Rogue Justice

by Geoffrey Household

  I was conscious of an absolute blank in my knowledge of conditions. Ignorance was really no worse than at my arrival on the heights above Kozani, but since then I had become accustomed to a life not very different from that of a hunted man-eater, for whom the intelligence reports coming in through the five senses are enough. In order to escape or in self-defence I might have to kill Italians, but the overriding motive of revenge was no more. My private war was over.

  Movement at night was useless and during the day presumably dangerous. My next objective had to be the forests on the slopes of Pindus, through which with luck I could travel south-west towards the coast, and my immediate requirements were food and friends. In the heat of the early afternoon when all was quiet I started. Dressed as the poorest of country Greeks, I could have passed unnoticed if it had not been for the rifle and a belt still fairly full of ammunition. As it was, I had to do my best to see before I was seen. I was several miles from the village and flitting from cover to cover when I came to a cottage so screened by tall and ancient olives that I did not see it until I was too close to retreat. An old man suddenly appeared from a straggle of vines climbing the olives like tropical lianas and hailed me: ‘Come in quickly, friend!’

  He was not in the least afraid of the rifle, seemed to accept it as proof of respectability. I followed him into the cottage and was formally presented to his wife.

  ‘I bring you a true Greek, my lady,’ he said. ‘If I were thirty years younger, I would be with him in the mountains.’

  ‘And getting yourself shot by Turks!’ she retorted, having no use for heroics in husbands, but her own faultless, slightly oriental greetings to me also belonged to that period.

  As soon as I opened my mouth, they realized I was not Greek and I introduced myself as English.

  Welcome was more enthusiastic than ever and compliments flowed on my command of the language. Evidently I was one of the British left behind when the ships sailed away. How had I lived? Who had sheltered me? Had I joined the partisans? Had I wife and children?

  Answers could not be attempted without further answers which would be exposed as highly improbable. So I took the easy way out and claimed to be a prisoner-of-war who had escaped with a stolen rifle on the way to Germany. Ouzo, olives, salads and cheese were placed before me while this admirable wife turned to set the stove with onions and a chunk of pork. Sheer heaven, yet the old man apologized because it was all they had.

  In the course of the meal, wine and information flowed steadily. On seeing me armed, my host had naturally supposed that a band of partisans was nearby or that I was on my way to join them. Yes, partisans were in the mountains. The Italians seldom went out to engage them as they were so difficult to find, but if they entered a village and were given help it would be burned down. No, as invaders go, the Italians were not cruel. They had heard stories of the brutality of the Germans, but the Italians did not break into houses or shoot or torture; they had had enough of war and only wanted to be left in peace, though peace there would never be till Greece was free. And we, the noble British, had promised that it would be.

  They assured me that I could stay under their roof as long as I pleased. That was the voice of hospitality rather than of common sense. I discovered that patrols did occasionally do the rounds of the remoter farms and villages, and that this cottage in the heart of its little paradise of fruit and fertility would be only a pile of ash if I were caught. So I replied that I would like to stay with them for ever but that it was my duty to join the partisans if I could find them.

  In the cool of the evening I had a bath from the well, and after more wine the best bed. I thought that I should never get to sleep after so many nights on gravel or hard earth prickly with thorns from overhanging branches but the dark wine took effect and when I woke the birds were singing in the olives.

  The old man was out. His wife told me that he had gone to the village to find out if there were any rumours of a stranger with a rifle. This was only partly true, but since they had so pressed me to stay with them indefinitely it would not have been polite to say that he had gone to find a guide who could escort me to the partisans. Returning for the midday meal with bread and salami, he approached the subject obliquely and told me that by coincidence a friend happened to be leaving for the mountains that very night and that if I really insisted on joining the partisans there might not be another chance for some time. When I did insist, he and his old wife showed every sign of regret and none of relief. Christian charity or, as my Turkish general claimed, the fine manners of the Moslem?

  Dionysius, the friend, turned up after dark with three horses: two to be ridden and a pack horse carrying cheese and ammunition presumably stolen – if not bought – from the Italians. He was a real tough, brown and wrinkled as a walnut, and I felt he would prefer more proof that I was English than my word. For an escaped prisoner I should have looked filthier than I did. A sense of temporary return to civilization had induced me after my bath the previous night to trim my beard with scissors.

  After speeches all round, we set off, travelling fast to get clear of inhabited areas. Dionysius was persistent in questioning me. I had been right to think him suspicious. I knew very little about the British campaign in Greece, but fortunately he was only familiar with the fighting against Italians on the Epirus front and I found I could safely invent arms, units and a last stand somewhere in Thessaly where I had been taken prisoner. He told me a lot about the partisans, stressing their ruthlessness and how they cut the throats of prisoners and spies. I asked if their leaders were men of education. Yes, army officers, he said, but good revolutionaries too.

  We wound up through the forests and at dawn were high on a range far more barren than anything in the Carpathians, uncultivable and uninhabited. We rested ourselves and the horses out of the north wind – for the first time in Greece I felt cold – and while Dionysius snored I buried all Haase’s papers under a stone with thanks and a word of regret. It seemed to me that there would be little chance of using them later on to impress the Italians, who had only to communicate with the nearest SD headquarters to get the truth; and, if I were searched on arrival by the guerillas, it was quite likely I would have my throat cut before I was halfway through my long story of how and where I became Haase. I could not count on there being no German-speaker among those revolutionary officers.

  In the afternoon we reached the camp, admirably placed at the foot of a hillock from the top of which a lookout would have a view over the tree tops to the distant open country. The camp was deserted, ashes and dung scattered. On the ground it could be spotted but probably not from the air. Dionysius explained that the band were always on the move, either because they had reason to suspect an attack or because they were preparing a raid and wished to lie up nearer to the objective.

  We came upon the partisans at the head of the valley with a straight run down to a minor road which ran across the Pindus to the town of Yannina. They were about to attack an Italian post manned by a detachment of alpine troops who were becoming too skilful and well informed to be tolerated any longer. At first I was received with enthusiasm but then closely questioned by the leader. My account of the surrender of my unit was accepted and since I could not be caught out in my description of the country I said that I had escaped from the convoy of prisoners outside Kozani. Then what had I been doing for a whole year?

  If I had come upon the partisans in the course of my personal war, I would have told a different story nearer to the truth and including my kills and labels, but I had already described myself as an escaped prisoner to the old couple who had received me and they had passed the fiction on to Dionysius. I had chosen it when too exhausted for much thought. I should have remembered that in Sweden it had once let me down.

  The leader soon knew that I was lying. I was a deserter or a spy. But since I was English he would not have me executed there and then. My fate would be decided when they returned
from the present operation. Meanwhile I should have to accompany them and my throat would be instantly cut if I attempted to escape. I thanked God that I had got rid of Haase’s documents and that Ludwig Weber’s passport was tucked away in the lining of a boot. However, he did not bother to search me, knowing, I expect, that such a castaway as I would have no papers, incriminating or not. My rifle and the general’s revolver were confiscated and I was handed over to a partisan with a large knife in his belt and an unpleasant glint in his eyes.

  In the late evening, when it was considered that the enemy would be more relaxed than at dawn, the band was within three hundred yards of the road post and apparently undetected. A party charged straight for the Italian earthworks supported by covering fire which seemed to me an appalling waste of ammunition. I thought surprise was complete, for little fire came from the Italian defences. When it did come, it was from at least two heavy machine-guns out to the flank and well concealed in spite of bare ground. The Italians must have had warning of the coming attack. I had no doubt that if I were still present at the post mortem, which seemed unlikely, I should certainly be the first choice as spy or traitor.

  During the very short and decisive engagement my guard was killed and I was lying as flat as a man can make himself. The Italians came cheering over the ground and the partisans faded away, having lost a good half of their number. I stood up with my hands raised and shouted that I was German, which at least I could prove – if allowed to – by the passport in the name of Ludwig Weber. The bayonet destined for my stomach wavered to one side, and what with surprise and a loose stone the man behind it tripped. I helped him to his feet without attempting to relieve him of his weapons, and he excitedly took his ally prisoner.

  On my way to the commanding officer I had time to think up a story which could not easily be confuted. My immediate object was to avoid being shot out of hand – I had observed that no other prisoner had been taken – and to gain time. The Italian before whom they marched me was a pleasant young man who spoke fair German, not that it prejudiced him in my favour, rather the opposite. The imagination which had produced a brilliant defensive action was also inclined to ingenious fantasy.

  I produced the Ludwig Weber passport and claimed to be an expert road engineer, a civilian employed in Turkey, who had been asked to report on possible sources of first-class road metal close to the main roads used by the army. A possible though unlikely appointment which could not easily be checked with the SD or army staff. I followed it up with convincing details of how I had been captured by partisans.

  ‘Why did they not shoot you?’

  ‘I persuaded them that I was British, an escaped prisoner-of-war, and some of them believed me. I speak good English and so did they.’

  ‘But if you are German why did you join in the attack?’

  ‘I had to. The alternative was to be tied to a tree till they returned. But may I point out that I was not bearing arms and surrendered at once. I could have killed your man who took me. He will confirm it.’

  He summoned my captor, who did confirm exactly what had happened, and very sportingly added that we were out to the far flank near thick cover and that I had a good chance of getting away with the rest of the survivors.

  ‘To whom did you report before entering the Italian zone?’

  ‘I had no chance before the partisans grabbed me.’

  ‘And you expect me to believe that you were sent out alone to collect road metal?’

  ‘Only to report on the geology, sir.’

  ‘Not on our troop movements and administration?’

  ‘But I am a civilian.’

  ‘Who can speak Greek.’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘You Germans are not as frank with your allies as you should be. We will see what Yannina headquarters has to say to you.’

  To be suspected as an undercover German agent was an utterly unexpected turn. The only comfort was that it would take weeks of correspondence from army to army and department to department to find out who I really was.

  Next day I was sent fifty miles down to Yannina in a returning ration truck. I was under guard, but there were points on the road where I could certainly have escaped if I had wanted to. But to what would it lead? More days of semi-starvation without arms and without any object. Yannina at any rate was nearer the sea, and since so far I had been accepted as German it was unlikely that I would be under close arrest. There was no reason for despair.

  That night I was shut in a military cell but cordially treated, well fed and shaved. I became more confident that I could pass as a well-educated German wearing second-hand Greek garments to avoid drawing attention to myself. In the morning I was taken before a gross, sedentary staff officer content with his position and without any need to show two-fisted, virile cruelty in order to compensate for his fat. As he spoke no German and I no Italian, we settled on French. He started off by discussing the brilliant victory over the partisans, for which he undoubtedly intended to claim the credit. He went on quite genially to reproach my employers, not me, for imagining they could deceive Italians. His manners were excellent.

  ‘You are not as frank with your allies as you should be, Mr Weber. If you will allow me to say so, you Germans are ruining Greece by your policies. It is we who will have to administer the country in the end and all you leave us is starvation and hatred. And now you send in agents to spy on us. Do tell me what you want to know! Whether we have more divisions to send to Libya to be massacred?’

  I had no recent news of Africa. What I read in the papers before I left Berlin indicated that a large part of the Italian forces had been taken prisoner and that Germans would have to fight their battles for them. It was clear that the allies thoroughly disliked each other.

  I assured him that my interest was geology not garrisons. The roads were breaking up and it was no use tipping in any old stone if the right sort could be found near at hand.

  ‘Well, of course, Mr Weber, as a man of honour, you have to say that. But you have put me in a very difficult position.’

  I had. It was embarrassing to return a spy to allies and he was too human to report an unknown Ludwig Weber killed in action as the SD would have done. He must also have felt uneasy about that German passport. In the sensible Italian manner, he decided that when in doubt shift the responsibility on to a superior officer. Orders were given that I should be shipped under open arrest to Taranto, where there was an intelligence centre with experience of foreign agents and closer liaison with interallied affairs.

  I think the possibility that I might after all be British was not ignored; on the other hand, whether I was geologist or secret agent, the correct procedure was to hand me back to the German command with apologies and a courteous reminder that between allies there should be mutual trust. I was provided with a clean shirt and trousers and escorted down to Preveza, where a small transport was about to leave for Taranto with naval ratings going on leave and a few invalids from the army.

  There were three more passengers of dubious antecedents. One was an Albanian who had been a court official of the deposed King Zog and was a member of the Italian administration. In conversation with him I gathered that he was a royalist and that he had become involved with so many rebels, patriots, Greeks and Croats that he had lost his way among his own intrigues. Another was a Jugoslav colonel whose activities were obscure, but he had to be treated with caution because he was related by marriage to Mussolini’s mistress. The third was a slug-like official of the puppet Greek government in terror of his life even on board ship. He had, he told me, survived two attempts of partisans to assassinate him.

  We four problem children were allowed the freedom of the poop but at night confined in a makeshift deck house, like a large chicken coop, at the stern. I was able to enjoy the smooth and shining passage across the Ionian Sea without too much brooding over the professional intelligence organization whic
h would quickly discover all that I was not, but would have trouble in finding out from Istanbul exactly what I was.

  On the first morning out, when we must have been about fifty miles south of the heel of Italy, we were waiting for breakfast to be served to us – since the ardently fascist captain refused to have such scoundrels at his table and we were too respectable to mess with the humble passengers – when we were tumbled into a heap by an almighty explosion. The chicken coop slid backwards and plunged into the sea. I anchored myself to the splintered door and the Greek grabbed hold of my ankle. When we came to the surface the Albanian turned up near to us on the planks of his bunk. The Jugoslav we never saw again. All that remained of the ship was the bow section evenly sliding under.

  Our navy must have secretly mined one of the approaches to Taranto in the hope of sinking a battleship or cruiser, for the effect on our little transport of not more than three hundred tons was devastating. There were only a few bodies in the water and most of those mangled by the explosion. Little by little a few more, already drowned, came up from the depths. We three sitting on the shapeless roof of our deck house seemed to be the only survivors. The Greek was howling lamentations, though our raft was serviceable enough for the moment and he should have been singing. The Albanian with folded arms was playing the stern and silent mountaineer. I myself was coughing up water and already wondering what chance there was of being picked up by a British ship. I had assumed that as in former wars the Mediterranean was ours, not realizing the effect of aircraft taking off from Italy or that all our supplies and reinforcements for the Middle East were going round by the Cape for safety.