The Leader And The Damned

'What happened to it? That could be vital…'

'Buried it, didn't I? Just before they arrived. I could take you to it now, it's not half-a-mile away. Better keep mum about that, hadn't we?'

'Yes, Sergeant, I should keep very mum indeed. I may want you to send a signal back when we can. How did you manage to hang on to that sten gun? I'd have expected Milic to confiscate it on the spot.'

'If that's Fatty you're talking about, he did try it on. I couldn't tell a ruddy word he was blathering but I made sure he understood me.'

'And how did you manage that, Sergeant?'

'Pointed the muzzle at his belly, cocked the gun and told him if he didn't keep his bleedin' hands off it he'd get half a magazine for breakfast.'

'And not understanding one word of English, I imagine Milk got the message?'

'Too right, he did!' Sergeant Reader looked round at the staring faces. 'Scruffy bunch, aren't they? No discipline. I'd get them licked into shape in no time…'

'I expect you would, Sergeant.' Lindsay lowered his voice. 'I want you to remember something in case anything happens to me. In my right-hand jacket pocket there is a small, black, leather-bound notebook I pinched from the Berghof. I've used it as a diary – noted down everything I've observed since I landed in Germany. Including the identity of a man I think is a Soviet spy at Hitler's operational headquarters. That book must reach a Colonel Browne of SIS in Ryder Street, London…'

'Nothing's going to happen to you while I'm around,' Reader said chirpily, 'so hand it to him yourself.'

'But if it does, Lindsay persisted, 'you get my diary and see it reaches London.'

'Wing Commander,' Reader suggested, 'let's you and me stroll off quiet like on our own and have a little chat.'

Chapter Thirty-Four

Lindsay and Reader perched themselves on an isolated boulder and the sergeant glanced round the hilltop before he asked the question and gave his companion the shock of his life.

'Got any form of identification to prove who you are, mate? And this sten isn't aimed at your guts for the fun of the thing.'

'What the hell…'

'We can do without the indignation bit, Wing Commander,' Reader interrupted in a voice of quiet menace. 'I've been on this underground lark long enough not to trust my own grandmother – unless she has her papers. Have you?'

'Here you are,' Lindsay said wearily, extracting his RAF pay-book. 'I don't normally pull rank, but…'

'So don't pull it now. The man with the gun outranks everyone. Something else I learned down there in Greece. Same bleedin' set-up. Only there they call themselves EDES and ELAS. One lot Commies, the others Royalists and both more keen on cutting each others' throats than fighting Jerry. The whole Balkans is one big shithouse…'

While he was rambling on, Reader was examining Lindsay's identity papers with great care, even testing the thickness and feel of the material with thumb and forefinger.

'Checking for forgery?' Lindsay queried sarcastically.

Reader's reply stunned him and he studied the outwardly phlegmatic sergeant all over again as though he had never seen him before.

'Checking for just that. The Gestapo boys have a whole printing outfit at No. 9 Prinz Albrechtstrasse, Berlin: Work like beavers day and night producing false papers. Some of them to infiltrate their own people into the underground escape route for RAF fliers from Brussels to the Spanish border. You know what, old boy? You pass scrutiny. Lucky for you. If you hadn't passed muster I'd have been obliged to put a bullet into you after nightfall…'

Lindsay returned the identity papers to his pocket. He was trying to absorb the complete change of accent in Reader's voice in his last four sentences. In contrast to the earlier cockney they had been spoken by a highly-educated man.

'And, incidentally,' Reader continued with a wintry smile, 'I'm not all that heavily out-ranked by you. I'm a major. Army Intelligence

…'

'I knew there was something phoney about you,'

Lindsay replied quietly. 'You'll excuse me – your performance was a bit hammy. I used to be a professional actor a millennium ago.'

'I thought I was pretty good…' Reader sounded a trifle put out. 'Where did I go wrong?'

'The usual faults they knock out of you at RADA. Exaggeration, of gesture, accent and so forth. Economy is the secret, gaining the maximum of effect with the minimum effort. The art of doing nothing can take you a long way…'

'The object of the exercise was to fool this rabble.' That I did pull off. What a ghastly crowd they are. Positively wallowing in butchery. Some of them, anyway. They'd have been lost without a war…'

'We have to remember this is the cradle of war throughout most of history. Why the cover role? Major! '

They had left the boulder and wandered slowly round the crown of the hill. In the distance Milic and his men watched them uncertainly. Smoke like a poison gas cloud drifted from a nearby slope and brought with it a stench like burning flesh. Reader wrinkled his long, enquiring nose.

'The whole Balkans stinks. Literally. My cover role? Enough about the set-up out here filtered through to London to give us something of a picture. Nobody trusts anyone. Strangers – new arrivals – are automatically suspect. It's like one of our English villages. Twenty years in the place and maybe they'll give you the time of day. Just maybe! Can you imagine the reaction of Tito if he heard Army Intelligence had arrived? From what we've gleaned he's the biggest neurotic of them all…'

Lindsay rather liked gleaned. As they walked, Reader couldn't keep his hands still. His fingers walked up and down the barrel of the sten as though he were itching to use it. Probably he was missing his tightly-rolled Dunhill umbrella. Unless… Lindsay went on probing in his off-hand manner.

'Care to tell me why you are out here? Why you downgraded yourself to sergeant?'

'Cover again. We thought the sergeant touch rather good. Gives me some air of authority with the locals, but an officer, no! A Communist gang is going to take a very questioning look once an officer lands in their lap. God knows, you must have found that out by yourself now…'

'Not really. You were going to tell me what brought you into this earthly paradise.'

'Was I?' A hint of mockery crept into Reader's tone. 'Surely you asked me. Well, here goes. What I told you earlier – doing my cockney bit – was gospel. I'm the bloody chaperone – escort Wing Commander Lindsay out of the Balkans, Reader, they said…'

'And who may they be?'

'Nice bit of syntax there. The Lord's anointed. Colonel Browne. None other…'

'He still smokes those foul cigars?'

'When he can get them, yes. He sends you his regards. Thought you'd appreciate that out here.'

`So you're not a radio operator at all?' Lindsay went on grimly. 'We have no communication with the outside world?'

'Begging your pardon.' The mockery had turned to mild indignation. 'Before I transferred to Intelligence I was in Signals. Came out top of the form for transmitting at high speed.'

'So there is a hidden transmitter buried somewhere?'

'Bet your life on it.' Reader paused, his tone sardonic now. 'Come to think of it, chum, that's what you are doing – betting your life on that box of wires and circuits. We have to get you out of here. All we need is a radio signal sent in secret. An airstrip for the Dakota from Africa to land on. The Dakota itself. Piece of cake, wouldn't you say?'

'Major, I've just realized something,' Lindsay ruminated aloud. 'You made a big thing about my identification. I haven't seen yours yet.'

'Thought you'd never ask…'