by Max Hennessy
That afternoon the Germans came over again and that evening they learned that a yacht taken over as a hospital ship and packed with Greek and British wounded, Australian nursing staff, and British, Maltese and Cypriot women and children had been hit and almost everybody on board had perished in a vast funeral pyre. Even the jetty had caught fire and the few survivors who had escaped had done so only by jumping overboard.
After a frantic day of issuing orders, withdrawing them, reissuing them, of trying by car and telephone to make sure they reached their destination, Dicken sank into an armchair to drink a cup of coffee, only to awake with a start to find he had fallen asleep and spilled the coffee on his chest. Babington was standing alongside him, his face haggard with weariness. ‘You’re wanted at Army HQ, sir,’ he said. ‘They’ve decided on a withdrawal and they’re having a conference on implementing their order for the evacuation. It had nearly ended when somebody noticed they hadn’t informed us.’
There were profuse apologies from the brigadier in charge but nothing from Diplock.
‘Why were the bombers flown to Crete?’ he demanded.
‘Because they were no use here,’ Dicken snapped back. ‘We’d only have lost them.’
‘Who issued the orders?’
‘I did.’
‘You didn’t ask me.’
‘You were never available.’
Diplock’s pale features reddened and, as he stared defiantly back at him, Dicken realised just how much he disliked him for his physical and moral cowardice. He had obviously been sitting on his plans because he hadn’t the courage to issue them.
‘There’s a great need for secrecy,’ Diplock snapped.
‘Why?’ Dicken snapped back. ‘The Germans obviously know our evacuation ports because they’re already bombing them.’
The meeting ended in confusion, ill temper and hostility, with the brigadier trying to cool hot words, and they spent the rest of the night drawing up instructions for the assembly of RAF men at railway stations the following morning.
The German attacks didn’t cease for a single day, and even as they issued their orders and repeated them by telephone in case they didn’t arrive, the Piraeus and the airfields were bombed again. But key personnel were by this time being flown to Crete and they started to burn confidential documents and destroy unserviceable aircraft and transport. It was less than a year since they had been doing the same thing in France.
Driving to the station the following morning to make sure the men were safely on the way, Dicken and Babington found the train they were expecting was two hours late and, after frantic telephoning from the stationmaster’s office, discovered there was a good chance it wouldn’t come at all.
‘Bab,’ Dicken said. ‘We’re wasting our time. I’m sending everybody to Argos by motor transport. And we’ll go with them.’
The next day he heard he was to be evacuated that evening in a Sunderland with the AOC, Diplock’s Committee, other members of the staff, the King of Greece and the British Minister. But, during the afternoon, he learned unexpected difficulties had arisen at Argos where, because of the bombing, ships were having to arrive after dark and leave before 3 a.m., so that it needed considerable organisation to make the best use of the few hours available.
‘We need a senior officer down there to organise things,’ the AOC said. ‘Accounts will let you have funds to hire caïques. The place’s too small for anything else.’
As they left Athens, the Greeks were lining the streets and, as the car stopped for the traffic, an old man climbed on the running board and kissed Dicken on the cheek. ‘You’ll be back,’ he said. ‘We’ll be waiting for you.’
The drive developed into a nightmare. The little towns were full of burning houses, bewildered Greek troops and confused columns of mules and bullock carts. Babington drove, while Dicken sat watching the sky, yelling to him to stop as the German bombers appeared, so they could dive for the ditches. A lorry just ahead went up in flames and a Greek transport column of mules was caught, so that they had to struggle past screaming animals and lopsided carts.
The road was narrow and twisting and the traffic jammed nose to tail for miles. Buses and private cars, Greeks riding horses or trudging along on foot, were all crowded among army transport and an occasional gun. The halts were interminable and every time they stopped the weary drivers had to be roused from sleep by cursing officers and NCOs hammering on their helmets with the butts of revolvers. The road was littered with discarded clothing, ammunition, harness, dead mules and horses, the inevitable sodden papers and office files which had been thrown away, and dozens of abandoned vehicles and requisitioned lorries from every province of Greece, side by side with British three-tonners, Italian tractors and mobile workships captured in Albania and now left to be returned to their original owners. Some were bogged down in ditches. Others were tipped at crazy angles into bomb craters. Others were burned or shattered by gunfire.
As dawn drew near they were unable to disperse off the narrow road and the port of Nauplia was almost impassable, so they decided to halt in the town. It was beginning to look as though Nauplia was becoming unusable, and eventually an officer, exhausted and depressed at the poor chances of getting any more men away, arrived to confirm the view. A Greek ammunition ship had blown up and the Stukas were using the flames to drop more bombs.
‘We’re hiding ships in small coves along the coast,’ the officer explained, ‘and taking the troops out by small boat from Nauplia Pier. I don’t think we’re going to be able to keep it up much longer because no ship’s captain will come near the coast in daylight.’
They continued to wait in a small bar where messages could be sent and finally a message arrived that Kalamata on the south coast might be used. When they arrived to check, however, they found hundreds of bewildered men bivouacking on a nearby airfield, around them the smoking ruins of all that remained of the British Hurricanes in Greece.
Four
Returning to Nauplia and sending 300 men and an officer to Kalamata to prepare for the arrival of the others, Dicken formed the rest of the men in a hollow square round him. There were almost two thousand of them.
As he explained what he proposed to do, he saw they were pleased to have a senior officer in charge. Their own senior officers had already left by air, followed by aircrew and specialists, and what were left were men from Stores, Accounts, Cyphers, Works and other non-combatant branches. Their officers were unused to command in a situation such as now faced them and the men knew it.
‘I’m going to try to get you to Crete,’ Dicken announced. ‘Whether I succeed or not will depend on you plus a bit of luck. I’ve already got men at the coast trying to find caïques and I promise you I shan’t go myself until the end.’
Keeping behind sufficient transport to get the whole party to the coast, he gave orders for the rest to be damaged beyond repair. Immediately the air was filled with the clang of hammers as engines were smashed, tyres gashed and chassis members cracked.
As he walked among the struggling men, one small airman looked up. ‘I never thought I’d enjoy anything so much, sir,’ he grinned.
Dicken turned to Babington. ‘Look, Bab, I want you to go down the Kalamata road with two hundred and fifty men and head for Gythion.’ He opened a torn map. ‘It’s here, south-east of Kalamata, and should increase the number of caïques we can find to take us across to Crete. We’ll follow you as soon as we can.
As the lorries began to roll away, a telephone call came from Kalamata. The men he had sent there had arrived and the officer in charge, not very long ago a mere stores officer, had managed to get them billeted in an empty brewery. ‘I’ve asked the port controller for ships,’ he said, ‘and he promises them in the morning.’
It was beginning to grow dark as Dicken organised the remaining men into groups, as far as possible under the NCOs and offic
ers they knew and were used to. The bombing of Nauplia went on throughout the night in spasmodic attacks, and as first light came, a Greek officer arrived to say he had commandeered everything he could.
‘I also have a coaster and a fast caïque arriving by evening,’ he said.
As they talked, the air raid alarm sounded and they heard a crackle of firing. Going outside, they saw a Sunderland circling above the red-tiled roofs of the town as it lined up for a landing in the bay.
‘Well, that can take away sixty bodies for a start,’ Dicken said. ‘Let’s have them down at the harbour. I’m going to find a boat to row me out.’
As he bumped alongside the towering grey sides of the flying boat, the pilot appeared in the doorway. ‘We got your Gythion party away, some with us, some with boats. We can take sixty men. We might even make it seventy. We’ll be back tonight. But at Kalamata not here. It’s no longer going to be safe at Nauplia.’
As the flying boat started its engines and swung into wind in the first light of the next morning, it had 87 men aboard, six of them in the lavatory. There was a slight lop on the surface of the sea that made the take-off easier and she headed south-east into the rising sun. Returning to Argos, Dicken found Babington hadn’t gone with the Gythion party and was waiting for him.
‘Thought you could do with some help, sir,’ he said. ‘The army’s on its way. Now that Nauplia’s out of action, they’re arriving in groups and wondering what the hell’s happening. Chap in charge is a Brigadier Beddington.’
Beddington was a tall unflappable man with a bony nose who had established his camp among the olive groves. He seemed unperturbed to find there were large numbers of RAF men in the vicinity.
‘We’re expecting the navy to send vessels in tonight or tomorrow,’ he said.
The news seemed too good to be true but Dicken continued with his own arrangements just in case. By dark he had three parties waiting by the jetty, one large one for the freighter the Greek officer had promised, a smaller one for the caïque, and one for the Sunderland. As the freighter came alongside the men began to file up the gangplank but the caïque didn’t turn up, nor did the naval ships Beddington had been promised.
The freighter had just disappeared into the darkness when they heard the drone of Bristol engines and they listened in the dark as the flying boat circled above him. They had arranged for a line of dinghies to lie out in the harbour carrying hurricane lanterns in a crude flare path and the Sunderland circled for what seemed hours. Then they saw a red Very light descend in a slow arc and, as it reached the water, the pilot throttled his engines back and they waited expectantly for the splash of the great machine sliding into the water. Instead there was a tremendous crash then silence.
Villagers began to appear and fishing vessels and rowing boats set off across the water to where they could hear the men in the dinghies shouting for help. Out of the whole crew only four were found alive, among them the pilot, a young Rhodesian flying officer called Cotter, who had a broken leg, a broken arm, broken ribs and a broken nose. As they were taken to the little hospital behind the town, he was profusely apologetic.
‘Sorry about that, sir,’ he said painfully. ‘It wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be.’
‘Never mind,’ Dicken said, bitterly aware that his resources were dwindling rapidly. ‘There’ll be others.’
‘That’s just it, sir,’ Cotter said. ‘There won’t. The navy’s growing worried and the Sunderlands have been taken off the evacuation for reconnaissance.’
The search for vessels started again with daylight. By this time there were thousands of soldiers in Kalamata and their morale had reached rock-bottom. Many of them no longer carried weapons and they were exhausted and half-starved after their long march south. A pall of defeat hung over them like a leaden mantle and their only hope lay with the navy. Many of their senior officers seemed to have given up hope and one brigadier even told Dicken he hadn’t bothered to organise his men because they were too tired.
It was a dispiriting interview but Dicken still had his men ready, properly organised in groups so that if the navy did arrive they could go aboard at once. By this time the hordes of soldiers had been joined by Greek, Cretan, Yugoslav and even Bulgarian civilians fleeing ahead of the Germans. They all seemed to have a great deal of money and a lot of them seemed unsavoury characters who appeared to be profiteers and crooks getting out of the country while the going was good.
Babington had managed to obtain two caïques and they placed Handiside in charge with armed guards and orders to shoot anybody who tried to take them over. As they returned to their headquarters in the harbourmaster’s office, the naval officer who was organising the evacuation turned up from the north. He looked exhausted but for the first time he had full information on what was to happen.
‘Jerry’s collared the Corinth Canal bridge,’ he said. ‘And the swastika’s flying from the Parthenon. They’ll be here before long.’
They sent for Handiside’s group and everybody was waiting by the water’s edge when the navy arrived. There was no indication of their approach but suddenly the piercing shaft of a searchlight came out of the darkness and lit up the mole. The waiting men immediately erupted into cheering, and morse signals flashed between ship and shore. Within half an hour two destroyers were berthing alongside, and the spirits of the waiting men picked up at once. There were three troopships in the bay which couldn’t get alongside, and the destroyers began ferrying at once.
Going aboard one of them, Dicken got off a signal to Crete informing them of the situation. As he waited for the reply he downed at a gulp the gin the ship’s captain offered him.
‘Better get below,’ the naval man said. ‘You can use my cabin.’
For a moment Dicken was tempted. His job was finished and he had no wish to be a prisoner again. But he shook his head.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘But I think I’ll stay. I’ve heard there are stragglers around Kalamata. I’ll need to get them away.’
The naval officer gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Sooner you than me,’ he said.
Standing on the jetty watching the destroyers pull away into the darkness, Dicken had never felt so much alone.
Next morning the bombing attacks started again. The olive groves began to burn and houses cascaded into the water, and Dicken and Babington spent most of their time dodging bombs or crouching in ditches as the Germans machine-gunned the place.
Beginning by this time to despair, they sent the rear party along the coast to Kandimili and, still sheltering in ditches and doorways as the bombs came down, arranged with the hospital for the injured to be collected. As they were doing so, to their surprise, they learned that another Sunderland was coming in that night and decided to get away those injured who could stand the transfer.
The flying boat arrived after dark without problems but with only one pilot because of the short trip across the sea and the need in Egypt for every spare aircrew. Leaving a boat guard of the engineer and a gunner, he arrived in the office Dicken had set up to see which of the men at the hospital could be transferred, and it was decided that they could all go but Cotter, who’d been too badly injured. They were helped into the back of a lorry and, returning inside the hospital to thank the staff, Dicken had no sooner turned his back when they heard the scream of a bomb. The blast blew him through the door and when he lifted his head the lorry containing the wounded was only a smoking crater fringed by bleeding bodies and fragments of flesh. Sickened, he lay his head on the side of the ditch and felt the tears starting in his eyes. There were no survivors and now they had a perfectly good flying boat and nobody to fly it.
As he clambered from the ditch, he heard firing and a soldier on a bicycle came tearing into the town to say the Germans had swept in and captured Beddington and the naval officer. Counter-attacks had cleared the lower part of the town but fighting was still going
on in the northern outskirts and with no naval officer to issue orders, the evacuation was starting to go awry. The destroyer captains had refused to enter the harbour because they had heard the Italian fleet was out and were afraid of being caught at a disadvantage, so loading was being done by rowing boat and it was painfully slow. Remembering the caïques on which he had placed guards, Dicken persuaded an officer in command of a company of soldiers to follow him to Kandimili. The soldiers were none too keen. As at Dunkirk, they assumed they had been let down by the RAF and grumbled and sneered at what they called the Bluejobs, the Riff Raff and the Rafwaffe. A few even began to sing a ribald ditty Dicken had already heard too often -
‘Roll out the Nelson, the Rodney, the Hood,
The whole bloody Air Force is no bloody good.’
One man blew up a rubber lifebelt. ‘This is all the bloody air support I expect to get,’ he said.
But the caïques were still there, still guarded by Handiside, and when they saw them the soldiers’ attitude changed at once.
Bottles appeared and cigarettes were handed round, and as they began to line up on the quayside, a small wrinkled soldier held out his dixie to Dicken. It contained pieces of cooked chicken.
‘Food!’ Dicken said. ‘Where did you get it?’
The soldier grinned. ‘It attacked us, sir, and we had to kill it in self-defence.’
There was no compass and nobody in charge of the caïques, but a wounded Cretan said he knew the way and, with a padre as helmsman for one of the ships, offered to lead them south. There was only a small group of them left now and, back at the hospital, Cotter listened as Dicken explained what had happened.
‘I reckon,’ he said, stirring in his bed, ‘that the rest of us had better use the Sunderland.’
‘You can’t fly a Sunderland like that.’
Cotter managed a grin. ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘But you can. It’ll have to be after dark because of Jerry fighters and we’ll have to make it a conversion course and first solo in one.’