The Angry Hills - Leon Uris [35]
“And this is the second trip this boat has made to Nauplion. Are you sure it is the same boat?”
“I’m sure. I never forget a face. Same crewman.”
“And you’re sure it comes from Larissa Province?”
“I know a central province farmer when I see one.”
“You were drinking—and minding your own business—then what happened?”
“A second man comes into the saloon and tells the man who is drinking he must return to the boat. They argue. The man who is drinking does not want to return because he is going to a whorehouse. Then the second man tells him to talk quiet. They had taken a passenger aboard and had to leave Nauplion at once. That is all. They leave and I mind my own business. Next day I go out again with my boat until he,” pointing to Zervos, “comes to me on Kea and begins asking me all sorts of questions.”
Heilser pressed a button which brought two German soldiers into the room. He nodded to them, indicating that Maxos was to be taken away.
“I can go to my boat now?”
Heilser did not answer.
“Fix me a drink,” Heilser ordered Zervos.
“What do you think?”
“It is our answer, if there is an answer. In Nauplion we caught ten British escapees while searching for Morrison. If Morrison was in Nauplion we would have caught him too. He must have gotten away by water. He is the only one we can’t account for who escaped in that area. Could the fisherman be mistaken about Larissa?”
“One Greek knows another. He is not mistaken.”
“Obviously Morrison is injured. Obviously, he will sit it out for awhile in the central part of the country. He has tried to contact no one in either Athens or Salonika.”
“He could be in any one of the thirty villages,” Zervos said. “Can we raid them all at the same time?”
“Are you insane? There are over a hundred escapees in that area now. No, we weed the villages out one by one. It will not take long. Bring me thirty Greeks tomorrow and have them here in the morning. Also get a dozen Italian tourists. I’ll see to it now that all troops are kept out of that coastal area. We do not want to startle him into the hills.”
Zervos placed the drink before his master. “Do you wish me to file a complaint with the American Embassy about the Archeological Society?”
“No. If this Dr. Thackery is aiding British escapees let him continue. We have the place under twenty-four-hour scrutiny. I have a hunch. I don’t often play them. Thackery has entered the picture late—just as Morrison entered late. I’ll wager you that he is Morrison’s contact.”
FOUR
MIKE LOVED TO WALK through the sloping vineyards and pick the full juicy muscats from the vines. He loved to sit in the shade of a pine and watch the old men and the boys trundle down the road under a load of firewood as they had done for centuries eternal. It was good to smell the sharp tang from the huge sacks of goats’-milk cheese and to stand on a hilltop and watch the stalks of wheat bend their golden heads. It was a delight to see the buxom, barefooted girls marching straight and handsome from the well, balancing heavy urns on their bare shoulders.
Most of all he loved the evenings when the sun dropped behind the pine forest. The shepherdesses, their crooks of office in hand, would amble down from the pasture along the narrow path surrounded by their bleating flocks. The air would be cool in the evening and a song would start on someone’s lips. The melody would carry over the hills to be picked up by another singer, then another until all of Paleachora would echo with a harmony of voices in an ancient song.
The village had become a haven for Michael Morrison. Although he kept fighting the voice that urged him to stay a little longer, he yearned for the contentment he had never known before.
The men would head for the coffee house and talk of big things and little things while the women prepared the evening meal. Soon they would sit around their crude wooden tables, say their evening prayers and eat blessed bread and chicken and a dessert of grapes....
When the