Soldiers

by Tom Remiger

Later, in the desert, the survivors would grow used to this. The same pipeline had to carry both water and petrol, separated out at the end by an ingenious method that didn’t quite work.

  It was natural that they bought oranges and coarse bread from the locals. The variety was good. When one man returned from an expedition for firewood claiming that he had been attacked by a vicious sheep and had to kill it in self-defence, Breen did not say a word.

  At one point, the platoon shared a can of condensed milk, each man dipping a ritual finger and departing. They fed what was left to the thinnest of the children, a girl named something like Angela. It was Parkinson who gave it to her, and she followed him about for days afterwards, begging for more, as mute as a dog.

  The ships trying to bring in more supplies were bombed; the one carrying the concert party and the bands somehow made it through.

  Every day or two came a route march, mapping out different ways of approaching the aerodrome.

  Bluey had made a chess set out of the bamboo that grew between them and the river, and Breen would walk ceremonially down to play long and mostly silent games.

  Bluey and Breen took their platoons into the village for an afternoon. They mingled with men from other units doing the same thing. The several cafés were pleasant and the wine was cheap.

  When it was almost time to go, Breen recovered Moohan from a shop where he was trying to buy an impractically large rug.

  Moohan seemed happy and there was a slight smell of wine. He asked Breen to carry the rug. ‘We’ll be warm, you see.’

  Then there was a muffled sound like a heavy book being dropped and a screaming started. It came from one of the wine shops.

  They went into it at a run and up the panting ladder to the next floor, past a little group of soldiers at tables on the ground floor, looking worried but not moving. One sat drinking his wine, as if ignoring things would make them go away. There was a woman upstairs lying on the floor. She had been shot and the blood was pumping out. It was black. On the bed a girl with big eyes was sitting cross-legged. She wouldn’t stop screaming. Breen wanted her to be quiet but she wouldn’t be quiet.

  ‘Get the door,’ he said to Moohan. He went to the window and called out in a voice louder than he would have thought he had in him, ‘Gibson!’

  The sergeant came running, a tangle of men behind him. There was a crash from below and he heard Moohan say ‘Stay’ as if to a dog. Then Gibson was up the ladder. He slapped the girl and she stopped; the silence was sudden and intense. There was only a gulping sound from the woman on the floor, the harsh difficulty of her breathing.

  ‘I’ll send a man to get a doctor,’ Gibson said.

  ‘Get something out of the lads downstairs. Godsakes don’t let them get away.’

  ‘What happened?’ Breen asked the girl. She looked at him and did not answer. He felt for his field dressing and put it on the woman in a fumbling sort of way. He had to cut through her dress and when he pulled it off her breasts lay there. The girl squatted down beside him and covered her with the remnants of the fabric, and looked at him so that he felt ashamed. I’m not like that, he tried to say to her. He could hear the sound of the woman’s breathing, shallow and fast. Friar from Bluey’s platoon, who had been a St John’s man, was up the ladder now. He took Breen’s arm, and took the dressing off and put it back again properly.

  Breen left him with the two silent women and went down the ladder. The soldiers downstairs were the West Coasters, come together from different platoons. They had torn up Cape Town. Gibson had picked one out and was talking to him low and urgent.

  ‘What happened?’

  He pointed to one of the soldiers, who had something stoat-like about him. He was no more than a boy and was standing a little apart from the others.

  ‘They were arguing and that fool had one up the spout and banged his rifle down.’

  ‘He should be under arrest,’ said Breen.

  The boy swallowed. ‘It was an accident. Why don’t you let me go back to my unit?’

  Then he said it again, and again. He was not quite in control of himself. Reece, the battalion’s medical officer, came through at something less than a run, a brisk walk that reminded you he had been a hospital man before, and Breen flicked a finger up towards the floor above. Reece didn’t break stride.

  ‘I did good in Greece,’ said the boy.

  ‘Bugger off,’ said Gibson.

  There were men outside the door now, watching.

  ‘He’s not one of ours, is he?’ asked Breen, to no one in particular. He looked doubtfully at the boy. ‘You’re not one of our lot, are you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  He hadn’t shaved, Breen saw. There was something disgusting about the irregular patterns of hair on that young face. His eyebrows were so pale they almost disappeared.

  ‘We wouldn’t have a stupid wee fucker like you,’ said Moohan.

  ‘Steady on,’ said Gibson.

  Upstairs the girl had started crying.

  ‘Get the lads out of here,’ Breen said to Gibson. ‘No, find someone to take charge of him, will you?’

  ‘Come on,’ he said to Moohan. He looked at the gawkers outside the door. ‘You lot come with me.’

  There was never a court martial. They didn’t have time to sort it out. When Breen stopped to think about it, he realised that he had run towards the screaming without hesitation. It seemed a good sign.

  23

  Breen went down to play chess with Bluey, but Tiger was there instead. ‘Bluey’s gone off after this rumour of beer,’ he said. ‘I thought maybe we could have a game.’

  They played in silence. Tiger won the first game, then the second.

  ‘Another?’ he asked.

  ‘I reckon,’ said Breen. He lit his last cigarette. Tiger’s hands were busy over the board, arranging the pieces to start the same old battle all over again. ‘You’re too good for me,’ Breen said.

  ‘You panic at the endgame,’ said Tiger. ‘It’s easier if you can keep your head; say, this is what I have, this is what I must do. You can’t concentrate on what’s gone wrong in the past.’

  ‘I know,’ said Breen.

  ‘You know it’s bullshit, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s hard not being able to trust your own mind.’

  ‘We’ll sort it out,’ said Tiger. ‘We’ve all the time in the world, and a continent to conquer.’

  ‘We’ll sort it out,’ said Breen.

  ‘Give us a puff of that,’ said Tiger.

  Breen passed it over. They smoked in silence, passing the cigarette back and forth and looking at the sky. When it was finished Breen took the butt and put it back in his case.

  ‘Ready when you are,’ he said.

  That night, Breen went to try to find the captain. It had been a few days; more than he wanted. He was in a conference down by the airfield, and so Breen didn’t see him.

  After a week, General Blamey came in a peaked hat to give a lecture. He said that there would be an invasion. He said something about the last man and the last round.

  Then a few days later the Maori Battalion took their place and they moved further forward, to another olive grove just southeast of the village of Maleme. This one was more comfortable because there was barley growing between the trees: they flattened it out to make beds. That ruined the crop, and it felt wrong, but everything was going to be ruined if the Germans invaded.

  The battalion established its headquarters between a gully and a hill by the crossroads, and the stretcher bearers dug little holes in the side of the gully. They were balanced between the airfield and the sea, ready to counterattack towards either.

  The next day Breen noticed that men were slipping away and returning hours later with unconvincing excuses. He waited until he saw Newman swaggering over the hill, as if to say that no one needed to worry about where he had been.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘had a good arvo?’

  Newman looked trapped. ‘How did you know, sir?’
/>   ‘I keep an eye out,’ said Breen.

  ‘They’re so cheap,’ said Newman.

  It turned out that someone in A Company had discovered newly opened brothels in nearby Canea. Everyone’s pay had been building up with nothing to spend it on.

  The beer issue had still not arrived and new tastes for koniak were discovered. The sky was overcast, and there was anxious talk of rain.

  That afternoon one of the sentries brought in a priest to Bluey. His long robes seemed a perfect disguise for an enemy uniform. Another priest was brought in the next day. The first time Bluey was all right with it; the second time he said, ‘Next one, pull his bloody beard if you’re not sure.’

  Tiger decided there was an easier way to map out paths to the aerodrome: he walked down and somehow persuaded the diminished RAF to take him up.

  ‘Tin-arsed bastard,’ said Bluey. ‘How’d he get away with that?’

  ‘Thank God we’re well concealed from above,’ said Tiger.

  There were not many planes left. One of them belonged to a Christchurch man. Each morning he roared low over their heads to wave to a friend of his. Someone took a symbolic shot at him.

  From the ninth of May orders started filtering in. A programme of training was reimposed. Half the battalion at a time were sent out on route marches to avoid too much activity being seen from the air. It was important that their position not be discovered. There were more and more enemy planes about.

  On the tenth a big mail arrived from New Zealand. Someone got a Christmas cake, and they shared it out as they had done with the condensed milk, only they didn’t leave any of it behind for the children.

  Breen finally found the captain alone. His smile, the unworried smile that Breen thought of as for him alone and which could never be photographed, surged affection within him.

  ‘Soon,’ said the captain. ‘I’m busier than you’d believe possible, but I’ll come and find you when I get a chance. It’s good to have you back.’

  On the eleventh they saw ships burning in the bay and a heavy column of smoke going up. Two days later there was another big raid going on at Souda Bay, the sky going an odd colour as the oil burned.

  After that, every morning there was a blitz, planes tearing along the ridge lines. The Germans hadn’t discovered the battalion yet. There weren’t many casualties, but the noise and the fear did something to the nerves. It became increasingly difficult to go and see other companies. Even to visit another platoon was an adventure. There was no way for Breen to try to reach the captain alone without raising questions.

  The mines finally arrived, with a little wire, and they laid out a defensive line in the dark. There had been a rumour of Bren carriers, but the bombing destroyed them before they could be unloaded.

  On the sixteenth of May an intelligence report said the attack would come from the air in the next three days. Paratroopers.

  On the eighteenth a single Hurricane rose up from the airfield. The German fighters overhead shot it down. As it sped desperately away it seemed close enough to touch, just above the trees, and the crash when it hit the ground was like a heart breaking.

  On the nineteenth Mr Churchill sent a message. Each lieutenant read it out to his platoon: ‘All our thoughts are with you in these fateful days.’

  There were seven planes left at the airfield and the soldiers watched them flying away to Egypt.

  And then it was the twentieth.

  24

  On the twentieth of May the usual bombers flew over Maleme before breakfast, their escort of fighters circling above like dancers. It was the beginning of a day like any other. Perhaps the bombing was a little heavier and there were more fighters, but no one commented on it as the company went into the gully to the south of their fighting position for breakfast.

  A canal ran from east to west, and the battalion was lined up behind it on either side of the road running from the village. The airfield was nearly two miles along the coast past Pirgos, the village in front of them. The Tavronitis River ran shallow and straight past the edge of the airfield. To the north of the airfield was the sea; to the south were ridges overlooking it, and an Air Ministry station containing only mysteries.

  The mortars and the heavy machine guns were to the west of the battalion, looking out towards the airfield from their higher ground. Other companies were positioned between the river and the road. Breen’s company was to the south, broadly spread and backing on to the gully. To the west of them was Lookout Hill, running down to the mortars. The headquarters of the battalion were in the gully, just behind the bridge where the road crossed it.

  As they walked down, keeping a nervous eye out for any stray planes, Breen found himself talking about the morning’s bombing. ‘Those poor sods must be having a rough time of it,’ he said to Gibson.

  ‘Rather them than us. We’re well out of it. But she’s going on a while. Do you reckon—’

  ‘She is. I might have me a dekko.’

  Breen went up the side of the gully and onto Lookout Hill. The attack was diminishing but it had been more furious this morning. He couldn’t imagine it, the sustained impact of all those bombs coming down and shattering your eardrums and your spirit while you cowered deeper into the dirt.

  ‘Do you reckon—’ began Gibson again when Breen returned.

  ‘I don’t know, man.’

  They lapsed into an uneasy silence, eyes unwillingly returning to the sky. The view from the gully was limited, but there didn’t seem to be much point in further exposure. Stray figures might attract a whirl of bullets before the pilot turned once again to the main business at the airfield, where men were dying in their shallow pits.

  They had eaten their hurried breakfast—it had lasted perhaps twenty minutes, if that—but now the familiar sounds had returned. The attack was not diminishing, after all.

  ‘It’s not right to shake up the way they do things just when a man’s got used to it,’ said Gibson. His eyes were bright.

  ‘She’s the one.’

  There were fighters with the bombers, many of them. Breen went up to the edge of the gully and lay on his back to look at the sky. Planes entered and left his circumscribed view. When he risked a look forward, the Messerschmitts were circling the great cloud of dust obscuring the airfield. They would dive in towards it, leaving his field of vision, then haul up short on shallow curves. Their guns must have been blazing.

  There seemed to be no limit to the number of heavy bombers now arriving. Their formation was unfamiliar: they flew in many parallel lines, horizontal to the airfield. It seemed designed to intimidate. They knew they did not need to fear attack from the air, and showed it. The formation was fringed by dive bombers, their swept-up wings making them look like gulls. That was new. Breen slid back down into the gully.

  ‘I reckon,’ he said.

  ‘I reckon.’

  ‘We do what we can.’

  Someone called out something. Whatever he said was indistinct to Breen, but there was a sudden shiver of alertness over the breakfast tins. Men reached for their firearms.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Gliders.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘We’d best look to it.’

  ‘We had at that.’

  It was about 8.30. It seemed the wrong time of day to be afraid.

  The gliders were crashing onto the airfield, past it onto the flat bed of the Tavronitis, and onto the beaches at their flank. It was hard to judge the number. Their silent passage, and the dust, and the heaviness in the sky from the oil burnt in Souda Bay, meant that they could pass unnoticed, or be glimpsed for no more than seconds.

  The fighters were swarming about, looking for targets. No one moved out of the gully. The men were standing almost instinctively straight, as if waiting for an inspection. Baird, the adjutant, continued writing at his packing-case desk, quite exposed to any fire. He was not in the gully but in front of it. It was a display intended to reassure; it reassured. But where was the colonel?r />
  Breen reflected that Baird was probably in more danger if he moved. While he stayed relatively still, shielded by the olive trees, no plane would suspect his presence. Breen’s thoughts seemed to be running dangerously quickly, as if the pace of life had sped up. It was only minutes since the first gliders had been seen.

  Now something else was going on. Transport planes came in after the gliders, huge and heavy. They flew in straight lines from across the sea, just as the bombers had. As they arrived, some circled, enormously large. They were dark against the sky and disdainful of the few rifle shots taken at them.

  From these came the parachutists. The first group were to be seen only in the distance, down in the vicinity of the airfield. The green parachutes had men hanging from them. Then there were red, white and blue ones which must have had supplies and weapons. Watching, Sinclair was reminded of a Hollywood film, a ballroom scene. They were balloons falling from the ceiling while the guests below looked on in wonder. Breen imagined the same thing. It was a curious meeting of minds in extremity.

  These first parachutists were too far away from the battalion to shoot at; they drifted down rapidly and disappeared as they hit the ground. There was a sick feeling to it.

  Now there were more behind them, so that the sky was filled with shapes like flowers. A blank silence was upon everyone, and they made no move towards action. The sight was unprecedented, a lurid daydream of future war. It was not something to be expected on a morning like any other.

  ‘All right,’ said Breen. ‘All right.’

  Newman was firing pointlessly at the distant planes.

  ‘Enough of that,’ Breen said to him. ‘Get over to our slitties and see if there’s anyone left there.’

  Newman scrambled up; then he fell back down again. ‘I can’t do it, sir.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Pull yourself together. Where the hell is Moohan? Moohan!’

  ‘It’s his job, sir.’

  ‘I know that, man. Pull yourself together. You needn’t go. If you can’t, you can’t.’