Force 10 from Navarone Read Online Free

swarming into the hall and brushing unceremoniously by as they headed, like the camel for the oasis, towards the bottle-laden tables. ‘Somebody’s got to look after you two.’
    Mallory looked at his watch. ‘Three and a half hours yet before that plane is due. We’re dead on our feet, Andrea. Where can we sleep – a safe place to sleep. Your perimeter guards are drunk.’
    ‘They’ve been that way ever since the fortress blew up,’ Andrea said. ‘Come, I’ll show you.’
    Miller looked around the islanders, who, amid a loud babel of cheerful voices, were already quite exceptionally busy with bottles and glasses. ‘How about your guests?’
    ‘How about them, then?’ Andrea surveyed his compatriots morosely. ‘Just look at that lot. Ever known a wedding reception yet where anybody paid any attention to the bride and groom? Come.’
    They made their way southwards through the outskirts of Mandrakos to the open countryside beyond. Twice they were challenged by guards, twice a scowl and growl from Andrea sent them back hurriedly to their
ouzo
bottles. It was still raining heavily, but Mallory’s and Miller’s clothes were already so saturated that a little more rain could hardly make any appreciable difference to the way they felt, while Andrea, if anything,seemed even more oblivious of it. Andrea had the air of a man who had other things on his mind.
    After fifteen minutes’ walk, Andrea stopped before the swing doors of a small, dilapidated and obviously deserted roadside barn.
    ‘There’s hay inside,’ he said. ‘We’ll be safe here.’
    Mallory said: ‘Fine. A radio message to the
Sirdar
to send her CE message to Cairo and -’
    ‘CE?’ Andrea asked. ‘What’s that?’
    ‘To let Cairo know we’ve contacted you and are ready for pick-up … And after that, three lovely hours’ sleep.’
    Andrea nodded. ‘Three hours it is.’
    ‘Three
long
hours,’ Mallory said meditatively.
    A smile slowly broke on Andrea’s craggy face as he clapped Mallory on the shoulder.
    ‘In three long hours,’ he said, ‘a man like myself can accomplish a great deal.’
    He turned and hurried off through the rain-filled night. Mallory and Miller looked after him with expressionless faces, looked at each other, still with the same expressionless faces, then pushed open the swing doors of the barn.
    The Mandrakos airfield would not have received a licence from any Civil Air Board anywhere in the world. It was just over half a mile long, with hills rising steeply at both ends of the alleged runway, not more than forty yards wide and liberally besprinkled with a variety of bumps and potholesvirtually guaranteed to wreck any undercarriage in the aviation business. But the RAF had used it before so it was not impossible that they might be able to use it at least once again.
    To the south, the airstrip was lined with groves of carob trees. Under the pitiful shelter afforded by one of those, Mallory, Miller and Andrea sat waiting. At least Mallory and Miller did, hunched, miserable and shivering violently in their still sodden clothes. Andrea, however, was stretched out luxuriously with his hands behind his head, oblivious of the heavy drips of rain that fell on his upturned face. There was about him an air of satisfaction, of complacency almost, as he gazed at the first greyish tinges appearing in the sky to the east over the black-walled massif of the Turkish coast.
    Andrea said: ‘They’re coming now.’
    Mallory and Miller listened for a few moments, then they too heard it – the distant, muted roar of heavy aircraft approaching. All three rose and moved out to the perimeter of the airstrip. Within a minute, descending rapidly after their climb over the mountains to the south and at a height of less than a thousand feet, a squadron of eighteen Wellingtons, as much heard as seen in the light of early dawn, passed directly over the airstrip, heading for the town of Navarone. Two minutes later, the three watchers both