by Evelyn Waugh
Trampled gardens, damaged and deserted villas gave place to gutted terraces along the road; then villas again into the country beyond Suda.
‘Stop here a moment,’ said Guy. ‘We ought to be near X Commando.’
He studied his map, he studied the surviving landmarks. There was a domed church on the left among olive trees, some of them burned and splintered, most of them full and placid as the groves of Santa Dulcina.
‘This must be it. Draw into cover and wait here.’
He got down and walked alone into the plantation. It was full, he found, of trenches and the trenches were full of men. They sat huddled, half asleep, and few looked up when Guy questioned them. Sometimes one or another said, in the flat undertone of Creforce: ‘Keep down, for God’s sake. Take cover, can’t you?’ They were pay-clerks and hospital-orderlies and aerodrome ground-staff, walking-wounded, RASC, signallers, lost sections of infantry, tank-crews without tanks, gunners without guns; a few dead bodies. They were not X Commando.
Guy returned to his truck.
‘Drive on slowly. Keep a look-out at the back. They’ll have a sentry posted on the road.’
They drove on and presently came to two men in foreign uniforms working with spades at the side of the road, one old, one young. The old man was rather small, very upright, very brown, very wrinkled, with superb white moustaches and three lines of decorations. The young man threw down his spade and ran into the road to stop the lorry while the old man stood looking at the heap they had made and then crossed himself three times in the Greek manner.
‘It is General Miltiades,’ said the young man in clear English. ‘We have been separated from the Household a week now. Would you be so kind as to take us to the harbour? The General is to take an English ship to Egypt. We should have been there last night, but an aeroplane shot our car and wounded the driver. The General would not leave him. He died two hours ago and we have just buried him. Now we must go on.’
‘That was the last ship from Suda. He must go to Sphakia.’
‘Can you take us?’
‘I can take you a few miles. Jump in, if you don’t mind my doing a few errands on the way.’
They began to drive on but the interpreter beat on the back of the cab, saying: ‘That is the wrong way. Only Germans that way,’ and in confirmation of his opinion a motor-cyclist suddenly appeared and stopped in front of them. He wore a grey uniform and a close-fitting helmet. He stared at Guy through his goggles with blank young eyes, then hastily turned about and drove off.
‘I say,’ said Guy to his driver,’ what do you imagine that was?’
‘Looked like a Jerry, sir.’
‘We have come too far. About turn.’
Unmolested they backed and turned and drove away. After half a mile Guy said: ‘I ought to have had a shot at that man.’
‘Didn’t give us much time, sir.’
‘He ought to have had a shot at us.’
‘I reckon he was taken by surprise same as we were. I never thought somehow to see a Jerry so close.’
Ludovic could not have seen the cyclist; that, in a way, was a comfort. They passed the Greek staff-car; they passed the church.
‘The stragglers seem to be in front of the firing-line in this battle,’ Guy remarked.
They drove slowly, looking for signs of Hookforce. Soon there was a beating on the back of the cab.
‘Sir,’ said Ludovic,’ this General knows where there are rations, and petrol.’
Directed from behind they drove back into Suda and near the port stopped at a warehouse. Most of it was burned, but on the far side of the yard stood a pile of petrol tins and two Greek soldiers guarding a little heap of provisions. They greeted the general staff with warmth. There was wine among the stores and many empty flasks lying about.
‘You can give these good men a lift also?’ asked the interpreter, ‘They are a little drunk, I believe, and not able to march.’
‘Jump in,’ said Guy.
Ludovic examined the provisions. There were bales of hay, sacks of rice and macaroni and sugar and coffee, some dried but reeking fish, huge, classical jars of oil. These were not army rations but the wreckage of private enterprise. He chose a cheese, two boxes of ice-cream cornets and a case of sardines. These and wine alone were useful without the aid of fire.
They drove slowly back. The aeroplanes still pounded away at their invisible target in the hills. The Greek soldiers fell asleep. The General changed his boots.
The sun was high and hot, and as Guy’s truck reached the point where the road turned inland the succession of aeroplanes ceased. The last of them dwindled and vanished, a hush fell, perceptible even in the rattling cab, and suddenly all over the roadside figures appeared, stretching and strolling. This was the luncheon recess.
‘That looks like our lot,’ said the driver, pointing to two men with an anti-tank rifle at the side of the road.
Here at last was Hookforce, in slit trenches interspersed with stragglers in a wide vineyard. The trees were old and gnarled and irregular, full of tiny green fruit just formed. The COs were together squatting in the shade of a cart-house, A, C, and X Commandos and the Major from B Commando who had landed from the destroyer the night before.
Guy approached and saluted.
‘Good morning, sir; good morning, sir. Good morning, Tony.’
Since Tommy’s promotion, X had been commanded by a Coldstreamer named Tony Luxmore, a grave, cold young man consistently lucky at cards. He greeted Guy crossly.
‘Where the hell have you been? We’ve just sweated up to brigade headquarters and back looking for you.’
‘Looking for me, Tony?’
‘Looking for orders. What’s happened to your Brigade Major? We woke him up but we couldn’t get any sense out of him. He kept repeating that everything was laid on. Orders were being distributed by hand of officer.’
‘He’s hungry.’
‘Who isn’t?’
‘He hasn’t had any sleep.’
‘Who has?’
‘He had a bad crossing. Anyway, here are your orders.’
Tony Luxmore took the pencilled sheets and while he and the other commanders studied them, Guy filled his water-bottle at the well. Cistus and jasmine flowered among the farm buildings, but there was a sour smell in the air, exhaled by the dirty men.
‘These don’t make any sense,’ said the CO of A Commando.
Guy tried to elucidate the planned withdrawal. Hookforce, he learned, had done their own regrouping that morning, dissolving the remains of B Commando and attaching them by troops and sections to replace the losses of A and C. X Commando alone was up to strength. The orders were amended. Guy made notes in his pocket-book and marks on his map-cover, taking a dry relish in punctiliously observing the forms of procedure. Then he prepared to leave the weary men, deeply weary himself and out of temper with them.
General Miltiades meanwhile had been sitting calmly in the back of the truck. Suddenly Tony Luxmore noticed him. He was a man who, once seen, was not easily forgotten.
‘General Miltiades,’ he cried. ‘Hullo, sir. You wouldn’t remember me. You came with the King to stay with my parents at Wrackham.’
The General smiled in all his wrinkles. He did not remember Tony or Tony’s parents, the wintry pillared house where he had slept, the farm where he had eaten Irish-stew, or the high bare coverts where in another age not long ago he had shot pheasant. He was past seventy. In youth he had fought the Turks and been often wounded. In middle life the politicians had often sent him into exile. In old age he was homeless again, finally, it might seem, still following his king. Barracks, boarding-houses, palaces, English country houses, stricken battlefields – all were the same to General Miltiades.
He climbed down with agility. His liaison officer followed, carrying a straw-covered flask in each hand.
‘The General asks you to take wine with him.’
Mugs were filled. The General had some English. He proposed a toast; with no shad
e of irony in his steady, pouchy eyes; the single word: ‘Victory.’
‘How about you, Corporal-Major?’ Guy asked.
‘Thank you, sir. I have already refreshed myself.’
There was saluting and hand-shaking. Then Guy’s party boarded the lorry again and drove away.
‘Captain Crouchback,’ Corporal-Major Ludovic noted, ‘is pleased because General Miltiades is a gentleman. He would like to believe that the war is being fought by such people. But all gentlemen are now very old.’
Ludovic sat on a hot boulder some little distance apart. The cheese, the wafers, the sardines had been divided. Some men ravenously ate all at once. Ludovic had stowed away a substantial part – ‘The unexpired portion’ of how many days’ ration? Everyone had had a mug of wine. Now they spread blankets to protect their knees against the fierce sun and were one by one falling asleep. General Miltiades had tried to explain, with map and interpreter, various peculiarities of the terrain which might be exploited to the enemy’s discomfort. Major Hound proved an inattentive audience, he said petulantly to Guy, when the General briefly pottered away alone into the cover, ‘What did you want to bring him here for?How are we going to get rid of him?’
‘I suggest we give him a lift to the GOC later in the day.’
‘I’ve got to think about moving headquarters.’
Guy tried to explain the readjustments among the units. Major Hound said: ‘Yes, yes. It’s their responsibility.’
He had taken in nothing.
Then Guy, too, lay down to sleep. The General returned and lay down. Ludovic slept. Fido alone kept open his keen bewildered eyes.
They did not sleep long. Sharp at two o’clock came the drone of engines and the dismal cry repeated across the hillside. ‘Aircraft. Take cover. Take cover. Take cover.’
Major Hound became suddenly animated.
‘Cover all metal objects. Put away all maps. Hide your knees. Hide your faces. Don’t look up.’
The Stukas came over in formation. They had another insect-plan for the afternoon. Just below Hookforce headquarters lay a circular fertile pocket of young corn, such as occur unaccountably in Mediterranean hills. This green patch had been chosen by the airmen as a landmark. Each machine flew straight to it, coming very low, then swung east to a line a mile away off the road, dropped bombs, fired its machine-gun, turned again and headed for the sea. It was the same kind of operation as Guy had watched on the other side of the road that morning. One after another the aeroplanes roared down.
‘What on earth are they after?’ Guy asked.
‘For God’s sake keep quiet,’ said Fido.
‘They can’t possibly hear us.’
‘Oh, do keep quiet.’
‘Fido, if we stuck a Bren on a tripod we couldn’t miss.’
‘Don’t move,’ said Fido. ‘I forbid you to move.’
‘I’ll tell you what they’re doing. They’re clearing a way for their infantry to come round our flanks.’
‘Oh, do shut up.’
The General slept on. Everyone else was awake, motionless, numb, as though mesmerized by the monotonous mechanical procession.
Hour after hour the bombs thumped. When to the cowering and torpid men the succession seemed interminable, it abruptly ceased. The drone of the last aeroplane faded into silence and the hillside came to life. Everywhere men began lacing their boots and collecting whatever equipment they still had with them. The stragglers in headquarters area silently took the road. Fido raised his muzzle.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe we’re going to see Roots and Slimbridge again, or their lorry. We’re simply left in the air with no rear headquarters.’
‘Well, we’ve no Brigade Commander either. I don’t know why you want an advanced headquarters, for that matter.’
‘No,’ said Fido, ‘neither do I.’
His tail was right down. Now he was not fair game.
‘I dare say we can be some help coordinating,’ said Guy in an attempt to console.
‘I don’t know exactly what you mean by that.’
‘Neither do I, Fido. Neither do I. I’m going to sleep.’
‘I think I’d better send the General to the General, don’t you?’
‘Whatever you like.’
‘In the lorry?’
‘Yes. It can come back for us.’
Guy moved away and found a place with few thorns. He lay looking up into the sky. The sun was not yet down but the moon rode clear above them, a fine, opaque, white brush-stroke on the rim of her disc of shadow. Guy was aware of the movement round him, of the Greeks and the lorry and Ludovic, and then was deep asleep.
When he awoke the moon had travelled far among the stars. Fido was scratching and snuffling at him.
‘I say, Guy, what’s the time?’
‘For Christ’s sake, Fido, haven’t you got a watch?’
‘I must have forgotten to wind it.’
‘Half past nine.’
‘Only that. I thought it was much later.’
‘Well, it isn’t. D’you mind if I go to sleep again?’
‘Ludovic isn’t back yet with the truck.’
‘Then there’s no point in waking up.’
‘What’s more, he’s taken my batman with him.’
Guy slept again, it seemed very briefly. Then Fido was pawing him again.
‘I say, Guy, what’s the time?’
‘Didn’t you put your watch right when I told you last time?’
‘I can’t have, somehow I must have forgotten. It’s ticking but it says seven fifteen.’
‘Well, it’s a quarter past ten.’
‘Ludovic’s not back yet.’
Guy turned over and slept again, more lightly this time. He kept waking and turning. His ears caught an occasional truck on the road. Later he heard rifle fire some distance away and a motorcycle stop; then loud excited conversation. He looked at his watch; just on midnight. He needed more sleep but Fido was standing beside him shouting, ‘Where’s Sergeant Smiley? Get brigade headquarters fallen in on the road. Get cracking, everyone.’
‘What on earth’s the matter?’
‘Don’t bother me with questions. Get cracking.’
Hookforce headquarters comprised eight men now. Fido looked at them in the starlight.
‘Where’s everyone else?’
‘Went with the Corporal-Major, sir.’
‘We shan’t see them again,’ said Fido bitterly. ‘Forward.’
It was not forward they went but backward; back a long way, Fido ahead setting a strenuous pace over the rough road. Guy was at first too dazed to do more than keep step beside him; after a mile he tried to talk.
‘What on earth’s happened?’
‘The enemy. All round us. Closing in on the road from both flanks.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The Commandos are engaging them lower down.’
Guy asked no further questions then. All his breath was needed for the march. Sleep had brought no refreshment. The past twenty-four hours had wearied and weakened them all, and Guy was ten years older than most of the men. Fido was putting out all his strength, staring straight ahead into the uncertain star-gloaming The young moon had set. The pace was slower than a route march faster than anything else on the road that night. They passed ghostly limping couples, and the ghosts of formed bodies of troops dragging slowly in the same blind flight. They passed peasants with donkeys. After an hour by Guy’s watch, he said: ‘Where are we going to halt, Fido?’
‘Not here. We must get as far as we can before day-break.’
They passed an empty village.
‘How about here?’
‘No. An obvious target. We must push on.’
The men were beginning to drop behind.
‘I must rest for ten minutes,’ said Guy. ‘Let the men catch up.’
‘Not here. There’s no cover.’
The road at this point was a scratched contour round the side of a h
ill, with precipitous slopes up and down on either hand.
‘Once we halt we shan’t get on again tonight.’
‘There’s something in that, Fido. Anyway, take it easy a bit.’
But Fido would not take it easy. He led on through another deserted village; going slow, but with all his powers, then there were trees at the roadside and a suggestion of open country beyond. It was nearly four o’clock.
‘For God’s sake let’s stop here, Fido.’
‘We’ve a good hour of darkness still. We must push on while we can.’
‘Well, I can’t. I’m stopping here with my section.’
Fido did not demur. He turned abruptly off the road and sat down in what seemed to be an orchard. Guy waited on the road while the men one by one came up.
‘We’re setting up headquarters here,’ he said fatuously.
The men stumbled off the road, over the wall, into the grove of fruit trees.
Guy lay down and slept fitfully.
Fido did not sleep until dawn; in a dream untroubled of hope, he brooded, clasping his knees. He had fallen among thieves. He considered the plain treachery of Ludovic, the suspected treachery of Roots and Slimbridge and he began framing the charges for a court-martial. He considered the probabilities of such a court ever being convened, of himself ever being available to give evidence and found them nugatory. Presently the sun rose, the wayfarers, much sparser now, sought cover, and Fido snoozed.
He awoke to a strange spectacle. The road beside him was thronged with hairy men – not merely unshaven but fully bearded with fine dark locks – a battalion of them in numbers, waving a variety of banners, shirts and scraps of linen on sticks; some of them bore whole sheets of bed linen as canopies over their heads. They were dressed in motley. Guy Crouchback was talking to the leading man in a foreign language.