The Dark Side of the Island - Jack Higgins [19]
"Then why hasn't the same thing been done here?" she demanded. "Since when have the lives of twenty or thirty old monks been important to either side in this war?"
"Because there's no need," he said, surprised at the bitterness in her voice. "Because my way is simpler and cheaper and with any kind of luck, no one should get hurt."
"Except possibly yourself. You forget that."
He grinned. "Something I learned to forget about a long time ago. It doesn't pay."
She was about to reply when he heard a sound faintly in the distance and laid a hand on her arm. "Just a minute."
They waited, and as the sound grew louder, Katina said, "It's the patrol."
"How many?" he demanded.
"Usually two, but sometimes one. They follow the cliff paths in a motor cycle and sidecar."
He raised the night glasses and as he focused them the noise of the engine grew louder and the motor cycle appeared on the rim of the valley and paused.
The sidecar was empty, but he could clearly see the steel-helmeted driver, strangely anonymous in his goggles as he looked down into the valley. A moment later, the engine roared into life again and the machine descended the track in a great cloud of dust.
"Do they usually call at the farm?" Lomax said.
She shook her head. "Occasionally they stop and ask for coffee, but not very often."
He took her arm and they turned and ran for the house. Alexias and Boyd met them at the kitchen door and the Greek was holding one of the sub-machine guns.
"Trouble?" he said.
Lomax nodded. "German patrol. One man on a motor cycle."
Joe Boyd pulled a gun from the soft leather holster that hung beneath his left armpit under his shirt. It was a Mauser automatic with an SS bulbous silencer, a weapon much favoured by German counter-intelligence agents, souvenir of an earlier affair in Crete.
"Don't be a fool," Lomax said. "If we kill him they'll turn the island upside down. It would ruin everything.
"Captain Lomax is right," Katina said. "You must collect your things and go into the loft. When he arrives, I'll tell him I was just leaving."
There was no time to argue. They moved into the living room and Boyd mounted the ladder to the loft and opened the trapdoor. Lomax and Alexias quickly passed the packs and the rest of their equipment up to him and Katina put the remnants of the supper and the dirty crockery into a cupboard in the corner.
She extinguished the lamp, moved across to the kitchen door and turned to see if they were ready as the motorcycle roared into the yard outside. Lomax nodded briefly and went up the ladder to join Boyd and Alexias in the warm darkness.
Boyd lowered the trapdoor, jamming it open slightly with a piece of wood. Through the crack it was possible to see a little of the room below. A corner of the fireplace, most of the table and a chair beside it, but not the door.
They waited and Lomax thought about the girl, remembering her face as he had last seen it, very white, but strangely calm, and then they heard voices and the door opened. A moment later and the German moved into view.
He was almost as big a man as Alexias and the kneelength black leather jacket which covered his grey uniform was coated with white dust. He took off his helmet and gauntlets, dropping them on the table, and took out a cigarette. Without the helmet he looked younger and he ran a hand over his short blond hair and called to Katina in bad Greek.
Lomax couldn't hear what was said, but after a moment, Alexias leaned close and whispered, "She is making coffee. I can smell it."
The German got to his feet and disappeared from view, obviously going to lean in the kitchen doorway. A few moments later he returned to the table and sat down and Katina came into view carrying a tray.
As she reached for the coffee pot, the German grabbed her wrist and pulled her round. She tried to get away, making no sound, but he was too strong for her. He laughed once and Lomax closed his eyes and brushed sweat from his forehead.