Read Online Partisans by Alistair MacLean - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alistair MacLean
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immune to the effects of sea and cold, did not share Carlosâ confidence. The door to the boâsunâs store, which lay to the port hand of the stairway leading down to the engine-room, had been hooked open and Petersen and Alex, standing two feet back in the unlit store, were only dimly visible. There was just enough light to see that Alex was carrying a semi-automatic machine-pistol while Petersen, using one hand to steady himself on the lurching deck had the other in his coat pocket. Petersen had long ago learned that with Alex by his side when confronting minimal forces, it was quite superfluous for him to carry a weapon of any kind.
Their little cabin, almost directly opposite them on the starboard side of the ill but sufficiently lit passage-way, had its door closed. George, Petersen knew, was still behind that door: and George, Petersen also knew, would be as wide awake as themselves. Petersen looked at his luminous watch. For just over ninety minutes he and Alex had been on station with no signs of weariness or boredom or awareness of the cold and certainly with no signs of their relaxed vigilance weakening at any time: a hundred times they had waited thus on the bleak and often icy mountains of Bosnia and Serbia and Montenegro, most commonly for much longer periods than this: and always they had survived. But that night was going to be one of their shorter and more comfortable vigils.
It was in the ninety-third minute that two men appeared at the forâard end of the passage-way. They moved swiftly aft, crouched low as if making a stealthy approach, an attempt in which they were rather handicapped by being flung from bulkhead to bulkhead with every lurch of the Colombo : they had tried to compensate for this by removing their boots, no doubt to reduce the noise level of their approach, a rather ludicrous tactic in the circumstances because the torpedo boat was banging and crashing about to such a high decibel extent that they could have marched purposefully along in hobnailed boots without anyone being any way the wiser. Each had a pistol stuck in his belt: more ominously, each carried in his right hand an object that looked suspiciously like a hand-grenade.
They were Franco and Cola and neither was looking particularly happy. That their expressions were due to the nature of the errand on hand or to twinges of conscience Petersen did not for a moment believe: quite simply, neither had been born with the call of the sea in his ear and, from the lack of colour in their strained faces, both would have been quite happy never to hear it again. On the logical assumption that Alessandro would have picked his two fittest young lieutenants, for the job on hand, Petersen thought, their appearance didnât say too much for the condition of those who had been left behind. Their cabin was right up in the bows of the vessel and in a cork-screwing sea that was the place to be avoided above all. They halted outside the door behind which George was lurking and looked at each other. Petersen waited until the boat was on even keel, bringing with it a comparative, if brief, period of silence.
âDonât move!â
Franco, at least, had some sense: he didnât move. Cola, on the other hand, amply demonstrated Petersenâs assertion that they werenât hired assassins but only tried to look like ones, by dropping his grenade â he had to be right-handed â reaching for his pistol and swinging round, all in what he plainly hoped was one swift coordinated movement: for a man like Alex it was a scene in pathetically slow motion. Cola had just cleared the pistol from his left waistband when Alex fired, just once, the sound of the shot shockingly loud in the metallic confines. Cola dropped his gun, looked uncomprehendingly at his shattered right shoulder then, back to the bulkhead, he slid to the deck in a sitting position.
âThey never learn,â Alex said gloomily. Alex was not one to derive
Their little cabin, almost directly opposite them on the starboard side of the ill but sufficiently lit passage-way, had its door closed. George, Petersen knew, was still behind that door: and George, Petersen also knew, would be as wide awake as themselves. Petersen looked at his luminous watch. For just over ninety minutes he and Alex had been on station with no signs of weariness or boredom or awareness of the cold and certainly with no signs of their relaxed vigilance weakening at any time: a hundred times they had waited thus on the bleak and often icy mountains of Bosnia and Serbia and Montenegro, most commonly for much longer periods than this: and always they had survived. But that night was going to be one of their shorter and more comfortable vigils.
It was in the ninety-third minute that two men appeared at the forâard end of the passage-way. They moved swiftly aft, crouched low as if making a stealthy approach, an attempt in which they were rather handicapped by being flung from bulkhead to bulkhead with every lurch of the Colombo : they had tried to compensate for this by removing their boots, no doubt to reduce the noise level of their approach, a rather ludicrous tactic in the circumstances because the torpedo boat was banging and crashing about to such a high decibel extent that they could have marched purposefully along in hobnailed boots without anyone being any way the wiser. Each had a pistol stuck in his belt: more ominously, each carried in his right hand an object that looked suspiciously like a hand-grenade.
They were Franco and Cola and neither was looking particularly happy. That their expressions were due to the nature of the errand on hand or to twinges of conscience Petersen did not for a moment believe: quite simply, neither had been born with the call of the sea in his ear and, from the lack of colour in their strained faces, both would have been quite happy never to hear it again. On the logical assumption that Alessandro would have picked his two fittest young lieutenants, for the job on hand, Petersen thought, their appearance didnât say too much for the condition of those who had been left behind. Their cabin was right up in the bows of the vessel and in a cork-screwing sea that was the place to be avoided above all. They halted outside the door behind which George was lurking and looked at each other. Petersen waited until the boat was on even keel, bringing with it a comparative, if brief, period of silence.
âDonât move!â
Franco, at least, had some sense: he didnât move. Cola, on the other hand, amply demonstrated Petersenâs assertion that they werenât hired assassins but only tried to look like ones, by dropping his grenade â he had to be right-handed â reaching for his pistol and swinging round, all in what he plainly hoped was one swift coordinated movement: for a man like Alex it was a scene in pathetically slow motion. Cola had just cleared the pistol from his left waistband when Alex fired, just once, the sound of the shot shockingly loud in the metallic confines. Cola dropped his gun, looked uncomprehendingly at his shattered right shoulder then, back to the bulkhead, he slid to the deck in a sitting position.
âThey never learn,â Alex said gloomily. Alex was not one to derive
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