From their positions at the edge of the town, the ground rose very gently some four hundred yards, offering as clear a line of fire as was possible in this broken landscape of vines and groves and trees. He and Peploe had considered leaving permanent pickets on the ridgeline, but then had decided there was little point: it was just too far and risked leaving the men isolated and exposed. If they were attacked in overwhelming force, it would be better to fall back to the town and the walls, somewhat crumbling after long years of decay but still a formidable obstacle.
He crested the ridge and looked down towards Knossos. Among the plane trees he saw the Villa Ariadne, marked on his map, and a little further on, the ruins themselves. Through his binoculars he could see the walls and columns of the ancient palace, while to the east, overlooking the site, lay another long ridge, the current limit of the Rangers’ front. To the west, another shallower ridge, and beyond that a further valley, narrower than the one they were currently in, and from which rose the Ida Mountains, which now, in the afternoon heat, stood clear and jagged against the cloudless sky. There was no denying it: Crete was a bloody beautiful place. He looked back towards the town, and then east, where most of the brigade were dug in. The airfield lay on flat land next to the coast. Nothing stirred; there was not a single aircraft there, and it occurred to him then that General Freyberg would have been better off destroying it, or at least disabling it.
Tanner shook his head and moved on; there was still work to be done. On his map, he carefully marked whatever buildings he came across – houses, sheds, barns and wells. When he got back to Company Headquarters, he would then make a note of the distances; he had a feeling they would be useful if it ever came to a battle.
Tanner was glad to be alone, out in the Crete countryside, away from the knowing looks and nudges. He was also grateful to be able to avoid Lieutenant Liddell. Jesus, he could have throttled him, the sodding big-mouth. He’d never liked him as a boy. Too spoiled by half. And that look on Peploe’s face – what was it? Surprise – yes, but something more. Disappointment. Tanner winced again, just thinking about it. He’d told them he had lied about his age when he joined the army and had changed his name so that no one could trace him. Tanner had been his mother’s maiden name, he told Peploe and the colonel. ‘It’s just a name,’ he had said. Had they believed him? They’d seemed to, but now he was not the person they’d thought he was. But I am. He no longer thought of himself as Jack Scard; it was a name that had belonged to someone else entirely. Someone he had left behind a long time ago.
He began walking down towards the road, and as he did so, he paused to sweep the valley once more with his binoculars. They were particularly good ones, a pair of Zeiss that had once belonged to a German officer. He’d taken them in Norway, and had looked after them well ever since, even managing to bring them back safely from Dunkirk, which was more than could be said for much of their kit. Even during his time in the Western Desert he’d managed to keep the glass clean without a single sand scratch.
He now saw someone walking down the road and, focusing his binoculars on the figure, saw that it was Captain Peploe. Tanner hurried on, clambering over several walls and through a vineyard to reach the road. Peploe was up ahead, only a few hundred yards from the Knossos site entrance, when a battered pick-up truck of faded brown sped past Tanner. It was the first vehicle he’d seen in days. He watched it pull to a halt beside the captain.
Tanner ran, calling to Peploe, who now looked up, waved him on and then turned back to the people in the truck.
‘It’s happening,’ he said, as Tanner reached him. ‘Germans are landing at Canea.’
‘But not here.’
‘Not yet.’
Tanner looked into the truck. Alopex, John Pendlebury and another British officer were sitting inside. Bloody hell, he thought, that’s all I need.
‘You!’ growled Alopex.
‘Tanner, I presume?’ grinned Pendlebury. He wore a patch over his left eye. ‘Captain, we could do with a couple of pairs of hands. Will you help?’
Peploe looked at his watch. ‘If it’s quick and you can drive us back to our positions.’
‘It will be if you help, and, yes, by all means. Jump in the back.’
‘Sir,’ said Tanner, ‘we haven’t got time for this. Jerry could attack any moment.’
‘It’ll be quicker than us walking back.’
‘We could run.’
‘Stop arguing, Jack, and get in.’
Almost immediately, they turned off to the right, up the drive-way of the Villa Ariadne, lined with squat palms, tall firs, clematis and bamboo. At the end of the drive, the truck pulled into a gravel circle before the house, a limestone turn-of-the-century building with a flat roof and large, shuttered windows. A flight of stone steps led up to the main entrance, but it was to a store at the back that Pendlebury now led them. Unlocking it, he pushed open the door, which squeaked, then said, ‘Here. We need to get them into the back of the truck.’
Inside were boxes of rifles, several Brens, ammunition and grenades.
‘Where did you get all this from?’ Peploe asked.
‘Oh, we’ve been stashing it up for a while,’ Pendlebury said. ‘Captain Vaughan here has been helping me. How many trips have we done now from Suda Island, Alex?’
‘A dozen, perhaps,’ said Vaughan.
‘It’s been a struggle, I can tell you,’ continued Pendlebury. ‘I’ll admit I’m not an experienced soldier, but you regulars are not very keen on helping the irregulars. London gives me the job of helping to organize and arm these local andartes but no one at Middle East HQ is prepared to help. We’ve had to rely on stealth and guile and good old-fashioned thievery. It’s been fun, though, hasn’t it, Alex?’
Vaughan smiled resignedly. For some, maybe. Suddenly a gun opened fire from the direction of the port, and then another, followed by the faint roar of aircraft and the tell-tale siren of Stukas. Bombs exploded, dull crumps to the north. The men paused.
‘An overture to invasion?’ said Pendlebury.
‘Or maybe just the daily hate,’ said Peploe.
Tanner looked at them – let’s get a bloody move on then – and grabbed a box of ammunition.
‘Yes, you’re quite right, Tanner,’ said Pendlebury. ‘We mustn’t dally.’
They began loading, taking the cache box by box to the truck. It was as Tanner was striding back to the shed that Alopex grabbed his arm and steered him to the side of the building, out of sight of the others.
‘Get your hands off me,’ said Tanner, shaking his arm free.
‘This isn’t finished,’ hissed the Cretan. ‘I said I’d kill you and I will.’
Tanner felt something sharp press against his side and looked down to see Alopex had a knife in his hand. He grabbed the Cretan’s wrist. ‘How can you be so sure I won’t kill you first?’
Alopex sneered. ‘Listen to me. For now, we fight the Germans. But after …’ He let the sentence hang. ‘After, we have a debt to settle. So don’t run away on me now.’
Tanner pressed his thumb hard into the tendons on Alopex’s wrist. The Cretan grimaced with pain and the blade fell from his fingers.
‘Oh dear, you seem to have dropped your knife,’ said Tanner. He stared at Alopex, then turned and walked back to the shed.
In less than ten minutes they had finished loading the truck and were heading towards Heraklion, Tanner and Peploe perched on the boxes at the back. The guns and explosions were dying out, but over Heraklion and the airfield they could see a pall of grey, dusty smoke.
‘Is that it for one day, do you think?’ asked Peploe.
Tanner shrugged. ‘They’ve got to come some time soon. I’m sure of it.’
Peploe was quiet for a moment, then shook his head sadly. ‘Ah – so close yet so far.’
‘Sir?’
‘The ruins. Another hundred yards and I’d have made it. And one of life’s ironies that it should be Captain Pendlebury of all people stopping me getting t
here. Oh, well.’
‘Perhaps if we kick out Jerry, sir, there’ll be the opportunity after that. Did you tell him you knew of him?’
‘Yes – and that I have his book on Amarna too.’
‘Amarna?’
‘It’s in Egypt. He was excavating there half the year and here the rest of the time. I rather regretted it, actually. Made me feel a bit foolish.’
Tanner smiled. ‘And what did he say?’
‘Much the same as you. Said he’d take me round after we’d beaten the Germans.’
As they neared B Company’s lines, the truck was waved down.
‘Good luck, gentlemen,’ said Pendlebury, as Tanner and Peploe jumped out.
‘And you,’ Peploe replied. He clapped his hand on the top of the hood, and the pick-up sped off, a cloud of dust following in its wake.
‘Jack,’ said Peploe, as they hurried towards Company Headquarters, ‘I know this probably isn’t the time, but it’s going to be all right with Lieutenant Liddell, isn’t it?’
‘As long as he keeps his mouth shut.’
‘I think he will. I talked to him about it yesterday and told him I didn’t want him to tell anyone what he told us. That you are CSM Tanner and that was all there was to it.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘But, Jack, you weren’t under age when you joined up, were you?’
Tanner said nothing.
‘So why did you change your name?’
At this Tanner stopped, sighed, then said, ‘Sir, I really don’t want to talk about it, but at the time I had very good reasons to do so. Can we leave it at that?’
‘All right, Jack. But just assure me of one thing. It’s not something I should know, is it? Nothing that will affect the company or the battalion?’
Tanner breathed in deeply again. ‘No – no, sir, it isn’t.’
And just then he heard a faint rumble, which made them both stop dead in their tracks. A moment later, the noise had grown and now both men were running up through the grove to the small rocky ridge above their positions. Away to the west, turning in over the coast, they saw aircraft, lots of aircraft.
‘Here they come,’ said Peploe. ‘So it’s happening, after all. My God, but they’re low.’
And as the guns on the ground began to boom, so the first parachutes began to unfurl, their white canopies drifting down slowly through the warm early-evening sky.
5
It was not until half past three that the 3rd Battalion finally began boarding their transports at Eleusis, and not until some twenty minutes later that the Tante Jus, as the Junkers 52s were known, began to bump and rumble down the runway and finally get airborne. From being in a dense cloud of swirling dust one minute, they were suddenly emerging back into a world of clear blue, leaving the mainland of Greece behind and heading out across the sea.
Eighty minutes later, they were approaching Crete.
‘Stand by!’ called one of the crew. Turbulence buffeted the plane so that the men sitting on either side of the dark, corrugated fuselage knocked into one another and put out feet to steady themselves. Balthasar felt his heart beat a little faster. Clear intelligence about what would be waiting for them had not been forthcoming, but then, just as they were about to land, news had arrived that there were more than forty thousand enemy troops on the island, almost four times as many as had been thought. No one had expected the Tommies to roll over immediately, but their task was clearly going to be tougher than they had originally imagined. Men were going to die. He glanced along the men sitting opposite him, each alone with his thoughts. Some chewed at their lips, others sat with their eyes closed. Unteroffizier Schramm, sitting opposite, stared directly ahead, his jaw clenched.
The Junkers lurched again, this time the engine whining as they dropped some height.
‘Get ready!’ came the shout from the pilot, and Balthasar got to his feet, the others following, and hooked up his static line. It was difficult to move with so much kit: parachute at the back, rifle and MP40, and all the various bits of webbing. He turned to check that the man next to him had hooked up correctly and then the crewman was heaving off the door and the rush of wind blasted through the fuselage so that his smock and trousers clung to his body and the skin on his cheeks fluttered. Balthasar had insisted on being first to jump and now stood by the door and caught his first glimpse of Crete, blue-grey mountains rising above them as the Junkers shook and rumbled its way along the coast.
Heraklion was just up ahead, and bullets began to ping against the fuselage. Suddenly a line of them tore through the metal, leaving bright holes of daylight. One man slumped to the floor. Dead? Balthasar wondered. Flak now, and the plane rocked as a burst exploded disturbingly close.
The despatcher by the door received a signal from the pilot, then beckoned to Balthasar to jump. A deep breath, and he was out. One, two, three, and then a jolt as his parachute blossomed, the harness clamping around his chest and knocking the breath from his lungs so that he gasped. He glanced around, spotting the airfield and the town, with its immense walls and the scattering of houses beyond, stretching out into the surrounding countryside. How high was he? More than 150 metres – too high. Too much time in which to get hit.
Bullets and tracer arced up towards him, and just as he was trying to get his bearings, there was a loud explosion above and he looked up to see flames engulfing the Junkers. How many were out? Seven? And the rest? More tumbled from the plane, two already on fire. He watched a man – one of his men – plunging past, legs waving, arms and parachute ablaze. Another nearby jerked as he was hit, then hung limply from his harness. This is slaughter, he thought, then felt something smack into his rifle butt – a bullet? More transports whirred over, the roar like a swarm of hornets. Not far now, the ground approaching, a mass of olive groves and vineyards. He could see he might land in some trees, so swung his legs. Good, he thought, as he seemed to accelerate down onto an old track at the edge of a vineyard.
With the parachute harness strapped to his back, he landed awkwardly, broke into a roll and winded himself. For a moment he lay still, trying to breathe calmly, but then, with his gravity knife, he cut free his parachute and unclipped his harness. Suddenly he heard movement a short way ahead among the vines. For a split second he froze, then crouched and deftly rolled onto his front, his face just centimetres from the dry, dusty soil, and peered ahead. No more than fifteen metres away he saw several enemy – their legs at any rate. Not Tommies, but Greeks, with puttees wrapped up to their knees. Carefully, he pulled back the cocking handle and took a stick grenade from his belt. Voices, excited, then another ordering them to be quiet.
Too late, thought Balthasar as he gave them a brief three-second burst. Men screamed and he saw two fall to the ground. Others fired their rifles wildly, but Balthasar was already unscrewing the metal cap on his grenade. One, two, he counted, then hurled it towards the enemy. He had already got to his feet and begun scampering away when the grenade exploded, the blast accompanied by more screams. Sliding below a lip in the ground, more bullets followed him, but they were comfortably above his head. As he hurried through the vines, the shots and voices lessened until he emerged again, further along the track but out of sight of the enemy, now some hundred metres away.
Half crouching, he approached the same lip in the land, but further back, away from where he had spotted the Greeks. More paratroopers continued to stream down, but most, he realized, were dropping west and east of the town. Guns boomed, small arms chattered, and aircraft still roared overhead, but it was impossible to know what was going on. Clearly, the enemy were not far away – not more than fifty metres, he guessed. Ahead of him there were yet more olive groves and vineyards and a mass of trees and bushes, all bursting with leaf and flower. He took out his binoculars and peered through, then cursed as a bead of sweat smeared the glass. Wiping them, he put them back to his eyes. The walls of the town were just visible, rising over the vines and trees, he guessed around two kilometres away. Sudd
enly a bullet fizzed over his head, and then another, and Balthasar hastily ducked.
A whiff of smoke and cordite on the air. He looked at his watch – 1740 – and was pleased to see his hand was perfectly steady. How many had already been killed he had no idea, but it was time to get the survivors together, if possible establish a radio link to Major Schulz, gather as many supply canisters as possible, and then take the attack to the enemy. He was pleased they were up against Greek troops. They were tough fighters, but the conflict on the mainland had shown how poorly equipped they were. If the battalion could just gather themselves together, he reckoned their superior training and fighting skill would see them through.
Keeping the rise in the ground on his right, he moved through the vines and almost tripped over a prostrate paratrooper, groaning and clutching his stomach. A dark stain had seeped across the olive green of his step-in smock, while the boy’s face was already waxen and drained of colour. Balthasar bent down over him and carefully moved his hands away. Underneath was a gaping wound so large he could see the soldier’s guts.
‘You’ll be all right,’ Balthasar told him, pulling his P38 from the black leather holster looped through his belt. The boy would not live; better to end it quickly now. The lad looked at him with wide, frightened eyes.
‘Mother,’ he called. ‘Mother.’
‘All right, boy,’ said Balthasar, then put the pistol to the side of the boy’s head and fired. The head lolled lifelessly, and Balthasar took the lad’s MP38 and ammunition clips, and hurried on.
He emerged through the vines and, to his relief, saw a dozen of his men sheltering beneath the terrace of the vineyard on the track below. Among them was Obergefreiter Tellmann, the radio operator, who was squatting beside an already opened canister and pulling out an aluminium case containing the company’s field transceiver.
‘Does it still work?’ Balthasar asked, jumping down beside him.
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