More perfect escapist reads from Patricia Wilson . . .
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patricia Wilson was born in Liverpool. She retired early to Greece, where she now lives in the village of Paradissi in Rhodes. She was first inspired to write when she unearthed a rusted machine gun in her garden – one used in the events that unfolded during World War II on the island of Crete.
www.pmwilson.net
@pmwilson_author
Also by Patricia Wilson:
Island of Secrets
Villa of Secrets
Secrets of Santorini
Greek Island Escape
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
WITHOUT THE HELP OF THE people mentioned below, Summer in Greece would not have been possible.
Sarah Bauer, Katie Lumsden and everyone else at Bonnier Books UK. Caroline Kirkpatrick, Sophie Wilson, Victoria Hughes-Williams, Jon Appleton and Linda Joyce. Simon Mills, the owner of HMHS Britannic, whose amazing books inspired me in the first instance; Jake Billingham, ‘Mr Britannic’, who tirelessly answered my questions; Yannis Tzavelakos and KiaDivers, for making me welcome on the island of Kea, for inspiring me, and also for their patience and encouragement. Thanks to all those divers who have travelled down to the Britannic on the seabed and posted their awesome underwater videos online for us to enjoy. Claire Wilson, for her medical advice. Tony J. Fyler, for his help and encouragement. Jill Dodgson, for pointing out I should leave the keyboard and exercise once in a while. JC Lee, for dozens of great pictures and videos of me, my readers and fans. Barbara and Ann-Marie, for their constant support, public relations, and translations. Patricia Castle, for accompanying me to Kea and Syros to research this novel, and for taking good care of me. My family, and most importantly, my husband, Berty, who brings food to my office when deadlines are tight, and always pours me an appreciated glass of red at the end of the day.
Thank you to each and every reader, especially those who have written such wonderful reviews. They really do make all the difference.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
WHEN I WAS RESEARCHING for my previous novel, Greek Island Escape, I was lucky enough to spend a few days on one of my favourite Cyclades islands, Syros. With its natural harbour and skilled boat builders, Syros is proud to be a working island. The capital, Ermoupoli, has the grand Miaouli square, paved in marble and surrounded by fine mansions. This is the best-preserved neoclassical town in Greece, where wonderfully ornate churches and delightful, white-washed chapels stand shoulder to shoulder. Built on a steep incline overlooking the port, Ermoupoli is dominated by its crowning glory, a magnificent monastery built on the summit of its highest hill.
I enjoy the larger Greek islands, Crete, Rhodes, Santorini and Mykonos – some of my books are set on them – and I try to visit them most years, but I am also fascinated by the lesser-known islands. While I was on Syros, I came across a day return ferry to the small island of Kea. This island was new to me, so I ordered a frappé at a nearby café and googled Kea on my laptop. Half an hour later, I could hardly wait to buy a ticket.
I had discovered that Titanic’s larger, grander and slightly younger sistership, the Britannic, lay on the seabed just a few kilometres away. All nine-hundred feet of her. I couldn’t believe this wasn’t more widely known – it was news to me. As a child, I was enthralled by BBC TV sea life programmes involving the great Jacques Cousteau, and captivated by the adventures of Hans and Lotte Hass. It is difficult to recall that they were in black and white, because I always remember them in glorious colour, such was my childish imagination. Those fascinating underwater scenes came back to me as I stared out at the inviting Aegean, under a sky almost too blue to be real.
The next morning, I boarded the ferry from Syros to Kea. On the top deck, taking pictures as we approached Kea harbour, I noticed an excited group at the railing and, on investigation, saw a young turtle heading the same way. What an amazing beginning.
I planned to do nothing but sit at a harbourside café, think about the wreck of the Britannic, and soak up the atmosphere (and the sun).
Kea is a small island, less than an hour’s ferry ride from the mainland, and the harbour is lined with delightful cafés. At its most inland curve, a sandy beach is dotted with tamarisk trees and, on a rocky outcrop, I noticed the ubiquitous little white chapel of countless postcards. Further around the bay, a long promontory leads to the whitewashed lighthouse and church of Agios Nikolaus. Honestly, you could not design a more iconic Greek scene! I had to pinch myself. This charming little island, unspoiled by tourism, is a place of art and culture, perfect for year-round holidays. Its capital, a pedestrianised hilltop town in the centre of the island, is unbelievably pretty.
‘On holiday?’ the waitress asked as she brought my iced coffee.
‘Not exactly,’ I answered, ‘I’m thinking of writing a novel about the Britannic. Did it go down near here?’
‘You need to speak to Yannis Tzavelakos, from Kea Divers. He’s the expert.’
She promptly pulled out her phone and called him. Within twenty minutes, the charismatic Yannis Tzavelakos, dive master, was at my table sharing his great knowledge with me. I was hooked! If you’d like more information, check out KeaDivers on Facebook, where you can see their great underwater films of local dives, including the shipwrecks of SS Burdigala and, of course, the HMHS Britannic which was only discovered in 1975. What a story they have to tell.
The Britannic was built in Belfast for the North Atlantic passenger trade. However, as she reached completion, war broke out and she found herself requisitioned by the British government as a hospital ship for the duration of the conflict. She sailed the much warmer waters of the Mediterranean Sea heading for the hospital clearing station on Lemnos island.
After saving many thousands of lives, disaster hit in the Aegean on the Britannic’s sixth rescue trip.
The sinking of the Britannic raises many questions. Did she strike a mine, or was she torpedoed? How could a vessel of this size and calibre – and, like the Titanic, deemed to be unsinkable – flounder in merely fifty-five minutes? Why couldn’t she push on and reach the island of Kea?
I was fascinated, and so I watched real time video documentaries and Jacques Cousteau’s dive down to the Britannic after he had discovered the ship. I also read letters from the nurses and medical staff who were on board when disaster struck. However, it was through reading Simon Mills very informative book, The Unseen Britannic (which I highly recommend), that I learned fascinating details of the ship. Simon Mills felt so passionately about the Britannic that he bought the wreck in order to protect it from marauders. By this time, I knew this ship had to be the subject of my next novel.
I went onto Titanic’s Facebook page and came into contact with Jake Billingham, sometimes known as Mr Britannic. His enthusiasm was contagious. I asked Jake what had first drawn him to the Britannic.
‘My fascination with the Olympic class liners began at the age of five when James Cameron’s Titanic movie was released in 1997. As a young boy, I knew much about Titanic, but I hadn’t realised she had two sisters, RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic. I went on to learn about HMHS Britannic, and why she ended her days on the Aegean seabed. Even today, the Britannic wreck is still as captivating. These ships and the people who sailed on them have become a part of me. The discovery of the HMHS Britannic’s crow’s nest bell is a powerful reminder of the events that led up to the ship’s sad and violent end. It also stands as a great archaeological find by an amazing dive team.’
I asked Jake how a few small portholes, twenty-five feet above the waterline, could have caused a ship that size to go down so much more quickly.
‘One of the long-standing ambiguities concerning the loss of HMHS Britannic is the mystery of the open portholes on the lower decks. It’s thought that somebody opened the portholes in an effort to air out the wardrooms to make them more bearable for the 3,000 to 4
,000 patients that would soon occupy the bunks and cots which filled the decks.
‘Most E-deck portholes were 18 to 24 square inches. We need six ports open to make twelve square feet, which would take on 400 tons per minute. Each 150 tons would pull the Britannic down by one inch. Assuming 16,000 tons of water came aboard in the first two or three minutes – perhaps longer – HMHS Britannic would have sunk by nine feet at the bow. Assuming she started at 32 feet, this would put her forward draught at 41 feet. Once the list developed then the E-deck portholes, normally 25 feet or so above the waterline but at 16 feet with the ship having 16,000 tons, could rapidly go under in ten minutes. It might not sound much, but this water is all coming from the starboard side; the water washes along the starboard E-deck corridor and seeps below to F-deck, while flooding from ports on F and G-decks increases the flooding. This continues to increase the starboard list. And all the time we have flooding increasing in the forward six watertight compartments.
‘So, we may have – even with just a few portholes open – 24,000 tons of water aboard in 20 minutes. 40,000 tons of water is enough to pull the ship under and occurred by approximately 9 a.m. With those portholes open, the Britannic didn’t stand a chance.’
WW1 Nursing
Investigations never revealed who went against orders and opened those portholes, but the general consensus seems to suggest it was a nurse. Before I started work on this novel, I had no knowledge of nursing in the First World War. I soon learned that First World War nursing was dangerous and exhausting work; remarkable women volunteered, many quite naive, yet brave beyond measure. They experienced the horror of war first hand, and thousands paid with their lives. The courageousness of these resilient young women – often scorned by men, and away from home for the first time in their lives – is still unrecognised. Thousands faced unimaginable horrors for the sake of their brothers and their country.
I had watched Testament of Youth, and read about Edith Cavell, but it was not until I read The Virago Book of Women and the Great War (a collection of letters home and diary excerpts) and The Daughters of Mars, that I realised the true horror that these women had to face.
My vision of the gentle young nurse, and the subservient VAD in her spotless, starched uniform was replaced by a much harsher reality: women struggling through the filth, discomfort, stench and lack of supplies to mend broken, dismembered and diseased bodies. Men writhed in agony in some of the most dreadful battleground clearing stations. In atrocious, dysentery-ridden conditions, these nurses and VADs attempted to ease pain and save lives.
Professional nurses were battling for recognition and proper training. Unqualified volunteers (VADs), most with total ignorance of medicine and the anatomy, found themselves pitched into military hospitals.
The nurses feared the VADs’ arrival would undermine their efforts for recognition. Poorly paid VADs were used mainly as labourers, scrubbing floors, changing beds, swilling bedpans. However, because of a chronic shortage of trained nurses, some progressed to changing dressings and administering drugs.
The war produced medical issues largely unknown in civilian life and not previously experienced by doctors or nurses. Machine guns were still relatively new and due to the poor conditions in the trenches, wound infections were common. With no antibiotics or disinfectants, any injury could mean death. Instead, they used iodide or agonising salt to try and stop infection.
Thousands perished because of tetanus and gangrene. Towards the end of the war, some fundamental medical advances emerged; one of these was blood transfusions, performed simply by linking a tube between the patient and the donor for a direct transfer of blood. An example can be seen at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London.
Loggerhead Turtles – Caretta caretta
On a lighter note, we come to the beautiful turtles of the Mediterranean. The loggerhead sea turtle is the world’s largest hard-shelled turtle. Adults have an average weight of about 298 lb (135 kg) with a maximum recorded weight of 1,202 lb (545 kg). The maximum recorded length of a loggerhead is 84 in (213 cm), though in the Mediterranean, the average is half that size.
Florida is the most popular nesting area for these turtles, with more than 67,000 nests each year. Greece is the most popular Mediterranean nesting area, with more than 3,000 nests per year, although the coastlines of Cyprus and Turkey are also popular.
Loggerheads spend most of their lives in the ocean and coastal waters, only coming ashore briefly to lay eggs. The turtles spend 85% of their day submerged. Dives usually last 15–30 min, but they can stay underwater for up to four hours. They feed on bottom-dwelling invertebrates, also sponges, urchins, starfish, jellyfish and other hatchling turtles, including their own.
Eggs are laid above the high-water line and the sex of the turtles is dictated by the temperature of the nest. Eggs kept at 32°C produce females, those at 28°C become males.
Incubation lasts 80 days. Hatchlings dig to the surface at night and head toward the brighter horizon created by the moon’s reflection off the water. Then they swim for approximately 20 hours. Fascinatingly, an iron compound in their brains allows the turtles to use the earth’s magnetic field for navigation.
When the sea cools, loggerheads migrate to warmer water, or partially hibernate by submerging for up to seven hours at a time, only emerging for a few minutes to breathe.
First reproducing after the age of 17, their lifespan is up to 70 years. In the Northern Hemisphere, loggerheads mate from March to June and lay between May and August.
The turtles display multiple paternity due to sperm storage. A single clutch may have as many as seven fathers, each contributing sperm to a portion of the clutch.
The females return to nest fortnightly, producing three or four nests on the beach where they themselves hatched. They climb the beach, scrape the sand away to form a pit and lay a clutch of 112 eggs. After covering the nest, they return to the sea.
Sadly, the primary threat to turtles is humans – they drown after becoming entangled in longlines or fishing nets. Pollution also kills many thousands each year. Nearly 24,000 metric tons of plastics are dumped into the ocean annually; turtles can ingest this debris and loggerheads mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, a common food for them. The plastic causes suffocation or starvation, and those ingested can poison the turtles. The melting of the ice caps have an effect, too; the fresh water alters vital currents in our oceans, disrupting the natural journey of whales and many other sea creatures, including turtles.
Dolphins of the Mediterranean
Bottlenose dolphins are said to be the third most intelligent mammals on Earth, sharing close ratios with those of humans and other great apes.
The dolphin’s shape allows it to swim very quickly, reaching up to 65 km per hour. This particularly playful dolphin is the one most likely to be encountered near the shore of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. Here, an endangered population remains.
For me, dolphins are one of the most fascinating sea creatures on earth. The holy animals of Greek Gods, Apollo and Poseidon, as well as a symbol of friendship and solidarity, they have a special place in our heart. The relationship of Greeks with dolphins is as old as humanity. Homer’s scripts, Minoan frescos in Crete and Santorini, and ancient coins all depict dolphins. Also, many myths and legends highlight the relationship between humans, Gods and dolphins.
The view of their glimmering bodies while chasing after food, or simply playing in the waves, or swimming near the bow of a boat remains etched in our memories of those who have been lucky enough to witness it.
Dolphins’ gestation is 12 months. When born, the young dolphins stay with their mothers for three to six years and the mothers invent a special tune, a name for its baby, which the calf memorises for the rest of its life.
They breathe through lungs and can store enough oxygen to swim for 20 minutes at a depth of up to 500 meters. Dolphins barely sleep, and their hearing and visibility are incredible. Their role as hunters is crucial for maintaining a bala
nce in the sea’s ecosystem as they eat the unhealthy fish, thus preventing infectious diseases from spreading.
There are many anecdotes of dolphins defending humans from animals that attack them, like sharks. This behaviour is similar to that of mother dolphins protecting their offspring. Many swimmers and troubled divers claim they were held at, or transported to, the surface with the aid of a dolphin.
Why do they do this? While we can’t be sure, one explanation may be related to the comparison between body characteristics of dolphins and humans since both are intelligent mammals. Thanks to its sense of echo location, a dolphin can hear our heartbeat, and so may realise when a person is very afraid. It is then that they act as they would with a traumatised mate or offspring.
In the old sea stories of Greece, there are dozens of claims of dolphins that helped drowning sailors, rescuing people from sharks, and making themselves useful as guides through treacherous waters.
Dolphins also help injured members of their own family groups, and new-born babies, to the surface by swimming under them and nudging upward. Remarkably, there are real stories of dolphins helping other cetaceans. In 1983 in New Zealand, a pod of pilot whales ran aground at low tide. The locals did their best to keep the whales alive until the tide returned. However, the whales became distressed orienting themselves. A nearby pod of dolphins seemingly realised the situation and swam into the shallow water. Despite the risk to themselves, the dolphins managed to herd 76 of the 80 stranded pilot whales back out to sea.
In the Gulf of Akaba, a British tourist was rescued from sharks by three dolphins, and there are several other examples of similar incidences in Australia.
Summer in Greece Page 41