‘Let’s get the crates! Bring the mules up.’
‘What about the parachutist?’ Eleni asked.
‘Leave him to Yannis and Georgis. Come on.’
There was a faint braying from the strings of mules as their drivers led them forward. Meanwhile Michaelis and the others rushed towards the crates to gather in the parachutes and detach them from the harnesses. Then, using iron bars, they prized the crates open and began to unpack the bundled weapons and cases of ammunition before loading them on to the mules. They worked quickly and as soon as each case was emptied the mules were led away, down the track to the caves used to hide the supplies. The parachutes were also taken away, and the crates broken up for firewood so there would be no trace of the drop for the enemy to use as the focus of any search of the surrounding area that they might conduct.
The last crate was being dismantled as Yannis and Georgis returned, leading a man in a bulky suit and helmet with his parachute bundled up in his arms.
‘Uncle Michaelis,’ Georgis jerked his thumb at the new arrival, ‘seems like Cairo has done us a favour and not sent us another Englishman who speaks like an ancient. He’s one of us.’
‘A Greek?’
‘Better than a Greek,’ the parachutist responded cheerily. ‘I’m from the island. I’ve come home.’
‘It’s true,’ Yannis added. ‘I knew him as a boy.’
‘By Holy God, can it be?’ Eleni said quietly. ‘Andreas . . . ?’
He stopped dead and stood silently for an instant. Then he thrust the tight folds of the parachute into Yannis’s arms and fumbled for the buckle of his helmet as he stepped forward.
‘You know him?’ Michaelis demanded.
‘Know him? Of course I do!’ Eleni laughed as she half ran to Andreas, just as he took his helmet off. ‘Andreas Katarides.’ She embraced him tightly and pressed her face into his chest. Andreas grinned in delight as she spoke.
‘I was afraid I would never see you again.’
‘There’ll be time for that later on,’ Michaelis interrupted, stepping up to scrutinise the new arrival severely. ‘Katrarides, eh? Any relation of the poet?’
‘I am his son.’
‘A pity. We need fighters, not poets.’
‘I hold a commission in the Royal Hellenic Navy. And I have been trained by our British allies to fight with the andartes. I’ll prove that soon enough.’
‘Maybe sooner than you think, if we spend all night talking here on the hill. Just so you know, I am Michaelis, kapetan of this band. I give the orders here . . . Let’s go.’
Michaelis turned away abruptly and gestured to the rest to follow him, and the party marched into the darkness and followed the track down the slope towards their hideout.
The cave had a narrow entrance that led up at a sharp angle for several paces before opening out into a large chamber some twenty paces across. Andreas was at once struck by the humidity and the dank smell of sweat and human waste and the acrid stench of burned wood. A steady drip sounded from the rear and as the flashlights flickered over the rocky interior he saw the makeshift bedding of sheep’s fleeces spread over piles of pine branches. Some empty ammunition boxes and smaller crates served as tables and stools. In one corner a pile of ashes showed where the andartes occasionally lit fires for warmth and cooking. Above, the roof of the cave was stained black with soot and he could guess at the choking clouds of smoke that would fill the chamber if the fire was allowed to burn for any length of time.
The mules were unloaded at the mouth of the cave before their drivers led them back to the mountain village where they had come from. Once the last of the weapons and ammunition had been stacked at the rear of the cave, Michaelis lit a kerosene lamp and settled down on one of the boxes. He beckoned Andreas to join him. The latter had stripped off his jumpsuit and Eleni had quickly gathered it up before one of the others claimed it for bedding.
‘Sit here,’ Michaelis ordered, indicating another box close by.
Andreas did as he was told.
‘Why have you been sent?’ Michaelis demanded directly.
Eleni sat down close by, a look of dismay on her face as she watched the band’s leader jut out his jaw and regard Andreas suspiciously.
‘I’d have thought that was obvious,’ Andreas replied. ‘I am an islander, born and bred. I know the ground, I know the people, I speak the dialect. I am here to help coordinate the resistance.’
‘We don’t need any coordination. We just need guns and bullets. Besides, I was expecting a British officer. Someone to just observe and report back to his superiors and persuade them to keep supplying us. That’s all. I don’t need you here, spying on me for the British, and those cowards who call themselves the government in exile. And don’t think you are going to take control here.’ He stabbed his finger at the floor of the cave. ‘This is my territory. My band. Understand?’
‘I understand,’ Andreas replied calmly. ‘I am here to help. No more than that.’
‘And who says I need your help?’
‘I would hope that any Greek patriot would welcome another to the cause. We both want to see our country free again, Michaelis.’
‘Truly. But there are patriots and there are patriots, my friend. As you well know. When the war is over, my men and I will not stand by and let things return to the way they were under Metaxas, Holy God rot his soul. There are plenty of others who feel the same. We’ll not kick one bunch of tyrants out the front door while another lot sneak in through the back.’
‘You take your orders from the National Liberation Front, then?’
‘I take orders from no man. I serve Greece.’
‘As do I. And I leave the politics to others.’
‘You may find that you have to choose where you stand. Sooner than you think.’
‘If it comes to that, then I will.’
The two exchanged a hard stare before Michaelis smiled slowly. ‘Good. I see we understand each other! Now, enough of that. What do you know of the situation here?’
Andreas looked around. ‘I was told that there were many on the island who are prepared to fight the Italians. And that it was my task to support them.’
‘Good. But you should know that it’s not just the Italians we are facing. There’s a small German contingent in Lefkada. No doubt sent here to keep an eye on the Italians. There’s not much trust amongst fascists, it seems.’
‘Germans? How many?’
‘No more than a handful. Eleni knows more about them than I do.’
Andreas turned to her. ‘You’d better tell me.’
She was wearing a dark dress over the baggy trousers that the other andartes favoured and knelt on the padded jumpsuit. ‘Not much to say. There’s no more than ten of them. They’ve taken over the top floor of the prefecture. Four officers, one of whom is in the SS, two women, secretaries I think, and the rest are civilians, but there’s a rumour they belong to the Gestapo. They don’t mix with us, and seem to have as little to do with the Italians as they can.’
‘Then why are they here?’
‘All I could get out of the Italian officer billeted with your father is that they’re here to liaise with their allies. That’s all he could say. As far as I know the Germans have only left Lefkada a few times since they arrived. A shepherd said he had seen them up near Aghios Ilias.’
Andreas remembered the village well enough, it was on the road back from the excavations of Dr Muller.
‘What were they doing up there?’
Eleni shook her head. ‘I couldn’t find out any more. No one seems to know much about them beyond what I’ve told you.’
Michaelis sniffed. ‘If those Germans come anywhere near here, we’ll clean them up nicely. Especially now that we have new weapons.’ He glanced fondly at the guns and ammunition stacked against the side of the cave.
‘I’m sure you would,’ said Andreas. ‘And I’d be proud to report your success back to our friends in Cairo. They like to reward success.’ Beneath hi
s jumpsuit he had been wearing a plain black jacket and trousers and now he slowly reached into his breast pocket and took out a small felt purse. ‘Here. British gold. Think of it as payment on account.’ He tossed the purse to Michaelis who eased it open and glanced inside with an appreciative rise of his eyebrows. Then he folded his hand around it and nodded. There was always a ready market for any man who had gold. Even with the scarcity caused by the war there were those who knew how to obtain food and other items on the black market, for a price. Andreas had given him enough to buy provisions from the local people for some months.
‘I accept this to buy supplies for my men, you understand.’
‘Yes. Of course. And there’ll be more when Cairo hears from me about your exploits against the enemy.’
‘Then they shall hear of something very soon.’ Michaelis grinned. ‘I have a job in mind.’
‘Oh?’
‘I shall say nothing now. First you rest, then I’ll show you in the morning.’
‘As you wish.’
Michaelis was about to turn away when he paused. ‘You’ll need a code name. You can’t be known as Andreas Katarides, in case the enemy come to hear of it.’
‘I know.’
‘Then what shall we call you?’
‘Mahos.’
‘Mahos.’ The kapetan nodded. ‘Mahos it is.’ He turned to Eleni. ‘It’ll be dawn soon. You’d better go.’
‘Go?’ Andreas tried to hide his disappointment. ‘Why?’
‘Eleni has to return to Nidhri before dawn. She’s posing as the guest of a friend’s family, come down from Lefkada to stay with them a few days to help with the friend’s wedding. She has to leave now if she’s going to get down to Nidhri in time. Off you go, my girl.’
Eleni nodded reluctantly and rose to her feet.
‘I’d have a few words with you before you go,’ said Andreas.
‘All right, then,’ Michaelis agreed on her behalf. ‘But make it quick. There may be patrols sent up to the hills, now they’ve been alerted to the presence of a bomber flying low over the mountains. Go carefully, my girl.’
Andreas fell into step beside her as she made her way along the low, narrow passage giving out to the steep hillside outside. Michaelis watched them leave with a curious stare, and then eased himself to his feet to cross over to the weapons that had been dropped and lifted up a Sten sub-machine gun to admire.
At the cave mouth Eleni stopped. The darkness was beginning to fade. Already there was just enough light to make out the valley stretching down between the hills in the direction of Nidhri. The moon had faded slightly but still added its weak lustre to the scene, and to her face as she turned towards Andreas.
‘I feared I would never see you again.’
‘I know the feeling.’ He smiled faintly. ‘There is so much I want to tell you. So much I want to hear.’
‘It’ll have to wait.’ She glanced back down the slope. ‘I have to be back in Nidhri before anyone stirs.’
‘When will I see you again?’
‘Soon.’
‘I would like to see my father too,’ Andreas continued, aware that he was being selfish in delaying her. ‘But I don’t want to put him in any danger.’
Eleni looked at him sadly. ‘Your father is not well.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘It began soon after the Italians arrived. It seemed to break his spirit. He no longer cares for himself. He eats too little, and spends most of the day sitting on his terrace looking out to sea. It’s as if he has aged ten years.’ She took his hand in hers and squeezed gently. ‘I’m sorry, Andreas.’
‘Perhaps I should never have left the island.’
She laughed softly. ‘We cannot change the past. Only the future.’
There was a moment’s stillness and silence as they stared at each other. Then Eleni spontaneously rose on her toes and kissed him lightly on the lips and instantly turned to go. Too late he reached out for her but she nimbly hurried away down the slope and was soon lost from sight amongst the trees covering the sides of the valley.
Chapter Twenty-Two
For the next week Andreas remained in the cave while he waited for word from the other resistance bands on the island. It was his intention to gather them together so that they might plan how best to organise their efforts against the enemy. Michaelis had assured him that they had been sent messages by his runners but that it was dangerous work and some might not get through or be able to return with the reply. The time given for the appointed meeting at an abandoned shepherd’s shelter high up on the hills in the centre of the island was ten days from when Andreas had landed. It was frustrating that the responses were so slow to come. But it would be a start, he told himself. A first step on the road to unifying the andartes towards the common goal of contributing to the defeat of the enemies of Greece. At the same time he gently tried to persuade Michaelis to share his weapons with the other bands.
Even though Greece was at war and the island was under occupation, the old ways persisted and Michaelis jealously guarded the equipment that had fallen to him, even though he had far more weapons and ammunition than he needed. He would only give the others weapons if they acknowledged him as the first amongst the kapetans and swear loyalty and obedience to him. Andreas pointed out that his possession of the weapons was only by virtue of the fact that it had been his men the British agents had encountered first and elected to set their radio up on his territory. Michaelis shrugged and said it was fate. The same fate that had determined that he would lead the resistance on Lefkas.
Michaelis and his band were busy making preparations for an attack on the Italian anti-aircraft battery on a hill outside Nidhri. The post had been under observation for some weeks pending the arrival of the weapons needed to mount the assault. Two men at a time watched the guns and their crews from the concealment of some trees on the slope overlooking the position. At the same time Michaelis insisted that Eleni remain in Nidhri to glean what information she could about the Italian garrison and its preparedness for any attack, a task that would provide information of limited use, Andreas realised. But it would keep Eleni away from the cave and from him. Michaelis’s affection for her was clear and perhaps explained his cold manner and his desire to keep Eleni and her childhood friend apart.
Lookouts watched the approaches to the cave. Only once in that first week was the alarm raised. The andartes slipped into the cave and pulled a screen covered with loose sacking laced with fresh-cut pine branches across the entrance. They waited in silence, clutching their weapons, listening to the voices of the Italians passing no more thirty or forty paces away. They sounded cheerful and oblivious of danger, Andreas thought, but if one of them happened to glance towards the mouth of the cave and became suspicious, the peace of the valley would be shattered. But their good fortune held and the Italians’ chatter faded into the distance. They remained in the cave for another hour before Michaelis ordered a man to go out and check that the enemy had indeed gone. Another half hour passed before he returned to give the all-clear and the men inside could finally set aside their weapons and return to their normal routine.
Apart from the times when Michaelis allowed the men to go outside, they spent their time drinking raki and talking, sometimes singing. Often the discussions became heated as they touched on politics, or on ancient grievences between families or villages and Michaelis would step in and shout at them to stop. At night the men would lie on their makeshift beds, all the time scratching at the lice that infested their clothes and bedding. At first Andreas tried to keep his mattress of pine branches stuffed into his jumpsuit apart from the others but the lice soon discovered him and settled on his body and by the end of the week he was scratching away at them in the same resigned manner as his comrades.
They could only light fires during the hours of darkness in case any smoke escaped from the cave and gave away their position. Then the cave would steadily fill with smoke that caught in the lungs and irritated the
eyes as they cooked stews of beans or roasted meat from freshly slaughtered sheep taken from the closest flocks or villages in the tradition of klepsi-klepsi, the petty theft that had endured in Greece since antiquity. At other times they ate rock bread and mizithra, a soft, dripping cheese, washing the meals down with yet more raki, or curdled milk from jars that were never cleaned out in order to let the culture inside thrive.
Of all the privations, it was the lice that bothered Andreas the most, the constant itch and sensation of small shimmering movements across the skin beneath his clothes. Like the other men, he sometimes stripped and tried to clear them from his body and brush them out of his garments but it only provided a brief respite before they resumed their torment in earnest. Some relief came when Andreas joined a few others permitted to leave the cave and they made their way down the slope to a small gorge where the water lay in shaded pools throughout the summer before being replenished by the winter rains when water gushed through the gorge and filled the bed of the stream running down the floor of the valley towards the coast. They stripped off, immersing themselves in the cold water where they scrubbed at their skin and dipped their hair under the surface to remove the lice before turning their attention to their clothes. A hard rub and scrub on the rocks before wringing them out and pounding the garments on the rocks was enough to remove the scourge and then the men sat and chatted quietly as they waited for the sun to dry their clothes.
The andartes, mostly men from the hill villages, were keen to hear Andreas’s account of his time in the navy and more especially Egypt and Palestine, countries that they had heard of only in the sermons at church. They asked hosts of questions and listened in respectful silence, especially as he told them of the scale of the war being fought out across the globe. Of the millions of men and thousands of tanks, planes and warships that were engaged in the titanic struggle between the dark forces of the enemy and the desperate allies of Greece. He reminded them that though the part they played might seem small, it was still an important front on which to engage the Italians and Germans and show them that they were not invincible as they often claimed in their propaganda.
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