Aphrodite's Smile

by Stuart Harrison

  ELEVEN

  The guerrillas on Kephalonia were led by a communist named Metkas. They regularly harassed the Germans by sabotaging equipment and reporting intelligence to the Allies. But as the war in Europe turned and the Allies began to advance on all fronts, Metkas began openly to attack the German occupiers. In response, an SS officer named Standartenführer Manfred Bergen was placed in charge of the garrisons on Kephalonia and the surrounding islands, and he quickly decreed that any attack against German forces would be met with swift reprisals against the civilian population.

  Metkas was aware of this decree as he sat with a group of men around a wooden table in a cottage outside the small town of Vaisemata. The room was dimly lit by only a few candles which had burned low, dripping pools of solidifying wax onto the rough pine boards of the table. The flames flickered in a thin, cold breeze which came through a gap in the door, the light reflected in the eyes of the half-dozen men. They were all unshaven and dark, several days of beard growth on their faces. Their features were half hidden in dense shadows, their expressions grimly impassive as they listened to Metkas speak. He jabbed at a map, pointing to a village on Mount Enos. The Germans had built a transmitting station nearby, a strategically important site which was guarded by a permanent garrison of soldiers.

  ‘The attack will take place here,’ Metkas said. ‘From above.’ His voice was rough-edged, his thick fingers ingrained with what appeared to be dirt but was in fact the stain of ink. Before the war he had been a teacher. He had also been a believer in Communism and a hater of Fascism. When the Italians had invaded Greece he had been teaching in a school in Lefkada. He had seen at once that his time had come. Far from being a disaster for his country, the war, he had believed, would prove in the end to be the force that would shake his countrymen from their lethargy. Metkas immediately joined a Resistance group, the National Liberation Front, whose aim was first to eject the invaders from their country, but also and even more importantly to position themselves for the aftermath when a communist government would be installed in Athens.

  The first operation Metkas had taken part in was an attack on Italian troops stationed in Lefkada. The surprised soldiers had been quickly overwhelmed. The officer in charge of them had surrendered after several of his men had been killed and the rest surrounded. It was Metkas who had taken the officer’s automatic pistol before leading him outside to a wall in the courtyard where he had shot the man once in the forehead. Metkas could still remember his expression of horrified disbelief. After that, it had only been a matter of time before he was sent to Kephalonia to organise resistance there before the monarchist factors gained the upper hand.

  Now Metkas looked around the table at the men he had fought alongside these past few years. They had lived on the move, in the pine forests of the hills and mountains, evading first the Italians and then the Germans, descending to the ports on the coast to gather intelligence and sabotage supplies and sometimes to attack German soldiers. Of the five others present he knew he could count on two who were, like him, dedicated communists. Three others who sat together on one side of the table were right-wing monarchist sympathisers.

  One of them, Aris Gratsos, met his eye. Metkas and Aris had known each other the longest. They had fought alongside one another, each watching the other’s back. Aris, like the other men, led his own small group. He was older than Metkas, perhaps by ten years, in his fifties, a heavy-set, determined man with a scar on his forehead where a piece of grenade shrapnel had almost killed him. It was Metkas who had pulled the groups together, persuading each leader that they must work in concert, and it was Aris who had seen the logic of this argument and had persuaded the other monarchists to join with them. One day, Metkas knew he would have to kill Aris. There was a degree of regret inherent in this knowledge, but personal feelings were of no consequence if Greece was to become a true communist country after the war. Inevitably there would be a power struggle in the vacuum the Germans would leave in their wake and men like Aris must be eliminated before they became a threat. It was simply a matter of choosing the right time.

  For now, Metkas turned his attention back to the map. First they had to defeat the Germans.

  ‘While Kimon and his men attack the transmitter station the rest of us will launch an attack here, in Sami,’ Metkas went on. ‘Once the Germans realise the transmitter is under fire they will send men from Sami to help. Then Aris and I will attack what is left of the garrison while the rest of you fire on the ships in the harbour.’

  He paused and looked around to gauge the reaction of the others. It was a bold plan. Kimon would draw the Germans away from protecting the port, leaving the gunboat and the two supply vessels, which Allied intelligence had informed them were en route there, under-defended. The supply ships, loaded with vital weapons and ammunition needed by the forces on the mainland, would anchor in Sami overnight.

  Nobody spoke. They were all aware that there would be severe consequences for an attack such as this. The SS officer, Bergen, had a reputation for being merciless, and every man present at the table knew that regardless of the outcome of the plan Metkas was proposing, the civilian population on the island would pay a heavy toll. Eventually Metkas asked them each in turn whether they would commit their men and support the operation. One by one they nodded their assent. An hour later they slipped away, one after the other into the darkness.

  The attack took place three nights later. As planned Kimon’s group opened fire on the transmitter station with grenades and small arms fire. Flashes of light could be seen high on the summit of the mountain, and the distant crack of shots was heard on the coast. The Germans were pinned down under heavy fire, but Kimon held his men back to give the Germans time to summon help, and, from their position above the road outside Sami, Aris and Metkas watched as a convoy of trucks carrying troops sped along the road out of the town.

  ‘We wait an hour,’ Metkas said. Aris looked him in the eye as if he were about to say something, but in the end he merely nodded before melting away into the darkness to rejoin his men. Metkas pondered that look, wondering what it had signified, but he quickly forgot about it as the time drew near to launch the assault.

  The Germans had made their headquarters in the town hall on the waterfront. The building was normally well defended, but only a handful of soldiers had been left behind after the others had driven away. Metkas and Aris led their men in the attack from opposite directions. Resistance was fierce but brief. As soon as the first shots were fired the other groups brought mortars into position near the wharf and opened fire.

  A flare rocketed skyward and exploded, lighting the darkened ships in the harbour. Metkas and his men were bathed in the light as they advanced to the town hall, rushing from building to building. Metkas fired a quick burst from his British sub-machine-gun at two German soldiers who ran from a door. The soldiers crumpled and fell and Metkas paused to reload. All around him was the sharp crack of rifle shots and short bursts fired from machine guns, the crump of mortars and the following roar of explosions. Pressing himself against a wall, he scanned the scene ahead and returned fire at a pocket of German soldiers shooting from a first-floor window, then he crouched and ran forward. A bullet hit the wall close to his head and he ducked. The shot had seemed to come from behind, but when he turned he couldn’t see any Germans. He ran on. As he passed between two buildings he glimpsed a ball of orange flame erupt from one of the ships in the harbour, thickening with black smoke as it billowed skywards. Another explosion followed and then he was past the gap, running inside a door firing ahead of him.

  During the attack one of the supply ships was sunk, but the other managed to escape out of range, aided by the gunship Antounnetta, which pounded the mortar positions with deadly shellfire from her fore and aft guns. Heavy machine-gun fire raked the wharf and soon Metkas gave the order to retreat. As his men scattered through the town toward the safety of the hills he regretted that the mission had only been a partial success. They had underest
imated the response from the Antounnetta and the speed with which the surviving supply ship had managed to steam out of range. The cost of the operation had been high, at least a dozen men killed and as many injured. His own group was the last to leave. As they ran through the narrow streets away from the waterfront the sound of explosions and the occasional burst of machine-gun fire continued from the harbour. Metkas slowed to a walk. His men were all ahead of him. He needed time to be alone. A few minutes to collect his thoughts.

  It was as he passed along a narrow lane between rough cottages at the very edge of the town that he realised that somebody was following him. His immediate reaction was that it must be German soldiers, but even as he hid in the protective shadows cast by a terrace wall he knew that pursuing soldiers would not be so cautious. Whoever was there was moving stealthily. Metkas left his machine gun slung over his shoulder and took out his pistol. The moon was bright in a clear sky and the lane was shrouded in luminous grey light, flanked by deep shadows. A sound, like a footfall, and then a figure appeared moving from shadow to shadow. Metkas relaxed, breathing out loudly.

  ‘Shit, you had me worried there,’ he said.

  Aris stopped and Metkas stepped into the open. They were only a few yards apart. It was the expression Aris wore that gave him away, mingling surprise and guilt. Even as his grizzled features hardened again into lines of resolve, Metkas recalled the curious way Aris had looked at him before the attack. He remembered also the shot that had almost hit him which he thought had come from behind. Aris pointed his pistol and Metkas knew he’d waited too long. He had fallen prey to his personal feelings for this man who was about to kill him.

  Aris hesitated. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. Then he squeezed the trigger.

  There should have been a shot, but instead there was nothing. They both realised what had happened. The gun had jammed. Even as Aris frantically tried to free the mechanism, Metkas raised his own pistol. The single shot echoed between the houses and Aris staggered backwards. Metkas strode forward to finish the job. He remembered the Italian officer’s expression when he’d shot him. Aris didn’t look surprised. Through his pain his expression was one of resignation. Metkas fired once into his temple, the barrel almost touching his skin.

  The German convoy arrived in the village at dawn the day after the attack. It was led by an armoured patrol car and followed by a truck full of soldiers. SS Standartenführer Bergen, aged thirty-two, climbed down from the patrol car and lit a cigarette as the soldiers jumped out and formed orderly lines. They jogged into the village, rifles clasped at the ready and began going from house to house, systematically rounding up the inhabitants. Old men and women with children stumbled into the street.

  Bergen eyed them dispassionately. These people eked out a thin existence from the land in this squalid, inhospitable place at the top of the mountain. A few goats and cows, some chickens. Olive groves which had been there for thousands of years. Their houses were made of stone, simple rough structures haphazardly arranged. The air smelt of animal dung.

  As the villagers were herded past Bergen most of them averted their eyes, but a few looked at him with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity. They didn’t know who he was, but he struck them as a fearful figure, immaculate in his black uniform with its death’s-head insignia. His eyes were pale, almost colourless, his skin also pale and smooth. His hair thin and light yellow. He looked like a ghost compared to them. Their own skin was weathered and dark. In their rough clothes they looked shapeless, shambling. Mothers held tightly to small children.

  When all the people from the village had been assembled, the soldiers lit torches soaked in gasoline and set fire to the buildings. Every one of the village’s eighty inhabitants was forced to watch while their homes were destroyed, including the church. Shots rang out in the thin, cold air as the animals were slaughtered, bellowing in protest. Their carcasses were dragged to the buildings and they too were burned. A low wailing sound of despair came from the villagers who knew that in the winter they would starve.

  After half an hour a thick grey pall of smoke hung over the hillside and the smell of roasted meat filled the air.

  So intent had they been on witnessing the destruction of their homes that the villagers had not noticed the machine guns which had been put in place behind them. Gradually as they did, they fell silent. They moved closer together, perhaps for comfort, perhaps instinctively seeking protection. Mothers shielded their children. The quiet was eerie. Tension snapped in the air. The Hauptsturmführer commanding the soldiers glanced toward his senior officer, but Bergen did not acknowledge his look. He had given his orders earlier and saw no reason to repeat himself. Finally the command was given and the machine guns barked savagely.

  The sound of bullets could clearly be heard thudding into flesh amid screams and cries of terror and pain. Bodies twisted and fell, sometimes jerking on the ground where they lay, a pile of tangled limbs. The carnage was brief, the ensuing quiet emphasised by the single shots that followed as the Hauptsturmführer walked among the dying with his pistol drawn.

  It had taken less than an hour. The soldiers packed up their guns and climbed back onto the trucks, and the small convoy headed down the mountain road towards Sami, where fifty people had already been rounded up and were being held under guard on the waterfront.

  As the sound of the engines faded, silence returned to the hillside. The smoke began to thin. Nothing moved.

  Metkas stayed on Kephalonia after the attack on the ships at Sami. During the months that followed, the SS officer, Bergen, continued to take reprisals against the civilian population whenever the German forces were attacked. During these attacks, if one of the guerrillas was wounded and unable to walk, his friends, following Metkas’s orders, would shoot him to prevent him falling into German hands. Despite this, and despite Metkas moving camp every second day, he was almost captured on two occasions after wounded fighters were taken before they could be shot.

  Towards the end of the year, when it became clear that the Germans were losing the war, there were rumours that they would pull out of the islands. Metkas increased his harassment to hurry that day forward, but during an attack on a German convoy he and his men were ambushed. It was rumoured that he had been betrayed by the monarchists. Metkas was lucky to escape with his life. Most of his men were not. After that he could not stay on Kephalonia, and so one night he secretly took a boat and hid in the monastery at Kathara on neighbouring Ithaca. He quickly took control of the poorly-organised Resistance.

  It was Metkas who devised the plan to lure Hauptmann Hassel to his death. He wanted to take the garrison at Vathy and he decided to use Julia Zannas to make sure that Hassel was separated from his men.

  When Julia led Hassel away from the ambush, they returned to the armoured patrol car he had left in the village. Hassel had driven to Exoghi alone, as was his custom, leaving three of his men in Stavros where they relaxed, putting their weapons aside and unbuttoning their tunics while they sat in the shade outside a taverna. The owner of the restaurant brought them a jug of cooled wine. It was a hot day. The soldiers drank and talked. They were very young. They smoked cigarettes, made jokes and invited the owner to join them giving him cigarettes. Now and then he rose to refill the wine jug.

  In the kitchen, three men with guns sat silently at the table waiting for the appointed time. Whenever the owner came inside the smile would vanish from his face. He would look nervously at the others and tell them that the soldiers suspected nothing.

  The three men had risen from the table and were checking their weapons one final time when they heard a vehicle drive at speed into the square. They froze as orders were shouted in German, and then one of them crossed to the window and peered outside. The soldiers were scrambling to their feet, buttoning their tunics and grabbing their rifles, while below the terrace Hauptmann Hassel stood in his patrol car with a pistol in his hand.

  The man at the window turned to the others. ‘Something has gone wrong,’ he his
sed. The others crowded close in time to see the soldiers outside seize the owner of the taverna and drag him toward the patrol car.

  The men looked at one another questioningly. Should they rush out and attack the Germans now? Perhaps they might still carry out their orders, even though they had lost the element of surprise. But the men were not soldiers, and Hassel was already looking suspiciously toward the very window where they were hidden. In a state of uncertainty they watched as the soldiers bundled the taverna owner into their vehicle, and then it was too late. Hassel barked an order and the vehicle accelerated out of the square. The last thing they saw was the face of Julia Zannas as she looked back, her expression full of sadness and regret.

  The prearranged signal that Hassel had been killed was never received by the men waiting outside Vathy. Instead one small group waiting on the hillside above the road saw the patrol car speed past them towards the town, and they knew that Metkas’s plan had failed. Alkimos Kounidis had been among one of the several groups waiting for the signal to attack the garrison, by chance the one led by Metkas himself. When they realised what had happened, the men dispersed. Kounidis went with Metkas and several other men. They travelled north, following the secret trails throgh the live oak and broom, and climbed unseen to the monastery at Kathara where Metkas had been hiding for several weeks. There they waited for news while Metkas fumed. At that point they still were not aware of what exactly had gone wrong, nor that the taverna owner had been seized and taken to Vathy.

  It was dark when they heard the sound of shouting and the clatter of boots outside the gates. The Germans had left their vehicles on the road below and had climbed the last half mile on foot in darkness before surrounding the monastery. Some of the men managed to escape through the old passages which had been dug beneath the monastery walls centuries ago so that soldiers seeking refuge might escape the Turks, but Metkas and the young Alkimos Kounidis were not so lucky. Following a brief exchange of fire they were captured.