PART ONE
Eve of Scobiemas
Greece, February 2, 1945
THE EAGLE continued its effortless wheeling and gliding far above them, like a spotter-plane safely out of range, as the last echoes of gunfire finished knocking from peak to peak below it. Obviously, the bloody bird had heard a machine-gun before, and possibly from the same godforsaken hillside. In fact, it was probably just biding its time, waiting for its supper.
‘Do eagles eat dead bodies?’ As Fred watched, another eagle swept into view. So that meant they bloody did, for sure, and years of war had taught them to steer towards the sound of the guns, with the prospect of succulent glazed eyeballs for an hors d’oeuvre.
‘Eh?’ Kyriakos had been busy studying the tree-line on the crest of the ridge above the path. ‘What was that?’
‘I said “So much for your bloody truce”, Captain Michaelides.’ Fred was conscious of his own as yet unglazed eyeballs as he stared reproachfully at Kyriakos.
‘You didn’t say that.’ The Greek transferred his attention to the track below them. ‘But … not my truce, old boy—your bloody truce.’
The track was empty, and the mountains were as silent as they had been before that sudden burst of machine-gun fire had startled them. And even allowing for acoustic tricks the sound had come from over the ridge, certainly; and from far away, hopefully; and possibly even accidentally? Some peasant lad shooting his foot off? Or impressing his girl-friend?
‘Not my bloody truce.’ A tiny green shoot of hope poked through the arid crust of Fred’s experience: when things were not as bad as they seemed that was usually because they were preparing to be worse. But this returning silence was encouraging. ‘I’m just a tourist passing through—remember?’
Kyriakos chuckled, and then coughed his smoker’s cough. ‘A tourist?’
‘You were going to show me Delphi, as I recall.’ As Kyriakos himself began to relax, Fred’s miraculous green shoot flowered. Back in Athens they had said that there’d be eagles over Delphi, so maybe it was just a welcoming party up there. ‘That makes me a tourist.’
‘If that’s what you wish to be … ’ The Greek shrugged. ‘But I was actually going to introduce you to Mother as one of our liberators. Just like Lord Byron, I would have told her—
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade—although I can’t guarantee any virgins locally, after having been away so long. But I do know that Father bricked up some good wine at the far end of the old cellar in the winter of ‘40. He knew what was coming, by God!’
‘I’ll settle for the wine.’ And this blissful silence! ‘What do you think it was, Kyri? A feu de joie?’
‘What for?’ Ever cautious, Kyriakos was scanning the ridge again.
‘Christmas Eve?’ To his shame Fred found the prospect of the temple of Apollo at Delphi insignificant compared with that of good wine and a soft bed, with or without an attendant virgin. But then almost anything would be an improvement on his Levadhia billet.
‘Christmas Eve? On February the second?’ Suddenly there was something not quite right in the Greek’s voice. ‘No—don’t look! Keep talking, old man—just keep talking—look at me!’
‘Yes?’ It hurt his neck not to look up the hillside. ‘What did you see?’
‘Perhaps nothing. I am not sure. But it is better that we do not both stare, I think. So … you were saying?’
Fear crawled up Fred’s back like a centipede. “There’s an outcrop of rock about twenty yards ahead, Kyri. We’d be a lot safer behind it.‘
‘Yes—I know. But we’re having a conversation, and we haven’t seen anything yet.’ Kyriakos brushed his moustache with heavily nicotine-stained fingers. Fred remembered that when he’d first seen that moustache in Italy it had been a well-groomed Ronald Colman growth, along the road beyond Tombe di Pesaro, on the Canadian Corps boundary. But now it had bushed out and run riot, perhaps symbolizing its owner’s own reversion to the traditional banditry of his native land.
‘It was a Spandau that fired just now.’ When he didn’t speak Kyriakos occupied his silence. ‘That’s an andarte weapon. And if they’ve got another one up there trained on us we wouldn’t get ten yards—if they think we’ve seen them. So … talk to me—wag your finger at me … as though you had all the time in the world—okay?’
‘Yes.’ But words failed Fred, even as he raised a ridiculous finger.
Christmas Eve! he thought desperately. It wasn’t Christmas Eve—it was February the second, not December the twenty-fourth: February the second, Anno Domini 1945, not December the twenty-fourth 1944! ‘Yes.’
‘Go on—go on!’ Kyriakos waved an equally ridiculous hand at him, as though to disagree with the ridiculous finger. ‘Talk to me.’
‘Yes.’ But, on the other hand, it was Christmas Eve, thought Fred. Because General Scobie had abolished Christmas Day, 1944, for the British Army in Athens: it just wouldn’t have sounded right for the British Army—the Liberators—to have carolled ‘Peace on Earth, and Good Will to All Men’ when they’d been busy killing their erstwhile Communist allies, with their 25-pounders firing over the Parthenon, and the cruisers and destroyers in the bay stonking targets along the Piraeus road, and the Spitfires wheeling like eagles overhead! ‘It’s the eve of Scobiemas, I mean, Kyriakos.’
‘Ah! Of course—I had forgotten! Scobiemas is tomorrow, of course! But we Greeks do not keep Scobiemas. Or Christmas, either—remember?’
Dead right! Fred remembered. And General Scobie had been dead right too, because the Commies had launched a midnight attack on the Rouf Barracks garrison, Christmas Day-Boxing Day, on the otherwise reasonable assumption that the British would be pissed out of their minds by then; whereas in fact, thanks to General Scobie, they’d been stone-cold sober and ready—and bloody-minded with it … also thanks to General Scobie, by God! But he had to talk—
‘I went to a party on Christmas Day, actually.’
‘You did?’ Kyriakos took a step towards him, turning slightly and draping a friendly arm across his shoulders. ‘I thought that all the parties were forbidden then—?’ He glanced sidelong, uphill.
‘It was for Greeks, too.’ Fred let the friendly arm propel him forwards along the path. ‘What do you see?’
‘Nothing … slowly now … for Greeks, you say?’
‘Greek children. Some 4th Div gunners gave it.’ Fred let himself be pushed towards the rocky outcrop. ‘I saw one little kid gobble up four days’ M and V rations all by himself.’ It seemed a very long twenty yards to the outcrop, at this friendly snail’s-pace. ‘And a couple of platefuls of peaches after that, plus a pile of biscuits.’
‘Yes. I heard about that.’ The arm restrained him. ‘But it wasn’t a gunners’ party—it was 28—Brigade RASC, Fred.’
‘Well, it was a gunner who took me along.’ They were getting closer, step by step. ‘But you’re probably right: trust the RASC to have the peaches!’ Fred shivered—slightly at the memory of the bitter wind which had chilled him before and after the party, as he’d helped the gunners find a position in suburban Athens free of electricity cables (which they had not been allowed to pull down; and there was the added problem of the Parthenon, high up and dead ahead, which had worried one classically-educated subaltern mightily) … but mostly it was the last three agonizing yards, shuffled step by slow step, which frightened him.
‘There now!’ Kyriakos released him at last, under the safety of the rock. ‘Home and dry—eh?’
Fred watched, wordless and fascinated, as the Greek slid a stiletto from his jack-boot and began to excavate a hole in the detritus beneath the rock.
‘There now!’ As he repeated the words Kyriakos fumbled inside his battle-dres
s blouse to produce a succession of documents—paybook, letters and military identification—which he then buried in the hole, smoothing the surface above them. And then, finally, he fished another collection of even more dog-eared papers from his other boot, which went back into the empty battle-dress pocket.
The power of speech returned to Fred. ‘What the hell are you doing, Kyri?’
Kyriakos grimaced at him. ‘Not Kyri or Kyriakos—“Alexander”—or “Alex”, for short … shit!’
‘Sh—?’ Fred failed to complete the obscenity as Kyriakos reached beneath his leather jerkin, first on one side and then on the other, to unbutton his epaulets, so that they each hung down over his arms. Then he flipped the stiletto and offered it to Fred.
‘Cut them off!’ he commanded.
‘What?’ Fred had already admired the smart khaki-green Canadian battle-dress which Kyriakos had acquired during his service with the British Columbia Dragoons in Italy: to rip that uniform, never mind the badges of rank, seemed a blasphemy. ‘Why?’
‘Cut them off—hurry up! Don’t argue, there’s a good chap.’
Fred hacked at the straps left-handed, clumsily at first, and then with greater success as the sharp steel divided the stitching.
‘Pull the threads out—go on—make a proper job of it, then.’ Kyriakos admonished him casually, yet the very gentleness of the admonition somehow urged its importance.
Fred finished the job as best he could, and he watched the Greek pick out every last shred of evidence. ‘You did see something—just now—didn’t you!’
‘Thank you.’ Kyriakos took the epaulets and the knife from him, hefting the epaulets for a moment as though weighing their rank. Then he bent down and opened the hole again with the stiletto, to add his badges of rank to his identity. ‘Our best intelligence is that this area is clear, all the way to Mesolongion. And we’ve got the gulf patrolled now.’ He started refilling the hole again. ‘The word was that the Communists were pulling back into the mountains north and south of it—they don’t want to be caught with their backs to the sea, come spring. Or whenever.’ He replanted a straggling little piece of desiccated greenery on top of his handiwork, and then bent down to blow away the tell-tale regularities left by his fingers. ‘But … ’
‘But?’ The Greek’s casual certainty that his civil war would resume its murderous course depressed Fred, for all that it hardly surprised him: the British had imposed the truce by overwhelming force of arms, but there had been too much blood-letting in those first dark December days, with too many scores left unsettled, for any compromise settlement to last—that was what all his better informed elders said. ‘But what?’
Kyriakos sprinkled a final handful of dust on the hiding place. Then he looked back at Fred. ‘But I think I want to be careful, just in case.’
‘In case of what?’ Fred resisted the temptation to answer his own question.
‘In case our best intelligence is wrong.’ Kyriakos showed his teeth below his moustache. ‘My friend, perhaps I imagined something … But if I did not, then they will most certainly have observed us. And now they will know that we are behind this rock. So—’
The Spandau on the other side of the ridge cut Kyriakos off with its characteristic tearing-knocking racket, only to be suddenly cut off itself by prolonged bursts of fire from first one, and then another LMG.
‘Ah!’ Kyriakos breathed out slowly as the knock-knock-knock of the answering machine-gun died away. ‘So now we know!’
So now they knew, thought Fred tightly. It was a familiar enough scenario, re-enacted endlessly in no different and equally hated Italian mountains these last two years: the rearguard or outpost machine-gunner getting in his first murderous burst, but then (if he was so unwise as to remain in his position) being outflanked or bracketed by the vengeful comrades of the first victims.
‘Brens, the second time.’ Kyriakos unbuttoned his webbing holster and examined his revolver. ‘So that must be our people, I would think—okay?’
Fred stared at him, conscious equally of the weight of his own side-arm and of his left-handed inadequacy. ‘Not our people, Kyri.’
‘No.’ Kyriakos replaced the revolver in its holster. ‘Not your people—our people. But that at least gives us a chance.’ He removed his beret, grinning at Fred as he did so. ‘Lucky I didn’t wear my proper hat. So maybe I’m lucky today.’
Fred watched the Greek raise his head slowly over the top of the rock, trying to equate luck with headgear. Unlike his fellow officers, who wore bus conductors’ SD hats, wired and uncrumpled and quite different from his own, Kyri often wore a black Canadian Dragoons’ beret, complete with their cap badge. But then Kyri was an eccentric, everyone agreed.
‘Nothing.’ Always the professional, Kyriakos lowered his head as slowly as he had raised it. ‘I think I am still lucky, perhaps.’
‘Bugger your luck!’ A further burst of firing, punctuated now by the addition of single rifle shots, snapped Fred’s nerve. ‘What about mine? This is supposed to be my Christmas Eve—I’m your bloody guest, Kyriakos!’
‘Ah … but you must understand that your odds are a lot better than mine, old boy.’ Kyriakos grinned at him.
‘They are?’ Somehow the assurance wasn’t reassuring. ‘Are they?’
‘Oh yes.’ The grin was fixed unnaturally under the moustache, the eyes were not a-smiling. ‘If our side runs away—your pardon! If my side withdraws strategically to regroup … If that happens, then the Andartes will outflank us here—’ Kyriakos gestured left and right, dismissively ‘—or take us from below, without difficulty, I’m afraid.’
Fred followed the gestures. There was dead ground not far along the track ahead, and more of it behind them. And they were in full view of the track below.
‘I know this country—this place.’ The Greek nodded at him. There’s a little ruined monastery over the ridge, which the Turks destroyed long ago. I have walked this path before, with my father, in the old days: it is the secret back door to the village which is below the monastery. So … I am very much afraid that our people have made a mistake—the same mistake the Turks once made: they have come up from the sea, to attack the monastery … if that is where the andartes are … when they should have come out of the mountains, over this ridge—up this path, even—to take it in the rear, and push them down to the sea … That will be some foolish, stiff-necked Athenian staff officer, who thinks he knows everything, as the Athenians always do.‘
The firing started again, this time punctuated by the distinctive crump of mortar shells—a murderous, continuous shower of them.
Kyriakos swore in his native tongue, unintelligibly but eloquently, and Fred frowned at him. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Those are three-inch—they’ll be ours. So our people are well-equipped.’
That didn’t make sense. ‘So they’ll win—?’
‘Too bloody right!’ Kyriakos swore again.
‘So what’s wrong with that?’
‘I told you.’ Kyriakos was hardly listening to him. He was studying the landscape again. ‘I know this place.’
‘Yes.’ The eagles were still on patrol, wheeling and dipping and soaring over the highest peak, out of which the ridge itself issued in a great jumble of boulders piled beneath its vertical cliff. ‘So what?’
Kyriakos looked at him at last. ‘This is the path the villagers took when the Turks came. Over this ridge—this path—is the only line of retreat. If our side is too strong … we’re rather in the way, old boy.’
The Greek shrugged philosophically, but Fred remembered from Tombe di Pesaro days that the worse things were, the more philosophic Captain Michaelides became. Then hadn’t we better find another spot in which to cower, Kyri?‘ He tried to match the casual tone.
‘Yes, I was thinking about that.’ Kyriakos turned his attention to the hillside below them. But it was unhelpfully open all the way down to the track along which they should have driven an hour earlier, happy and unworried—on
ly an hour, or a lifetime thought Fred. And that further reminded him of the Michaelides Philosophy: being in the Wrong Place … or there at the Wrong Time … that was ‘No fun at all, old boy!’ And now they appeared to have achieved the unfunny double, by Christ! But the unfunniness, and the patient eagles, concentrated his mind. ‘If you did see someone up there, Kyri … couldn’t he just possibly be one of yours—ours?’ He threw in his lot finally with the Royal Hellenic Army and the bloodthirsty National Guard.
‘Ye-ess … ’ Kyriakos shifted to another position behind the outcrop. ‘I was thinking about that, too.’
Fred watched him raise himself—never show yourself in the same place twice, of course; and the poor bastard had had a lot longer in which to learn that simplest of lessons, ever since the Italians had chanced their luck out of Albania, back in the winter of ‘40. But then he remembered his own manners.
‘My turn, Kyri.’ He raised himself—too quickly, too quickly—but too late, now! And he wanted to see the crest of that damned ridge for himself, anyway—
The surface of the rock midway between them burst into fragments in the same instant that the machine-gun rattled down at them, with the bullets ricocheting away into infinity behind them.
This time the echoes—their own echoes, much louder than those of the fire-fight over the ridge—took longer to lose themselves, as he breathed out his own mixture of terror and relief.
(“Missed again!‘ That was what Sergeant Procter, ever-cheerful, ever-efficient, always said, when he himself had been shaking with fear, back in Italy. ’If they can’t hit us now, sir, then the buggers don’t deserve to win the war—do they!‘)
‘That was deuced stupid of you, old boy.’ Somewhere along the line of his long multi-national service since Albania in 1940 Kyriakos had picked up deuced, probably from some blue-blooded British unit, which he used like too bloody right, a ripe Australianism, in other ‘No-fun’ situations.
‘I’m sorry.’ The ridge had been thickly forested on the crest, with encircling horns of trees to the left and right; so the machine-gunner’s friends would have no problem flanking this outcrop, thought Fred miserably. And Kyriakos had certainly observed all that already. ‘A moment of weakness, Kyri—I’m sorry.’
A New Kind of War Page 1