Tanner stood up and took it. ‘Of course. We Wiltshiremen should stick together, sir.’
Liddell laughed. ‘Yes. We’re certainly a minority breed here.’
Tanner had been glad of that conversation. It took a lot for a man to admit his mistakes and to apologize, as he well knew. And it was a weight off his mind to know that he no longer needed to pussyfoot around the man. Having enemies within the battalion caused problems; Liddell’s olive branch was one Tanner had been pleased to take.
Their small column left the village behind, taking a track that led them up and over the mountains to the valley below. It was after one in the morning and inky dark when they reached the main Rethymno road at an isolated stretch a couple of miles to the south of Spili. Not far off a dog barked, but there was no sign of any traffic and they crossed the road easily and continued, following a track that wound through the mountains. By first light, they were entering a narrow pass, and by the time the sun had risen, they were out into a secluded valley. The lushness of the Amari Valley had gone: this was a quite different corner of the island. Not a house could be seen, while either side of the valley grey mountains and hills loomed over them.
They dropped down towards the river, the track leading them to an isolated and ancient stone bridge. It rose in a high arch over the river and at its halfway point, Alopex stopped and pointed. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘the sea.’
Tanner looked and there, a couple of miles away through the narrow V of the valley, he saw it too, deep and blue and enticing.
‘Nearly there,’ grinned Alopex. ‘Freedom within your grasp.’
‘You know, I can almost believe it,’ said Peploe. ‘Look at this place – there’s not a soul to be seen.’
‘Just sheep,’ said Alopex, and then, spotting a circling hawk, ‘and a few buzzards. Your man has chosen this place well.’
Tanner wished they would be quiet. He hated hearing such talk. Yes, it was quiet all right – but that meant nothing. The sun was up, they still had a little way to go, and the best part of the day to survive. In any case, he could not shake from his mind his anxiety about Mandoukis. Much could still go wrong.
It was around half past eight that the message came through. Balthasar had been awake since before first light. It was the third night his men had been on alert and although logic told him that the evacuation had been unlikely to take place on Friday and as likely on the Sunday as the Saturday, two whole nights with no news had made him wonder whether he had been entirely misinformed. As first light blossomed into sunrise and then into day, Balthasar had become increasingly impatient, pacing about his command post in Spili, hovering over his radio operator, and smoking one cigarette after another.
But then the magic words.
‘Receiving you, Asgard, this is Baldur. Yes. Yes.’ Gefreiter Schieber turned and grinned at Balthasar. ‘Yes, understood, Asgard. Over.’
‘He’s spotted them?’ said Balthasar.
‘Yes, Herr Oberleutnant. Nineteen men – fifteen Tommies and four Cretans. They’re nearing the monastery now. There is still no sign of any enemy U-boat.’
Balthasar gave immediate orders for his men to be ready to move out in fifteen minutes. So he had been right, after all! All that planning, all that waiting – it had come to something, just as he had hoped.
It was a plan that had evolved in his mind as he had flown over the coast a few days earlier. He had no intention of chasing the Tommies around the mountains. Rather, he wanted to trap them escaping, and Preveli, lying at the end of a dead-end track and narrow strip between the hills and the sea, was as perfect a place as any. Furthermore, he wanted to ensure that Preveli would not be used as an evacuation base in the future. There were, he realized, only two real ways of reaching the monastery. One arced round to the west of Spili through a narrow gorge, the other looped to the east, along a pass that was almost as narrow through the mountains. The two roads met in the valley that led to the sea a short way to the east of the monastery, becoming one at the only bridge across the river. From there, just that lone track led to the monastery. It was possible that the Tommies might try an entirely cross-country route, avoiding any established track, but that seemed to make little sense, and in any case, if they were planning to leave from Preveli they would have to travel along the narrow stretch of land between the sea and the long ridge of mountain behind.
Therefore all he had to do was have a radio operator watch from the mountain above and wait for the Tommies to appear. Again, logic told him that they would move down to the coast overnight, hole up at Preveli during the day, then leave the following night and, indeed, that was precisely what Mandoukis had indicated. Certainly, he reckoned the British were unlikely to risk leaving by day if they did not need to. Armed with a radio set, Balthasar had sent Gefreiter Tellmann and a Gruppe of his men to Preveli on Thursday evening, the first night of their arrival in the south. They had been guided to the valley by a local man who had been bribed heavily. Leaving Tellmann and two others in the valley, the squad had returned to Spili with their guide, who had since then been locked up; Balthasar certainly had no intention of letting some Cretan loudmouth spill the beans on his plan. He had told Tellmann to climb the hill above the monastery to find a place to hide among the rocks, and to remain there, watching.
He now split his force into two. One platoon would approach through the route that ran from the west of Spili, the other from the east. They would rendezvous at the bridge and proceed towards the monastery together.
Balthasar glanced at his watch. It was approaching nine o’clock. The divisional transport had returned to Heraklion, but even travelling by foot they would be at the coast by mid-afternoon. That would give them plenty of time in which to reach the monastery, round up the Tommies and wait for the British U-boat.
It was a shepherd who spotted the men up on the mountain. He had been checking his flock that morning and had heard them speaking in an unfamiliar language, and so had lain low, then crept forward until he could see them. They were in a little hollow beside a large rock and surrounded by vetch. They had guns, but also a box, he said, with a long thin bit of metal sticking up.
‘Did the Germans see him?’ Peploe asked Alopex. They were in a low, flat-roofed building on one of the terraces below the monks’ accommodation. It was where Father Langouvardos had taken them on their arrival, and where they had since been brought some food and coffee. And where, now, an hour later, this young shepherd had been brought to tell them his news.
‘No,’ said Alopex. ‘He is certain they did not see him. At least, they did not once look round and no one came after him.’
None of them needed any guesses as to what the boy had seen.
‘Damn Mandoukis!’ said Tanner, kicking angrily at the ground. ‘So now Jerry’s spotted us and soon loads more Jerries will descend on us.’
‘All right, Jack,’ said Peploe. ‘Let’s just try and think calmly here. I doubt they’ll send a whole battalion to deal with us.’
Tanner now turned to Alopex. ‘Ask this boy if he’ll take us back up there. You and I could go, Alopex. If the boy could get close to them without them noticing, there’s no reason why we can’t. If we can get one of the men alive, we can at least find out what we’re up against.’
Alopex nodded and relayed the message. ‘Yes, he says he can do that. It will only take a half-hour, maybe a little more.’
‘All right, Jack,’ said Peploe, ‘but let me come too. I can speak German, remember.’
They left immediately, following Father Langouvardos as he led them through the collection of buildings and courtyards so that they could not be observed from the hill behind. Beyond the western end of the monastery, the ridge of the hill ran down towards the sea and it was around this spur that the shepherd now led them. They followed him closely, climbing once more, but on the reverse slopes, walking along narrow sheep trails through the vetch until they were approaching the ridge of the hill above the monastery, but from the other side.<
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The shepherd boy crouched, turned to them and put a finger to his lips. Slowly, quietly, they crept forward. Tanner strained his ears – there was a breeze blowing in from the sea – and then, as the boy had said, they heard voices. They paused to listen.
‘Sir, you stay here with the boy,’ whispered Tanner. ‘Let me and Alopex deal with them.’
Peploe nodded.
‘We’ll keep the radio operator alive and shoot the other two,’ Tanner now whispered to Alopex. ‘But we should get as close as possible before we shoot – we need that radio man alive.’
‘The wind should help us.’
‘I agree – that’s in our favour, at least. Ready?’
Alopex nodded and they began to edge forward. As they crested the ridge they saw the three men not twenty yards ahead, their heads sticking up above the hollow. They were facing towards the sea, two with binoculars to their eyes. Tanner moved closer, one step at a time, until he was just fifteen yards away, and conscious of Alopex on his right. One of the Germans lowered his binoculars, turned and saw the two men. For a split second he looked at Tanner and Alopex with wide-eyed surprise and horror, but in that moment Tanner had raised his rifle tightly into his shoulder and shot the man clean through the forehead. At almost precisely the same moment, Alopex had hit the second through the back, so that he slumped silently forward. The third man, the radio operator, his headphones still around his head, had barely a chance to register what was happening before Tanner was charging down on him, leaping into the hollow and grabbing him. The German struggled at first, but Tanner brought one arm around his neck and yanked one of the man’s arms back with his other hand, then shoved him to the ground at the edge of the hollow. While Tanner held him down, Alopex tied the German’s hands behind his back with his scarf, then yanked him to his feet.
‘Sir,’ Tanner called, and a moment later Peploe and the shepherd appeared.
‘We can start walking straight back down,’ said Alopex.
Taking the radio set and the weapons, they pushed the German forward as Peploe questioned him.
‘He’s being stubborn,’ said Peploe. ‘Won’t say a word.’
Alopex now pulled out his knife, grabbed the prisoner and ran the tip of the blade across the German’s neck. ‘Tell him,’ he said, ‘that if he starts speaking now we will not harm him. Otherwise I will cut off first his ears and then his fingers, one by one, until he talks.’
‘That’s not how I prefer to do things,’ said Peploe, ‘but in the circumstances …’
Alopex continued to hold the man, his eyes boring into him, the tip of the knife just breaking the skin. Tanner watched as a large stain spread around the German’s crotch and down his trouser leg. ‘I think that’s done the trick.’ He grinned.
The German started to talk, his eyes darting from Peploe back to Alopex.
‘All right,’ said Peploe to Alopex, ‘you can let go of him now.’
The German continued to speak, eyeing Alopex with a look of fear.
‘It’s Balthasar,’ said Peploe, as they continued down the hill towards the monastery. ‘He’s got two platoons with him – around sixty men, this fellow reckons. They’ll have machine-guns and rifles but nothing heavier. And they’re coming on foot.’
‘When did he warn Balthasar of our arrival?’ Tanner asked.
‘He says at about half past eight.’
Tanner looked at his watch. It was now nearly eleven o’clock, the hot sun high in the sky above them. ‘We’ve not got long. A few hours, maybe.’
‘What do you think?’ Peploe asked.
‘Could be worse, sir. It could be a lot worse.’
‘But hardly ideal.’
‘No – it’s certainly not that.’
Peploe slapped at an insect. ‘Damn it, Jack, why do I have the feeling this is all rather personal with this bloody Balthasar fellow?’
‘Because, sir,’ said Tanner, ‘I think it probably is.’
Balthasar’s force was spotted a little after half past three that afternoon, emerging around the bend in the road above the mouth of the valley and heading along the track that led towards the monastery. Tanner could see them marching in two long columns, and through his binoculars spotted Balthasar near the front of the lead platoon. The temptation to raise his rifle now and shoot the man dead was considerable, but to do so would have been to ruin their chances of escape.
‘Here,’ he said to Alopex, passing him the binoculars. ‘You want to see what he looks like? That’s Balthasar, up at the front.’
Alopex took them. ‘So that’s the son of a whore. At least I now know who it is I am going to kill.’
With Vaughan and the other officers, Tanner and Peploe had worked out a plan of sorts. As Tanner had pointed out, they not only needed to kill as many Germans as possible, they also had to play for time. None of them was quite sure when the submarine might arrive. Hanford had said some time in the afternoon, which meant it might appear at any moment but, equally, it might be late. Clearly, however, it was best to have the men as close to the sea and ready to leave as possible.
Furthermore, the ground below the monastery favoured defence. It was a good five hundred yards to the sea, but the high point on which the monastery was perched fell away only gradually through rocky, broken, uneven ground. There were trees, too, cypresses as well as olives, and thick gorse bushes. Tanner was perched now on a jutting mound of rock. It gave him a clear view up to the track and monastery, but behind him he could also see almost down to the beach, although the narrow strip of shingle was hidden by one last shallow cliff. That, too, would help.
A track from the monastery led down to the beach, winding through the folds and between rocky outcrops. Sykes had laid two trip wires along it, one near the monastery, and the other a little further down. There was no guarantee the enemy would use the track but Sykes for one had felt it worth laying some charges in case. Elsewhere, at intervals all the way down to the beach, they had placed slabs of explosive, which, as enemy troops neared, would be fired at by Tanner, the bullet causing the highly volatile charge to blow. It was a trick they had first used to good effect in Norway; Sykes had called them ‘Jelly Surprises’, although, as Tanner had pointed out, in this case it was not gelignite but TNT.
‘Don’t matter, sir,’ Sykes had said. ‘The effect’s the same, so they’re still Jelly Surprises as far as I’m concerned.’
‘As you like, Stan,’ Tanner told him. ‘Just so long as they kill lots of Jerries – that’s all that matters.’
While Liddell and Vaughan had been sent down to the beach to keep watch for the submarine, the rest of the men had been positioned over a comparatively wide area covering the approach to the beach. Their instructions were to hold fire until the last moment, and to make the most of what limited rounds they had left; some had barely more than the ten in the breeches of their rifles.
And there was one further reason for taking up positions down towards the coast. They had reckoned that the enemy would head first for the monastery. Approaching the place, then searching every part of every building, would take Balthasar’s men time. Precious time.
Beside Tanner, Alopex chuckled. ‘You were right, my friend. Look.’
‘Good,’ said Tanner, as he watched the columns now deploy into a more open formation. Men were scampering forward, off the road, moving to encircle the entire monastery. ‘Jerry can take as long as he likes.’
Minutes passed. From the monastery they heard shouts, orders being barked.
Alopex chuckled again. ‘They’ll be furious.’
Tanner and Peploe had urged Alopex and his men to leave, to get away while they had the chance, but the Cretan kapitan had refused. ‘I might never have a better chance to kill that son of a whore,’ he had said. ‘I am not going anywhere until this is over, and neither are my men.’
Both Tanner and Peploe had not argued further – after all, they could use four extra rifles – but it worried Tanner that the Cretans might not be ab
le to get away.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Alopex. ‘We can always lie low until nightfall. In any case, we might have killed them all by then.’
Perhaps, but a more likely scenario was that it would be they who were dead, rather than the Germans. Tanner lit a cigarette and saw his hands were shaking. He wanted the enemy to take as long as possible, but he also wished the fighting would begin. He would be fine then, adrenalin dispelling any nerves. He looked at his watch – it was now after four o’clock – then glanced back at the sea, deep and blue and peaceful. Where was that submarine? ‘Come on, you bugger,’ he muttered to himself.
They continued to watch the Germans search the monastery. It seemed as though one platoon had been sent to encircle the walls while the other was there to carry out the search. Occasional shouts, but otherwise nothing. More minutes passed, but eventually they heard orders being called and saw the troops around the outside of the monastery begin picking their way down through the animal pastures, then the fruit and vegetable garden below. Soon after, the men searching the monastery emerged, assembling outside the main entrance.
‘Go on,’ said Tanner. ‘You just walk right on down that track.’
‘What would you do?’ Alopex asked him. ‘If you were Balthasar?’
‘I’m not sure. I think I’d use the track to take me away from the monastery because it’s so obviously easier than jumping down off those terraces. But then I’d move into open formation.’
‘Looks like our man thinks the same as you,’ said Alopex.
They watched now as Balthasar ordered his men forward down the steep track that led from the entrance towards the coast. The lieutenant followed, walking slowly, binoculars to his eyes.
‘Come on, come on,’ said Tanner. He had stood over Sykes as he had set the trip and knew exactly where it was – tied between a young cypress and a fence post beneath the monastery terrace. The lead section was now just yards away.
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