They will, Mallory assured him.Just as soon as we fire and they find out where we are.
He shook his head in mortification.Itmust have been me, Andrea. All this started just after I had been on watch-and Panayis didn't have the glasses. He paused, remembering, then grinned wryly.It could have been myself. It would only require a single flash to tip them off. There was no other way, therecould have been no other way. Of course, of course I had been wondering. I do not believe it, Andrea said flatly.You couldn't make a mistake like that, my Captain. Bitter-mouthed, savage, the American was swearing softly and continuously, oblivious to the pain as he pounded his fist time and again into the sharp-edged gravel before him.Ībruptly Miller's smile vanished and he nodded. Then he became aware of the low murmuring to his left, shifted round again. The gravelly earth beneath his elbows grated harshly as Mallory shifted his weight slightly, looked at the two men to his right, Andrea with his impassive face empty of all expression, Louki with the sheen of tears in his eyes. The sudden silence was curiously oppressive, louder, more obtrusive than the clamour that had gone before. The frenetic stammering of the machine-guns stopped abruptly and in unison, the sound sheared off as by a guillotine. Miller looked round at him, eyes cold and still and empty of all recognition, then he blinked several times and grinned, a cut and bruised hand automatically reaching for his cigarettes. Mallory stared at him, slowly released his grip on the glasses, nodded several times in succession. I have been thinking, and it can be nothing else. But he was grateful to the New Zealander for trying to take their minds off what they had to do.Why don't they use them? That's right, Miller gowled.Cheer us all up. A six-inch mortar, almost certainly using fragmentation bombs-you use a brush and shovel for clearing up afterwards. Guaranteed to turn the knees to jelly, especially after nightfall-but it's stifi the other one you have to watch. We leave them be?Īlso a mortar, Mallory explained.A five-barrelled job, and very nasty. He risked a quick peep round one of the boulders, eased himself back again.Eight, mebbe ten of them still down there, boss, he reported.The poor bastards are like ostriches-trying to take cover behind stones the size of an orange.
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