Blood of Honour

by James Holland

  A quarter of an hour later, having followed the river that flowed through the mouth of the valley, they finally caught up with most of the survivors from the battalion’s jump, a couple of kilometres to the west of Heraklion town. The land before the Rethymno road rose briefly, so that the river had cut a shallow gully. To either side of the river there were olives and plentiful orange and lemon groves; among them and along the gully, paratroopers now took cover. Above, another flight of Tante Jus thundered over, parachutes blooming and drifting down. The Tommy flak guns continued to boom, so that the ground trembled, the reports of the guns resounding across the mouth of the valley. Small-arms fire crackled, sharp and tinny beside the guns, and mostly from the defenders, firing at the unfortunates still drifting towards the ground.

  To his relief Balthasar spotted several more of his men, and after ordering the remnants of his company to find cover together, clear of any direct enemy fire, he hurried off to find Major Schulz.

  The battalion commander was not in the house he had initially indicated, which lay among tall palms and plane trees just before the river, but beneath a small two-metre cliff on a bend in the river.

  ‘Ah, Balthasar, at last,’ he said, as the oberleutnant reached him and saluted. ‘Not quite what we were expecting, eh?’

  ‘The Tommies seem to have plenty more guns than I’d thought, Herr Major,’ Balthasar replied. ‘Men too, for that matter. Where are the other company commanders?’ It was cool now, and around them mosquitoes and other insects swarmed beside the river.

  ‘Von der Schulenburg made it but the other two have been killed,’ Schulz replied, brushing a bug away from his face. ‘Thank God I jumped first from my plane, because it was hit immediately after. Everyone else was killed.’

  ‘How many men have we lost?’

  Schulz lit a cigarette. ‘It’s hard to say. We have a few more than two hundred at the moment. Major Schirmer dropped several kilometres west of here with his men. I’ve made radio contact with him but he’s blocking the road and fighting off local bandits. I shouldn’t say this, but Generalmajor Student wants his arse kicking.’

  ‘The Cretans not welcoming us with open arms?’

  Schulz snorted. ‘Not a bit of it. The locals have been butchering our men. I had a paratrooper here a few moments ago who saw his best friend beaten to death by franc-tireurs. He only just managed to get away himself.’

  ‘And what about Colonel Bräuer and the rest of the regiment?’

  Schulz shook his head. ‘We’ve been trying them on the radio, but we can’t get through. I assume it must be broken or destroyed.’

  ‘Maybe we should get ours to him. We’ve less need for it now we’re here. Under darkness it might be possible.’

  ‘Maybe. Anyway, give me some good news – how many of your men have you brought?’

  ‘Seventeen, Herr Major. Although another forty or so are already here.’

  ‘Seventeen? God give me strength.’ Schulz drew on his cigarette and shook his head.

  Balthasar had thought to spin a story about the loss of the supply cart, or simply not mention it, but he knew one of the men would say something and that the story would eventually reach the major. Far better to tell the CO straight, and now – bad news hidden beneath worse. ‘Actually, we were attacked on the way,’ he told the major, lighting a cigarette himself. ‘I’m afraid they got some of our supplies and five more of our men. Four dead.’

  Schulz said nothing. For a moment he rubbed his brow, paced up and down a few steps, then said, ‘We can’t stay here and do nothing.’

  ‘I don’t think we should, sir.’ Not if I have anything to do with it. He wanted a chance to fight back, to kill these Cretan bandits and Tommies. By God, he had an urge to make them pay for what they had done that afternoon. ‘We should make an attack at dusk.’ He looked at his watch. 1855. ‘In an hour’s time. What do we know of the defences?’

  ‘We’ve been watching them since we landed,’ said Schulz. ‘There are Greek troops and franc-tireurs manning the western part of the town. We’ve spotted men on the battlements but they’re also on the ground below. They seem to be quite lightly armed – rifles mostly and a few machine-guns. The guns are mainly flak.’

  ‘The British must be further round to the south,’ said Balthasar. ‘I’d like to have another look, Herr Major. If we can get into the town, we can make the most of our machine-pistols.’ He patted his MP40. ‘These will make mincemeat of the rabble inside, as will our grenades. Out here, without all our MGs and rifles, and without guns, we’re virtually defenceless.’

  ‘I agree, Balthasar,’ said Schulz. ‘We just need to get a toehold inside, then the town will fall and the harbour will be ours. Those Tommy guns can’t get us there.’ He patted a fist into his palm. ‘Let’s get von der Schulenberg and work out a plan of attack.’

  They found Hauptmann Count von der Schulenberg, then scrambled up the bank behind the house. Yet more transports were flying over, most heading east of the town. The guns continued to thunder, so that as they entered the house, the walls shook. On the first floor they peered out of the windows across the broken land, with its groves, trees and occasional houses. The land, Balthasar noticed, was only superficially flat. All the way to the edge of the town, the ground was broken by small rocky gullies and outcrops, and plenty of vegetation. At dusk, with the light constantly changing, it would be easy to advance, flitting between the trees and groves, nothing more than shadows in the fading gloom. Their small numbers would work to their advantage. Balthasar scanned the land again. There were also too many parachutes, patches of creamy silk draped across trees or streamed out over the ground. Bodies littered the earth, and the urge to avenge those men stirred strongly within him.

  He trained his binoculars on the town walls. Smoke from the crashed Junkers had thinned so that he now had a clear view. Behind him, the sun was setting beneath the mountains, its last rays casting a beam of bright orange light through the back of the house and giving the limestone walls of the town ahead an ethereal glow. Outside, Balthasar was conscious of birds singing and it struck him that the gentleness and beauty of the light was at odds with the violence of the battle. He peered now at the town walls. They had seen better days. Although some ten metres high, they had crumbled in parts and he could see trees and bushes sprouting between the slabs of stone. Beneath, buildings stretched away from the walls where the town had begun to sprawl.

  He had read up on the island, and knew that it was some centuries since the Venetians had built those bastions and that, in the end, they had not been able to keep out the Turks. The town had been besieged for more than twenty years – twenty years in which the walls had taken a battering. Those invaders had finally gone more than forty years ago, at the end of the nineteenth century, but little money had come Crete’s way since. It was a poor place, he knew, and now, as he studied the tired town, he realized the Cretans must have plundered the walls for stone for the houses beyond. Those battlements had looked so formidable as he drifted down, but now he realized they were not so impregnable after all.

  Ahead, he could see what looked like a main bastion and gateway into the town, but to the right the walls were crumbling. There were trees aplenty there, reaching out like claws from the stonework, and houses below too. He swept with his binoculars again. There was another bastion by the sea, but between it and the water’s edge there was a gap.

  ‘Well?’ said Schulz. ‘Your thoughts, gentlemen.’

  ‘We should split into two forces,’ said Balthasar. ‘One force should attack the gap in the wall by the edge of the sea, the other towards the main gate ahead of us. In each case, a diversion is needed while the storm troops attack the weak point. There,’ he said, pointing to the crumbled bastions to the right of the main bastion. ‘We don’t need medieval scaling ladders to break through there. We just need enough men to make it seem as though they’re making a head-on attack to draw away the enemy forces. The same by the sea.’

  ‘
Yes,’ said Schulz, ‘I think you’re right. Hauptmann?’

  ‘I agree,’ said von der Schulenberg. ‘Of course, we could do with more ammunition, but we need to be bold.’ He turned to Balthasar. ‘A number of canisters came down west of here and they have been mostly successfully collected. We’re short of medical supplies and food, but we do have some ammunition.’

  ‘There will be food in the town,’ said Balthasar, his mood rapidly improving.

  Schulz eyed him for a moment, then chuckled. ‘You know what, Oberleutnant? Just the thought of it makes me feel better. Hauptmann, you will lead the attack by the sea. Take what’s left of your company and those from 3 Company, and Balthasar and I will carry out the attack here.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Nineteen zero five. We move out in forty minutes.’

  ‘Jawohl, Herr Major,’ said Balthasar.

  Schulz frowned, his face set. ‘We’ll storm those sons of whores,’ he growled, ‘and then they’ll wish they’d shown our comrades a little more respect.’

  Second Lieutenant Guy Liddell had said very little as they had woven their way back towards their lines, but inside he was fuming. Clearly, Tanner’s little ruse had paid off spectacularly, yet he sensed it might well not have done. It had been a foolhardy plan, conceived and acted upon without much pause for consideration. Furthermore, the CSM had not consulted him, even though he was the officer in charge. Worse, the man had directly disobeyed his order not to open fire. He had the distinct impression Tanner had concocted the whole thing to spite him as much as anything – revenge, he supposed, for the events of the previous afternoon.

  When they finally reached their positions south of the Jesus Bastion, the euphoria of the men was plain to see. Excited chatter, claps on the back, wide-eyed relief at having escaped the German return fire unscathed.

  ‘Bloody hell, sir,’ McAllister said to Tanner, ‘it was some explosion. We could see it from where we were!’

  Liddell had gritted his teeth and smiled along with them, but as soon as he could, he went over to Tanner and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Tanner, a word,’ he had said, steering the CSM away a short distance.

  ‘A good patrol, sir,’ said Tanner.

  ‘Tanner, I ordered you not to open fire.’

  ‘I know, sir,’ Tanner said quietly, ‘but the opportunity was suddenly before us. There wasn’t time to consult you.’

  ‘You completely disobeyed me,’ Liddell hissed. ‘You could have got my men killed.’

  Tanner smiled. ‘But I didn’t, sir. There’s no one with so much as a scratch. The only dead ones are Jerries, plus we’ve got a lot of their kit.’

  ‘I don’t like having my authority undermined, Tanner. Regardless of your little success, I shall be reporting you to the captain.’

  Tanner stared at him, those pale blue eyes boring into him. ‘What are you trying to prove, sir?’

  Liddell felt himself bristle. ‘I’m not trying to prove anything. I just want you to respect the authority of an officer.’

  Tanner smiled. ‘Respect, eh?’ And then, as he had already done once before that evening, he turned away and walked back towards the men.

  Liddell watched him, unsure what to say or how to respond. He felt belittled, foolish, as though somehow he was in the wrong, not the CSM. It was, he knew, unfortunate that he should have met Tanner again after all these years in such disagreeable circumstances, but it had not been his fault; he had not been the one street-brawling with the locals. He could see that Tanner had been humiliated but he should have thought of that before fighting that Cretan thug. Nor was he to know that Jack Scard had joined the Yorkshire Rangers back then. Now they were stuck with each other, but that did not mean the past could simply be ignored. His father had once been Tanner’s father’s employer. They were of different classes. Bill Scard had shown his father respect, so now Tanner would damn well show him some.

  Looking up, he saw Captain Peploe approaching him. He was wearing a wool sweater over his shirt, his hands plunged deep into his pockets.

  ‘Good to see you, Mr Liddell,’ said Peploe. ‘A successful patrol?’

  ‘Yes, I think so, sir,’ said Liddell.

  ‘Get on all right with Tanner?’

  ‘Apart from the blatant disobeying of orders, yes.’

  Peploe smiled and said, ‘Let’s just move away a bit.’ He led him away from the men, and down the Knossos road a short distance. The skies were at last clear and an uneasy quiet had descended; no more aircraft droned overhead, the guns were no longer booming. Only small-arms fire disturbed the evening stillness.

  ‘You’d better explain,’ said Peploe.

  Liddell did so, then said, ‘In my judgement, it was a reckless decision. I admit it was successful, but it could have very easily backfired. We had no idea how many there were of them or how strongly they were armed, and I had already specifically told him not to open fire.’

  Peploe rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘When you say, “we”, are you sure Tanner had not made any kind of recce first?’

  ‘I don’t see how he could have done, sir. One minute we were moving through a maize field, the next he and the others were off. He knew I wanted to talk to him and deliberately rushed on ahead before I could reach him.’

  Liddell saw Peploe struggling to suppress a smile and felt his cheeks redden.

  ‘All right, Lieutenant.’ Peploe looked up towards the mountains, then back at Liddell. ‘It’s partly my fault. I should have been a bit clearer beforehand. Tanner was leading, and I would always trust him to use his judgement. After all, he has seen more action than any of us. My reason for sending you at all was because they were men from your platoon and I thought the experience would be good for you. You also have to remember that we’re fighting a war, and people do get wounded and killed. If we tried to avoid risk, we’d never get anywhere. Finally, it’s good sense to take whatever weapons you can find. First, the enemy can’t use them, and second, we can.’

  ‘Sir, I—’

  Peploe cut him off. ‘Look, don’t take this the wrong way. Tanner should not have disobeyed your orders, but you have to understand that having pips on your shoulders doesn’t mean you’re expected to know everything. What did you do before the war, Guy? Do you mind if I call you “Guy”?’

  ‘No, sir, of course not. I was a farmer, sir.’

  ‘Funny – so was I. So you didn’t have to join up?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’re still civilians, really. That’s what you need to understand. I’m sure you’re a bright enough chap, but it’s very different applying one’s brains in the army. University?’

  ‘Cambridge.’

  Peploe laughed. ‘Me too – that’s two things we have in common. Don’t tell me you studied archaeology and ancient history?’

  ‘Mathematics.’

  ‘Ah, proper brains, then. The point is, Guy, I’m sure your mathematical mind will be useful, but what really counts is experience. That’s what makes all the difference. A year ago I was like you. New to the army and quite clueless. I learned on the job, and I had Tanner as my guide. He taught me bloody well, too. Look, what I’m trying to say is this: you can demonstrate authority in a number of ways, but I’m not sure barking orders at the best soldier in the whole battalion is the right way.’

  Liddell said nothing. Shame and embarrassment coursed through him. He had hoped Peploe would back him up, but instead he’d been given a dressing down – in the nicest way, but patronizing all the same.

  ‘Ah, the witching hour,’ said Peploe. ‘The light’s going. We need to keep alert, Guy, in case those para boys try to catch us out.’ He looked around him. ‘By God, it’s a beautiful place. I should be crawling over ancient ruins, not waiting to fend off Germans.’ He patted Liddell on the back. ‘Try to work with Tanner, Guy. Earn his respect and you’ll find him a tremendous ally.’

  Respect, respect, thought Liddell. That word. It seemed that everyone deserved it apart from him, yet he was the one who had been slighted,
who had been treated disrespectfully, no matter what Peploe had said. Twice in two days he’d been made to feel he had been at fault when all he’d been doing was acting in the manner he believed both right and appropriate in an officer. He lit a cigarette and wandered back towards his men.

  A leaden weight seemed to be pressing down on him, from which there was no escape. He felt trapped, because he knew, as in the back of his mind he had always known, he was not cut out to be a soldier. The patrol had confirmed that. When the shooting had begun, nausea had filled his stomach, his heart had pounded and his mind had scrambled. A feeling of panic. Only with the greatest of difficulty had he managed to stop himself standing up and running. Right now, he wanted to rant and rave and kick. He should never have left the farm. Pique: that was what it had been. Jealousy of a sister who was more capable than himself. Christ, he regretted it now. He drew on his cigarette and closed his eyes.

  What the hell am I doing here? Caught up in a bloody stupid war on a dry and dusty island – and trapped with Jack Scard, of all people. He had never liked him, even as a boy. That quiet, brooding intensity, and the fact that he was so obviously good at everything. He remembered now a time when he and his father had gone to flush out a fox that had been attacking the chickens. It had been summer, so there was no hunt to call upon. Bill Scard had showed them the den and both Bill and his son had accompanied them one evening. Sure enough, the vixen had appeared, and his father had turned to him and said, ‘Go on, Guy, you have the shot.’

  He’d missed, but then Jack had brought a rifle to his shoulder and, before the vixen could disappear into her den, killed her dead. ‘Good shot, boy,’ Liddell’s father had said. ‘A fine shot.’ And it transpired that it had been Jack who had found the den in the first place.