Earlier Paco had reappeared in the distance, talking briefly to Milic before she resumed strolling by herself a hundred yards or so away from the two Englishmen. Lindsay examined the Army pay-book Reader handed him. He opened the stiff brown cover and checked the pages, glancing up several times.
'That blonde girl, Paco,' he murmured, 'speaks better English than you do. In fact, she is half-English – on her mother's side. Thought you ought to know before you meet her. Security. She's a Partisan…'
Reader took back the pay-book Lindsay held out to him and with a sleight of hand made it disappear somewhere inside his uniform. As he handed back the brown folder Lindsay found himself recalling something Reader himself had said earlier.
The Gestapo boys have a whole printing outfit at No. 9 Prinz Albrechtstrasse. Work like beavers..: producing false papers…
'Wing Commander,' Reader commented out of the blue, 'I would say you're head over heels in love with that girl. Are you?'
'What the hell are you talking about?' Lindsay snapped.
'Fact One: the way you said her name. Fact Two: while we've been talking you've hardly taken your eyes off her since she appeared. You watch her every movement as though you're watching a goddess. Fact Three: your expression since I started talking about her – mind your own bloody business is written all over your face…'
'Why don't you do just that, Sergeant?' Lindsay rapped back.
'This might just be the moment to get clear of this bunch of peasants,' Reader suggested, not in the least disconcerted by his companion's reaction. 'They're all grouped together quite a way from where we are now. Take it one step at a time. Head for the spot where I buried the transmitter..
'Could I take a look at that sten of yours?'
The question was so unexpected that Reader handed over the weapon almost as a reflex action.
Lindsay stepped back a few paces, grasping the weapon firmly as he performed a simple action.
'Watch out!' There was genuine alarm in Reader's voice. 'You just released the safety catch – and that's a full mag.'
'I know. And I'm aiming it at you point-blank. Colonel Browne is a chain-smoker – of cigarettes. He's never touched a cigar in his life..
'I've been hoping to hell you'd pick me up on that…'
'Really, Sergeant? May I ask why?'
'Like I tells you before, mate.' Reader was lapsing back into his awful cockney. Out of the corner of his eye Lindsay saw that Paco was approaching. Reader was quick as a knife, he'd grant the bastard that. He went on, gabbling out the explanation. 'We was told to be especially bleedin' careful in this dung-heap. No one is what they say they is until they've been triple- checked, then don't make any cosy assumptions. Those cigars was thought up by the Colonel himself as a trick question. You could have been anyone… Reader rattled on, 'seeing as the Allied Mission is a prime Jerry target. Had to be sure. No offence…'
He broke off as Paco arrived, swept off his cap in an elaborate gesture of politeness and stared at her with blatant interest as she stood and stared back.
'And who have we here, Wing Commander? When they told me you're for the Balkans, my lad, I never expected to meet the Queen of Sheba? I am right? I 'ave to be…'
'This,' Lindsay introduced him to Paco, 'is Sergeant Len Reader who, you may already have gathered, has a habit of speaking his mind – and hardly ever stops doing just that. Reader, meet Paco.'
'Pleasure's all mine.'
They shook hands. Paco's sleepy eyes studied Reader and under her scrutiny he became oddly restless.
'Could I have my hand back now?' Paco suggested. 'I only have two of them…'
'A thousand apologies, lady. No offence meant – but out here a man gets bowled over when someone like you turns up. And when you speak the King's English… This sing-song chatter I've been hearing ever since I arrived…'
' When did you arrive, Sergeant Reader?' Paco enquired.
'It's all right,' Lindsay assured her. 'I've checked his identity.'
'I'd still like to know when he arrived, where and how?'
It was the first time Lindsay realized one of Paco's duties was to act as Intelligence Officer for the Partisan group. The irony of the situation intrigued him – she had little idea that she was interrogating a man who himself was undoubtedly highly-trained in the sophisticated craft of interrogation.
'The when was days ago. The where Mickey can tell you – me I've no flaming idea. The how was by parachute, dangling by my braces over the Black Hole of Calcutta. Anything else you'd like to know, Lady Bountiful? – Blood group? I can show you me birthmark if you're not shy.'
'Mickey?'
'I think he means Milic who brought him in,' Lindsay explained.
Paco ignored him as she continued studying Reader who stared back with what Lindsay felt sure he would have described as 'dumb insolence'. Lindsay sensed a growing hostility between the pair.
'Milic,' Paco said with quiet deliberation, 'tells me he found you wandering round in the middle of the night. No sign of any parachute.'
`So I buried it under some rocks, didn't I? You think I'm going to leave it lying around for Jerry to find? Next thing we know is a whole bleedin' Panzer division is on me heels. First thing you do when your arse hits enemy territory is hide the 'chute.'
'I know…'
'Why ask then, for Christ's sake?' Reader flared up. 'We come here to help you people out and you try and stand me in the witness box. Why did you do this? Why didn't you do that? My boss is going to love you…'
'And just who is your boss?' Paco asked sharply.
'Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean…' Reader leaned his face close to Paco's. 'And let me tell you something. He's been in more scraps than you've had hot dinners. We started fighting 'itler in 1939. You joined the party a bit late, didn't you?'
'I think that's enough, Sergeant,' Lindsay intervened.
'Well keep your girlfriend off my back or I'm liable to get a bit shirty. She wouldn't like that is my guess.'
Taking his sten from Lindsay, Reader marched away at a steady one-two, one-two. Paco waited until he was out of hearing before she spoke.
'Lindsay, I don't trust that man…'
'Just because you didn't hit it off with him? He's come a long way to…'
'It's the classic manoeuvre of the suspect under interrogation,' she insisted. 'Pick a quarrel, break the trend when the questions get dangerous…'
'He just hasn't attuned himself to the atmosphere out here. He only dropped out of the blue a few days ago.'
'You're sure of that? Milk found him roaming about. No one saw him coming down in a parachute. He's sensitive about that 'chute, as he calls it. And why did he call me your girlfriend?'
The question, idly thrown into the conversation, caught Lindsay off guard. Paco was standing very close to him. He was excruciatingly aware of her physical proximity. The emotions he had clamped a lid down on flooded out. The lid was blown sky-high. Damn Reader and his careless remark to the flames of hell.
He stood very still, not looking at her. She waited in silence. He knew she was watching him as closely as she had so recently watched Reader. He took out one of his few remaining packs of cigarettes, cupped his hand against the breeze which was blowing up, and lit it.
'Could I have one?' Paco asked quietly.
'Here you are, take this one…'
He would have liked to place it between her lips but refrained from even this small gesture of intimacy. Instead, he handed it to her. He was pleased to see his hand was steady. This was unadulterated hell. Paco took short, quick puffs and then opened Pandora's box.
'Lindsay, I like you.' She paused. 'I like you a lot. But that's all. I'm sorry…'
'The feeling's mutual…'
He didn't know how he'd managed to get the words out. He was worried his voice had sounded forced, unnatural. Paco, he knew, was a very perceptive girl. God knows he'd done his best to conceal his real feelings. If she went on like this he was going to give himself away.