacuate. Tell him I'm a pilot and know about aerial warfare. He's about to be annihilated!' . Paco began speaking rapidly. At one moment she stamped her foot. In his frustration at this waste of precious time Lindsay walked backwards and forwards with his stick. Jovanovic joined in the heated conversation. Paco turned to Lindsay.
'Tell me again quickly your reasons. Forcefully. Heljec will be watching you.'
He repeated what he had said. One. Two. Three. Finally he turned on the giant and raised his stick like a weapon.
'Tell him if he doesn't act quickly I'll beat some sense into him with this stick,' he shouted at the top of his voice.
She spoke only a few words when Jovanovic interrupted her and made a gesture beyond the fort, rolling up the map as he finished. Heljec ran through the exit and out of sight.
'Your threat to attack him convinced him,' Paco said. 'We are evacuating at once…'
As they emerged from the fort Lindsay was astounded to witness the sudden appearance of Partisans everywhere. They seemed to rise out of the ground from invisible trenches. He followed Paco to the edge of the plateau where the terrain dropped steeply in a series of gullies. She stopped to help him but he waved her on.
'Just show me the way. I'll keep up. Good God, there's Bora. The devil looks after its own.'
The descent was precipitous and Lindsay half- walked, half-stumbled down a flight of natural steps formed by rock ledges jutting from the mountain-side. Somehow he kept his balance as Paco kept glancing back and he kept waving her on, certain there was little time left to get clear of the plateau.
He remembered his case. Below them he saw Bora carrying it and below him Milic carrying another. Paco's, he presumed. As he continued the diabolical descent he thought of Hartmann and looked back. The German was a few yards behind, followed by Vlatko who carried his machine-pistol. That was when his experienced ears caught the first distant sound of a fleet of planes coming.
The guerrilla force slipped down from the plateau inside a series of deep gulches and defiles, some of which in winter would be raging torrents. The slither of small pebbles told Lindsay that.
He was now close enough to the winding gorge they were heading for to see the dark shadows on the opposite slope which were mouths of caves. Those would be their refuge and their shelter when the bombardment started. If they got there in time.
Paco stopped briefly as Vlatko called down to her. Hartmann was close behind Lindsay who still kept up a furious pace as he went on stumbling down the fiendish descent, saving his balance again and again with the aid of the stick.