Pike said, ‘Yes, sir. Just leave it to me.’
‘When I make the coast, if the Captain’s come back in, I’ll get Razakis aboard then come back and wait for your party.’ Cameron turned away and made for the narrow passage leading to the cave entrance. Then he turned again and called to Pike. ‘Tell Wellington to report at once to the cave,’ he said. He ran down the steps, flicking on the battery Aldis. The girl’s screams had been continuing, heard above through the air channel, rising and falling, dying away for a while then starting again. Cameron sweated. As he entered the cave Razakis was staring at him; so was Kopoulos, who was still carrying the sub-machine-gun cradled in his arms. Kopoulos asked, ‘Well?’
‘There’s a German force coming in, Kopoulos.’ Briefly, Cameron gave the Greek the facts. ‘We haven’t more than a few minutes. We’ve got to move out.’
‘No,’ Razakis said. The voice was firm and determined. Cameron said, ‘I’m sorry, Razakis, but it’s vital and I insist.’
‘You insist! This is my business, not yours.’
‘On the contrary. I have orders — orders, as you said yourself, that come from Mr Churchill. You’re valuable to the Allies, Razakis. You must think of that — think of your duty. You’ve got not much more than a minute left.’ Cameron turned his head as he heard footsteps coming down. A moment later Leading-Seaman Wellington appeared in the doorway, with his rifle in his hands. ‘Stay right there, Wellington,’ Cameron ordered.
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Wellington, large and dour, seemed to take in the situation. He stood watchful, with his rifle ready, staring at Razakis and Kopoulos, his mouth a thin, hard line as he listened, so much closer now, to the girl’s screams. Every time any of the men opened his mouth, it was going through her like a red-hot blade.
Razakis said, ‘You talk of Churchill. He is a great man in his own country. Though his politics are not mine, I respect him as a leader and a fighter, and one who detests the Nazis as much as I. Yet my daughter comes first, Englishman. I wish — yes — I wish to get back to Greece... but not without my daughter. I cannot leave her.’
Cameron nodded. ‘I know. I understand, Razakis. But you have messages to deliver, things to report. You said so yourself. Tell me what the reports —’
‘No.’
‘Then tell Kopoulos!’
‘It must remain in my head, Englishman!’ Razakis’s eyes shone in the light from the Aldis; there was an almost crazed look now. The situation seemed desperate; there was little time left and Razakis was adamant. Cameron turned and nodded to Leading-Seaman Wellington. Wellington brought up his rifle to cover Kopoulos; he drew back the bolt with a deliberate movement, slammed it back in, putting a cartridge up the spout. There he stayed, large and impassive, staring at the Greek. Kopoulos, who had been crouched beside Razakis, got slowly to his feet with his sub-machine-gun, his face working. If it came to a showdown, then Kopoulos had the clear advantage. Unless Cameron gave the order to Wellington in time... and yet Kopoulos was, by word of Winston Churchill, of Major Lumley-Gore as well, an ally, at least for current purposes vis-à-vis the situation here in Crete and in Greece.
Cameron was about to give the order for Wellington to drop Kopoulos, and the Greek seemed about to speak, when the sound of rifle fire came from above.
Now it looked like being too late.
8
PIKE had sent a man down to report: the Germans had come in openly, obviously expecting a friendly reception. The naval party had picked off three of the leading files as they had come out of the hills to the north and started the climb up to the strongpoint. The rest had immediately scattered to the rear, back into cover, and currently there was a lull in the firing.
It was Kopoulos himself who unexpectedly resolved the situation in the cave. He lowered his sub-machine-gun and some of the tension went out of the atmosphere right away. He spoke to Razakis in his own language, quietly, insistently, going down on his knees and taking the man’s shoulders in his grip. All Cameron could do was wait; he gestured Wellington to lower his rifle. The girl on the sacking was writhing and contorting, the spine arching backwards as the medical books had said. Torture was there before Cameron’s eyes, remote-controlled, postponed agony implanted by the Nazis. Hate filled Cameron’s mind, similar to the hate of the two Greek communists. After some three minutes, long minutes that seemed like hours to the waiting men, Kopoulos got to his feet and faced Cameron.
‘He will leave,’ he said. ‘Razakis is a patriot, and he will leave. I have put his clear duty to him.’
‘And his daughter?’
Kopoulos didn’t answer right away. He looked across at the tortured form, by now almost unrecognizable as a young and pretty girl, and he shook his head. He said simply, ‘Razakis knows his duty. I shall say no more. Now we shall leave quickly, and make south for the coast. You will go up, please, with Razakis and your seaman.’ He bent and lifted Razakis; Cameron went forward and gave a hand. Razakis was heavy, and was stumbling about; the march to the coast was likely to take a good deal longer than the two hours it had taken them to come north. At the foot of the steps Kopoulos handed over to Wellington; Razakis turned and looked at his daughter, tears brimming over to roll down into his greying beard. He didn’t approach her; probably, Cameron thought, he realized it was too late now and all he could do would be to torment her further.
Razakis turned away again; Cameron and Wellington helped him, with difficulty, up the steps and along the narrow rock passage at the top. Pike came down at the rush from the firing-step.
‘The buggers are still in cover, sir. I reckon they were mighty surprised at what met them. They’ll come out soon, though, likely enough.’
Cameron nodded. ‘Well, they’re giving us a start, anyway — that’s if we can get away without being spotted. Keep them busy when they do start, all right?’
Pike grinned. ‘I’ll do that, sir, don’t worry!’
‘Then I’ll see you on the beach.’
‘Aye, aye, sir. Sure you don’t want more hands, sir?’
‘You’ll need them more than me.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I was you, sir. You don’t know what you’re marching into.’
‘That’s a chance I’ll take. Good luck, Petty Officer Pike.’ Cameron shook Pike warmly by the hand, only too conscious that he was leaving the PO and the others to possible death or capture. He felt he was pulling out to safety himself, and never mind the only-too-likely hazards of the southerly march; but Razakis was the vital one among them all and he it was who had been charged with the personal responsibility.
Pike said, ‘Best of luck to you too, sir,’ and saluted smartly. He gave a sigh as the officer turned away, with Razakis being supported along by Wellington and Signalman Lawrence. It was a nasty old job, Pike reckoned, for a newly-commissioned youngster of little more than twenty. The lad had guts... a moment later Pike stiffened and looked about him: firing had come again, but it wasn’t the bloody Jerries this time.
It had come from below.
Cameron heard it too; so did Razakis. Razakis seemed to clench his whole body like an enormous fist, then he relaxed and gave a sob. They had been passing the air channel; the sound of firing had been loud and clear. Cameron, his own eyes moist now, urged Razakis on. From the narrow rock passage Kopoulos came out, his eyes wild, his face gaunt and grim, and the sub-machine-gun still giving off smoke.
He joined the others without a word.
*
Cameron couldn’t get it out of his mind as his party moved as fast as possible down the slope and into the trees. The girl had been going to die anyway and the best possible thing had been done; there could be no doubt at all about that. If Pike should fail to hold the Germans off, her end would have been terrible to think of.
It was nonetheless tragic; but it was a part of war as war had developed. There was no room for decency now; all that had long since gone and he who was chivalrous lost out, could lose the war by humane instincts. It was the Naz
is who had begun it, the Nazis who had dragged the world down with their own unholy baseness. Hitler’s men; not the old German Army, most of whose personnel, Cameron believed, detested the orders they were forced to obey. Thus the onward march of progress, a hideous progress in which the good became bad and the bad became worse in a universal attempt to survive.
Razakis had no backward looks towards the strongpoint. He moved along painfully but doggedly, half carried through the trees over the rough ground, behind Kopoulos who was once again acting as guide. As they had moved away, the sound of firing had come again from their rear; Pike was in action, holding the Germans back. And now, as they went farther south, they could hear aircraft, zooming over them and heading, like themselves, for the coast.
Cameron said, ‘It sounds as though the troop movement may have started.’
‘Maybe, sir. If it has, I just hope they bloody make it out of Sphakia,’ Wellington said with feeling. ‘It must be bloody murder up there in Suda Bay, and I’ve got a brother in the Leicesters. He was in Greece... now I reckon he may be up there, that’s if he got out of Greece.’
A little awkwardly Cameron said, ‘Well, here’s wishing him all the luck in the world, Wellington.’
‘Thank you, sir. That goes for me too if I need to say it.’ They pushed on. After a while Razakis was forced to halt for a while and rest. He was panting like a steam-engine and his face beneath the hairs of the beard was sick-looking, with an unhealthy colour. Kopoulos came to squat by his side, looking anxious himself, shaking his head sadly. Kopoulos was still suffering terrible remorse for what he had had to do to the girl; Cameron fancied that would remain with him for the rest of his life.
Wellington looked at his wrist-watch. ‘Just after ten, sir,’ he said gloomily.
‘I know.’ Two hours to go to the rendezvous; they had not made all that much progress so far. It was touch and go. Cameron doubted if the Captain would keep the ship on station for long after the noon rendezvous had passed. And a whole day’s wait could be fatal if the Stukas were attacking.
*
A head showed incautiously and Pike took quick aim with a rifle and fired. The head vanished.
’Don’t know if I got the sod or not,’ Pike said. Like Leading-Seaman Wellington farther south, he looked at his watch. ‘Another half an hour, Martin, and we’ll shift out. Strewth, I’ll be glad to see the ruddy hogwash again!’
‘Me too,’ Able-Seaman Martin said, squinting along the sights of his rifle and watching out for another head to show. Bloody Nazis... Martin, a three-badgeman and too old, he thought, for this shore-side lark, lived in Plymouth like Pike. Not far from Pike, in fact, before the blitz; close enough for their families to have shared a bomb if they’d been unlucky. Even as the thought came to him, Martin surreptitiously shifted his hands on his rifle and crossed his fingers, then patted the stock of his rifle, three times, touching wood. If anything should happen to Doris and the children... Martin had a daughter, like that Razakis had had; just fourteen she was. What might happen if the Germans ever landed in Plymouth didn’t bear thinking about. Martin felt a wave of cold fury sweep over him whenever he thought about that girl down below in the cave, now dead. But this was Crete, and therefore different; maybe the Huns got their ideas from wild, savage men, which the Cretans were by all accounts. They would be more civilized in Guz, perhaps. It was still horrible to imagine them goose-stepping along where Fore Street had been, though, and over the Hoe — bringing their bloody landing-craft into the Cattewater and their bigger ships past the Hamoaze and Devil’s Point, coming ashore in the dockyard with their Nazi armbands and all.
Pike, too, was thinking about that silent body below. He said suddenly, ‘That cave, Stripey.’
‘Yes?’
‘When the Jerries take over, after we’ve pulled out... they’ll go down there, right?’
Martin nodded. ‘I s’pose so, yes.’
‘Doesn’t seem right, doesn’t seem decent. Look, the Jerries are quiet now. We’ve got the grenades... get down there, will you, Stripey? Blow in the entrance. Seal it off far as you can. Like a — a—’
‘Shrine?’ Martin suggested, wiping a hand across his nose. Pike nodded. ‘That’s right, yes. A shrine, like. Least we can do, eh?’
Martin went down; Pike stared across at the hills and the trees. Beautiful, if you were a tourist. Pike liked mountain country, but not just at this moment. Crete was anything but a tourist spot and God alone knew what slaughter was going on along the coasts... as he ruminated, the explosions came from below him. There was a lot of acrid smoke and German heads appeared again. The rifles fired, and they ducked down. Pike grinned; those explosions would be causing a certain amount of bafflement in the German minds down there. He heard Martin coming back up and he glanced down.
‘Well?’
‘All okay,’ Martin reported. ‘That revolving stone went... split in two, and I reckon it’s blocked the steps good an’ proper. And I brought down a lot of the passageway leading to it.’
‘Good work, Stripey.’ Pike looked at his watch again. ‘Fifteen minutes more, then we’ll give the buggers a farewell round or two, and after that —’
‘We scarper!’
‘Right.’
Pike fancied they would have a fair start; the Jerries wouldn’t come out from cover too fast after the firing stopped. They’d smell a trap — bound to. Once into the trees, the landing-party would have a good chance of getting clear away to the coast, just as good a chance as Cameron in fact. Pike whistled flatly through his teeth. It was hot now, with the sun well up the sky, and the sky a metallic blue, acting as a reflector almost. The Germans were being remarkably quiet, Pike thought with a sense of sudden unease, very strangely quiet. He moved away from Martin and walked round the firing step, having a word with each of the seamen, warning them that in the next few minutes he would fire two rounds rapid with his revolver, this being the signal for them all to blast away towards the concealed Jerries, twelve rounds each. After that, no time lost at all, they were to beat it down the slope to the south and re-muster in the cover of the trees. Pike was going back to his command position when he heard a yell from Able-Seaman Martin:
‘Christ, the sods are coming in!’
Coming round the rock, Pike saw them. Around a couple of hundred of them at a guess, and more were coming from the flanks. Pike shouted for the rifles to open. Some of the running men went down sprawling, but far too few of them. Martin fell backwards with a bullet in his head, and plum-meted to the rock surface below. Two of the ratings broke to the south, leaping like stags down the slope. They had very nearly made the trees when the machine-guns got them. Three bullets took Pike in the chest as he pumped away with his revolver; his last thought before he died had been about that letter home. It was still aboard the ship. The fighting was all over inside the next five minutes. Twice within a few hours Razakis’s stronghold had lost its defenders to a man.
*
1415 hours: it was time to go now, to lie off well to seaward before the Stukas came back, and then return after nightfall. Sawbridge, his heart heavy, passed the orders.
‘Full ahead both engines, starboard ten, Pilot.’
The navigating officer spoke down the voice-pipe; Saw-bridge could hear the Torpedo-Coxswain’s voice coming back up as he repeated the orders: ‘Full ahead both engines, sir. Ten of starboard wheel on, sir.’ Then a moment later, as bells rang below: ‘Engines repeated full ahead, sir.’
‘Steady,’ Sawbridge said fifteen seconds later, watching the gyro repeater.
‘Steady, sir. Course, one-eight-oh, sir.’
Sawbridge nodded to the navigator. ‘Steer that, Pilot.’ He moved for’ard and looked down to the fo’c’sle. He called, ‘Number One?’
Drummond looked up, shading his eyes against the high sun. ‘Sir?’
‘We’ll remain closed up at first degree of readiness, Number One.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Drummond walked aft. Dinner, already eaten, had be
en brought to all hands at their action stations; tea and supper would be the same. The men were getting tired now; their reactions would be slower when action came again. They were bored, too, and Drummond was far from prised. Mostly, action itself was of short duration, however hectic while it lasted. Hanging around at action stations when not in actual action was boring — very. And continual action stations was unbeloved of the Executive Officer of any warship large or small; routine work just didn’t get done and after a while the ship began to look and feel dirty, like a neglected house. Paintwork went for a burton. When possible, First Lieutenants of destroyers and Commanders of cruisers and battleships liked to enter harbour looking spick and span with paintwork gleaming; it was akin to the Brigade of Guards marching off the little ships after Dunkirk — marching, not shuffling, with polished boots. Bloody stupid in a sense, but excellent for morale.
Drummond moved around the decks, having a word here and there, helping so far as he could to keep spirits up and keep the men on their toes. He knew very well how all hands hated air attack, from the dive-bombers especially. It was a mode of warfare that left men livid with sheer fury at the way the Stukas screamed in and after the bombs had gone at once screamed out again, allowing virtually no time for the guns to hit back. It was like being snapped and snarled at by terriers, fast-moving and vicious. Surface action was different: the enemy stayed there to be shot back at. Or anyway, the Germans did; in Cunningham’s Pond, the Italians usually didn’t.
*
Kopoulos had handed his sub-machine-gun over to Cameron and then Razakis had been lifted on to his back to be carried. Kopoulos was strong, but Razakis was immensely heavy; thus the advance south had slowed considerably and at a little after noon, with some way still to go to the coast, Kopoulos had stopped and lain Razakis gently on the ground.
Dangerous Waters (A Donald Cameron Naval Thriller) Page 8