Cotton's War

by Cotton's War (retail) (epub)

  ‘For Christ’s sake, take care!’ For the first time, Cotton was thinking of her safety and she gave him a look that was frightened and uncertain.

  He lifted his head cautiously and stared over the wall. There was no sign of life but he could see a thick column of smoke lifting above the houses near the harbour.

  ‘Have they gone?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He pushed her over the stones and they moved cautiously down the alley towards the harbour, Cotton holding her hand in his. She made no move to withdraw it. Then they saw the body of a man lying in a doorway, blood splashing the white walls, and a sobbing woman crouched near it, clutched by two screaming children.

  ‘Why do you leave us?’ she was wailing as she pressed at her temples in her grief. ‘Why must they do this to you?’

  Sickened and shocked, they turned out of the alley and into the narrow, descending set of shallow steps that was the main street. Across one of the steps, a donkey sprawled dead with its load, its owner spread-eagled alongside it, his sightless eyes staring at the sky.

  They began now to meet more people and see more bodies. The priest was intoning a vigil.

  Down by the harbour the village was well ablaze and the air was full of flying sparks and crackling timber and the nauseating smell of death. Men and children were running with buckets from the sea, but there weren’t many men and most of the women seemed dazed. There were two or three dozen bodies sprawled outside the cafe and Cotton stared at them with narrowed eyes. The Germans had clearly shot everybody they’d found inside.

  ‘Don’t go down there,’ he warned.

  As Annoula shook her head, he pulled her into a doorway. He needed to get back to the familiar sound of English voices and the feeling of being part of the navy.

  ‘We’ll be leaving at dusk,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t like to leave without seeing you again.’

  She stared at him with an agonised expression so that he pressed on in a stumbling mutter, his eyes refusing to meet hers. ‘To say goodbye.’ He tried to explain. ‘You know what I mean. That sort of thing. You’ve all put up with a lot for us.’

  She waited until his eyes finally met hers. ‘I go to church and believe in God.’ She sounded like Cotton’s mother on Sundays, arguing with his father who preferred to stay in bed. ‘I’m not my cousin Chrysostomos. I will do anything to help anybody stand up to these anti-Christs.’

  Her black eyes blazed then she reached up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

  ‘Go with God, Cotton!’

  He answered her automatically, then, holding his hand for a second longer, she turned away through the pall of smoke.

  Two

  In his headquarters in Kalani, Major Baldamus was growing worried. He had suddenly seen the possibility that he might after all miss that rise in rank to colonel that he’d been coveting so much since his arrival on Aeos. He was due for another promotion soon and it suited him best to have it here on Aeos. The Greek campaign was virtually over. The British were in hopeless disarray, lacking orders and heading south with no idea of where they were going, and he’d heard rumours that another campaign was being planned for the East. Russia, it was said, and since Major Baldamus didn’t quite see himself trying consequences with moujiks, he was suddenly uneasy. What Untersturmbannführer Fernbrugge had told him had made him so.

  ‘He found his petrol,’ he said angrily to Ehrhardt. ‘Only two drums, mind you, and he had to shoot two dozen people to get even that.’

  Ehrhardt scowled. ‘Seems a lot of suffering for two drums of petrol,’ he growled.

  ‘I don’t suppose it was really for two drums of petrol,’ Baldamus said, his face grim. ‘It was for the honour of the greater German Reich. There’s one other thing. He thinks there are British survivors from those two boats we destroyed at the south end of the island.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘They’ve been seen in Ay Yithion. He radioed in. They found a wounded British soldier from that boat the Messerschmitts shot up. They didn’t escape, after all, it seems. Fernbrugge, of course, made sure that everyone in Ay Yithion learned the lesson that they mustn’t harbour escapees.’

  Ehrhardt looked as uneasy as Baldamus. ‘Where’s Fernbrugge now?’ he asked.

  ‘On his way to Kharasso Bay. I suggested he should go, but he was going anyway.’ Baldamus sighed. ‘I doubt, in fact, if I could have have stopped him under the circumstances.’

  * * *

  While Untersturmbannführer Fernbrugge was heading across the island from Ay Yithion to Kharasso Bay, Corporal Michael Anthony Cotton was climbing up the ridge that overlooked the sea.

  His mind was seething with unhappiness because he’d just realised that among the other things a ship’s captain had to suffer was the weight of guilt. The destruction of Ay Yithion was undoubtedly caused by the discovery of Howard and the petrol that Varvara had obtained for him, and now he had to learn to live with his conscience. In saving one life he’d caused the loss of twenty-odd others. He’d heard of this dilemma – the risk of many lives to save one. In fact, in Caernarvon when a man had fallen overboard, Captain Troughton had refused to turn the ship back for him because of the nearness of German bombers. There had been hidden catcalls from aft and a great deal of bad feeling, but when the ship was caught at the extreme length of the bombers’ range and they’d escaped untouched after only a brief attack before the planes had had to turn for home, the ill feeling had died away and they’d realised the captain had been right. Perhaps what none of them realised, however, was what Cotton was realising now: how much courage it had required to make that decision. Because he had generations of navy behind him, Captain Troughton had probably made it without too much searching of his conscience, but it wasn’t that easy for Cotton.

  As he climbed, his thoughts pressed in on him. A hundred and one questions bothered him and he even began to wonder if they ought not to have left the night before and taken a chance on being short of petrol.

  When he reached the top of the ridge, the Junkers 87s and 88s were taking off all the time from the north side of the island and circling beyond Cape Kastamanitsa to turn on course towards the mainland. The thud of guns was loud now, and he guessed the Luftwaffe had found the navy as it escorted the troop transports. The strip at Yanitsa was right across their route south.

  As he stopped above Kharasso Bay, the first thing he saw was a German staff car on the dusty road above the beach. Dropping flat among the scrub, he saw four Germans climbing down to the wrecked Claudia and he lay in a niche between the rocks, watching.

  Two of the Germans were civilians and he recognised them as the men he’d seen in the car at Ay Yithion. The other two wore the black-collared tunic of the SS.

  As they reached the beach, they marched across the sand in their arrogant strut, the hateful stride of men who knew they were conquering the world. Then one of them pointed and they started to run so that Cotton guessed they’d seen the planks that Gully had removed from the hull to repair Loukia. For a while, they stood on the beach, staring at the wrecked boat, talking and gesturing, then one of them climbed on board and disappeared below.

  After a while he re-emerged in the well through the engine-room door, climbed on to the deck and walked to the bows, where he stood shouting down to the others below him. Cotton couldn’t understand what he was saying but he guessed they’d jumped to no uncertain conclusions.

  Eventually, they began to climb up the path back to the car and Cotton saw them drive off to the north of the island. As he hurried back towards Loukia, he saw the two German caiques making their circular tour of the coast; then, later, rounding the point as they disappeared, the brilliant red boat of the younger Varvara. Stumbling and slipping, his face wealed and scratched by twigs and brambles, he hurried down the slope just as Varvara’s caique appeared.

  He explained what had happened and, as they argued what to do, all faintly depressed by what had happened to Howard, the red caique nosed into the bay. As it moored up a
longside Loukia, young Varvara emerged from the wheelhouse.

  ‘I have two drums for you,’ he said. ‘My father had them hidden. We had four but when we’d loaded two, they telephoned from Kalani that the Germans were coming. We thought it was best to wait, so I took my boat out. I saw them arrive. They—’

  His voice broke and he stopped.

  ‘I saw what happened,’ Cotton said. ‘I was there.’

  ‘They must have known,’ Varvara choked. ‘Someone must have told them. They took away the English boy.’

  ‘I saw that too. There’s nothing we can do about it.’

  But it hurt, nevertheless, to be reminded of the promise he’d made to Howard only a day or two before that they wouldn’t leave without him.

  ‘They found the other petrol under my father’s nets,’ Varvara went on. ‘They shot him and the doctor and the mayor and his secretary, and then everybody in the cafe.’ There was a moment’s silence. There was nothing they could say to Varvara, who seemed less emotionally affected by this time than angry. His weeping had already finished and he was itching for revenge, and even his grief had not caused him to swerve from his promise of help.

  ‘As soon as they’d gone,’ he said, ‘I went ashore to see my father. My brothers have taken the body. They said the Germans had been tipped off. They knew exactly where to look. They’re going to search this part of the island now.’

  ‘They’ve been,’ Cotton said. ‘I watched them in Kharasso Bay. They’re heading now towards Kalani but they’ll be coming back. I expect they’ve gone for reinforcements.’ Varvara frowned. There’ll be more reprisals,’ he said. They’ll shoot more people. They’ll wipe out my family.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cotton said. ‘I’m sorry we brought it on you.’ Varvara managed a taut smile. ‘I don’t blame you, Kapetáne,’ he said. ‘You have your orders. And the sympathy of all Greece. But I think I shall go home now and collect my people and leave when it’s dark. Perhaps you will stand by my boat until we’re clear of the island.’

  Docherty, who had been watching them uneasily as they talked, had picked up the drift of the conversation. ‘If the buggers are coming here,’ he said, ‘we ought to bloody well hop it ourselves.’

  ‘Or stop ’em,’ Cotton said.

  Docherty’s eyes lifted to his face. ‘You barmy?’ he yelled. ‘We can’t stop the whole German army!’

  Cotton’s face was bleak. ‘It won’t be the whole German army,’ he said. They won’t send more than a couple of lorryloads of men to sort us lot out, I bet. Perhaps we could stop them.’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘We’ve got guns. We’ve got the Bren, haven’t we?’ Cotton looked at Kitcat. ‘How’re you with a Lewis?’

  Kitcat gave a nervous grin. Since starting to fly he’d been shot at more times than he liked to remember, taking off often in a cold sweat of anticipation and returning exhausted by holding his breath at the narrow escapes he’d had. He had a feeling that he’d already pushed his luck as far as he ought, but Cotton was a persuasive man, less from his command of words than from the inner conviction about duty that seemed to be behind everything he did.

  He swallowed. ‘Deadshot Dick,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s have a go then,’ Cotton went on. ‘We’ve got to do something because we can’t leave till dark. That bloody lookout on Cape Kastamanitsa would spot us straight away. A spot of the old dot-dash on a morse key and there’d be an aeroplane out one-time to investigate.’

  ‘We can’t hold a couple of lorry-loads off.’

  ‘We can try. We’ll not get away any other way.’

  Cotton turned to Varvara and explained what he wanted to do. The Greek seemed more than willing, his eyes burning with hatred.

  ‘The road from Kalani winds up the hill on the other side,’ he said. ‘Then it drops down to the bay here. There’s a sharp bend near the top and cars have to go round it dead slow in low gear, you could wait there for them.’

  One of his crew, a squarely-built man with fierce dark eyes, spoke quietly to him in Greek and he turned again to Cotton. ‘Argine Papaboukas here says he’ll be your guide. They shot his father and he’s spoiling for a fight.’

  As Varvara’s caique headed out of the bay, Cotton, Kitcat, Bisset and the Greek gathered among the trees alongside Loukia. Solemnly, Cotton had entered the Greek’s name in the log. Events, names, times and dates were meant to be in logs.

  ‘You’re in charge,’ he told Docherty.

  Docherty grinned. ‘Trust me, do you?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re in the navy. It’s up to you if we don’t get back.’

  Docherty grinned again and Cotton went on. ‘Don’t panic, though. Even if you hear firing. We might just be winning. Wait to see what happens. You’ve plenty of time, so watch out for the rocks. Keep an eye on the slope and if you see the Germans coming, get cracking. They’d never be able to stop you.’

  Docherty gave him a mock salute. ‘England expects that this day every man will do his duty. I’ve heard that bloody lot ever since I joined.’

  ‘Perhaps some of it rubbed off,’ Cotton said hopefully.

  As they began to climb the hill, he began to wonder how far he was right to extend his trust to Docherty. He was immoral and irresponsible but he was a sailor as well as a stoker, and there was no one else who could handle both the engines and the boat. It had to be Docherty who stayed behind, and he had to chance that sufficient naval tradition had stuck to him to make him behave well if the need arose.

  The sun was high now and it was growing hot as they laboured under the weight of a rifle, the Lewis, the Bren, one of the tommy-guns, a rope and what they’d considered to be a reasonable amount of ammunition. They were sweating when they reached the top of the slope.

  The Greek led them down the road to Kalani and showed them the corner Varvara had mentioned. It was steep with a hairpin turn and there was no doubt that anything negotiating it would come almost to a stop.

  They rigged up the Lewis to cover it, fixing it with stakes and ropes so that it couldn’t run wild as it fired. Papaboukas, who claimed to be a good shot with a rifle, was left with Kitcat while Bisset and Cotton moved fifty yards further down the slope. ‘I just hope Varvara’s right,’ Cotton said, ‘and that they don’t come in large lumps.’

  They found a place where they could see well and, setting up the Bren, covered it with scrub. Then Bisset squatted down to watch the road to Kalani. As Cotton walked back to where Kitcat and the Greek waited, he decided that things were happening almost too fast and he was unable to keep up with them, because they had to hold the Germans off until dark and it was only just into the afternoon.

  Kitcat was fussing round the Lewis.

  ‘Think it’ll hold?’

  Kitcat grinned. ‘I wouldn’t like to tackle a Messerschmitt with it,’ he said. ‘But I reckon it ought to get off enough rounds to wipe out a lorry-load of Jerries before we lose control.’

  ‘It might be more than one lorry-load,’ Cotton pointed out.

  ‘Okay.’ Kitcat shrugged. ‘Two lorry-loads. We might well get ’em both. These things fire four hundred and fifty rounds a minute – if they don’t jam.’ He gave a nervous grin. ‘They’re noted for jamming,’ he ended.

  Three

  Untersturmbannführer Karl-Johannes Fernbrugge rested both his fists on Major Baldamus’ desk and leaned forward. His manner was threatening.

  ‘If there is one British survivor down that end of the island,’ he said, ‘then there are more than likely others too.’ Baldamus looked up. Fernbrugge’s face was pockmarked by acne. It was thin and pale and reminded Baldamus of one of the ferrets he’d used as a boy. ‘So?’ he asked.

  ‘So they were probably being looked after by the people of that fishing village, Ay Yithion.’

  Baldamus sniffed. ‘I gather you’ve already taken care of them,’ he said coldly.

  Fernbrugge gave a small smile. ‘They won’t hide any more survivors,’ he said. ‘I doubt if they’ll
be able to hide themselves now. There is one other thing.’

  ‘Please go on,’ Baldamus said coldly.

  ‘You have a man called Festner on your muster roll.’

  Baldamus shrugged. ‘We had. He disappeared. The good Festner was not exactly a patriotic German. In fact, I understand his father was Austrian and his mother Hungarian. He didn’t feel the same way about things as everybody else.’

  Fernbrugge wasn’t amused. ‘As far as I’m concerned,’ he snapped, ‘your Festner could be a Polish warthog crossed with an Azerbaijan ferret. All I know is that he’s probably dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ Baldamus’ good humour vanished at once. ‘When your half-witted sergeant inspected the boat, Claudia, a few days ago, it seems your good Festner, who has a reputation as a scrounger, laid a little on one side for himself and a friend of his, one Pioneer Gunther. When Festner went back to find it he never returned.’

  ‘Deserted, perhaps?’

  ‘More likely murdered by your British survivors.’ Fernbrugge slapped the desk. ‘I want reinforcements! I’ve worked it out there might be around half a dozen of them in Xiloparissia Bay and I gather they have weapons – automatic weapons.’

  Baldamus’ eyebrows lifted. He had long realised such a possibility existed, but it was still news to him and, though he didn’t show his concern, it wasn’t particularly good news.

  ‘It’s my belief,’ Fernbrugge went on, ‘that they’ve been repairing the wreck in Xiloparissia Bay and you know what that can mean, don’t you?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Fernbrugge scowled at Baldamus’ sarcasm. ‘They’re intending to escape. With news of what’s going on here. We were sent to back up your security people who appear to have been remarkably slack, and this seems to me a case that ought to be investigated.’

  ‘It does indeed.’ Baldamus’ face didn’t change but his heart thumped annoyingly that somehow his command had slipped up.