Wing Commander Nash was still leading, his aircraft seemingly undamaged. He tilted into a steep dive, followed by Denton and Ivens. A column of tanks swam into view and Nash made straight for them. His bombs fell accurately among the enemy. One Mk IV tank rolled onto its side, ablaze. Another slewed round and stopped.
Denton’s bombs fell and an 88 mm gun and its crew disappeared in small fragments amid smoke and flame. A tank brewed up in a mass of oily smoke. Two lorries were hurled onto their sides, spilling soldiers from their backs. Bullets and 37 mm cannon shells hit the Blenheim. Hugging the ground, Denton turned and headed for home at full throttle.
*
Kathia telephoned that evening.
“We heard at the embassy that there’s been heavy fighting. I was worried about you all day, Geoffrey.”
“We’re all right.”
“You sound tired.”
“I’m going to bed soon.”
“I suppose I can’t ask you how your squadron got on? If anyone I knew was ...”
“No comment, I’m afraid.”
“I understand. When can I see you?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Even if we can spend only half an hour together ... any time of the day or night ... I’ll wait to hear from you.”
“I want to see you, too.”
Six days passed in a blur of increasing fatigue and failure to stem the German advance. The enemy had thrust along three axes and the R.A.F’s air effort had to be spread wide and thinly. The German dive bombers and tanks tore great gaps in the Greek and British defences as both armies pulled back. The British bombers flew from dawn to dusk, pounding at the German and Italian tanks, infantry and artillery. The Gladiators and Hurricanes hacked away at the Stukas, Heinkels and Messerschmitts. There were no rest days. Each day more men and more machines were lost. Every time Denton took off he expected not to survive. They flew low to avoid fighters and to stay below the height at which the 88s could get them: but down there they were still vulnerable to the fire of the 20 mms and the 37 mms and of heavy machineguns. The German fighter pilots began to come looking for them below 500 ft. There seemed to be no escape, whatever ruse they adopted.
One afternoon there were only three Blenheims serviceable. The squadron was released until the following dawn. Denton telephoned Kathia at the British Embassy.
“Can I see you this evening?”
“Don’t let’s go out, Geoffrey. You sound worn out and Athens isn’t exactly gay at the moment. Besides, my parents would like to see you. Let’s dine at home and you can have an early night.”
He slept the afternoon away and still felt torpid when his batman roused him. He expected an atmosphere of depression in the Pefkos house, but there was instead a frenetic cheerfulness which he attributed to a brave pretence for his benefit.
Kathia’s father was as jovial as though the Allies had shoved the Germans back where they came from, Denton thought.
“Nothing like champagne for the weary, Geoffrey. It may seem in rather bad taste, but I assure you it is not a celebration. Champagne is a wonderful pick-me-up.
Her mother’s eyes sparkled and Denton wondered how much was owed to alcohol and how much to secret tears.
They plied him with questions about his welfare and about his comrades. They asked him other questions which he could not answer. They wanted to know what he and the others were going through and that was impossible to describe.
How could anyone convey the sheer terror? The 88 shells burst with their characteristic double concussion which sounded like an explosion and its instant echo. The 109s with their purposeful square wingtips and jutting pointed spinners came boring in, cannons spewing streaks of tracer long before the Blenheims could fire back effectively. The gunners behind the 37 mms swung the batteries of cannon in arcs that swept the air with a thick hail of shells of which any one could bring down an aircraft if it hit a vulnerable place. It was indecent even to think about these things in that quiet, elegant room.
When Kathia kissed him goodnight she said simply “Come back very soon.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow; sometime.”
*
But when he did call her it was to say that the squadron was moving to another airfield. He could not tell her where: not that it really mattered, for there were so few airfields in the country. He was certain, anyway, that she could find out at the embassy.
The squadron flew to an aerodrome in central Greece to be closer to the front and increase its daily number of sorties. It was bare and dusty in a barren countryside and they lived in tents. It still rained heavily from time to time and the ground became muddy. The roofs of the old wooden buildings leaked.
On their second day there the Stukas paid them a visit. The Ju 87s simultaneously attacked every airfield in use by the R.A.F. and the remains of the small Greek Air Force. They dived on Nash’s squadron while everyone was still at breakfast. The sirens on the starboard undercarriage legs howled maniacally, the bombs whistled as they fell, the earth trembled when they burst. The scanty ground defences, Vickers and Lewis machineguns, retaliated ineffectually. The Ju 87s came and went swiftly, leaving dead and wounded men, burning buildings and destroyed aircraft behind them.
The survivors filled in bomb craters and resumed sorties with what aircraft were left. They buried their dead. They took their wounded to already crowded hospitals. They cursed the politicians who had put them in this predicament. The air force was too small to defend a country which could not defend itself. The army was too small to keep the invaders at bay until reinforcements could be brought in. They cursed the politicians all over again for having wasted them here; when, if they had stayed in Libya, they could have helped the forces there to avoid the shame of being trampled on by Rommel.
That night Denton dreamed of Kathia and had a nightmare about Messerschmitts and Stukas and flak; about burning Blenheims and parachutes that did not open; about pilots being trapped while their crews baled out.
By the 19th April Luftwaffe raids on the airfields had reduced the British fighter strength to 22 serviceable aircraft and the bomber availability to little more. By then the squadrons had pulled back to Elefsis again and the only consolation in the whole chapter of calamity was the prospect of seeing Kathia soon. But that did not happen. Before Denton could find a moment to visit her the squadron was ordered farther south to the Peleponnese. He was as dejected by this disappointment as by the further humiliation of yet another backing away from the advancing enemy.
On the 23rd April the whole squadron paraded to hear a grim-faced Nash say “The whole British force here is starting to pull out tomorrow, to Crete. We’re taking off at o-ten-hundred.”
Butler whispered “Stukas permitting.”
Denton felt that he could strangle him. Then he reflected that the Germans would probably kill them both anyway before they were much older. Live and let live seemed an appropriate motto for as long as may be left to them. This sharp awareness of mortality doused his sudden flare of anger at the shame of yet one more admission of defeat.
They crossed the 100 miles of sea between the southern shore of the Peloponnese and the northern coast of Crete in half an hour. There were three airfields along this stretch of coastline, at Maleme, Retimo and Heraklion. They landed at Maleme, which would allow them the shortest range when they resumed their bombing of the mainland.
From the moment that Denton had heard his squadron commander announce the removal to Crete his thoughts had kept returning to Kathia. He knew that they had taken the penultimate step in what could only end in a withdrawal to Egypt. He worried about her family’s safety and welfare under Nazi occupation. He was full of sadness because he could hardly expect ever to see her again. If he did, it would be far in the future and by then he would surely have lost her to someone else. His most troubling thought was that the Germans would surely be particularly hard on anyone who had worked for the British.
On the day after the Blenheims landed in Crete
the last of the fighters arrived: four Hurricanes and three Gladiators. The Blenheims resumed their bombing of the mainland. Three days later, the 27th April, the Germans marched into Athens. Still the bombing continued and the British and Commonwealth troops kept up their fighting withdrawal. On 1st May the last of them were evacuated.
An army of 28600 British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers, with about the same number of Greek troops, now held Crete with what was left of the air component: a dozen or so bombers and seven fighters. They waited for the Germans to attack by sea and in the meanwhile the Blenheims harassed their mainland airfields.
The Royal Navy controlled the sea and the enemy dared not venture across it. Instead the invasion came from the direction in which the Allied Commander on Crete, General Freyburg, V.C., had assured both his forces and the British Prime Minister that it could not possibly come. Churchill had warned of a possible attack by air. Freyburg had signalled back “Cannot understand nervousness. Am not in the least anxious about airborne attack.”
At 0800 hours on May 20th, 3000 German paratroopers descended on Crete.
It was a fine, clear, bright morning. Junkers 52 transport aircraft appeared in the sky above Maleme. The defenders saw the paratroops jumping and their parachutes opening as they came down so near the airfield that its immediate capture seemed unavoidable. The pilots and crews ran to their aircraft to take off and try to shoot down some of the Ju 52s before they disappeared out of range. Even a Blenheim could shoot down those slow, big machines. Nash and Ivens were the first two airborne but Denton managed to get off the ground in time to catch up with the last of the Ju 52s some ten miles offshore. He flew straight at the rearmost one and opened fire with his front gun, aiming for the cockpit. The aircraft dipped into a vertical dive and hit the sea with a highly satisfactory splash, then sank. One more Ju 52 was close enough to catch. Butler gave it a burst in one engine to slow it down still more, then poured hundreds of rounds into the cockpit and fuselage until it caught fire.
The Germans did not succeed in capturing Maleme airfield that day, and in the evening the squadron moved west to Heraklion. During the day the enemy had doubled the numbers of their force by parachute and glider, and dropped supplies and weapons. On the second day Maleme airfield fell and from then on Ju 52s were able to land there and speed up the reinforcement and supply.
The invaders came much better equipped than the defenders. The latter were supported by 30 light anti-aircraft guns, 30 obsolete light tanks, 20 cruiser tanks which were almost worn out and a few field guns and mortars. Their radio equipment was inadequate for the maintenance of effective communications. But 10000 Cretan civilians took up arms and joined in the defence, marauding, ambushing, sniping and generally harrying the attackers, then melting away into their native hills before the enemy could catch them.
The two remaining airfields in Allied hands were under constant attack. On the fifth day after the airborne invasion the last five Blenheims of Nash’s squadron were airborne, pretending to be fighters yet again. They were still climbing when they saw six Hurricanes approaching from the south. They had been told that these were coming from Egypt that morning: a miserly gesture, Nash had said, not worth the waste of petrol and engine hours. It proved to be even less worth making as the Blenheim crews saw the reception the British anti-aircraft gunners gave them. They were so nervously overwrought and their aircraft recognition was so bad that they opened fire on the Hurricanes. Before these could break they were caught in a flurry of bursting shells. One blew up and another came spiralling down on fire with its whole tail unit shot away. Its pilot did not bale out. The other four scattered. They carried auxiliary tanks which gave them a range of 960 miles: so they turned right round and returned whence they had come.
Some Ju 52s were approaching Maleme. Allied troops were still occupying positions around the town and trying to regain possession of the airfield by a succession of counterattacks. The Blenheims opened fire on the nearest Junkers and saw their bullets hitting it. Two Me 109s dived on them out of the sun and Denton broke off his attack to take violent evasive action. Cannon shells exploded in both engines and one stopped with a howl and a juddering that wrenched it partly away from its mountings. The Blenheim began to slump and wallow, then to sideslip. The other engine emitted a puff of dense smoke and the propeller began to windmill. One of the 109s fired a final, unnecessary burst.
“Bale out! Be quick.” Denton gave Critchley a shove. He could not tell whether or not the intercom was working.
Critchley paused, his lips trembling and his face ashen.
“Come on, Geoffrey.”
“Get on with it ... make sure Butler heard the order.”
“Come ...”
“Hurry, blast you.”
The aircraft was in a dive that Denton could not correct. He watched the altimeter unwind and counted the seconds with a burning sensation in the pit of his stomach. He felt a tap on the shoulder and jerked around angrily. Both Critchley and Butler were peering at him, both trying to grin.
“Piss off, for God’s sake.”
They went and a moment later he heaved himself out of his seat and struggled to the hatch against the centrifugal force generated by the gyrating aircraft.
He could see the other two parachutes floating down. He could also see tracer fire slashing at them; and, he realised with a jolt, at himself. He felt a stinging pain in his left leg. Looking at it, he saw blood running down it.
He hit the ground clumsily and hard and all the breath was pounded out of him. He was on a hillside and near a road. Fig and carob trees stood around among wild flowers. He was glad he had not hit one of the trees. Some goats came and stared at him and he swore at them to relieve his feelings. He put an emergency dressing on his wound, which was throbbing and hurting badly. With the sun beating down on him, he struggled to stand but could not. He began to crawl towards the shade of the nearest tree. He felt weak and his whole body was trembling from shock. He felt thirsty and his parched throat began to hurt. He could not control the shaking and despite the heat and the fact that exertion was making him sweat, he felt very cold.
The goats scampered away and he heard lorries grinding up the hill and saw them come round a bend in the road. He waved and tried to shout. He managed only a croak but the men in the lorry had seen him. They stopped. There were four vehicles, all bearing New Zealand insignia. Two men came running towards him. He wondered how far away Butler and Critchley had landed. He hoped they had not been killed by machinegun fire on the way down. He hoped they had not fallen into enemy hands.
The two New Zealanders hauled him upright and supported him as he hopped along on one leg.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To Spakia, to be evacuated.” This was a small port on the south coast.
“Are we getting out altogether?”
“’Fraid so. Bloody shame. We were holding the bastard Jerries all right at Retimao and Heraklion. If we could get decent reinforcements we could kick Jerry right back into the sea.”
They helped him into the leading lorry, which was already crammed with troops, many of them wounded, who had to clear a space where he could sit. Ten minutes later they heard the shriek of a Ju 87’s siren and a bomb burst close ahead. The lorry braked with a jerk on the edge of the crater in the road. There was a lot of shouting and swearing and men began to jump out as the three other lorries also stopped hurriedly.
Four battered light tanks of the 3rd Hussars came clanking across the side of the hill. After a short discussion between the tank commander and the New Zealand captain in the cab of the leading lorry, the men climbed aboard again and the lorries followed the tanks along a track winding among the trees.
They reached a road again presently and lumbered along it slowly. The surface was pitted with holes. Mortar shells began to explode around the lorries and tanks. An anti-tank gun boomed and Denton, clutching the tailgate of his lorry and peering out, saw one of the light tanks stop wit
h one of its tracks torn off. The gun boomed again ... and again. A tank went up in flames. Another began to tumble down the slope.
Men in field grey darted among the rocks and trees beside the road. More mortars dropped their bombs around the vehicles. Two lorries caught fire. Men began to scream as they were being scorched. The stench of burning flesh drifted on the clean air. Bullets tore through the canvas tilt above Denton’s head. Men around him were returning the enemy’s fire, they were being hit, they were dying and they were shouting curses and defiance and yelling in pain when they were hit.
German helmets above the tail board. A pile of men lay dead and dying around Denton. The survivors put down their rifles.
“Hände hoch!”
Denton groaned. “You damned fool ... none of us can raise a hand ... we’re all badly wounded in here ... can’t you see?”
The German whom he had called a damned fool clambered into the lorry and kicked him in the ribs; twice.
Nine
When Critchley baled out of the Blenheim he expected never to see Denton again. The aeroplane was in a dive with all the control surfaces damaged or jammed. No pilot could pull it out of its fatal plunge. As soon as Denton left his seat to make for the escape hatch the Blenheim would begin to spin. Critchley hesitated before leaving the aircraft because, irrationally, he felt guilty. He felt that if he stayed he could help Denton to get out and that, anyway, he ought not to desert him or the aeroplane because of some indefinable sense of duty. He also felt that he ought to set an example to Flight Sergeant Butler. In fact, he was endangering Butler by his delay.
He knew that Denton would not attribute any of the right motives to his reluctance to bale out. Denton would think that he was scared of committing himself to a drop through space and the risk that his parachute would not open. And Denton was perfectly right! Critchley admitted his fears to himself although he would have denied them to anyone else even if he were very drunk. He was aware that Denton did not hold him in much esteem. Not that he cared a damn. He didn’t hold Denton in high regard either. Denton took life too seriously, in his opinion. The chap had a sense of humour, but it was different from his and anyway Denton was essentially a loner whereas he was highly gregarious. He further admitted to himself that he resented having to serve on as an observer instead of being given an aircraft captaincy. Had he been on a home squadron, there would have been enough of the newly trained observers available to allow him to return to full-time piloting. That did not help to improve his attitude to Denton.
The Eagle's Cry Page 12