by Roland Perry
The Stukas, in waves of 30 now, began their assaults. They did not have it all their own way as the battalion’s companies moved off the road, set up their guns and blasted back. But the sheer weight of the air assaults meant it was an uneven fight.
Thurgood noticed that the battalion seemed to be one truck short. He rushed over to Moody and after a quick consultation, the two roared off on their bikes back to Larissa to see if the missing truck had broken down there, or if it had been destroyed. It was a dangerous manoeuvre for both men who reached top speed once past the rear of the refugees. They were racing right into the face of oncoming enemy, but there was a small window of opportunity to check the battered town before the German tanks rolled in. They wound their way through Larissa, which had been flattened. Hundreds of bodies were strewn in the streets. Thurgood and Moody could not find the missing truck and were just about to hurry off again when Thurgood skidded to a stop. About six of the little girls from the convent were sifting among the dozens of the bodies of their friends. Only one nun had survived. The bloodied and torn Red Cross flag-sheet was lying fluttering in the breeze. Thurgood pleaded with the nun to gather the few girls who had survived and to hasten to the refugees. They were too distraught to heed the advice.
A wave of mixed emotions swept over Moody as Thurgood shook his head and indicated they had to ride off. Horrie had poked his head out at the scene. After looking at it for several seconds and sniffing the stench of death in the air, he pulled his head in and shivered. Both men tried to convince at least one child each to ride pillion but the nuns would not allow what remained of the convent’s group of pupils to be separated from the others.
‘C’mon,’ Thurgood said to Moody, pointing to an Australian ambulance truck that had rumbled up to the girls, ‘the ambos will do what they can. There will be room in the ambulance, I would expect.’
Moody understood the chilling nuance of the remark. The mangled and dismembered bodies of the children and nuns indicated that all those hit were beyond help. They rode back to the convoy and went about their duties. But both men were affected more by the slaughter of the children than any other experience so far in the war. When night fell mercilessly and the convoy created a circular camp with trucks separated by 30 metres in case of a strike, Moody and Thurgood wanted to speak to someone about the convent girls at Larissa, but both wrote later that they could not bring themselves to do it. They feared they might burst into tears if they did.
After nightfall, Brooker discovered that two trucks must have taken a wrong turn before the camp, and they were missing. Gill had jumped on his Norton to find them and was also missing. Brooker and Thurgood organised drivers, including Ron Baker and Moody, in a little search party that retraced Gill’s ride. They discovered the tyre marks of the trucks that had missed the turn-off. Brooker called off the search saying that Gill would find them before they were behind enemy lines, and guide them back to the battalion camp. As they reached the unit, Brooker spotted three fires high on a very steep hill about a hundred metres from the camp. The others were perplexed but their sergeant’s experiences in the Great War caused him to exclaim: ‘Bloody spies! Those fires will alert the Luftwaffe to our location!’ He cursed and took an anti-tank gun from a truck. He marched 30 metres from the camp, set it up and fired in the direction of the fires.
‘See who you’ve alerted now, you bloody bastards!’ Brooker yelled in between bursts of the gun, which ruined the tranquil setting. It was effective. The fires went out.
‘Good, you animals!’ Brooker snarled as he put back the gun. ‘You’d rather live than spy!’
He contemplated rounding up the probable fifth columnists. But all agreed that the gunners were exhausted. They guessed, more in hope than knowledge, that the spies in the hills would be well away after Brooker’s crude exhibition of distaste for their activities.
Moody and the others went to bed, but his slumber was fitful as his mind worried over his ‘lost’ mates and the nightmare of the schoolgirls. He wandered through several emotions—fear, hate for the enemy, pity for the girls, pity for himself, worry about how this war would end for him, Horrie and his mates. Eventually fatigue from a rough day took over and he slumbered with vivid dreams and nightmares colliding.
11
FIREBUG
Brooker woke Moody at 2.30 a.m. It was his turn for sentry duty. He pulled on his boots and coat and wondered if he should bother to take Horrie or not. The little terrier seemed to be asleep under a blanket but when Moody reached for his rifle and revolver, Horrie bounced into his path.
‘You want to go out in the cold?’ Moody asked.
Horrie circled him, his tail wagging.
‘Oh, you think it’s a late-night walkie, do you?’
On hearing the W word, Horrie growled his approval and followed the half-awake Moody. They trundled up the hill that had harboured the fires six hours earlier and found the allotted sentry duty point. He settled in under a tree near some rocks with a view up the hill about 60 metres from the battalion camp. Horrie, wearing his own bodystocking coat, seemed pleased with his involvement with this strange assignment. He licked Moody and crunched on a bone salvaged from the cook. The faithful little friend was good company on a black, quiet night, which was only disturbed by the sound of distant artillery from the approaching enemy, perhaps 150 to 200 kilometres from them.
Like everyone else, Moody was on edge for this most unenvied soldierly duty. The night, the encroaching enemy, the shock of those fires on the hill and the stark recent memories of the slaughter at Larissa that had hardly left his conscious or unconscious mind, all crowded in on his thoughts. As the minutes ticked by he was more than grateful for Horrie’s company. At just before 3 a.m. Horrie sat up from his lying position, where his head had rested on his paws. Those magnificent ears began to do their little dance as they focused on a shape out there. They tried to fix on something that was not quite right. Moody was snapped fully awake. Horrie growled. It was this throaty emission that had made him the hero of the battalion. He rarely wasted it and on most occasions it heralded unseen Stukas. But the little sentry was not gazing skyward. His eyes and ears were fixed further up the hill.
Horrie did not blink when Moody whispered to him. He was concentrating as hard as his exceptional faculties allowed him. Something out there had his undivided attention and this had readied Moody although he could not see or hear anything in the dark. His first thought was that it could be the ‘spies’ who had lit the fires earlier. Moody crouched close to Horrie, trying to sink low enough to be near the dog’s eye-line. Horrie bristled. Moody knew something living had to be out there but it could be anything: a sheep, a wild cat, a stray dog . . . Moody put his hand on Horrie’s back. He was shaking. The touch triggered the dog’s movement forward a few metres. Moody knew his body language. Horrie was not in ‘alert’ stance. This was his predator mode. He growled with more force. Moody followed him. Horrie seemed intent on what appeared to be just another rock. Moody was nervous. He whispered for Horrie to ‘stay’ where he was and slipped around to outflank the object of Horrie’s aggravation. But Horrie, as was his wont every now and again, did not obey his master. He rushed forward. The object took a human shape as a man stood. He wore traditional peasant’s garb, including a sheepskin coat. He was young, Moody guessed in his early twenties. The man’s hair was long. He spoke Greek and uttered friendly salutations. Yet, Moody wondered, what was he doing creeping so close to the gunners’ camp in the dead of night? Moody aimed his rifle and called for the man to ‘halt there.’ He commanded Horrie to back off, which the dog did, reluctantly. Moody ordered the man down to the camp, with Horrie trotting along at his heel, growling with menace and itching to make a dash at the man’s calf and ankle. Moody took him to the camp’s commanding officer, Captain H. ‘Syd’ Plummer, 36, a short, trim officer with a gaze that never left the detainee. He mumbled, ‘Well done,’ to Moody, who gave full credit to Horrie, which caused a brief smile to wash over Plummer’s
serious expression. A Greek translator was summoned. Plummer questioned the peasant, whose manner flitted between extreme nervousness and attempts to be amiable. He claimed he was a local shepherd looking for lost sheep that often strayed over the hills at night. When questioned about the odd hours of his search, the peasant said he arose before dawn and often had to look for lost members of his flock. Plummer was calm in his interrogation, never raising his voice, but with enough pregnant pauses to make the detainee inclined to fill them.
‘I was surprised at the trucks [in the camp],’ the detainee said.
‘Captain, he could not have seen the trucks from where he was found,’ Moody interjected. Through the translator, Plummer challenged the man on this point. He seemed to fumble around, not giving a straight answer. It made Plummer suspicious. The detainee then blurted out that he had crouched down when he heard the dog growling. Again Moody disagreed. He suggested the man was already crouching before Horrie noticed him. The detainee said he had cowered and hidden when the dog came at him.
‘I was scared I would be seen as a . . .’ he began.
‘A fifth columnist?’ the translator asked in Greek.
The detainee answered, perhaps a little too quickly, that he agreed.
Apart from these unconvincing responses, there was no proof that he was other than that which he claimed. Plummer spoke to a guard. ‘Wait for an hour,’ he said looking at his watch. ‘It’s nearly 4 a.m. . . . then escort him right out of the area.’
Moody searched the hill at dawn. There was no sign of any man or sheep in the area, or, he reckoned, any clue that anything had trodden on it recently. Moody informed the Rebels at breakfast of Horrie’s further heroics. The dog received a round of sincere pats and cuddles of thanks that day from many battalion members once they heard about the events of the night. They believed that their mascot and honorary fellow member had saved them yet again.
*
The fifth columnists were growing in numbers as it became apparent that Greece would likely fall to the Germans. Most of them had been recruited by the ubiquitous Nazi secret police, the Gestapo, who used blackmail to gain assistance. The local agents were ordered to slow the Allied soldiers’ retreat as much as possible. Apart from the damage being done to all towns by the Stukas, agents and spies were ordered to blow up buildings that would fall across the roads through villages and make the convoys’ passage slower. The Allied truck movements were noted by spies and plans were made for locals to impede progress by pushing herds of cattle and sheep onto the road, or by laying concrete blocks. The truck drivers became irritated at having to stop and herd animals off the road, and soon they were ploughing right through them. But the more solid blocks had to be manually shoved or carried aside. The Greeks villagers rushed forward to help despite the fact that the former Allied ‘heroes’ were being pushed south.
Horrie getting his first bath from Moody after being found in the Libyan desert.
Bill Shegog with the shield he painted for B Co. to decorate the Officers mess.
Horrie receives his winter uniform.
Horrie supervises Moody digging a trench. Later, the dog dropped a big bone in it, thinking that this was its purpose.
Horrie is bemused by music coming from a portable army wireless set.
Aboard the HMAS Defender after being rescued from the bombed and stricken troopship Costa Rica, 27 April 1942.
Horrie and some of his friends in Crete. Standing (l to r) Feathers, Friday Mills, Don Gill. Kneeling (l to r) Murchie, Moody, Arch (later killed), Poppa Brooker, Bash (later killed) and Blue Lyburn.
Horrie howling along with Moody on the mouth-organ at Khassa, Palestine (Israel).
Horrie in Syria on the toboggan built for him.
Horrie in the Vichy tank found on his hunting trip in Syria with Moody and Gill.
1941. Tiberias. Palestine. Horrie starts on a desert journey.
Horrie in his ‘uniform’. It was made for him to beat the cold in Syria.
The stern of the West Point, carrying the American flag. This converted liner took the 2/1 Machine Gun Battalion from the Middle East back to Australia.
Horrie at the Australian Soldiers Club Tel Aviv. The diggers include Rebels, Fitzsimmons (second from left), and next to him, Harlor and Gill.
A 2/1 Machine Gunners doing guard duty with Horrie.
Imshi. She was the 2/1 Anti -Tank Regiment’s mascot and Horrie’s companion in the Middle East.
Horrie and Jim Moody on top of a Syrian mountain. The Lebanon Valley is beyond them.
Horrie is in this pack on Don Gill’s back when they were about to board West Point which would take them to Australia. Moody took the picture and stayed close, encouraging Horrie to remain still and quiet.
Some of the Rebels with Horrie in Syria playing keepings-off game, which he initiated to keep him warm.
Horrie, Don Gill and Moodie in Tel Aviv, 14 February.
12
ROGUE ANZACS
Murchison found himself fighting a rearguard action on the front-line as the Germans advanced. He joined two Kiwis from the New Zealand brigade that had been fighting with the battalion’s C Company. The three Anzacs linked with six Greeks who had drifted towards the action when their own army had disintegrated. Two of them had lost their boots and had replaced them with sacking bound around their feet. The leader of the little band of Greek fighters was Stavros, 30, a bearded, muscular, 183 cm former academic. His English was good. He explained to the Antipodeans: ‘Why should we go home? Should we wait for the Nazis to come and destroy our villages and families? Just because our army is defeated, we, as individuals, are not. You are foreigners fighting our fight! We want to help you!’
Murchison and the Kiwis, Archie and Bash, were delighted at the Greek attitude and the nine rogue fighters together moved south of Servia Pass as night fell. They had one advantage over the oncoming enemy. They were a small enough group to be able to determine where the Germans, in their thousands, were situated. They could hear and see them. They could smell and see smoke from their camp fires and it was this that encouraged the group to make audacious moves. They had the element of surprise. But after dark, the surprise was for them when a German truck lumbered off the road in their direction. The group hid behind rocks, primed their rifles and watched. The Germans stopped at the foot of a mountain and proceeded to set up camp.
The little Allied team could hear the Germans shouting and laughing.
‘Two officers and about ten men,’ Stavros whispered to the others. ‘They are a vanguard scout group.’
‘It’d be good to get their truck,’ Archie murmured. He was a nuggety fellow with a black beard that gave him a threatening look. Murchison had nicknamed him ‘Ned’—after Ned Kelly.
The others mumbled their agreement.
‘That means raiding them,’ Murchison whispered. All were for it. Murchison organised that they surround the enemy camp and then charge in firing.
‘No using taking them bloody prisoner,’ Bash said. He was tall and angular, and also had a beard but with a reddish tinge.
‘Okay,’ Murchison whispered, ‘I’ll go for the officers. Knock ’em out first.’
He signalled with a dropping of a hand held high and led the charge into the camp, firing and yelling. His first shot hit an officer in the forehead and he slumped to his knees, killed instantly. The other officer reached for his Luger pistol but, before he could fire it, one of the Greeks slipped in from behind and ran a knife across his throat. Three other enemy soldiers fell the same way and the others bolted into the dark, with the Greeks firing and yelling after them. Stavros ordered them back. Murchison took one officer’s cap and wore it. Stavros took another. Murchison removed the Luger from his victim’s holster and jammed it in his belt. One of the Greeks grinned and handed him one of the Germans’ knives. Murchison slid that into his belt too. He then went through the pockets of the dead officers and removed their gold wristwatches. Archie and Bash, both motor mechanics by trade, ha
d the truck humming in a minute. The little Anzac–Greek band rumbled off down the road, passing a group of German soldiers marching in the same direction.
‘Stay steady,’ Murchison said, ‘and hidden. They’ll see our caps. They’ll salute. They can’t see us properly in the dark.’
As predicted, all the German soldiers gave rigid salutes. Murchison, with a quick, arrogant glance at them, saluted perfunctorily in response, just as he imagined a German officer would.
‘Not like us,’ Murchison laughed, ‘so fucking disciplined!’ Stavros translated for his Greek men and they all gave understanding grins.
They rumbled along the potholed road.
‘Reckon we’re out of the enemy zone,’ Bash remarked after half an hour. ‘Better change trucks. Don’t want any Anzacs to blow us apart.’