Partisans by Alistair MacLean Read Free Book Online Page A

engine-room and put an engine out of action – I regret to say it’s still out of action but we can get by without it – and the other came into the wheelhouse.’
    â€˜A kilo of explosives going off in a confined space is not very nice,’ Petersen said. ‘You were not alone?’
    â€˜Two others. They were not as lucky as I was. Then I had more luck – we ran into a fog bank.’ Carlos shrugged. ‘That’s all. The past is past.’
    A knock came at the door. A very young sailor entered, stood at attention, saluted and said: ‘You sent for me, Captain.’
    â€˜Indeed. We have guests, Pietro. Tired, thirsty guests.’
    â€˜Right away, Captain.’ The boy saluted and left.
    Petersen said: ‘What’s all this you were saying about no discipline?’
    Carlos smiled: ‘Give him time. He’s been with us for only a month.’
    George looked puzzled. ‘He is a truant from school, no?’
    â€˜He’s older than he looks. Well, at least three months older.’
    â€˜Quite an age span you have aboard,’ Petersen said. ‘The elder Pietro. He can’t be a day under seventy.’
    â€˜He’s a great number of days over seventy.’ Carlos laughed. The world seemed to be a source of constant amusement to him. ‘A socalled captain with only two out of four functioning limbs. A beardless youth. An old age pensioner. What a crew. Just wait till you see the rest of them.’
    Petersen said: ‘The past is past, you say. Accepted. One may ask a question about the present?’ Carlos nodded. ‘Why haven’t you been retired, invalided out of the Navy or at very least given some sort of shore job? Why are you still on active service?’
    â€˜Active service?’ Carlos laughed again. ‘Highly inactive service. The moment we run into anything resembling action I hand in my commission. You saw the two light guns we have mounted fore and aft? It was just pride that made me keep them there. They’ll never be used for either attack or defence for the perfectly adequate reason that neither works. This is a very undemanding assignment and I do have one modest qualification for it. I was born and brought up in Pescara where my father had a yacht – more than one. I spent my boyhood and the ridiculously long university vacations sailing. Around the Mediterranean and Europe for part of the time but mainly off the Yugoslav coast. The Adriatic coast of Italy is dull and uninteresting, with not an island worth mentioning between Bari and Venice: the thousand and one Dalmatian islands are a paradise for the cruising yachtsman. I know them better than I know the streets of Pescara or Termoli. The Admiralty finds this useful.’
    â€˜On a black night?’ Petersen said. ‘No lighthouses, no lit buoys, no land-based navigational aids?’
    â€˜If I required those I wouldn’t be much use to the Admiralty, would I? Ah! Help is at hand.’
    It took young Pietro an heroic effort not to stagger under the weight of his burden, a vertically-sided, flat-bottomed wicker basket holding the far from humble nucleus of a small but well-stocked bar. In addition to spirits, wines and liqueurs, Pietro had even gone to the length of providing a soda syphon and a small ice-bucket.
    â€˜Pietro hasn’t yet graduated to bar-tender and I’ve no intention of leaving this chair,’ Carlos said. ‘Help yourselves, please. Thank you, Pietro. Ask our two passengers to join us at their convenience.’ The boy saluted and left. ‘Two other Yugoslav-bound passengers. I don’t know their business as I don’t know yours. You don’t know theirs and they don’t know yours. Ships that pass in the night. But such ships exchange recognition signals. Courtesy of the high seas.’
    Petersen gestured at the basket from which George was already helping the von Karajans to orange juice.