‘No. Not if we are very quick. And we outnumber them, I believe. To me, the sounds speak of four men only.’ Kopoulos gave a low laugh. ‘My ears are well-trained in such matters, and I do not doubt them.’
‘Yes, but —’
‘I think we should attack. That is my advice. You will give the order, please?’ The voice had hardened now and meant to have its way. ‘As they pass before us, while their backs are turned, I shall kill the NCO in charge. Immediately, your men will attack the other three, and silence them. You understand?’
Cameron said, ‘Seaman are not commandos, Kopoulos. They don’t know the drill. It won’t be their fault, but they’ll bungle it.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry, Kopoulos. There won’t be any attack.’
‘Then you are a fool.’
‘So I’m a fool, Kopoulos,’ Cameron said.
‘And a coward.’
Cameron held on to his temper; cowardice didn’t come into it. What he had said had been nothing but the truth. Ratings in destroyers had never been trained in any kind of hand-to-hand combat, let alone in the technique of attack that had to be so sudden and unannounced that the target didn’t get a chance even to shout a warning. If they went into that sort of attack now, the game would be up and Stephanos Razakis would remain right where he was. Steadily Cameron said, ‘There will be no attack, Kopoulos. We keep hidden.’
There was a hiss of fury from the Greek, but no more argument. The Germans were too close by this time; and half a minute later they were in full view as they pushed through trees and undergrowth little more than inches from where the British party lay concealed. The moonlight fell upon their uniforms, glinted off the metal of their weapons. Kopoulos had been dead right: there were four men, one of them an NCO. Sudden blinding pain came to Cameron as a hard and heavy heel crunched down on his outstretched, brushwood-covered hand, biting into its back. He made no sound; the effort not to cry out was considerable. As the German patrol moved away, still talking and laughing, he found sweat pouring from him in streams.
*
Off the south coast, the destroyer waited for the dawn; Sawbridge had remained on the compass platform throughout, sometimes pacing, sometimes hunched in a corner. He had brooded on whether or not he should take his command to sea, to get as much distance between the ship and any German air attack as possible, before the dawn showed in the eastern sky. Cameron couldn’t possibly be back before that dawn in the normal run of events, so much was certain. But something might go wrong and the landing-party might need to beat a retreat back to the ship. If that happened, then they must find the destroyer waiting as they expected. That much risk had to be accepted. Sawbridge turned as he heard a step on the ladder, and saw his First Lieutenant.
He said, ‘Hullo there, Number One.’
‘Let me take over, sir. Just till dawn.’
Suddenly, Sawbridge gave a yawn, a big one. He smiled and said, ‘It’s not a bad idea at that. I’ll need to be bright and fresh when we move out... bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as the Yanks say, I believe.’
Drummond said sourly, ‘It’s a pity they aren’t saying it here, sir.’
‘Oh, they’ll come in one day, Number One,’ Sawbridge said. ‘When they’re good and ready, they’ll come in. I don’t blame them for putting off the day — it was never their war in the first place.’ He read the disagreement in his First Lieutenant’s face, but one had to be fair. He left the compass platform to snatch an hour or two of sleep. He didn’t get it; the Germans saw to that. The moment Sawbridge’s head touched the pillow the alarm rattlers sounded and he went back, at the double, to the compass platform. As he went, he heard the screaming crescendo of the dive-bombers, who seemed to be concentrating their attack on the harbour installations, primitive as they were, of Sphakia. Fires lit the sky, and chunks of masonry could be seen spinning up into the air as the bombs fell.
‘They must have got Gore-Lumley’s buzz,’ Sawbridge said, ‘about the troops moving to the south. This is the reception committee. I’ll take her out, Number One, and get her zig-zagging.’ He turned to the Officer of the Watch. ‘Engines to full ahead, wheel amidships. Course, one-eight-oh degrees.’ He stared out over the land, at the ferocious scene as the Stukas struck again and again.
Wharfedale went to sea, with all despatch. As she went the dive-bombers came in, two of them at first, screaming down from the night sky on either beam. Sawbridge ordered the helm hard over to starboard, then hard a-port; the destroyer weaved desperately between the falling bombs, her three-inch anti-aircraft gun and close range weapons putting up a murderous barrage as she went. One of the dive-bombers came right smack into the fire from the port pom-pom: the aircraft’s windscreen fragmented and the pilot spurted blood. The destroyer raced away under full power of her shafts as the German hit the sea and exploded her bomb-load on impact; another came in to take her place. As the destroyer’s decks all but vanished under the flung spray of the near misses, the RNVR midshipman came from the W/T office to the compass platform with a cyphered message already broken down into plain language. It was prefaced ‘Most Urgent’ and was brief.
‘Read it to me, snotty,’ Sawbridge said.
‘Aye, aye, sir. From Commander-in-Chief, sir... previous orders in abeyance. You are to proceed with the utmost despatch to rendezvous with main Fleet units off southern-most point of Scarpanto.’
‘That’s all?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Sawbridge blew out a long breath. ‘Course, oh-nine-oh,’ he said to the Officer of the Watch. Then he added more or less to himself, ‘And God help Cameron’s party.’
Expendability was in the air now.
5
ORESTIS KOPOULOS was indulging himself in a fit of the sulks; he was averse to having his advice disregarded. The Germans had gone now; Cameron tried to make his peace with the Greek.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, Kopoulos. But what you suggested just wasn’t on.’
‘Tell that to Churchill,’ the Greek said, ‘when you report to him that you have lost Stephanos Razakis.’ He thumped himself on his chest, which was a massive one. ‘I, Orestis Kopoulos, accept no blame. I wash my hands. You understand, Englishman?’
Cameron said patiently, ‘No one’s blaming you. And we’re going to get Razakis out. To do it, I still need your help.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll give it, then?’
The Greek made no immediate answer. A black scowl was visible in the moonlight filtering through the trees; he moved away by himself, with an arrogant swing of his shoulders. Petty Officer Pike said, ‘Now you’ve gone and done it, sir!’
‘D’you think I was wrong?’ Cameron asked.
‘No, sir, that I don’t. But God knows what the next step is, if Kopoulos doesn’t co-operate.’
‘He will,’ Cameron said. ‘He won’t let Razakis down.’ Pike made a sound of assent. ‘I expect you’re right, sir.’ Cameron was; Kopoulos came back through the trees and though still appearing angry said, ‘You will have my help, of course. I have my loyalties.’
‘Thank you, Kopoulos,’ Cameron said.
‘What,’ the Greek asked, ‘do you propose to do?’
‘Close the German perimeter. You agree?’
Kopoulos gave a sardonic laugh. ‘If we do not do that,’ he said, ‘we shall come no closer to Razakis! Yes — I agree. And when we get within sight of the perimeter, we shall remain in cover until I have watched and seen and made an assessment. Do you agree to that?’
Cameron grinned. ‘Come off it, Kopoulos! We’ll get nowhere if we each try to score off the other. Let’s forget it, shall we?’
He reached out a hand; after some hesitation Kopoulos took it and gave it a hard grip. ‘Yes, we shall forget. You have much to learn, my friend, but you stand by what you believe to be right. That is good, I think — at least, sometimes. Now we are good allies again. Let us move on.’
They did so, with extreme caution, going dead slow so as to m
inimize any sound that might reach the German perimeter. It was an eerie, scaring advance through the night. The sound of the patrolling sentries’ footsteps came louder as they approached, and other sounds came from near at hand — the dry scurryings of small disturbed animals, the cries of birds. Cameron, worried by the bird sounds, asked Kopoulos in a whisper if this would be likely to alert the Germans.
‘I believe not,’ Kopoulos answered. ‘The Nazis are too stupid, too cocksure as well. They believe Crete is already theirs in any case and that no one would be so foolish as to creep, like us, into the interior, far from the sea.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘My heart,’ Kopoulos said briefly. ‘And because I know the Nazis. Once, I was in their hands, but escaped.’ He said no more; they moved on. After some more progress Kopoulos advised that they should advance on their stomachs; Cameron passed the order back via Petty Officer Pike. Another hundred yards or so and they had the German position in view. Already Kopoulos had described it: it was a natural fortification beyond the tree-line, until now the home and operational base of the partisan leader and thus well-known to Kopoulos. In fact it consisted of little more than a pattern of great rocks clustered on rising ground, a perfect defensive position that had succumbed only to the German artillery. The damage caused by the heavy guns could be seen clearly in the moonlight; according to Kopoulos, Razakis and his daughter had remained safe in their personal strongpoint below ground, protected by the great rock formation itself, but had been captured when the German soldiers had stormed in behind the rifles and bayonets after the gunfire had softened up the position. Sadly, a large number of the partisans, fine fighters all, had been slaughtered in the bombardment. All this had been only a matter of days ago; Cameron could almost imagine he smelled the gunsmoke and the spilled blood.
Kopoulos had also said that he knew a secret way into the stronghold, but that by this time the Germans would almost without a doubt have discovered it for themselves.
‘Nevertheless,’ he said now, ‘it may still be the best place to use. Perhaps the only one. You can see for yourself the great difficulty of frontal attack.’
Cameron could: under that high, bright moon, and the stars that still shone down, no one could hope to climb up to the rocks without being spotted. As they watched, the German sentries could be seen marching their posts — two men with kneeboots and steel helmets, carrying 7.9-mm KAR-98 K infantry rifles, one patrolling the perimeter to the east, the other to the west, and meeting at a central point opposite the hidden British seamen. Behind, between the rocks, other men could be seen standing-to with the moonlight glinting from their weapons.
On the face of it, it looked hopeless.
Cameron glanced at Petty Officer Pike, who was lying full stretch beside him. ‘What d’you think?’ he asked.
‘Bloody suicide, sir, that’s what I think. We’d never reach half-way... not alive we wouldn’t.’
Cameron nodded. ‘You’ve probably never said a truer word!’ He turned to Orestis Kopoulos. ‘Where’s this secret entry of yours?’
Kopoulos lifted a hand cautiously and pointed. ‘Over there, my friend, to the right. A tunnel. The entry is in the trees. The tunnel emerges in the centre of the rocks.’
‘Man-made?’
Kopoulos shook his head. ‘No. It is a natural passage, formed by the natural disturbances of the earth millions of years ago, when the rocks themselves were cast up where now they stand. It is of immense strength, so —’
‘So it won’t have been damaged by the artillery bombardment?’
‘Damage is unlikely, I think. But as I have said, the Nazis will have found it.’
‘But as you also said, Kopoulos, it could be the only way in. And there’s another point, isn’t there?’
‘What point, my friend?’ Kopoulos’s questioning eyes seemed liquid black in the moonlight.
‘This: the German guns caused other damage... the tunnel’s exit could have been covered by the broken rock, couldn’t it? In which case, the Germans may never have found it.’
Kopoulos grinned. ‘This is possible. But if it has happened, then the exit is no more. It will be totally blocked by the rock fall!’
‘I suppose so.’ Cameron felt his face flushing: there had been patient scorn in the Greek’s voice. The Englishman’s mental processes, the tone had said, were far from fast or bright. Difficulties, however, existed only to be overcome: Cameron had had that point made to him in the King Alfred. It was an officer’s responsibility to find a way and to overcome all obstacles. Another piece of good advice from the past came to mind: don’t cross bridges till you come to them. He said crisply, ‘That needn’t necessarily be the case, though. That is, we can at least have a go at entering. If we’re blocked off, then we’ll have to retreat and think again. Right, Kopoulos?’
‘Perhaps, yes. But we do not rush, like bulls at gates as you would say.’
‘Then —’
‘We use our heads. We fool the Nazis. It is easily done, my English friend!’
‘How?’
‘We make a feint. A diversion of their attention. It has been done before.’
Cameron said cynically, ‘Too bloody many times! It’s old hat, Kopoulos. We won’t fool them that way.’
‘Not so. Always the Nazis are fooled by the same things. It is in their stupid nature. They act like automatons, without thought, producing the same reactions time after time. You will see.’
Cameron said, ‘Well, the sooner the better, Kopoulos. We’ve around two hours now to dawn. And I still want to make that noon rendezvous off Sphakia,’ he added. True, that was as yet ten hours ahead; but it didn’t seem as though the German-held strongpoint was going to be penetrated quickly, and if they were successful in extracting Razakis and the girl, they might well have to fight a rearguard action all the way back to the coast, and at best that was going to slow them up. Kopoulos expounded his plan: it was simple enough; too simple in Cameron’s view. Four of the seamen were to be ordered to crawl round to the western side of the rocks while Kopoulos, with Cameron and the remainder of the party, moved eastwards towards the tunnel entry. The western party was to allow ten minutes for Kopoulos to get into position, and then one of the men was to show himself briefly. Once the German garrison had reacted, all four were to open as rapid a fire as possible from the cover of the trees. When the first shots were heard from the phoney western attack, Kopoulos would start to penetrate the tunnel.
Cameron said, ‘In the absence of anything better, we’ll give it a try.’
‘Do not disparage, my friend! I tell you, the Nazis will do just as I expect them to do.’ Kopoulos sounded fully confident, and was smiling happily as action approached; basically, he was a fighter, at his best, Cameron fancied, when the bullets began to fly towards his hated Nazis. Cameron made his dispositions quickly: Leading-Seaman Wellington was detailed to take three men and the box of grenades round to the west, with orders to pick off as many Germans as he could during the feint and make the thing to that extent real and useful. Petty Officer Pike would go with the main attack. The orders passed, no time was lost in moving out. Orestis Kopoulos slithered along fast with his sub-machine-gun, followed by Cameron and the others, while Leading-Seaman Wellington crawled out to the west after watches had been synchronized. Cameron and his seamen were forced to move fast, dangerously so Cameron thought, in order to keep Kopoulos within sight; but their movement didn’t appear to have been seen by the troops in the strongpoint.
It was seen by someone outside, however.
As Cameron closed towards the tunnel entry behind Orestis Kopoulos, he saw a grotesque sight: in the moonlight a fat, bespectacled German soldier stood, wrapped in a great coat draped with belts and pouches, his mouth open in sudden terror, a half-eaten sausage still in his right hand. The mouth was obviously about to utter a shout of warning, or more likely a scream, when Kopoulos went into fast action. Dropping the sub-machine-gun, he flung himself on the German sent
ry and got steely fingers around the throat. Then, holding the man’s mouth tightly against his chest, Kopoulos reached behind his body and brought a short knife from his waistband. Quick as lightning his hand moved to the German’s back, and the knife plunged in. It must have been razor-sharp: the movement had looked easy, like a knife going into butter, and the German made no sound at all as he died.
Kopoulos got to his feet, stared down at the body and gave it a kick. ‘A good Nazi,’ he said. ‘A dead one!’
‘And it means they’ve found the tunnel, Kopoulos.’
‘Yes,’ the Greek agreed, ‘and it means also that it is unblocked, I think. Luck is with us, my friend!’ He looked at his wrist-watch. ‘Two minutes, then if all goes well we enter.’
The seconds ticked away; Cameron’s attention now was on the hands of his watch. He felt a curious sensation in his guts: the entry was going to be a bloody business, there could be no doubt about that at all. They wouldn’t all get away with it. The two minutes passed... now, Leading-Seaman Wellington would be showing himself, briefly. More seconds went by; half a minute passed. Both Cameron and Kopoulos were on edge now; Cameron felt sweat run down his face. Had something gone wrong, or were the Germans simply not as alert as they should be?
Then it came.
At first there was just a single shot. After that, the strong-point came alive. There were shouted orders, cries of alarm, a small searchlight flashed on, its finger weaving out over the trees beyond. Then came the firing: a number of rifles crashed out from the strongpoint and were answered from the trees. After this, the explosions of four or five grenades were heard. Cameron snapped, ‘Right, in we go!’
Already Kopoulos was moving for the tunnel entrance, just behind the dead body of the fat German, its spectacles still upon the nose but now broken and pathetic-looking... that body had been someone’s son, possibly someone’s husband, someone’s father. But there was no time for such thoughts now. Behind Kopoulos, with the nine seamen moving in ahead of Petty Officer Pike, Cameron plunged blind into the tunnel, feeling for his footholds and keeping his arms in front of his face as protection against whatever he might bump into. There could be danger in using a torch, or the boat’s Aldis being borne along by the signalman, if any light was seen from the other end; they just had to hope and pray and trust in Orestis Kopoulos. At first the tunnel floor sloped steeply and the advance became a tumbling, headlong rush in which men cursed viciously as they hit against roof and sides and were lashed at by unnamed things growing or hanging or protruding from the sides. The rush eased as the floor levelled out. Then, after running level for some way, the upward climb began and the advance was slowed even more.
Dangerous Waters (A Donald Cameron Naval Thriller) Page 5