The furniture consisted of some battered wall-maps and charts, a score or so of equally scuffed chairs and an unvarnished deal table. The commodore, flanked by Jensen and Mallory, was sitting behind this when the door opened abruptly and the first of the flying crews entered, blinking rapidly in the fierceness of the unaccustomed light They were led by a dark-haired, thick-set pilot, trailing helmet and flying-suit in his left hand. He had an Anzac bush helmet crushed on the back of his head, and the word «Australia» emblazoned in white across each khaki shoulder. Scowling, wordlessly and without permission, he sat down in front of them, produced a pack of cigaottes and rasped a match across the surface of the table. Mallory looked furtively at the commodore. The commodore just looked resigned. He even sounded resigned.

«Gentlemen, this is Squadron Leader Torrance. Squadron Leader Torrance,» he added unnecessarily, «is an Australian.» Mallory had the impression that the commodore rather hoped this would explain some things, Squadron Leader Torrance among them. «He led tonight's attack on Navarone. Bill, these gentlemen here — Captain Jensen of the Royal Navy, Captain Mallory of the Long Range Desert Group — have a very special interest in Navarone. How did things go to-night?»

Navarone! So that's why I'm here to-night, Mallory thought. Navarone. He knew it well, rather, knew of it. So did everyone who had served any time at all in the Eastern Mediterranean: a grim, impregnable iron fortress off the coast of Turkey, heavily defended by — it was thought — a mixed garrison of Germans and Italians, one of the few Aegean islands on which the Allies had been unable to establish a mission, far less recapture, at some period of the war… . He realised that Torrance was speaking, the slow drawl heavy with controlied anger.

«Bloody awful, sir. A fair cow, it was, a real suicide do.» He broke off abruptly, stared moodily with compressed lips through his own drifting tobacco smoke. «But we'd like to go back again,» he went on. «Me and the boys here. Just once. We were talking about it on the way home.» Mallory caught the deep murmur of voices in the background, a growl of agreement. «We'd like to take with us the joker who thought this one up and shove him out at ten thousand over Navarone, without benefit of parachute.»