by Harvey Black
It was now eleven. He had contemplated waiting until the early hours of the morning, but felt that any unusual noise at that time would attract the attention of any sentries on stag, or even a dog. He was sure dogs would be around somewhere. At least at this time of night there may be some activity that he could use as cover, to disguise his own noise and movement.
Three hundred metres out, he came to the first building, just a small hut adjacent to an olive grove. Beyond the grove he could make out a row of buildings, the start of the village, the odd light peaking from behind a blind or curtain. He knew the other side was the road that ran through it.
He crept up to the hut close by and peered through the open doorway, it was empty. He inched his way from the building, then ghost walked his way towards the edge of the village, which straddled the road that ran through it, east to west. He crept between two of the houses that lined the road. He ran his right hand along the whitewashed wall of the single story building, avoiding the woodpile, winter fuel or perhaps for cooking, as he made his way along the ten metre gap between them. Stepping carefully over the remnants of the chopped branches and sticks scattered about, he got to the front and peered up and down the road.
The house he was leaning against had two tall, narrow windows to the front, along with a single doorway facing the street. The door to the house was shut, the nearest window either curtained or covered with wooden blinds. He had ducked under a small window at the side, it was high and small, and it was unlikely he would be seen. There was nothing at the back and a corrugated roof sloped towards the road.
On the other side of the gap, a bigger house, two floors, better quality with a terracotta roof and pale tangerine walls. Directly opposite, a church, slightly set back from the road, shaped like an upside down letter U, two doors facing the cobble stoned street. On top of the orange tiled roof, at the front, a structure supported two bells on the outside, probably ropes leading down inside the church so they could be rung, calling the locals to prayer. In the darkness, he couldn’t see much more than that.
He heard laughing to his left, further down the road, it sounded like men, or soldiers, sharing a joke. He turned back to the church and straining his eyes in the dark, looking down the side, he could make out what appeared to be a square, with an ornate structure in the middle. It looked familiar somehow. After his befuddled brain subconsciously went through all of the options, pictures of familiar shapes flashing through his memories, one stood out. A well. It couldn’t be he thought, but it was too good an opportunity not to be investigated.
He looked left and right, a dog barked way off in the distance, too far away to concern him, and scooted across the street, the extra socks he had placed over his jump boots muffling the sound his studded souls would have normally made, and down the side of the church, keeping close to the flaking wall.
He stopped, listened for any sign he had been seen or discovered, his MP40 held at chest height and ready. It remained quiet. He looked about him and couldn’t believe his eyes, it was a well in the middle of the square. He could slake his thirst, fill up the water bottles and be back with Max in a couple of hours at the most.
There was a grove behind the small square, which he aimed for, darting along the church wall and quickly across until he was at the edge of the orchard. He eased in between the trees and watched and listened. From this position, he could nip across to the well, drink all he wanted, fill the bottles, return to the dead ground and he would be in the clear.
He crouched down and moved forwards, directly in front of him, in the ornate square, was the well. It looked functional.
A burst of sudden laughter grabbed his attention, then voices and Paul spotted a group of soldiers walking alongside the church towards the well. He edged back, further into the grove, catching his MP40 against a tree, freezing immediately as he did, quickly checking the approaching soldiers for any sign that they had heard. They continued with their chatter and laughter. Paul moved deeper in, nudging an object with his foot as he did. He felt down and around him and could feel a man’s boot, a soldier’s boot, a jump boot, a Fallschirmjager’s boot. It startled him. He looked around behind him and could see three darkened shadows, three German soldiers, three Green Devils.
He spun round as he heard a clinking sound by the well, followed by bellowing laughter. He moved forwards so he could see better. There were about half a dozen men, two of them carrying oil lamps, the flames flickering as they were moved about. Although the officer, the two stars on his shoulder boards denoting him to be a Lieutenant, dressed in a British Officers, No.1, style tunic, his ball shaped helmet, with its short visor and flared sides showed him to be a Greek officer. The Sam Browne Belt with the unusually crossed straps, confirmed it. The flying bombs on what seemed to be purple tabs, denoted him to be from an engineer unit. The other five or six men were dressed in khaki No.2 uniforms with British style puttees and French style boots. At least one of them was an NCO, a Sergeant, showing two yellow chevrons.
One of them hoisted a bucket from deep down in the well, plonked it on the side of the wall around it and used a ladle to drink. They each took it in turns to satisfy their thirst and then, still talking and laughing, headed back from whence they had come, going passed the church and turning right down the street.
Once again it was quiet.
Paul went and re-examined the three soldiers. He couldn’t make out any faces or much detail, but he had an uncomfortable feeling they were from his company or battalion. Black stains covered their bodies and uniforms, and using his torch, shielded by his clenched fist, he could see they were covered in multiple stab wounds. Bile rose in his throat and he gagged on it, burning his throat as he swallowed the acidic contents back down.
He looked at their faces, but with the darkness, the dim light of the torch and their faces blackened, he couldn’t make any one of them out. He checked them over one by one, searching their pockets for anything that could identify them, letters, photos, tags. Nothing. He stayed silent for a brief period of time, sharing a moment with his comrades. Whether or not they were from his unit, they were Fallschirmjager — family. He vowed to return to give them a proper burial, a soldier’s burial.
Paul sidled up to the edge of the grove again, it was quiet by the well and the local area and he slipped quickly across, ducking down behind the wall. The bucket was still half full of water. He lowered it down to the ground and gulped water from it with the ladle, letting the warm liquid run down his face and over his shirt. Despite the fact it was slightly brackish, it tasted like honey. He gulped down as much as he could, until he felt like he was going to burst, then he gulped down some more.
Paul settled himself, checking that no one was approaching and then he filled the three bottles, the fourth holed by a bullet, another bullet meant for Max, showing just how close to death he had been. He may yet die, thought Paul, now eager to get back to his companion and share this luxury with him. He took one last drink from the ladle, his stomach now gorged with water, sloshing about inside of him as he scuttled passed the church, across the cobbled street, and in between the two houses, where he stopped to remove the socks from his jump boots. He would need the boot’s grip on the way back.
He suddenly heard voices coming down the street, it sounded like two or three men. He quickly moved to the middle, grassy patch, in between the two houses, his dark form would be spotted easily up against the white backdrop of the house wall. He lay down, just in time as they passed the gap. He was just about to get up and return to Max, when he heard loud voices, although unintelligible to Paul he did recognise it as mockery as one of them broke away from the trio, turned the corner of the house wall, at the same time undoing his flies. He swayed about four steps down the edge, then turned towards the wall and started to urinate up against it. From the back, Paul could see it was a Greek soldier.
The soldier leaned forwards, head against the wall, clearly the worst for drink, soaking his boots as he
did so. He stood up cursing, redoing his flies at the same time as flicking the urine off his boots, swishing them through the grass, staggering as he did towards Paul’s location. If he didn’t see him soon, he would certainly trip over him, then he would be discovered and on the run.
Paul made a snap decision. The soldier’s friends had continued walking on, so before he could turn round again, or stagger in the direction of Paul’s position, he picked up the half metre long piece of wood lying next to him and rose up from the ground. He could smell the alcohol in the air, he was that close to his quarry.
With one end of the branch gripped in his right hand, he flung his arm around the front of the soldier, grabbing the other end of the branch with his left hand, and before the Greek engineer could react and cry out, he snapped both arms back. Pulling the piece of wood tight under the man’s chin, embracing him close to his own body, crushing his oesophagus with the wood, preventing him from calling out, he threw himself back onto the ground, taking his adversary with him, wrapping his legs around the soldier’s legs, pulling back on the wooden branch for all he was worth. The man started to strike backwards with his head, attempting to butt his attacker, but all Paul did was stretch his own head further back, pulling even harder on the piece of wood, wrenching the soldier’s neck rearwards. His legs now thrashed about in desperation, but they were gripped too tightly by Paul’s own long, sinewy legs. He pulled at Paul’s arms, but deprived of oxygen, his strength was leaving him and in his wretchedness he started to pound the sides of the ground, quickly fading to a tremble as life left him.
Paul held him in that position for a full minute, his entire body locked in place until he came to his senses and released his victim. Concerned that eventually his friends would come searching for him, he dragged the lifeless body around to the back of the house, laying him down before making his way quickly away from the village before any alarm could be sounded.
He moved quickly, heading south, using the hut he saw earlier as a landmark. Suddenly it was their, in front of him, he had been moving faster than he thought. He checked it quickly and once he confirmed it was still empty he made his way across the rough ground towards their hideout. At first, he failed to find the outcrop, a good indication that they would be well hidden, during the hours of darkness at least. Eventually it loomed above him and he pushed his way through the undergrowth.
“It’s just me Max, I’ve got water,” he hissed, fearing Max may open fire on him if he was conscious.
But there was no response. In fact, as he explored the ground around and in front of him with his hands, he found nothing, the hideout was empty. He searched around again, calling out Max’s name quietly, but found nothing.
Paul wondered if Max had, in his delirium, got up and walked off, but the travois had gone as well, someone must have taken him. Paul quickly scrambled outside, doing a metre-by-metre search of the local area, looking for the travois or Max’s body, or both. He covered an arc twenty metres out, if they intended to kill him they wouldn’t have bothered to drag him any further, but he found nothing.
Paul sat down on a rock close by, weary from lack of sleep, anxious about his friend, the anxiety turning into fear. His head bowed, bolstered between his hands, a deep melancholy looming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Paul snapped his head up. The dog’s bark couldn’t have been more than a kilometre away, in the direction they had initially been travelling, west. He jumped up. It was a long shot, but his options were not countless. He checked his MP40, made sure his two remaining stick grenades were secure, then headed as quickly, but as quietly, as possible west towards the location of the dog’s bark.
To his left the shadow of the foothills, to his right he was leaving the village behind, the thin covering of stars above him the only light source available to show him the way. The dog barked again and Paul quickened his pace. He loped across the open, spongy ground, his long legs giving him the necessary speed, though he often tripped and stumbled over unseen obstacles in the gloom. On one occasion falling to all fours as his boot caught a hole in the ground.
As Paul approached the source of the sound he slowed down, to avoid alerting anyone to his presence. He was sure he had seen the flicker of a flame, possibly from a fire. As he got closer, he was sure he heard the yelping of the dog and even the whinny of a horse. He slowed further and crouched down, selecting his footsteps carefully.
As he got nearer, he could see it was a fire. Feeling exposed on the flat, open ground he moved across to what looked like a copse, a dark shadow along side of it, possibly a wall. He crept closer still. The gentle breeze shifted slightly in his direction, the aroma of roasting meat wafted towards him, his senses going into overdrive as his stomach contracted with pangs of hunger. He pushed the cravings of hunger aside, quickly crouching down again when he heard a single high pitched laugh.
Creeping to within a stone’s throw away, nudging up to a wall on his left, he could make out a group congregated around a wood burning fire, half a dozen of them leaning against the stone wall, an extension of the one Paul had sidled along. They were sat close to what looked like a one room, single storey, low building, a bit like the Herder’s hut they had seen the previous day, or was it the day before that, he thought. He racked his brains and couldn’t even conjure up what day it was today.
The wall they were sat against followed the edge of a vineyard, a slight curve on it allowing Paul to move carefully along it, hugging it closely, allowing him sight of the group, but keeping him hidden from their prying eyes. He got to within twenty metres before he had to stop.
He felt the gentle breeze again against his cheek and could see the dog sniffing the air. He felt sure the dog’s nose would be overpowered by the scent of the roasting goat or lamb, which was slowly being turned on a makeshift wooden skewer above the red flames of the fire. He was down wind, and so long as the orientation of the air currents did not shift, he felt safe from the dog’s innate sense of smell.
He studied the band in front of him, flames from the fire flickering eerily over their faces and clothing. From what he could see, there seemed to be eight of them. A young boy, aged anywhere between the age of fourteen and seventeen, was turning the skewer, hot fat dripping onto the flames, causing the fire to flare and the boy to flick his head back in case he got splattered by the hot oil. He was deep in concentration on this clearly important task. The rest, bar one, who was acting as sentry, were sat with their backs to the wall, talking and sharing a bottle of wine that was passed up and down the line. There was another young boy, nearest him, three men in their twenties, an older man, heavily bearded, wearing a sleeveless sheep or goatskin jacket to keep out the cold. He wasn’t sure about the sixth, but was certain it was a woman, perhaps the instigator of the high pitched laugh he’d heard earlier. She was the furthest away, close to the wall of the hut. Standing opposite, but apart from them, stood a man in his forties, a Lee Enfield Rifle resting in the crook of his two arms.
He heard a groan coming from the other side of the sentry, it was then Paul could make out a small pony, next to a bundle on the ground. The sentry strolled over to the pony, stroked its flanks, then strode over to the bundle on the ground and kicked it, cursing something in his native tongue, something Paul didn’t understand. Paul cursed beneath his breath, it had to be Max. For a fraction of a second, he considered jumping up, opening fire and killing them all. But came to his senses and sidled along the wall until he was certain they wouldn’t be able to see him, and considered what his next action would be.
Max’s rescue was imperative, Paul had no idea what state he was in, or what they may have done to him. Max would be dangerously dehydrated by now, his wounds making matters worse, his lack of water complicating matters still further, a vicious cycle. He thought back to the three Fallschirmjager bodies he had seen in the grove, in the village. Suppressing his anger, he thought through his options. He needed a clear head, needed to think rationally, hi
s and Max’s life depended on it.
He edged back along the wall. If he stood up, the top of the wall would be level with his upper arms, so it provided him with good cover. He checked nothing had changed and apart from the sentry now sitting with the main group, replaced by the young boy, someone else, the woman, now tending to the sizzling meat, all was the same. They seemed completely relaxed and the bottle was still being passed from one to another, so he returned to his original position. Paul shook his weary head, desperate to clear it of any clutter.
He tried to make out Max’s form again, if it was him, but it was too dark to see anything other than the outline of the pony. Then moving east along the wall, built up of randomly shaped rocks and stones, layered to form a barrier that protected the vineyard, he got to a position that was suitable for what he had in mind. He was now well away from the group and more importantly, out of earshot. As a result of the fire being directly in front of them, the glimmering flames would not only inhibit their night vision, but its reddish glow would prevent them seeing much beyond the position of the pony.
He discarded his water bottles and any other unnecessary items. They wouldn’t be needed and would potentially restrict his movement, or make a noise catching against something. He lowered himself onto his hands and knees and slowly moved in an arc across the rough ground, gritting his teeth as he jarred his knee on a sharp rock, the pain lancing up his thigh. He waited until the pain rescinded to a mere throb and continued forwards, constantly glancing left, tracking his position and progress against the light of the fire and keeping a watchful eye out for movement amongst the group.
Paul stopped to catch his breath, water still sloshing around inside his stomach from when he had gorged himself. Now he had been partially rehydrated, sweat poured down his face and back. He didn’t stop for long, the chilled air quickly gripping his body in its embrace, cooling his wiry frame rapidly now he was stationary.
