The Ariadne Objective
Page 33
6 “the guards, the barbed wire”: Patrick Leigh Fermor, “How to Steal a General,” in Part 68, History of the Second World War (Marshall Cavendish, 1974), 1900.
7 “the risks which she took”: HS 8/692.
8 “We have given them”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 61.
9 “Christ is risen—Bang!”: Patrick Leigh Fermor to W. Stanley Moss, quoted in Moss, unpublished diary, 44.
10 “dissolved amid the derisive laughter”: HS 5/724.
11 “They attempted to blow up”: Ibid.
12 “We want not so much”: HS 5/724.
13 “a tiny bit rusty”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 71.
14 “This sort of walking”: Ibid., p. 72.
15 introduced them to his sister: Moss, in A War of Shadows, calls this young woman “Maria,” but SOE records give her name as Anna E. Zographistos.
16 “She is a strange person”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 77.
17 “among a thousand by day”: G. Harokopos, The Abduction of General Kreipe, trans. Rosemary Tzanaki (Heraklion, Greece: V. Kouvidis–V. Manouras, 2003), 116.
18 “Germans, hide!”: Ibid., 118.
19 “he was not a man”: Ibid., 119.
20 “an ill-assorted crew”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 71.
21 “Too many cooks”: W. Stanley Moss, A War of Shadows (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 27.
22 “favourite recreation was throat slitting”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 87.
23 “Minotaurs, bull-men, nymphs”: Ibid., 90.
24 “This morning, under the trees”: Ibid., 91.
25 called out, “Halt!”: This and the following dialogue are from Fermor, “How to Steal a General,” 1900.
26 “I am a British major”: Ibid.
27 “This is marvelous”: Ibid.
28 “Generals Wagen!”: Ibid.
29 “Gute Nacht!”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 102.
30 “which I thought was the best”: Ibid., 103.
31 “this hussar stunt”: Fermor, “How to Steal a General,” 1901.
32 “is an ideal place for submarines”: HS 5/728.
33 “We are very sorry”: HS 5/728. Moss’s published account in Ill Met by Moonlight recalls the postscript slightly differently.
34 “Captured standards!”: Fermor, “How to Steal a General,” 1901.
35 “The only people who saw”: Ibid.
36 “To All Cretans”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 10: BRICKLAYER
1 the Anogeian andarte band: This was a group led by a kapetan named Mihale Xilouris. HS 5/727.
2 “By surprise,” he emphasized: Patrick Leigh Fermor, “How to Steal a General,” in Part 68, History of the Second World War (Marshall Cavendish, 1974), 1901.
3 crossed the summit without recognizing it: It is easy to imagine that Leigh Fermor and Moss were reminded of Wordsworth’s account, in The Prelude, of discovering to his surprise that he had crossed the Alps.
4 “and the Germans were threatening fearful reprisals”: HS 5/727.
5 “It took us two hours”: W. Stanley Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight (London: Folio Society, 2001), 126.
6 It was with a thrill: The Horace episode is recounted in Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts (New York: New York Review Books, 2005), 86.
7 “Colonel General Heinrich Kreipe”: HS 5/732. Note: These documents seem to have been misfiled in this National Archives folder.
8 “Essential, repeat, essential”: HS 5/418.
9 news outlets in Cairo were reporting: HS 5/418. In Ill Met by Moonlight, Moss says the broadcast claimed the general was leaving the island, which would not have done much to dissuade German search parties. Communications on file in the SOE archives tell the story somewhat differently, and I have followed that documentary evidence.
10 “This attachment is a welcome event”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 136.
11 “Paddy and I are feeling”: Ibid., 131.
12 “Cannot, repeat, not warn Paddy”: HS 5/732. Note: These documents seem to have been misfiled in this National Archives folder.
13 “I have completely run out”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 137.
14 Dick Barnes had in fact been trying: HS 5/722.
15 “It was a strange and ghostly feeling”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 153.
16 “And so Jonny, a price”: Ibid., 158.
17 The vessel they had heard closed on the beach and opened fire: This account of Ciclitira’s close call is in HS 5/722.
18 “Last night was beautiful”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 162.
19 “a sudden hysterical shriek”: Ibid., 165.
20 “Think of those beasts”: Ibid., 166.
21 landing beach near Rodakino: Coleman’s orders point to a position just off the beach: N 35°10′24″, E 24°18′24″.
22 A few weeks earlier he had spotted: ADM 199/899.
23 “Although a good lookout”: ADM 1/29697.
24 with Ciclitira the night he was fired upon: HS 5/722.
25 “They knew every track”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 170.
26 “there was no pain”: Fermor, “How to Steal a General,” 1901.
27 “He was still there”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 176.
28 “faint at first but gradually louder”: Fermor, “How to Steal a General,” 1904.
29 “Then we were taken down”: Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight, 180.
30 “He smiled at us”: Ibid., 185.
EPILOGUE: Ritterlich!
1 “to the last cartridge”: WO 208/4208.
2 “I liked Paddy”: Dilys Powell, The Villa Ariadne (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1973), 177.
3 “No incident had taken place”: HS 5/729.
4 “The war will end”: Ibid.
5 “same nauseating smell”: W. Stanley Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight (London: Folio Society, 2001), 153.
6 “removing the trousers”: W. Stanley Moss, A War of Shadows (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 149.
7 “His leg was set”: Andrew Tarnowski, The Last Mazurka (London: Aurum Press, 2006), 225.
8 received a commendation: ADM 1/29697.
9 the papers implicating him: “Instead a major called von der Heyde was arrested, and later freed by the Russians.” Antony Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (London: John Murray, 1991), 76.
10 killed in fighting in Norway: Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts (New York: New York Review Books, 2005), 71.
11 “You’ll find out when you get there”: Xan Fielding, Hide and Seek (London: Secker & Warburg, 1954), 225.
12 “Brave, loyal, tireless, cheerful”: HS 8/729.
13 “certainly one of the bravest”: HS 8/657.
14 “I saw a pensive look”: Mosley, In Tearing Haste, 236.
15 “During the day contingents”: HS 5/728.
16 “ ‘Ritterlich! Wie ein Ritter!’ ”: Mosley, In Tearing Haste, 121.
Selected Bibliography
PUBLISHED SOURCES
Amery, Julian. Approach March. London: Hutchinson, 1983.
Beevor, Antony. Crete: The Battle and the Resistance. London: John Murray, 1991.
Benario, Janice M. “Horace, Humanitas and Crete.” Amphora 2, no. 1 (spring 2003): 1-3.
Byron, Robert. The Station. London: Century Publishing, 1984.
Chubb, Mary. Nefertiti Lived Here. London: Libri, 1998.
Churchill, Winston. Closing the Ring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951.
————. Their Finest Hour. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949.
Clark, Alan. The Fall of Crete. London: Cassell, 1962.
Cooper, Artemis. Cairo in the War. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989.
Crookshank, H., and J. B. Auden, “Lewis Leigh Fermor 1880–1954.” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 2 (November 1956): 101–16.
Downing, Ben. “A Visit with Patrick Leigh Fermor.” Paris Review 165 (Spring 2003), 165–226.
————. “Philhellene’s Progress: Patrick Leigh Fermor.” The New Criterion, vol. 19, January 2001, 9.
Durrell, Lawrence. The Greek Islands. New York: Viking, 1978.
Eban, Suzy. “A Cairo Girlhood.” The New Yorker, July 15, 1974, 62–73.
Elliot, Murray. Vasili: The Lion of Crete. London: Century Hutchinson, 1987.
Fermor, Patrick Leigh. “Afterword.” In W. Stanley Moss, Ill Met by Moonlight (London: Folio Society, 2001), 193–211.
————. Between the Woods and the Water. London: Penguin Books, 1988.
————. “Foreword.” In David Smiley, Albanian Assignment (London: Chatto & Windus, 1984), ix–xii.
————. “How to Steal a General.” In Part 68, History of the Second World War (Marshall Cavendish, 1974): 1900–1904.
————. Mani. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1984.
————. Roumeli. New York: New York Review Books, 2006.
————. Three Letters from the Andes. London: John Murray, 2005.
————. A Time of Gifts. New York: New York Review Books, 2005.
————. A Time to Keep Silence. New York: New York Review Books, 2007.
————. Words of Mercury. Edited by Artemis Cooper. London: John Murray, 2004.
Fielding, Xan. Hide and Seek. London: Secker & Warburg, 1954.
————. One Man in His Time. London: Macmillan, 1990.
Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles. Armorial Families, vol. 2. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1929.
Grundon, Imogen. The Rash Adventurer: A Life of John Pendlebury. London: Libri Publications, 2007.
Hadjipateras, Costas N., and Maria S. Falios. Crete 1941 Eyewitnessed. Athens: Efstathiadis Group, 2007.
Harokopos, George. The Abduction of General Kreipe. Translated by Rosemary Tzanaki. Heraklion, Greece: V. Kouvidis–V. Manouras, 2003.
Herodotus. Herodotus: A New and Literal Version from the Text of Baehr. New York: Harper & Bros., 1889.
Heydte, Friedrich August, Freiherr von der. Daedalus Returned. Translated by W. Stanley Moss. London: Hutchinson and Co., 1958.
Hill, Maria. Diggers and Greeks. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2010.
Kokanos, N. A. The Cretan Resistance 1941–1945. Iraklion, Greece: Manouras G.–Tsintaris A., 2004.
Lucas, James. Hitler’s Enforcers. London: Cassell, 1996.
MacNiven, Ian. Lawrence Durrell: A Biography. London: Faber & Faber, 1998.
Mosley, Charlotte, ed. In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: John Murray, 2008.
Moss, W. Stanley. Ill Met by Moonlight. London: Folio Society, 2001.
————. A War of Shadows. New York: Macmillan, 1952.
Pawley, Margaret. In Obedience to Instructions. Barnsley, UK: Leo Cooper, 1999.
Phillips, Gene D. Evelyn Waugh’s Officers, Gentlemen, and Rogues. Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1975.
Powell, Dilys. The Villa Ariadne. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1973.
Psychoundakis, George. The Cretan Runner. Translated by Patrick Leigh Fermor. London: Penguin Books, 1998.
Rendel, A. M. Appointment in Crete. London: A. Wingate, 1953.
Roessel, David. In Byron’s Shadow. New York: Oxford Univerity Press, 2002.
Smiley, David. Albanian Assignment. London: Chatto & Windus, 1984.
St. John, Robert. From the Land of Silent People. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1942.
Sutherland, David. He Who Dares. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1999.
Sykes, Christopher. Evelyn Waugh. Boston: Little, Brown, 1975.
————. A Song of a Shirt. London: Derek Verschoyle, 1953.
Tarnowski, Andrew. The Last Mazurka. London: Aurum Press, 2006.
Valentin, Jacques. The Monks of Mount Athos. Translated by Diano Athill. London: A. Deutsch, 1960.
Watts, Alan. In My Own Way. New York: Pantheon, 1972.
Waugh, Evelyn. The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh. Edited by Michael Davie. Boston: Little, Brown, 1976.
————. Officers and Gentlemen. Boston: Little, Brown, 1955.
UNPUBLISHED SOURCES
National Archives of the UK
ADM 1/29488
ADM 1/29697
ADM 199/889
AIR 23/1443
HS 5/418
HS 5/456
HS 5/677
HS 5/722
HS 5/723
HS 5/724
HS 5/725
HS 5/727
HS 5/728
HS 5/729
HS 5/730
HS 5/731
HS 5/732
HS 8/403
HS 8/405
HS 8/461
HS 8/478
HS 8/571
HS 8/577
HS 8/657
HS 8/690
HS 8/692
HS 8/698
HS 8/729
HS 8/765
HS 9/317/2
HS 9/458/1
HS 9/760/1
KV 3/319
WO 208/4208
Imperial War Museum
Crean, Annette. Memoir. Documents.6433, Private Papers of Mrs A Street, Imperial War Museum.
Moss, W. Stanley. Diary. Documents.13338, Private Papers of Major I W S Moss MC, Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum.
————. Diary 1939. Estate of I. W. Stanley Moss.
Rendel, A. M. Papers of Alexander Meadows Rendel, Rendel Family Archive, London.
About the Author
WES DAVIS served for two years as assistant to the director of excavations at Kavousi in eastern Crete, not far from the plateau where Patrick Leigh Fermor parachuted onto the island during World War II. He holds a Ph.D. in English literature from Princeton University and is a former assistant professor of English at Yale University. Editor of the Harvard University Press Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, he has written for publications that include the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Nation.