I will gar hang you hie."

so. Why?" "Because God only knows we're going to need them!" Brown said bitterly. "Have a look at the engine-room, you said. This isn't an engine-room. It's a bloody scrapyard. And the biggest, most rusted bit of scrap down there is attached to the propeller shaft. And what do you think it is? An old Kelvin two-cylinder job built more or less on my own doorstepabout thirty years ago." Brown shook his head in despair, his face as stricken as only a Clydeside engineer's can be at the abuse of a beloved machine. "And it's been falling to bits for years, sir. Place is littered with discarded bits and spares. I've seen junk heaps off the Gallowgate that were palaces compared to this." "Major Rutledge said it was running only yesterday," Mallory said mildly. "Anyway, come on ashore. Breakfast. Remind me we're to pick up a few heavy stones on the way back, will you?" "Stones!" Miller looked at him in horror. "Aboard that thing?" Mallory nodded, smiling. "But that gawddamned ship is sinkin' already!" Miller protested. "What do you want stones for?" "Wait and see." Three hours later Miller saw. The caique was chugging steadily north over a glassy, windless sea, less than a mile off the coast of Turkey, when he mournfully finished lashing his blue battledress into a tight ball and heaved it regretfully over the side. Weighted by the heavy stone he had carried aboard, it was gone from sight in a second. Morosely he surveyed himself in the mirror propped up against the for'ard end of the wheelhouse. Apart from a deep violet sash wrapped round his lean middle and a fancifully embroidered waistcoat with its former glory mercifully faded, be was dressed entirely in black. Black lacing jackboots, black baggy trousers, black shirt and black jacket: even his sandy hair had been dyed to the same colour. He shuddered and turned away. "Thank Gawd the boys back home can't see me now!" he said feelingly. He looked critically at the others, dressed, with some minor variations, like himself. "Waal, mebbe I ain't quite so bad after all. . . . Just what is all this quick-change business for, boss?" "They tell me you've been behind the German lines twice, once as a peasant, once as a mechanic." Mallory heaved his own ballasted uniform over the side. "Well, now you see what camera digital i533p polaroid the well-dressed Navaronian wears." "The double change, I meant Once in the plane, and now." "Oh, I see. Army khaki and naval whites in Alex., blue battledress in Casteirosso and now Greek clothes? Could have beenalmost certainly weresnoopers in Alex. or Casteirosso or Major Rutledge's island. And we've changed from launch to plane to M.T.B. to caique. Covering our tracks, Corporal. We just can't take any chances." Miller nodded, looked down at the clothes sack at his feet, wrinkled his brows in puzzlement, stooped and dragged out the white clothing that had caught his eye. He held up the long, voluminous clothes for inspection. "To be used when passing through the local cemeteries, I suppose." He was heavily ironic. "Disguised as ghosts." "Camouflage," Mallory explained succinctly. "Snowsmocks." "What!" "Snow. That white stuff. There are some pretty high mountains in Navarone, and we may have to take to them. Sosnowsmocks." Miller looked stunned. Wordlessly he stretched his length on the deck, pillowed his head and closed his eyes. Mallory grinned at Andrea. "Picture of a man getting his full quota of sunshine before battling with the Arctic wastes. . . . Not a bad idea. Maybe you should get some sleep, too. I'll keep watch for a couple of hours." For five hours the caique continued on its course parallel to the Turkish coast, slightly west of north and rarely more than two miles off-shore. Relaxed and warm in the still kindly November sun, Mallory sat wedged between the bulwarks of the blunt bows, his eyes ceaselessly quartering sky and horizon. Amidships, Andrea and Miller lay asleep. Casey Brown still defied all attempts to remove him from the engine-room. Occasionally very occasionallyhe came up for a breath of fresh air, but the intervals between his appearances steadily lengthened as he concentrated more and more on the aged Kelvin engine, regulating the erratic drip-fed lubrication, constantly adjusting the air intake: an engineer to his finger-tips, he was unhappy about that engine: he was drowsy, too, and headachythe narrow hatchway gave hardly any ventilation at all. Alone in the wheelhousean unusual feature in so tiny a caiqueLieutenant Andy Stevens watched the Turkish coast slide slowly by. Like Mallory's, his eyes moved ceaselessly, but not with the same controlled wandering. They shifted from the coast to