Daphne put the lid back on a jar of sulfa powder and, when she could trust herself to speak, said, ‘How can I leave Crete without knowing what’s happened to Kate?’
He stared at her in stupefaction. ‘What the devil are you talking about? According to Lewis, Kate was at the museum when the invasion started, and presumably – if she’s not here at the Villa – then she’s still at the museum.’
‘She isn’t. Yanni, a member of the Kalamata dig, has been there to check up on her. She left the museum shortly before the invasion started, and no one has had any news of her since.’
‘What about Lewis?’ He put his injured arm back into its sling. ‘Surely he knows where she is?’
‘The last news we had of Lewis – and again it was Yanni who gave us it – was that he left Heraklion with Adonis yesterday morning, saying he was going to Brigade Headquarters.’
Sholto said an ugly word beneath his breath. The one person he needed to be in touch with, when the island was about to be handed into German hands, was Lewis.
They were standing facing each other, only inches apart, and as Daphne waited for him to make some belated gesture of marital affection, Sholto simply said, ‘Whether or not you have news of Kate, you will be aboard a Royal Navy ship when the evacuation fleet sails for Egypt. Is that understood, Daphne?’
To his stunned amazement, she didn’t defy him. Despite her anxiety about Kate, she’d known when Sholto had been telling Sam of how Allied troops were about to be taken off the island, and the island left in the hands of the Germans, that although Ella would most definitely stay behind – and that much as she herself wanted to stay behind with her – she couldn’t do so. She had Caspian to think of.
When she had left Caspian in his nanny’s and Mrs Hutchinson’s care, she had done so confident that during the battle for the island her nursing skills would be desperately needed. She had truly believed that the battle would be over within a week, with the outcome proving to be a catastrophe for the Germans; and that, her conscience clear at having performed valuable war work, she could leave for Egypt and a reunion with Caspian.
The situation now was far different. If she stayed behind now, it could be years before she saw Caspian again – if, indeed, she ever saw him again. Sholto was quite right. This time she had to leave.
His relief at Daphne’s response was obvious, but he didn’t hug her fiercely with his one good arm, or kiss her passionately. It was as if between them all passion had been spent – except that it wasn’t all spent, as far as she was concerned.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, direct as always. ‘You’re not still mad at me, and trying to punish me for disembarking the evening before the invasion, are you?’
‘For disembarking and leaving my two-year-old son in the care of an elderly lady and a nanny?’ His sarcasm cut like a whip. ‘For hoping – only hoping, mind you – that when the three of them reached Cairo, a friend of yours would then assume responsibility for him? For my not knowing for a certainty who the hell is looking after him, in a city that could still fall any day to Rommel and his Afrika Korps? No, I’m not still mad, Daphne. I’m appalled, disillusioned and as furious as hell – and if you think it’s altered the relationship between us, then of course it has! How in the name of all that’s holy could you expect it not to?’
The ground felt unsteady beneath her feet. She had anticipated Sholto’s anger, when he first realized what it was she had done. What she hadn’t anticipated was that it was anger that would endure – anger that would alter the very fabric of their marriage. Given the choice, though, even if she’d known the price to be paid, she knew she would still have acted as she had. For the last six days and nights her organizational and nursing skills had made the difference between life and death for countless numbers of badly injured men. For once in her life she had been truly needed, and for that she regretted nothing.
He said, ‘I have to report back to Brigade Headquarters. I can give you a lift into Heraklion.’
‘Thank you, but no. I’ll leave here when everyone else who is to be evacuated leaves.’
He slid one arm into his jacket, leaving the other sleeve hanging empty. She was about to ask how he was going to manage to drive, and then remembered that he had driven himself to the Villa when he had not only been injured, but delirious.
‘Will I not see you again until the war is over?’ she said, aching for Sholto to pull her close to him and hold her tight.
He said, all anger and sarcasm gone, ‘You know my orders, Daphs. If Crete is occupied – and it’s only hours away from being so – I must remain on the island to organize a resistance movement. What the outcome of that will be, I have no idea. It’s possible I may find myself in Cairo before this bloody war is over, but whether I do, or don’t, and no matter what the circumstances are, I expect Caspian to be your primary concern – and I want your solemn word that he will be.’
‘He will.’ Her throat felt very tight. Just the sight of Sholto in army uniform was bizarre enough, but the sight of him in an army uniform streaked with dried blood, a pistol at his hip, his hair rumpled and untidy, was so bizarre as to be surreal.
She sensed his thoughts were already elsewhere and that he was about to turn and leave her. Unable to bear the thought of him doing so without their having had physical contact, she closed the narrow gap between them, hugging him tight.
‘Stay safe, darling,’ she said thickly, his jacket rough against her cheek.
‘And you, Daphs.’ She felt him kiss her hair. ‘It isn’t likely to be an orderly evacuation. There are too many men to be boarded and too little time to do it in. You’ll need to have your wits about you.’
‘I always have.’
‘That’s true.’ There was something approaching a wry chuckle in his voice and then he strode away from her – out of the room and out of the Villa.
For a few brief seconds she covered her face with her hands, struggling for composure. He had at least parted from her with affection, but it wasn’t affection she wanted from him. She wanted deep passion and utter commitment – things he now seemed unable, or unwilling, to give her.
With a hurting heart she made her way back to a ward that might very soon be a ward no longer. The important thing now was to ensure that as many wounded men as possible reached Heraklion, and that any watching Germans remained oblivious as to the reason why.
Plaster Room shifts were always long and it was evening before Ella came off-duty, to the news that there was to be an evacuation of all Allied troops on the island.
‘Sholto Hertford gave us the news unofficially several hours ago,’ Sam said to her, grim-faced, ‘and thanks to him, although news officially came through only minutes ago, all our walking wounded are already in the process of leaving. Navy ships will be coming in under cover of darkness at eleven-thirty tonight, and the departure deadline is two forty-five. Any later and the fleet will still be in the Aegean when the sun rises and Jerry bombers and Stukas are on the move. It means there’s going to be very little time for upwards of three thousand men to embark.’
Ella stared at him dazedly, trying to take in the enormity of what he was telling her.
‘Does this mean we’ve surrendered, Sam? But why? I thought the Germans were as good as beaten. We still have control of the airfield, don’t we? And the harbour?’
‘We do and, according to Sholto, so does Réthymnon, but Maleme and Canea have been overrun and the Jerries have gained control of Suda Bay.’ His boyish, fresh-faced good looks were a thing of the past. His face was grey with weariness, disillusionment and, Ella realized, barely suppressed anger as well.
It was anger she understood.
The Allies had given a solemn promise to defend Crete, and it was a promise they had failed to keep. What would happen to the Cretans now? What would happen to Kostas and Eleni? To Andre and Agata and all her other friends in Kalamata? Fear hit her stomach in a sheet of ice. What about her own little family? What about Christos and
Kostas Alfred?
Sam said, ‘As many of the other wounded who can be are about to be moved down to the harbour. Non-Cretan nursing staff, and that includes you and Daphne, will accompany them.’
‘Of course.’ That the men would need to be accompanied to the harbour with as many qualified and non-qualified nursing staff as possible made absolute sense.
Her easy acceptance that being evacuated would mean leaving her young son in the care of her Kalamata friends seemed more than a little odd and, not knowing quite what to make of it, he said reassuringly, ‘You may not be separated from Kostas Alfred for too long, Ella love. And being in a mountain village far away from the coast and towns, he’s bound to remain safe. I can’t see Germans bothering to occupy somewhere as hard to get to as Kalamata.’
She stared at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. ‘You can’t possibly have imagined that I would leave with the wounded for Egypt?’ At the utter disbelief in her voice, Sam’s heart sank like a stone. ‘How could I, when in the timeframe for the evacuation I couldn’t possibly get to Kalamata and back in daylight, let alone in darkness, and that would be if I was doing so through a countryside free of Germans – which it isn’t!’
‘Daphne is happy to be evacuated . . .’
‘Well, of course she is!’ Ella was so exasperated with him that she could have boxed his ears. ‘Daphne is going to be reunited with her child. She isn’t going to be leaving him behind. Quite honestly, Sam Jowett, for an intelligent man you can be very stupid at times. Of course I’m not going to be evacuated.’
Sam hung on to his patience with difficulty. ‘You’re British, Ella. For how long do you think you’re going to remain free, once the evacuation fleet has left? You’ll be arrested and you won’t be spending the war with Kostas Alfred. You’ll be spending it in a prisoner-of-war camp.’
‘No, I won’t.’ Her green cat-eyes flashed fire. ‘I speak Greek and if I cover my hair – and every Cretan woman on the island, apart from Nikoleta, wears their hair covered – I can pass for a Greek.’
He gritted his teeth. ‘I can see the impossibility of you being able to reach Kostas Alfred in time to be able to take him with you, but as he’s being well cared for, surely your husband would prefer that you were evacuated, rather than constantly running the risk of being interned – and most likely, because of your sex, being interned not in Crete, but in a women’s prisoner-of-war camp in Germany?’
‘I won’t be arrested and interned.’
He’d forgotten how infuriatingly obstinate she could be and, recognizing that nothing he could say or do would change her mind, and that he had urgent work to do in the next few hours, he said despairingly, ‘Okay. So be it. From now on we’re unlikely to get another chance to say a private goodbye, so it’s best we say it now.’ His voice was thick with emotion. ‘Take care of yourself, Ella love. God bless.’
Only then did it dawn on her that, as an army medical officer, Sam, too, would be leaving with the rest of the troops. It was like being struck by a thunderbolt. Suddenly she realized just how much his dear familiarity and quiet strength had meant to her over the last stressful few days. She also thought of the high likelihood of the evacuation fleet coming under heavy enemy attack.
As if reading her mind – and not wanting to admit how much her concern for him meant to him – he said gently, ‘Don’t worry about the safety of the fleet. We’ll be leaving, sailing and arriving in complete darkness.’ And then he was gone, striding off to bring about whatever order was possible.
At nine-thirty the convoy that had been assembled moved off in the direction of Heraklion. Ella and Daphne were up front, in a truck that Ella was sure was the dig’s much-loved Sally. The darkness had been too thick for her to know for certain and they were travelling without lights.
The officer from the Yorks and Lancs who was driving them said chattily, ‘Don’t worry, ladies. Embarking in Heraklion is going to be a piece of cake. We can think ourselves lucky we’re not among the thousands of poor devils who were stationed in Canea, Maleme and Suda. They have to leave from a harbour on the south coast – and are having to make a route-march over the White Mountains to get to it. From what I’ve heard, it’s a trek that will take days, and they’ll most likely be under German air attack the whole way.’
Daphne’s thoughts weren’t on the defeated troops: they were on Kate.
‘Where on earth can she be?’ she whispered fiercely to Ella as the truck approached Heraklion’s outskirts. ‘I can’t believe I’m going to be leaving without knowing where she is, and what’s happened to her.’
‘As Lewis is out of contact as well, perhaps the two of them are together.’
‘Even if they are, it still doesn’t answer the mystery as to why they haven’t been seen or heard of for three days.’ She left unsaid the terrible fear that perhaps they had been killed in one of the many reprisal air strikes the Germans had launched on the town since their failure to take it. What she couldn’t leave unexpressed were her anxieties for Ella.
‘You can’t remain at the Villa Ariadne, hoping the Germans are going to run it as a field hospital for their own troops and that the Allied troops who couldn’t be moved will continue to be treated, too. At a distance, you might pass as a Cretan if you dress as one, but close day-to-day contact would find you out.’
‘I know.’ They were driving through the Jesus Gate. It had been fought for by Heraklion’s citizens with as much desperate courage as had the Canea Gate. ‘When things have settled down a bit, I shall make my way to Kalamata. Until then I’m going to stay with Kostas and Eleni and do my best to look, and act, as if I’m their biological daughter, not a British daughter-in-law.’
‘Stay indoors. Don’t even go outside to collect eggs.’
Ella didn’t respond. Even though it was dark and there were few lights, the devastation wrought on the city by the bombing raids of the last few days was glaringly obvious. Ruined houses, their fronts blasted to smithereens, stood gauntly along streets running with polluted water from burst sewers. In some shattered buildings fires still smouldered. Occasionally she saw German dead in the streets, still waiting for burial. A dog was scavenging among the bodies, and in the eerie glow from the fires Ella was reminded of a medieval painting of hell.
On a quay littered with the wreckage of bombardment, a British sense of order had blessedly imposed itself. It may have been the congregating point for three and a half thousand men, but they weren’t defeated men in the accepted sense. They had fought with grim tenacity and had held the ground they had been given to defend. If they were being evacuated due to failure elsewhere, that failure wasn’t down to them. Two of the three companies who had defended the airfield, the Yorks and Lancs and the Leicesters, were already on the jetty, every man standing in full marching order as they waited for the ships to arrive.
At eleven thirty-two, cruisers accompanied by six destroyers arrived offshore.
‘Where is Sam?’ Ella asked urgently as, under a pale moon, two of the destroyers nosed into the harbour and up to the jetty. ‘I can’t see him.’
‘Wounded aboard first!’ a non-commissioned officer was shouting. ‘Look lively there. We haven’t got all night.’
Men of the Leicesters began efficiently decanting the wounded on stretchers from field ambulances and trucks. As they carried the stretchers aboard the nearest of the destroyers, men of the Yorks and Lancs began speedily boarding the second destroyer by scrambling up nets that had been thrown over the ship’s side. Things were happening so fast that for the first time Ella felt something close to panic. Where, in the crush around her, was Sam? It was suddenly vitally important that she knew; that she at least had a last glimpse of him.
‘Come along, Nurse. Aboard with your wounded!’ an officer shouted at her.
‘I’m not boarding,’ she shouted back at him and then, with raw urgency to Daphne, ‘Where’s Sam, Daphne? Can you see him?’
‘No – he probably boarded ahead of the first of th
e wounded so that he could count them all in. I have to go, Ella!’ The exasperated officer had seized hold of Ella’s arm. As he began firmly propelling her in the direction of the destroyer, Daphne shouted back over her shoulder, ‘When Kate puts in an appearance, say goodbye to her for me. Tell her we’ll all meet up again in Cairo. Or in a liberated Crete. Or anywhere. Even Oxford!’
And then she was gone; lost in darkness amongst a sea of heads as, with the wounded now all aboard, the Leicesters began their embarkation.
There was no longer any reason for Ella to stay on the jetty. Sam was quite obviously already aboard the destroyer and, if he wasn’t, it was too dark to be able to pick him out amongst such a vast number of waiting men.
As she was about to turn and begin walking back to the quayside, the destroyer, now fully loaded, began sliding away from the jetty. Watching it head to the mouth of the harbour, she said to the officer standing nearest to her, ‘The ship now leaving. Do you know its name?’
‘HMS Hotspur,’ he said succinctly, having far more important things on his mind than the names of the ships. They were already forty minutes down in time and there were still another four destroyers and two battleship cruisers to be loaded – and all before the Germans descended en masse. ‘The destroyer following her out is HMS Imperial.’
Ella thanked him. Dizzy with fatigue, she began making her way to the quayside past seemingly endless columns of men. When would she see Daphne again? A realist, she knew that it could be years and, if the battle for North Africa now being waged by the Allies was unsuccessful and the Germans marched into Cairo, it might very well be never.
She comforted herself that at least she knew where, for the moment, Daphne was, which was more than she knew about other people she loved, like Kate and Christos. Neither did she know where Lewis and Sholto were. However, common sense told her Sam had to be aboard one or other of the destroyers that had now left the harbour.
Once on the quayside, she turned to look back at the frantic activity still taking place on the jetty. Two more destroyers from the evacuation fleet were now embarking men from the Leicesters and the Yorks and Lancs. For the first time she wondered where the distinctively kilted men of the Black Watch were – and then realization dawned. For the Leicesters and Yorks and Lancs to have been able to march from their defensive positions in and around the airfield to the harbour, their backs had had to be covered, and that task had clearly been allotted to the Scots. It meant the Black Watch would be the last to embark and that, when the time came for them to do so, they would have to make a very fast run for it – as, if she was to reach Kostas and Eleni’s house safely, she was going to have to do.
Beneath the Cypress Tree Page 34