by Iain Gale
He turned and walked out of the room, leaving the guards behind but taking the other officer with him. Thirty yards down the corridor they entered one of the cells. Comberwell was inside with one of the guards. He was smoking a cigarette.
He stubbed it out nervously on the floor and spoke. ‘You don’t know how glad I am to see you, sir. I thought my cover was blown. I was sure that the others, the British officer and the kapitan, had guessed everything about me.’
Sussmann spoke. ‘The last report HQ received from you was eight days ago, Comberwell, the day after the invasion. What happened?’
‘I tried to keep in touch with the invasion forces but it was useless. I’ve been working on the inside, though. I knew you would come, of course. I was just biding my time.’
‘Biding your time? Listen, Comberwell. I don’t like you and I won’t try to hide the fact. I am a soldier, but you … you are just a Nazi. I fight for my country and for my leader. You have betrayed your country in the name of a doctrine that is not mine. Lieutenant Müller and I are soldiers of the Wehrmacht. That does not mean that we will flinch in our duty or that we will not use every means at our disposal to fulfil our mission, but we are not fanatics like you, Comberwell. It pains me that I have had to rely upon you for the information I need. However, I have had no alternative. Where’s the King?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What? Call yourself a soldier? You’re meant to be a secret agent. Berlin said one of the best. Where the hell is he? How don’t you know?’
‘The monks hid him, sir. I was diverted. Deliberately.’
‘Diverted by what?’
‘We were having lunch.’
‘What? Bloody amateurs. You disgust me. You don’t deserve to wear the uniform of the Fatherland. Oh, of course you don’t, do you? Well, if you can’t tell us we’ll just have to find out where he is.’
He turned to Müller. ‘Off you go, and make it convincing.’
Comberwell’s reply was lost in Müller’s first punch, which found his face and sent a tooth flying amid a welter of blood. He staggered back. ‘Steady on, Müller.’
Sussmann laughed. ‘Did you almost call him “old chap”? Come on, Captain Comberwell, you’re beginning to sound like your alter ego. I’m sorry, we just have to make it look as if you’ve been beaten up.’
Müller waded in again and floored Comberwell with a rabbit punch to the stomach, following it with a chop to the back and a kick in the crotch. Comberwell doubled up with pain.
‘All right, Müller, that should look good enough. Thank you, Comberwell. Most convincing. You’ve done a great service to the Fatherland.’ He nodded to the guards. ‘Take him back and bring me the civilians and the Greek girl.’
He turned to the blood-covered Comberwell. ‘Keep playing along with it. You might still prove of some use and less than a complete waste of time.’
The last few miles of their descent into Samariá seemed interminable. Lamb nurtured the thought that he would soon see Anna again and prayed that she would not have been hurt, or worse. They were certain now that the Germans must have reached the monastery, not least because at the top of the steps at Xyloskalo they had found the transport, abandoned at the point beyond which it was useless: three British Bedford trucks and the staff car they had glimpsed leaving Theriso. Lamb had disabled them, removing the distributors and hurling them into the gorge, then Bandouvas had urged them on, clearly anxious to avenge the deaths of the people in the village. He had changed, thought Lamb. Not obviously, but he was less jovial and inclined to silence. His face too seemed to have set in an expression of determination, and there was something indefinable about his eyes.
They were at the foot of the great steps now and Bandouvas signalled them to spread out as he had directed. Lamb had thought it better Bandouvas took charge at this stage. These were his mountains, his country. If they were to win, it was clear they would do best to fight this battle on his terms. They had agreed on two things: that silence was vital, and that it was madness to try a frontal assault. They would do it by stealth. And for that they would have to wait until nightfall.
Inside the monastery others waited for the night to come, and with quite different expectations. For an hour Sussmann had spoken with Anna and the Hartleys, playing with their minds. He had begun by asking them again the whereabouts of the King, and then with no warning, just as it seemed he might resort to violence, he had left them alone in the cell. Ten minutes later he had returned and so it had continued, until the two women and the half-senseless Hartley had reached a state of mental exhaustion, listening for his footsteps outside. Waiting for the key to turn in the lock. Waiting for what the next visit might bring. Every time he returned his presence seemed more threatening. And now they could hear him coming again – the boots on the stone slabs, the key, the door. But it was not Sussmann who entered, but the other officer, Lieutenant Müller.
‘General Sussmann asks me to tell you that he is tired. He will eat, and then he will return to question you once again. If you take my advice you will stop being so stubborn and tell us where we can find the King. I know what the general will do if you do not.’
Anna sneered. ‘He’ll have to kill us first. Why are you doing this to us? You’re cowards, all of you. Call yourself soldiers? Doing this to two women and a wounded man.’
At the word coward Müller stepped forward, and for an instant Anna thought he would strike her. But he stopped. ‘Oh, don’t worry, we have been questioning the men too. Quite thoroughly. But they are just as foolish as you and they have suffered for it. They have told us nothing. But we will find out soon enough. My general says we will return at nightfall.’ He paused and looked down at Julian Hartley, whose leg was clearly causing him pain. ‘But perhaps I might have better luck.’
Müller knelt down beside Hartley and gazed into his eyes. ‘Tell me where you have hidden the King.’
Hartley stared back, his face a mask of pain, and said nothing. Müller reached down and, taking his pistol from its holster, gently touched the muzzle against Hartley’s wound. The writer jerked back and yelped. Müller smiled. ‘The King?’
He pushed the barrel of the gun hard against the wound and Hartley stiffened with agony. Miranda screamed at him, ‘Stop it, stop it, you bastard. Leave him.’
With his right hand still firmly on the pistol against Hartley’s leg, Müller whipped out his left hand and caught her a vicious slap across the face. Then he stood up and, wiping the blood from the barrel of his pistol on Hartley’s shirt, replaced it in the holster as Anna comforted Miranda. ‘Until nightfall then.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Not long now.’
Lamb could see the stars quite clearly above him in the sky but, surprisingly, there was only the slimmest crescent of a moon. Bandouvas had taken his men out in front of the rest of them, scattering them among the rocks along the path that led to the monastery. They inched forward, leapfrogging each other so that one man of every pair was always in cover. Lamb had adopted the same tactic and had divided his men into three groups, one under Eadie, one with Bennett and the third with him, each of them numbering some seven men.
They left all that remained of their heavy kit at the foot of the steps and went on only with their small arms, fighting knives and a few grenades, keeping close to the valley floor, hugging any cover they could find – the slightest fold in the ground, every rock and bush. Silence was imperative now. Orders were to be passed by calls, and as few as them as possible: an owl’s hoot for danger, a whoop for forward.
He could see the white walls of the monastery now, and the gate, which had clearly been blown in. Shapes at the walls suggested that the Germans had posted sentries where their own men had been. From the transports and the account sobbed out by Bandouvas’ terrified nephew, they could estimate the force at around forty men, no more, and they must surely have lost some men in the fight to take the monastery. Military doctrine required that an attacking force should outnumber the defenders of a position b
y three to one if it were to be successful. Lamb enjoyed no such luxury. But they did have surprise on their side. And something else.
The abbot had told Bandouvas of a secret passage out of the monastery, an old route through which monks had smuggled freedom fighters during the great Cretan wars of independence. That was the route Bandouvas intended to use now, in reverse. He would lead his men through the tunnel and up into the abbot’s quarters while Lamb and his men waited at the front walls. Then when the commotion from within signalled that Bandouvas had attacked, Lamb and his three sections would storm the distracted guards. As he watched he could just make out the shapes of Bandouvas’ andartes as they loped across the ground to the north of the monastery, walking almost on all fours to imitate the action of an animal. The last of them disappeared into the night, and Lamb sat back. He looked at Smart, Stubbs and Butcher, their faces blackened with mud, as they huddled close beside him among the rocks. He nodded at them and they smiled back. They knew, as did all the others, that now there was no going back.
Sussman stood in the cell and shook his head at Anna.
‘What do I have to do? Must I resort to the same sort of barbaric practices used by your own countrymen?’
She was sitting before him, tied to a chair. Her shirt was torn and hung from one shoulder, and her right eye was black and puffy where it had been hit. There was blood on her cheek and lips. Müller stood in a corner of the room in his shirtsleeves flexing the fingers of his right hand. In another corner were the Hartleys. Julian had passed out from the pain, but Miranda was fully alert, painfully so, for she had no idea what might happen next in what seemed to be a night without end. Sussmann nodded to Müller, who walked across to her and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her across the floor to where Anna was sitting.
‘Ladies, what can we do? I do not want to cause either of you any pain or discomfort. I’m an honourable man. But you give me no alternative.’ He reached into his boot and drew out a dagger. It was long and thin, and on its grip it bore a swastika grasped in the claws of an eagle. He leant in close to Anna’s face.
‘You saw the men back there, didn’t you? My men. No more than boys. Did you do that? Did you put out their eyes? Or was it your men that did it? How did they do it? Was it like this?’
Jerking away from her, Sussmann suddenly grabbed Miranda by the hair and drew the dagger up to her face. Anna strained against the ropes that held her and shouted something at him, but the general did not hear it, whatever it was, for as she spoke the night was torn by a series of explosions.
Praying that every man on the wall would have momentarily turned to face the sound, Lamb led his section across the valley and ran into the dead ground at the base of the walls. They threw themselves down behind him, and looking along the length of the wall he could see that Eadie and Bennett too had made it. There was not a moment to lose. Carrying on and still leading the way, Lamb moved down the wall towards the gate. The noises of battle from inside were as loud as they could have wished for, masking their own movements from the sentries above, and within moments they were at the shattered entrance. He nodded to Rothman and Grist, and both men pulled the pins on the grenades they were carrying and tossed them lightly through the gap beneath the door. Lamb did the same. There was a shout from above as one of the guards spotted the bombs, but by then it was too late. Three explosions shook the wall and an instant later Lamb and the others were through the doorway and firing up on to the sentries’ positions. The Germans did not know what had hit them. Turning, they had barely a chance to squeeze the triggers of their machine-pistols before they were cut down by the hail of fire from Lamb’s own captured Schmeissers. There were more Germans opposite them now in the courtyard, and Lamb was conscious of Eadie’s men pouring in and throwing grenades at them.
Lamb shouted to Bennett, ‘Move left and take the cloister. I’m going to find the King.’ Then, signalling his men to follow, he ran across the yard and up the stairs to the cell block. He had no idea where the Germans would have put the King, or even if the man was still alive, but this surely was as good a place as any to start.
The firefight in the abbot’s block was as fierce as ever, and Lamb had no doubt that Bandouvas would give them a run for their money. He waved his men past him down the cell block corridor, and as they passed each room they kicked the doors open. All were empty, and then ahead of him in the corridor Lamb saw two mountain troops. They fired, and the bullets hammered into the two men in front of him, Grist and McGrath. One of them hit the wall and ricocheted on to Lamb, slicing into his forearm, but not before he had got off a burst of fire at the two Germans. One man went down and the other stood his ground, but Rothman was at his shoulder now and a bullet from his Enfield took the German in the chest, throwing him back against the wall. Lamb ran on, jumping over the two men, and as he did so another German, an officer in shirtsleeves, ran from one of the cells on the right and, firing a single random shot from his pistol as he went, raced away into the adjoining corridor. A moment later another man appeared at the doorway and paused for a second. His eyes met Lamb’s for an instant, and as he turned to follow his comrade Lamb squeezed the trigger and a salvo of bullets hit the wall just inches away from the German, who froze.
Lamb yelled, ‘Don’t move.’ The man hesitated and looked as if he might make a break for it. He began to reach towards his holster, but immediately reconsidered, for six weapons were trained on him now and he realised that he would not have a hope of making it to the end of the corridor.
The German raised his hands and Lamb, waving his men forward to take their prisoner, began to wonder what on earth a German brass-hat was doing in the monastery.
This was not the time to find out, though. Turning, oblivious to his wounded arm, Lamb ran back towards the noise of rifle fire and almost collided with Bandouvas as he charged at the head of his andartes out of the great hall and into the courtyard. The Cretan had a fresh wound in his thigh and was bleeding heavily, as he came half hobbling, half running into the light of the burning buildings. He saw Lamb and, smiling, looked his old self again. ‘We’ve done it, my friend. Did you get them?’
‘Yes, and we’ve seen a senior officer too. Where’s the King?’
‘Safe. The abbot’s hidden him. He told me he would. What about Anna and the others?’
‘I don’t know. Look.’
Lamb pointed across to the gate. The officer he had seen before was pushing his way through it, along with a number of men. He turned to Bandouvas but saw that he was already firing at them and then, as he cocked the Schmeisser again, something hit him on the left arm and he fell backwards. As he recovered and reached up to feel the blood soaking his shirt, he was in time to see the last of the Germans escaping through the open gateway. Bandouvas turned to him. ‘They won’t get far. The transports are useless, and my men are everywhere. Look, your arm. You’re hit.’
Lamb looked at his shoulder. ‘It’s nothing. Look, so are you.’
Bandouvas laughed. ‘I can’t feel it.’
‘Did you find the others?’
‘No, only Comberwell. He killed a German.’
‘Then where the hell are they?’
The answer was not long in coming. Bennett found Lamb. ‘Sir, you’d better come quick. It’s the Greek girl, she needs you.’
‘She’s hurt?’
‘Not bad, sir. Bit upset, though. Mr Hartley’s in a bad way too, and I can’t get a word of sense out of Mrs Hartley.’
He found Anna in the cell. They had untied her and she was standing now, supported by Mays, rubbing at her wrists. He walked over and put his hand under her chin, raising her face so that he could see it.
‘Christ, who did this to you?’
‘The Germans. Two of their officers. Honourable men.’
Lamb brushed the hair away from her forehead and touched her swollen eye. She winced. ‘Sorry. You need some attention. Perhaps the monks …’
‘All the monks are dead, Peter. Ryan too, and all
his men. They killed the wounded.’
‘Where’s the King?’
‘I don’t know. I couldn’t have told them anyway. The abbot knows, if he’s still alive.’
‘Sofronios is dead.’ It was Bandouvas. He was standing in the doorway, behind Lamb. ‘They killed him. Murdered him. Tied him up and shot him in the head with the others when he wouldn’t tell them. My poor, decent, holy friend.’ He paused. ‘I know where the King is. He told me.’
They found the King and Prince Peter in a tiny room beneath the altar that had been used to shelter fugitives for close on 700 years. Prince Peter spoke. ‘Lamb, thank God. We heard shooting and explosions. We couldn’t be sure who had won.’
‘You’re safe with us now, sir. For the time being at least. But now we have to leave this place and get you to the sea.’
He turned to Eadie. ‘Charles, I’m putting His Majesty in your care. I think I need to speak to our prisoner.’
19
Lamb always regretted losing his temper. Generally he was able to control himself, in fact he took some pride in it, but at times it just boiled over. As it had half an hour ago when he had confronted Sussmann. The general now bore the evidence.
Bennett laughed. ‘Lovely shiner you planted on the general, sir.’
‘Thank you, Sarnt-Major. Wish I hadn’t in a way. But he more than deserved it. In fact it was his sidekick who did the dirty work. Wish I could do the same to him. Or worse.’
They were walking, as fast they were able, away from the monastery, along the lower reaches of the Samariá gorge which stretched another eight miles down, from the little deserted church of Agios Christos to the sea at Agia Roumeli. At least it was even ground now and, he sensed, getting gradually lower all the time. Despite protests, Lamb had refused to bury the dead. He had known they would have to move fast, trying to use the cover of the night, before dawn came up. It was harder walking by moonlight, but already he could see the sky changing colour and he tried to quicken his pace. Fatigue was beginning to tell and he wondered how the others, particularly the women and the King, must feel. Hartley they had placed on a bier, improvised from half of a door, and he was carried by two of Eadie’s platoon. He had been unconscious for some time, and when he did open his eyes it was to mutter something unintelligible before passing out again.
