Free Force 10 from Navarone by Alistair MacLean Page B

Partisans. Maria’s people were our people. Cetniks.’
    ‘And the singer?’ Mallory said.
    ‘Her elder brother.’ Neufeld shook his head. ‘Blind from birth. Wherever she goes, she leads him by the hand. She is his eyes: she is his life.’
    They sat in silence until food and wine were brought in. If an army marched on its stomach, Mallory thought, this one wasn’t going to get very far: he had heard that the food situation with the Partisans was close to desperate, but, if this were a representative sample, the Cetniks and Germans appeared to be in little better case. Unenthusiastically, he spooned – it would have been impossible to use a fork – a little of the greyish stew, a stew in which little oddments of indefinable meat floated forlornly in a mushy gravy of obscure origin, glanced across at Andrea and marvelled at the gastronomic fortitude that lay behind the already almost empty plate. Miller averted his eyes from the plate before him anddelicately sipped the rough red wine. The three sergeants, so far, hadn’t even looked at their food: they were too occupied in looking at the girl by the fireside. Neufeld saw their interest, and smiled.
    ‘I do agree, gentlemen, that I’ve never seen a more beautiful girl and heaven knows what she’d look like if she had a wash. But she’s not for you, gentlemen. She’s not for any man. She’s wed already.’ He looked at the questioning faces and shook his head. ‘Not to any man. To an ideal – if you can call death an ideal. The death of the Partisans.’
    ‘Charming,’ Miller murmured. There was no other comment, for there was none to make. They ate in silence broken only by the soft singing from the fireside, the voice was melodious enough, but the guitar sounded sadly out of tune. Andrea pushed away his empty plate, looked irritably at the blind musician and turned to Neufeld.
    ‘What’s that he’s singing?’
    ‘An old Bosnian love song, I’ve been told. Very old and very sad. In English you have it too.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Yes, that’s it. “The girl I left behind me”.’
    ‘Tell him to sing something else,’ Andrea muttered. Neufeld looked at him, puzzled, then looked away as a German sergeant entered and bent to whisper in his ear. Neufeld nodded and the sergeant left.
    ‘So.’ Neufeld was thoughtful. ‘A radio reportfrom the patrol that found your plane. The tanks
were
empty. I hardly think we need await confirmation from Padua, do you, Captain Mallory?’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘No matter. Tell me, have you ever heard of a General Vukalovic?’
    ‘General which?’
    ‘Vukalovic.’
    ‘He’s not on our side,’ Miller said positively. ‘Not with a name like that.’
    ‘You must be the only people in Yugoslavia who
don’t
know him. Everybody else does. Partisans, Cetniks, Germans, Bulgarians, everyone. He is one of their national heroes.’
    ‘Pass the wine,’ Andrea said.
    ‘You’d do better to listen.’ Neufeld’s tone was sharp. ‘Vukalovic commands almost a division of Partisan infantry who have been trapped in a loop of the Neretva river for almost three months. Like the men he leads. Vukalovic is insane. They have no shelter, none. They are short of weapons, have almost no ammunition left and are close to starvation. Their army is dressed in rags. They are finished.’
    ‘Then why don’t they escape?’ Mallory asked.
    ‘Escape is impossible. The precipices of the Neretva cut them off to the east. To the north and west are impenetrable mountains. The only conceivable way out is to the south, over the bridge at Neretva. And we have two armoured divisions waiting there.’
    ‘No gorges?’ Mallory asked. ‘No passes through the mountains?’
    ‘Two. Blocked by our best combat troops.’
    ‘Then why don’t they give up?’ Mallory asked reasonably. ‘Has no one told them the rules of war?’
    ‘They’re insane, I tell you,’ Neufeld said. ‘Quite insane.’
    At that precise moment in time,