The Magus - John Fowles [161]
sound of voices. Islanders? But they hardly ever used the central ridge in summer; and never at that time of night. In any case I suddenly realised what they were. They were soldiers. I could just see the indistinct outlines of guns, the dull sheen of a helmet. There had been Greek army manoeuvres on the mainland a month before, and a coming and going of landing craft in the strait. These men must be on some similar commando-type exercise. But I didn't move. One of the men turned back, and the others followed. I thought I knew what had happened. They had come along the central ridge and overshot the transverse path that led down to Bourani and Moutsa. As if to confirm my guess there was a distant pop, like a flrework. I saw, from somewhere west of Bourani, a shimmering Very light hanging in the sky. It was one of the starshell variety and fell in a slow parabola. I had fired dozens myself, on night exercises. The six were evidently on their way to "attack" some point on the other side of Moutsa. For all that, I looked round. Twenty yards away there was a group of rocks with enough small shrubs to give cover. I ran silently under the trees and, forgetting my clean trousers and shirt, dropped down in a natural trough between two of the rocks. They were still warm from the sun. I watched the, cleft in the skyline down which the path lay. In a few seconds a pale movement told me I was right. The men were coming down. They were probably just a group of friendly lads from the Epirus or somewhere. But I pressed myself as flat as I could. When I could hear that they had come abreast, about thirty yards away, I sneaked a facedown look through the twigs that shielded me. My heart jumped. They were in German uniforms. For a moment I thought that perhaps they were dressed up to be the "enemy" on the manoeuvres; but it was unthinkable, after the atrocities of the Occupation, that any Greek soldier would put on German uniform, even for an exercise; and from then on I knew. The masque had moved outside the domaine. The last man was carrying a much bulkier pack than the others; a pack with a thin, just visible rod rising from it. The truth flashed in on me. Wireless! In an instant I knew who the "spy" really was at the school. He was a very Turkish-looking Greek, a compact, taciturn man with a close-cropped head, one of the science masters. He never came into the common room; lived in his laboratory. His colleagues nicknamed him _o aichemikos_, the alchemist. With a grim realisation of new depths of treachery, I remembered that he was one of Patares. cu's closest cronies. But what I had remembered first was that there was a transmitter in his laboratory, since some of the boys wanted to become radio officers. The school even had a ham radio station sign. I hit the ground with my fist. It had all been so obvious. That was why I normally never heard the boat leaving Bourani. They lay low until the message was radioed back that I was safely in the school again. There was only the one gate in; the old gatekeeper was always on duty. The men had gone. They must have been wearing rubber boots; and they must have wadded their equipment well to make so little noise. For some reason they had been waiting there to catch me. But the fact that I had waited to hear the boat leave, and then not walked very fast, must have made them think I had gone another way back; or perhaps that I was still hanging about Bourani. That explained the flare. They had been recalled. I grinned to myself. Conchis was certainly still on the island; this was why he had been away. Julie would have been kept innocent; he could not have risked her telling me, though he might have hoped I would suspect her of leading me into whatever trap Ithad just escaped. But this time the fox was through the net. I was even half tempted to follow the men down to see where they went, but I remembered old lessons from my own military training. Never patrol on a windless night if you can avoid it; remember the man nearer the moon sees you better than you see him. Already, within thirty seconds