Storm Force from Navarone. Sam Llewellyn

and pale and exhausted. His head moved slowly, as if his neck was stiff, the big jowls creasing and uncreasing, stray strands of straw waving jauntily over the burst crown of his hat. He began to unpack the radio. Miller was in a corner, stretched out full-length on the straw, humming a Bix Beiderbecke tune. Andrea was relaxed, but close to a knothole in the door, through which he could keep tabs on the sentries. Mallory leaned his head against the wall. He could feel his clothes beginning to steam in the heat from the fire.

      He said to Hugues, quietly, ‘What do you know about this Marcel?’

      ‘Jules’ second-in-command,’ said Hugues. ‘It is an odd structure, down here. Security is terrible. But they are brave men.’

      ‘And we trust them?’

      Hugues smiled. He said, ‘Is there any choice?’

      Mallory kept hearing Jensen’s voice. It seems quite possible that the Germans will, in a manner of speaking, be waiting for you.

      Damn you, Jensen. What did you know that you did not tell us?

      It was raining again, a steady rattle on the roof of the barn. On the mountain it would be snowing on their tracks. Perhaps their tracks would be comprehensively covered, and the Germans would not be waiting for them. Perhaps they would be lucky.

      But Mallory did not believe in luck.

      Thierry said, ‘Contact made and acknowledged.’

      ‘Messages?’

      ‘No messages.’

      Mallory closed his eyes. Sleep lapped at him. Despite the fire he was cold. Two hours later, he was going to remember being cold; remember it with nostalgic affection. For the moment, he lay and shivered, dozing.

      Then he was awake.

      A lorry engine was running outside. He gripped his Schmeisser and rose to his feet, instantly alert. He could see Miller covering the door. Andrea was gone. What -

      The door crashed open. A man was standing there. He was short and fat, with a beret the size of a dinner plate, and a moustache that spread beyond it like the wings of a crow. His small black eyes flicked between the Schmeisser barrels covering him. He grinned broadly. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Colbis welcomes its allies from beyond the seas. Allons, l’Amiral Beaufort.’

      Mallory said, ‘Who are you?’

      ‘My name is Marcel,’ said the man. ‘I am delighted to see you. I am only sorry that you had some little problems last night, of which I have already heard.’ He bowed. ‘My congratulations. Now, into the lorry. It will soon be light, and there are many eyes connected to many tongues.’

      Outside, a steady rain was falling. In the grey half-light black pines rose up the steep hillside into a layer of dirty-grey cloud. The lorry was an old Citroën, converted to wood-gas, panting and fuming in the yard. ‘Messieurs,’ said Marcel. ‘Dispose yourselves.’

      Mallory closed the Storm Force into the canvas back of the lorry, and climbed into the front. Marcel ground the gears, and started to jounce down a narrow track that snaked through the dripping trees. ‘Quite a fuss,’ said Marcel. ‘The Germans have met an army of maquisards, it is said. Oh, very good -’

      Mallory said, ‘I am looking for three submarines.’

      ‘Naturally,’ said Marcel. ‘And I know a man who will take you to them. We must meet him now. At breakfast.’

      ‘A man?’

      ‘Wait and see,’ said Marcel, hauling the lorry round a pig in the road.

      The trees had stopped. They were crossing open meadows scattered with small, earth-coloured cottages. Ahead was a huddle of houses, and the arched campanile of a church. Nothing was moving; it was four-thirty in the morning. But Mallory did not like it.

      ‘Where are we going?’

      ‘Breakfast, of course. In the village.’

      ‘Not the village.’ Villages were rat-traps. In the past eight hours, Mallory had had enough rat-traps for a lifetime.

      Marcel said, ‘There are no Germans in Colbis. No collaborators. It is important that we go into the village. To see this person.’

      ‘Who is this person?’

      ‘As I say,’ said Marcel, with a winsome smile, ‘this will be a surprise.’

      Mallory told himself that there was no future in getting angry. He said, ‘Excuse me, but there is very little time. I do not wish to commit myself to a position from which there is no retreat.’

      Marcel looked at him. Above the jolly cheeks, the eyes were hard and knowing: the eyes of a lieutenant whose commanding officer had been killed in the night. Mallory began to feel better. Marcel said, ‘This person you must meet cannot be moved. Believe me.’

      Mallory gave up. He pulled his SS helmet over his eyes, checked the magazine of his Schmeisser, and leaned back in the seat. Slowly the lorry wheezed out of the meadows and wound its way through streets designed for pack-mules into the centre of Colbis.

      There was a square, flanked on its south side by the long wall of the church. In the middle were two plane trees in which roosting chickens clucked drowsily. There was a mairie, and a line of what must have been shops: butcher’s, baker’s, ironmonger’s. And on the corner, a row of tall windows streaming with rain, with a signboard above them bearing the faded inscription Café Des Sports.

      “Ere we are,’ said Marcel, cheerfully. “Op out.’

      Boots clattered on the wet cobbles. The etched-glass windows of the café reflected the group of civilians and the three Waffen-SS with heavy packs and Schmeissers; the civilians might have been prisoners. It was a sight to cause twitched-aside curtains to drop over windows - not that there was any visible twitching. The German forces of Occupation in the frontier zone were remarkably acute about twitched curtains.

      Grinning and puffing, Marcel hustled his charges into the café, and shepherded them up through the beaded fringe covering the mouth of a staircase behind the bar. Miller’s nostrils dilated. He said, ‘Coffee. Real coffee.’

      ‘Comes from Spain,’ said Marcel. ‘With the senoritas and the oranges. Particularly the senoritas. Come up, now.’

      Miller went up the stairs. Mallory was behind him. Miller stopped, dead. Mallory’s finger moved to the trigger of his Schmeisser. At the top of the stairs was a large landing overlooking the square. The landing had sofas and chairs. Too many doors opened off it. It smelt of stale scent and unwashed bodies.

      Miller said, ‘It’s a cathouse.’

      Mallory said, ‘So you will feel completely at home.’

      They had been walking most of the night. Mallory was soaking wet and shivering. His hands felt raw, his feet rubbed and blistered inside the jackboots. He wanted to find the objective of the operation, and carry the operation out while there was still an operation to carry out.

      And instead, they were attending a breakfast party in a brothel.

      ‘Village this size?’ said Miller. ‘With a cathouse?’

      It should have meant something. But the smell of the coffee had blunted Mallory’s perceptions. All he knew was that he had to get hold of some, or die.

      It was light outside, cold and grey. But inside on the sideboard there was coffee, and bread, and goat’s cheese, and a thin, fiery brandy for those who wanted it. Mallory drank a cup of coffee. He said to Marcel, ‘You said there was someone here.’

      Marcel nodded. ‘He will be sleeping. Another croissant? I make them my own self.’

      ‘We’ll wake him.’

      Marcel shrugged, and opened one of the doors off the landing.

      The smell of sweat and perfume intensified. It