by Ian Blake
‘That’s the idea. But it would have to be on his way out, to give us time to get away. If he didn’t turn up at his headquarters in the morning they’d want to know why, but he often works late or goes out to dinner in town. So his staff in the villa wouldn’t worry if he was late back.’
Ayton nodded. That made sense. ‘Presumably you’d lay the ambush at a bend in the mountains, where his car would be going slowly?’
Paddy shook his head. ‘The road is too narrow to turn the car round. We’re going to have to make it farther from the villa, at this junction here.’ He tapped the map at a point about halfway between the villa and Heraklion. ‘This road heading west is our escape route and the car must slow right down to turn on to the road leading to the villa.’
‘But it’s open countryside,’ Brotherton objected.
‘True. But there are ditches on either side of the road, so it will be easy to hide.’
‘Any checkpoints?’
Paddy grimaced. ‘Plenty on the escape road. I think I know how to deal with them, though.’
‘When do we do it?’ Ayton asked quietly.
‘Tomorrow night.’
11
They lay on a flat piece of rock and took it in turns to scan the villa with Paddy’s binoculars. There wasn’t much to see, except for the formidable perimeter fence and the sloping red roof of the villa and one of its whitewashed walls. The rest of the building was screened by eucalyptus trees. But from where they were hiding they had a good view of the road which skirted the villa and wound its way northwards until it disappeared into a wood of conifers.
They had marched all the previous day and stayed the night at Kastamonitsa. There had been scouts ahead of them and the guerrillas had moved across the mountains in daylight without seeming to worry about German patrols. Throughout the day the scouts came and went to report what was ahead, what this shepherd had seen, or what rumour that villager had heard. A German patrol had passed through Kastamonitsa the previous night, but long before any Germans appeared, Paddy told the SBS men, doors would have been locked, lights doused, dogs tied up, children cleared from the street. On this occasion the soldiers had not lingered, though they sometimes stayed to search the houses if they suspected andartes were in the area.
It was a waiting game, Paddy explained, each side watching to see if the other made a false move. If the Germans strayed from the main routes on to the mountain tracks their movements were always closely monitored. The andartes watched and waited, and sometimes pounced. Few escaped from a Cretan ambush, for the andartes were mountain people who knew every inch of the countryside and the ferocity with which they fought the hated occupiers meant that no prisoners were ever taken. The Germans reacted to any clash by taking hostages or burning villages, but this only intensified the islanders’ hatred and determination. If anything, the ambushes increased in number after such atrocities. A sentry would be shot or a motorcyclist decapitated by wire strung across his route. Occasionally, the German commander of Fortress Crete, as it was called, would lose his patience and mount large-scale operations to flush out the andartes from their mountain hide-outs. But they always failed, for the guerrillas would slip through the cordons and regroup in another area among the rugged peaks.
It was a grim and relentless game of hide-and-seek.
Ayton tapped Paddy’s arm. ‘Here it comes.’
The villa’s gates were swung open by two guards and moments later the long black bonnet of a powerful-looking car nosed its way out. On one wing flew the pennant of a general of the Infantry – the British equivalent of a lieutenant general – and on the other the pennant of the General’s command, the 22nd Sevastopol (Bremen) Division, which garrisoned the island.
Paddy adjusted his binoculars carefully and tracked the vehicle. It drove along the outer drive of the villa, then turned left on to the narrow, unmetalled road.
‘It’s a Mercedes-Benz,’ he said; and then: ‘There are two people in the back as well as the passenger in the front.’
Once it was on the road, the car accelerated. Paddy kept his binoculars trained on it until it disappeared into the woods, leaving a cloud of dust in the shimmering air.
‘That doesn’t tell us much,’ said Brotherton.
‘It tells us,’ Paddy replied, ‘that the car doesn’t have an escort and that the General likes to drive at a leisurely pace. Even on that straight stretch the driver wouldn’t have been going more than twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. We’ve also got to reckon with there being passengers in the back.’
‘Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted,’ Ayton said, repeating the age-old military adage.
They skirted the perimeter of the villa and by midday had rejoined Manali and his andartes in their hiding-place in the mountains above the villa. A grizzled old man from a nearby village brought them bread, misithra – local cheese not unlike yoghurt in consistency and taste – and several bottles of retsina.
While they ate and drank, Paddy sketched out on the dusty ground exactly where he wanted each man to be positioned and what his task was. When he had finished they synchronized their watches and the andartes began to leave the hide-out in small groups at intervals.
It was dusk by the time the five Britons had positioned themselves in the ditch a few hundred yards north of the road junction. The ambush party carried coshes and Ayton had his Welrod tucked under his armpit, though Paddy had told him to use it only in a dire emergency.
As night closed in the temperature dropped. Several vehicles passed them, their headlights carving through the blackness, and then a motorcycle combination roared by. Paddy glanced at his luminous watch and cursed under his breath.
‘Just when we want him to be prompt, he decides to work late,’ he muttered to Ayton, but even as he spoke, Maitland, who was watching for the signal, dropped down into the ditch and said: ‘They’re coming, sir.’
Then he moved to the other side of the road. Brotherton and Mainwaring clambered out of the ditch, brushed down their German uniforms and stood waiting.
The sweeping cones of the headlights flickered in the distance and then they could hear the sound of the Mercedes’ powerful engine.
The car came round the last bend. The headlights played on the side of the road and flared in the eyes of the waiting ambush party. It seemed to Ayton that the car was travelling up to the junction much too fast, and he wondered if the chauffeur had been alerted. But then it slowed with a screech of the brakes and at that moment Brotherton and Mainwaring stepped into the headlights waving a torch.
The car stopped and Ayton could hear quite plainly Brotherton’s question as he bent down by the chauffeur’s open window, and the chauffeur answering that, yes, it was the General’s car, but what was going on?
He’ll soon know what, Ayton thought.
‘Here we go,’ said Paddy quietly, then was out of the ditch in one quick movement. Ayton saw the glint of Paddy’s pearl-handled knife, tugged out his Welrod and followed close behind. They both wrenched open the nearside doors of the car at more or less the same moment. Paddy had the General by the scruff of the neck and in one swift movement dragged him out and on to the roadside.
Ayton peered into the back of the car, his Welrod at the ready. The door on the offside had been locked by the rear passenger and he could see Maitland wrestling to open it. Ayton caught a quick glimpse of the outline of a peaked cap before the man flung himself at him. Feeling a hand grasp his collar, he stepped back and pulled the trigger of the Welrod. It jolted in his hand and made its cork popping sound. The man, half in, half out of the car, slumped head downwards and a Luger clattered on to the road.
Close to Ayton, Paddy had wrestled the General to the ground and was bending over him, his knife at his throat. In the darkness Ayton could see the whites of the German’s eyes bulge in terror.
‘Halt’s Maul!’ Paddy warned him quietly. ‘Shut up!’
On the other side of the car Brotherton had grabbed the chauffeur’s arm as
he reached for a Schmeisser tucked beside him. With his other hand he hit him over the head with the cosh. The man slumped forward, blood pouring down his face.
Unable to open the offside rear door, Maitland ran round the back of the Mercedes to join Ayton, his cosh in his hand.
‘I think he’s dead,’ Ayton said, indicating the slumped body to Maitland with his Welrod, ‘but you’d better have a look.’
He returned the pistol to its holster and said to Paddy: ‘Want any help?’
He saw Paddy’s grin flash in the dark as he answered: ‘I think he’s got the message.’
Ayton extracted a ready-made gag and taped it over the General’s mouth. The man’s eyes bulged hideously.
‘Not too tight,’ Paddy warned.
Mainwaring manhandled the unconscious chauffeur out of the car and dragged him on to the side of the road. Manali and several andartes now appeared, and the chauffeur was handed over to them.
With the help of a shaded torch Maitland inspected the officer who had been sitting in the back of the car. A thin rivulet of blood was coursing down his cheek, but his eyelids fluttered when the torch played on his face.
‘The bullet creased his skull, sir,’ said Maitland. ‘He’ll be right as rain.’
Ayton peered down at the man and saw the line of blood along his temple and the right side of his head. It was as well for the German that the Welrod was a .22-calibre weapon. Anything heavier and he’d have been a goner. As it was, he was beginning to regain consciousness, so he was quickly bound and gagged and passed to the andartes.
Paddy handed Ayton the General’s cap and Ayton climbed in beside Mainwaring, who took the wheel.
‘Good luck,’ said Maitland through the open window.
‘And you, Jim. And Jim . . .’
‘Sir?’
‘Keep an eye on those Krauts, will you? Major Marne wants them alive. I don’t trust those cutthroats.’
‘I’ll do my best, sir.’
Mainwaring ground the Mercedes into gear. The car lurched forward and he swung it right and headed westwards. Ayton looked at the petrol gauge and was relieved to see that the tank was almost full.
They drove in silence for a few minutes and then the tension broke and they were all talking at once. Paddy took the gag off their prisoner and told him in halting German that he was a British officer and that if he behaved himself the gag would stay off. The General nodded that he understood, and asked if anyone spoke French. No one did.
‘He obviously doesn’t think my German’s good enough,’ said Paddy.
‘It isn’t,’ Brotherton laughed. ‘It’s bloody awful.’
‘He seemed to understand me well enough when I had my knife at his jugular.’
Ten minutes later a red light glimmered ahead. It was being swung to and fro in the middle of the road. Ayton adjusted the General’s hat carefully and sat up straight in his seat. The German was ordered to lie on the floor, which he did with some grumbling.
There were two men. One had his rifle slung over his shoulder and was waving the red light steadily in front of him, the other, farther away, was standing on the grass verge next to a wooden guardhouse.
‘Slow right down, Bill,’ Paddy ordered. ‘But don’t stop.’
The sentry, thinking the car would stop, stepped to one side, as Paddy had anticipated he would. Mainwaring slowed to a crawl to give him plenty of time to see the pennants fluttering on the wings. The Mercedes drew level with the sentry holding the lamp and, as he stooped towards them, Mainwaring said loudly in German that it was the General’s car and put his foot gently on the accelerator.
The sentry straightened up and snapped to attention.
They tensed as the car swept past the sentry and then accelerated towards the guardhouse, where the other sentry was standing, his Schmeisser cradled in his arms. He seemed to look at them for a long time before springing to attention. Moments later they were beyond the checkpoint and round a bend in the road.
‘If they’re suspicious of anything they might phone ahead,’ Brotherton said, but at the next checkpoint the guard waved them through with a flourish.
The road now began to twist and turn as it climbed into the mountains, but the car took the steep gradients effortlessly. After an hour they swept round a bend and saw a third checkpoint ahead. It surprised them as much as their appearance must have surprised the sentry, for, though they slowed right down, he did not step aside.
‘Shit!’ Paddy murmured and Ayton heard the click as he cocked his pistol.
Mainwaring did the same and laid his pistol on his lap, while Ayton drew his Welrod.
The red light ahead kept swinging in front of them until the bonnet of the Mercedes seemed almost in the sentry’s stomach. Those in the car could see now that several Germans were also standing behind the sentry, who was still swinging the light. Mainwaring poked his head out of the window and shouted that it was the General’s car, but the sentry seemed bemused. He stopped swinging his lamp, and stood his ground.
‘Jesus, do something, Tom,’ Paddy hissed.
Without hesitating, Brotherton opened his door, stepped out and shouted something in German. It sounded very authoritative. The sentry looked startled, but he saluted and moved aside, and the men behind him scattered. Brotherton got back into the car and the Germans stood stiffly to attention as it slid slowly between them.
Ayton looked away, towards Mainwaring, to hide his face, but one of the soldiers yelled something.
‘Step on it, Bill!’ Paddy urged and the engine changed pitch as Mainwaring stamped on the accelerator.
Ayton tensed, expecting a volley of rifle fire. But nothing happened and within seconds they were climbing steeply, so that Mainwaring was forced to change gear twice in quick succession.
Ayton turned to Paddy. ‘Did you hear what that soldier shouted?’
Paddy shook his head. ‘I’m guessing, but I think he saw you weren’t the General. They must have been alerted by now that he’s missing.’
‘Is there another checkpoint?’
‘One more.’
‘Can we take a different road?’
It was Mainwaring who said: ‘No. This is the only one which leads south.’
No one had seriously considered that they might have to fight their way through a checkpoint.
‘If they know we have him,’ Paddy reasoned. ‘They’re not going to fill the car with machine-gun bullets. They’ll just try and stop us. Perhaps with a barricade, or shooting at the tyres.’
Ayton looked out of his window and down over the precipice along which the road was snaking up into the mountains. Ahead of them the full moon had risen above the peaks, casting pale shadows across the road. Even in this eerie half-light Ayton could see that it was a long way down.
‘If they want him alive,’ he said, ‘they won’t shoot at our tyres.’
They drove in silence for a few minutes, then Brotherton said: ‘Not far now.’
The nose of the Mercedes swung round a particularly sharp bend, after which the road flattened out and ran between two rocky hummocks.
‘Any moment now,’ Brotherton said.
Mainwaring changed up and gunned the engine, making the big car leap forward. They swept round the right hand of the two hummocks and suddenly there ahead was the swinging red light. They wound down all the windows and held their pistols ready, the cold night air rushing into their faces.
The Mercedes’ engine growled. They never saw what happened to the guard with the red light. He either went under the wheels or managed to throw himself aside at the last moment. Beyond him, as they had expected, was a wooden barrier and another soldier, signalling frantically with a torch.
‘Down!’ Mainwaring shouted, and they all ducked as the bonnet smashed into the barrier. The car jumped and swung as it hit something in the road. Splinters of wood flew everywhere. One piece glanced against the windscreen without breaking it; another rattled along the length of the car. The arm of the barrier spun
away from them, the headlights catching it as it cartwheeled through the air. Something else scrunched under them, forcing Mainwaring to spin the wheel violently. The car skidded, its back tyres screaming. It bucked and twisted, then straightened out. Calmly, Mainwaring changed gear.
‘Bloody good driving, Bill,’ Paddy said appreciatively. ‘Everyone all right?’
Now they were speeding down the mountainside, along a road which snaked and zigzagged. By the light of the moon it looked alarmingly narrow, but Mainwaring did not slow down.
‘All hell will be let loose now,’ Brotherton commented, as if he was rather enjoying the prospect.
‘Not tonight,’ Paddy said. ‘What can they do tonight? How much farther, Bill?’
‘Not much more than an hour, I reckon.’
They allowed the General up from the floor of the car. He looked shaken and none too happy, but became more cheerful after Paddy handed him a water bottle full of raki.
The bottle was passed round and Paddy began a complicated conversation with the prisoner in fractured German. Every so often Brotherton interjected to help Paddy out with a difficult phrase, but otherwise seemed uninterested in what they were saying.
Gradually the road became less steep and the hairpin bends more easily negotiable. In the far distance Ayton caught a glimpse of the sea shimmering in the moonlight, and soon they were out of the mountains and on the narrow coastal plain.
As the road broadened slightly and straightened, Mainwaring trod down hard. The scenery, dense undergrowth, the occasional tree, whipped by, and then ahead of them Ayton saw a crossroads in the headlights’ glare. Mainwaring brought the Mercedes to a halt with a dramatic squeal of the brakes and switched off the lights.
‘This is it,’ he said. ‘Bob and I go right. You go left.’
They climbed out and stretched. Brotherton and Mainwaring stripped off their German uniforms, bundled them up and threw them into the undergrowth before dressing in the Cretan clothes they had put in the boot of the Mercedes at the time of the ambush. After shaking hands with everyone – including the General – they climbed back in the car and drove off.
