He moved forward to check on the pickets. He found two of the men watching diligently from the safety of an olive grove, trees and the tall May grass providing good cover. Lying beside them, he drew out his binoculars. Up ahead were the houses and the walls – the walls that had been briefly theirs. He and the men around him at the Canea Gate had been among the first back to the battalion command post. He had known Major Schulz had gone to try to link up with von der Schulenberg after their breakthrough; his own task had been to secure the west of the town. It had been plaguing him that he had been the one to sound the retreat, but what else could he have done?
Schulz and von der Schulenberg had eventually reappeared with the remains of their storm troops some time after midnight. Balthasar had never seen Schulz so angry. It seemed that, with von der Schulenberg’s men, they had reached the edge of the port. There, he had even taken the surrender of the town from a Greek major and the town’s mayor and had raised the swastika from a flag-pole at the western end of the harbour, but as they had been corralling the prisoners, they had come under attack again. The Tommies were refusing to honour the surrender. ‘It is completely against the practices of war,’ Schulz had fumed. He had been cheated of victory and, in the process of falling back out of the town, had lost far more men than they had when they stormed the walls. Anger was fuelled by bitter disappointment; that night, they had suffered their first defeat of the war.
He looked at the town. It seemed quiet enough.
‘Have you had contact with the other pickets?’ he asked.
‘No, Herr Oberleutnant.’
‘All right,’ he said, moving into a crouching position. ‘I’ll send some men to relieve you shortly.’ He moved along through the grove, pushed his way underneath two thick olive trees, and then recoiled. Before him, in a slight hollow in the ground, lying in the grass, were two of the pickets, side by side, their heads severed and placed on their chests. Pinned to the jump smock of one was a note, written in German: ‘Ravening a blood drinker though you may be, yet will I glut your taste for blood.’ Balthasar snatched the note, the paper stained with blood, then looked back towards the town. A fury he had not experienced before coursed through him, as he made his way to the command post. Quickly sending forward replacement pickets, he then found Unteroffizier Rohde and ordered him to organize a burial party. ‘Wrap them in parachute silk,’ he snapped. ‘The fewer men who see them the better.’
Schulz was up, squatting beside a radio, anxiously watching the operator as he tuned the receiver.
‘Herr Major,’ said Balthasar, ‘two pickets were killed in the night.’
‘Scheisser,’ cursed Schulz. ‘How? I did not hear any shooting.’
‘They had their heads cut off.’ He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled deeply.
‘My God,’ said Schulz, his voice quiet.
‘Here,’ said Balthasar, passing him the bloodied note.
Schulz snatched it, his eyes scanning the words. ‘What does it mean?’
‘Revenge, Herr Major. I imagine it is a quotation of some kind.’
‘Revenge?’ snarled Schulz. ‘Revenge? I will give those sons of bitches revenge!’
But there was little they could do that morning. A head count showed they had now lost more than seventy per cent of their force since the air landings had begun. Ammunition was low; so, too, was food. The survivors were exhausted – Balthasar could see it in the men’s drawn faces. Morale, usually so high, had taken a beating. Every man among them had lost good friends, and that was hard to take. And there was the shock of defeat, too. Those who had fought in France or in Greece were used to lightning victories with minimal losses; those new to action had joined their ranks expecting those successes too. Now there was the grotesque murder of the two pickets. Schulz had tried to put a lid on it but, of course, word had quickly got round.
It was their inability to make contact with any of the other units that Balthasar found so frustrating. They knew that more men were due to be dropped that day around the airfield, and, they hoped, more supplies, but it was infuriating not to know what was happening, whether the men dropped around the airfield were making headway, whether the other drops at Rethymno and Canea had succeeded or failed. Despite repeated efforts on the radio set, no contact had been made with Oberst Bräuer and the rest of the men in Orion Sector, the designated codename for the Heraklion Drop Zone, nor had the runner sent the previous night reappeared. God only knew what had happened to him. A link had been established with Major Schirmer and his men from the 2nd Fallschirmjäger Regiment, who had now secured the Canea road, but Schirmer would only spare one company. The 3rd Battalion now had just 204 men left and nothing like enough ammunition to launch any kind of attack. They would have to stay where they were, digging in and watching out for any enemy counter-attack.
Just after seven, with the sun now risen, a radio signal from VIII Fliegerkorps was intercepted. From this they learned that the Luftwaffe would be carrying out a supply drop and bombing Heraklion some time after 8 a.m.
‘Let’s hope they come soon and find us,’ said Balthasar, squinting up at the cloudless sky. ‘It’s going to be hot today.’
‘Get a flag pinned out,’ said Schulz, ‘and have the green flares ready. We can’t afford for those fly boys to miss us. Some supplies will give the men a much-needed lift.’
Balthasar took another glug from his water bottle. ‘I know what will really lift morale,’ he said. ‘The chance to make those bastards pay.’
The daily hate arrived just after 9 a.m., Stukas first, circling and bombing the harbour area, and then around a dozen Junkers 88s. From their positions on the walls, Tanner watched through his binoculars. Some of the bombs landed in the sea, others on the town. The noise – the scream of the sirens, the whistle of the falling bombs, the explosions, the crash of stone and timber collapsing, and the pounding of the anti-aircraft guns – was deafeningly loud. Huge clouds of dust and smoke enveloped the harbour and then several houses were hit nearby, the ground thudding at the explosion. The dust and smoke that rolled up into the air soon drifted across to the walls, making the men there cough and choke.
And then they were gone, the smoke soon thinned and dispersed, and above them droned another wave of aircraft, this time transports.
‘Here, look at this, sir,’ said Tanner, passing his binoculars to Lieutenant Timmins.
‘What am I looking at, CSM?’ asked Timmins, a thin-faced twenty-three-year-old from Knaresborough, commander of 2 Platoon.
‘The flare, sir, that Jerry’s just fired.’
‘What of it? I’m afraid I don’t really catch your drift, Tanner.’
Tanner tried not to let his impatience show in his voice. ‘Well, sir, first of all it’s pinpointing exactly where those para boys are, and second, it’s clearly a signal to the transports coming over to drop them supplies and maybe even reinforcements.’
‘Yes, yes, I see what you mean.’
‘So next time they come, if our lot to the south of the town start firing green flares, then maybe Jerry will drop us some supplies too.’
Timmins grinned. ‘That would certainly get up Jerry’s nose.’
‘It would, sir.’
Most of the transports seemed to be to the east of the town and, once again, the chatter of small arms could be heard between the thunder of the ack-ack guns. Parachutes were blossoming behind him, but now several opened out ahead. Tanner took back his binoculars and peered through them again. Canisters. He counted half a dozen descending slowly to the ground, then disappearing from view behind the shallow ridge away to the west.
He had been studying the ground since first light, and already it felt familiar to him. The edge of the town spread only a short distance from the walls, then beyond were the seemingly endless olive and fruit groves and vineyards, interspersed with small grass meadows. Stretching away from the town was the main road to Rethymno and Canea, an unmetalled and dusty track that cut a creamy path through the endles
s green vegetation and rose up over the ridge, beyond which, he guessed, was the river he had seen the previous afternoon. Then maize fields, yet more olives and finally the mountains. Just the far side of the ridge, but clearly visible above it, was a house, a farmstead of some kind, he supposed. It was from around there, just the other side of the ridge, that the flare had been fired. How far? Half a mile, maybe as much as a thousand yards. Just out of rifle range. And there would be the Germans’ forward positions, with pickets sent to keep watch, just as he was watching them.
Tanner had been hoping for movement, but had seen little sign of life, apart from a brief moment when the sun had caught some glass and a blinding glint had twinkled from an olive grove. A paratrooper looking back at him, he guessed. At least now he had some definite markers. He knew the Cretans had been out scalp-hunting in the night, but his thoughts now were of patrolling at dusk, assuming the enemy did not try anything in the meantime. Certainly, there were few indicators to suggest they would: the morning hate had been no worse than normal, and the Aegean looked calm and untroubled, no sign of any German armada steaming over the horizon towards them.
Down below, burial parties were clearing away the dead from the previous evening, a grim task that was now the responsibility of B Company since they had been detailed to cover the Canea Gate and the bastion. It was a measure designed to ease the load on the Greek battalions, now back in position at either side of them. ‘To buck them up a bit,’ was apparently what Colonel Vigar had told Peploe. The rest of the battalion had returned to their positions astride the Knossos road. A cart of bodies was now rumbling through the gate itself and out to a pit that had been dug at the edge of town, a task overseen by Lieutenant Liddell. It was funny, Tanner reflected, how different things were now. When he was a child, the Liddells had been treated like royalty in their village. David Liddell had been a respected man, squire of the parish. Tanner had been taught not to speak to any of the Liddells unless spoken to; he’d not liked that even then, but it had been the way of things. It had existed for centuries, the huge chasm between landowner and the families who worked for him.
The war was changing that. Second Lieutenant Liddell might be an officer and therefore still his superior, but the men knew that the CSM ran the company with the company commander. That was also the way of things. The men respected and looked up to him, he knew, something he had earned. The war was turning civilians into soldiers – men like Liddell and even Captain Peploe, who in peacetime would never have worn a uniform. And they were seeing that those from the lower classes were not necessarily another man’s inferior. War was levelling the social divide. As Tanner was aware, his own natural authority and his proven abilities in battle had shown that a man like Guy Liddell was not his better any more.
Early afternoon, in a quiet street near the harbour. They were in a small Venetian townhouse, two storeys high, in a room on the first floor with white walls, crammed bookcases, a few old prints, a desk and a couple of tatty armchairs. To the side of the desk, French windows led out onto a small balcony, from which the twinkling blue of the old harbour could be glimpsed. By the door stood a hatstand, over which was slung a Sam Browne belt, and an officer’s peaked cap, and beneath it, what at first glance appeared to be an ivory-handled cane but was, in fact, a swordstick.
Behind the desk sat John Pendlebury, leaning back in his swivel chair, smoking a cigarette, while the two armchairs were occupied by Satanas and Alopex, the former also smoking, but a long cheroot rather than a cigarette. Alex Vaughan was leaning against the French windows’ frame. A knock on the door, and in came Corporal Tasker-Brown, bearing a tray of small glasses and a bottle of raki. Pendlebury leaned forward to clear a space for the tray, rolling his glass eye in the process but neatly catching it as it tipped off the edge of the desk.
‘Damn eye,’ he said.
‘The patch is better,’ said Alopex. ‘It makes you look more fierce.’ He chuckled.
‘I wonder whether the Huns have worked out their little message yet,’ said Pendlebury, as he poured the raki.
‘What’s this?’ said Vaughan.
Pendlebury glanced across at Satanas and Alopex, with a smirk. ‘I wrote our friends a line from Herodotus,’ he said. ‘“Ravening a blood drinker though you may be, yet will I glut your taste for blood.”’ He raised his glass. ‘Your good health, gentlemen.’
‘And then we caught two of their sentries,’ grinned Alopex, ‘killed them, cut off their heads and left that note pinned to one of them.’
Satanas and Alopex chuckled.
‘For God’s sake,’ snapped Vaughan. ‘You’re as bad as them. Behaving like savages.’
‘They were already dead,’ said Pendlebury. ‘We’re trying to sow a sense of discord, of fear, among them.’
‘And the point of the Herodotus?’
‘It was said by Queen Tamaris when she cut off the head of King Cyrus. Cyrus and the Persians invaded her kingdom of the Massagetae. She captured him, executed him and returned his head in a sack.’
‘Invade our country and pay the price.’
‘Exactly. I think it sent a very clear message.’ Pendlebury pushed back his chair and ran his hands through his hair. ‘The maddening thing, though, is that we should be annihilating that mob out there. Tonight we should be finishing them off. Damn it all, we’ve got way more men than they have. We could storm their positions and be done with ’em. I’m no soldier, but I know my history, and that tells me one should always exploit success. “Don’t leave today what might cause rivers of blood tomorrow.”’
‘Our andartes are ready and waiting in the mountains,’ said Satanas. ‘We give them the word and they’ll attack.’
Alopex stroked his moustache. ‘Then we would attack them from behind. The British could stay here, sitting on their arses. It would be our victory. A Cretan victory. Word would quickly spread. It would unite our people against the Nazi invader.’
Pendlebury leaned forward, thinking, his fingers drumming on the desk. Then he stood up. ‘Damn it – you know what? We should break out of here now. Go and tell the andartes to attack. If we’d been given radio sets like I asked then we could signal Hanford and Bruce-Mitford, but since we haven’t then I see no other way.’
‘Don’t be mad, John,’ said Vaughan. ‘If you must go, wait until dark.’
‘No. It’ll be too late then. We need to get them moving now, this afternoon, so that they can attack at dusk. Satanas and Alopex can head back to Sarhos and Krousonas, and I’ll break through to Gazi.’
‘But the Germans are to the west of the town,’ said Vaughan. ‘You’ll never get through.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Pendlebury, lighting another cigarette. ‘We drove to see Brigadier Chappel this morning and there are supposedly German paratroopers swarming around between here and there too. We never saw a single one and we were making no effort to hide.’
‘They probably moved in the night.’
‘Listen, Alex, I’ve been trying to work out how many paratroopers we have to the west of here, and I reckon at the absolute most – and it’s probably even a lot less than this – there cannot be more than three hundred. Three hundred, spread out along the reverse slopes of that ridge, is not very many. Are you really going to tell me I can’t sneak through with all that lovely natural cover? Course I can.’
‘If they see you, they’ll kill you. After what you did last night, I don’t suppose they’ll be in a very forgiving mood towards any of us,’ said Vaughan.
‘They won’t. I know these folds like the back of my hand. I can get through them, I know I can.’
‘This is madness, utter madness. It’s not a game. And you are no soldier. You’re a brilliant inspiration and a wonderful organizer, but you’ve barely done any fighting in your life. Let the army boys do their job, John.’
‘But they’re not, are they? You heard Brigadier Chappel this morning. A fine fellow, I have no doubt, but he wouldn’t even consider ordering a counter-atta
ck. He just wants to sit and wait. Well, that’s no good. We need to strike now. I know I’m right.’ He looked at Satanas and Alopex for approval. Satanas tilted his head. I think you are right. ‘We’ll leave through the Canea Gate, head straight down the road and then split up. You two can go south, and I’ll break through to the west.’
‘John, don’t. It’s a needless risk.’
‘Battles aren’t won without taking risks, Alex.’
‘Battles aren’t won taking needless, stupid risks.’
Pendlebury walked over to Vaughan and clasped him by the arms. ‘Alex. We need to do this. My mind is made up.’
10
It was a hot day. So hot, in fact, that the men manning the walls had begun taking off their tin helmets; the steel had become too hot to touch, let alone wear. Better to risk an exposed head than fry one’s brain. A sickly stench had also begun to waft across the walls. Second Lieutenant Guy Liddell knew the smell – it reminded him of one summer when a rotting deer had reeked for days from its death-bed in the woods, a cloying, nauseous stench that seemed to get into one’s hair and clothes. Except, of course, that the smell was no deer, but men who just a day earlier had been living and breathing but who were now dead and, it seemed, abandoned, missed by the burial parties, their bloating corpses left to bake and rot in the May sun.
It could have been me, thought Liddell, as he looked out from the walls towards the endless lush groves, fields and trees, bursting with life and framed by the mountains beyond. A vision of beauty, but to Liddell this place was hell. Homesickness welled within him, his sense of entrapment overwhelming. He was hungry and thirsty, yet that smell made him feel sick, so that the last thing he wanted was food. Images from the fighting the previous night kept filling his mind: limbless men, the sound of bullets whistling over his head, the fear he had felt. Christ, he had even pissed himself – the only consolation had been that, at night, no one had noticed. He had poured water over his crotch and by dawn his shorts had dried, but the thought that he was still walking around in clothes soiled by dried urine disgusted him.
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