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been sitting behind them to take his place, led the way out through a side door and into his own quarters. "Well, that is that, I suppose." He broke the seal of a bottle of Talisker, brought out some glasses. "You'll have to accept it as final, Jensen. Bill Torrance's is the senior, most experienced squadron left in Africa to-day. Used to pound the Ploesti oil wells and think it a helluva skylark. If anyone could have done to-night's job it was Bill Torrance, and if he says it's impossible, believe me, Captain Jensen, it can't be done." "Yes." Jensen looked down sombrely at the golden amber of the glass in his hand. "Yes, I know. I almost knew before, but I couldn't be sure, and I couldn't take the chance of being wrong. . . . A terrible pity that it took the lives of a dozen men to prove me right . . . There's just the one way left, now." "There's just the one," the commodore echoed. He lifted his glass, shook his head. "Here's luck to Kheros!" "Here's luck to Kheros!" Jensen echoed in turn. His face was grim. "Look!" Mallory begged. "I'm completely lost. Would somebody please tell me" "Kheros," Jensen interrupted. "That was your cue call, young man. All the world's a stage, laddie, etcetera, and this is where you tread the boards in this particular little comedy." Jensen's smile was quite mirthless. "Sorry you've missed the first two acts, but don't lose any sleep over that. This is no bit part: you're going to be the star, whether you like it or not. This is it. Kheros, Act 3, Scene 1. Enter Captain Keith Mallory." Neither of them had spoken in the last ten minutes. Jensen drove the big Humber command car with the same sureness, the same relaxed efficiency that hallmarked everything he did: Mallory still sat hunched over the map on his knees, a large-scale Admiralty chart of the Southern Aegean illuminated by the hooded dashboard light, studying an area of the Sporades and Northern Dodecanese heavily squared off in red pencil. Finally he straightened up and shivered. Even in Egypt these late November nights could be far too cold for comfort. He looked across at Jensen. "I think I've got it now, sir." "Good!" Jensen gazed straight ahead along the winding grey ribbon of dusty road, along the white glare of the headlights that cleaved through the darkness of the desert. The beams lifted and dipped, constantly, hypnotically, to the cushioning of the springs on the rutted road. "Good!" he georgia digital camera wholesale repeated. "Now, have another look at it and imagine yourself standing in the town of Navaronethat's on the almost circular bay on the north of the island? Tell me, what would you see from there?" Mallory smiled. "I don't have to look again, sir. Four miles or so away to the east I'd see the Turkish coast curving up north and west to a point almost due north of Navaronea very sharp promontory, that, for the coastline above curves back almost due east. Then, about sixteen miles away, due north beyond this promontoryCape Demirci, isn't it?and practically in a line with it I'd see the island of Kheros. Finally, six miles to the west is the island of Maidos, the first of the Lerades group. They stretch away in a north-westerly direction, maybe fifty miles." "Sixty." Jensen nodded. "You have the eye, my boy. You've got the guts and the experiencea man doesn't survive eighteen months in Crete without both. You've got one or two special qualifications I'll mention by and by." He paused for a moment, shook his head slowly. "I only hope you have the luckall the luck. God alone knows you're going to need it." Mallory waited expectantly, but Jensen had sunk into some private reverie. Three minutes passed, perhaps five, and there was only the swish of the tyres, the subdued hum of the powerful engine. Presently Jensen stirred and spoke again, quietly, still without taking his eyes off the road. "This is Saturdayrather, it's Sunday morning now. There are one thousand two hundred men on the island of Kherosone thousand two hundred British soldierswho will be dead, wounded or prisoner by next Saturday. Mostly, they'll be dead." For the first time he looked at Mallory and smiled, a brief smile, a crooked smile, and then it was gone. "How does it feel to hold a thousand lives in your hands, Captain Mallory?" For long seconds Mallory looked at the impassive face beside him, then looked away again. He stared down at the chart. Twelve hundred men on Kheros, twelve hundred men waiting to die. Kheros and Navarone, Kheros and Navarone. What was that poem again, that little jingle that he'd learnt all these long years ago in that little upland village in the sheeplands outside Queenstown? Chimborazothat was it. "Chimborazo and Cotopaxi, you have stolen my heart away." Kheros and Navaronethey had the same ring, the same indefinable glamour, the same