Free Dive in the Sun by Douglas Reeman Page B

eyes. ‘Might even latch on to some little Eye-tie senorita, too! They say the sheilas round here are quite somethin’!’
    He looked across at Jervis’s stooped head, and his eyes crinkled into narrow slits. ‘Why, the boy he’d be really learnin’ a few things!’
    Jervis smiled weakly, but didn’t answer.
    ‘See? He’s thinkin’ about it already.’
    Jervis licked his dry lips. ‘I was just wondering about the strength of the enemy around this part of the coast,’ he said at length, his voice quiet and unsteady.
    ‘Strength of the beer more like! Christ, what wouldn’t I give for a dirty great pint of Tooths’ beer right now!’ Duncan smacked his lips noisily.
    Curtis was watching Jervis with sudden interest, and waved the Australian into silence. The boy had changed. He looked as he himself had felt such a short time ago. And with Taylor already showing signs of strain, it was cutting down their slim chances even more.
    ‘How d’you mean, Ian?’ he asked casually. ‘What have you got in mind?’
    Jervis swallowed hard, his face pale. ‘What I mean is, Skipper, do you think there’ll be many German troops around here, or will the Italians be in control?’
    ‘It doesn’t make a lot of difference, surely? We have to avoid them all, that’s the only certainty we have. Don’t imagine that the Eye-ties are soft, because they’re not, and remember, it’s their country we’re messing about.’
    ‘That’s right,’ said Duncan brightly. ‘So long as they only outnumber you twenty to one, you’ll find ’em pretty tough!’
    Jervis looked across at Curtis with something like pleading on his round face. ‘We’re not cut out for this sort of thing, Skipper! We’re sailors, not soldiers! We haven’t got a clue about getting across open country and all that sort of thing, and living off the land!’ The words poured from him like a flood.
    ‘You speak for yourself!’ Duncan wriggled in his seat. ‘I’ve done it all me life till I was stupid enough to get mixed up with this caper!’
    Curtis’s mouth tightened and his eyes looked like twin pieces of blue glass. ‘Look here, Ian. Lots of our blokes have had to ditch before now, and have made it! In Norway, for example, when the country was deep in snow and England across the other side of the sea. You must have heard or been told about it?’
    ‘But, Skipper,’ Jervis had committed himself, and seemed incapable of reading the warning in Curtis’s face, ‘that was a country where the people were all for the British——’
    Curtis cut him short. ‘Whereas, this country is warm and full of food and God knows what else,
and
with a bit of luck the army are waiting for us at the other end by now! If you weren’t up to this sort of risk, you should have got your father to wangle you into something safer!’
    He knew that his words were cutting the boy in half, but he knew, too, that everything depended on the others being ready to back him up when the time came. Without another word he crawled through the diving compartment and into the battery room, his mind already busy with his hazy plan.
    Duncan breathed out slowly. ‘Well, Ian, I’m not the one to brag, but I could have told you that would happen!’
    ‘I—I’m not afraid! It’s just, it’s just …’ he faltered helplessly, all his defences down, ‘I’ve never experienced anything like this before.’
    ‘Hmm. It’s not exactly the kind of affair we want to dabble in every day, is it?’ He leaned over and banged the boy’s shoulder. ‘Cheer up, cobber! D’you want to live forever?’
    When eventually the motor died away, and the midget submarine settled on the soft sandy sea-bed, the Adriatic was dark and still and allowed the boat and her crew peace and time to dwell on their thoughts for the morning which was yet to come. A destroyer cruised seawards looking for the unknown marauder which had left its mark painted in the sky over distant Vigoria—a sullen, flickering red