“That’s right. I was at school in Sussex. Roedean, actually. I loved it. When we came back to Greece in ’thirty-five I was seventeen, an awkward age to make radical changes. I had become almost English.”
Quick mental arithmetic put her present age at 22. He would be 25 in May. The balance seemed right.
For the benefit of the two other girls, whose English was hesitant, she began to speak Greek, looking at Denton questioningly to ensure that he understood.
“And do young Greek ladies have careers, Miss Pefkos?”
“For goodness sake, Geoffrey, call me Kathia. Yes, this one does. I work at the British Embassy. I’ve been there two years. My father made me do a secretarial course in London when I finished school.”
One of the girls was looking at her with envy and apparent admiration. She turned to Denton with mock exasperation and spoke in English.
“Lucky thing. We two haven’t been to London at all. Then she went to Germany.”
“How long were you there, Kathia?”
“Eighteen months. To learn the language well enough to take shorthand. My French was already good enough. So, you see, I’m a competent international secretary.”
“How did you like Nazi Germany?”
“Everything runs like clockwork.”
“And Mussolini got the Italian trains running on time for the first time in history. But that doesn’t compensate for the loss of the right to free speech. And the Germans can’t say what they like, either.”
“You’ve been there?”
“To both countries.”
“Of course. Squadron Leader Fry told us you speak the languages; and more. And incidentally I didn’t think the joke he made about it was at all funny.”
Denton wondered what she would have said about Fry’s description of her father’s champagne.
“That’s just Victor Fry living up to his own image of himself. He’s harmless.”
“I doubt if any of you four could correctly be called that: not when you’re dropping a load of bombs on the Italians.”
This, with its suggestion of heroics, was an uncomfortable subject. “Let’s talk about something else. Are you allowed out unchaperoned?”
All three girls laughed. Kathia said, in English, “I’ve heard of the indirect approach. This seems a good example. Is it tactics or strategy?”
“Strategy concerns the long-term objective. Tactics is how you achieve it.”
She raised her eyebrows. “So?”
“So what are you doing tomorrow evening?”
“Why not call for me at half-past seven and we’ll work that out together?”
*
Two days later the squadron Intelligence officer announced that the first contingent of a 60000-strong land force was about to arrive in Greece. Among this were the 6th Australian, the 2nd New Zealand and part of the 2nd Armoured Divisions. On 5th March they landed and from the air the squadrons saw them moving northward to the battle zone. The Australians and New Zealanders had fought magnificently in North Africa. The 2nd Armoured Division were newcomers. The whole body of British and Commonwealth soldiers and airmen in the desert had generated a proud and unique spirit of unity and family feeling. Together they had won their victories with a speed that had astonished the enemy whom they had driven out of Egypt and half-way across Libya. It was like a family reunion when the R.A.F. bomber crews and fighter pilots saw their comrades from the Western Desert beneath their wings.
The presence of the reinforcements did not quicken the tempo of the Greek campaign. The Blenheims still flew twice a day on alternate days. The opposing armies along the frontiers remained deadlocked. The only change the airmen noticed was an increase in the amount of flak as the Italians shipped in more troops: but they seldom lost an aircraft or suffered damage. Operations that March of 1941 became monotonous and eventually a bore.
Kathia’s parents appeared to do more than approve of Denton’s friendship with her, they evidently encouraged it. They were hospitable to the whole squadron, but Denton was often invited on his own. He often took Kathia out: sometimes with Ivens and one of the girls he had met at the first party, sometimes among a larger group, sometimes on their own.
Denton mistrusted his feelings. Kathia was certainly not, like Jean, looking for a rich husband. She had no need of one or to hunt for a husband at all. As the only child of prosperous parents she would always have enough money of her own. With her position in Athens society she had many young suitors from whom to choose. He was disconcerted when he realised that he was turning possessive about her. He asked her one evening about the young man who had stared at him so offensively the first time he saw her, at the taverna.
“That good-looking cousin of yours: is he the family choice?”
“For what?”
“For you to marry.”
She laughed and reached for his hand. “Don’t be a chump. He’s much too close a relation. D’you think I want inbred children with cleft palates or two heads? Anyway, he’s not my type: too heavy. I mean both literally and figuratively. He’s going to be gross by the time he’s forty, and he has no sense of humour. Why?” Her eyes teased him.
“You know perfectly well why. Don’t be disingenuous.”
“I’m sorry. You deserve better than that. And what about you? Isn’t there a girl at home?”
“No. Never has been. Just as well: I’ve been away nearly three years already and I won’t go home for another eighteen months or so. It’ll be at least four years, this tour.”
“Yes, I suppose you were young to think about marriage when you came overseas.”
“Couldn’t have afforded it, anyway. And the Service wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“And now?”
“I suppose I’ll get pretty quick promotion now there’s a war.”
“Haven’t you a girl in Cairo?”
“There was someone I was a bit serious about, a nurse who looked after me in hospital. But she got engaged to some non-combatant Staff wallah.”
Kathia patted his hand. “Poor Geoffrey. And silly girl. What were you in hospital for?”
He told her about being shot down and wounded and she was so sympathetic a listener that he found himself telling her about his mother’s illness and his eventual journalistic ambitions.
When he kissed her that night, for the first time, it was more than a physical pleasure; it was an expression of understanding and of mutual commitment which he had never before experienced. It was, at the same time, an intensely voluptuous sensation and he had only to shut his eyes afterwards, when he was alone, to imagine that he could feel her mouth on his. He felt himself carried away on a scented, subtly dangerous current and he had no urge to resist it. Instead he thought about the way her soft skin glowed in shaded lamplight when it fell on a bare shoulder or arm exposed by a summer dress. He heard in his imagination her soft, slow, musical voice, sleepy as she talked to him quietly with her head on his shoulder when they had been out and he was bidding her goodnight.
There were times when he put himself through a process of desperate reasoning, but that did not break the hypnotic spell under which he was falling.
*
Alarming Intelligence reports came from Egypt. German troops had arrived in Libya. Their commander, General Rommel, had struck at once and taken the Allies by surprise. In the middle of March he hurried his force to the front. British aerial reconnaissance revealed a large concentration of tanks. It was not until too late that Intelligence discovered that most of them were dummies mounted on Volkswagen chassis. By then, there really was a strong armoured force arrayed against the Allies. Meanwhile, following the British Government’s decision not to complete the conquest of Libya for the time being, the Allies’ position had been weakened. All R.A.F. squadrons, except one of Hurricanes, had been withdrawn to Egypt. The experienced 7th Armoured Division had also been sent back to rest and refit. The 6th Australian Division had been sent to Greece. The successful General O’Connor had been replaced by the novic
e General Neame. On top of all that, the Commander-in-Chief did not believe some of the information which indicated an imminent German onslaught. And Rommel had two fresh Italian divisions under him to augment his German troops.
The morning after Denton had first kissed Kathia and his predominant thought was about how quickly he could see her again, the news came that Rommel had attacked in North Africa. Three weeks later, on 3rd April, came the shock that angered and alarmed them: the Allies had evacuated Benghazi in haste. Despite the humiliation and feeling that their own earlier efforts had been wasted, the squadron were ironically amused when they heard that General O’Connor had been sent forward to advise his successor and both of them had been captured three days later.
While the R.A.F. and the Army in Greece were living in a fools’ paradise created by the Greek and British politicians, in the comparative quiet of their front, the Allies were being bustled right out of Libya and back into Egypt: leaving the garrison at Tobruk, that hard-won prize, surrounded and cut off.
Surely the outbreak of serious fighting in Greece must be imminent?
On 5th April the remainder of the British and Commonwealth contingent arrived. And on the following day the Germans attacked through Bulgaria and Jugoslavia.
On the evening of the 5th, while the last of the new arrivals were disembarking at Salonka, Wing Commander Nash, Squadron Leader Fry, Hugh Ivens and Denton were dining at the Pefkoses’. There was also a couple from the British Embassy with their 19-year-old daughter. Two English girls on the embassy staff and the Greek major general and his wife were also present. It was a champagne event: a brave display by their host and hostess, it seemed, to alleviate wounded pride over the loss of Tobruk and to welcome the British Expeditionary Force to Greece.
This was the day before the two British generals were captured and the Allied forces finally driven back behind the Egyptian frontier. Had the party been postponed by a day it would never have been held at all. Everyone tried to treat the defeat in North Africa as a mere temporary setback. They all made a great deal of the fact that there was now a strong Allied army in Greece. Nobody mentioned the inadequate size of the air defence. Late in the evening Kathia found an excuse to take Denton into the garden. They strolled arm-in-arm in the cool darkness. He slipped his arm around her waist and felt her tauten and tremble and he wondered whether she was as aroused as he was by the contact or merely frightened about the future.
“Geoffrey, you won’t do anything silly, will you?”
“Like falling in love with you?”
“I didn’t mean that. If it happens, it happens. I’ve never believed it’s an emotion one can control. I mean don’t take any unnecessary risks. I can’t ask you to be careful: that would be unrealistic. But don’t be stubborn and impetuous. All right?”
“Does my bad character show so obviously?”
She rubbed a finger on his medal ribbon. “You didn’t get that for being cautious, I know.”
Shortly after dawn the next morning the squadron were called from their beds. German dive bombers and tanks were attacking the northern frontier.
Eight
There were few topics outside flying that Denton ever discussed with either of the other members of his crew. Between himself and Flight Sergeant Butler there was the barrier separating officer and ranker which, for even the most informal officers, had many insurmountable obstacles to easy sociality. Between Critchley and himself there were wide differences of character and attitude. Although Critchley’s easy-going manner and promiscuous sexual habits amused him, he despised the latter as he despised any weak self-indulgence. He was honest enough also to wish that he could be as relaxed about life as Critchley: who, he knew, derived more fun from it than anyone he had ever known and certainly more than he himself had ever been able to extract. He did not think there was anything that Critchley took seriously, not even his acting career. The only exception was his job as second pilot and navigator. Critchley took that seriously because his life depended on doing it well.
Although the three of them had become so close-knit in the air, it was easier for Denton to share his thoughts with Hugh Ivens, who was a ready companion, than with either of his own crew. Perhaps it was because they were not together in the air, he supposed, that they could talk so freely.
A day or two earlier they had had a conversation which Denton recalled as he dressed hurriedly that morning.
“These last five weeks here have been so cushy: d’you ever have a feeling of inferiority when you compare the ops. we’re doing with the sweeps the boys at home are doing over France, Hugh?”
“You mean comparing the C.R. Forty-Twos with Messerschmitts? No. There were no M.E. One-o-nines or One-one-os in the desert either, and I don’t remember feeling inferior to the types at home then!”
They were sitting outside a cafe, drinking ouzo at the time, and it was the alcohol that had prompted Denton. They had been sitting there for quite a while.
Well, he thought, now they were about to find out about the Me 109 at first hand within the next few hours. They already knew all about it, except the most important thing: what it was like actually to meet in combat. With two 7.9 mm machineguns in the nose, a 20 mm cannon firing through the propeller boss and one more in each wing, plus a top speed of 350 m.p.h. and the ability to climb 3000 ft a minute, it was going to set them many new problems. The machineguns each carried 1000 rounds and each cannon 60 shells. One quick squirt with all a 109’s armament, say three seconds, was enough to shoot down a Blenheim if it hit the right spot. The best spot, of course, was the pilot. Denton felt slightly sick as he swallowed a cup of tea.
The German flak was more formidable than the Italians’, as well. The 88 mm guns which had been so devastating as both field and anti-aircraft artillery in France and the Low Countries were terrible weapons. The quick-firing 20 mm and 37 mm cannon, sited in clusters, took a heavy toll from low-flying attackers.
Wing Commander Nash, despite normal headgear, looked a little crazy when he briefed his crews that morning. The prospect of pitting his skill with a Blenheim against a German pilot’s in a Me 109 was evidently like nectar to him. His eyes were pink-veined: not from drink but with a lust for battle.
Critchley looked glum. He had become heavily embroiled with a plump, blonde, corn-fed secretary at the American Embassy who had her own flat and no apparent scruples about leaping into bed at the first encounter with any man who took her fancy. She had described Critchley to Denton as “Just too cute.” He knew what was in his observer’s mind: the Germans had interrupted an idyll and from now on he would be lucky to snatch an occasional hour with his mistress instead of whole nights a couple of times a week.
Flight Sergeant Butler wore his pall-bearer’s expression and chewed gum. He also had a girl in Athens. The Greeks showed their gratitude to the R.A.F. for their early arrival in their country in many ways. They smiled at them in the streets, gathered round them embarrassingly in public places, invited them home. Butler’s girl served in the family shop where he had gone one day to buy souvenirs. In the month that he had known her he had picked up a creditable amount of Greek. It was a respectful friendship on both sides. She was a respectable girl and a pretty one. Denton knew that his air gunner’s relationship with her could not have gone further than holding hands and a goodnight kiss. He suspected that Butler was more strongly attached to her than to his kindly N.A.A.F.I. girl in Cairo. He also would have less time for her now and for the good meals he ate at her parents’ table.
They had fighter escort for the first time. Six Hurricanes accompanied the eight Blenheims. It was Critchley who first picked out the Messerschmitts.
“Here they come, Geoffrey. Two-o’clock, range five, high.”
Denton leaned forward and glanced up obliquely to his right. There were three finger-fours, one behind the other. The Germans had learned, in the Spanish Civil War, that the best fighter formation was the pair. Two pairs abreast formed a line like the fingertips of an ext
ended hand. Denton glanced around for the Hurricanes, which were in two Vs. They were already heading towards the enemy.
More aircraft shapes detached themselves from the background of hills ahead of them and below.
Butler said “Dive bombers at twelve-o’clock.”
They could see the Stukas swooping towards the British positions and they could see the bomb bursts. Fires burned and smoke drifted. They saw tanks on fire; and the British had few enough of those.
The two fighter formations had joined battle. The 109s split into pairs. The Hurricanes attacked singly. A Messerschmitt side-slipped with flames sprouting from a wing. Then a Hurricane spun out of the fight with a scarf of white glycol smoke streaming behind it in twisted whorls. The German pilot was scrambling out of his cockpit, apparently snagged in some way and stuck, when his aeroplane exploded. The Hurricane pilot fell clear of his and they saw his parachute open.
Three pairs of Me 109s were heading for the Blenheims. The shape of them alone was menacing. From well beyond the range of the Blenheims’ guns, tracer bullets and cannon shells began to wink and to carve tracks that seemed to Denton to be coming straight at his face. The Blenheim on his left began to burn. The 109s dived past. The Blenheim’s crew began to bale out. The parachute of one of them did not open: it was smouldering. The wearer was the last man to emerge; obviously the pilot. Denton felt queasy.
Four Gladiators had appeared and were mixing it with the 109s. In a minute or two, two of them were shot down. One pilot baled out. A 109 caught fire and went into an inverted spin. Two Hurricanes were diving steeply, out of control. One pilot escaped.
A Blenheim exploded and fragments of it rattled against Denton’s aircraft. The four surviving Blenheims closed up and filled the gaps left by the other four. The sky ahead was filled with Stukas attacking the artillery, tanks and infantry along the front. As the Blenheims passed over the British positions, flak such as they had never seen before weaved a network of tracer trails and explosions that looked too small for any aeroplane to squeeze through. Another Blenheim disintegrated.
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