A middle-aged man with greying hair, wearing nothing more than a vest and a hastily put on pair of trousers, had opened the door. Balthasar and half a dozen of his men had barged in, then pushed on through into the flat. Moments later a screaming woman and a kicking teenage girl had been dragged out into the hallway. A mother and daughter. Perfect. The woman had tried to touch her husband, her eyes wild and frightened, but the soldiers had held her back. The man looked shocked and just as terrified, but had been desperately trying to show defiance. He shouted at Balthasar, then glared accusingly at the Greek interpreter.
When the interpreter began to translate, Balthasar silenced him. ‘Yes, yes, I think I get the meaning,’ he said. He had learned many years before, during his time in the SS, that the ability to cause fear was a powerful weapon. It had been a useful tool in Belgium and France too. He had developed three rules in such matters. The first was to try to gain surprise – the loud knock on the door, the sudden shouting – which startled people and threw them mentally off balance. Balthasar also knew that such behaviour showed his confidence in his strength and authority. His second rule was to instruct his men to continue to bark orders at the suspects, while he would fix them with an unwavering stare and speak slowly and clearly, as he did now.
‘We are looking for men who fought against us at the Canea Gate on the evening of May the twentieth,’ he said.
The interpreter repeated the words. The man gabbled, then held his hands together as if in prayer.
‘He says he was not there,’ said the Greek officer. ‘He heard the fighting but he kept indoors, trying to protect his family.’
‘Search the apartment,’ said Balthasar.
His men did so, noisily, clumsily, without regard for the family’s belongings. They found nothing – no guns, at any rate. That did not matter, as Balthasar was well aware.
‘I want the names of anyone who fought that night, or who has fought with the British and guerrillas here.’
The man again replied that he did not know. The daughter was crying, and his eyes were darting about with horror at his defencelessness. Balthasar walked up to him and, just inches from the man’s face, glared at him with unblinking eyes.
‘I know you know,’ he said. ‘I just want names and where I can find them,’ he snapped.
The man shook his head, desperation on his face.
‘He insists he knows no one,’ said the Greek officer.
Balthasar calmly took out his pistol, extended his arm and pointed it at the man’s daughter. ‘Tell him,’ he said, ‘that if he does not give me some names I will shoot first his daughter and then his wife.’ This was his third rule: the threat of extreme violence, preferably not to the man being questioned but to a wife or child.
The interpreter did as he was told, causing more panicked glances from the man and renewed wailing from the wife. The daughter stared at him and then spat.
‘Tell him to hurry,’ said Balthasar. ‘I am losing patience.’ He moved closer to the girl, pointing his pistol to the side of her head. The man trembled and Balthasar saw a dark stain appear at his crotch.
‘One,’ said Balthasar, ‘two …’
The man blurted out a name.
‘And an address,’ said Balthasar.
The man mumbled it, then collapsed on the floor, sobbing. Balthasar nodded to his men to let the women go and they rushed to the man, wailing with fear and distress.
‘Well, that was easy,’ said Balthasar. ‘Let us go and find Herr Mandoukis.’
Mandoukis lived beyond the town walls in an old stone house with a terracotta roof in what had once been an isolated farmstead before the town had spread. He had a couple of small barns, an enclosure with a pig and some goats, a few small fruit and olive groves. Balthasar and his men found it easily enough. Nearby, in a grove a short distance to the south, stood a heavy anti-aircraft gun, its breech destroyed, and around it trenches and shell casings where two days before British gunners had been manning it.
Balthasar had the property surrounded. Already dogs were barking, tied up in the yard, and as he and six of his men entered, they growled and strained on their ropes. A moment later, a man opened the front door, a long billhook in his hand.
‘Herr Mandoukis?’ Balthasar asked. His men had their MP40s and rifles pointing directly at him.
The man looked at them, then turned back inside and slammed the door. ‘After him,’ said Balthasar.
They caught him as he tried to run out of the back of the house, then brought him back inside, to the kitchen, still quite dark in the first light of dawn. It smelt of ash and bread and sweat. Mandoukis was, Balthasar guessed, in his late thirties, with thick black hair and a three-day growth of beard. His eyes kept darting to the bedroom, so Balthasar had it searched and, in the single large wardrobe, found his wife, a good-looking girl some years younger than her husband. She struggled, scratching at the men, spitting curses.
‘Search the place,’ he said. ‘The entire property – barns, cellar, everything.’ Outside the dogs continued to bark until with a yelp they were silenced by two pistol shots. Mandoukis clenched his teeth and snarled, so Balthasar punched him hard in the stomach. He doubled up and gasped, and his wife cried out in distress.
Clutching his stomach, the Cretan stood again, his face contorted with pain.
‘You were fighting against us at the Canea Gate,’ Balthasar said. ‘You were seen. Another person has verified this.’
Mandoukis denied it.
‘You were there,’ Balthasar repeated, as two of his men entered, clutching an old rifle, a shotgun and two bandoliers. He glanced at the small hoard and took hold of the rifle, dabbing a finger on the barrel, which he then held up. Then he sniffed the breech. ‘Recently used and cleaned.’ He drove the butt into Mandoukis’s stomach, and the Cretan collapsed onto the stone floor. Balthasar grabbed him by his hair and pulled him to his feet as his wife screamed.
‘I know you were fighting with Pendlebury,’ he said, ‘but who else? Who are the leaders of the guerrillas?’
Mandoukis mumbled.
‘He says he will never tell you anything,’ said the Greek officer. ‘You can kill him if you want, but he will never speak.’
Balthasar smiled to himself. An admission of guilt. He knew now that he would get what he wanted. ‘Oh, I think he will,’ he said, then nodded to the two men holding Mandoukis’s wife. They pushed her forward. The woman was trembling now, her lip quivering, shoulders hunched. She was wearing only her nightdress. Balthasar grabbed the collar and yanked so that it ripped, revealing her breasts.
‘Ohi!’ shouted Mandoukis, as his wife clutched herself. No! Balthasar grabbed the woman by the shoulder and pushed her roughly onto the table. She was crying, sobbing convulsively, as two men held her down by her arms so that she could no longer protect herself.
‘Names!’ said Balthasar. ‘I want the names.’
‘Ohi, ohi, ohi!’ cried Mandoukis, as Balthasar unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his smock.
‘Tell him,’ Balthasar said to the interpreter, ‘that if he does not talk, I will have his woman and then I will kill her.’ He began to unbutton the fly on his trousers and ran a hand over the woman’s body. She writhed and screamed but the men had her tightly gripped. ‘She will die,’ he said. ‘But he can save her.’ He was wondering how far he would have to go when Mandoukis gave an anguished yell and began to gabble, spurting out names as fast as his tongue would allow.
‘Slower,’ said Balthasar, his voice now calm, ‘speak more slowly.’
‘He says there were two kapitans fighting in Heraklion with Pendlebury. One is called Satanas, an old man who fought the Turks. He is the most powerful kapitan on the island. The second is called Alopex.’
Balthasar smiled. ‘And where are they now?’
The floodgates were open. ‘He says Satanas’s base is Krousonas, in the Ida Mountains. Alopex is probably also there, but his home village is Sarhos. It lies beneath Krousonas on the lower slopes o
f the mountains. It is not far from here, maybe twelve kilometres.’
‘What about numbers? And weapons?’
Mandoukis mumbled again, then clasped his head.
‘He does not know how many men,’ said the interpreter, ‘but they do not have many weapons, and even less ammunition.’
‘And this Alopex, and Satanas. These are noms de guerre. Their real names. I want their full names.’
‘Alopex is Kristannos, Giorgis Kristannos. His family run a large olive-pressing business in Sarhos. Satanas is called Antonis Grigorakis.’
Balthasar smiled to himself, then grabbed Mandoukis, gripping his throat. ‘And ask him,’ he hissed, ‘who cut off the heads of my men.’
As the interpreter spoke, Balthasar could feel Mandoukis break completely, his legs giving way as his whole body trembled with a mixture of fear, guilt and self-loathing.
‘Alopex,’ mumbled the man.
17
Around 7 a.m., Friday, 30 May. They had been walking for nine hours with barely a pause. No one had talked much; occasionally, Tanner had heard a faint murmur of a low conversation, but otherwise the men seemed content with their thoughts. He was happy to listen to the tramp of boots, the clop of the mule’s hoofs and the squeak of the cart’s wheels over the rough dirt tracks. Its strange rhythm was quite soothing, somehow. Then, as dawn had crept over them once more, the night sounds of the cicadas had been replaced by a different chorus as birds opened their lungs to mark another day. He had loved May as a boy – it had been his favourite month. The trees and hedgerows had been in full bloom, the mornings alive with birdsong, and the summer spread out before him, with cricket, the harvest and long light days.
They had crossed both main roads without seeing a soul, and now, a little over an hour later, had climbed down from a vinecovered ridge into a narrow valley and were walking up a track beside a stream, past clumps of bamboo and cactus on one side and chestnut and plane trees on the other. Already, dappled shadow played patterns along the track as the morning sun shone through the leaves. The air was cool and fresh, but with a faint whiff of chickens and sheep dung. Up ahead was a village where, the Cretans had told them, they would stop for some breakfast; it was the home of one of them.
‘And it is also the home village of Alopex,’ Vaughan told Tanner. ‘He is kapitan here, the patriarch.’
Tanner said nothing. At the back of a house, chickens were scratching at the ground and from within he heard a child crying.
‘It’s a pretty place,’ said Peploe. He looked up at the mountains rising away behind the houses, and Tanner followed his gaze. They towered imperiously, a hazy blue in the morning light. The Germans, he reckoned, would be hard-pushed to track down any guerrillas up there.
They turned a corner where cypress trees looked down on them and Tanner saw they had reached a meeting point of several tracks. Across the way was a kafenio, its doors already open. An elderly woman emerged, her arms open wide. Smiling, she hurried to one of the Cretans and embraced him. Several children suddenly appeared, shyly peering round doorways at the strange sight of so many British soldiers, then, confidence rising, stepping out into the road, pointing and sniggering. The place erupted into a hive of activity. Old men appeared, clasping the andartes, and then the soldiers were being ushered into the kafenio and urged to sit down.
The older women, Tanner noticed, were all dressed in black, with black scarves around their heads, but several younger girls had joined them and were dressed differently, in skirts and blouses, their hair loose. Some of the men had nudged each other, but Tanner found himself unable to take his eyes off the young woman now helping to feed them. She had a lean face with wide, deep brown eyes and shoulder-length hair. Certainly pretty, Tanner thought, but something more attracted him: an air of innocence, of vulnerability.
‘She’s lovely, isn’t she?’ said Sykes, sitting next to him at a table near the door.
‘Very fine,’ agreed Tanner. Then she came over to them and, standing beside Tanner, leaned over to put down a bowl of bread and a large pot of honey, her arm brushing Tanner’s shoulder. She smiled at him. ‘Eat,’ she said, ‘you eat.’
‘Efharisto,’ said Tanner, and she smiled again.
As Tanner tore off a hunk of bread he saw her talking with one of the other girls and looking towards him. Catching her eye, he smiled, then winked and, to his delight, saw her laugh. Soon after, she brought over some coffee.
‘You like the honey?’ she asked him.
‘Very much,’ he told her.
‘My own bees.’
Soon after, when he had finished eating and had drunk his coffee, Tanner caught her eye again, then got up and stepped outside into the street. He paused, lit a cigarette, then walked away from the kafenio and down towards the small, domed church. Glancing back, he saw the girl turn into the road, heading in his direction, so he moved into a narrow lane, off which some steps led up to the door of a house. Sitting down he waited for her to pass, conscious that his heart had begun to thump.
She reached him and stopped, just as he had hoped she would. ‘Hello,’ she said.
‘I hoped you might follow.’
She laughed, then looked away briefly.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Alexis,’ she said.
He told her his, then said, ‘This is a beautiful place.’
‘Yes, I think so.’
He stood up, aware of her eyes on his. An overwhelming desire to kiss her swept over him. She was standing so close to him that he could see her collarbone protruding gently beneath the soft brown skin, and the swell of her breasts beneath her shirt. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and looked at him, her eyes scanning his face. It was the war, he knew, that had made him so bold. He’d not even known her thirty minutes yet now he felt quite bewitched, overcome by a need to act on his impulses before it was too late.
‘Tanner!’ he heard Peploe call, from back down the road. ‘Tanner!’
She held out a hand and took his. Her fingers felt so light, so small in his own. ‘Be careful,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘And you.’ He smiled. ‘I must get back. Alexis, I hope we meet again.’
She let his hand drop. A fleeting smile and then he hurried away from her without a backward glance.
‘Where d’you get to?’ Peploe asked him cheerily, as he rejoined the others.
Tanner noticed one of the Cretan andartes glare at him. ‘I just went to have a little look around the place.’
Vaughan came over. ‘It looked like you made a big impression on Alexis,’ he said, grinning.
Tanner shifted his feet and hastily took out a cigarette.
‘Looks like the feeling was mutual,’ laughed Peploe.
‘She’s a beautiful girl, sir,’ said Tanner.
‘And she also happens to be Alopex’s sister,’ said Vaughan. ‘You might want to keep your admiration to yourself from now on, Tanner. You’ll upset the andartes if you flirt with their women, especially the sister of their kapitan.’
Tanner’s heart sank. ‘Bloody Cretans,’ he muttered. ‘Can hardly breathe without offending their sodding pride and honour. It’s getting on my nerves.’
‘A bit rich coming from you, Jack,’ said Peploe.
Tanner glared at him, and slung his rifle and Schmeisser back over his shoulder. ‘Are we getting going then, sir?’
They climbed on up to Krousonas, Satanas’s village, and much larger than Sarhos. It was higher up, nestling in the flanks of the mountains, the houses built around a snaking main road. Neither of the kapitans was there, but there were several andartes to meet the cart. They were surprised to see the Rangers as well, but led them on, out of the village and up a winding track that climbed higher into the mountains. As they cleared a crest, they paused. The sun was beating down on them, and the climb was hot work. Tanner stood by Sykes, drinking from his water bottle, looking back to where they had come from. Below were the low, rounded ridges and valleys they had cro
ssed but beyond was a higher saddle, a long, low, narrow mountain that Tanner realized they must have skirted in the night. The ridge stood proud, its burnished rock faces standing sentinel over the patchwork of groves and vineyards that covered the feminine curves of the rolling valleys and hills in between.
‘It’s a flippin’ beautiful place, isn’t it?’ sighed Sykes.
‘And easy to hide in from the Germans. Christ, just look at all that cover.’ He turned his head to the peaks rising behind them. ‘And look at these.’ Beyond, in the distance, lay the deep-blue sea and there, on the coast, twinkling white in the midday sun, Heraklion, only eight miles or so as the crow flew but from their current height seeming much further.
They went over to the cart, where Liddell was still lying. His shoulder was heavily bandaged but the bloodstain had not grown larger, Tanner noticed. Sweat beaded his brow and upper lip; he needed shade. As Tanner and Sykes leaned over him, his eyes flickered open. ‘Where am I?’ he mumbled.
‘Halfway up a bleedin’ mountain, sir,’ said Sykes.
‘A mountain?’ Liddell looked confused.
‘You take it easy, sir,’ said Sykes. ‘Get some kip now and you’ll soon be better.’
Liddell closed his eyes again.
‘He’s a bit feverish, isn’t he?’ said Sykes.
‘Bound to be,’ said Tanner. ‘But you couldn’t hope for a cleaner wound. All that saltwater. He’ll be all right.’
They continued, following a narrow track that led up through a ravine. The stream there was little more than a trickle, as scree-covered rock rose either side of it. The mule struggled as the ground became ever rockier. The lush slopes of the lower reaches had gone, replaced by hardy bushes and thickets. Goats bleated, their bells jangling eerily across the gorge.
‘Bloody hell, sir,’ said Hepworth, as he stumbled over some loose stones. ‘How much further?’
‘Stop mithering, Hep,’ said Tanner. He was wondering the same himself, though, so he asked Vaughan.
‘Just over that crest up ahead,’ said Vaughan, ‘there are caves and shepherds’ huts. We’re nearly there.’
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