by Iain Gale
Lamb turned on him. ‘If I hear you spouting one more bloody Greek myth, I’ll have you on a charge. Or worse, God help me.’
‘Sorry, sir. I was just making an observation.’
‘Well, don’t. I’ve enough to worry about without your bloody observations.’
But as the sergeant walked away, he couldn’t quite help feeling that Valentine had touched a nerve of truth. What at first had seemed to be a straightforward if questionable mission was now turning into something far more complex and potentially disastrous.
Back at 42nd Street the Maoris had been recalled to their positions and stood triumphant, looking down at a field strewn with hundreds of enemy dead. Every one of them, however, knew that this was just a temporary victory, that any time now the order would come for a general withdrawal. For the Kiwis it had been a last hurrah.
A few hundred yards away the Germans licked their wounds and waited for the morning, which they knew would bring fresh troops and ultimately victory. But one man among them did not intend to wait.
General Wilhelm Sussmann had seen something in the midst of all the fighting that had changed his plans.
As the Maoris had charged home, pushing his men down the hill, he had caught a glimpse of the face of a man in the light of battle. The face of a King. The last few days had been hell: so many men killed, even after the initial horror; Derpa was gone, other old friends too. Well, now he was going to do something that would avenge them all, that would make the name of the Fallschirmjäger live through history. He turned to his new 2I/C, Captain Baron Friedrich von der Heydte, commander of 1st Battalion, who was squatting in the cover of a stone wall at his side.
‘Von der Heydte. Get word to Colonel Heidrich. Tell him that he’s in charge.’
‘Sir?’
‘I’m taking a platoon of our own men and whatever mountain troops I can get to come with me, and I’m going south. That matter of which we spoke earlier has just become a reality.’
‘The King?’
Sussmann nodded. ‘And I intend to get him myself. Think of the Führer’s face, von der Heydte. Dead or alive. Well, we’ll see. Either way the glory will be mine. Wish me luck, Friedrich. I dare say I’ll need it.’
16
Sussmann climbed up the rocky path and cursed his uniform. It had not been designed for a hot Cretan summer, and even at this time of day it was still unpleasant. He wished that instead he might have been wearing a pair of the shorts worn by the British and their Allies. He had contemplated stripping them from one of the dead, but had thought better of it. It did not suit the dignity of a general of the Wehrmacht. Even the mountain troops who came behind him were dressed in a more fitting way than he. At least they had managed to bring their shorts with them, nor were they encumbered by the sweltering and heavy paratroop helmets. Well, Sussmann had stuck to his feldmütze at least. But if only he could lose these damned trousers! He turned to the young lieutenant whom he had brought with him and the platoon from 1st Battalion.
‘Well, Becker. This is better than being stuck in a damn trench.’
‘Yes, Herr General. It’s good to be on the move and away from the guns.’
The young man had been bemused when his general had come to him ordering him to accompany him on a chase through the hills.
He had managed to find a platoon of Gebirgsjäger, the mountain troops that were being landed by the hour at Maleme, and had ordered them as a general of the Reich to come with him. Their lieutenant, Müller, had at first been reluctant, but he had eventually ceded to Sussmann’s superior authority. This was after all, the general had said, a mission from the Führer. Perhaps, thought Müller, it might even be a shortcut to glory and promotion. One heard about such things. The Führer’s favour. Whatever, a stroll in the hills was certainly better than dying at the hands of those yelling savages, as so many of his comrades had done.
It had taken Sussmann the best part of two hours to assemble his little force and they had followed the route taken by the Tommies and their royal charge. It had not been hard, particularly for the mountain troops, men from the alps of Austria and Bavaria who had grown up tracking animals and reading the signs. Besides, according to Sussmann’s map, if they were going south from Suda there were only two paths open to them. That on the east, through Kambi, was one. But that would take you high into the heart of the White Mountains, up to 2,300 metres and the highest mountain on Crete. No, the second way was sure to be their path – the track that led down through Theriso to Samariá and then off to the sea at Agia Roumeli.
So it was, as the moon rose, that Sussmann and his men reached Panagia. As they entered the village he knew that something was wrong. It was not just that the place was deserted. There was something else: a smell, a sense of evil. One of the mountain troops called to him. ‘Herr General, over here, sir.’
He looked at where the man was pointing, at a stain on the ground under the moonlight. ‘It’s blood, sir. And look, there’s more.’
They began to walk up the street and every few yards he could see, even in the half-light, were marked by more of the stains.
He turned to Becker. ‘What is it, d’you think? Where are the bodies?’
There was another shout. ‘Sir, in here.’
Sussmann entered the house, which was lit inside by a shaft of moonlight. It fell through the open window, across the stone floor and the wooden table, and fell across the faces of the dead. The general looked down and found the eyeless corpses. He stared, wide-eyed, and then turned and walked from the building. The stench of dead flesh had reached into his nostrils now. ‘Becker, did you see? Did you see what they had done to those boys? Christ. Holy Christ. How could they? Those poor boys.’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flask. Schnapps. Sussmann took a swig, then another, and passed it to Becker, who followed suit.
Lieutenant Müller was with them now. ‘Did you see them? Those poor boys.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘They’re savages, these people. No better than barbarians. The cradle of civilisation? Don’t give me that.’
He took another swig from the flask and, walking back into the house, took another look at the corpses and felt the tears coursing down his face.
Sussmann had come to do one thing on this cursed island. He had come for a King. But as well as that, now he knew he had another mission: a mission from a higher authority even than the Führer. He would teach these savages a lesson. He would somehow atone for the blinding of those poor young boys, for the hideous torture. And then, when he caught up with the royal party and found the animals who had done this thing, he would take his revenge. After that he would deal with the King.
As Sussmann had guessed, Lamb’s party had spent the night at the village of Theriso, five miles into the mountains from Panagia, sheltered by its tiny population of old men, women and children. Casting propriety aside, after posting sentries and ensuring that the King and his party were comfortable and the civilians secure, Lamb had decided to spend the night with Anna. He had kept his distance from the Hartleys and Comberwell, staying with his men during the climb. He wanted no more to do with any of the civilians. He no longer felt it his duty to get them away.
His men, the King and Anna were what concerned him now, although in what order he was still not entirely certain. His orders, love and loyalty vied for position in his addled mind. What he knew above all, though, was that he needed rest.
The woman whose house he had made his billet for the night welcomed them in almost as newlyweds. Anna had explained, but it had not mattered. The woman’s husband had been killed in Albania. She cared for nothing now. And to see two people happy was enough. The little room had a single bed made up on a wooden shelf. It had been cramped, but better than the ground. Yet all night long Lamb’s sleep had been disturbed, haunted by visions of the eyeless corpses. Once he had cried out, waking at the end of a shout, and had found Anna’s hand stroking his head. It was another three hours before
the light woke him again. The dawn smelt of thyme and of the sweet scent of the hillside flowers. Lying there, cradled in her arms, he shivered with the cold, pulled the goatskin that had been provided tighter round them and cursed the fact that, in their haste to leave, more of the party had not brought blankets, and what covering they could find had been given to the King and the women. Anna was awake too now. He heard a cock crow. She said, ‘You cried out in the night.’
‘I know.’
‘Why? What was it?’
‘A dream. A nightmare. Nothing.’
‘The men in the village, back there?’
‘How do you know about them?’
‘I saw them too.’
‘Is it true about the ravens?’
‘Perhaps. Maybe not. We hate the Germanos and we will hate them more soon.’
‘You know what they will do when they find those men. And others like them?’
‘Yes. Soon this island will be filled with hate. But by then you will be gone.’
‘And you? Aren’t you coming with us?’
She said nothing.
A soldier appeared in the doorway. Turner.
‘Captain Lamb, sir. The Greek captain. He wants you.’
He found Bandouvas crouching down over a fire he had set on the floor of one of the outbuildings, kept low to avoid detection. The kapitan offered Lamb a mug of tea.
‘Your servant made it for us. He’s good. I like your British tea. Very sweet.’
Lamb took a swig as Bandouvas walked to the door and gazed at the rising dawn before he spoke.
‘Today we will go higher. Up there.’ He pointed towards where the mountains touched the sky. ‘Twelve hundred, eighteen hundred metres perhaps. We will take it slowly, for all our sakes. At Samariá there is a little monastery. Not many monks now. I know the abbot. He’s a friend.’
Lamb drew the faded map sheet from his pocket and traced their path. He saw the climb go from 2,000 feet at their present location up through the mountains to Lakki. Then it branched off the road on to a track, which followed the line of a stream. Bandouvas was right. At its height it touched over 5,000 feet. There was no point in worrying. It was their only hope. They might lose some of their group. Saving the King was his mission now, although he could not help but feel that his real duty still lay in saving his men. He knew too now through a runner from Layforce that they had German mountain troops behind them, men who were used to this sort of terrain. He imagined they must be twice as nimble over the rocks as his own men, let alone the civilians.
Leaving Bandouvas at the house, Lamb walked through the village, which was coming to life. A few old men stood staring at the soldiers, and he passed a group of inquisitive children and two dogs before he came to the positions on the perimeter where Ryan’s men had spent the night, with a picket of his own. He could only wonder what they thought of what he was doing. He hoped they would have followed him anywhere, knew in his heart that some at least would. But he knew too that they must be questioning, as any soldier would, why they were being taken into the hills when the rest of Creforce was making its escape along the road down to Sfakia. His reasoning, of course, was that they should at all costs avoid being mixed up in the potential rout that was taking place on the Sfakia road. It troubled him. He called across to Smart, ‘Morning, Smart. Got your hands full this morning, eh?’
‘Yes, sir. They can’t get enough char, sir.’
‘Hello, Dawlish. Bearing up?’
‘Thank you, sir. It’s just me feet. Bit raw. Don’t suppose you’ve a spot of vinegar about you, sir?’
‘Sorry, I’m all out. But I’ll see if it can be managed when we get back to Alex.’ He turned to Bennett. ‘Taken the roll, Sarnt-Major?’
‘Yes, sir. All present.’
‘Very good. Ask the lieutenant to find me, will you. “O” group in ten. You as well, Sarnt-Major. Oh, and you’d better get Mr Eadie to ask the King to come along.’
The King, along with his cousin and the Prime Minister, had spent the night in the best house in the village, that of a farmer, and they emerged from it looking better than most, shaven, fed and rested. There was more for Bandouvas to resent, thought Lamb, and for his own men to question. He knew that. Valentine was watching the King, and had been for some time.
He knew too that they were being followed by the enemy. Somewhere, not too far away, the Germans were on their trail. And with every slow step they took into the hills, as his pack became heavier and his feet grew more weary, he realised more and more that on their own they might have been able to double their pace, be back on the Sfakia road and with a real chance of escape. That, or they could have stayed with the rest of the army. Now he sat, sipping at his tea, waiting for the order and questioning, with the mind of a born general, quite what military logic lay in saving one weak and ailing man at the potential expense of twenty trained soldiers. And the question began to gnaw at his mind.
The road from Theriso to the hilltop village of Xiloskalo is a road in name only. In fact it is barely a track. But it was by this route that the royal party made its way to the monastery of St Nikolaos.
They had come via Meskla and as they passed the tiny white church in the village Lamb had seen an old woman at the door. She had called him in and, stepping out of line for a moment, he had peered into the darkness to be rewarded by a candle-kit glimpse of wall paintings of exquisite beauty. Christ the Saviour, surrounded by angels. It was only for an instant, and he had quickly backed out, thanked her and rejoined the column, saying nothing, but the image stayed with him, and now in his mind as he trudged on along the path the face of the painted Christ seemed, at least for the present, to blank out those of the eyeless German dead.
They pushed on across country up one of the rubble-strewn corries that led directly south from the village, rising 300 feet in five miles before they hit the track. They rested then, lying on the hillside in the morning sunshine, among the olive groves and chestnut trees, the sweat seeping through their shirts. Twice Miranda Hartley glanced at Lamb, hoping for some acknowledgement. He gave none, no sign of any interest. And he hoped that might be an end to it. Scouring the landscape down the mountainside behind them, Lamb could see no trace of their pursuers.
But Bandouvas nodded sagely. ‘They’re out there all right. I can feel it.’
Within minutes they were back on their feet, but at least the track here had been cleared of boulders and stones. Walking on the smaller paths was hell, a bit like trying to climb an old staircase where every third or fourth step has a habit of giving way. And although it was clearer, at times their new route did not seem much of an improvement.
They stopped at the foot of another mountain. Bandouvas pointed up. ‘Mount Psari.’
Lamb shook his head. ‘We’re surely not going up there?’
Bandouvas smiled. ‘No, don’t worry, Kapitan. That would be too much. We go here.’
The road wound westwards, twisting and turning its way around the mountain, until at last they came to a wooden hut perched on a precipice.
Lamb looked down, and wished he had not. ‘How high are we?’
Bandouvas laughed. ‘About 1,300 metres above that.’ He pointed down beyond the rock face. ‘Down there is where we are going. Samariá. But don’t worry, we won’t go straight down.’
They rested in the refuge hut for ten minutes and then carried on, leaving the gorge behind for the moment, as the road turned north again. This was a very different landscape, he thought, with no trace of the hand of man. All that he could see around him among the acres of cedar trees was evidence of the force of nature, and before them the White Mountains soared amid the clouds. Within minutes they emerged on to the last mile of the metalled road from Lakki, and then, walking at the head of the column, Lamb stopped in his tracks. Ahead of him lay another precipice, and beyond it one of the most breathtaking sights he had ever seen.
He was looking directly down a gorge, with mountains falling into it from left and right. Moun
tain after mountain succeeded one another, rising directly before him, perhaps four miles distant, and behind that another, higher, and another higher still.
Bennett was beside him, gazing in awe. ‘Blimey, sir. I never thought I’d see the like.’
‘No, Sarnt-Major, nor me.’
Bandouvas spoke behind them. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? This is what my people fight for. This is our land. Our mountains. Look, in the distance. You see that? That is Mount Pachnes. The Mountain of the Gods. Two and a half thousand metres high. It is the birthplace of Zeus, the king of the gods. That is why we fight.’
And that, thought Lamb, was why the Germans had brought their mountain troops here. That was why Creforce and even the commandos had lost this battle, and that was why the Cretans, men like Bandouvas and his partisans, the andartes, would ultimately win it.
‘Now we go down.’
Bandouvas ushered Lamb and the others down on to a flight of steep stone stairs cut into the side of the cliff face. They had been finished carefully with a waist-high wooden handrail. ‘Be sure to hold on and walk slowly.’
Carefully, they made their way down the steps, conscious that at any moment the slightest slip could mean death. Bennett was right behind Lamb. ‘Bloody high, sir, isn’t it? Can’t say I care for it much myself.’
There was a commotion from their rear. Someone was shouting. It sounded like Hartley’s voice. Somebody shrieked, ‘No, no, I can’t.’
Christ, thought Lamb. Hartley. He must have vertigo. Lamb pushed past Bennett and, climbing back up, yelled back after him, ‘You go on. All of you, keep going.’ He reached the top of the staircase and found Hartley and one of his own men, a young lad named Hollis, locked in a struggle. Thankfully the writer had the better of it.
Hollis was shrieking, ‘No. Can’t you see I’ll die? I hate heights. I can’t do it.’
Lamb was about to interfere when Valentine stopped him. ‘No, sir. Wait. Just wait.’
Hartley shook the young soldier. ‘Stop it, man. You’ll be fine. Here. Take this.’ From his trouser pocket Hartley produced a green spotted handkerchief and tied it around Hollis’s head as a blindfold. ‘There. Now all you have to do is to hold on to me and we’ll soon be down. Don’t worry about anything. I’ve got you now.’
