Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

head in bewilderment. "What the heli are you talking about?" "My own batman. A harmless messenger, a boy onlyand he wasn't even armed. We found him only an hour ago. Ach, I waste my time!" He broke off as he turned to watch two men coming up the gully. Mallory stood motionless for a moment, cursing the ifi luck that had led the dead man across the path of Panayisit could have been no one elsethen turned to see what had caught the officer's attention. He focused his aching eyes with difficulty, looked at the bent figure struggling up the slope, urged on by the ungentle prodding of a bayoneted rifle. Mallory let go a long, silent breath of relief. The left side of Brown's face was caked with blood from a gash above the temple, but he was otherwise unharmed. "Right! Sit down in the snow, all of you!" He gestured to several of his men. "Bind their hands!" "You are going to shoot us now, perhaps?" Mallory asked quietly. It was suddenly, desperately urgent that he should know: there was nothing they could do but die, but at least they could die on their feet, fighting; but if they weren't to die just yet, almost any later opportunity for resistance would be less suicidal than this. "Not yet, unfortunately. My section commander in Margaritha, Hauptmann Skoda, wishes to see you firstmaybe it would be better for you if I did shoot you now. Then the Herr Kommandant in NavaroneOfficer Commanding of the whole island." The German smiled thinly. "But only a postponement, Englishman. You will be kicking your heels, before the sun sets. We have a short way with spies in Navarone." "But, sir! Captain!" Hands raised in appeal, Andrea took a step forward, brought up short as two rifle muzzles ground into his chest. "Not CaptainLieutenant," the officer corrected him. "Oberleutnant Turzig, at your service. What is it you want, fat one?" he asked contemptuously. "Spies! You said spies! I am no spy!" The words rushed and tumbled over one another, as if he could not get them out fast enough. "Before God, I am no spy! I am not one of them." The eyes were wide and staring, the mouth working soundlessly between the gasped-out sentences. "I am only a Greek, a poor Greek. They forced me to come along as an interpreter. I swear it, Lieutenant Turzig, I swear it!" "You yellow bastard!" Miller ground out viciously, then grunted in agony as a rifie butt drove into the small of his back, just above the kidney. He stumbled, fell forward on his hands and knees, realised even as he fell that Andrea was only playing a part, that Mallory had only to speak half a kodak easyshare z760 digital camera manual dozen words in Greek to expose Andrea's lie. Miller twisted on his side in the snow, shook his fist weakly and hoped that the contorted pain on his face might be mistaken for fury. "You two-faced, double-crossing dago! You gawddamned swine, I'll get you . . ." There was a hollow, sickening thud and Miller collapsed in the snow: the heavy ski-boot had caught him just behind the ear. Mallory said nothing. He did not even glance at Miller. Fists balled helplessly at his sides and mouth compressed, he glared steadily at Andrea through narrowed slits of eyes. He knew the lieutenant was watching him, felt he must back Andrea up all the way. What Andrea intended he could not even begin to guessbut he would back him to the end of the world. "So!" Turzig murmured thoughtfully. "Thieves fall out, eh?" Mallory thought he detected the faintest overtones of doubt, of hesitancy, in his voice. But the lieutenant was taking no chances. "No matter, fat one. You have cast your lot with these assassins. What is it the English say? 'You have made your bed, you must lie on it.'" He looked at Andrea's vast bulk dispassionately. "We may need to strengthen a special gallows for you." "No, no, no!" Andrea's voice rose sharply, fearfully, on the last word. "It is true what I tell you! I am not one of them, Lieutenant Turzig, before God I am not one of them!" He swung his hands in distress, his great moon-face contorted in anguish. "Why must I die for no fault of my own? I didn't want to come. I am no fighting man, Lieutenant Turzig!" "I can see that," Turzig said dryly. "A monstrous deal of skin to cover a quivering jelly-bag your size and every inch of it precious to you." He looked at Mallory, and at Miller, still lying face down in the snow. "I cannot congratulate your friends on their choice of companion." "I can tell you everything, Lieutenant, I can tell you everything!" Andrea pressed forward excitedly, eager to consolidate his advantage, to reinforce the beginnings of doubt. "I am no friend of the AlliesI will prove it to youand then perhaps" "You damned Judas!" Mallory made to fling himself forward, but two burly soldiers caught him and pointed his arms from behind. He struggled briefly, then relaxed, looked balefully at Andrea. "If you dare to open your mouth, I promise you you'll never live to" "Be quiet!" Turzig's voice was very cold. "I have had enough of recriminations, of cheap melodrama. Another word and you join your friend in the