by Lee Jackson
“We might pop on down there. We’ll play it by ear. The intelligence operations that succeed best are those that approach the truth, and the truth is that we have no interest in accommodating Vichy France at all, and I’ve already been to North Africa for the president.”
His voice grew serious. “The flight will take hours. We can still overfly central Europe, but we’ll probably take the longer route across Spain, and then skirt south of Italy.” He grinned briefly. “We don’t want you getting captured, what with all those British state secrets in your head. When we land tonight, the Greeks will take us forward. Did I mention that their women were fighting at the front? And re-supply from Britain isn’t getting through the Italian blockade in the Aegean Sea.” He shook his head with an admiring expression on his face. “But when Prime Minister Metaxas called on his people to fight for independence, Greek roads were choked with tens of thousands of volunteers. They’re a proud nation with a proud heritage, and the fascists will pay hell subjugating Greece. We’re counting on that to stall the German thrust into the Soviet Union.”
“If I may say so, that part of the plan sounded a bit mercenary to me from when I first heard Mr. Churchill mention it,” Paul observed.
Donovan studied Paul before replying. “I don’t think so. You Brits broke the Italian codes as well as the German ones, and you’re providing the Greeks strategic and tactical intelligence from those messages,” he said. “Air support out of Crete too, so the Greeks aren’t in this alone, and that’s infuriating Hitler. The odds of his intervening are going up with every Italian encounter with the Brits, and that’s what we want, to bog him down. We’re all in the war together now, including America, whether our public wants to think so or not. Neither Germany nor Japan will leave us any other choice.
“Regardless, you Brits have to continue supporting Greece. Americans still cherish independence and loyalty and wouldn’t take kindly to Churchill if he deserted Greece while asking for our help.”
Paul cut in with visible annoyance to Donovan’s last statement. “Then again, America isn’t helping Britain much right now.”
Donovan’s reply was stone cold. “Tell me that again when this intelligence operation is complete, and our young men start dying.”
With the thought of the other intelligence maneuver to influence public opinion pinging at the back of his mind, Paul straightened up and faced the general. “So, we have an intelligence office in Manhattan and you’re here. I get that, sir, but this war depletes Britain’s hard currency reserves, yet America requires us to pay cash for desperately needed supplies and equipment so that your country doesn’t appear to side with us. And you won’t even deliver planes we’ve paid for because of that Neutrality Act. But Americans will hold us to task if we don’t burn up our scarce resources more quickly by expending them in Greece?”
His own impassioned remarks surprised Paul. “I’d say Britain’s suffering is at least as great as Greece’s, and our demonstrated resolve is as strong as theirs, but neither they nor any other country have come to defend us. We won’t win on determination alone, and neither will Greece. Germany’s conquest of all of Europe aside from Greece and the neutral countries puts every bit of the continent’s mining, manufacturing, food, fuel, and all its other industrial might at Hitler’s disposal. Without at least equal resources, we Brits have no chance of winning the long war without America.”
Donovan regarded Paul somberly. “You’re getting the picture. America will come around. Our mission now is to pin down Hitler so that his Soviet foray fails.
“But regarding Italy, its senior leadership operates out of petty jealousies, undermining each other, and they don’t have the resources Germany does, so they can’t mount a Wehrmacht-style combined-arms blitzkrieg. And they’re locked into using the same tactics over and over, ignoring successive failures, and only varying time of day between attacks. Mussolini’s credibility with Hitler must be taking a major hit.
“But you need to face another reality. Your family is from Sark Island, which is isolated from the rest of Britain. And although your stepfather was born in the US, you haven’t lived close enough to Americans to understand us, so I’ll point out a fact that might not have registered on you: Great Britain is not necessarily considered to be our great friend, and you’re asking Americans to support a war to save your country’s bacon. That’s the way they see it.”
Paul stopped what he was doing and stared, speechless.
Seeing his expression, Donovan grunted. “Hey, my mother’s parents were from an area just north of Northern Ireland where a lot of people are still not crazy about the Brits. I was born in the same century when your guys invaded the United States and burned down Washington and the White House. Probably all that saved us then was a freak thunderstorm, and that was only thirty-three years after the end of our Revolution.
“Then, a lot of your aristocracy supported the Confederacy during our Civil War. Americans are still alive who remember that, and they’ve told the stories to their kids and grandkids. I arrived on this planet just eighteen years after that conflict was over. Barely that much time has gone by since the last time we had to bail out Europe in the Great War. So you see, events are not as ancient as they seem, and deep wounds take a while to heal.”
While he spoke, the general watched Paul’s face morph from pique to confusion to consternation. He dropped his tone. “Don’t get me wrong, Americans love the Brits, generally. But Americans will ask themselves why we should sacrifice the lives of our young men and our treasure to save a country that tried to conquer ours. If we do that and we miscalculate or fail to defeat the Germans before they get to us, we’ll invite their invasion on the east coast and Japan’s on the west coast, and our own resources will be depleted.” Donovan arched his brows and smacked his lips to make his point. “Try to sell that concept to America’s moms watching their sons go off to fight thousands of miles from home. That perspective is what we have to understand and overcome if we hope to succeed.”
When Donovan finished speaking, Paul was at a loss for how to respond. At last, he said, “You mentioned a few aspects I hadn’t considered.”
Donovan stepped back quietly, observed Paul outfitted in his new US Army fatigues complete with brown boots, helmet, and combat pack, and grinned. “We’re going to have to dirty you up some. You look like a fresh grunt at the beginning of boot camp.”
The general’s tone changed to serious again, with a cautious tenor. “Listen to me carefully. As far as the Greeks are concerned, you’re an odd American with a British accent. Most don’t speak English well, so they might not notice. Stick to your cover story and don’t even hint that you’re in His Majesty’s army. If any war correspondents show up, fade into the shadows.”
“I can handle that.”
“A word of warning: you’ll see me being apparently careless with communications to stateside. Don’t let that bother you. It’s part of the subterfuge. And if I poke fun at you for being a State Department puke, play along.”
Paul nodded. “My skin’s quite thick.”
Donovan laughed. “We’ll see.” He glanced at Paul mischievously. “So, this girl, Ryan Northridge. Is she the love of your life?”
Paul grinned back. “We’ll see.”
“Fair enough.” Donovan gestured toward a US Army transport plane revving its engines on the tarmac. “That’s ours. Let’s go.”
36
Ioannina, Greece
They arrived at Ioannina as dawn broke. From the air and despite the barrenness of winter, it looked to be a gem of a town with a castle overlooking a lake, but Paul was unable to make out much more detail through his porthole window. Cast against the morning glow of sunrise, a thick blanket of snow sparkled with a fiery red and orange hue for as far as he could see. High foothills on either side of the rough runway near the north end of the lake channeled the wind, buffeting the aircraft as it descended, flared, touched down, and taxied to a stop.
Looking through his window, Paul
watched a man in a very strange uniform walk toward the plane as they prepared to exit it. He wore a white jacket with flowing sleeves and matching wide skirts, and a vest of multi-colored vertical stripes over full-length white leggings. On his feet were Albanian-type slippers with turned-up tufted toes, and on his head was a red cap, like a Moroccan fez, with a thick, dark tail trailing over his right shoulder almost to his waist.
Donovan saw Paul’s stare. “You don’t want to mess with that guy,” he muttered as the man approached the aircraft. “He’s an evzone, a member of one of the Greek elite mountain infantry units. They won Greek independence from the Ottomans in the ’20s and early ’30s, and back in November, a regiment of them destroyed a crack Italian unit at Metsovo Pass. They’re famous for courage and tenacity, and they have a war cry like no other, ‘Aera.’ It means ‘like the wind,’ and their favorite tactic is to stream down the mountainside onto their enemies while screaming ‘Aera!’ and then duke it out in hand-to-hand combat.”
Paul glanced at the soldier with awed respect.
The evzone saluted as Paul and Donovan stepped down from the plane into a gust that whipped off the lake and flung glacial wind-talons at them with sharp specks of ice. “General Donovan.” He spoke in perfect English, seemingly oblivious to the cold, a tall man, solidly built and lithe, and with dark skin, black hair, and penetrating eyes. “I am Major Damian Bella. My orders are to escort you and your State Department aide to the front, and along the way, to brief you on the fighting that took place.
“Vlorë is only two hundred kilometers, but due to our route and the weather, that’ll take several hours. We’re not running any combat operations now, but if the enemy attacks, that’ll slow us down.”
They left for Vlorë with a fourth man, the driver, proceeding at a normal cruising speed in a British Humber heavy utility vehicle. “The roads are clear most of the way,” Damian said as they began a steep ascent out of the valley where the airfield was located. He sat in the front passenger seat with his driver. “We’ve had heavy snowfall this year, so the going could be slow.”
“How’s the fighting at the front?” the general asked.
Damian shrugged. “We’re not seeing much at present. We’re holding. The Italians were not prepared for our winters.” He grinned, showing fastidiously kept white teeth against his dark skin. “You came when there’s little fighting. It was back and forth for many weeks in November. The Italians came south as far as Metsovo—”
“I heard,” Donovan said. “What you evzones did there only adds to your legend. The Italian soldiers outnumber you, they outgun you, and they’ve had a lot more combat experience.”
“You speak English well,” Paul interjected. “How did that come about?”
“I took my degree at Princeton,” Damian said. “I intended to immigrate and become an American citizen, but I came back to defend the homeland.”
As the conversation continued, Paul noticed intermittent groups of people trudging through the snow on both sides of the vehicle, all going in the same direction. They seemed in good spirits, waving at the passing Humber. “Who are those people and where are they going?”
Damian beamed with pride. “They’re volunteers, and they are heading to our training camps.”
Paul stared out the window at them. Most were young men, but some looked to be in their mid-thirties or approaching forty, and even a few beyond that. Mixed in with them were women, trudging with the men and waving good-naturedly, all wearing civilian clothes.
“That’s remarkable,” Paul said. “The divisions between your left and right were quite sharp not that long ago. A civil war was predicted.”
“Hmph,” Damian grunted with a stern look in his eyes. “We are Greeks, first, last, and always, and we won’t let a criminal take our country from us.” His face was fixed with determination. “The Italians fight because Mussolini tells them to. They’re good fighters, but they have no spirit for this war, and they’re poorly equipped to fight in the Balkans. We Greeks, though, we fight for survival.”
Paul started to say something that indicated empathy coming from similar experiences but caught himself, recalling that he was to give no hint of his British nationality beyond his accent. “Will they get any training?”
Damian arched his brow. “If we have time, we’ll train them. Otherwise, they’ll learn from our regular army as best they can. Our citizens are tenacious. Once the defensive line was established between Vlorë and Pogradec, that ended offensive operations until the spring and we could bring in and train our volunteers at a more measured pace.” He flinched. “Hopefully, we’ll get them ready for what’s coming.”
“And what about the Germans?”
“Ahh, the Germans. Who knows what is in that maniac Hitler’s head today? If he comes, it won’t be an easy fight.”
The wind abated, but snow fell in large flakes. On either side of the road, cleared snow was piled higher than the roof of the vehicle, blocking the surrounding view. As minutes ticked by, the snow reduced to tiny flakes, floating down in such profusion that they created a haze. As the Humber wound higher into the mountains, shivering cold permeated the interior, overcoming the warmth of the heater.
“We’re entering the area where most of the fighting took place,” Damian said.
Paul looked about, amazed. “You fought in this? I can’t see anything.”
Damian pursed his lips and nodded. “Sometimes in better weather, sometimes worse. Our regular soldiers and common citizens would not give up.” He glanced outside. The number of people trudging up the mountains had thinned, but some hardy souls plodded on. “When we cross this ridge and descend into the valley, we should go faster.”
By ten o’clock, they had reached the crest. The sky cleared a bit, and they viewed the panorama below. The valley was deep and blanketed with snow. Traveling down the mountain road was treacherous, the sun providing little relief over frozen surfaces, but when they reached the valley floor and turned north, as Damian had said, the driving became easier. Within a short time, they entered Kalpaki.
“This was a choke point,” Damian explained. “The Italians had wanted to go through here to hit our flank on the Elaia-Kalamas line on flatter ground by the sea. They hoped to avoid attacking across the Kalamas River, but we stopped them there too, and drove them back from all our defensive lines. We were outnumbered. The battle went back and forth, but we pushed them seventy miles to the Vlorë-Pogradec defensive line inside Albania.”
A few miles past Kalpaki, the terrain widened, and they encountered the hulks of abandoned Italian tanks bogged down in the snow, having tipped over on the side of the road, thrown a track, or having met some other battle calamity. Donovan requested to pull over so he could examine one of the doomed vehicles.
“It’s not a bad tank,” he said. “Poor leadership put it here. No one bothered to study the lay of the land or the limits of this war machine’s capabilities.”
Damian agreed, and then pointed to the northeast. “Korçë is an Albanian town in that direction. It dominates a plateau with easier access to lower coastal ground. The tanks came through there. We took it last month, but the fighting was fierce, and losing it to Greece was a major blow for the Italians.” He added, “The Albanians were thrilled to see us. They welcomed us with cheers.”
“How far is it?” Donovan asked.
“In distance, about twenty miles. But in these conditions, it could take hours. If you want to go, I can take you, but my commanding general wants to see you, so we’d need to radio for approval.”
Donovan shook his head. “Never mind. That was a pivotal battle. I wanted to see the site, but let’s go on.”
As they descended into lower ground, the landscape widened further and then turned northwest, heading toward the coast. Although snow continued to blanket the countryside, it was thinner in the flatlands and melted on the roads. Civilian vehicles were few, but military traffic increased as they continued toward the battle lines.
“We’re getting closer,” Damian said. “Maybe an hour, maybe less.”
Then they heard a sound that Paul knew well from the air raids over Britain, the high, whining grind of aircraft engines that deepened into a roar. Donovan and Damian heard it too, as did the driver.
Ahead of them, an object appeared in the sky and descended rapidly. Then plumes of snow leaped into the air on a path aimed straight at them, followed by the clipped stutter of machine gun fire. The driver jerked his steering wheel and swerved to the right just as the snow eruptions passed by them. Overhead, the combined fury of the fighter engine resounded as an Italian Caproni Vizzola F.4 fighter let loose with its two 12.7 mm machine guns.
The Humber careened into an open field, hit rough ground, and rolled over. All four men bounced around inside until it rested on its side. Paul fell down on the general, knocking him unconscious. Damian dropped onto the driver. He groaned, but the driver made no sound.
Behind them, Paul heard the Italian engines ascend into a whine once again as the aircraft climbed, and despite being in a daze, he recognized its tenor. The aircraft was looping to take another pass.
Damian heard it too and struggled to stand without injuring the driver. He reached for the passenger door, struggled to unlatch it, and threw it open.
The pitch of the engine deepened once more, and both Paul and Damian understood the pilot’s intent. They heard the pounding of the machine gun while Damian managed to throw his door open. Then, with one foot on the rim of the steering wheel and his opposite knee wedged against the back of his seat, he grabbed a Sten gun that Paul had not previously seen, perched waist-high, and opened fire.
The gun jammed.
The general stirred.