‘We’re in, and that poor bastard on the gate is for the high jump. Happy now, sir?’
‘He would be fine if he had done his job,’ Moss replied. ‘In any case, you did a fine job of persuading him, Sergeant.’
The soldier scowled back. ‘Where now, sir?’
‘Right outside the front of the school will do nicely, thank you. Might as well end things in style.’
As the car roared up the drive towards the main building, Moss and Andreas eased themselves up and on to the back seat. They passed one of the instructors who frowned curiously as he saw the two men in Arab dress being chauffeured by the military policemen. The sergeant drew up outside the arched front door and stopped.
‘Here you are, sirs. Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll have our revolvers back.’
The agents handed their weapons over and climbed out of the car. Moss placed his hands on his hips and stretched his back. ‘Ah! A celebratory drink in the mess is on the cards, I should think. My treat, Andreas, for getting me off the hook.’
‘You are welcome.’ Andreas grinned.
The sergeant coughed. ‘If you two gentlemen have finished with us?’
Moss waved airily back down the slope. ‘By all means, you may go. And thank you for the lift.’
The sergeant forced a smile as he answered quietly, ‘Fuck you, sir. Fuck you very much.’
Then he slammed the car into gear and accelerated away before either of the officers could respond.
‘Well, that went well!’ Moss laughed. As Andreas joined in a figure emerged from the doorway and stood on the steps above them. They turned to see the school’s commanding officer regarding them with an amused expression. ‘Well, well. That’s the first time any of our students ended the exercise in such style.’
‘It was quite a lark,’ said Moss. ‘I think I may make a career of hijacking cars.’
Andreas joined in their laughter, feeling great relief at having overcome the final challenge set by the SOE’s training school. His mirth was short-lived as their superior’s smile faded and he regarded them with what looked almost like pity.
‘You are both brave fellows. Good men. But I’m afraid this is the last time it will be a bit of a lark, young Moss. The games are over. From now on, it all becomes brutally simple. You succeed, or you die . . .’
Two weeks later, Andreas was sitting outside the ready room at Tokra airfield near Alexandria. The building used to provide the agents with a few last comforts before they left was a simple brick structure with a corrugated iron roof. Inside, a corporal made tea and sandwiches for the men that passed through and gave cigarettes to those that needed them. There was no alcohol, though, in case an agent was tempted too much by the prospect of liquid courage. The sun had set shortly before and the western horizon was ablaze with red and orange. The air was warm and still and there was a peacefulness about the scene that Andreas found calming even though, within the hour, he was due to board the plane that would carry him, and several crates of weapons, ammunition and equipment to the resistance fighters of Lefkas.
There were two other men waiting for another bomber to drop them into the Balkans. They sat a short distance away from Andreas, smoking and occasionally exchanging a few quiet words. There was no attempt to engage Andreas in conversation. That was part of the training, in case they were captured and tortured and revealed any information about another operation.
A hundred metres away from the ready room the ground crew were preparing the two aircraft for the night’s missions. They were Liberators, big four-engined American-built bombers with the necessary range to parachute agents and supplies throughout the Mediterranean. A fuel bowser was filling the tanks while armourers loaded ammunition belts into the machine-gun positions, though it was unlikely that the bombers would encounter any night fighters during their flight.
Andreas had not yet put on his jumpsuit and leaned forward, elbows resting on his tanned knees, as he drew on his cigarette and watched the men working on the aircraft. Despite the terrible danger he faced he felt happy. His training was complete and he felt confident in the skills he had learned and was keen to put them into practice when he returned to Lefkas. He mentally went over his orders once again. It had been months since the SOE had had an agent on Lefkas. The previous British officer had been injured and evacuated. Contact with the andartes had been intermittent and brief when it happened, according to communications protocols, and there was only a vague understanding of what was happening. Andreas would go in with the next supply drop to the largest of the resistance bands. When he reached Lefkas he was to assess the situation and report back on the number of the resistance fighters and their needs. After he had reported back he was then to do what he could to coordinate the efforts of the andartes and assist them in their attacks on the enemy.
After he had been over his orders he permitted himself a moment’s reverie at the prospect of seeing Eleni again. He had no idea if she was still living on the island, or indeed was even alive. The winter of starvation that had killed so many of his people might well have claimed her too. But somehow he instinctively believed that she was still alive and still there and he might see her from time to time. After these long months apart, that would be enough to nourish his desire for her, he thought. In time, when the war was over, there would be a new opportunity to know her better, to dare to think of a future together.
His thoughts were interrupted by a car driving across the airfield towards him, throwing up a swirl of dust in its wake. The vehicle stopped outside the ready room and the driver turned the engine off and hopped out to open the door for his passenger. Colonel Huntley emerged, in uniform, and Andreas and the other agents rose to their feet and saluted. Huntley returned their salute and then removed his cap.
‘Just come to say a few words and see you boys off.’ He nodded briefly to Andreas. ‘Be with you in a minute.’
Andreas resumed his seat and continued smoking while the colonel offered a few muted words of encouragement to the others and shook each of them by the hand. Then he made his way to Andreas and gestured to the bench.
‘May I join you, Katarides?’
‘Of course, sir.’
Huntley eased himself down and pulled out an unopened packet of cigarettes and offered it to Andreas.
‘I already have one, sir.’ He raised his cigarette.
‘This is for later. After you’ve landed. Take it. You’ll thank me for it, I can assure you.’
Andreas glanced at him. ‘Then you’ve been in the field?’
‘Of course. You don’t really think that I would send men to do work I was not prepared to do myself.’
‘Forgive me, sir. But that’s not uncommon in the military world.’
‘Well, it’s not how we do things in the SOE.’
Andreas nodded, hesitated briefly, then asked, ‘May I ask where?’
‘You may . . .’
They exchanged a knowing smile before Huntley continued. ‘It’s never the way you think it’s going to be. Before you go, and to an extent afterwards, it seems exciting and terribly noble work. But while you are there, there is only boredom, exhaustion, hunger, thirst and cold, and worst of all a constant sickening dread . . . But there, I shouldn’t be saying these things.’
‘I understand, sir.’
‘That’s good. You have a more dangerous assignment than most of my agents. We can get you on to Lefkas, but exfiltrating you is a rather more tricky process. The chances are that you will have to remain on the island for many months, years even, assuming the war lasts that long. If you are injured or taken ill, there will be nothing we can do to help you. And then there’s the enemy. They will hunt you like a pack of hounds and you will have to be as wily as the brightest of foxes to stay out of their clutches. They may kill you, but the bigger danger is that they take you alive. The Italians are fair enough chaps, but if they are persuaded by their German friends to hand you over then there’s every chance that you will be mistreated. In w
hich case, the SOE offers all out agents a choice . . .’ He paused to reach into his jacket pocket and took out a small black metal case, the size of a domino. ‘We call these L pills. I think you can guess what they do.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’m told it’s quick. All you have to do is bite down on the capsule and the cyanide will do its bit in seconds. Here.’
He held the box out and Andreas did not hesitate as he took it.
‘Keep it on you at all times. I will not order a man to use it in the event of capture. That will be for you to decide. If you don’t then I have a right to ask that you deny the enemy any information for as long as you can. We reckon on at least a day, in order for the rest of your group to make good their escape.’
‘Yes, sir. You can be sure I will do the right thing.’ Andreas put the box in his breast pocket and fastened the button securely. ‘Thank you.’
‘I hope you never have cause to.’
A covered truck drew up by the aircraft and the planes’ crews climbed out and made their way to each of the bombers and clambered up through the belly hatches.
‘They’ll be ready for you soon,’ said Huntley.
Andreas nodded. They sat in silence for a while before the colonel straightened his back and took a deep breath. ‘Well, there’s nothing more to be said. I’ll wish you the best of luck and good fortune, Katarides.’
They both stood up and the colonel shook Andreas by the hand. ‘At times it will feel like you are playing an insignificant part in the war effort. Never let that discourage you. Our enemy will feel even the smallest pinprick and if we have to win this war one drop of blood at a time then that’s how we must play it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Huntley held his hand a moment longer and fixed him with a determined stare. Then he released his grip and turned back to his car abruptly. The driver opened the door for him and the colonel climbed in and the vehicle drove off without him once looking back at the agents. As the car disappeared across the airfield, the Liberators’ engines coughed into life, one by one, and the propellers spun until they merged into shimmering disks, glinting in the last light of the evening. The truck that had delivered the aircrews rumbled over towards the ready room. The door opened and the corporal came out and cleared his throat as he addressed the agents.
‘It’s time to go.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Lefkas
‘They’re late,’ Michaelis hissed and spat on to the ground. He stood up and stretched his back as he looked out over the bare crest of the hill that had been chosen for the drop site. It was sufficiently far from the nearest settlement to make being disturbed by any locals, let alone the Italians, unlikely. The latter had taken to patrolling the island only by day and confining themselves to the towns and fortified outposts they had constructed at strategic points along the coastline of Lefkas. There was also another issue that vexed Michaelis concerning the matter of supply drops. On the previous two occasions the British had overshot the zone and dropped their cargo some kilometres away. By the time Michaelis’s band had reached the spot, the weapons and ammunition had been gathered up by another band and secreted away. On the second occasion they had been caught in the act and there had been a tense confrontation before the leaders of the two resistance bands had agreed to divide the supplies. He told the radio operator to send a message back to Cairo demanding that it did not happen a third time.
It was a warm night and the breeze blowing over the crest of the hill was gentle and carried the sweet smell of thyme and pine up from the slopes below. A slender arc of silver in the star-studded sky provided what natural light there was, just enough for the pilot of the plane to make out the shape of the island and line up his approach while waiting for the signal lamps to wink on.
Around Michaelis, in the dark, sat a score of his men, and the girl. He turned in her direction and could just make out her silhouette against the dull sheen of the distant sea. She was the only female member of the band and, as far as he knew, one of only a handful across the island who served under any of the kapetans fighting the Italians. That she was brave, he had no doubt. She had carried messages for him, and gathered useful intelligence on the enemy’s intentions so that he and his band had been able to remain a step ahead of the Italians, avoiding their occasional sweeps across different sectors of the island and escaping those villages and paths where the enemy had set ambushes.
Recently she had demanded to take a more active role in the resistance and learn how to use firearms so that she could fight alongside them. Michaelis adhered to traditional island values and was reluctant to extend his regard to her as far as letting her fight alongside the men in battle, but he had trained her to fire and maintain their weapons and that had sated her ambitions for the moment. There was another side to his reluctance to permit her to join them in raids and ambushes, namely that she was too valuable as a go-between and spy to be thrown away in a reckless skirmish.
He turned to face the direction they were expecting the plane to come from and strained his eyes and ears to detect any sign of the aircraft but there was nothing and he mouthed another curse on his allies. They had promised much and delivered little. Just as they had in the days of the German invasion of Greece. Some of Michaelis’s men had served in the army and told him sorry tales of the nation’s humbling. Despite the guarantees of help from the British prime minister, Churchill, only a fraction of the promised reinforcements had been sent to Greece, accompanied by tanks that were no match for the German panzers, even when they did not break down. As a result the British had reached the front just in time to join the headlong retreat to Athens. There they had evacuated their men to Crete before being forced to give that up as well, and leave the Greeks to suffer under the fascists.
Michaelis shared his nation’s humiliation and wanted to fight back. But to do that he needed help and the British had provided him with scant supplies of weapons up until now. He had his own suspicions about that. After all, the British had gone to great lengths to save the king and his despotic cronies and offer them a safe haven in Egypt. It was clear that they intended to restore them to power if the allies won the war. Until then they would provide the resistance with just enough equipment for them to harass the enemy, but not enough for them to resist the imposition of an unpopular government when the war was won. My enemy’s enemy is my friend . . . Michaelis smiled thinly. The bitter rivalry between the right and the left in Greek politics threatened to divide the nation and distract the people from their common foe. Even on the small island of Lefkas, some of the bands were inclined to put politics above patriotism. For his own part he would prefer to see the monarchy abolished once the war was over, and the establishment of a real democracy in Greece.
The girl abruptly stood up. ‘Listen!’
Michaelis cocked his head. ‘What is it, Eleni?’
‘Shhh!’
More of his men rose out of the shadows and turned to the south.
‘There, hear it?’ She turned to Michaelis.
The breeze eased for an instant and he heard the unmistakable drone of an aircraft, still too far away to be visible. At once Michaelis turned to his men.
‘Get into position! Yannis, Georgis, go!’
The two men scurried across the hilltop on diverging courses and ran on for a hundred or so metres before stopping and taking out their flashlights. Michaelis had already prepared his own and his thumb was resting on the switch as he kept looking for the approaching plane. His heart was beating quickly as he scanned the starlit sky, threaded with thin trails of cloud. It was always possible that the plane belonged to the enemy. He had heard of other anadarte groups who had given a recognition signal only to be strafed by a German fighter. But as the sound grew louder it was clear that this was a big aircraft, such as only the allies operated, and his tension eased.
Eleni thrust her hand out. ‘Up there! I see it.’
He followed the direction indicated and saw the tiny fl
icker of a green light, the signal they had been told to look for in the radio message from Cairo alerting them to the drop. She had good senses, Michaelis noted, smiling in Eleni’s direction. He turned on his torch, aiming the beam in the aircraft’s direction and moments later the other two torches were switched on. Now was the most dangerous moment, Michaelis knew. Both the aircraft and those on the ground had exposed themselves and if the enemy were close by then they would be alerted to the supply drop and do all they could to intervene. Even if they were too far away they would still have heard the noise of the aircraft and guess what it portended. Which is why the business had to be dealt with as quickly as possible. The crates retrieved, unloaded and their contents strapped to the mules tethered close by, and then Michaelis, his band, and the mules would quit the hilltop as swiftly as possible and be safely hidden away in their caves and remote shepherds’ huts long before dawn broke over the island and the enemy came looking for them.
They heard the change in the note of the engines as the pilot throttled back and began to descend and bank on to the heading for the drop zone markers. Eleni and the others stood still, watching the tiny dark shadow moving across the starred sky and as it drew closer to the island a finger of light flickered up into the darkness above Nidhri and began to sweep slowly across the heavens attempting to seek out the approaching bomber. But by the time the Italian officer in charge of the battery of anti-aircraft guns realised his target was flying low, the bomber would have completed its drop and turned to make the long flight back to Egypt.
Eleni could feel the reverberating throb of the engines as the aircraft steadied for its run and the dark shape swiftly grew in size and then, with a roar, it was on them. Even before it swept overhead the first of the parachutes billowed out below and behind. More followed, like dark flowers blossoming in the night. She could just make out the crates suspended below each parachute, then, as the last one opened she saw that it was a human, dangling like a puppet as he floated to the ground some distance beyond the triangle of lights on the hilltop. The din of the bomber’s engines changed pitch as it began to climb away, its mission complete. On the ground Michaelis snapped off his flashlight and a moment later the remaining lights disappeared.
Hearts of Stone Page 24